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The cryptojacking group known as  Kinsing  has demonstrated its ability to continuously evolve and adapt, proving to be a persistent threat by swiftly integrating newly disclosed vulnerabilities to exploit arsenal and expand its botnet. The  findings  come from cloud security firm Aqua, which described the threat actor as actively orchestrating illicit cryptocurrency mining campaigns since 2019. Kinsing (aka  H2Miner ), a name given to both the malware and the adversary behind it, has consistently expanded its toolkit with new exploits to enroll infected systems in a crypto-mining botnet. It was  first documented  by TrustedSec in January 2020. In recent years, campaigns involving the Golang-based malware have weaponized  various flaws  in  Apache ActiveMQ ,  Apache Log4j ,  Apache NiFi ,  Atlassian Confluence ,  Citrix ,  Liferay Portal ,  Linux ,  Openfire ,  Oracle WebLogic Server , and  SaltStack  to breach vulnerable systems. Other methods have also involved exploited miscon

A new report from XM Cyber has found – among other insights - a  dramatic  gap between where most organizations focus their security efforts, and where the most serious threats actually reside. The new report, Navigating the Paths of Risk: The State of Exposure Management in 2024, is based on hundreds of thousands of attack path assessments conducted by the  XM Cyber platform  during 2023. These assessments uncovered over 40 million exposures that affected millions of business-critical assets. Anonymized data regarding these exposures was then provided to the Cyentia Institute for independent analysis. To read the full report,  check it out here . Download the report to discover: Key findings on the types of exposures putting organizations at greatest risk of breach. The state of attack paths between on-prem and cloud networks. Top attack techniques seen in 2023. How to focus on what matters most, and remediate high-impact exposure risks to your critical assets. The

Cybersecurity researchers have shed more light on a remote access trojan (RAT) known as Deuterbear used by the China-linked  BlackTech  hacking group as part of a cyber espionage campaign targeting the Asia-Pacific region this year. "Deuterbear, while similar to Waterbear in many ways, shows advancements in capabilities such as including support for shellcode plugins, avoiding handshakes for RAT operation, and using HTTPS for C&C communication," Trend Micro researchers Pierre Lee and Cyris Tseng  said  in a new analysis. "Comparing the two malware variants, Deuterbear uses a shellcode format, possesses anti-memory scanning, and shares a traffic key with its downloader unlike Waterbear." BlackTech , active since at least 2007, is also tracked by the broader cybersecurity community under the monikers Circuit Panda, Earth Hundun, HUAPI, Manga Taurus, Palmerworm, Red Djinn, and Temp.Overboard. Cyber attacks orchestrated by the group have long involved the deplo

The  Kimsuky  (aka Springtail) advanced persistent threat (APT) group, which is linked to North Korea's Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB), has been observed deploying a Linux version of its GoBear backdoor as part of a campaign targeting South Korean organizations. The backdoor, codenamed  Gomir , is "structurally almost identical to GoBear, with extensive sharing of code between malware variants," the Symantec Threat Hunter Team, part of Broadcom,  said  in a new report. "Any functionality from GoBear that is operating system-dependent is either missing or reimplemented in Gomir." GoBear was  first documented  by South Korean security firm S2W in early February 2024 in connection with a campaign that delivered a malware called Troll Stealer (aka TrollAgent), which overlaps with known Kimsuky malware families like AppleSeed and AlphaSeed. A subsequent analysis by the AhnLab Security Intelligence Center (ASEC) revealed that the malware is distributed via t

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Thursday  added  two security flaws impacting D-Link routers to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities ( KEV ) catalog, based on evidence of active exploitation. The list of vulnerabilities is as follows - CVE-2014-100005  - A cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability impacting D-Link DIR-600 routers that allows an attacker to change router configurations by hijacking an existing administrator session CVE-2021-40655  - An information disclosure vulnerability impacting D-Link DIR-605 routers that allows attackers to obtain a username and password by forging an HTTP POST request to the /getcfg.php page There are currently no details on how these shortcomings are exploited in the wild, but federal agencies have been urged to apply vendor-provided mitigations by June 6, 2024. It's worth noting that CVE-2014-100005 affects legacy D-Link products that have reached end-of-life (EoL) status, necessitating tha

