In 2021, the cybersecurity industry was truly tested. Most notably, we uncovered the deeper fallout from the SolarWinds attacks, combatted the proliferation of advanced ransomware gangs and a surge in vulnerability exploitation, and saw fragile supply chain and critical infrastructure more targeted by attackers than ever. As global cyber defenders, predicting where the broad industry could be heading is a daunting task.

Iranian government-sponsored advanced persistent threat (APT) actors are exploiting known Microsoft and Fortinet vulnerabilities to attack targets with ransomware in the transportation, healthcare and public health sectors, according to an alert issued on Nov. 17 by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

In Part 1 of our BlackByte ransomware analysis, we covered the execution flow of the first stage JScript launcher, how we extracted BlackByte binary from the second stage DLL, the inner workings of the ransomware, and our decryptor code. In this blog, we will detail how we analyzed and de-obfuscated the JScript launcher, BlackByte’s code, and strings.

Please click here for Part 2 UPDATE 19.October.2021 - Based on some reactions and responses to our BlackByte analysis, and specifically, the included decryptor, we wanted to provide an update and some clarification. First off, we’ve updated the decryptor on github to include two new files. One is the compiled build of the executable to make the tool more accessible and the second is a sample encrypted file “spider.png.blackbyte” that can be used to test the decryptor.

It’s well known that we just don’t put services or devices on the edge of the Internet without strong purpose justification. Services, whether maintained by end-users or administrators, have a ton of security challenges. Databases belong to a group that often needs direct access to the Internet - no doubt that security requirements are a priority here.

The typical process when scoping a penetration test is to get a list of targets from the client, which are typically a list of IP addresses and/or hostnames. But where does this information come from, and how accurate is it? Chances are the client has documentation that lists the devices they think they have, and what addresses or names they have been assigned. This documentation will form the basis of the scope when conducting testing or scanning against a target environment.

The security landscape is always changing. New features are coming out all the time, but often backward compatibility is maintained too. What this means is that while the new features may be present and active by default, it's possible for users to be completely unaware of them and continue using the legacy functionality.

Trustwave SpiderLabs recently undertook a survey of some 100 popular WordPress plugins for possible SQL Injection vulnerabilities. Some good news is that in the vast majority, no such vulnerabilities were identified. Most plugins were found to be using either prepared statements or suitable sanitization when incorporating user-controlled data in a query.

Secret-Chats in Telegram use end-to-end encryption, which is meant for people who are concerned about the security and privacy of their chat history. The messages can be read only by sender and receiver, and not even Telegram administrators have the encryption keys necessary to read any chats. From the Telegram FAQ.

Anyone who has ever read a vulnerability scan report will know that scanners often include a large number of findings they classify as "Info". Typically this is meant to convey general information about the target systems which does not pose any risk. Many people who read such reports will generally ignore all of the "Info" findings, and focus only on anything labeled "Critical" or "High". However, this can be dangerous for a number of reasons.