CyberSecure Specialist

New vulnerabilities found in industrial control systems of major vendors

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has issued advisories on 49 vulnerabilities in eight industrial control systems (ICS) this week, which are used across multiple critical infrastructure sectors. The vulnerabilities identified by CISA were tracked in products from ICS providers including Siemens, Hitachi, Rockwell, Delta Electronics, VISAM, and Keysight. Many of the vulnerabilities in CISA’s advisory are remotely exploitable, involve low attack complexity, and allow attackers to take control of affected systems, manipulate…

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Google Suspends Chinese E-Commerce App Pinduoduo Over Malware

Google says it has suspended the app for the Chinese e-commerce giant Pinduoduo after malware was found in versions of the software. The move comes just weeks after Chinese security researchers published an analysis suggesting the popular e-commerce app sought to seize total control over affected devices by exploiting multiple security vulnerabilities in a variety of Android-based smartphones. In November 2022, researchers at Google’s Project Zero warned about active attacks on Samsung mobile phones which…

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Windows 11 also vulnerable to “aCropalypse” image data leakage

by Paul Ducklin Just yesterday, we wrote about a bug in Google Pixel phones, apparently now patched, with potentially dangerous consequences. The bug finders, understandably excited (and concerned) by what they’d found, decided to follow the BWAIN principle for maximum, turning it into a Bug With An Impressive Name: aCropalypse. In case you’re wondering, the word apocalypse literally means any sort of revelation, but it’s usually used to refer to the biblical text known as…

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Splunk adds new security and observability features

Splunk is adding new security and observability features to its Observability Cloud and Mission Control to identify threats and incidents more efficiently. The company’s Observability Cloud, which offers AIops-based infrastructure monitoring, application performance monitoring (APM) and intelligence, will get new features that will help IT operation and development operation teams troubleshoot faster and with increased visibility, to enable a unified approach to incident response, the company said. The company has added new autodetect capabilities inside…

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55 zero-day flaws exploited last year show the importance of security risk management

Deploying security patches as quickly as possible remains one of the best ways to prevent most security breaches, as attackers usually rely on exploits for publicly known vulnerabilities that have a patch available — the so-called n-day exploits. But mitigating the risk from vulnerabilities unknown to the affected software developers and don’t have a patch available — the zero-day flaws — requires a careful analysis of the types of actors exploiting them, the geography and…

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Proof of Concept Exploits Released for Netgear Orbi Router Vulnerabilities

While exploitation was not seen prior to disclosure, it is likely that these vulnerabilities will start to be exploited by attackers who modify the Proof-of-Concept exploit for their own use. This article demonstrates the need to stay up to date on patching, as the patch was released nearly 3 months before these exploits were made public. Additionally, these vulnerabilities demonstrate the need for a defense-in-depth strategy, as many of these cannot be exploited without requiring…

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North Korean Threat Actor Using Chrome Extensions to Steal Gmail Data

This threat actor has been seen running similar campaigns in the past, but these recent campaigns drew attention from German government authorities due to targeting “experts on issues relating to the Korean Peninsula.” Government bodies publicly speaking out regarding phishing campaigns is a major step in raising awareness about such attacks, which decreases their effectiveness. This campaign is ongoing, with the malicious domains still appearing to be active. To check for evidence of this attack,…

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Backslash Snags $8M Seed Financing for AppSec Tech

Looking to grab a slice of the lucrative enterprise AppSec market, Backslash Security emerged from stealth Wednesday with $8 million in seed-stage capital and new technology to identify and mitigate “toxic code flows” in cloud-native applications.  The Israeli startup said the financing was provided by StageOne Ventures, First Rays Venture Partners, D. E. Shaw & Co.  A roster of prominent security practitioners and entrepreneurs also joined the round.  Based in Tel Aviv, Backslash is building…

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Landmark UK-Israeli agreement to boost mutual cybersecurity development, tackle shared threats

The UK and Israeli governments have signed a landmark agreement to define bilateral relations between the two countries and boost mutual cybersecurity advancement until 2030. The 2030 Roadmap for Israel-UK Bilateral Relations is the culmination of efforts that began with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding in November 2021 to work more closely over the next decade on security, technology, trade, and defense. The Roadmap seeks to ensure the partnership remains modern and continues…

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Twitter ends free SMS 2FA: Here’s how you can protect your account now

Twitter’s ditching of free text-message authentication doesn’t mean that you should forgo using 2FA. Instead, switch to another – and, indeed, better – 2FA option. Starting today, Twitter is disabling SMS-based two-factor authentication (2FA) for all but paying users following a decision that, not unlike other recent moves by the social media giant, has been met with controversy that has reverberated far beyond the Twitterverse. “While historically a popular form of 2FA, unfortunately, we have…

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