CocoaPods vulnerabilities reported today could allow malicious actors to take over thousands of unclaimed pods and insert malicious code into many of the most popular iOS and MacOS applications, potentially affecting "almost every Apple device." E.V.A Information Security researchers found that the three vulnerabilities in the open source CocoaPods dependency manager were present in applications provided by Meta (Facebook, Whatsapp), Apple (Safari, AppleTV, Xcode), and Microsoft (Teams); as well as in TikTok, Snapchat, Amazon, LinkedIn, Netflix, Okta, Yahoo, Zynga, and many more. The vulnerabilities have been patched, yet the researchers still found 685 Pods “that had an explicit dependency using an orphaned Pod; doubtless there are hundreds or thousands more in proprietary codebases.” The widespread issue is further evidence of the vulnerability of the software supply chain. The researchers wrote that they often find that 70-80% of client code they review “is composed of open-source libraries, packages, or frameworks.”

The CocoaPods Vulnerabilities

The newly discovered vulnerabilities – one of which (CVE-2024-38366) received a 10 out of 10 criticality score – actually date from a May 2014 CocoaPods migration to a new 'Trunk’ server, which left 1,866 orphaned pods that owners never reclaimed. The other two CocoaPods vulnerabilities (CVE-2024-38368 and CVE-2024-38367) also date from the migration. For CVE-2024-38368, the researchers said that in analyzing the source code of the ‘Trunk’ server, they noticed that all orphan pods were associated with a default CocoaPods owner, and the email created for this default owner was unclaimed-pods@cocoapods.org. They also noticed that the public API endpoint to claim a pod was still available, and the API “allowed anyone to claim orphaned pods without any ownership verification process.” “By making a straightforward curl request to the publicly available API, and supplying the unclaimed targeted pod name, the door was wide open for a potential attacker to claim any or all of these orphaned Pods as their own,” wrote Reef Spektor and Eran Vaknin. Once they took over a Pod, an attacker would be able to manipulate the source code or insert malicious content into the Pod, which “would then go on to infect many downstream dependencies, and potentially find its way into a large percentage of Apple devices currently in use.” Earlier in 2014, a change was committed to the CocoaPods ‘Trunk’ source code implementing MX record validation for registered emails. The changes created a new attack path that was identified by analyzing the registration flow, resulting in the CVE-2024-38366 vulnerability. The changes created a new verification process for the user-provided email address using the third-party Ruby gem package rfc-822, which can be attacked in a few ways, potentially resulting in attacks that could “dump pod owners’ session tokens, poison client’s traffic or even shut down the server completely.” In CVE-2024-38367, the researchers found they could spoof XFH headers to engineer a zero-click account takeover by defeating email security boundaries. “Using this method, we managed to take over the owner accounts of some of the most popular CocoaPods packages,” the researchers said. “Potentially we could have used these accounts for highly damaging supply chain attacks that could impact the entire Apple ecosystem.”

DevOps Teams: Get to Work

While the vulnerabilities have been patched, the work for developers and DevOps teams is just getting started. Developers and DevOps teams that have used CocoaPods in recent years - particularly before October 2023 - "should verify the integrity of open source dependencies used in their application code,” the E.V.A researchers said. “The vulnerabilities we discovered could be used to control the dependency manager itself, and any published package.” Downstream dependencies could mean that thousands of applications and millions of devices were exposed over the last few years, and close attention should be paid to software that relies on orphaned CocoaPod packages that do not have an owner assigned to them. Developers and organizations should review dependency lists and package managers used in their applications, validate checksums of third-party libraries, perform periodic scans to detect malicious code or suspicious changes, keep software updated, and limit use of orphaned or unmaintained packages. "Dependency managers are an often-overlooked aspect of software supply chain security," the researchers wrote. "Security leaders should explore ways to increase governance and oversight over the use these tools."

Cyble Research & Intelligence Labs (CRIL) analyzed 23 vulnerabilities in its weekly vulnerability report for June 19-25, including critical flaws in products from the likes of Microsoft, Adobe, MOVEit and more. The report focuses on 10 vulnerabilities in particular: Three in Microsoft products – including a 7-year-old Office flaw facing new exploits – and one each in products from Adobe, MOVEit, VMware, Fortra, Phoenix Technologies, SolarWinds, and Themify. Thousands of new security vulnerabilities are discovered each year, yet only a small percentage of those are actively exploited by threat actors. To help security teams focus on the most important vulnerabilities and threats, The Cyber Express each week partners with Cyble’s highly skilled dark web and threat intelligence researchers to highlight security vulnerabilities that warrant particularly close attention.

The Week’s Top Vulnerabilities

These are the 10 high-severity and critical vulnerabilities Cyble researchers focused on this week.

