Security News > 2021 > September
A zero trust security model is based on the idea that no IT resource should be trusted implicitly. Prior to the introduction of zero trust security, a user who authenticated into a network was trustworthy for the duration of their session, as was the user's device.
The most urgent among them is an arbitrary file upload vulnerability in the Analytics service that impacts vCenter Server 6.7 and 7.0 deployments. "A malicious actor with network access to port 443 on vCenter Server may exploit this issue to execute code on vCenter Server by uploading a specially crafted file," the company noted, adding "This vulnerability can be used by anyone who can reach vCenter Server over the network to gain access, regardless of the configuration settings of vCenter Server."
Law enforcement agencies in Italy and Spain have dismantled an organized crime group linked to the Italian Mafia that was involved in online fraud, money laundering, drug trafficking, and property crime, netting the gang about €10 million in illegal proceeds in just a year. "The suspects defrauded hundreds of victims through phishing attacks and other types of online fraud such as SIM swapping and business email compromise before laundering the money through a wide network of money mules and shell companies," Europol said in a statement published today.
Security researchers disclosed today a new vulnerability in Apple's macOS Finder, which makes it possible for attackers to run arbitrary commands on Macs running any macOS version up to the latest release, Big Sur. The bug, found by independent security researcher Park Minchan, is due to the way macOS processes inetloc files which inadvertently causes it to run any commands embedded by an attacker inside without any warnings or prompts.
The US Treasury on Tuesday sanctioned virtual cryptocurrency exchange Suex OTC for handling financial transactions for ransomware operators, an intervention that's part of a broad US government effort to disrupt online extortion and related cyber-crime. According to the US Treasury, more than 40 per cent of the firm's known transaction history involves illicit entities, and that it handled payments from at least eight ransomware variants.
Cybersecurity researchers on Tuesday disclosed details of an unpatched vulnerability in macOS Finder that could be abused by remote adversaries to trick users into running arbitrary commands on the machines. "A vulnerability in macOS Finder allows files whose extension is inetloc to execute arbitrary commands, these files can be embedded inside emails which if the user clicks on them will execute the commands embedded inside them without providing a prompt or warning to the user," SSD Secure Disclosure said in a write-up published today.
"Time to find out who in your family secretly ran [a] QAnon hellhole," said attackers who affiliated themselves with the hacktivist collective Anonymous, noting that Epik had laughable security. Epik, the domain registrar known for hosting several large right-wing organizations, has confirmed a hack of its systems, a week after attackers branding themselves with the Anonymous hacktivist collective label said that the group had obtained and leaked gigabits of data from the hosting company, including 15 million email addresses.
Microsoft has released an updated PC Health Check tool that provides detailed information about whether a device's hardware is compatible with Windows 11. "Based on the feedback so far, we acknowledge that it was not fully prepared to share the level of detail or accuracy you expected from us on why a Windows 10 PC doesn't meet upgrade requirements," explained Microsoft in a blog post.
Bypass attacks against Face ID have been announced before, notably by a Vietnamese researcher who claimed in 2017 to be able to get past Face ID using a mask, and by Chinese researchers from cybersecurity company Tencent in 2019, who were able to get around Face ID's "Are you awake?" detection and unlock the device of someone who was asleep. Along with updates for the otherwise brand-new iOS 15, iPadOS 15, tvOS 15 and watchOS 8, the latest security announcements also cover iTunes, macOS, Safari and Apple's Xcode developer tools, as well as iOS 14.8 and iPadOS 14.8.
Hackers are upping their game, using an approach I call "Deep Sea Phishing," which is the use of a combination of the techniques described below to become more aggressive. In February, 10,000 Microsoft users were targeted in a phishing campaign which sent emails purporting to be from FedEx, DHL Express and other couriers which contained links to phishing pages hosted on legitimate domains, with the goal of obtaining recipients' work email credentials.