CyberSecure Specialist

01 Mar

BlackLotus bootkit can bypass Windows 11 Secure Boot: ESET

Data Breaches, Malware, Social Engineering

A Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) bootkit called BlackLotus is found to be capable of bypassing an essential platform security feature, UEFI Secure Boot, according to researchers from Slovakia-based cybersecurity firm ESET. BlackLotus uses an old vulnerability and can run even on fully up-to-date Windows 11 systems with UEFI Secure Boot enabled, the researchers found. UEFI Secure Boot is a feature of the UEFI firmware, which is a successor to the traditional BIOS (Basic Input/Output System)…

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01 Mar

Top 10 open source software risks for 2023

Data Breaches, Malware, Social Engineering

Known vulnerabilities, compromise of legitimate package, and name confusion attacks are expected to be among the top ten open source software risks in 2023, according to a report by Endor Labs. The other major open source software risks, according to the report, include unmaintained software, outdated software, untracked dependencies, license risk, immature software, unapproved changes, and under/oversized dependency. Almost 80% of code in modern applications is code that relies on open source packages. While open…

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01 Mar

How security leaders can effectively manage Gen Z staff

Data Breaches, Malware, Social Engineering

In 2022, I started a podcast aimed at converting more Gen Z to seek careers in cybersecurity. In doing so, I had to educate myself on what they value and realized the many differences between Gen Z and previous generations. Gen Z refers to those born between mid-to-late 1990s and 2010, making them between the ages of 11 and 28. This means they grew up experiencing a much faster rate in which technology evolves. The…

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01 Mar

ESET Research Podcast: Ransomware trashed data, Android threats soared in T3 2022

Information

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the trends that defined the cyberthreat landscape in the final four months of 2022. Data from the latest ESET Threat Report, which provides an in-depth look at the threat landscape from September to December 2022, confirmed several previously observed trends. The key of them was a continuous decline in all but one monitored malware category. Curiously enough, however, the overall drop in numbers…

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28 Feb

Hacked home computer of engineer led to second LastPass data breach

Data Breaches, Malware, Social Engineering

Password management company LastPass, which was hit by two data breaches last year, has revealed that data exfiltrated during the first intrusion, discovered in August, was used to target the personal home computer of one of its devops engineers and launch a second successful cyberatttack, detected in November. The threat actor involved in the breaches infected the engineer’s home computer with a keylogger, which recorded information that enabled a cyberattack that exfiltrated sensitive information from…

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28 Feb

New cyberattack tactics rise up as ransomware payouts increase

Data Breaches, Malware, Social Engineering

While phishing, business email compromise (BEC), and ransomware still rank among the most popular cyberattack techniques, a mix of new-breed attacks is gaining steam, according to a new report from cybersecurity and compliance company Proofpoint. “While conventional phishing remains successful, many threat actors have shifted to newer techniques, such as telephone-oriented attack delivery (TOAD) and adversary in the middle (AitM) phishing proxies that bypass multi-factor authentication,” said Ryan Kalember, executive vice president of cybersecurity strategy…

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28 Feb

Security Defects in TPM 2.0 Spec Raise Alarm

Information, News

Security researchers at Quarkslab have identified a pair of serious security defects in the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 reference library specification, prompting a massive cross-vendor effort to identify and patch vulnerable installations. The vulnerabilities, tracked as CVE-2023-1017 and CVE-2023-1018, provide pathways for an authenticated, local attacker to overwrite protected data in the TPM firmware and launch code execution attacks, according to an advisory from Carnegie Mellon’s CERT coordination center.  From the CERT alert: “An…

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28 Feb

New SCARLETEEL Threat Group Attacks Cloud Data via Cryptomining

Attacks, Malware

To minimize the traces left behind, the attacker attempted to disable CloudTrail logs in the compromised AWS account. Additionally, Sysdig’s report indicates that the attacker retrieved Terraform state files from the S3 buckets containing IAM user access keys and a secret key for a second AWS account. This account was eventually used for lateral movement within the organization’s cloud network. In order to effectively address the risks introduced by cloud facing threats, organizations are highly…

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28 Feb

Link Found Between Exfiltrator-22 Post-Exploitation Framework And LockBit Ransomware

Attacks, Malware

The CYFIRMA team has discovered evidence that EX-22 was created by LockBit 3.0 associates or members of the ransomware operation’s development staff. Firstly, they discovered that the framework used the same “domain fronting” method used by the LockBit and the TOR obfuscation plugin Meek, which assists in concealing malicious traffic inside normal HTTPS connections to legitimate platforms. Further research by CYFIRMA revealed that EX-22 makes use of the identical C2 infrastructure that was previously disclosed…

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28 Feb

Critical Flaws in WordPress Houzez Theme Exploited to Hijack Websites

Attacks, Malware

The company that has developed the theme was made aware of attacks that were being carried out in the wild and has provided updates to the theme and login register. The theme that is not vulnerable to this bug is version 2.7.2 and later, which will prevent the first vulnerability. The second vulnerability can be mitigated by ensuring the login register is running version 2.6.4 or later. Anyone running the Houzez theme and plugin should…

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