1. Researchers Uncover PyPI Package Hiding Malicious Code Behind Image File

 A malicious package discovered on the Python Package Index (PyPI) has been found employing a steganographic trick to conceal malicious code within image files. The package in question, named “apicolor,” was uploaded to the Python third-party repository on October 31, 2022, and described as a “Core lib for REST API”. Apicolor, like other rogue packages detected recently, harbors its malicious behavior in the setup script used to specify metadata associated with the package, such as its dependencies. This takes the form of a second package called “judyb” as well as a seemingly harmless PNG file (“8F4D2uF.png”) hosted on Imgur, an image-sharing service.

Malicious PyPI Package 

The judyb code turned out to be a steganography module, responsible [for] hiding and revealing hidden messages inside pictures. The attack chain entails using the judyb package to extract obfuscated Python code embedded within the downloaded image, which, upon decoding, is designed to retrieve and execute a malicious binary from a remote server.

2. Researchers Reported Critical SQLi and Access Flaws in Zendesk Analytics Service

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of now-patched flaws in Zendesk Explore that could have been exploited by an attacker to gain unauthorized access to information from customer accounts that have the feature turned on. The cybersecurity firm said there was no evidence to suggest that the issues were actively exploited in real-world attacks. According to the security software company, exploitation of the shortcoming first requires an attacker to register for the ticketing service of its victim’s Zendesk account as a new external user, a feature that’s likely enabled by default to allow end-users to submit support tickets. The vulnerability relates to an SQL injection in its GraphQL API that could be abused to exfiltrate all information stored in the database as an admin user, including email addresses, tickets, and conversations with live agents. A second flaw concerns a logic access issue associated with a query execution API, which was configured to run the queries without checking if the “user” making the call had adequate permission to do so.

3. Critical RCE Flaw Reported in Spotify’s Backstage Software Catalog and Developer Platform

Spotify’s Backstage has been discovered as vulnerable to a severe security flaw that could be exploited to gain remote code execution by leveraging a recently disclosed bug in a third-party module. The vulnerability (CVSS score: 9.8), at its core, takes advantage of a critical sandbox escape in vm2, a popular JavaScript sandbox library (CVE-2022-36067 aka Sandbreak), that came to light last month. An unauthenticated threat actor can execute arbitrary system commands on a Backstage application by exploiting a vm2 sandbox escape in the Scaffolder core plugin. According to Oxeye, the flaw is rooted in a tool called software templates that can be used to create components within Backstage. 

Screenshot shows Backstage calling the renderTemplate function (that calls renderString2) twice in the event of an error.

While the template engine utilizes vm2 to mitigate the risk associated with running untrusted code, the sandbox escape flaw in the latter made it possible to execute arbitrary system commands outside of the security perimeter.

4. Multiple High-Severity Flaws Affect Widely Used OpenLiteSpeed Web Server Software

Multiple high-severity flaws have been uncovered in the open source OpenLiteSpeed Web Server as well as its enterprise variant that could be weaponized to achieve remote code execution. By chaining and exploiting the vulnerabilities, adversaries could compromise the web server and gain fully privileged remote code execution. The first of the three flaws is a directory traversal flaw (CVE-2022-0072, CVSS score: 5.8), which could be exploited to access forbidden files in the web root directory. The remaining two vulnerabilities (CVE-2022-0073 and CVE-2022-0074, CVSS scores: 8.8) relate to a case of privilege escalation and command injection, respectively, that could be chained to achieve privileged code execution. A threat actor who managed to gain the credentials to the dashboard, whether by brute-force attacks or social engineering, could exploit the vulnerability in order to execute code on the server.  Multiple versions of OpenLiteSpeed (from 1.5.11 up to 1.7.16) and LiteSpeed (from 5.4.6 up to 6.0.11) are impacted by the issues, which have been addressed in versions 1.7.16.1 and 6.0.12 following responsible disclosure on October 4, 2022.

5. Over 15,000 WordPress Sites Compromised in Malicious SEO Campaign

A new malicious campaign has compromised over 15,000 WordPress websites in an attempt to redirect visitors to bogus Q&A portals. These malicious redirects appear to be designed to increase the authority of the attacker’s sites for search engines. The search engine poisoning technique is designed to promote a “handful of fake low quality Q&A sites” that share similar website-building templates and are operated by the same threat actor. A notable aspect of the campaign is the ability of the hackers to modify over 100 files per website on average, an approach that contrasts dramatically from other attacks of this kind wherein only a limited number of files are tampered with to reduce footprint and escape detection. This extensive compromise allows the malware to execute the redirects to websites of the attacker’s choice. The ultimate goal of the campaign is to “drive more traffic to their fake sites” and “boost the sites’ authority using fake search result clicks to make Google rank them better so that they get more real organic search traffic.”

