04/06/2023-04/12/2023 Newly Discovered “By-Design” Flaw in Microsoft Azure, Over 1 Million WordPress Sites Infected, Critical Remote Code Execution Flaw in vm2 Sandbox Library And More

1. Newly Discovered “By-Design” Flaw in Microsoft Azure Could Expose Storage Accounts to Hackers

A “by-design flaw” uncovered in Microsoft Azure could be exploited by attackers to gain access to storage accounts, move laterally in the environment, and even execute remote code. The exploitation path that underpins this attack is a mechanism called Shared Key authorization, which is enabled by default on storage accounts. According to Microsoft, Azure generates two 512-bit storage account access keys when creating a storage account. These keys can be used to authorize access to data via Shared Key authorization, or via SAS tokens that are signed with the shared key. Once an attacker locates the storage account of a Function app that is assigned with a strong managed identity, it can run code on its behalf and as a result acquire a subscription privilege escalation (PE). 

Recommendation 
As mitigations, it’s recommended that organizations consider disabling Azure Shared Key authorization and using Azure Active Directory authentication instead.

2. Hackers Flood NPM with Bogus Packages Causing a DoS Attack

Threat actors flooded the npm open source package repository for Node.js with bogus packages that briefly even resulted in a denial-of-service (DoS) attack. The threat actors create malicious websites and publish empty packages with links to those malicious websites, taking advantage of open-source ecosystems’ good reputation on search engines. The attacks caused a denial-of-service (DoS) that made NPM unstable with sporadic ‘Service Unavailable’ errors. While similar campaigns were recently observed propagating phishing links, the latest wave pushed the number of package versions to 1.42 million, a dramatic uptick from the approximate 800,000 packages released on npm. The attack technique leverages the fact that open source repositories are ranked higher on search engine results to create rogue websites and upload empty npm modules with links to those sites in the README.md files.

3. Over 1 Million WordPress Sites Infected by Balada Injector Malware Campaign

Since 2017, over one million WordPress websites have been affected by a malware campaign called Balada Injector, according to GoDaddy’s Sucuri. The campaign utilizes known and newly discovered theme and plugin vulnerabilities to breach WordPress sites, with attacks occurring in waves every few weeks. The campaign relies on over 100 domains and multiple methods to take advantage of known security flaws. The malware allows for the generation of fake WordPress admin users, harvests data stored in the underlying hosts, and leaves backdoors for persistent access. The campaign also searches for writable directories that belong to other sites with the same server account and file permissions. This means compromising one site can potentially grant access to several other sites.

4. Researchers Discover Critical Remote Code Execution Flaw in vm2 Sandbox Library

The maintainers of the vm2 JavaScript sandbox module have shipped a patch to address a critical flaw that could be abused to break out of security boundaries and execute arbitrary shellcode. The flaw, which affects all versions, including and prior to 3.9.14, was reported by researchers from South Korea-based KAIST WSP Lab on April 6, 2023, prompting vm2 to release a fix with version 3.9.15.

“A threat actor can bypass the sandbox protections to gain remote code execution rights on the host running the sandbox,” vm2 disclosed in an advisory. The vulnerability has been assigned the identified CVE-2023-29017 and is rated 9.8 on the CVSS scoring system. The issue stems from the fact that it does not properly handle errors that occur in asynchronous functions. 

5. SAP Releases Security Updates For Two Critical-Severity Flaws

Enterprise software vendor SAP has released its April 2023 security updates for several of its products, which includes fixes for two critical-severity vulnerabilities that impact the SAP Diagnostics Agent and the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform.

In total, SAP has released 24 notes, 19 of which concern new issues of varying importance, and five are updates to previous bulletins. SAP has fixed three critical issues in its latest update. The first issue, CVE-2023-27267, impacts the OSCommand Bridge of SAP Diagnostics Agent 720, allowing an attacker to execute scripts and fully compromise the system. The second issue, CVE-2023-28765, affects SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence Platform versions 420 and 430, enabling an attacker to access users’ passwords and take over their accounts. The third issue, CVE-2023-29186, is a directory traversal flaw affecting SAP NetWeaver versions 707, 737, 747, and 757, allowing an attacker to upload and overwrite files on the SAP server.

The remaining 11 security flaws disclosed in SAP’s latest security bulletin concern low to medium-severity vulnerabilities.

