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A new malvertising campaign has been observed distributing an updated version of a macOS stealer malware called  Atomic Stealer  (or AMOS), indicating that it's being actively maintained by its author. An off-the-shelf Golang malware available for $1,000 per month, Atomic Stealer  first came  to light in April 2023. Shortly after that, new variants with an expanded set of information-gathering features were detected in the wild, targeting gamers and cryptocurrency users. Malvertising via Google Ads has been observed as the primary distribution vector in which users searching for popular software, legitimate or cracked, on search engines are shown bogus ads that direct to websites hosting rogue installers. The latest campaign involves the use of a fraudulent website for TradingView, prominently featuring three buttons to download the software for Windows, macOS, and Linux operating systems. "Both the Windows and Linux buttons point to an MSIX installer hosted on...

By the end of 2024, the number of MSPs and MSSPs offering vCISO services is expected to grow by almost 5 fold, as can be seen in figure 1. This incredible surge reflects the growing business demand for specialized cybersecurity expertise and the lucrative opportunities for MSPs and MSSPs in vCISO services. Figure 1: Timeline for offering vCISO services The State of the Virtual CISO Survey Report  by Global Surveyz, an independent survey company, which was commissioned by Cynomi, provides a deep understanding of the challenges facing MSPs and MSSPs today. The report shares insights from 200 security and IT leaders in MSPs and MSSPs of all sizes, all of which are security-focused. It shines a light on the growing trend of the vCISO offering, including the reasons behind this trend, potential blockers for MSPs/MSSPs and how to overcome them. 480% Expected Increase in vCISO Service Offerings Currently, only 19% of MSPs and MSSPs are offering vCISO services. This relatively low per...

Patches have been released to address two new security vulnerabilities in Apache Superset  that could be exploited by an attacker to gain remote code execution on affected systems. The update (version 2.1.1) plugs  CVE-2023-39265  and  CVE-2023-37941 , which make it possible to conduct nefarious actions once a bad actor is able to gain control of Superset's metadata database. Outside of these weaknesses, the latest version of Superset also remediates a separate improper REST API permission issue ( CVE-2023-36388 ) that allows for low-privilege users to carry out server-side request forgery ( SSRF ) attacks. "Superset by design allows privileged users to connect to arbitrary databases and execute arbitrary SQL queries against those databases using the powerful SQLLab interface," Horizon3.ai's Naveen Sunkavally  said  in a technical write-up. "If Superset can be tricked into connecting to its own metadata database, an attacker can directly read or w...

A  Mirai botnet  variant called  Pandora  has been observed infiltrating inexpensive Android-based TV sets and TV boxes and using them as part of a botnet to perform distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. Doctor Web said the compromises are likely to occur either during malicious firmware updates or when applications for viewing pirated video content are installed. "It is likely that this update has been made available for download from a number of websites, as it is signed with publicly available Android Open Source Project test keys," the Russian company  said  in an analysis published Wednesday. "The service that runs the backdoor is included in boot.img," enabling it to persist between system restarts. In the alternative distribution methods, it's suspected that users are tricked into installing applications for streaming pirated movies and TV shows through websites that mainly single out Spanish-speaking users. The list of apps is as foll...

Microsoft on Wednesday revealed that a China-based threat actor known as  Storm-0558  acquired the inactive consumer signing key to forge tokens and access Outlook by compromising an engineer's corporate account. This enabled the adversary to access a debugging environment that contained information pertaining to a crash of the consumer signing system and steal the key. The system crash took place in April 2021. "A consumer signing system crash in April of 2021 resulted in a snapshot of the crashed process ('crash dump')," the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC)  said  in a post-mortem report. "The crash dumps, which redact sensitive information, should not include the signing key. In this case, a race condition allowed the key to be present in the crash dump. The key material's presence in the crash dump was not detected by our systems." The Windows maker said the crash dump was moved to a debugging environment on the internet-connected corporate network...

Google has rolled out monthly security patches for Android to address a number of flaws, including a zero-day bug that it said may have been exploited in the wild. Tracked as  CVE-2023-35674 , the high-severity vulnerability is described as a case of privilege escalation impacting the  Android Framework . "There are indications that CVE-2023-35674 may be under limited, targeted exploitation," the company  said  in its Android Security Bulletin for September 2023 without delving into additional specifics. The update also addresses three other privilege escalation flaws in Framework, with the search giant noting that the most severe of these issues "could lead to local escalation of privilege with no additional execution privileges needed" sans any user interaction. Google said it has further plugged a critical security vulnerability in the System component that could lead to remote code execution without requiring interaction on the part of the victim. "The sev...

