Research Saturday

On April 29, 2020, the Salt management framework, authored by the IT automation company SaltStack, received a patch concerning two CVEs; CVE-2020-11651, an authentication bypass vulnerability, and CVE-2020-11652, a directory-traversal vulnerability. On April 30, 2020, researchers at F-Secure disclosed their vulnerability findings to the public, with an urgent warning for Salt users - patch now. Be...

Researchers at Symantec identified and alerted customers to a string of attacks against U.S. companies by attackers attempting to deploy the WastedLocker ransomware (Ransom. WastedLocker) on their networks. The end goal of these attacks is to cripple the victim’s IT infrastructure by encrypting most of their computers and servers in order to demand a multimillion dollar ransom. At least 31 Symante...

Built into virtually every hardware device, firmware is lower-level software that is programmed to ensure that hardware functions properly. As software security has been significantly hardened over the past two decades, hackers have responded by moving down the stack to focus on firmware entry points. Firmware offers a target that basic security controls can’t access or scan as easily as software,...

A new report examines how five related APT groups operating in the interest of the Chinese government have systematically targeted Linux servers, Windows systems and Android mobile devices while remaining undetected for nearly a decade. The report comes on the heels of the U.S. Department of Justice announcing several high-profile indictments from over 1,000 open FBI investigations into economic e...

Slack is a cloud-based messaging platform that is commonly used in workplace communications. Slack Incoming Webhooks allow you to post messages from your applications to Slack. Generally, Slack webhooks are considered a low risk integration. A deeper dive into webhooks shows that this is not entirely accurate.  Joining us in this week's Research Saturday is Ashley Graves from AT&T Cybersecurity's...

Proactive, efficient threat mitigation and risk management require understanding adversaries’ fundamental thought processes, not just their tools and methods. Cyber threat intelligence analysts combed through 15 years (2004 to 2019) of public sources that have documented the activities of one prolific threat actor, Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU. Analysis shows that the timing, tar...

Earlier this year, a Virgin Media database containing the personal details of 900,000 people was discovered to be unsecured and accessible online for 10 months. The breach was discovered by researchers at the security firm TurgenSec. This breach had major implications under GDPR.  Joining us in this week's Research Saturday are George Punter and Peter Hansen from TurgenSec to talk about the discov...

Working with many different honeypot implementations, a security researcher did an experiment expanding on that setting up a simple docker image with SSH, running a guessable root password. The catch? What happened in the next 24 hours was unexpected. Joining us in this week's Research Saturday to talk about his experiment is Larry Cashdollar of Akamai.  The research can be found here:  A Brief Hi...

In December 2019, the GOLD VILLAGE threat group that operates the Maze ransomware created a public website to name and shame victims. The threat actors used the website to dump data they exfiltrated from victims' networks before they deployed the ransomware. Secureworks Counter Threat Unit (CTU) researchers have observed several ransomware operators following suit. Joining us in this week's Resear...

Section 52, CyberX’s threat intelligence team, has uncovered an ongoing industrial cyberespionage campaign targeting hundreds of manufacturing and other industrial firms primarily located in South Korea. CyberX has identified more than 200 compromised systems from this campaign, including one belonging to a multi-billion dollar Korean conglomerate that manufactures critical infrastructure equipmen...

Multiple media reports have indicated that the United States’ (U.S.) 2020 general election could be targeted by foreign and domestic actors after the successful cyber and misinformation attacks during the 2016 general election. The responsibility of secure and ethical online campaigning has become a central issue in the 2020 election. In some cases, it has become part of candidate platforms. Joini...

Passwords are the traditional authentication methods for computers and networks. But passwords can be stolen. Biometric authentication seems the perfect solution for that problem. Our guest today is Craig Williams, director of Talos outreach at Cisco. He'll be discussing and providing insights into their report which shows that fingerprints are good enough to protect the average person's privacy i...

Successful containment of the Coronavirus pandemic rests on the ability to quickly and reliably identify those who have been in close proximity to a contagious individual. Mayank Varia from Boston University describes how his team suggests an approach based on using short-range communication mechanisms, like Bluetooth, that are available in all modern cell phones. The research can be found here: A...

