New 0-Day Attacks Linked to China’s ‘Volt Typhoon’

Malicious hackers are exploiting a zero-day vulnerability in Versa Director, a software product used by many Internet and IT service providers. Researchers believe the activity is linked to Volt Typhoon, a Chinese cyber espionage group focused on infiltrating critical U.S. networks and laying the groundwork for the ability to disrupt communications between the United States and Asia during any future armed conflict with China. Continue reading New 0-Day Attacks Linked to China’s ‘Volt Typhoon’

Local Networks Go Global When Domain Names Collide

The proliferation of new top-level domains (TLDs) has exacerbated a well-known security weakness: Many organizations set up their internal Microsoft authentication systems years ago using domain names in TLDs that didn’t exist at the time. Meaning, they are continuously sending their Windows usernames and passwords to domain names they do not control and which are freely available for anyone to register. Here’s a look at one security researcher’s efforts to map and shrink the size of this insidious problem. Continue reading Local Networks Go Global When Domain Names Collide

Don’t Let Your Domain Name Become a “Sitting Duck”

More than a million domain names — including many registered by Fortune 100 firms and brand protection companies — are vulnerable to takeover by cybercriminals thanks to authentication weaknesses at a number of large web hosting providers and domain registrars, new research finds. Continue reading Don’t Let Your Domain Name Become a “Sitting Duck”

Phish-Friendly Domain Registry “.top” Put on Notice

The Chinese company in charge of handing out domain names ending in “.top” has been given until mid-August 2024 to show that it has put in place systems for managing phishing reports and suspending abusive domains, or else forfeit its license to sell domains. The warning comes amid the release of new findings that .top was the most common suffix in phishing websites over the past year, second only to domains ending in “.com.” Continue reading Phish-Friendly Domain Registry “.top” Put on Notice

Global Microsoft Meltdown Tied to Bad Crowstrike Update

A faulty software update from cybersecurity vendor Crowdstrike crippled countless Microsoft Windows computers across the globe today, disrupting everything from airline travel and financial institutions to hospitals and businesses online. Crowdstrike said a fix has been deployed, but experts say the recovery from this outage could take some time, as Crowdstrike’s solution needs to be applied manually on a per-machine basis. Continue reading Global Microsoft Meltdown Tied to Bad Crowstrike Update

Researchers: Weak Security Defaults Enabled Squarespace Domains Hijacks

At least a dozen organizations with domain names at domain registrar Squarespace saw their websites hijacked last week. Squarespace bought all assets of Google Domains a year ago, but many customers still haven’t set up their new accounts. Experts say malicious hackers learned they could commandeer any migrated Squarespace accounts that hadn’t yet been registered, merely by supplying an email address tied to an existing domain. Continue reading Researchers: Weak Security Defaults Enabled Squarespace Domains Hijacks

Crooks Steal Phone, SMS Records for Nearly All AT&T Customers

AT&T Corp. disclosed today that a new data breach has exposed phone call and text message records for roughly 110 million people — nearly all of its customers. AT&T said it delayed disclosing the incident in response to “national security and public safety concerns,” noting that some of the records included data that could be used to determine where a call was made or text message sent. AT&T also acknowledged the customer records were exposed in a cloud database that was protected only by a username and password (no multi-factor authentication needed). Continue reading Crooks Steal Phone, SMS Records for Nearly All AT&T Customers

Why Your Wi-Fi Router Doubles as an Apple AirTag

Apple and the satellite-based broadband service Starlink each recently took steps to address new research into the potential security and privacy implications of how their services geo-locate devices. Researchers from the University of Maryland say they relied on publicly available data from Apple to track the location of billions of devices globally — including non-Apple devices like Starlink systems — and found they could use this data to monitor the destruction of Gaza, as well as the movements and in many cases identities of Russian and Ukrainian troops. Continue reading Why Your Wi-Fi Router Doubles as an Apple AirTag

Why Your VPN May Not Be As Secure As It Claims

Virtual private networking (VPN) companies market their services as a way to prevent anyone from snooping on your Internet usage. But new research suggests this is a dangerous assumption when connecting to a VPN via an untrusted network, because attackers on the same network could force a target’s traffic off of the protection provided by their VPN without triggering any alerts to the user. Continue reading Why Your VPN May Not Be As Secure As It Claims