The Hacker News

"New phishing attacks adapt quickly to capitalize on current events."

Views expressed in this cybersecurity, cyber crime update are those of the reporters and correspondents.  Accessed on 12 August 2024, 1405 UTC.

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Russ Roberts (https://www.hawaiicybersecurityjournal.net).

How Phishing Attacks Adapt Quickly to Capitalize on Current Events

Aug 12, 2024 AI in Cybersecurity / Fraud Prevention

In 2023, no fewer than 94 percent of businesses were impacted by phishing attacks, a 40 percent increase compared to the previous year, according to research from Egress . What's behind the surge in phishing? One popular answer is AI – particularly generative AI, which has made it trivially easier for threat actors to craft content that they can use in phishing campaigns, like malicious emails and, in more sophisticated cases, deepfake videos . In addition, AI can help write the malware that threat actors often plant on their victims' computers and servers as part of phishing campaigns. Phishing as a Service , or PhaaS, is another development sometimes cited to explain why phishing threats are at an all-time high. By allowing malicious parties to hire skilled attackers to carry out phishing campaigns for them, PhaaS makes it easy for anyone with a grudge – or a desire to exfiltrate some money from unsuspecting victims – to launch phishing attacks. Phishing has become agil

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SANS InstituteArtificial Intelligence / Network Security

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Researchers Uncover Vulnerabilities in Solarman and Deye Solar Systems

Aug 12, 2024 Critical Infrastructure / Vulnerability

Cybersecurity researchers have identified a number of security shortcomings in photovoltaic system management platforms operated by Chinese companies Solarman and Deye that could enable malicious actors to cause disruption and power blackouts. "If exploited, these vulnerabilities could allow an attacker to control inverter settings that could take parts of the grid down, potentially causing blackouts," Bitdefender researchers said in an analysis published last week. The vulnerabilities have been addressed by Solarman and Deye as of July 2024, following responsible disclosure on May 22, 2024. The Romanian cybersecurity vendor, which analyzed the two PV monitoring and management platforms, said they suffer from a number of issues that, among others, could result in account takeover and information disclosure. A brief description of the issues is listed below - Full Account Takeover via Authorization Token Manipulation Using the /oauth2-s/oauth/token API endpoint  Deye

The AI Hangover is Here – The End of the Beginning

Aug 12, 2024 AI Technology / Machine Learning

After a good year of sustained exuberance, the hangover is finally here. It's a gentle one (for now), as the market corrects the share price of the major players (like Nvidia, Microsoft, and Google), while other players reassess the market and adjust priorities. Gartner calls it the trough of disillusionment , when interest wanes and implementations fail to deliver the promised breakthroughs. Producers of the technology shake out or fail. Investment continues only if the surviving providers improve their products to the satisfaction of early adopters.  Let's be clear, this was always going to be the case: the post-human revolution promised by the AI cheerleaders was never a realistic goal, and the incredible excitement triggered by the early LLMs was not based on market success.  AI is here to stay  What's next for AI then? Well, if it follows the Gartner hype cycle, the deep crash is followed by the slope of enlightenment where the maturing technology regains its footing, benefits

FreeBSD Releases Urgent Patch for High-Severity OpenSSH Vulnerability

Aug 12, 2024 Cybersecurity / Network Security

The maintainers of the FreeBSD Project have released security updates to address a high-severity flaw in OpenSSH that attackers could potentially exploit to execute arbitrary code remotely with elevated privileges. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-7589 , carries a CVSS score of 7.4 out of a maximum of 10.0, indicating high severity. "A signal handler in sshd(8) may call a logging function that is not async-signal-safe," according to an advisory released last week. "The signal handler is invoked when a client does not authenticate within the LoginGraceTime seconds (120 by default). This signal handler executes in the context of the sshd(8)'s privileged code, which is not sandboxed and runs with full root privileges." OpenSSH is an implementation of the secure shell (SSH) protocol suite, providing encrypted and authenticated transport for a variety of services, including remote shell access. CVE-2024-7589 has been described as an "another instan

Industrial Remote Access Tool Ewon Cosy+ Vulnerable to Root Access Attacks

Aug 12, 2024 Operational Technology / Network Security

Security vulnerabilities have been disclosed in the industrial remote access solution Ewon Cosy+ that could be abused to gain root privileges to the devices and stage follow-on attacks. The elevated access could then be weaponized to decrypt encrypted firmware files and encrypted data such as passwords in configuration files, and even get correctly signed X.509 VPN certificates for foreign devices to take over their VPN sessions. "This allows attackers hijacking VPN sessions which results in significant security risks against users of the Cosy+ and the adjacent industrial infrastructure," SySS GmbH security researcher Moritz Abrell said in a new analysis. The findings were presented at the DEF CON 32 conference over the weekend. Ewon Cosy+'s architecture involves the use of a VPN connection that's routed to a vendor-managed platform called Talk2m via OpenVPN. Technicians can remotely connect to the industrial gateway by means of a VPN relay that occurs through

