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A security researcher who has a long line of work demonstrating novel data exfiltration methods from air-gapped systems has come up with yet another technique that involves sending Morse code signals via LEDs on network interface cards ( NICs ). The approach, codenamed  ETHERLED , comes from Dr. Mordechai Guri , the head of R&D in the Cyber Security Research Center in the Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, who recently outlined  GAIROSCOPE , a method for transmitting data ultrasonically to smartphone gyroscopes. "Malware installed on the device could programmatically control the status LED by blinking or alternating its colors, using documented methods or undocumented firmware commands," Dr. Guri said. "Information can be encoded via simple encoding such as Morse code and modulated over these optical signals. An attacker can intercept and decode these signals from tens to hundreds of meters away." A network interface card, also known as a netwo

From ransomware to breaches, from noncompliance penalties to reputational damage – cyberthreats pose an existential risk to any business. But for SMEs and SMBs, the danger is compounded. These companies realize they  need  an in-house Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) – someone who can assess risks and vulnerabilities, create and execute a comprehensive cybersecurity plan, ensure compliance and safeguard business continuity. Yet unlike large enterprises, most don't have the budget to bring a full-time experienced CISO on board. To bridge this gap, managed service providers (MSPs), managed security service providers (MSSPs), and consulting firms offer virtual CISO (vCISO), or 'CISO-as-a-service' services. The model is simple: instead of hiring a full-time CISO, SMEs and SMBs pay a subscription or a retainer to gain access to expert cyber assistance in the form of a virtual CISO. Staffed by seasoned veteran executives, vCISOs offer C-level assistance in devising and

Shadow apps, a segment of Shadow IT, are SaaS applications purchased without the knowledge of the security team. While these applications may be legitimate, they operate within the blind spots of the corporate security team and expose the company to attackers.  Shadow apps may include instances of software that the company is already using. For example, a dev team may onboard their own instance of GitHub to keep their work separate from other developers. They might justify the purchase by noting that GitHub is an approved application, as it is already in use by other teams. However, since the new instance is used outside of the security team's view, it lacks governance. It may store sensitive corporate data and not have essential protections like MFA enabled, SSO enforced, or it could suffer from weak access controls. These misconfigurations can easily lead to risks like stolen source code and other issues. Types of Shadow Apps  Shadow apps can be categorized based on their interac

WordPress sites are being hacked to display fraudulent Cloudflare DDoS protection pages that lead to the delivery of malware such as NetSupport RAT and Raccoon Stealer. "A recent surge in JavaScript injections targeting WordPress sites has resulted in fake DDoS prevent prompts which lead victims to download remote access trojan malware," Sucuri's Ben Martin  said  in a write-up published last week. Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) protection pages are essential browser verification checks designed to deter bot-driven unwanted and malicious traffic from eating up bandwidth and taking down websites. The new attack vector involves hijacking WordPress sites to display fake DDoS protection pop-ups that, when clicked, ultimately lead to the download of a malicious ISO file ("security_install.iso") to the victim's systems. This is achieved by injecting three lines of code into a JavaScript file ("jquery.min.js"), or alternatively into the active

The threat actors behind a large-scale adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM)  phishing campaign  targeting enterprise users of Microsoft email services have also set their sights on Google Workspace users. "This campaign specifically targeted chief executives and other senior members of various organizations which use [Google Workspace]," Zscaler researchers Sudeep Singh and Jagadeeswar Ramanukolanu  detailed  in a report published this month. The AiTM phishing attacks are said to have commenced in mid-July 2022, following a similar modus operandi as that of a  social engineering campaign  designed to siphon users' Microsoft credentials and even bypass multi-factor authentication. The low-volume Gmail AiTM phishing campaign also entails using the compromised emails of chief executives to conduct further social engineering, with the attacks also utilizing several compromised domains as an intermediate URL redirector to take the victims to the final landing page. Attack cha

