07/13/2023-07/19/2023 Vulnerabilities in SonicWall and Fortinet Network, Fake PoC for Linux Kernel Vulnerability on GitHub, Microsoft Word Vulnerabilities And More.

1. New Vulnerabilities Disclosed in SonicWall and Fortinet Network Security Products

SonicWall urged customers of Global Management System (GMS) firewall management and Analytics network reporting engine software to apply the latest fixes to secure against a set of 15 security flaws that could be exploited by a threat actor to circumvent authentication and access sensitive information. Of the 15 shortcomings (tracked from CVE-2023-34123 through CVE-2023-34137), four are rated Critical, four are rated High, and seven are rated Medium in severity. The flaws impact on-premise versions of GMS 9.3.2-SP1 and before and Analytics 2.5.0.4-R7 and before. Fixes are available in versions GMS 9.3.3 and Analytics 2.5.2. The suite of vulnerabilities allows an attacker to view data that they are not normally able to retrieve. This might include data belonging to other users, or any other data that the application itself is able to access. In many cases, an attacker can modify or delete this data, causing persistent changes to the application’s content or behavior.

The disclosure comes as Fortinet revealed a critical flaw affecting FortiOS and FortiProxy (CVE-2023-33308, CVSS score: 9.8) that could enable an adversary to achieve remote code execution under certain circumstances. It said the issue was resolved in a previous release, without an advisory.

Recommendation 

For customers who cannot apply the updates immediately, Fortinet is recommending that they disable HTTP/2 support on SSL inspection profiles used by proxy policies or firewall policies with proxy mode.

2. Fake PoC for Linux Kernel Vulnerability on GitHub Exposes Researchers to Malware

Cybersecurity researchers have detected a proof-of-concept (PoC) on GitHub containing a concealed backdoor using a clever persistence method. The PoC pretends to be a harmless learning tool but actually operates as a downloader, surreptitiously executing a Linux bash script while disguising its activities as a kernel-level process. Disguised as a PoC for a high-severity flaw in the Linux kernel (CVE-2023-35829), the repository was taken down after being forked 25 times. Additionally, a second GitHub profile harbored a fake PoC for CVE-2023-35829, still available and forked 19 times. The backdoor has extensive capabilities, enabling data theft and remote access via the addition of malicious SSH keys to the .ssh/authorized_keys file.

Recommendation 

To mitigate risks, users who downloaded and executed these PoCs should remove unauthorized SSH keys, delete the kworker file, eliminate the kworker path from the bashrc file, and check /tmp/.iCE-unix.pid for potential threats.

# 3. Critical Security Flaws Uncovered in Honeywell Experion DCS and QuickBlox Services
Multiple security vulnerabilities have been found in various services, including Honeywell Experion DCS and QuickBlox, that could lead to severe compromises. Dubbed Crit.IX, the nine flaws in Honeywell Experion DCS enable unauthorized remote code execution, allowing attackers to take over devices and alter DCS controller operations while concealing changes from the engineering workstation. The flaws stem from encryption and authentication issues in the Control Data Access (CDA) protocol. Similarly, QuickBlox, used in telemedicine and IoT, was found to have major vulnerabilities, allowing attackers to leak user databases and perform account takeover attacks.

Additional disclosed flaws affect Aerohive/Extreme Networks access points, the Ghostscript library, Owncast, EaseProbe, and Technicolor TG670 DSL gateway routers, exposing various attack vectors.

4. Cybercriminals Exploit Microsoft Word Vulnerabilities to Deploy LokiBot Malware

Microsoft Word documents exploiting known remote code execution flaws are being used as phishing lures to drop malware called LokiBot on compromised systems. The cybersecurity company said the attacks take advantage of CVE-2021-40444 and CVE-2022-30190 (aka Follina) to achieve code execution. The Word file that weaponizes CVE-2021-40444 contains an external GoFile link embedded within an XML file that leads to the download of an HTML file, which exploits Follina to download a next-stage payload, an injector module written in Visual Basic that decrypts and launches LokiBot. The injector also features evasion techniques to check for the presence of debuggers and determine if it’s running in a virtualized environment. 

An alternative chain discovered towards the end of May starts with a Word document incorporating a VBA script that executes a macro immediately upon opening the document using the “Auto_Open” and “Document_Open” functions.
The macro script subsequently acts as a conduit to deliver an interim payload from a remote server, which also functions as an injector to load LokiBot and connect to a command-and-control (C2) server.

