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The Russian nation-state actor tracked as Secret Blizzard has been observed leveraging malware associated with other threat actors to deploy a known backdoor called Kazuar on target devices located in Ukraine. The new findings come from the Microsoft threat intelligence team, which said it observed the adversary leveraging the Amadey bot malware to download custom malware onto "specifically selected" systems associated with the Ukrainian military between March and April 2024. The activity is assessed to be the second time since 2022 that Secret Blizzard, also known as Turla, has latched onto a cybercrime campaign to propagate its own tools in Ukraine. "Commandeering other threat actors' access highlights Secret Blizzard's approach to diversifying its attack vectors," the company said in a report shared with The Hacker News. Some of the other known methods employed by the hacking crew include adversary-in-the-middle ( AitM ) campaigns, strategic web compro...

A newly devised technique leverages a Windows accessibility framework called UI Automation (UIA) to perform a wide range of malicious activities without tipping off endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions. "To exploit this technique, a user must be convinced to run a program that uses UI Automation," Akamai security researcher Tomer Peled said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "This can lead to stealthy command execution, which can harvest sensitive data, redirect browsers to phishing websites, and more." Even worse, local attackers could take advantage of this security blindspot to execute commands and read/write messages from/to messaging applications like Slack and WhatsApp. On top of that, it could also be potentially weaponized to manipulate UI elements over a network. First available in Windows XP as part of the Microsoft .NET Framework, UI Automation is designed to provide programmatic access to various user interface (UI) elements and h...

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Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a "critical" security vulnerability in Microsoft's multi-factor authentication (MFA) implementation that allows an attacker to trivially sidestep the protection and gain unauthorized access to a victim's account. "The bypass was simple: it took around an hour to execute, required no user interaction and did not generate any notification or provide the account holder with any indication of trouble," Oasis Security researchers Elad Luz and Tal Hason said in a report shared with The Hacker News. Following responsible disclosure, the issue – codenamed AuthQuake – was addressed by Microsoft in October 2024. While the Windows maker supports various ways to authenticate users via MFA, one method involves entering a six-digit code from an authenticator app after supplying the credentials. Up to 10 consequent failed attempts are permitted for a single session. The vulnerability identified by Oasis, at its core, concerns...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new version of the ZLoader malware that employs a Domain Name System (DNS) tunnel for command-and-control (C2) communications, indicating that the threat actors are continuing to refine the tool after resurfacing a year ago. "Zloader 2.9.4.0 adds notable improvements including a custom DNS tunnel protocol for C2 communications and an interactive shell that supports more than a dozen commands, which may be valuable for ransomware attacks," Zscaler ThreatLabz said in a Tuesday report. "These modifications provide additional layers of resilience against detection and mitigation." ZLoader , also referred to as Terdot, DELoader, or Silent Night, is a malware loader that's equipped with the ability to deploy next-stage payloads. Malware campaigns distributing the malware were observed for the first time in almost two years in September 2023 after its infrastructure was taken down. In addition to incorporating various...

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Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a novel surveillance program that's suspected to be used by Chinese police departments as a lawful intercept tool to gather a wide range of information from mobile devices. The Android tool, codenamed EagleMsgSpy by Lookout, has been operational since at least 2017, with artifacts uploaded to the VirusTotal malware scanning platform as recently as September 25, 2024. "The surveillanceware consists of two parts: an installer APK, and a surveillance client that runs headlessly on the device when installed," Kristina Balaam, senior staff threat intelligence researcher at Lookout, said in a technical report shared with The Hacker News. "EagleMsgSpy collects extensive data from the user: third-party chat messages, screen recording and screenshot capture, audio recordings, call logs, device contacts, SMS messages, location data, [and] network activity." EagleMsgSpy has been described by its developers as a "compreh...

