Cyber Security

Apple is temporarily hitting the pause button on its controversial plans to screen users’ devices for child sexual abuse material (CSAM) after receiving sustained blowback over worries that the tool could be weaponized for mass surveillance and erode the privacy of users. “Based on feedback from customers, advocacy groups, researchers, and others, we have decided

Cisco has patched a critical security vulnerability impacting its Enterprise Network Function Virtualization Infrastructure Software (NFVIS) that could be exploited by an attacker to take control of an affected system. Tracked as CVE-2021-34746, the weakness has been rated 9.8 out of a maximum of 10 on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) and could allow

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details about a new malware family that relies on the Common Log File System (CLFS) to hide a second-stage payload in registry transaction files in an attempt to evade detection mechanisms. FireEye’s Mandiant Advanced Practices team, which made the discovery, dubbed the malware PRIVATELOG, and its installer, STASHLOG. Specifics about the

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

A set of new security vulnerabilities has been disclosed in commercial Bluetooth stacks that could enable an adversary to execute arbitrary code and, worse, crash the devices via denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. Collectively dubbed “BrakTooth” (referring to the Norwegian word “Brak” which translates to “crash”), the 16 security weaknesses span across 13 Bluetooth chipsets from 11

Microsoft’s Active Directory is said to be used by 95% of Fortune 500. As a result, it is a prime target for attackers as they look to gain access to credentials in the organization, as compromised credentials provide one of the easiest ways for hackers to access your data. A key authentication technology that underpins

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday banned a stalkerware app company called SpyFone from the surveillance business over concerns that it stealthily harvested and shared data on people’s physical movements, phone use, and online activities that were then used by stalkers and domestic abusers to monitor potential targets. “SpyFone is a brazen brand name

Cybersecurity researchers on Tuesday disclosed details about a zero-click security vulnerability in Linphone Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) stack that could be remotely exploited without any action from a victim to crash the SIP client and cause a denial-of-service (DoS) condition. Tracked as CVE-2021-33056 (CVSS score: 7.5), the issue concerns a NULL pointer dereference vulnerability in

Threat actors are capitalizing on the growing popularity of proxyware platforms like Honeygain and Nanowire to monetize their own malware campaigns, once again illustrating how attackers are quick to repurpose and weaponize legitimate platforms to their advantage. “Malware is currently leveraging these platforms to monetize the internet bandwidth of victims, similar to how malicious cryptocurrency

Network-attached storage (NAS) appliance maker QNAP said it’s currently investigating two recently patched security flaws in OpenSSL to determine their potential impact, adding it will release security updates should its products turn out to be vulnerable. Tracked as CVE-2021-3711 (CVSS score: 7.5) and CVE-2021-3712 (CVSS score: 4.4), the weaknesses concern a high-severity buffer overflow in

A group of academics has proposed a machine learning approach that uses authentic interactions between devices in Bluetooth networks as a foundation to handle device-to-device authentication reliably. Called “Verification of Interaction Authenticity” (aka VIA), the recurring authentication scheme aims to solve the problem of passive, continuous authentication and automatic deauthentication once two devices are paired

New vulnerabilities have been discovered in Fortress S03 Wi-Fi Home Security System that could be potentially abused by a malicious party to gain unauthorized access with an aim to alter system behavior, including disarming the devices without the victim’s knowledge. The two unpatched issues, tracked under the identifiers CVE-2021-39276 (CVSS score: 5.3) and CVE-2021-39277 (CVSS

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Monday added single-factor authentication to the short list of “exceptionally risky” cybersecurity practices that could expose critical infrastructure as well as government and the private sector entities to devastating cyberattacks. Single-factor authentication is a method of signing in users to websites and remote systems by using

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol or SMTP has easily exploitable security loopholes. Email routing protocols were designed in a time when cryptographic technology was at a nascent stage (e.g., the de-facto protocol for email transfer, SMTP, is nearly 40 years old now), and therefore security was not an important consideration. As a result, in most email

Not all heroes wear capes. Cybersecurity professionals are digital warriors who use their knowledge and skill to battle malicious hackers. Sounds like an exciting career, right? If the comic-book comparisons aren’t working for you, perhaps some figures will. According to ZipRecruiter, the average salary of a cybersecurity professional is just over $100,000 a year. The

Microsoft is warning of a widespread credential phishing campaign that leverages open redirector links in email communications as a vector to trick users into visiting malicious websites while effectively bypassing security software. “Attackers combine these links with social engineering baits that impersonate well-known productivity tools and services to lure users into clicking,” Microsoft 365 Defender

A new ransomware family that emerged last month comes with its own bag of tricks to bypass ransomware protection by leveraging a novel technique called “intermittent encryption.” Called LockFile, the operators of the ransomware have been found exploiting recently disclosed flaws such as ProxyShell and PetitPotam to compromise Windows servers and deploy file-encrypting malware that

VMware on Wednesday shipped security updates to address vulnerabilities in multiple products that could be potentially exploited by an attacker to take control of an affected system. The six security weaknesses (from CVE-2021-22022 through CVE-2021-22027, CVSS scores: 4.4 – 8.6) affect VMware vRealize Operations (prior to version 8.5.0), VMware Cloud Foundation (versions 3.x and 4.x),

Cloud infrastructure security company Wiz on Thursday revealed details of a now-fixed Azure Cosmos database vulnerability that could have been potentially exploited to grant any Azure user full admin access to other customers’ database instances without any authorization. The flaw, which grants read, write, and delete privileges, has been dubbed “ChaosDB,” with Wiz researchers noting

U.S. technology firm Kaseya has released security patches to address two zero-day vulnerabilities affecting its Unitrends enterprise backup and continuity solution that could result in privilege escalation and authenticated remote code execution. The two weaknesses are part of a trio of vulnerabilities discovered and reported by researchers at the Dutch Institute for Vulnerability Disclosure (DIVD)