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This week was a total digital dumpster fire! Hackers were like, "Let's cause some chaos!" and went after everything from our browsers to those fancy cameras that zoom and spin. (You know, the ones they use in spy movies? 🕵️‍♀️) We're talking password-stealing bots, sneaky extensions that spy on you, and even cloud-hacking ninjas! 🥷 It's enough to make you want to chuck your phone in the ocean. (But don't do that, you need it to read this newsletter!) The good news? We've got the inside scoop on all the latest drama. Think of this newsletter as your cheat sheet for surviving the digital apocalypse. We'll break down the biggest threats and give you the knowledge to outsmart those pesky hackers. Let's go! ⚡ Threat of the Week North Korean Hackers Deploy Play Ransomware: In what's a sign of blurring boundaries between nation-state groups and cybercrime actors, it has emerged that the North Korean state-sponsored hacking crew called Andariel ...

As the holiday season approaches, retail businesses are gearing up for their annual surge in online (and in-store) traffic. Unfortunately, this increase in activity also attracts cybercriminals looking to exploit vulnerabilities for their gain.  Imperva, a Thales company, recently published its annual holiday shopping cybersecurity guide . Data from the Imperva Threat Research team's six-month analysis (April 2024 – September 2024) revealed that AI-driven threats need to be top of mind for retailers this year. As generative AI tools and large language models (LLMs) become more widespread and advanced, cybercriminals are increasingly leveraging these technologies to scale and refine their attacks on eCommerce platforms. Imperva Threat Research also found that retail sites collectively experience an average of 569,884 AI-driven attacks each day. Understanding what types of threats are accounting for these attacks, and how to protect against them, is critical for retail businesses ...

Google said it discovered a zero-day vulnerability in the SQLite open-source database engine using its large language model (LLM) assisted framework called Big Sleep (formerly Project Naptime). The tech giant described the development as the "first real-world vulnerability" uncovered using the artificial intelligence (AI) agent. "We believe this is the first public example of an AI agent finding a previously unknown exploitable memory-safety issue in widely used real-world software," the Big Sleep team said in a blog post shared with The Hacker News. The vulnerability in question is a stack buffer underflow in SQLite, which occurs when a piece of software references a memory location prior to the beginning of the memory buffer, thereby resulting in a crash or arbitrary code execution. "This typically occurs when a pointer or its index is decremented to a position before the buffer, when pointer arithmetic results in a position before the beginning of t...

Python supply chain attacks are surging in 2025. Join our webinar to learn how to secure your code, dependencies, and runtime with modern tools and strategies.

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new version of a well-known Android malware family dubbed FakeCall that employs voice phishing (aka vishing) techniques to trick users into parting with their personal information. "FakeCall is an extremely sophisticated Vishing attack that leverages malware to take almost complete control of the mobile device, including the interception of incoming and outgoing calls," Zimperium researcher Fernando Ortega said in a report published last week. "Victims are tricked into calling fraudulent phone numbers controlled by the attacker and mimicking the normal user experience on the device." FakeCall, also tracked under the names FakeCalls and Letscall, has been the subject of multiple analyses by Kaspersky, Check Point , and ThreatFabric since its emergence in April 2022. Previous attack waves have primarily targeted mobile users in South Korea. The names of the malicious package names, i.e., dropper apps, bearing the ma...

Did you know that advanced threat actors can infiltrate the identity systems of major organizations and extract sensitive data within days? It's a chilling reality, becoming more common and concerning by the day. These attackers exploit vulnerabilities in SaaS and cloud environments, using compromised identities to move laterally within networks, causing widespread damage. Cybersecurity and IT professionals now face an uphill battle against these sophisticated threats. Traditional security measures are proving insufficient, leaving organizations vulnerable to data breaches, financial losses, and reputational harm. This webinar provides crucial insights and actionable strategies to help safeguard your organization against these evolving threats. Join us to hear from a renowned expert with firsthand experience in cyber defense. Ian Ahl, SVP of P0 Labs and former Head of Advanced Practices at Mandiant, brings extensive experience from responding to hundreds of breaches. He will shar...

