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Attackers are exploiting the ProxyLogon Microsoft Exchange Server flaws to co-opt vulnerable machines to a cryptocurrency botnet named Prometei, according to new research. "Prometei exploits the recently disclosed Microsoft Exchange vulnerabilities associated with the HAFNIUM attacks to penetrate the network for malware deployment, credential harvesting and more," Boston-based cybersecurity firm Cybereason  said  in an analysis summarizing its findings. First documented by Cisco Talos in July 2020,  Prometei  is a multi-modular botnet, with the actor behind the operation employing a wide range of specially-crafted tools and known exploits such as EternalBlue and BlueKeep to harvest credentials, laterally propagate across the network and "increase the amount of systems participating in its Monero-mining pool." "Prometei has both Windows-based and Linux-Unix based versions, and it adjusts its payload based on the detected operating system, on the targeted in...

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has disclosed details of a new advanced persistent threat (APT) that's leveraging the Supernova backdoor to compromise SolarWinds Orion installations after gaining access to the network through a connection to a Pulse Secure VPN device. "The threat actor connected to the entity's network via a Pulse Secure virtual private network (VPN) appliance, moved laterally to its SolarWinds Orion server, installed malware referred to by security researchers as SUPERNOVA (a .NET web shell), and collected credentials," the agency  said  on Thursday. CISA said it identified the threat actor during an incident response engagement at an unnamed organization and found that the attacker had access to the enterprise's network for nearly a year through the use of the VPN credentials between March 2020 and February 2021. Interestingly, the adversary is said to have used valid accounts that had multi-factor authent...

The sprawling  SolarWinds cyberattack  which came to light last December was known for its sophistication in the breadth of tactics used to infiltrate and persist in the target infrastructure, so much so that Microsoft went on to call the threat actor behind the campaign "skillful and methodic operators who follow operations security (OpSec) best practices to minimize traces, stay under the radar, and avoid detection." As further proof of this, new research published today shows that the threat actor carefully planned each stage of the operation to "avoid creating the type of patterns that make tracking them simple," thus deliberately making forensic analysis difficult. By analyzing telemetry data associated with previously published indicators of compromise, RiskIQ said it identified an additional set of 18 servers with high confidence that likely communicated with the targeted, secondary Cobalt Strike payloads delivered via the TEARDROP and RAINDROP malware, r...

There are many labor-intensive tasks that the IT service desk carries out on a daily basis. None as tedious and costly as resetting passwords. Modern IT service desks spend a significant amount of time both unlocking and resetting passwords for end-users. This issue has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Causes of account lockouts and password resets End-user password policies, such as those found in Microsoft Active Directory Domain Services (ADDS), typically define a  password age . The password age is the length of time an end-user can keep their current password. While  new guidance from NIST  recommends against the long-held notion of forced password changes, it is still a common and required security mechanism across other compliance standards and industry certifications such as PCI and HITRUST. When the password age is reached for the user account, the user must change their account password. It is generally prompted at the next login on their worksta...

Adversaries are increasingly abusing Telegram as a "command-and-control" system to distribute malware into organizations that could then be used to capture sensitive information from targeted systems. "Even when Telegram is not installed or being used, the system allows hackers to send malicious commands and operations remotely via the instant messaging app," said researchers from cybersecurity firm Check Point , who have identified no fewer than 130 attacks over the past three months that make use of a new multi-functional remote access trojan (RAT) called "ToxicEye." The use of Telegram for facilitating malicious activities is not new. In September 2019, an information stealer dubbed  Masad Stealer  was found to plunder information and cryptocurrency wallet data from infected computers using Telegram as an exfiltration channel. Then last year,  Magecart groups  embraced the same tactic to send stolen payment details from compromised websites back to ...

Facebook on Wednesday said it took steps to dismantle malicious activities perpetrated by two state-sponsored hacking groups operating out of Palestine that abused its platform to distribute malware. The social media giant attributed the attacks to a network connected to the Preventive Security Service ( PSS ), the security apparatus of the State of Palestine, and another threat actor known as Arid Viper (aka Desert Falcon and APT-C-23), the latter of which is alleged to be connected to the cyber arm of Hamas. The two digital espionage campaigns, active in 2019 and 2020, exploited a range of devices and platforms, such as Android, iOS, and Windows, with the PSS cluster primarily targeting domestic audiences in Palestine. The other set of attacks went after users in the Palestinian territories and Syria and, to a lesser extent Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon, and Libya. Both the groups appear to have leveraged the platform as a springboard to launch a variety of social engineering attacks in...

Prominent Apple supplier Quanta on Wednesday said it suffered a ransomware attack from the REvil ransomware group, which is now demanding the iPhone maker pay a ransom of $50 million to prevent leaking sensitive files on the dark web. In a post shared on its deep web "Happy Blog" portal, the threat actor said it came into possession of schematics of the U.S. company's products such as MacBooks and Apple Watch by infiltrating the network of the Taiwanese manufacturer, claiming it's making a ransom demand to Apple after Quanta expressed no interest in paying to recover the stolen blueprints. "Our team is negotiating the sale of large quantities of confidential drawings and gigabytes of personal data with several major brands," the REvil operators said. "We recommend that Apple buy back the available data by May 1." Since first detected in June 2019,  REvil  (aka Sodinokibi or Sodin) has emerged as one of the most prolific ransomware-as-a-servic...

Today there are plenty of cybersecurity tools on the market. It is now more important than ever that the tools you decide to use work well together. If they don't, you will not get the complete picture, and you won't be able to analyze the entire system from a holistic perspective.  This means that you won't be able to do the right mitigations to improve your security posture. Here are examples of two tools that work very well together and how they will help you to get a holistic view of your cybersecurity posture.  Debricked - Use Open Source Securely How is Open Source a Security Risk?  Open source is not a security risk per se; it's more secure than proprietary software in many ways! With the code being publicly available, it's a lot easier for the surrounding community to identify vulnerabilities, and fixes can be done quickly. What you do need to keep in mind, though, is that any vulnerabilities in open source are publicly disclosed and the public to anyo...

Google on Tuesday released an update for Chrome web browser for Windows, Mac, and Linux, with a total of seven security fixes, including one flaw for which it says an exploit exists in the wild. Tracked as CVE-2021-21224 , the flaw concerns a type confusion vulnerability in V8 open-source JavaScript engine that was reported to the company by security researcher Jose Martinez on April 5 According to security researcher  Lei Cao , the bug [ 1195777 ] is triggered when performing integer data type conversion, resulting in an out-of-bounds condition that could be used to achieve arbitrary memory read/write primitive. "Google is aware of reports that exploits for CVE-2021-21224 exist in the wild," Chrome's Technical Program Manager Srinivas Sista  said  in a blog post. The update comes after proof-of-concept (PoC) code exploiting the flaw published by a researcher named " frust " emerged on April 14 by taking advantage of the fact that the issue was addressed...