Security News
Microsoft on Wednesday disclosed that it identified a set of highly targeted social engineering attacks mounted by a Russian nation-state threat actor using credential theft phishing lures sent as Microsoft Teams chats. Microsoft said the campaign, observed since at least late May 2023, affected less than 40 organizations globally spanning government, non-government organizations, IT services, technology, discrete manufacturing, and media sectors.
Microsoft says a hacking group tracked as APT29 and linked to Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service targeted dozens of organizations worldwide, including government agencies, in Microsoft Teams phishing attacks. These new domains were part of the 'onmicrosoft.com' domain, a legitimate Microsoft domain that is automatically used by Microsoft 365 for fallback purposes in case a custom domain is not created.
Microsoft patches four exploited zero-days, but lags with fixes for a fifthFor July 2023 Patch Tuesday, Microsoft has delivered 130 patches; among them are four for vulnerabilites actively exploited by attackers, but no patch for CVE-2023-36884, an Office and Windows HTML RCE vulnerability exploited in targeted attacks aimed at defense and government entities in Europe and North America. Apple pushes out emergency fix for actively exploited zero-dayApple has patched an actively exploited zero-day vulnerability by releasing Rapid Security Response updates for iPhones, iPads and Macs running the latest versions of its operating systems.
A tool that automates the delivery of malware from external attackers to target employees' Microsoft Teams inbox has been released. TeamsPhisher is a Python-based tool created by US Navy read teamer Alex Reid that allows attackers to deliver attachments to Microsoft Teams users.
Microsoft is having a rough week with troubles including an Outlook.com bug that prevented some email users from searching their messages for several hours on Thursday, and a Teams flaw that allows people to send phishing emails and malware to other Teams users. While the Outlook.com bug borking users' email was certainly an annoying inconvenience, perhaps a bigger problem is the Teams weakness.
A member of U.S. Navy's red team has published a tool called TeamsPhisher that leverages an unresolved security issue in Microsoft Teams to bypass restrictions for incoming files from users outside of a targeted organization, the so-called external tenants. The tool exploits a problem highlighted last month by Max Corbridge and Tom Ellson of UK-based security services company Jumpsec, who explained how an attacker could easily go around Microsoft Teams' file-sending restraints to deliver malware from an external account.
As more businesses experience resource and cost constraints, 86% of MSPs and MSSPs customers are outsourcing their security needs to consolidate security tools, according to OpenText. "Staffing issues that have plagued the security industry for years are getting worse due to today's complex economic environment. As a result, already short-staffed teams must find creative ways to do more with less," says Geoff Bibby, SVP of Marketing and Strategy, OpenText Cybersecurity.
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Security researchers have uncovered a bug that could allow attackers to deliver malware directly into employees' Microsoft Teams inbox. "Organisations that use Microsoft Teams inherit Microsoft's default configuration which allows users from outside of their organisation to reach out to their staff members," Jumpsec researcher Max Corbridge explained.
Network and IT admins have been dealing with ongoing Microsoft 365 issues this week, reporting that some end users cannot use Microsoft Outlook or other Microsoft 365 apps. The issues started Monday, with numerous admins contacting BleepingComputer to say that some of their users are experiencing disruptive issues in Microsoft Outlook, with the program not opening, freezing after opening, seeing delays in mail delivery, or errors saying there is no valid license associated with the user.