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Chinese Hackers Exploit Fortinet Zero-Day Flaw for Cyber Espionage Attack

Chinese Hackers Exploit Fortinet Zero-Day Flaw for Cyber Espionage Attack

Mar 18, 2023 Network Security / Cyber Espionage
The zero-day exploitation of a now-patched medium-severity security flaw in the Fortinet  FortiOS  operating system has been linked to a suspected Chinese hacking group. American cybersecurity company Mandiant, which made the attribution, said the activity cluster is part of a broader campaign designed to deploy backdoors onto Fortinet and VMware solutions and maintain persistent access to victim environments. The Google-owned threat intelligence and incident response firm is tracking the malicious operation under its uncategorized moniker UNC3886 , describing it as a China-nexus threat actor. "UNC3886 is an advanced cyber espionage group with unique capabilities in how they operate on-network as well as the tools they utilize in their campaigns," Mandiant researchers  said  in a technical analysis. "UNC3886 has been observed targeting firewall and virtualization technologies which lack EDR support. Their ability to manipulate firewall firmware and exploit a zero-da
Pompompurin Unmasked: Infamous BreachForums Mastermind Arrested in New York

Pompompurin Unmasked: Infamous BreachForums Mastermind Arrested in New York

Mar 18, 2023 Cyber Crime / Data Breach
U.S. law enforcement authorities have arrested a 21-year-old New York man in connection with running the infamous BreachForums hacking forum under the online alias " Pompompurin ." The development, first reported by  Bloomberg Law , comes after News 12 Westchester, earlier this week, said that federal investigators "spent hours inside and outside of a home in Peekskill." "At one point, investigators were seen removing several bags of evidence from the house," the New York-based local news service  added . According  to an  affidavit  filed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the suspect identified himself as Conor Brian Fitzpatrick and admitted to being the owner of the BreachForums website. "When I arrested the defendant on March 15, 2023, he stated to me in substance and in part that: a) his name was Conor Brian Fitzpatrick; b) he used the alias 'pompompurin,' and c) he was the owner and administrator of 'BreachForums,&#
Making Sense of Operational Technology Attacks: The Past, Present, and Future

Making Sense of Operational Technology Attacks: The Past, Present, and Future

Mar 21, 2024Operational Technology / SCADA Security
When you read reports about cyber-attacks affecting operational technology (OT), it's easy to get caught up in the hype and assume every single one is sophisticated. But are OT environments all over the world really besieged by a constant barrage of complex cyber-attacks? Answering that would require breaking down the different types of OT cyber-attacks and then looking back on all the historical attacks to see how those types compare.  The Types of OT Cyber-Attacks Over the past few decades, there has been a growing awareness of the need for improved cybersecurity practices in IT's lesser-known counterpart, OT. In fact, the lines of what constitutes a cyber-attack on OT have never been well defined, and if anything, they have further blurred over time. Therefore, we'd like to begin this post with a discussion around the ways in which cyber-attacks can either target or just simply impact OT, and why it might be important for us to make the distinction going forward. Figure 1 The Pu
LockBit 3.0 Ransomware: Inside the Cyberthreat That's Costing Millions

LockBit 3.0 Ransomware: Inside the Cyberthreat That's Costing Millions

Mar 18, 2023 Endpoint Security / Encryption
U.S. government agencies have released a joint cybersecurity advisory detailing the indicators of compromise (IoCs) and tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) associated with the notorious  LockBit 3.0 ransomware . "The LockBit 3.0 ransomware operations function as a Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) model and is a continuation of previous versions of the ransomware, LockBit 2.0, and LockBit," the authorities  said . The alert comes courtesy of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the Multi-State Information Sharing & Analysis Center (MS-ISAC). Since emerging in late 2019, the  LockBit actors  have invested significant  technical efforts  to develop and fine-tune its malware, issuing two major updates — LockBit 2.0, released in mid-2021, and  LockBit 3.0 , released in June 2022. The two versions are also known as LockBit Red and LockBit Black, respectively. "LockBit 3.0 accepts addition
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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.
FakeCalls Vishing Malware Targets South Korean Users via Popular Financial Apps

FakeCalls Vishing Malware Targets South Korean Users via Popular Financial Apps

Mar 17, 2023 Mobile Security / Scam Alert
An Android voice phishing (aka vishing) malware campaign known as FakeCalls has reared its head once again to target South Korean users under the guise of over 20 popular financial apps. "FakeCalls malware possesses the functionality of a Swiss army knife, able not only to conduct its primary aim but also to extract private data from the victim's device," cybersecurity firm Check Point said . FakeCalls was previously documented by Kaspersky in April 2022, describing the malware's capabilities to imitate phone conversations with a bank customer support agent. In the observed attacks, users who install the rogue banking app are enticed into calling the financial institution by offering a fake low-interest loan. At the point where the phone call actually happens, a pre-recorded audio with instructions from the real bank is played. Simultaneously, the malware conceals the phone number with the bank's legitimate number to give the impression that a conversation
New GoLang-Based HinataBot Exploiting Router and Server Flaws for DDoS Attacks

