In large companies, as a rule the average employee isnt often asked for an opinion on their career aspirations, areas of interest, or accomplishments outside their job description. It tends to happen once a year — for the performance review. However, many would like to share their thoughts with management much more show more ...
often. So, when an invitation to take a self-evaluation lands in the inbox, they jump at the chance without hesitation. And this is what cybercriminals exploit in the latest spear-phishing campaign. Phishing email with invitation Seemingly from HR, an email arrives containing an elaborate description of the employee self-evaluation procedure, which promotes candid dialogue between staff members and their managers/supervisors. It goes on to say that you can learn a lot about your strengths and shortcomings … to reflect on your successes, areas for development, and career objectives. All in all, quite a convincing piece of corporate spiel. Email to employees inviting them to undergo a self-evaluation Convincing it may be, but all the same the email does contain a few identifiable red flags regarding phishing. For starters, take a look at the domain name in the senders address. Thats right, it doesnt match the name of the company. Of course, its possible that your HR department might be using a contractor unknown to you — but why would Family Eldercare be providing such services? Even if you dont know that this is a non-profit organization that helps families care for elderly relatives, the name should ring an alarm bell. Whats more, the email says that the survey is COMPULSORY for EVERYONE, and must be completed by End Of Day. Even if we leave aside the crude and faulty capitalization, the focus on urgency is always a reason to stop and think — and check with the real HR department whether they sent it. Fake self-evaluation form Those who miss the flags and click through to the form are faced with a set of questions that may actually have something to do with assessing their performance. But the crux of the phishing operation lies in the last three of those questions — which ask the victim to provide their email address, and enter their password for authentication and then re-enter it for confirmation. Last three questions of the fake questionnaire This is actually a smart move on the phishers part. Typically, phishing of this type leads straight from the email to a form for entering corporate credentials on a third-party site, which puts many on their guard straight away. Here, however, the request for a password and email address (which commonly doubles up as a username) is disguised as part of the form — and at the very end. By this stage the victims vigilance is well and truly lulled. Also note how the word password is written: two letters are replaced with asterisks. This is to bypass automatic filters set to search for password as a keyword. How to stay safe To stop company employees falling for phishing, keep them informed of all the latest tricks (for example, by forwarding our posts about phishing ploys). If you prefer a more systematic approach, carry out regular trainings and checks, for example with our Kaspersky Automated Security Awareness Platform. Ideally, employees should never even see most phishing thanks to technical means: install security solutions with anti-phishing technology both at the corporate mail gateway level and on all work devices used for internet access.
The victim shaming website operated by the cybercriminals behind 8Base — currently one of the more active ransomware groups — was until earlier today leaking quite a bit of information that the crime group probably did not intend to be made public. The leaked data suggests that at least some of show more ...
website’s code was written by a 36-year-old programmer residing in the capital city of Moldova. The 8Base ransomware group’s victim shaming website on the darknet. 8Base maintains a darknet website that is only reachable via Tor, a freely available global anonymity network. The site lists hundreds of victim organizations and companies — all allegedly hacking victims that refused to pay a ransom to keep their stolen data from being published. The 8Base darknet site also has a built-in chat feature, presumably so that 8Base victims can communicate and negotiate with their extortionists. This chat feature, which runs on the Laravel web application framework, works fine as long as you are *sending* information to the site (i.e., by making a “POST” request). However, if one were to try to fetch data from the same chat service (i.e., by making a “GET” request), the website until quite recently generated an extremely verbose error message: The verbose error message when one tries to pull data from 8Base’s darknet site. Notice the link at the bottom of this image, which is generated when one hovers over the “View commit” message under the “Git” heading. That error page revealed the true Internet address of the Tor hidden service that houses the 8Base website: 95.216.51[.]74, which according to DomainTools.com is a server in Finland that is tied to the Germany-based hosting giant Hetzner. But that’s not the interesting part: Scrolling down the lengthy error message, we can see a link to a private Gitlab server called Jcube-group: gitlab[.]com/jcube-group/clients/apex/8base-v2. Digging further into this Gitlab account, we can find some curious data points available in the JCube Group’s public code repository. For example, this “status.php” page, which was committed to JCube Group’s Gitlab repository roughly one month ago, includes code that makes several mentions of the term “KYC” (e.g. KYC_UNVERIFIED, KYC_VERIFIED, and KYC_PENDING). This is curious because a FAQ on the 8Base darknet site includes a section on “special offers for journalists and reporters,” which says the crime group is open to interviews but that journalists will need to prove their identity before any interview can take place. The 8base FAQ refers to this vetting process as “KYC,” which typically stands for “Know Your Customer.” “We highly respect the work of journalists and consider information to be our priority,” the 8Base FAQ reads. “We have a special program for journalists which includes sharing information a few hours or even days before it is officially published on our news website and Telegram channel: you would need to go through a KYC procedure to apply. Journalists and reporters can contact us via our PR Telegram channel with any questions.” The 8Base FAQ (left) and the KYC code in Kolev’s Gitlab account (right) The 8Base darknet site also has a publicly accessible “admin” login page, which features an image of a commercial passenger plane parked at what appears to be an airport. Next to the airplane photo is a message that reads, “Welcome to 8Base. Admin Login to 8Base dashboard.” The login page on the 8Base ransomware group’s darknet website. Right-clicking on the 8Base admin page and selecting “View Source” produces the page’s HTML code. That code is virtually identical to a “login.blade.php” page that was authored and committed to JCube Group’s Gitlab repository roughly three weeks ago. It appears the person responsible for the JCube Group’s code is a 36-year-old developer from Chisinau, Moldova named Andrei Kolev. Mr. Kolev’s LinkedIn page says he’s a full-stack developer at JCube Group, and that he’s currently looking for work. The homepage for Jcubegroup[.]com lists an address and phone number that Moldovan business records confirm is tied to Mr. Kolev. The posts on the Twitter account for Mr. Kolev (@andrewkolev) are all written in Russian, and reference several now-defunct online businesses, including pluginspro[.]ru. Reached for comment via LinkedIn, Mr. Kolev said he had no idea why the 8Base darknet site was pulling code from the “clients” directory of his private JCube Group Gitlab repository, or how the 8Base name was even included. “I [don’t have] a clue, I don’t have that project in my repo,” Kolev explained. “They [aren’t] my clients. Actually we currently have just our own projects.” Mr. Kolev shared a screenshot of his current projects, but very quickly after that deleted it. However, KrebsOnSecurity captured a copy of the image before it was removed: A screenshot of Mr. Kolev’s current projects that he quickly deleted. Within minutes of explaining why I was reaching out to Mr. Kolev and walking him through the process of finding this connection, the 8Base website was changed, and the error message that linked to the JCube Group private Gitlab repository no longer appeared. Instead, trying the same “GET” method described above caused the 8Base website to return a “405 Method Not Allowed” error page: Mr. Kolev claimed he didn’t know anything about the now-removed error page on 8Base’s site that referenced his private Gitlab repo, and said he deleted the screenshot from our LinkedIn chat because it contained private information. Ransomware groups are known to remotely hire developers for specific projects without disclosing exactly who they are or how the new hire’s code is intended to be used, and it is possible that one of Mr. Kolev’s clients is merely a front for 8Base. But despite 8Base’s statement that they are happy to correspond with journalists, KrebsOnSecurity is still waiting for a reply from the group via their Telegram channel. The tip about the leaky 8Base website was provided by a reader who asked to remain anonymous. That reader, a legitimate security professional and researcher who goes by the handle @htmalgae on Twitter, said it is likely that whoever developed the 8Base website inadvertently left it in “development mode,” which is what caused the site to be so verbose with its error messages. “If 8Base was running the app in production mode instead of development mode, this Tor de-anonymization would have never been possible,” @htmalgae said. A recent blog post from VMware called the 8Base ransomware group “a heavy hitter” that has remained relatively unknown despite the massive spike in activity in Summer of 2023. “8Base is a Ransomware group that has been active since March 2022 with a significant spike in activity in June of 2023,” VMware researchers wrote. “Describing themselves as ‘simple pen testers,’ their leak site provided victim details through Frequently Asked Questions and Rules sections as well as multiple ways to contact them. ” According to VMware, what’s particularly interesting about 8Base’s communication style is the use of verbiage that is strikingly familiar to another known cybercriminal group: RansomHouse. “The group utilizes encryption paired with ‘name-and-shame’ techniques to compel their victims to pay their ransoms,” VMware researchers wrote. “8Base has an opportunistic pattern of compromise with recent victims spanning across varied industries. Despite the high amount of compromises, the information regarding identities, methodology, and underlying motivation behind these incidents still remains a mystery.”
