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GitLab has released security updates for Community Edition (CE) and Enterprise Edition (EE) to address eight security flaws, including a critical bug that could allow running Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) pipelines on arbitrary branches. Tracked as CVE-2024-9164, the vulnerability carries a CVSS score of 9.6 out of 10. "An issue was discovered in GitLab EE affecting all versions starting from 12.5 prior to 17.2.9, starting from 17.3, prior to 17.3.5, and starting from 17.4 prior to 17.4.2, which allows running pipelines on arbitrary branches," GitLab said in an advisory. Of the remaining seven issues, four are rated high, two are rated medium, and one is rated low in severity - CVE-2024-8970 (CVSS score: 8.2), which allows an attacker to trigger a pipeline as another user under certain circumstances CVE-2024-8977 (CVSS score: 8.2), which allows SSRF attacks in GitLab EE instances with Product Analytics Dashboard configured and enabled CVE-...

The Dutch police have announced the takedown of Bohemia and Cannabia, which has been described as the world's largest and longest-running dark web market for illegal goods, drugs, and cybercrime services. The takedown is the result of a collaborative investigation with Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States that began towards the end of 2022, the Politie said. The marketplace discontinued its operations in late 2023 following reports of service disruptions and exit scams after one of its developers allegedly went rogue in what was characterized by one of the administrators as a "shameful and disgruntled set of events." Bohemia is said to have served 82,000 ads worldwide every day, with about 67,000 transactions taking place each month. In September 2023 alone, the estimated turnover was €12 million. "Some of the sellers in the market advertised shipping from the Netherlands," the Politie said . "An initial analysis shows that at least 14...

OpenAI on Wednesday said it has disrupted more than 20 operations and deceptive networks across the world that attempted to use its platform for malicious purposes since the start of the year. This activity encompassed debugging malware, writing articles for websites, generating biographies for social media accounts, and creating AI-generated profile pictures for fake accounts on X. "Threat actors continue to evolve and experiment with our models, but we have not seen evidence of this leading to meaningful breakthroughs in their ability to create substantially new malware or build viral audiences," the artificial intelligence (AI) company said . It also said it disrupted activity that generated social media content related to elections in the U.S., Rwanda, and to a lesser extent India and the European Union, and that none of these networks attracted viral engagement or sustained audiences. This included efforts undertaken by an Israeli commercial company named STOIC (als...

Cybersecurity researchers are warning about an unpatched vulnerability in Nice Linear eMerge E3 access controller systems that could allow for the execution of arbitrary operating system (OS) commands. The flaw, assigned the CVE identifier CVE-2024-9441 , carries a CVSS score of 9.8 out of a maximum of 10.0, according to VulnCheck . "A vulnerability in the Nortek Linear eMerge E3 allows remote unauthenticated attackers to cause the device to execute arbitrary command," SSD Disclosure said in an advisory for the flaw released late last month, stating the vendor has yet to provide a fix or a workaround. The flaw impacts the following versions of Nortek Linear eMerge E3 Access Control: 0.32-03i, 0.32-04m, 0.32-05p, 0.32-05z, 0.32-07p, 0.32-07e, 0.32-08e, 0.32-08f, 0.32-09c, 1.00.05, and 1.00.07. Proof-of-concept (PoC) exploits for the flaw have been released following public disclosure, raising concerns that it could be exploited by threat actors. It's worth noting ...

The current SOC model relies on a scarce resource: human analysts. These professionals are expensive, in high demand, and increasingly difficult to retain. Their work is not only highly technical and high-risk, but also soul-crushingly repetitive, dealing with a constant flood of alerts and incidents. As a result, SOC analysts often leave in search of better pay, the opportunity to move beyond the SOC into more rewarding roles, or simply to take much-needed breaks. This high churn rate puts the SOC in a vulnerable position, jeopardizing the overall effectiveness of cybersecurity operations. To keep your team resilient and maintain operational efficiency, it's essential to take proactive steps to reduce burnout and improve retention. Here are five strategies that can make a difference. Why Analyst Burnout Matters More Than Ever SOC analyst burnout is becoming a critical issue as the cybersecurity landscape evolves. Security Operations Centers (SOCs) face a growing number of daily al...

