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Traditional businesses migrating to the cloud need robust information security mechanisms.  Gartner predicts  that more than 95% of new digital workloads will continue to be deployed on cloud-native platforms by 2025. Robust  cloud data security  is imperative for businesses adopting rapid digital transformation to the cloud. While a traditional hosting model could be considered more secure, not all organizations are receptive to relinquishing control over their infrastructure or applications by relying on a cloud provider at an increased risk of data theft from a cyberattack done by an outsider. Having said so, let's try to understand the vital part. What is Cloud Data Security?  Cloud data security entails securing data, whether at rest or in motion, on cloud-based infrastructure, applications, etc., against cyber threats like data breaches, unauthorized access, DDoS attacks, etc. This includes the technologies, policies, controls, and services to protec...

The U.S. Justice Department on Monday accused a 55-year-old cardiologist from Venezuela of being the mastermind behind  Thanos ransomware , charging him with the use and sale of the malicious tool and entering into profit sharing arrangements. Moises Luis Zagala Gonzalez, also known by the monikers Nosophoros, Aesculapius, and Nebuchadnezzar, is alleged to have both developed and marketed the ransomware to other cybercriminals to facilitate the intrusions and get a share of the bitcoin payment. If convicted, Zagala faces up to five years' imprisonment for attempted computer intrusion, and five years' imprisonment for conspiracy to commit computer intrusions.  "The multi-tasking doctor treated patients, created and  named his cyber tool after death , profited from a global ransomware ecosystem in which he sold the tools for conducting ransomware attacks, trained the attackers about how to extort victims, and then boasted about successful attacks, including by maliciou...

Microsoft is warning of a new variant of the Sysrv botnet that's exploiting multiple security flaws in web applications and databases to install coin miners on both Windows and Linux systems. The tech giant, which has called the new version Sysrv-K , is said to weaponize an  array of exploits  to gain control of web servers. The cryptojacking botnet first emerged in December 2020. "Sysrv-K scans the internet to find web servers with various vulnerabilities to install itself," the company  said  in a series of tweets. "The vulnerabilities range from path traversal and remote file disclosure to arbitrary file download and remote code execution vulnerabilities." This also includes  CVE-2022-22947  (CVSS score: 10.0), a code injection vulnerability in Spring Cloud Gateway that could be exploited to allow arbitrary remote execution on a remote host via a maliciously crafted request. It's worth noting that the abuse of CVE-2022-22947 has prompted the U...

More than 200 Android apps masquerading as fitness, photo editing, and puzzle apps have been observed distributing spyware called Facestealer to siphon user credentials and other valuable information.  "Similar to  Joker , another piece of mobile malware, Facestealer changes its code frequently, thus spawning many variants," Trend Micro analysts Cifer Fang, Ford Quin, and Zhengyu Dong  said  in a new report. "Since its discovery, the spyware has continuously beleaguered Google Play." Facestealer, first  documented  by Doctor Web in July 2021, refers to a group of fraudulent apps that invade the official app marketplace for Android with the goal of plundering sensitive data such as Facebook login credentials. Of the 200 apps, 42 are VPN services, followed by a camera (20) and photo editing applications (13). In addition to harvesting credentials, the apps are also designed to collect Facebook cookies and personally identifiable information associated w...

Image source: z3r00t The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on Monday  added  two security flaws, including the recently disclosed remote code execution bug affecting Zyxel firewalls, to its  Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog , citing evidence of active exploitation. Tracked as  CVE-2022-30525 , the vulnerability is rated 9.8 for severity and relates to a command injection flaw in select versions of the Zyxel firewall that could enable an unauthenticated adversary to execute arbitrary commands on the underlying operating system. Impacted devices include - USG FLEX 100, 100W, 200, 500, 700 USG20-VPN, USG20W-VPN ATP 100, 200, 500, 700, 800, and VPN series The issue, for which patches were released by the Taiwanese firm in late April (ZLD V5.30), became public knowledge on May 12 following a coordinated disclosure process with Rapid7. Source: Shadowserver Merely a day later, the Shadowserver Foundation  said  it began dete...

A first-of-its-kind security analysis of iOS Find My function has identified a novel attack surface that makes it possible to tamper with the firmware and load malware onto a Bluetooth chip that's executed while an iPhone is "off." The mechanism takes advantage of the fact that wireless chips related to Bluetooth, Near-field communication ( NFC ), and ultra-wideband ( UWB ) continue to operate while iOS is shut down when entering a "power reserve" Low Power Mode (LPM). While this is done so as to enable features like  Find My  and facilitate  Express Card transactions , all the three wireless chips have direct access to the secure element, academics from the Secure Mobile Networking Lab ( SEEMOO ) at the Technical University of Darmstadt  said  in a paper entitled "Evil Never Sleeps." "The Bluetooth and UWB chips are hardwired to the Secure Element (SE) in the NFC chip, storing secrets that should be available in LPM," the researchers sa...

