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IT professionals have developed a sophisticated understanding of the enterprise attack surface – what it is, how to quantify it and how to manage it.  The process is simple: begin by thoroughly assessing the attack surface, encompassing the entire IT environment. Identify all potential entry and exit points where unauthorized access could occur. Strengthen these vulnerable points using available market tools and expertise to achieve the desired cybersecurity posture.  While conceptually straightforward, this is an incredibly tedious task that consumes the working hours of CISOs and their organizations. Both the enumeration and the fortification pose challenges: large organizations use a vast array of technologies, such as server and endpoint platforms, network devices, and business apps. Reinforcing each of these components becomes a frustrating exercise in integration with access control, logging, patching, monitoring, and more, creating a seemingly endless list of tasks....

A decryptor for the Tortilla variant of the Babuk ransomware has been  released  by Cisco Talos, allowing victims targeted by the malware to regain access to their files. The cybersecurity firm said the threat intelligence it shared with Dutch law enforcement authorities made it possible to arrest the threat actor behind the operations. The encryption key has also been shared with Avast, which had previously  released a decryptor  for Babuk ransomware after its  source code was leaked  in September 2021. The updated decryptor can be accessed  here  [EXE file]. "A single private key is used for all victims of the Tortilla threat actor," Avast  noted . "This makes the update to the decryptor especially useful, as all victims of the campaign can use it to decrypt their files." The Tortilla campaign was  first disclosed  by Talos in November 2021, with the attacks leveraging  ProxyShell flaws in Microsoft Exchange servers ...

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Tuesday prohibited data broker Outlogic , which was previously known as X-Mode Social , from sharing or selling any sensitive location data with third-parties. The ban is part of a  settlement  over allegations that the company "sold precise location data that could be used to track people's visits to sensitive locations such as medical and reproductive health clinics, places of religious worship and domestic abuse shelters." The  proposed order  also requires it to destroy all the location data it previously gathered unless it obtains consumer consent or ensures the data has been de-identified or rendered non-sensitive as well as maintain a comprehensive list of sensitive locations and develop a comprehensive privacy program with a data retention schedule to prevent abuse. The FTC accused X-Mode Social and Outlogic of failing to establish adequate safeguards to prevent the misuse of such data by downstream customers. Th...

Microsoft has addressed a total of  48 security flaws  spanning its software as part of its Patch Tuesday updates for January 2024. Of the 48 bugs, two are rated Critical and 46 are rated Important in severity. There is no evidence that any of the issues are publicly known or under active attack at the time of release, making it the second consecutive Patch Tuesday with no zero-days. The fixes are in addition to  nine security vulnerabilities  that have been resolved in the Chromium-based Edge browser since the release of  December 2023 Patch Tuesday  updates. This also includes a fix for a zero-day ( CVE-2023-7024 , CVSS score: 8.8) that Google said has been actively exploited in the wild. The most critical among the flaws patched this month are as follows - CVE-2024-20674  (CVSS score: 9.0) - Windows Kerberos Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability CVE-2024-20700  (CVSS score: 7.5) - Windows Hyper-V Remote Code Execution Vulnerability "Th...

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has  added  six security flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities ( KEV ) catalog, citing evidence of active exploitation. This includes  CVE-2023-27524  (CVSS score: 8.9), a high-severity vulnerability impacting the Apache Superset open-source data visualization software that could enable remote code execution. It was fixed in version 2.1. Details of the issue  first came to light  in April 2023, with Horizon3.ai's Naveen Sunkavally describing it as a "dangerous default configuration in Apache Superset that allows an unauthenticated attacker to gain remote code execution, harvest credentials, and compromise data." It's currently not known how the vulnerability is being exploited in the wild. Also added by CISA are five other flaws - CVE-2023-38203  (CVSS score: 9.8) - Adobe ColdFusion Deserialization of Untrusted Data Vulnerability CVE-2023-29300  (CVSS score: 9.8) - Ado...

A threat actor called Water Curupira has been observed actively distributing the  PikaBot  loader malware as part of spam campaigns in 2023. "PikaBot's operators ran phishing campaigns, targeting victims via its two components — a loader and a core module — which enabled unauthorized remote access and allowed the execution of arbitrary commands through an established connection with their command-and-control (C&C) server," Trend Micro  said  in a report published today. The activity began in the first quarter of 2023 that lasted till the end of June, before ramping up again in September. It also overlaps with  prior campaigns  that have used similar tactics to deliver QakBot, specifically those  orchestrated  by  cybercrime groups  known as TA571 and TA577. It's believed that the increase in the number of phishing campaigns related to PikaBot is the result of QakBot's takedown in August, with DarkGate emerging as another replace...

