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A new threat has hit head the headlines ( Robinhood anyone?), and you need to know if you're protected right now. What do you do? Traditionally, you would have to go with one of the options below. Option 1 – Manually check that IoCs have been updated across your security controls. This would require checking that security controls such as your email gateway, web gateway, and endpoint security have all been updated with the latest threats' indicators of compromise (IoCs) usually published by AV companies who detect the malware binaries first. Option 2 – Create a 'carbon copy' of your network and run the threat's binary on that copy. While safe, IT and security teams may be unaware of certain variations from the real deal. So while the attack simulation is running against an 'ideal' copy, your real network may have undergone inadvertent changes, such as a firewall running in monitoring mode, a patch not being installed on time, and other unintent

A team of cybersecurity researchers yesterday revealed details of a new side-channel attack on dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) that could allow malicious programs installed on a modern system to read sensitive memory data from other processes running on the same hardware. Dubbed RAMBleed and identified as CVE-2019-0174 , the new attack is based on a well-known class of DRAM side channel attack called Rowhammer , various variants [ GLitch , RAMpage , Throwhammer ,  Nethammer , Drammer ] of which have been demonstrated by researchers in recent years. Known since 2012, Rowhammer bug is a hardware reliability issue that was found in the new generation of DRAM chips. It turned out that repeatedly and rapidly accessing (hammering) a row of memory can cause bit flips in adjacent rows, i.e., changing their bit values from 0 to 1 or vice-versa. In the following years, researchers also demonstrated successful exploits to achieve privilege escalation on the vulnerable computers by

Over the past two years, a shocking  51% of organizations surveyed in a leading industry report have been compromised by a cyberattack.  Yes, over half.  And this, in a world where enterprises deploy  an average of 53 different security solutions  to safeguard their digital domain.  Alarming? Absolutely. A recent survey of CISOs and CIOs, commissioned by Pentera and conducted by Global Surveyz Research, offers a quantifiable glimpse into this evolving battlefield, revealing a stark contrast between the growing risks and the tightening budget constraints under which cybersecurity professionals operate. With this report, Pentera has once again taken a magnifying glass to the state of pentesting to release its annual report about today's pentesting practices. Engaging with 450 security executives from North America, LATAM, APAC, and EMEA—all in VP or C-level positions at organizations with over 1,000 employees—the report paints a current picture of modern security validation prac

After Adobe , the technology giant Microsoft today—on June 2019 Patch Tuesday—also released its monthly batch of software security updates for various supported versions of Windows operating systems and other Microsoft products. This month's security updates include patches for a total of 88 vulnerabilities, 21 are rated Critical, 66 are Important, and one is rated Moderate in severity. The June 2019 updates include patches Windows OS, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge browser, Microsoft Office and Services, ChakraCore, Skype for Business, Microsoft Lync, Microsoft Exchange Server, and Azure. Four of the security vulnerabilities, all rated important and could allow attackers to escalate privileges, patched by the tech giant this month were disclosed publicly, of which none were found exploited in the wild. Unpatched Issue Reported by Google Researcher However, Microsoft failed to patch a minor flaw in SymCrypt , a core cryptographic function library currently used by

It's Patch Tuesday week! Adobe has just released the latest June 2019 software updates to address a total 11 security vulnerabilities in its three widely-used products Adobe ColdFusion, Flash Player, and Adobe Campaign. Out of these, three vulnerabilities affect Adobe ColdFusion, a commercial rapid web application development platform—all critical in severity—that could lead to arbitrary code execution attacks. Here below you can find brief information about all newly patched ColdFusion flaws : CVE-2019-7838 — This vulnerability has been categorized as "File extension blacklist bypass" and can be exploited if the file uploads directory is web accessible. CVE-2019-7839 — There's a command injection vulnerability in ColdFusion 2016 and 2018 editions, but it does not impact ColdFusion version 11. CVE-2019-7840 — This flaw originates from the deserialization of untrusted data and also leads to arbitrary code execution on the system. Besides ColdFusion

Security researchers have been warning about a critical vulnerability they discovered in one of a popular WordPress Live Chat plugin, which, if exploited, could allow unauthorized remote attackers to steal chat logs or manipulate chat sessions. The vulnerability, identified as CVE-2019-12498, resides in the "WP Live Chat Support" that is currently being used by over 50,000 businesses to provide customer support and chat with visitors through their websites. Discovered by cybersecurity researchers at Alert Logic , the flaw originates because of an improper validation check for authentication that apparently could allow unauthenticated users to access restricted REST API endpoints. As described by researchers, a potential remote attacker can exploit exposed endpoints for malicious purposes, including: stealing the entire chat history for all chat sessions, modifying or deleting the chat history, injecting messages into an active chat session, posing as a custome

