Security News > 2023 > April

Google is bringing end-to-end encryption to Google Authenticator cloud backups after researchers warned users against synchronizing 2FA codes with their Google accounts. This new feature allows users to synchronize their Google Authenticator 2FA tokens with their Google account, providing a backup if their mobile device is lost or damaged.

You might want to think twice before typing anything into Microsoft's Edge browser, as an apparent bug in a recent release of Redmond's Chromium clone appears to be funneling URLs you visit back to the Bing API. The issue, identified by Redditor HackerMcHackface in the r/browsers subreddit last week, appears to be related to an opt-out content aggregation feature in Edge, called Collections, which offers suggestions for online creators that users may want to follow. Beginning with Microsoft Edge build 112.0.1722.34, the Redditor notes that the default behavior had changed.

The Google Authenticator 2FA app has featured strongly in cybersecurity news stories lately, with Google adding a feature to let you backup your 2FA data into the cloud and then restore it onto other devices. The six-digit codes commonly generated by 2FA apps get calculated right on your phone, not on your laptop; they're based on a "Seed" or "Starting key" that's stored on your phone; and they're protected by the lock code on your phone, not by any passwords you routinely type in on your laptop.

The open-source e-commerce platform PrestaShop has released a new version that addresses a critical-severity vulnerability allowing any back-office user to write, update, or delete SQL databases regardless of their permissions. The permissions of each user are set so that they're only allowed to access the information and features necessary for their role, which is a crucial security feature of PrestaShop.

Cisco disclosed today a zero-day vulnerability in the company's Prime Collaboration Deployment software that can be exploited for cross-site scripting attacks. Tracked as CVE-2023-20060, the bug was found in the web-based management interface of Cisco PCD 14 and earlier by Pierre Vivegnis of the NATO Cyber Security Centre.

The US government is aggressively pursuing three men accused of wide-ranging and complex conspiracies of laundering stolen and illicit cryptocurrency that the North Korean regime used to finance its massive weapons programs. The Department of Justice this month indicted North Korean national Sim Hyon Sop, Wu HuiHui of China, and Cheng Hung Man, a Hong Kong British national, for their roles in two money laundering conspiracies, both aimed at channeling funds into North Korea's coffers.

A Chinese APT hacking group known as 'Evasive Panda' is linked to a mysterious attack that distributed the MsgBot malware as part of an automatic update for the Tencent QQ messaging app. ESET reports that the malicious MsgBot malware payload was delivered to victims as a Tencent QQ software update from legitimate URLs and IP addresses belonging to the software developer.

High-paying cybersecurity jobs and where to find them Top U.S. cities for cybersecurity jobs Must-read CXO coverage. With data breaches continually on the rise, it comes as little surprise that cybersecurity positions are in high demand in and around Silicon Valley, according to the survey.

Google is taking down malware infrastructure linked to the Cryptbot info stealer after suing those using it to infect Google Chrome users and steal their data. "Yesterday, a federal judge in the Southern District of New York unsealed our civil action against the malware distributors of Cryptbot, which we estimate infected approximately 670,000 computers this past year and targeted users of Google Chrome to steal their data," the Head of Litigation Advance Mike Trinh and Threat Analysis Group's Pierre-Marc Bureau said.

Apache Superset is vulnerable to authentication bypass and remote code execution at default configurations, allowing attackers to potentially access and modify data, harvest credentials, and execute commands. Apache Superset is an open-source data visualization and exploration tool initially developed for Airbnb before it became a top-level project at the Apache Software Foundation in 2021.