Greetings, National Reconciliation Week started today, May 27th, and runs until Friday, June 3rd. It’s a time for all Australians to learn about our shared histories, cultures, and achievements, and to explore how each of us can contribute to achieving reconciliation in Australia As a proud Torres Strait Islander Woman, Jasmine Woolley embodies this year’s theme of Reconciliation Week, “Be Brave. Make Change.” Taking on the challenge of public speaking for the first time at the recent AUSCERT2022 Cyber Security Conference, Jasmine shared her perspective about applying Indigenous (Australian) Philosophy to Cyber Security Strategies. Demonstrating wisdom beyond her years with an insightful and enlightening presentation, Jasmine provided a fresh perspective on emerging threats to Australia’s security and challenged all in attendance to think about how they can be change-makers. We congratulate Jasmine on this fantastic achievement and we look forward to seeing what’s next! National Hamburger Day – yes, it’s an actual thing – is tomorrow, May 28. From simplistic cheeseburgers to the towering stacks, layered with an array of scrumptious and odd ingredients, burgers have become a favourite food for many the world over. A recent episode of Burger Scholar Sessions on YouTube, shows how to construct the iconic Aussie burger consisting of fried egg, tinned beetroot, and pineapple, and also delves into the history of our beloved burger that confuses and repulses many from elsewhere in the world! Don’t forget, the AUSCERT podcast, Share Today, Save Tomorrow is available to stream now. Featuring eleven episodes that cover a broad range of subjects, and include fascinating discussions from sensational guests, there’s enough content to make your next run, walk, or daily commute more enjoyable! Malicious PyPI package opens backdoors on Windows, Linux, and Macs Date: 2022-05-21 Author: Bleeping Computer Yet another malicious Python package has been spotted in the PyPI registry performing supply chain attacks to drop Cobalt Strike beacons and backdoors on Windows, Linux, and macOS systems. PyPI is a repository of open-source packages that developers can use to share their work or benefit from the work of others, downloading the functional libraries required for their projects. On May 17, 2022, threat actors uploaded a malicious package named ‘pymafka’ onto PyPI. The name is very similar to PyKafka, a widely used Apache Kafka client that counts over four million downloads on the PyPI registry. Fake Windows exploits target infosec community with Cobalt Strike Date: 2022-05-23 Author: Bleeping Computer A threat actor targeted security researchers with fake Windows proof-of-concept exploits that infected devices with the Cobalt Strike backdoor. Whoever is behind these attacks took advantage of recently patched Windows remote code execution vulnerabilities tracked as CVE-2022-24500 and CVE-2022-26809. When Microsoft patches a vulnerability, it is common for security researchers to analyze the fix and release proof-of-concept exploits for the flaw on GitHub. CISA adds 41 vulnerabilities to list of bugs used in cyberattacks Date: 2022-05-24 Author: Bleeping Computer The Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has added 41 vulnerabilities to its catalog of known exploited flaws over the past two days, including flaws for the Android kernel and Cisco IOS XR. The added vulnerabilities come from a wide range of years, with the oldest disclosed in 2016 and the most recent being a Cisco IOS XR vulnerability fixed last Friday. Quad countries to boost CERT cooperation Date: 2022-05-24 Author: itnews International cooperation over cyber security and telecommunications standards will be boosted after this week’s Quad conference in Tokyo. The White House has released a communique from the four-country leadership meeting, the first official duty of newly-elected prime minister Anthony Albanese. Action on cyber security is to include strengthened information sharing between the four countries’ Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERT), “including exchanges on lessons learned and best practices”, the communique stated. Is 100% Cybersecurity Readiness Possible? Medical Device Pros Weigh In Date: 2022-05-25 Author: Bleeping Computer As medical devices become more connected and reliant on software, their codebase grows both in size and complexity, and they are increasingly reliant on third-party and open source software components. This forces security pros to address today’s rapidly evolving threat landscape. In the hopes of helping security professionals better address cybersecurity and regulation, we conducted the 2022 Medical Device Cybersecurity: Trends and Predictions Survey Report, speaking to 150 senior decision makers who oversee product security or cybersecurity compliance in the medical device industry, to learn about their biggest challenges and how they plan to address them. ESB-2022.2513 – Firefox and Thunderbird: CVSS (Max): 7.5 Mozilla has released advisory to address 2 critical vulnerabilities in Firefox and Thunderbird ESB-2022.2556 – Google Chrome: CVSS (Max): None Google Chrome is also updated to version 102 patching multiple vulnerabilities ESB-2022.2568 – F5 Products: CVSS (Max): 7.3 F5 has released advisory to address Linux Kernel vulnerability accross multiple products ESB-2022.2570 – Drupal core: CVSS (Max): None A third party library used by Drupal Core could affect some contributed projects or custom code on Drupal sites ESB-2022.2607 – Nessus: CVSS (Max): 9.8 Multiple third party components used by Nessus were found to contain vulnerabilities. Tenable has released updates to Nessus to address those vulnerabilities Stay safe, stay patched and have a good weekend! The AUSCERT team

Greetings, With the Australian Federal election taking place tomorrow and many unsure of their ability to vote due to recent positive results for COVID-19, the argument around online or e-voting has again been raised. Whilst technology exists to allow for digital voting, as was done in the New South Wales elections in 2021 with the iVote system, the uncertainty over voter identity along with the risk of server outages, malware, and voter fraud remain key concerns for similar systems. Despite this, The Conversation presents alternatives that combine digital technology with human input. The combination provides transparency and efficiency whilst maintaining the most difficult aspect of politics, trust if done right. It’s hard to believe that it’s already been a week since AUSCERT2022 wrapped up for another year. The AUSCERT team has been overwhelmed with the kind words and positive responses to this year’s conference which are always welcome and appreciated. The event’s theme, Rethink, Reskill, Reboot, provided a great conversation starter, idea stimulator, and opportunity to delve into the past for some of the most cherished video games of decades gone by! You can read more about Australia’s premier cyber security conference in our recent blog that includes a gallery of photos taken throughout the week. Australian Taxation Office issues capital gains warning for crypto and NFT sellers Date: 2022-05-16 Author: ZDNet The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has issued its four priorities for the upcoming tax season, with capital gains from crypto and work-related expenses being listed. On the crypto front, simply because you managed to make money before last week’s crash hit off a decentralised system, does not mean the tax office is not owed something, much like selling property or shares, selling crypto or NFTs can mean tax is due. Researchers devise iPhone malware that runs even when device is turned off Date: 2022-05-17 Author: Ars Technica When you turn off an iPhone, it doesn’t fully power down. Chips inside the device continue to run in a low-power mode that makes it possible to locate lost or stolen devices using the Find My feature or use credit cards and car keys after the battery dies. Now researchers have devised a way to abuse this always-on mechanism to run malware that remains active even when an iPhone appears to be powered down. It turns out that the iPhone’s Bluetooth chip—which is key to making features like Find My work—has no mechanism for digitally signing or even encrypting the firmware it runs. Academics at Germany’s Technical University of Darmstadt figured out