network security | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

A 57-year-old man from the U.S. state of Missouri has been arrested in connection with a failed data extortion campaign that targeted his former employer. Daniel Rhyne of Kansas City, Missouri, has been charged with one count of extortion in relation to a threat to cause damage to a protected computer, one count of intentional damage to a protected computer, and one count of wire fraud. He was arrested in the state on August 27, 2024, following an attempt to extort an unnamed industrial company that's headquartered in Somerset County, New Jersey, where he was employed as a core infrastructure engineer. Per court documents, some employees of the company are said to have received an extortion email that warned all of its IT administrators had been locked out or removed from the network, data backups had been deleted, and an additional 40 servers would be shut down each day over the next 10 days if a ransom of 20 bitcoin, then valued at $750,000, wasn't paid. "The inves

Threat actors linked to the RansomHub ransomware group encrypted and exfiltrated data from at least 210 victims since its inception in February 2024, the U.S. government said. The victims span various sectors, including water and wastewater, information technology, government services and facilities, healthcare and public health, emergency services, food and agriculture, financial services, commercial facilities, critical manufacturing, transportation, and communications critical infrastructure. "RansomHub is a ransomware-as-a-service variant—formerly known as Cyclops and Knight—that has established itself as an efficient and successful service model (recently attracting high-profile affiliates from other prominent variants such as LockBit and ALPHV)," government agencies said . A ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) variant that's a descendant of Cyclops and Knight, the e-crime operation has attracted high-profile affiliates from other prominent variants such as LockBit a

Want to know what's the latest and greatest in SecOps for 2024? Gartner's recently released Hype Cycle for Security Operations report takes important steps to organize and mature the domain of Continuous Threat Exposure Management, aka CTEM. Three categories within this domain are included in this year's report: Threat Exposure Management, Exposure Assessment Platforms (EAP), and Adversarial Exposure Validation (AEV). These category definitions are aimed at providing some structure to the evolving landscape of exposure management technologies. Pentera, listed as a sample vendor in the newly defined AEV category, is playing a pivotal role in increasing the adoption of CTEM, with a focus on security validation. Following is our take on the CTEM related product categories and what they mean for enterprise security leaders. The Industry is Maturing CTEM, coined by Gartner in 2022, presents a structural approach for continuously assessing, prioritizing, validating, and remediating expo

The most dangerous vulnerability you've never heard of. In the world of cybersecurity, vulnerabilities are discovered so often, and at such a high rate, that it can be very difficult to keep up with. Some vulnerabilities will start ringing alarm bells within your security tooling, while others are far more nuanced, but still pose an equally dangerous threat. Today, we want to discuss one of these more nuanced vulnerabilities as it is likely lurking in your environment waiting to be exploited: Active Directory Certificate Services vulnerabilities.  vPenTest by Vonahi Security recently implemented an attack vector specifically designed to identify and mitigate these hidden AD CS threats. But first, let's explore why AD CS vulnerabilities are so dangerous and how they work. What is Active Directory Certificate Services? Active Directory Certificate Services ("AD CS"), as defined by Microsoft is, "a Windows Server role for issuing and managing public key infrastructure (PKI) certific

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed a new campaign that potentially targets users in the Middle East through malware that disguises itself as Palo Alto Networks GlobalProtect virtual private network (VPN) tool. "The malware can execute remote PowerShell commands, download and exfiltrate files, encrypt communications, and bypass sandbox solutions, representing a significant threat to targeted organizations," Trend Micro researcher Mohamed Fahmy said in a technical report. The sophisticated malware sample has been observed employing a two-stage process and involves setting up connections to command-and-control (C2) infrastructure that purports to be a company VPN portal, allowing the threat actors to operate freely without tripping any alarms. The initial intrusion vector for the campaign is currently unknown, although it's suspected to involve the use of phishing techniques to deceive users into thinking that they are installing the GlobalProtect agent. The