CVE-2024-5276

Impact Analysis: This critical SQL Injection vulnerability in Fortra FileCatalyst Workflow, a web-based file transfer platform accelerating large file exchanges, allows an attacker to modify application data, with likely impacts including the creation of administrative users and deletion or modification of data in the application database. It is worth noting that data exfiltration via SQL injection is not possible by leveraging the vulnerability; further successful unauthenticated exploitation requires a Workflow system with anonymous access enabled; otherwise, an authenticated user is required. Internet Exposure? No Patch Available? Yes

CVE-2024-5806

Impact Analysis: This critical improper authentication vulnerability impacts Progress MOVEit Transfer (SFTP module), which can lead to authentication bypass in the secure managed file transfer application. With successful exploitation, an attacker could access sensitive data stored on the MOVEit Transfer server; upload, download, delete, or modify files; and intercept or tamper with file transfers. Within a day of the vendor disclosing the vulnerability, security researchers started to observe exploitation attempts targeting it due to its vast exposure and impact, Cyble researchers noted. Patch Available? Yes

CVE-2024-0762

Impact Analysis: This high-severity buffer overflow vulnerability impacts unsafe UEFI variable handling in Phoenix SecureCore, an advanced UEFI firmware solution developed for client PCs, notebooks, and IoT/embedded devices. The vulnerability could be exploited to execute code on vulnerable devices. Furthermore, given the enormous number of Intel CPUs that use this firmware, the vulnerability might affect hundreds of models from vendors, including Lenovo, Dell, Acer, and HP, Cyble researchers noted. Internet Exposure? No Patch Available? Yes

CVE-2024-34102

Impact Analysis: This critical improper restriction of XML external entity reference ('XXE') vulnerability impacts Adobe Commerce, a leading digital commerce solution for merchants and brands. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted XML document that references external entities, leading to arbitrary code execution. Patch Available? Yes

CVE-2024-28995

Impact Analysis: The high severity directory transversal vulnerability impacts SolarWinds Serv-U, a secure managed file transfer (MFT) solution. Successful exploitation of the vulnerability could allow threat actors access to read sensitive files on the host machine. Recently researchers have observed active exploitation of vulnerability leveraging publicly available proof-of-concept (PoC) exploits. Patch Available? Yes

CVE-2017-11882

Impact Analysis: The high-severity vulnerability impacts Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack 3, Microsoft Office 2010 Service Pack 2, Microsoft Office 2013 Service Pack 1, and Microsoft Office 2016. It could allow an attacker to run arbitrary code in the context of the current user by failing to handle objects in memory properly. Recently, researchers uncovered that this 7-year-old vulnerability was leveraged in cyberespionage campaigns orchestrated by alleged state-sponsored groups. Internet Exposure? No Patch Available? Yes

CVE-2024-6027

Impact Analysis: The high-severity vulnerability impacts the Themify WooCommerce Product Filter plugin for WordPress, which could lead to time-based SQL Injection via the ‘conditions’ parameter. Exploiting the vulnerability makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to append additional SQL queries into already existing queries that can be used to extract sensitive information from the database. Internet Exposure? Yes Patch Available? Yes – upgrade to version 1.5.0

CVE-2024-37079

Impact Analysis: Cyble also addressed this vulnerability in last week’s vulnerability report. The critical severity heap-overflow vulnerability impacts the VMware vCenter Server, a central management platform for VMware vSphere that enables the management of virtual machines and ESXi hosts. Given the global usage of the impacted product and the history of leveraging the flaws impacting vCenter, Cyble said there are possibilities that threat actors (TAs) could also leverage this critical vulnerability. Internet Exposure? Yes Patch Available? Yes

CVE-2024-30103

Impact Analysis: This high-severity remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability impacts Microsoft Outlook. Since the RCE flaw can be exploited simply by opening and previewing an email that contains a malicious payload in the body, requiring no further interaction from the user, there are high possibilities for TAs to weaponize the vulnerability in targeting government and private entities. Internet Exposure? No Patch Available? Yes

CVE-2024-30078

Impact Analysis: This high severity remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability impacts Windows Wi-Fi Driver. With the wide usage of Windows devices around the world and the ability to exploit without the need for any user interaction, TAs can leverage the flaw to gain initial access to the devices and later install malware and exfiltrate user data. Internet Exposure? No Patch Available? Yes

Dark Web Exploits

Cyble’s scans of customer environments found nearly a million exposed assets for just 7 vulnerabilities this week. Nearly 200,000 assets were exposed to the the VMware vCenter Server vulnerability, while a PHP vulnerability (CVE-2024-4577) reported two weeks ago continues to dominate, affecting nearly 600,000 exposed assets. Cyble researchers also observed five instances of alleged zero-day vulnerabilities being offered on sale on underground forums, plus a number of exploits/proof of concepts/custom scripts observed over underground forums. The full report available for clients covers all these vulnerabilities, along with details and discussion around exploits found on the dark web, industrial control system (ICS) vulnerability intelligence, and cybersecurity defenses.

