SANS Institute meets fast-growing demand for cyber security training in Latin America Sponsored Post The scale of cybersecurity threats facing Latin America was brought into focus by recently when it published details of NICKEL, a “China-based threat actor”. The malware…
Tag: The Register – Security
Go to security school, GoTo – theft of encryption keys shows you need it
Ongoing investigation into cloud storage attack finds customer data exfiltrated Remote access outfit GoTo has admitted that a threat actor exfiltrated an encryption key that allowed access to “a portion” of encrypted backup files.… This article has been indexed from…
Logfile management is no fun. Now it’s a nightmare thanks to critical-rated VMware flaws
You know the drill: patch before criminals uses these bugs in vRealize to sniff your systems VMware has issued fixes for four vulnerabilities, including two critical 9.8-rated remote code execution bugs, in its vRealize Log Insight software. … This article has…
Apple emits emergency patch for older iPhones after snoops pounce on WebKit hole
Also: Yay for Data Privacy Day! Apple has issued an emergency patch for older kit to fix a WebKit security flaw that Cupertino warns is under active attack.… This article has been indexed from The Register – Security Read the…
Apple issues emergency patch for outdated iPhones after criminals pounce on WebKit
Also: Yay for Data Privacy Day! Apple has issued an emergency patch for older kit to fix a WebKit security flaw that Cupertino warns is under active attack.… This article has been indexed from The Register – Security Read the…
Fujitsu: Quantum computers no threat to encryption just yet
Heavily hyped tech bound for big time by decade end Research conducted by Fujitsu suggests there is no need to panic about quantum computers being able to decode encrypted data – this is unlikely to happen in the near future,…
Microsoft took its macros and went home, so miscreants turned to Windows LNK files
Adapt or die Microsoft’s move last year to block macros by default in Office applications is forcing miscreants to find other tools with which to launch cyberattacks, including the software vendor’s LNK files – the shortcuts Windows uses to point…
US authorities release asylum seekers after leaking their data online
Also: US terrorist no-fly list found left on unsecured server, Russian dark web drug markets go to war In brief Nearly 3,000 immigrants seeking asylum in the United States have been released from custody after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)…
India floats plan to make big tech pay for news, walks back government censorship
PLUS: Taiwan’s new supercomputer; China-linked cybercrims strike; Australian content clampdown; and more Asia In Brief India’s IT minister has signaled he is willing to revisit a proposal to use government fact checkers to decide what is fake news that should…
Ireland’s privacy watchdog fines WhatsApp €5.5 million
You’ve got 6 months to get into compliance, it tells yak-yak app Ireland’s data protection authority has fined WhatsApp Ireland €5.5 million for breaches of the GDPR relating to its service and told it comply with data processing laws within…
Ireland’s data protection watchdog fines WhatsApp €5.5 million
You’ve got 6 months to bring data processing ops into compliance, it tells comms app Ireland’s data protection authority has fined WhatsApp Ireland €5.5 million for breaches of the GDPR relating to its service and told it comply with data…
Miscreants sure do love ransacking cloud networks, more so than before
Thanks for putting all your data in one basket As enterprises around the world continue to move to the cloud, cybercriminals are following right behind them.… This article has been indexed from The Register – Security Read the original article:…
Crims steal data on 40 million T-Mobile US customers
Sixth snafu in five years? Crooks have this useless carrier on speed dial T-Mobile US today said someone abused an API to download the personal information of 37 million subscribers.… This article has been indexed from The Register – Security…
Ransomware severs 1,000 ships from on-shore servers
Get your eyepatch out: Cyber attacks on the high seas are trending A Norwegian maritime risk management business is getting a lesson in that very area, after a ransomware attack forced its ShipManager software offline and left 1,000 ships without…
PayPal says crooks poked around 35,000 accounts in credential stuffing attack
That passwordless option is looking really good right about now The personal information of 35,000 PayPal users was exposed in December, according to a notification letter sent to the online payment company’s customers this week.… This article has been indexed…
PayPal says crooks accessed 35,000 customers’ info in credential stuffing attack
