Cyber Defense Advisors

Month: February 2025

Palo Alto Networks Patches Authentication Bypass Exploit in PAN-OS Software

Palo Alto Networks has addressed a high-severity security flaw in its PAN-OS software that could result in an authentication bypass. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-0108, carries a CVSS score of 7.8 out of 10.0. The score, however, drops to 5.1 if access to the management interface is restricted to a jump box. “An authentication bypass […]

Cyber News

FINALDRAFT Malware Exploits Microsoft Graph API for Espionage on Windows and Linux

Threat hunters have shed light on a new campaign targeting the foreign ministry of an unnamed South American nation with bespoke malware capable of granting remote access to infected hosts. The activity, detected in November 2024, has been attributed by Elastic Security Labs to a threat cluster it tracks as REF7707. Some of the other […]

Cyber News

US woman faces years in federal prison for running laptop farm for N Korean IT workers

A 48-year-old woman from Arizona has pleaded guilty to charges related to a criminal scheme which saw North Korean IT workers employed remotely by hundreds of US companies. Christian Marie Chapman, of Litchfield Park, Arizona, is said to have helped generate over US $17 million for North Korea after over 300 US companies unwittingly hired […]

Cyber News

Smashing Security podcast #404: Podcast not found

The story of how hackers managed to compromise the US Government’s official SEC Twitter account to boost the price of Bitcoins, AI isn’t helping reduce the rife conspiracy theories inside classrooms, and is the funeral bell tolling for ransomware? All this and more is discussed in the latest edition of the “Smashing Security” podcast by […]

Cyber News

Microsoft Uncovers Sandworm Subgroup’s Global Cyber Attacks Spanning 15+ Countries

A subgroup within the infamous Russian state-sponsored hacking group known as Sandworm has been attributed to a multi-year initial access operation dubbed BadPilot that stretched across the globe. “This subgroup has conducted globally diverse compromises of Internet-facing infrastructure to enable Seashell Blizzard to persist on high-value targets and support tailored network operations,” the Microsoft Threat […]

Cyber News

Researchers Find New Exploit Bypassing Patched NVIDIA Container Toolkit Vulnerability

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a bypass for a now-patched security vulnerability in the NVIDIA Container Toolkit that could be exploited to break out of a container’s isolation protections and gain complete access to the underlying host. The new vulnerability is being tracked as CVE-2025-23359 (CVSS score: 8.3). It affects the following versions – NVIDIA Container […]

Cyber News

Delivering Malware Through Abandoned Amazon S3 Buckets

Here’s a supply-chain attack just waiting to happen. A group of researchers searched for, and then registered, abandoned Amazon S3 buckets for about $400. These buckets contained software libraries that are still used. Presumably the projects don’t realize that they have been abandoned, and still ping them for patches, updates, and etc. The TL;DR is […]

Cyber News

How to Steer AI Adoption: A CISO Guide

CISOs are finding themselves more involved in AI teams, often leading the cross-functional effort and AI strategy. But there aren’t many resources to guide them on what their role should look like or what they should bring to these meetings. We’ve pulled together a framework for security leaders to help push AI teams and committees […]

Cyber News

North Korean Hackers Exploit PowerShell Trick to Hijack Devices in New Cyberattack

The North Korea-linked threat actor known as Kimsuky has been observed using a new tactic that involves deceiving targets into running PowerShell as an administrator and then instructing them to paste and run malicious code provided by them. “To execute this tactic, the threat actor masquerades as a South Korean government official and over time […]

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