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Pulse Secure has shipped a fix for a critical post-authentication remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in its Connect Secure virtual private network (VPN) appliances to address an incomplete patch for an actively exploited flaw it previously resolved in October 2020. "The Pulse Connect Secure appliance suffers from an uncontrolled archive extraction vulnerability which allows an attacker to overwrite arbitrary files, resulting in Remote Code Execution as root," NCC Group's Richard Warren  disclosed  on Friday. "This vulnerability is a bypass of the patch for  CVE-2020-8260 ." "An attacker with such access will be able to circumvent any restrictions enforced via the web application, as well as remount the filesystem, allowing them to create a persistent backdoor, extract and decrypt credentials, compromise VPN clients, or pivot into the internal network," Warren added. The disclosure comes days after Ivanti, the company behind Pulse Secure,  p...

Apple on Thursday said it's introducing new child safety features in iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, and macOS as part of its efforts to limit the spread of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) in the U.S. To that effect, the iPhone maker said it intends to begin client-side scanning of images shared via every Apple device for known child abuse content as they are being uploaded into iCloud Photos, in addition to leveraging on-device machine learning to vet all iMessage images sent or received by minor accounts (aged under 13) to warn parents of sexually explicit photos shared over the messaging platform. Furthermore, Apple also plans to update Siri and Search to stage an intervention when users try to perform searches for CSAM-related topics, alerting that the "interest in this topic is harmful and problematic." "Messages uses on-device machine learning to analyze image attachments and determine if a photo is sexually explicit," Apple  noted . "The feature is desi...

Amazon earlier this April addressed a critical vulnerability in its Kindle e-book reader platform that could have been potentially exploited to take full control over a user's device, resulting in the theft of sensitive information by just deploying a malicious e-book. "By sending Kindle users a single malicious e-book, a threat actor could have stolen any information stored on the device, from Amazon account credentials to billing information," Yaniv Balmas, head of cyber research at Check Point, said in an emailed statement. "The security vulnerabilities allow an attacker to target a very specific audience." In other words, if a threat actor wanted to single out a specific group of people or demographic, it's possible for the adversary to choose a popular e-book in a language or dialect that's widely spoken among the group to tailor and orchestrate a highly targeted cyber attack. Upon responsibly disclosing the issue to Amazon in February 2021, t...

I had the honor of hosting the first episode of the Xposure Podcast live from Xposure Summit 2025. And I couldn't have asked for a better kickoff panel: three cybersecurity leaders who don't just talk security, they live it. Let me introduce them. Alex Delay , CISO at IDB Bank, knows what it means to defend a highly regulated environment. Ben Mead , Director of Cybersecurity at Avidity Biosciences, brings a forward-thinking security perspective that reflects the innovation behind Avidity's targeted RNA therapeutics. Last but not least, Michael Francess , Director of Cybersecurity Advanced Threat at Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, leads the charge in protecting the franchise. Each brought a unique vantage point to a common challenge: applying Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) to complex production environments. Gartner made waves in 2023 with a bold prediction: organizations that prioritize CTEM will be three times less likely to be breached by 2026. But here's the kicker -...

Koo, India's homegrown Twitter clone, recently patched a serious security vulnerability that could have been exploited to execute arbitrary JavaScript code against hundreds of thousands of its users, spreading the attack across the platform. The vulnerability involves a  stored cross-site scripting flaw  (also known as persistent XSS) in Koo's web application that allows malicious scripts to be embedded directly into the affected web application. To carry out the attack, all a malicious actor had to do was log into the service via the web application and post an XSS-encoded payload to its timeline, which automatically gets executed on behalf of all users who saw the post. The issue was discovered by security researcher  Rahul Kankrale  in July, following which a fix was rolled out by Koo on July 3. Using cross-site scripting, an attacker can perform actions on behalf of users with the same privileges as the user and steal web browser's secrets, such as authenti...

