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Researchers have disclosed significant security weaknesses in popular antivirus software applications that could be abused to deactivate their protections and take control of allow-listed applications to perform nefarious operations on behalf of the malware to defeat anti-ransomware defenses. The twin attacks,  detailed  by academics from the University of Luxembourg and the University of London, are aimed at circumventing the protected folder feature offered by antivirus programs to encrypt files (aka "Cut-and-Mouse") and disabling their real-time protection by simulating mouse "click" events (aka "Ghost Control"). "Antivirus software providers always offer high levels of security, and they are an essential element in the everyday struggle against criminals,"  said  Prof. Gabriele Lenzini, chief scientist at the Interdisciplinary Center for Security, Reliability, and Trust at the University of Luxembourg. "But they are competing with cri...

The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) used a partnership with Denmark's foreign and military intelligence service to eavesdrop on top politicians and high-ranking officials in Germany, Sweden, Norway, and France by tapping into Danish underwater internet cables between 2012 and 2014. Details of the covert wiretapping were  broken  by Copenhagen-based public broadcaster DR over the weekend based on interviews with nine unnamed sources, all of whom are said to have access to classified information held by the Danish Defence Intelligence Service (Forsvarets Efterretningstjeneste or FE). German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the then-German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and the opposition leader at the time, Peer Steinbrück, are said to have been targeted through the Danish-American pact. Using the telephone numbers of politicians as search parameters, the report alleged that the NSA "intercepted everything from text messages to phone calls that passed through the ca...

Starting June 8, Amazon will automatically enable a feature on its family of hardware devices, including Echo speakers, Ring Video Doorbells, Ring Floodlight Cams, and Ring Spotlight Cams, that will share a small part of your Internet bandwidth with nearby neighbors — unless you choose to opt-out. To that effect, the company intends to register all compatible devices that are operational in the U.S. into an ambitious location-tracking system called Sidewalk as it prepares to roll out the shared mesh network in the country. Originally  announced  in September 2019,  Sidewalk  is part of Amazon's efforts to build a long-range wireless network that leverages a combination of Bluetooth and 900 MHz spectrum ( FSK ) to help Echo, Ring, Tile trackers, and other Sidewalk-enabled devices communicate over the internet without Wi-Fi. Sidewalk is designed to extend the working range of low-bandwidth devices, and help devices stay connected even if they are outside the range ...

Are you aware of how secure your domain is? In most organizations, there is an assumption that their domains are secure and within a few months, but the truth soon dawns on them that it isn't. Spotting someone spoofing your domain name is one way to determine if your security is unsatisfactory - this means that someone is impersonating you (or confusing some of your recipients) and releasing false information. You may ask, "But why should I care?" Because these spoofing activities can potentially endanger your reputation. With so many companies being targeted by domain impersonators, email domain spoofing shouldn't be taken lightly. By doing so, they could put themselves, as well as their clients, at risk.  Your domain's security rating can make a huge difference in whether or not you get targeted by phishers looking to make money quickly or to use your domain and brand to spread ransomware without you knowing it! Check your domain's security rating with ...

Siemens on Friday shipped firmware updates to address a severe vulnerability in SIMATIC S7-1200 and S7-1500 programmable logic controllers (PLCs) that could be exploited by a malicious actor to remotely gain access to protected areas of the memory and achieve unrestricted and undetected code execution, in what the researchers describe as an attacker's "holy grail." The memory protection bypass vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2020-15782 (CVSS score: 8.1), was discovered by operational technology security company Claroty by reverse-engineering the MC7 / MC7+ bytecode language used to execute PLC programs in the microprocessor. There's no evidence that the weakness was abused in the wild. In an  advisory  issued by Siemens, the German industrial automation firm said an unauthenticated, remote attacker with network access to TCP port 102 could potentially write arbitrary data and code to protected memory areas or read sensitive data to launch further attacks. "Ach...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed two new attack techniques on certified PDF documents that could potentially enable an attacker to alter a document's visible content by displaying malicious content over the certified content without invalidating its signature. "The attack idea exploits the flexibility of PDF certification, which allows signing or adding annotations to certified documents under different permission levels,"  said  researchers from Ruhr-University Bochum, who have  systematically   analyzed  the security of the PDF specification over the years. The findings were presented at the 42nd IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy ( IEEE S&P 2021 ) held this week. The two attacks — dubbed  Evil Annotation and Sneaky Signature attacks  — hinge on manipulating the PDF certification process by exploiting flaws in the specification that governs the implementation of digital signatures (aka approval signature) and its more flexible vari...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed a new backdoor program capable of stealing user login credentials, device information and executing arbitrary commands on Linux systems. The malware dropper has been dubbed " Facefish " by Qihoo 360 NETLAB team owing its capabilities to deliver different rootkits at different times and the use of  Blowfish  cipher to encrypt communications to the attacker-controlled server. "Facefish consists of 2 parts, Dropper and Rootkit, and its main function is determined by the Rootkit module, which works at the  Ring 3  layer and is loaded using the  LD_PRELOAD  feature to steal user login credentials by hooking ssh/sshd program related functions, and it also supports some backdoor functions," the researchers  said . The NETLAB research builds on a previous analysis  published  by Juniper Networks on April 26, which documented an attack chain targeting Control Web Panel (CWP, formerly CentOS Web Panel) to i...

Microsoft on Thursday disclosed that the threat actor behind the  SolarWinds supply chain hack  returned to the threat landscape to target government agencies, think tanks, consultants, and non-governmental organizations located across 24 countries, including the U.S. Some of the entities that were singled out include the U.S. Atlantic Council, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the Ukrainian Anti-Corruption Action Center (ANTAC), the EU DisinfoLab, and the Government of Ireland's Department of Foreign Affairs. "This wave of attacks targeted approximately 3,000 email accounts at more than 150 different organizations," Tom Burt, Microsoft's Corporate Vice President for Customer Security and Trust,  said . "At least a quarter of the targeted organizations were involved in international development, humanitarian, and human rights work." Microsoft attributed the ongoing intrusions to the Russian threat actor it tracks as Nobeliu...

Cybersecurity researchers from FireEye unmasked additional tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) adopted by Chinese threat actors who were recently found abusing Pulse Secure VPN devices to drop malicious web shells and exfiltrate sensitive information from enterprise networks. FireEye's Mandiant threat intelligence team, which is tracking the cyber espionage activity under two activity clusters UNC2630 and UNC2717,  said  the intrusions line up with key Chinese government priorities, adding "many compromised organizations operate in verticals and industries aligned with Beijing's strategic objectives outlined in China's recent  14th Five Year Plan ." On April 20, the cybersecurity firm  disclosed  12 different malware families, including STEADYPULSE and LOCKPICK, that have been designed with the express intent to infect Pulse Secure VPN appliances and put to use by at least two cyber espionage groups believed to be affiliated with the Chinese governmen...