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When Partial Protection is Zero Protection: The MFA Blind Spots No One Talks About

When Partial Protection is Zero Protection: The MFA Blind Spots No One Talks About

Mar 10, 2023 Multi-factor Authentication
Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) has long ago become a standard security practice. With a wide consensus on its ability to fend off more than 99% percent of account takeover attacks, it's no wonder why security architects regard it as a must-have in their environments. However, what seems to be less known are the inherent coverage limitations of traditional MFA solutions. While compatible with RDP connection and local desktop logins,  they offer no protection to remote command line access tools like PsExec, Remote PowerShell and their likes. In practice, it means that workstations and servers remain as vulnerable to lateral movement, ransomware spread and other identity threats despite having a fully functioning MFA solution on. For the adversary it's just a matter of taking the command line path instead of the RDP to log in as if there was not protection installed at all. In this article we'll explore this blind spot, understand its root cause and implications, and view ...
Xenomorph Android Banking Trojan Returns with a New and More Powerful Variant

Xenomorph Android Banking Trojan Returns with a New and More Powerful Variant

Mar 10, 2023 Mobile Security / Android
A new variant of the Android banking trojan named Xenomorph has surfaced in the wild, latest findings from ThreatFabric reveal. Named " Xenomorph 3rd generation " by the Hadoken Security Group, the threat actor behind the operation, the updated version comes with new features that allow it to perform financial fraud in a seamless manner. "This new version of the malware adds many new capabilities to an already feature-rich Android banker, most notably the introduction of a very extensive runtime engine powered by Accessibility services, which is used by actors to implement a complete  ATS framework ," the Dutch security firm  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. Xenomorph  first came to light  a year ago in February 2022, when it was found to target 56 European banks through  dropper apps  published on the Google Play Store. In contrast, the latest iteration of the banker – which has a dedicated website advertising its features – is des...
North Korean UNC2970 Hackers Expands Operations with New Malware Families

North Korean UNC2970 Hackers Expands Operations with New Malware Families

Mar 10, 2023 Cyber Attack / Malware
A North Korean espionage group tracked as  UNC2970  has been observed employing previously undocumented malware families as part of a spear-phishing campaign targeting U.S. and European media and technology organizations since June 2022. Google-owned Mandiant said the threat cluster shares "multiple overlaps" with a  long-running   operation   dubbed  " Dream Job " that employs job recruitment lures in email messages to trigger the infection sequence. UNC2970 is the new moniker designated by the threat intelligence firm to a set of North Korean cyber activity that maps to UNC577 (aka Temp.Hermit ), and which also comprises another nascent threat cluster tracked as UNC4034. The UNC4034 activity, as  documented  by Mandiant in September 2022, entailed the use of WhatsApp to socially engineer targets into downloading a  backdoor  called AIRDRY.V2 under the pretext of sharing a skills assessment test. "UNC2970 has a concerted effort tow...
cyber security

New Webinar: Identity Attacks Have Changed — Have Your IR Playbooks?

websitePush SecurityThreat Detection / Identity Security
With modern identity sprawl, the blast radius of a breach is bigger than ever. Are you prepared? Sign up now.
Securing Agentic AI: How to Protect the Invisible Identity Access

Securing Agentic AI: How to Protect the Invisible Identity Access

Jul 15, 2025Automation / Risk Management
AI agents promise to automate everything from financial reconciliations to incident response. Yet every time an AI agent spins up a workflow, it has to authenticate somewhere; often with a high-privilege API key, OAuth token, or service account that defenders can't easily see. These "invisible" non-human identities (NHIs) now outnumber human accounts in most cloud environments, and they have become one of the ripest targets for attackers. Astrix's Field CTO Jonathan Sander put it bluntly in a recent Hacker News webinar : "One dangerous habit we've had for a long time is trusting application logic to act as the guardrails. That doesn't work when your AI agent is powered by LLMs that don't stop and think when they're about to do something wrong. They just do it." Why AI Agents Redefine Identity Risk Autonomy changes everything: An AI agent can chain multiple API calls and modify data without a human in the loop. If the underlying credential is exposed or overprivileged, each addit...
Hackers Exploiting Remote Desktop Software Flaws to Deploy PlugX Malware

