Pierluigi Paganini
October 11, 2016
Kaspersky published a report on cyber espionage activities conducted by StrongPity APT that most targeted Italians and Belgians with watering holes attacks. Experts from Kaspersky Lab have published a detailed report on the cyber espionage activities conducted by the StrongPity APT. The group is very sophisticated, its operations leverage on watering holes attacks and malware to target users […]
Pierluigi Paganini
October 11, 2016
The TV5Monde director-general has told the BBC that his TV was almost destroyed by a targeted cyber attack conducted by the Russian APT28 group. On April 2015, the TV5Monde was hit by a severe cyber attack that compromised broadcasting of transmissions across its medium. The attackers also hijacked the Channel TV5Monde website and social media accounts of […]
Pierluigi Paganini
October 11, 2016
MITRE has challenged the security community to devise new methods that could help in detecting rogue IoT devices on a network. The non-profit research and development organization MITRE has challenged security researchers to propose new methods and technologies that could help in detecting rogue Internet of Things (IoT) devices on a network. The goal of […]
Pierluigi Paganini
October 10, 2016
A German nuclear plant suffered a disruptive cyber attack, the news was publicly confirmed by the IAEA Director Yukiya Amano. According to the head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director Yukiya Amano, a nuclear power plant in Germany was hit by a “disruptive” cyber attack two to three […]
Pierluigi Paganini
October 10, 2016
Simone Margaritelli has done a reverse engineering of the Smarter Coffee IoT Machine Protocol to control the machine from his terminal. What is the lesson? While security industry is stressing the need to adopt a security by design approach for IoT devices, security researchers continue to find flawed and poorly designed smart objects. Clearly, such kind of devices […]
Pierluigi Paganini
October 10, 2016
The security researcher Matt Weeks discovered a way to abuse the Microsoft Just Enough Administration (JEA) technology to escalate user profiles. Just Enough Administration aka JEA is a Microsoft technology that enables the delegated administration for carry on task with PowerShell. With JEA in place, it is possible to properly configure a role for administrators giving […]
Pierluigi Paganini
October 10, 2016
Law enforcement and security experts have dismantled the Encryptor RaaS architecture by localizing one of its servers with Shodan. Shodan is a search engine for internet-connected devices, it is a precious instrument for IT experts and hackers that use it to find assess systems exposed on the Internet. The information gathered via Shodan could allow attackers […]
Pierluigi Paganini
October 09, 2016
Cisco has rolled out several critical software patches for the CISCO Nexus 7000-series switches and the related NX-OS software. According to the Cisco Security Advisory, an attacker could exploit the vulnerabilities to gain remote access to vulnerable systems and execute code or commands. According to Wednesday’s Cisco Security Advisory, both the Nexus 7000 and 7700 […]
Pierluigi Paganini
October 08, 2016
Washington demands a strong response to the alleged Russian attempts to manipulate the Presidential Election 2016 with cyber attacks. US is officially accusing Russia trying to interfere the 2016 US presidential election, announcing it will adopt all necessary countermeasures to defeat the threat. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of […]
Pierluigi Paganini
October 08, 2016
OilRig campaign – An Iran-linked hacker group which previously targeted organizations in Saudi Arabia has now set its sights on other countries. Iranian hackers which previously targeted organizations in Saudi Arabia are now targeting organizations in other countries, including the US, as part of a campaign identified as OilRig campaign. In addition to expanding its reach, the group has been enhancing its malware tools. Researchers at Palo Alto Networks have been monitoring the group for some time and have reported observing attacks launched by a threat actor against financial institutions and technology companies in Saudi Arabia and on the Saudi defense industry. This campaign referred to as “OilRig,” by Palo Alto Networks, entails weaponized Microsoft Excel spreadsheets tracked as “Clayslide” and a backdoor called “Helminth.” Bank attacks by the Iran-linked group were analyzed and documented by FireEye in May. Security Week reports that Palo Alto Networks, “discovered that it has also targeted a company in Qatar and government organizations in the United States, Israel and Turkey.” Helminth is delivered, by the threat actors behind OilRig, by way of spear-phishing emails and malicious macro-enabled Excel documents. For instance, in the caseof a Turkish government organization, the Excel file was designed to replicate a login portal for an airline. There are four variants of the Helminth malware and the threat, capable of communicating with its command and control (C&C) server over both HTTP and DNS, can gain information on the infected device and download additional files via a remote server. One type of Helminth malware relies on VBScript and PowerShell scripts. Another is deployed as an executable file. Delivered by […]