The Iranian threat actor tracked as APT34 has been linked to a new phishing attack that leads to the deployment of a variant of a backdoor called  SideTwist . "APT34 has a high level of attack technology, can design different intrusion methods for different types of targets, and has supply chain attack capability," NSFOCUS Security Labs  said  in a report published last week. APT34, also known by the names Cobalt Gypsy, Hazel Sandstorm (formerly Europium), Helix Kitten, and OilRig, has a  track record  of targeting telecommunications, government, defense, oil and financial services verticals in the Middle East since at least 2014 via spear-phishing lures that culminate in the deployment of various backdoors. One of the key traits of the hacking outfit is its ability to create new and updated tools to minimize the odds of detection and gain a foothold on compromised hosts for extended periods of time. SideTwist was  first documented  as used by AP...

The role of the CISO keeps taking center stage as a business enabler: CISOs need to navigate the complex landscape of digital threats while fostering innovation and ensuring business continuity. Three CISOs; Troy Wilkinson, CISO at IPG; Rob Geurtsen, former Deputy CISO at Nike; and Tammy Moskites, Founder of CyAlliance and former CISO at companies like Time Warner and Home Depot – shared their perspectives on how to run an effective SOC in 2023. 1) Prioritize Cost Efficiency While Remaining 'Secure' As a world-renowned speaker, a co-author of an Amazon Best Seller, and a trusted commentator on prominent news networks such as NBC, CBS, and Fox, Troy Wilkinson, knows a thing or two about cybersecurity. When adopting new technologies, Troy reinforces that CISOs don't have the luxury of waiting months or years to see the value of new investments; "Time to Value is critical. New solutions need to deliver value quickly." Rob Geurtsen, former Deputy CISO at Nike,  jo...

Nine security flaws have been disclosed in electric power management products made by Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories (SEL). "The most severe of those nine vulnerabilities would allow a threat actor to facilitate remote code execution (RCE) on an engineering workstation," Nozomi Networks  said  in a report published last week. The issues, tracked as CVE-2023-34392 and from CVE-2023-31168 through CVE-2023-31175, have CVSS severity scores ranging from 4.8 to 8.8 and impact SEL-5030 acSELeratorQuickSet and SEL-5037 GridConfigurator, which are used to commission, configure, and monitor the devices. Exploitation of CVE-2023-31171 could be achieved by sending a phishing email that tricks a victim engineer into importing a specially crafted configuration file to achieve arbitrary code execution on the engineering workstation running the SEL software. What's more, the shortcoming can be chained with CVE-2023-31175 to obtain administrative privileges on the target workstation...

A previously undocumented "phishing empire" has been linked to cyber attacks aimed at compromising Microsoft 365 business email accounts over the past six years. "The threat actor created a hidden underground market, named W3LL Store, that served a closed community of at least 500 threat actors who could purchase a custom phishing kit called W3LL Panel, designed to bypass MFA, as well as 16 other fully customized tools for business email compromise (BEC) attacks," Group-IB  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. The phishing infrastructure is estimated to have targeted more than 56,000 corporate Microsoft 365 accounts and compromised at least 8,000 of them, primarily in the U.S., the U.K., Australia, Germany, Canada, France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Italy between October 2022 and July 2023, netting its operators $500,000 in illicit profits. Some of the prominent sectors infiltrated using the phishing solution include manufacturing, IT, consultin...

The Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA) on Tuesday said it thwarted a cyber attack against an unnamed critical energy infrastructure facility in the country. The intrusion, per the agency, started with a phishing email containing a link to a malicious ZIP archive that activates the infection chain. "Visiting the link will download a ZIP archive containing three JPG images (decoys) and a BAT file 'weblinks.cmd' to the victim's computer," CERT-UA  said , attributing it to the Russian threat actor known as  APT28  (aka BlueDelta, Fancy Bear, Forest Blizzard, or FROZENLAKE). "When a CMD file is run, several decoy web pages will be opened, .bat and .vbs files will be created, and a VBS file will be launched, which in turn will execute the BAT file." The next phase of the attack involves running the "whoami" command on the compromised host and exfiltrating the information, alongside downloading the TOR hidden service to route malicious traffic. Persiste...

An updated version of a malware loader known as BLISTER is being used as part of SocGholish infection chains to distribute an open-source command-and-control (C2) framework called  Mythic . "New BLISTER update includes keying feature that allows for precise targeting of victim networks and lowers exposure within VM/sandbox environments," Elastic Security Labs researchers Salim Bitam and Daniel Stepanic  said  in a technical report published late last month. BLISTER was  first uncovered  by the company in December 2021 acting as a conduit to distribute Cobalt Strike and BitRAT payloads on compromised systems. The use of the malware alongside  SocGholish  (aka FakeUpdates), a JavaScript-based downloader malware, to deliver Mythic was  previously disclosed  by Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 in July 2023. In these attacks, BLISTER is embedded within a legitimate VLC Media Player library in an attempt to get around security software and infiltrat...

