Information

A story of how an analysis of a supposed game cheat turned into the discovery of a powerful UEFI threat Towards the end of 2022 an unknown threat actor boasted on an underground forum that they’d created a new and powerful UEFI bootkit called BlackLotus. Its most distinctive feature? It could bypass UEFI Secure Boot – a feature built into all modern computers to prevent them from running unauthorized software. What at first sounded like…

Some threats may be closer than you think. Are security risks that originate from your own trusted employees on your radar? It all began innocently enough when a Tesla employee received an invitation from a former associate to catch up over drinks. Several wining and dining sessions later, the old acquaintance made his real intentions clear: he offered the Tesla employee $1 million for smuggling malware into the automaker’s computer network in a a scheme…

by Paul Ducklin This Tuesday, 2023-07-11, was Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday for July 2023, so here’s a brief reminder to do two things: Patch early, patch often. More than 100 vulnerabilities were patched this month, including four zero-day security holes for which working exploit code already exists. Even though everyone was at risk until Tuesday, it’s important not to be one of those people who remains at risk longer than necessary. When defenders close off holes…

A view of the H1 2023 threat landscape as seen by ESET telemetry and from the perspective of ESET threat detection and research experts We are pleased to present the latest issue of ESET Threat Report, which brings changes aimed at making its contents more engaging and accessible. One notable modification is our new approach to data presentation: rather than detailing all data changes within each detection category, our intention is to provide more in-depth…

by Paul Ducklin Betteridge’s Law of Headlines insists that any headline posed as a question can instantly be answered with a simple “No.” Apparently, the theory behind this witticism (it’s not actually a Law, nor yet a rule, nor even in fact anything more than a suggestion) is that if the author knew what they were talking about, and had real evidence to support their case, they’d have written the headline as an undiluted fact.…

by Paul Ducklin You’re probably familiar with the word gaslighting, used to refer to people with the odious habit of lying not merely to cover up their own wrongdoing, but also to make it look as though someone else is at fault, even to the point of getting the other person to doubt their own memory, decency and sanity. You might not know, however, that the term comes from a 1930s psychological thriller play called…