Are you aware of fake clickjacking bug bounty reports? If not, you should be. This article will get you up to speed and help you to stay alert. What are clickjacking bug bounty reports? If we start by breaking up the term into its component parts, a bug bounty is a program offered by an organization, in which individuals are rewarded for finding and reporting software bugs. These programs are often used by companies as a cost-effective way to find and fix software vulnerabilities, thereby improving the security of their products. They also help to build goodwill with the security community.  For the bounty hunters (or white hat hackers), they have an opportunity to earn money and recognition for their skills.  Clickjacking is a malicious technique used to trick users into clicking on something that they think is safe, but is actually harmful. For example, a hacker could create a fake button that looks like the "like" button on a social media site. When users click on it,...

An unidentified threat actor has been linked to an actively in-development malware toolkit called the "Eternity Project" that lets professional and amateur cybercriminals buy stealers, clippers, worms, miners, ransomware, and a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) bot. What makes this malware-as-a-service (MaaS) stand out is that besides using a Telegram channel to communicate updates about the latest features, it also employs a  Telegram Bot  that enables the purchasers to build the binary. "The [threat actors] provide an option in the Telegram channel to customize the binary features, which provides an effective way to build binaries without any dependencies," researchers from Cyble  said  in a report published last week. Each of the modules can be leased separately and provides paid access to a wide variety of functions - Eternity Stealer  ($260 for an annual subscription) - An information stealer to siphon passwords, cookies, credit cards, browser cr...

The European Parliament announced a "provisional agreement" aimed at improving cybersecurity and resilience of both public and private sector entities in the European Union. The revised directive, called " NIS2 " (short for network and information systems), is expected to replace the  existing legislation  on cybersecurity that was established in July 2016. The revamp sets ground rules, requiring companies in energy, transport, financial markets, health, and digital infrastructure sectors to adhere to risk management measures and reporting obligations. Among the provisions in the new legislation are flagging cybersecurity incidents to authorities within 24 hours, patching software vulnerabilities, and readying risk management measures to secure networks, failing which can incur monetary penalties. "The directive will formally establish the European Cyber Crises Liaison Organization Network, EU-CyCLONe, which will support the coordinated management of larg...

A 28-year-old Ukrainian national has been sentenced to four years in prison for siphoning thousands of server login credentials and selling them on the dark web for monetary gain as part of a credential theft scheme. Glib Oleksandr Ivanov-Tolpintsev , who pleaded guilty to his offenses earlier this February, was arrested in Poland in October 2020, before being  extradited to the U.S.  in September 2021. The illegal sale involved the trafficking of login credentials to servers located across the world and personally identifiable information such as dates of birth and Social Security numbers belonging to U.S. residents on a darknet marketplace. The unnamed site purportedly offered over 700,000 compromised servers for sale, including at least 150,000 in the U.S. alone. Believed to have been operational from around October 2014, the underground marketplace was seized by law enforcement authorities on January 24, 2019, according to court documents. This exactly coincides with...

Ever thought about working full-time in  cybersecurity ? With millions of unfilled jobs around, now is a great time to get into the industry. Of course, there are many different roles in this field. But all of them require the same handful of professional certifications. The 2022 Ultimate Advanced CyberSecurity Professional Certification Bundle  helps you collect the full house, with five full-length courses working towards  key exams . The included training has a total value of $1,475. But in a special deal for readers of The Hacker News, the bundle is now available for only $69.  Special Offer  —  You can currently get five top-rated cybersecurity certification courses for only $69, with lifetime access included! Whether you want to be a  penetration tester  or a cybersecurity researcher, technical recruiters want to see proof of your security expertise. NIST is required for government projects. Meanwhile, CISSP, ISACA, and CASP+ can open d...

SonicWall has published an  advisory  warning of a trio of security flaws in its Secure Mobile Access (SMA) 1000 appliances, including a high-severity authentication bypass vulnerability. The weaknesses in question impact SMA 6200, 6210, 7200, 7210, 8000v running firmware versions 12.4.0 and 12.4.1. The list of vulnerabilities is below - CVE-2022-22282  (CVSS score: 8.2) - Unauthenticated Access Control Bypass CVE-2022-1702  (CVSS score: 6.1) - URL redirection to an untrusted site (open redirection) CVE-2022-1701  (CVSS score: 5.7) - Use of a shared and hard-coded cryptographic key Successful exploitation of the aforementioned bugs could allow an attacker to unauthorized access to internal resources and even redirect potential victims to malicious websites. Tom Wyatt of the Mimecast Offensive Security Team has been credited with discovering and reporting the vulnerabilities. SonicWall noted that the flaws do not affect SMA 1000 series running versions...

Google on Thursday  announced  the creation of a new "Open Source Maintenance Crew" to focus on bolstering the security of critical open source projects. Additionally, the tech giant pointed out  Open Source Insights  as a tool for analyzing packages and their dependency graphs, using it to determine "whether a vulnerability in a dependency might affect your code." "With this information, developers can understand how their software is put together and the consequences to changes in their dependencies," the company said. The development comes as security and trust in the open source software ecosystem has been increasingly thrown into question in the aftermath of a  string  of  supply chain   attacks  designed to compromise developer workflows. In December 2021, a critical flaw in the ubiquitous open source  Log4j logging library  left several companies scrambling to patch their systems against potential abuse. The announceme...

