One of the most interesting revelations from researchers at Kaspersky Security Analyst Summit (SAS) this year was a report on a highly sophisticated cyberespionage campaign called Slingshot.
The first part to understand is the means of infection. What makes this initial attack vector unique is that, according to research, many victims were attacked through compromised routers made by MikroTik. Routers download and run various DLL files in the normal course of business. Attackers found a way to compromise the devices by adding a malicious DLL to an otherwise legitimate package of other DLLs.
Read moreThe team of security researchers—who last month demonstrated how attackers could steal data from air-gapped computers protected inside a Faraday cage—are back with its new research showing how two (or more) air-gapped PCs placed in the same room can covertly exchange data via ultrasonic waves.
Air-gapped computers are believed to be the most secure setup wherein the systems remain isolated from the Internet and local networks, requiring physical access to access data via a USB flash drive or other removable media.
Read moreAs more amplified attacks were expected following the record-breaking 1.35 Tbps Github DDoS attack, someone has just set a new record after only four days — 1.7 Tbps DDoS attack.
Network security and monitoring company Arbor Networks claims that its ATLAS global traffic and DDoS threat data system have recorded a 1.7Tbps reflection/amplification attack against one of its unnamed US-based customer's website. Similar to the last week's DDoS attack on GitHub, the massive bandwidth of the latest attack was amplified by a factor of 51,000 using thousands of misconfigured Memcached servers exposed on the Internet.
Read moreAttackers have generated $3,900 so far in an ongoing campaign that's exploiting the popular rTorrent application to install currency-mining software on computers running Unix-like operating systems, researchers said Thursday.
The misconfiguration vulnerabilities are similar in some respects to ones Google Project Zero researcher Tavis Ormandy reported recently in the uTorrent and Transmission BitTorrent apps. Proof-of-concept attacks Ormandy developed exploited weaknesses in the programs' JSON-RPC interface, which allows websites a user is visiting to initiate downloads and control other key functions.
Read morePurity is so hard to find. Everything is, in some way, tainted, even if you don't see it at first. This painful truth seems to have descended upon one of the purer minds in tech, that of Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.
Speaking on Monday in New Delhi, India, at the Economic Times Global Business Summit, Woz explained that he was fascinated by the purity of cryptocurrency. "Bitcoin to me was a currency that was not manipulated by the governments. It is mathematical. It is pure. It can't be altered," he said. Ah, but it seems it can be stolen. "I had seven bitcoins stolen from me through fraud," he said.
Read moreMicrosoft Word documents can now be used by hackers to deliver a cryptojacking script—hijacking a victim's computer to mine the cryptocurrency Monero. The attack utilizes Word's Online Video feature to commandeer the CPU.
The feature allows a Word user to simply paste the iframe embed code to add an internet video to a Word document. The video will then pop up in the Word document, and can be played the next time a user opens the document. However, an attacker can add the cryptojacking script in with the video code, tricking the victim into performing Monero mining for them.
Read moreGoogle's Project Zero initiative tasks its security researchers with finding flaws in various software products developed by the company itself as well as other firms. Back in 2016, it revealed a serious vulnerability present in Windows 10, and reported a "crazy bad vulnerability" in Windows in 2017.
Now, the firm has disclosed another security flaw in Microsoft Edge, after the Redmond giant failed to fix it in the allotted time. Back in February 2017, Microsoft stated that it would be using Arbitrary Code Guard (ACG) in Microsoft Edge with the Windows 10 Creators Update to mitigate arbitrary native code execution.
Read moreUnder certain conditions, macOS may copy data into the void, leading to data loss of important files, all due to a bug in how the operating system handles APFS sparse disk images. The issue was discovered and reported to Apple this past week by Mike Bombich, the creator of a Mac backup application named Carbon Copy Cloner.
Bombich says the bug affects only "sparse disk images" formatted in Apple's new filesystem format APFS, first deployed macOS High Sierra in March 2017. A "disk image" is a file format that contains the entire contents and structure of a disk volume, such as USB, CD, DVD, hard disk drive, or network share.
Read moreTypically, inbox-based attacks that include malicious Microsoft Office attachments require adversaries to trick users into enabling macros. But researchers say they have identified a new malicious email campaign that uses booby-trapped Office attachments that are macro-free.
The attacks do not generate the same type of default warning from Microsoft associated with macro-based attacks, according to research published Wednesday by Trustwave’s SpiderLabs. When opening attachments, there are no warnings or pop-ups alerting victims, researchers said. The attack uses malicious Word attachments.
Read moreA security flaw in Skype's updater process can allow an attacker to gain system-level privileges to a vulnerable computer. The bug, if exploited, can escalate a local unprivileged user to the full "system" level rights -- granting them access to every corner of the operating system.
But Microsoft, which owns the voice- and video-calling service, said it won't immediately fix the flaw, because the bug would require too much work. Stefan Kanthak found that the Skype update installer could be exploited with a DLL hijacking technique, which allows an attacker to trick an application into drawing malicious code instead of the correct library.
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