5. Zero-Day Attacks Exploited Critical Vulnerability in Citrix ADC and Gateway

Citrix is alerting users of a critical security flaw in NetScaler Application Delivery Controller (ADC) and Gateway that it said is being actively exploited in the wild.
Tracked as CVE-2023-3519 (CVSS score: 9.8), the issue relates to a case of code injection that could result in unauthenticated remote code execution. It impacts the following versions:

• NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway 13.1 before 13.1-49.13
• NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway 13.0 before 13.0-91.13
• NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway version 12.1 (currently end-of-life)
• NetScaler ADC 13.1-FIPS before 13.1-37.159
• NetScaler ADC 12.1-FIPS before 12.1-55.297, and
• NetScaler ADC 12.1-NDcPP before 12.1-55.297

The company did not give further details on the flaw tied to CVE-2023-3519 other than to say that exploits for the flaw have been observed on “unmitigated appliances.” However, successful exploitation requires the device to be configured as a Gateway (VPN virtual server, ICA Proxy, CVPN, RDP Proxy) or authorization and accounting (AAA) virtual server.

The development comes amid active exploitation of security flaws discovered in Adobe ColdFusion (CVE-2023-29298 and CVE-2023-38203) and the WooCommerce Payments WordPress plugin (CVE-2023-28121).

6. Bad.Build Flaw in Google Cloud Build Raises Concerns of Privilege Escalation

A privilege escalation vulnerability, named Bad.Build, has been discovered in Google Cloud’s Build service, posing a supply chain attack risk. The flaw allows attackers to manipulate images in the Google Artifact Registry and inject malicious code, impacting applications built from those images. Google has released a partial fix but acknowledges that the privilege escalation vector remains, categorizing it as a low-severity issue. The vulnerability stems from excessive permissions granted to the default service account created by Cloud Build, which can facilitate lateral movement and privilege escalation. Attackers can impersonate the Cloud Build service account, exfiltrate and modify images, and execute code on Docker containers with root access. Users should monitor the service account’s behavior and apply the principle of least privilege to minimize potential risks.

07/06/2023-07/12/2023 Python-Based PyLoose Fileless Attack, New Linux Kernel ‘StackRot’ Privilege Escalation Vulnerability, Microsoft Releases Patches for 132 Vulnerabilities And More.

1. Python-Based PyLoose Fileless Attack Targets Cloud Workloads for Cryptocurrency Mining

A new fileless attack dubbed PyLoose has been observed striking cloud workloads with the goal of delivering a cryptocurrency miner. The attack consists of Python code that loads an XMRig Miner directly into memory using memfd, a known Linux fileless technique.The cloud security firm said it found nearly 200 instances where the attack method was employed for cryptocurrency mining. No other details about the threat actor are currently known other than the fact that they possess sophisticated capabilities. In the infection chain documented by Wiz, initial access is achieved through the exploitation of a publicly accessible Jupyter Notebook service that allowed for the execution of system commands using Python modules.

2. Researchers Uncover New Linux Kernel ‘StackRot’ Privilege Escalation Vulnerability

A new security flaw in the Linux kernel, called StackRot (CVE-2023-3269, CVSS score: 7.8), has been discovered. It affects Linux versions 6.1 to 6.4 but has not been exploited in the wild. The vulnerability exists in the memory management subsystem, making it widespread and requiring minimal capabilities to trigger. However, exploiting it is considered challenging due to delayed memory deallocation. The flaw was responsibly disclosed on June 15, 2023, and has been patched in stable versions 6.1.37, 6.3.11, and 6.4.1 as of July 1, 2023. A proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit and more technical details will be released soon. The vulnerability stems from a data structure called maple tree, introduced in Linux kernel 6.1 to manage virtual memory areas (VMAs). It is described as a use-after-free bug that can be exploited by a local user to gain elevated privileges.

3. Microsoft Releases Patches for 132 Vulnerabilities, Including 6 Under Active Attack

Microsoft has released updates addressing 132 new security flaws, including six zero-day vulnerabilities actively exploited in the wild. Among the vulnerabilities, nine are rated Critical and 122 are rated Important.
The list of issues that have come under active exploitation is as follows –

• CVE-2023-32046 (CVSS score: 7.8) – Windows MSHTML Platform Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability
• CVE-2023-32049 (CVSS score: 8.8) – Windows SmartScreen Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability
• CVE-2023-35311 (CVSS score: 8.8) – Microsoft Outlook Security Feature Bypass Vulnerability
• CVE-2023-36874 (CVSS score: 7.8) – Windows Error Reporting Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability
• CVE-2023-36884 (CVSS score: 8.3) – Office and Windows HTML Remote Code Execution Vulnerability (Also publicly known at the time of the release)
• ADV230001 – Malicious use of Microsoft-signed drivers for post-exploitation activity (no CVE assigned).

