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Critical WordPress Anti-Spam Plugin Flaws Expose 200,000+ Sites to Remote Attacks

Two critical security flaws impacting the Spam protection, Anti-Spam, and FireWall plugin WordPress could allow an unauthenticated attacker to install and enable malicious plugins on susceptible sites and potentially achieve remote code execution. The vulnerabilities, tracked as CVE-2024-10542 and CVE-2024-10781, carry a CVSS score of 9.8 out of a maximum of 10.0. They were addressed in versions

Intruder Launches Intel: A Free Vulnerability Intelligence Platform For Staying Ahead of the Latest Threats

When CVEs go viral, separating critical vulnerabilities from the noise is essential to protecting your organization. That’s why Intruder, a leader in attack surface management, built Intel - a free vulnerability intelligence platform designed to help you act fast and prioritize real threats. What is Intel? Intel was created to fill a gap in the resources available for tracking emerging

RomCom Exploits Zero-Day Firefox and Windows Flaws in Sophisticated Cyberattacks

The Russia-aligned threat actor known as RomCom has been linked to the zero-day exploitation of two security flaws, one in Mozilla Firefox and the other in Microsoft Windows, as part of attacks designed to deliver the eponymous backdoor on victim systems. "In a successful attack, if a victim browses a web page containing the exploit, an adversary can run arbitrary code – without any user

Chinese Hackers Use GHOSTSPIDER Malware to Hack Telecoms Across 12+ Countries

The China-linked threat actor known as Earth Estries has been observed using a previously undocumented backdoor called GHOSTSPIDER as part of its attacks targeting Southeast Asian telecommunications companies.  Trend Micro, which described the hacking group as an aggressive advanced persistent threat (APT), said the intrusions also involved the use of another cross-platform backdoor dubbed

CISA Urges Agencies to Patch Critical "Array Networks" Flaw Amid Active Attacks

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Monday added a now-patched critical security flaw impacting Array Networks AG and vxAG secure access gateways to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog following reports of active exploitation in the wild. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2023-28461 (CVSS score: 9.8), concerns a case of missing authentication that

Google's New Restore Credentials Tool Simplifies App Login After Android Migration

Google has introduced a new feature called Restore Credentials to help users restore their account access to third-party apps securely after migrating to a new Android device. Part of Android's Credential Manager API, the feature aims to reduce the hassle of re-entering the login credentials for every app during the handset replacement. "With Restore Credentials, apps can seamlessly onboard

PyPI Python Library "aiocpa" Found Exfiltrating Crypto Keys via Telegram Bot

The administrators of the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository have quarantined the package "aiocpa" following a new update that included malicious code to exfiltrate private keys via Telegram. The package in question is described as a synchronous and asynchronous Crypto Pay API client. The package, originally released in September 2024, has been downloaded 12,100 times to date. By putting the

THN Recap: Top Cybersecurity Threats, Tools, and Practices (Nov 18 - Nov 24)

We hear terms like “state-sponsored attacks” and “critical vulnerabilities” all the time, but what’s really going on behind those words? This week’s cybersecurity news isn’t just about hackers and headlines—it’s about how digital risks shape our lives in ways we might not even realize. For instance, telecom networks being breached isn’t just about stolen data—it’s about power. Hackers are

Flying Under the Radar - Security Evasion Techniques

Dive into the evolution of phishing and malware evasion techniques and understand how attackers are using increasingly sophisticated methods to bypass security measures. The Evolution of Phishing Attacks “I really like the saying that ‘This is out of scope’ said no hacker ever. Whether it’s tricks, techniques or technologies, hackers will do anything to evade detection and make sure their

Cybersecurity Blind Spots in IaC and PaC Tools Expose Cloud Platforms to New Attacks

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed two new attack techniques against infrastructure-as-code (IaC) and policy-as-code (PaC) tools like HashiCorp's Terraform and Styra's Open Policy Agent (OPA) that leverage dedicated, domain-specific languages (DSLs) to breach cloud platforms and exfiltrate data. "Since these are hardened languages with limited capabilities, they're supposed to be more

Researchers Uncover Malware Using BYOVD to Bypass Antivirus Protections

Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered a new malicious campaign that leverages a technique called Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver (BYOVD) to disarm security protections and ultimately gain access to the infected system. "This malware takes a more sinister route: it drops a legitimate Avast Anti-Rootkit driver (aswArPot.sys) and manipulates it to carry out its destructive agenda," Trellix

Google Exposes GLASSBRIDGE: A Pro-China Influence Network of Fake News Sites

Government agencies and non-governmental organizations in the United States have become the target of a nascent China state threat actor known as Storm-2077. The adversary, believed to be active since at least January 2024, has also conducted cyber attacks against the Defense Industrial Base (DIB), aviation, telecommunications, and financial and legal services across the world, Microsoft said.

