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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 JavaSc...

New findings have identified connections between an Android spyware called DragonEgg and another sophisticated modular iOS surveillanceware tool named LightSpy . DragonEgg , alongside WyrmSpy (aka AndroidControl), was  first disclosed  by Lookout in July 2023 as a strain of malware capable of gathering sensitive data from Android devices. It was attributed to the Chinese nation-state group APT41. On the other hand, details about LightSpy came to light in March 2020 as part of a campaign dubbed  Operation Poisoned News  in which Apple iPhone users in Hong Kong were targeted with watering hole attacks to install the spyware. Now, according to Dutch mobile security firm ThreatFabric, DragonEgg attack chains involve the use of a trojanized Telegram app that's designed to download a second-stage payload (smallmload.jar), which, in turn, is configured to download a third component codenamed Core. Further analysis of the artifacts has revealed that the Android varian...

Serverless environments, leveraging services such as AWS Lambda, offer incredible benefits in terms of scalability, efficiency, and reduced operational overhead. However, securing these environments is extremely challenging. The core of current serverless security practices often revolves around two key components: log monitoring and static analysis of code or system configuration. But here is the issue with that: 1. Logs Only Tell Part of the Story Logs can track external-facing activities, but they don't provide visibility into the internal execution of functions. For example, if an attacker injects malicious code into a serverless function that doesn't interact with external resources (e.g., external APIs or databases), traditional log-based tools will not detect this intrusion. The attacker may execute unauthorized processes, manipulate files, or escalate privileges—all without triggering log events. 2. Static Misconfiguration Detection is Incomplete Static tools that check ...

Google has disclosed that a now-patched vulnerability affecting Android devices that use Qualcomm chipsets is being weaponized by adversaries to launch targeted attacks. Tracked as CVE-2020-11261 (CVSS score 8.4), the flaw concerns an "improper input validation" issue in Qualcomm's Graphics component that could be exploited to trigger memory corruption when an attacker-engineered app requests access to a huge chunk of the device's memory. "There are indications that CVE-2020-11261 may be under limited, targeted exploitation," the search giant said in an updated January security bulletin on March 18. CVE-2020-11261 was discovered and reported to Qualcomm by Google's Android Security team on July 20, 2020, after which it was fixed in January 2021. It's worth noting that the access vector for the vulnerability is "local," meaning that exploitation requires local access to the device. In other words, to launch a successful attack, the...

North Korean threat actors are actively exploiting a critical security flaw in JetBrains TeamCity to opportunistically breach vulnerable servers, according to Microsoft. The attacks, which entail the exploitation of  CVE-2023-42793  (CVSS score: 9.8), have been  attributed  to Diamond Sleet (aka Labyrinth Chollima) and Onyx Sleet (aka Andariel or Silent Chollima). It's worth noting that both the threat activity clusters are part of the infamous North Korean nation-state actor known as  Lazarus Group . In one of the two attack paths employed by Diamond Sleet, a successful compromise of TeamCity servers is followed by the deployment of a known implant called  ForestTiger  from legitimate infrastructure previously compromised by the threat actor. A second variant of the attacks leverages the initial foothold to retrieve a malicious DLL (DSROLE.dll aka RollSling or Version.dll or FeedLoad) that's loaded by means of a technique referred to as DLL searc...

Hackers are using a zero day vulnerability in Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) web browser and targeting US military personnels in an active attack campaign, dubbed as ' Operation Snowman' . FireEye Researchers have discovered that a U.S. veterans website was compromised to serve a zero day exploit, known as CVE-2014-0322 , which typically involves the compromise of a specific website in order to target a group of visitors known to frequent it. FireEye identified drive-by-download attack which has altered HTML code of the website and introduced JavaScript which creates malicious iFrame. " A zero-day exploit (CVE-2014-0322) being served up from the U.S. Veterans of Foreign Wars' website (VFW[.]org). We believe the attack is a strategic Web compromise targeting American military personnel, amid a paralyzing snowstorm at the U.S. " According to FireEye, the zero day CVE-2014-0322 ' vulnerability is a previously unknown use-after-free bug in Microsof...

