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An old vulnerability in Word for OS X is being used in increasing levels of attacks,  probably government-sponsored hacking programs  against Uyghur group, including Tibetans, NGOs and human rights organizations. A number of attacks have been seen directed at the World Uyghur Congress, a Munich-based organization that promotes human rights. Potential victims are often tricked by so-called spear phishing attacks, the targets receive an e-mail with a subject relevant to their interests, and a Word document attached.  When they open the document, TinySHell exploits a vulnerability and then infects the computer. Exploit allows long-term monitoring or even control of the compromised system though a backdoor it installs. The malware is configured to connect to command and control servers that have been used for years in APT attacks. All the attacks use exploits for the CVE-2009-0563 (Microsoft Office) vulnerability and The backdoor also includes hard-coded functionality to

Police in Spain have arrested a gang of 11 cyber criminals who used ransomware to demand money from thousands of victims in 30 countries using malware known as Reveton . Police arrested six Russians, two Ukrainians and two Georgians in the Costa del Sol. The gang leader, a 27-year-old Russian, was arrested in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates in December 2012 on an international arrest warrant. Spanish authorities are seeking his extradition. According to researchers from Trend Micro who worked with the Spanish to track down the group, estimate that this ransomware operation netted the group more than 1 million euros a year. The Trojan was distributed using drive by download techniques, in conjunction with the Black Hole exploit kit and initially the malware was focused on German individuals, but in later months began to target other countries, primarily the USA. Trend Micro, said there were 48 different variations of the virus in use and the malware has been known t

It comes as no surprise that today's cyber threats are orders of magnitude more complex than those of the past. And the ever-evolving tactics that attackers use demand the adoption of better, more holistic and consolidated ways to meet this non-stop challenge. Security teams constantly look for ways to reduce risk while improving security posture, but many approaches offer piecemeal solutions – zeroing in on one particular element of the evolving threat landscape challenge – missing the forest for the trees.  In the last few years, Exposure Management has become known as a comprehensive way of reigning in the chaos, giving organizations a true fighting chance to reduce risk and improve posture. In this article I'll cover what Exposure Management is, how it stacks up against some alternative approaches and why building an Exposure Management program should be on  your 2024 to-do list. What is Exposure Management?  Exposure Management is the systematic identification, evaluation,

A Cross platform back door ' Frutas ' remote access tool (RAT) is available for download on many forums from January 2013. This Trojan builder is completely written in Java. Recently, Symantec experts analyse that Frutas RAT allows attackers to create a connect-back client JAR file to run on a compromised computer. The back door builder provides some minor obfuscation, which allows the attacker to use a custom encryption key for some of the embedded back door functionality. Once a backdoor connection is established, the RAT server alerts the attacker and allows them to perform various back door functions on the compromised computer i.e Browse file systems, Download and execute arbitrary files, Perform denial of service attacks, Open a specified website in a browser. According to Symantec only 2 out of the 46 vendors from Virus Total are detecting it as a threat.

FireEye researchers recently came across a zero-day security flaw in Adobe Reader that's being actively exploited in the wild. The zero-day vulnerability is in Adobe PDF Reader 9.5.3, 10.1.5, 11.0.1 and earlier versions. According to researchers, once malware takes advantage of the flaw, its payload drops two dynamic-link libraries, or DLLs, which are application extensions used by executable files to perform a task. In this case, they allow the infected computer to communicate with a hacker-owned server. No additional details about the zero-day vulnerabilities have been publicly released, and but researchers with antivirus provider Kaspersky Lab have confirmed the exploit can successfully escape the Adobe sandbox. " We have already submitted the sample to the Adobe security team. Before we get confirmation from Adobe and a mitigation plan is available, we suggest that you not open any unknown PDF files ," said FireEye team. But until the vulnerability gets patched,

Television viewers in Montana, perhaps looking to stay inside from the scary cold outside, got an even scarier surprise when warnings of a zombie apocalypse took over their TV screens. There TV Stations Montana's KRTVMichigan's, WNMU-TV and WBUP-TV were victims of this zombie prank. The channels later said that somebody had hacked into its system. The message warned zombies were attacking the living and warned people not to approach or apprehend these bodies as they are extremely dangerous. Channel said on its website , " Someone apparently hacked into the Emergency Alert System and announced on KRTV and the CW that was an emergency in several Montana counties. The message did not originate from KRTV, and there is no emergency. Our engineers are investigating to determine what happened and if it affected other media outlets. " Officials with the stations in Michigan said law enforcement authorities determined the attack originated outside the U.S. The message was quickly