Hackers accessed the internal network of Czech cybersecurity company Avast, likely aiming for a supply chain attack targeting CCleaner. Detected on September 25, intrusion attempts started since May 14. Following an investigation, the antivirus maker determined that the attacker was able to gain access using compromised credentials via a temporary VPN account. From the information collected this far, the attack appears to be "an extremely sophisticated attempt," says Jaya Baloo, Avast Chief Information Security Officer (CISO).
Equifax staffers used the default 'admin' username and password to secure a portal containing sensitive customer information. That's according to a class-action lawsuit launched against the company in the US, claiming securities fraud by the company over the 2017 data breach that spilled information on around 148 million accounts of people in the US, Canada and the UK.
Westchester, Illinois-based ingredients giant Ingredion Incorporated revealed this week that it recently detected suspicious activity on some data center servers. Only a few details have been provided about the incident, but it appears that a piece of malware infected some of the company’s systems. Ingredion says there is no evidence that customer, supplier or employee data has been compromised. The company says it has called in external experts to assist with restoring affected servers, and there may be some delays in transactions with customers and suppliers.
Russian hackers hijacked Iranian cyber espionage infrastructure to attack government and industry organisations in dozens of countries while pretending to be Iranian cyber attackers. The Turla group, also known as VENOMOUS BEAR, infiltrated the systems of Iranian cyber criminals to launch attacks on Western targets, according to a joint report by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and National Security Agency (NSA).
Modern computers expect a certain consistency in their operating environments. A nice, steady ticking of the electronic clock; smooth, consistent voltage to make everything run; and internal system temperatures that fall within a certain specified range. When their expectations aren't met, weird things can happen. If they happen because a malicious actor intentionally manipulated power or other environmental elements, they can be the beginning of a devastating attack.
In April 2019, Pulse Secure published an advisory about a vulnerability in their software. In August, cybercriminals were massively scanning for systems that were running a vulnerable version. Now it’s October, and still many organizations have not applied the patches that are available for this vulnerability. This is a trend we’ve seen repeated with dozens of other publicly-known vulnerabilities and organizations that are slow to update software to the latest, most secure versions.
Google's recently announced Pixel 4 has a new biometric feature—well, new for Google, at least—face unlock. Like most new biometric systems, that means we'll probably be writing about security flaws in its implementation, and the first one has already popped up before the phone is even out. You don't need to have your eyes open for the Pixel 4's face unlock to work. The flaw was first publicized by the BBC's technology reporter, Chris Fox, who was able to get face unlock to work on several people with their eyes closed.