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An "intricately designed" remote access trojan (RAT) called  Xeno RAT  has been made available on GitHub, making it easily accessible to other actors at no extra cost. Written in C# and compatible with Windows 10 and Windows 11 operating systems, the open-source RAT comes with a "comprehensive set of features for remote system management," according to its developer, who goes by the name moom825. It includes a SOCKS5 reverse proxy and the ability to record real-time audio, as well as incorporate a hidden virtual network computing ( hVNC ) module along the lines of  DarkVNC , which allows attackers to gain remote access to an infected computer. "Xeno RAT is developed entirely from scratch, ensuring a unique and tailored approach to remote access tools," the developer  states  in the project description. Another notable aspect is that it has a builder that enables the creation of bespoke variants of the malware.  It's worth noting that moom825 is a

Security researchers have detailed a new variant of a dynamic link library ( DLL ) search order hijacking technique that could be used by threat actors to bypass security mechanisms and achieve execution of malicious code on systems running Microsoft Windows 10 and Windows 11. The approach "leverages executables commonly found in the trusted WinSxS folder and exploits them via the classic DLL search order hijacking technique," cybersecurity firm Security Joes  said  in a new report exclusively shared with The Hacker News. In doing so, it allows adversaries to eliminate the need for elevated privileges when attempting to run nefarious code on a compromised machine as well as introduce potentially vulnerable binaries into the attack chain, as  observed   in the   past . DLL search order hijacking , as the name implies, involves  gaming the search order  used to load DLLs in order to execute malicious payloads for purposes of defense evasion, persistence, and privilege escal

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,

Unofficial patches have been issued to remediate an improperly patched Windows security vulnerability that could allow information disclosure and local privilege escalation (LPE) on vulnerable systems. Tracked as  CVE-2021-24084  (CVSS score: 5.5), the flaw concerns an information disclosure vulnerability in the Windows Mobile Device Management component that could enable an attacker to gain unauthorized file system access and read arbitrary files. Security researcher Abdelhamid Naceri was credited with discovering and reporting the bug in October 2020, prompting Microsoft to address the issue as part of its February 2021 Patch Tuesday updates. But as  observed  by Naceri in June 2021, not only could the patch be bypassed to achieve the same objective, the researcher this month found that the incompletely patched vulnerability could also be  exploited  to gain administrator privileges and run malicious code on Windows 10 machines running the  latest security updates . "Name

Windows 10, iOS 15, Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Microsoft Exchange Server, and Ubuntu 20 were successfully broken into using original, never-before-seen exploits at the Tianfu Cup 2021, the fourth edition of the international cybersecurity contest held in the city of Chengdu, China. Targets this year  included  Google Chrome running on Windows 10 21H1, Apple Safari running on Macbook Pro, Adobe PDF Reader, Docker CE, Ubuntu 20/CentOS 8, Microsoft Exchange Server 2019, Windows 10, VMware Workstation, VMware ESXi, Parallels Desktop, iPhone 13 Pro running iOS 15, domestic mobile phones running Android, QEMU VM, Synology DS220j DiskStation, and ASUS RT-AX56U router. The Chinese version of Pwn2Own was  started  in 2018 in the wake of government regulation in the country that barred security researchers from participating in international hacking competitions because of national security concerns. With the exception of Synology DS220j NAS, Xiaomi Mi 11 smartphone, and an unnamed Chine

A formerly unknown Chinese-speaking threat actor has been linked to a long-standing evasive operation aimed at South East Asian targets as far back as July 2020 to deploy a kernel-mode rootkit on compromised Windows systems. Attacks mounted by the hacking group, dubbed  GhostEmperor  by Kaspersky, are also said to have used a "sophisticated multi-stage malware framework" that allows for providing persistence and remote control over the targeted hosts. The Russian cybersecurity firm called the rootkit Demodex , with infections reported across several high-profile entities in Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia, in addition to outliers located in Egypt, Ethiopia, and Afghanistan. "[Demodex] is used to hide the user mode malware's artefacts from investigators and security solutions, while demonstrating an interesting undocumented loading scheme involving the kernel mode component of an open-source project named  Cheat Engine  to bypass the Windows Driver Sig

A recent wave of spear-phishing campaigns leveraged weaponized Windows 11 Alpha-themed Word documents with Visual Basic macros to drop malicious payloads, including a JavaScript implant, against a point-of-sale (PoS) service provider located in the U.S. The attacks, which are believed to have taken place between late June to late July 2021, have been attributed with "moderate confidence" to a financially motivated threat actor dubbed FIN7, according to researchers from cybersecurity firm Anomali. "The specified targeting of the Clearmind domain fits well with FIN7's preferred modus operandi," Anomali Threat Research  said  in a technical analysis published on September 2. "The group's goal appears to have been to deliver a variation of a JavaScript backdoor used by FIN7 since at least 2018." An Eastern European group active since at least mid-2015, FIN7 has a checkered history of targeting restaurant, gambling, and hospitality industries in th

