Latest Cybersecurity News and Articles

---

Gmail's New Shielded Email Feature Lets Users Create Aliases for Email Privacy

Google appears to be readying a new feature called Shielded Email that allows users to create email aliases when signing up for online services and better combat spam. The feature was first reported by Android Authority last week following a teardown of the latest version of Google Play Services for Android. The idea is to create unique, single-use email addresses that forward the messages to

---

Fake Discount Sites Exploit Black Friday to Hijack Shopper Information

A new phishing campaign is targeting e-commerce shoppers in Europe and the United States with bogus pages that mimic legitimate brands with the goal of stealing their personal information ahead of the Black Friday shopping season. "The campaign leveraged the heightened online shopping activity in November, the peak season for Black Friday discounts. The threat actor used fake discounted products

---

Beyond Compliance: The Advantage of Year-Round Network Pen Testing

IT leaders know the drill—regulators and cyber insurers demand regular network penetration testing to keep the bad guys out. But here’s the thing: hackers don’t wait around for compliance schedules. Most companies approach network penetration testing on a set schedule, with the most common frequency being twice a year (29%), followed by three to four times per year (23%) and once per year (20%),

---

NSO Group Exploited WhatsApp to Install Pegasus Spyware Even After Meta's Lawsuit

Legal documents released as part of an ongoing legal tussle between Meta's WhatsApp and NSO Group have revealed that the Israeli spyware vendor used multiple exploits targeting the messaging app to deliver Pegasus, including one even after it was sued by Meta for doing so. They also show that NSO Group repeatedly found ways to install the invasive surveillance tool on the target's devices as

---

Urgent: Critical WordPress Plugin Vulnerability Exposes Over 4 Million Sites

A critical authentication bypass vulnerability has been disclosed in the Really Simple Security (formerly Really Simple SSL) plugin for WordPress that, if successfully exploited, could grant an attacker to remotely gain full administrative access to a susceptible site. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-10924 (CVSS score: 9.8), impacts both free and premium versions of the plugin. The

---

PAN-OS Firewall Vulnerability Under Active Exploitation – IoCs Released

Palo Alto Networks has released new indicators of compromise (IoCs) a day after the network security vendor confirmed that a new zero-day vulnerability impacting its PAN-OS firewall management interface has been actively exploited in the wild. To that end, the company said it observed malicious activity originating from below IP addresses and targeting PAN-OS management web interface IP

---

Warning: DEEPDATA Malware Exploiting Unpatched Fortinet Flaw to Steal VPN Credentials

A threat actor known as BrazenBamboo has exploited an unresolved security flaw in Fortinet's FortiClient for Windows to extract VPN credentials as part of a modular framework called DEEPDATA. Volexity, which disclosed the findings Friday, said it identified the zero-day exploitation of the credential disclosure vulnerability in July 2024, describing BrazenBamboo as the developer behind DEEPDATA,

---

Black Friday warning: shoppers urged to protect themselves online as figures reveal rising losses to scams

UK’s cyber security and law enforcement bodies warn bargain hunters about cyber criminal scams and support turning on 2-step verification (2SV) to protect online accounts.

---

Researchers Warn of Privilege Escalation Risks in Google's Vertex AI ML Platform

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed two security flaws in Google's Vertex machine learning (ML) platform that, if successfully exploited, could allow malicious actors to escalate privileges and exfiltrate models from the cloud. "By exploiting custom job permissions, we were able to escalate our privileges and gain unauthorized access to all data services in the project," Palo Alto Networks

---

Master Certificate Management: Join This Webinar on Crypto Agility and Best Practices

In the fast-paced digital world, trust is everything—but what happens when that trust is disrupted? Certificate revocations, though rare, can send shockwaves through your operations, impacting security, customer confidence, and business continuity. Are you prepared to act swiftly when the unexpected happens? Join DigiCert’s exclusive webinar, "When Shift Happens: Are You Ready for Rapid

---

Vietnamese Hacker Group Deploys New PXA Stealer Targeting Europe and Asia

A Vietnamese-speaking threat actor has been linked to an information-stealing campaign targeting government and education entities in Europe and Asia with a new Python-based malware called PXA Stealer. The malware "targets victims' sensitive information, including credentials for various online accounts, VPN and FTP clients, financial information, browser cookies, and data from gaming software,"

---

How AI Is Transforming IAM and Identity Security

In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) has begun revolutionizing Identity Access Management (IAM), reshaping how cybersecurity is approached in this crucial field. Leveraging AI in IAM is about tapping into its analytical capabilities to monitor access patterns and identify anomalies that could signal a potential security breach. The focus has expanded beyond merely managing human

---

Security experts respond to the Amazon employee data breach

Security leaders weigh in on the Amazon data breach, offering insights on the cause, ramifications and potential preventative measures.

---

Iranian Hackers Deploy WezRat Malware in Attacks Targeting Israeli Organizations

Cybersecurity researchers have shed light on a new remote access trojan and information stealer used by Iranian state-sponsored actors to conduct reconnaissance of compromised endpoints and execute malicious commands. Cybersecurity company Check Point has codenamed the malware WezRat, stating it has been detected in the wild since at least September 1, 2023, based on artifacts uploaded to the

---

High-Severity Flaw in PostgreSQL Allows Hackers to Exploit Environment Variables

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed a high-severity security flaw in the PostgreSQL open-source database system that could allow unprivileged users to alter environment variables, and potentially lead to code execution or information disclosure. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-10979, carries a CVSS score of 8.8. Environment variables are user-defined values that can allow a program

---

Bitfinex Hacker Sentenced to 5 Years, Guilty of Laundering $10.5 Billion in Bitcoin

Ilya Lichtenstein, who pleaded guilty to the 2016 hack of cryptocurrency stock exchange Bitfinex, has been sentenced to five years in prison, the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) announced Thursday. Lichtenstein was charged for his involvement in a money laundering scheme that led to the theft of nearly 120,000 bitcoins (valued at over $10.5 billion at current prices) from the crypto exchange.

---

CISA Flags Critical Palo Alto Network Flaws Actively Exploited in the Wild

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Thursday warned that two more flaws impacting the Palo Alto Networks Expedition have come under active exploitation in the wild. To that, it has added the vulnerabilities to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, requiring Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agencies to apply the necessary updates by December 5,

---

An Interview With the Target & Home Depot Hacker

In December 2023, KrebsOnSecurity revealed the real-life identity of Rescator, the nickname used by a Russian cybercriminal who sold more than 100 million payment cards stolen from Target and Home Depot between 2013 and 2014. Moscow resident Mikhail Shefel, who confirmed using the Rescator identity in a recent interview, also admitted reaching out because he is broke and seeking publicity for several new money making schemes.

---

Experts Uncover 70,000 Hijacked Domains in Widespread 'Sitting Ducks' Attack Scheme

Multiple threat actors have been found taking advantage of an attack technique called Sitting Ducks to hijack legitimate domains for using them in phishing attacks and investment fraud schemes for years. The findings come from Infoblox, which said it identified nearly 800,000 vulnerable registered domains over the past three months, of which approximately 9% (70,000) have been subsequently

---

Navigating the regulatory and compliance landscape of 2025

As security leaders look ahead to 2025, the regulatory and compliance landscape is set to undergo a significant transformation.