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Cybersecurity researchers on Tuesday disclosed a now-patched security flaw in TikTok that could have potentially enabled an attacker to build a database of the app's users and their associated phone numbers for future malicious activity. Although this flaw only impacts those users who have linked a phone number with their account or logged in with a phone number, a successful exploitation of the vulnerability could have resulted in data leakage and privacy violation, Check Point Research said in an analysis shared with The Hacker News. TikTok has deployed a fix to address the shortcoming following responsible disclosure from Check Point researchers. The newly discovered bug resides in TikTok's " Find friends " feature that allows users to sync their contacts with the service to identify potential people to follow. The contacts are uploaded to TikTok via an HTTP request in the form of a list that consists of hashed contact names and the corresponding phone numbe

Most companies with small security teams face the same issues. They have inadequate budgets, inadequate staff, and inadequate skills to face today's onslaught of sophisticated cyberthreats. Many of these companies turn to virtual CISOs (vCISOs) to provide security expertise and guidance. vCISOs are typically former CISOs with years of experience building and managing information security programs across large and small organizations. Autonomous XDR company Cynet, a provider of an automated breach protection platform and MDR service for even the smallest security teams, is conducting a webinar with well-known vCISO Brian Haugli to understand the common challenges faced by CISOs with small security teams [ register here ]. In the first part of the webinar, Haugli will share the four foundational risks that are common across most companies he helps. He will then discuss the most common pieces of advice he provides across the companies he serves. Haugli will also share a situation

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,

Google on Monday disclosed details about an ongoing campaign carried out by a government-backed threat actor from North Korea that has targeted security researchers working on vulnerability research and development. The internet giant's Threat Analysis Group (TAG) said the adversary created a research blog and multiple profiles on various social media platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram, Discord, and Keybase in a bid to communicate with the researchers and build trust. The goal, it appears, is to steal exploits developed by the researchers for possibly undisclosed vulnerabilities, thereby allowing them to stage further attacks on vulnerable targets of their choice. "Their blog contains write-ups and analysis of vulnerabilities that have been publicly disclosed, including 'guest' posts from unwitting legitimate security researchers, likely in an attempt to build additional credibility with other security researchers,"  said  TAG researcher Adam Weide

In 1982, when SMTP was first specified, it did not contain any mechanism for providing security at the transport level to secure communications between mail transfer agents. Later, in 1999, the STARTTLS command was added to SMTP that in turn supported the encryption of emails in between the servers, providing the ability to convert a non-secure connection into a secure one that is encrypted using TLS protocol. However, encryption is optional in SMTP, which implies that emails can be sent in plaintext.  Mail Transfer Agent-Strict Transport Security (MTA-STS)  is a relatively new standard that enables mail service providers the ability to enforce Transport Layer Security (TLS) to secure SMTP connections and to specify whether the sending SMTP servers should refuse to deliver emails to MX hosts that that does not offer TLS with a reliable server certificate. It has been proven to successfully mitigate TLS downgrade attacks and Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) attacks. SMTP TLS Reporting (TLS-

A newly discovered Android malware has been found to propagate itself through WhatsApp messages to other contacts in order to expand what appears to be an adware campaign. "This malware spreads via victim's WhatsApp by automatically replying to any received WhatsApp message notification with a link to [a] malicious Huawei Mobile app," ESET researcher Lukas Stefanko said. The link to the fake Huawei Mobile app, upon clicking, redirects users to a lookalike Google Play Store website. Once installed, the wormable app prompts victims to grant it notification access, which is then abused to carry out the wormable attack. Specifically, it leverages WhatApp's quick reply feature — which is used to respond to incoming messages directly from the notifications — to send out a reply to a received message automatically. Besides requesting permissions to read notifications, the app also requests intrusive access to run in the background as well as to draw over other apps,

