Security News

IBM Tells Researcher It Will Not Patch Serious Data Risk Manager Flaws
2020-04-21 15:28

A security researcher says IBM has told him that it would not be patching several vulnerabilities found in its Data Risk Manager product, despite demonstrating that they can be exploited by a remote, unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary code with root privileges. Pedro Ribeiro of Agile Information Security has disclosed technical information for a total of four zero-day vulnerabilities affecting IBM Data Risk Manager, an enterprise security solution that "Provides executives and their teams a business-consumable data risk control center that helps to uncover, analyze, and visualize data-related business risks so they can take action to protect their business."

Researcher Discloses 4 Zero-Day Bugs in IBM's Enterprise Security Software
2020-04-21 09:20

A cybersecurity researcher today publicly disclosed technical details and PoC for 4 unpatched zero-day vulnerabilities affecting an enterprise security software offered by IBM after the company refused to acknowledge the responsibly submitted disclosure. According to Pedro Ribeiro from Agile Information Security firm, IBM Data Risk Manager contains three critical severity vulnerabilities and a high impact bug, all listed below, which can be exploited by an unauthenticated attacker reachable over the network, and when chained together could also lead to remote code execution as root.

Researchers develop self-healing and self-concealing PUF for hardware security
2020-04-17 03:30

NUS researchers Prof Massimo Alioto and Mr Sachin Taneja testing the self-healing and self-concealing PUF for hardware security. Prof Alioto elaborated, "On-chip sensing, as well as machine learning and adaptation, allow us to raise the bar in chip security at significantly lower cost. As a result, PUFs can be deployed in every silicon system on earth, democratising hardware security even under tight cost constraints."

Talos researchers fabricate a fake that frequently fooled fingerprint locks
2020-04-08 13:00

Two security researchers used a 3D printer and fabric glue to create a fake fingerprint that fooled authentication sensors 80% of the time. The biggest challenge was getting the size right for the fake fingerprint; 1 percent too small or too large and the fake fingerprint did not work.

Roaring trade in zero-days means more vulns are falling into the hands of state spies, warn security researchers
2020-04-06 18:15

"Furthermore, we noted a significant increase over time in the number of zero-days leveraged by groups suspected to be customers of companies that supply offensive cyber capabilities," said FireEye, which went on to refer to a group of malicious persons variously named by researchers as Stealth Falcon and FruityArmor [sic]. This group "Used malware sold by NSO Group", said FireEye, which speculated that it might also be linked to Uzbekistani state spying operations: "The zero-days used in SandCat operations were also used in Stealth Falcon operations, and it is unlikely that these distinct activity sets independently discovered the same three zero-days."

Keys Used to Encrypt Zoom Meetings Sent to China: Researchers
2020-04-03 15:41

A recent analysis of the Zoom video conferencing application revealed that the keys used to encrypt and decrypt meetings may be sent to servers in China, even if all participants are located in other countries. "A scan shows a total of five servers in China and 68 in the United States that apparently run the same Zoom server software as the Beijing server. We suspect that keys may be distributed through these servers. A company primarily catering to North American clients that sometimes distributes encryption keys through servers in China is potentially concerning, given that Zoom may be legally obligated to disclose these keys to authorities in China," Citizen Lab explained in a report published on Friday.

Apple Awards Researcher $75,000 for Camera Hacking Vulnerabilities
2020-04-03 13:59

A white hat hacker says he has earned $75,000 from Apple for reporting several Safari vulnerabilities that can be exploited to hijack the camera and microphone of devices running iOS or macOS. Researcher Ryan Pickren identified a total of seven vulnerabilities in Apple's Safari web browser, three of which can be exploited to spy on users through the camera and microphone of their iPhone, iPad or Mac computer. Apple patched the vulnerabilities that allow hackers to spy on users in January, while the other flaws were fixed in March.

Researchers Discover Hidden Behavior in Thousands of Android Apps
2020-04-03 12:58

Thousands of mobile applications for Android contain hidden behavior such as backdoors and blacklists, a group of researchers has discovered. Set to discover such behaviors, researchers from The Ohio State University, New York University, and CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security came up with a tool that can detect "The execution context of user input validation and also the content involved in the validation," thus finding any secrets of interest.

‘Zombie’ Windows win32k bug reanimated by researcher
2020-04-03 10:29

In a rare find, a researcher has unveiled dozens of related bugs in a core Windows API that could enable attackers to elevate their privileges in the operating system. The bugs take advantage of a long-understood problem with win32k, which is the user interface kernel component in Windows.

Researcher Finds New Class of Windows Vulnerabilities
2020-04-02 19:35

A security researcher has discovered over 25 different potential vulnerabilities in Windows, including some that could lead to elevation of privileges. The researcher tested the flaws on a guest account on the latest Windows Insider Preview, which was updated last in September 2019.