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SonicWall has revealed that a recently patched critical security flaw impacting SonicOS may have come under active exploitation, making it essential that users apply the patches as soon as possible. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-40766, carries a CVSS score of 9.3 out of a maximum of 10. "An improper access control vulnerability has been identified in the SonicWall SonicOS management access and SSLVPN, potentially leading to unauthorized resource access and in specific conditions, causing the firewall to crash," SonicWall said in an updated advisory. With the latest development, the company has revealed that CVE-2024-40766 also impacts the firewall's SSLVPN feature. The issue has been addressed in the below versions - SOHO (Gen 5 Firewalls) - 5.9.2.14-13o Gen 6 Firewalls - 6.5.2.8-2n (for SM9800, NSsp 12400, and NSsp 12800) and 6.5.4.15.116n (for other Gen 6 Firewall appliances) The network security vendor has since updated the bulletin to reflect the p

Threat actors are likely employing a tool designated for red teaming exercises to serve malware, according to new findings from Cisco Talos. The program in question is a payload generation framework called MacroPack , which is used to generate Office documents, Visual Basic scripts, Windows shortcuts, and other formats for penetration testing and social engineering assessments. It was developed by French developer Emeric Nasi. The cybersecurity company said it found artifacts uploaded to VirusTotal from China, Pakistan, Russia, and the U.S. that were all generated by MacroPack and used to deliver various payloads such as Havoc, Brute Ratel , and a new variant of PhantomCore , a remote access trojan (RAT) attributed to a hacktivist group named Head Mare. "A common feature in all the malicious documents we dissected that caught our attention is the existence of four non-malicious VBA subroutines," Talos researcher Vanja Svajcer said . "These subroutines appeared

For years, securing a company's systems was synonymous with securing its "perimeter." There was what was safe "inside" and the unsafe outside world. We built sturdy firewalls and deployed sophisticated detection systems, confident that keeping the barbarians outside the walls kept our data and systems safe. The problem is that we no longer operate within the confines of physical on-prem installations and controlled networks. Data and applications now reside in distributed cloud environments and data centers, accessed by users and devices connecting from anywhere on the planet. The walls have crumbled, and the perimeter has dissolved, opening the door to a new battlefield: identity . Identity is at the center of what the industry has praised as the new gold standard of enterprise security: "zero trust." In this paradigm, explicit trust becomes mandatory for any interactions between systems, and no implicit trust shall subsist. Every access request, regardless of its origin,

In the digital realm, secrets (API keys, private keys, username and password combos, etc.) are the keys to the kingdom. But what if those keys were accidentally left out in the open in the very tools we use to collaborate every day? A Single Secret Can Wreak Havoc Imagine this: It's a typical Tuesday in June 2024. Your dev team is knee-deep in sprints, Jira tickets are flying, and Slack is buzzing with the usual mix of cat memes and code snippets. Little do you know, buried in this digital chatter is a ticking time bomb – a plaintext credential that gives unfettered access to your company's crown jewels. Fast forward a few weeks, and you're in the middle of a CISO's worst nightmare. Terabytes of customer data, including millions of bank account details, have been exfiltrated. Your company is splashed across headlines, and new incidents are surfacing daily. The culprit? A secret inadvertently shared in a Jira comment. This isn't a far-fetched scenario. It happen

Eight vulnerabilities have been uncovered in Microsoft applications for macOS that an adversary could exploit to gain elevated privileges or access sensitive data by circumventing the operating system's permissions-based model, which revolves around the Transparency, Consent, and Control ( TCC ) framework. "If successful, the adversary could gain any privileges already granted to the affected Microsoft applications," Cisco Talos said . "For example, the attacker could send emails from the user account without the user noticing, record audio clips, take pictures, or record videos without any user interaction." The shortcomings span various applications such as Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel PowerPoint, and OneNote. The cybersecurity company said malicious libraries could be injected into these applications and gain their entitlements and user-granted permissions, which could then be weaponized for extracting sensitive information depending on the access granted

