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It was not just Yahoo among "Fortune 500" companies who tried to keep a major data breach incident secret. Reportedly, Microsoft had also suffered a data breach four and a half years ago (in 2013), when a " highly sophisticated hacking group " breached its bug-reporting and patch-tracking database, but the hack was never made public until today. According to five former employees of the company, interviewed separately by Reuters , revealed that the breached database had been " poorly protected with access possible via little more than a password. " This incident is believed to be the second known breach of such a corporate database after a critical zero-day vulnerability was discovered in Mozilla's Bugzilla bug-tracking software in 2014. As its name suggests, the bug-reporting and patch-tracking database for Windows contained information on critical and unpatched vulnerabilities in some of the most widely used software in the world, includ

If you think KRACK attack for WiFi is the worst vulnerability of this year, then hold on… ...we have got another one for you which is even worse. Microsoft, Google, Lenovo, HP and Fujitsu are warning their customers of a potentially serious vulnerability in widely used RSA cryptographic library produced by German semiconductor manufacturer Infineon Technologies. It's noteworthy that this crypto-related vulnerability (CVE-2017-15361) doesn't affect elliptic-curve cryptography and the encryption standard itself, rather it resides in the implementation of RSA key pair generation by Infineon's Trusted Platform Module (TPM). Infineon's Trusted Platform Module (TPM) is a widely-used, dedicated microcontroller designed to secure hardware by integrating cryptographic keys into devices and is used for secured crypto processes. This 5-year-old algorithmic vulnerability was discovered by security researchers at Masaryk University in the Czech Republic, who have relea

In today's digital world, where connectivity is rules all, endpoints serve as the gateway to a business's digital kingdom. And because of this, endpoints are one of hackers' favorite targets.  According to the IDC,  70% of successful breaches start at the endpoint . Unprotected endpoints provide vulnerable entry points to launch devastating cyberattacks. With IT teams needing to protect more endpoints—and more kinds of endpoints—than ever before, that perimeter has become more challenging to defend. You need to improve your endpoint security, but where do you start? That's where this guide comes in.  We've curated the top 10 must-know endpoint security tips that every IT and security professional should have in their arsenal. From identifying entry points to implementing EDR solutions, we'll dive into the insights you need to defend your endpoints with confidence.  1. Know Thy Endpoints: Identifying and Understanding Your Entry Points Understanding your network's

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

Security researchers have discovered a new privilege-escalation vulnerability in Linux kernel that could allow a local attacker to execute code on the affected systems with elevated privileges. Discovered by Venustech ADLab (Active-Defense Lab) researchers, the Linux kernel vulnerability (CVE-2017-15265) is due to a use-after-free memory error in the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA) sequencer interface of the affected application. The Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA) provides audio and MIDI functionality to the Linux operating system, and also bundles a userspace driven library for application developers, enabling direct (kernel) interaction with sound devices through ALSA libraries. Successful exploitation of this vulnerability requires an attacker—with local access on the targeted system—to execute a maliciously crafted application on a targeted system, which allows the attacker to elevate his privilege to root on the targeted system, a Cisco advisory warned

We don't really know the pain and cost of a downtime event unless we are directly touched. Be it a flood, electrical failure, ransomware attack or other broad geographic events; we don't know what it is really like to have to restore IT infrastructure unless we have had to do it ourselves. We look at other people's backup and recovery issues and hope we are smarter or clever enough to keep it from happening to us. Recovery from a downtime event includes inconvenience, extra work, embarrassment and yes, real pain. A ransomware attack is a good example. Unitrends—an American company specialised in backup and business continuity solutions—recently shared with us a real cyber-attack incident happened with one of their customers to describe the required steps they took to recover functionality following a CryptoLocker attack against a US city. Also, how it cost city's Governance team days of production and hundreds of man-hours to recover. The Challenge

Do you think your wireless network is secure because you're using WPA2 encryption? If yes, think again! Security researchers have discovered several key management vulnerabilities in the core of Wi-Fi Protected Access II (WPA2) protocol that could allow an attacker to hack into your Wi-Fi network and eavesdrop on the Internet communications. WPA2 is a 13-year-old WiFi authentication scheme widely used to secure WiFi connections, but the standard has been compromised, impacting almost all Wi-Fi devices—including in our homes and businesses, along with the networking companies that build them. Dubbed KRACK — Key Reinstallation Attack —the proof-of-concept attack demonstrated by a team of researchers works against all modern protected Wi-Fi networks and can be abused to steal sensitive information like credit card numbers, passwords, chat messages, emails, and photos. Since the weaknesses reside in the Wi-Fi standard itself, and not in the implementations or any individua

