Understanding the Impact of Apache Log4j Vulnerability (Google Online Security Blog)

Actualités, Sécurité
Posted by James Wetter and Nicky Ringland, Open Source Insights Team  More than 35,000 Java packages, amounting to over 8% of the Maven Central repository (the most significant Java package repository), have been impacted by the recently disclosed log4j vulnerabilities (1, 2), with widespread fallout across the software industry. The vulnerabilities allow an attacker to perform remote code execution by exploiting the insecure JNDI lookups feature exposed by the logging library log4j. This exploitable feature was enabled by default in many versions of the library. This vulnerability has captivated the information security ecosystem since its disclosure on December 9th because of both its severity and widespread impact. As a popular logging tool, log4j is used by tens of thousands of software packages (known as artifacts in the Java ecosystem) and…
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Improving OSS-Fuzz and Jazzer to catch Log4Shell (Google Online Security Blog)

Actualités, Sécurité
Posted by Jonathan Metzman, Google Open Source Security Team The discovery of the Log4Shell vulnerability has set the internet on fire. Similar to shellshock and heartbleed, Log4Shell is just the latest catastrophic vulnerability in software that runs the internet. Our mission as the Google Open Source Security Team is to secure the open source libraries the world depends on, such as Log4j. One of our capabilities in this space is OSS-Fuzz, a free fuzzing service that is used by over 500 critical open source projects and has found more than 7,000 vulnerabilities in its lifetime. We want to empower open source developers to secure their code on their own. Over the next year we will work on better automated detection of non-memory corruption vulnerabilities such as Log4Shell. We have started…
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NY Man Pleads Guilty in $20 Million SIM Swap Theft (Krebs on Security)

Actualités, Sécurité
A 24-year-old New York man who bragged about helping to steal more than $20 million worth of cryptocurrency from a technology executive has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Nicholas Truglia was part of a group alleged to have stolen more than $100 million from cryptocurrency investors using fraudulent “SIM swaps,” scams in which identity thieves hijack a target’s mobile phone number and use that to wrest control over the victim’s online identities. Truglia admitted to a New York federal court that he let a friend use his account at crypto-trading platform Binance in 2018 to launder more than $20 million worth of virtual currency stolen from Michael Terpin, a cryptocurrency investor who co-founded the first angel investor group for bitcoin enthusiasts. Following the theft, Terpin filed a…
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Microsoft Patch Tuesday, December 2021 Edition (Krebs on Security)

Actualités, Sécurité
Microsoft, Adobe, and Google all issued security updates to their products today. The Microsoft patches include six previously disclosed security flaws, and one that is already being actively exploited. But this month’s Patch Tuesday is overshadowed by the “Log4Shell” 0-day exploit in a popular Java library that web server administrators are now racing to find and patch amid widespread exploitation of the flaw. Log4Shell is the name picked for a critical flaw disclosed Dec. 9 in the popular logging library for Java called “log4j,” which is included in a huge number of Java applications. Publicly released exploit code allows an attacker to force a server running a vulnerable log4j library to execute commands, such as downloading malicious software or opening a backdoor connection to the server. According to researchers at…
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Empowering the next generation of Android Application Security Researchers (Google Online Security Blog)

Actualités, Sécurité
Posted by Jon Bottarini, Security Program Manager & Lena Katib, Strategic Partnerships Manager The external security researcher community plays an integral role in making the Google Play ecosystem safe and secure. Through this partnership with the community, Google has been able to collaborate with third-party developers to fix thousands of security issues in Android applications before they are exploited and reward security researchers for their hard work and dedication. In order to empower the next generation of Android security researchers, Google has collaborated with industry partners including HackerOne and PayPal to host a number of Android App Hacking Workshops. These workshops are an effort designed to educate security researchers and cybersecurity students of all skill levels on how to find Android application vulnerabilities through a series of hands-on working sessions,…
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Inside Ireland’s Public Healthcare Ransomware Scare (Krebs on Security)

