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The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is sounding the alarm on the BlackCat ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS), which it said victimized at least 60 entities worldwide between as of March 2022 since its emergence last November. Also called ALPHV and  Noberus , the malware is notable for being the first-ever ransomware written in the Rust programming language, which is known to be memory safe and offer improved performance. "Many of the developers and money launderers for BlackCat/ALPHV are linked to  DarkSide / BlackMatter , indicating they have extensive networks and experience with ransomware operations," the FBI said in an  advisory  published last week. The disclosure comes weeks after twin reports from  Cisco Talos  and  Kasperksy  uncovered links between BlackCat and BlackMatter ransomware families, including the use of a modified version of a data exfiltration tool dubbed Fendr that's been previously only observed in BlackMatter-r...

Telecom company T-Mobile on Friday confirmed that it was the victim of a security breach in March after the LAPSUS$ mercenary gang managed to gain access to its networks. The acknowledgment came after investigative journalist Brian Krebs  shared  internal chats belonging to the core members of the group indicating that LAPSUS$ breached the company several times in March  prior to the arrest  of its seven members. T-Mobile, in a statement, said that the incident occurred "several weeks ago, with the "bad actor" using stolen credentials to access internal systems. "The systems accessed contained no customer or government information or other similarly sensitive information, and we have no evidence that the intruder was able to obtain anything of value," it added. The VPN credentials for initial access are said to have been obtained from illicit websites like Russian Market with the goal of gaining control of T-Mobile employee accounts, ultimately allowing ...

Atlassian has published a security advisory warning of a critical vulnerability in its Jira software that could be abused by a remote, unauthenticated attacker to circumvent authentication protections. Tracked as  CVE-2022-0540 , the flaw is rated 9.9 out of 10 on the CVSS scoring system and resides in Jira's authentication framework, Jira Seraph. Khoadha of Viettel Cyber Security has been credited with discovering and reporting the security weakness. "A remote, unauthenticated attacker could exploit this by sending a specially crafted HTTP request to bypass authentication and authorization requirements in WebWork actions using an affected configuration," Atlassian  noted . The flaw affects the following Jira products - Jira Core Server, Jira Software Server and Jira Software Data Center: All versions before 8.13.18, 8.14.x, 8.15.x, 8.16.x, 8.17.x, 8.18.x, 8.19.x, 8.20.x before 8.20.6, and 8.21.x Jira Service Management Server and Jira Service Management Data Cent...

A proof-of-concept (PoC) code demonstrating a newly disclosed digital signature bypass vulnerability in Java has been shared online.  The  high-severity flaw  in question,  CVE-2022-21449  (CVSS score: 7.5), impacts the following versions of Java SE and Oracle GraalVM Enterprise Edition - Oracle Java SE: 7u331, 8u321, 11.0.14, 17.0.2, 18 Oracle GraalVM Enterprise Edition: 20.3.5, 21.3.1, 22.0.0.2 The issue resides in Java's implementation of the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm ( ECDSA ), a  cryptographic mechanism  to  digitally sign  messages and data for verifying the authenticity and the integrity of the contents. In a nutshell, the cryptographic blunder — dubbed Psychic Signatures in Java — makes it possible to present a totally blank signature, which would still be perceived as valid by the vulnerable implementation. Successful exploitation of the flaw could permit an attacker to forge signatures and bypass authenti...

LemonDuck, a cross-platform cryptocurrency mining botnet, is targeting Docker to mine cryptocurrency on Linux systems as part of an active malware campaign. "It runs an anonymous mining operation by the use of proxy pools, which hide the wallet addresses," CrowdStrike  said  in a new report. "It evades detection by targeting Alibaba Cloud's monitoring service and disabling it." Known to strike both Windows and Linux environments, LemonDuck is primarily engineered for abusing the system resources to mine Monero. But it's also capable of credential theft, lateral movement, and facilitating the deployment of additional payloads for follow-on activities. "It uses a wide range of spreading mechanisms — phishing emails, exploits, USB devices, brute force, among others — and it has shown that it can quickly take advantage of news, events, or the release of new exploits to run effective campaigns," Microsoft  detailed  in a technical write-up of the ma...