New GoLang-Based HinataBot Exploiting Router and Server Flaws for DDoS Attacks

Mar 17, 2023 Cybersecurity / Botnet
A new Golang-based botnet dubbed  HinataBot  has been observed to leverage known flaws to compromise routers and servers and use them to stage distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. "The malware binaries appear to have been named by the malware author after a character from the popular anime series, Naruto, with file name structures such as 'Hinata-<OS>-<Architecture>,'" Akamai  said  in a technical report. Among the methods used to distribute the malware are the exploitation of exposed Hadoop YARN servers and security flaws in Realtek SDK devices ( CVE-2014-8361 )and Huawei HG532 routers ( CVE-2017-17215 , CVSS score: 8.8). Unpatched vulnerabilities and weak credentials have been a low-hanging fruit for attackers, representing an easy, well-documented entry point that does not require sophisticated social engineering tactics or other methods. The threat actors behind HinataBot are said to have been active since at least December 2022, with the
A New Security Category Addresses Web-borne Threats

A New Security Category Addresses Web-borne Threats

Mar 17, 2023 Browser Security / Endpoint Protection
In the modern corporate IT environment, which relies on cloud connectivity, global connections and large volumes of data, the browser is now the most important work interface. The browser connects employees to managed resources, devices to the web, and the on-prem environment to the cloud one. Yet, and probably unsurprisingly, this browser prominence has significantly increased the number of threats that adversaries target the browser with. Attackers are now leveraging the browser's core functionality - rendering and executing web pages for users to access - to perform attacks. The browser is now an attack surface, as well as an attack vector for malicious access to corporate SaaS and web applications through account takeover and the use of compromised credentials. To address this issue, a new guide was recently published ( Download Here ). It analyzes what a solution to these threats would look like. The guide, "Protection from web-borne threats starts with Browser Securit
Lookalike Telegram and WhatsApp Websites Distributing Cryptocurrency Stealing Malware

Lookalike Telegram and WhatsApp Websites Distributing Cryptocurrency Stealing Malware

Mar 17, 2023 Cryptocurrency / Mobile Security
Copycat websites for instant messaging apps like Telegram and WhatApp are being used to distribute trojanized versions and infect Android and Windows users with cryptocurrency clipper malware . "All of them are after victims' cryptocurrency funds, with several targeting cryptocurrency wallets," ESET researchers Lukáš Štefanko and Peter Strýček said in a new analysis. While the first instance of clipper malware on the Google Play Store dates back to 2019, the development marks the first time Android-based clipper malware has been built into instant messaging apps. "Moreover, some of these apps use optical character recognition (OCR) to recognize text from screenshots stored on the compromised devices, which is another first for Android malware," the Slovak cybersecurity firm added. The attack chain begins with unsuspecting users clicking on fraudulent ads on Google search results that lead to hundreds of sketchy YouTube channels, which then direct them
Winter Vivern APT Group Targeting Indian, Lithuanian, Slovakian, and Vatican Officials

Winter Vivern APT Group Targeting Indian, Lithuanian, Slovakian, and Vatican Officials

Mar 17, 2023 Cyber Attack / Cyber Espionage
The advanced persistent threat known as  Winter Vivern  has been linked to campaigns targeting government officials in India, Lithuania, Slovakia, and the Vatican since 2021. The activity targeted Polish government agencies, the Ukraine Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Italy Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and individuals within the Indian government, SentinelOne said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "Of particular interest is the APT's targeting of private businesses, including telecommunications organizations that support Ukraine in the ongoing war," senior threat researcher Tom Hegel  said . Winter Vivern, also tracked as UAC-0114,  drew attention  last month after the Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA) detailed a new malware campaign aimed at state authorities of Ukraine and Poland to deliver a piece of malware dubbed Aperetif. Previous public reports chronicling the group show that it has leveraged weaponized Microsoft Excel documents con
Google Uncovers 18 Severe Security Vulnerabilities in Samsung Exynos Chips

Google Uncovers 18 Severe Security Vulnerabilities in Samsung Exynos Chips

Mar 17, 2023 Mobile Security / Firmware
Google is calling attention to a set of severe security flaws in Samsung's Exynos chips, some of which could be exploited remotely to completely compromise a phone without requiring any user interaction. The 18 zero-day vulnerabilities affect a wide range of Android smartphones from Samsung, Vivo, Google, wearables using the Exynos W920 chipset, and vehicles equipped with the Exynos Auto T5123 chipset. Four of the 18 flaws make it possible for a threat actor to achieve internet-to-Samsung, Vivo, and Google, as well as wearables using the Exynos W920 chipset and vehicleses in late 2022 and early 2023, said. "[The] four vulnerabilities allow an attacker to remotely compromise a phone at the baseband level with no user interaction, and require only that the attacker know the victim's phone number," Tim Willis, head of Google Project Zero,  said . In doing so, a threat actor could gain entrenched access to cellular information passing in and out of the targeted devi
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