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Google's cloud division is following in the  footsteps of Microsoft  with the launch of  Security AI Workbench  that leverages generative AI models to gain better visibility into the threat landscape.  Powering the cybersecurity suite is Sec-PaLM, a specialized large language model ( LLM ) that's "fine-tuned for security use cases." The idea is to take advantage of the latest advances in AI to augment point-in-time incident analysis, threat detection, and analytics to counter and prevent new infections by delivering intelligence that's  trusted, relevant, and actionable . To that end, the Security AI Workbench spans a wide range of new AI-powered tools, including  VirusTotal Code Insight  and  Mandiant Breach Analytics for Chronicle , to analyze potentially malicious scripts and alert customers of active breaches in their environments. Users, like with Microsoft's GPT-4-based  Security Copilot , can "conversationally search, analyz...

Search giant Google on Monday unveiled a major update to its  12-year-old  Authenticator app for Android and iOS with an account synchronization option that allows users to back up their time-based one-time passwords ( TOTPs ) to the cloud. "This change means users are better protected from lockout and that services can rely on users retaining access, increasing both convenience and security," Google's Christiaan Brand  said . The update, which also brings a new icon to the two-factor authenticator (2FA) app, finally brings it in line with Apple's  iCloud Keychain  and addresses a long-standing complaint that it's tied to the device on which it's installed, making it a hassle when switching between phones. Even worse, as Google puts it, users who lose access to their devices completely "lost their ability to sign in to any service on which they'd set up 2FA using Authenticator." The cloud sync feature is optional, meaning users can opt to u...

The Russian-speaking threat actor behind a backdoor known as Tomiris is primarily focused on gathering intelligence in Central Asia, fresh findings from Kaspersky reveal. "Tomiris's endgame consistently appears to be the regular theft of internal documents," security researchers Pierre Delcher and Ivan Kwiatkowski  said  in an analysis published today. "The threat actor targets government and diplomatic entities in the CIS." The Russian cybersecurity firm's latest assessment is based on three new attack campaigns mounted by the hacking crew between 2021 and 2023. Tomiris first came to light in September 2021 when Kaspersky  highlighted  its potential connections to  Nobelium  (aka APT29, Cozy Bear, or Midnight Blizzard), the Russian nation-state group behind the SolarWinds supply chain attack. Similarities have also been unearthed between the backdoor and another malware strain dubbed  Kazuar , which is attributed to the Turla group (aka Krypton,...

Threat actors are employing a previously undocumented "defense evasion tool" dubbed AuKill that's designed to disable endpoint detection and response (EDR) software by means of a Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver ( BYOVD ) attack. "The AuKill tool abuses an outdated version of the  driver  used by version 16.32 of the Microsoft utility,  Process Explorer , to disable EDR processes before deploying either a backdoor or ransomware on the target system," Sophos researcher Andreas Klopsch  said  in a report published last week. Incidents analyzed by the cybersecurity firm show the use of AuKill since the start of 2023 to deploy various ransomware strains such as Medusa Locker and LockBit. Six different versions of the malware have been identified to date. The oldest AuKill sample features a November 2022 compilation timestamp. The  BYOVD technique  relies on threat actors misusing a legitimate, but out-of-date and exploitable, driver signed by Microsof...

A recent review by Wing Security, a SaaS security company that analyzed the data of over 500 companies,  revealed some worrisome information . According to this review, 84% of the companies had employees using an average of 3.5 SaaS applications that were breached in the previous 3 months. While this is concerning, it isn't much of a surprise. The exponential growth in SaaS usage has security and IT teams struggling to keep up with which SaaS applications are being used and how. This isn't to say that SaaS should be avoided or blocked; on the contrary, SaaS applications must be used to ensure business growth. But using them has to be done with some level of caution. Determining which SaaS applications are risky The most intuitive risk factor to determining whether an application is risky is looking it up and seeing if it has been breached. SaaS applications are clearly a target as we see more and more SaaS related attacks. A breach is a clear indication to stay away, at leas...

