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The supply chain attack targeting 3CX was the result of a prior supply chain compromise associated with a different company, demonstrating a new level of sophistication with North Korean threat actors. Google-owned Mandiant, which is  tracking  the attack event under the moniker  UNC4736 ,  said  the incident marks the first time it has seen a "software supply chain attack lead to another software supply chain attack." The Matryoshka doll-style cascading attack against 3CX first came to light on March 29, 2023, when it  emerged  that Windows and macOS versions of its communication software were trojanized to deliver a C/C++-based data miner named ICONIC Stealer by means of a downloader, SUDDENICON, that used icon files hosted on GitHub to extract the server containing the stealer. "The malicious application next attempts to steal sensitive information from the victim user's web browser," the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CI...

Cisco and VMware have released security updates to address critical security flaws in their products that could be exploited by malicious actors to execute arbitrary code on affected systems. The most severe of the vulnerabilities is a command injection flaw  in Cisco Industrial Network Director  (CVE-2023-20036, CVSS score: 9.9), which resides in the web UI component and arises as a result of improper input validation when  uploading a Device Pack . "A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary commands as NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM on the underlying operating system of an affected device," Cisco  said  in an advisory released on April 19, 2023. The networking equipment major also resolved a medium-severity file permissions vulnerability in the same product (CVE-2023-20039, CVSS score: 5.5) that an authenticated, local attacker could abuse to view sensitive information. Patches have been made available in  version 1.11.3 , with Cisco c...

A chain of two critical flaws has been disclosed in Alibaba Cloud's ApsaraDB RDS for PostgreSQL and AnalyticDB for PostgreSQL that could be exploited to breach tenant isolation protections and access sensitive data belonging to other customers. "The vulnerabilities potentially allowed unauthorized access to Alibaba Cloud customers' PostgreSQL databases and the ability to perform a supply chain attack on both Alibaba database services, leading to an RCE on Alibaba database services," cloud security firm Wiz  said  in a new report shared with The Hacker News. The  issues , dubbed  BrokenSesame , were reported to Alibaba Cloud in December 2022, following mitigations were deployed by the company on April 12, 2023. There is no evidence to suggest that the weaknesses were exploited in the wild. In a nutshell, the vulnerabilities – a privilege escalation flaw in AnalyticDB and a remote code execution bug in ApsaraDB RDS – made it possible to elevate privileges to root ...

SaaS Adoption is Skyrocketing, Resilience Hasn't Kept Pace SaaS platforms have revolutionized how businesses operate. They simplify collaboration, accelerate deployment, and reduce the overhead of managing infrastructure. But with their rise comes a subtle, dangerous assumption: that the convenience of SaaS extends to resilience. It doesn't. These platforms weren't built with full-scale data protection in mind . Most follow a shared responsibility model — wherein the provider ensures uptime and application security, but the data inside is your responsibility. In a world of hybrid architectures, global teams, and relentless cyber threats, that responsibility is harder than ever to manage. Modern organizations are being stretched across: Hybrid and multi-cloud environments with decentralized data sprawl Complex integration layers between IaaS, SaaS, and legacy systems Expanding regulatory pressure with steeper penalties for noncompliance Escalating ransomware threats and inside...

Why is Visibility into OT Environments Crucial? The significance of Operational Technology (OT) for businesses is undeniable as the OT sector flourishes alongside the already thriving IT sector. OT includes industrial control systems, manufacturing equipment, and devices that oversee and manage industrial environments and critical infrastructures. In recent years, adversaries have recognized the lack of detection and protection in many industrial systems and are actively exploiting these vulnerabilities. In response, IT security leaders have become more aware of the need to protect their OT environments with security monitoring and response capabilities. This development was accelerated by severe past cyber incidents targeting critical OT environments and even causing physical damage to infrastructures. Given the pivotal role these systems play in business operations and modern society, ensuring their security is of utmost importance. The underlying trend is clear: OT and IoT networ...