U.S. and Israeli cybersecurity agencies have published a new advisory attributing an Iranian cyber group to targeting the 2024 Summer Olympics and compromising a French commercial dynamic display provider to show messages denouncing Israel's participation in the sporting event. The activity has been pinned on an entity that's known as Emennet Pasargad , which the agencies said has been operating under the cover name Aria Sepehr Ayandehsazan (ASA) since mid-2024. It's tracked by the broader cybersecurity community as Cotton Sandstorm, Haywire Kitten, and Marnanbridge. "The group exhibited new tradecraft in its efforts to conduct cyber-enabled information operations into mid-2024 using a myriad of cover personas, including multiple cyber operations that occurred during and targeting the 2024 Summer Olympics – including the compromise of a French commercial dynamic display provider," according to the advisory . ASA, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),...

Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a "massive" campaign that targets exposed Git configurations to siphon credentials, clone private repositories, and even extract cloud credentials from the source code. The activity, codenamed EMERALDWHALE , is estimated to have collected over 10,000 private repositories and stored in an Amazon S3 storage bucket belonging to a prior victim. The bucket, consisting of no less than 15,000 stolen credentials, has since been taken down by Amazon. "The stolen credentials belong to Cloud Service Providers (CSPs), Email providers, and other services," Sysdig said in a report. "Phishing and spam seem to be the primary goal of stealing the credentials." The multi-faceted criminal operation, while not sophisticated, has been found to leverage an arsenal of private tools to steal credentials as well as scrape Git config files, Laravel .env files, and raw web data. It has not been attributed to any known threat actor or grou...

With so many SaaS applications, a range of configuration options, API capabilities, endless integrations, and app-to-app connections, the SaaS risk possibilities are endless. Critical organizational assets and data are at risk from malicious actors, data breaches, and insider threats, which pose many challenges for security teams. Misconfigurations are silent killers, leading to major vulnerabilities. So, how can CISOs reduce the noise? What misconfiguration should security teams focus on first? Here are five major SaaS configuration mistakes that can lead to security breaches. #1 Misconfiguration: HelpDesk Admins Have Excessive Privileges Risk: Help desk teams have access to sensitive account management functions making them prime targets for attackers. Attackers can exploit this by convincing help desk personnel to reset MFA for privileged users, gaining unauthorized access to critical systems. Impact: Compromised help desk accounts can lead to unauthorized changes to admin-...

Microsoft has revealed that a Chinese threat actor it tracks as Storm-0940 is leveraging a botnet called Quad7 to orchestrate highly evasive password spray attacks. The tech giant has given the botnet the name CovertNetwork-1658, stating the password spray operations are used to steal credentials from multiple Microsoft customers. "Active since at least 2021, Storm-0940 obtains initial access through password spray and brute-force attacks, or by exploiting or misusing network edge applications and services," the Microsoft Threat Intelligence team said . "Storm-0940 is known to target organizations in North America and Europe, including think tanks, government organizations, non-governmental organizations, law firms, defense industrial base, and others." Quad7, aka 7777 or xlogin, has been the subject of extensive analyses by Sekoia and Team Cymru in recent months. The botnet malware has been observed targeting several brands of SOHO routers and VPN appliances...

Microsoft is further delaying the release of its controversial Recall feature for Windows Copilot+ PCs, stating it's taking the time to improve the experience. The development was first reported by The Verge. The artificial intelligence-powered tool was initially slated for a preview release starting in October. "We are committed to delivering a secure and trusted experience with Recall," the company said in an updated statement released Thursday. "To ensure we deliver on these important updates, we're taking additional time to refine the experience before previewing it with Windows Insiders. Originally planned for October, Recall will now be available for preview with Windows Insiders on Copilot+ PCs by December" Microsoft unveiled Recall earlier this May, describing it as a way for users to explore a "visual timeline" of their screens over time and help find things from apps, websites, images, and documents. The search experience was meant...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed a new phishing kit that has been put to use in campaigns targeting Australia, Japan, Spain, the U.K., and the U.S. since at least September 2024. Netcraft said more than 2,000 phishing websites have been identified the kit, known as Xiū gǒu, with the offering used in attacks aimed at a variety of verticals, such as public sectors, postal, digital services, and banking services. "Threat actors using the kit to deploy phishing websites often rely on Cloudflare's anti-bot and hosting obfuscation capabilities to prevent detection," Netcraft said in a report published Thursday. Some aspects of the phishing kit were documented by security researchers Will Thomas (@ BushidoToken) and Fox_threatintel (@banthisguy9349) in September 2024. Phishing kits like Xiū gǒu pose a risk because they could lower the barrier of entry for less skilled hackers, potentially leading to an increase in malicious campaigns that could lead to theft of ...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered an improved version of an Apple iOS spyware called LightSpy that not only expands on its functionality, but also incorporates destructive capabilities to prevent the compromised device from booting up. "While the iOS implant delivery method closely mirrors that of the macOS version, the post-exploitation and privilege escalation stages differ significantly due to platform differences," ThreatFabric said in an analysis published this week. LightSpy, first documented in 2020 as targeting users in Hong Kong, is a modular implant that employs a plugin-based architecture to augment its capabilities and allow it to capture a wide range of sensitive information from an infected device. Attack chains distributing the malware leverage known security flaws in Apple iOS and macOS to trigger a WebKit exploit that drops a file with the extension ".PNG," but is actually a Mach-O binary responsible for retrieving next-stage payloads...