A suspected China-based threat actor has been linked to a series of cyber attacks targeting high-profile organizations in Southeast Asia since at least October 2023. The espionage campaign targeted organizations in various sectors spanning government ministries in two different countries, an air traffic control organization, a telecoms company, and a media outlet, the Symantec Threat Hunter Team said in a new report shared with The Hacker News. The attacks, which leveraged tools previously identified as linked to China-based advanced persistent threat (APT) groups, are characterized by the use of both open-source and living-off-the-land (LotL) techniques. This includes the use of reverse proxy programs such as Rakshasa and Stowaway , as well as asset discovery and identification tools, keyloggers, and password stealers. Also deployed during the course of the attacks is PlugX (aka Korplug), a remote access trojan put to use by several Chinese hacking groups. "The threat ac...

Microsoft closed out its Patch Tuesday updates for 2024 with fixes for a total of 72 security flaws spanning its software portfolio, including one that it said has been exploited in the wild. Of the 72 flaws, 17 are rated Critical, 54 are rated Important, and one is rated Moderate in severity. Thirty-one of the vulnerabilities are remote code execution flaws, and 27 of them allow for the elevation of privileges. This is in addition to 13 vulnerabilities the company has addressed in its Chromium-based Edge browser since the release of last month's security update . In total, Microsoft has resolved as many as 1,088 vulnerabilities in 2024 alone, per Fortra. The vulnerability that Microsoft has acknowledged as having been actively exploited is CVE-2024-49138 (CVSS score: 7.8), a privilege escalation flaw in the Windows Common Log File System (CLFS) Driver. "An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain SYSTEM privileges," the company said in an...

The U.S. government on Tuesday unsealed charges against a Chinese national for allegedly breaking into thousands of Sophos firewall devices globally in 2020. Guan Tianfeng (aka gbigmao and gxiaomao), who is said to have worked at Sichuan Silence Information Technology Company, Limited, has been charged with conspiracy to commit computer fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Guan has been accused of developing and testing a zero-day security vulnerability used to conduct the attacks against Sophos firewalls. "Guan Tianfeng is wanted for his alleged role in conspiring to access Sophos firewalls without authorization, cause damage to them, and retrieve and exfiltrate data from both the firewalls themselves and the computers behind these firewalls," the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said . "The exploit was used to infiltrate approximately 81,000 firewalls." The then-zero-day vulnerability in question is CVE-2020-12271 (CVSS score: 9.8), a severe S...

Ivanti has released security updates to address multiple critical flaws in its Cloud Services Application (CSA) and Connect Secure products that could lead to privilege escalation and code execution. The list of vulnerabilities is as follows - CVE-2024-11639 (CVSS score: 10.0) - An authentication bypass vulnerability in the admin web console of Ivanti CSA before 5.0.3 that allows a remote unauthenticated attacker to gain administrative access CVE-2024-11772 (CVSS score: 9.1) - A command injection vulnerability in the admin web console of Ivanti CSA before version 5.0.3 that allows a remote authenticated attacker with admin privileges to achieve remote code execution CVE-2024-11773 (CVSS score: 9.1) - An SQL injection vulnerability in the admin web console of Ivanti CSA before version 5.0.3 that allows a remote authenticated attacker with admin privileges to run arbitrary SQL statements CVE-2024-11633 (CVSS score: 9.1) - An argument injection vulnerability in Ivanti Con...

Users of Cleo-managed file transfer software are being urged to ensure that their instances are not exposed to the internet following reports of mass exploitation of a vulnerability affecting fully patched systems. Cybersecurity company Huntress said it discovered evidence of threat actors exploiting the issue en masse on December 3, 2024. The vulnerability, which impacts Cleo's LexiCom, VLTransfer, and Harmony software, concerns a case of unauthenticated remote code execution. The security hole is tracked as CVE-2024-50623 (CVSS score: 9.8), with Cleo noting that the flaw is the result of an unrestricted file upload that could pave the way for the execution of arbitrary code. The Illinois-based company, which has over 4,200 customers across the world, has since issued another advisory (CVE-2024-55956), warning of a separate "unauthenticated malicious hosts vulnerability that could lead to remote code execution." The development comes after Huntress said the pat...