Actualités, Sécurité
The consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers recently published lessons learned from the disruptive and costly ransomware attack in May 2021 on Ireland’s public health system. The unusually candid post-mortem found that nearly two months elapsed between the initial intrusion and the launching of the ransomware. It also found affected hospitals had tens of thousands of outdated Windows 7 systems, and that the health system’s IT administrators failed to respond to multiple warning signs that a massive attack was imminent. PWC’s timeline of the days leading up to the deployment of Conti ransomware on May 14. Ireland’s Health Service Executive (HSE), which operates the country’s public health system, got hit with Conti ransomware on May 14, 2021. A timeline in the report (above) says the initial infection of the “patient zero” workstation happened…
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Canada Charges Its “Most Prolific Cybercriminal” (Krebs on Security)

Actualités, Sécurité
A 31-year-old Canadian man has been arrested and charged with fraud in connection with numerous ransomware attacks against businesses, government agencies and private citizens throughout Canada and the United States. Canadian authorities describe him as “the most prolific cybercriminal we’ve identified in Canada,” but so far they’ve released few other details about the investigation or the defendant. Helpfully, an email address and nickname apparently connected to the accused offer some additional clues. Matthew Filbert, in 2016. Matthew Philbert of Ottawa, Ontario was charged with fraud and conspiracy in a joint law enforcement action by Canadian and U.S. authorities dubbed “Project CODA.” The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) on Tuesday said the investigation began in January 2020 when the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) contacted them regarding ransomware attacks that were…
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Who Is the Network Access Broker ‘Babam’? (Krebs on Security)

Actualités, Sécurité
Rarely do cybercriminal gangs that deploy ransomware gain the initial access to the target themselves. More commonly, that access is purchased from a cybercriminal broker who specializes in acquiring remote access credentials — such as usernames and passwords needed to remotely connect to the target’s network. In this post we’ll look at the clues left behind by “Babam,” the handle chosen by a cybercriminal who has sold such access to ransomware groups on many occasions over the past few years. Since the beginning of 2020, Babam has set up numerous auctions on the Russian-language cybercrime forum Exploit, mainly selling virtual private networking (VPN) credentials stolen from various companies. Babam has authored more than 270 posts since joining Exploit in 2015, including dozens of sales threads. However, none of Babam’s posts…
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Exploring Container Security: A Storage Vulnerability Deep Dive (Google Online Security Blog)

Actualités, Sécurité
Posted by Fabricio Voznika and Mauricio Poppe, Google Cloud  Kubernetes Security is constantly evolving - keeping pace with enhanced functionality, usability and flexibility while also balancing the security needs of a wide and diverse set of use-cases. Recently, the GKE Security team discovered a high severity vulnerability that allowed workloads to have access to parts of the host filesystem outside the mounted volumes boundaries. Although the vulnerability was patched back in September we thought it would be beneficial to write up a more in-depth analysis of the issue to share with the community. We assessed the impact of the vulnerability as described in vulnerability management in open-source Kubernetes and worked closely with the GKE Storage team and the Kubernetes Security Response Committee to find a fix. In this post we’ll…
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Ubiquiti Developer Charged With Extortion, Causing 2020 “Breach” (Krebs on Security)

Actualités, Sécurité
In January 2021, technology vendor Ubiquiti Inc. [NYSE:UI] disclosed that a breach at a third party cloud provider had exposed customer account credentials. In March, a Ubiquiti employee warned that the company had drastically understated the scope of the incident, and that the third-party cloud provider claim was a fabrication. On Wednesday, a former Ubiquiti developer was arrested and charged with stealing data and trying to extort his employer while pretending to be a whistleblower. Federal prosecutors say Nickolas Sharp, a senior developer at Ubiquiti, actually caused the “breach” that forced Ubiquiti to disclose a cybersecurity incident in January. They allege that in late December 2020, Sharp applied for a job at another technology company, and then abused his privileged access to Ubiquiti’s systems at Amazon’s AWS cloud service and…
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