CyberSecure Specialist

S3 Ep139: Are password rules like running through rain?

by Paul Ducklin DON’T GET INTO THE HABIT OF A BAD HABIT Magnetic core memory. Patch Tuesday and SketchUp shenanigans. More MOVEit mitigations. Mt. Gox back in the news. Gozi malware criminal imprisoned at last. Are password rules like running through rain? No audio player below? Listen directly on Soundcloud. With Doug Aamoth and Paul Ducklin. Intro and outro music by Edith Mudge. You can listen to us on Soundcloud, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify,…

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CISA, NSA Share Guidance on Hardening Baseboard Management Controllers

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the National Security Agency (NSA) have published new guidance to help organizations harden baseboard management controllers (BMCs). Typically part of a motherboard, a BMC is a specialized service processor used for monitoring the physical state of a system, server, or other device, collecting information such as temperature, voltage, humidity, and fan speeds. Operating separately from the operating system and the system’s firmware (such as BIOS and UEFI),…

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CISA Order Highlights Persistent Risk at Network Edge

The U.S. government agency in charge of improving the nation’s cybersecurity posture is ordering all federal agencies to take new measures to restrict access to Internet-exposed networking equipment. The directive comes amid a surge in attacks targeting previously unknown vulnerabilities in widely used security and networking appliances. Under a new order from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), federal agencies will have 14 days to respond to any reports from CISA about misconfigured or…

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CISA Releases Fourteen Industrial Control Systems Advisories

CISA released fourteen Industrial Control Systems (ICS) advisories on June 15, 2023. These advisories provide timely information about current security issues, vulnerabilities, and exploits surrounding ICS.  ICSA-23-166-01 SUBNET PowerSYSTEM Center ICSA-23-166-02 Advantech WebAccessSCADA ICSA-23-166-03 Siemens SICAM Q200 Devices ICSA-23-166-04 Siemens SIMOTION ICSA-23-166-05 Siemens SIMATIC WinCC ICSA-23-166-06 Siemens TIA Portal ICSA-23-166-07 Siemens SIMATIC WinCC V7 ICSA-23-166-08 Siemens SIMATIC STEP 7 and Derived Products ICSA-23-166-09 Siemens Solid Edge ICSA-23-166-10 Siemens SIMATIC S7-1500 TM MFP BIOS ICSA-23-166-11 Siemens…

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Barracuda Networks Releases Update to Address ESG Vulnerability

Barracuda Networks has released an update to their advisory addressing a vulnerability—CVE-2023-2868—in their Email Security Gateway Appliance (ESG). According to Barracuda, customers should replace impacted appliances immediately.  CISA urges organizations to review the Barracuda advisory and for all impacted customers to follow the mitigation steps as well as hunt for the listed indicators of compromise (IOCs) to uncover any malicious activity. For more information, see Mandiant’s advisory on Barracuda ESG Zero-Day Vulnerability (CVE-2023-2868) Exploited Globally…

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CISA, FBI, and MS-ISAC Update Joint CSA on Progress Telerik Vulnerabilities

Today, CISA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC) released an update for joint Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA) Threat Actors Exploit Progress Telerik Vulnerability in U.S. Government IIS Server.  This iteration of the CSA—now renamed Threat Actors Exploit Progress Telerik Vulnerabilities in Multiple U.S. Government IIS Servers—is based on the forensic analysis and identified exploitation of CVE-2017-9248 at an additional FCEB agency. Activity identified at this agency is separate…

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Progress Software Releases Security Advisory for MOVEit Transfer Vulnerability

Progress Software has released a security advisory for a privilege escalation vulnerability (CVE-2023-35708) in MOVEit Transfer—a Managed File Transfer Software. A cyber threat actor could exploit this vulnerability to take control of an affected system. CISA urges users and organizations to review the MOVEit Transfer advisory, follow the mitigation steps, and apply the necessary updates when available.

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5 best practices to ensure the security of third-party APIs

When organizations consider application programming interface (API) security, they typically focus on securing APIs that are written in-house. However, not all the APIs that companies use are developed internally, rather some are designed and developed by other organizations. The problem is that many companies don’t realize that using third-party APIs can expose their applications to security issues, such as malware, data breaches, and unauthorized access. Third-party APIs are software interfaces that allow organizations to leverage…

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Security culture improving in businesses despite factors holding teams back

The vast majority of CISOs have observed positive security culture gains in their organizations in the last year despite a perceived dip in the quality of overall security posture, according to the 10th annual Information Security Maturity Report published by ClubCISO and Telstra Purple. The research surveyed 182 members of ClubCISO, a global community of information security leaders working in public and private sector companies. The paper paints an optimistic picture of organizational security with…

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Patch Tuesday fixes 4 critical RCE bugs, and a bunch of Office holes

by Paul Ducklin No zero-days this month, if you ignore the Edge RCE hole patched last week (make sure you’ve got that update, by the way): For a full list of this month’s Microsoft Patch Tuesday fixes, take a look at our sister site Sophos News, where SophosLabs analysts have collated complete lists of the the numerous Microsoft CVEs that were fixed this month: Just the way you like it Helpfully, our researchers have created…

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