Security News > 2021

Fleeceware apps extract hundreds of dollars per year from their users through subscription services
2021-03-25 13:41

The applications attract users with a promise of a free 3-day trial, with an unusually high subscription fee attached. Once the trial is over, users are charged a recurring subscription fee - even if they deleted the app by that time - until they cancel the subscription in their device's app subscriptions settings.

BackBlaze mistakenly shared backup metadata with Facebook
2021-03-25 13:36

Backblaze has removed Facebook tracking code accidentally added to web UI pages only accessible to logged-in customers. Backblaze discovered the issue after receiving user reports on March 21 that pages on the B2 web UI were sending file names and sizes to Facebook.

Microsoft Offers Up to $30,000 for Vulnerabilities in Teams Desktop Client
2021-03-25 12:31

Microsoft on Wednesday announced that its bug bounty programs now also cover the desktop client of its Teams business communications platform. The tech giant is offering rewards for vulnerabilities in the Teams desktop client as part of its Application Bounty Program, which will feature additional app-related bounties in the future.

Microsoft offers rewards for security bugs in Microsoft Teams
2021-03-25 10:59

Microsoft is starting a new Applications Bounty Program, and the first application that they want researchers to find bugs in is Microsoft Teams, its popular business communication platform. Microsoft Teams offers workspace chat, VoIP and videoconferencing, file sharing through chats, and meetings.

BP Chargemaster's Pulse rebrand let crims send IcedID banking trojan from formerly legit mailboxes
2021-03-25 10:15

BP Chargemaster, purveyors of sockets for electric vehicles, seemingly had its email domain hijacked by criminals who used formerly legitimate addresses to send banking trojans to customers. Register reader Matt received some emails from BP Chargemaster which he was certain didn't come from the company.

Engineer reports data leak to nonprofit, hears from the police
2021-03-25 08:35

A security engineer and ex-contributor to an open systems non-profit organization recently reported a data leak to the organization. On discovering this GitHub repository which, the engineer says, was public since at least 2019, the engineer privately reported it to Apperta, and got thanked by them.

Engineer reports data leak to Apperta, hears from the police
2021-03-25 08:35

A security engineer and ex-contributor to an open systems non-profit organization recently reported a data leak to the organization. On discovering this GitHub repository which, the engineer says, was public since at least 2019, the engineer privately reported it to Apperta, and got thanked by them.

Challenges and benefits of using threat data feeds
2021-03-25 06:30

Threat data feeds can help organizations strengthen their cybersecurity posture, according to a report from the Ponemon Institute. As cyberthreats proliferate, many organizations are using threat feeds with insights from domain name system data to help IT security teams better understand threats and block malicious activity.

Using memory encryption in web applications to help reduce the risk of Spectre attacks
2021-03-25 06:00

As Google security engineers pointed out, these mechanisms do not prevent the Spectre exploit, but rather "Protect sensitive data from being present in parts of the memory from which they can be read by the attacker." To further reduce the risk of data leakage, website owners should add an extra line of defense to protect the actual data in memory in the event that all other security controls.

Distributed and remote work creating a perfect storm for network security teams
2021-03-25 05:30

"The study shows that a cocktail of multiplying threats, the proliferation of hybrid and cloud architectures, blended with a pandemic-fueled explosion in distributed and remote work has created a perfect storm for network security teams," said Satin H. Mirchandani, President and CEO of FireMon. Five major areas for network security investment Automation - More than 50 percent of organizations are currently investing in automating policy management to safeguard against inefficient and risky functions and 79 percent say they'll implement security orchestration and automation within two years to improve agility and responsiveness.