how to exploit this lack of hardening to run malicious firmware that allows the attacker to track the phone’s location or run new features when the device is turned off. Hackers target Tatsu WordPress plugin in millions of attacks Date: 2022-05-17 Author: Bleeping Computer Hackers are massively exploiting a remote code execution vulnerability, CVE-2021-25094, in the Tatsu Builder plugin for WordPress, which is installed on about 100,000 websites. Up to 50,000 websites are estimated to still run a vulnerable version of the plugin, although a patch has been available since early April. Large attack waves started on May 10, 2022 and peaked four days later. Exploitation is currently ongoing. Critical VMware Bug Exploits Continue, as Botnet Operators Jump In Date: 2022-05-18 Author: Dark Reading Recently uncovered VMware vulnerabilities continue to anchor an ongoing wave of cyberattacks bent on dropping various payloads. In the latest spate of activity, nefarious types are going in with the ultimate goal of infecting targets with various botnets or establishing a backdoor via Log4Shell. That’s according to Barracuda researchers, who found that attackers are particularly probing for the critical vulnerability tracked as CVE-2022-22954 in droves, with swaths of actual exploitation attempts in the mix as well. WA Health: No breaches of unencrypted COVID data means well managed and secure system Date: 2022-05-18 Author: ZDNet The Auditor-General of Western Australia has once again given state authorities a whack for security weaknesses in IT systems used in the state, with a report on its Public Health COVID Unified System (PHOCUS) tabled on Wednesday. PHOCUS is used within WA to record and track and trace positive COVID cases in the state, and can contain personal information such as case interviews, phone calls, text messages, emails, legal documents, pathology results, exposure history, symptoms, existing medical conditions, and medication details. The cloud system can also draw information in from the SafeWA app on check-ins — which the Auditor-General previously found WA cops were able to access — as well as from flight manifests, transit cards, business employee and customer records, G2G border-crossing pass data, and CCTV footage. CISA warns not to install May Windows updates on domain controllers Date: 2022-05-16 Author: Bleeping Computer The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has removed a Windows security flaw from its catalog of known exploited vulnerabilities due to Active Directory (AD) authentication issues caused by the May 2022 updates that patch it. This security bug is an actively exploited Windows LSA spoofing zero-day tracked as CVE-2022-26925, confirmed as a new PetitPotam Windows NTLM Relay attack vector. Unauthenticated attackers abuse CVE-2022-26925 to force domain controllers to authenticate them remotely via the Windows NT LAN Manager (NTLM) security protocol and, likely, gain control over the entire Windows domain. Researchers find 134 flaws in the way Word, PDFs, handle scripts Date: 2022-05-13 Author: The Register Black Hat Asia Security researchers have devised a tool that detects flaws in the way apps like Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat process JavaScript, and it’s proven so effective they’ve found 134 bugs – 59 of them considered worthy of a fix by vendors, 33 assigned a CVE number, and 17 producing bug bounty payments totaling $22,000. The tool is named “Cooper” – a reference to the “Cooperative mutation” technique employed by the tool. Speaking at the Black Hat Asia conference in Singapore, PhD student Xu Peng of the Chinese Academy of Sciences – one of the tool’s co-authors – explained that the likes of Word and Acrobat accept input from scripting languages. Acrobat, for example, allows JavaScript to manipulate PDF files. Log4Shell Exploit Threatens Enterprise Data Lakes, AI Poisoning Date: 2022-05-14 Author: Dark Reading A brand-new attack vector lays open enterprise data lakes, threatening grave consequences for AI use cases like telesurgery or autonomous cars. Enterprise data lakes are filling up as organizations increasingly embrace artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning — but unfortunately, these are vulnerable to exploitation via the Java Log4Shell vulnerability, researchers have found. Hackers are exploiting critical bug in Zyxel firewalls and VPNs Date: 2022-05-15 Author: Bleeping Computer Hackers have started to exploit a recently patched critical vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2022-30525, that affects Zyxel firewall and VPN devices for businesses. Successful exploitation allows a remote attacker to inject arbitrary commands remotely without authentication, which can enable setting up a reverse shell. ESB-2022.2376 – F5 Products: CVSS (Max): 7.1 F5 reports a vulnerability in F5 products that may cause a breach in data confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Please read the advisory for mitigation information. ESB-2022.2447 – F5 Products: CVSS (Max): 7.2 Eclipse Jetty vulnerability in F5 products could allow an authenticated user to cause a local privilege escalation if exploited. Please read the advisory for mitigation information. ESB-2022.2443 – VMware Products: CVSS (Max): 9.8 VMWare reports that remediations are available to fix multiple vulnerabilities in VMware Workspace ONE Access, Identity Manager and vRealize Automation. ESB-2022.2475 – Red Hat OpenShift GitOps: CVSS (Max): 10.0 An update is now available to fix multiple vulnerabilities in Red Hat OpenShift GitOps 1.5. Stay safe, stay patched and have a good weekend!

Greetings, What a week! AUSCERT2022 has officially come to an end and it’s safe to say that it was a resounding success! We saw a return of many faithful attendees along with many first-time delegates and presenters, including our first keynote speaker of this year’s conference, Kath Koschel. Kath has faced serious personal, mental and physical setbacks but her resilience has allowed her not only to overcome these challenges, but also see the good in the world when most others couldn’t. Sharing her story with the audience saw many with tears but also, smiles and a resolve to each do #OneSmallAct of kindness each and every day. Another standout was Jasmine Woolley who presented for the first time, anywhere, and had all in attendance singing her praises. Jasmine demonstrated skill and wisdom beyond her years, asking “How do people in this room help make this statistic better?” in reference to the lack of diversity and inclusion in our industry. The conference concluded with the crowd favourite Speed Debate. Six topics were discussed including whether people, not machines are the future of cyber security and that there’s no need to worry about ransomware when insurance will pay! Suffice it to say, there were some passionate arguments delivered with some humour, witty retorts, and the occasional fact! Hackers exploiting critical F5 BIG-IP bug, public exploits released Date: 2022-05-09 Author: Bleeping Computer Threat actors have started massively exploiting the critical vulnerability tracked as CVE-2022-1388, which affects multiple versions of all F5 BIG-IP modules, to drop malicious payloads. F5 last week released patches for the security issue (9.8 severity rating), which affects the BIG-IP iControl REST authentication component. The company warned that the vulnerability enables an unauthenticated attacker on the BIG-IP system to run “arbitrary system commands, create or delete files, or disable services.” Cyberattacks on managed service providers increasing, US and allies warn Date: 2022-05-11 Author: The Record Cybersecurity agencies from the Five Eyes intelligence alliance warned of increased cyberattacks targeting managed service providers (MSPs) on Wednesday morning. The agencies from the U.S., U.K., Australia, Canada and New Zealand said to “expect state-sponsored advanced persistent threat (APT) groups and other malicious cyber actors to increase their targeting of MSPs against both provider and customer networks.” MSPs are companies paid to manage IT infrastructure and provide support. The companies typically provide remote IT services to smaller businesses lacking an IT department. Windows 11 KB5013943 update causes 0xc0000135 application errors Date: 2022-05-11 Author: Bleeping Computer Windows 11 users are receiving 