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Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed a new variant of the AvosLocker ransomware that disables antivirus solutions to evade detection after breaching target networks by taking advantage of unpatched security flaws.  "This is the first sample we observed from the U.S. with the capability to disable a defense solution using a legitimate Avast Anti-Rootkit Driver file (asWarPot.sys)," Trend Micro researchers, Christoper Ordonez and Alvin Nieto,  said  in a Monday analysis. "In addition, the ransomware is also capable of scanning multiple endpoints for the Log4j vulnerability (Log4shell) using Nmap  NSE script ." AvosLocker , one of the newer ransomware families to fill the vacuum left by  REvil , has been linked to a number of attacks that targeted critical infrastructure in the U.S., including financial services and government facilities. A ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) affiliate-based group first spotted in July 2021, AvosLocker goes beyond double extortion

Yeah, it's Patch Tuesday once again. Almost 10 years ago in October, 2003 - Microsoft  invented the process of regularly scheduled security updates on every second Tuesday of the Month, as  Patch Tuesday. Today, the Microsoft Security team will i ssue eight security updates in total, out of that -- three of which are designated as " critical ," and rest five as " Important " updates, that patches vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Server Software, and Internet Explorer. The eight bulletins that Microsoft is releasing fixes a total of 23 different vulnerabilities in Microsoft products. Microsoft will be rolling out a total of three Critical patches dealing with Remote Code Execution. Windows 8 is expected to get four of the updates, one of them is critical and dealing with Remote Code Execution with Internet Explorer 10, while the other three updates are Important and deal with Elevation of Privilege and Denial of Service . Windows RT i

Over the past two years, a shocking  51% of organizations surveyed in a leading industry report have been compromised by a cyberattack.  Yes, over half.  And this, in a world where enterprises deploy  an average of 53 different security solutions  to safeguard their digital domain.  Alarming? Absolutely. A recent survey of CISOs and CIOs, commissioned by Pentera and conducted by Global Surveyz Research, offers a quantifiable glimpse into this evolving battlefield, revealing a stark contrast between the growing risks and the tightening budget constraints under which cybersecurity professionals operate. With this report, Pentera has once again taken a magnifying glass to the state of pentesting to release its annual report about today's pentesting practices. Engaging with 450 security executives from North America, LATAM, APAC, and EMEA—all in VP or C-level positions at organizations with over 1,000 employees—the report paints a current picture of modern security validation prac

It's not a Patch Tuesday, but Microsoft is rolling out emergency out-of-band security patches for two new vulnerabilities, one of which is a critical Internet Explorer zero-day that cyber criminals are actively exploiting in the wild. Discovered by Clément Lecigne of Google's Threat Analysis Group and tracked as CVE-2019-1367, the IE zero-day is a remote code execution vulnerability in the way Microsoft's scripting engine handles objects in memory in Internet Explorer. The vulnerability is a memory-corruption issue that could allow a remote attacker to hijack a Windows PC just by convincing the user into viewing a specially crafted, booby-trapped web-page hosted online, when using Internet Explorer. "An attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability could gain the same user rights as the current user. If the current user is logged on with administrative user rights, an attacker who successfully exploited the vulnerability could take control of an affec

Another day, another massive data breach—this time affecting a leading web technology company, as well as both of its subsidiaries, from where millions of customers around the world have purchased domain names for their websites. The world's top domain registrars Web.com, Network Solutions, and Register.com disclosed a security breach that may have resulted in the theft of customers' account information. Founded in 1999 and headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, Web.com is a leading web technology company that owns both Network Solutions and Register.com. The companies offer web services like web hosting, website design, and online marketing to help people build their own websites. What happened? — In late August 2019, a third-party gained unauthorized access to a "limited number" of the company's computer systems and reportedly accessed millions of records for accounts of current and former customers with Web.com, Network Solutions, and Register.com.

