From The Blog
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ConnectWise Slash and Grab Flaw Once Again Shows the Value of Input Validation We talk to Huntress About its Impact
Written by Sean KalinichAlthough the news of the infamous ConnectWise flaw which allowed for the creation of admin accounts is a bit cold, it still is one that…Written on Tuesday, 19 March 2024 12:44 in Security Talk Read 689 times Read more...
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Social Manipulation as a Service – When the Bots on Twitter get their Check marks
Written by Sean KalinichWhen I started DecryptedTech it was to counter all the crap marketing I saw from component makers. I wanted to prove people with a clean…Written on Monday, 04 March 2024 16:17 in Editorials Read 1569 times Read more...
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To Release or not to Release a PoC or OST That is the Question
Written by Sean KalinichThere is (and always has been) a debate about the ethics and impact of the release of Proof-of-Concept Exploit for an identified vulnerability and Open-Source…Written on Monday, 26 February 2024 13:05 in Security Talk Read 1103 times Read more...
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There was an Important Lesson Learned in the LockBit Takedown and it was Not About Threat Groups
Written by Sean KalinichIn what could be called a fantastic move, global law enforcement agencies attacked and took down LockBit’s infrastructure. The day of the event was filled…Written on Thursday, 22 February 2024 12:20 in Security Talk Read 1074 times Read more...
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NetSPI’s Offensive Security Offering Leverages Subject Matter Experts to Enhance Pen Testing
Written by Sean KalinichBlack Hat 2023 Las Vegas. The term offensive security has always been an interesting one for me. On the surface is brings to mind reaching…Written on Tuesday, 12 September 2023 17:05 in Security Talk Read 2123 times Read more...
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Black Kite Looks to Offer a Better View of Risk in a Rapidly Changing Threat Landscape
Written by Sean KalinichBlack Hat 2023 – Las Vegas. Risk is an interesting subject and has many different meanings to many different people. For the most part Risk…Written on Tuesday, 12 September 2023 14:56 in Security Talk Read 1842 times Read more...
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Microsoft Finally Reveals how they Believe a Consumer Signing Key was Stollen
Written by Sean KalinichIn May of 2023 a few sensitive accounts reported to Microsoft that their environments appeared to be compromised. Due to the nature of these accounts,…Written on Thursday, 07 September 2023 14:40 in Security Talk Read 2114 times Read more...
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Mandiant Releases a Detailed Look at the Campaign Targeting Barracuda Email Security Gateways, I Take a Look at What this all Might Mean
Written by Sean KalinichThe recent attack that leveraged a 0-Day vulnerability to compromise a number of Barracuda Email Security Gateway appliances (physical and virtual, but not cloud) was…Written on Wednesday, 30 August 2023 16:09 in Security Talk Read 2091 times Read more...
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Threat Groups Return to Targeting Developers in Recent Software Supply Chain Attacks
Written by Sean KalinichThere is a topic of conversation that really needs to be talked about in the open. It is the danger of developer systems (personal and…Written on Wednesday, 30 August 2023 13:29 in Security Talk Read 1879 times Read more...
Recent Comments
- Sean, this is a fantastic review of a beautiful game. I do agree with you… Written by Jacob 2023-05-19 14:17:50 Jedi Survivor – The Quick, Dirty, and Limited Spoilers Review
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Displaying items by tag: Hacking
June NPM Attack Attributed to North Korea in Recent Phylum Report
Hey, remember that supply chain attack on NPM that happened recently? Which one? Yeah, that is sort of the problem with recent supply chain attacks. In particular the ones that are targeting the development pipeline. This is because they are starting to happen so often that they all blur together, yet NPM and other critical components of the development supply chain are still targets for attackers to either get their malicious packages onto development systems, or in the final compiled binary that is then sent out to the general public. To call this problematic is to describe a nuclear bomb as a big firecracker. Ok, soapbox on the importance of SDLC (Software Development Lifecycle) hygiene and security put away for now.
Browser and App Pivots are part of the Problem, Seraphic looks to Address this with one Agent to Rule them All
If you look at common attack vectors and especially Initial Access Broker attacks, there are a few parts of the attack chain which stand out. These are the pivot through some form of communication/collaboration app to the phishing landing page. These apps are also often part of insider threats where someone might use their own personal email, OneDrive, or other web/app-based app to exfiltrate information they want outside of an organization. Many companies are very exposed to this either through a lack of tools, skilled staff or being oblivious to the exposure.
