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The Racoon Stealer malware as a service platform gained notoriety several years ago for its ability to extract data that is stored within a Web browser. This data initially included passwords and cookies, which sometimes allow a recognized device to be authenticated without a password being entered. Racoon Stealer was also designed to steal auto-fill data, which can include a vast trove of personal information ranging from basic contact data to credit card numbers. As if all of that were not enough, Racoon Stealer also had the ability to steal cryptocurrency and to steal (or drop) files on an infected system. As bad as Racoon Stealer might have been, its developers have recently created a new version that is designed to be far more damaging than the version that previously existed.  New Racoon Stealer Capabilities The new version of Raccoon Stealer  still has the ability to steal browser passwords, cookies, and auto-fill data. It also has the ability to steal any credit c...

The mobile threat campaign tracked as  Roaming Mantis  has been linked to a new wave of compromises directed against French mobile phone users, months after it expanded its targeting to include European countries. No fewer than 70,000 Android devices are said to have been infected as part of the active malware operation, Sekoia said in a report published last week. Attack chains involving  Roaming Mantis , a financially motivated Chinese threat actor, are known to either deploy a piece of banking trojan named MoqHao (aka XLoader) or redirect iPhone users to credential harvesting landing pages that mimic the iCloud login page. "MoqHao (aka Wroba, XLoader for Android) is an Android remote access trojan (RAT) with information-stealing and backdoor capabilities that likely spreads via SMS," Sekoia researchers  said . It all starts with a phishing SMS, a technique known as smishing, enticing users with package delivery-themed messages containing rogue links, that, ...

Network security company SonicWall on Friday rolled out fixes to mitigate a critical SQL injection (SQLi) vulnerability affecting its Analytics On-Prem and Global Management System (GMS) products. The vulnerability, tracked as  CVE-2022-22280 , is rated 9.4 for severity on the CVSS scoring system and stems from what the company describes is an "improper neutralization of special elements" used in an SQL command that could lead to an unauthenticated SQL injection. "Without sufficient removal or quoting of SQL syntax in user-controllable inputs, the generated SQL query can cause those inputs to be interpreted as SQL instead of ordinary user data," MITRE  notes  in its description of SQL injection. "This can be used to alter query logic to bypass security checks, or to insert additional statements that modify the back-end database, possibly including execution of system commands." H4lo and Catalpa of DBappSecurity HAT Lab have been credited with discov...

Microsoft has officially resumed blocking Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) macros by default across Office apps, weeks after temporarily announcing plans to roll back the change. "Based on our review of customer feedback, we've made updates to both our  end user  and our  IT admin  documentation to make clearer what options you have for different scenarios," the company  said  in an update on July 20. Earlier this February, Microsoft publicized its plans to disable macros by default in Office applications such as Access, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio, and Word as a way to prevent threat actors from abusing the feature to deliver malware. It's a known fact that a majority of the damaging cyberattacks today leverage email-based phishing lures to spread bogus documents containing malicious macros as a primary vector for initial access. "Macros can add a lot of functionality to Office, but they are often used by people with bad intentions to distribute malw...

Google on Thursday said it's backtracking on a  recent change  that removed the app permissions list from the Google Play Store for Android across both the mobile app and the web. "Privacy and transparency are core values in the Android community," the Android Developers team  said  in a series of tweets. "We heard your feedback that you find the app permissions section in Google Play useful, and we've decided to reinstate it. The app permissions section will be back shortly." To that end, in addition to showcasing the new Data safety section that offers users a simplified summary of an app's data collection, processing, and security practices, Google also intends to highlight all the permissions required by the app to make sense of its "ability to access specific restricted data and actions." The reinstatement comes as the internet giant moved to swap out the apps permission section with the newer Data safety labels last week ahead of the...

