The Hackers News

OpenAI on Friday said it banned a set of accounts linked to what it said was an Iranian covert influence operation that leveraged ChatGPT to generate content that, among other things, focused on the upcoming U.S. presidential election. "This week we identified and took down a cluster of ChatGPT accounts that were generating content for a covert Iranian influence operation identified as

A large-scale extortion campaign has compromised various organizations by taking advantage of publicly accessible environment variable files (.env) that contain credentials associated with cloud and social media applications. "Multiple security missteps were present in the course of this campaign, including the following: Exposing environment variables, using long-lived credentials, and absence

A 27-year-old Russian national has been sentenced to over three years in prison in the U.S. for peddling financial information, login credentials, and other personally identifying information (PII) on a now-defunct dark web marketplace called Slilpp. Georgy Kavzharadze, 27, of Moscow, Russia, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and wire fraud earlier this February. In

Cybersecurity researchers have shed light on a sophisticated information stealer campaign that impersonates legitimate brands to distribute malware like DanaBot and StealC. The activity cluster, orchestrated by Russian-speaking cybercriminals and collectively codenamed Tusk, is said to encompass several sub-campaigns, leveraging the reputation of the platforms to trick users into downloading the

Chinese-speaking users are the target of an ongoing campaign that distributes a malware known as ValleyRAT. "ValleyRAT is a multi-stage malware that utilizes diverse techniques to monitor and control its victims and deploy arbitrary plugins to cause further damage," Fortinet FortiGuard Labs researchers Eduardo Altares and Joie Salvio said. "Another noteworthy characteristic of this malware is

SaaS applications have become indispensable for organizations aiming to enhance productivity and streamline operations. However, the convenience and efficiency these applications offer come with inherent security risks, often leaving hidden gaps that can be exploited. Conducting thorough due diligence on SaaS apps is essential to identify and mitigate these risks, ensuring the protection of your

Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered new stealer malware that's designed to specifically target Apple macOS systems. Dubbed Banshee Stealer, it's offered for sale in the cybercrime underground for a steep price of $3,000 a month and works across both x86_64 and ARM64 architectures.  "Banshee Stealer targets a wide range of browsers, cryptocurrency wallets, and around 100 browser

A large percentage of Google's own Pixel devices shipped globally since September 2017 included dormant software that could be used to stage nefarious attacks and deliver various kinds of malware. The issue manifests in the form of a pre-installed Android app called "Showcase.apk" that comes with excessive system privileges, including the ability to remotely execute code and install arbitrary

SolarWinds has released patches to address a critical security vulnerability in its Web Help Desk software that could be exploited to execute arbitrary code on susceptible instances. The flaw, tracked as CVE-2024-28986 (CVSS score: 9.8), has been described as a deserialization bug. "SolarWinds Web Help Desk was found to be susceptible to a Java deserialization remote code execution vulnerability

Russian and Belarusian non-profit organizations, Russian independent media, and international non-governmental organizations active in Eastern Europe have become the target of two separate spear-phishing campaigns orchestrated by threat actors whose interests align with that of the Russian government. While one of the campaigns – dubbed River of Phish – has been attributed to COLDRIVER, an

The Emergence of Identity Threat Detection and Response Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) has emerged as a critical component to effectively detect and respond to identity-based attacks. Threat actors have shown their ability to compromise the identity infrastructure and move laterally into IaaS, Saas, PaaS and CI/CD environments. Identity Threat Detection and Response solutions help

A cybercrime group with links to the RansomHub ransomware has been observed using a new tool designed to terminate endpoint detection and response (EDR) software on compromised hosts, joining the likes of other similar programs like AuKill (aka AvNeutralizer) and Terminator. The EDR-killing utility has been dubbed EDRKillShifter by cybersecurity company Sophos, which discovered the tool in

A newly discovered attack vector in GitHub Actions artifacts dubbed ArtiPACKED could be exploited to take over repositories and gain access to organizations' cloud environments. "A combination of misconfigurations and security flaws can make artifacts leak tokens, both of third party cloud services and GitHub tokens, making them available for anyone with read access to the repository to consume,

A previously unknown threat actor has been attributed to a spate of attacks targeting Azerbaijan and Israel with an aim to steal sensitive data. The attack campaign, detected by NSFOCUS on July 1, 2024, leveraged spear-phishing emails to single out Azerbaijani and Israeli diplomats. The activity is being tracked under the moniker Actor240524. "Actor240524 possesses the ability to steal secrets

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new variant of the Gafgyt botnet that's targeting machines with weak SSH passwords to ultimately mine cryptocurrency on compromised instances using their GPU computational power. This indicates that the "IoT botnet is targeting more robust servers running on cloud native environments," Aqua Security researcher Assaf Morag said in a Wednesday analysis.

An ongoing social engineering campaign with alleged links to the Black Basta ransomware group has been linked to "multiple intrusion attempts" with the goal of conducting credential theft and deploying a malware dropper called SystemBC. "The initial lure being utilized by the threat actors remains the same: an email bomb followed by an attempt to call impacted users and offer a fake solution,"

A coalition of law enforcement agencies coordinated by the U.K. National Crime Agency (NCA) has led to the arrest and extradition of a Belarussian and Ukrainian dual-national believed to be associated with Russian-speaking cybercrime groups. Maksim Silnikau (aka Maksym Silnikov), 38, went by the online monikers J.P. Morgan, xxx, and lansky. He was extradited to the U.S. from Poland on August 9,

Simply relying on traditional password security measures is no longer sufficient. When it comes to protecting your organization from credential-based attacks, it is essential to lock down the basics first. Securing your Active Directory should be a priority – it is like making sure a house has a locked front door before investing in a high-end alarm system. Once the fundamentals are covered,

Monitoring evolving DDoS trends is essential for anticipating threats and adapting defensive strategies. The comprehensive Gcore Radar Report for the first half of 2024 provides detailed insights into DDoS attack data, showcasing changes in attack patterns and the broader landscape of cyber threats. Here, we share a selection of findings from the full report. Key Takeaways The number of DDoS

Microsoft on Tuesday shipped fixes to address a total of 90 security flaws, including 10 zero-days, of which six have come under active exploitation in the wild. Of the 90 bugs, nine are rated Critical, 80 are rated Important, and one is rated Moderate in severity. This is also in addition to 36 vulnerabilities that the tech giant resolved in its Edge browser since last month. The Patch Tuesday