#1 Trusted Cybersecurity News Platform Followed by 4.50+ million
The Hacker News Logo
Get the Free Newsletter
SaaS Security

The Hacker News | #1 Trusted Cybersecurity News Site — Index Page

U.S. Believes Russian Spies Used Kaspersky Antivirus to Steal NSA Secrets

U.S. Believes Russian Spies Used Kaspersky Antivirus to Steal NSA Secrets

Oct 06, 2017
Do you know—United States Government has banned federal agencies from using Kaspersky antivirus software over spying fear? Though there's no solid evidence yet available, an article published by WSJ claims  that the Russian state-sponsored hackers stole highly classified NSA documents from a contractor in 2015 with the help of a security program made by Russia-based security firm Kaspersky Lab. Currently, there is no way to independently confirm if the claims on the popular security vendor published by the Wall Street Journal is accurate—and the story does not even prove the involvement of Kaspersky. "As a private company, Kaspersky Lab does not have inappropriate ties to any government, including Russia, and the only conclusion seems to be that Kaspersky Lab is caught in the middle of a geopolitical fight," Kaspersky said in a statement. The NSA contractor working with the American intelligence agency, whose identity has not yet been disclosed, reportedly do
Apple Allows Uber to Use a Powerful Feature that Lets it Record iPhone Screen

Apple Allows Uber to Use a Powerful Feature that Lets it Record iPhone Screen

Oct 06, 2017
If you are an iPhone user and use Uber app, you would be surprised to know that widely popular ride-hailing app can record your screen secretly. Security researcher Will Strafach recently revealed that Apple selectively grants (what's known as an " entitlement ") Uber a powerful ability to use the newly introduced screen-recording API with intent to improve the performance of the Uber app on Apple Watch. The screen-recording API allows the Uber app to record user's screen information even when the app is closed, giving Uber access to all the personal information passing through an iPhone screen. What's more?  The company's access to such permission could make this data vulnerable to hackers if they, somehow, able to hijack Uber's software. "It looks like no other third-party developer has been able to get Apple to grant them a private sensitive entitlement of this nature," Strafach told Gizmodo , who first reported about the issue. &q
How to Accelerate Vendor Risk Assessments in the Age of SaaS Sprawl

How to Accelerate Vendor Risk Assessments in the Age of SaaS Sprawl

Mar 21, 2024SaaS Security / Endpoint Security
In today's digital-first business environment dominated by SaaS applications, organizations increasingly depend on third-party vendors for essential cloud services and software solutions. As more vendors and services are added to the mix, the complexity and potential vulnerabilities within the  SaaS supply chain  snowball quickly. That's why effective vendor risk management (VRM) is a critical strategy in identifying, assessing, and mitigating risks to protect organizational assets and data integrity. Meanwhile, common approaches to vendor risk assessments are too slow and static for the modern world of SaaS. Most organizations have simply adapted their legacy evaluation techniques for on-premise software to apply to SaaS providers. This not only creates massive bottlenecks, but also causes organizations to inadvertently accept far too much risk. To effectively adapt to the realities of modern work, two major aspects need to change: the timeline of initial assessment must shorte
Apple macOS High Sierra Bug Exposes Passwords of Encrypted APFS Volumes As Hint

Apple macOS High Sierra Bug Exposes Passwords of Encrypted APFS Volumes As Hint

Oct 06, 2017
A severe programming error has been discovered in Apple's latest macOS High Sierra 10.13 that exposes passwords of encrypted Apple File System (APFS) volumes in plain text. Reported by Matheus Mariano, a Brazilian software developer, the vulnerability affects encrypted volumes using APFS wherein the password hint section is showing the actual password in the plain text. Yes, you got that right—your Mac mistakenly reveals the actual password instead of the password hint. In September, Apple released macOS High Sierra 10.13 with APFS (Apple File System) as the default file system for solid-state drives (SSDs) and other all-flash storage devices, promising strong encryption and better performance. Mariano discovered the security issue while he was using the Disk Utility in macOS High Sierra to add a new encrypted APFS volume to a container. When adding a new volume, he was asked to set a password and, optionally, write a hint for it. So, whenever the new volume is mounted, m
cyber security

Automated remediation solutions are crucial for security

websiteWing SecurityShadow IT / SaaS Security
Especially when it comes to securing employees' SaaS usage, don't settle for a longer to-do list. Auto-remediation is key to achieving SaaS security.
FormBook—Cheap Password Stealing Malware Used In Targeted Attacks

