Security News

Week in review: 17 free AWS cybersecurity courses, exploited Chrome zero-day
2023-09-17 08:00

How should SMBs navigate the phishing minefield?In this Help Net Security interview, Pete Hoff, CISO at Wursta, offers advice to SMB security leaders and professionals on how to minimize the threat phishing presents to their organization's operations and long-term success. Chrome zero-day exploited in the wild, patch now!Google has rolled out a security update for a critical Chrome zero-day vulnerability exploited in the wild.

17 free AWS cybersecurity courses you can take right now
2023-09-12 05:00

Here's a collection of free AWS cybersecurity courses you can use to elevate your knowledge about the platform. In this self-paced course, you will learn fundamental AWS cloud cybersecurity concepts, including AWS access control, data encryption methods, and how network access to your AWS infrastructure can be secured.

At Black Hat, Splunk, AWS, IBM Security and Others Launch Open Source Cybersecurity Framework
2023-08-14 22:46

A consortium led by Splunk and AWS are hoping to fix this by standardizing how events are noted in logs, reducing the burden on security teams to decipher alerts they receive from multiple tools and vendors. Last week at Black Hat, security vendor Splunk announced the general availability of the Open Cybersecurity Schema Framework.

Amazon AWS distances itself from Moq amid data collection controversy
2023-08-11 14:04

Amazon AWS has withdrawn its association with open source project Moq after the project drew sharp criticism for its quiet addition of data collection features, as first reported by BleepingComputer. The inclusion of closed-source SponsorLink package caused Moq to harvest SHA-256 hashes of developer email addresses from local Git configs, and upload these to SponsorLink's CDN. In reaction, several developers either discontinued use of Moq [1, 2] in favor of alternatives, or suggested building tools that would detect and block any projects that run SponsorLink.

Amazon AWS withdraws Moq sponsorship amid data collection controversy
2023-08-11 14:04

Amazon AWS has dropped sponsorship support for open source project Moq after the project drew sharp criticism for its quiet addition of data collection features, as first reported by BleepingComputer. The inclusion of closed-source SponsorLink package caused Moq to harvest SHA-256 hashes of developer email addresses from local Git configs, and upload these to SponsorLink's CDN. In reaction, several developers either discontinued use of Moq [1, 2] in favor of alternatives, or suggested building tools that would detect and block any projects that run SponsorLink.

Week in review: AWS SSM agents as RATs, Patch Tuesday forecast
2023-08-06 08:00

Attackers can turn AWS SSM agents into remote access trojansMitiga researchers have documented a new post-exploitation technique attackers can use to gain persistent remote access to AWS Elastic Compute Cloud instances, as well as to non-EC2 machines. August 2023 Patch Tuesday forecast: Software security improvementsThe continued onslaught of phishing attacks, ransomware deployment, and other exploitation is forcing the community to pay closer attention to early identification, as well as fast response, to vulnerabilities in their software.

Amazon's AWS SSM agent can be used as post-exploitation RAT malware
2023-08-02 15:18

Abusing AWS SSM Agent as a RAT. AWS Systems Manager is an Amazon-signed binary and comprehensive endpoint management system used by administrators for configuration, patching, and monitoring AWS ecosystems comprising EC2 instances, on-premise servers, or virtual machines. Mitiga's discovery is that the SSM agent can be configured to run in "Hybrid" mode even from within the limits of an EC2 instance, allowing access to assets and servers from attacker-controlled AWS accounts.

Attackers can turn AWS SSM agents into remote access trojans
2023-08-02 12:59

Mitiga researchers have documented a new post-exploitation technique attackers can use to gain persistent remote access to AWS Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances (virtual servers), as well as...

Researchers Uncover AWS SSM Agent Misuse as a Covert Remote Access Trojan
2023-08-02 11:50

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new post-exploitation technique in Amazon Web Services that allows the AWS Systems Manager Agent to be run as a remote access trojan on Windows and Linux environments. "The SSM agent, a legitimate tool used by admins to manage their instances, can be re-purposed by an attacker who has achieved high privilege access on an endpoint with SSM agent installed, to carry out malicious activities on an ongoing basis," Mitiga researchers Ariel Szarf and Or Aspir said in a report shared with The Hacker News.

Scarleteel Threat Targets AWS Fargate, Launches DDoS and Cryptojacking Campaigns
2023-07-14 22:03

The Scarleteel threat targets AWS Fargate environments for data theft and more malicious types of attacks such as cryptojacking and DDoS. Learn how to mitigate this threat. Sysdig, a cloud and container security company, has released a new report on the Scarleteel threat that targets specific AWS environments for data theft and additional malicious activities.