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Vulnerability Disclosure
API Bug Deliniea Secret Server Flaw Vulnerabilities and Exploits Vulnerability Disclosure

Navigating Vulnerability Disclosure: Lessons from Delinea’s Secret Server Flaw

Lessons from Delinea’s Secret Server Flaw

Recently, an incident involving Delinea’s Secret Server SOAP API highlighted the challenges faced by both parties in the disclosure process.

Vulnerability Details

A major flaw in Delinea's Secret Server SOAP API was discovered this week, prompting security professionals to rush to implement a fix. However, a researcher claims he contacted the privileged access management provider weeks ago to notify them of the flaw, only to be informed he was not authorized to file a case.

Vendor Response

Delinea first revealed the SOAP endpoint issue on April 12. The next day, Delinea teams released an automatic remedy for cloud deployments and a download for on-premises Secret Servers. But Delinea was not the first to sound the alarm.

The vulnerability, which has yet to be issued a CVE, was first publicly exposed by researcher Johnny Yu, who presented a full study of the Delinea Secret Server issue and stated that he had been attempting to contact the vendor since February 12 to responsibly disclose the bug. After working with Carnegie Mellon University's CERT Coordination Center and seeing no reaction from Delina for weeks, Yu decided to publish his findings on February 10.

Silence and Questions

The lack of information regarding the reaction indicates "issues" with Delina's patching protocols, according to Callie Guenther, senior manager of threat research at Critical Start. However, she emphasizes that the crushing weight of vulnerability management is harming everyone.

The National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) recently stated that it is unable to keep up with the number of vulnerabilities submitted to the National Vulnerability Database and has requested assistance from both the government and the commercial sector.

Lessons Learned: How to Resolve this Situation?

1. Inclusivity Matters

Vendors must revisit their bug submission policies. Excluding independent researchers like Yu can hinder the discovery of critical flaws. A more inclusive approach—one that welcomes input from all corners—can only strengthen our collective security posture.

2. Communication Is Key

Prompt communication is essential. When researchers encounter vulnerabilities, they need a clear channel to report them. Vendors should actively engage with the security community, acknowledge submissions promptly, and provide transparent timelines for fixes.

3. Transparency Builds Trust

Delinea’s delayed response eroded trust. Transparency about the vulnerability’s impact, the timeline for resolution, and the steps taken to mitigate risk fosters goodwill. Vendors should be open about their processes and demonstrate commitment to security.

4. Collaboration Over Competition

Researchers and vendors share a common goal: securing systems. Rather than racing against each other, they should collaborate. A cooperative approach benefits everyone—vendors get timely fixes, and researchers contribute to a safer digital ecosystem.

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Vulnerabilities and Exploits
API Bug Black hat Code Execution Flaw PoC Exploit Code TrickBoot UEFI Bootkit UEFI Firmware Vulnerabilities and Exploits

LogoFAIL: UEFI Vulnerabilities Unveiled

The discovery of vulnerabilities is a sharp reminder of the ongoing conflict between innovation and malevolent intent in the ever-evolving field of cybersecurity. The tech community has been shaken by the recent discovery of LogoFAIL, a set of vulnerabilities hidden in the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) code that could allow malicious bootkit insertion through images during system boot.

Researchers have delved into the intricacies of LogoFAIL, shedding light on its implications and the far-reaching consequences of exploiting image parsing vulnerabilities in UEFI code. The vulnerability was aptly named 'LogoFAIL' due to its origin in the parsing of logos during the boot process. The severity of the issue is evident from the fact that it can be exploited to inject malicious code, potentially leading to the deployment of boot kits — a type of malware capable of persistently infecting the system at a fundamental level.

The vulnerability was first brought to public attention through a detailed report by Bleeping Computer, outlining the specifics of the LogoFAIL bugs and their potential impact on system security. The report highlights the technical nuances of the vulnerabilities, emphasizing how attackers could exploit weaknesses in UEFI code to compromise the integrity of the boot process.

Further exploration of LogoFAIL is presented in a comprehensive set of slides from a Black Hat USA 2009 presentation by researcher Rafal Wojtczuk. The slides provide an in-depth analysis of the attack vectors associated with LogoFAIL, offering valuable insights into the technical aspects of the vulnerabilities.

In a more recent context, the Black Hat Europe 2023 schedule includes a briefing on LogoFAIL, promising to delve into the security implications of image parsing during system boot. This presentation will likely provide an updated perspective on the ongoing efforts to address and mitigate the risks that LogoFAIL poses.

The gravity of LogoFAIL is underscored by additional resources such as the analysis on binarly.io and the UEFI Forum's document on firmware security concerns and best practices. Collectively, these sources highlight the urgency for the industry to address and remediate the vulnerabilities in the UEFI code, emphasizing the need for robust security measures to safeguard systems from potential exploitation.

Working together to solve these vulnerabilities becomes critical as the cybersecurity community struggles with the consequences of LogoFAIL. The industry must collaborate to establish robust countermeasures for the UEFI code, guaranteeing system resilience against the constantly changing cyber threat environment.


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Unauthorized access
Android Applications API Bug Data Breach Private Information T-Mobile Technical Glitch Unauthorized access

T-Mobile App Glitch Exposes Users to Data Breach

A recent T-Mobile app bug has exposed consumers to a severe data breach, which is a disturbing revelation. This security hole gave users access to sensitive information like credit card numbers and addresses as well as personal account information for other users. Concerns regarding the company's dedication to protecting user data have been raised in light of the event.