MGM and Caesars are putting new SEC incident disclosure regulations to a real-world test in the aftermath of twin cyberattacks on the casinos, as class-action lawsuits loom.
Everyone's favorite pandemic-era brand is experiencing store shortages in the wake of a cyberattack that impacted its global production lines — and there's no timeline for normal operations to resume.
The threat cluster hasn't been seen before, but its custom Windows server backdoors have researchers intrigued thanks to their extremely effective stealth mechanisms.
Pakistani threat group Transparent Tribe targets military and diplomatic personnel in India and Pakistan with romance-themed lures in the latest spyware campaign.
The CapraRAT mobile RAT hidden within these YouTube-themed apps gives the attacker control over various data on infected Android devices, including recording audio and video, collecting messages and call logs, and modifying files.
Cloud security firm Wiz discovered the privacy snafu when it found the GitHub repository “robust-models-transfer,” which belonged to Microsoft’s AI research division, leaking sensitive internal information.
An April ransomware attack against one of Australia's largest law firms swept up the data of 65 Australian government agencies, the country's newly appointed national cybersecurity coordinator said Monday.
The attackers utilized fake trading pools of cryptocurrency from decentralized finance (DeFi) trading applications to defraud their victims, with one individual losing $22,000 in a single week.
"All commands (30 in total) that the malware operator can send to a device infected with ERMAC malware, also exist in Hook. The code implementation for these commands is nearly identical," NCC Group security researchers said.
In regulatory filings with the SEC, the company said the cyberattack “damaged portions of the Company’s IT infrastructure, which caused widescale disruption of Clorox’s operations.”
The immersive internet experience known as the metaverse will erode users’ privacy unless significant steps are taken to improve and regulate how the technology captures and stores personal data, a new report from New York University argues.
Today, VulnCheck vulnerability researcher Jacob Baines released another PoC exploit that only utilizes CVE-2023-36845, bypassing the need to upload files while still achieving remote code execution.
The top 10 most recently active types of malware used by Pensive Ursa include Capibar, Kazuar, Snake, QUIETCANARY, Kopiluwak, Crutch, ComRAT, Carbon, HyperStack, and TinyTurla, with each having distinct functionalities and attack techniques.
Bumblebee, a loader used by ransomware threat actors, has recently resurfaced with new distribution techniques and updates to make it more resilient and harder to disrupt.
A Chinese-speaking threat actor known for skimming credit card numbers off e-commerce sites and point-of-sale service providers in the Asia/Pacific region for more than a year has begun aiming at similar targets in North and Latin America as well.
Bruno Kahl, the head of Germany’s foreign intelligence service, warned that liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals in the country could be targeted by state-sponsored hackers.
ShroudedSnooper has targeted Middle East-based telecom firms using two stealthy backdoors, HTTPSnoop and PipeSnoop, which employ advanced anti-detection techniques and can give cyberattackers persistent access to networks.
The configuration of the latest XWorm variant reveals key details such as the host, port, AES key, and Telegram information, providing insights into the malware's operations.
The attack chain involves the use of LNK files and Dropbox to retrieve a second-stage payload, an MSI installer, that drops a Rust backdoor implant and other files on compromised systems.
A novel cloud-native cryptojacking operation has set its eyes on uncommon Amazon Web Services (AWS) offerings such as AWS Amplify, AWS Fargate, and Amazon SageMaker to illicitly mine cryptocurrency.
This Metasploit module exploits an unauthenticated command injection vulnerability by combining two critical vulnerabilities in Apache Airflow version 1.10.10. The first, CVE-2020-11978, is an authenticated command injection vulnerability found in one of Airflow's example DAGs, show more ...
"example_trigger_target_dag", which allows any authenticated user to run arbitrary OS commands as the user running Airflow Worker/Scheduler. The second, CVE-2020-13927, is a default setting of Airflow 1.10.10 that allows unauthenticated access to Airflow's Experimental REST API to perform malicious actions such as creating the vulnerable DAG above. The two CVEs taken together allow vulnerable DAG creation and command injection, leading to unauthenticated remote code execution.
An unauthenticated remote code execution vulnerability exists in the embedded webserver in certain Lexmark devices through 2023-02-19. The vulnerability is only exposed if, when setting up the printer or device, the user selects "Set up Later" when asked if they would like to add an Admin user. If no Admin show more ...
user is created, the endpoint /cgi-bin/fax_change_faxtrace_settings is accessible without authentication. The endpoint allows the user to configure a number of different fax settings. A number of the configurable parameters on the page fail to be sanitized properly before being used in a bash eval statement, allowing for an unauthenticated user to run arbitrary commands.
