Security

Security vulnerabilities are unfortunately extremely common in smartphones, given the complexity and varying codebases of most devices. That's why Google has been releasing monthly security patches for years, and if you needed another reason for why those updates are so important, the March 2020 release fixes a critical flaw on many MediaTek devices.

John Strand breaks into things for a living. As a penetration tester, he gets hired by organizations to attack their defenses, helping reveal weaknesses before actual bad guys find them. Normally, Strand embarks on these missions himself or deploys one of his experienced colleagues at Black Hills Information Security. But in July 2014, prepping for a pen test of a South Dakota correctional facility, he took a decidedly different tack. He sent his mom.

Malware developers are always trying to outdo each other with creations that are stealthier and more advanced than their competitors’. At the RSA Security conference this week, a former hacker for the National Security Agency demonstrated an approach that’s often more effective: stealing and then repurposing a rival’s code.

L33tdawg: Don't forget, Jim Geovedi did it first

The FBI and Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) have released new information on North Korean malware in the form of six new and updated Malware Analysis Reports (MARs).

The US agencies released these MARs in order to provide organizations with detailed malware analysis information which was acquired by manually reverse engineering malware samples. At the same time, the reports were also issued to help network defenders detect and reduce exposure to malicious activity by the North Korean government which the US government refers to as HIDDEN COBRA.

No, the OurMine group isn't done defacing high-profile sites. Twitter has confirmed reports that OurMine hijacked accounts for both the Olympics and FC Barcelona on February 15th, using the opportunity to make a less-than-sincere offer to "improve your [account's] security" and, in the case of FC Barcelona, echo a rumor that star player Neymar would come back to the soccer team. Twitter said in a statement that OurMine had used a "third-party platform" to take control of the accounts, although it didn't name the platform or explain the group's methods.

Almost 6,000 Citrix NetScaler servers remain unpatched against critical security flaw CVE-2019-19781 almost one month after Citrix belatedly released fixes.

A total of 5,915 systems worldwide remain unsecured, with 40 per cent of the total - 2,660 - located in the US. In the UK, the number stands at 388, down from 470 identified at the end of January.

In nine out of ten cases, website visitors could fall victim to hackers. This is according to a new report from Positive Technologies, which also suggests 16 percent of applications contain serious vulnerabilities.

Not only could these vulnerabilities allow hackers to gain full control of a system but also, in certain cases, full control of the web application server. Having accessed the web server, attackers could introduce malware or even deface a website completely.

WordPress site owners who use commercial themes provided by ThemeGrill are advised to update one of the plugins that come installed with these themes in order to patch a critical bug that can let attackers wipe their sites.

The vulnerability resides in ThemeGrill Demo Importer, a plugin that ships with themes sold by ThemeGrill, a web development company that sells commercial WordPress themes.

Researchers at cyber security firm ClearSky claim to have uncovered an Iranian hacking campaign intended to gain a  persistent foothold on the networks of major companies worldwide.

The campaign, dubbed Fox Kitten, was first noticed in the fourth quarter of 2019, although it represents the continuation of attacks that have been running for the past three years, targeting dozens of companies in Israel and around the world.