Security News
An unauthenticated remote code execution flaw is being leveraged by a Chinese state-sponsored group to compromise Citrix Application Delivery Controller deployments, the US National Security Agency has warned. "Targeting Citrix ADCs can facilitate illegitimate access to targeted organizations by bypassing normal authentication controls."
Miscreants broke into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' computer systems and stole personal data belonging to "Some" members, employees, contractors and friends, the church has confirmed. According to a church statement on the "Data incident," posted on its website today, the security breach happened in late March 2022.
Microsoft on Friday disclosed that a single activity group in August 2022 achieved initial access and breached Exchange servers by chaining the two newly disclosed zero-day flaws in a limited set of attacks aimed at less than 10 organizations globally. "These attacks installed the Chopper web shell to facilitate hands-on-keyboard access, which the attackers used to perform Active Directory reconnaissance and data exfiltration," the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center said in a Friday report.
66% of organizations have changed their cybersecurity strategy as a direct response to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, while 64% suspect their organization has been either directly targeted or impacted by a nation-state cyber attack, according to Venafi. This Help Net Security video uncovers how exploiting machine identities is becoming the modus operandi for nation-state attackers.
Media organizations and journalists in the last years have been increasingly targeted by state-sponsored advanced persistent threat actors with a clear purpose: Obtain access to their sensitive information, spy their activities or even identify their sources. Zirconium, a threat actor also known as TA412, has been targeting American journalists since 2021.
An advanced persistent threat group, with ties to Iran, is believed behind a phishing campaign targeting high-profile government and military Israeli personnel, according to a report by Check Point Software. Targets of the campaign included a senior leadership in the Israeli defense industry, the former U.S. Ambassador to Israel and the former Deputy Prime Minister of Israel.
Since 2020, Chinese state-sponsored threat actors have operated large attack campaigns exploiting publicly identified security vulnerabilities. In these campaigns, the attackers receive valid account access by exploiting Virtual Private Network vulnerabilities or other Internet-facing services without using their own distinctive or identifying malware, making it harder for threat intelligence analysts to evaluate the threat.
Researchers have added state-sponsored hackers to the list of adversaries attempting to exploit Microsoft's now-patched Follina vulnerability. According to researchers at Proofpoint, state-sponsored hackers have attempted to abuse the Follina vulnerability in Microsoft Office, aiming an email-based exploit at U.S. and E.U. government targets via phishing campaigns.
A critical part of that defense is establishing a secure communication infrastructure, using the principles of quantum computing. Europe's foray into quantum communication is extremely promising.
A suspected Iranian state-supported threat actor is deploying a newly discovered backdoor named 'Aclip' that abuses the Slack API for covert communications. Slack is an ideal platform for concealing malicious communications as the data can blend well with regular business traffic due to its widespread deployment in the enterprise.