Category Archives: patching

Accellion Supply Chain Hack

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A vulnerability in the Accellion file-transfer program is being used by criminal groups to hack networks worldwide.

There’s much in the article about when Accellion knew about the vulnerability, when it alerted its customers, and when it patched its software.

The governor of New Zealand’s central bank, Adrian Orr, says Accellion failed to warn it after first learning in mid-December that the nearly 20-year-old FTA application — using antiquated technology and set for retirement — had been breached.

Despite having a patch available on Dec. 20, Accellion did not notify the bank in time to prevent its appliance from being breached five days later, …

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US racing to address Microsoft vulnerabilities, especially for small businesses

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The number of entities in the U.S. that remain vulnerable to the recently announced Microsoft Exchange Server software flaws is dropping, according to a National Security Council spokesperson. Overall, the number of vulnerable systems systems fell 45% last week, the National Security Council (NSC) spokesperson said in a statement, and there are now fewer than 10,000 vulnerable systems in the U.S., compared to the more than 120,000 entities that were vulnerable when the software bugs were first uncovered. The key to that apparent decrease is the fact that entities are taking advantage of a new tool Microsoft released to the public last week in an attempt to protect protect smaller organizations against hackers seeking to exploit the Exchange Server flaws, according to the NSC spokesperson. Microsoft developed the tool, the Exchange On-Premises Mitigation tool — which works in an automated way, scanning for compromises and remediating issues — in coordination with […]

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To Patch or Not to Patch in OT – That Is the Real Challenge

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The objective of an organization when implementing cybersecurity controls is to eliminate risk, but this oftentimes involves settling for managing risk at an acceptable level. Each organization defines what that acceptable level is depending on several… Continue reading To Patch or Not to Patch in OT – That Is the Real Challenge→

More on the Chinese Zero-Day Microsoft Exchange Hack

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Nick Weaver has an excellent post on the Microsoft Exchange hack:

The investigative journalist Brian Krebs has produced a handy timeline of events and a few things stand out from the chronology. The attacker was first detected by one group on Jan. 5 and another on Jan. 6, and Microsoft acknowledged the problem immediately. During this time the attacker appeared to be relatively subtle, exploiting particular targets (although we generally lack insight into who was targeted). Microsoft determined on Feb. 18 that it would patch these vulnerabilities on the March 9th “Patch Tuesday” release of fixes…

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On Not Fixing Old Vulnerabilities

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How is this even possible?

…26% of companies Positive Technologies tested were vulnerable to WannaCry, which was a threat years ago, and some even vulnerable to Heartbleed. “The most frequent vulnerabilities detected during automated assessment date back to 2013-­2017, which indicates a lack of recent software updates,” the reported stated.

26%!? One in four networks?

Even if we assume that the report is self-serving to the company that wrote it, and that the statistic is not generally representative, this is still a disaster. The number should be 0%…

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Cyber Security Roundup for March 2021

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A roundup of UK focused Cyber and Information Security News, Blog Posts, Reports and general Threat Intelligence from the previous calendar month, February 2021.

Serious Linux Vulnerability
Last month a newly discovered critical vulnerability in ‘s… Continue reading Cyber Security Roundup for March 2021→

The Ransomware Group Tactics which Maximise their Profitability

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Article by Greg Foss, Senior Cyber Security Strategist, VMware Carbon Black

Wherever there is disruption, cybercriminals see opportunity. Alongside the devastating health and economic impacts of the global coronavirus pandemic, we have also seen a hu… Continue reading The Ransomware Group Tactics which Maximise their Profitability→

Twelve-Year-Old Vulnerability Found in Windows Defender

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Researchers found, and Microsoft has patched, a vulnerability in Windows Defender that has been around for twelve years. There is no evidence that anyone has used the vulnerability during that time.

The flaw, discovered by researchers at the security firm SentinelOne, showed up in a driver that Windows Defender — renamed Microsoft Defender last year — uses to delete the invasive files and infrastructure that malware can create. When the driver removes a malicious file, it replaces it with a new, benign one as a sort of placeholder during remediation. But the researchers discovered that the system doesn’t specifically verify that new file. As a result, an attacker could insert strategic system links that direct the driver to overwrite the wrong file or even run malicious code…

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