WordPress security firm PatchStack warns of a high-severity vulnerability in the Elementor Pro WordPress plugin that is currently being exploited by threat actors in the wild. Elementor Pro is a paid plugin that is currently installed on over 11 million websites, it allows users to easily create WordPress websites. This vulnerability was reported on March…

In the first quarter of 2023, SentinelLabs researchers spotted the initial phases of attacks against telecommunication providers in the Middle East. According to the researchers, the activity is part of the Operation Soft Cell that was first reported in June 2019 by Cybereason. At the time, researchers at Cybereason uncovered the long-running espionage campaign tracked…

Chinese threat actors are turning security appliances into penetration pathways, forcing firewall maker Fortinet to again attempt to fend off hackers with a patch. Researchers from Mandiant say suspected Beijing hackers it tracks as UNC3886 has been targeting chip-based firewall and virtualization boxes. The group, it said in a Thursday blog post, exploited a now-patched…

A suspecting China-linked hacking campaign has been observed targeting unpatched SonicWall Secure Mobile Access (SMA) 100 appliances to drop malware and establish long-term persistence. “The malware has functionality to steal user credentials, provide shell access, and persist through firmware upgrades,” cybersecurity company Mandiant said in a technical report published this week. The Google-owned incident response…

Hackers earlier this month maliciously encrypted a system belonging to the U.S. Marshals Service, compromising and exfiltrating sensitive data law enforcement data. Department of Justice officials classify the attack as a “major incident,” said NBC, which broke news of the attack. Exposed data include returns from legal process, administrative information and personal identifiable information pertaining…

Password management software firm LastPass disclosed a “second attack,” a threat actor used data stolen from the August security breach and combined it with information available from a third-party data breach. Then the attackers exploited a flaw in a third-party media software package to target the firm. “Our investigation has revealed that the threat actor…

The rise of the cloud has made business more agile, flexible, and streamlined, which are all solid reasons why over 90% of enterprises have committed to a multicloud strategy. But complexity creates seams where secrets leak out. Recent high-profile breaches at Microsoft and at airports have made misconfigured S3 buckets a cybersecurity trope. However, configuration…

What’s not to love about an international law enforcement operation wreaking disruption on Hive, the ransomware-wielding crime syndicate? But with no suspects in jail, it’s unclear how long this takedown will stick before the bad guys get back their sting. There’s still plenty to celebrate since Hive, one of the world’s most active ransomware groups,…

Tracking malicious hackers’ early activities using open source intelligence can offer substantial clues about the likelihood of their becoming a persistent threat in the future, two university researchers claimed in a report this week. That knowledge can help guide early intervention efforts to nudge fledgling hackers off their criminal trajectories, they noted. Christian Howell, assistant…