That passwordless option is looking really good right about now The personal information of 35,000 PayPal users was exposed in December, according to a notification letter sent to the online payment company’s customers this week.… This article has been indexed…
PayPal says crooks accessed 34,942 customers’ info in credential stuffing attack
That passwordless option is looking really good right about now The personal information of 35,000 PayPal users was exposed in December, according to a notification letter sent to the online payment company’s customers this week.… This article has been indexed…
Finally, ransomware victims are refusing to pay up
Dosh shelled out in 2022 dropped 40% over 2021, or so it says here The amount of money paid to ransomware attackers dropped significantly in 2022, and not because the number of attacks fell.… This article has been indexed from…
University of Texas latest US school to ban TikTok
Great, now staff and students can stop scrolling and get back to work Faculty and students at the University of Texas at Austin (UT) this week became the latest members of a public US university to lose access to Chinese…
University of Texas becomes latest US school to ban TikTok
Great, now staff and students can stop scrolling and get back to work Faculty and students at the University of Texas at Austin (UT) this week became the latest members of a public US university to lose access to Chinese…
Mailchimp ‘fesses up to second digital burglary in five months
Social engineering helped intruders break into customers’ inboxes again Email marketing service Mailchimp has confirmed intruders have gained access to more than 100 customer accounts after successfully deploying a social engineering attack.… This article has been indexed from The Register…
Ransomware attack severs 1,000 ships from their on-shore servers
Get your eyepatch out: Cyber attacks on the high seas are trending A Norwegian maritime risk management business is getting a lesson in that very area, after a ransomware attack forced its ShipManager software offline and left 1,000 ships without…
Period-tracking apps, search engines on notice by draft law
And no more geofencing around health clinics either A bill proposed by Washingston state lawmakers would make it illegal for period-tracking apps, Google or any other website to sell consumers’ health data while also making it harder for them to…
Thousands of Sophos firewalls still vulnerable out there to hijacking
As hundreds of staff axed this week More than 4,000 public-facing Sophos firewalls remain vulnerable to a critical remote code execution bug disclosed last year and patched months later, according to security researchers.… This article has been indexed from The…
Period-tracking apps and search engines put on notice by draft law
And no more geofencing around health clinics either A bill proposed by Washingston state lawmakers would make it illegal for period-tracking apps, Google or any other website to sell consumers’ health data while also making it harder for them to…
Proposed Washington law puts period-tracking apps and search engines on notice
And no more geofencing around health clinics either A bill proposed by Washingston state lawmakers would make it illegal for period-tracking apps, Google or any other website to sell consumers’ health data while also making it harder for them to…
Been hit by BianLian ransomware? Here’s your get-out-of-jail-free card
Avast issues a free decryptor so victims can get their data back Cybersecurity firm Avast has released a free decryptor for victims of BianLian – an emerging ransomware threat that came into the public eye in last year.… This article…
Nearly 300 MSI motherboards will run any old code in Secure Boot, no questions asked
‘I believe they made this change deliberately’ claims researcher The Secure Boot process on almost 300 different PC motherboard models manufactured by Micro-Star International (MSI) isn’t secure, which is particularly problematic when “Secure” is part of the process description.… This…
Russian criminals can’t wait to hop over OpenAI’s fence, use ChatGPT for evil
Scriptkiddies rush to machine intelligence to make up for lack in skills Cybercriminals are famously fast adopters of new tools for nefarious purposes, and ChatGPT is no different in that regard. … This article has been indexed from The Register –…
Russian criminals can’t wait to hop over OpenAI fence, use ChatGPT for evil
Scriptkiddies rush to machine intelligence to make up for lack in skills Cybercriminals are famously fast adopters of new tools for nefarious purposes, and ChatGPT is no different in that regard. … This article has been indexed from The Register –…
Nearly 300 MSI motherboards will run any code in Secure Boot, no questions asked
