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Microsoft today issued a new security advisory warning billions of Windows users of two new critical, unpatched zero-day vulnerabilities that could let hackers remotely take complete control over targeted computers. According to Microsoft , both unpatched flaws are being used in limited, targeted attacks and impact all supported versions of the Windows operating system—including Windows 10, 8.1 and Server 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2019 editions, as well as Windows 7 for which Microsoft ended its support on January 14, 2020. Both vulnerabilities reside in the Windows Adobe Type Manager Library , a font parsing software that not only parses content when open with a 3rd-party software but also used by Windows Explorer to display the content of a file in the 'Preview Pane' or 'Details Pane' without having users to open it. The flaws exist in Microsoft Windows when the Adobe Type Manager Library improperly "handles a specially-crafted multi-master font - Adobe Type ...

For the first time ever, the Apache Pulsar PMC team is publishing a user survey report. The 2020 Apache Pulsar User Survey Report reveals Pulsar's accelerating rate of global adoption, details how organizations are leveraging Pulsar to build real-time streaming applications, and highlights key features on Pulsar's product roadmap. Apache Pulsar is a cloud-native, distributed open source publish-subscribe (pub/sub) based high-performance server-to-server messaging and streaming system that manages hundreds of billions of events per day. It provides very low end-to-end latency, guaranteed message delivery, zero data loss, and a serverless lightweight computing framework for stream native data processing. Pulsar adoption has largely been driven by the market's increased demand for real-time, data-enabled technologies. While companies have tried to leverage monolithic messaging systems to build-out real-time offerings, they've hit major roadblocks. Ultimately, the...

Multiple zero-day vulnerabilities in digital video recorders (DVRs) for surveillance systems manufactured by Taiwan-based LILIN have been exploited by botnet operators to infect and co-opt vulnerable devices into a family of denial-of-service bots. The findings come from Chinese security firm Qihoo 360 's Netlab team, who say different attack groups have been using LILIN DVR zero-day vulnerabilities to spread Chalubo , FBot , and Moobot botnets at least since August 30, 2019. Netlab researchers said they reached out to LILIN on January 19, 2020, although it wasn't until a month later the vendor released a firmware update (2.0b60_20200207) addressing the vulnerabilities. The development comes as IoT devices are increasingly being used as an attack surface to launch DDoS attacks and as proxies to engage in various forms of cybercrime. What Are the LILIN Zero-Days About? The flaw in itself concerns a chain of vulnerabilities that make use of hard-coded login cred...

SaaS Adoption is Skyrocketing, Resilience Hasn't Kept Pace SaaS platforms have revolutionized how businesses operate. They simplify collaboration, accelerate deployment, and reduce the overhead of managing infrastructure. But with their rise comes a subtle, dangerous assumption: that the convenience of SaaS extends to resilience. It doesn't. These platforms weren't built with full-scale data protection in mind . Most follow a shared responsibility model — wherein the provider ensures uptime and application security, but the data inside is your responsibility. In a world of hybrid architectures, global teams, and relentless cyber threats, that responsibility is harder than ever to manage. Modern organizations are being stretched across: Hybrid and multi-cloud environments with decentralized data sprawl Complex integration layers between IaaS, SaaS, and legacy systems Expanding regulatory pressure with steeper penalties for noncompliance Escalating ransomware threats and inside...

A new version of the infamous Mirai botnet is exploiting a recently uncovered critical vulnerability in network-attached storage (NAS) devices in an attempt to remotely infect and control vulnerable machines. Called " Mukashi ," the new variant of the malware employs brute-force attacks using different combinations of default credentials to log into Zyxel NAS, UTM, ATP, and VPN firewall products to take control of the devices and add them to a network of infected bots that can be used to carry out Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. Multiple Zyxel NAS products running firmware versions up to 5.21 are vulnerable to the compromise, Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 global threat intelligence team said, adding they uncovered the first such exploitation of the flaw in the wild on March 12. Zyxel's Pre-Authentication Command Injection Flaw Mukashi hinges on a pre-authentication command injection vulnerability (tracked as CVE-2020-9054 ), for which a proof-...

