The Hacker News | #1 Trusted Source for Cybersecurity News — Index Page

In an unprecedented sting operation, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Australian Federal Police (AFP) ran an encrypted chat service called ANoM for nearly three years to intercept 27 million messages exchanged between criminal gang members globally. Dubbed Operation Ironside (AFP), Operation Greenlight (Europol), and Operation Trojan Shield (FBI), the long-term covert probe into transnational and serious organized crime culminated in the arrests of 224 offenders on 526 charges in Australia, with 55 luxury vehicles, eight tons of cocaine, 22 tons of cannabis and cannabis resin, 250 firearms, and more than $48 million in various currencies and cryptocurrencies seized in raids around the world.  A total of more than 800 arrests have been reported across 18 countries, including New Zealand, Germany, and Sweden. Europol  called  it the "biggest ever law enforcement operation against encrypted communication." The communications allegedly involved plots to...

Four security vulnerabilities discovered in the Microsoft Office suite, including Excel and Office online, could be potentially abused by bad actors to deliver attack code via Word and Excel documents. "Rooted from legacy code, the vulnerabilities could have granted an attacker the ability to execute code on targets via malicious Office documents, such as Word, Excel and Outlook," researchers from Check Point research said in a report published today. Three of the four flaws — tracked as CVE-2021-31174, CVE-2021-31178, CVE-2021-31179 — have been fixed by Microsoft as part of its Patch Tuesday update for May 2021, with the fourth patch (CVE-2021-31939) to be issued in June's update rolling out later today. In a hypothetical attack scenario, the researchers said the vulnerability could be triggered as simply as opening a malicious Excel (.XLS) file that's served via a download link or an email. Arising out of parsing mistakes made in legacy code found in Excel 9...

Apple on Monday announced a number of  privacy and security-centric features  to its upcoming versions of  iOS  and  macOS  at its all-online Worldwide Developers Conference. Here is a quick look at some of the big-ticket changes that are expected to debut later this fall: 1  — Decouple Security Patches from Feature Updates:  As  rumored before , users now have a choice between two software update versions in the Settings app. Users can either opt to update to the latest version of iOS 15 for all the latest features and most complete set of security updates or continue on iOS 14 and still get important security updates until they are ready to migrate to the next major version. 2  —  Built-in Two-factor Authenticator:  The new versions of iOS and macOS also come with options that allow users to generate two-factor authentication codes for each of the online accounts saved to iCloud Keychain (Settings > Passwords) without ...

In a major blow, the U.S. Department of Justice on Monday said it has recovered 63.7 bitcoins (currently valued at $2.3 million) paid by Colonial Pipeline to the DarkSide ransomware extortionists on May 8, pursuant to a seizure warrant that was authorized by the Northern District of California. The  ransomware attack  also hobbled the pipeline company's fuel supply, prompting the government to issue an  emergency declaration , even as the company shelled out a ransom amount of approximately  75 bitcoins  ($4.4 million as of May 8) to regain access to its systems. A week after the highly publicized incident, the ransomware-as-a-service syndicate disbanded with a May 14 farewell message to affiliates, stating that its internet servers and cryptocurrency stash were  seized  by unknown law enforcement entities. While DarkSide's announcement was perceived as an exit scam, the latest move from DoJ confirms earlier speculations of law enforcement involvem...

The same 10 software vulnerabilities have caused more security breaches in the last 20+ years than any others. And yet, many businesses still opt for post-breach, post-event remediation, muddling through the human and business ramifications of it all. But now,  a new research study  points to a new, human-led direction. ‍ The following discusses insights derived from a study conducted by Secure Code Warrior with Evans Data Corp titled 'Shifting from reaction to prevention: The changing face of application security' (2021) exploring developers attitudes towards secure coding, secure code practices, and security operations.  Read the report. ‍‍In the study, developers and development managers were asked about their common secure coding practices. The top three methods highlighted were: Scanning applications for irregularities or vulnerabilities after they are deployed Scrutinizing write code to inspect for irregularities or vulnerabilities The reuse of pre-approved ...

Security researchers have discovered the first known malware, dubbed " Siloscope ," targeting Windows Server containers to infect Kubernetes clusters in cloud environments. "Siloscape is heavily obfuscated malware targeting Kubernetes clusters through Windows containers,"  said  Unit 42 researcher Daniel Prizmant. "Its main purpose is to open a backdoor into poorly configured Kubernetes clusters in order to run malicious containers such as, but not limited to, cryptojackers." Siloscape, first detected in March 2021, is characterized by several techniques, including targeting common cloud applications such as web servers to gain an initial foothold via known vulnerabilities, following which it leverages Windows container escape techniques to break out of the confines of the container and gain remote code execution on the underlying node. A container is an  isolated, lightweight silo  for running an application on the host operating system. The malware...

