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It's Patch Tuesday again—the day of the month when both Adobe and Microsoft release security patches for vulnerabilities in their software. Adobe has just released its monthly security updates to address a total of 3 security vulnerabilities in only two of its products this time—Adobe Flash Player and Adobe Application Manager (AAM). None of the security vulnerabilities patched this month in Adobe products is being exploited in the wild. The latest update for Adobe Flash Player , the software that will receive security patch updates until the end of 2020, this month addresses two critical vulnerabilities and affects Windows, macOS, Linux, and Chrome OS versions of the software. Both the critical vulnerabilities in Flash Player, listed below, lead to arbitrary code execution in the context of the current user, allowing attackers to take complete control over targeted systems. Same-origin method execution (CVE-2019-8069) Use-after-free (CVE-2019-8070) Both the vuln...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new computer virus associated with the Stealth Falcon state-sponsored cyber espionage group that abuses a built-in component of the Microsoft Windows operating system to stealthily exfiltrate stolen data to attacker-controlled server. Active since 2012, Stealth Falcon is a sophisticated hacking group known for targeting journalists, activists, and dissidents with spyware in the Middle East, primarily in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Dubbed Win32/StealthFalcon , named after the hacking group, the malware communicates and sends collected data to its remote command-and-control (C&C) servers using Windows Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS). BITS is a communication protocol in Windows that takes unused network bandwidth to facilitate asynchronous, prioritized, and throttled transfer of files between machines in the foreground or background, without impacting the network experience. BITS is commonly used by software up...

Facebook has patched two high-severity vulnerabilities in its server application that could have allowed remote attackers to unauthorisedly obtain sensitive information or cause a denial of service just by uploading a maliciously constructed JPEG image file. The vulnerabilities reside in HHVM (HipHop Virtual Machine)—a high-performance, open source virtual machine developed by Facebook for executing programs written in PHP and Hack programming languages. HHVM uses a just-in-time (JIT) compilation approach to achieve superior performance of your Hack and PHP code while maintaining the development flexibility that the PHP language provides. Since the affected HHVM server application is open-source and free, both issues may also impact other websites that use HHVM, including Wikipedia, Box and especially those which allow their users to upload images on the server. Both the vulnerabilities, as listed below, reside due to a possible memory overflow in the GD extension of HHVM wh...

It's been a summer of ransomware hold-ups, supply chain attacks and fileless attacks flying under the radar of old-school security. With malware running amok while we were lying on the beach, here's a recap of the most burning strains and trends seen in the wild during the months of July and August 2019. Malware Evolution Trends The heat must have had an effect as this summer saw malware continuing to evolve, particularly around three core trends: Evasion-by-design Malware has been increasingly designed to bypass security controls leveraging a host of tactics, most notably by: Changing hashes via file obfuscation to evade AVs. Using encrypted communication with C2 servers to foil EDRs. Using feature manipulation and tampering to trick AI, machine-learning engines, and sandboxes through the detection of such environments and the deliberate delay in execution. Fileless Attacks and Living-Off-The-Land (LOTL) Taking evasion techniques one step further, an in...

A critical remote code execution vulnerability has been discovered in the popular open-source Exim email server software, leaving at least over half a million email servers vulnerable to remote hackers. Exim maintainers today released Exim version 4.92.2 after publishing an early warning two days ago, giving system administrators a heads-up on its upcoming security patches that affect all versions of the email server software up to and including then-latest 4.92.1. Exim is a widely used, open source mail transfer agent (MTA) software developed for Unix-like operating systems such as Linux, Mac OSX or Solaris, which runs almost 60% of the internet's email servers today for routing, delivering and receiving email messages. Tracked as CVE-2019-15846 , the security vulnerability only affects Exim servers that accept TLS connections, potentially allowing attackers to gain root-level access to the system "by sending an SNI ending in a backslash-null sequence during the ini...

Maintainers of the PHP programming language recently released the latest versions of PHP to patch multiple high-severity vulnerabilities in its core and bundled libraries, the most severe of which could allow remote attackers to execute arbitrary code and compromise targeted servers. Hypertext Preprocessor, commonly known as PHP, is the most popular server-side web programming language that powers over 78 percent of the Internet today. The latest releases under several maintained branches include PHP version 7.3.9, 7.2.22 and 7.1.32, addressing multiple security vulnerabilities. Depending on the type, occurrence, and usage of the affected codebase in a PHP application, successful exploitation of some of the most severe vulnerabilities could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code in the context of the affected application with associated privileges. On the other hand, failed attempts at exploitation will likely result in a denial of service (DoS) condition on the affect...

What if the tech intended to ensure that your kids, senior citizens, and pets are safe even when they're out of sight inadvertently expose them to stalkers? An estimated 600,000 GPS tracking devices for sale on Amazon and other large online merchants for $25–$50 have been found vulnerable to a handful of dangerous vulnerabilities that may have exposed user's real-time locations, security researchers have claimed. Cybersecurity researchers from Avast discovered that 29 models of GPS trackers made by Chinese technology company Shenzhen i365 for keeping tabs on young children, elderly relatives, and pets contain a number of security vulnerabilities. Moreover, all over half a million tracking devices were shipped with the same default password of "123456," leaving an opportunity for attackers to easily access tracking information for those who never changed the default password. Vulnerabilities in GPS Tracking Devices The reported GPS tracking device vulnerabili...