Cyber Defense Advisors

Cyber News

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  • August 21, 2024

The AI Fix #12: AI made from human brain cells, and is there life after death?

In episode 12 of The AI Fix, Mark and Graham meet an LLM having an existential crisis, ChatGPT speaks Welsh for no reason, Graham does an impression of a water spout, Eric Schmidt shares a new and unexpected take on “do no evil”, and our hosts feel like David Attenborough as they witness herds of […]

Cyber News
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  • August 21, 2024

Microsoft Patches Critical Copilot Studio Vulnerability Exposing Sensitive Data

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed a critical security flaw impacting Microsoft’s Copilot Studio that could be exploited to access sensitive information. Tracked as CVE-2024-38206 (CVSS score: 8.5), the vulnerability has been described as an information disclosure bug stemming from a server-side request forgery (SSRF) attack. “An authenticated attacker can bypass Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF) protection in […]

Cyber News
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  • August 21, 2024

North Korean Hackers Deploy New MoonPeak Trojan in Cyber Campaign

A new remote access trojan called MoonPeak has been discovered as being used by a state-sponsored North Korean threat activity cluster as part of a new campaign. Cisco Talos attributed the malicious cyber campaign to a hacking group it tracks as UAT-5394, which it said exhibits some level of tactical overlaps with a known nation-state […]

Cyber News
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  • August 21, 2024

Story of an Undercover CIA Agent who Penetrated Al Qaeda

Rolling Stone has a long investigative story (non-paywalled version here) about a CIA agent who spent years posing as an Islamic radical. Unrelated, but also in the “real life spies” file: a fake Sudanese diving resort run by Mossad. Tags: al Qaeda, CIA, espionage, undercover Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.  

Cyber News
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  • August 21, 2024

It’s Time To Untangle the SaaS Ball of Yarn

It’s no great revelation to say that SaaS applications have changed the way we operate, both in our personal and professional lives. We routinely rely on cloud-based and remote applications to conduct our basic functions, with the result that the only true perimeter of our networks has become the identities with which we log into […]

Cyber News
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  • August 21, 2024

Styx Stealer Creator’s OPSEC Fail Leaks Client List and Profit Details

In what’s a case of an operational security (OPSEC) lapse, the operator behind a new information stealer called Styx Stealer leaked data from their own computer, including details related to the clients, profit information, nicknames, phone numbers, and email addresses. Styx Stealer, a derivative of the Phemedrone Stealer, is capable of stealing browser data, instant […]

Cyber News
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  • August 21, 2024

New macOS Malware TodoSwift Linked to North Korean Hacking Groups

Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered a new macOS malware strain dubbed TodoSwift that they say exhibits commonalities with known malicious software used by North Korean hacking groups. “This application shares several behaviors with malware we’ve seen that originated in North Korea (DPRK) — specifically the threat actor known as BlueNoroff — such as KANDYKORN and RustBucket,” […]

Cyber News
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  • August 21, 2024

CERT-UA Warns of New Vermin-Linked Phishing Attacks with PoW Bait

The Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA) has warned of new phishing attacks that aim to infect devices with malware. The activity has been attributed to a threat cluster it tracks as UAC-0020, which is also known as Vermin. The exact scale and scope of the attacks are presently unknown. The attack chains commence […]

Cyber News
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  • August 21, 2024

GiveWP WordPress Plugin Vulnerability Puts 100,000+ Websites at Risk

A maximum-severity security flaw has been disclosed in the WordPress GiveWP donation and fundraising plugin that exposes more than 100,000 websites to remote code execution attacks. The flaw, tracked as CVE-2024-5932 (CVSS score: 10.0), impacts all versions of the plugin prior to version 3.14.2, which was released on August 7, 2024. A security researcher, who […]

Cyber News