6. Worok Hackers Abuse Dropbox API to Exfiltrate Data via Backdoor Hidden in Images

A recently discovered cyber espionage group dubbed Worok has been found hiding malware in seemingly innocuous image files, corroborating a crucial link in the threat actor’s infection chain. Czech cybersecurity firm Avast said the purpose of the PNG files is to conceal a payload that’s used to facilitate information theft. The Slovak cybersecurity company also documented Worok’s compromise sequence, which makes use of a C++-based loader called CLRLoad to pave the way for an unknown PowerShell script embedded within PNG images, a technique known as steganography. That said, the initial attack vector remains unknown as yet, although certain intrusions have entailed the use of ProxyShell vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange Server to deploy the malware.

CLRLoad Malware Loader

Avast’s findings show that the adversarial collective makes use of DLL side-loading upon gaining initial access to execute the CLRLoad malware. PNGLoad, which is launched by CLRLoad, is said to come in two variants, each responsible for decoding the malicious code within the image to launch either a PowerShell script or a .NET C#-based payload.

7. Citrix Issues Patches for Critical Flaw Affecting ADC and Gateway Products

 Citrix has released security updates to address a critical authentication bypass flaw in the application delivery controller (ADC) and Gateway products that could be exploited to take control of affected systems.
Successful exploitation of the issues could enable an adversary to gain authorized access, perform remote desktop takeover, and even circumvent defenses against login brute-force attempts under specific configurations.

• CVE-2022-27510 – Unauthorized access to Gateway user capabilities;
• CVE-2022-27513 – Remote desktop takeover via phishing;
• CVE-2022-27516 – User login brute-force protection functionality bypass.

Exploitation, however, banks on the prerequisite that the appliances are either configured as a VPN (Gateway) or, alternatively, an authentication, authorization and accounting (AAA) virtual server in the case of CVE-2022-27516. One top of that, CVE-2022-27513 and CVE-2022-27516 also apply only when the RDP proxy feature and the user lockout functionality “Max Login Attempts” are set up, respectively.

1. Dozens of PyPIPackages Caught Dropping ‘W4sSP’ Info-Stealing Malware.

Researchers have discovered over two dozen Python packages on the PyPI registry that are pushing info-stealing malware. Most of these contain obfuscated code that drops “W4SP” info-stealer on infected machines, while others make use of malware purportedly created for “educational purposes” only. The packages are typosquats—that is, threat actors publishing these have intentionally named them similar to known Python libraries in hopes that developers attempting to fetch the real library make a spelling error and inadvertently retrieve one of the malicious ones.

PyPI package ‘typesutil’ is one of the typosquats dropping W4SP infostealer 

As an example, typesutil attack “starts by copying existing popular libraries and simply injecting a malicious __import__ statement into an otherwise healthy codebase,” write Phylum researchers. Ultimately, the malware dropped by these packages was W4SP Stealer that exfiltrates your Discord tokens, cookies and saved passwords. All of the packages put together have been downloaded over 5,700 times based on Pepy.tech stats.

2. Install Latest Windows Update ASAP! Patches Issued for 6 Actively Exploited Zero-Days.

Microsoft’s latest round of monthly security updates has been released with fixes for 68 vulnerabilities spanning its software portfolio, including patches for six actively exploited zero-days. 12 of the issues are rated Critical, two are rated High, and 55 are rated Important in severity. This also includes the weaknesses that were closed out by OpenSSL the previous week. Also separately addressed at the start of the month is an actively exploited flaw in Chromium-based browsers (CVE-2022-3723) that was plugged by Google as part of an out-of-band update late last month. Customers are advised to update their Exchange Server systems immediately, regardless of whether any previously recommended mitigation steps have been applied. The mitigation rules are no longer recommended once systems have been patched. 