A threat actor with ties to North Korea has been linked to a prolific wave of credential theft campaigns targeting research, education, government, media and other organizations, with two of the attacks also attempting to distribute malware that could be used for intelligence gathering. Enterprise security firm Proofpoint  attributed  the infiltrations to a group it tracks as  TA406 , and by the wider threat intelligence community under the monikers  Kimsuky  ( Kaspersky ), Velvet Chollima ( CrowdStrike ), Thallium ( Microsoft ), Black Banshee ( PwC ), ITG16 ( IBM ), and the Konni Group ( Cisco Talos ). Policy experts, journalists and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) were targeted as part of weekly campaigns observed between from January through June 2021, Proofpoint researchers Darien Huss and Selena Larson disclosed in a technical report detailing the actor's tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), with the attacks spread across North America, Russi...

Threat actors associated with the hacking crew known as Patchwork have been spotted targeting universities and research organizations in China as part of a recently observed campaign. The activity, according to  KnownSec 404 Team , entailed the use of a backdoor codenamed  EyeShell . Patchwork , also known by the names Operation Hangover and Zinc Emerson, is suspected to be a threat group that operates on behalf of India. Active since at least December 2015, attack chains mounted by the outfit have a narrow focus and tend to single out Pakistan and China with custom implants such as BADNEWS via spear-phishing and watering hole attacks. The adversarial collective has been found to share tactical overlaps with other cyber-espionage groups with an Indian connection, including  SideWinder  and the  DoNot Team . Earlier this May, Meta  disclosed  that it took down 50 accounts on Facebook and Instagram operated by Patchwork, which took advantage of rog...

Attention readers, if you are using Chrome on your Windows, Mac, and Linux computers, you need to update your web browsing software immediately to the latest version Google released earlier today. With the release of Chrome 78.0.3904.87, Google is warning billions of users to install an urgent software update immediately to patch two high severity vulnerabilities, one of which attackers are actively exploiting in the wild to hijack computers. Without revealing technical details of the vulnerability, the Chrome security team only says that both issues are use-after-free vulnerabilities, one affecting Chrome's audio component ( CVE-2019-13720 ) while the other resides in the PDFium ( CVE-2019-13721 ) library. The use-after-free vulnerability is a class of memory corruption issues that allows corruption or modification of data in the memory, enabling an unprivileged user to escalate privileges on an affected system or software. Thus, both flaws could enable remote attackers...

FinSpy —the infamous surveillance malware is back and infecting high-profile targets using a new Adobe Flash zero-day exploit delivered through Microsoft Office documents. Security researchers from Kaspersky Labs have discovered a new zero-day remote code execution vulnerability in Adobe Flash, which was being actively exploited in the wild by a group of advanced persistent threat actors, known as BlackOasis . The critical type confusion vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2017-11292 , could lead to code execution and affects Flash Player 21.0.0.226 for major operating systems including Windows, Macintosh, Linux and Chrome OS. Researchers say BlackOasis is the same group of attackers which were also responsible for exploiting another zero-day vulnerability ( CVE-2017-8759 ) discovered by FireEye researchers in September 2017. Also, the final FinSpy payload in the current attacks exploiting Flash zero-day (CVE-2017-11292) shares the same command and control (C&C) server as the...

Microsoft has disclosed details of a now-patched security flaw in Apple macOS that could be exploited by an attacker to get around security protections imposed to prevent the execution of malicious applications. The shortcoming, dubbed  Achilles  ( CVE-2022-42821 , CVSS score: 5.5), was addressed by the iPhone maker in  macOS Ventura 13 ,  Monterey 12.6.2 , and  Big Sur 11.7.2 , describing it as a logic issue that could be weaponized by an app to circumvent Gatekeeper checks. "Gatekeeper bypasses such as this could be leveraged as a vector for initial access by malware and other threats and could help increase the success rate of malicious campaigns and attacks on macOS," Jonathan Bar Or of the Microsoft 365 Defender Research Team  said . Gatekeeper is a  security mechanism  designed to ensure that only trusted apps run on the operating system. This is  enforced  by means of an extended attribute called "com.apple.quarantine" that's...