Threat actors have been observed leveraging a legitimate but outdated WordPress plugin to surreptitiously backdoor websites as part of an ongoing campaign, Sucuri  revealed  in a report published last week. The plugin in question is Eval PHP, released by a developer named flashpixx. It allows users to insert PHP code pages and posts of WordPress sites that's then executed every time the posts are opened in a web browser. While  Eval PHP  has never received an update in 11 years, statistics gathered by WordPress show that it's installed on over 8,000 websites, with the number of downloads skyrocketing from one or two on average since September 2022 to 6,988 on March 30, 2023. On April 23, 2023, alone, it was downloaded 2,140 times. The plugin has racked up 23,110 downloads over the past seven days. GoDaddy-owned Sucuri said it observed some infected websites' databases injected with malicious code into the  "wp_posts" table , which stores a site's  pos...

A new "all-in-one" stealer malware named  EvilExtractor  (also spelled Evil Extractor) is being marketed for sale for other threat actors to steal data and files from Windows systems. "It includes several modules that all work via an FTP service," Fortinet FortiGuard Labs researcher Cara Lin  said . "It also contains environment checking and Anti-VM functions. Its primary purpose seems to be to steal browser data and information from compromised endpoints and then upload it to the attacker's FTP server." The network security company said it observed a surge in attacks spreading the malware in the wild in March 2023, with a majority of the victims located in Europe and the U.S. While marketed as an educational tool, EvilExtractor has been adopted by threat actors for use as an information stealer. The attack tool is being sold by an actor named Kodex on cybercrime forums like Cracked dating back to October 22, 2022. It's continually updated and ...

Print management software provider PaperCut said that it has "evidence to suggest that unpatched servers are being exploited in the wild," citing two vulnerability reports from cybersecurity company Trend Micro. "PaperCut has conducted analysis on all customer reports, and the earliest signature of suspicious activity on a customer server potentially linked to this vulnerability is 14th April 01:29 AEST / 13th April 15:29 UTC," it further  added . The update comes as the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) added a critical improper access control flaw ( CVE-2023-27350 , CVSS score: 9.8) in PaperCut MF and NG to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, based on evidence of active exploitation. Cybersecurity company Huntress, which found about 1,800 publicly exposed PaperCut servers, said it observed PowerShell commands being spawned from PaperCut software to install remote management and maintenance (RMM) software like Atera an...

Lazarus, the prolific North Korean hacking group behind the cascading  supply chain attack targeting 3CX , also breached two critical infrastructure organizations in the power and energy sector and two other businesses involved in financial trading using the trojanized X_TRADER application. The new findings, which come courtesy of  Symantec's Threat Hunter Team , confirm earlier suspicions that the X_TRADER application compromise affected more organizations than 3CX. The names of the organizations were not revealed. Eric Chien, director of security response at Broadcom-owned Symantec, told The Hacker News in a statement that the attacks took place between September 2022 and November 2022. "The impact from these infections is unknown at this time – more investigation is required and is on-going," Chien said, adding it's possible that there's "likely more to this story and possibly even other packages that are trojanized." The development comes as Ma...

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Friday added three security flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities ( KEV ) catalog, based on evidence of active exploitation. The  three vulnerabilities  are as follows - CVE-2023-28432  (CVSS score - 7.5) - MinIO Information Disclosure Vulnerability  CVE-2023-27350  (CVSS score - 9.8) - PaperCut MF/NG Improper Access Control Vulnerability CVE-2023-2136  (CVSS score - TBD) - Google Chrome Skia Integer Overflow Vulnerability "In a cluster deployment, MinIO returns all environment variables, including MINIO_SECRET_KEY and MINIO_ROOT_PASSWORD, resulting in information disclosure," MinIO maintainers  said  in an advisory published on March 21, 2023. Data gathered by GreyNoise shows that as many as  18 unique malicious IP addresses  from the U.S., the Netherlands, France, Japan, and Finland have  attempted to exploit  the flaw over the past 30 days. ...