The list of actively exploited vulnerabilities, which allow privilege elevation and remote code execution, is as follows:

• CVE-2022-41040 (CVSS score: 8.8) – Microsoft Exchange Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability (aka ProxyNotShell);
• CVE-2022-41082 (CVSS score: 8.8) – Microsoft Exchange Server Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability (aka ProxyNotShell);
• CVE-2022-41128 (CVSS score: 8.8) – Windows Scripting Languages Remote Code Execution Vulnerability;
• CVE-2022-41125 (CVSS score: 7.8) – Windows CNG Key Isolation Service Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability.

3. Microsoft Fixes ProxyNotShell Exchange Zero-Days Exploited in Attacks/

Microsoft has released security updates to address two high-severity Microsoft Exchange zero-day vulnerabilities collectively known as ProxyNotShell and exploited in the wild. Tracked as CVE-2022-41082 and CVE-2022-41040, the two security bugs affect Microsoft Exchange Server 2013, 2016, and 2019. They enable attackers to escalate privileges to run PowerShell in the context of the system and gain arbitrary or remote code execution. Attackers have been chaining the two security flaws to deploy Chinese Chopper web shells on compromised servers for persistence and data theft, as well as for lateral movement in their victims’ networks since at least September 2022. As part of the November 2022 Patch Tuesday, Microsoft finally released security updates to address the two vulnerabilities. It is recommended that you install these updates immediately to be protected against these attacks.

4. VMware Fixes Three Critical Auth Bypass Bugs in Remote Access Tool.

VMware has released security updates to address three critical severity vulnerabilities in the Workspace ONE Assist solution that enable remote attackers to bypass authentication and elevate privileges to admin. The flaws are tracked as CVE-2022-31685 (authentication bypass), CVE-2022-31686 (broken authentication method), and CVE-2022-31687 (broken authentication control) and have received 9.8/10 CVSSv3 base scores. Non-authenticated threat actors can exploit them in low-complexity attacks that don’t require user interaction for privilege escalation. The company patched them with the release of Workspace ONE Assist 22.10 (89993) for Windows customers. VMware also patched a reflected cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability (CVE-2022-31688) that enables attackers to inject javascript code in the target user’s window and a session fixation vulnerability (CVE-2022-31689) that allows authentication after obtaining a valid session token.

5. Citrix Urges Admins to Patch Critical ADC, Gateway Auth Bypass.

Citrix is urging customers to install security updates for a critical authentication bypass vulnerability in Citrix ADC and Citrix Gateway. Under specific configurations, the three vulnerabilities can enable attackers to gain unauthorized access to the device, perform remote desktop takeover, or bypass the login brute force protection. Citrix ADC is a load-balancing solution for cloud applications deployed in the enterprise, ensuring uninterrupted availability and optimal performance.The three vulnerabilities affecting both Citrix Gateway and Citrix ADC are the following: CVE-2022-27510; CVE-2022-27513; CVE-2022-27516. Affected customers of Citrix ADC and Citrix Gateway are recommended to install the relevant updated versions of Citrix ADC or Citrix Gateway as soon as possible.

6. Microsoft WinGet Package Manager Failing Due to CDN Issues.

Microsoft’s WinGet package manager is currently having problems installing or upgrading packages due to the Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN) returning a 0-byte database file. Starting over the weekend, Windows users began reporting that when they attempted to install or upgrade apps using WinGet, they would receive different errors depending on the operation. For example, winget upgrade would display an error stating, “Failed in attempting to update the source: «winget» and winget install would display the error, ‘An unexpected error occurred while executing the command: 0x8a15000f : Data required by the source is missing’.
WinGet displaying error

Windows users posted in a GitHub issue that the problem appears to be a CDN issue causing a zero-byte file to be sent back rather than the complete index of available applications. Like other package managers, WinGet uses a default repository to retrieve the available packages, which for WinGet is located at https://cdn.winget.microsoft.com/cache/source.msix. Microsoft Product Manager Demitrius Nelon has confirmed that they are suffering a CDN issue causing these errors for certain users. If you are using WinGet, your best bet is to wait for Microsoft to fix the CDN issue, and the package manager should automatically begin working again.

