Cyber Defense Advisors

Year: 2024

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  • February 3, 2024

Mastodon Vulnerability Allows Hackers to Hijack Any Decentralized Account

The decentralized social network Mastodon has disclosed a critical security flaw that enables malicious actors to impersonate and take over any account. “Due to insufficient origin validation in all Mastodon, attackers can impersonate and take over any remote account,” the maintainers said in a terse advisory. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-23832, has a severity rating of […]

Cyber News
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  • February 3, 2024

AnyDesk Hacked: Popular Remote Desktop Software Mandates Password Reset

Remote desktop software maker AnyDesk disclosed on Friday that it suffered a cyber attack that led to a compromise of its production systems. The German company said the incident, which it discovered following a security audit, is not a ransomware attack and that it has notified relevant authorities. “We have revoked all security-related certificates and […]

Cyber News
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  • February 2, 2024

Friday Squid Blogging: Illex Squid in Argentina Waters

Argentina is reporting that there is a good population of illex squid in its waters ready for fishing, and is working to ensure that Chinese fishing boats don’t take it all. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered. Read my […]

Cyber News
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  • February 2, 2024

David Kahn

David Kahn has died. His groundbreaking book, The Codebreakers was the first serious book I read about codebreaking, and one of the primary reasons I entered this field. He will be missed. EDITED TO ADD (2/4): Funeral website. EDITED TO ADD (2/10): New York Times obituary. Tags: books, cryptanalysis, history of cryptography Sidebar photo of […]

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  • February 2, 2024

FTC slams Blackbaud for “shoddy security” after hacker stole data belonging to thousands of non-profits and millions of people

Data and software services firm Blackbaud’s cybersecurity was criticised as “lax” and “shoddy” by the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in a damning post-mortem of the business’s February 2020 data breach. Read more in my article on the Hot for Security blog. 

Cyber News
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  • February 2, 2024

China is hacking Wi-Fi routers for attack on US electrical grid and water supplies, FBI warns

China-sponsored attacks likened to “placing bombs in water treatment facilities, and power plants”. Is it just me, or does this sound like the plot of a Mission Impossible movie? 

Cyber News
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  • February 2, 2024

Russian APT28 Hackers Targeting High-Value Orgs with NTLM Relay Attacks

Russian state-sponsored actors have staged NT LAN Manager (NTLM) v2 hash relay attacks through various methods from April 2022 to November 2023, targeting high-value targets worldwide. The attacks, attributed to an “aggressive” hacking crew called APT28, have set their eyes on organizations dealing with foreign affairs, energy, defense, and transportation, as well as those involved […]

Cyber News
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  • February 2, 2024

DirtyMoe Malware Infects 2,000+ Ukrainian Computers for DDoS and Cryptojacking

The Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA) has warned that more than 2,000 computers in the country have been infected by a strain of malware called DirtyMoe. The agency attributed the campaign to a threat actor it calls UAC-0027. DirtyMoe, active since at least 2016, is capable of carrying out cryptojacking and distributed denial-of-service […]

Cyber News
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  • February 2, 2024

A Self-Enforcing Protocol to Solve Gerrymandering

In 2009, I wrote: There are several ways two people can divide a piece of cake in half. One way is to find someone impartial to do it for them. This works, but it requires another person. Another way is for one person to divide the piece, and the other person to complain (to the […]

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