Remember NotPetya ? The Ransomware that shut down thousands of businesses, organisations and banks in Ukraine as well as different parts of Europe in June this year. Now, Ukrainian government authorities are once again warning its citizens to brace themselves for next wave of "large-scale" NotPetya-like cyber attack. According to a press release published Thursday by the Secret Service of Ukraine (SBU), the next major cyber attack could take place between October 13 and 17 when Ukraine celebrates Defender of Ukraine Day (in Ukrainian: День захисника України, Den' zakhysnyka Ukrayiny). Authorities warn the cyber attack can once again be conducted through a malicious software update against state government institutions and private companies. The attackers of the NotPetya ransomware also used the same tactic—compromising the update mechanism for Ukrainian financial software provider called MeDoc and swapping in a dodgy update including the NotPetya computer v

DoubleLocker —as the name suggests, it locks device twice. Security researchers from Slovakia-based security software maker ESET have discovered a new Android ransomware that not just encrypts users' data, but also locks them out of their devices by changing lock screen PIN. On top of that: DoubleLocker is the first-ever ransomware to misuse Android accessibility —a feature that provides users alternative ways to interact with their smartphone devices, and mainly misused by Android banking Trojans to steal banking credentials. "Given its banking malware roots, DoubleLocker may well be turned into what could be called ransom-bankers," said Lukáš Štefanko, the malware researcher at ESET. "Two-stage malware that first tries to wipe your bank or PayPal account and subsequently locks your device and data to request a ransom." Researchers believe DoubleLocker ransomware could be upgraded in future to steal banking credentials as well, other than just ext

If you receive a message from any of your Facebook Friends asking for urgent help to recover their Facebook account, since they've added you as one of their ' Trusted Contacts '—just don't blindly believe it. Researchers have detected a new Facebook phishing scam that can even trick an experienced technical user into falling victim to the scam, helping an attacker gain access to your Facebook account. This latest social media scam is abusing "Trusted Contact"—a Facebook account recovery feature that sends secret access codes to a few of your close friends in order to help you regain access to your Facebook account in case you forget your password or lost access to your account. According to a public security alert published by AccessNow, the attack initiates by an already compromised account of one of your friends, asking for urgent help to get back into his/her Facebook account. The attacker explains that you are listed as one of his/her Trusted Conta

Since new forms of cybercrime are on the rise, traditional techniques seem to be shifting towards more clandestine that involve the exploitation of standard system tools and protocols, which are not always monitored. Security researchers at Cisco's Talos threat research group have discovered one such attack campaign spreading malware-equipped Microsoft Word documents that perform code execution on the targeted device without requiring Macros enabled or memory corruption. This Macro-less code execution in MSWord technique, described in detail on Monday by a pair of security researchers from Sensepost, Etienne Stalmans and Saif El-Sherei, which leverages a built-in feature of MS Office, called Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE), to perform code execution. Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) protocol is one of the several methods that Microsoft allows two running applications to share the same data. The protocol can be used by applications for one-time data transfers and for continuous exc

Beware, If you are using S/MIME protocol over Microsoft Outlook to encrypt your email communication, you need to watch out. From at least last 6 months, your messages were being sent in both encrypted and unencrypted forms, exposing all your secret and sensitive communications to potential eavesdroppers. S/MIME, or Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions, is an end-to-end encryption protocol—based on public-key cryptography and works just like SSL connections—that enables users to send digitally signed and encrypted messages. According to a security advisory published by SEC Consult earlier this week, a severe bug (CVE-2017-11776) in Microsoft Outlook email client causes S/MIME encrypted emails to be sent with their unencrypted versions attached. When Outlook users make use of S/MIME to encrypt their messages and format their emails as plain text, the vulnerability allows the seemingly encrypted emails to be sent in both encrypted as well as human-readable clear text f

