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The Power and Peril of RMM Tools

The Power and Peril of RMM Tools

Jul 30, 2024 Network Management / IT Security
As more people work remotely, IT departments must manage devices distributed over different cities and countries relying on VPNs and remote monitoring and management (RMM) tools for system administration.  However, like any new technology, RMM tools can also be used maliciously. Threat actors can establish connections to a victim's device and run commands, exfiltrate data, and stay undetected.  This article will cover real-world examples of RMM exploits and show you how to protect your organization from these attacks.  What are RMM tools?  RMM software simplifies network management, allowing IT professionals to remotely solve problems, install software, and upload or download files to or from devices.  Unfortunately, this connection is not always secure, and attackers can use malicious software to connect their servers to a victim's device. As these connections become easier to detect, however,  ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) groups have had to adjus...
Using the Manager Attribute in Active Directory (AD) for Password Resets

Using the Manager Attribute in Active Directory (AD) for Password Resets

Jan 27, 2021
Creating workflows around verifying password resets can be challenging for organizations, especially since many have shifted work due to the COVID-19 global pandemic. With the numbers of cyberattacks against businesses exploding and compromised credentials often being the culprit, companies have to bolster security around resetting passwords on user accounts. How can organizations bolster the security of password resets for remote workers? One security workflow might involve having manager approval before IT helpdesk technicians can change a remote worker's password. In this way, the user's manager is involved in the process. Additionally, some organizations might opt to allow managers themselves the ability to change end-user passwords. How can this be configured in Active Directory? Also, is there a more seamless solution for requiring manager approval for password resets? Why password reset security is critical This past year has undoubtedly created many IT helpdesk st...
How to Audit Password Changes in Active Directory

How to Audit Password Changes in Active Directory

Feb 04, 2021
Today's admins certainly have plenty on their plates, and boosting ecosystem security remains a top priority. On-premises, and especially remote, accounts are gateways for accessing critical information. Password management makes this possible. After all, authentication should ensure that a user is whom they claim to be. This initial layer of security is crucial for protecting one's entire infrastructure. Unfortunately, the personal nature of passwords has its shortcomings. Passwords are easily forgotten. They may also be too simplistic; many companies don't enforce stringent password-creation requirements. This is where the Active Directory Password Policy comes in. Additionally, the following is achievable: Changing user passwords Recording password changes and storing them within a history log Active Directory accounts for any impactful changes across user accounts. We'll assess why and how administrators might leverage these core features. Why change user ...
cyber security

Stephen Sims Wrote SEC660 (GXPN). He's Also the SANS NetSec 2026 Keynote Speaker

websiteSANS InstituteNetwork Security / Ethical Hacking
Train with the author of advanced exploit writing—then hear him open the conference. Register now.
cyber security

Inside Device Code Phishing: Live Demos, Real Kits, and What's Next

websitePush SecurityPhishing / Webinar
Device code attacks are up 37x this year, with 18+ kits in the wild. Join the research webinar on June 30th.
Making Vulnerable Drivers Exploitable Without Hardware - The BYOVD Perspective

Making Vulnerable Drivers Exploitable Without Hardware - The BYOVD Perspective

May 22, 2026 Vulnerability / Driver Security
1 Introduction This article provides a technical analysis of how many Windows kernel mode drivers can be interacted with from user mode without the hardware they were developed for. This work was motivated by driver-oriented vulnerability research and the need to evaluate the exploitability of individual findings, which frequently affect code whose reachability is hardware-gated. The methodology presented here should help anyone determine whether a particular Windows kernel mode driver vulnerability remains reachable - and thus potentially exploitable - even in the absence of the hardware the driver was developed for. The reader is expected to have basic Windows driver knowledge, especially regarding device objects. The rest of this article is written with the assumption that the reader is already familiar with the concepts described in the introduction article: Anatomy of Access: Windows Device Objects from a Security Perspective . Just like the introduction article, this resou...
Russian Hackers Target Ukrainian Organizations Using Stealthy Living-Off-the-Land Tactics

Russian Hackers Target Ukrainian Organizations Using Stealthy Living-Off-the-Land Tactics

Oct 29, 2025 Vulnerability / Cyber Espionage
Organizations in Ukraine have been targeted by threat actors of Russian origin with an aim to siphon sensitive data and maintain persistent access to compromised networks. The activity, according to a new report from the Symantec and Carbon Black Threat Hunter Team, targeted a large business services organization for two months and a local government entity in the country for a week. The attacks mainly leveraged living-off-the-land (LotL) tactics and dual-use tools, coupled with minimal malware, to reduce digital footprints and stay undetected for extended periods of time. "The attackers gained access to the business services organization by deploying web shells on public-facing servers, most likely by exploiting one or more unpatched vulnerabilities," the Broadcom-owned cybersecurity teams said in a report shared with The Hacker News. One of the web shells used in the attack was Localolive, which was previously flagged by Microsoft as put to use by a sub-group of the ...
DPRK-Linked Hackers Use GitHub as C2 in Multi-Stage Attacks Targeting South Korea