7. RomCom RAT Malware Campaign Impersonates KeePass, SolarWinds NPM, Veeam.

The threat actor behind the RomCom RAT (remote access trojan) has refreshed its attack vector and is now abusing well-known software brands for distribution. In a new campaign discovered by BlackBerry, the RomCom threat actors were found creating websites that clone official download portals for SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor (NPM), KeePass password manager, and PDF Reader Pro, essentially disguising the malware as legitimate programs.
The website that impersonates SolarWinds NPM delivers a trojanized version of the free trial and even links to an actual SolarWinds registration form that, if filled out by the victim, leads to being contacted by a real customer support agent.
The spoofed Solarwinds website 
The downloaded app, though, has been modified to include a malicious DLL that downloads and runs a copy of the RomCom RAT from the “C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Temp\winver.dll” folder. It is unclear at this time how the threat actors are luring potential victims to the sites, but it could be through phishing, SEO poisoning, or forum/social media posts.

8. Researchers Are Poisoning Open-Source Packages. What Should We do? 

In the field of open-source security, researchers often publish malicious packages or poison existing ones with malicious code. These proofs of concepts (POCs) are done in an attempt to verify whether an attacker with malicious intent would be able to cause similar damage — or worse. However, while performing these actions, security researchers should adhere to several guidelines that will enable them to complete their research while keeping the ecosystem safe and clean to the maximum extent possible.
In the article, Aviad Gershon analyzes malicious packages containing ransomware scripts. He concludes that  security professionals need to adhere to certain guidelines while conducting  their research, which among others, include the following:

1. Do No Harm — refrain from breaking existing components.
2. Transparency — declare our activity “for research purposes” to anyone who may encounter it.
3. Discretion — avoid collecting or revealing sensitive data of other parties.

1. Critical RCE Vulnerability Reported in ConnectWise Server Backup Solution

IT service management software platform ConnectWise has released Software patches for a critical security vulnerability in Recover and R1Soft Server Backup Manager (SBM). The issue, characterized as a “neutralization of Special Elements in Output Used by a Downstream Component,” could be abused to result in the execution of remote code or disclosure of sensitive information. ConnectWise’s advisory notes that the flaw affects Recover v2.9.7 and earlier, as well as R1Soft SBM v6.16.3 and earlier, are impacted by the critical flaw. At its core, the issue is tied to an upstream authentication bypass vulnerability in the ZK open source Ajax web application framework (CVE-2022-36537), which was initially patched in May 2022. Affected ConnectWise Recover SBMs have automatically been updated to the latest version of Recover (v2.9.9). While there is no evidence of active exploitation of the vulnerability in the wild, a proof-of-concept  shows that it can be abused to bypass authentication, gain remote code execution on SBM, and push LockBit 3.0 ransomware to all downstream endpoints.

2. OpenSSL Releases Patch for 2 New High-Severity Vulnerabilities

The OpenSSL project has rolled out fixes to contain two high-severity flaws in its widely used cryptography library that could result in a denial-of-service (DoS) and remote code execution. The issues, tracked as CVE-2022-3602 and CVE-2022-3786, have been described as buffer overrun vulnerabilities that can be triggered during X.509 certificate verification by supplying a specially-crafted email address. Versions 3.0.0 through 3.0.6 of the library are affected by the new flaws, which has been remediated in version 3.0.7. It’s worth noting that the commonly deployed OpenSSL 1.x versions are not vulnerable. While CVE-2022-3602 was initially treated as a Critical vulnerability, its severity has since been downgraded to High, citing stack overflow protections in modern platforms.

The OpenSSL Project further noted the bugs were introduced in OpenSSL 3.0.0 as part of punycode decoding functionality that’s currently used for processing email address name constraints in X.509 certificates. Despite the change in severity, OpenSSL said it considers “these issues to be serious vulnerabilities and affected users are encouraged to upgrade as soon as possible.”

3. Dropbox Breach: Hackers Unauthorizedly Accessed 130 GitHub Source Code Repositories

File hosting service Dropbox on Tuesday disclosed that it was the victim of a phishing campaign that allowed unidentified threat actors to gain unauthorized access to 130 of its source code repositories on GitHub. The breach resulted in the access of some API keys used by Dropbox developers as well as “a few thousand names and email addresses belonging to Dropbox employees, current and past customers, sales leads, and vendors.” It, however, stressed that the repositories did not contain source code related to its core apps or infrastructure. 

The investigation has found that the code accessed by this threat actor contained some credentials—primarily, API keys—used by Dropbox developers. The successful breach resulted from a phishing attack that targeted multiple Dropbox employees using emails impersonating the CircleCI continuous integration and delivery platform and redirecting them to a phishing landing page where they were asked to enter their GitHub username and password. On the same phishing page, the employees were also asked to “use their hardware authentication key to pass a One Time Password (OTP).”