In Brief Investigators from British defense contractor BAE Systems discovered that hackers who stole $81 million from the Bangladesh Central Bank actually hacked into software from SWIFT financial platform, a key part of the global financial system. The hackers used a custom-made malware to hide evidence and go undetected by erasing records of illicit transfers with the help of compromised SWIFT system. The Bangladesh Bank hackers, who managed to steal $81 Million from the bank last month in one of the largest bank heists in history, actually made their tracks clear after hacking into SWIFT, the heart of the global financial system. SWIFT , stands for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications, is a global messaging network used for most international money and security transfers. More than 11,000 Global Banks on HIGH ALERT! Nearly 11,000 Banks and other financial institutions around the World use SWIFT system to send securely and receive payment

It's time to update your Drupal websites, once again. For the second time within a month , Drupal has been found vulnerable to another critical vulnerability that could allow remote attackers to pull off advanced attacks including cookie theft, keylogging, phishing and identity theft. Discovered by the Drupal security team, the open source content management framework is vulnerable to cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability that resides in a third-party plugin CKEditor which comes pre-integrated in Drupal core to help site administrators and users create interactive content. CKEditor is a popular JavaScript-based WYSIWYG rich text editor which is being used by many websites, as well as comes pre-installed with some popular web projects. According to a security advisory released by CKEditor, the XSS vulnerability stems from the improper validation of " img " tag in Enhanced Image plugin for CKEditor 4.5.11 and later versions. This could allow an attacker to

More than 9000+ participants enter the Guinness book of World Records for the largest congregation for information Security. E-Hack, world largest Ethical Hacking workshop was organized by InfySEC at SRM University on July 27 and 28,2013 . The expected participant count was 4500+ but on the day of the event the participant count were as high as 9637 students participated to be a part of E-HACK making it the LARGEST IT SECURITY AWARENESS MARATHON GLOBALLY , which made the organizing team to facilitate other two mini auditorium available in the same venue with speakers like Mr. Karthikeyan,founder of Zazvik Solutions, Mr.Santhosh Srinivasan, director of Symantec,Mr.Patrick Martinent, a Google developer Expert, Mr. Vinod Senthil,Director of Infysec, Mr.Ashish Chandra Mishra,Chief Information Security Officer at Tesco HSC, Mr. Rishi Narang,lead consultant with Aujas Networks , VT Gopal - Professor, Anna University and Dr.Prateep V.Philip IPS,AGDP, Tamil Nadu Crime Division.

Hackers have compromised a private e-mail list used by Linux and BSD distributors to share information on embargoed security vulnerabilities and used a backdoor to sniff e-mail traffic, according to the moderator of the list. In a note to " Vendor-Sec " members, moderator Marcus Meissner said he noticed the break-in on January 20 but warned that it might have existed for much longer. I have disabled the specific backdoor, but as I am not sure how the break-in happened it might reappear. So I recommend not mailing embargoed issues to vendor-sec@….de at this time. Immediately after Meissner's warning e-mail, the attacker re-entered the compromised machine and destroyed the installation. The "Vendor-Sec" list is used by distributors of free/open-source OS and software to discuss potential distribution element (kernel, libraries, applications) security vulnerabilities, as well as to co-ordinate the release of security updates by members. This means that a compromise and the captu

Researchers have disclosed details of a new security vulnerability in GitLab, an open-source DevOps software, that could potentially allow a remote, unauthenticated attacker to recover user-related information. Tracked as CVE-2021-4191 (CVSS score: 5.3), the medium-severity flaw affects all versions of GitLab Community Edition and Enterprise Edition starting from 13.0 and all versions starting from 14.4 and prior to 14.8. Credited with discovering and reporting the flaw is Jake Baines, a senior security researcher at Rapid7. Following responsible disclosure on November 18, 2021, patches were  released  for self-managed servers as part of GitLab critical security releases 14.8.2, 14.7.4, and 14.6.5 shipped on February 25, 2022. "The vulnerability is the result of a missing authentication check when executing certain GitLab GraphQL API queries," Baines  said  in a report published Thursday. "A remote, unauthenticated attacker can use this vulnerability to collect regi