Python has its pros and cons, but it's nonetheless used extensively. For example, Python is frequently used in data crunching tasks even when there are more appropriate languages to choose from. Why? Well, Python is relatively easy to learn. Someone with a science background can pick up Python much more quickly than, say, C. However, Python's inherent approachability also creates a couple of problems. Whenever Python is updated, it means a big refactoring workload, which often gets dealt with poorly – or not at all. That leads to poor performance and security vulnerabilities. But maybe there is a better way: a tool to keep your Python tasks running smoothly and securely day in, day out. Let's take a look. It's slow, but it does the job Python isn't the fastest language around, but despite its comparative disadvantages, you'll often see it used for intensive data crunching operations. Think machine learning, computer vision, or even pure math in high-perform...

Ukrainian radio operator TAVR Media on Thursday became the latest victim of a cyberattack, resulting in the broadcast of a fake message that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was seriously ill. "Cybercriminals spread information that the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is allegedly in intensive care, and his duties are performed by the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, Ruslan Stefanchuk," the State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection of Ukraine (SSSCIP)  said  in an update. The Kyiv-based holding company oversees nine major radio stations, including Hit FM, Radio ROKS, KISS FM, Radio RELAX, Melody FM, Nashe Radio, Radio JAZZ, Classic Radio, and Radio Bayraktar. In a separate post on Facebook, TAVR Media  disclosed  its servers and networks were targeted in a cyberattack and it's working to resolve the issue. The company also emphasized that "no information about the health problems of the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy is ...

The actively exploited but now-fixed Google Chrome zero-day flaw that came to light at the start of this month was weaponized by an Israeli spyware company and used in attacks targeting journalists in the Middle East. Czech cybersecurity firm Avast linked the exploitation to  Candiru  (aka Saito Tech), which has a history of  leveraging previously unknown flaws  to deploy a Windows malware dubbed DevilsTongue , a modular implant with  Pegasus -like capabilities. Candiru, along with NSO Group, Computer Security Initiative Consultancy PTE. LTD., and Positive Technologies, were  added to the entity list  by the U.S. Commerce Department in November 2021 for engaging in "malicious cyber activities." "Specifically, a large portion of the attacks took place in Lebanon, where journalists were among the targeted parties," security researcher Jan Vojtěšek, who reported the discovery of the flaw,  said  in a write-up. "We believe the attacks were hi...

A never-before-seen Linux malware has been dubbed a "Swiss Army Knife" for its modular architecture and its capability to install rootkits. This previously undetected Linux threat, called  Lightning Framework  by Intezer, is equipped with a plethora of features, making it one of the most intricate frameworks developed for targeting Linux systems. "The framework has both passive and active capabilities for communication with the threat actor, including opening up SSH on an infected machine, and a polymorphic malleable command and control configuration," Intezer researcher Ryan Robinson  said  in a new report published today. Central to the malware is a downloader ("kbioset") and a core ("kkdmflush") module, the former of which is engineered to retrieve at least seven different plugins from a remote server that are subsequently invoked by the core component. In addition, the downloader is also responsible for establishing the persistence of t...

A large software development company whose software is used by different state entities in Ukraine was at the receiving end of an "uncommon" piece of malware, new research has found. The malware, first observed on the morning of May 19, 2022, is a custom variant of the open source backdoor known as  GoMet  and is designed for maintaining persistent access to the network. "This access could be leveraged in a variety of ways including deeper access or to launch additional attacks, including the potential for software supply chain compromise," Cisco Talos  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. Although there are no concrete indicators linking the attack to a single actor or group, the cybersecurity firm's assessment points to Russian nation-state activity. Public reporting into the use of GoMet in real-world attacks has so far uncovered only two documented cases to date: one in 2020, coinciding with the disclosure of  CVE-2020-5902 , a critical remot...

The advanced persistent threat (APT) actor tracked as Evilnum is once again exhibiting signs of renewed activity aimed at European financial and investment entities. "Evilnum is a backdoor that can be used for data theft or to load additional payloads," enterprise security firm Proofpoint  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. "The malware includes multiple interesting components to evade detection and modify infection paths based on identified antivirus software." Targets include organizations with operations supporting foreign exchanges, cryptocurrency, and decentralized finance (DeFi). The latest spate of attacks are said to have commenced in late 2021. The findings also dovetail with a report from Zscaler last month that  detailed  low-volume targeted attack campaigns launched against companies in Europe and the U.K. Active since 2018,  Evilnum  is tracked by the wider cybersecurity community using the names TA4563 and DeathStalker, with ...

