July 22, 2023 - Red N Security

Hello all,

The Red-N Weekly Cyber Security News newsletter Notable Callouts are below. As usual, the complete weekly report is below the introduction. Don’t forget, our site, https://red-n-security.com also has searchable archives of past newsletters.

Notable Callouts:

Adobe patched Cold Fusion last week. Unfortunately, it was flawed and a new patch has been released this week. Don’t wait to patch as this vulnerability is already under active exploitation.
Apple has scratched a line in the sand with the UK government and will reportedly pull iMessage and FaceTime from the UK rather than break end-to-end encryption like a potential upcoming law would require. If this passes, it would give the government the ability to spy on any communication it desires.
CISA continues to show value to taxpayers. This time it is by sharing free tools to help secure data in the cloud.
Citrix ADC and Gateway products need to be patched immediately! They are under active exploitation from a zero-day that may have existed for a month or more. As of this writing, there are over 15K vulnerable devices on the internet. CISA’s announcement and breakdown of the vulnerability (in Ransomware, Malware, and Vulnerabilities) shows how to detect if a device has been compromised.
The Federal Reserve has launched a new payment system that allows for direct transfer of funds, nearly instantly. While this sounds great in principle, I’m quite leery of anything government related having more power over the exchange of funds. It is still in early stages and is voluntary – for now.
Google has released Chrome 115. It contains 20 security fixes, but no zero-days. It does include some new functionality, so do read the errata for things to examine and try.
Kevin Mitnick famed cyber criminal who later became a force for good, has passed away.
Microsoft made headlines for a number of reasons this week. The first is related to last week’s revelation of Chinese state-sponsored criminals getting access to multiple government agencies’ Azure accounts. The stolen Microsoft account (MSA) key could have been used for much more than was originally disclosed, giving access to many more orgs and Microsoft services. Pressure from the US Government and organizations worldwide have gotten Microsoft to make full security logs free. As it pertains to the Chinese hack, the horse is already out of the barn. But it will certainly help identify activity in any future attacks. Microsoft also announced a raft of AI initiatives at their Inspire event, which drove their stock price up 1000%. At the event Big Redmond revealed their price-point for Microsoft CoPilot, a whopping $30 per user per month. I guess we will need to wait-and-see if it delivers as touted. If it truly can be a full virtual assistant, that’s a rather cheap employee for $30 per month.
In our local Tampa Bay Area, Tampa General Hospital is in the news for stopping a ransomware attack from deploying. Unfortunately, the threat actors had been in the network for some time prior to the detonation attempt. So, there is a very high likelihood of data exfiltration. I’m sure more will be revealed as this story develops.
And finally, a disturbing report that weekly cyber attacks have reached a two year high.

In Ransomware, Malware, and Vulnerabilities News, a nice one for the good-guys for a change. A “Prominent Threat Actor” infected himself and revealed pretty much everything, including his real name and location. In a “we knew it was coming” moment, bad guys have created “Worm GPT” and it doesn’t have filters.

In Other News Events of Note and Interest, Microsoft is pushing ahead with replacing the Windows Mail and Calendar app with the new Outlook. And in what should be a terrifying bit of news, the US Military is funding the development of a computer chip named “DishBrain” that has human brain tissue in it. What could go wrong? “Igor, bring me the brain.”

In Cyber Insurance News, an interesting article on how insurers may be on the hook for defending against a law meant to shield video store rental purchase records.

Electronic calendars, organizers, and assistants are truly a wonderful thing – if you actually use them. I’m embarrassed to report that I got all spiffied up in my fancy clothes, and actually started driving to an event today… only to realize that the event is next weekend.

Headline NEWS

Ransomware, Malware, and Vulnerabilities News

Other News Events of Note and Interest

Cyber Insurance News