North Korean Hackers Steal $10M with AI-Driven Scams and Malware on LinkedIn

The North Korea-linked threat actor known as Sapphire Sleet is estimated to have stolen more than $10 million worth of cryptocurrency as part of social engineering campaigns orchestrated over a six-month period. These findings come from Microsoft, which said that multiple threat activity clusters with ties to the country have been observed creating fake profiles on LinkedIn, posing as both

APT-K-47 Uses Hajj-Themed Lures to Deliver Advanced Asyncshell Malware

The threat actor known as Mysterious Elephant has been observed using an advanced version of malware called Asyncshell. The attack campaign is said to have used Hajj-themed lures to trick victims into executing a malicious payload under the guise of a Microsoft Compiled HTML Help (CHM) file, the Knownsec 404 team said in an analysis published today. Mysterious Elephant, which is also known as

China-Linked TAG-112 Targets Tibetan Media with Cobalt Strike Espionage Campaign

A China-linked nation-state group called TAG-112 compromised Tibetan media and university websites in a new cyber espionage campaign designed to facilitate the delivery of the Cobalt Strike post-exploitation toolkit for follow-on information collection. "The attackers embedded malicious JavaScript in these sites, which spoofed a TLS certificate error to trick visitors into downloading a

Russian Hackers Deploy HATVIBE and CHERRYSPY Malware Across Europe and Asia

Threat actors with ties to Russia have been linked to a cyber espionage campaign aimed at organizations in Central Asia, East Asia, and Europe. Recorded Future's Insikt Group, which has assigned the activity cluster the name TAG-110, said it overlaps with a threat group tracked by the Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA) as UAC-0063, which, in turn, overlaps with APT28. The

Unlocking Google Workspace Security: Are You Doing Enough to Protect Your Data?

Google Workspace has quickly become the productivity backbone for businesses worldwide, offering an all-in-one suite with email, cloud storage and collaboration tools. This single-platform approach makes it easy for teams to connect and work efficiently, no matter where they are, enabling seamless digital transformation that’s both scalable and adaptable. As companies shift from traditional,

Microsoft, Meta, and DOJ Disrupt Global Cybercrime and Fraudulent Networks

Meta Platforms, Microsoft, and the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) have announced independent actions to tackle cybercrime and disrupt services that enable scams, fraud, and phishing attacks. To that end, Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit (DCU) said it seized 240 fraudulent websites associated with an Egypt-based cybercrime facilitator named Abanoub Nady (aka MRxC0DER and mrxc0derii), who

PyPI Attack: ChatGPT, Claude Impersonators Deliver JarkaStealer via Python Libraries

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered two malicious packages uploaded to the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository that impersonated popular artificial intelligence (AI) models like OpenAI ChatGPT and Anthropic Claude to deliver an information stealer called JarkaStealer. The packages, named gptplus and claudeai-eng, were uploaded by a user named "Xeroline" in November 2023, attracting

Warning: Over 2,000 Palo Alto Networks Devices Hacked in Ongoing Attack Campaign

As many as 2,000 Palo Alto Networks devices are estimated to have been compromised as part of a campaign abusing the newly disclosed security flaws that have come under active exploitation in the wild. According to statistics shared by the Shadowserver Foundation, a majority of the infections have been reported in the U.S. (554) and India (461), followed by Thailand (80), Mexico (48), Indonesia

Chinese APT Gelsemium Targets Linux Systems with New WolfsBane Backdoor

The China-aligned advanced persistent threat (APT) actor known as Gelsemium has been observed using a new Linux backdoor dubbed WolfsBane as part of cyber attacks likely targeting East and Southeast Asia. That's according to findings from cybersecurity firm ESET based on multiple Linux samples uploaded to the VirusTotal platform from Taiwan, the Philippines, and Singapore in March 2023.