One flaw, CVE-2023-36884, is being actively exploited through specially-crafted Microsoft Office documents related to the Ukrainian World Congress. Microsoft has identified the intrusion campaign as the work of the Russian cybercriminal group Storm-0978, also known as RomCom. The group is deploying Underground ransomware and a backdoor similar to RomCom RAT.

4. Hackers Exploit Windows Policy Loophole to Forge Kernel-Mode Driver Signatures

A Windows policy loophole is being exploited by threat actors, primarily native Chinese speakers, to forge signatures on kernel-mode drivers. By altering the signing date of drivers, malicious and unverified drivers can be loaded, bypassing Windows certificate policies. Cisco Talos discovered open-source tools like HookSignTool and FuckCertVerifyTimeValidity being used to forge signatures and bypass security measures. These tools manipulate the signing timestamp and remove the need for valid certificates, enabling the deployment of thousands of malicious signed drivers without Microsoft verification. Threat actors have gained administrative privileges on compromised systems prior to using these drivers. Microsoft has taken steps to block the certificates and suspend developer program accounts involved. The use of rogue kernel-mode drivers allows threat actors to establish persistence and interfere with security software.

5. Revolut Faces $20 Million Loss as Attackers Exploit Payment System Weakness

Malicious actors exploited an unknown flaw in Revolut’s payment systems to steal more than $20 million of the company’s funds in early 2022. The development was reported by the Financial Times, citing multiple unnamed sources with knowledge of the incident. The breach has not been disclosed publicly. The fault stemmed from discrepancies between Revolut’s U.S. and European systems, causing funds to be erroneously refunded using its own money when some transactions were declined. The problem was first detected in late 2021. But before it could be closed, the report said organized criminal groups leveraged the loophole by “encouraging individuals to try to make expensive purchases that would go on to be declined.” The refunded amounts would then be withdrawn from ATMs. The exact technical details associated with the flaw are currently unclear.

6. Another Critical Unauthenticated SQLi Flaw Discovered in MOVEit Transfer Software

Progress Software has patched a critical SQL injection vulnerability (CVE-2023-36934) in its popular MOVEit Transfer software, which enables secure file transfer. The flaw could allow unauthenticated attackers to gain unauthorized access to the software’s database. This vulnerability is particularly severe because it can be exploited without valid credentials. However, there have been no reports of active exploitation yet. Progress Software also addressed two other high-severity vulnerabilities: CVE-2023-36932, a SQL injection flaw allowing unauthorized access for logged-in attackers, and CVE-2023-36933, a vulnerability that allows unexpected shutdowns of MOVEit Transfer. These vulnerabilities affect multiple versions of MOVEit Transfer, including 12.1.10 and earlier.

7. JumpCloud Resets API Keys Amid Ongoing Cybersecurity Incident

JumpCloud, a cloud-based identity and access management provider, has taken swift action in response to a cybersecurity incident affecting some of its clients. As a precautionary measure, JumpCloud has reset the API keys of affected customers to protect their data. While this reset may cause disruptions to certain functionalities, such as AD import and HRIS integrations, the company emphasizes that it is for the benefit of its clients’ security. JumpCloud is offering support to those needing assistance with resetting or re-establishing their API keys. The incident underscores the importance of API security and the need for robust protective measures. The specifics and scale of the incident, as well as the cause, are currently unknown as JumpCloud actively investigates the matter.

06/29/2023-07/05/2023 CVE-2023-27997 RCE Flaw, Critical SQL Injection Flaws, Unpatched WordPress Plugin Flaw And More

1. Alert: 330,000 FortiGate Firewalls Still Unpatched to CVE-2023-27997 RCE Flaw

No less than 330,000 FortiGate firewalls are still unpatched and vulnerable to CVE-2023-27997, a critical security flaw affecting Fortinet devices that has come under active exploitation in the wild. Cybersecurity firm Bishop Fox said that out of nearly 490,000 Fortinet SSL-VPN interfaces exposed on the internet, about 69 percent remain unpatched. CVE-2023-27997 (CVSS score: 9.8), also called XORtigate, is a critical vulnerability impacting Fortinet FortiOS and FortiProxy SSL-VPN appliances that could allow a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code or commands via specifically crafted requests. Patches were released by Fortinet last month in versions 6.0.17, 6.2.15, 6.4.13, 7.0.12, and 7.2.5, although the company acknowledged that the flaw may have been “exploited in a limited number of cases” in attacks targeting government, manufacturing, and critical infrastructure sectors.  Many of the publicly accessible Fortinet devices did not receive an update for the past eight years, with the installations running FortiOS versions 5 and 6.