The cold cyber war has just turned hot. According to a story published  today by the New York Times, Israeli government hackers hacked into Kaspersky's network in 2015 and caught Russian government hackers red-handed hacking US government hackers with the help of Kaspersky. In other words — Russia spying on America, Israel spying on Russia and America spying on everyone. What the F^#% is going around? It is like one is blaming another for doing exactly the same thing it is doing against someone else. Wow! Well, the fact that everyone is spying on everyone is neither new nor any secret. However, somehow now Kaspersky Labs is at the centre of this international espionage tale for its alleged devil role. Just last week, the Wall Street Journal, an American media agency, published a story against the Kaspersky, a Russian antivirus provider, claiming that the Russian government hackers stole highly classified NSA documents and hacking tools in 2015 from a staffer's home

A Taiwanese bank has become the latest to fall victim to hackers siphoning off millions of dollars by targeting the backbone of the world financial system, SWIFT. SWIFT, or Society for Worldwide Interbank Telecommunication, is a global financial messaging system that thousands of banks and commercial organizations across the world use to transfer billions of dollars every day. Hackers reportedly last week managed to steal almost $60 Million from Far Eastern International Bank in Taiwan by planting malware on the bank's servers and through the SWIFT interbank banking system. According to Taiwanese state-owned news agency Central News Agency, most of the stolen money has now been recovered, with only $500,000 remaining, and authorities have made two arrests in connection with the bank cyber-heist. Far Eastern on Friday admitted that some unknown hackers managed to install malware on computers and servers within its organization, and most crucially, onto a SWIFT terminal emplo

As part of its "October Patch Tuesday," Microsoft has today released a large batch of security updates to patch a total of 62 vulnerabilities in its products, including a severe MS office zero-day flaw that has been exploited in the wild. Security updates also include patches for Microsoft Windows operating systems, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, Skype, Microsoft Lync and Microsoft SharePoint Server. Besides the MS Office vulnerability, the company has also addressed two other publicly disclosed (but not yet targeted in the wild) vulnerabilities that affect the SharePoint Server and the Windows Subsystem for Linux. October patch Tuesday also fixes a critical Windows DNS vulnerability that could be exploited by a malicious DNS server to execute arbitrary code on the targeted system. Below you can find a brief technical explanation of all above mentioned critical and important vulnerabilities. Microsoft Office Memory Corruption Vulnerability (CVE-2017-11826) T

There is terrible news for all OnePlus lovers. Your OnePlus handset, running OxygenOS—the company's custom version of the Android operating system, is collecting way more data on its users than it requires. A recent blog post published today by security researcher Christopher Moore on his website detailed the data collection practice by the Shenzhen-based Chinese smartphone maker, revealing that OxygenOS built-in analytics is regularly sending users' telemetry data to OnePlus' servers. Collecting basic telemetry device data is a usual practice that every software maker and device manufacturers do to identify, analyse and fix software issues and help improve the quality of their products, but OnePlus found collecting user identification information as well. Moore simply started intercepting the network traffic to analyse what data his OnePlus device sends to its servers, and found that the data collected by the company included: User' phone number MAC addresse

Can you detect which one of the above screens—asking an iPhone user for iCloud password—is original and which is fake? Well, you would agree that both screenshots are almost identical, but the pop-up shown in the second image is fake—a perfect phishing attack that can be used to trick even the most careful users on the Internet. Felix Krause, an iOS developer and founder of Fastlane.Tools, demonstrated an almost impossible to detect phishing attack that explains how a malicious iOS app can steal your Apple ID password to get access to your iCloud account and data. According to an alarming blog post published on Tuesday by Krause, an iOS app can just use " UIAlertController " to display fake dialog boxes to users, mimicking the look and feel of Apple's official system dialogue. Hence, this makes it easier for an attacker to convince users into giving away their Apple ID passwords without any degree of suspicion. " iOS asks the user for their iTunes pass

Microsoft today announced built-in support for Cortana—an artificial intelligence-powered smart assistant—in Skype messenger on Android as well as iOS devices. What purpose does it serve? Microsoft wants its AI-based smart assistance to understand your conversations and help you with quick suggestions, ideas and information right inside your chat window. "Cortana can also help you organize your day—no need to leave your conversations. Cortana can detect when you're talking about scheduling events or things you have to do and will recommend setting up a reminder, which you will receive on all your devices that have Cortana enabled," Skype said in a blog post . In other words, it typically means — Microsoft's Cortana can now read your private Skype conversations. Should You Worry About Your Privacy? Yes, Cortana needs continuous monitoring of your private chats in order to come up with useful suggestions such as movie bookings, travel plans, nearby restaura