Poorly secured Microsoft SQL (MS SQL) servers are being targeted in the U.S., European Union, and Latin American (LATAM) regions as part of an ongoing financially motivated campaign to gain initial access. "The analyzed threat campaign appears to end in one of two ways, either the selling of 'access' to the compromised host, or the ultimate delivery of ransomware payloads," Securonix researchers Den Iuzvyk, Tim Peck, and Oleg Kolesnikov said in a technical report shared with The Hacker News. The campaign, linked to actors of Turkish origin, has been codenamed  RE#TURGENCE  by the cybersecurity firm. Initial access to the servers entails conducting brute-force attacks, followed by the use of  xp_cmdshell configuration option  to run shell commands on the compromised host. This activity mirrors that of a prior campaign dubbed  DB#JAMMER  that came to light in September 2023. This stage paves the way for the retrieval of a PowerShell script from a remot...

Collaboration is a powerful selling point for SaaS applications. Microsoft, Github, Miro, and others promote the collaborative nature of their software applications that allows users to do more. Links to files, repositories, and boards can be shared with anyone, anywhere. This encourages teamwork that helps create stronger campaigns and projects by encouraging collaboration among employees dispersed across regions and departments.  At the same time, the openness of data SaaS platforms can be problematic. A  2023 survey  by the Cloud Security Alliance and Adaptive Shield found that 58% of security incidents over the last two years involved data leakage. Clearly, sharing is good, but data sharing must be put in check. Most SaaS applications have mechanisms to control sharing. These tools are quite effective in ensuring that company resources aren't open for display on the public web. This article will look at three common data leakage scenarios and recommend best practic...

A security flaw has been disclosed in Kyocera's  Device Manager  product that could be exploited by bad actors to carry out malicious activities on affected systems. "This vulnerability allows attackers to coerce authentication attempts to their own resources, such as a malicious SMB share, to capture or relay Active Directory hashed credentials if the 'Restrict NTLM: Outgoing NTLM traffic to remote servers' security policy is not enabled," Trustwave  said . Tracked as  CVE-2023-50916 , Kyocera, in an  advisory  released late last month, described it as a path traversal issue that enables an attacker to intercept and alter a local path pointing to the backup location of the database to a universal naming convention (UNC) path. This, in turn, causes the web application to attempt to authenticate the rogue UNC path, resulting in unauthorized access to clients' accounts and data theft. Furthermore, depending on the configuration of the environment, it cou...

Threat actors are resorting to YouTube videos featuring content related to cracked software in order to entice users into downloading an information stealer malware called Lumma. "These YouTube videos typically feature content related to cracked applications, presenting users with similar installation guides and incorporating malicious URLs often shortened using services like TinyURL and Cuttly," Fortinet FortiGuard Labs researcher Cara Lin  said  in a Monday analysis. This is not the first time pirated software videos on YouTube have emerged as an effective bait for stealer malware. At least since early 2023, similar attack chains have been observed delivering several kinds of stealers, clippers, and crypto miner malware. In doing so, threat actors can leverage the compromised machines for not only information and cryptocurrency theft, but also abuse the resources for illicit mining. In the latest attack sequence documented by Fortinet, users searching for cracked ver...

Threat actors operating under the name Anonymous Arabic have released a remote access trojan (RAT) called  Silver RAT  that's equipped to bypass security software and stealthily launch hidden applications. "The developers operate on multiple hacker forums and social media platforms, showcasing an active and sophisticated presence," cybersecurity firm Cyfirma  said  in a report published last week. The actors, assessed to be of Syrian origin and linked to the development of another RAT known as S500 RAT, also run a Telegram channel offering various services such as the distribution of cracked RATs, leaked databases, carding activities, and the sale of Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) bots. The social media bots are then utilized by other cyber criminals to promote various illicit services by automatically engaging with and commenting on user content. In-the-wild detections of Silver RAT v1.0 were first observed in November 2023, although the threat actor's plan...

Cybersecurity is an infinite journey in a digital landscape that never ceases to change. According to Ponemon Institute 1 , "only 59% of organizations say their cybersecurity strategy has changed over the past two years." This stagnation in strategy adaptation can be traced back to several key issues. Talent Retention Challenges:  The cybersecurity field is rapidly advancing, requiring a skilled and knowledgeable workforce. However, organizations face a critical shortage of such talent, making it difficult to keep strategies agile and relevant. Leadership Focus : Often, the attention of leadership teams is divided across various priorities, and cybersecurity may not be at the forefront. This can result in strategies becoming outdated and less effective. Board Engagement:  Adequate board support is essential for strategy evolution. A lack of comprehensive understanding of cybersecurity issues at the board level can lead to insufficient resources and support for strategic u...