Network-attached storage (NAS) appliance maker QNAP on Thursday said it's investigating its lineup for potential impact arising from two security vulnerabilities that were addressed in the Apache HTTP server last month. The critical flaws, tracked as  CVE-2022-22721 and CVE-2022-23943 , are rated 9.8 for severity on the CVSS scoring system and impact Apache HTTP Server versions 2.4.52 and earlier - CVE-2022-22721  - Possible buffer overflow with very large or unlimited LimitXMLRequestBody CVE-2022-23943  - Out-of-bounds Write vulnerability in mod_sed of Apache HTTP Server Both the vulnerabilities, alongside CVE-2022-22719 and CVE-2022-22720, were remediated by the project maintainers as part of  version 2.4.53 , which was shipped on March 14, 2022. "While CVE-2022-22719 and CVE-2022-22720 do not affect QNAP products, CVE-2022-22721 affects 32-bit QNAP NAS models, and CVE-2022-23943 affects users who have enabled mod_sed in Apache HTTP Server on their QNAP de...

Networking equipment maker Cisco has released security updates to address three high-severity vulnerabilities in its products that could be exploited to cause a denial-of-service (DoS) condition and take control of affected systems. The first of the three flaws,  CVE-2022-20783  (CVSS score: 7.5), affects Cisco TelePresence Collaboration Endpoint (CE) Software and Cisco RoomOS Software, and stems from a lack of proper input validation, allowing an unauthenticated, remote attacker to send specially crafted traffic to the devices. "A successful exploit could allow the attacker to cause the affected device to either reboot normally or reboot into maintenance mode, which could result in a DoS condition on the device," the company  noted  in an advisory. Credited with discovering and reporting the flaw is the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). The issue has been addressed in Cisco TelePresence CE Software versions 9.15.10.8 and 10.11.2.2. CVE-2022-20773  (CVS...

A new set of phishing attacks delivering the more_eggs malware has been observed striking corporate hiring managers with bogus resumes as an infection vector, a year after potential candidates looking for work on LinkedIn were lured with weaponized job offers . "This year the more_eggs operation has flipped the social engineering script, targeting hiring managers with fake resumes instead of targeting jobseekers with fake job offers," eSentire's research and reporting lead, Keegan Keplinger, said in a statement . The Canadian cybersecurity company said it identified and disrupted four separate security incidents, three of which occurred at the end of March. Targeted entities include a U.S.-based aerospace company, an accounting business located in the U.K., a law firm, and a staffing agency, both based out of Canada. The malware, suspected to be the handiwork of a threat actor called Golden Chickens (aka Venom Spider ), is a stealthy, modular backdoor suite capable ...

The "hotpatch" released by Amazon Web Services (AWS) in response to the  Log4Shell  vulnerabilities could be leveraged for container escape and privilege escalation, allowing an attacker to seize control of the underlying host. "Aside from containers, unprivileged processes can also exploit the patch to escalate privileges and gain root code execution," Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 researcher Yuval Avrahami  said  in a report published this week. The issues —  CVE-2021-3100 ,  CVE-2021-3101 ,  CVE-2022-0070 , and  CVE-2022-0071  (CVSS scores: 8.8) — affect the  hotfix solutions  shipped by AWS, and stem from the fact that they are designed to search for Java processes and patch them against the Log4j flaw on the fly but without ensuring that the new Java processes are run within the restrictions imposed on the container. "Any process running a binary named 'java' – inside or outside of a container – is considered a candidate for...

An unpatched high-severity security flaw has been disclosed in the open-source RainLoop web-based email client that could be weaponized to siphon emails from victims' inboxes. "The code vulnerability [...] can be easily exploited by an attacker by sending a malicious email to a victim that uses RainLoop as a mail client," SonarSource security researcher Simon Scannell  said  in a report published this week. "When the email is viewed by the victim, the attacker gains full control over the session of the victim and can steal any of their emails, including those that contain highly sensitive information such as passwords, documents, and password reset links." Tracked as CVE-2022-29360, the flaw relates to a stored cross-site-scripting (XSS) vulnerability impacting the latest version of RainLoop ( v1.16.0 ) that was released on May 7, 2021. Stored XSS flaws, also called persistent XSS, occur when a malicious script is injected directly into a target web applic...