The Coronavirus is hitting hard on the world's economy, creating a high volume of uncertainty within organizations. Cybersecurity firm Cynet today revealed new data, showing that the Coronavirus now has a significant impact on information security and that the crisis is actively exploited by threat actors. In light of these insights, Cynet has also shared a few ways to best prepare for the Coronavirus derived threat landscape and provides a solution ( learn more here ) to protect employees that are working from home with their personal computers because of the Coronavirus. The researchers identify two main trends – attacks that aim to steal remote user credentials and weaponized email attacks: Remote User Credential Theft The direct impact of the Coronavirus is a comprehensive quarantine policy that compels multiple organizations to allow their workforce to work from home to maintain business continuity. This inevitably entails shifting a significant portion of the wor...

As the world comes to grips with the coronavirus pandemic , the situation has proven to be a blessing in disguise for threat actors, who've taken advantage of the opportunity to target victims with scams or malware campaigns. Now, according to a new report published by Check Point Research today and shared with The Hacker News, hackers are exploiting the COVID-19 outbreak to spread their own infections, including registering malicious Coronavirus-related domains and selling discounted off-the-shelf malware in the dark web. "Special offers by different hackers promoting their 'goods' — usually malicious malware or exploit tools — are being sold over the darknet under special offers with 'COVID19' or 'coronavirus' as discount codes, targeting wannabe cyber-attackers," the cybersecurity firm said. COVID-19 Discounts: Exploit Tools for Sale The report comes following an uptick in the number of malicious coronavirus-related domains that hav...

Though it's not Patch Tuesday, Adobe today released a massive batch of out-of-band software updates for six of its products to patch a total of 41 new security vulnerabilities. Adobe last week made a pre-announcement to inform its users of an upcoming security update for Acrobat and Reader, but the company today unveiled bugs in a total of 6 widely-used software, including: Adobe Genuine Integrity Service Adobe Acrobat and Reader Adobe Photoshop Adobe Experience Manager Adobe ColdFusion Adobe Bridge According to the security advisories, 29 of the 41 vulnerabilities are critical in severity, and the other 11 have been rated important. Adobe Acrobat and Reader software for Windows and macOS systems contain 13 flaws, out of which 9 are critical. Adobe Genuine Integrity Service , a utility in Adobe suite that prevents users from running non-genuine or cracked pirated software, is affected with just one important severity privilege escalation flaw. Adobe Photoshop...

A new module for TrickBot banking Trojan has recently been discovered in the wild that lets attackers leverage compromised systems to launch brute-force attacks against selected Windows systems running a Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) connection exposed to the Internet. The module, dubbed " rdpScanDll ," was discovered on January 30 and is said to be still in development, said cybersecurity firm Bitdefender in a report shared with The Hacker news. According to the researchers, the rdpScanDll brute-forcing module has so far attempted to target 6,013 RDP servers belonging to enterprises in telecom, education, and financial sectors in the U.S. and Hong Kong. The malware authors behind TrickBot specialize in releasing new modules and versions of the Trojan in an attempt to expand and refine its capabilities. "The flexibility allowed by this modular architecture has turned TrickBot into a very complex and sophisticated malware capable of a wide range of malicious a...

Online guitar tutoring website TrueFire has apparently suffered a 'Magecart' style data breach incident that may have potentially led to the exposure of its customers' personal information and payment card information. TrueFire is one of the popular guitar tutoring websites with over 1 million users, where wanna-be-guitarists pay online to access a massive library of over 900 courses and 40,000 video lessons. Though TrueFire hasn't yet publicly disclosed or acknowledged the breach, The Hacker News learned about the incident after a few affected customers posted online  details of a notification they received from the company last week. The Hacker News also found a copy of the same ' Notice Of Data Breach ' uploaded recently to the website of Montana Department of Justice , specifically on a section where the government shares information on data breaches that also affect Montana residents. Confirming the breach, the notification reveals that an attack...