2015 will be a year more smarter than 2014 with smarter mobile devices, smarter home appliances, and yes Smarter Automobiles. Nowadays, there are a number of automobiles companies offering vehicles that run on a mostly drive-by-wire system, meaning that a majority of the controls are electronically controlled, from instrument cluster to steering, brakes, and accelerator as well. No doubt these systems makes your driving experience better, but at the same time they also increase the risk of getting hacked. According to a recent research, an electronic dongle used to plugged into the on-board diagnostic port of more than two million cars and trucks contains few security weaknesses that makes them vulnerable to wireless attacks, resulting in taking control of the entire vehicle. Since 2008, US-based Progressive Insurance has used the SnapShot device in more than two million vehicles . The little device monitors and tracks users' driving behavior by collecting vehicle location a

Do you deal with MS Word files on the daily basis? If yes, then are you aware that even opening a simple doc file could compromise your system? It is a matter to think that the virus does not directly affect you, but it is you who let the virus carry out the attack by enabling deadly "Macros" to view the doc contents that are generally on eye-catching subjects like bank invoice. How Macros are Crippling your System? The concept of Macros dates back to 1990s. You must be familiar with this message: " Warning: This document contains macros. " A Macro is a series of commands and actions that help to automate some tasks. Microsoft Office programs support Macros written in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), but they can also be used for malicious activities like installing malware. Hackers are cleverly using this technique on the shade of social engineering by sending the malicious Macros through doc file or spreadsheet with an eye-catching subject in t

The Keksec threat actor has been linked to a previously undocumented malware strain, which has been observed in the wild masquerading as an extension for Chromium-based web browsers to enslave compromised machines into a botnet. Called  Cloud9  by security firm Zimperium, the malicious browser add-on comes with a wide range of features that enables it to siphon cookies, log keystrokes, inject arbitrary JavaScript code, mine crypto, and even enlist the host to carry out DDoS attacks. The extension "not only steals the information available during the browser session but can also install malware on a user's device and subsequently assume control of the entire device," Zimperium researcher Nipun Gupta  said  in a new report. The JavaScript botnet isn't distributed via Chrome Web Store or Microsoft Edge Add-ons, but rather through fake executables and rogue websites disguised as Adobe Flash Player updates. Once installed, the extension is designed to inject a JavaScr

Microsoft was very upset with Google last week when its Threat Analysis Group publically disclosed a critical Windows kernel vulnerability (CVE-2016-7255) that had yet to be patched. The company criticized Google's move , claiming that the disclosure of the vulnerability, which was being exploited in the wild, put its customers "at potential risk." The vulnerability affects all Windows versions from Windows Vista through current versions of Windows 10, and Microsoft was set to issue a fix come this month's Patch Tuesday. So, as part of its monthly Patch Tuesday, Microsoft today patched the security flaw in Windows that was actively being exploited by hackers. According to Microsoft's security bulletin released today, any hacker who tricked victims into running a "specially-crafted application" could successfully exploit the system bug and gain the ability to "install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with fu

Do you know, A Computer viruses could go Airborne over WiFi networks? Security researchers at the University of Liverpool  in Britain have demonstrated a WiFi virus that can spread between computer networks just like the ' common cold ' spreads between Humans. They have created a proof-of-concept which can infect the entire wireless network instead of a single computer at a time,  that replaces the firmware of the vulnerable Access Point (AP) with a virus-loaded version, and then propagates itself to the next victim on the WiFi network . The  WiFi  based virus named as ' Chameleon ', that can self-propagate over WiFi networks from access point to access point,  but  doesn't affect the working of the Wireless Access Point. This Virus is able to identify WiFi access points that are not protected by encryption and passwords, according to the research paper . It can badly hit less-protected open access WiFi networks available in coffee shops or airp