‘I believe they made this change deliberately’ claims researcher The Secure Boot process on almost 300 different PC motherboard models manufactured by Micro-Star International (MSI) isn’t secure, which is particularly problematic when “Secure” is part of the process description.… This…
Microsoft locks door to default guest authentication in Windows Pro
Bringing OS version into sync with Enterprise and Education editions Microsoft wants to bulk up the security in Windows Pro editions by ensuring the SMB insecure guest authentication fallbacks are no longer the default setting in the operating system.… This…
Crypto exchanges freeze accounts tied to North Korea’s notorious Lazarus Group
Well whaddya know, the crypto ecosystem did the right thing by stiffing the WannaCry bandits Two cryptocurrency exchanges have frozen accounts identified as having been used by North Korea’s notorious Lazarus Group.… This article has been indexed from The Register…
Tencent fired 100 people for corruption during 2022
A couple have already been jailed, others shown the door for embezzling or arranging sham contracts Chinese web and gaming giant Tencent has admitted it fired more than 100 people in 2022 for various forms of corruption – some so…
For password protection, dump LastPass for open source Bitwarden
After the security breach last summer, staying put is playing with fire Opinion For better or worse, we still need passwords, and to protect and organize them, I recommend the open source Bitwarden password manager.… This article has been indexed…
China aims to grow local infosec industry by 30 percent a year, to $22 billion by 2025
Optimistically suggests international collaboration – including on standards – will help it get there China’s government has declared the nation’s information security industry needs to grow – fast.… This article has been indexed from The Register – Security Read the…
NSA asks Congress to let it get on with that warrantless data harvesting, again
Also: That Pokemon is actually a RAT, Uncle Sam fails a password audit In brief A US intelligence boss has asked Congress to reauthorize a controversial set of powers that give snoops warrantless authorization to surveil electronic communications in the…
Russians say they can grab software from Intel again
And Windows updates from Microsoft, too People in Russia can reportedly once again download drivers and some other software from Intel and Microsoft, which both withdrew from the nation after its invasion of Ukraine.… This article has been indexed from…
Microsoft Defender ASR rules strip icons, app shortcuts from Taskbar, Start Menu
Happy Friday 13th sysadmins! Techies find workarounds but Redmond still ‘investigating’ Techies are reporting that Microsoft Defender for Endpoint attack surface reduction (ASR) rules have gone haywire and are removing icons and applications shortcuts from the Taskbar and Start Menu.……
This can’t be a real bomb threat: You’ve called a modem, not a phone
Security was nonetheless very, very, interested in hearing this comms engineer tell his tale On-Call Welcome once again to On-Call, The Register‘s weekly compendium of tales from readers who were asked to deal with IT oddities and mostly emerged unscathed.……
Time to junk your old Cisco routers again – critical bug won’t be fixed
No in-the-wild exploits (yet), but there is a PoC A critical vulnerability in some end-of-life Cisco routers allowing a remote, unauthenticated attacker to gain root access won’t be fixed, according to the networking giant.… This article has been indexed from…
Microsoft Defender ASR rules strip icons, app shortcuts from Taskbar
Happy Friday 13th sysadmins! Techies find workarounds but Redmond still ‘investigating’ Techies are reporting that Microsoft Defender for Endpoint attack surface reduction (ASR) rules have gone haywire and are removing icons and applications shortcuts from the Taskbar and Start Menu.……
Canadian owes bosses for ‘time theft’ after work-tracking app sinks tribunal bid
She hoped to score thousands but laptop app had other ideas A woman in Canada failed in her claim for wrongful dismissal due to evidence from software designed to track her work time activity.… This article has been indexed from…
Canadian must pay employer for ‘time theft’ based on tracking software data
Code is able to differentiate between work and leisure time, tribunal finds A woman in Canada failed in her claim for wrongful dismissal due to evidence from software designed to track her work time activity.… This article has been indexed…
Microsoft Defender ASR rules remove icons and apps shortcuts from Taskbar
Happy Friday 13th sysadmins! Techies find workarounds but Redmond still ‘investigating’ Techies are reporting that Microsoft Defender for Endpoint attack surface reduction (ASR) rules have gone haywire and are removing icons and applications shortcuts from the Taskbar and Start Menu.……
