Threat actors are increasing their focus on exploiting public-facing applications to achieve initial access, according to Cisco Talos’ Incident Response Trends in Q4 2024 report. The exploitation of public-facing applications was the most common method of gaining initial access in Q4 2024, making up 40% of incidents. The researchers said this marked a “notable shift”
Month: January 2025
Social engineering has long been an effective tactic because of how it focuses on human vulnerabilities. There’s no brute-force ‘spray and pray’ password guessing. No scouring systems for unpatched software. Instead, it simply relies on manipulating emotions such as trust, fear, and respect for authority, usually with the goal of gaining access to sensitive information
Google Play has blocked 2.36 million policy-violating apps from being published and banned 158,000 developer accounts associated with harmful activities in 2024. More than 92% of Google’s human reviews for harmful apps are now AI-assisted, the tech giant said in a new report released on Wednesday. This allows faster and more accurate detection, helping prevent malicious apps from reaching
Jan 30, 2025Ravie LakshmananOnline Fraud / Cybercrime An international law enforcement operation has dismantled the domains associated with various online platforms linked to cybercrime such as Cracked, Nulled, Sellix, and StarkRDP. The effort has targeted the following domains – www.cracked.io www.nulled.to www.mysellix.io www.sellix.io www.starkrdp.io Visitors to these websites are now greeted by a seizure banner
AI-driven API vulnerabilities have skyrocketed by 1205% in the past year. The figures come from the 2025 API ThreatStats Report by Wallarm, which highlights how AI has become the biggest driver of API security threats, with nearly 99% of AI-related vulnerabilities tied to API flaws. The study also found that 57% of AI-powered APIs were accessible externally,
Jan 29, 2025The Hacker NewsThreat Detection / Artificial Intelligence Curious about the buzz around AI in cybersecurity? Wonder if it’s just a shiny new toy in the tech world or a serious game changer? Let’s unpack this together in a not-to-be-missed webinar that goes beyond the hype to explore the real impact of AI on
US energy contractor ENGlobal has revealed that sensitive personal data was stolen after it was hit by a cyber-attack in November 2024. In an updated filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) dated January 27, 2025, the engineering firm said the threat actor gained access to a portion of its IT system that contained
Triaging and investigating alerts is central to security operations. As SOC teams strive to keep up with ever-increasing alert volumes and complexity, modernizing SOC automation strategies with AI has emerged as a critical solution. This blog explores how an AI SOC Analyst transforms alert management, addressing key SOC challenges while enabling faster investigations and responses.
A new report has revealed a surge in the use of so-called “hidden text salting” techniques to evade email security measures in the latter half of 2024. This method, also known as “poisoning,” allows cybercriminals to bypass spam filters, confuse email parsers and evade detection engines by embedding invisible elements in the HTML source code
The Open Web Application Security Project has recently introduced a new Top 10 project – the Non-Human Identity (NHI) Top 10. For years, OWASP has provided security professionals and developers with essential guidance and actionable frameworks through its Top 10 projects, including the widely used API and Web Application security lists. Non-human identity security represents
The FBI has warned that North Korean IT worker schemes are stealing data to extort their victims as part of efforts to generate revenue for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). The US intelligence agency confirmed it has observed North Korean IT workers engaging in this tactic over recent months. This involves exfiltrating stolen
A high-severity security flaw has been disclosed in Meta’s Llama large language model (LLM) framework that, if successfully exploited, could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code on the llama-stack inference server. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-50050, has been assigned a CVSS score of 6.3 out of 10.0. Supply chain security firm Snyk, on the
A new report by Recorded Future has revealed new elements about the sophisticated techniques by which a well-known Russian crypto scamming group operates. The group, Crazy Evil, is a collective of social engineering specialists tasked with redirecting legitimate traffic to malicious landing pages – commonly called a ‘traffer team.’ Since 2021, the group has been
Jan 24, 2025Ravie LakshmananTelecom Security / Vulnerability A group of academics has disclosed details of over 100 security vulnerabilities impacting LTE and 5G implementations that could be exploited by an attacker to disrupt access to service and even gain a foothold into the cellular core network. The 119 vulnerabilities, assigned 97 unique CVE identifiers, span
Amazon’s cloud branch, Amazon Web Services (AWS), is launching a £5m ($6.2m) grant to help strengthen the cybersecurity capabilities of educational institutions across the UK. According to a January 24 announcement, the AWS UK Cyber Education Grant Program aims to enhance security capabilities in UK educational institutions, advance ransomware protection, upskill the IT workforce in