Over the years,  penetration testing  has had to change and adapt alongside the IT environments and technology that need to be assessed. Broad cybersecurity issues often influence the strategy and growth of pen-testing. In such a fast-paced field, organizations get real value from learning about others' penetration testing experiences, identifying trends, and the role they play in today's threat landscape. While there is much to be gained from a single snapshot, additional value can come from long term data collection and year over year comparisons. We can see whether the effects that recent trends have on pen testing are long term, or simply a temporary shift, and how they affect the continuing evolution of penetration testing. For instance, 2020 saw a massive influx of remote work. Unfortunately, the convenience of working safely from home increased the risk of a breach as countless new attack vectors opened up, both from the way employees connected to networks, as well a

More details have emerged about a security feature bypass vulnerability in Windows NT LAN Manager ( NTLM ) that was addressed by Microsoft as part of its monthly  Patch Tuesday updates  earlier this month. The flaw, tracked as  CVE-2021-1678  (CVSS score 4.3), was described as a "remotely exploitable" bug found in a vulnerable component bound to the network stack, although exact details of the issue remained unknown. Now according to researchers from Crowdstrike, the security bug, if left unpatched, could allow a bad actor to achieve remote code execution via an NTLM relay. "This vulnerability allows an attacker to relay NTLM authentication sessions to an attacked machine, and use a printer spooler  MSRPC  interface to remotely execute code on the attacked machine," the researchers  said  in a Friday advisory. NTLM relay attacks are a kind of man-in-the-middle (MitM) attacks that typically permit attackers with access to a network to intercept legitimate authe

Cybersecurity researchers have warned of a publicly available fully-functional exploit that could be used to target SAP enterprise software. The exploit leverages a vulnerability, tracked as  CVE-2020-6207 , that stems from a missing authentication check in SAP Solution Manager (SolMan) version 7.2 SAP  SolMan  is an application management and administration solution that offers end-to-end application lifecycle management in distributed environments, acting as a centralized hub for implementing and maintaining SAP systems such as ERP, CRM, HCM, SCM, BI, and others. "A successful exploitation could allow a remote unauthenticated attacker to execute highly privileged administrative tasks in the connected  SAP SMD Agents ," researchers from Onapsis  said , referring to the Solution Manager Diagnostics toolset used to analyze and monitor SAP systems. The vulnerability, which has the highest possible CVSS base score of 10.0, was addressed by SAP as part of its  March 2020  u

SonicWall, a popular internet security provider of firewall and VPN products, on late Friday disclosed that it fell victim to a coordinated attack on its internal systems. The San Jose-based company said the attacks leveraged zero-day vulnerabilities in SonicWall secure remote access products such as NetExtender VPN client version 10.x and Secure Mobile Access ( SMA ) that are used to provide users with remote access to internal resources. "Recently, SonicWall identified a coordinated attack on its internal systems by highly sophisticated threat actors exploiting probable zero-day vulnerabilities on certain SonicWall secure remote access products," the company exclusively told The Hacker News. The development comes after The Hacker News received reports that SonicWall's internal systems went down earlier this week on Tuesday and that the source code hosted on the company's GitLab repository was accessed by the attackers. SonicWall wouldn't confirm the re

Amazon has addressed a number of flaws in its Kindle e-reader platform that could have allowed an attacker to take control of victims' devices by simply sending them a malicious e-book. Dubbed " KindleDrip ," the exploit chain takes advantage of a feature called " Send to Kindle " to send a malware-laced document to a Kindle device that, when opened, could be leveraged to remotely execute arbitrary code on the device and make unauthorized purchases. "The code runs as root, and the attacker only needs to know the email address assigned to the victim's device,"  said  Yogev Bar-On, a security researcher for Readlmode Labs, in a technical write-up on Thursday. The first vulnerability lets a bad actor send an e-book to a Kindle, the second flaw allows for remote code execution while the e-book is parsed, and a third issue makes it possible to escalate privileges and run the code as the "root" user. When linked together, these weaknesses

Like it or not, 2020 was the year that proved that teams could work from literally anywhere. While terms like "flex work" and "WFH" were thrown around before COVID-19 came around, thanks to the pandemic, remote working has become the defacto way people work nowadays. Today, digital-based work interactions take the place of in-person ones with near-seamless fluidity, and the best part is that going remote helps companies save their cash in this bootstrapped time.  But while the ability to work from anywhere has truly been essential to keeping businesses and the economy functional, it has opened up new challenges that need to be addressed.  Your Devices Are Your Weakest Link With nearly ⅔ of employees still working remotely to some degree, the boundaries that once separated work and home have been completely washed away. A major ramification of this shift has been an increase in the volume of corporate and non-corporate devices connecting from remote to sensitive