Claims, counterclaims, website shutdowns, redirections and DDoS attacks were among the highlights (or lowlights) as news of the Polyfill supply chain attack entered its second day. After Polyfill(.)io was shut down by registrar Namecheap, the allegedly compromised JavaScript CDN service relaunched at Polyfill(.)com, and claimed it had been “maliciously defamed.” Meanwhile, the researchers who first reported the supply chain compromise were hit by a DDoS attack, while many security researchers wondered how such a widely used web component could have been sold to a Chinese company in the first place. Here are the latest developments in the attack, which is potentially the largest-ever digital supply chain attack. While the full extent of malware distributed through the CDN remains unknown, initial estimates were that more than 100,000 websites were using the service. However, in a post on X, Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince said “Tens of millions of websites (4% of the web) uses Polyfill(.)io. Extremely concerning malware has been discovered impacting any site using Polyfill.” He also said Cloudflare was automatically replacing Polyfill links with its own mirror. [caption id="attachment_79279" align="alignnone" width="400"] Extent of website exposure to Polyfill(.)io (source: X)[/caption]

Extent of Polyfill Supply Chain Attack Unknown, But Big Names Among Users

Some of the biggest names turning up in a search for cdn(.)polyfill(.)io include Intuit, JSTOR, the World Economic Forum, a Coldwell Banker real estate site, major educational sites like Brandeis University, the technical standards organization ASTM, the Bank of Ireland, Live Nation sites for Spain and the UK, the RAINN anti-sexual violence organization, data management vendor AvePoint, investment company MSCI, industrial network company Moxa, the Environmental Defense Fund, and the Dubai Airports Company. The extent of the Polyfill supply chain attack may be unknown for some time. In February, a Chinese company bought the Polyfill domain and the Github account, and concern about the deal surfaced almost immediately. The Sansec researchers who initially publicly disclosed the threat two days ago noted that since the acquisition, “this domain was caught injecting malware on mobile devices via any site that embeds cdn.polyfill.io. Any complaints were quickly removed from the Github repository.” The researchers said that the polyfill code is dynamically generated based on the HTTP headers, “so multiple attack vectors are likely.” Sansec decoded one particular malware strain that redirects mobile users to a sports betting site using a fake Google analytics domain (googie-anaiytics(.)com). The researchers said they were subsequently hit by a DDoS attack after publishing their initial report. [caption id="attachment_79278" align="alignnone" width="400"] Researchers hit by DDoS attack (source: X)[/caption]

Google Started Blocking Ads in Mid-June

It’s not clear how long the threat has been known – it is standard practice for threat researchers to wait to reveal their findings until affected parties have had a chance to fix vulnerabilities – but Google has apparently been rejecting ads that link to the googie-anaiytics domain since at least mid-June. In a letter to advertisers this week (reprinted below), Google cited redirects coming from “a few different third-party web resource providers including Polyfill.io, Bootcss.com, Bootcdn.net, or Staticfile.org” for the rejected ads. [caption id="attachment_79305" align="alignleft" width="260"] Google Ads Polyfill letter[/caption] In addition to those four domains, Sansec researchers added an additional five malicious domains to their original report: staticfile(.)net, unionadjs(.)com, xhsbpza(.)com, union(.)macoms(.)la, and newcrbpc(.)com. That gives website owners a total of nine services and domains to monitor and remove from their sites. The connection between the sites apparently came from a secrets leak on the Polyfill site. Some of the domains have been used for malicious activity since at least June 2023.

Mitigations Set Up By Cloudflare, Fastly

To mitigate supply chain risk, Cloudflare released an automatic JavaScript URL rewriting service that will rewrite any link to polyfill(.)io found in a website proxied by Cloudflare to a link to the company’s mirror under cdnjs. Cloudflare also charged that Polyfill was falsely misusing the Cloudflare name and logo on its website. Fastly – which hosted the CDN for free before it was sold – had also set up an alternative service based on the Polyfill open source project. Developer Andrew Betts, who had created the Polyfill service project, said in an X post at the time of the sale in February that "No website today requires any of the polyfills in the http://polyfill.io library. Most features added to the web platform are quickly adopted by all major browsers, with some exceptions that generally can't be polyfilled anyway, like Web Serial and Web Bluetooth."

Polyfill Owner Responds

The Polyfill(.)io owners took to X to respond to the malware charges. “Someone has maliciously defamed us,” said a post to the Polyfill_Global account. “We have no supply chain risks because all content is statically cached. Any involvement of third parties could introduce potential risks to your website, but no one would do this as it would be jeopardize  (sic) our own reputation.” [caption id="attachment_79275" align="alignnone" width="400"] Polyfill response (source: X)[/caption] The Cyber Express will continue to update readers as this story evolves. Note: This article was updated on June 28 to report that 9 malicious domains relating to the Polyfill supply chain attack have now been identified.

Threat actors are using a new attack technique that allows them to evade detection and gain full code execution of Microsoft Management Console using specially crafted management saved console (MSC) files. Elastic Security Labs researchers uncovered the new technique after a sample was uploaded to VirusTotal on June 6 – and it has yet to trigger static detections by antivirus tools on the site. The researchers are calling the new infection technique GrimResource.

