Information

Microsoft Patch Tuesday, June 2023 Edition

Microsoft Corp. today released software updates to fix dozens of security vulnerabilities in its Windows operating systems and other software. This month’s relatively light patch load has another added bonus for system administrators everywhere: It appears to be the first Patch Tuesday since March 2022 that isn’t marred by the active exploitation of a zero-day vulnerability in Microsoft’s products. June’s Patch Tuesday features updates to plug at least 70 security holes, and while none of…

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Cyber insurance: What is it and does my company need it?

While not a ‘get out of jail free card’ for your business, cyber insurance can help insulate it from the financial impact of a cyber-incident Cyber risk is on the rise as the combined impact of surging threat levels, expanding attack surfaces and security skills shortages are putting organizations at a disadvantage. Faced with an increased likelihood that they may suffer a damaging security breach, many may be looking to transfer liability onto a third-party…

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Gozi banking malware “IT chief” finally jailed after more than 10 years

by Paul Ducklin Yesterday, we wrote about cybercrime charges that were finally unsealed for a massive cryptocurrency heist that was allegedly conducted over a three-year period starting back in 2011. Today’s long-term cybercrime justice story concerns the last member of the so-called Gozi Troika, three men who were originally charged in January 2013 for malware-related crimes that apparently kicked off way back in the late 2000s: Those charges were publicised at that time under a…

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Microsoft Patches Critical Windows Vulns, Warn of Code Execution Risks

Microsoft’s security response team on Tuesday rolled out a massive batch of software updates to address major security gaps in its flagship Windows operating system and software components. Redmond’s monthly Patch Tuesday updates cover at least 70 documented vulnerabilities affecting the Windows ecosystem, including six critical issues that expose users to dangerous code execution attacks. According to Microsoft, none of the vulnerabilities have been publicly discussed or exploited in the wild. Windows network administrators are…

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History revisited: US DOJ unseals Mt. Gox cybercrime charges

by Naked Security writer Remember Mt. Gox? Originally, it was a card-trading site called MTGOX, short for Magic The Gathering Online Exchange (there was no sense of “Mountain” in the name at all), but the domain changed hands and purpose in the early days of cryptocurrency. Operated out of Japan by French expatriate Mark Karpelès, Mt. Gox rapidly became the biggest online Bitcoin exchange, but imploded in 2014 when the company was forced to admit…

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US Government Provides Guidance on Software Security Guarantee Requirements

The US Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has issued new guidance on when and how federal agencies should collect security guarantees from software vendors. Building on the cybersecurity executive order that President Joe Biden signed in May 2021, the OMB last year published a memorandum (M-22-18) requiring federal agencies to obtain from software vendors guarantees that the software they provide is secure. Per M-22-18, federal agencies are required to obtain attestation for all software…

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Mixing cybercrime and cyberespionage – Week in security with Tony Anscombe

A crimeware group that usually targets individuals and SMBs in North America and Europe adds cyberespionage to its activities It’s rather rare to find a cybercrime group that ventures into cyberespionage, which alone makes new ESET research all the more interesting. According to ESET experts, a cybercrime group known as Asylum Ambuscade – which usually targets individuals, SMBs, bank customers, and cryptocurrency traders in North America and Europe – has added cyberespionage to its activities.…

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More MOVEit mitigations: new patches published for further protection

by Paul Ducklin Even if you’re not a MOVEit customer, and even if you’d never heard of the MOVEit file sharing software before the end of last month… …we suspect you’ve heard of it now. That’s because the MOVEit brand name has been all over the IT and mainstream media for the last week or so, due to an unfortunate security hole dubbed CVE-2023-34362, which turned out to be what’s known in the jargon as…

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Asylum Ambuscade: crimeware or cyberespionage?

A curious case of a threat actor at the border between crimeware and cyberespionage Asylum Ambuscade is a cybercrime group that has been performing cyberespionage operations on the side. They were first publicly outed in March 2022 by Proofpoint researchers after the group targeted European government staff involved in helping Ukrainian refugees, just a few weeks after the start of the Russia-Ukraine war. In this blogpost, we provide details about the early 2022 espionage campaign…

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Thoughts on scheduled password changes (don’t call them rotations!)

by Paul Ducklin We’re all still using passwords on many, perhaps most, of our accounts, because we’re all still using plenty of online services that don’t offer any other sort of login system. Just today, for instance, I paid membership fees to a cycling-related group that asked for my postal address so it could send me my membership card, which I thought was a delightfully simple and old-school way of letting me retrieve my membership…

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