Information

Johnson Controls Ransomware Attack Could Impact DHS

Sensitive Department of Homeland Security (DHS) information might have been compromised in a recent ransomware attack aimed at government contractor Johnson Controls International. A multinational giant headquartered in Cork, Ireland, Johnson Controls produces industrial control systems and smart building equipment, software, and services, including HVAC, security, fire protection, and support solutions. The company serves clients in the education, government, healthcare, hospitality, naval, and transportation sectors, including the DoD, DHS, and other government agencies in the…

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A Closer Look at the Snatch Data Ransom Group

Earlier this week, KrebsOnSecurity revealed that the darknet website for the Snatch ransomware group was leaking data about its users and the crime gang’s internal operations. Today, we’ll take a closer look at the history of Snatch, its alleged founder, and their claims that everyone has confused them with a different, older ransomware group by the same name. According to a September 20, 2023 joint advisory from the FBI and the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure…

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Lazarus luring employees with trojanized coding challenges: The case of a Spanish aerospace company

ESET researchers have uncovered a Lazarus attack against an aerospace company in Spain, where the group deployed several tools, most notably a publicly undocumented backdoor we named LightlessCan. Lazarus operators obtained initial access to the company’s network last year after a successful spearphishing campaign, masquerading as a recruiter for Meta – the company behind Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. The fake recruiter contacted the victim via LinkedIn Messaging, a feature within the LinkedIn professional social networking…

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How Lazarus impersonated Meta to attack a target in Spain – Week in security with Tony Anscombe

Video During the attack, the group deployed several tools, most notably a newly-discovered sophisticated backdoor that ESET named LightlessCan 29 Sep 2023 This week, ESET researchers unveiled their findings about an attack by the North Korea-linked APT group Lazarus that took aim at an aerospace company in Spain. The group obtained initial access to the company’s network after a successful spearphishing campaign where they masqueraded as a recruiter for Meta, the company behind Facebook, Instagram,…

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Bankrupt IronNet Shuts Down Operations

The lights have flickered shut at IronNet, the once-promising network security company founded by former NSA director General Keith Alexander. Bankrupt and out of financing options, IronNet said it would file for Chapter 7 protection while its assets are liquidated. “Given the unavailability of additional sources of liquidity…IronNet ceased all activities of the company and its subsidiaries and terminated the remaining employees,” the Virginia company said in its latest SEC Form 8-K filing. It is…

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AWS Using MadPot Decoy System to Disrupt APTs, Botnets

Cloud computing giant AWS says an internal threat intel decoy system called MadPot has been used successfully to trap malicious activity, including nation state-backed APTs like Volt Typhoon and Sandworm. MadPot, the brainchild of AWS software engineer Nima Sharifi Mehr, is described as “a sophisticated system of monitoring sensors and automated response capabilities” that entraps malicious actors, watches their movements, and generates protection data for multiple AWS security products. AWS said the honeypot system is designed…

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Cloudflare Users Exposed to Attacks Launched From Within Cloudflare: Researchers

Gaps in Cloudflare’s security controls allow users to bypass customer-configured protection mechanisms and target other users from the platform itself, technology consulting firm Certitude warns. The issue, the company says, arises from the shared infrastructure that all Cloudflare tenants have access to, allowing malicious actors to abuse the trust customers place in the platform’s protections to target them via Cloudflare. A major cybersecurity vendor offering web application firewall (WAF), bot management, and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS)…

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5 of the top programming languages for cybersecurity

Secure Coding While far from all roles in security explicitly demand coding skills, it’s challenging to envision a career in this field that wouldn’t derive substantial advantages from at least a basic understanding of fundamental coding principles Christian Ali Bravo 27 Sep 2023  •  , 4 min. read Coding is a pivotal skill in many aspects of today’s technology-driven society and it holds growing significance for many jobseekers and students, including those contemplating a career…

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Can open-source software be secure?

Secure Coding, Business Security Or, is mass public meddling just opening the door for problems? And how does open-source software compare to proprietary software in terms of security? 26 Sep 2023  •  , 5 min. read There are – and will always be – vulnerabilities in software. Just like there is no perfect security, there is no perfect codebase. That begs the question: What is the best way to fix software problems, especially at scale?…

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Google Rushes to Patch New Zero-Day Exploited by Spyware Vendor

Google has rushed to patch another Chrome zero-day vulnerability exploited by a commercial spyware vendor.  The internet giant announced on Tuesday that the stable channel of Chrome for Windows, macOS and Linux has been updated to version 117.0.5938.132. The latest update patches 10 vulnerabilities, three of which have been highlighted by the company in its advisory. The most important vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2023-5217, has been described as a “heap buffer overflow in vp8 encoding in…

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