On September 20, 2023, the problem reportedly appeared, according to reports. Unauthorized people were able to examine a variety of individual T-Mobile customer's data. Along with names and contact information, this also included extremely private information like credit card numbers, putting consumers at risk of loss of money. 

T-Mobile was quick to respond to the incident. A company spokesperson stated, "We take the security and privacy of our customers very seriously. As soon as we were made aware of the issue, our technical team worked diligently to address and rectify the glitch." They assured users that immediate steps were taken to mitigate the impact of the breach.

Security experts have highlighted the urgency of the situation. Brian Thompson, a cybersecurity analyst, emphasized, "This incident underscores the critical importance of robust security protocols, particularly for companies handling sensitive user data. It's imperative that organizations like T-Mobile maintain vigilant oversight of their systems to prevent such breaches."

The breach not only puts user information at risk but also raises questions about T-Mobile's data protection measures. Subscribers trust their service providers with a wealth of personal information, and incidents like these can erode that trust.

T-Mobile has advised its users to update their app to the latest version, which contains the necessary patches to fix the glitch. Additionally, they are encouraged to monitor their accounts for any unusual activities and report them promptly.

This incident serves as a stark reminder of the ever-present threat of data breaches in our digital age. It reinforces the need for companies to invest in robust cybersecurity measures and for users to remain vigilant about their personal information. In an era where data is more valuable than ever, safeguarding it should be of paramount importance for all.
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Sensitive data
API Bug Breached Data Breach Duolingo Duolingo Data Breach JSON Personal Data Sensitive data

Duolingo Data Breach: Hackers Posts Scrapped Data on Hacking Forum


After Discord’s data breach that resulted in its temporary halt in operations, the popular language learning app – Duolingo is facing a data breach.

An X post (previously tweeted) by user @vx-underground stated that a threat actor scraped data of over 2.6 million Duolingo users and posted it on the latest version of the hacking forum ‘Breached.’ BleepingComputer confirmed the breach in its recent post.

Apparently, the hackers gathered the data by manipulating existing vulnerabilities present in the Duolingo API, enabling access to user’s personal data, contact details, addresses, and much more, all by sending a valid email to the API.

The hackers further succeeded in finding active Duolingo users by feeding millions of email addresses to the vulnerable API. The email IDs were then used to create a dataset that contained public and non-public information. As an alternative, it is also feasible to supply a username to the API in order to obtain JSON output that contains sensitive user information.

But this is not the first time that this information has surfaced online. Falcon Feeds raised awareness of this problem via an X post in January. The scraped database was offered for sale for $1,500 on a previous iteration of the Breached hacker forum. Personal information about individuals, including email addresses, phone numbers, photographs, privacy settings, and much more, was revealed in the data.

Earlier, Duolingo had confirmed the data breach to TheRecord, assuring that it was investigating the issue. However, they did not mention that among the data was the private information of its users.

The most worrying aspect of this problem is that the corrupted API is still publicly accessible on the internet even though Duolingo first became aware of it in January. And, regrettably, this is not unexpected. Since most scraped data involves already-available information and is not the simplest to assemble into a credible threat, businesses frequently tend to ignore it.

In case of Duolingo, the breached data also involved sensitive data, that was not available publicly. While Duolingo is yet to address the issue, the most a user can do in this situation is modify their login credentials and/or delete their Duolingo accounts.     

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Vulnerabilities and Exploits
Airline Airline rewards API Bug Hackers loyality points Travel reward programs Vulnerabilities and Exploits

Hackers Have Scored Unlimited Airline Miles, Targeting One Platform


TRAVEL REWARDS PROGRAMS, such as those provided by hotels and airlines, highlight the unique benefits of joining their club over others. However behind the scenes, several of these programs—including Delta SkyMiles, United MileagePlus, Hilton Honors, and Marriott Bonvoy—share the same digital infrastructure. The business Points, which offers a variety of services including a comprehensive application programming interface (API), provides the backend.

In a new finding, a group of security researcher discovered that the vulnerabilities in the Point.com API are most likely exploited to expose customer data, steal customers’ “loyalty currency,” (such as miles) or the Points global administration accounts in order to acquire control over the entire program.

About the Vulnerabilities

The researchers discovered a vulnerability that involved a manipulation that enabled them to move between internal sections of the Points API infrastructure and then query it for incentive program client orders. 22 million order records, which include information like customer rewards account numbers, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, and partially completed credit card numbers, have been found in the system. A hacker could not just dump the entire data store at once since Points.com set limits on how many responses the system could provide at once. However, the researchers point out that this would have made it possible for the threat actor to look up for certain people of interest or to gradually drain data from the system over time.

Another bug found was apparently an API configuration issue that could allow a threat actor to enable account authorization token for a user with only their last names and reward numbers. These two pieces of information might have been obtained through earlier hacks or might have been gained by using the first weakness. By controlling client accounts and transferring miles or other reward points to themselves using this token, attackers might deplete the victim's accounts.

The researchers also noted that the two vulnerabilities shared similarities with the other bugs that were discovered earlier, one that impacted the Virgin Red and the other affected the United MileagePlus. However, these bugs too were patched by Points.com.