0xc0000135 errors when attempting to launch applications after installing the recent Windows 11 KB5013943 cumulative update. Yesterday, Microsoft released new Windows cumulative updates to fix security vulnerabilities and bugs as part of the May 2022 Patch Tuesday. These updates include the Windows 11 KB5013943 update, which included a fix for a bug causing .NET Framework 3.5 apps not to open if they used the Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and Windows Workflow (WWF) components. Beware: This cheap and ‘homemade’ malware is surprisingly effective Date: 2022-05-09 Author: ZDNet A powerful form of trojan malware that offers complete backdoor access to Windows systems is being sold on underground forums for the price of a cup of coffee – and it’s being developed and maintained by one person. Known as DCRat, the backdoor malware has existed since 2018 but has since been redesigned and relaunched. When malware is cheap it’s often associated with only delivering limited capabilities. But DCRat – offered online for as little as $5 – unfortunately comes equipped with a variety of a functions, including the ability to steal usernames, passwords, credit card details, browser history, Telegram login credentials, Steam accounts, Discord tokens, and more. LEAK: Commission to force scanning of communications to combat child pornography Date: 2022-05-11 Author: Euractiv The European Commission is to put forward a generalised scanning obligation for messaging services, according to a draft proposal obtained by EURACTIV. The text marks a victory for child advocates, but a setback for privacy activists. The European executive is to unveil on Wednesday (11 May) its proposal to fight the online circulation of child sexual abuse material – CSAM in short. “Providers of hosting services and providers of interpersonal communication services that have received a detection order shall execute it by installing and operating technologies to detect” CSAM upon request by the competent judicial authority or independent administrative authority, the draft regulation states. Microsoft May 2022 Patch Tuesday fixes 7 critical vulnerabilities, 67 others Date: 2022-05-11 Author: ZDNet Microsoft has released a total of 74 new security fixes for its software products. This includes one “important” flaw (a Windows LSA Spoofing Vulnerability) that was being actively exploited in the wild. In the Redmond giant’s latest round of patches, usually released on the second Tuesday of each month on what is known as Patch Tuesday, Microsoft fixed the aforementioned active exploit, as well as seven other “critical” issues: five remote code execution (RCE) bugs and two elevation of privilege (EoP) flaws. The remaining list of 67 exploits are dominated by additional RCE and EoP bugs. A smattering of denial-of-service, information leaks, security feature bypasses, and spoofing issues were corrected as well. Security “mindset shift” needed to protect organisations Date: 2022-05-09 Author: iTnews More than half of IT decision-makers said security solution had failed at least once, survey finds. Manual investigation, third parties, customers and law enforcement are catching far more cybersecurity threats more than software solutions, says Chris Fisher, director of security engineering APJ at cybersecurity company Vectra. Google adds phishing protection to Workspace apps Date: 2022-05-12 Author: iTnews Zero trust for Slides, Docs and Sheets as well as Gmail. Google’s Workspace productivity apps will get the same phishing and malware protection that Gmail already has later this year, the company said at its annual I/O conference. ASB-2022.0122 – ALERT Windows: CVSS (Max): 9.8 Microsoft’s security patch update for the month of May 2022 resolved 28 vulnerabilities. According to Microsoft, the most dangerous vulnerability addressed is CVE-2022-26925, which is contained in the Windows Local Security Authority. ASB-2022.0121 – ALERT Windows: CVSS (Max): 9.8 Microsoft’s most recent update resolves 62 vulnerabilities across Windows, Windows RT and Windows Server. ESB-2022.2050.2 – UPDATED ALERT F5 BIG-IP Products: CVSS (Max): 9.8 F5 Networks has reported a remote code execution vulnerability in BIG-IP iControl REST tracked in CVE-2022-1388. This is a critical vulnerability with a 9.8 CVSS score. ESB-2022.2332 – Google Chrome: CVSS (Max): None Google has released updates for the Stable channel for Desktop. The updates fix 13 known issues. Stay safe, stay patched and have a good weekend! The AUSCERT team

Greetings, Yesterday, May 5, was ‘World Password Day’ which was created in 2013 to help promote the use of good password habits online. As technology and cyber threats advance, log-in methods, such as multi-factor authentication, are developed to help us all be more secure. Microsoft recently implemented a service to reduce relying on passwords altogether, whilst still protecting accounts, along with some tips to help manage online security. Speaking of ways to improve your online security, the next round of courses in the AUSCERT training calendar is Cyber Security Risk Management which is being held on June 13 and 14. Delivered remotely via Microsoft Teams in two half-day sessions, the course will provide attendees with the confidence to perform a risk assessment of cyber security risks and the ability to rate and assess business risks rather than technical vulnerabilities. For more information on this course, and others, or, to book online visit the AUSCERT Education page on our website. Just four sleeps remain until AUSCERT2022 which is already generating a lot of buzz and excitement! The 21st Annual AUSCERT Cyber Security Conference has a sensational line-up of speakers, tutorials and events, along with a few surprises, that we can’t wait to share with attendees. Have a great weekend and we look forward to seeing a lot of you on the Gold Coast next week! NIST Issues Guidance for Addressing Software Supply-Chain Risk Date: 2022-05-06 Author: Darkreading The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has updated its cybersecurity guidance for addressing software supply-chain risk, offering tailored sets of suggested security controls for various stakeholders. Software supply-chain attacks rocketed to the top of the enterprise worry list last year as the SolarWinds and Log4Shell incidents sent shockwaves through the IT security community. Security practitioners are increasingly concerned about the safety of open source components and third-party libraries that make up the building blocks of thousands of applications. Another cause of worry is the varied ways platforms can be abused, as in the Kaseya attack last year, when cybercriminals compromised a managed application, or with SolarWinds, where they hacked an update mechanism to deliver malware. Large amount of IoT gear menaced by unpatched DNS vulnerability Date: 2022-05-04 Author: Security iTnews Security researchers have found that it is possible to conduct domain name system (DNS) poisoning attacks against Internet of Things devices, thanks to a bug in the popular uClibc and uClibc-ng standard C libraries. Although the bug was disclosed last year, it remains unpatched as the maintainer has not been able to develop a fix for it. An attacker can predict transaction IDs in DNS requests that the libraries generate, allowing DNS poisoning attacks that can be used to redirect traffic and spoof legitimate websites. F5 warns of critical BIG-IP RCE bug allowing device takeover Date: 2022-05-04 Author: Bleeping Computer F5 has issued a security advisory warning about a flaw that may allow unauthenticated attackers with network access to execute arbitrary system commands, perform file actions, and disable services on BIG-IP. The vulnerability is tracked as CVE-2022-1388 and has a CVSS v3 severity rating of 9.8, categorized as critical. Its exploitation can potentially lead up to a complete system takeover. According to F5’s security advisory, the flaw lies in the iControl REST component and allows a malicious actor to send undisclosed requests to bypass the iControl REST authentication in BIG-IP. Aussie organisations succumbing to ransomware threat Date: 2022-05-02 Author: Cyber Security Connect Almost half of the 80 per cent of Australian organisations targeted by ransomware paid cyber criminals, according to new Sophos research. Global cyber security company Sophos has