10 Most Impactful PAM Use Cases for Enhancing Organizational Security

Privileged access management (PAM) plays a pivotal role in building a strong security strategy. PAM empowers you to significantly reduce cybersecurity risks, gain tighter control over privileged access, achieve regulatory compliance, and reduce the burden on your IT team.  As an established provider of a PAM solution, we’ve witnessed firsthand how PAM transforms organizational security. In

North Korean Front Companies Impersonate U.S. IT Firms to Fund Missile Programs

Threat actors with ties to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) are impersonating U.S.-based software and technology consulting businesses in order to further their financial objectives as part of a broader information technology (IT) worker scheme. "Front companies, often based in China, Russia, Southeast Asia, and Africa, play a key role in masking the workers' true origins and

Cyber Story Time: The Boy Who Cried "Secure!"

As a relatively new security category, many security operators and executives I’ve met have asked us “What are these Automated Security Validation (ASV) tools?” We’ve covered that pretty extensively in the past, so today, instead of covering the “What is ASV?” I wanted to address the “Why ASV?” question. In this article, we’ll cover some common use cases and misconceptions of how people misuse

Over 145,000 Industrial Control Systems Across 175 Countries Found Exposed Online

New research has uncovered more than 145,000 internet-exposed Industrial Control Systems (ICS) across 175 countries, with the U.S. alone accounting for over one-third of the total exposures. The analysis, which comes from attack surface management company Censys, found that 38% of the devices are located in North America, 35.4% in Europe, 22.9% in Asia, 1.7% in Oceania, 1.2% in South America,

5 Scattered Spider Gang Members Indicted in Multi-Million Dollar Cybercrime Scheme

Five alleged members of the infamous Scattered Spider cybercrime crew have been indicted in the U.S. for targeting employees of companies across the country using social engineering techniques to harvest credentials and using them to gain unauthorized access to sensitive data and break into crypto accounts to steal digital assets worth millions of dollars. All of the accused parties have been

Google's AI-Powered OSS-Fuzz Tool Finds 26 Vulnerabilities in Open-Source Projects

Google has revealed that its AI-powered fuzzing tool, OSS-Fuzz, has been used to help identify 26 vulnerabilities in various open-source code repositories, including a medium-severity flaw in the OpenSSL cryptographic library. "These particular vulnerabilities represent a milestone for automated vulnerability finding: each was found with AI, using AI-generated and enhanced fuzz targets,"

NodeStealer Malware Targets Facebook Ad Accounts, Harvesting Credit Card Data

Threat hunters are warning about an updated version of the Python-based NodeStealer that's now equipped to extract more information from victims' Facebook Ads Manager accounts and harvest credit card data stored in web browsers. "They collect budget details of Facebook Ads Manager accounts of their victims, which might be a gateway for Facebook malvertisement," Netskope Threat Labs researcher

Ghost Tap: Hackers Exploiting NFCGate to Steal Funds via Mobile Payments

Threat actors are increasingly banking on a new technique that leverages near-field communication (NFC) to cash out victim's funds at scale. The technique, codenamed Ghost Tap by ThreatFabric, enables cybercriminals to cash-out money from stolen credit cards linked to mobile payment services such as Google Pay or Apple Pay and relaying NFC traffic. "Criminals can now misuse Google Pay and Apple

NHIs Are the Future of Cybersecurity: Meet NHIDR

The frequency and sophistication of modern cyberattacks are surging, making it increasingly challenging for organizations to protect sensitive data and critical infrastructure. When attackers compromise a non-human identity (NHI), they can swiftly exploit it to move laterally across systems, identifying vulnerabilities and compromising additional NHIs in minutes. While organizations often take

Decades-Old Security Vulnerabilities Found in Ubuntu's Needrestart Package

Multiple decade-old security vulnerabilities have been disclosed in the needrestart package installed by default in Ubuntu Server (since version 21.04) that could allow a local attacker to gain root privileges without requiring user interaction. The Qualys Threat Research Unit (TRU), which identified and reported the flaws early last month, said they are trivial to exploit, necessitating that

Microsoft Launches Windows Resiliency Initiative to Boost Security and System Integrity

Microsoft has announced a new Windows Resiliency Initiative as a way to improve security and reliability, as well as ensure that system integrity is not compromised. The idea, the tech giant said, is to avoid incidents like that of CrowdStrike's earlier this July, enable more apps and users to be run without admin privileges, add controls surrounding the use of unsafe apps and drivers, and offer

