TECHZONE™

Warning: Over 2,000 Palo Alto Networks Devices Hacked in Ongoing Attack Campaign https://thehackernews.com/2024/11/warning-over-2000-palo-alto-networks.html 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 https://thehackernews.com/2024/11/chinese-apt-gelsemium-targets-linux.html 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 https://thehackernews.com/2024/11/10-most-impactful-pam-use-cases-for.html 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 https://thehackernews.com/2024/11/north-korean-front-companies.html 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!" https://thehackernews.com/2024/11/cyber-story-time-boy-who-cried-secure.html 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 https://thehackernews.com/2024/11/over-145000-industrial-control-systems.html 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 https://thehackernews.com/2024/11/5-scattered-spider-gang-members.html 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 https://thehackernews.com/2024/11/googles-ai-powered-oss-fuzz-tool-finds.html 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 https://thehackernews.com/2024/11/nodestealer-malware-targets-facebook-ad.html 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 https://thehackernews.com/2024/11/ghost-tap-hackers-exploiting-nfcgate-to.html 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 https://thehackernews.com/2024/11/nhis-are-future-of-cybersecurity-meet.html 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 https://thehackernews.com/2024/11/decades-old-security-vulnerabilities.html 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 https://thehackernews.com/2024/11/microsoft-launches-windows-resiliency.html 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 https://thehackernews.com/2024/11/china-backed-hackers-leverage-sigtran.html 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 https://thehackernews.com/2024/11/apple-releases-urgent-updates-to-patch.html 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 - A vulnerability in JavaScriptCore that could lead to arbitrary code execution when processing malicious web content CVE-2024-44309 - A cookie management vulnerability in

Oracle Warns of Agile PLM Vulnerability Currently Under Active Exploitation https://thehackernews.com/2024/11/oracle-warns-of-agile-plm-vulnerability.html 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 https://thehackernews.com/2024/11/ngioweb-botnet-fuels-nsocks-residential.html 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 https://thehackernews.com/2024/11/hackers-hijack-unsecured-jupyter.html 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 https://thehackernews.com/2024/11/privileged-accounts-hidden-threats-why.html 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 https://thehackernews.com/2024/11/new-helldown-ransomware-expands-attacks.html 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