released its State of Ransomware 2022 report — which involves a survey of 5,600 mid-sized organisations in 31 countries — revealing 80 per cent of Australian organisations were hit with ransomware attacks over the course of 2021, up from 45 per cent in 2020. Of those targeted, 43 per cent paid cyber criminals between US$100,000 and US$499,999. Transport for NSW struck by cyber attack Date: 2022-05-04 Author: ZDNet Transport for NSW has confirmed its Authorised Inspection Scheme (AIS) online application was impacted by a cyber incident in early April. The AIS authorises examiners to inspect vehicles to ensure a minimum safety standard. To become an authorised examiner, online applications need to be submitted and requires applicants to share personal details including their full name, address, phone number, email address, date of birth, and driver’s licence number. Security through visibility: supporting Essential Eight cyber mitigation strategies Date: 2022-05-03 Author: iTnews How can you secure what you cannot see? Strong cybersecurity strategies have become mission critical – because interrupted business leads to financial loss, employee and customer dissatisfaction and subsequent lost relationships – as well as damage to your integrity and reputation. So, the question stands as: How can you reduce and mitigate cybersecurity risk? Security Stuff Happens: What Do You Do When It Hits the Fan? Date: 2022-05-03 Author: Dark Reading Breaches can happen to anyone, but a well-oiled machine can internally manage and externally remediate in a way that won’t lead to extensive damage to a company’s bottom line. Wise security professionals understand that threat actors aren’t sitting still, and they aren’t playing by the same rules as old-school groups. Lapsus$, for example, is gaining notoriety for its unpredictable behavior, using tactics like extortion and bribing insiders for initial access. It has left even the most experienced security pros scratching their heads. ESB-2022.2027 – GitLab Community Edition (CE) and Enterprise Edition (EE): CVSS (Max): 6.1* GitLab has released newer versions for both Community and Enterprise Editions to address multiple vulnerabilities ESB-2022.2029 – Firefox: CVSS (Max): 7.5* Mozilla Foundation has updated Firefox ESR with a new version 91.9 fixing several vulnerabilities ESB-2022.2043 – Cisco Enterprise NFVIS: CVSS (Max): 9.9 A critical Guest Escape vulnerability along with other critical vulnerabilities affects Cisco NFVIS in the default configuration. Cisco has released an advisory with a fixed version ESB-2022.2050 – ALERT F5 BIG-IP Products: CVSS (Max): 9.8 A vulnerability in the control plane of BIG-IP modules allows an unauthenticated remote attacker to execute commands and create/delete arbitrary files in the system. F5 has released patches for the affected versions. BIG-IP version 17.x is not affected Stay safe, stay patched and have a good weekend! The AUSCERT team

Greetings, Earlier this week, we released our eleventh episode of Share Today, Save Tomorrow. Ethics, trust and collaboration form part of the discussion this month with Jeroen van der Ham and Shawn Richardson feature, providing their insights and sharing their experiences with this developing area within our industry. Today, April 29 2022, is the 40th International Dance Day which has grown into a celebration for those who can see the value and importance in the art form that is dance. Whether it’s toddlers bopping along to their favourite song or the perennial favourite ‘foot shuffle/shoulder shrug’ combo most often seen at weddings, we all have a move or routine that gets us moving when the moment and music is right! To commemorate this occasion, there will be an online celebration featuring five dance productions, each from one region (Africa, Asia-Pacific, the Americas, Europe, and Arab Countries) that will be worth watching if you appreciate dance or, would like some tips! Not to alarm people, but next week we see the arrival of May! Not only does this signify our approach towards the halfway point of 2022 but, also the imminent commencement of AUSCERT2022! A little over a week remains to register for Australia’s premier cyber security conference. We have a few surprises in store, along with the fantastic program that you can check out online, so be sure to register today as you won’t want to miss out! Manage and monitor third-party identities to protect your organization Date: 2022-04-26 Author: Help Net Security SecZetta shared a research that demonstrates a clear misalignment between the strategies organizations currently use and what is actually required to protect them from cyberattacks due to third-party vulnerabilities. At a time when cyberattacks are increasing in size, frequency, and impact, this research found most organizations are not taking the necessary steps to manage and monitor the lifecycle of their third-party identities, making them more vulnerable to cyber incidents. To strengthen cybersecurity programs and better manage identity lifecycles, including third-party and non-human workers, organizations need stronger third-party identity management strategies and solutions. Quarterly Report: Incident Response trends in Q1 2022 Date: 2022-04-26 Author: Cisco Talos Ransomware was still the top threat Cisco Talos Incident Response (CTIR) saw in active engagements this quarter, continuing a trend that started in 2020. As mentioned in the 2021 year-in-review report, CTIR continues to deal with an expanding set of ransomware adversaries and major cybersecurity incidents affecting organizations worldwide. The first quarter of 2022 also featured an increase in engagements involving advanced persistent threat (APT) activity. This included Iranian state-sponsored MuddyWater APT activity, China-based Mustang Panda activity leveraging USB drives to deliver the PlugX remote access trojan (RAT), and a suspected Chinese adversary dubbed “Deep Panda” exploiting Log4j. Five Eyes nations reveal 2021’s fifteen most-exploited flaws Date: 2022-04-28 Author: The Register Security flaws in Log4j, Microsoft Exchange, and Atlassian’s workspace collaboration software were among the bugs most frequently exploited by “malicious cyber actors” in 2021 , according to a joint advisory by the Five Eyes nations’ cybersecurity and law enforcement agencies. It’s worth noting that 11 of the 15 flaws on the list were disclosed in 2021, as previous years’ lists often found miscreants exploiting the older vulns for which patches had been available for years. BlackCat Ransomware gang breached over 60 orgs worldwide Date: 2022-04-25 Author: Security Affairs The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) published a flash report that states that at least 60 entities worldwide have been breached by BlackCat ransomware (aka ALPHV and Noberus) since it started its operations in November. “The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has released a Flash report detailing indicators of compromise (IOCs) associated with attacks involving BlackCat/ALPHV, a Ransomware-as-a-Service that has compromised at least 60 entities worldwide.” reads the flash advisory. “CISA encourages users and administrators to review the IOCs and technical details in FBI Flash CU-000167-MW and apply the recommended mitigations.” How Industry Leaders Should Approach Open Source Security Date: 2022-04-28 Author: Dark Reading Security has long been a point of concern in the open source community. If not managed carefully, the same openness that allows innovative code contributions from global users can also present vulnerable attack surfaces for malicious actors. In fact, when asked about roadblocks preventing their organizations’ use of open source, respondents to Anaconda’s 2021 State of Data Science report cited “Fear of CVEs, potential exposures, or risks” (41%) and “Open source software is deemed insecure, so it’s not allowed,” (26%) among other concerns. Yet open source drives innovation, and there are ways to dramatically decrease the potential risks that arise from the use of open source software. This is why many organizations take a “best of both worlds” approach, adopting open source while prioritizing security measures. ESB-2022.1792 – Tenable.sc third party components: CVSS (Max): 9.8 Tenable has provided a patch to address multiple vulnerable third party software used by Tenable ESB-2022.1870 – grafana: CVSS (Max): 9.8 Multiple vulnerabilities affecting Grafana has now been fixed under version 8.3.5 and 7.5.15 ESB-2022.1907 – Google Chrome: CVSS (Max): None Google Chrome 101 is available for users as a stable version fixing several vulnerabilities ASB-2022.0119 – Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based): CVSS (Max): 8.3* Microsoft has also addressed Chrome’s CVE in Microsoft Edge and added 2 additional CVEs in its upstream product Stay safe, stay patched and have a good weekend! The AUSCERT team