Tor is a network of virtual tunnels that allows people and groups to improve their privacy and security on the Internet. It also enables software developers to create new communication tools with built-in privacy features. It provides the foundation for a range of applications that allow organizations and individuals show more ...
to share information over public networks without compromising their privacy. Individuals can use it to keep remote Websites from tracking them and their family members. They can also use it to connect to resources such as news sites or instant messaging services that are blocked by their local Internet service providers (ISPs). This is the source code release.
WordPress Essential Blocks plugin versions 4.2.0 and below and Essential Blocks Pro versions 1.1.0 and below suffer from multiple PHP object injection vulnerabilities.
Packers and Movers Management System version 1.0 suffers from a remote blind SQL injection vulnerability. Proof of concept exploit written in python included.
Red Hat Security Advisory 2023-5255-01 - The kernel-rt packages provide the Real Time Linux Kernel, which enables fine- tuning for systems with extremely high determinism requirements. Issues addressed include information leakage, out of bounds write, and use-after-free vulnerabilities.
Red Hat Security Advisory 2023-5220-01 - The Open Virtual Machine Tools are the open source implementation of the VMware Tools. They are a set of guest operating system virtualization components that enhance performance and user experience of virtual machines. Issues addressed include a bypass vulnerability.
Ubuntu Security Notice 6380-1 - Rogier Schouten discovered that Node.js incorrectly handled certain inputs. If a user or an automated system were tricked into opening a specially crafted input file, a remote attacker could possibly use this issue to cause a denial of service. This issue only affected Ubuntu 16.04 LTS show more ...
and Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. Ethan Rubinson discovered that Node.js incorrectly handled certain inputs. If a user or an automated system were tricked into opening a specially crafted input file, a remote attacker could possibly use this issue to obtain sensitive information. This issue only affected Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.
Red Hat Security Advisory 2023-5213-01 - The Open Virtual Machine Tools are the open source implementation of the VMware Tools. They are a set of guest operating system virtualization components that enhance performance and user experience of virtual machines. Issues addressed include a bypass vulnerability.
Red Hat Security Advisory 2023-5216-01 - The Open Virtual Machine Tools are the open source implementation of the VMware Tools. They are a set of guest operating system virtualization components that enhance performance and user experience of virtual machines. Issues addressed include a bypass vulnerability.
Red Hat Security Advisory 2023-5224-01 - Mozilla Thunderbird is a standalone mail and newsgroup client. This update upgrades Thunderbird to version 102.15.1. Issues addressed include a buffer overflow vulnerability.
Red Hat Security Advisory 2023-5218-01 - The Open Virtual Machine Tools are the open source implementation of the VMware Tools. They are a set of guest operating system virtualization components that enhance performance and user experience of virtual machines. Issues addressed include a bypass vulnerability.
Red Hat Security Advisory 2023-5214-01 - The libwebp packages provide a library and tools for the WebP graphics format. WebP is an image format with a lossy compression of digital photographic images. WebP consists of a codec based on the VP8 format, and a container based on the Resource Interchange File Format. show more ...
Webmasters, web developers and browser developers can use WebP to compress, archive, and distribute digital images more efficiently. Issues addressed include a buffer overflow vulnerability.
Red Hat Security Advisory 2023-5222-01 - The libwebp packages provide a library and tools for the WebP graphics format. WebP is an image format with a lossy compression of digital photographic images. WebP consists of a codec based on the VP8 format, and a container based on the Resource Interchange File Format. show more ...
Webmasters, web developers and browser developers can use WebP to compress, archive, and distribute digital images more efficiently. Issues addressed include a buffer overflow vulnerability.
Red Hat Security Advisory 2023-5221-01 - This is a kernel live patch module which is automatically loaded by the RPM post-install script to modify the code of a running kernel. Issues addressed include out of bounds write and use-after-free vulnerabilities.
Red Hat Security Advisory 2023-5223-01 - Mozilla Thunderbird is a standalone mail and newsgroup client. This update upgrades Thunderbird to version 102.15.1. Issues addressed include a buffer overflow vulnerability.
Red Hat Security Advisory 2023-5210-01 - The Open Virtual Machine Tools are the open source implementation of the VMware Tools. They are a set of guest operating system virtualization components that enhance performance and user experience of virtual machines. Issues addressed include a bypass vulnerability.