DPRK-Linked Hackers Use GitHub as C2 in Multi-Stage Attacks Targeting South Korea

Apr 06, 2026 Malware / Threat Intelligence
Threat actors likely associated with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) have been observed using GitHub as command-and-control (C2) infrastructure in multi-stage attacks targeting organizations in South Korea. The attack chain, per Fortinet FortiGuard Labs , involves obfuscated Windows shortcut (LNK) files acting as the starting point to drop a decoy PDF document and a PowerShell script that sets the stage for the next phase of the attack. It's assessed that these LNK files are distributed via phishing emails. As soon as the payloads are downloaded, the victim is displayed the PDF document, while the malicious PowerShell script runs silently in the background. The PowerShell script performs checks to resist analysis by scanning for running processes related to virtual machines, debuggers, and forensic tools. If any of those processes are detected, the script immediately terminates. Otherwise, it extracts a Visual Basic Scri...
Evolution of Emotet: From Banking Trojan to Malware Distributor

Evolution of Emotet: From Banking Trojan to Malware Distributor

Nov 19, 2020
Emotet is one of the most dangerous and widespread malware threats active today. Ever since its discovery in 2014—when Emotet was a standard credential stealer and banking Trojan, the malware has evolved into a modular, polymorphic platform for distributing other kinds of computer viruses. Being constantly under development, Emotet updates itself regularly to improve stealthiness, persistence, and add new spying capabilities. This notorious Trojan is one of the most frequently malicious programs found in the wild. Usually, it is a part of a phishing attack, email spam that infects PCs with malware and spreads among other computers in the network. If you'd like to find out more about the malware, collect IOCs, and get fresh samples, check the following article in the Malware trends tracker , the service with dynamic articles. Emotet is the most uploaded malware throughout the past few years. Here below is the rating of uploads to ANY.RUN service in 2019, where users ran over ...
Detecting the "Next" SolarWinds-Style Cyber Attack

Detecting the "Next" SolarWinds-Style Cyber Attack

Apr 13, 2021
The SolarWinds attack , which succeeded by utilizing the sunburst malware , shocked the cyber-security industry. This attack achieved persistence and was able to evade internal systems long enough to gain access to the source code of the victim. Because of the far-reaching SolarWinds deployments, the perpetrators were also able to infiltrate many other organizations, looking for intellectual property and other assets. Among the co-victims: US government, government contractors, Information Technology companies, and NGOs. An incredible amount of sensitive data was stolen from several customers after a trojanized version of SolarWinds' application was installed on their internal structures. Looking at the technical capabilities of the malware, as you will see, this particular attack was quite impressive. A particular file, named  SolarWinds.Orion.Core.BusinessLayer.dll  is a SolarWinds digitally signed component of the Orion software framework. The threat actors installed a...
Hard-Coded 'b' Password in Sitecore XP Sparks Major RCE Risk in Enterprise Deployments

Hard-Coded 'b' Password in Sitecore XP Sparks Major RCE Risk in Enterprise Deployments

Jun 17, 2025 Vulnerability / Enterprise Software
Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed three security flaws in the popular Sitecore Experience Platform (XP) that could be chained to achieve pre-authenticated remote code execution. Sitecore Experience Platform is an enterprise-oriented software that provides users with tools for content management, digital marketing, and analytics and reports. The list of vulnerabilities is as follows - CVE-2025-34509 (CVSS score: 8.2) - Use of hard-coded credentials CVE-2025-34510 (CVSS score: 8.8) - Post-authenticated remote code execution via path traversal CVE-2025-34511 (CVSS score: 8.8) - Post-authenticated remote code execution via Sitecore PowerShell Extension watchTowr Labs researcher Piotr Bazydlo said the default user account "sitecore\ServicesAPI" has a single-character password that's hard-coded to " b ." In its documentation, Sitecore advises customers against changing default user account credentials. While the user has no roles and permission...
Malware Delivery via Cloud Services Exploits Unicode Trick to Deceive Users

Malware Delivery via Cloud Services Exploits Unicode Trick to Deceive Users

May 21, 2024 Cloud Security / Data Security
A new attack campaign dubbed  CLOUD#REVERSER  has been observed leveraging legitimate cloud storage services like Google Drive and Dropbox to stage malicious payloads. "The VBScript and PowerShell scripts in the CLOUD#REVERSER inherently involves command-and-control-like activities by using Google Drive and Dropbox as staging platforms to manage file uploads and downloads," Securonix researchers Den Iuzvyk, Tim Peck, and Oleg Kolesnikov  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. "The scripts are designed to fetch files that match specific patterns, suggesting they are waiting for commands or scripts placed in Google Drive or Dropbox." The starting point of the attack chain is a phishing email bearing a ZIP archive file, which contains an executable that masquerades as a Microsoft Excel file. In an interesting twist, the filename makes use of the hidden right-to-left override ( RLO ) Unicode character (U+202E) to reverse the order of the characters that co...
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