GrimResource Attack Uses Old XSS Flaw

GrimResource is a “a novel, in-the-wild code execution technique leveraging specially crafted MSC files,” the researchers wrote. “GrimResource allows attackers to execute arbitrary code in Microsoft Management Console (mmc.exe) with minimal security warnings, ideal for gaining initial access and evading defenses.” The key to the attack technique is an old XSS flaw present in the apds.dll library. “By adding a reference to the vulnerable APDS resource in the appropriate StringTable section of a crafted MSC file, attackers can execute arbitrary javascript in the context of mmc.exe,” they said. Attackers can combine the technique with DotNetToJScript to gain arbitrary code execution. The sample begins with a TransformNode obfuscation technique, which was recently reported by open source tool developer Philippe Lagadec in unrelated macro samples. The obfuscation technique helps evade ActiveX security warnings and leads to an obfuscated embedded VBScript, which sets the target payload in a series of environment variables before leveraging the DotNetToJs technique to execute an embedded .NET loader. The researchers named that component PASTALOADER. PASTALOADER retrieves the payload from environment variables set by the VBScript and “spawns a new instance of dllhost.exe and injects the payload into it. This is done in a deliberately stealthy manner using the DirtyCLR technique, function unhooking, and indirect syscalls. In this sample, the final payload is Cobalt Strike.” Using the DotNetToJScript technique triggers another detection looking for RWX memory allocation from .NET on behalf of a Windows Script Host (WSH) script engine. The researchers created a rule in Elastic’s Event Query Language (EQL) to detect execution via the .NET loader.

GrimResource Detection Rules Provided

Those detections can be bypassed with stealthier methods, the researchers noted: Using apds.dll to execute Jscript via XSS, which can create detectable artifacts in the mmc.exe Procmon output as a CreateFile operation (apds.dll is not loaded as a library), and the creation of a temporary HTML file in the INetCache folder, named redirect[*] as a result of the APDS XSS redirection. In addition to EQL rules, the researchers also provided a YARA detection rule: [caption id="attachment_78894" align="alignnone" width="500"] GrimResource YARA detection rule (source: Elastic Security Labs)[/caption] “Defenders should leverage our detection guidance to protect themselves and their customers from this technique before it proliferates into commodity threat groups,” the researchers warned.

Cyble Research & Intelligence Labs (CRIL) last week analyzed 154 vulnerabilities in its weekly vulnerability report, including critical flaws in products from the likes of Microsoft, VMware, Veeam and ASUS. A whopping 126 of the vulnerabilities occurred in Siemens industrial control systems (ICS) products, potentially putting critical manufacturing infrastructure at risk. About 25,000 new security vulnerabilities are discovered each year, yet only a small percentage of those are actively exploited by threat actors. To help security teams focus on the most important vulnerabilities and threats, The Cyber Express is collaborating with Cyble’s highly skilled dark web and threat intelligence researchers to highlight security vulnerabilities that warrant particularly close attention.

The Week’s Top Vulnerabilities

Cyble’s weekly report focused on 9 of the vulnerabilities in particular; they are:

CVE-2024-37079, CVE-2024-37080 and CVE-2024-37081: VMware

Impact Analysis: These critical and high severity heap-overflow and privilege escalation vulnerabilities impact the VMware vCenter Server, a central management platform for VMware vSphere, enabling the management of virtual machines and ESXi hosts. With the global usage of the impacted product and the history of leveraging flaws impacting vCenter, there is strong potential for threat actors (Tas) to leverage these critical vulnerabilities also. Internet Exposure: Yes Available Patch? Yes

CVE-2024-3080: ASUS Router Bypass

Impact Analysis: This critical authentication bypass vulnerability impacts certain ASUS router models, allowing unauthenticated remote attackers to log in to the device. Recently, the Taiwan Computer Emergency Response Team informed users about the vulnerability and released an advisory with fixes to patch the flaw. Internet Exposure: Yes Patch Available? Yes

CVE-2024-3912: ASUS Arbitrary Firmware Upload Vulnerability

Impact Analysis: This critical arbitrary firmware upload vulnerability impacts certain ASUS router models, allowing unauthenticated remote attackers to execute arbitrary system commands on the device. The Taiwan Computer Emergency Response Team also informed users about this vulnerability and released an advisory with fixes to patch the flaw. Internet Exposure: Yes Patch Available? Yes

CVE-2024-29855: Veeam Recovery Orchestrator

Impact Analysis: This critical authentication bypass vulnerability impacts the Veeam Recovery Orchestrator. The recovery solution extends the capabilities of the Veeam Data Platform by automating recovery processes and providing comprehensive reporting and testing features. The availability of a recent publicly available proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit for this vulnerability elevates the risk of exploitation in attacks by TAs. Internet Exposure: No Patch Available? Yes

CVE-2024-30103: Microsoft Outlook RCE Vulnerability

Impact Analysis: This high-severity remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability impacts Microsoft Outlook. Since the zero-click RCE flaw can be exploited simply by opening and previewing an email that contains a malicious payload in the body of the email, requiring no further interaction from the user, there are high possibilities for the weaponization of the vulnerability by TAs in targeting government and private entities. Internet Exposure: No Patch Available? Yes

CVE-2024-30078: Windows Wi-Fi Driver RCE Vulnerability

Impact Analysis: This high severity remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability impacts Windows Wi-Fi Driver. With the wide usage of Windows devices around the world and the ability to exploit without the need for any user interaction, TAs can leverage the flaw to gain initial access to the devices and later install malware and exfiltrate user data. Internet Exposure: No Patch Available? Yes