Cybersecurity researchers have shed light on a new digital skimmer campaign that leverages Unicode obfuscation techniques to conceal a skimmer dubbed Mongolian Skimmer. "At first glance, the thing that stood out was the script's obfuscation, which seemed a bit bizarre because of all the accented characters," Jscrambler researchers said in an analysis. "The heavy use of Unicode characters, many of them invisible, does make the code very hard to read for humans." The script, at its core, has been found to leverage JavaScript's capability to use any Unicode character in identifiers to hide the malicious functionality. The end goal of the malware is to steal sensitive data entered on e-commerce checkout or admin pages, including financial information, which are then exfiltrated to an attacker-controlled server. The skimmer, which typically manifests in the form of an inline script on compromised sites that fetches the actual payload from an external serv...

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Wednesday added a critical security flaw impacting Fortinet products to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities ( KEV ) catalog, citing evidence of active exploitation. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-23113 (CVSS score: 9.8), relates to a case of remote code execution that affects FortiOS, FortiPAM, FortiProxy, and FortiWeb. "A use of externally-controlled format string vulnerability [CWE-134] in FortiOS fgfmd daemon may allow a remote unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary code or commands via specially crafted requests," Fortinet noted in an advisory for the flaw back in February 2024. As is typically the case, the bulletin is sparse on details related to how the shortcoming is being exploited in the wild, or who is weaponizing it and against whom. In light of active exploitation, Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agencies are mandated to apply the vendor-provided mitigations by Oc...

Mozilla has revealed that a critical security flaw impacting Firefox and Firefox Extended Support Release (ESR) has come under active exploitation in the wild. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-9680 (CVSS score: 9.8), has been described as a use-after-free bug in the Animation timeline component. "An attacker was able to achieve code execution in the content process by exploiting a use-after-free in Animation timelines," Mozilla said in a Wednesday advisory.  "We have had reports of this vulnerability being exploited in the wild." Security researcher Damien Schaeffer from Slovakian company ESET has been credited with discovering and reporting the vulnerability. The issue has been addressed in the following versions of the web browser -  Firefox 131.0.2 Firefox ESR 128.3.1, and Firefox ESR 115.16.1. There are currently no details on how the vulnerability is being exploited in real-world attacks and the identity of the threat actors behind them. T...

Google on Wednesday announced a new partnership with the Global Anti-Scam Alliance ( GASA ) and DNS Research Federation ( DNS RF ) to combat online scams . The initiative, which has been codenamed the Global Signal Exchange ( GSE ), is designed to create real-time insights into scams, fraud, and other forms of cybercrime pooling together threat signals from different data sources in order to create more visibility into the facilitators of cybercrime. "By joining forces and establishing a centralized platform, GSE aims to improve the exchange of abuse signals, enabling faster identification and disruption of fraudulent activities across various sectors, platforms and services," Google said in a blog post shared with The Hacker News. "The goal is to create a user-friendly, efficient solution that operates at an internet-scale, and is accessible to qualifying organizations, with GASA and the DNS Research Federation managing access." The tech giant said it has sh...

Details have emerged about multiple security vulnerabilities in two implementations of the Manufacturing Message Specification ( MMS ) protocol that, if successfully exploited, could have severe impacts in industrial environments. "The vulnerabilities could allow an attacker to crash an industrial device or in some cases, enable remote code execution," Claroty researchers Mashav Sapir and Vera Mens said in a new analysis. MMS is an OSI application layer messaging protocol that enables remote control and monitoring of industrial devices by exchanging supervisory control information in an application-agnostic manner. Specifically, it allows for communication between intelligent electronic devices ( IEDs ) and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems or programmable logic controllers (PLCs). The five shortcomings identified by the operational technology security company impact MZ Automation's libIEC61850 library and Triangle MicroWorks' TMW IEC 61...

