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Apple on Wednesday  revised  its documentation pertaining to its mercenary spyware threat notification system to mention that it alerts users when they may have been individually targeted by such attacks. It also specifically called out companies like NSO Group for developing commercial surveillance tools such as Pegasus that are used by state actors to pull off "individually targeted attacks of such exceptional cost and complexity." "Though deployed against a very small number of individuals — often journalists, activists, politicians, and diplomats — mercenary spyware attacks are ongoing and global," Apple  said . "The extreme cost, sophistication, and worldwide nature of mercenary spyware attacks makes them some of the most advanced digital threats in existence today." The update marks a change in wording that previously said these "threat notifications" are designed to inform and assist users who may have been targeted by state-sponsored...

Fortinet has released patches to address a critical security flaw impacting FortiClientLinux that could be exploited to achieve arbitrary code execution. Tracked as CVE-2023-45590, the vulnerability carries a CVSS score of 9.4 out of a maximum of 10. "An Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection') vulnerability [CWE-94] in FortiClientLinux may allow an unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary code via tricking a FortiClientLinux user into visiting a malicious website," Fortinet  said  in an advisory. The shortcoming, which has been described as a case of remote code execution due to a "dangerous nodejs configuration," impacts the following versions - FortiClientLinux versions 7.0.3 through 7.0.4 and 7.0.6 through 7.0.10 (Upgrade to 7.0.11 or above) FortiClientLinux version 7.2.0 (Upgrade to 7.2.1 or above) Security researcher CataLpa from Dbappsecurity has been credited with discovering and reporting the vulnerability. Fortinet...

An active Android malware campaign dubbed eXotic Visit has been primarily targeting users in South Asia, particularly those in India and Pakistan, with malware distributed via dedicated websites and Google Play Store. Slovak cybersecurity firm said the activity, ongoing since November 2021, is not linked to any known threat actor or group. It's tracking the group behind the operation under the name  Virtual Invaders . "Downloaded apps provide legitimate functionality, but also include code from the open-source Android  XploitSPY RAT ," ESET security researcher Lukáš Štefanko  said  in a technical report released today. The campaign is said to be highly targeted in nature, with the apps available on Google Play having negligible number of installs ranging from zero to 45. The apps have since been taken down. The fake-but-functional apps primarily masquerade as messaging services like Alpha Chat, ChitChat, Defcom, Dink Messenger, Signal Lite, TalkU, WeTalk, Wicke...

If you invite guest users into your Entra ID tenant, you may be opening yourself up to a surprising risk.  A gap in access control in Microsoft Entra's subscription handling is allowing guest users to create and transfer subscriptions into the tenant they are invited into, while maintaining full ownership of them.  All the guest user needs are the permissions to create subscriptions in their home tenant, and an invitation as a guest user into an external tenant. Once inside, the guest user can create subscriptions in their home tenant, transfer them into the external tenant, and retain full ownership rights. This stealthy privilege escalation tactic allows a guest user to gain a privileged foothold in an environment where they should only have limited access. Many organizations treat guest accounts as low-risk based on their temporary, limited access, but this behavior, which works as designed, opens the door to known attack paths and lateral movement within the resource t...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new Raspberry Robin campaign wave that has been propagating the malware through malicious Windows Script Files ( WSFs ) since March 2024. "Historically, Raspberry Robin was known to spread through removable media like USB drives, but over time its distributors have experimented with other initial infection vectors," HP Wolf Security researcher Patrick Schläpfer  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. Raspberry Robin, also called QNAP worm, was  first spotted  in September 2021 that has since  evolved into a downloader  for various other payloads in recent years, such as SocGholish, Cobalt Strike, IcedID, BumbleBee, and TrueBot, and also serving as a precursor for ransomware. While the malware was initially distributed by means of USB devices containing LNK files that retrieved the payload from a compromised QNAP device, it has since  adopted other methods  such as social engineering and malv...

Threat actors are now taking advantage of GitHub's search functionality to trick unsuspecting users looking for popular repositories into downloading spurious counterparts that serve malware. The latest assault on the open-source software supply chain involves concealing malicious code within Microsoft Visual Code project files that's designed to download next-stage payloads from a remote URL, Checkmarx  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. "Attackers create malicious repositories with popular names and topics, using techniques like automated updates and fake stars to boost search rankings and deceive users," security researcher Yehuda Gelb said. The idea is to manipulate the search rankings in GitHub and bring threat actor-controlled repositories to the top when users filter and sort their results based on the most recent updates by consistently committing small changes to a file named "log," and increase the popularity via bogus stars added v...