CVE-2024-37051: JetBrains GitHub Plugin Vulnerability

Impact Analysis: This critical vulnerability in the JetBrains GitHub plugin on the IntelliJ open-source platform affects all IntelliJ-based IDEs, leading to the exposure of GitHub access tokens. TAs can leverage the vulnerability by using exposed tokens to gain unauthorized access to user GitHub accounts and repositories and possibly deploy malicious code or delete the repositories. Internet Exposure: No Patch Available? Yes

CISA Adds 5 Vulnerabilities to KEV Catalog

Five of the vulnerabilities in the Cyble report were added to CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog:

• CVE-2024-32896, an Android Pixel vulnerability with a 7.8 CVSSv3 criticality score
• CVE-2024-26169, a Microsoft Windows error reporting service elevation of privilege vulnerability with a 7.8 criticality rating
• CVE-2024-4358, a Progress Telerik Report Server vulnerability with a 9.8 rating
• CVE-2024-4610, an Arm Mali GPU Kernel Driver vulnerability with a 5.5 rating
• CVE-2024-4577, a PHP remote code execution flaw, a 9.8 vulnerability that Cyble addressed in last week’s report

The full Cyble report available for clients covers all these vulnerabilities, along with details and discussion around exploits found on the dark web, industrial control system (ICS) vulnerability intelligence, and cybersecurity defenses. Cyble security analysts also conducted scans of customer environments to alert them of any exposures – and found more than 2 million exposures to 13 of the vulnerabilities. Stay ahead of cyber threats with the Weekly Vulnerability Intelligence Report by Cyble, brought to you by The Cyber Express. Subscribe now for the latest insights powered by Cyble's advanced AI-driven threat intelligence.

Cybersecurity researchers are tracking a novel Linux malware campaign that makes use of Discord emojis for command and control (C2) communication with attackers. The campaign’s unusual combination of Linux malware and phishing lures suggests an attack aimed at Linux desktop users, the researchers from Volexity said. “Volexity assesses it is highly likely this campaign, and the malware used, is targeted specifically towards government entities in India, who use a custom Linux distribution named BOSS as their daily desktop,” they wrote.

Threat Actor ‘UTA0137’ Linked to Campaign

Volexity researchers connected the campaign to a Pakistan-based threat actor they call UTA0137. The researchers said they have “high confidence that UTA0137 has espionage-related objectives and a remit to target government entities in India. Based on Volexity’s analysis, UTA0137’s campaigns appear to have been successful.” The researchers say they have “moderate confidence” that UTA0137 is a Pakistan-based threat actor because of the group’s targets and a few other reasons:

• The Pakistani time zone was hardcoded in one malware sample.
• There are weak infrastructure links to SideCopy, a known Pakistan-based threat actor.
• The Punjabi language was used in the malware.

The malware used by the threat group uses a modified version of the discord-c2 GitHub project for its Discord command and control (C2) communication. The malware, dubbed DISGOMOJI by the researchers, is written in Golang and compiled for Linux systems. The threat actors also use the DirtyPipe (CVE-2022-0847) privilege escalation exploit against “BOSS 9” systems, which remain vulnerable to the exploit.

Attack Starts With DSOP PDF

The malware is delivered via a DSOP.pdf lure, which claims to be a beneficiary document of India’s Defence Service Officer Provident Fund (screenshot below). [caption id="attachment_77503" align="alignnone" width="750"] The DSOP lure that downloads the malware[/caption] The malware then downloads the next-stage payload, named vmcoreinfo, from a remote server, clawsindia[.]in. The payload is an instance of the DISGOMOJI malware and is dropped in a hidden folder named .x86_64-linux-gnu in the user’s home directory. DISGOMOJI, a UPX-packed ELF written in Golang, uses Discord for C2. “An authentication token and server ID are hardcoded inside the ELF, which are used to access the Discord server,”  they wrote. “The malware creates a dedicated channel for itself in the Discord server, meaning each channel in the server represents an individual victim. The attacker can then interact with every victim individually using these channels.” On startup, DISGOMOJI sends a check-in message in the channel that contains information like the internal IP, the user name, host name, OS and current working directory. The malware can survive reboots through the addition of a @reboot entry to the crontab, and it also downloads a script named uevent_seqnum.sh to copy files from any attached USB devices.

