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Google on Tuesday released an update for Chrome web browser for Windows, Mac, and Linux, with a total of seven security fixes, including one flaw for which it says an exploit exists in the wild. Tracked as CVE-2021-21224 , the flaw concerns a type confusion vulnerability in V8 open-source JavaScript engine that was reported to the company by security researcher Jose Martinez on April 5 According to security researcher  Lei Cao , the bug [ 1195777 ] is triggered when performing integer data type conversion, resulting in an out-of-bounds condition that could be used to achieve arbitrary memory read/write primitive. "Google is aware of reports that exploits for CVE-2021-21224 exist in the wild," Chrome's Technical Program Manager Srinivas Sista  said  in a blog post. The update comes after proof-of-concept (PoC) code exploiting the flaw published by a researcher named " frust " emerged on April 14 by taking advantage of the fact that the issue was addressed

SonicWall has addressed three critical security vulnerabilities in its hosted and on-premises email security (ES) product that are being actively exploited in the wild. Tracked as CVE-2021-20021 and CVE-2021-20022, the  flaws  were discovered and reported to the company by FireEye's Mandiant subsidiary on March 26, 2021, after the cybersecurity firm detected post-exploitation web shell activity on an internet-accessible system within a customer's environment that had SonicWall's ES application running on a Windows Server 2012 installation. A third flaw (CVE-2021-20023) identified by FireEye was disclosed to SonicWall on April 6, 2021. FireEye is tracking the malicious activity under the moniker UNC2682. "These vulnerabilities were executed in conjunction to obtain administrative access and code execution on a SonicWall ES device," researchers Josh Fleischer, Chris DiGiamo, and Alex Pennino  said . The adversary leveraged these vulnerabilities, with intimate

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,

If Pulse Connect Secure gateway is part of your organization network, you need to be aware of a newly discovered critical zero-day authentication bypass vulnerability (CVE-2021-22893) that is currently being exploited in the wild and for which there is no patch available yet. At least two threat actors have been behind a series of intrusions targeting defense, government, and financial organizations in the U.S. and elsewhere by leveraging critical vulnerabilities in Pulse Secure VPN devices to circumvent multi-factor authentication protections and breach enterprise networks. "A combination of prior vulnerabilities and a previously unknown vulnerability discovered in April 2021,  CVE-2021-22893 , are responsible for the initial infection vector," cybersecurity firm FireEye  said  on Tuesday, identifying 12 malware families associated with the exploitation of Pulse Secure VPN appliances. The company is also tracking the activity under two threat clusters UNC2630 and UNC271

Researchers have uncovered a new set of fraudulent Android apps in the Google Play store that were found to hijack SMS message notifications for carrying out billing fraud. The apps in question primarily targeted users in Southwest Asia and the Arabian Peninsula, attracting a total of 700,000 downloads before they were discovered and removed from the platform. The findings were reported independently by cybersecurity firms  Trend Micro  and  McAfee . "Posing as photo editors, wallpapers, puzzles, keyboard skins, and other camera-related apps, the malware embedded in these fraudulent apps hijack SMS message notifications and then make unauthorized purchases," researchers from McAfee said in a Monday write-up. The fraudulent apps belong to the so-called " Joker " (aka Bread) malware, which has been found to repeatedly sneak past Google Play defenses over the past four years, resulting in Google removing no fewer than 1,700 infected apps from the Play Store as of

For most organizations today, endpoint protection is the primary security concern. This is not unreasonable – endpoints tend to be the weakest points in an environment – but it also misses the forest for the trees. As threat surfaces expand, security professionals are harder pressed to detect threats that target other parts of an environment and can easily miss a real vulnerability by focusing too hard on endpoints. This is why pairing tools such as next-generation antivirus (NGAV) and endpoint detection and response (EDR) has become a popular, if flawed, choice. Fortunately, newer technologies and security methods offer much greater prevention and detection capabilities. This is the key argument of a new eBook ( download here ) offered by XDR provider Cynet. The eBook, titled  Why Autonomous XDR is Going to Replace NGAV/EDR,  starts with a look at how NGAV and EDR tools can defend an organization with the "assume breach" mentality – expecting a breach to occur and protecting endpoi

An ongoing malvertising campaign tracked as "Tag Barnakle" has been behind the breach of more than 120 ad servers over the past year to sneakily inject code in an attempt to serve malicious advertisements that redirect users to rogue websites, thus exposing victims to scamware or malware. Unlike other operators who set about their task by infiltrating the ad-tech ecosystem using "convincing personas" to buy space on legitimate websites for running the malicious ads, Tag Barnakle is "able to bypass this initial hurdle completely by going straight for the jugular — mass compromise of ad serving infrastructure,"  said  Confiant security researcher Eliya Stein in a Monday write-up. The development follows a year after the Tag Barnakle actor was found to have  compromised nearly 60 ad servers  in April 2020, with the infections primarily targeting an open-source advertising server called Revive. The latest slew of attacks is no different, although the adve

A spear-phishing attack operated by a North Korean threat actor targeting its southern counterpart has been found to conceal its malicious code within a bitmap (.BMP) image file to drop a remote access trojan (RAT) capable of stealing sensitive information. Attributing the attack to the  Lazarus Group  based on similarities to prior tactics adopted by the adversary, researchers from Malwarebytes said the phishing campaign started by distributing emails laced with a malicious document that it identified on April 13. "The actor has used a clever method to bypass security mechanisms in which it has embedded its malicious  HTA  file as a compressed  zlib  file within a PNG file that then has been decompressed during run time by converting itself to the BMP format," Malwarebytes researchers  said .  "The dropped payload was a loader that decoded and decrypted the second stage payload into memory. The second stage payload has the capability to receive and execute commands

The concept of "passwordless" authentication has been gaining significant industry and media attention. And for a good reason. Our digital lives are demanding an ever-increasing number of online accounts and services, with security best practices dictating that each requires a strong, unique password in order to ensure data stays safe. Who wouldn't want an easier way? That's the premise behind one-time passwords (OTP), biometrics, pin codes, and other authentication methods presented as passwordless security. Rather than remembering cumbersome passwords, users can authenticate themselves using something they own, know, or are. Some examples include a smartphone, OTP, hardware token, or biometric marker like a fingerprint. While this sounds appealing on the surface, the problem is that, when you dig deeper, these passwordless solutions are still reliant on passwords. This happens in two primary ways: Passwordless Solutions Rely on Passwords as a Fallback If you ha

A Mac malware campaign targeting Xcode developers has been retooled to add support for Apple's new M1 chips and expand its features to steal confidential information from cryptocurrency apps. XCSSET came into the spotlight in  August 2020  after it was found to spread via modified Xcode IDE projects, which, upon the building, were configured to execute the payload. The malware repackages payload modules to imitate legitimate Mac apps, which are ultimately responsible for infecting local Xcode projects and injecting the main payload to execute when the compromised project builds. XCSSET modules come with the capabilities to steal credentials, capture screenshots, inject malicious JavaScript into websites, plunder user data from different apps, and even encrypt files for a ransom.  Then in March 2021, Kaspersky researchers  uncovered  XCSSET samples compiled for the new Apple M1 chips, suggesting that the malware campaign was not only ongoing but also that adversaries are  activ