Long data privacy notices aren’t foolproof, Euro watchdog tells Meta
As Meta reels from €390 million EU fine, the ‘personalized ads’ case might not be over, Max Schrem’s legal group says Lengthy privacy notices included in a social media platform’s terms of service can do little to help it comply…
This can’t be a real bomb threat: you’ve called a modem, not a phone
Security was nonetheless very, very, interested in hearing this comms engineer tell his tale On-Call Welcome once again to On-Call, The Register‘s weekly compendium of tales from readers who were asked to deal with IT oddities and mostly emerged unscathed.……
Euro-cops shut down crypto scam that bilked millions from unwitting punters
If the investment opportunity sounds too good to be true … European cops arrested 15 suspected scammers and shut down a multi-country network of call centers selling fake cryptocurrency that law enforcement said stole upwards of hundreds of million euros…
Microsoft fumbles zero trust upgrade for some Asian customers
Enhanced access privileges for partners choke on double-byte characters, contribute to global delays Microsoft has messed up a zero trust upgrade its service provider partners have been asked to implement for customers.… This article has been indexed from The Register…
Lawyers slam SEC for ‘blatant fishing expedition’ after Exchange mega-attack
Not a ‘whiff of wrongdoing’ here, says attorney now fighting off Uncle Sam The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has sued international law firm Covington & Burling for details about 298 of the biz’s clients whose information was accessed…
Law firm slams SEC for ‘blatant fishing expedition’ stemming from Hafnium attack
No ‘whiff of wrongdoing’ here, says attorney fighting government The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has sued international law firm Covington & Burling for details about 298 of the firm’s clients whose information was accessed by a Chinese state-sponsored…
VALL-E AI can mimic a person’s voice from a three-second snippet
Are you really saying what I’m hearing? Microsoft researchers are working on a text-to-speech (TTS) model that can mimic a person’s voice – complete with emotion and intonation – after a mere three seconds of training.… This article has been…
US think tank says China would probably lose if it tries to invade Taiwan
But even a short conflict would wreck the economy, which would be bad news for semiconductor supplies Three years from now, hypothetically, China launches an amphibious invasion of Taiwan. It does not go well, according to a top Washington think…
Royal Mail, cops probe ‘cyber incident’ that’s knackered international mail
Don’t go postal and call it a cyberattack because nobody knows (yet) what knocked out key system Royal Mail confirmed a “cyber incident” has disrupted its ability to send letters and packages abroad, and also caused some delays on post…
AI-generated phishing emails just got much more convincing
Did a criminally minded robot write this? In part, yes. GPT-3 language models are being abused to do much more than write college essays, according to WithSecure researchers.… This article has been indexed from The Register – Security Read the…
Microsoft fixes Windows database connections it broke in November
January Patch Tuesday update resolves issue caused by Patch Tuesday update late in ’22 Included in the usual tsunami of fixes Microsoft issued this week as part of Patch Tuesday was one that took care of a connectivity problem for…
German cartel watchdog objects to the way Google processes user data
Not transparent, not specific, and too easy to say yes to Google users don’t have enough choice over whether – and to what extent – they agree to “far-reaching processing of their data across services,” Germany’s competition regulator says, adding…
Swiss Army’s Threema messaging app was full of holes – at least seven
At least the penknives are still secure A supposedly secure messaging app preferred by the Swiss government and army was infested with bugs – possibly for a long time – before an audit by ETH Zurich researchers.… This article has…
Health insurer Aflac blames US partner for leak of Japanese cancer policy info
Zurich’s Japanese outpost also leaks a couple of million records Global insurer Aflac’s Japanese branch has revealed that personal data describing more than three million customers of its cancer insurance product has been leaked online.… This article has been indexed…
How to track equipped cars via exploitable e-ink platemaker
Miscreants could have tracked, modified, deleted digital plates California’s street-legal ink license plates only received a nod from the US government in October, but reverse engineers have already discovered vulnerabilities in the system allowing them to track each plate, reprogram…