Hackers Exploiting Remote Desktop Software Flaws to Deploy PlugX Malware

Mar 09, 2023 Threat Intelligence / Malware
Security vulnerabilities in remote desktop programs such as Sunlogin and AweSun are being exploited by threat actors to deploy the PlugX malware. AhnLab Security Emergency Response Center (ASEC), in a  new analysis , said it marks the continued abuse of the flaws to deliver a variety of payloads on compromised systems. This  includes  the Sliver post-exploitation framework, XMRig cryptocurrency miner, Gh0st RAT, and Paradise ransomware . PlugX is the latest addition to this list. The  modular malware  has been extensively put to use by threat actors based in China, with new features continuously added to help perform system control and information theft. In the attacks observed by ASEC, successful exploitation of the flaws is followed by the execution of a PowerShell command that retrieves an executable and a DLL file from a remote server. This executable is a legitimate HTTP Server Service from cybersecurity company ESET, which is used to load the DLL f...
IceFire Ransomware Exploits IBM Aspera Faspex to Attack Linux-Powered Enterprise Networks

IceFire Ransomware Exploits IBM Aspera Faspex to Attack Linux-Powered Enterprise Networks

Mar 09, 2023 Linux / Endpoint Security
A previously known Windows-based ransomware strain known as IceFire has expanded its focus to target Linux enterprise networks belonging to several media and entertainment sector organizations across the world. The intrusions entail the exploitation of a recently disclosed deserialization vulnerability in IBM Aspera Faspex file-sharing software ( CVE-2022-47986 , CVSS score: 9.8), according to cybersecurity company SentinelOne. "This strategic shift is a significant move that aligns them with  other   ransomware  groups that also target Linux systems," Alex Delamotte, senior threat researcher at SentinelOne,  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. A majority of the attacks observed by SentinelOne have been directed against companies located in Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, and the U.A.E., countries that are not typically targeted by organized ransomware crews. IceFire  was first detected in March 2022 by the  MalwareHunterTeam , but it wasn't u...
Does Your Help Desk Know Who's Calling?

Does Your Help Desk Know Who's Calling?

Mar 09, 2023 Password Security / Enterprise Security
Phishing, the theft of users' credentials or sensitive data using social engineering, has been a significant threat since the early days of the internet – and continues to plague organizations today,  accounting for more than 30% of all known breaches . And with the mass migration to remote working during the pandemic, hackers have ramped up their efforts to steal login credentials as they take advantage of the chaos and lack of in-person user verification.  This has led to the revival of the old-school technique of vishing, which, like phishing online, involves using social engineering over the phone to steal sensitive information. Vishing attacks have  been on the rise  as a result, with 69% of companies experiencing them in 2021, up from 54% in 2020. These attacks often take the form of job or tech support scams and can be incredibly convincing. In August 2020, the  FBI along with the CISA  issued a warning regarding remote users being targeted by atta...
Iranian Hackers Target Women Involved in Human Rights and Middle East Politics

Iranian Hackers Target Women Involved in Human Rights and Middle East Politics

Mar 09, 2023 Cyber Espionage
Iranian state-sponsored actors are continuing to engage in social engineering campaigns targeting researchers by impersonating a U.S. think tank. "Notably the targets in this instance were all women who are actively involved in political affairs and human rights in the Middle East region," Secureworks Counter Threat Unit (CTU)  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. The cybersecurity company attributed the activity to a hacking group it tracks as  Cobalt Illusion , and which is also known by the names APT35, Charming Kitten, ITG18, Phosphorus, TA453, and Yellow Garuda. The targeting of academics, activists, diplomats, journalists, politicians, and researchers by the threat actor  has been   well-documented   over  the  years . The group is suspected to be operating on behalf of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and has exhibited a pattern of using fake personas to establish contact with individuals who are of strategic ...
New ScrubCrypt Crypter Used in Cryptojacking Attacks Targeting Oracle WebLogic

New ScrubCrypt Crypter Used in Cryptojacking Attacks Targeting Oracle WebLogic

Mar 09, 2023 Cryptojacking / Threat Detection,
The infamous cryptocurrency miner group called 8220 Gang has been observed using a new crypter called ScrubCrypt to carry out cryptojacking operations. According to Fortinet FortiGuard Labs, the attack chain commences with the successful exploitation of susceptible Oracle WebLogic servers to download a PowerShell script that contains ScrubCrypt. Crypters are a type of software that can encrypt, obfuscate, and manipulate malware with the goal of evading detection by security programs. ScrubCrypt, which is advertised for sale by its author, comes with features to bypass Windows Defender protections as well as check for the presence of debugging and virtual machine environments. "ScrubCrypt is a crypter used to secure applications with a unique BAT packing method," security researcher Cara Lin  said  in a technical report. "The encrypted data at the top can be split into four parts using backslash '\.'" The crypter, in the final stage, decodes and loads...
New Critical Flaw in FortiOS and FortiProxy Could Give Hackers Remote Access