It's no secret that keeping software up to date is one of the key best practices in cybersecurity. Software vulnerabilities are being discovered almost weekly these days. The longer it takes IT teams to apply updates issued by developers to patch these security flaws, the more time attackers have to exploit the underlying vulnerability. Once threat actors gain access to corporate IT ecosystems, they can steal or encrypt sensitive data, deploy ransomware, damage systems, and more. When there's a known exploit for a critical vulnerability, the need to deploy patches becomes critical. At the same time, while IT teams race to keep their operating systems, business applications, and web browsers up to date and fully patched, they have to exercise caution, since applying patches without proper testing can introduce more problems than it solves. The reality is, many organizations are struggling to maintain the upper hand against threats. According to Action1's  2021 Remote IT

A novel hardware attack dubbed  PACMAN  has been demonstrated against Apple's M1 processor chipsets, potentially arming a malicious actor with the capability to gain arbitrary code execution on macOS systems. It leverages "speculative execution attacks to bypass an important memory protection mechanism, ARM Pointer Authentication, a security feature that is used to enforce pointer integrity," MIT researchers Joseph Ravichandran, Weon Taek Na, Jay Lang, and Mengjia Yan  said  in a new paper. What's more concerning is that "while the hardware mechanisms used by PACMAN cannot be patched with software features, memory corruption bugs can be," the researchers added. The vulnerability is rooted in pointer authentication codes ( PACs ), a line of defense introduced in arm64e architecture that aims to detect and secure against unexpected changes to  pointers  — objects that reference an address location in memory. PACs aim to solve a common problem in software

Video shows how Windows Phone 7 apps can be easily swiped and stripped of DRM protections Once more, Microsoft finds itself in the unenviable position of having one of its security flaws shared with the world. WPCentral has posted a video made by a "'white hat' developer" that shows how cyber shoplifters can easily swipe and unlock apps from Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 Marketplace. The news yet again raises the question of whether Microsoft is slacking on security. WPCentral asserts that it shared this security flaw with Microsoft "well before the publication of [the] article" but opted to make public the information to motivate the company to fix the problem, in defense of developers who are seeing their wares stolen. "While many will condemn us for 'promoting piracy,' we respectfully disagree," said WPCentral. "We have heard many complaints from developers about this weakness for months now and it is their right to know abo

A hacker with little more than a minute can bypass the authentication procedures on some Linux systems just by holding down the Enter key for around 70 seconds. The result? The act grants the hacker a shell with root privileges, which allows them to gain complete remote control over encrypted Linux machine. The security issue relies due to a vulnerability ( CVE-2016-4484 ) in the implementation of the Cryptsetup utility used for encrypting hard drives via Linux Unified Key Setup (LUKS), which is the standard implementation of disk encryption on a Linux-based operating system. The flaw actually is in the way the Cryptsetup utility handles password failures for the decryption process when a system boots up, which lets a user retry the password multiple times. What's even worse? Even if the user has tried up all 93 password attempts, the user is dropped to a shell (Busybox in Ubuntu) that has root privileges. In other words, if you enter a blank password 93 times – or s

Authentication services provider Okta on Wednesday named Sitel as the third-party linked to a  security incident  experienced by the company in late January that allowed the LAPSUS$ extortion gang to remotely take over an internal account belonging to a customer support engineer. The company added that 366 corporate customers, or about 2.5% of its customer base, may have been impacted by the "highly constrained" compromise. "On January 20, 2022, the Okta Security team was alerted that a new factor was added to a Sitel customer support engineer' Okta account [from a new location]," Okta's Chief Security Officer, David Bradbury,  said  in a statement. "This factor was a password." The disclosure comes after LAPSUS$ posted screenshots of Okta's apps and systems earlier this week, about two months after the hackers gain access to the company's internal network over a five-day period between January 16 and 21, 2022 using remote desktop proto