Malware

US Gov Warning: Start Hunting for Iranian APTs That Exploited Log4j

The U.S. government on Wednesday issued a blunt recommendation for organizations running VMWare Horizon servers: Initiate threat-hunting activities to find and expel Iranian APT actors that used the Log4j crisis to slip undetected into corporate networks. According to a joint advisory from CISA and the FBI, Iranian government-sponsored hackers hit at least one Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) organization with an exploit for a Log4j vulnerability in an unpatched VMware Horizon server.  From the advisory…

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Offboarding processes pose security risks as job turnover increases: Report

Organizations across multiple industries are struggling to mitigate potential risks—including loss of end-user and storage devices as well as unauthorized use of SaaS applications—during their offboarding process, according to new research conducted by YouGov in partnership with Enterprise Technology Management (ETM) firm Oomnitza. Over the last 18 months, employee turnover has increased, with the US Department of Labor estimating that by the end of 2021, a total of 69 million people—more than 20% of Americans—had…

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Mozilla Releases Security Updates for Multiple Products

Original release date: November 16, 2022 Mozilla has released security updates to address vulnerabilities in Thunderbird, Firefox ESR, and Firefox. An attacker could exploit these vulnerabilities to cause user confusion or conduct spoofing attacks. CISA encourages users and administrators to review Mozilla’s security advisories for Thunderbird 102.5, Firefox ESR 102.5, and Firefox 107 for mitigations and updates. This product is provided subject to this Notification and this Privacy & Use policy.

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CISA and FBI Release Advisory on Iranian Government-Sponsored APT Actors Compromising Federal Network

Original release date: November 16, 2022 Today, CISA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) published a joint Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA), Iranian Government-Sponsored APT Actors Compromise Federal Network, Deploy Crypto Miner, Credential Harvester. The CSA provides information on an incident at a Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) organization in which Iranian government-sponsored APT actors exploited a Log4Shell vulnerability in unpatched VMware Horizon server. The CSA includes a malware analysis report (MAR), MAR-10387061-1-v1 XMRig Cryptocurrency Mining…

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Palo Alto releases PAN-OS 11.0 Nova with new evasive malware, injection attack protection

Palo Alto Networks has announced PAN-OS 11.0 Nova, the latest version of its PAN-OS software, featuring new product updates and features. These include the Advanced WildFire cloud-delivered security service to help protect against evasive malware and the Advanced Threat Prevention (ATP) service, which protects against injection attacks. The cybersecurity vendor also revealed new web proxy support and enhanced cloud access security broker (CASB) integration with new SaaS security posture management (SSPM) capabilities. In a press…

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XDR: Still confusing after all these years

We’ve been discussing extended detection and response (XDR) for years now, but a fundamental question remains: Just what the heck are we talking about, anyway? Alarmingly, this continues to be a pertinent question. According to ESG research, 62% of security professionals claim to be “very familiar” with the term XDR, up from just 24% in 2020. An improvement, but still 29% are only somewhat familiar, not very familiar, or not at all familiar with XDR.…

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ForgeRock set to roll out new IAM capabilities designed for the cloud

Identity and access management (IAM) vendor ForgeRock said Tuesday that it’s set to start rolling out its new Identity Governance offering—a cloud-based security and governance product designed to provide one-stop shopping for organizations looking to solve access management issues. There are three main components to ForgeRock’s newest IAM product, according to the company. The first, comprising access certifications, provides AI-generated recommendations to decision-makers on whether to grant access to a given system to users or…

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Cohesity previews AI-powered ransomware protection suite, Datahawk

Backup and data management vendor Cohesity has started to preview a new ransomware protection SaaS product called Datahawk, which leverages AI and a host of other capabilities to help companies defend their data against bad actors. There are three core components to Datahawk, according to Cohesity. The first is a ransomware detection engine that uses deep learning to quickly scan for anomalous behavior, potential threats and other indicators of possible ransomware attacks. This system works…

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KmsdBot Exploiting Weak Login Credentials to Spread Cryptominers and Launch DDoS Attacks

Companies can best protect themselves from this sort of attack by blocking all SSH traffic from external sources. When SSH must be exposed to public internet, use SSH keys instead of passwords, and limit which public IP addresses can establish connections. Additionally, companies should consider blocking all inbound and outbound FTP traffic and limit which public IP addresses can establish FTP sessions if FTP must be allowed. For detecting C2, companies can use tools like…

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Kerberos Authentication Issues After Novembers Patch Tuesday

Systems administrators can look for the “Microsoft-Windows-Kerberos-Key-Distribution-Center Event ID 14 error event in the System section of Event Log on your Domain Controller with the below text,” according to Microsoft. The below text reads “While processing an AS request for target service , the account did not have a suitable key for generating a Kerberos ticket (the missing key has an ID of 1)”. Users can find more specific information about possible signs of this…

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