Most importantly, the researchers discovered a flaw in the Points.com global administration website, where an encrypted cookie issued to each user had been encrypted with a secret phrase "secret" itself, making it vulnerable. The researchers could essentially assume god-like ability to access any Points reward system and even offer accounts limitless miles or other perks by guessing this. They could then decrypt their cookie, reassign themselves global administrator credentials for the website, and re-encrypt their cookie.

Moreover, the researchers assured that their fixed indeed do their jobs right and claimed that Points were in fact very prompt and cooperative in addressing the disclosures.  

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User Privacy
API Bug Canada Cyber Security Databases GitHub Malicious actor SIM Telecom Firm User Privacy

Canadian Telecom Provider Telus is Reportedly Breached

 

One of Canada's biggest telecommunications companies, Telus, is allegedly investigating a system breach believed to be fairly severe when malicious actors exposed samples of what they claimed to be private corporate information online.

As per sources, the malicious actors posted on BreachForums with the intention of selling an email database that claimed to include the email addresses of every Telus employee. The database has a $7000 price tag. For $6,000, one could access another database purported to provide payroll details for the telecom companies' top executives, including the president.

A data bundle with more than 1,000 private GitHub repositories allegedly belonging to Telus was also offered for sale by the threat actor for $50,000. A SIM-swapping API was reportedly included in the source code that was for sale. SIM-swapping is the practice of hijacking another person's phone by switching the number to one's own SIM card.

Although the malicious actors have described this as a Complete breach and have threatened to sell everything connected to Telus, it is still too early to say whether an event actually happened at TELUS or whether a breach at a third-party vendor actually occurred.

A TELUS representative told BleepingComputer that the company is looking into accusations that some information about selected TELUS team members and internal source code has leaked on the dark web.

The Telus breach would be the most current in recent attacks on telecom companies if it occurred as the malicious actors claimed. Three of the biggest telecommunications companies in Australia, Optus, Telestra, and Dialog, have all been infiltrated by attackers since the beginning of the year.

Customer data was used in a cyberattack that affected the Medisys Health Group business of Telus in 2020. The company claimed at the time that it paid for the data and then securely retrieved it. Although TELUS is still keeping an eye on the potential incident, it has not yet discovered any proof that corporate or retail customer data has been stolen.



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Windows Defender
API Bug Encryption malware Ransomware Attacks. Software Windows Defender

Conti Source Code & Everything API Employed by Mimic Ransomware

A new ransomware variant known as Mimic was found by security researchers, and it uses the Windows 'Everything' file search tool's APIs to scan for files that should be encrypted.

The virus has been "deleting shadow copies, terminating several apps and services, and abusing Everything32.dll methods to query target files that are to be encrypted," according to the first observation of it in June 2022.

What is Mimic ransomware?

The ransomware payload for Mimic is contained in a password-protected package that is presented as Everything64.dll and dropped by the executable Mimic along with other components. Additionally, it contains tools for disabling valid sdel binaries and Windows Defender.

Mimic is a flexible strain of ransomware that may use command-line options to target specific files and multi-processor threads to encrypt data more quickly. The victim of a mimic ransomware attack first receives an executable, most likely via email. This executable loads four files onto the target machine, including the primary payload, auxiliary files, and tools to turn off Windows Defender.

The popular Windows filename search engine 'Everything' was created by Voidtools. The tool supports real-time updates and is lightweight and speedy, using few system resources. According to Trend Micro, this combination of several active threads and the way it abuses Everything's APIs enables it to operate with little resource consumption, resulting in a more effective assault and execution.

Although Mimic is a new strain with unknown activity, the developers' use of the Conti builder with the Everything API demonstrates their skill as software engineers and their awareness of how to accomplish their objectives.



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User Privacy
API Bug Cyber Crime Have I Been Pwned Ransomware Attacks. Security flaw Twitter User Privacy

Hackers Expose Credentials of 200 million Twitter Users

Researchers suggest that a widespread cache of email addresses related to roughly 200 million users is probably a revised version of the larger cache with duplicate entries deleted from the end of 2022 when hackers are selling stolen data from 400 million Twitter users.

A flaw in a Twitter API that appeared from June 2021 until January 2022, allowed attackers to submit personal details like email addresses and obtain the corresponding Twitter account. Attackers used the vulnerability to harvest information from the network before it could be fixed. 

The bug also exposed the link between Twitter accounts, which are frequently pseudonymous, numbers and addresses linked to them, potentially identifying users even if it did not allow hackers to obtain passwords or other sensitive data like DMs. 

The email addresses for a few listed Twitter profiles were accurate, according to the data that Bleeping Computer downloaded. It also discovered that the data had duplicates. Ryushi, the hacker, asked Twitter to pay him $200,000 (£168,000) in exchange for providing the data and deleting it. The information follows a warning from Hudson Rock last week regarding unsubstantiated claims made by a hacker that he had access to the emails and phone numbers of 400 million Twitter users.

Troy Hunt, the founder of the security news website Have I Been Pwned, also investigated the incident and tweeted his findings "Acquired 211,524,284 distinct email addresses; appears to be primarily what has been described," he said. 

The social network has not yet responded to the enormous disclosure, but the cache of information makes clear how serious the leak is and who might be most at risk as a consequence. Social media companies have consistently and quickly minimized previous data scrapes of this nature and have dismissed them as not posing substantial security risks for years.

