Security News
European commissioner Thierry Breton wants Huawei and ZTE barred throughout the EU, and revealed plans to remove kit made by the Chinese telecom vendors from the Commission's internal networks. There are concerns that backdoors in Huawei equipment could allow China to spy on foreign nations, given Chinese law requires local businesses to share info with Beijing.
Chinese spies are behind the data-stealing malware injected into Barracuda's Email Security Gateway devices globally as far back as October 2022, according to Mandiant. Mandiant, who has been working with Barracuda to investigate the exploit used and the malware subsequently deployed, today identified a China-based threat group it tracks as UNC4841, and said the snoops targeted a "Subset" of Barracuda ESG appliances across several regions and sectors.
A suspected China-nexus threat actor dubbed UNC4841 has been linked to the exploitation of a recently patched zero-day flaw in Barracuda Email Security Gateway appliances since October 2022. "UNC4841 is an espionage actor behind this wide-ranging campaign in support of the People's Republic of China," Google-owned Mandiant said in a new report published today, describing the group as "Aggressive and skilled."
A suspected pro-China hacker group tracked by Mandiant as UNC4841 has been linked to data-theft attacks on Barracuda ESG appliances using a now-patched zero-day vulnerability. "Due to the sophistication displayed by UNC4841 and lack of full visibility into all compromised appliances, Barracuda has elected to replace and not reimage the appliance from the recovery partition out of an abundance of caution," John Palmisano, Mandiant Incident Response Manager - Google Cloud, told BleepingComputer.
The Chinese threat group 'ChamelGang' infects Linux devices with a previously unknown implant named 'ChamelDoH,' allowing DNS-over-HTTPS communications with attackers' servers. The link between ChamelGang and the new Linux malware is based on a domain previously associated with the threat actor and a custom privilege elevation tool observed by Positive Technologies in past ChamelGang campaigns.
The Chinese state-sponsored group known as UNC3886 has been found to exploit a zero-day flaw in VMware ESXi hosts to backdoor Windows and Linux systems. The VMware Tools authentication bypass vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2023-20867, "Enabled the execution of privileged commands across Windows, Linux, and PhotonOS guest VMs without authentication of guest credentials from a compromised ESXi host and no default logging on guest VMs," Mandiant said.
Microsoft has released security updates for 78 flaws for June's Patch Tuesday, and luckily for admins, none of these are under exploit. CVE-2023-29357, a Microsoft SharePoint Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability, is one that Redmond lists as "Exploitation more likely." This may be because it, when chained with other bugs, was used to bypass authentication during March's Pwn2Own contest.
VMware patched today a VMware ESXi zero-day vulnerability exploited by a Chinese-sponsored hacking group to backdoor Windows and Linux virtual machines and steal data.The cyber espionage group-tracked as UNC3886 by cybersecurity firm Mandiant who discovered the attacks-abused the CVE-2023-20867 VMware Tools authentication bypass flaw to deploy VirtualPita and VirtualPie backdoors on guest VMs from compromised ESXi hosts where they escalated privileges to root.
The UK government will set a deadline for removing made-in-China surveillance cameras from "Sensitive sites." News of the not-very-imminent deadline came with on Tuesday with the publication of proposed amendments [PDF] to the Procurement Bill - legislation that will reform many aspects of the UK government's practices for buying stuff.
A Chinese-speaking phishing gang dubbed PostalFurious has been linked to a new SMS campaign that's targeting users in the U.A.E. by masquerading as postal services and toll operators, per Group-IB. The fraudulent scheme entails sending users bogus text messages asking them to pay a vehicle trip fee to avoid additional fines. The messages also contain a shortened URL to conceal the actual phishing link.