The need for vCISO services is growing. SMBs and SMEs are dealing with more third-party risks, tightening regulatory demands and stringent cyber insurance requirements than ever before. However, they often lack the resources and expertise to hire an in-house security executive team. By outsourcing security and compliance leadership to a vCISO, these organizations can more easily obtain cybersecurity expertise specialized for their industry and strengthen their cybersecurity posture. MSPs and MSSPs looking to meet this growing vCISO demand are often faced with the same challenge. The demand for cybersecurity talent far exceeds the supply. This has led to a competitive market where the costs of hiring and retaining skilled professionals can be prohibitive for MSSPs/MSPs as well. The need to maintain expertise of both security and compliance further exacerbates this challenge. Cynomi, the first AI-driven vCISO platform , can help. Cynomi enables you - MSPs, MSSPs and consulting firms ...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed what they say is the "first native Spectre v2 exploit" against the Linux kernel on Intel systems that could be exploited to read sensitive data from the memory. The exploit, called Native Branch History Injection (BHI), can be used to leak arbitrary kernel memory at 3.5 kB/sec by bypassing existing Spectre v2/BHI mitigations, researchers from Systems and Network Security Group (VUSec) at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam  said  in a new study. The shortcoming is being tracked as  CVE-2024-2201 . BHI was  first disclosed  by VUSec in March 2022, describing it as a technique that can get around Spectre v2 protections in modern processors from Intel, AMD, and Arm. While the attack leveraged extended Berkeley Packet Filters (eBPFs), Intel's recommendations to address the problem, among other things, were to disable Linux's unprivileged eBPFs. "Privileged managed runtimes that can be configured to allow an unprivileged user ...

We all know passwords and firewalls are important, but what about the invisible threats lurking beneath the surface of your systems? Identity Threat Exposures (ITEs) are like secret tunnels for hackers – they make your security way more vulnerable than you think. Think of it like this: misconfigurations, forgotten accounts, and old settings are like cracks in your digital fortress walls. Hackers exploit these weaknesses to steal login information, gain sneaky access, and move around your systems unnoticed, whether they're in the cloud or on-site. This upcoming webinar,  " Today's Top 4 Identity Security Threat Exposures: Are You Vulnerable? "  isn't just for tech experts—it's about protecting your business.  We'll use real-world examples and insights from Silverfort's latest report to show you the hidden dangers of ITEs. You'll learn about: The Top 4 Identity Threats You Might Be Overlooking:  We'll name them and explain why they're ...

Microsoft has released security updates for the month of April 2024 to remediate a record  149 flaws , two of which have come under active exploitation in the wild. Of the 149 flaws, three are rated Critical, 142 are rated Important, three are rated Moderate, and one is rated Low in severity. The update is aside from  21 vulnerabilities  that the company addressed in its Chromium-based Edge browser following the release of the  March 2024 Patch Tuesday fixes . The two shortcomings that have come under active exploitation are below - CVE-2024-26234  (CVSS score: 6.7) - Proxy Driver Spoofing Vulnerability CVE-2024-29988  (CVSS score: 8.8) - SmartScreen Prompt Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability While Microsoft's own advisory provides no information about CVE-2024-26234, cybersecurity firm Sophos said it discovered in December 2023 a malicious executable ("Catalog.exe" or "Catalog Authentication Client Service") that's  signed  by a valid M...

A critical security flaw in the Rust standard library could be exploited to target Windows users and stage command injection attacks. The vulnerability, tracked as  CVE-2024-24576 , has a CVSS score of 10.0, indicating maximum severity. That said, it only impacts scenarios where batch files are invoked on Windows with untrusted arguments. "The Rust standard library did not properly escape arguments when invoking batch files (with the bat and cmd extensions) on Windows using the Command API," the Rust Security Response working group  said  in an advisory released on April 9, 2024. "An attacker able to control the arguments passed to the spawned process could execute arbitrary shell commands by bypassing the escaping." The flaw impacts all versions of Rust before 1.77.2. Security researcher  RyotaK  has been credited with discovering and reporting the bug to the CERT Coordination Center ( CERT/CC ). RyotaK said the vulnerability – codenamed BatBadBut – impa...

A threat group of suspected Romanian origin called  RUBYCARP  has been observed maintaining a long-running botnet for carrying out crypto mining, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS), and phishing attacks. The group, believed to be active for at least 10 years, employs the botnet for financial gain, Sysdig said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "Its primary method of operation leverages a botnet deployed using a variety of public exploits and brute-force attacks," the cloud security firm said . "This group communicates via public and private IRC networks." Evidence  gathered  so far suggests that RUBYCARP may have crossover with another threat cluster tracked by Albanian cybersecurity firm Alphatechs under the moniker Outlaw , which has a history of conducting crypto mining and brute-force attacks and has since pivoted to phishing and spear-phishing campaigns to cast a wide net. "These phishing emails often lure victims into revealing sensitive i...

Human rights activists in Morocco and the Western Sahara region are the targets of a new threat actor that leverages phishing attacks to trick victims into installing bogus Android apps and serve credential harvesting pages for Windows users. Cisco Talos is  tracking  the activity cluster under the name  Starry Addax , describing it as primarily singling out activists associated with the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR). Starry Addax's infrastructure – ondroid[.]site and ondroid[.]store – is designed to target both Android and Windows users, with the latter involving fake websites masquerading as login pages for popular social media websites. In light of active investigation into the campaign, Talos said it cannot publicly disclose which websites are being targeted with credential harvesting attacks. "However, the threat actors are establishing their own infrastructure and hosting credential harvesting pages such as fake login pages for media and email servic...