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US Goverment
API Bug Chinese Actors Data Breach Data Privacy Laws FBI Tik Tok US Goverment

FBI: Tik Tok privacy issues


Christopher Wray, the director of the FBI, expressed its concern over the potential that the Chinese government might alter TikTok's recommendation algorithms, which can be utilised for conventional espionage activities.

The short clip social network is under federal attention recently, largely because of worries about data privacy, especially when it comes to youngsters, and because of the ongoing tension between the United States and China. In 2020, the Trump government made an unsuccessful effort to eliminate TikTok from app stores. Additionally, there have been legislative hearings on user data in both 2021 and this year.

While Wray acknowledged that there are numerous countries that pose cyberthreats to the United States, "China's rapid hacking operation is the largest, and they have gained more of Americans' personal and business data than any other country combined," Wray said.

He claimed that TikTok APIs may be used by China to manage the software on consumer devices, opening the door for the Chinese government to basically breach the appliances of Americans.

Rep. John Katko, D-NY, the ranking member of the committee and a persistent advocate of cybersecurity issues in Congress, claims that Chinese cyber operations pose a threat to the economic and national security of all Americans. He updated the members that ransomware assaults caused companies $1.2 billion in losses last year.

Using HUMINT operations, China has gained access to the US military and government and gathered important information about US intelligence operations. Due to the development of these abilities, China was able to intercept communications, gather sensitive information, and gather a variety of data regarding US military and diplomatic activities.





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User Privacy
API Bug Data Breach Hackers Twitter User Privacy

Users' Data Exposed Due to Twitter API Security Flaw

Cybercriminals started selling the user details of more than 5.4 million Twitter users on a hacking website in July this year after taking advantage of an API flaw that was made public in December 2021. Just as other researchers discovered a compromise affecting millions of accounts throughout the EU and US, a hacker just made this information available for free.

While the majority of the data was made up of publicly available details like Twitter IDs, names, login names, localities, and verified status, it also contained private details like phone numbers and email addresses. 

Security specialist Chad Loder was the first to reveal the story, but he was shortly suspended from the microblogging service. According to Loder, they contacted a sample of the impacted accounts and came to the conclusion that the information was accurate and the breach happened in 2021.

The information was first stolen from Twitter exploiting a vulnerability in the application programming interface API of the service, but it is now freely available online. Twitter was open about the initial user ID leak and API attack that affected millions of users. The platform claimed at the time that it was alerting users who they could verify had been affected by the data leak.

The data of 5,485,635 active Twitter users was exchanged freely on a hacking site on November 24. The initial 5.4 million data points were distributed for free in a thread that appeared on BreachForums last week, and as of the time of reporting, the forum thread was still active. Although the forum thread highlighted the other 1.4 million from restricted accounts may still be spreading exclusively in private circles, Gizmodo was unable to confirm the veracity of the information.

A breach of 17 million users would be one of the larger user data breaches, though by no means the largest given that Twitter has more than 200 million active daily users.



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Vulnerability and Exploits.
API Bug Business Security CVE vulnerability HTTP Patch Fix SAP Vulnerabilities and Exploits Vulnerability and Exploits.

SAP Security Patch for July: Six High Priority Notes

The July 2022 patch release from SAP was released in addition to 27 new and updated SAP Security Notes. The most serious of these problems is information disclosure vulnerability CVE-2022-35228 (CVSS score of 8.3) in the BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform's central administration console.

Notes for SAP Business One 

The three main areas that are impacted by the current SAP Security Notes are as follows, hence Onapsis Research Labs advises carefully reviewing all the information:
  • In integration cases involving SAP B1 and SAP HANA, with a CVSS score of 7.6(CVE-2022-32249), patches a significant information release vulnerability. The highly privileged hackers take advantage of the vulnerability to access confidential data that could be used to support further exploits.
  • With a CVSS rating of 7.5 (CVE-2022-28771),  resolves a vulnerability with SAP B1's license service API. An unauthorized attacker can disrupt the app and make it inaccessible by sending bogus HTTP requests over the network if there is a missing authentication step.
  • A CVSS score of 7.4(CVE-2022-31593), is the third High Priority note. This notice patches SAP B1 client vulnerability that allowed code injection. An attacker with low privileges can use the vulnerability to manipulate the application's behavior.
On July 20, 2022, SAP announced 17 security notes to fix vulnerabilities of medium severity, the bulk of which affect the NetWeaver Enterprise Portal and Business Objects.

Cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities in the NetWeaver Enterprise Portal were addressed in six security notes that SAP published, each of which had a CVSS score of 6.1. Medium-severity problems in Business Objects are covered by five more security notes.

The SAP July Patch Day illustrates the value of examining all SAP Security Notes prior to applying patches. 

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data security
API API Bug Cyber Secuirty Data Leak data security

Susceptible APIs Costing Organizations Billions Every year

 

Last week, threat intelligence firm Imperva published a report titled ‘Quantifying the Cost of API Insecurity’, which examined nearly 117,000 security incidents and unearthed that API insecurity was responsible for annual losses of between $41- 75 billion globally. 

The study conducted by the Marsh McLennan Cyber Risk Analytics Center discovered that larger enterprises had a higher threat of having API-related breaches, with organizations making more than $100 billion in revenue being three to four times more likely to face API insecurity than small or midsize enterprises. 

The security analysts identified that Asia has a high incident rate with between 16% and 20% of cyber-security incidents related to API insecurity. This is likely due to the rapid digital transformation happening across Asia, especially in regard to mobile, as the majority of digital transactions in Asia are done through mobile. 