The modern workplace has undergone a seismic transformation over recent years, with hybrid work becoming the norm and businesses rapidly adopting cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications to facilitate it. SaaS applications like Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace have now become the backbone of business operations, enabling seamless collaboration and productivity. However, this dependence on SaaS solutions
Threat actors have been actively exploiting chained vulnerabilities in Ivanti Cloud Service Appliances (CSA), significantly amplifying the impact of their cyber-attacks. The vulnerabilities—CVE-2024-8963, CVE-2024-9379, CVE-2024-8190 and CVE-2024-9380—were leveraged in September 2024 to breach systems, execute remote code (RCE), steal credentials and deploy webshells on victim networks. Exploiting Chained Vulnerabilities According to a joint advisory from
Despite significant investments in advanced technologies and employee training programs, credential and user-based attacks remain alarmingly prevalent, accounting for 50-80% of enterprise breaches[1],[2]. While identity-based attacks continue to dominate as the leading cause of security incidents, the common approach to identity security threats is still threat reduction, implementing layers of controls to reduce risk while
A cyber espionage operation targeting South Korean VPN software was conducted in 2023 by a previously undocumented advanced persistent threat (APT) group, PlushDaemon. According to new research by ESET, the attack involved the compromise of legitimate VPN installer files, embedding a malicious backdoor called SlowStepper alongside the original software. ESET reported that the malware-infected installer
Jan 22, 2025The Hacker NewsRisk Assessment / Browser Security As GenAI tools and SaaS platforms become a staple component in the employee toolkit, the risks associated with data exposure, identity vulnerabilities, and unmonitored browsing behavior have skyrocketed. Forward-thinking security teams are looking for security controls and strategies to address these risks, but they do not
A significant botnet campaign leveraging a new variant of the infamous Mirai malware, dubbed Murdoc_Botnet, has been observed targeting AVTECH cameras and Huawei HG532 routers, exploiting known vulnerabilities to infect devices and establish a vast network for malicious activities. Identified by researchers at Qualys, the Murdoc_Botnet campaign uses exploits such as CVE-2024-7029 and CVE-2017-17215 to
A former analyst working for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) pleaded guilty to transmitting top secret National Defense Information (NDI) to individuals who did not have the necessary authorization to receive it and attempted to cover up the activity. Asif William Rahman, 34, of Vienna, was an employee of the CIA since 2016 and
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has launched an investigation into claims by prominent hacker, IntelBroker, who alleges to have stolen sensitive data from the tech giant. The hacker announced on January 16 on BreachForums that they are selling files purportedly taken from HPE systems. The data allegedly includes source code for products like Zerto and iLO, private
Jan 20, 2025Ravie Lakshmanan As the digital world becomes more complicated, the lines between national security and cybersecurity are starting to fade. Recent cyber sanctions and intelligence moves show a reality where malware and fake news are used as tools in global politics. Every cyberattack now seems to have deeper political consequences. Governments are facing
Russian nation-state group Star Blizzard has been targeting WhatsApp accounts, with the group shifting its focus following a law enforcement takedown of its infrastructure. Microsoft Threat Intelligence observed Star Blizzard undertake a social engineering campaign in mid-November 2024. This new campaign aimed to compromise the WhatsApp accounts of individuals working in government and other policy-related
Jan 19, 2025Ravie LakshmananSocial Media / Data Privacy Popular video-sharing social network TikTok has officially gone dark in the United States, 2025, as a federal ban on the app comes into effect on January 19, 2025. “We regret that a U.S. law banning TikTok will take effect on January 19 and force us to make
Notorious North Korea state-sponsored Lazarus group is targeting software developers in an ongoing campaign, researchers from SecurityScorecard have revealed. The campaign, dubbed ‘Operation 99’, was identified on January 9. It is designed to steal sensitive data from developer environments, including source code, secrets and configuration files and cryptocurrency wallet keys. The researchers said the campaign
The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has imposed sanctions against a Chinese cybersecurity company and a Shanghai-based cyber actor for their alleged links to the Salt Typhoon group and the recent compromise of the federal agency. “People’s Republic of China-linked (PRC) malicious cyber actors continue to target U.S. government systems, including
Latest action by the US Supreme Court has inched social media giant TikTok towards an outright ban in the US unless the platform is sold to a US firm. On January 17, the US Supreme Court rejected a free speech challenge filed by ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, over a bill requiring ByteDance
Recent data breaches have highlighted the critical need to improve guest Wi-Fi infrastructure security in modern business environments. Organizations face increasing pressure to protect their networks while providing convenient access to visitors, contractors, temporary staff, and employees with BYOD. Implementing secure guest Wi-Fi infrastructure has become essential for authenticating access, protecting data, maintaining compliance across