The ransomware cartel that masterminded the  Colonial Pipeline attack  early last month crippled the pipeline operator's network using a compromised virtual private network (VPN) account password, the latest investigation into the incident has revealed. The development, which was  reported  by Bloomberg on Friday, involved gaining an initial foothold into the networks as early as April 29 through the VPN account, which allowed employees to access the company's networks remotely. The VPN login — which didn't have multi-factor protections on — was unused but active at the time of the attack, the report said, adding the password has since been discovered inside a batch of leaked passwords on the dark web, suggesting that an employee of the company may have reused the same password on another account that was previously breached. It's, however, unclear how the password was obtained, Charles Carmakal, senior vice president at the cybersecurity firm Mandiant, was quote...

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) on Friday charged a Latvian woman for her alleged role as a programmer in a cybercrime gang that helped develop TrickBot malware. The woman in question, Alla Witte , aka Max, 55, who resided in Paramaribo, Suriname, was arrested in Miami, Florida on February 6. Witte has been charged with 19 counts, including conspiracy to commit computer fraud and aggravated identity theft, wire and bank fraud affecting a financial institution, and money laundering. According to heavily redacted court documents released by the DoJ, Witte and 16 other unnamed cohorts have been accused of running a transnational criminal organization to develop and deploy a digital suite of malware tools with an aim to target businesses and individuals worldwide for theft and ransom. Since its origin as a banking Trojan in late 2015,  TrickBot  has evolved into a " crimeware-as-a-service " capable of pilfering valuable personal and financial information and even droppi...

Code-hosting platform GitHub Friday officially announced a series of updates to the  site's policies  that delve into how the company deals with malware and exploit code uploaded to its service. "We explicitly permit dual-use security technologies and content related to research into vulnerabilities, malware, and exploits," the Microsoft-owned company  said . "We understand that many security research projects on GitHub are dual-use and broadly beneficial to the security community. We assume positive intention and use of these projects to promote and drive improvements across the ecosystem." Stating that it will not allow the use of GitHub in direct support of unlawful attacks or malware campaigns that cause technical harm, the company said it may take steps to disrupt ongoing attacks that leverage the platform as an exploit or a malware content delivery network (CDN). To that end, users are refrained from uploading, posting, hosting, or transmitting any co...

Popular short-form video-sharing service TikTok quietly revised its privacy policy in the U.S., allowing it to automatically collect biometric information such as faceprints and voiceprints from the content its users post on the platform. The policy change, first spotted by TechCrunch , went into effect on June 2. TikTok users who reside in the European Economic Area (EEA), the U.K., Switzerland, and other geographies (excluding India) where the service operates are exempted from the changes. "We may collect biometric identifiers and biometric information as defined under U.S. laws, such as faceprints and voiceprints, from your User Content. Where required by law, we will seek any required permissions from you prior to any such collection," the ByteDance-owned company  said  in a newly introduced section called "Image and Audio Information." On top of this, the company's privacy policy also notes that it may collect information about "the nature of the...

Malicious actors are actively mass scanning the internet for vulnerable VMware vCenter servers that are unpatched against a critical remote code execution flaw, which the company addressed late last month. The ongoing activity was detected by Bad Packets on June 3 and corroborated  yesterday  by security researcher Kevin Beaumont. "Mass scanning activity detected from 104.40.252.159 checking for VMware vSphere hosts vulnerable to remote code execution,"  tweeted  Troy Mursch, chief research officer at Bad Packets. The development follows the publication of a proof-of-concept (PoC) RCE exploit code targeting the VMware vCenter bug. Tracked as  CVE-2021-21985  (CVSS score 9.8), the issue is a consequence of a lack of input validation in the Virtual SAN (vSAN) Health Check plug-in, which could be abused by an attacker to execute commands with unrestricted privileges on the underlying operating system that hosts the vCenter Server. Although the flaw was...