Banking and logistics industries are under the onslaught of a reworked variant of a malware called  Chaes . "It has undergone major overhauls: from being rewritten entirely in Python, which resulted in lower detection rates by traditional defense systems, to a comprehensive redesign and an enhanced communication protocol," Morphisec said in a new detailed technical write-up shared with The Hacker News. Chaes, which first emerged in 2020, is known to target e-commerce customers in Latin America, particularly Brazil, to steal sensitive financial information. A subsequent analysis from Avast in early 2022  found  that the threat actors behind the operation, who call themselves Lucifer, had breached more than 800 WordPress websites to deliver Chaes to users of Banco do Brasil, Loja Integrada, Mercado Bitcoin, Mercado Livre, and Mercado Pago. Further updates were detected in December 2022, when Brazilian cybersecurity company Tempest Security Intelligence  uncovered...

In today's digital age, it's not just about being online but how securely your organization operates online. Regardless of size or industry, every organization heavily depends on digital assets. The digital realm is where business takes place, from financial transactions to confidential data storage. While organizations have quickly adopted tools like Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), Privileged Access Management (PAM), and service account protection, a pressing question remains: Are these measures truly sufficient? With the rise of identity threats, the real battleground has shifted. It's no longer just about firewalls or encryptions but the very identities that access these digital assets. Every day, attackers devise new strategies to compromise user identities to find that weak link to gain malicious access. The tools we've come to rely on might not be as foolproof as we once believed. Many organizations remain unaware of vast security gaps, exposing them to pot...

IBM's 2023 installment of their annual " Cost of a Breach " report has thrown up some interesting trends. Of course, breaches being costly is no longer news at this stage! What's interesting is the difference in how organizations respond to threats and which technologies are helping reduce the costs associated with every IT team's nightmare scenario.  The average cost of a breach rose once again to $4.45 million, increasing 15% over the last three years. Costs associated with escalation and detection have rocketed up 42% during the same period. With that in mind, I was surprised to learn that only 51% of the breached entities surveyed by IBM decided to bolster their security investments, despite the rising financial consequences of dealing with a breach. Headline stats around breach costs are interesting – but can digging into these trends actually help you save money? Organizations want to know where to invest their security budget and which technologies offer the bes...

The North Korean threat actor known as  Andariel  has been observed employing an arsenal of malicious tools in its cyber assaults against corporations and organizations in the southern counterpart. "One characteristic of the attacks identified in 2023 is that there are numerous malware strains developed in the Go language," the AhnLab Security Emergency Response Center (ASEC)  said  in a deep dive released last week. Andariel, also known by the names Nickel Hyatt or Silent Chollima, is a sub-cluster of the  Lazarus Group  that's known to be active since at least 2008. Financial institutions, defense contractors, government agencies, universities, cybersecurity vendors, and energy companies are among the top targets for the state-sponsored group to fund espionage activities and illegally generate revenue for the country. Attack chains mounted by the adversary have leveraged a variety of initial infection vectors, such as spear-phishing, watering holes, ...

Meta has disclosed that it disrupted two of the largest known covert influence operations in the world from China and Russia, blocking thousands of accounts and pages across its platform. "It targeted more than 50 apps, including Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), YouTube, TikTok, Reddit, Pinterest, Medium, Blogspot, LiveJournal, VKontakte, Vimeo, and dozens of smaller platforms and forums," Guy Rosen, chief information security officer at Meta, said last week, describing the Chinese disinformation group. The network, which included 7,704 Facebook accounts, 954 Pages, 15 Groups and 15 Instagram accounts, is said to have been run by "geographically dispersed operators" across China, posting content about China and its province Xinjiang, criticism of the U.S, Western foreign policies, and critics of the Chinese government. Central to the activity is the sharing of spammy links, the origins of which trace back to a cluster named Spamouflage (aka DRAGONBRIDGE ) that has been...

An unknown threat actor has been observed weaponizing high-severity security flaws in the MinIO high-performance object storage system to achieve unauthorized code execution on affected servers. Cybersecurity and incident response firm Security Joes said the intrusion leveraged a publicly available exploit chain to backdoor the MinIO instance. The comprises  CVE-2023-28432  (CVSS score: 7.5) and  CVE-2023-28434  (CVSS score: 8.8), the former of which was  added  to the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency's (CISA) Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog on April 21, 2023. The two vulnerabilities "possess the potential to expose sensitive information present within the compromised installation and facilitate remote code execution (RCE) on the host where the MinIO application is operational," Security Joes  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. In the attack chain investigated by the company, the flaws are said ...

X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, has updated its privacy policy to collect users' biometric data to tackle fraud and impersonation on the platform. "Based on your consent, we may collect and use your biometric information for safety, security, and identification purposes," the company  said . The revised policy is expected to go into effect on September 29, 2023. The social media behemoth told Bloomberg, which  first reported  the development, that the change is limited to premium users and that a biometric matching process "will also help X fight impersonation attempts and make the platform more secure." To that end, users will be given the option to provide government ID and a picture for identity matching or verification using biometric data, the company told the publication. However, there is currently no clarity on how it plans to collect it and for how long such information will be retained in its systems. The policy update is also expected ...