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed a new campaign that potentially targets users in the Middle East through malware that disguises itself as Palo Alto Networks GlobalProtect virtual private network (VPN) tool. "The malware can execute remote PowerShell commands, download and exfiltrate files, encrypt communications, and bypass sandbox solutions, representing a significant threat to targeted organizations," Trend Micro researcher Mohamed Fahmy said in a technical report. The sophisticated malware sample has been observed employing a two-stage process and involves setting up connections to command-and-control (C2) infrastructure that purports to be a company VPN portal, allowing the threat actors to operate freely without tripping any alarms. The initial intrusion vector for the campaign is currently unknown, although it's suspected to involve the use of phishing techniques to deceive users into thinking that they are installing the GlobalProtect agent. The

U.S. cybersecurity and intelligence agencies have called out an Iranian hacking group for breaching multiple organizations across the country and coordinating with affiliates to deliver ransomware. The activity has been linked to a threat actor dubbed Pioneer Kitten , which is also known as Fox Kitten, Lemon Sandstorm (formerly Rubidium), Parisite, and UNC757, which it described as connected to the government of Iran and uses an Iranian information technology (IT) company, Danesh Novin Sahand, likely as a cover. "Their malicious cyber operations are aimed at deploying ransomware attacks to obtain and develop network access," the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Department of Defense Cyber Crime Center (DC3) said . "These operations aid malicious cyber actors in further collaborating with affiliate actors to continue deploying ransomware." Targets of the attacks include education, finance, hea

Fortra has addressed a critical security flaw impacting FileCatalyst Workflow that could be abused by a remote attacker to gain administrative access. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-6633, carries a CVSS score of 9.8, and stems from the use of a static password to connect to a HSQL database. "The default credentials for the setup HSQL database (HSQLDB) for FileCatalyst Workflow are published in a vendor knowledge base article ," Fortra said in an advisory. "Misuse of these credentials could lead to a compromise of confidentiality, integrity, or availability of the software." "The HSQLDB is only included to facilitate installation, has been deprecated, and is not intended for production use per vendor guides. However, users who have not configured FileCatalyst Workflow to use an alternative database per recommendations are vulnerable to attack from any source that can reach the HSQLDB." Cybersecurity company Tenable, which has been credited wi

Cybersecurity researchers are calling attention to a new QR code phishing (aka quishing) campaign that leverages Microsoft Sway infrastructure to host fake pages, once again highlighting the abuse of legitimate cloud offerings for malicious purposes. "By using legitimate cloud applications, attackers provide credibility to victims, helping them to trust the content it serves," Netskope Threat Labs researcher Jan Michael Alcantara said . "Additionally, a victim uses their Microsoft 365 account that they're already logged-into when they open a Sway page, that can help persuade them about its legitimacy as well. Sway can also be shared through either a link (URL link or visual link) or embedded on a website using an iframe." The attacks have primarily singled out users in Asia and North America, with technology, manufacturing, and finance sectors being the most sought-after sectors. Microsoft Sway is a cloud-based tool for creating newsletters, presentations

The threat actors behind a recently observed Qilin ransomware attack have stolen credentials stored in Google Chrome browsers on a small set of compromised endpoints. The use of credential harvesting in connection with a ransomware infection marks an unusual twist, and one that could have cascading consequences, cybersecurity firm Sophos said in a Thursday report. The attack, detected in July 2024, involved infiltrating the target network via compromised credentials for a VPN portal that lacked multi-factor authentication (MFA), with the threat actors conducting post-exploitation actions 18 days after initial access took place. "Once the attacker reached the domain controller in question, they edited the default domain policy to introduce a logon-based Group Policy Object (GPO) containing two items," researchers Lee Kirkpatrick, Paul Jacobs, Harshal Gosalia, and Robert Weiland said . The first of them is a PowerShell script named "IPScanner.ps1" that's desi

Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered a new macOS malware strain dubbed TodoSwift that they say exhibits commonalities with known malicious software used by North Korean hacking groups. "This application shares several behaviors with malware we've seen that originated in North Korea (DPRK) — specifically the threat actor known as BlueNoroff — such as KANDYKORN and RustBucket ," Kandji security researcher Christopher Lopez said in an analysis. RustBucket, which first came to light in July 2023, refers to an AppleScript-based backdoor that's capable of fetching next-stage payloads from a command-and-control (C2) server. Late last year, Elastic Security Labs also uncovered another macOS malware tracked as KANDYKORN that was deployed in connection with a cyber attack targeting blockchain engineers of an unnamed cryptocurrency exchange platform. Delivered by means of a sophisticated multi-stage infection chain, KANDYKORN possesses capabilities to access and exfi