Linux users, beware! If you haven't recently updated your Linux operating system, especially the command-line text editor utility, do not even try to view the content of a file using Vim or Neovim. Security researcher Armin Razmjou recently discovered a high-severity arbitrary OS command execution vulnerability (CVE-2019-12735) in Vim and Neovim —two most popular and powerful command-line text editing applications that come pre-installed with most Linux-based operating systems. On Linux systems, Vim editor allows users to create, view or edit any file, including text, programming scripts, and documents. Since Neovim is just an extended forked version of Vim, with better user experience, plugins and GUIs, the code execution vulnerability also resides in it. Code Execution Flaw in Vim and Neovim Razmjou discovered a flaw in the way Vim editor handles "modelines," a feature that's enabled-by-default to automatically find and apply a set of custom pref

An anonymous security researcher going by the name of SandboxEscaper today publicly shared a second zero-day exploit that can be used to bypass a recently patched elevation of privilege vulnerability in the Microsoft Windows operating system. SandboxEscaper is known for publicly dropping zero-day exploits for unpatched Windows vulnerabilities. In the past year, the hacker has disclosed over half a dozen zero-day vulnerabilities in Windows OS without actually bothering to make Microsoft aware of the issues first. Just two weeks ago, the hacker disclosed four new Windows exploits , one of which was an exploit that could allow attackers to bypass a patched elevation of privilege vulnerability (CVE-2019-0841) in Windows that existed when Windows AppX Deployment Service (AppXSVC) improperly handles hard links. Now, the hacker claims to have found a new way to bypass Microsoft security patch for the same vulnerability, allowing a specially crafted malicious application to escalate its

Security researchers have discovered an ongoing sophisticated botnet campaign that is currently brute-forcing more than 1.5 million publicly accessible Windows RDP servers on the Internet. Dubbed GoldBrute , the botnet scheme has been designed in a way to escalate gradually by adding every new cracked system to its network, forcing them to further find new available RDP servers and then brute force them. To fly under the radar of security tools and malware analysts, attackers behind this campaign command each infected machine to target millions of servers with a unique set of username and password combination so that a targeted server receives brute force attempts from different IP addresses. The campaign, discovered  by Renato Marinho at Morphus Labs, works as shown in the illustrated image, and its modus operandi has been explained in the following steps: Step 1 — After successfully brute-forcing an RDP server, the attacker installs a JAVA-based GoldBrute botnet malware

The Information Technology industry has seen exponential growth over the years. It is essential for everyone to earn cybersecurity certification if you want to be a part of this growing industry. Organizations always prefer employees with strong internationally-recognized professional certifications. It proofs your skills, knowledge, and gives more credibility to advance your career. IT Certification training not only helps you cover new areas but also enables you to reinforce the skills you already have. There are a vast number of cybersecurity courses and training programs in the market, but CompTIA certifications are among the most trusted credentials in the IT industry. CompTIA certifications help you build a solid foundation of essentials knowledge and skills to stay ahead in an IT career. CompTIA is a global provider of IT Certifications that offers a wide range of popular certifications, such as A+, Network+, Cloud+, Linux+, and Security+ certifications. CompTI

Are you using Komodo's Agama Wallet to store your KMD and BTC cryptocurrencies? Were your funds also unauthorisedly transferred overnight to a new address? If yes, don't worry, it's probably safe, and if you are lucky, you will get your funds back. Here's what exactly happened… Komodo, a cryptocurrency project and developer of Agama wallet, adopted a surprisingly unique way to protect its customers' funds. The company hacked its customers and unauthorisedly transferred nearly 8 million KMD and 96 Bitcoins from their cryptocurrency wallets to a new address owned by the company. Why? To secure funds of its customers from hackers. This may sound weird, but it's true. Komodo recently learned about a malicious open source, third-party JavaScript library that the company was using in its Agama Wallet app. The library, named "electron-native-notify," two months ago received a update from its anonymous author who included a secret backdoo

Security researchers have discovered multiple critical vulnerabilities in a popular IPTV middleware platform that is currently being used by more than a thousand regional and international online media streaming services to manage their millions of subscribers. Discovered by security researchers at CheckPoint , the vulnerabilities reside in the administrative panel of Ministra TV platform, which if exploited, could allow attackers to bypass authentication and extract subscribers' database, including their financial details. Besides this, the flaws could also allow attackers to replace broadcast and steam any content of their choice on the TV screens of all affected customer networks. Ministra TV platform, previously known as Stalker Portal, is a software written in PHP that works as a middleware platform for media streaming services for managing Internet Protocol television (IPTV), video-on-demand (VOD) and over-the-top (OTT) content, licenses and their subscribers. Deve