2. Critical SQL Injection Flaws Expose Gentoo Soko to Remote Code Execution

Multiple SQL injection vulnerabilities have been disclosed in Gentoo Soko that could lead to remote code execution (RCE) on vulnerable systems. These SQL injections happened despite the use of an Object-Relational Mapping (ORM) library and prepared statements. The two issues, which were discovered in the search feature of Soko, have been collectively tracked as CVE-2023-28424 (CVSS score: 9.1). They were addressed within 24 hours of responsible disclosure on March 17, 2023. The shortcomings identified in the service meant that it could have been possible for a malicious actor to inject specially crafted code, resulting in the exposure of sensitive information. The development comes months after SonarSource uncovered a cross-site scripting (XSS) flaw in an open-source business suite called Odoo that could be exploited to impersonate any victim on a vulnerable Odoo instance as well as exfiltrate valuable data.

3. New Python Tool Checks NPM Packages For Manifest Confusion Issues

A security researcher and sysadmin created a tool to detect manifest mismatches in NPM JavaScript packages. “Manifest confusion” is a security issue in NPM where the package’s manifest data differs between the NPM registry and the ‘package.json’ file, potentially leading to malware or script execution during installation. The inconsistency allows malicious actors to hide scripts or dependencies in the ‘package.json’ file while removing them from the NPM registry. This poses risks like cache poisoning, unknown dependencies, and downgrade attacks. While GitHub hasn’t addressed the problem yet, users can use a Python-based tool by sysadmin Felix Pankratz. By installing the required packages and passing the package’s name as an argument, developers can detect mismatches in version, dependencies, scripts, and package name. Multiple packages can be checked by adding them to a file and using a wrapper script. Understanding the tool’s usage is possible through the help command. Although not widespread, manifest confusion should not be ignored to prevent potential supply-chain attacks.

4. Hackers Exploiting Unpatched WordPress Plugin Flaw to Create Secret Admin Accounts

Around 200,000 WordPress websites are under ongoing attack due to a critical unpatched vulnerability in the Ultimate Member plugin. The vulnerability (CVE-2023-3460) affects all versions, including the latest one released on June 29, 2023. Exploiting the flaw allows unauthenticated attackers to create new user accounts with administrative privileges, granting them complete control over targeted sites. The issue stems from inadequate blocklist logic, enabling attackers to modify the wp_capabilities user meta value and gain full access. Although partial fixes have been released, they are insufficient, and the vulnerability is actively exploitable. Attackers are adding rogue administrator accounts to affected sites, uploading malicious plugins and themes. Users are advised to disable the plugin and conduct audits to identify unauthorized accounts until a comprehensive patch is available.

5. Cybercriminals Hijacking Vulnerable SSH Servers in New Proxyjacking Campaign

An active financially motivated campaign is exploiting vulnerable SSH servers to create a covert proxy network. Attackers use SSH for remote access, running malicious scripts that enlist victim servers into a peer-to-peer (P2P) proxy network. This proxyjacking technique allows threat actors to utilize the victim’s unused bandwidth for various services, providing them with reduced resource load and increased stealth compared to cryptojacking. The campaign aims to breach susceptible SSH servers, deploying an obfuscated Bash script that fetches dependencies from a compromised web server. The script terminates competing bandwidth-sharing programs and launches Docker services to profit from the victim’s bandwidth. The attackers also host a cryptocurrency miner on the web server, indicating involvement in both cryptojacking and proxyjacking attacks. The use of proxyware services adds anonymity but can be abused to obfuscate the source of attacks.

6. Hackers exploit zero-day in Ultimate Member WordPress plugin with 200K installs

Hackers are exploiting a zero-day privilege escalation vulnerability in the ‘Ultimate Member’ WordPress plugin to compromise websites by registering rogue administrator accounts. The flaw, tracked as CVE-2023-3460, affects all versions of the plugin, including the latest one (v2.6.6). While attempts have been made to fix the vulnerability in previous versions, the issue remains exploitable. The attacks were discovered by Wordfence, who found that threat actors exploit the flaw by manipulating the plugin’s registration forms. By setting specific user meta values, attackers can grant themselves administrator access to the targeted site. Indicators of hacked WordPress sites include the appearance of new administrator accounts, usage of specific usernames, access records from known malicious IPs, and the installation of new plugins and themes. Users are advised to update to version 2.6.6 and remain vigilant for security updates.