Typically, when threat actors look to infiltrate an organization's SaaS apps, they look to SaaS app misconfigurations as a means of entry. However, employees now use their personal devices, whether their phones or laptops, etc., to get their jobs done. If the device's hygiene is not up to par, it increases the risk for the organization and widens the attack surface for bad actors. And so, Endpoint (Device) Protection — through EDR, XDR, and vulnerability management solutions – has arisen as a critical factor in SaaS Security. The challenge in remediating the threats posed by endpoints and devices lies in the ability to correlate between the SaaS app users, their roles, and permissions with their associated devices' compliance and integrity levels. This end-to-end approach is what's needed for the organization to implement a holistic, zero-trust approach for their SaaS Security.  Not a simple feat, however, automated SaaS Security Posture Management solutions, like Ad...

Atlassian has rolled out fixes to remediate a critical security vulnerability pertaining to the use of hard-coded credentials affecting  the Questions For Confluence  app for Confluence Server and Confluence Data Center. The flaw, tracked as CVE-2022-26138 , arises when the app in question is enabled on either of two services, causing it to create a Confluence user account with the username "disabledsystemuser." While this account, Atlassian says, is to help administrators migrate data from the app to Confluence Cloud, it's also created with a hard-coded password, effectively allowing viewing and editing all non-restricted pages within Confluence by default. "A remote, unauthenticated attacker with knowledge of the hard-coded password could exploit this to log into Confluence and access any pages the  confluence-users group  has access to," the company  said  in an advisory, adding that "the hard-coded password is trivial to obtain after downloading an...

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) has announced the seizure of $500,000 worth of Bitcoin from North Korean hackers who extorted digital payments from several organizations by using a new ransomware strain known as Maui. "The seized funds include ransoms paid by healthcare providers in Kansas and Colorado," the DoJ  said  in a press release issued Tuesday. The recovery of the bitcoin ransoms comes after the agency said it took control of two cryptocurrency accounts that were used to receive payments to the tune of $100,000 and $120,000 from the medical centers. The DoJ did not disclose where the rest of the payments originated from. "Reporting cyber incidents to law enforcement and cooperating with investigations not only protects the United States, it is also good business," said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the DoJ's National Security Division. "The reimbursement to these victims of the ransom shows why it pays to work with law en...

Growing cyber threats, tightening regulatory demands and strict cyber insurance requirements are driving small to medium-sized enterprises demand for strategic cybersecurity and compliance guidance and management. Since most companies this size don't have in-house CISO expertise – the demand for virtual CISO (vCISO) services is also growing. Yet current vCISO services models still rely on manual, humanCISO expertise. This makes these services costly and tough to scale – leaving MSPs, MSSPs and consulting firms unable to add vCISO service to their portfolio or scale their existing vCISO services to meet the growing demand. This is the challenge  Cynomi's Automated vCISO platform  is trying to solve. The company's AI-powered vCISO platform automatically generates everything vCISO service providers need to provide their clients, fully customized for each and every client: risk and compliance assessments, gap analysis, tailored security policies, strategic remediation plans w...

Apple on Wednesday rolled out  software fixes  for iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, and watchOS to address a number of security flaws affecting its platforms. This includes at least 37 flaws spanning different components in iOS and macOS that range from privilege escalation to arbitrary code execution and from information disclosure to denial-of-service (DoS). Chief among them is CVE-2022-2294, a memory corruption flaw in the WebRTC component that Google  disclosed  earlier this month as having been exploited in real-world attacks aimed at users of the Chrome browser. There is, however, no evidence of in-the-wild zero-day exploitation of the flaw targeting iOS, macOS, and Safari. Besides CVE-2022-2294, the updates also address several arbitrary code execution flaws impacting Apple Neural Engine (CVE-2022-32810, CVE-2022-32829, and CVE-2022-32840), Audio (CVE-2022-32820), GPU Drivers (CVE-2022-32821), ImageIO (CVE-2022-32802), IOMobileFrameBuffer (CVE-2022-26768), Kern...