New Critical Flaw in FortiOS and FortiProxy Could Give Hackers Remote Access

Mar 09, 2023 Network Security / Firewall
Fortinet has released fixes to  address 15 security flaws , including one critical vulnerability impacting FortiOS and FortiProxy that could enable a threat actor to take control of affected systems. The issue, tracked as  CVE-2023-25610 , is rated 9.3 out of 10 for severity and was internally discovered and reported by its security teams. "A buffer underwrite ('buffer underflow') vulnerability in FortiOS and FortiProxy administrative interface may allow a remote unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary code on the device and/or perform a DoS on the GUI, via specifically crafted requests," Fortinet  said  in an advisory. Underflow bugs , also called  buffer underruns , occur when the input data is shorter than the reserved space, causing unpredictable behavior or leakage of sensitive data from memory. Other possible consequences include memory corruption that could either be weaponized to induce a crash or execute arbitrary code. Fortinet said it's n...
Jenkins Security Alert: New Security Flaws Could Allow Code Execution Attacks

Jenkins Security Alert: New Security Flaws Could Allow Code Execution Attacks

Mar 08, 2023 Open Source / Automation Tool
A pair of severe security vulnerabilities have been disclosed in the Jenkins open source automation server that could lead to code execution on targeted systems. The flaws, tracked as  CVE-2023-27898  and  CVE-2023-27905 , impact the Jenkins server and Update Center, and have been collectively christened  CorePlague  by cloud security firm Aqua. All versions of Jenkins versions prior to 2.319.2 are vulnerable and exploitable. "Exploiting these vulnerabilities could allow an unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary code on the victim's Jenkins server, potentially leading to a complete compromise of the Jenkins server," the company said in a report shared with The Hacker News. The shortcomings are the result of how Jenkins processes plugins available from the  Update Center , thereby potentially enabling a threat actor to upload a plugin with a malicious payload and trigger a cross-site scripting (XSS) attack. "Once the victim opens the ' Availabl...
Syxsense Platform: Unified Security and Endpoint Management

Syxsense Platform: Unified Security and Endpoint Management

Mar 08, 2023 Unified Endpoint Security
As threats grow and attack surfaces get more complex, companies continue to struggle with the multitude of tools they utilize to handle endpoint security and management. This can leave gaps in an enterprise's ability to identify devices that are accessing the network and in ensuring that those devices are compliant with security policies. These gaps are often seen in outdated spreadsheets that are used to track and manage asset inventory, configurations, vulnerabilities, and more. Ultimately, this increases organizational risk while stifling efficiency and productivity. That's why unified security and endpoint management has gained ground, as noted in  Gartner's Hype Cycle for Endpoint Security, 2022 . As part of the market's need to gain a clearer, real-time picture of their devices and security posture, Syxsense launched its Enterprise platform last year to address the three key elements of endpoint management and security: vulnerabilities, patch, and compliance. Ac...
Lazarus Group Exploits Zero-Day Vulnerability to Hack South Korean Financial Entity

Lazarus Group Exploits Zero-Day Vulnerability to Hack South Korean Financial Entity

Mar 08, 2023 Zero-Day / BYOVD Attack
The North Korea-linked  Lazarus Group  has been observed weaponizing flaws in an undisclosed software to breach a financial business entity in South Korea twice within a span of a year. While the first attack in May 2022 entailed the use of a vulnerable version of a certificate software that's widely used by public institutions and universities, the re-infiltration in October 2022 involved the exploitation of a zero-day in the same program. Cybersecurity firm AhnLab Security Emergency Response Center (ASEC)  said  it's refraining from divulging more specifics owing to the fact that "the vulnerability has not been fully verified yet and a software patch has not been released." The adversarial collective, after obtaining an initial foothold by an unknown method, abused the zero-day bug to perform lateral movement, shortly after which the AhnLab V3 anti-malware engine was disabled via a  BYOVD attack . It's worth noting here that the Bring Your Own Vulnerable...
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