A group of academics from Tel Aviv University have disclosed details of now-patched "severe" design flaws affecting about 100 million Android-based Samsung smartphones that could have resulted in the extraction of secret cryptographic keys. The shortcomings are the result of an analysis of the cryptographic design and implementation of Android's hardware-backed Keystore in Samsung's Galaxy S8, S9, S10, S20, and S21 flagship devices, researchers Alon Shakevsky,...
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The Australian insurance industry is being inundated with rapidly changing customer expectations and demands with digital transformation a necessity for insurers to increase customer engagement, make claims processes easier, better serve employees and for competitive advantage. This increased reliance on digital technologies, as well as the sensitive data collected by insurance providers, have made the industry a prime target for cybercriminals. Insurance accounted for 34 of...
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Similarities have been unearthed between the Dridex general-purpose malware and a little-known ransomware strain called Entropy, suggesting that the operators are continuing to rebrand their extortion operations under a different name. "The similarities are in the software packer used to conceal the ransomware code, in the malware subroutines designed to find and obfuscate commands (API calls), and in the subroutines used to decrypt encrypted text," cybersecurity...
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Researchers found an easy-to-exploit vulnerability in Snap, a universal application packaging and distribution system developed for Ubuntu but available on multiple Linux distributions. The flaw allows a low-privileged user to execute malicious code as root, the highest administrative account on Linux. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2021-44731, is part of a series of flaws that researchers from security firm Qualys found in various Linux components while investigating...
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Most organizations appear to be making little headway in addressing application security issues despite all of the heightened concerns around the topic, a new study shows. The study, by researchers at NTT Application Security, is based on data from some 15 million scans, mostly of Internet-facing Web applications at customer locations through 2021. Last year organizations took more than six months (193.1 days), on average, to...
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Microsoft has warned of emerging threats in the Web3 landscape, including "ice phishing" campaigns, as a surge in adoption of blockchain and DeFi technologies emphasizes the need to build security into the decentralized web while it's still in its early stages. The company's Microsoft 365 Defender Research Team called out various new avenues through which malicious actors may attempt to trick cryptocurrency users into giving up...
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A slow response to a data breach or other cybersecurity incident can cost companies time and money, as well as damage to their reputation. To help companies accelerate their response to cybersecurity incidents, Magnet Forensics is offering a new application, Magnet Automate Enterprise, designed to automatically trigger investigations into security breaches and synchronize incident detection and response tasks by third party tools. Magnet Forensics has a...
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A previously unknown hacking group has been linked to targeted attacks against human rights activists, human rights defenders, academics, and lawyers across India in an attempt to plant "incriminating digital evidence." Cybersecurity firm SentinelOne attributed the intrusions to a group it tracks as "ModifiedElephant," an elusive threat actor that's been operational since at least 2012, whose activity aligns sharply with Indian state interests. "ModifiedElephant operates through the...
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Cybersecurity practices in Australia’s financial sector have improved marginally but are still falling far short of expectations, according to the latest in a series of ASIC audits that is tracking the maturity of cybersecurity controls in the critical industry sector. Many companies had “overly ambitious targets” for improving their cybersecurity posture when ASIC conducted its last audit, the organisation concluded in its “Cyber Resilience of Firms...
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An advanced persistent threat (APT) hacking group operating with motives that likely align with Palestine has embarked on a new campaign that leverages a previously undocumented implant called NimbleMamba. The intrusions leveraged a sophisticated attack chain targeting Middle Eastern governments, foreign policy think tanks, and a state-affiliated airline, enterprise security firm Proofpoint said in a report, attributing the covert operation to a threat actor tracked as...
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