Hackers backed by the Russian state are targeting pharmaceutical companies and academic institutions in the UK, US, and Canada that are working on potential COVID-19 vaccines, British intelligence officials have warned. The UK's National Cyber Security Centre, working with Canada's Communications Security Establishment, attributed the attacks to hacking group APT29, also known as "Cozy Bear," which it alleged was "almost certainly" working for Russian intelligence services. READ MORE...
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) today asked all U.S. federal executive branch departments and agencies to mitigate the critical SIGRed Windows DNS Server wormable remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability within 24 hours. Microsoft issued a security update to address this critical Windows vulnerability tracked as CVE-2020-1350 on July 14, together with a registry-based workaround that does not require a server restart. READ MORE...
Iranian state hackers got caught with their pants down recently when researchers uncovered more than 40GB of data, including training videos showing how operatives hack adversaries' online accounts and then cover their tracks. The operatives belonged to ITG18, a hacking group that overlaps with another outfit alternatively known as Charming Kitten and Phosphorous, which researchers believe also works on behalf of the Iranian government. READ MORE...
A Trend Micro research is warning consumers of a major new wave of attacks attempting to compromise their home routers for use in IoT botnets. The report urges users to take action to stop their devices from enabling this criminal activity. There has been a recent spike in attacks targeting and leveraging routers, particularly around Q4 2019. This research indicates increased abuse of these devices will continue as attackers are able to easily monetize these infections in secondary attacks. READ MORE...
Twitter was thrown into chaos on Wednesday after accounts for some of the world's most recognizable public figures, executives and celebrities starting tweeting out links to bitcoin scams. Twitter says the attack happened because someone tricked or coerced an employee into providing access to internal Twitter administrative tools. This post is an attempt to lay out some of the timeline of the attack, and point to clues about who may have been behind it. READ MORE...
A previously undisclosed bug in Zoom's customizable URL feature has been addressed that could have offered a hacker a perfect social-engineering avenue for stealing credentials or sensitive information. Disclosed by Zoom and Check Point on Thursday, the security flaw existed in the "Vanity URL" feature for Zoom, which allows companies to set up their won Zoom meeting domain, i.e. "yourcompany[.]zoom[.]us." READ MORE...
Ultimately, the only way for societies to return to some semblance of normal in the wake of the current pandemic is to reach a state called herd immunity. This is where a large-enough percentage of the population has acquired immunity to SARS-CoV-2-either through infection or a vaccine-that most people exposed to the virus are already immune to it. Given that this is our ultimate goal, we need to understand how the immune system responds to this virus. READ MORE...