Chinese-speaking users are the target of a "highly organized and sophisticated attack" campaign that is likely leveraging phishing emails to infect Windows systems with Cobalt Strike payloads. "The attackers managed to move laterally, establish persistence and remain undetected within the systems for more than two weeks," Securonix researchers Den Iuzvyk and Tim Peck said in a new report. The covert campaign, codenamed SLOW#TEMPEST and not attributed to any known threat actor, commences with malicious ZIP files that, when unpacked, activates the infection chain, leading to the deployment of the post-exploitation toolkit on compromised systems. Present with the ZIP archive is a Windows shortcut (LNK) file that disguises itself as a Microsoft Word file, "违规远程控制软件人员名单.docx.lnk," which roughly translates to "List of people who violated the remote control software regulations." "Given the language used in the lure files, it's likely th

U.S. cybersecurity and intelligence agencies have called out an Iranian hacking group for breaching multiple organizations across the country and coordinating with affiliates to deliver ransomware. The activity has been linked to a threat actor dubbed Pioneer Kitten , which is also known as Fox Kitten, Lemon Sandstorm (formerly Rubidium), Parisite, and UNC757, which it described as connected to the government of Iran and uses an Iranian information technology (IT) company, Danesh Novin Sahand, likely as a cover. "Their malicious cyber operations are aimed at deploying ransomware attacks to obtain and develop network access," the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Department of Defense Cyber Crime Center (DC3) said . "These operations aid malicious cyber actors in further collaborating with affiliate actors to continue deploying ransomware." Targets of the attacks include education, finance, hea

A years-old high-severity flaw impacting AVTECH IP cameras has been weaponized by malicious actors as a zero-day to rope them into a botnet. CVE-2024-7029 (CVSS score: 8.7), the vulnerability in question, is a "command injection vulnerability found in the brightness function of AVTECH closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras that allows for remote code execution (RCE)," Akamai researchers Kyle Lefton, Larry Cashdollar, and Aline Eliovich said . Details of the security shortcoming were first made public earlier this month by the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), highlighting its low attack complexity and the ability to exploit it remotely. "Successful exploitation of this vulnerability could allow an attacker to inject and execute commands as the owner of the running process," the agency noted in an alert published August 1, 2024. It's worth noting that the issue remains unpatched. It impacts AVM1203 camera devices using firmwar

The threat actors behind the BlackByte ransomware group have been observed likely exploiting a recently patched security flaw impacting VMware ESXi hypervisors, while also leveraging various vulnerable drivers to disarm security protections. "The BlackByte ransomware group continues to leverage tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) that have formed the foundation of its tradecraft since its inception, continuously iterating its use of vulnerable drivers to bypass security protections and deploying a self-propagating, wormable ransomware encryptor," Cisco Talos said in a technical report shared with The Hacker News. The exploitation of CVE-2024-37085 , an authentication bypass vulnerability in VMware ESXi that has also been weaponized by other ransomware groups, is a sign that the e-crime group is pivoting from established approaches. BlackByte made its debut in the second half of 2021 and is purported to be one of the autonomous ransomware offshoots to have emerged

The China-nexus cyber espionage group tracked as Volt Typhoon has been attributed with moderate confidence to the zero-day exploitation of a recently disclosed high-severity security flaw impacting Versa Director. The attacks targeted four U.S. victims and one non-U.S. victim in the Internet service provider (ISP), managed service provider (MSP) and information technology (IT) sectors as early as June 12, 2024, the Black Lotus Labs team at Lumen Technologies said in a technical report shared with The Hacker News. The campaign is believed to be ongoing against unpatched Versa Director systems. The security flaw in question is CVE-2024-39717 (CVSS score: 6.6), a file upload bug affecting Versa Director that was added to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog last week by the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). "This vulnerability allowed potentially malicious files to be uploaded by users with Provider-Data-Center-Admin or Provider-Data-Ce

