#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

Red Team — Automation or Simulation?

Red Team — Automation or Simulation?

Sep 28, 2020
What is the difference between a penetration test and a red team exercise? The common understanding is that a red team exercise is a pen-test on steroids, but what does that mean? While both programs are performed by ethical hackers, whether they are in-house residents or contracted externally, the difference runs deeper. In a nutshell, a pen-test is performed to discover exploitable vulnerabilities and misconfigurations that would potentially serve unethical hackers. They primarily test the effectiveness of security controls and employee security awareness. The purpose of a red team exercise, in addition to discovering exploitable vulnerabilities, is to exercise the operational effectiveness of the security team, the blue team. A red team exercise challenges the blue team's capabilities and supporting technology to detect, respond, and recover from a breach. The objective is to improve their incident management and response procedures. The challenge with pen-testing and red te
FinSpy Spyware for Mac and Linux OS Targets Egyptian Organisations

FinSpy Spyware for Mac and Linux OS Targets Egyptian Organisations

Sep 25, 2020
Amnesty International today exposed details of a new surveillance campaign that targeted Egyptian civil society organizations with previously undisclosed versions of FinSpy spyware designed to target Linux and macOS systems. Developed by a German company , FinSpy is extremely powerful spying software that is being sold as a legal law enforcement tool to governments around the world but has also been found in use by oppressive and dubious regimes to spy on activists. FinSpy, also known as FinFisher, can target both desktop and mobile operating systems, including Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, and Linux, to gain spying capabilities, including secretly turning on their webcams and microphones, recording everything the victim types on the keyboard, intercepting calls, and exfiltration of data. According to the human rights organization Amnesty International , the newly discovered campaign is not linked to 'NilePhish,' a hacking group known for attacking Egyptian NGOs in a ser
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
Microsoft Windows XP Source Code Reportedly Leaked Online

Microsoft Windows XP Source Code Reportedly Leaked Online

Sep 25, 2020
Microsoft's long-lived operating system Windows XP—that still powers over 1% of all laptops and desktop computers worldwide—has had its source code leaked online, allegedly, along with Windows Server 2003. Yes, you heard that right. The source code for Microsoft's 19-year-old operating system was published as a torrent file on notorious bulletin board website 4chan, and it's for the very first time when source code for Microsoft's operating system has been leaked to the public. Several reports suggest that the collection of torrent files, which weigh 43GB in size, also said to include the source code for Windows Server 2003 and several Microsoft's older operating systems, including: Windows 2000 Windows CE 3  Windows CE 4  Windows CE 5  Windows Embedded 7 Windows Embedded CE Windows NT 3.5 Windows NT 4 MS-DOS 3.30  MS-DOS 6.0 The torrent download also includes the alleged source code for various Windows 10 components that  appeared in 2017  and sour
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.
Fortinet VPN with Default Settings Leave 200,000 Businesses Open to Hackers

Fortinet VPN with Default Settings Leave 200,000 Businesses Open to Hackers

Sep 25, 2020
As the pandemic continues to accelerate the shift towards working from home, a  slew of digital threats  have capitalized on the health concern to exploit weaknesses in the remote work infrastructure and carry out malicious attacks. Now according to network security platform provider SAM Seamless Network , over 200,000 businesses that have deployed the Fortigate VPN solution—with default configuration—to enable employees to connect remotely are vulnerable to man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks, allowing attackers to present a valid SSL certificate and fraudulently take over a connection. "We quickly found that under default configuration the SSL VPN is not as protected as it should be, and is vulnerable to MITM attacks quite easily," SAM IoT Security Lab's Niv Hertz and Lior Tashimov said. "The Fortigate SSL-VPN client only verifies that the CA was issued by Fortigate (or another trusted CA), therefore an attacker can easily present a certificate issued to a differen
Major Instagram App Bug Could've Given Hackers Remote Access to Your Phone

Major Instagram App Bug Could've Given Hackers Remote Access to Your Phone

Sep 24, 2020
Ever wonder how hackers can hack your smartphone remotely? In a report shared with The Hacker News today, Check Point researchers disclosed details about a  critical vulnerability  in Instagram's Android app that could have allowed remote attackers to take control over a targeted device just by sending victims a specially crafted image. What's more worrisome is that the flaw not only lets attackers perform actions on behalf of the user within the Instagram app—including spying on victim's private messages and even deleting or posting photos from their accounts—but also execute arbitrary code on the device. According to an  advisory  published by Facebook, the heap overflow security issue (tracked as CVE-2020-1895 , CVSS score: 7.8) impacts all versions of the Instagram app prior to 128.0.0.26.128, which was released on February 10 earlier this year. "This [flaw] turns the device into a tool for spying on targeted users without their knowledge, as well as enabling
Detecting and Preventing Critical ZeroLogon Windows Server Vulnerability

Detecting and Preventing Critical ZeroLogon Windows Server Vulnerability

Sep 23, 2020
If you're administrating Windows Server, make sure it's up to date with all recent patches issued by Microsoft, especially the one that fixes a recently patched critical vulnerability that could allow unauthenticated attackers to compromise the domain controller. Dubbed 'Zerologon' (CVE-2020-1472) and discovered by Tom Tervoort of  Secura , the privilege escalation vulnerability exists due to the insecure usage of AES-CFB8 encryption for Netlogon sessions, allowing remote attackers to establish a connection to the targeted domain controller over Netlogon Remote Protocol (MS-NRPC). "The attack utilizes flaws in an authentication protocol that validates the authenticity and identity of a domain-joined computer to the Domain Controller. Due to the incorrect use of an AES mode of operation, it is possible to spoof the identity of any computer account (including that of the DC itself) and set an empty password for that account in the domain," researchers at cyber
A New Hacking Group Hitting Russian Companies With Ransomware

A New Hacking Group Hitting Russian Companies With Ransomware

Sep 23, 2020
As ransomware attacks  against critical infrastructure continue to spike in recent months, cybersecurity researchers have uncovered a new entrant that has been actively trying to conduct multistage attacks on large corporate networks of medical labs, banks, manufacturers, and software developers in Russia. The ransomware gang, codenamed "OldGremlin" and believed to be a Russian-speaking threat actor, has been linked to a series of campaigns at least since March, including a successful attack against a clinical diagnostics laboratory that occurred last month on August 11. "The group has targeted only Russian companies so far, which was typical for many Russian-speaking adversaries, such as  Silence  and  Cobalt , at the beginning of their criminal path," Singaporean cybersecurity firm Group-IB said in a report published today and shared with The Hacker News. "Using Russia as a testing ground, these groups then switched to other geographies to distance thems
Unsecured Microsoft Bing Server Exposed Users' Search Queries and Location

Unsecured Microsoft Bing Server Exposed Users' Search Queries and Location

Sep 22, 2020
A back-end server associated with Microsoft Bing exposed sensitive data of the search engine's mobile application users, including search queries, device details, and GPS coordinates, among others. The logging database, however, doesn't include any personal details such as names or addresses. The data leak, discovered by Ata Hakcil of  WizCase  on September 12, is a massive 6.5TB cache of log files that was left for anyone to access without any password, potentially allowing cybercriminals to leverage the information for carrying out extortion and phishing scams. According to WizCase, the Elastic server is believed to have been password protected until September 10, after which the authentication seems to have been inadvertently removed. After the findings were privately disclosed to Microsoft Security Response Center, the Windows maker addressed the misconfiguration on September 16. Misconfigured servers have been a constant  source of data leaks  in recent years, resul
Cybersecurity Resources