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The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has announced that a family of authenticated encryption and hashing algorithms known as Ascon will be standardized for  lightweight cryptography  applications. "The chosen algorithms are designed to protect information created and transmitted by the Internet of Things (IoT), including its myriad tiny sensors and actuators," NIST  said . "They are also designed for other miniature technologies such as implanted medical devices, stress detectors inside roads and bridges, and keyless entry fobs for vehicles." Put differently, the idea is to adopt security protections via lightweight cryptography in devices that have a "limited amount of electronic resources." That said, NIST still recommends the Advanced Encryption Standard ( AES ) and SHA-256 for general use. Ascon is  credited  to a team of cryptographers from the Graz University of Technology, Infineon Technologies, Lamarr Security Researc...

Multiple unpatched security flaws have been disclosed in open source and freemium Document Management System (DMS) offerings from four vendors LogicalDOC, Mayan, ONLYOFFICE, and OpenKM. Cybersecurity firm Rapid7 said the eight vulnerabilities offer a mechanism through which "an attacker can convince a human operator to save a malicious document on the platform and, once the document is indexed and triggered by the user, giving the attacker multiple paths to control the organization." The list of eight cross-site scripting ( XSS ) flaws, discovered by Rapid7 researcher Matthew Kienow, is as follows - CVE-2022-47412  - ONLYOFFICE Workspace Search Stored XSS CVE-2022-47413 and CVE-2022-47414  - OpenKM Document and Application XSS CVE-2022-47415, CVE-2022-47416, CVE-2022-47417, and CVE-2022-47418  - LogicalDOC Multiple Stored XSS CVE-2022-47419  - Mayan EDMS Tag Stored XSS Stored XSS, also known as persistent XSS, occurs when a malicious script is injected dire...

A Sydney man has been  sentenced  to an 18-month Community Correction Order ( CCO ) and 100 hours of community service for attempting to take advantage of the Optus data breach last year to blackmail its customers. The unnamed individual, 19 when  arrested in October 2022  and now 20, used the leaked records stolen from the security lapse to orchestrate an SMS-based extortion scheme. The suspect contacted dozens of victims to threaten that their personal information would be sold to other hackers and "used for fraudulent activity" unless an AU$ 2,000 payment is made to a bank account under their control. The scammer is said to have sent the SMS messages to 92 individuals whose information was part of a  larger cache of 10,200 records  that was briefly published in a criminal forum in September 2022, The Australian Federal Police (AFP), which launched Operation Guardian following the breach, said there is no evidence that any of the affected customers ...

A Russia-linked threat actor has been observed deploying a new information-stealing malware in cyber attacks targeting Ukraine. Dubbed Graphiron by Broadcom-owned Symantec, the malware is the handiwork of an espionage group known as  Nodaria , which is tracked by the Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA) as UAC-0056. "The malware is written in Go and is designed to harvest a wide range of information from the infected computer, including system information, credentials, screenshots, and files," the Symantec Threat Hunter Team  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. Nodaria was  first spotlighted  by CERT-UA in January 2022, calling attention to the adversary's use of  SaintBot and OutSteel malware  in spear-phishing attacks targeting government entities. Also called DEV-0586, TA471, and UNC2589, the hacking crew has been linked to the destructive WhisperGate (aka PAYWIPE ) data wiper attacks targeting Ukrainian entities a...

To succeed as a cybersecurity analyst, you need to understand the traits, values, and thought processes of hackers, along with the tools they use to launch their attacks.  During a  webinar called The Hacker Mindset,  a Red Team Researcher shared how you can use some of these tools for your own detection and prevention of breaches. He also demonstrated how an attack takes place using the  Follina exploit  as an example. So, what does "the hacker mindset" mean?  The hacker mindset can be characterized by three core values: a strong sense of curiosity, an adversarial attitude, and persistence.  3 core values of a hacker's mindset  1  —  "Curiosity might have killed the cat, but it had nine lives." Curiosity drives hackers to explore and understand systems, networks, and software in order to identify vulnerabilities. Not only are they constantly seeking new knowledge and skills to improve their abilities and stay ahead of security m...

A Russian national on February 7, 2023, pleaded guilty in the U.S. to money laundering charges and for attempting to conceal the source of funds obtained in connection with Ryuk ransomware attacks. Denis Mihaqlovic Dubnikov, 30, was  arrested  in Amsterdam in November 2021 before he was extradited from the Netherlands in August 2022. He is awaiting sentencing on April 11, 2023. "Between at least August 2018 and August 2021, Dubnikov and his co-conspirators laundered the proceeds of Ryuk ransomware attacks on individuals and organizations throughout the United States and abroad," the Department of Justice (DoJ)  said . Dubnikov and his accomplices are said to have engaged in various criminal schemes designed to obscure the trail of the ill-gotten proceeds. According to DoJ, a chunk of the 250 Bitcoin ransom paid by a U.S. company in July 2019 after a Ryuk attack was sent to Dubnikov in exchange for about $400,000. The crypto was subsequently converted to Tether and t...

The Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA) has  issued  an alert warning of cyber attacks against state authorities in the country that deploy a legitimate remote access software named Remcos. The mass phishing campaign has been attributed to a threat actor it tracks as  UAC-0050 , with the agency describing the activity as likely motivated by espionage given the toolset employed. The bogus emails that kick-start the infection sequence claim to be from Ukrainian telecom company Ukrtelecom and come bearing a decoy RAR archive. Of the two files present in the file, one is a password-protected RAR archive that's over 600MB and the other is a text file containing the password to open the RAR file. Embedded within the second RAR archive is an executable that leads to the installation of the Remcos remote access software, granting the attacker full access to commandeer compromised computers. Remcos , short for remote control and surveillance software, is of...

A joint law enforcement operation conducted by Germany, the Netherlands, and Poland has cracked yet another encrypted messaging application named  Exclu  used by organized crime groups. Eurojust, in a press statement,  said  the February 3 exercise resulted in the arrests of 45 individuals across Belgium and the Netherlands, some of whom include users as well as the administrators and owners of the service, Authorities also launched raids in 79 locations, leading to the seizure of €5.5 million in cash, 300,000 ecstasy tablets, 20 firearms, and 200 phones. Two drug laboratories have further been shut down. Investigation into Exlcu is said to have commenced in Germany as far back as June 2020. The application, prior to its takedown, had an estimated 3,000 users, of which 750 are Dutch speakers. The Politie, in an announcement of its own, noted that it was able to gain covert access to the service, permitting the agency to read messages sent by its users for the p...

Threat actors are leveraging known flaws in Sunlogin software to deploy the Sliver command-and-control (C2) framework for carrying out post-exploitation activities. The findings come from AhnLab Security Emergency response Center (ASEC), which discovered that security vulnerabilities in Sunlogin, a remote desktop program developed in China, are being abused to deploy a wide range of payloads. "Not only did threat actors use the Sliver backdoor, but they also used the  BYOVD  (Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver) malware to incapacitate security products and install reverse shells," the researchers  said . Attack chains commence with the exploitation of two remote code execution bugs in Sunlogin versions prior to v11.0.0.33 (CNVD-2022-03672 and CNVD-2022-10270), followed by delivering Sliver or other malware such as  Gh0st RAT  and XMRig crypto coin miner. In one instance, the threat actor is said to have weaponized the Sunlogin flaws to install a PowerShell s...