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The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has ordered mental telehealth company Cerebral from using or disclosing personal medical data for advertising purposes. It has also been fined more than $7 million over charges that it revealed users' sensitive personal health information and other data to third-parties for advertising purposes and failed to honor its easy cancellation policies. "Cerebral and its former CEO, Kyle Robertson, repeatedly broke their privacy promises to consumers and misled them about the company's cancellation policies," the FTC  said  in a press statement. While claiming to offer "safe, secure, and discreet" services in order to get consumers to sign up and provide their data, the company, FTC alleged, did not clearly disclose that the information would be shared with third-parties for advertising. The agency also accused the company of burying its data sharing practices in dense privacy policies, with the company engaging in decept...

Two individuals have been arrested in Australia and the U.S. in connection with an alleged scheme to develop and distribute a remote access trojan called Hive RAT (previously Firebird). The U.S. Justice Department (DoJ)  said  the malware "gave the malware purchasers control over victim computers and enabled them to access victims' private communications, their login credentials, and other personal information." A 24-year-old individual named Edmond Chakhmakhchyan (aka "Corruption") from Van Nuys in Los Angeles, California, was taken into custody after he was caught selling a license of Hive RAT to an undercover employee of a law enforcement agency. He has been charged with one count of conspiracy and one count of advertising a device as an interception device, each of which carries a penalty of five years in prison. Chakhmakhchyan pleaded not guilty and was ordered to stand trial on June 4, 2024. Court documents allege a partnership between the malware...

A security flaw impacting the Lighttpd web server used in baseboard management controllers ( BMCs ) has remained unpatched by device vendors like Intel and Lenovo, new findings from Binarly reveal. While the original shortcoming was  discovered and patched  by the Lighttpd maintainers way back in August 2018 with  version 1.4.51 , the lack of a CVE identifier or an advisory meant that it was overlooked by developers of AMI MegaRAC BMC, ultimately ending up in products made by Intel and Lenovo. Lighttpd  (pronounced "Lighty") is an open-source high-performance web server software designed for speed, security, and flexibility, while optimized for high-performance environments without consuming a lot of system resources. The silent fix for Lighttpd concerns an out-of-bounds read vulnerability that could be exploited to exfiltrate sensitive data, such as process memory addresses, thereby allowing threat actors to bypass crucial security mechanisms like address space ...

Imagine a world where the software that powers your favorite apps, secures your online transactions, and keeps your digital life could be outsmarted and taken over by a cleverly disguised piece of code. This isn't a plot from the latest cyber-thriller; it's actually been a reality for years now. How this will change – in a positive or negative direction – as artificial intelligence (AI) takes on a larger role in software development is one of the big uncertainties related to this brave new world. In an era where AI promises to revolutionize how we live and work, the conversation about its security implications cannot be sidelined. As we increasingly rely on AI for tasks ranging from mundane to mission-critical, the question is no longer just, "Can AI  boost cybersecurity ?" (sure!), but also "Can AI  be hacked? " (yes!), "Can one use AI  to hack? " (of course!), and "Will AI  produce secure software ?" (well…). This thought leadership article is about the latter. C...

The threat actor known as  Muddled Libra  has been observed actively targeting software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications and cloud service provider (CSP) environments in a bid to exfiltrate sensitive data. "Organizations often store a variety of data in SaaS applications and use services from CSPs," Palo Alto Networks Unit 42  said  in a report published last week. "The threat actors have begun attempting to leverage some of this data to assist with their attack progression, and to use for extortion when trying to monetize their work." Muddled Libra, which shares overlaps with clusters tracked as Scatter Swine, Scattered Spider, Starfraud, and UNC3944, is a notorious cybercriminal group that has leveraged sophisticated social engineering techniques to gain initial access to target networks.  "Scattered Spider threat actors have historically evaded detection on target networks by using living off the land techniques and allowlisted applications to navigate ...

To minimize the risk of privilege misuse, a trend in the privileged access management (PAM) solution market involves implementing just-in-time (JIT) privileged access. This approach to  privileged identity management  aims to mitigate the risks associated with prolonged high-level access by granting privileges temporarily and only when necessary, rather than providing users with continuous high-level privileges. By adopting this strategy, organizations can enhance security, minimize the window of opportunity for potential attackers and ensure that users access privileged resources only when necessary.  What is JIT and why is it important?   JIT privileged access provisioning  involves granting privileged access to users on a temporary basis, aligning with the concept of least privilege. This principle provides users with only the minimum level of access required to perform their tasks, and only for the amount of time required to do so. One of the key advanta...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a "renewed" cyber espionage campaign targeting users in South Asia with the aim of delivering an Apple iOS spyware implant called  LightSpy . "The latest iteration of LightSpy, dubbed 'F_Warehouse,' boasts a modular framework with extensive spying features," the BlackBerry Threat Research and Intelligence Team  said  in a report published last week. There is evidence to suggest that the campaign may have targeted India based on  VirusTotal   submissions  from within its borders. First documented in 2020 by Trend Micro and Kaspersky,  LightSpy  refers to an advanced iOS backdoor that's distributed via watering hole attacks through compromised news sites. A subsequent analysis from ThreatFabric in October 2023  uncovered  infrastructure and functionality overlaps between the malware and DragonEgg, a fully-featured Android spyware attributed to the Chinese nation-state group APT41 (aka Winnti)...