As much of the world grapples with the new coronavirus, COVID-19, and how to handle it, attackers are taking advantage of the widespread discussion of COVID-19 in emails and across the web. Joining us today is Fleming Shi, CTO of Barracuda discussing their report on these types of attacks, which are up 667-percent since the end of February. The research can be found here: Threat Spotlight: Coronav...

By day, he is Dton, an upstanding Nigerian citizen. He believes in professionalism, hard work and excellence. He’s a leader, a content creator, an entrepreneur and an innovator; an accomplished business administrator; a renaissance man who is adored by his colleagues. But by night, he is Bill Henry, Cybercriminal Entrepreneur. We sat down with a researcher at CheckPoint for the inside scoop into t...

2020 is shaping up to be a rough year. Ransomware attacks will continue to grow as cybercriminals get more sophisticated in their methods and expand their reach. Allan Liska, Senior Analyst at Recorded Future, shares their findings and predictions in a new report.  The research can be found here: 5 Ransomware Trends to Watch in 2020 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Eclypsium has issued a study that suggests the prevalence of “unsigned firmware in WiFi adapters, USB hubs, trackpads, and cameras used in computers from Lenovo, Dell, HP and other major manufacturers.” Here to discuss their findings is Rick Altherr, a Principle Engineer at Eclypsium. The research can be found here: Perilous Peripherals: The Hidden Dangers Inside Windows and LINUX Computers.  Lear...

Cloud computing is now at the center of nearly every business strategy. But, as with the rapid adoption of any new technology, growing pains persist. The key findings in these reports shed light on security missteps that are actually in practice by organizations across the globe. Joining us in this special Research Saturday are Palo Alto Network's Matthew Chiodi and Ryan Olson. They discuss their...

As websites and apps more widely adopt TLS (Transport Layer Security) and communicate over HTTPS connections, unencrypted traffic may draw even more attention, since it’s easier for analysts and security tools to identify malicious communication patterns in those plain HTTP sessions. Malware authors know this, and they’ve made it a priority to adopt TLS and thereby obfuscate the contents of malici...

Why do some developers and development teams write more secure code than others? Software is written by people, either alone or in teams. Ultimately secure code development depends on the actions and decisions taken by the people who develop the code. Understanding the human factors that influence the introduction of software vulnerabilities, and acting on that knowledge, is a definitive way to sh...

Today's Research Saturday features our conversation with Robert Heaton, a software engineer with Stripe who penned a blog post about his disappointing discovery involving his Wacom tablet tracking his applications. The post struck a nerve and has since been widely distributed. The research can be found here:  Wacom drawing tablets track the name of every application that you open Learn more about...

SafeBreach Labs discovered a new vulnerability in the Realtek HD Audio Driver Package, which is deployed on PCs containing Realtek sound cards.  On this week's Research Saturday, our conversation with Itzik Kotler, who is Co-Founder and CTO at SafeBreach.  The research can be found here:  Realtek HD Audio Driver Package - DLL Preloading and Potential Abuses Learn more about your ad choices. Visit...

BGN Technologies, the technology transfer company of Ben-Gurion University (BGU) of the Negev, Israel, is introducing the first all-optical “stealth” encryption technology that will be significantly more secure and private for highly-sensitive cloud computing and data center network transmission. Joining us in this special Research Saturday is BGN's Dan Sadot who helped pioneer this technology.  T...

The Chameleon attack technique is a new type of OSN-based trickery where malicious posts and profiles change the way they are displayed to OSN users to conceal themselves before the attack or avoid detection. Joining us to discuss their findings in a new report entitled "The Chameleon Attack: Manipulating Content Display in Online Social Media" is Ben-Gurion University's Rami Puzis.  The research...

Operation Wocao (我操, “Wǒ cāo”, is a Chinese curse word) is the name that Fox-IT uses to describe the hacking activities of a Chinese based hacking group. We are joined by Fox-IT's Maarten van Dantzig who shares his insights into their new report entitled "Operation Wocao: Shining a light on one of China’s hidden hacking groups". The Research can be found here: Operation Wocao: Shining a light o...