6. Microsoft April 2023 Patch Tuesday fixes 1 Zero-day, 97 Flaws

​Today is Microsoft’s April 2023 Patch Tuesday, and security updates fix one actively exploited zero-day vulnerability and a total of 97 flaws.
Seven vulnerabilities have been classified as ‘Critical’ for allowing remote code execution, the most serious of vulnerabilities.

The number of bugs in each vulnerability category is listed below:

• 20 Elevation of Privilege Vulnerabilities,
• Security Feature Bypass Vulnerabilities,
• 45 Remote Code Execution Vulnerabilities,
• 10 Information Disclosure Vulnerabilities,
• 9 Denial of Service Vulnerabilities,
• 6 Spoofing Vulnerabilities.

To learn more about the non-security updates released today, you can review articles on the new Windows 11 KB5025239 cumulative update and Windows 10 KB5025221 and KB5025229 updates.

03/30/2023-04/05/2023 Azure AD Vulnerability Fixed, Cacti, Realtek, and IBM Aspera Faspex Vulnerabilities, “Super FabriXss” Vulnerability in Microsoft Azure SFX And More

1. Microsoft Fixes New Azure AD Vulnerability Impacting Bing Search and Major Apps

Microsoft has patched a misconfiguration issue impacting the Azure Active Directory (AAD) identity and access management service that exposed several “high-impact” applications to unauthorized access. One of these apps is a content management system (CMS) that powers Bing.com and allowed to not only modify search results, but also launch high-impact XSS attacks on Bing users. The crux of the vulnerability stems from what’s called “Shared Responsibility confusion,” wherein an Azure app can be incorrectly configured to allow users from any Microsoft tenant, leading to a potential case of unintended access. A malicious actor with the same access could’ve hijacked the most popular search results with the same payload and leak sensitive data from millions of users.

2. Cacti, Realtek, and IBM Aspera Faspex Vulnerabilities Under Active Exploitation

Critical security flaws in Cacti, Realtek, and IBM Aspera Faspex are being exploited by various threat actors in hacks targeting unpatched systems.This entails the abuse of CVE-2022-46169 (CVSS score: 9.8) and CVE-2021-35394 (CVSS score: 9.8) to deliver MooBot and ShellBot (aka PerlBot). CVE-2022-46169 relates to a critical authentication bypass and command injection flaw in Cacti servers that allows an unauthenticated user to execute arbitrary code. CVE-2021-35394 also concerns an arbitrary command injection vulnerability impacting the Realtek Jungle SDK that was patched in 2021. At least three different versions of ShellBot have been detected – viz. PowerBots (C) GohacK, LiGhT’s Modded perlbot v2, and B0tchZ 0.2a. All three variants are capable of orchestrating distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. PowerBots (C) GohacK and B0tchZ 0.2a also feature backdoor capabilities to carry out file uploads/downloads and launch a reverse shell. Compromised victims can be controlled and used as DDoS bots after receiving a command from a C2 server.

3. Hackers Exploiting WordPress Elementor Pro Vulnerability: Millions of Sites at Risk!

Unknown threat actors are actively exploiting a recently patched security vulnerability in the Elementor Pro website builder plugin for WordPress. The flaw, described as a case of broken access control, impacts versions 3.11.6 and earlier. It was addressed by the plugin maintainers in version 3.11.7 released on March 22. Successful exploitation of the high-severity flaw allows an authenticated attacker to complete a takeover of a WordPress site that has WooCommerce enabled. This makes it possible for a malicious user to turn on the registration page (if disabled) and set the default user role to administrator so they can create an account that instantly has the administrator privileges. After this, they are likely to either redirect the site to another malicious domain or upload a malicious plugin or backdoor to further exploit the site.
The flaw is currently being abused in the wild from several IP addresses intending to upload arbitrary PHP and ZIP archive files.

Recommendation
Users of the Elementor Pro plugin are recommended to update to 3.11.7 or 3.12.0, which is the latest version, as soon as possible to mitigate potential threats.