Threat actors with ties to North Korea have been observed targeting job seekers in the tech industry to deliver updated versions of known malware families tracked as BeaverTail and InvisibleFerret. The activity cluster, tracked as CL-STA-0240, is part of a campaign dubbed Contagious Interview that Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 first disclosed in November 2023. "The threat actor behind CL-STA-0240 contacts software developers through job search platforms by posing as a prospective employer," Unit 42 said in a new report. "The attackers invite the victim to participate in an online interview, where the threat actor attempts to convince the victim to download and install malware." The first stage of infection involves the BeaverTail downloader and information stealer that's designed for targeting both Windows and Apple macOS platforms. The malware acts as a conduit for the Python-based InvisibleFerret backdoor. There is evidence to suggest that the activity ...

Social media accounts help shape a brand's identity and reputation. These public forums engage directly with customers as they are a hub to connect, share content and answer questions. However, despite the high profile role these accounts have, many organizations overlook social media account security. Many lack the safeguards to prevent unauthorized access — a situation no organization wants as it can quickly spiral to include reputational damage and financial losses.  With the impact this high, the need for deep understanding of social media risks as well as how to protect an organization's social media account are more crucial than ever. This article dives into the details of social media accounts, how social media can be misused and how to protect oneself. Understanding the Layers of Social Media Access Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn typically have two layers of access.  The Public Facing Page : where brands post content and engage with users. ...

Microsoft has released security updates to fix a total of 118 vulnerabilities across its software portfolio, two of which have come under active exploitation in the wild. Of the 118 flaws, three are rated Critical, 113 are rated Important, and two are rated Moderate in severity. The Patch Tuesday update doesn't include the 25 additional flaws that the tech giant addressed in its Chromium-based Edge browser over the past month. Five of the vulnerabilities are listed as publicly known at the time of release, with two of them coming under active exploitation as a zero-day - CVE-2024-43572 (CVSS score: 7.8) - Microsoft Management Console Remote Code Execution Vulnerability (Exploitation detected) CVE-2024-43573 (CVSS score: 6.5) - Windows MSHTML Platform Spoofing Vulnerability (Exploitation Detected) CVE-2024-43583 (CVSS score: 7.8) - Winlogon Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability CVE-2024-20659 (CVSS score: 7.1) - Windows Hyper-V Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability CVE...

Microsoft is warning of cyber attack campaigns that abuse legitimate file hosting services such as SharePoint, OneDrive, and Dropbox that are widely used in enterprise environments as a defense evasion tactic. The end goal of the campaigns are broad and varied, allowing threat actors to compromise identities and devices and conduct business email compromise ( BEC ) attacks, which ultimately result in financial fraud, data exfiltration, and lateral movement to other endpoints. The weaponization of legitimate internet services (LIS) is an increasingly popular risk vector adopted by adversaries to blend in with legitimate network traffic in a manner such that it often bypasses traditional security defenses and complicates attribution efforts. The approach is also called living-off-trusted-sites (LOTS), as it leverages the trust and familiarity of these services to sidestep email security guardrails and deliver malware. Microsoft said it has been observing a new trend in phishing c...

Ivanti has warned that three new security vulnerabilities impacting its Cloud Service Appliance (CSA) have come under active exploitation in the wild. The zero-day flaws are being weaponized in conjunction with another flaw in CSA that the company patched last month, the Utah-based software services provider said. Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities could allow an authenticated attacker with admin privileges to bypass restrictions, run arbitrary SQL statements, or obtain remote code execution. "We are aware of a limited number of customers running CSA 4.6 patch 518 and prior who have been exploited when CVE-2024-9379, CVE-2024-9380, or CVE-2024-9381 are chained with CVE-2024-8963," the company said . There is no evidence of exploitation against customer environments running CSA 5.0. A brief description of the three shortcomings is as follows - CVE-2024-9379 (CVSS score: 6.5) - SQL injection in the admin web console of Ivanti CSA before version 5.0.2 all...