A spear-phishing campaign targeting Jordan's foreign ministry has been observed dropping a new stealthy backdoor dubbed Saitama. Researchers from Malwarebytes and Fortinet FortiGuard Labs  attributed  the campaign to an Iranian cyber espionage threat actor tracked under the moniker APT34, citing  resemblances  to past campaigns staged by the group. "Like many of these attacks, the email contained a malicious attachment," Fortinet researcher Fred Gutierrez  said . "However, the attached threat was not a garden-variety malware. Instead, it had the capabilities and techniques usually associated with advanced persistent threats (APTs)." APT34, also known as OilRig, Helix Kitten, and Cobalt Gypsy, is known to be active since at least 2014 and has a track record of striking telecom, government, defense, oil, and financial sectors in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) via targeted phishing attacks. Earlier this February, ESET  tied  the group to a ...

Zyxel has moved to address a critical security vulnerability affecting Zyxel firewall devices that enables unauthenticated and remote attackers to gain arbitrary code execution. "A command injection vulnerability in the CGI program of some firewall versions could allow an attacker to modify specific files and then execute some OS commands on a vulnerable device," the company  said  in an advisory published Thursday. Cybersecurity firm Rapid7, which  discovered  and reported the flaw on April 13, 2022, said that the weakness could permit a remote unauthenticated adversary to execute code as the "nobody" user on impacted appliances. Tracked as  CVE-2022-30525  (CVSS score: 9.8), the flaw impacts the following products, with patches released in version ZLD V5.30 - USG FLEX 100(W), 200, 500, 700 USG FLEX 50(W) / USG20(W)-VPN ATP series, and  VPN series Rapid 7 noted that there are at least 16,213 vulnerable Zyxel devices exposed to the interne...

A ransomware group with an Iranian operational connection has been linked to a string of file-encrypting malware attacks targeting organizations in Israel, the U.S., Europe, and Australia. Cybersecurity firm Secureworks attributed the intrusions to a threat actor it tracks under the moniker Cobalt Mirage, which it said is linked to an Iranian hacking crew dubbed Cobalt Illusion (aka APT35, Charming Kitten, Newscaster, or Phosphorus). "Elements of Cobalt Mirage activity have been  reported  as  Phosphorus  and  TunnelVision ," Secureworks Counter Threat Unit (CTU)  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. The threat actor is said to have conducted two different sets of intrusions, one of which relates to opportunistic ransomware attacks involving the use of legitimate tools like  BitLocker  and DiskCryptor for financial gain. The second set of attacks are more targeted, carried out with the primary goal of securing access and gathe...

The European Commission on Wednesday proposed new regulation that would require tech companies to scan for child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and grooming behavior, raising worries that it could undermine end-to-end encryption (E2EE). To that end, online service providers, including hosting services and communication apps, are expected to proactively scan their platforms for CSAM as well as report, remove and disable access to such illicit content. While instant messaging services like WhatsApp  already   rely  on hashed versions of known CSAM to automatically block new uploads of images or videos matching them, the new plan requires such platforms to identify and flag new instances of CSAM. "Detection technologies must only be used for the purpose of detecting child sexual abuse," the regulator  said . "Providers will have to deploy technologies that are the least privacy-intrusive in accordance with the state of the art in the industry, and that limit the error...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed a massive campaign that's responsible for injecting malicious JavaScript code into compromised WordPress websites that redirects visitors to scam pages and other malicious websites to generate illegitimate traffic. "The websites all shared a common issue — malicious JavaScript had been injected within their website's files and the database, including legitimate core WordPress files," Krasimir Konov, a malware analyst at Sucuri,  said  in a report published Wednesday. This involved infecting files such as jquery.min.js and jquery-migrate.min.js with obfuscated JavaScript that's activated on every page load, allowing the attacker to redirect the website visitors to a destination of their choice. The GoDaddy-owned website security company said that the domains at the end of the redirect chain could be used to load advertisements, phishing pages, malware, or even trigger another set of redirects. In some instances, unsus...

Google on Wednesday took to its annual developer conference to announce a host of privacy and security updates, including support for virtual credit cards on Android and Chrome. "When you use autofill to enter your payment details at checkout, virtual cards will add an additional layer of security by replacing your actual card number with a distinct, virtual number," Google's Jen Fitzpatrick  said  in a statement. The goal, the search giant, said to keep payment information safe and secure during online shopping and protect users from  skimming attacks  wherein threat actors inject malicious JavaScript code to plunder credit card numbers and sell them on the black market. The feature is expected to roll out in the U.S. for Visa, American Express, Mastercard, and Capital One cards starting this summer. Interestingly, while Apple offers an option to mask email addresses via  Hide My Email , which enables users to create unique, random email addresses to use ...