FormBook—Cheap Password Stealing Malware Used In Targeted Attacks

Oct 05, 2017
It seems sophisticated hackers have changed the way they conduct targeted cyber operations—instead of investing in zero-days and developing their malware; some hacking groups have now started using ready-made malware just like script kiddies. Possibly, this could be a smart move for state-sponsored hackers to avoid being attributed easily. Security researchers from multiple security firms, including Arbor Networks and FireEye , independently discovered a series of malware campaigns primarily targeting aerospace, defence contractors and manufacturing sectors in various countries, including the United States, Thailand, South Korea and India. What's common? All these attack campaigns, conducted by various hacking groups, eventually install same information and password stealer malware—dubbed FormBook —on the targeted systems. FormBook is nothing but a " malware-as-as-service ," which is an affordable piece of data-stealing and form-grabbing malware that has been
Greek Court Approves US Extradition of BTC-e Operator In $4 Billion Money Laundering Case

Greek Court Approves US Extradition of BTC-e Operator In $4 Billion Money Laundering Case

Oct 05, 2017
A Greek court has approved the U.S. extradition of a 38-year-old Russian national accused of laundering more than $4 billion in bitcoin for culprits involved in hacking attacks, tax fraud and drug trafficking with the help of the now-defunct BTC-e exchange. Alexander Vinnik , an alleged operator of BTC-e—a digital currency exchange service that has been in operation since 2011 but seized by the authorities right after Vinnik's arrest in a beachside village in northern Greece in late July 2016 at the request of US law enforcement authorities. Since his arrest, Moscow has also requested Vinnik be returned home, as it has previously done with other Russian nationals wanted by the United States. However, the Greek court ruled Wednesday (4 October) to extradite Vinnik to the U.S., where he will face trial on the charges with the operation of an unlicensed money service business, money laundering, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and engaging in unlawful monetary transact
Apache Tomcat Patches Important Remote Code Execution Flaw

Apache Tomcat Patches Important Remote Code Execution Flaw

Oct 05, 2017
The Apache Tomcat team has recently patched several security vulnerabilities in Apache Tomcat, one of which could allow an unauthorised attacker to execute malicious code on affected servers remotely. Apache Tomcat, developed by the Apache Software Foundation (ASF), is an open source web server and servlet system, which uses several Java EE specifications like Java Servlet, JavaServer Pages (JSP), Expression Language, and WebSocket, and provides a "pure Java" HTTP web server environment for Java concept to run in. Unlike Apache Struts2 vulnerabilities , which have recently been exploited to breach the systems of American credit reporting agency Equifax , Apache Tomcat flaws are less likely to be exploited. The critical Remote Code Execution (RCE) vulnerability (CVE-2017-12617) discovered in Apache Tomcat is due to insufficient validation of user-supplied input by the affected software. Only systems with HTTP PUTs enabled (via setting the "read-only" initi
Spanish Court Agrees to Extradite Russian Spam King to the United States

Spanish Court Agrees to Extradite Russian Spam King to the United States

Oct 05, 2017
Spain's National Court ruled on Tuesday to extradite a 36-year-old Russian computer programmer, accused by American authorities of malicious hacking offences, to the United States, according to a court document. Peter Yuryevich Levashov , also known as Peter Severa, was arrested in April this year when he was travelling with his family to Barcelona, Spain from his home in Russia—a country without an extradition treaty with the United States—for his role in a huge computer botnet. However, since Levashov has previously worked with for Vladimir Putin's United Russia Party for ten years, he fears that the US authorities would torture him for information about his political work if sent there to face the charges against him. " If I go to the U.S., I will die in a year. They want to get information of a military nature and about the United Russia party ," RIA news agency quoted Levashov as saying. " I will be tortured, within a year I will be killed, or I wil
It's 3 Billion! Yes, Every Single Yahoo Account Was Hacked In 2013 Data Breach

It's 3 Billion! Yes, Every Single Yahoo Account Was Hacked In 2013 Data Breach

Oct 04, 2017
The largest known hack of user data in the history just got tripled in size. Yahoo, the internet company that's acquired by Verizon this year, now believes the total number of accounts compromised in the August 2013 data breach, which was disclosed in December last year, was not 1 billion—it's 3 Billion . Yes, the record-breaking Yahoo data breach affected every user on its service at the time. Late last year, Yahoo revealed the company had suffered a massive data breach in August 2013, which affected 1 billion user accounts . The 2013 hack exposed user account information, including names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of births, hashed passwords (using MD5), and, in some cases, "encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers," Yahoo said in 2016. At that time, Yahoo did confirm that hackers did not obtain bank account details or credit card information tied to the Yahoo accounts. The data breach was attributed to state-sponsored
EtherParty Breach: Another Ethereum ICO Gets Hacked