4. Researchers Detail Severe “Super FabriXss” Vulnerability in Microsoft Azure SFX

Details have emerged about a now-patched vulnerability in Azure Service Fabric Explorer (SFX) that could lead to unauthenticated remote code execution. Tracked as CVE-2023-23383 (CVSS score: 8.2), the issue has been dubbed “Super FabriXss” by Orca Security, a nod to the FabriXss flaw (CVE-2022-35829, CVSS score: 6.2) that was fixed by Microsoft in October 2022. The Super FabriXss vulnerability enables remote attackers to leverage an XSS vulnerability to achieve remote code execution on a container hosted on a Service Fabric node without the need for authentication. XSS refers to a kind of client-side code injection attack that makes it possible to upload malicious scripts into otherwise trusted websites. The scripts then get executed every time a victim visits the compromised website, thereby leading to unintended consequences.
This attack takes advantage of the Cluster Type Toggle options under the Events Tab in the Service Fabric platform that allows an attacker to overwrite an existing Compose deployment by triggering an upgrade with a specially crafted URL from XSS Vulnerability.

5. AlienFox Malware Targets API Keys and Secrets from AWS, Google, and Microsoft Cloud Services

A new “comprehensive toolset” called AlienFox is being distributed on Telegram as a way for threat actors to harvest credentials from API keys and secrets from popular cloud service providers. The spread of AlienFox represents an unreported trend towards attacking more minimal cloud services, unsuitable for crypto mining, in order to enable and expand subsequent campaigns. The primary use of AlienFox is to enumerate misconfigured hosts via scanning platforms like LeakIX and SecurityTrails, and subsequently leverage various scripts in the toolkit to extract credentials from configuration files exposed on the servers. Specifically, it entails searching for susceptible servers associated with popular web frameworks, including Laravel, Drupal, Joomla, Magento, Opencart, Prestashop, and WordPress. Attacks involving AlienFox are said to be opportunistic, with the scripts capable of gathering sensitive data pertaining to AWS, Bluemail, Exotel, Google Workspace, Mailgun, Mandrill, Microsoft 365, Sendgrid, Twilio, Zimbra, and Zoho.

6. ALPHV Ransomware Exploits Veritas Backup Exec Bugs Ror Initial Access

An ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware affiliate was observed exploiting three vulnerabilities impacting the Veritas Backup product for initial access to the target network. Mandiant tracks the ALPHV affiliate as ‘UNC4466’ and notes that the method is a deviation from the typical intrusion that relies on stolen credentials.
The high-severity flaws targeted by UNC4466 are:

• CVE-2021-27876: Arbitrary file access flaw caused by an error in the SHA authentication scheme, allowing a remote attacker to gain unauthorized access to vulnerable endpoints. (CVSS score: 8.1)
• CVE-2021-27877: Remote unauthorized access and privileged command execution to the BE Agent via SHA authentication. (CVSS score: 8.2)
• CVE-2021-27878: Arbitrary command execution flaw result of an error in the SHA authentication scheme, allowing a remote attacker to gain unauthorized access to vulnerable endpoints. (CVSS score: 8.8)
  All three flaws impact the Veritas Backup software. The vendor disclosed them in March 2021 and released a fix with version 21.2. However, despite over two years having passed since then, many endpoints remain vulnerable as they have not updated to a safe version.

7. Microsoft Tightens OneNote Security by Auto-Blocking 120 Risky File Extensions

Microsoft has announced plans to automatically block embedded files with “dangerous extensions” in OneNote following reports that the note-taking service is being increasingly abused for malware delivery. Up until now, users were shown a dialog warning them that opening such attachments could harm their computer and data, but it was possible to dismiss the prompt and open the files. That’s going to change going forward. Microsoft said it intends to prevent users from directly opening an embedded file with a dangerous extension and display the message: “Your administrator has blocked your ability to open this file type in OneNote.” The update is expected to start rolling out with Version 2304 later this month and only impacts OneNote for Microsoft 365 on devices running Windows. Users who opt to still open the embedded file can do so by first saving the file locally to their device and then opening it from there.

03/24/2023-03/29/2023 New MacStealer macOS Malware, Malicious Python Package, Critical WooCommerce Payments Plugin Flaw And More

1. New MacStealer macOS Malware Steals iCloud Keychain Data and Passwords

A new information-stealing malware has set its sights on Apple’s macOS operating system to siphon sensitive information from compromised devices. Dubbed MacStealer, it’s the latest example of a threat that uses Telegram as a command-and-control (C2) platform to exfiltrate data. It primarily affects devices running macOS versions Catalina and later running on M1 and M2 CPUs. MacStealer is designed to extract iCloud Keychain data, passwords and credit card information from browsers like Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Brave. It also features support for harvesting Microsoft Office files, images, archives, and Python scripts. Stealer malware is typically spread through different channels, including email attachments, bogus software downloads, and other social engineering techniques.

