Security News
Microsoft and Citizen Lab discovered commercial spyware made by an Israel-based company QuaDream used to compromise the iPhones of high-risk individuals using a zero-click exploit named ENDOFDAYS. The attackers targeted a zero-day vulnerability affecting iPhones running iOS 1.4 up to 14.4.2 between January 2021 and November 2021, using what Citizen Lab described as backdated and "Invisible iCloud calendar invitations." Compromised devices belonged to "At least five civil society victims of QuaDream's spyware and exploits in North America, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, Europe, and the Middle East," Citizen Lab researchers said.
Simply put, there were zero days during which even the most proactive and cybersecurity conscious users amongst us could have been patched in advance of the crooks. Just to be clear: the Apple Safari browser uses WebKit for "Processing web content" on all Apple devices, although third-party browsers such as Firefox, Edge and Chromium don't use WebKit on Mac.
Apple's App Store rules mean that all browsers on iPhones and iPads must use WebKit, making this sort of bug a truly cross-browser problem for mobile Apple devices.Kernel code execution bugs are inevitably much more serious than app-level bugs, because the kernel is responsible for managing the security of the entire system, including what permissions apps can acquire, and how freely apps can share files and data between themselves.
DOUG. Wi-Fi hacks, World Backup Day, and supply chain blunders. DUCK. Very simply put, the only backup you will ever regret is the one you did not make.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has ordered federal agencies today to patch security vulnerabilities exploited as zero-days in recent attacks to install commercial spyware on mobile devices. One month later, a complex chain of multiple 0-days and n-days was exploited to target Samsung Android phones running up-to-date Samsung Internet Browser versions.
A number of zero-day vulnerabilities that were addressed last year were exploited by commercial spyware vendors to target Android and iOS devices, Google's Threat Analysis Group has revealed. Upon clicking, the URLs redirected the recipients to web pages hosting exploits for Android or iOS, before they were redirected again to legitimate news or shipment-tracking websites.
Google's Threat Analysis Group discovered several exploit chains using Android, iOS, and Chrome zero-day and n-day vulnerabilities to install commercial spyware and malicious apps on targets' devices. The attackers targeted iOS and Android users with separate exploit chains as part of a first campaign spotted in November 2022.
U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday signed an executive order that restricts the use of commercial spyware by federal government agencies. The order said the spyware ecosystem "Poses significant counterintelligence or security risks to the United States Government or significant risks of improper use by a foreign government or foreign person."
US president Joe Biden on Monday issued an Executive Order on Prohibition on Use by the United States Government of Commercial Spyware that Poses Risks to National Security - a title that is not quite as simple it seems. The Order and explanatory statement point out that commercial spyware has been used by authoritarian regimes to target activists and journalists, has been deployed without proper authority in democracies, and poses a security risk to the US and other nations.
The New York Times is reporting that a US citizen's phone was hacked by the Predator spyware. A U.S. and Greek national who worked on Meta's security and trust team while based in Greece was placed under a yearlong wiretap by the Greek national intelligence service and hacked with a powerful cyberespionage tool, according to documents obtained by The New York Times and officials with knowledge of the case.