LottieFiles has revealed that its npm package "lottie-player" was compromised as part of a supply chain attack, prompting it to release an updated version of the library. "On October 30th ~6:20 PM UTC - LottieFiles were notified that our popular open source npm package for the web player @lottiefiles/lottie-player had unauthorized new versions pushed with malicious code," the company said in a statement on X. "This does not impact our dotlottie player and/or SaaS service." LottieFiles is an animation workflow platform that enables designers to create, edit, and share animations in a JSON-based animation file format called Lottie. It's also the developer behind an npm package named lottie-player , which allows for embedding and playing Lottie animations on websites. According to the company, "a large number of users using the library via third-party CDNs without a pinned version were automatically served the compromised version as the latest ...

In the modern, browser-centric workplace, the corporate identity acts as the frontline defense for organizations. Often referred to as "the new perimeter", the identity stands between safe data management and potential breaches. However, a new report reveals how enterprises are often unaware of how their identities are being used across various platforms. This leaves them vulnerable to data breaches, account takeovers, and credential theft. The "Enterprise Identity Threat Report 2024" ( download here ) is based on exclusive data available only to the LayerX Browser Security platform. This data derives from LayerX's unique visibility into every user action in the browser, across industries. It provides a detailed analysis of emerging risks and uncovered hidden threats. To register to a live webinar to cover the key findings in this report, Click here . Below is a deeper dive into some of the report's most critical findings: 1. The Greatest Risk Comes from 2% of Users Security profe...

A high-severity security flaw has been disclosed in the LiteSpeed Cache plugin for WordPress that could allow an unauthenticated threat actor to elevate their privileges and perform malicious actions. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-50550 (CVSS score: 8.1), has been addressed in version 6.5.2 of the plugin. "The plugin suffers from an unauthenticated privilege escalation vulnerability which allows any unauthenticated visitor to gain administrator level access after which malicious plugins could be uploaded and installed," Patchstack security researcher Rafie Muhammad said in an analysis. LiteSpeed Cache is a popular site acceleration plugin for WordPress that, as the name implies, comes with advanced caching functionality and optimization features. It's installed on over six million sites. The newly identified issue, per Patchstack, is rooted in a function named is_role_simulation and is similar to an earlier flaw that was publicly documented back in August ...

Threat actors linked to North Korea have been implicated in a recent incident that deployed a known ransomware family called Play, underscoring their financial motivations. The activity, observed between May and September 2024, has been attributed to a threat actor tracked as Jumpy Pisces , which is also known as Andariel, APT45, DarkSeoul, Nickel Hyatt, Onyx Sleet (formerly Plutonium), Operation Troy, Silent Chollima, and Stonefly. "We believe with moderate confidence that Jumpy Pisces, or a faction of the group, is now collaborating with the Play ransomware group," Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 said in a new report published today. "This incident is significant because it marks the first recorded collaboration between the Jumpy Pisces North Korean state-sponsored group and an underground ransomware network." Andariel, active since at least 2009, is affiliated with North Korea's Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB). It has been previously observed deploying ...

A now-patched security flaw in the Opera web browser could have enabled a malicious extension to gain unauthorized, full access to private APIs. The attack, codenamed CrossBarking , could have made it possible to conduct actions such as capturing screenshots, modifying browser settings, and account hijacking, Guardio Labs said. To demonstrate the issue, the company said it managed to publish a seemingly harmless browser extension to the Chrome Web Store that could then exploit the flaw when installed on Opera, making it an instance of a cross-browser-store attack. "This case study not only highlights the perennial clash between productivity and security but also provides a fascinating glimpse into the tactics used by modern threat actors operating just below the radar," Nati Tal, head of Guardio Labs, said in a report shared with The Hacker News. The issue has been addressed by Opera as of September 24, 2024, following responsible disclosure. That said, this is not th...