Three security vulnerabilities have been disclosed in the audio decoders of Qualcomm and MediaTek chips that, if left unresolved, could allow an adversary to remotely gain access to media and audio conversations from affected mobile devices. According to Israeli cybersecurity company Check Point , the issues could be used as a launchpad to carry out remote code execution (RCE) attacks simply by sending a specially crafted audio file. "The impact of an RCE vulnerability can range from malware execution to an attacker gaining control over a user's multimedia data, including streaming from a compromised machine's camera," the researchers said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "In addition, an unprivileged Android app could use these vulnerabilities to escalate its privileges and gain access to media data and user conversations." The vulnerabilities, dubbed ALHACK, are rooted in an audio coding format originally developed and open-sourced by Apple i...

A recent Hive ransomware attack carried out by an affiliate involved the exploitation of "ProxyShell" vulnerabilities in the Microsoft Exchange Server that were disclosed last year to encrypt an unnamed customer's network. "The actor managed to achieve its malicious goals and encrypt the environment in less than 72 hours from the initial compromise," Varonis security researcher, Nadav Ovadia,  said  in a post-mortem analysis of the incident.  Hive, which was  first observed  in June 2021, follows the lucrative ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) scheme adopted by other cybercriminal groups in recent years, enabling affiliates to deploy the file-encrypting malware after gaining a foothold into their victims' networks. ProxyShell  — tracked as CVE-2021-31207, CVE-2021-34523, and CVE-2021-34473 — involves a combination of security feature bypass, privilege escalation, and remote code execution in the Microsoft Exchange Server, effectively granting the attacker...

The Five Eyes nations have released a  joint cybersecurity advisory  warning of increased  malicious attacks  from Russian state-sponsored actors and criminal groups targeting critical infrastructure organizations amidst the ongoing military siege on Ukraine. "Evolving intelligence indicates that the Russian government is exploring options for potential cyberattacks," authorities from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the U.K., and the U.S.  said . "Russia's invasion of Ukraine could expose organizations both within and beyond the region to increased malicious cyber activity. This activity may occur as a response to the unprecedented economic costs imposed on Russia as well as material support provided by the United States and U.S. allies and partners." The  advisory  follows  another alert  from the U.S. government cautioning of nation-state actors deploying specialized malware to maintain access to industrial control systems (ICS) and su...

Google Project Zero called 2021 a "record year for in-the-wild 0-days," as  58 security vulnerabilities  were detected and disclosed during the course of the year. The development marks more than a two-fold jump from the previous maximum when 28 0-day exploits were tracked in 2015. In contrast, only 25 0-day exploits were detected in 2020. "The large uptick in in-the-wild 0-days in 2021 is due to increased detection and disclosure of these 0-days, rather than simply increased usage of 0-day exploits," Google Project Zero security researcher  Maddie Stone   said . "Attackers are having success using the same bug patterns and exploitation techniques and going after the same attack surfaces," Stone added. The tech giant's in-house security team characterized the exploits as similar to previous and publicly known vulnerabilities, with only two of them markedly different for the technical sophistication and use of logic bugs to escape the sandbox. B...

Details have emerged about a now-patched security vulnerability in the Snort intrusion detection and prevention system that could trigger a denial-of-service (DoS) condition and render it powerless against malicious traffic. Tracked as  CVE-2022-20685 , the vulnerability is rated 7.5 for severity and resides in the Modbus preprocessor of the Snort detection engine. It affects all open-source Snort project releases earlier than 2.9.19 as well as version 3.1.11.0. Maintained by Cisco,  Snort  is an open-source intrusion detection system (IDS) and intrusion prevention system (IPS) that offers real-time network traffic analysis to spot potential signs of malicious activity based on predefined rules. "The vulnerability, CVE-2022-20685, is an integer-overflow issue that can cause the Snort Modbus OT preprocessor to enter an infinite  while loop ," Uri Katz, a security researcher with Claroty,  said  in a report published last week. "A successful exploit keep...