Greetings, The commemoration of ANZAC Day has become entrenched in Australia and New Zealand’s identity, marking the anniversary of the first major military action fought by members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC). The Light Up The Dawn website, coordinated by RSL Australia, is the perfect place to learn about how you can commemorate those who are serving and those who have served. Lest We Forget. Sadly, the presence of war remains today with the conflict in Ukraine showing no signs of easing. Although Easter is being observed in Russia this Sunday, April 24th, The Cyber Wire update earlier this week stated that governments in the west shouldn’t let their guard down concerning potential cyber attacks. AUSCERT has seen a surge in registrations for this year’s conference over the past few days which is exciting news! With just over two weeks to go until Australia’s premier information security conference gets underway, we encourage anyone interested in coming along to check out our sensational line-up of speakers and tutorials and Register Today for AUSCERT2022! Lastly, AUSCERT is recruiting for two Software Developers with skills in Python on Linux platforms, and what an opportunity for developers with an interest in cyber security! As part of the AUSCERT team, you'd work along side Analysts and Infrastructure Engineers and, speaking of the AUSCERT Conference, you also get the chance to participate in the event too! CISA warns of attackers now exploiting Windows Print Spooler bug Date: 2022-04-19 Author: Bleeping Computer The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has added three new security flaws to its list of actively exploited bugs, including a local privilege escalation bug in the Windows Print Spooler. This high severity vulnerability (tracked as CVE-2022-22718) impacts all versions of Windows per Microsoft's advisory and it was patched during the February 2022 Patch Tuesday. The only information Microsoft shared about this security flaw is that threat actors can exploit it locally in low-complexity attacks without user interaction. Google Project Zero Detects a Record Number of Zero-Day Exploits in 2021 Date: 2022-04-20 Author: The Hacker News Google Project Zero called 2021 a "record year for in-the-wild 0-days," as 58 security vulnerabilities were detected and disclosed during the course of the year. The development marks more than a two-fold jump from the previous maximum when 28 0-day exploits were tracked in 2015. In contrast, only 25 0-day exploits were detected in 2020. "The large uptick in in-the-wild 0-days in 2021 is due to increased detection and disclosure of these 0-days, rather than simply increased usage of 0-day exploits," Google Project Zero security researcher Maddie Stone said. US and allies warn of Russian hacking threat to critical infrastructure Date: 2022-04-20 Author: Bleeping Computer Today, Five Eyes cybersecurity authorities warned critical infrastructure network defenders of an increased risk that Russia-backed hacking groups could target organizations within and outside Ukraine's borders. The warning comes from cybersecurity agencies in the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom in a joint cybersecurity advisory with info on Russian state-backed hacking operations and Russian-aligned cybercrime groups. Hackers can infect >100 Lenovo models with unremovable malware. Are you patched? Date: 2022-04-20 Author: Ars Technica Lenovo has released security updates for more than 100 laptop models to fix critical vulnerabilities that make it possible for advanced hackers to surreptitiously install malicious firmware that can be next to impossible to remove or, in some cases, to detect. Attacker Dwell Times Down, But No Consistent Correlation to Breach Impact: Mandiant Date: 2022-04-19 Author: SecurityWeek.Com The good news is that median intruder dwell time is down again – down from 24 days in 2020 to 21 days in 2021. The bad news is the figure gives little indication of the true nature of successful intruder activity across the whole security ecosphere. Dwell time is the length of time between assumed initial intrusion and detection of an intrusion. The usual assumption is that the shorter the dwell time, the less damage can be done. This is not a valid assumption across all intrusions. The figures come from Mandiant’s M-Trends 2022 report, which is based on the firm’s breach investigations between October 1, 2020, and December 31, 2021. They show that the median dwell time figure has consistently declined over the last few years: from 205 days in 2014 through 78 (2018), 56 (2019), 24 (2020) to 21 (2021). The problem is that the dwell time has no consistent correlation to the breach effect. ESB-2022.1726 – Cisco Umbrella Virtual Appliance: CVSS (Max): 7.5 A vulnerability could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to impersonate a Virtual Appliance. One of many Cisco bulletins this week. ASB-2022.0113 – Oracle Communications Applications: CVSS (Max): 10.0 It was Oracle's 3-monthly patch day this week (Critical Patch Update). Some of the CVSS ratings reached 10.0. ASB-2022.0091 – Oracle Virtualization: CVSS (Max): 9.0 Another Oracle product affected was the popular VM VirtualBox. ESB-2022.1714 – Siemens OpenSSL Vulnerabilities in Industrial Products: CVSS (Max): 5.9 ICS-CERT published many advisories this week for Industrial Control Systems (ICS) including SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Aquisition) systems. This OpenSSL issue affects many systems and devices. Stay safe, stay patched and have a good weekend! The AUSCERT team

Greetings, Each week of 2022 seems to be moving at a faster pace than the one before and here we are, at Easter already! Four days to relax, rejoice, reframe – and indulge in far too many chocolate eggs, bunnies, and bilbies along with some hot cross buns of course! It’s also the first week of at least three (four if you’re in Queensland) that have one day less in the working week. Now, whilst that might be celebrated, it also means that we have fewer business days until AUSCERT2022! We have some fantastic Sponsors, Speakers, Tutorials and, some sensational surprises in store this year! Spots are filling fast so, to ensure you don’t miss out, Register today for Australia’s premier cyber security conference. AUSCERT will maintain minimal coverage for the Easter holidays from Friday 15 April to Monday 18 April. AUSCERT staff will be on-call for emergencies only and email will not be monitored during this time. Any AUSCERT member with an emergency may contact on-call AUSCERT staff on the AUSCERT Incident Hotline, details available here. Have a safe, enjoyable and relaxing Easter break everyone! Mandatory cyber security incident reporting now in force Date: 2022-04-12 Author: iTnews Home Affairs minister Karen Andrews has published the implementation of Australia’s critical infrastructure legislation, which makes reporting of information security events mandatory for several industry sectors. Under the Security of Critical Infrastructure 2018 Act, multiple industry assets are deemed to be critical. Security Nihilism Is Putting Your Company and Its Employees at Risk Date: 2022-04-09 Author: Dark Reading When it comes to staying safe and secure in our digital worlds, sometimes it can feel like giving up is the only choice. This idea of “security nihilism” isn’t new. Security teams have always faced incredibly challenging problems while trying to enable safe and trustworthy experiences across all the technology we use. It can be a difficult trap to overcome for security practitioners, but it’s even more dangerous when employees start to feel it. Security nihilism creates new and worsens existing problems that put a company’s data — and the employees who are stewards of that data — at risk. GitHub can now alert of supply-chain bugs in new dependencies