The Hacker News

"The emerging role of AI in open-source intelligence."

Views expressed in this cybersecurity, cyber crime update are those of the reporters and correspondents.  Accessed on 03 July 2024, 1254 UTC.

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Russ Roberts (https://www.hawaiicybersecurityjournal.net).

The Emerging Role of AI in Open-Source Intelligence

Jul 03, 2024 OSINT / Artificial Intelligence

Recently the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) unveiled a new strategy for open-source intelligence (OSINT) and referred to OSINT as the "INT of first resort". Public and private sector organizations are realizing the value that the discipline can provide but are also finding that the exponential growth of digital data in recent years has overwhelmed many traditional OSINT methods. Thankfully, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are starting to provide a transformative impact on the future of information gathering and analysis.  What is Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT)? Open-Source Intelligence refers to the collection and analysis of information from publicly available sources. These sources can include traditional media, social media platforms, academic publications, government reports, and any other data that is openly accessible. The key characteristic of OSINT is that it does not involve covert or clandestine methods of information gather

IDC Spotlight: Creating a Cohesive Disaster Recovery and Cyber Recovery Strategy

Zerto.comData Security / Disaster Recovery

Learn why IDC recommends an integrated approach Cyber Recovery strategies in 2024/2025.

Microsoft MSHTML Flaw Exploited to Deliver MerkSpy Spyware Tool

Jul 03, 2024 Spyware / Vulnerability

Unknown threat actors have been observed exploiting a now-patched security flaw in Microsoft MSHTML to deliver a surveillance tool called MerkSpy as part of a campaign primarily targeting users in Canada, India, Poland, and the U.S. "MerkSpy is designed to clandestinely monitor user activities, capture sensitive information, and establish persistence on compromised systems," Fortinet FortiGuard Labs researcher Cara Lin said in a report published last week. The starting point of the attack chain is a Microsoft Word document that ostensibly contains a job description for a software engineer role. But opening the file triggers the exploitation of CVE-2021-40444 , a high-severity flaw in MSHTML that could result in remote code execution without requiring any user interaction. It was addressed by Microsoft as part of Patch Tuesday updates released in September 2021. In this case, it paves the way for the download of an HTML file ("olerender.html") from a remote s

FakeBat Loader Malware Spreads Widely Through Drive-by Download Attacks

Jul 03, 2024 Malware / SEO Poisoning

The loader-as-a-service (LaaS) known as FakeBat has become one of the most widespread loader malware families distributed using the drive-by download technique this year, findings from Sekoia reveal. "FakeBat primarily aims to download and execute the next-stage payload, such as IcedID , Lumma , RedLine , SmokeLoader , SectopRAT , and Ursnif ," the company said in a Tuesday analysis. Drive-by attacks entail the use of methods like search engine optimization (SEO) poisoning, malvertising, and nefarious code injections into compromised sites to entice users into downloading bogus software installers or browser updates. The use of malware loaders over the past few years dovetails with the growing use of landing pages impersonating legitimate software websites by passing them off as legitimate installers. This ties into the larger aspect that phishing and social engineering remain one of the threat actors' main ways to acquire initial access. FakeBat , also known as Eu

Israeli Entities Targeted by Cyberattack Using Donut and Sliver Frameworks

Jul 03, 2024 Cyber Attack / Malware

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered an attack campaign that targets various Israeli entities with publicly-available frameworks like Donut and Sliver. The campaign, believed to be highly targeted in nature, "leverage target-specific infrastructure and custom WordPress websites as a payload delivery mechanism, but affect a variety of entities across unrelated verticals, and rely on well-known open-source malware," HarfangLab said in a report last week. The French company is tracking the activity under the name Supposed Grasshopper. It's a reference to an attacker-controlled server ("auth.economy-gov-il[.]com/SUPPOSED_GRASSHOPPER.bin"), to which a first-stage downloader connects to. This downloader, written in Nim, is rudimentary and is tasked with downloading the second-stage malware from the staging server. It's delivered by means of a virtual hard disk (VHD) file that's suspected to be propagated via custom WordPress sites as part of a drive-

South Korean ERP Vendor's Server Hacked to Spread Xctdoor Malware

Jul 03, 2024 Malware / Threat Intelligence

An unnamed South Korean enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendor's product update server has been found to be compromised to deliver a Go-based backdoor dubbed Xctdoor. The AhnLab Security Intelligence Center (ASEC), which identified the attack in May 2024, did not attribute it to a known threat actor or group, but noted that the tactics overlap with that of Andariel , a sub-cluster within the infamous Lazarus Group. The similarities stem from the North Korean adversary's prior use of the ERP solution to distribute malware like HotCroissant – which is identical to Rifdoor – in 2017 by inserting a malicious routine into a software update program. In the recent incident analyzed by ASEC, the same executable is said to have been tampered with to execute a DLL file from a specific path using the regsvr32.exe process as opposed to launching a downloader. The DLL file, Xctdoor, is capable of stealing system information, including keystrokes, screenshots, and clipboard conte

