Security News

At the end of March 2020, researchers detected a spike in the number of firms potentially compromised each week. "Analysts looking for an increase in the number of compromised IPs or an increase in the number of observed compromises per IP will not see a marked increase," commented Lari Huttunen, senior analyst with Arctic Security.

Cybercriminals are deploying COVID-19-themed gift card scams, wire transfer scams, and payroll scams aimed at organizations and their employees, according to security provider Trustwave. Phishing emails are a favorite tactic used by scammers to try to convince people to share account credentials, financial information, and other private data.

VMware has patched a critical vulnerability that can be exploited to compromise vCenter Server or other services that rely on the Directory Service for authentication. The weakness impacts vCenter Server 6.7 on Windows and virtual appliances, and it has been patched with the 6.7u3f update.

The botnet, called dark nexus, uses processes similar to previous dangerous IoT threats like the Qbot banking malware and Mirai botnet. Dark nexus also borrows code and processes previously used by Qbot and the infamous Mirai botnet that launched the 2016 Dyn DDos attack.

Such attacks are possible because Zoom for Windows supports remote UNC paths that convert potentially insecure URIs into hyperlinks when received via chat messages to a recipient in a personal or group chat. Hacking Zoom to Steal Windows Passwords Remotely Confirmed by researcher Matthew Hickey and demonstrated by Mohamed Baset, the first attack scenario involves the SMBRelay technique that exploits the fact that Windows automatically exposes a user's login username and NTLM password hashes to a remote SMB server when attempting to connect and download a file hosted on it.

Google has awarded its inaugural annual top prize for the Google Cloud Platform, for vulnerabilities found in the Google Cloud Shell. The find - a container escape that leads to host root access and the ability to use privileged containers - has earned $100,000 for Dutch researcher Wouter ter Maat.

US-based telecom giant T-Mobile has suffered yet another data breach incident that recently exposed personal and accounts information of both its employees and customers to unknown hackers. What happened? In a breach notification posted on its website, T-Mobile today said its cybersecurity team recently discovered a sophisticated cyberattack against the email accounts of some of its employees that resulted in unauthorized access to the sensitive information contained in it, including details for its customers and other employees.

The percentage of companies admitting to suffering a mobile-related compromise has grown despite a higher percentage of organizations deciding not to sacrifice the security of mobile and IoT devices to meet business targets, Verizon has revealed in its third annual Mobile Security Index report, which is based on a survey of 876 professionals responsible for the buying, managing and security of mobile and IoT devices, as well as input from security and management companies such as Lookout, VMWare and Wandera. The report also shows that attackers hit businesses big and small, and operating in diverse industries, and that those that had sacrificed mobile security in the past year were 2x as likely to suffer a compromise.

Unisys announced that the company is offering $10,000 to participants who can capture data and credentials protected by the Unisys Stealth cybersecurity solution at RSA Conference 2020 in San Francisco. The "Unisys Stealth Capture the Flag" contest will take place on February 26 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

Over 20,000 web servers have been compromised via trojanized WordPress themes to deliver malware through malicious ads, Prevailion researchers have discovered. They are taking advantage of the widespread use of the WordPress content management system, an increased demand for premium themes and victims' lack of security awareness to get them to unknowingly compromise their own web servers.