EtherParty Breach: Another Ethereum ICO Gets Hacked

Oct 03, 2017
Etherparty announced Sunday that its ICO (Initial Coin Offering) website selling tokens for a blockchain-based smart contract tool was hacked and the address for sending funds to buy tokens was replaced by a fraudulent address controlled by the hackers. Vancouver-based Etherparty is a smart contract creation tool that allows its users to create smart contracts on the blockchain. Companies like this launch ICO to let them raise funding from multiple sources. Etherparty said the company launched its Fuel token sale on Sunday, October 1 at 9 A.M. PDT, but just 45 minutes, some unknown attackers hacked into its ICO website and replaced the legitimate address by their own, redirecting cryptocurrencies sent by investors into their digital wallet. According to the details released by the Etherparty team, the company detected the hack after just 15 minutes and immediately took its website down for nearly one and half hour to fix the issue, preventing more people from sending funds to
Google Finds 7 Security Flaws in Widely Used Dnsmasq Network Software

Google Finds 7 Security Flaws in Widely Used Dnsmasq Network Software

Oct 03, 2017
Security researchers have discovered not one or two, but a total of seven security vulnerabilities in the popular open source Dnsmasq network services software, three of which could allow remote code execution on a vulnerable system and hijack it. Dnsmasq is a widely used lightweight network application tool designed to provide DNS (Domain Name System) forwarder, DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) server, router ads and network boot services for small networks. Dnsmasq comes pre-installed on various devices and operating systems, including Linux distributions such as Ubuntu and Debian, home routers, smartphones and Internet of Things (IoT) devices. A shodan scan for "Dnsmasq" reveals around 1.1 million instances worldwide. Recently, Google's security team reviewed Dnsmasq and discovered seven security issues, including DNS-related remote code execution, information disclosure, and denial-of-service (DoS) issues that can be triggered via DNS or DHCP. &q
Whoops, Turns Out 2.5 Million More Americans Were Affected By Equifax Breach

Whoops, Turns Out 2.5 Million More Americans Were Affected By Equifax Breach

Oct 03, 2017
Equifax data breach was bigger than initially reported, exposing highly sensitive information of more Americans than previously revealed. Credit rating agency Equifax says an additional 2.5 million U.S. consumers were also impacted by the massive data breach the company disclosed last month, bringing the total possible victims to 145.5 million from 143 million. Equifax last month announced that it had suffered a massive data breach that exposed highly sensitive data of hundreds of millions of its customers, which includes names, social security numbers, dates of birth and addresses. In addition, credit card information for nearly 209,000 customers was also stolen, as well as certain documents with personally identifying information (PII) for approximately 182,000 Equifax consumers. The breach was due to a critical vulnerability ( CVE-2017-5638 ) in Apache Struts 2 framework, which Apache patched over two months earlier (on March 6) of the security incident. Equifax was e
Judge: FBI Doesn't Have to Reveal How It Unlocked iPhone Used by San Bernardino Terrorist

Judge: FBI Doesn't Have to Reveal How It Unlocked iPhone Used by San Bernardino Terrorist

Oct 02, 2017
Remember the infamous encryption fight between the FBI and Apple for unlocking an iPhone belonging to terrorist Syed Farook behind the San Bernardino 2015 mass shooting that killed 14 people? The same Apple vs. FBI case where Apple refused to help feds access data on the locked iPhone and, later the Federal Bureau of Investigation reportedly paid over a million dollars to a vendor for unlocking the shooter's iPhone. For keeping the iPhone hack secret, three news organizations—The Associated Press, USA Today, and Vice Media—sued the FBI last year under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and forced the agency to reveal the name of the company and the amount it was paid to unlock the iPhone . However, unfortunately, they failed. A US federal judge ruled Saturday that the FBI does not have to disclose the name of or how much it paid a private company for an  iPhone hacking tool that unlocked Farook's iPhone. Apple vs. FBI was one of the biggest legal battles in
Cybersecurity Resources