Security News

Version 90 of Google's Chrome browser includes a bit of extra security for users of recent versions of Windows and the latest x86 processors, in the form of hardware-enforced stack protection. This basically means that, if your PC supports it, it's a bit harder for malicious websites to exploit bugs in Chrome to hijack your computer.

FireEye announced that Mandiant Managed Defense, Mandiant's managed detection and response service, now supports Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. "With threat conditions changing constantly, companies require trusted expertise with powerful analytical capabilities to ensure accurate and decisive execution - this is where Mandiant shines," said Marshall Heilman, Executive Vice President, Managed Defense and Advanced Practices, FireEye.

All defenses against Spectre side-channel attacks can now be considered broken, leaving billions of computers and other devices just as vulnerable today as they were when the hardware flaw was first announced. Published on Friday by a team of computer scientists from the University of Virginia and the University of California, San Diego, describes how all modern AMD and Intel chips with micro-op caches are vulnerable to this new line of attack, given that it breaks all defenses.

A previously undocumented backdoor malware, dubbed PortDoor, is being used by a probable Chinese advanced persistent threat actor to target the Russian defense sector, according to researchers. The malware then creates an additional file in %temp% with the hardcoded name "58097616.tmp" and writes the GetTickCount value multiplied by a random number to it: "This can be used as an additional identifier for the target, and also as a placeholder for the previous presence of this malware," researchers explained.

Researchers at Cybereason say they have discovered an undocumented malware targeting the Russian military sector and bearing the hallmarks of originating in China if not being Chinese state sponsored. One sample was found dropping previously unknown malware, that the Cybereason researchers have now called PortDoor.

Apple patched a zero-day vulnerability in its MacOS that can bypass critical anti-malware capabilities and which a variant of the notorious Mac threat Shlayer adware dropper already has been exploiting for several months. Security researcher Cedric Owens first discovered the vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2021-30657 and patched in macOS 11.3, an update dropped by Apple on Monday.

Source Defense announced its partnership with Prevalent to identify threats and protect online businesses against automated and client-side attacks exploiting third-party code and website access. To improve visibility into these risks Source Defense identifies and analyzes the areas targeted by client-side threats and open-source risks.

Dozens of defense companies, government agencies, and financial organizations in America and abroad appear to have been compromised by China via vulnerabilities in their Pulse Connect Secure VPN appliances - including a zero-day flaw that won't be patched until next month. On Tuesday, IT software supplier Ivanti, the parent of Pulse Secure, issued a wake-up call to its customers by revealing it looks as though select clients were compromised via their encrypted gateways.

Pulse Secure has shared mitigation measures for a zero-day authentication bypass vulnerability in the Pulse Connect Secure SSL VPN appliance actively exploited in attacks against worldwide organizations and focused on US Defense Industrial base networks. To mitigate the vulnerability tracked as CVE-2021-22893, Pulse Secure advises customers with gateways running PCS 9.0R3 and higher to upgrade the server software to the 9.1R.11.

Panasonic announced its modular TOUGHBOOK 55 notebook is now available for the defense industry with an integrated Eclypt Core Encrypted Internal Hard Drive from global communications company, Viasat. The Panasonic TOUGHBOOK 55 sets a new standard for rugged mobile computing with users able to customise their device for different tasks while in the field.