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Microsoft on Tuesday disclosed that three new security flaws impacting the Windows platform have come under active exploitation as part of its Patch Tuesday update for September 2024. The monthly security release addresses a total of 79 vulnerabilities, of which seven are rated Critical, 71 are rated Important, and one is rated Moderate in severity. This is aside from 26 flaws that the tech giant resolved in its Chromium-based Edge browser since last month's Patch Tuesday release. The three vulnerabilities that have been weaponized in a malicious context are listed below, alongside a bug that Microsoft is treating as exploited - CVE-2024-38014 (CVSS score: 7.8) - Windows Installer Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability CVE-2024-38217 (CVSS score: 5.4) - Windows Mark-of-the-Web (MotW) Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability CVE-2024-38226 (CVSS score: 7.3) - Microsoft Publisher Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability CVE-2024-43491 (CVSS score: 9.8) - Microsoft Windows Updat...

Ivanti has released software updates to address multiple security flaws impacting Endpoint Manager (EPM), including 10 critical vulnerabilities that could result in remote code execution. A brief description of the issues is as follows - CVE-2024-29847 (CVSS score: 10.0) - A deserialization of untrusted data vulnerability that allows a remote unauthenticated attacker to achieve code execution. CVE-2024-32840, CVE-2024-32842, CVE-2024-32843, CVE-2024-32845, CVE-2024-32846, CVE-2024-32848, CVE-2024-34779, CVE-2024-34783, and CVE-2024-34785 (CVSS scores: 9.1) - Multiple unspecified SQL injection vulnerabilities that allow a remote authenticated attacker with admin privileges to achieve code execution The flaws impact EPM versions 2024 and 2022 SU5 and earlier, with fixes made available in versions 2024 SU1 and 2022 SU6, respectively. Ivanti said it has found no evidence of the flaws being exploited in the wild as a zero-day, but it's essential that users update to the latest...

The threat actor known as CosmicBeetle has debuted a new custom ransomware strain called ScRansom in attacks targeting small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America, while also likely working as an affiliate for RansomHub . "CosmicBeetle replaced its previously deployed ransomware, Scarab, with ScRansom, which is continually improved," ESET researcher Jakub Souček said in a new analysis published today. "While not being top notch, the threat actor is able to compromise interesting targets." Targets of ScRansom attacks span manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, legal, education, healthcare, technology, hospitality, leisure, financial services, and regional government sectors. CosmicBeetle is best known for a malicious toolset called Spacecolon that was previously identified as used for delivering the Scarab ransomware across victim organizations globally. Also known as NONAME, the adversary has a track record of experimenting w...

A trio of threat activity clusters linked to China has been observed compromising more government organizations in Southeast Asia as part of a renewed state-sponsored operation codenamed Crimson Palace , indicating an expansion in the scope of the espionage effort. Cybersecurity firm Sophos, which has been monitoring the cyber offensive, said it comprises three intrusion sets tracked as Cluster Alpha (STAC1248), Cluster Bravo (STAC1870), and Cluster Charlie (STAC1305). STAC is an abbreviation for "security threat activity cluster." "The attackers consistently used other compromised organizational and public service networks in that region to deliver malware and tools under the guise of a trusted access point," security researchers Mark Parsons, Morgan Demboski, and Sean Gallagher said in a technical report shared with The Hacker News. A noteworthy aspect of the attacks is that it entails the use of an unnamed organization's systems as a command-and-control ...

Shadow apps, a segment of Shadow IT, are SaaS applications purchased without the knowledge of the security team. While these applications may be legitimate, they operate within the blind spots of the corporate security team and expose the company to attackers.  Shadow apps may include instances of software that the company is already using. For example, a dev team may onboard their own instance of GitHub to keep their work separate from other developers. They might justify the purchase by noting that GitHub is an approved application, as it is already in use by other teams. However, since the new instance is used outside of the security team's view, it lacks governance. It may store sensitive corporate data and not have essential protections like MFA enabled, SSO enforced, or it could suffer from weak access controls. These misconfigurations can easily lead to risks like stolen source code and other issues. Types of Shadow Apps  Shadow apps can be categorized based on thei...

A new side-channel attack dubbed PIXHELL could be abused to target air-gapped computers by breaching the "audio gap" and exfiltrating sensitive information by taking advantage of the noise generated by pixels on an LCD screen. "Malware in the air-gap and audio-gap computers generates crafted pixel patterns that produce noise in the frequency range of 0 - 22 kHz," Dr. Mordechai Guri , the head of the Offensive Cyber Research Lab in the Department of Software and Information Systems Engineering at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, said in a newly published paper. "The malicious code exploits the sound generated by coils and capacitors to control the frequencies emanating from the screen. Acoustic signals can encode and transmit sensitive information." The attack is notable in that it doesn't require any specialized audio hardware, loudspeaker, or internal speaker on the compromised computer, instead relying on the LCD screen to gene...

The threat actor tracked as Mustang Panda has refined its malware arsenal to include new tools in order to facilitate data exfiltration and the deployment of next-stage payloads, according to new findings from Trend Micro. The cybersecurity firm, which is monitoring the activity cluster under the name Earth Preta, said it observed "the propagation of PUBLOAD via a variant of the worm HIUPAN." PUBLOAD is a known downloader malware linked to Mustang Panda since early 2022, deployed as part of cyber attacks targeting government entities in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region to deliver the PlugX malware . "PUBLOAD was also used to introduce supplemental tools into the targets' environment, such as FDMTP to serve as a secondary control tool, which was observed to perform similar tasks as that of PUBLOAD; and PTSOCKET, a tool used as an alternative exfiltration option," security researchers Lenart Bermejo, Sunny Lu, and Ted Lee said. Mustang Panda's use of re...

A novel side-channel attack has been found to leverage radio signals emanated by a device's random access memory (RAM) as a data exfiltration mechanism, posing a threat to air-gapped networks. The technique has been codenamed RAMBO (short for "Radiation of Air-gapped Memory Bus for Offense") by Dr. Mordechai Guri, the head of the Offensive Cyber Research Lab in the Department of Software and Information Systems Engineering at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. "Using software-generated radio signals, malware can encode sensitive information such as files, images, keylogging, biometric information, and encryption keys," Dr. Guri said in a newly published research paper. "With software-defined radio (SDR) hardware, and a simple off-the-shelf antenna, an attacker can intercept transmitted raw radio signals from a distance. The signals can then be decoded and translated back into binary information." Over the years, Dr. Guri has conco...

The proliferation of cybersecurity tools has created an illusion of security. Organizations often believe that by deploying a firewall, antivirus software, intrusion detection systems, identity threat detection and response , and other tools, they are adequately protected. However, this approach not only fails to address the fundamental issue of the attack surface but also introduces dangerous third-party risk to the mix. The world of cybersecurity is in a constant state of flux, with cybercriminals becoming increasingly sophisticated in their tactics. In response, organizations are investing heavily in cybersecurity tools, hoping to build an impenetrable fortress around their digital assets. However, the belief that adding "just one more cybersecurity tool" will magically fix your attack surface and enhance your protection is a dangerous misconception. The limitations of cybersecurity tools Cybersecurity tools, while essential, have inherent limitations. They are designe...