Monitoring evolving DDoS trends is essential for anticipating threats and adapting defensive strategies. The comprehensive Gcore Radar Report for the first half of 2024 provides detailed insights into DDoS attack data, showcasing changes in attack patterns and the broader landscape of cyber threats. Here, we share a selection of findings from the full report. Key Takeaways The number of DDoS attacks in H1 2024 has increased by 46% compared to the same period last year, reaching 445K in Q2 2024. Compared to data for the previous six months (Q3–4 2023), it increased by 34%. Peak attack power increased slightly: The most powerful attack in H1 2024 reached 1.7 Tbps. By comparison, in 2023, it was 1.6 Tbps. Although there has only been an increase of 0.1 Tbps in a year, this still indicates a gain in power that poses a significant danger. To put this into perspective, a terabit per second (Tbps) represents a massive amount of data flooding a network, equivalent to over 212,000 high-d

The Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA) has warned of a new phishing campaign that masquerades as the Security Service of Ukraine to distribute malware capable of remote desktop access. The agency is tracking the activity under the name UAC-0198. More than 100 computers are estimated to have been infected since July 2024, including those related to government bodies in the country. The attack chains involve the mass distribution of emails to deliver a ZIP archive file containing an MSI installer file, the opening of which leads to the deployment of malware called ANONVNC. ANONVNC, which is based on an open-source remote management tool called MeshAgent , allows for stealthy unauthorized access to the infected hosts. The development comes as CERT-UA attributed the hacking group UAC-0102 to phishing attacks propagating HTML attachments that mimic the login page of UKR.NET to steal users' credentials. Over the past few weeks, the agency has also warned of a

An ongoing, widespread malware campaign has been observed installing rogue Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge extensions via a trojan distributed via fake websites masquerading as popular software. "The trojan malware contains different deliverables ranging from simple adware extensions that hijack searches to more sophisticated malicious scripts that deliver local extensions to steal private data and execute various commands," the ReasonLabs research team said in an analysis. "This trojan malware, existing since 2021, originates from imitations of download websites with add-ons to online games and videos." The malware and the extensions have a combined reach of at least 300,000 users of Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge, indicating that the activity has a broad impact. At the heart of the campaign is the use of malvertising to push lookalike websites promoting known software like Roblox FPS Unlocker, YouTube, VLC media player, Steam, or KeePass to trick users s

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has disclosed that threat actors are abusing the legacy Cisco Smart Install ( SMI ) feature with the aim of accessing sensitive data. The agency said it has seen adversaries "acquire system configuration files by leveraging available protocols or software on devices, such as abusing the legacy Cisco Smart Install feature." It also said it continues to observe weak password types used on Cisco network devices, thereby exposing them to password-cracking attacks. Password types refer to algorithms that are used to secure a Cisco device's password within a system configuration file. Threat actors who are able to gain access to the device in this manner would be able to easily access system configuration files, facilitating a deeper compromise of the victim networks. "Organizations must ensure all passwords on network devices are stored using a sufficient level of protection," CISA said, adding it re

Cybersecurity researchers have lifted the lid on a new technique adopted by threat actors behind the Chameleon Android banking trojan targeting users in Canada by masquerading as a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) app. "Chameleon was seen masquerading as a CRM app, targeting a Canadian restaurant chain operating internationally," Dutch security outfit ThreatFabric said in a technical report published Monday. The campaign, spotted in July 2024, targeted customers in Canada and Europe, indicating an expansion of its victimology footprint from Australia, Italy, Poland, and the U.K. The use of CRM-related themes for the malicious dropper apps containing the malware points to the targets being customers in the hospitality sector and Business-to-Consumer (B2C) employees. The dropper artifacts are also designed to bypass Restricted Settings imposed by Google in Android 13 and later in order to prevent sideloaded apps from requesting for dangerous permissions (e.g., acc