Researchers have discovered a new security vulnerability stemming from a design flaw in the IEEE 802.11 Wi-Fi standard that tricks victims into connecting to a less secure wireless network and eavesdrop on their network traffic. The  SSID Confusion attack , tracked as CVE-2023-52424, impacts all operating systems and Wi-Fi clients, including home and mesh networks that are based on WEP, WPA3, 802.11X/EAP, and AMPE protocols. The method "involves downgrading victims to a less secure network by spoofing a trusted network name (SSID) so they can intercept their traffic or carry out further attacks," Top10VPN  said , which collaborated with KU Leuven professor and researcher Mathy Vanhoef. "A successful SSID Confusion attack also causes any VPN with the functionality to auto-disable on trusted networks to turn itself off, leaving the victim's traffic exposed." The issue underpinning the attack is the fact that the Wi-Fi standard does not require the network na

The North Korea-linked  Kimsuky hacking group  has been attributed to a new social engineering attack that employs fictitious Facebook accounts to targets via Messenger and ultimately delivers malware. "The threat actor created a Facebook account with a fake identity disguised as a public official working in the North Korean human rights field," South Korean cybersecurity company Genians  said  in a report published last week. The multi-stage attack campaign, which impersonates a legitimate individual, is designed to target activists in the North Korean human rights and anti-North Korea sectors, it noted. The approach is a departure from the typical email-based spear-phishing strategy in that it leverages the social media platform to approach targets through Facebook Messenger and trick them into opening seemingly private documents written by the persona. The decoy documents, hosted on OneDrive, is a Microsoft Common Console document that masquerades as an essay or cont

Permissions in SaaS platforms like Salesforce, Workday, and Microsoft 365 are remarkably precise. They spell out exactly which users have access to which data sets. The terminology differs between apps, but each user's base permission is determined by their role, while additional permissions may be granted based on tasks or projects they are involved with. Layered on top of that are custom permissions required by an individual user.  For example, look at a sales rep who is involved in a tiger team investigating churn while also training two new employees. The sales rep's role would grant her one set of permissions to access prospect data, while the tiger team project would grant access to existing customer data. Meanwhile, special permissions are set up, providing the sales rep with visibility into the accounts of the two new employees. While these permissions are precise, however, they are also very complex. Application admins don't have a single screen within these applications th

Security researchers have disclosed almost a dozen security flaws impacting the GE HealthCare Vivid Ultrasound product family that could be exploited by malicious actors to tamper with patient data and even install ransomware under certain circumstances. "The impacts enabled by these flaws are manifold: from the implant of ransomware on the ultrasound machine to the access and manipulation of patient data stored on the vulnerable devices," operational technology (OT) security vendor Nozomi Networks  said  in a technical report. The security issues impact the Vivid T9 ultrasound system and its pre-installed Common Service Desktop web application, which is exposed on the localhost interface of the device and allows users to perform administrative actions. They also affect another software program called EchoPAC that's installed on a doctor's Windows workstation to help them access multi-dimensional echo, vascular, and abdominal ultrasound images. That being said, s

The Microsoft Threat Intelligence team said it has observed a threat actor it tracks under the name  Storm-1811  abusing the client management tool Quick Assist to target users in social engineering attacks. "Storm-1811 is a financially motivated cybercriminal group known to deploy  Black Basta  ransomware," the company  said  in a report published on May 15, 2024. The attack chain involves the use of impersonation through voice phishing to trick unsuspecting victims into installing remote monitoring and management (RMM) tools, followed by the delivery of  QakBot , Cobalt Strike, and ultimately Black Basta ransomware. "Threat actors misuse Quick Assist features to perform social engineering attacks by pretending, for example, to be a trusted contact like Microsoft technical support or an IT professional from the target user's company to gain initial access to a target device," the tech giant said. Quick Assist is a  legitimate application  from Microsoft t

Google has rolled out fixes to address a set of nine security issues in its Chrome browser, including a new zero-day that has been exploited in the wild. Assigned the CVE identifier  CVE-2024-4947 , the vulnerability relates to a type confusion bug in the V8 JavaScript and WebAssembly engine. It was reported by Kaspersky researchers Vasily Berdnikov and Boris Larin on May 13, 2024. Type confusion vulnerabilities  arise when a program attempts to access a resource with an incompatible type. It can have  serious impacts  as it allows threat actors to perform out-of-bounds memory access, cause a crash, and execute arbitrary code. The development marks the third zero-day that Google has patched within a week after  CVE-2024-4671  and  CVE-2024-4761 . As is typically the case, no additional details about the attacks are available and have been withheld to prevent further exploitation. "Google is aware that an exploit for CVE-2024-4947 exists in the wild," the company  said .