When a ransomware group launched twin cyber attacks on casino giants MGM and Caesars, they only needed the accidental participation of the organizations’ outsourced IT help desk to get started. It was social engineering — in this case impersonation over the phone, or vishing— that gave the hackers the information they needed to launch a ransomware attack that cost both casinos millions.

On October 26, 2023, F5 released security hotfixes for a critical unauthenticated RCE vulnerability (CVE-2023-46747) in BIG-IP’s Traffic Management User Interface (TMUI). If successfully exploited a threat actor with network access to the vulnerable system could bypass the configuration utility authentication and execute arbitrary system commands. CVE-2023-46747 is exploitable if the Traffic Management User Interface is exposed to the Internet.

On October 25, 2023 VMware published a security advisory regarding a critical out-of-bounds write vulnerability (CVE-2023-34048) that has been fixed in the latest updates by VMware. The vulnerability has received a critical severity rating by VMware as it could potentially allow a remote, unauthenticated threat actor to achieve remote code execution if successfully exploited.

On October 16, 2023, Cisco published a security advisory regarding an actively exploited and unpatched privilege escalation vulnerability in the Web UI feature of the Cisco IOS XE operating system, both physical and virtual. The vulnerability could allow a remote, unauthenticated threat actor to create an account with maximum privileges (privilege level 15 access) on the affected device. Due to these factors, Cisco has given this vulnerability the maximum possible CVSS score of 10.

On October 18, 2023, ServiceNow published a knowledge base article revealing that they are aware of reporting that details a potential misconfiguration issue. This issue lies in the Access Control Lists (ACL) within ServiceNow that if misconfigured could result in unauthenticated threat actors being able to access data. The issue was discovered by a security engineer at AppOmni, and was disclosed in a blog to the public on October 14, 2023.

On October 4, 2023, Atlassian issued a security advisory revealing potential active exploitation of a previously unknown vulnerability (CVE-2023-22515, CVSS: 10) affecting Confluence Data Center and Server instances that are on-premises. This vulnerability can enable an unauthenticated, anonymous remote threat actor to escalate privileges by creating unauthorized Confluence administrator accounts and accessing Confluence instances across multiple versions of Confluence Data Center and Server.

On October 4, 2023, Cisco published a security advisory disclosing a critical authentication bypass vulnerability (CVE-2023-20101, CVSS: 9.8) in Cisco Emergency Responder. CVE-2023-20101 allows an unauthenticated, remote threat actor to utilize the root account (this account by default has hard coded credentials that cannot be altered) to log into an affected device.

Security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) has an opportunity to be a game changer in how we tackle cyber risk, but there is a significant disconnect between the promises made by existing SOAR platforms and how organizations are able to realize their real-world operational and cost-saving efficiencies. All those automations that promise to eliminate late hours working on mundane stuff. All the orchestrations that promise to get things done faster.

Law firms are in a precarious position when it comes to cyber risk. These organizations are tasked with storing large amounts of sensitive information — from corporate finances to client data to intellectual property (IP) — and, as such, are finding themselves in the crosshairs of threat actors. In fact, the American Bar Association states 70% of law firms with less than 100 employees will experience a breach in the next five years.

On September 7, 2023, Apple released emergency security updates to fix a buffer overflow vulnerability (CVE-2023-41064) impacting macOS, iOS, iPadOS, and watchOS products that was used in a zero-click exploitation chain by the NSO Group. Shortly after, on September 11, 2023, Google released an update to fix a buffer overflow vulnerability (CVE-2023-4863) in Google Chrome, which was reported by Apple’s Security Engineering and Architecture (SEAR) and Citizen Lab.

On September 27, 2023, Progress Software released a security advisory detailing multiple vulnerabilities in their WS_FTP Server product, including two with a critical severity rating. CVE-2023-40044 (CVSS 10) is a deserialization vulnerability that affects the Ad Hoc Transfer module and could allow a threat actor to obtain remote code execution if successfully exploited.

On October 2, 2023, Exim released security fixes for an out-of-bounds write remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability (CVE-2023-42115, CVSS: 9.8). This vulnerability affects the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) service and is caused by improper validation of user input. A threat actor can remotely exploit CVE-2023-42115 by writing data beyond the boundaries of a buffer, which leads to the execution of arbitrary code.