Microsoft Windows 10 and Windows 11 users are at risk of a new unpatched vulnerability that was recently disclosed publicly. As we reported last week, the vulnerability — SeriousSAM — allows attackers with low-level permissions to access Windows system files to perform a Pass-the-Hash (and potentially Silver Ticket) attack.  Attackers can exploit this vulnerability to obtain hashed passwords stored in the Security Account Manager (SAM) and Registry, and ultimately run arbitrary code with SYSTEM privileges. SeriousSAM vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2021-36934 , exists in the default configuration of Windows 10 and Windows 11, specifically due to a setting that allows 'read' permissions to the built-in user's group that contains all local users. As a result, built-in local users have access to read the SAM files and the Registry, where they can also view the hashes. Once the attacker has 'User' access, they can use a tool such as Mimikatz to gain access to the Re

Microsoft's Windows 10 and the upcoming Windows 11 versions have been found vulnerable to a new local privilege escalation vulnerability that permits users with low-level permissions access Windows system files, in turn, enabling them to unmask the operating system installation password and even decrypt private keys. The vulnerability has been nicknamed "SeriousSAM." "Starting with Windows 10 build 1809, non-administrative users are granted access to SAM, SYSTEM, and SECURITY registry hive files," CERT Coordination Center (CERT/CC) said in a  vulnerability note  published Monday. "This can allow for local privilege escalation (LPE)." The operating system configuration files in question are as follows - c:\Windows\System32\config\sam c:\Windows\System32\config\system c:\Windows\System32\config\security Microsoft, which is tracking the vulnerability under the identifier  CVE-2021-36934 , acknowledged the issue, but has yet to roll out a patch, o

Google has patched two more zero-day flaws in the Chrome web browser for desktop, making it the fourth and fifth actively exploited vulnerabilities addressed by the search giant in recent weeks. The company released  86.0.4240.198  for Windows, Mac, and Linux, which it said will be rolling out over the coming days/weeks to all users. Tracked as CVE-2020-16013 and CVE-2020-16017, the flaws were discovered and reported to Google by "anonymous" sources, unlike previous cases, which were uncovered by the company's Project Zero elite security team. Google acknowledged that exploits for both the vulnerabilities exist in the wild but stopped short of sharing more specifics to allow a majority of users to install the fixes. According to the release notes, the two flaws are: CVE-2020-16013:  An "inappropriate implementation" of its V8 JavaScript rendering engine was reported on November 9. CVE-2020-16017:  An  use-after-free  memory corruption issue in Chrome

Microsoft formally released fixes for 112 newly discovered security vulnerabilities as part of its  November 2020 Patch Tuesday , including an actively exploited zero-day flaw disclosed by Google's security team last week. The rollout addresses flaws, 17 of which are rated as Critical, 93 are rated as Important, and two are rated Low in severity, once again bringing the patch count over 110 after a drop last month. The security updates encompass a range of software, including Microsoft Windows, Office and Office Services and Web Apps, Internet Explorer, Edge, ChakraCore, Exchange Server, Microsoft Dynamics, Windows Codecs Library, Azure Sphere, Windows Defender, Microsoft Teams, and Visual Studio. Chief among those fixed is  CVE-2020-17087  (CVSS score 7.8), a buffer overflow flaw in Windows Kernel Cryptography Driver ("cng.sys") that was  disclosed on October 30  by the Google Project Zero team as being used in conjunction with a Chrome zero-day to compromise Window

Multiple software products from Adobe, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Mozilla, and Samsung were successfully pwned with previously unseen exploits in  Tianfu Cup 2020 , the third edition of the international cybersecurity contest held in the city of Chengdu, China. "Many mature and hard targets have been pwned on this year's contest," the event organizers  said . "11 out of 16 targets cracked with 23 successful demos." The hacking competition showed off hacking attempts against a  number of platforms , including: Adobe PDF Reader Apple iPhone 11 Pro running iOS 14 and Safari browser ASUS RT-AX86U router CentOS 8 Docker Community Edition Google Chrome Microsoft Windows 10 v2004 Mozilla Firefox Samsung Galaxy S20 running Android 10 TP-Link TL-WDR7660 router VMware ESXi hypervisor The Tianfu Cup, analogous to Pwn2Own, was started in 2018 following a  government regulation  in the country that barred security researchers from participating in internati

