Displaying items by tag: Attacks

DLL sideloading is a common technique for attackers to use when getting their malware in place and has been in use since around 2010. Simply put your malicious DLL in the same directory as the application and Windows in all its helpfulness loads it first instead of the legitimate one that might be in another directory. This method is also referred to as DLL search order hijacking. With the age of this technique and advances in EDR/MDR its usefulness has decreased.

In one of the “odder” breaches that we have covered, NVIDIA has confirmed it was the victim of a breach that resulted in the loss of data. Information about the breach first crossed our paths about a week ago, but much of the information was speculation and some of the claims seemed very unusual. One of the most unusual was a claim by the alleged hacking group LAPSUS$ that NVIDIA had actually hacked them back.

UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) was designed to replace the old and outdated BIOS (Baic Input Output System). The older BIOS setup was slow and not very secure. It gave attackers several entry points for infection and persistence at that level. The older BIOS standard was also susceptible to attack and compromise (think the Chernobyl BIOS virus). Something new needed to be put in place to help speed things up and help account for more complex hardware and software. Hence the UEFI was born.

The current threat landscape has user account compromise and endpoint takeover as the most common first acts in a security event. The methods used to accomplish this are varied but include such blockbusters as poisoned websites and URLs embedded in email. Once the website is processed the exploit kicks off and things tend to go downhill from there. The most common item abused in your web browser is its ability to process scripts (especially JavaScript). Now Microsoft says they have a way to knock out as much as 45% of exploit attempts related to JavaScript and WebAssembly when using their Chromium based Edge browser.

Norse Corp, famous for their live attack map and Viking based parties at Black Hat, could be having some financial issues. At least that is the word from researcher Brian Krebs. Over the last couple of weeks they have laid off 30% of their staff and let their CEO go. Neither of the occurrences is good news for a company that is relatively new (Norse was founded in 2010). The basis of the business was to provide a nimble product that would allow for better threat tracking and blocking. Everything was centered on the use of live information to help prevent and mitigate attacks.

One cool thing about working in IT is that things are very predictable. You generally know how a system or application will react if you do this or that to it. This is how people find and use exploits in software and even hardware. You look at how an application works and identify ways you can use those processes against it. It is like digital judo. However, what many people do not really get is that this also works when setting up a larger organization for an attack. If you can track how they will respond to a particular threat, you can use it against them in very interesting ways.

Linksys has always had a name as a cost effective product for the consumer and even for small business. In the industry they have also been known to have some security issues. Not that long ago it was reported that a CGI script flaw in many of their E series routers allowed someone to bypass the requirement for admin credentials and gain unrestricted access to these products. Is if to add insult to injury malware has been identified in the wild that exploits the vulnerability.