Social engineering-driven malware threats continue to be a big threat, but new research details how cybercriminals profit off such schemes to launder hundreds of thousands of dollars from stolen credit cards of unsuspecting victims. Cybersecurity firm Check Point Research, in a report shared with The Hacker news, uncovered the digital trail of a Nigerian cybercriminal, who went by the name of "Dton" and targeted hundreds of thousands of people under the moniker of "Bill Henry" by sending them malicious emails with custom-built malware. The company said it disclosed the findings to concerned Nigerian and international law enforcement authorities for further action. A multi-stage criminal scheme The operation began with Dton buying stolen credit card details from Ferrum Shop, an online marketplace that sells over 2.5 million stolen credit card credentials, and then charging them each $550 each to fraudulently net more than $100,000 in illicit transactions...

Europol, along with the Spanish and the Romanian national police, has arrested 26 individuals in connection with the theft of over €3.5 million ($3.9 million) by hijacking people's phone numbers via SIM swapping attacks. The law enforcement agencies arrested 12 and 14 people in Spain and Romania, respectively, as part of a joint operation against two different groups of SIM swappers, Europol said . The development comes as SIM swapping attacks are emerging as one of the biggest threats to telecom operators and mobile users alike. The increasingly popular and damaging hack is a clever social engineering trick used by cybercriminals to persuade phone carriers into transferring their victims' cell services to a SIM card under their control. The SIM swap then grants attackers access to incoming phone calls, text messages, and one-time verification codes (or one-time passwords ) that various websites send via SMS messages as part of the two-factor authentication (2FA) proc...

A new simple but dangerous strain of Android malware has been found in the wild that steals users' authentication cookies from the web browsing and other apps, including Chrome and Facebook, installed on the compromised devices. Dubbed " Cookiethief " by Kaspersky researchers, the Trojan works by acquiring superuser root rights on the target device, and subsequently, transfer stolen cookies to a remote command-and-control (C2) server operated by attackers. "This abuse technique is possible not because of a vulnerability in the Facebook app or browser itself," Kaspersky researchers said. "Malware could steal cookie files of any website from other apps in the same way and achieve similar results." Cookiethief: Hijacking Accounts Without Requiring Passwords Cookies are small pieces of information that's often used by websites to differentiate one user from another, offer continuity around the web, track browsing sessions across different ...

Microsoft today finally released an emergency software update to patch the recently disclosed very dangerous vulnerability in SMBv3 protocol that could let attackers launch wormable malware , which can propagate itself from one vulnerable computer to another automatically. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2020-0796 , in question is a remote code execution flaw that impacts Windows 10 version 1903 and 1909, and Windows Server version 1903 and 1909. Server Message Block (SMB), which runs over TCP port 445, is a network protocol that has been designed to enable file sharing, network browsing, printing services, and interprocess communication over a network. The latest vulnerability, for which a patch update ( KB4551762 ) is now available on the Microsoft website, exists in the way SMBv3 protocol handles requests with compression headers, making it possible for unauthenticated remote attackers to execute malicious code on target servers or clients with SYSTEM privileges. Compre...

Cybercriminals will stop at nothing to exploit every chance to prey on internet users. Even the disastrous spread of SARS-COV-II (the virus), which causes COVID-19 (the disease), is becoming an opportunity for them to likewise spread malware or launch cyber attacks. Reason Labs recently released a threat analysis report detailing a new attack that takes advantage of internet users' increased craving for information about the novel coronavirus that is wreaking havoc worldwide. The malware attack specifically aims to target those who are looking for cartographic presentations of the spread of COVID-19 on the Internet, and trickes them to download and run a malicious application that, on its front-end, shows a map loaded from a legit online source but in the background compromises the computer. New Threat With An Old Malware Component The latest threat, designed to steal information from unwitting victims, was first spotted by MalwareHunterTeam last week and has now be...