A never-before-seen China-based targeted intrusion adversary dubbed Aquatic Panda has been observed leveraging critical flaws in the Apache Log4j logging library as an access vector to perform various post-exploitation operations, including reconnaissance and credential harvesting on targeted systems. Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said the infiltration, which was ultimately foiled, was aimed at an unnamed “large academic …
A short-lived phishing campaign has been observed taking advantage of a novel exploit that bypassed a patch put in place by Microsoft to fix a remote code execution vulnerability affecting the MSHTML component with the goal of delivering Formbook malware. “The attachments represent an escalation of the attacker’s abuse of the CVE-2021-40444 bug and demonstrate …
Apple on Monday released updates to iOS, macOS, tvOS, and watchOS with security patches for multiple vulnerabilities, including a remote jailbreak exploit chain as well as a number of critical issues in the Kernel and Safari web browser that were first demonstrated at the Tianfu Cup held in China two months ago. Tracked as CVE-2021-30955, …
Romanian cybersecurity technology company Bitdefender on Monday revealed that attempts are being made to target Windows machines with a novel ransomware family called Khonsari as well as a remote access Trojan named Orcus by exploiting the recently disclosed critical Log4j vulnerability. The attack leverages the remote code execution flaw to download an additional payload, a …
Attackers are actively making efforts to exploit a new variant of a recently disclosed privilege escalation vulnerability to potentially execute arbitrary code on fully-patched systems, once again demonstrating how adversaries move quickly to weaponize a publicly available exploit. Cisco Talos disclosed that it “detected malware samples in the wild that are attempting to take advantage …
Cybersecurity researchers have demonstrated yet another variation of the Rowhammer attack affecting all DRAM (dynamic random-access memory) chips that bypasses currently deployed mitigations, thereby effectively compromising the security of the devices. The new technique — dubbed “Blacksmith” (CVE-2021-42114, CVSS score: 9.0) — is designed to trigger bit flips on target refresh rate-enabled DRAM chips with …
Google researchers on Thursday disclosed that it found a watering hole attack in late August exploiting a now-parched zero-day in macOS operating system and targeting Hong Kong websites related to a media outlet and a prominent pro-democracy labor and political group to deliver a never-before-seen backdoor on compromised machines. “Based on our findings, we believe …
At least nine entities across the technology, defense, healthcare, energy, and education industries were compromised by leveraging a recently patched critical vulnerability in Zoho’s ManageEngine ADSelfService Plus self-service password management and single sign-on (SSO) solution. The spying campaign, which was observed starting September 22, 2021, involved the threat actor taking advantage of the flaw to …
Cisco has patched a critical security vulnerability impacting its Enterprise Network Function Virtualization Infrastructure Software (NFVIS) that could be exploited by an attacker to take control of an affected system. Tracked as CVE-2021-34746, the weakness has been rated 9.8 out of a maximum of 10 on the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) and could allow …
A previously undisclosed “zero-click” exploit in Apple’s iMessage was abused by Israeli surveillance vendor NSO Group to circumvent iOS security protections and target nine Bahraini activists. “The hacked activists included three members of Waad (a secular Bahraini political society), three members of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, two exiled Bahraini dissidents, and one member …