Are you a CISO, CIO, or IT Director? In your role, you're responsible for breach protection – which means you oversee and govern the process of designing, building, maintaining, and continuously enhancing your organization's security program.  But getting buy-in from leadership can be difficult when they are a non-technical audience. On top of managing your organization's breach protection activity 24/7, you have to find time to figure out how to effectively articulate the risks, potential impacts, and appropriate steps necessary in a way that will convince leadership to invest in the resources required to keep your organization safe. Compounding this is the fact that, while you are focused on things like malware, exploits, and network traffic – your leadership is primarily concerned with operational loss and calculated risk.  How do you bridge the gap and help leadership understand your priorities and your team's business impact? You must identify the security i...

Identity and access management provider Okta on Tuesday said it concluded its probe into the  breach  of a third-party vendor in late January 2022 by the LAPSUS$ extortionist gang and that it was far more limited in scope. Stating that the "impact of the incident was significantly less than the maximum potential impact" the company had previously shared last month, Okta  said  the intrusion impacted only two customer tenants, down from 366 as was initially assumed. The  security event  took place on January 21 when the LAPSUS$ hacking group gained unauthorized remote access to a workstation belonging to a Sitel support engineer. But it only became public knowledge nearly two months later when the adversary  posted  screenshots of Okta's internal systems on their Telegram channel. In addition to accessing two active customer tenants within the SuperUser application — which is used to perform basic management functions — the hacker group is sai...

A security flaw in the Windows Print Spooler component that was patched by Microsoft in February is being actively exploited in the wild, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has warned . To that end, the agency has added the shortcoming to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog , requiring Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agencies to address the issues by May 10, 2022. Tracked as CVE-2022-22718 (CVSS score: 7.8), the security vulnerability is one among the four privilege escalation flaws in the Print Spooler that Microsoft resolved as part of its Patch Tuesday updates on February 8, 2022. It's worth noting that the Redmond-based tech giant has remediated a number of Print Spooler flaws since the critical PrintNightmare remote code execution vulnerability came to light last year, including 15 elevation of privilege vulnerabilities in April 2022. Specifics about the nature of the attacks and the identity of the threat actors that m...

Three high-impact Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) security vulnerabilities have been discovered impacting various Lenovo consumer laptop models, enabling malicious actors to deploy and execute firmware implants on the affected devices. Tracked as CVE-2021-3970, CVE-2021-3971, and CVE-2021-3972, the latter two "affect firmware drivers originally meant to be used only during the manufacturing process of Lenovo consumer notebooks," ESET researcher Martin Smolár  said  in a report published today. "Unfortunately, they were mistakenly included also in the production BIOS images without being properly deactivated," Smolár added. Successful exploitation of the flaws could permit an attacker to disable SPI flash protections or Secure Boot, effectively granting the adversary the ability to install persistent malware that can survive system reboots. CVE-2021-3970, on the other hand, relates to a case of memory corruption in the System Management Mode ( SMM...

A previously unknown zero-click exploit in Apple's iMessage was used to install mercenary spyware from  NSO Group  and  Candiru  against at least 65 individuals as part of a "multi-year clandestine operation." "Victims included Members of the European Parliament, Catalan Presidents, legislators, jurists, and members of civil society organizations," the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab  said  in a new report. "Family members were also infected in some cases." Of the 65 individuals, 63 were targeted with Pegasus and four others were infected with Candiru, with iPhones belonging to at least two compromised with both. The incidents are said to have mostly occurred between 2017 and 2020. The attacks involved the weaponization of an iOS exploit dubbed HOMAGE that made it possible to penetrate the devices running versions prior to iOS 13.2, which was released on October 28, 2019. It's worth noting that the latest version of iOS is iOS 15.4.1. ...