The notorious North Korea-aligned state-sponsored actor known as the  Lazarus Group  has been attributed to a new campaign aimed at Linux users. The attacks are part of a persistent and long-running activity tracked under the name  Operation Dream Job , ESET said in a  new report  published today. The findings are crucial, not least because it marks the first publicly documented example of the adversary using Linux malware as part of this social engineering scheme. Operation Dream Job , also known as  DeathNote or NukeSped , refers to multiple attack waves wherein the group leverages fraudulent job offers as a lure to trick unsuspecting targets into downloading malware. It also  exhibits overlaps  with two other Lazarus clusters known as Operation In(ter)ception and Operation North Star. The attack chain discovered by ESET is no different in that it delivers a fake HSBC job offer as a decoy within a ZIP archive file that's then used to launc...

Fortra, the company behind Cobalt Strike, shed light on a zero-day remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in its GoAnywhere MFT tool that has come under  active   exploitation  by ransomware actors to steal sensitive data. The high-severity flaw, tracked as  CVE-2023-0669  (CVSS score: 7.2), concerns a case of pre-authenticated command injection that could be abused to achieve code execution. The issue was patched by the company in version 7.1.2 of the software in February 2023, but not before it was weaponized as a zero-day since January 18. Fortra, which worked with Palo Alto Networks Unit 42, said it was made aware of suspicious activity associated with some of the file transfer instances on January 30, 2023. "The unauthorized party used CVE-2023-0669 to create unauthorized user accounts in some MFTaaS customer environments," the company  said . "For a subset of these customers, the unauthorized party leveraged these user accounts to download file...

In the short time since their inception, ChatGPT and other generative AI platforms have rightfully gained the reputation of ultimate productivity boosters. However, the very same technology that enables rapid production of high-quality text on demand, can at the same time expose sensitive corporate data. A recent  incident , in which Samsung software engineers pasted proprietary code into ChatGPT, clearly demonstrates that this tool can easily become a potential data leakage channel. This vulnerability introduces a demanding challenge for security stakeholders, since none of the existing data protection tools can ensure no sensitive data is exposed to ChatGPT. In this article we'll explore this security challenge in detail and show how browser security solutions can provide a solution. All while enabling organizations to fully realize ChatGPT's productivity potential and without having to compromise on data security.  The ChatGPT data protection blind spot: How can you gover...

Telecommunication services providers in Africa are the target of a new campaign orchestrated by a China-linked threat actor at least since November 2022. The intrusions have been pinned on a hacking crew tracked by Symantec as  Daggerfly , and which is also monitored by the broader cybersecurity community as Bronze Highland and Evasive Panda. The campaign makes use of "previously unseen plugins from the MgBot malware framework," the cybersecurity company  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. "The attackers were also seen using a  PlugX loader  and abusing the legitimate AnyDesk remote desktop software." Daggerfly's use of the  MgBot loader  (aka BLame or MgmBot) was  spotlighted  by Malwarebytes in July 2020 as part of phishing attacks aimed at Indian government personnel and individuals in Hong Kong. According to a profile published by Secureworks, the threat actor uses spear-phishing as an initial infection vector to drop M...

Israeli spyware maker NSO Group deployed at least three novel "zero-click" exploits against iPhones in 2022 to infiltrate defenses erected by Apple and deploy Pegasus, according to the latest findings from Citizen Lab. "NSO Group customers widely deployed at least three iOS 15 and iOS 16 zero-click exploit chains against civil society targets around the world," the interdisciplinary laboratory based at the University of Toronto  said . NSO Group is the manufacturer of  Pegasus , a sophisticated cyber weapon that's capable of extracting sensitive information stored in a device – e.g., messages, locations, photos, and call logs, among others — in real-time. It's typically delivered to targeted iPhones using zero-click and/or zero-day exploits. While it has been pitched as a tool for law enforcement agencies to combat serious crimes such as child sexual abuse and terrorism, it has also been deployed illegally by authoritarian governments to spy on human rig...