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

The last Patch Tuesday of 2019 is finally here. Adobe today released updates for four of its widely used software—including Adobe Acrobat and Reader, Photoshop CC, ColdFusion, and Brackets—to patch a total of 25 new security vulnerabilities. Seventeen of these flaws have been rated as critical in severity, with most of them carrying high priority patches, indicating that the vulnerabilities are more likely to be used in real-world attacks, but there are currently no known exploits in the wild. The software update for Adobe Acrobat and Reader for Windows and macOS operating systems addresses a total of 21 security vulnerabilities, 14 of which are critical, and rest are important in severity. Upon successful exploitation, all critical vulnerabilities in Adobe Acrobat and Reader software lead to arbitrary code execution attacks, allowing attackers to take complete control of targeted systems. Adobe Photoshop CC for Windows and macOS contains patches for two critical arbitrary...

The 2020 Cybersecurity Salary Survey was an online survey published in The Hacker News and created to provide insight into the details related to cybersecurity compensation. There were over 1,500 security professionals who completed the survey. Today you can access the aggregated and analyzed 2020 Cybersecurity Salary Survey Results and gain insight to the main ranges and factors of current cybersecurity salaries. The received data enabled the conductors of the survey to form a detailed salary profile for five security positions: Security Analyst/Threat Intelligence Specialist, Security/Cloud Security Architect, Penetration Tester and Security Director/Manager. This profile includes both the range and composition of salaries for these positions, as well as the relative impacts of organizational (geolocation, industry, etc.) and individual (gender, experience, certification) factors. Using the survey results ( download here ), any individual can go to the section relevant for...

Cybersecurity researchers have spotted a new variant of the Snatch ransomware that first reboots infected Windows computers into Safe Mode and only then encrypts victims' files to avoid antivirus detection. Unlike traditional malware, the new Snatch ransomware chooses to run in Safe Mode because in the diagnostic mode Windows operating system starts with a minimal set of drivers and services without loading most of the third-party startup programs, including antivirus software. Snatch has been active since at least the summer of 2018, but SophosLabs researchers spotted the Safe Mode enhancement to this ransomware strain only in recent cyber attacks against various entities they investigated. "SophosLabs researchers have been investigating an ongoing series of ransomware attacks in which the ransomware executable forces the Windows machine to reboot into Safe Mode before beginning the encryption process," the researchers say . "The ransomware, which calls it...

While phishing and ransomware dominate headlines, another critical risk quietly persists across most enterprises: exposed Git repositories leaking sensitive data. A risk that silently creates shadow access into core systems Git is the backbone of modern software development, hosting millions of repositories and serving thousands of organizations worldwide. Yet, amid the daily hustle of shipping code, developers may inadvertently leave behind API keys, tokens, or passwords in configuration files and code files, effectively handing attackers the keys to the kingdom. This isn't just about poor hygiene; it's a systemic and growing supply chain risk. As cyber threats become more sophisticated, so do compliance requirements. Security frameworks like NIS2, SOC2, and ISO 27001 now demand proof that software delivery pipelines are hardened and third-party risk is controlled. The message is clear: securing your Git repositories is no longer optional, it's essential. Below, we look at the ris...

A team of cybersecurity researchers has disclosed a new severe vulnerability affecting most Linux and Unix-like operating systems, including FreeBSD, OpenBSD, macOS, iOS, and Android, that could allow remote 'network adjacent attackers' to spy on and tamper with encrypted VPN connections. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2019-14899, resides in the networking stack of various operating systems and can be exploited against both IPv4 and IPv6 TCP streams. Since the vulnerability does not rely on the VPN technology used, the attack works against widely implemented virtual private network protocols like OpenVPN, WireGuard, IKEv2/IPSec, and more, the researchers confirmed. This vulnerability can be exploited by a network attacker — controlling an access point or connected to the victim's network — just by sending unsolicited network packets to a targeted device and observing replies, even if they are encrypted. As explained by the researchers, though there are variati...

Following its efforts to take legal action against those misusing its social media platform, Facebook has now filed a new lawsuit against a Hong Kong-based advertising company and two Chinese individuals for allegedly abusing its ad platform to distribute malware and Ad fraud. Facebook filed the lawsuit on Thursday in the Northern District of California against ILikeAd Media International Company Ltd. as well as a Chinese software developer and a marketing director working for the firm, Chen Xiao Cong and Huang Tao. All three defendants have been alleged to have deceived people into installing malware on their systems, enabling them to compromise user's Facebook accounts and then using those hacked accounts to advertise counterfeit goods and diet pills—which is clearly in violation of Facebook's Terms and Advertising Policies. "The suit seeks to hold accountable ILikeAd Media International Company Ltd. and Chen Xiao Cong and Huang Tao for creating the malware, tr...

The United States Department of Justice today disclosed the identities of two Russian hackers and charged them for developing and distributing the Dridex banking Trojan using which the duo stole more than $100 million over a period of 10 years. Maksim Yakubets , the leader of 'Evil Corp' hacking group, and his co-conspirator Igor Turashev primarily distributed Dridex — also known as ' Bugat ' and ' Cridex ' — through multi-million email campaigns and targeted numerous organizations around the world. The State Department has also announced a reward of up to $5 million—the largest offered bounty to date for a cybercrime suspect—for providing information that could lead to the arrest of Yakubets, who remains at large. "Bugat is a multifunction malware package designed to automate the theft of confidential personal and financial information, such as online banking credentials, from infected computers," the DoJ said in its press release . ...

OpenBSD, an open-source operating system built with security in mind, has been found vulnerable to four new high-severity security vulnerabilities, one of which is an old-school type authentication bypass vulnerability in BSD Auth framework. The other three vulnerabilities are privilege escalation issues that could allow local users or malicious software to gain privileges of an auth group, root, as well as of other users, respectively. The vulnerabilities were discovered and reported by Qualys Research Labs earlier this week, in response to which OpenBSD developers released security patches for OpenBSD 6.5 and OpenBSD 6.6 just yesterday—that's in less than 40 hours. Here's a brief explanation of all four security vulnerabilities in OpenBSD—a free and open-source BSD-based Unix-like operating system—along with their assigned CVE identifiers OpenBSD Authentication Bypass (CVE-2019-19521) The authentication bypass vulnerability resides in the way OpenBSD's auth...