Google is tightening its privacy practices that could make it harder for apps on Android phones and tablets to track users who have opted out of receiving personalized interest-based ads. The change will go into effect sometime in late 2021. The development, which mirrors Apple's move to enable iPhone and iPad users to opt-out of ad tracking, was first  reported  by the Financial Times.  Once the revised policy goes live, Google is expected to completely cut off developers' access to the so-called "Advertising IDs," showing a "string of zeros" in its place. The Google Advertising ID (AAID), analogous to Apple's  IDFA , is a unique device identifier that can be used by app developers to track users as they move between apps to target ads better and measure the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. "Starting in late 2021, when a user opts out of interest-based advertising or ads personalization, the advertising identifier will not be available,...

Cybersecurity researchers on Thursday disclosed as many as ten critical vulnerabilities impacting CODESYS automation software that could be exploited to achieve remote code execution on programmable logic controllers (PLCs). "To exploit the vulnerabilities, an attacker does not need a username or password; having network access to the industrial controller is enough," researchers from Positive Technologies  said . "The main cause of the vulnerabilities is insufficient verification of input data, which may itself be caused by failure to comply with the secure development recommendations." The Russian cybersecurity firm noted that it detected the vulnerabilities on a PLC offered by WAGO, which, among other automation technology companies such as Beckhoff, Kontron, Moeller, Festo, Mitsubishi, and HollySys, use CODESYS software for  programming and configuring  the controllers. CODESYS offers a development environment for programming controller applications for use ...

Google on Thursday said it's rolling out new security features to Chrome browser aimed at detecting suspicious downloads and extensions via its Enhanced Safe Browsing feature, which it launched a year ago. To this end, the search giant said it will now offer additional protections when users attempt to install a new extension from the Chrome Web Store, notifying if it can be considered "trusted." Currently, 75% of all add-ons on the platform are compliant, the company pointed out, adding "any extensions built by a developer who follows the Chrome Web Store Developer Program Policies , will be considered trusted by Enhanced Safe Browsing." Enhanced Safe Browsing involves sharing real-time data with Google Safe Browsing to proactively safeguard users against dangerous sites. The company also noted that its integration with Safe Browsing's blocklist API helped improve privacy and security, with the number of malicious extensions disabled by the browser j...

New upgrades have been made to a Python-based "self-replicating, polymorphic bot" called Necro in what's seen as an attempt to improve its chances of infecting vulnerable systems and evading detection. "Although the bot was originally discovered earlier this year, the latest activity shows numerous changes to the bot, ranging from different command-and-control (C2) communications and the addition of new exploits for spreading, most notably vulnerabilities in VMWare vSphere, SCO OpenServer, Vesta Control Panel and SMB-based exploits that were not present in the earlier iterations of the code," researchers from Cisco Talos  said  in a deep-dive published today. Said to be in development as far back as 2015,  Necro  (aka N3Cr0m0rPh) targets both Linux and Windows devices, with heightened activity observed at the start of the year as part of a malware campaign dubbed " FreakOut " that was found exploiting  vulnerabilities  in network-attached storage (...

Major software vulnerabilities are a fact of life, as illustrated by the fact that Microsoft has patched between 55 and 110 vulnerabilities each month this year – with 7% to 17% of those vulnerabilities being critical. May had the fewest vulnerabilities, with a total of 55 and only four considered critical. The problem is that the critical vulnerabilities are things we have seen for many years, like remote code execution and privilege escalation. Microsoft isn't the only big name regularly patching major vulnerabilities: We see monthly security updates coming from Apple, Adobe, Google, Cisco, and others. Everything old is new again With major vulnerabilities in so many applications, is there any hope for a secure future? The answer is, of course, yes, but that does not mean there won't be challenges getting there. The vulnerabilities being seen may not be new to those of us who have been defending against attackers for years or even decades, but the adversaries continual...

A new set of critical vulnerabilities has been disclosed in the Realtek RTL8170C Wi-Fi module that an adversary could abuse to gain elevated privileges on a device and hijack wireless communications. "Successful exploitation would lead to complete control of the Wi-Fi module and potential root access on the OS (such as Linux or Android) of the embedded device that uses this module," researchers from Israeli IoT security firm Vdoo  said  in a write-up published yesterday. The Realtek  RTL8710C  Wi-Fi SoC underpins Ameba, an Arduino-compatible programmable platform equipped with peripheral interfaces for building a variety of IoT applications by devices spanning across agriculture, automotive, energy, healthcare, industrial, security, and smart home sectors. The flaws affect all embedded and IoT devices that use the component to connect to Wi-Fi networks and would require an attacker to be on the same Wi-Fi network as the devices that use the RTL8710C module or kn...