China-Backed Hackers Leverage SIGTRAN, GSM Protocols to Infiltrate Telecom Networks

A new China-linked cyber espionage group has been attributed as behind a series of targeted cyber attacks targeting telecommunications entities in South Asia and Africa since at least 2020 with the goal of enabling intelligence collection. Cybersecurity company CrowdStrike is tracking the adversary under the name Liminal Panda, describing it as possessing deep knowledge about telecommunications

Apple Releases Urgent Updates to Patch Actively Exploited Zero-Day Vulnerabilities

Apple has released security updates for iOS, iPadOS, macOS, visionOS, and its Safari web browser to address two zero-day flaws that have come under active exploitation in the wild. The flaws are listed below - CVE-2024-44308 (CVSS score: 8.8) - A vulnerability in JavaScriptCore that could lead to arbitrary code execution when processing malicious web content CVE-2024-44309 (CVSS score: 6.1

Oracle Warns of Agile PLM Vulnerability Currently Under Active Exploitation

Oracle is warning that a high-severity security flaw impacting the Agile Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Framework has been exploited in the wild. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-21287 (CVSS score: 7.5), could be exploited sans authentication to leak sensitive information. "This vulnerability is remotely exploitable without authentication, i.e., it may be exploited over a network

Ngioweb Botnet Fuels NSOCKS Residential Proxy Network Exploiting IoT Devices

The malware known as Ngioweb has been used to fuel a notorious residential proxy service called NSOCKS, as well as by other services such as VN5Socks and Shopsocks5, new findings from Lumen Technologies reveal. "At least 80% of NSOCKS bots in our telemetry originate from the Ngioweb botnet, mainly utilizing small office/home office (SOHO) routers and IoT devices," the Black Lotus Labs team at

Hackers Hijack Unsecured Jupyter Notebooks to Stream Illegal Sports Broadcasts

Malicious actors are exploiting misconfigured JupyterLab and Jupyter Notebooks to conduct stream ripping and enable sports piracy using live streaming capture tools. The attacks involve the hijack of unauthenticated Jupyter Notebooks to establish initial access, and perform a series of actions designed to facilitate illegal live streaming of sports events, Aqua said in a report shared with The

Privileged Accounts, Hidden Threats: Why Privileged Access Security Must Be a Top Priority

Privileged accounts are well-known gateways for potential security threats. However, many organizations focus solely on managing privileged access—rather than securing the accounts and users entrusted with it. This emphasis is perhaps due to the persistent challenges of Privileged Access Management (PAM) deployments. Yet, as the threat landscape evolves, so must organizational priorities. To

New 'Helldown' Ransomware Variant Expands Attacks to VMware and Linux Systems

Cybersecurity researchers have shed light on a Linux variant of a relatively new ransomware strain called Helldown, suggesting that the threat actors are broadening their attack focus. "Helldown deploys Windows ransomware derived from the LockBit 3.0 code," Sekoia said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "Given the recent development of ransomware targeting ESX, it appears that the group

Chinese Hackers Exploit T-Mobile and Other U.S. Telecoms in Broader Espionage Campaign

U.S. telecoms giant T-Mobile has confirmed that it was also among the companies that were targeted by Chinese threat actors to gain access to valuable information. The adversaries, tracked as Salt Typhoon, breached the company as part of a "monthslong campaign" designed to harvest cellphone communications of "high-value intelligence targets." It's not clear what information was taken, if any,

Warning: VMware vCenter and Kemp LoadMaster Flaws Under Active Exploitation

Now-patched security flaws impacting Progress Kemp LoadMaster and VMware vCenter Server have come under active exploitation in the wild, it has emerged. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Monday added CVE-2024-1212 (CVSS score: 10.0), a maximum-severity security vulnerability in Progress Kemp LoadMaster to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog. It was

New Stealthy BabbleLoader Malware Spotted Delivering WhiteSnake and Meduza Stealers

Cybersecurity researchers have shed light on a new stealthy malware loader called BabbleLoader that has been observed in the wild delivering information stealer families such as WhiteSnake and Meduza. BabbleLoader is an "extremely evasive loader, packed with defensive mechanisms, that is designed to bypass antivirus and sandbox environments to deliver stealers into memory," Intezer security

The Problem of Permissions and Non-Human Identities - Why Remediating Credentials Takes Longer Than You Think