Privacy on the line: Boffins break VoLTE phone security
Call metadata can be ferreted out Boffins based in China and the UK have devised a telecom network attack that can expose call metadata during VoLTE/VoNR conversations.… This article has been indexed from The Register – Security Read the original…
First Patch Tuesday of the year explodes with in-the-wild exploit fix
Plus: Intel, Adobe, SAP and Android bugs Patch Tuesday Microsoft fixed 98 security flaws in its first Patch Tuesday of 2023 including one that’s already been exploited and another listed as publicly known. Of the new January vulnerabilities, 11 are…
First Patch Tuesday of the year explodes with an in-the-wild exploit
Plus Intel, Adobe, SAP and Android bugs Patch Tuesday Microsoft fixed 98 security flaws in its first Patch Tuesday of 2023 including one that’s already been exploited and another listed as publicly known. Of the new January vulnerabilities, 11 are…
Russian meddling in 2016 US presidential election was weak sauce
Boffins find Twitter foreign influence campaign didn’t have much pull Russian disinformation didn’t materially affect the way people voted in the 2016 US presidential election, according to a research study published on Monday, though that doesn’t make the effect totally…
California e-ink platemaker exploited to track equipped cars
A bit of sloppy JSON let security folk track, modify and delete Reviver’s digital plates California’s street-legal ink license plates only received a nod from the US government in October, but reverse engineers have already discovered vulnerabilities in the system…
Wiretap lawsuit accuses Apple of tracking iPhone users who opted out
This is the company that claims: ‘Privacy. That’s iPhone’ Apple “unlawfully records and uses consumers’ personal information and activity,” claims a new lawsuit accusing the company of tracking iPhone users’ device data even when they’ve asked for it to be…
Pakistan’s government to agencies: Dark web is dangerous, please don’t go there
Advice follows embarrassing leak of audio from Prime Minister’s office Pakistan’s government has warned its agencies that the dark web exists, is home to all sorts of unpleasant people, and should be avoided.… This article has been indexed from The…
Homeland Security, CISA builds AI-based cybersecurity analytics sandbox
High-spec system is crucial to defending against the latest threats Two of the US government’s leading security agencies are building a machine learning-based analytics environment to defend against rapidly evolving threats and create more resilient infrastructures for both government entities…
DHS and CISA building an AI-based cybersecurity analytics sandbox
High-spec system is crucial to defending against the latest threats Two of the US government’s leading security agencies are building a machine learning-based analytics environment to defend against rapidly evolving threats and create more resilient infrastructures for both government entities…
US Supremes deny Pegasus spyware maker’s immunity claim
NSO maintains that it’s all legit The US Supreme Court has quashed spyware maker NSO Group’s argument that it cannot be held legally responsible for using WhatsApp technology to deploy its Pegasus snoop-ware on users’ phones.… This article has been…
Here’s how to remotely take over a Ferrari…account, that is
Connected cars. What could possibly go wrong? Multiple bugs affecting millions of vehicles from almost all major car brands could allow miscreants to perform any manner of mischief — in some cases including full takeovers — by exploiting vulnerabilities in…
No more holidays for US telcos, FCC is cracking down
Also, LastPass faces class action, and Louisiana says that, while the internet may be for porn, ID is still required In Brief The Federal Communications Commission plans to overhaul its security reporting rules for the telecom industry to, among other…
Chinese researchers’ claimed quantum encryption crack looks unlikely
Near-term vulnerability of RSA-2048 keys not so near, says quantum boffin Scott Aaronson Briefly this week, it appeared that quantum computers might finally be ready to break 2048-bit RSA encryption, but that moment has passed.… This article has been indexed…
Here’s how to remotely takeover a Ferrari…account, that is
Connected cars. What could possible go wrong? Multiple bugs affecting millions of vehicles from almost all major car brands could allow miscreants to perform any manner of mischief — in some cases including full takeovers — by exploiting vulnerabilities in…
Freedom for MegaCortex ransomware victims – the fix is out