A relatively new crypto-mining malware that surfaced last year and infected thousands of Microsoft SQL Server (MSSQL) databases has now been linked to a small software development company based in Iran. The attribution was made possible due to an operational security oversight, said researchers from cybersecurity firm Sophos, that led to the company's name inadvertently making its way into the cryptominer code. First documented by Chinese tech giant Tencent last September,  MrbMiner  was found to target internet-facing MSSQL servers with the goal of installing a cryptominer, which hijacks the processing power of the systems to mine Monero and funnel them into accounts controlled by the attackers. The name "MrbMiner" comes after one of the domains used by the group to host their malicious mining software. "In many ways, MrbMiner's operations appear typical of most cryptominer attacks we've seen targeting internet-facing servers,"  said  Gabor Szappa

Microsoft on Wednesday shared more specifics about the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) adopted by the attackers behind the SolarWinds hack to stay under the radar and avoid detection, as cybersecurity companies work towards getting a "clearer picture" of one of the most sophisticated attacks in recent history. Calling the threat actor "skillful and methodic operators who follow operations security (OpSec) best practices," the company said the attackers went out of their way to ensure that the initial backdoor ( Sunburst  aka Solorigate) and the post-compromise implants ( Teardrop  and  Raindrop ) are separated as much as possible so as to hinder efforts to spot their malicious activity. "The attackers behind Solorigate are skilled campaign operators who carefully planned and executed the attack, remaining elusive while maintaining persistence," researchers from Microsoft 365 Defender Research Team, Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC)

When you are a startup, there are umpteen things that demand your attention. You must give your hundred percent (probably even more!) to work effectively and efficiently with the limited resources. Understandably, the  application security importance  may be pushed at the bottom of your things-to-do list. One other reason to ignore web application protectioncould be your belief that only large enterprises are prone to data breaches, and your startup is hardly noticeable to become a target. Well, these eye-opening  statistics  prove otherwise. 43% of security attacks target small businesses New small businesses witnessed a 424% rise in security breaches in 2019 60% of small businesses close within six months of cyberattacks SMEs can lose more than $2.2 million a year to cyberattacks How Can Cyber Breaches Impact Your Startup? Unless you belong to the category of data security startups ,  which are thoroughly familiar with the importance of a secure web app, your startup can f

A new large-scale phishing campaign targeting global organizations has been found to bypass Microsoft Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) and steal credentials belonging to over a thousand corporate employees. The cyber offensive is said to have originated in August last year, with the attacks aimed specifically at energy and construction companies, said researchers from Check Point Research today in a joint analysis in partnership with industrial cybersecurity firm Otorio. Although phishing campaigns engineered for credential theft are among the most prevalent reasons for data breaches, what makes this operation stand out is an operational security failure that led to the attackers unintentionally exposing the credentials they had stolen to the public Internet. "With a simple Google search, anyone could have found the password to one of the compromised, stolen email addresses: a gift to every opportunistic attacker," the researchers said . The attack chain comm

In January 2019, a  critical flaw  was reported in Apple's FaceTime group chats feature that made it possible for users to initiate a FaceTime video call and eavesdrop on targets by adding their own number as a third person in a group chat even before the person on the other end accepted the incoming call. The vulnerability was deemed so severe that the iPhone maker removed the FaceTime group chats feature altogether before the issue was resolved in a subsequent iOS update. Since then, a number of similar shortcomings have been discovered in multiple video chat apps such as Signal, JioChat, Mocha, Google Duo, and Facebook Messenger — all thanks to the work of Google Project Zero researcher Natalie Silvanovich. "While [the Group FaceTime] bug was soon fixed, the fact that such a serious and easy to reach vulnerability had occurred due to a logic bug in a calling state machine — an attack scenario I had never seen considered on any platform — made me wonder whether other sta