The Hacker News | #1 Trusted Source for Cybersecurity News — Index Page

Cybersecurity researchers have warned of a new large-scale campaign that exploits security flaws in AVTECH IP cameras and Huawei HG532 routers to rope the devices into a Mirai botnet variant dubbed Murdoc Botnet. The ongoing activity "demonstrates enhanced capabilities, exploiting vulnerabilities to compromise devices and establish expansive botnet networks," Qualys security researcher Shilpesh Trivedi said in an analysis. The campaign is known to be active since at least July 2024, with over 1,370 systems infected to date. A majority of the infections have been located in Malaysia, Mexico, Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Evidence shows that the botnet leverages known security flaws such as CVE-2017-17215 and CVE-2024-7029 to gain initial access to the Internet of Things (IoT) devices and download the next stage payload by means of a shell script. The script, for its part, fetches the botnet malware and executes it depending on the CPU architecture. The end goal of ...

A global network of about 13,000 hijacked Mikrotik routers has been employed as a botnet to propagate malware via spam campaigns, the latest addition to a list of botnets powered by MikroTik devices. The activity "take[s] advantage of misconfigured DNS records to pass email protection techniques," Infoblox security researcher David Brunsdon said in a technical report published last week. "This botnet uses a global network of Mikrotik routers to send malicious emails that are designed to appear to come from legitimate domains." The DNS security company, which has codenamed the campaign Mikro Typo , said its analysis sprang forth from the discovery of a malspam campaign in late November 2024 that leveraged freight invoice-related lures to entice recipients into launching a ZIP archive payload. The ZIP file contains an obfuscated JavaScript file, which is then responsible for running a PowerShell script designed to initiate an outbound connection to a command-a...

A former analyst working for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) pleaded guilty to transmitting top secret National Defense Information (NDI) to individuals who did not have the necessary authorization to receive it and attempted to cover up the activity. Asif William Rahman, 34, of Vienna, was an employee of the CIA since 2016 and had a Top Secret security clearance with access to Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI). He was charged with two counts of unlawfully transmitting NDI in November 2024 following his arrest in Cambodia. He has pleaded guilty to two counts of willful retention and transmission of classified information related to the national defense. He is expected to be sentenced on May 15, 2025, potentially facing a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. According to court filings , Rahman is alleged to have retained without authorization two documents classified as Top Secret on or about October 17, 2024, and delivered it to multiple individuals who wer...

Imagine receiving a penetration test report that leaves you with more questions than answers. Questions like, "Were all functionalities of the web app tested?" or " Were there any security issues that could have been identified during testing?" often go unresolved, raising concerns about the thoroughness of the security testing. This frustration is common among many security teams. Pentest reports, while crucial, frequently lack the depth and detail necessary to truly assess the success of the project. Even with years of experience working with cybersecurity teams and managing ethical hacking projects, we frequently encountered these same issues. Whether collaborating with external pentest providers or managing our own projects as founders of Hackrate , we often faced difficulties in ensuring that the testing was as comprehensive as it needed to be. This realization inspired us to create HackGATE , a managed gateway solution built to bring transparency and contro...

Cybersecurity researchers are calling attention to a series of cyber attacks that have targeted Chinese-speaking regions like Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Mainland China with a known malware called ValleyRAT. The attacks leverage a multi-stage loader dubbed PNGPlug to deliver the ValleyRAT payload, Intezer said in a technical report published last week. The infection chain commences with a phishing page that's designed to encourage victims to download a malicious Microsoft Installer (MSI) package disguised as legitimate software.  Once executed, the installer deploys a benign application to avoid arousing suspicion, while also stealthily extracting an encrypted archive containing the malware payload. "The MSI package uses the Windows Installer's CustomAction feature, enabling it to execute malicious code, including running an embedded malicious DLL that decrypts the archive (all.zip) using a hardcoded password 'hello202411' to extract the core malware components,...