Discord Emojis Used for C2 Communication

C2 communication uses an emoji-based protocol, “where the attacker sends commands to the malware by sending emojis to the command channel, with additional parameters following the emoji where applicable.” A Clock emoji in the command message lets the attacker know a command is being processed, while a Check Mark emoji confirms that the command was executed. The researchers summarized the emoji commands in a table: [caption id="attachment_77505" align="alignnone" width="750"] The Discord emojis used to communicate with attackers (source: Volexity)[/caption] Post-exploitation activities include use of the Zenity utility to display malicious dialog boxes to socially engineer users into giving up their passwords. Open source tools such as Nmap, Chisel and Ligolo are also used, and the DirtyPipe exploit suggests increasing sophistication of the atacker's methods, the researchers said. Indicators of compromise (IoCs) can be downloaded from the Volexity GitHub page:

• YARA rules
• Single value indicators

The on-again, off-again saga of BreachForums took another twist in recent days with the news that the data leak forum apparently has a new owner. ShinyHunters – who had reportedly retired after tiring of the pressure of running a notorious hacker forum – returned on June 14 to announce that the forum is now under the ownership of a threat actor operating under the new handle name “Anastasia.” It’s not yet clear if the move will quell concerns that the forum has been taken over by law enforcement after a May 15 FBI-led takeover, but for now, BreachForums is up and running under its .st domain.

ShinyHunters Alludes to BreachForums Issues

ShinyHunters alluded to those issues in a post announcing the forum’s new owner (screenshot below). “It's hard to maintain motivation when you're constantly getting accused of being a honeypot and at this point I'm burned out, hollow is burned out and we just want to move on to bigger things rather than the constant onslaught of users complaining about how we ran our forum,” ShinyHunters wrote. “Baphomet has done an incredible job of building new features for everyone, keeping everything together and maintaining the forum. Couldn't have done it without him. We hope the forum can live on without us for a long time. Thank you all for your support. Goodbye.” [caption id="attachment_77484" align="alignnone" width="750"] The announcement of a new BreachForums owner[/caption] While “User-Anastasia” is a new account, ShinyHunters referred to the new owner as “an OG some of you may remember.” Cyble threat researchers reported that Anastasia also goes by “Anastasia Belshaw.”

BreachForums Returns, Hackers Raise Suspicions

BreachForums was seized by the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice in mid-May, with help from international law enforcement agencies, and Baphomet was allegedly arrested in that action. However, just two weeks later, the forum returned, leading to suspicion among some threat actors that the site was operating as a “honeypot” or a sting operation under the control of the FBI. To further complicate matters, the site went down again last week, possibly due to technical issues, and its associated Telegram channels disappeared too amid reports that ShinyHunters was retiring. A few days later came the announcement that Anastasia would take over the forum. It remains to be seen what direction the forum will take under new ownership, but given the site’s volatile history, whatever is in store is certain to be eventful.

June 13, 2024 may go down as one of the tougher days in Microsoft’s long history. The day started with a report alleging that a vulnerability long neglected by Microsoft led to the SolarWinds software supply chain breach in 2021; was followed by a nearly three-hour hostile hearing on Capitol Hill over the software giant’s security failures that resulted in a massive hack by China of U.S. government email systems; and it ended late at night with the company’s announcement that it will delay the rollout of its Windows Recall screen recording feature that faced heavy criticism from cybersecurity researchers over the lack of security and data privacy controls built into Recall. Microsoft President Brad Smith struck a conciliatory tone in his hearing with U.S. lawmakers and he outlined plans to improve security at the company, but the bungled launch of Recall – coming after the company had already pledged at least twice to improve security – shows that the software and cloud technology giant has a long way to go to make good on those pledges.

Recall Controversy Took Off After a Report on The Cyber Express

Calls to overhaul Recall’s security and privacy features started with the work of security researcher Kevin Beaumont, who called the lack of controls the “dumbest cybersecurity move in a decade.” Beaumont’s work demonstrating Recall’s security holes was first reported in a Cyber Express article that landed on the front page of tech news aggregator Slashdot, where it received 140 comments, and the story took off from there, creating something of a PR nightmare for Microsoft. Further proofs supporting Beaumont’s work emerged, and Microsoft belatedly tried to address the security and privacy concerns, but apparently not in time for the release of Copilot+ PCs planned for June 18. In a blog post update late on June 13, Microsoft said Recall will now become “a preview available first in the Windows Insider Program (WIP) in the coming weeks. Following receiving feedback on Recall from our Windows Insider Community, as we typically do, we plan to make Recall (preview) available for all Copilot+ PCs coming soon. “We are adjusting the release model for Recall to leverage the expertise of the Windows Insider community to ensure the experience meets our high standards for quality and security.”

Beaumont Welcomes Microsoft Recall Delay, Awaits Changes

In a post on a Mastodon cybersecurity instance, Beaumont welcomed the Microsoft Recall delay. “Good on Microsoft for finally reaching a sane conclusion,” he wrote. “When it does appear in preview channels, privacy and security researchers need to keep a close eye on what Microsoft are doing with the feature. “Microsoft tried developing this feature in secret in a way which tried to avoid scrutiny. Thank you to everyone who stood up.” Beaumont said it’s his understanding that Recall was developed without input from security and privacy staff. “I've also been told Microsoft security and privacy staff weren't provided Recall, as the feature wasn't made available broadly internally either,” he said.

