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Exposed Docker API endpoints over the internet are under assault from a sophisticated cryptojacking campaign called  Commando Cat . "The campaign deploys a benign container generated using the  Commando project ," Cado security researchers Nate Bill and Matt Muir  said  in a new report published today. "The attacker  escapes this container  and runs multiple payloads on the Docker host." The campaign is believed to have been active since the start of 2024, making it the second such campaign to be discovered in as many months. In mid-January, the cloud security firm also shed light on  another activity cluster  that targets vulnerable Docker hosts to deploy XMRig cryptocurrency miner as well as the 9Hits Viewer software. Commando Cat employs Docker as an initial access vector to deliver a collection of interdependent payloads from an actor-controlled server that is responsible for registering persistence, backdooring the host, exfiltrating clou...

How's your vulnerability management program doing? Is it effective? A success? Let's be honest, without the right metrics or analytics, how can you tell how well you're doing, progressing, or if you're getting ROI? If you're not measuring, how do you know it's working? And even if you are measuring, faulty reporting or focusing on the wrong metrics can create blind spots and make it harder to communicate any risks to the rest of the business. So how do you know what to focus on? Cyber hygiene, scan coverage, average time to fix, vulnerability severity, remediation rates, vulnerability exposure… the list is endless. Every tool on the market offers different metrics, so it can be hard to know what is important. This article will help you identify and define the key metrics that you need to track the state of your vulnerability management program, the progress you've made, so you can create audit-ready reports that: Prove your security posture Meet vulnerability remediation SLAs an...

The U.S. government on Wednesday said it took steps to neutralize a botnet comprising hundreds of U.S.-based small office and home office (SOHO) routers hijacked by a China-linked state-sponsored threat actor called Volt Typhoon and blunt the impact posed by the hacking campaign. The existence of the botnet, dubbed  KV-botnet , was  first disclosed  by the Black Lotus Labs team at Lumen Technologies in mid-December 2023. The law enforcement effort was  reported  by Reuters earlier this week. "The vast majority of routers that comprised the KV-botnet were Cisco and NetGear routers that were vulnerable because they had reached 'end of life' status; that is, they were no longer supported through their manufacturer's security patches or other software updates," the Department of Justice (DoJ)  said  in a press statement. Volt Typhoon  (aka DEV-0391, Bronze Silhouette, Insidious Taurus, or Vanguard Panda) is the moniker assigned to a China-based ad...

Cybersecurity researchers have detailed an updated version of the malware  HeadCrab  that's known to target Redis database servers across the world since early September 2021. The development, which comes exactly a year after the malware was first  publicly disclosed  by Aqua, is a sign that the financially-motivated threat actor behind the campaign is actively adapting and refining their tactics and techniques to stay ahead of the detection curve. The cloud security firm  said  that "the campaign has almost doubled the number of infected Redis servers," with an additional 1,100 compromised servers, up from 1,200 reported at the start of 2023. HeadCrab is designed to infiltrate internet-exposed Redis servers and wrangle them into a botnet for illicitly mining cryptocurrency, while also leveraging the access in a manner that allows the threat actor to execute shell commands, load fileless kernel modules, and exfiltrate data to a remote server. While th...

Google-owned Mandiant said it identified new malware employed by a China-nexus espionage threat actor known as UNC5221 and other threat groups during post-exploitation activity targeting Ivanti Connect Secure VPN and Policy Secure devices. This includes custom web shells such as BUSHWALK, CHAINLINE, FRAMESTING, and a variant of  LIGHTWIRE . "CHAINLINE is a Python web shell backdoor that is embedded in a Ivanti Connect Secure Python package that enables arbitrary command execution," the company  said , attributing it to UNC5221, adding it also detected multiple new versions of  WARPWIRE , a JavaScript-based credential stealer. The infection chains entail a successful exploitation of  CVE-2023-46805 and CVE-2024-21887 , which allow an unauthenticated threat actor to execute arbitrary commands on the Ivanti appliance with elevated privileges. The flaws have been abused as zero-days since early December 2023. Germany's Federal Office for Information Security (BSI)...

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Wednesday  added  a high-severity flaw impacting iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, and watchOS to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities ( KEV ) catalog, based on evidence of active exploitation. The vulnerability, tracked as  CVE-2022-48618  (CVSS score: 7.8), concerns a bug in the kernel component. "An attacker with arbitrary read and write capability may be able to bypass  Pointer Authentication ," Apple said in an advisory, adding the issue "may have been exploited against versions of iOS released before iOS 15.7.1." The iPhone maker said the problem was addressed with improved checks. It's currently not known how the vulnerability is being weaponized in real-world attacks. Interestingly, patches for the flaw were released on December 13, 2022, with the release of  iOS 16.2, iPadOS 16.2 ,  macOS Ventura 13.1 ,  tvOS 16.2 , and  watchOS 9.2 , although it was only publicly discl...

Multiple security vulnerabilities have been disclosed in the runC command line tool that could be exploited by threat actors to escape the bounds of the container and stage follow-on attacks. The vulnerabilities, tracked as CVE-2024-21626, CVE-2024-23651, CVE-2024-23652, and CVE-2024-23653, have been collectively dubbed  Leaky Vessels  by cybersecurity vendor Snyk. "These container escapes could allow an attacker to gain unauthorized access to the underlying host operating system from within the container and potentially permit access to sensitive data (credentials, customer info, etc.), and launch further attacks, especially when the access gained includes superuser privileges," the company  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. runC  is a tool for spawning and running containers on Linux. It was originally developed as part of Docker and later  spun out  into a separate open-source library in 2015. A brief description of each of the fl...

Ivanti is alerting of two new high-severity flaws in its Connect Secure and Policy Secure products, one of which is said to have come under targeted exploitation in the wild. The list of vulnerabilities is as follows - CVE-2024-21888  (CVSS score: 8.8) - A privilege escalation vulnerability in the web component of Ivanti Connect Secure (9.x, 22.x) and Ivanti Policy Secure (9.x, 22.x) allows a user to elevate privileges to that of an administrator CVE-2024-21893  (CVSS score: 8.2) - A server-side request forgery vulnerability in the SAML component of Ivanti Connect Secure (9.x, 22.x), Ivanti Policy Secure (9.x, 22.x) and Ivanti Neurons for ZTA allows an attacker to access certain restricted resources without authentication The Utah-based software company  said  it found no evidence of customers being impacted by CVE-2024-21888 so far, but acknowledged "the exploitation of CVE-2024-21893 appears to be targeted" and that it's "aware of a limited number of cust...

Cybersecurity researchers are calling attention to the "democratization" of the phishing ecosystem owing to the emergence of Telegram as an epicenter for cybercrime, enabling threat actors to mount a mass attack for as little as $230. "This messaging app has transformed into a bustling hub where seasoned cybercriminals and newcomers alike exchange illicit tools and insights creating a dark and well-oiled supply chain of tools and victims' data," Guardio Labs researchers Oleg Zaytsev and Nati Tal  said  in a new report. "Free samples, tutorials, kits, even hackers-for-hire – everything needed to construct a complete end-to-end malicious campaign." The company also described Telegram as a "scammers paradise" and a "breeding ground for modern phishing operations." This is not the first time the popular messaging platform has  come under the radar  for facilitating malicious activities, which are in part driven by its lenient modera...