EastWind Attack Deploys PlugY and GrewApacha Backdoors Using Booby-Trapped LNK Files

Aug 12, 2024 Cloud Security / Malware

The Russian government and IT organizations are the target of a new campaign that delivers a number of backdoors and trojans as part of a spear-phishing campaign codenamed EastWind . The attack chains are characterized by the use of RAR archive attachments containing a Windows shortcut (LNK) file that, upon opening, activates the infection sequence, culminating in the deployment of malware such as GrewApacha, an updated version of the CloudSorcerer backdoor, and a previously undocumented implant dubbed PlugY. PlugY is "downloaded through the CloudSorcerer backdoor, has an extensive set of commands and supports three different protocols for communicating with the command-and-control server," Russian cybersecurity company Kaspersky said . The initial infection vector relies on a booby-trapped LNK file, which employs DLL side-loading techniques to launch a malicious DLL file that uses Dropbox as a communications mechanism to execute reconnaissance commands and download add

The Loper Bright Decision: How it Impacts Cybersecurity Law

Aug 05, 2024Cybersecurity Law / Data Privacy

The Loper Bright decision has yielded impactful results: the Supreme Court has overturned forty years of administrative law, leading to potential litigation over the interpretation of ambiguous laws previously decided by federal agencies. This article explores key questions for cybersecurity professionals and leaders as we enter a more contentious period of cybersecurity law. Background What is the Loper Bright Decision? The Loper Bright decision by the U.S. Supreme Court overruled the Chevron deference , stating that courts, not agencies, will decide all relevant questions of law arising on review of agency action. The Court held that because the Administrative Procedure Act (APA)'s text is clear, agency interpretations of statutes are not entitled to deference. The ruling emphasized that courts must exercise independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority. This decision shifts the power of statutory interpretation from federal agencies

Rogue PyPI Library Solana Users, Steals Blockchain Wallet Keys

Aug 11, 2024 Supply Chain / Software Security

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new malicious package on the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository that masquerades as a library from the Solana blockchain platform but is actually designed to steal victims' secrets. "The legitimate Solana Python API project is known as 'solana-py' on GitHub, but simply ' solana ' on the Python software registry, PyPI," Sonatype researcher Ax Sharma said in a report published last week. "This slight naming discrepancy has been leveraged by a threat actor who published a 'solana-py' project on PyPI." The malicious "solana-py" package attracted a total of 1,122 downloads since it was published on August 4, 2024. It's no longer available for download from PyPI. The most striking aspect of the library is that it carried the version numbers 0.34.3, 0.34.4, and 0.34.5. The latest version of the legitimate "solana" package is 0.34.3. This clearly indicates an attempt o

Researchers Uncover 10 Flaws in Google's File Transfer Tool Quick Share

Aug 10, 2024 Vulnerability / Mobile Security

As many as 10 security flaws have been uncovered in Google's Quick Share data transfer utility for Android and Windows that could be assembled to trigger remote code execution (RCE) chain on systems that have the software installed. "The Quick Share application implements its own specific application-layer communication protocol to support file transfers between nearby, compatible devices," SafeBreach Labs researchers Or Yair and Shmuel Cohen said in a technical report shared with The Hacker News. "By investigating how the protocol works, we were able to fuzz and identify logic within the Quick Share application for Windows that we could manipulate or bypass." The result is the discovery of 10 vulnerabilities – nine affecting Quick Share for Windows and one impacting Android – that could be fashioned into an "innovative and unconventional" RCE attack chain to run arbitrary code on Windows hosts. The RCE attack chain has been codenamed QuickShell

New Malware Hits 300,000 Users with Rogue Chrome and Edge Extensions

Aug 10, 2024 Browser Security / Online Fraud

An ongoing, widespread malware campaign has been observed installing rogue Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge extensions via a trojan distributed via fake websites masquerading as popular software. "The trojan malware contains different deliverables ranging from simple adware extensions that hijack searches to more sophisticated malicious scripts that deliver local extensions to steal private data and execute various commands," the ReasonLabs research team said in an analysis. "This trojan malware, existing since 2021, originates from imitations of download websites with add-ons to online games and videos." The malware and the extensions have a combined reach of at least 300,000 users of Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge, indicating that the activity has a broad impact. At the heart of the campaign is the use of malvertising to push lookalike websites promoting known software like Roblox FPS Unlocker, YouTube, VLC media player, Steam, or KeePass to trick users s