How MFA Failures are Fueling a 500% Surge in Ransomware Losses

Jul 02, 2024 Multi-Factor Authentication

The cybersecurity threat landscape has witnessed a dramatic and alarming rise in the average ransomware payment, an increase exceeding 500%. Sophos, a global leader in cybersecurity, revealed in its annual "State of Ransomware 2024" report that the average ransom payment has increased 500% in the last year with organizations that paid a ransom reporting an average payment of $2 million, up from $400,000 in 2023. Separately, RISK & INSURANCE, a leading media source for the insurance industry reported recently that in 2023 the median ransom demand soared to $20 million in 2023 from $1.4 million in 2022, and payment skyrocketed to $6.5 million in 2023 from $335,000 in 2022, much more than 500%. This shocking surge is a testament to the increasing sophistication of cyberattacks and the significant vulnerabilities inherent in outdated security methods. The most significant factor contributing to this trend is a broad reliance on twenty-year-old, legacy Multi-Factor Authentic

New Intel CPU Vulnerability 'Indirector' Exposes Sensitive Data

Jul 02, 2024 Hardware Security / Vulnerability

Modern CPUs from Intel, including Raptor Lake and Alder Lake, have been found vulnerable to a new side-channel attack that could be exploited to leak sensitive information from the processors. The attack, codenamed Indirector by security researchers Luyi Li, Hosein Yavarzadeh, and Dean Tullsen, leverages shortcomings identified in Indirect Branch Predictor (IBP) and the Branch Target Buffer (BTB) to bypass existing defenses and compromise the security of the CPUs. "The Indirect Branch Predictor (IBP) is a hardware component in modern CPUs that predicts the target addresses of indirect branches," the researchers noted . "Indirect branches are control flow instructions whose target address is computed at runtime, making them challenging to predict accurately. The IBP uses a combination of global history and branch address to predict the target address of indirect branches." The idea, at its core, is to identify vulnerabilities in IBP to launch precise Branch T

The Secrets of Hidden AI Training on Your Data

Jun 27, 2024Artificial Intelligence / SaaS Security

While some SaaS threats are clear and visible, others are hidden in plain sight, both posing significant risks to your organization. Wing's research indicates that an astounding 99.7% of organizations utilize applications embedded with AI functionalities. These AI-driven tools are indispensable, providing seamless experiences from collaboration and communication to work management and decision-making. However, beneath these conveniences lies a largely unrecognized risk: the potential for AI capabilities in these SaaS tools to compromise sensitive business data and intellectual property (IP). Wing's recent findings reveal a surprising statistic: 70% of the top 10 most commonly used AI applications may use your data for training their models. This practice can go beyond mere data learning and storage. It can involve retraining on your data, having human reviewers analyze it, and even sharing it with third parties. Often, these threats are buried deep in the fine print of Term

Meta's 'Pay or Consent' Approach Faces E.U. Competition Rules Scrutiny

Jul 02, 2024 Digital Regulation / Tech News

Meta's decision to offer an ad-free subscription in the European Union (E.U.) has faced a new setback after regulators accused the social media behemoth of breaching the bloc's competition rules by forcing users to choose between seeing ads or paying to avoid them. The European Commission said the company's "pay or consent" advertising model is in contravention of the Digital Markets Act ( DMA ). "This binary choice forces users to consent to the combination of their personal data and fails to provide them a less personalized but equivalent version of Meta's social networks," the Commission said . It also noted that companies in gatekeeper roles must seek users' permission to combine their personal data between designated core platform services and other services (e.g., advertising), and that users who refuse to opt in should have access to a less personalized but equivalent alternative. On top of that, Meta's approach does not allow us

Chinese Hackers Exploiting Cisco Switches Zero-Day to Deliver Malware

Jul 02, 2024 Cyber Espionage / Vulnerability

A China-nexus cyber espionage group named Velvet Ant has been observed exploiting a zero-day flaw in Cisco NX-OS Software used in its switches to deliver malware. The vulnerability , tracked as CVE-2024-20399 (CVSS score: 6.0), concerns a case of command injection that allows an authenticated, local attacker to execute arbitrary commands as root on the underlying operating system of an affected device. "By exploiting this vulnerability, Velvet Ant successfully executed a previously unknown custom malware that allowed the threat group to remotely connect to compromised Cisco Nexus devices, upload additional files, and execute code on the devices," cybersecurity firm Sygnia said in a statement shared with The Hacker News. Cisco said the issue stems from insufficient validation of arguments that are passed to specific configuration CLI commands, which could be exploited by an adversary by including crafted input as the argument of an affected configuration CLI command. W