Date: 2022-04-08 Author: Bleeping Computer GitHub can now block and alert you of pull requests that introduce new dependencies impacted by known supply chain vulnerabilities. This is achieved by adding the new Dependency Review GitHub Action to an existing workflow in one of your projects. You can do it through your repository’s Actions tab under Security or straight from the GitHub Marketplace. It works with the help of an API endpoint that will help you understand the security impact of dependency changes before adding them to your repository at every pull request. Creating a Security Culture Where People Can Admit Mistakes Date: 2022-04-12 Author: Dark Reading Andy Ellis, advisory CISO for Orca Security and a longtime Akamai veteran, likes to tell a story about a potentially serious security incident. One of his team members was testing the email integration of a new incident tracking system. Unfortunately, the test email, titled “[TEST] Meteor strike destroys the headquarters,” went to everyone in the company and created a loop that crashed the mail servers. As Ellis recounts, “The next day the responsible employee tweeted a picture of themselves training for a 5K run, and I replied, ‘Preparing to outrun the meteor?'” New pilot program to help meet urgent demand for cyber security skills Date: 2022-04-12 Author: Riotact Cyber security may have been a big winner in the Federal Budget but finding the people to make the Federal Government’s ambitious plans a reality will be challenging. The ACT Government and Digital Skills Organisation (DSO) aims to help address the cyber skills shortage and meet the needs of the ACT’s growing tech sector with a new 12-month pilot program through the Canberra Cyber Hub. It will focus on developing a new National Skills Framework for cyber security in cooperation with industry. ESB-2022.1488.2 – UPDATED ALERT VMware products: CVSS (Max): 9.8 VMware has now confirmed the exploitation of CVE-2022-22954 has occurred in the wild ESB-2022.1560 – Adobe Commerce and Magento Open Source: CVSS (Max): 9.1 Adobe Commerce and Magento Open Source are vulnerable to Remote Code Execution. Adobe has released patches to address the issue ESB-2022.1623 – ALERT Cisco Wireless LAN Controller: CVSS (Max): 10.0 Cisco has released advisory regarding a critical authentication bypass vulnerability affecting several Wireless controllers ASB-2022.0085 – ALERT Microsoft Windows products: CVSS (Max): 9.8 Microsoft has addressed multiple vulnerabilities during Patch Tuesday in its upstream Windows products ASB-2022.0086.3 – UPDATE Nginx Zero-Day Multiple mitigation measures are available for the recent zero day vulnerability for nginx web server Stay safe, stay patched and have a good weekend! The AUSCERT team

Greetings, Late yesterday, VMware confirmed that it had patched eight bugs in an array of its products. Many news sources, including The Hacker News, have advised that the vulnerabilities could be exploited with five of the bugs identified as critical. The five products affected are Workspace ONE Access, Identity Manager, vRealize Automation, Cloud Foundation, and vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager. It is advised that the vulnerabilities should be patched as soon as possible with a bulletin issued by AUSCERT yesterday with further information: ESB-2022.1488. If you weren’t already aware, each of the remaining working weeks in April are just four days long courtesy of some well-placed public holidays! Whilst that ensures consecutive long weekends, it also means that time is running out to book your spot at our 21st Annual AUSCERT Cyber Security Conference, AUSCERT2022. There are also limited booths remaining for our exhibition is full! If you’re interested in Sponsorship, contact our team via email: conference@auscert.org.au Feds slay dark-web souk Hydra: Servers and $25m in crypto-coins seized Date: 2022-04-05 Author: The Register US and German federal agencies came down hard on Hydra, the longest-running known dark-web marketplace trafficking in illegal drugs and money-laundering services, with a multi-pronged attack that aimed to cut off multiple heads of the nefarious online beast. First, German federal police in coordination with US law enforcement seized Hydra servers and cryptocurrency wallets containing $25 million in Bitcoin, thus shutting down the online souk. Later on Tuesday, the US Justice Department announced criminal charges against one of the alleged Hydra operators and system administrators, 30-year-old Dmitry Olegovich Pavlov of Russia. Borat RAT: Multiple threat of ransomware, DDoS and spyware Date: 2022-04-04 Author: The Register A new remote access trojan (RAT) dubbed “Borat” doesn’t come with many laughs but offers bad actors a menu of cyberthreats to choose from. RATs are typically used by cybercriminals to get full control of a victim’s system, enabling them to access files and network resources and manipulate the mouse and keyboard. Borat does all this and also delivers features to enable hackers to run ransomware, distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS) and other online assaults and to install spyware, according to researchers at cybersecurity biz Cyble. ASD to create cyber security hubs in three states using REDSPICE budget funding. Date: 2022-04-06 Author: iTnews The Australian Signals Directorate will create cyber security hubs in Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth after receiving $9.9 billion in the federal budget to boost its offensive and defensive capabilities. Amid criticism over its plan to double in size over the next decade, director-general Rachel Noble told senate estimates the new hubs would allow the cyber spy agency to tap into a wider talent pool. This new malware targets AWS Lambda environments | ZDNet Date: 2022-04-06 Author: zdnet A new malware variant that targets AWS Lambda has been discovered. On Wednesday, researchers from Cado Security published their findings on Denonia, malware currently being used in targeted attacks against Lambda. Lambda is a scalable compute service offered by Amazon Web Services (AWS) for running code, server and OS maintenance, capacity provisioning, logging, and operating numerous backend services. VMware admins asked to patch eight vulnerabilities – Security – iTnews Date: 2022-04-07 Author: itnews VMware has patched eight bugs in five of its products that were uncovered by Qihoo 360 security researcher Steven Seeley. An advisory notes the eight vulnerabilities affect five different products: Workspace ONE Access, Identity Manager, vRealize Automation, Cloud Foundation, and vRealize Suite Lifecycle Manager. Workspace ONE Access is impacted by two critical authentication bypass vulnerabilities, denoted as CVE-2022-22955 and CVE-2022-22956. They would allow an attacker to “bypass the authentication mechanism and execute any operation due to exposed endpoints in the authentication framework”, the advisory says. ESB-2022.1418.2 – UPDATE GitLab Community Edition (CE) and Enterprise Edition (EE): CVSS (Max): 9.1 GitLab released fixed versions for Community Edition and Enterprise Edition to address multiple vulnerabilities including a critical vulnerability which could allow account takeover. ESB-2022.1444.4 – UPDATE Cisco Products: CVSS (Max): 9.8 Acknowledging the recent Spring Framework vulnerability, Cisco has been updating its advisory identifying multiple affected products ESB-2022.1480 – Firefox: CVSS (Max): 7.5* Mozilla has updated Firefox version to 99 which fixes multiple vulnerabilities ESB-2022.1484.2 – UPDATED ALERT Tenable.sc: CVSS (Max): 9.8 Tenable has released patch for Tenable.sc addressing 2 vulnerabilities including a critical CVE-2022-23943 ESB-2022.1488 – ALERT VMware products: CVSS (Max): 9.8 VMware released patches to address critical vulnerabilities in several products Stay safe, stay patched and have a good weekend! The AUSCERT team