Criminals hit 1,800 victims across 71 countries to the tune of $100m+ An international law enforcement effort has released a decryptor for victims of MegaCortex ransomware, widely used by cybercriminals to infect large corporations across 71 countries to the tune…
How to prioritize effectively with threat modeling
Crisis? What Crisis! Webinar How does your security team prioritize work? When a new attack from a state actor hits the news, do you know if your team should drop everything to hunt for IOCs? Do you understand your security…
Dridex malware pops back up and turns its attention to macOS
Malware testers spot attempt to attack Macs. But (try not to weep for the bad guys) there are still compatibility issues with MS exe files A variant of the bad penny that is Dridex, the general-purpose malware that has been…
JP Morgan must face suit from Ray-Ban maker after crooks drained $272m from accounts
Don’t masquerade with the guy in shades, oh no A New York federal judge told JP Morgan Chase Bank this week that he would not toss a lawsuit accusing the bank of ignoring red flags when cybercrooks stole $272 million…
Rackspace blames ransomware woes on zero-day attack
Play gang blamed, ProxyNotShell cleared and hosted Exchange doomed Rackspace has confirmed the Play ransomware gang was behind last month’s hacking and said it won’t bring back its hosted Microsoft Exchange email service, as it continues working to recover customers’…
Twitter data dump: 200m+ account database now free to download
No passwords, but planety of stuff for social engineering and doxxing More than 200 million Twitter users’ information is now available for anyone to download for free.… This article has been indexed from The Register – Security Read the original…
Twitter whistleblower Peiter ‘Mudge’ Zatko lands new gig at Rapid7
A long way from password crackers for Windows NT for former L0pht legend Former Twitter security chief and whistleblower Peiter “Mudge” Zatko has landed his first official role since he left the company, a part-time job as “executive in residence”…
Ex-GE engineer gets two years in prison after stealing turbine tech for China
Beijing isn’t the only one spying on work computers, right GE? An ex-General Electric engineer has been sentenced to two years in prison after being convicted of stealing the US giant’s turbine technology for China.… This article has been indexed…
The Guardian ransomware attack hits week two as staff told to work from home
UK data watchdog would like a word over failure to systems Long-standing British broadsheet The Guardian has told staff to continue working from home and notified the UK’s data privacy watchdog about the security breach following a suspected ransomware attack…
Ireland fines Meta $414m for using personal data without asking
Facebook, Insta told to pay up, make changes to data slurping process within 3 months A legal saga between Meta, Ireland and the European Union has reached a conclusion – at least for now – that forces the social media…
PyTorch dependency poisoned with malicious code
System data was exfiltrated during attack, but an anonymous person says it was a research project gone wrong An unknown attacker used the PyPI code repository to get developers to download a compromised PyTorch dependency that included malicious code designed…
LockBit: Sorry about the SickKids ransomware, not sorry about the rest
Blame it on the affiliate Notorious ransomware gang LockBit “formally apologized” for an extortion attack against Canada’s largest children’s hospital that the criminals blamed on a now-blocked affiliate group, and said it published a free decryptor for the victim to…
Google gets off easy in location tracking lawsuits
$29.5 million and we don’t have to admit wrongdoing? Where do we sign? Google has settled two more of the many location tracking lawsuits it had been facing over the past year, and this time the search giant is getting…
‘Multiple security breaches’ shut down trucker protest
10-7, there buddy, sorry An anti-government protest by truckers in Canada has been called off following “multiple security breaches,” according to organizers, who also cited “personal character attacks,” as a reason for the withdrawal.… This article has been indexed from The…
‘Multiple security breaches’ shut down Canadian trucker protest repeat
The Freedom Convoy ‘will remain Officially 10-7 until further notice’ An anti-government protest but truckers in Canada has been called off following “multiple security breaches,” according to organizers, who also cited “personal character attacks,” as a reason for the withdrawal.… This…
Google gets off easy in Indiana, DC location tracking lawsuits
$29.5 million and we don’t have to admit wrongdoing? Where do we sign? Google has settled two more of the many location tracking lawsuits it had been facing over the past year, and this time the search giant is getting…