Last week, we saw a supply-chain attack against the Ultralytics AI library on GitHub. A quick summary : On December 4, a malicious version 8.3.41 of the popular AI library ultralytics —which has almost 60 million downloads—was published to the Python Package Index (PyPI) package repository. The …
Israel’s brazen attacks on Hezbollah last week, in which hundreds of pagers and two-way radios exploded and killed at least 37 people, graphically illustrated a threat that cybersecurity experts have been warning about for years: Our international supply chains for computerized equipment leave us vulnerable. And we have …
Here’s a disaster that didn’t happen : Cybersecurity researchers from JFrog recently discovered a GitHub Personal Access Token in a public Docker container hosted on Docker Hub, which granted elevated access to the GitHub repositories of the Python language, Python Package Index (PyPI), and the Python Software Foundation …
This isn’t good : On Thursday, researchers from security firm Binarly revealed that Secure Boot is completely compromised on more than 200 device models sold by Acer, Dell, Gigabyte, Intel, and Supermicro. The cause: a cryptographic key underpinning Secure Boot on those models that was compromised in 2022. In …
Enlarge (credit: sasha85ru | Getty Imates) In 2012, an industry-wide coalition of hardware and software makers adopted Secure Boot to protect against a long-looming security threat. The threat was the specter of malware that could infect the BIOS, the firmware that loaded the operating system each time a computer booted …
No word on how this backdoor was installed: A software maker serving more than 10,000 courtrooms throughout the world hosted an application update containing a hidden backdoor that maintained persistent communication with a malicious website, researchers reported Thursday, in the latest episode of a supply-chain attack. The software …
Enlarge (credit: Intel) Hardware sold for years by the likes of Intel and Lenovo contains a remotely exploitable vulnerability that will never be fixed. The cause: a supply chain snafu involving an open source software package and hardware from multiple manufacturers that directly or indirectly incorporated it into their …
Micro-Star International—aka MSI—had its UEFI signing key stolen last month. This raises the possibility that the leaked key could push out updates that would infect a computer’s most nether regions without triggering a warning. To make matters worse, Matrosov said, MSI doesn’t have an automated …
We learned some remarkable new details this week about the recent supply-chain attack on VoIP software provider 3CX. The lengthy, complex intrusion has all the makings of a cyberpunk spy novel: North Korean hackers using legions of fake executive accounts on LinkedIn to lure people into opening malware disguised …
News : Researchers at Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky today revealed that they identified a small number of cryptocurrency-focused firms as at least some of the victims of the 3CX software supply-chain attack that’s unfolded over the past week. Kaspersky declined to name any of those victim companies, but it …
Mandiant is reporting on a trojaned Windows installer that targets Ukrainian users. The installer was left on various torrent sites, presumably ensnaring people downloading pirated copies of the operating system: Mandiant uncovered a socially engineered supply chain operation focused on Ukrainian government entities that leveraged trojanized ISO files masquerading …
Computer code developed by a company called Pushwoosh is in about 8,000 Apple and Google smartphone apps. The company pretends to be American when it is actually Russian. According to company documents publicly filed in Russia and reviewed by Reuters, Pushwoosh is headquartered in the Siberian town of …
The NSA (together with CISA) has published a long report on supply-chain security: “ Securing the Software Supply Chain: Recommended Practices Guide for Suppliers. “: Prevention is often seen as the responsibility of the software developer, as they are required to securely develop and deliver code, verify third party components, and …
Microsoft is reporting that the same attacker that was behind the SolarWinds breach — the Russian SVR, which Microsoft is calling Nobelium — is continuing with similar supply-chain attacks: Nobelium has been attempting to replicate the approach it has used in past attacks by targeting organizations integral to the global IT …
ArsTechnica has a good story on the REvil ransomware attack of last weekend, with technical details: This weekend’s attack was carried out with almost surgical precision. According to Cybereason, the REvil affiliates first gained access to targeted environments and then used the zero-day in the Kaseya Agent Monitor …
Really good long article about the Chinese hacking of RSA, Inc. They were able to get copies of the seed values to the SecurID authentication token, a harbinger of supply-chain attacks to come. [...]
Developers have discovered a backdoor in the Codecov bash uploader. It’s been there for four months. We don’t know who put it there. Codecov said the breach allowed the attackers to export information stored in its users’ continuous integration (CI) environments. This information was then sent to …
The office of the Director of National Intelligence released its “ Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community.” Cybersecurity is covered on pages 20-21. Nothing surprising: Cyber threats from nation states and their surrogates will remain acute. States’ increasing use of cyber operations as a tool of national …
Unknown hackers attempted to add a backdoor to the PHP source code. It was two malicious commits, with the subject “fix typo” and the names of known PHP developers and maintainers. They were discovered and removed before being pushed out to any users. But since 79% of the Internet …
Last year Amazon Web Services (AWS) launched a new video series, AWS Verified, where we talk to global cybersecurity leaders about important issues, such as how the pandemic is impacting cloud security, how to create a culture of security, and emerging security trends. Today I’m happy to share …
A vulnerability in the Accellion file-transfer program is being used by criminal groups to hack networks worldwide. There’s much in the article about when Accellion knew about the vulnerability, when it alerted its customers, and when it patched its software. The governor of New Zealand’s central bank …
Enlarge (credit: Przemyslaw Klos / EyeEm / Getty Images ) A new type of supply chain attack unveiled last month is targeting more and more companies, with new rounds this week taking aim at Microsoft, Amazon, Slack, Lyft, Zillow, and an unknown number of others. In weeks past, Apple, Microsoft, Tesla, and …
Alex Birsan writes about being able to install malware into proprietary corporate software by naming the code files to be identical to internal corporate code files. From a ZDNet article : Today, developers at small or large companies use package managers to download and import libraries that are then assembled …
Bloomberg News has a major story about the Chinese hacking computer motherboards made by Supermicro, Levono, and others. It’s been going on since at least 2008. The US government has known about it for almost as long, and has tried to keep the attack secret: China’s exploitation …
It seems to be the season of sophisticated supply-chain attacks. This one is in the NoxPlayer Android emulator : ESET says that based on evidence its researchers gathered, a threat actor compromised one of the company’s official API (api.bignox.com) and file-hosting servers (res06.bignox.com). Using this …