Microsoft has introduced a new password-protected folder within its OneDrive online file storage service that will allow you to keep your sensitive and important files protected and secured with an extra layer of authentication. Dubbed Personal Vault , the new OneDrive folder can only be accessed with an additional step of identity verification, such as your fingerprint, face, PIN, or a two-factor authentication code sent to you via email or SMS. The Personal Vault folder will appear next to other folders in the OneDrive app like your Documents and Pictures, but it will be locked and prompt you for an additional code each time you try to access them via the web, PC, or mobile devices, thus keeping them more secure in the event when someone gains access to your account or your device. Microsoft suggests this new protected area in OneDrive would be useful for users to store more sensitive and personal files like copies of passport, tax, car or home documents, identification cards,

Yes, you heard me right. Microsoft is taking another step forward to show its love for Linux and open source community by shipping a full Linux kernel in Windows 10 this summer. No, that doesn't mean Microsoft is making its Windows 10 a Linux distro, but the company will begin to ship an in-house custom built Linux kernel later this year starting with the Windows 10 Insider builds. Microsoft announced the move in a blog post while unveiling Windows Subsystem for Linux version 2.0 (or WSL 2 ) that will feature "dramatic file system performance increases" and support more Linux apps like Docker. So, to support this entirely new architecture for the WSL 2, Windows 10 will have its own Linux kernel. Although this is not the first time Microsoft has shipped a Linux kernel as the company has already shipped its own custom Linux kernel on Azure Sphere  last year, this is the first time a Linux kernel is shipped with Windows. Unlike Windows Subsystem for Linux version

Microsoft has issued its first Patch Tuesday for this year to address 49 CVE-listed security vulnerabilities in its Windows operating systems and other products, 7 of which are rated critical, 40 important and 2 moderate in severity. Just one of the security vulnerabilities patched by the tech giant this month has been reported as being publicly known at the time of release, and none are being actively exploited in the wild. All the seven critical-rated vulnerabilities lead to remote code execution and primarily impact various versions of Windows 10 and Server editions. Two of the 7 critical flaws affect Microsoft's Hyper-V host OS that fails to properly validate input from an authenticated user on a guest operating system, three affect the ChakraCore scripting engine that fails to properly handle objects in memory in Edge, one affects Edge directly that occurs when the browser improperly handles objects in memory, and one impacts the Windows DHCP client that fails to pro

It's Patch Tuesday once again…time for another round of security updates for the Windows operating system and other Microsoft products. This month Windows users and system administrators need to immediately take care of a total of 63 security vulnerabilities, of which 12 are rated critical, 49 important and one moderate and one low in severity. Two of the vulnerabilities patched by the tech giant this month are listed as publicly known at the time of release, and one flaw is reported as being actively exploited in the wild by multiple cybercriminal groups. Zero-Day Vulnerability Being Exploited by Cyber Criminals The zero-day vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2018-8589 , which is being exploited in the wild by multiple advanced persistent threat groups was first spotted and reported by security researchers from Kaspersky Labs. The flaw resides in the Win32k component (win32k.sys), which if exploited successfully, could allow a malicious program to execute arbitrary code

Windows 10 users don't have to wait much longer for the support of latest WPA3 Wi-Fi security standard , a new blog post from Microsoft apparently revealed. The third version of Wi-Fi Protected Access, in-short WPA3, is the next generation of the wireless security protocol that has been designed to make it harder for attackers to hack WiFi password . WPA3 was officially launched earlier this year, but the new WiFi security standard won't arrive overnight. Most device manufacturers could take months to get their new routers and networking devices certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance to support WPA3. Meanwhile, technology providers have already started working on software and firmware updates to support the new WPA3 standard, including Microsoft. WPA3-Personal (SAE) Support in Windows 10 Though Microsoft hasn't yet officially announced WPA3 support for its Windows 10 operating system, new APIs introduced in the newly released Windows 10 SDK Preview build 18272 , as ma

Microsoft silently patched a bug in its Windows 10 operating system with the October 2018 update (version 1809) that allowed Microsoft Store apps with extensive file system permission to access all files on users' computers without their consent. With Windows 10, Microsoft introduced a common platform, called Universal Windows Platform (UWP), that allows apps to run on any device running Windows 10, including desktop PC, Xbox, IoT, Surface Hub, and Mixed-reality headset. UWP apps have the ability to access certain API, files like pictures, music, or devices like camera and microphone, by declaring required permissions in their package manifest (configuration) file. By default, UWP apps have access to directories, where the app is installed on the users' system and where the app can store data (local, roaming and temporary folders). However, to access other files on a system, including sensitive resources, Microsoft offers several types of capabilities that an applicati