Greetings, The latest episode of our podcast is here! We discuss Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response, or SOAR, the topic for last year’s conference and how it can benefit organisational processes, automation and improving efficiencies – regardless of size. You’ll also hear from the AUSCERT team about the malicious URL feed and how it works with SOAR, Member Slack, AUSCERT’s AusISAC and how these can benefit members as well as a bit of a teaser for the upcoming cyber security conference. AUSCERT is gearing up to deliver a range of training sessions, aimed at anyone that looks after their organisation’s cyber security. Our next course, Incident Response Planning, is being held next week on April 5 & 6. The courses are delivered virtually and in two half-day sessions from 9 am to 12:30 pm each day. Learning outcomes for participants: Understand the NIST IR (incident response) process; Self-assess IR process maturity; Design and implement a Cyber Security Incident Response Plan; Create and customise cyber security incident playbooks; Understand the usefulness of cyber security policies and frameworks to IR; Gain awareness of the most common cyber security attacks; and, Appreciate the role of tabletop discussion exercises in IR planning and improvement Places are limited so be sure to secure your spot and book now. Lastly, today is April Fool’s Day when pranks and jokes are played for laughs, as long as they don’t go too far! What we all need right now, is some joy and laughter so why not take a moment to browse some of the great April Fools pranks from history that includes the Left-Handed Whopper, Smell-o-vision and Gmail Motion, a new technology that would allow people to write emails using only hand gestures! IoT warning: Hackers are gaining access to UPS devices. Here’s how to protect yours Date: 2022-03-30 Author: ZDNet Change the default user name and password settings on your internet-connected uninterruptible power supply (UPS) units, the US government has warned. UPS units are meant to provide power backup to keep devices, appliances and applications connected to the internet by supplying off-grid power to places like a data center during a power outage. But hackers have been targeting internet-connected UPS units to disrupt the backup power supply. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Department of Energy (DOE) said they “are aware of threat actors gaining access to a variety of internet-connected uninterruptable power supply (UPS) devices.” Russia facing internet outages due to equipment shortage Date: 2022-03-28 Author: Bleeping Computer Russia’s RSPP Commission for Communications and IT, the country’s largest entrepreneurship union, has warned of imminent large-scale service Internet service outages due to the lack of available telecom equipment. To raise awareness, the commission has compiled a document that reflects the practical challenges facing the industry in Russia at this time and also presents a set of proposals specifically crafted to alleviate them. Russian media that have seen the document in question say that the warning is dire, as the commission highlights the reserves of telecom operator equipment will only last for another six months. Lapsus$ found a spreadsheet of accounts as they breached Okta, documents show Date: 2022-03-29 Author: TechCrunch The Lapsus$ hackers used compromised credentials to break into the network of customer service giant Sitel in January, days before subsequently accessing the internal systems of authentication giant Okta, according to documents seen by TechCrunch that provide new details of the cyber intrusion that have not yet been reported. Customers only learned of Okta’s January security breach on March 22 after the Lapsus$ hacking group published screenshots revealing it had accessed Okta’s internal apps and systems some two months earlier. Okta admitted the compromise in a blog post, and later confirmed 366 of its corporate customers are affected by the breach, or about 2.5% of its customer base. Hackers Hijack Email Reply Chains on Unpatched Exchange Servers to Spread Malware Date: 2022-03-28 Author: The Hacker News A new email phishing campaign has been spotted leveraging the tactic of conversation hijacking to deliver the IcedID info-stealing malware onto infected machines by making use of unpatched and publicly-exposed Microsoft Exchange servers. “The emails use a social engineering technique of conversation hijacking (also known as thread hijacking),” Israeli company Intezer said in a report shared with The Hacker News. “A forged reply to a previous stolen email is being used as a way to convince the recipient to open the attachment. This is notable because it increases the credibility of the phishing email and may cause a high infection rate.” The latest wave of attacks, detected in mid-March 2022, is said to have targeted organizations within energy, healthcare, law, and pharmaceutical sectors. Critical Sophos Firewall vulnerability allows remote code execution Date: 2022-03-27 Author: Bleeping Computer Sophos has fixed a critical vulnerability in its Sophos Firewall product that allows remote code execution (RCE). Tracked as CVE-2022-1040, the authentication bypass vulnerability exists in the User Portal and Webadmin areas of Sophos Firewall. On Friday, Sophos disclosed a critical remote code execution vulnerability impacting Sophos Firewall versions 18.5 MR3 (18.5.3) and earlier that the company released hotfixes for. Zero-Day Vulnerability Discovered in Java Spring Framework Date: 2022-03-31 Author: Dark Reading A zero-day vulnerability found in the popular Java Web application development framework Spring likely puts a wide variety of Web apps at risk of remote attack, security researchers disclosed on March 30. The vulnerability — dubbed Spring4Shell and SpringShell by some security firms — has caused a great deal of confusion over the past 24 hours as researchers struggled to determine if the issue was new, or related to older vulnerabilities. Researchers with cybersecurity services firm Praetorian and threat intelligence firm Flashpoint independently confirmed that the exploit attacks a new vulnerability, which could be exploited remotely if a Spring application is deployed to an Apache Tomcat server using a common configuration. Google: Russian phishing attacks target NATO, European military Date: 2022-03-30 Author: Bleeping Computer The Google Threat Analysis Group (TAG) says more and more threat actors are now using Russia’s war in Ukraine to target Eastern European and NATO countries, including Ukraine, in phishing and malware attacks. The report’s highlight are credential phishing attacks coordinated by a Russian-based threat group tracked as COLDRIVER against a NATO Centre of Excellence and Eastern European militaries. The Russian hackers also targeted a Ukrainian defense contractor and several US-based non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and think tanks. Okta: “We made a mistake” delaying the Lapsus$ hack disclosure Date: 2022-03-27 Author: Bleeping Computer Okta has admitted that it made a mistake delaying the disclosure of hack from the Lapsus$ data extortion group that took place in January. Additionally, the company has provided a detailed timeline of the incident and its investigation activities. On Friday, Okta expressed regret for not disclosing details about the Lapsus$ hack sooner and shared a detailed timeline of the incident and its investigation. Australian Budget 2022 delivers AU$9.9 billion for spicy cyber Date: 2022-03-29 Author: ZDNet The federal government has released its 2022-23 federal Budget, containing a AU$9.9 billion kitty for bolstering cybersecurity and intelligence capabilities in the midst of a growing cyberthreat landscape around the world. The near-AU$10 billion will be spent across a decade under a program called Resilience, Effects, Defence, Space, Intelligence, Cyber and Enablers (REDSPICE). “This is the biggest ever investment in Australia’s cyber preparedness,” said Treasurer Josh Frydenburg, who announced the Budget on Tuesday night. Hive ransomware shuts down California health care organization Date: 2022-03-30 Author: The Record Partnership HealthPlan of California, a nonprofit that helps hundreds of thousands of people access health care in California, is in the midst of being attacked by the Hive ransomware group. The organization is one of the largest Medi-Cal Managed Care Plan providers in Northern California and serves more than 610,000 Medi-Cal beneficiaries in 14 northern California counties. It is unclear when the attack began and Partnership HealthPlan of California is currently unable to respond to requests for comment, but local California newspaper The Press Democrat was the first to report on March 24 that the organization was facing technical issues. ASB-2022.0075 – Spring Boot and Spring Cloud: CVSS (Max): 9.8 AUSCERT released an advisory to its members which includes information on Spring Framework vulnerability. AUSCERT encourages the affected members to review mitigation information and act accordingly. ESB-2022.1346.3 – UPDATE vCenter Server and Cloud Foundation: CVSS (Max): 5.5 Updates have been released to remediate information disclosure vulnerability in VMware vCenter Server. ESB-2022.1310 – chromium: CVSS (Max): None The users are encouraged to upgrade their chromium packages to fix a security issue that could result in the execution of arbitrary code if a malicious website is visited. ESB-2022.1411 – Google Chrome: CVSS (Max): None Google has addressed multiple vulnerabilities with the release of Chrome version 100. Stay safe, stay patched and have a good weekend! The AUSCERT team