Phishing email impersonating CircleCI  

After stealing the Dropboxers’ credentials, the attackers gained access to one of Dropbox’s GitHub organizations and stole 130 of its code repositories.

4. Exploit Released For Critical VMware RCE Vulnerability, Patch Now

Proof-of-concept exploit code is now available for a pre-authentication remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability allowing attackers to execute arbitrary code remotely with root privileges on unpatched Cloud Foundation and NSX Manager appliances. The flaw (CVE-2021-39144) is in the XStream open-source library used by the two VMware products and was assigned an almost maximum CVSSv3 base score of 9.8/10 by VMware. Unauthenticated threat actors can exploit it remotely in low-complexity attacks that will not require user interaction. VMware released security updates to address the CVE-2021-39144 flaw . Additionally, because of the severity of the issue, the company also provided patches for some end-of-life products.

5. Microsoft Fixes Critical RCE Flaw Affecting Azure Cosmos DB

Analysts at Orca Security have found a critical vulnerability affecting Azure Cosmos DB that allowed unauthenticated read and write access to containers. Named CosMiss, the security issue is in Azure Cosmos DB built-in Jupyter Notebooks that integrate into the Azure portal and Azure Cosmos DB accounts for querying, analyzing, and visualizing NoSQL data and results easier. Azure Cosmos DB is Microsoft’s fully managed NoSQL database that features broad API type support for applications of all sizes. Jupyter Notebooks is a web-based interactive platform that allows users to access Cosmos DB data. The issue that researchers at Orca Security discovered is that Cosmos DB Jupyter Notebooks lacked authentication checks that prevented unauthorized access, and even modify a container, if they had the UUID of the Notebook Workspace. 

6. New Open-Source Tool Scans Public AWS S3 Buckets For Secrets

 A new open-source ‘S3crets Scanner’ scanner allows researchers and red-teamers to search for ‘secrets’ mistakenly stored in publicly exposed or company’s Amazon AWS S3 storage buckets. Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) is a cloud storage service commonly used by companies to store software, services, and data in containers known as buckets.

Unfortunately, companies sometimes fail to properly secure their S3 buckets and thus publicly expose stored data to the Internet.  This type of misconfiguration has caused data breaches in the past, with threat actors gaining access to employee or customer details, backups, and other types of data.

During an exercise examining SEGA’s recent assets exposure, security researcher Eilon Harel discovered that no tools for scanning accidental data leaks exist, so he decided to create his own automated scanner and release it as an open-source tool on GitHub. To help with the timely discovery of exposed secrets on public S3 buckets, Harel created a Python tool named “S3crets Scanner”.

Actions performed by the S3crets Scanner

The scanner tool will only list S3 buckets that have the following configurations set to ‘False,’ meaning that exposure was likely accidental:

• “BlockPublicAcls”,
• “BlockPublicPolicy”,
• “IgnorePublicAcls”,
• “RestrictPublicBuckets”.

Any buckets that were intended to be public are filtered out from the list before the textual files are downloaded for the “secrets scanning” step. When scanning a bucket, the script will examine the content of text files using the Trufflehog3 tool, an improved Go-based version of the secrets scanner that can check for credentials and private keys on GitHub, GitLab, filesystems, and S3 buckets.

7. Microsoft fixes Windows vulnerable driver blocklist sync issue

Microsoft says it addressed an issue preventing the Windows kernel vulnerable driver blocklist from being synced to systems running older Windows versions. This blocklist (stored in the DriverSiPolicy.p7b file) is designed to block threat actors from dropping legitimate but vulnerable drivers on targets’ systems in Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver (BYOVD) attacks on HVCI-enabled Windows machines or those running Windows in S Mode. The flawed drivers are then exploited to escalate privileges in the Windows kernel and execute malicious code, disabling security solutions and taking control of the device. Although Microsoft has been advertising its driver blocklist as capable of hardening Windows systems against vulnerable third-party drivers, ANALYGENCE security analyst Will Dormann found that wasn’t the case. As Dormann discovered, unlike Windows 11 devices, even up-to-date Windows 10 and Windows Server systems were being provided with an outdated list of vulnerable drivers from December 2019, exposing customers who thought they were protected to BYOVD attacks. Microsoft reluctantly acknowledged his findings and promised to address this issue and update its misleading online support docs.