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A new ransomware family has been found targeting Linux-based Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices made by Taiwan-based QNAP Systems and holding users' important data hostage until a ransom is paid, researchers told The Hacker News. Ideal for home and small business, NAS devices are dedicated file storage units connected to a network or through the Internet, which allow users to store and share their data and backups with multiple computers. Independently discovered by researchers at two separate security firms, Intezer and Anomali, the new ransomware family targets poorly protected or vulnerable QNAP NAS servers either by brute forcing weak SSH credentials or exploiting known vulnerabilities. Dubbed " QNAPCrypt " by Intezer and " eCh0raix " by Anomali, the new ransomware is written in the Go programming language and encrypts files with targeted extensions using AES encryption and appends .encrypt extension to each. However, if a compromised NAS devic

One of the most powerful, infamous, and advanced piece of government-grade commercial surveillance spyware dubbed FinSpy —also known as FinFisher —has been discovered in the wild targeting users in Myanmar. Created by German company Gamma International, FinSpy is spying software that can target various mobile platforms including iOS and Android, we well as desktop operating systems. Gamma Group reportedly sells its controversial FinSpy espionage tool exclusively to government agencies across the world, but also gained notoriety for targeting human rights activists in many countries. The FinSpy implant is capable of stealing an extensive amount of personal information from targeted mobile devices, such as SMS/MMS messages, phone call recordings, emails, contacts, pictures, files, and GPS location data. In its latest report published today, Kaspersky researchers revealed a cyber-espionage campaign that involves targeting Myanmar users with the latest versions of FinSpy impl

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,

We've got some really exciting news for you... Offensive Security has released an official version of Kali Linux for Raspberry Pi 4—the most powerful version of the compact computer board yet that was released just two weeks ago with the full 4GB of RAM at low cost and easy accessibility. Based on Debian, Kali Linux has always been the number one operating system for ethical hackers and penetration testers, and Raspberry Pi always has a gold standard for inexpensive single-board computing, designed to let people experiment with building software and hardware. Due to the popularity of Kali Linux on previous versions of Raspberry Pi, Offensive Security says that the developers want to get Kali supported on the latest version of the Pi right away. Now with the release of Raspberry Pi 4, Offensive Security is really excited to launch a new build of Kali Linux that takes advantage of everything the Raspberry Pi 4 has to offer including: A more powerful CPU Options for 1,

After fining British Airways with a record fine of £183 million earlier this week, the UK's data privacy regulator is now planning to slap world's biggest hotel chain Marriott International with a £99 million ($123 million) fine under GDPR over 2014 data breach. This is the second major penalty notice in the last two days that hit companies for failing to protect its customers' personal and financial information compromised and implement adequate security measures. In November 2018, Marriott discovered that unknown hackers compromised their guest reservation database through its Starwood hotels subsidiary and walked away with personal details of approximately 339 million guests. The compromised database leaked guests' names, mailing addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, dates of birth, gender, arrival and departure information, reservation date, and communication preferences. The breach, which likely happened in 2014, also exposed unencrypted passport

Microsoft today released its monthly batch of software security updates for the July month to patch a total of 77 vulnerabilities, 14 are rated Critical, 62 are Important, and 1 is rated Moderate in severity. The July 2019 security updates include patches for various supported versions of Windows operating systems and other Microsoft products, including Internet Explorer, Edge, Office, Azure DevOps, Open Source Software, .NET Framework, Azure, SQL Server, ASP.NET, Visual Studio, and Exchange Server. Details of 6 security vulnerabilities, all rated important, were made public before a patch was released, none of which were found being exploited in the wild. However, two new privilege escalation vulnerabilities, one affects all supported versions of the Windows operating system, and the other affects Windows 7 and Server 2008, have been reported as being actively exploited in the wild. Both actively exploited vulnerabilities lead to elevation of privilege, one (CVE-2019-1132)

Lodash, a popular npm library used by more than 4 million projects on GitHub alone, is affected by a high severity security vulnerability that could allow attackers to compromise the security of affected services using the library and their respective user base. Lodash is a JavaScript library that contains tools to simplify programming with strings, numbers, arrays, functions, and objects, helping programmers write and maintain their JavaScript code more efficiently. Liran Tal, a developer advocate at open-source security platform Snyk, recently published details and proof-of-concept exploit of a high-severity prototype pollution security vulnerability that affects all versions of lodash, including the latest version 4.17.11. The vulnerability, assigned as CVE-2019-10744 , potentially affects a large number of frontend projects due to the popularity of lodash that is being downloaded at a rate of more than 80 million times per month. Prototype pollution is a vulnerability t

Enterprises should expect to see more cyberattacks launched against them. The data that they now gather and store have made their infrastructures key targets for hackers. Customer data and intellectual property can be sold in the black market for profit, and sensitive information can also be used by hackers to extort them. Enterprises are now aggressively shifting their workloads to the cloud which, while it has many benefits, expands their defensive perimeter and exposes them to further risks as well. As such, organizations are now widely investing in various security solutions in order to comprehensively protect their networks. Gartner expects security spending to exceed $124 billion this year. Solutions such as firewalls and threat prevention tools have increasingly become essential for enterprises. Leading firewall provider Palo Alto Networks , for example, provides companies with various measures to protect their infrastructures. It's currently being used by tens

Smartphones are a goldmine of sensitive data, and modern apps work as diggers that continuously collect every possible information from your devices. The security model of modern mobile operating systems, like Android and iOS, is primarily based on permissions that explicitly define which sensitive services, device capabilities, or user information an app can access, allowing users decide what apps can access. However, new findings by a team of researchers at the International Computer Science Institute in California revealed that mobile app developers are using shady techniques to harvest users' data even after they deny permissions. In their talk " 50 Ways to Pour Your Data " [ PDF ] at PrivacyCon hosted by the Federal Trade Commission last Thursday, researchers presented their findings that outline how more than 1,300 Android apps are collecting users' precise geolocation data and phone identifiers even when they've explicitly denied the required permi