VMware has released security updates for multiple products to address a critical vulnerability that could be exploited to gain access to confidential information. Tracked as  CVE-2021-22002  (CVSS score: 8.6) and  CVE-2021-22003  (CVSS score: 3.7), the flaws affect VMware Workspace One Access (Access), VMware Identity Manager (vIDM), VMware vRealize Automation (vRA), VMware Cloud Foundation, and vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager. CVE-2021-22002 concerns an issue with how VMware Workspace One Access and Identity Manager allow the "/cfg" web app and diagnostic endpoints to be accessed via port 443 by tampering with a host header, resulting in a server-side request. "A malicious actor with network access to port 443 could tamper with host headers to facilitate access to the /cfg web app, in addition a malicious actor could access /cfg diagnostic endpoints without authentication," the company  said  in its advisory. Suleyman Bayir of Trendyol has been credi...

On the surface, Salesforce seems like a classic Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform. Someone might even argue that Salesforce invented the SaaS market. However, the more people work with the full offering of Salesforce, the more they realize that it goes beyond a traditional SaaS platform's capabilities. For example, few people talk about managing the security aspects of  Salesforce Release Updates.  By understanding what Release Updates are, why they pose a security risk, and how security teams can mitigate risk, Salesforce customers can better protect sensitive information. How to ensure the right configurations for your Salesforce security What are Salesforce Release Updates? Since Salesforce does not automatically update its platform, it does not follow the traditional SaaS model. For example, most SaaS platforms have two types of releases, security, and product improvements. Urgent security updates are released as soon as a security vulnerability is known, and prod...

Multiple cybercriminal groups are leveraging a malware-as-a-service (MaaS) solution to carry out a wide range of malicious software distribution campaigns that result in the deployment of payloads such as Campo Loader, Hancitor,  IcedID ,  QBot ,  Buer Loader , and SocGholish against individuals in Belgium as well as government agencies, companies, and corporations in the U.S. Dubbed " Prometheus " and available for sale on underground platforms for $250 a month since August 2020, the service is a Traffic Direction System (TDS) that's designed to distribute malware-laced Word and Excel documents, and divert users to phishing and malicious sites, according to a Group-IB report shared with The Hacker News. More than 3,000 email addresses are said to have been singled out via malicious campaigns in which Prometheus TDS was used to send malicious emails, with banking and finance, retail, energy and mining, cybersecurity, healthcare, IT, and insurance e...

Multiple unpatched security vulnerabilities have been disclosed in Mitsubishi safety programmable logic controllers (PLCs) that could be exploited by an adversary to acquire legitimate user names registered in the module via a brute-force attack, unauthorizedly login to the CPU module, and even cause a denial-of-service (DoS) condition. The security weaknesses, disclosed by  Nozomi Networks , concern the implementation of an authentication mechanism in the  MELSEC communication protocol  that's used to communicate and exchange data with the target devices by reading and writing data to the CPU module. A quick summary of the flaws is listed below - Username Brute-force (CVE-2021-20594, CVSS score: 5.9) - Usernames used during authentication are effectively brute-forceable Anti-password Brute-force Functionality Leads to Overly Restrictive Account Lockout Mechanism (CVE-2021-20598, CVSS score: 3.7) - The implementation to thwart brute-force attacks not only blo...

Networking equipment major Cisco has rolled out patches to address critical vulnerabilities impacting its Small Business VPN routers that could be abused by a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code and even cause a denial-of-service (DoS) condition. The issues, tracked as CVE-2021-1609 (CVSS score: 9.8) and CVE-2021-1610 (CVSS score: 7.2), reside in the web-based management interface of the Small Business RV340, RV340W, RV345, and RV345P Dual WAN Gigabit VPN Routers running a firmware release prior to version 1.0.03.22. Both the issues stem from a lack of proper validation of HTTP requests, thus permitting a bad actor to send a specially-crafted HTTP request to a vulnerable device. Successful exploitation of CVE-2021-1609 could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on the device or cause the device to reload, resulting in a DoS condition. CVE-2021-1610, concerns a command injection vulnerability that, if exploited, could permit an authenticated adve...