 How are businesses getting API security so wrong? 

An API is the invisible connective tissue that allows applications to transfer data to enhance end-user experiences and results. "The growing security risks associated with APIs correlate with the proliferation of APIs," says Lebin Cheng, vice president of API security for Imperva. 

"The volume of APIs used by businesses is growing rapidly — nearly half of all businesses have between 50 and 500 deployed, either internally or publicly, while some have over a thousand active APIs." 

Businesses are frequently failing to secure APIs, with 95% of enterprises suffering an API security incident in the last 12 months, and 34% acknowledging they lack any kind of API security methodology— despite running APIs in production. 

“Many organizations are failing to protect their APIs because it requires equal participation from the security and development teams,” Cheng explained. “Historically, these groups have been at odds —security is the party of no, and devops is irresponsible and moves too fast. In order to address these challenges, security leaders have to enable application developers to create secure code using technology that is lightweight and works efficiently." 

 Tips for enhancing API security: 

Imperva recommended organizations adopt API governance by monitoring endpoints beyond their organizations. They should also monitor the data flowing through them to ensure that sensitive information is protected. 

Any methodology that security teams implement should include API discovery and data classification. This way, security experts can identify the schema of APIs, while spotting and classifying the data that passes through it, while employing testing to unearth any potential vulnerabilities.
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Zero- day vulnerability
API Bug Apple CVE vulnerability Google Security Tools Vulnerabilities and Exploits Vulnerability and Exploits. Zero- day vulnerability

Google: 5-year-old Apple Flaw Exploited

 

Google Project Zero researchers have revealed insights into a vulnerability in Apple Safari that has been extensively exploited in the wild. The vulnerability, known as CVE-2022-22620, was first patched in 2013, but experts identified a technique to overcome it in 2016. 

Apple has updated a zero-day vulnerability in the WebKit that affects iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and Safari and could have been extensively exploited in the wild, according to CVE org. 

In February, Apple patched the zero-day vulnerability; it's a use-after-free flaw that may be accessed by processing maliciously generated web content, spoofing credentials, and resulting in arbitrary code execution ."When the issue was first discovered in 2013, the version was patched entirely," Google Project Zero's Maddie Stone stated. "Three years later, amid substantial restructuring efforts, the variant was reintroduced. The vulnerability remained active for another five years before being addressed as an in-the-wild zero-day in January 2022." 

While the flaws in the History of API bug from 2013 and 2022 are fundamentally the same, the routes to triggering the vulnerability are different. The zero-day issue was then reborn as a "zombie" by further code updates made years later. 

An anonymous researcher discovered the flaw, and the corporation fixed it with better memory management. Maddie Stone examined the software's evolution over time, beginning with the code of Apple's fix and the security bulletin's description of the vulnerability, which stated that the flaw is a use-after-free flaw. 

“As an offensive security research team, we can make assumptions about the main issues that current software development teams face: Legacy code, short reviewer turn-around expectations, under-appreciation and under-rewarding of refactoring and security efforts, and a lack of memory safety mitigations” the report stated. 

"In October, 40 files were modified, with 900 additions and 1225 removals. The December commit modified 95 files, resulting in 1336 additions and 1325 removals," Stone highlighted. 

Stone further underlined the need of spending appropriate time to audit code and patches to minimize instances of duplication of fixes and to understand the security implications of the modifications being made, citing that the incident is not unique to Safari.
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Malicious actor
API Bug Data Breach Fake Apps Healthcare system HIPAA Malicious actor

A New Regulation Seeks to Secure Non-HIPAA Digital Health Apps

 

A guideline designed and distributed by several healthcare stakeholder groups strives to secure digital health technologies and mobile health apps, the overwhelming majority of which fall outside of HIPAA regulation. 

The Digital Health Assessment Framework was launched on May 2 by the American College of Physicians, the American Telemedicine Association, and the Organization for the Review of Care and Health Applications. The methodology intends to examine the use of digital health technologies while assisting healthcare leaders and patients in assessing the factors about which online health tools to employ. Covered entities must also adopt necessary administrative, physical, and technical protections to preserve the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of electronically protected health information, according to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act Rules. 

Healthcare data security was never more critical, with cyberattacks on healthcare businesses on the rise and hackers creating extremely complex tools and tactics to attack healthcare firms. Before HIPAA, the healthcare field lacked a universally agreed set of security standards or broad obligations for protecting patient information. At the same time, new technologies were advancing, and the healthcare industry began to rely more heavily on electronic information systems to pay claims, answer eligibility issues, give health information, and perform a variety of other administrative and clinical duties. 

Furthermore, the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services has enhanced HIPAA Rule enforcement, and settlements with covered businesses for HIPAA Rule violations are being reached at a faster rate than ever before. 

"Digital health technologies can provide safe, effective, and interacting access to personalized health and assistance, as well as more convenient care, improve patient-staff satisfaction and achieve better clinical outcomes," said Ann Mond Johnson, ATA CEO, in a statement. "Our goal is to provide faith that the health and wellness devices reviewed in this framework meet quality, privacy, and clinical assurance criteria in the United States," she added. 

Several health apps share personal information with third parties, leaving them prone to hacks. Over 86 million people in the US use a health or fitness app, which is praised for assisting patients in managing health outside of the doctor's office. HIPAA does not apply to any health app which is not advised for use by a healthcare provider. 