For years, the two most popular methods for internal scanning: agent-based and network-based were considered to be about equal in value, each bringing its own strengths to bear. However, with remote working now the norm in most if not all workplaces, it feels a lot more like agent-based scanning is a must, while network-based scanning is an optional extra. This article will go in-depth on the strengths and weaknesses of each approach, but let's wind it back a second for those who aren't sure why they should even do internal scanning in the first place. Why should you perform internal vulnerability scanning? While  external vulnerability scanning  can give a great overview of what you look like to a hacker, the information that can be gleaned without access to your systems can be limited. Some serious vulnerabilities can be discovered at this stage, so it's a must for many organizations, but that's not where hackers stop.  Techniques like phishing, targeted malware,...

A critical security vulnerability has been disclosed in the Quarkus Java framework that could be potentially exploited to achieve remote code execution on affected systems. Tracked as  CVE-2022-4116  (CVSS score: 9.8), the shortcoming could be trivially abused by a malicious actor without any privileges. "The vulnerability is found in the Dev UI Config Editor, which is vulnerable to drive-by localhost attacks that could lead to remote-code execution (RCE)," Contrast Security researcher Joseph Beeton, who reported the bug,  said  in a write-up. Quarkus, developed by Red Hat, is an  open source project  that's used for creating Java applications in  containerized  and serverless environments. It's worth pointing out that the  issue  only impacts developers who are running Quarkus and are tricked into visiting a specially crafted website, which is embedded with malicious JavaScript code designed to install or execute arbitrary payload...

Cybersecurity researchers today uncovered a new advanced version of ComRAT backdoor, one of the earliest known backdoors used by the Turla APT group, that leverages Gmail's web interface to covertly receive commands and exfiltrate sensitive data. "ComRAT v4 was first seen in 2017 and known still to be in use as recently as January 2020," cybersecurity firm ESET said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "We identified at least three targets: two Ministries of Foreign Affairs in Eastern Europe and a national parliament in the Caucasus region." Turla , also known as Snake, has been active for over a decade with a long history of the watering hole and spear-phishing campaigns against embassies and military organizations at least since 2004. The group's espionage platform started off as Agent.BTZ , in 2007, before it evolved to ComRAT , in addition to gaining additional capabilities to achieve persistence and to steal data from a local network. It...

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has added two security flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities ( KEV ) catalog, based on evidence of active exploitation. The vulnerabilities are listed below - CVE-2012-4792 (CVSS score: 9.3) - Microsoft Internet Explorer Use-After-Free Vulnerability CVE-2024-39891 (CVSS score: 5.3) - Twilio Authy Information Disclosure Vulnerability CVE-2012-4792 is a decade-old use-after-free vulnerability in Internet Explorer that could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code via a specially crafted site. It's currently not clear if the flaw has been subjected to renewed exploitation attempts, although it was abused as part of watering hole attacks targeting the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and Capstone Turbine Corporation websites back in December 2012. On the other hand, CVE-2024-39891 refers to an information disclosure bug in an unauthenticated endpoint that could be exploited to "accept ...

The threat actor known as Transparent Tribe has continued to unleash malware-laced Android apps as part of a social engineering campaign to target individuals of interest. "These APKs continue the group's trend of embedding spyware into curated video browsing applications, with a new expansion targeting mobile gamers, weapons enthusiasts, and TikTok fans," SentinelOne security researcher Alex Delamotte said in a new report shared with The Hacker News. The campaign, dubbed CapraTube, was first outlined by the cybersecurity company in September 2023, with the hacking crew employing weaponized Android apps impersonating legitimate apps like YouTube to deliver a spyware called CapraRAT, a modified version of AndroRAT with capabilities to capture a wide range of sensitive data. Transparent Tribe, suspected to be of Pakistan origin, has leveraged CapraRAT for over two years in attacks targeting the Indian government and military personnel. The group has a history of lea...