A security researcher today revealed details of a newly unpatched vulnerability in Microsoft Windows Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). Tracked as CVE-2019-9510 , the reported vulnerability could allow client-side attackers to bypass the lock screen on remote desktop (RD) sessions. Discovered by Joe Tammariello of Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute (SEI), the flaw exists when Microsoft Windows Remote Desktop feature requires clients to authenticate with Network Level Authentication (NLA), a feature that Microsoft recently recommended as a workaround against the critical BlueKeep RDP vulnerability . According to Will Dormann, a vulnerability analyst at the CERT/CC, if a network anomaly triggers a temporary RDP disconnect while a client was already connected to the server but the login screen is locked, then "upon reconnection the RDP session will be restored to an unlocked state, regardless of how the remote system was left." "Starting with W

As promised, Mozilla has finally enabled "Enhanced Tracking Protection" feature on its Firefox browser by default, which from now onwards would automatically block all third-party tracking cookies that allow advertisers and websites to track you across the web. Tracking cookies, also known as third-party cookies, allows advertisers to monitor your online behavior and interests, using which they display relevant advertisements, content, and promotions on the websites you visit. Which makes sense as no one likes to waste time in watching advertisements and offers that are not of one's interest. However, since tracking cookies gather way more information without requiring users' explicit permissions and there is no control over how companies would use it, the technique also poses a massive threat to users' online privacy. To limit this extensive tracking, Mozilla included the "Enhanced Tracking Protection" option as an experimental feature in Octo

Just like 'login with Google,' 'login with Facebook,' Twitter, LinkedIn or any other social media site, you would now be able to quickly sign-up and log into third-party websites and apps using your Apple ID. What's the difference? Well, Apple claims that signing-in with Apple ID would protect users' privacy by not disclosing their actual email addresses to the 3rd-party services and also limiting personal information to the minimum necessary data. While announcing 'Sign in with Apple' today at WWDC, the company revealed that the feature has been designed to randomly generate a new unique email address for each different service a user sign-up with, and will forward all emails to your primary email ID, internally. "It [randomly generate emails] is a smart jab against spam: Not only will you be able to turn off spammy email more easily, but you'll also be able to see who exactly is sharing and selling your email widely when that random a

A security researcher who last year bypassed Apple 's then-newly introduced macOS privacy feature has once again found a new way to bypass security warnings by performing 'Synthetic Clicks' on behalf of users without requiring their interaction. Last June, Apple introduced a core security feature in MacOS that made it mandatory for all applications to take permission ("allow" or "deny") from users before accessing sensitive data or components on the system, including the device camera or microphone, location data, messages, and browsing history. For those unaware, 'Synthetic Clicks' are programmatic and invisible mouse clicks that are generated by a software program rather than a human. MacOS itself has built-in functionality for synthetic clicks, but as an accessibility feature for disabled people to interact with the system interface in non-traditional ways. So, the feature is only available for Apple-approved apps, preventing ma

I have said it before, and I will say it again — Smart devices are one of the dumbest technologies, so far, when it comes to protecting users' privacy and security. As more and more smart devices are being sold worldwide, consumers should be aware of security and privacy risks associated with the so-called intelligent devices. When it comes to internet-connected devices, smart TVs are the ones that have highly-evolved, giving consumers a lot of options to enjoy streaming, browsing the Internet, gaming, and saving files on the Cloud—technically allowing you to do everything on it as a full-fledged PC. Apparently, in the past few years we have reported how Smart TVs can be used to spy on end users without their explicit consent, how remote hackers can even take full control over a majority of Smart TVs without having any physical access to them, and how flaws in Smart TVs allowed hackers to hijack TV screen . Now most recently, Smart TVs selling under SUPRA brand-name h

If you have swiped your payment card at the popular Checkers and Rally's drive-through restaurant chains in past 2-3 years, you should immediately request your bank to block your card and notify it if you notice any suspicious transaction. Checkers, one of the largest drive-through restaurant chains in the United States, disclosed a massive long-running data breach yesterday that affected an unknown number of customers at 103 of its Checkers and Rally's locations—nearly 15% of its restaurants. The impacted restaurants [ name, addresses and exposure dates ] reside in 20 states, including Florida, California, Michigan, New York, Nevada, New Jersey, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Delaware, Kentucky, Louisiana, Alabama, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, West Virginia and Virginia. After becoming aware of a "data security issue involving malware" at some Checkers and Rally's locations, the company launched an extensive investigation which r

Cyber Security researchers at Guardicore Labs today published a detailed report on a widespread cryptojacking campaign attacking Windows MS-SQL and PHPMyAdmin servers worldwide. Dubbed Nansh0u , the malicious campaign is reportedly being carried out by an APT-style Chinese hacking group who has already infected nearly 50,000 servers and are installing a sophisticated kernel-mode rootkit on compromised systems to prevent the malware from being terminated. The campaign, which dates back to February 26 but was first detected in early-April, has been found delivering 20 different payload versions hosted on various hosting providers. The attack relies on the brute-forcing technique after finding publicly accessible Windows MS-SQL and PHPMyAdmin servers using a simple port scanner. Upon successful login authentication with administrative privileges, attackers execute a sequence of MS-SQL commands on the compromised system to download malicious payload from a remote file server and

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