Red Hat Security Advisory 2023-5217-01 - The Open Virtual Machine Tools are the open source implementation of the VMware Tools. They are a set of guest operating system virtualization components that enhance performance and user experience of virtual machines. Issues addressed include a bypass vulnerability.
Red Hat Security Advisory 2023-5219-01 - FRRouting is free software that manages TCP/IP based routing protocols. It supports BGP4, OSPFv2, OSPFv3, ISIS, RIP, RIPng, PIM, NHRP, PBR, EIGRP and BFD.
Red Hat Security Advisory 2023-5209-01 - The redhat-virtualization-host packages provide the Red Hat Virtualization Host. These packages include redhat-release-virtualization-host, ovirt-node, and rhev-hypervisor. Red Hat Virtualization Hosts are installed using a special build of Red Hat Enterprise Linux with only show more ...
the packages required to host virtual machines. RHVH features a Cockpit user interface for monitoring the host's resources and performing administrative tasks.
Red Hat Security Advisory 2023-5155-01 - Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform is Red Hat's cloud computing Kubernetes application platform solution designed for on-premise or private cloud deployments. This advisory contains the container images for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.13.13. Issues addressed include a denial of service vulnerability.
Debian Linux Security Advisory 5502-1 - Multiple security vulnerabilities have been found in xrdp, a remote desktop protocol server. Buffer overflows and out-of-bound writes may cause a denial of service or other unspecified impact.
Dark Reading News Desk interviewed Kelly Shortridge about the role of infrastructure-as-code in helping security teams get more nimble in responding to cyber threats.
Microsoft on Monday said it took steps to correct a glaring security gaffe that led to the exposure of 38 terabytes of private data. The leak was discovered on the company's AI GitHub repository and is said to have been inadvertently made public when publishing a bucket of open-source training data, Wiz said. It also included a disk backup of two former employees' workstations containing secrets
The suspected Pakistan-linked threat actor known as Transparent Tribe is using malicious Android apps mimicking YouTube to distribute the CapraRAT mobile remote access trojan (RAT), demonstrating the continued evolution of the activity. "CapraRAT is a highly invasive tool that gives the attacker control over much of the data on the Android devices that it infects," SentinelOne security
Telecommunication service providers in the Middle East are the target of a new intrusion set dubbed ShroudedSnooper that employs a stealthy backdoor called HTTPSnoop. "HTTPSnoop is a simple, yet effective, backdoor that consists of novel techniques to interface with Windows HTTP kernel drivers and devices to listen to incoming requests for specific HTTP(S) URLs and execute that content on the
Targets located in Azerbaijan have been singled out as part of a new campaign that's designed to deploy Rust-based malware on compromised systems. Cybersecurity firm Deep Instinct is tracking the operation under the name Operation Rusty Flag. It has not been associated with any known threat actor or group. "The operation has at least two different initial access vectors," security researchers
XWorm is a relatively new representative of the remote access trojan cohort that has already earned its spot among the most persistent threats across the globe. Since 2022, when it was first observed by researchers, it has undergone a number of major updates that have significantly enhanced its functionality and solidified its staying power. The analyst team at ANY.RUN came across the newest
The China-linked threat actor known as Earth Lusca has been observed targeting government entities using a never-before-seen Linux backdoor called SprySOCKS. Earth Lusca was first documented by Trend Micro in January 2022, detailing the adversary's attacks against public and private sector entities across Asia, Australia, Europe, North America. Active since 2021, the group has relied on
As the adoption of generative AI tools, like ChatGPT, continues to surge, so does the risk of data exposure. According to Gartner’s "Emerging Tech: Top 4 Security Risks of GenAI" report, privacy and data security is one of the four major emerging risks within generative AI. A new webinar featuring a multi-time Fortune 100 CISO and the CEO of LayerX, a browser extension solution, delves into this
New research has found that close to 12,000 internet-exposed Juniper firewall devices are vulnerable to a recently disclosed remote code execution flaw. VulnCheck, which discovered a new exploit for CVE-2023-36845, said it could be exploited by an "unauthenticated and remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on Juniper firewalls without creating a file on the system." CVE-2023-36845 refers to a
Apparently YouPorn's AI algorithm has detected me in an uploaded sex video. All I have to do is pay hundreds of dollars worth of Bitcoin to prevent it from being published.