When it comes to securing applications in the cloud, the challenge isn’t detecting potential security issues. There are hundreds of application security tools and cloud security tools that are capable of surfacing code flaws and security misconfigurations that could lead to vulnerabilities. The real challenge is empowering development teams to adopt these tools to consistently improve the security posture of their services.

Researchers have uncovered a new vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-6769, which enables attackers to bypass Windows User Access Control (UAC) and elevate their privileges to gain full system control without triggering any alerts. This exploit, affecting Microsoft’s Windows platform, has sparked debate about whether UAC truly acts as a security boundary. While Microsoft does not classify this as a vulnerability, security experts warn organizations to be vigilant about the risks involved.

Ransomware continues to evolve, and the latest escalation in tactics comes from the Embargo ransomware group. Threat actor Storm-0501, known for its previous ties to various ransomware groups, has now shifted its focus towards hybrid cloud environments, targeting both on-premise and cloud-based systems. This strategic shift poses significant risks for organizations relying on cloud infrastructure, particularly those in critical sectors such as healthcare, government, transportation, and law enforcement.

At Nucleus Security, our goal has always been to deliver an intuitive and scalable vulnerability management platform. A critical part of this mission is ensuring that its user interface (UI) evolves to meet our customers’ needs. I’m pleased to announce that we recently rolled out an updated UI—an important first step in a series of planned improvements aimed at enhancing our users’ experience with the Nucleus platform.

Enterprises are increasingly adopting multi-cloud environments to take advantage of the flexibility and scalability of different cloud platforms. However, this shift has also introduced a major security challenge: the rise of identity-based threats. With 82% of data breaches now involving cloud-stored data, securing cloud identities has become a critical need. The complexity of managing identities and permissions across multiple cloud platforms only amplifies the risks.

On September 24, 2024, Rackspace, a managed cloud computing company providing cloud hosting, dedicated servers, and multi-cloud solutions, reported an issue with their Rackspace Monitoring product in the ScienceLogic EM7 (ScienceLogic SL1) Portal. Rackspace utilizes the ScienceLogic application as a third-party tool for monitoring certain internal services.

PII (Personally Identifiable Information) refers to data that can directly or indirectly identify an individual, such as names, addresses, or phone numbers. Protecting PII data is critical, as exposure can result in identity theft, financial fraud, or privacy breaches. With businesses collecting vast amounts of PII, proper PII data classification has become essential to safeguarding sensitive information and complying with data protection regulations.

Large Language Models (LLMs) transform how organizations process and analyze vast amounts of data. However, with their increasing capabilities comes heightened concern about LLM security. The OWASP Top 10 for LLMs offers a guideline to address these risks. Originally designed to identify common vulnerabilities in web applications, OWASP has now extended its focus to AI-driven technologies. This is essential as LLMs are prone to unique LLM vulnerabilities that traditional security measures may overlook.

Recently, AWS expanded the scope of their AWSCompromisedKeyQuarantine policies (v2 and v3) to include new actions. This policy is used by AWS to lock down access keys that they suspect have been compromised. A common example of this process in action is when AWS automatically applies the quarantine policy to any keys found by scanning public GitHub repositories. This proactive protection mechanism can stop compromises before they happen.