The problem is that the evidence strongly suggests the app developers engage in some less-than-transparent methods to compromise patient privacy. Focusing on a cross-sectional assessment of the top tier apps for depression and smoking cessation in the US and Australia, a study published in JAMA in April 2019 found that the majority of health apps share data to third parties, but only a couple disclosed the practice to consumers in one‘s privacy policies. 

Only 16 of the evaluated applications mentioned the additional uses for data sharing, despite the fact that the majority of the apps were forthright about the primary use of its data. 

According to the aforementioned study, nearly half of the apps sent data to a third party yet didn't have a privacy policy. But in more than 80% of cases, data was shared with Google and Facebook for marketing purposes. 

Another study published in the British Medical Journal in March 2019 discovered that the majority of the top 24 health education Android applications in the USA linked user data without explicitly informing users. In 2021, a study conducted by Knight Ink and Approov found that the 30 most popular mHealth apps are highly vulnerable to API hacks, which might result in the exploitation of health data. Only a few app developers were found in violation of the Federal Trade Commission's health breach rule. 

The guideline from ACP, ATA, and ORCHA aims to help the healthcare industry better comprehend product safety. "There has been no clear means to establish if a product is safe to use in a field of 365,000 goods, where the great majority fall outside of existing standards, such as medical device regulations, federal laws, and government counsel," as per the announcement. 

The implementation of digital health, covering condition management, clinical risk assessment, and decision assistance, is hampered by a lack of direction. The guide is a crucial step in identifying and developing digital health technologies which deliver benefits while protecting patient safety, according to ACP President Ryan D. Mire, MD. The guidelines were developed using the clinical expertise of ACP and ATA members, along with ORCHA's app assessment experience.

ACP also launched a pilot test of digital health solutions that were evaluated against the new framework in conjunction with the new framework. Mire hopes that the trial will assist providers to identify the most effective features for recommending high-value digital health technologies to patients and identify potential impediments to extensive digital health adoption.
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RSA
Amazon API Bug Cyber Security FBI Mespinoza group PHP PRODAFT PYSA ransomware attacks RSA

PYSA Ransomware Group: Experts Share In-Depth Details

 

Since August 2020, the cybercrime group adopted a five-stage system design, with the malware developers prioritizing enhancements to boost the efficiency of its activities, according to an 18-month examination of the PYSA ransomware operation. The GSOC explores the PYSA ransomware inside this Threat Analysis Report. Once the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) informed of the ransomware's increased activity and significant harmful impact early this year, it became known as the PYSA ransomware. 

This includes a user-friendly tool, such as a full-text search engine, to make metadata extraction easier and allow threat actors to easily locate and access victim information. "The group is notorious for thoroughly researching high-value targets before unleashing its operations, compromising business systems, and forcing researchers to pay significant ransoms to retrieve sensitive data," stated PRODAFT, a Swiss cybersecurity firm, in a comprehensive report released last week. 

PYSA, which stands for "Protect Your System, Amigo" and is a descendant of the Mespinoza ransomware, was initially discovered in December 2019 and has since risen to become the third most common ransomware strain reported in the fourth quarter of 2021. The cybercriminal cell is thought to have exfiltrated confidential info linked to as many as 747 individuals since September 2020, until its databases were taken down earlier this January. 

The majority of its victims are in the United States and Europe, and the gang primarily targets the federal, medical, and educational sectors. "The United States was the most-affected country, contributing for 59.2 percent of all PYSA occurrences documented," Intel 471 stated in a review of ransomware assaults observed from October to December 2021. PYSA, like all other malware attacks, is renowned for using the "big game hunting" method of double ransom, which involves making the stolen data public if the victim refuses to comply with the firm's demands. 

Every relevant key is encrypted and assigned the ".pysa" extension, which can only be decoded with the RSA private key given after paying the fee. PYSA victims are claimed to have paid about 58 percent in digital payments to get access to protected data. PRODAFT was able to find a publicly accessible. git folder owned by PYSA operators and designated one of the project's writers as "dodo@mail.pcc," a danger actor based on the commit history thought to be situated in a country that observes daylight savings time.

As per the study, at least 11 accounts are in control of the whole operation, the mass of which was formed on January 8, 2021. However, four of these accounts — t1, t3, t4, and t5 — account for approximately 90% of activity on the management panel of the company. Other operational security failures committed by the group's members allowed a concealed system running on the TOR secrecy network — a server provider (Snel.com B.V.) based in the Netherlands — to be identified, providing insight into the actor's techniques. PYSA's infrastructure also includes dockerized containers for global leak servers, database servers, administrative servers, and an Amazon S3 cloud for storing the files, which total 31.47TB.

The panel is written in PHP 7.3.12 by using the Laravel framework and uses the Git version monitoring system to oversee the development process. Furthermore, the admin panel exposes several API endpoints that allow the system to display files, auto-generate GIFs, and scan data, which is used to group stolen victim data into broad categories for simple retrieval. Several or more potential threat groups spent nearly five months within the system of an undisclosed regional US government agency before delivering the LockBit ransomware malware at the start of the year, as per research from cybersecurity firm Sophos.
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Web browser
API Bug CVE Cyber Security GPU Mozilla Firefox Sandboxing Web browser

Patches for Firefox Updates in an Emergency Two Zero-Day Vulnerabilities 

 

Mozilla released an emergency security upgrade for Firefox over the weekend to address two zero-day flaws which have been exploited in attacks. The two security holes, identified as CVE-2022-26485 and CVE-2022-26486 graded "critical severity," are use-after-free issues detected and reported by security researchers using Qihoo 360 ATA. 