According to research from GitGuardian and CyberArk, 79% of IT decision-makers reported having experienced a secrets leak, up from 75% in the previous year's report. At the same time, the number of leaked credentials has never been higher, with over 12.7 million hardcoded credentials in public GitHub repositories alone. One of the more troubling aspects of this report is that over 90% of valid

THN Recap: Top Cybersecurity Threats, Tools, and Practices (Nov 11 - Nov 17)

What do hijacked websites, fake job offers, and sneaky ransomware have in common? They’re proof that cybercriminals are finding smarter, sneakier ways to exploit both systems and people. This week makes one thing clear: no system, no person, no organization is truly off-limits. Attackers are getting smarter, faster, and more creative—using everything from human trust to hidden flaws in

Gmail's New Shielded Email Feature Lets Users Create Aliases for Email Privacy

Google appears to be readying a new feature called Shielded Email that allows users to create email aliases when signing up for online services and better combat spam. The feature was first reported by Android Authority last week following a teardown of the latest version of Google Play Services for Android. The idea is to create unique, single-use email addresses that forward the messages to

Beyond Compliance: The Advantage of Year-Round Network Pen Testing

IT leaders know the drill—regulators and cyber insurers demand regular network penetration testing to keep the bad guys out. But here’s the thing: hackers don’t wait around for compliance schedules. Most companies approach network penetration testing on a set schedule, with the most common frequency being twice a year (29%), followed by three to four times per year (23%) and once per year (20%),

Fake Discount Sites Exploit Black Friday to Hijack Shopper Information

A new phishing campaign is targeting e-commerce shoppers in Europe and the United States with bogus pages that mimic legitimate brands with the goal of stealing their personal information ahead of the Black Friday shopping season. "The campaign leveraged the heightened online shopping activity in November, the peak season for Black Friday discounts. The threat actor used fake discounted products

NSO Group Exploited WhatsApp to Install Pegasus Spyware Even After Meta's Lawsuit

Legal documents released as part of an ongoing legal tussle between Meta's WhatsApp and NSO Group have revealed that the Israeli spyware vendor used multiple exploits targeting the messaging app to deliver Pegasus, including one even after it was sued by Meta for doing so. They also show that NSO Group repeatedly found ways to install the invasive surveillance tool on the target's devices as

Urgent: Critical WordPress Plugin Vulnerability Exposes Over 4 Million Sites

A critical authentication bypass vulnerability has been disclosed in the Really Simple Security (formerly Really Simple SSL) plugin for WordPress that, if successfully exploited, could grant an attacker to remotely gain full administrative access to a susceptible site. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-10924 (CVSS score: 9.8), impacts both free and premium versions of the plugin. The

PAN-OS Firewall Vulnerability Under Active Exploitation – IoCs and Patch Released

Palo Alto Networks has released new indicators of compromise (IoCs) a day after the network security vendor confirmed that a zero-day vulnerability impacting its PAN-OS firewall management interface has been actively exploited in the wild. To that end, the company said it observed malicious activity originating from below IP addresses and targeting PAN-OS management web interface IP addresses

Warning: DEEPDATA Malware Exploiting Unpatched Fortinet Flaw to Steal VPN Credentials

A threat actor known as BrazenBamboo has exploited an unresolved security flaw in Fortinet's FortiClient for Windows to extract VPN credentials as part of a modular framework called DEEPDATA. Volexity, which disclosed the findings Friday, said it identified the zero-day exploitation of the credential disclosure vulnerability in July 2024, describing BrazenBamboo as the developer behind DEEPDATA,

Iranian Hackers Deploy WezRat Malware in Attacks Targeting Israeli Organizations

Cybersecurity researchers have shed light on a new remote access trojan and information stealer used by Iranian state-sponsored actors to conduct reconnaissance of compromised endpoints and execute malicious commands. Cybersecurity company Check Point has codenamed the malware WezRat, stating it has been detected in the wild since at least September 1, 2023, based on artifacts uploaded to the

Researchers Warn of Privilege Escalation Risks in Google's Vertex AI ML Platform

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed two security flaws in Google's Vertex machine learning (ML) platform that, if successfully exploited, could allow malicious actors to escalate privileges and exfiltrate models from the cloud. "By exploiting custom job permissions, we were able to escalate our privileges and gain unauthorized access to all data services in the project," Palo Alto Networks

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