Microsoft’s cybersecurity efforts have been roundly criticized in recent months, and despite pledges to do better, the company has compounded the problem with missteps like the Copilot+ Recall rollout. Microsoft security controls came under scrutiny in April with the release of a U.S. Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB) report that detailed “a cascade of security failures at Microsoft” that allowed threat actors linked to China to access “the official email accounts of many of the most senior U.S. government officials managing our country’s relationship with the People’s Republic of China” in a July 2023 attack. Rather than make good on pledges to make cybersecurity a top priority, Microsoft followed with the cybersecurity equivalent of an own goal when it pushed ahead with the new Windows Recall screen recording feature despite the concerns of security and privacy advocates that the company belatedly tried to address. Late today, Microsoft announced that it will delay the Recall feature for further testing. The House Committee on Homeland Security held a hearing today to address the CSRB report and Microsoft security in general, with Microsoft President Brad Smith the sole witness. The hearing, titled “A Cascade of Security Failures: Assessing Microsoft Corporation’s Cybersecurity Shortfalls and the Implications for Homeland Security,” came on the same day that Pro Publica published a report detailing years of Microsoft security failings that led up to the massive 2021 SolarWinds breach.

Congressional Leaders Call for ‘Responsibility’ and ‘Accountability’

In his opening remarks, House Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green (R-TN) called the CSRB report “extremely concerning,” and spoke of the need of “restoring the public trust” in the security of Microsoft products. “China and Russia, Beijing and Moscow, are watching us right now,” he cautioned, underscoring the stakes of the hearing while offering to move any sensitive questions to a secure environment. Ranking member Bennie Thompson (D-MS) stressed that “It is not the committee’s goal to shame or discredit” Smith and Microsoft, but to improve security and accountability at the vendor that supplies 85% of federal government productivity tools. Thompson noted the Recall rollout and Pro Publica article in his comments, calling “even more troubling” Smith’s 2021 claim before Congress that no Microsoft vulnerability was exploited in the SolarWinds attack. Green and Thompson weren’t the only committee members taking a firm tone with Microsoft, as almost every member did the same in their allotted time for questioning. Lou Correa (D-CA), for example, said he was “beyond shocked” at the security revelations in the CSRB report and elsewhere.

Microsoft President Smith Pledges Action

Perhaps anticipating a rough reception from lawmakers, Smith struck a conciliatory tone in his written and spoken testimony to the committee. “Microsoft accepts responsibility for each and every one of the issues cited in the CSRB’s report,” Smith said. “Without equivocation or hesitation. And without any sense of defensiveness. But rather with a complete commitment to address every recommendation and use this report as an opportunity and foundation to strengthen our cybersecurity protection across the board.” Smith said the company is making cybersecurity part of senior executive bonus calculations and employee reviews as part of the its goal of “empowering and rewarding every employee to find security issues, report them, help fix them, and encourage broader learning from the process and the results. This requires that we incorporate this security work as an indispensable and integrated element in every aspect of the company’s engineering processes.” [caption id="attachment_77142" align="alignnone" width="750"] Microsoft President Brad Smith testifying before House Homeland Security Committee[/caption] To that end, Smith said the company has added 1,600 more security engineers this fiscal year, “and we will add another 800 new security positions in our next fiscal year.” Senior-level Deputy CISOs at Microsoft have been tasked with expanding “oversight of the various engineering teams to assess and ensure that security is ‘baked into’ engineering decision-making and processes.” Smith said cyberattacks in general have become a massive problem: “the pace of attacks has increased to the point where there is now constant combat in cyberspace,” he said. “Not just every day, but literally every second. Microsoft alone detects almost 4,000 password-based attacks against our customers every second of every day.”

Microsoft Security Plans

Smith said Microsoft has mapped all 16 of the CSRB recommendations applicable to Microsoft “to ensure that we are addressing them” as part of the company’s Secure Future Initiative. The company is “actively in the process of transitioning both our consumer and enterprise identity systems to a new hardened key management system that leverages hardware security modules for the storage and generation of keys. We are rolling out proprietary data and corresponding detection signals at all places where tokens are validated. And we have made significant progress on Automated and Frequent Key Rotation, Common Auth Libraries, and Proprietary Data used in our token generation algorithm.” Smith’s written testimony outlined six “pillars” for improving security: Protect Identities and Secrets: Microsoft plans to implement and enforce “best-in-class standards across our infrastructure that manages identities and sensitive information such as passwords ('secrets'), to ensure that only the right people and applications access the right resources.” Protect Tenants and Isolate Production Systems: The company pledges to “continuously validate isolation of production systems – including those upon which we operate the Microsoft Cloud.” Protect Networks: Microsoft will “Continuously improve and implement best-in-class practices to protect Microsoft production networks.” Protect Engineering Systems: The company said it will work to “Continuously improve our software supply chain and the systems that enable Microsoft engineers to develop, build, test, and release software, thereby protecting software assets and improving code security.” Monitor and Detect Threats: This initiative calls for Microsoft to improve “coverage and automatic detection of ever evolving threats to Microsoft production infrastructure and services, accelerating actioning against those threats.” Accelerate Response and Remediation: Speeding incident response and remediation is the final pillar, so “when we learn of vulnerabilities in our offerings or our infrastructure, to be even more comprehensive and timely and better prevent exploitation of those vulnerabilities.” Updated to reflect the delay in the Recall rollout.