BreachForums finds themselves the Victim of a Data Breach and Data Leak
Using a famous idiom, it looks like the shoe is on the other foot as BreachForums has found themselves the victim of a data breach and release of data. The breach took place in November of 2022 and culminated with the arrest of one of the owners of the forum. The responsible parties were able to attack and exfiltrate data from the site including user information, IP addresses and internal messages sent between users and the forum.
Open-Source Supply Chain Attack used in Campaign Targeting Banks
Supply chain attacks are all the rage right now (although certainly not new). These attacks are part of what appears to be a multi-pronged shift in the threat landscape. While attacks on the endpoint and users are still happening, we are also seeing expanded efforts in targeting edge devices, networking equipment, and an increased focus on open-source repositories. Recently a new campaign was discovered that is leveraging open-sourced software supply chain attacks in an effort to target the banking sector.
Recently Stolen Microsoft Account Signing Keys can be used to Abuse other Microsoft Identification Related Services
After a recent attack on Federal Civilian Execute Branch (FCEB) Agencies by an APT (Advanced Persistent Threat) group currently suspected of being a nation-state group from China, (whew that was a long start), It has come to the attention of some cloud researchers that these signing keys are not just useful for attacking Exchange Online. According to cloud security company Wiz these MSA Keys can be used to forge tokens for anything that relies on Microsoft Azure AD (Entra ID) Identity services.
Mystery still Surrounds theft of MSA signing Key in recent FCEB Breaches
Last week Microsoft, the FBI, and CISA made disclosed several attacks on Federal Civilian Executive Branch agencies and other targets of a campaign that appeared to be driven by a new threat group out of China. The attack we detected and tracked down using internal logging available to the GCC low-side tenants and with the help of Microsoft. Fortunately, GCC (Government Cloud Computing) Low Side is not supposed to contain or pass any classified information. It is intended to be used by government agencies and contractors that do not need or have authorization to access anything more than routine sensitive information. This does not reduce the seriousness of the attack and does beg the question on how well the tenants were secured by the cybersecurity teams involved, but at least nothing National Security related was compromised.
BlackLotus UEFI Bootkit Source Coe Leaked Allowing Researchers and Threat Groups Alike to Review the Code
The UEFI (Unified Extensible Framework Interface) was the replacement for the old BIOS (Basic Input Output System). It was intended as an improvement to the underlying systems on a motherboard (also called mainboard) the motherboard controls communication between all components connected to it from CPUs, to memory, to GPUs, disk or solid-state drives, network cards… you get the picture. The old BIOS was limited and also susceptible to compromise in a number of rather simple ways. By moving to UEFI systems could become more complex without issues potential hardware conflicts, the UEFI structure was also much faster than the BIOS system meaning that as overall computing increased in speed the underlying controls for different components was up to the task.
US Federal Civilian Executive Branch Agency’s Email Compromised by new Chinese APT Group
It seems that an unnamed FCEB agency had their Outlook Web Access (Exchange Online) environment compromised by a new threat group that is current being attributed to China. The attack and the group were disclosed by CISA and the FBI. With the detection of the FCEB email compromise, Microsoft also identified a much larger espionage campaign involving the newly identified group which includes some 20+ organizations. The timing of the attack is concerning due to it coinciding with a recent NATO meeting.
Security Researchers are Still on Attacker Radar as new “POC” is Found to have Malware Inside
If I have said it once, I have said it a thousand times; attackers are cunning. The adage that attackers are lazy has nothing to do with strategic, tactical, or technical knowledge. They understand the landscape and, in many cases, better than the organizations they are attacking do. Because of this deep understanding of their target environment, they also know to be on the lookout for special purpose entities. In this case we are talking about Security Researchers. Security researchers are a special target for attackers and when they can leverage an existing opportunity to target and potentially compromise them, they are going to take it.
Policy Loopholes in Microsoft Windows used to Allow Forged Kernel-Mode Driver Signatures
Diver Signing requirements in Windows is a feature that is intended to help prevent the Windows Operating system from being compromised through malicious software posing as legitimate drivers. The policy was implemented way back in early versions of the 64-bit flavor of Windows XP and became a defacto security policy very quickly after that. Since its implementation and enforcement threat groups have found multiple ways around this policy including the use of compromised certificate issuing groups, purchasing actually legitimate certificates, and certificate theft.