SonicWall has released security updates to address a critical flaw impacting its firewalls that, if successfully exploited, could grant malicious actors unauthorized access to the devices. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-40766 (CVSS score: 9.3), has been described as an improper access control bug. "An improper access control vulnerability has been identified in the SonicWall SonicOS management access, potentially leading to unauthorized resource access and in specific conditions, causing the firewall to crash," the company said in an advisory released last week. "This issue affects SonicWall Firewall Gen 5 and Gen 6 devices, as well as Gen 7 devices running SonicOS 7.0.1-5035 and older versions." The issue has been addressed in the below versions - SOHO (Gen 5 Firewalls) - 5.9.2.14-13o Gen 6 Firewalls - 6.5.2.8-2n (for SM9800, NSsp 12400, and NSsp 12800) and 6.5.4.15.116n (for other Gen 6 Firewall appliances) SonicWall said the vulnerability is

Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered a new stealthy piece of Linux malware that leverages an unconventional technique to achieve persistence on infected systems and hide credit card skimmer code. The malware, attributed to a financially motivated threat actor, has been codenamed sedexp by Aon's Stroz Friedberg incident response services team. "This advanced threat, active since 2022, hides in plain sight while providing attackers with reverse shell capabilities and advanced concealment tactics," researchers Zachary Reichert, Daniel Stein, and Joshua Pivirotto said . It's not surprising that malicious actors are constantly improvising and refining their tradecraft, and have turned to novel techniques to evade detection. What makes sedexp noteworthy is its use of udev rules to maintain persistence. Udev, a replacement for the Device File System, offers a mechanism to identify devices based on their properties and configure rules to respond when there is a ch

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has placed a security flaw impacting Versa Director to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities ( KEV ) catalog based on evidence of active exploitation. The medium-severity vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-39717 (CVSS score: 6.6), is case of file upload bug impacting the "Change Favicon" feature that could allow a threat actor to upload a malicious file by masquerading it as a seemingly harmless PNG image file. "The Versa Director GUI contains an unrestricted upload of file with dangerous type vulnerability that allows administrators with Provider-Data-Center-Admin or Provider-Data-Center-System-Admin privileges to customize the user interface," CISA said in an advisory. "The 'Change Favicon' (Favorite Icon) enables the upload of a .png file, which can be exploited to upload a malicious file with a .PNG extension disguised as an image." However, a successful exploitation is poss

The threat actors behind a recently observed Qilin ransomware attack have stolen credentials stored in Google Chrome browsers on a small set of compromised endpoints. The use of credential harvesting in connection with a ransomware infection marks an unusual twist, and one that could have cascading consequences, cybersecurity firm Sophos said in a Thursday report. The attack, detected in July 2024, involved infiltrating the target network via compromised credentials for a VPN portal that lacked multi-factor authentication (MFA), with the threat actors conducting post-exploitation actions 18 days after initial access took place. "Once the attacker reached the domain controller in question, they edited the default domain policy to introduce a logon-based Group Policy Object (GPO) containing two items," researchers Lee Kirkpatrick, Paul Jacobs, Harshal Gosalia, and Robert Weiland said . The first of them is a PowerShell script named "IPScanner.ps1" that's desi

SolarWinds has issued patches to address a new security flaw in its Web Help Desk (WHD) software that could allow remote unauthenticated users to gain unauthorized access to susceptible instances. "The SolarWinds Web Help Desk (WHD) software is affected by a hardcoded credential vulnerability, allowing [a] remote unauthenticated user to access internal functionality and modify data," the company said in a new advisory released today. The issue, tracked as CVE-2024-28987 , is rated 9.1 on the CVSS scoring system, indicating critical severity. Horizon3.ai security researcher Zach Hanley has been credited with discovering and reporting the flaw. Users are recommended to update to version 12.8.3 Hotfix 2 , but applying the fix requires Web Help Desk 12.8.3.1813 or 12.8.3 HF1. The disclosure comes a week after SolarWinds moved to resolve another critical vulnerability in the same software that could be exploited to execute arbitrary code (CVE-2024-28986, CVSS score: 9.8).