DevOps platform GitLab this week issued patches to address a critical security flaw in its software that could lead to arbitrary code execution on affected systems. Tracked as  CVE-2022-2884 , the issue is rated 9.9 on the CVSS vulnerability scoring system and impacts all versions of GitLab Community Edition (CE) and Enterprise Edition (EE) starting from 11.3.4 before 15.1.5, 15.2 before 15.2.3, and 15.3 before 15.3.1. At its core, the security weakness is a case of authenticated remote code execution that can be triggered via the GitHub import API. GitLab credited  yvvdwf  with discovering and reporting the flaw. A successful exploitation of the critical flaw could enable a malicious actor to run malicious code on the target machine, inject malware and backdoors, and seize complete control of the susceptible devices. While the issue has been resolved in versions 15.3.1, 15.2.3, 15.1.5, users also have the option of securing against the flaw by temporarily disabling the GitHub im

The Iranian government-backed actor known as Charming Kitten has added a new tool to its malware arsenal that allows it to retrieve user data from Gmail, Yahoo!, and Microsoft Outlook accounts. Dubbed  HYPERSCRAPE  by Google Threat Analysis Group (TAG), the actively in-development malicious software is said to have been used against less than two dozen accounts in Iran, with the oldest known sample dating back to 2020. The tool was first discovered in December 2021. Charming Kitten, a prolific advanced persistent threat (APT), is believed to be  associated  with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and has a history of conducting espionage aligned with the interests of the government. Tracked as APT35, Cobalt Illusion, ITG18, Phosphorus, TA453, and Yellow Garuda, elements of the group have also carried out ransomware attacks, suggesting that the threat actor's motives are both espionage and financially driven. "HYPERSCRAPE requires the victim's account

The operators of the XCSSET macOS malware have upped the stakes by making iterative improvements that add support for macOS Monterey by upgrading its source code components to Python 3. "The malware authors have changed from hiding the primary executable in a fake Xcode.app in the initial versions in 2020 to a fake Mail.app in 2021 and now to a fake Notes.app in 2022," SentinelOne researchers Phil Stokes and Dinesh Devadoss  said  in a report. XCSSET, first  documented  by Trend Micro in 2020, has many moving parts that allow it to  harvest sensitive information  from Apple Notes, WeChat, Skype, and Telegram; inject malicious JavaScript code into various websites; and dump cookies from Safari web browser. Infection chains entail using a dropper to compromise users' Xcode projects with the backdoor, with the latter also taking steps to evade detection by masquerading as either system software or the Google Chrome web browser application. The primary executable is an

Ransomware is the de facto threat organizations have faced over the past few years. Threat actors were making easy money by exploiting the high valuation of cryptocurrencies and their victims' lack of adequate preparation.  Think about bad security policies, untested backups, patch management practices not up-to-par, and so forth. It resulted in easy growth for ransomware extortion, a crime that multiple threat actors around the world perpetrate.  Something's changed, though. Crypto valuations have dropped, reducing the monetary appeal of ransomware attacks due to organizations mounting a formidable defense against ransomware. Threat actors have been searching for another opportunity – and found one. It's called data exfiltration, or exfil, a type of espionage causing headaches at organizations worldwide. Let's take a look. The threat to reveal confidential information Information exfiltration is rapidly becoming more prevalent. Earlier this year, incidents at Nvi

A suspected Iranian threat activity cluster has been linked to attacks aimed at Israeli shipping, government, energy, and healthcare organizations as part of an espionage-focused campaign that commenced in late 2020. Cybersecurity firm Mandiant is tracking the group under its uncategorized moniker  UNC3890 , which is believed to conduct operations that align with Iranian interests. "The collected data may be leveraged to support various activities, from hack-and-leak, to enabling kinetic warfare attacks like those that have plagued the shipping industry in recent years," the company's Israel Research Team  noted . Intrusions mounted by the group lead to the deployment of two proprietary pieces of malware: a "small but efficient" backdoor named SUGARUSH and a browser credential stealer called SUGARDUMP that exfiltrates password information to an email address associated with Gmail, ProtonMail, Yahoo, and Yandex. Also employed is a network of command-and-con