A large-scale attack campaign discovered in the wild has been exploiting Kubernetes (K8s) Role-Based Access Control ( RBAC ) to create backdoors and run cryptocurrency miners. "The attackers also deployed DaemonSets to take over and hijack resources of the K8s clusters they attack," cloud security firm Aqua said in a report shared with The Hacker News. The Israeli company, which dubbed the attack  RBAC Buster , said it found 60 exposed K8s clusters that have been exploited by the threat actor behind this campaign. The attack chain commenced with the attacker gaining initial access via a misconfigured API server, followed by checking for evidence of competing miner malware on the compromised server, and then using RBAC to set up persistence. "The attacker created a new ClusterRole with near admin-level privileges," the company said. "Next, the attacker created a 'ServiceAccount', 'kube-controller' in the 'kube-system' namespace. Las...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a now-patched zero-day flaw in Google Cloud Platform (GCP) that could have enabled threat actors to conceal an unremovable, malicious application inside a victim's Google account. Dubbed GhostToken by Israeli cybersecurity startup Astrix Security, the shortcoming impacts all Google accounts, including enterprise-focused Workspace accounts. It was discovered and reported to Google on June 19, 2022. The company deployed a global-patch more than nine months later on April 7, 2023. "The vulnerability [...] allows attackers to gain permanent and unremovable access to a victim's Google account by converting an already authorized third-party application into a malicious trojan app, leaving the victim's personal data exposed forever," Astrix  said  in a report. In a nutshell, the flaw makes it possible for an attacker to hide their malicious app from a victim's Google account  application management page , the...

Recently, Andrew Martin, founder and CEO of ControlPlane, released a report entitled Cloud Native and Kubernetes Security Predictions 2023. These predictions underscore the rapidly evolving landscape of Kubernetes and cloud security, emphasizing the need for organizations to stay informed and adopt comprehensive security solutions to protect their digital assets. In response,  Uptycs , the first unified CNAPP and XDR platform, released a whitepaper, " 14 Kubernetes and Cloud Security Predictions for 2023 and How Uptycs Meets Them Head-On " addressing the most pressing challenges and trends in Kubernetes and cloud security for 2023. Uptycs explains how their unified CNAPP and XDR solution is designed to tackle these emerging challenges head-on.  Read on for key takeaways from the whitepaper and learn how Uptycs helps modern organizations successfully navigate the evolving landscape of Kubernetes and cloud security.  14 Kubernetes and Cloud Security Predictions for 2023...

The supply chain attack targeting 3CX was the result of a prior supply chain compromise associated with a different company, demonstrating a new level of sophistication with North Korean threat actors. Google-owned Mandiant, which is  tracking  the attack event under the moniker  UNC4736 ,  said  the incident marks the first time it has seen a "software supply chain attack lead to another software supply chain attack." The Matryoshka doll-style cascading attack against 3CX first came to light on March 29, 2023, when it  emerged  that Windows and macOS versions of its communication software were trojanized to deliver a C/C++-based data miner named ICONIC Stealer by means of a downloader, SUDDENICON, that used icon files hosted on GitHub to extract the server containing the stealer. "The malicious application next attempts to steal sensitive information from the victim user's web browser," the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CI...

Cisco and VMware have released security updates to address critical security flaws in their products that could be exploited by malicious actors to execute arbitrary code on affected systems. The most severe of the vulnerabilities is a command injection flaw  in Cisco Industrial Network Director  (CVE-2023-20036, CVSS score: 9.9), which resides in the web UI component and arises as a result of improper input validation when  uploading a Device Pack . "A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary commands as NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM on the underlying operating system of an affected device," Cisco  said  in an advisory released on April 19, 2023. The networking equipment major also resolved a medium-severity file permissions vulnerability in the same product (CVE-2023-20039, CVSS score: 5.5) that an authenticated, local attacker could abuse to view sensitive information. Patches have been made available in  version 1.11.3 , with Cisco c...

A chain of two critical flaws has been disclosed in Alibaba Cloud's ApsaraDB RDS for PostgreSQL and AnalyticDB for PostgreSQL that could be exploited to breach tenant isolation protections and access sensitive data belonging to other customers. "The vulnerabilities potentially allowed unauthorized access to Alibaba Cloud customers' PostgreSQL databases and the ability to perform a supply chain attack on both Alibaba database services, leading to an RCE on Alibaba database services," cloud security firm Wiz  said  in a new report shared with The Hacker News. The  issues , dubbed  BrokenSesame , were reported to Alibaba Cloud in December 2022, following mitigations were deployed by the company on April 12, 2023. There is no evidence to suggest that the weaknesses were exploited in the wild. In a nutshell, the vulnerabilities – a privilege escalation flaw in AnalyticDB and a remote code execution bug in ApsaraDB RDS – made it possible to elevate privileges to root ...