Ukraine National Police have arrested a man they say helped disguise ransomware used by Russia-based threat groups. The 28-year-old cryptor developer was unnamed in Ukraine and Netherlands announcements of the arrest, but the Dutch statement said he was arrested on April 18, 2024 in a lead-up to May’s massive “Operation Endgame” botnet takedown.

Cryptor Developer Worked with Conti, LockBit

Ukraine cyber ​​police and National Police investigators say they established that the man was involved in the LockBit and Conti ransomware groups. The Kyiv man infected a company in the Netherlands with Conti ransomware in 2021, demanded a ransom and threatened to release confidential company information if payment wasn’t made, according to the Dutch announcement, which cited work by the Netherlands’ High Tech Crime Team of the National Operations and Interventions Unit and the National Public Prosecution Service. They requested Ukraine’s assistance in the case as part of their investigation. As part of the arrest, Ukrainian police conducted house searches in the city of Kyiv and the Kharkiv region on April 18 and seized computer equipment, mobile phones and documents for further investigation (pictured below). [caption id="attachment_76895" align="alignnone" width="300"] Items seized in Ukraine ransomware arrest[/caption] The Ukraine cyber police said the man “specialized in the development of cryptors,” or “special software for masking computer viruses under the guise of safe files” (quotes translated from the Ukraine statement). “Thanks to his programming skills, the person involved was able to hide malicious software from the most popular antiviruses,” the Ukraine statement added.

LockBit Remains Active Despite Repeated Enforcement Activities

The Conti ransomware group reportedly dissolved in 2022 after a Ukrainian researcher leaked the group's source code in retaliation for the group's support of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but LockBit has remained persistent. Despite the Ukraine arrest and law enforcement successes like Operation Endgame, Operation Cronos, and the unmasking of formerly anonymous LockBit leader Dmitry Khoroshev, LockBit has shown an ability to continually regroup and reestablish threat activities, recently launching high-profile ransomware attacks such as one that the city of Wichita is finally recovering from. Ukraine officials said the investigation is ongoing. The suspect is being charged under part 5 of Article 361, Unauthorized interference in the work of information (automated), electronic communication, information and communication systems, electronic communication networks, of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The article provides for publishment of up to 15 years of imprisonment, and additional charges are possible. Netherlands officials thanked the Ukrainian investigators for their assistance and said they “are very pleased with the arrest in Ukraine and are grateful for the space that the Ukrainian police have found for this in times of war.”

The City of Cleveland, Ohio, has been hit by a cyberattack that has closed City Hall and other offices, but the city says essential services remain operational. The city hasn’t revealed the nature of the incident, but the Cleveland cyberattack is one of the highest-profile ones to date affecting a major U.S. municipality. In a recent update on X, the city said it is “still investigating the nature and scope of the incident. The City is collaborating with several key partners who provide expert knowledge and deep experience in this work.”

Cleveland Essential Services Functioning

City Hall and offices at Erieview Plaza are closed to the public and non-essential employees, but the city sought to reassure residents that key services and data remain safe. Emergency services, such as 911, Police, Fire, and EMS are operational, along with other essential services such as water, pollution control, power services, ports and airports. The update said that “certain City data is confirmed to be unaffected, including: - Taxpayer information held by the CCA. - Customer information held by Public Utilities.” That still leaves other data sources that could be affected, however, such as city employees’ personal data. In its initial announcement on X, the city said, “We have shut down affected systems to secure and restore services. Emergency services and utilities are not affected. Updates will be provided as available.” The city hasn’t said whether the incident is ransomware or another cyber attack type, but that will presumably be revealed in later updates. Cleveland itself is home to 362,000 residents, while the surrounding metropolitan area has a population of more than 2 million.

Cleveland Cyberattack Follows Wichita Ransomware; Healthcare Network Hit

Cleveland isn’t the biggest U.S. city to be hobbled by a cyber attack, as at least a few bigger cities have been hit by cyber incidents. The 394,000-resident city of Wichita, Kansas was hit by a ransomware attack last month in an attack linked to the LockBit ransomware group, but Baltimore was perhaps the biggest U.S. city hit by a cyberattack in a crippling 2019 incident that closely followed an Atlanta cyberattack. All of that pales in comparison to the U.S. government, which got hit by more than 32,000 cybersecurity incidents in fiscal 2023, up 10% from fiscal 2022, according to a new White House report on federal cybersecurity readiness. Threat actors seemingly have no end of targets, as a healthcare network in Texas, Arkansas and Florida is also reporting recent cyber troubles that the BlackSuit ransomware group is claiming responsibility for. The Special Health Resources network posted a notice on its website (copied below) that states, “We are currently experiencing a network incident that has caused a temporary disruption to our phones and computer systems. During this time, we are STILL OPEN and ready to serve our patients and community!” [caption id="attachment_76662" align="alignnone" width="750"] Special Health Resources website notice[/caption] If Special Health’s troubles are linked to a cyberattack, they seem to have fared better than the damage sustained by NHS London recently, as cyber attackers seemingly have abandoned long-standing pledges to avoid attacking healthcare systems.