2. Malicious Python Package Uses Unicode Trickery to Evade Detection and Steal Data

A malicious Python package on the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository has been found to use Unicode as a trick to evade detection and deploy an info-stealing malware. The package in question, named onyxproxy, was uploaded to PyPI on March 15, 2023, and comes with capabilities to harvest and exfiltrate credentials and other valuable data. It has since been taken down, but not before attracting a total of 183 downloads. The package incorporates its malicious behavior in a setup script that’s packed with thousands of seemingly legitimate code strings. These strings include a mix of bold and italic fonts and are still readable and can be parsed by the Python interpreter, only to activate the execution of the stealer malware upon installation of the package.

3. GitHub Swiftly Replaces Exposed RSA SSH Key to Protect Git Operations

GitHub replaced its RSA SSH host key used for Git operations after it was briefly exposed in a public repository. The change, carried out at 05:00 UTC on March 24, 2023, was done as a precaution to prevent impersonation or eavesdropping by bad actors. However, the move only affects Git operations using RSA, not Web traffic to GitHub.com or Git operations via HTTPS. The company, owned by Microsoft, said the exposed SSH private key was not exploited and didn’t reveal how long it was exposed. GitHub emphasized that there was no compromise of its systems or customer information, and the incident was due to “inadvertent publishing of private information.” Users of GitHub Actions may experience failed workflow runs if using actions/checkout with the ssh-key option, and the company is updating the action.

4. Critical WooCommerce Payments Plugin Flaw Patched for 500,000+ WordPress Sites

Patches have been released for a critical security flaw impacting the WooCommerce Payments plugin for WordPress, which is installed on over 500,000 websites. The flaw, if left unresolved, could enable a bad actor to gain unauthorized admin access to impacted stores. It impacts versions 4.8.0 through 5.6.1. The vulnerability appears to reside in a PHP file called “class-platform-checkout-session.php”. WooCommerce also said it worked with WordPress to auto-update sites using affected versions of the software. Patched versions include 4.8.2, 4.9.1, 5.0.4, 5.1.3, 5.2.2, 5.3.1, 5.4.1, 5.5.2, and 5.6.2. Furthermore, the maintainers of the e-commerce plugin noted that it’s disabling the WooPay beta program owing to concerns that the security defect has the potential to impact the payment checkout service.

5. CloudPanel Installations Use The Same SSL Certificate Private Key

Self-hosted web administration solution CloudPanel was found to have several security issues, including using the same SSL certificate private key across all installations and unintentional overwriting of firewall rules to default to weaker settings.  At the time of writing, the two issues mentioned above remained unfixed, while the software developer addressed a third security problem concerning the installation script. The first issue concerns the trustworthiness “curl to bash” installation procedure as it downloaded code without an integrity check, which the vendor promptly addressed by publishing a cryptographically secure checksum of the installation script. The second problem is that the CloudPanel installation script will reset a server’s pre-existing Uncomplicated Firewall (ufw) rules and introduce a far more permissive ruleset. The third flaw is tracked as CVE-2023-0391 and is caused by the CloudPanel installs using a static SSL certificate, enabling attackers to find CloudPanel instances using the certificate’s thumbprint. 

# 6. Exchange Online To Block Emails From Vulnerable On-Prem Servers
Microsoft is introducing a new Exchange Online security feature that will automatically start throttling and eventually block all emails sent from “persistently vulnerable Exchange servers” 90 days after the admins are pinged to secure them. As Redmond explains, these are Exchange servers in on-premises or hybrid environments that run end-of-life software or haven’t been patched against known security bugs. Microsoft says this new Exchange Online “transport-based enforcement system” has three distinct functions: reporting, throttling, and blocking. The new system’s primary goal is to help Exchange admins identify unpatched or unsupported on-prem Exchange servers, allowing them to upgrade or patch them before they become security risks.
However, it will also be able to throttle and eventually block emails from Exchange servers that haven’t been remediated before reaching Exchange Online mailboxes.