WebGPU is a web API that uses a machine's graphics processing unit to support multimedia on web pages (GPU). It is used for a variety of tasks, including gaming, video conferencing, and 3D modeling. 

Both zero-day flaws are "use-after-free" problems, in which a program attempts to use memory that has already been cleared. When threat actors take advantage of this type of flaw, it can cause the program to crash while also allowing commands to be executed without permission on the device.

According to Mozilla, "an unanticipated event in the WebGPU IPC infrastructure could escalate to a use-after-free and vulnerable sandbox escape." 

Mozilla has patched the following zero-day vulnerabilities: 

  • Use-after-free in XSLT parameter processing - CVE-2022-26485 During processing, removing an XSLT argument could have resulted in an exploitable use-after-free. There have been reports of cyberattacks in the wild taking advantage of this weakness. 
  • Use-after-free in the WebGPU IPC Framework - CVE-2022-26486 A use-after-free and exploit sandbox escape could be enabled by an unexpected event in the WebGPU IPC framework. There have been reports of attacks in the wild that take advantage of this weakness. 
Since these issues are of extreme concern and are being actively exploited, it is strongly advised to all Firefox users that they upgrade their browsers right away. By heading to the Firefox menu > Help > About Firefox, users can manually check for new updates. Firefox will then look for and install the most recent update, prompting you to restart your browser.
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WordPress hacks
API Bug Dropbox IP Address malware Molerats Palestinian Hackers Phishing and Spam WordPress hacks

Hackers Linked to Palestine Use the New NimbleMamba Malware

 


A Palestinian-aligned hacking organization has used a novel malware implant to target Middle Eastern governments, international policy think tanks, and a state-affiliated airline as part of "highly focused intelligence collecting activities." The discoveries by Proofpoint researchers detail the recent actions of MoleRATs in relation to a renowned and well-documented Arabic-speaking cyber organization, and the ongoing installation of a new intelligence-gathering trojan known as "NimbleMamba." 

To verify all infected individuals are within TA402's target zone, NimbleMamba employs guardrails. The Dropbox API is used by NimbleMamba both to control and also data leakage. The malware also has a number of features that make automated and human analysis more difficult. It is constantly in creation, well-maintained, and is geared to be employed in highly focused intelligence collection programs. 

MoleRATs, also known as TA402, operators are "changing the methodologies while developing these very neatly done, specialized and well-targeted campaigns," according to Sherrod DeGrippo, Proofpoint's vice president of threat analysis and detection. 

Reportedly, TA402 sends spear-phishing emails with links to malware distribution sites. Victims should be inside the scope of the attack, otherwise, the user will be rerouted to credible sources. A version of NimbleMamba is dumped on the target's machine inside a RAR file if its IP address fulfills the selected targeted region. Three separate attack chains were discovered, each with minor differences in the phishing lure motif, redirection URL, and malware-hosting sites. 

In the most recent attacks, the perpetrators pretended to be the Quora website in November 2021. The customer would be rerouted to a domain that served the NimbleMamba virus if the target system's IP address fell under one of around two dozen geofenced country codes. The user would be sent to a respectable news source if this was not the case. 

Another effort, launched in December 2021, employed target-specific baits including medical data or sensitive geopolitical information, and delivered malware via Dropbox URLs.

In yet another campaign, which ran from December to January, the hackers employed different baits for each victim but delivered malware via a hacker-controlled WordPress URL. The hacker-controlled URL only enabled attacks on targets in specific nations. 

NimbleMamba contains "various capabilities intended to confuse both automatic and manual analysis," reiterating that the malware "currently being produced, is well-maintained, and tailored for use in highly focused intelligence collection programs," the researchers told. 
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Vulnerabilities and Exploits
API Bug Data Exposure Germany Scoolio Vulnerabilities and Exploits

400,000 German Students Data Exposed due to API Flaw

 

A newly found API issue in Scoolio, a school software used by 400,000 German students, has exposed the personal information of those kids. Lilith Wittmann of the IT security collective Zerforchung discovered the issue and notified the applications team immediately. 

Scoolio employs targeted advertising based on data collected from users, the majority of whom are students, without their knowledge or permission. It does, however, assert that it does not collect any user information. 

Scoolio's API shortcomings, as per Wittmann's report, facilitate information extraction based on the user ID. Anyone who uses this technique can obtain the user's username, email address, GPS history, school name and class, interests, UUID data, and personal information such as origin, religion, gender, and so on. 

Furthermore, the researcher also gave a fake representation of the data types affected by the issue. 

The researcher also noted that the API patch to avoid data leak was relatively straightforward and that it arrived in 30 days, on October 25, 2021, after they were notified of the issue on September 21, 2021. She goes on to say that it is impossible to say how many students were affected as Scoolio inflates user statistics. The app's creators have produced an official paper outlining the patch and have confirmed it. 

Scoolio provides users with tools for managing time, homework planning, staying in touch with friends, and even contacting firms for job vacancies or internship options. The business behind this one collaborated with several German schools and marketed it as a remote teaching support software. It was created with funding from three state-owned investment groups: SIB Innovations und Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, Technologiegründerfonds Sachsen, and Kreissparkasse Bautzen, so many students are compelled to use the software as a result of collaborations and government initiatives endorsing the same. 

