It’s a privilege escalation vulnerability: Linux users on Tuesday got a major dose of bad news — a 12-year-old vulnerability in a system tool called Polkit gives attackers unfettered root privileges on machines running most major distributions of the open source operating system. Previously called PolicyKit, Polkit manages system-wide privileges in Unix-like OSes. It provides … Read More “Twelve-Year-Old Linux Vulnerability Discovered and Patched” »
Category: vulnerabilities
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Log4j is being exploited by all sorts of attackers, all over the Internet: At that point it was reported that there were over 100 attempts to exploit the vulnerability every minute. “Since we started to implement our protection we prevented over 1,272,000 attempts to allocate the vulnerability, over 46% of those attempts were made by … Read More “More Log4j News” »
Really interesting research demonstrating how to hide vulnerabilities in source code by manipulating how Unicode text is displayed. It’s really clever, and not the sort of attack one would normally think about. From Ross Anderson’s blog: We have discovered ways of manipulating the encoding of source code files so that human viewers and compilers see … Read More “Hiding Vulnerabilities in Source Code” »
The Missouri governor wants to prosecute the reporter who discovered a security vulnerability in a state’s website, and then reported it to the state. The newspaper agreed to hold off publishing any story while the department fixed the problem and protected the private information of teachers around the state. […] According to the Post-Dispatch, one … Read More “The Missouri Governor Doesn’t Understand Responsible Disclosure” »
Citizen Lab released a report on a zero-click iMessage exploit that is used in NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware. Apple patched the vulnerability; everyone needs to update their OS immediately. News articles on the exploit. Powered by WPeMatico
Yet another article on the privacy risks of static MAC addresses and always-on Bluetooth connections. This one is about wireless headphones. The good news is that product vendors are fixing this: Several of the headphones which could be tracked over time are for sale in electronics stores, but according to two of the manufacturers NRK … Read More “Tracking People by their MAC Addresses” »
If you plug a Razer peripheral (mouse or keyboard, I think) into a Windows 10 or 11 machine, you can use a vulnerability in the Razer Synapse software — which automatically downloads — to gain SYSTEM privileges. It should be noted that this is a local privilege escalation (LPE) vulnerability, which means that you need … Read More “Interesting Privilege Escalation Vulnerability” »
Cobolt Strike is a security tool, used by penetration testers to simulate network attackers. But it’s also used by attackers — from criminals to governments — to automate their own attacks. Researchers have found a vulnerability in the product. The main components of the security tool are the Cobalt Strike client — also known as … Read More “Cobolt Strike Vulnerability Affects Botnet Servers” »
From SentinelLabs, a critical vulnerability in HP printer drivers: Researchers have released technical details on a high-severity privilege-escalation flaw in HP printer drivers (also used by Samsung and Xerox), which impacts hundreds of millions of Windows machines. If exploited, cyberattackers could bypass security products; install programs; view, change, encrypt or delete data; or create new … Read More “Nasty Printer Driver Vulnerability” »
ArsTechnica has a good story on the REvil ransomware attack of last weekend, with technical details: This weekend’s attack was carried out with almost surgical precision. According to Cybereason, the REvil affiliates first gained access to targeted environments and then used the zero-day in the Kaseya Agent Monitor to gain administrative control over the target’s … Read More “Details of the REvil Ransomware Attack” »