The fundamental issue is that no security flaws are being audited. An initiative dubbed "EduCheck Digital" (EDCD) that began in August is attempting to evaluate which instructional media fulfills German data protection requirements and have the green signal for usage in schools. 

"I would like to thank Ms. Wittmann for the information and the SDS for the exchange and thank you for your feedback on our security measures," Danny Roller, CEO, and founder of the Scoolio app shared in a statement. 

"Fortunately, after extensive testing, we can confirm that No user data was intercepted by third parties before the investigation by Ms. Wittmann and we have successfully closed the gaps found."
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Vulnerabilities and Exploits
API Bug Data Leak data security Financial Data Payment Apps User Data Leak User Security Vulnerabilities and Exploits

Payment API Flaws Exposed Millions of Users’ Data

 

Researchers discovered API security flaws impacting several apps, potentially exposing the personal and financial information of millions of consumers. 

According to CloudSEK, around 250 of the 13,000 apps published to its BeVigil "security search engine" for mobile applications utilize the Razorpay API to conduct financial transactions. 

Unfortunately, it was discovered that about 5% of these had disclosed their payment integration key ID and key secret. This is not an issue in Razorpay, which caters over eight million businesses, but rather with how app developers are misusing their APIs.

Many of the applications exposing API keys have over a million downloads, including those in health and fitness, eCommerce, travel and hospitality, healthcare, and pharma. The applications are based in India, where CloudSEK is also situated. Here is a list of the applications that are affected:
  • One of India’s leading steel trading companies
  • Online grocery app 
  • Nepalekart (Instant Recharge to Nepal): Now remediated 
  • Top education app in south India 
  • Gold merchant 
  • Health app 
The company explained, “When it comes to payment gateways, an API key is a combination of a key_id and a key_secret that are required to make any API request to the payment service provider. And as part of the integration process, developers accidentally embed the API key in their source code. While developers might be aware of exposing API keys in their mobile apps, they might not be aware of the true impact this has on their entire business ecosystem.” 

“CloudSEK has observed that a wide range of companies — both large and small — that cater to millions of users have mobile apps with API keys that are hardcoded in the app packages. These keys could be easily discovered by malicious hackers or competitors who could use them to compromise user data and networks.” 

The compromised data might include user information such as phone numbers and email addresses, transaction IDs and amounts, and order and refund details. 

Furthermore, since similar apps are typically linked with other programmes and wallets, CloudSEK cautioned that much more could be at risk. 

According to the organization, malicious actors may utilise the leaked API information to execute mass purchases and subsequently start refunds, sell stolen information on the dark web, and/or conduct social engineering operations such as follow-up phishing campaigns. 

All ten of the compromised APIs have now been disabled. Nonetheless, CloudSEK encouraged developers to consider the possible effect of such vulnerabilities early in the development process.  

This is due to the fact that invalidating a payment integration key would prevent an app from functioning, resulting in substantial user friction and financial loss. 

CloudSEK concluded, “Given the complexities of regenerating API keys, payment providers should design APIs such that, even if the key has not been invalidated, there are options to minimize the permissions and access controls of a given key.” 

“App developers should be given a mechanism to limit what can be done using a key at a granular level, like AWS does. AWS has put in place identity and access management (IAM) policies that can be used to configure the permissions of every operation on an S3 bucket. This practice should be more widely adopted to minimize what threat actors can do with exposed API keys.”
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Vulnerabilities and Exploits
API Bug Bug Bounty Programs Security flaw Vulnerabilities and Exploits

Indian Security Researcher Finds Starbucks API Key Exposed on GitHub



Developers at Starbucks left an API (Application Programming Interface) key exposed to hackers with no password protection that could have been used by them to gain access to internal systems and consequently manipulate the list of authorized users. Hackers could have exploited the vulnerability in several ways which allowed them to execute commands on systems, add or remove the listed users and AWS account takeover.

The key was discovered by Vinoth Kumar who is an India security researcher, he happened to locate the open key in a public GitHub repository and responsibly reported it to Starbucks on 17th October via HackerOne vulnerability coordination and bug bounty platform. While reporting the same, HackerOne told, “Vinoth Kumar discovered a publicly available Github repository containing a Starbucks JumpCloud API Key which provided access to internal system information.”

“While going through Github search I discovered a public repository which contains JumpCloud API Key of Starbucks.” the expert himself told.

The key would have allowed an attacker to access a Starbucks JumpCloud API and hence the severity of the flaw was all the way up to critical. Colorado-based JumpCloud is an Active Directory management platform that offers a directory-as-a-service (DaaS) solution that customers employ to authorize, authenticate and manage users, devices, and applications. Other services it provides include web app single-on (SSO) and Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) service.

The issue had been taken into consideration by Starbucks very early on, however, Kumar tends to take note of the same on October 21 and told that the repository had been taken down and the API key had been revoked. As soon as the company examined Kumar's proof-of-concept of the flaw and approved of the same, the expert was rewarded with a bounty worth US$4,000 for responsibly disclosing the vulnerability.

While commenting on the matter, Starbucks said, “Thank you for your patience! We have determined that this report demonstrates “significant information disclosure and is therefore eligible for a bounty,”

“At this time, we are satisfied with the remediation of the issue and are ready to move to closure. Thank you again for the report! We hope to see more submissions from you in the future.”
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