Greetings, Earlier this week, the Okta breach saw many of their customers worldwide become alerted to the potential risk with third party vendors. The group suspected of causing the breach, Lapsus$, were also involved in attacks on Microsoft and Nvidia. itnews reported early Friday morning, that several suspects had been arrested in London following an investigation into the ransom-seeking gang. Some of those arrested are said to only be aged between 16 and 21. AUSCERT issued an ASB on Thursday, March 24th, about the Lapsus $ Okta incident, which can be viewed at the following link: ASB-2022.0073 As the war in Ukraine enters a second month, the heightened risk concerning a major cyber attack from Russia on the USA has resulted in speculation that the Australia, New Zealand and United States Security Treaty (ANZUS) is expected to be activated. Such an attack would come as retaliation for sanctions imposed upon Russia, including by Australia. However, should Australia be a target for such retaliatory action, assurance has been given by Joe Biden’s top cyber security advisor that the US would respond. The Sydney Morning Herald provides further details that include the White House issuing a statement for all companies to “lock the digital door” against potential attacks. The AUSCERT team has received a flurry of emails and calls concerning the upcoming AUSCERT2022 Cyber Security Conference which is a fantastic sign that people out there are interested in coming along. Our line-up of speakers has been confirmed and we are fine tuning the program that we will be sure to let everyone know about when it’s ready for you to peruse! In the meantime, be sure to check out who we have coming along and, a little more about this year’s theme, Rethink, Reskill, Reboot. Authentication firm Okta probes report of digital breach Date: 2022-03-23 Author: Reuters Authentication services provider Okta Inc (OKTA.O) is investigating a report of a digital breach, the company said on Tuesday, after hackers posted screenshots showing what they claimed was its internal company environment. A hack at Okta could have major consequences because thousands of other companies rely on the San Francisco-based firm to manage access to their own networks and applications. The company was aware of the reports and was investigating, Okta official Chris Hollis said in a brief statement. Okta: Lapsus$ attackers had access to support engineer’s laptop Date: 2022-03-23 Author: ZDNet Okta says that a rapid investigation into the sharing of screenshots appearing to show a data breach has revealed they relate to a “contained” security incident that took place in January 2022. Okta, an enterprise identity and access management firm, launched an inquiry after the LAPSUS$ hacking group posted screenshots on Telegram that the hackers claimed were taken after obtaining access to “Okta.com Superuser/Admin and various other systems.” Microsoft confirms they were hacked by Lapsus$ extortion group Date: 2022-03-22 Author: Bleeping Computer Microsoft has confirmed that one of their employees was compromised by the Lapsus$ hacking group, allowing the threat actors to access and steal portions of their source code. Last night, the Lapsus$ gang released 37GB of source code stolen from Microsoft’s Azure DevOps server. The source code is for various internal Microsoft projects, including for Bing, Cortana, and Bing Maps. In a new blog post published tonight, Microsoft has confirmed that one of their employee’s accounts was compromised by Lapsus$, providing limited access to source code repositories. New Phishing toolkit lets anyone create fake Chrome browser windows Date: 2022-03-19 Author: Bleeping Computer A phishing kit has been released that allows red teamers and wannabe cybercriminals to create effective single sign-on phishing login forms using fake Chrome browser windows. When signing into websites, it is common to see the option to sign with Google, Microsoft, Apple, Twitter, or even Steam. White House issues call to action in light of new intelligence on Russian cyberthreat Date: 2022-03-21 Author: CyberScoop The Biden administration renewed calls Monday for the private sector to address known vulnerabilities and shore up cyberdefenses in light of a looming possibility of a cyberattack from Russia on U.S. infrastructure. The latest warning is “based on evolving threat intelligence, that the Russian government is exploring options for potential cyberattacks on critical infrastructure in the United States,” Anne Neuberger, the White House’s deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology, said at a press conference Monday. A Closer Look at the LAPSUS$ Data Extortion Group Date: 2022-03-23 Author: Krebs on Security Microsoft and identity management platform Okta both this week disclosed breaches involving LAPSUS$, a relatively new cybercrime group that specializes in stealing data from big companies and threatening to publish it unless a ransom demand is paid. Here’s a closer look at LAPSUS$, and some of the low-tech but high-impact methods the group uses to gain access to targeted organizations. BitRAT malware now spreading as a Windows 10 license activator Date: 2022-03-21 Author: Bleeping Computer A new BitRAT malware distribution campaign is underway, exploiting users looking to activate pirated Windows OS versions for free using unofficial Microsoft license activators. BitRAT is a powerful remote access trojan sold on cybercrime forums and dark web markets for as low as $20 (lifetime access) to any cybercriminal who wants it. As such, each buyer follows their own approach to malware distribution, ranging from phishing, watering holes, or trojanized software. Australia launches federal cybercrime centre as part of national plan Date: 2022-03-21 Author: ZDNet Australian Home Affairs Minister Karen Andrews has launched a centre to bolster the country’s cybercrime fighting efforts. The AU$89 million cybercrime centre forms part of Home Affairs’ national plan to combat cybercrime, which was announced alongside the centre’s launch on Monday morning. The AU$89 million was provided through the AU$1.67 billion in funding for Australia’s cybersecurity strategy by the federal government. Andrews said the national plan and the Australian Federal Police’s (AFP) new cybercrime centre, called Joint Policing Cybercrime Coordination Centre (JPC3), would bring together the experience, powers, capabilities, and intelligence needed to build a strong, multi-faceted response. Newer Conti ransomware source code leaked out of revenge Date: 2022-03-20 Author: Bleeping Computer A Ukrainian security researcher has leaked newer malware source code from the Conti ransomware operation in revenge for the cybercriminals siding with Russia on the invasion of Ukraine. Conti is an elite ransomware gang run by Russian-based threat actors. With their involvement in developing numerous malware families, it is considered one of the most active cybercrime operations. However, after the Conti Ransomware operation sided with Russia on the invasion of Ukraine, a Ukrainian researcher named ‘Conti Leaks’ decided to leak data and source code belonging to the ransomware gang out of revenge. Microsoft Azure developers targeted by 200-plus data-stealing npm packages Date: 2022-03-24 Author: The Register A group of more than 200 malicious npm packages targeting developers who use Microsoft Azure has been removed two days after they were made available to the public. ASB-2022.0071 – .au direct domain names: AUSCERT’s advisory for its members contains important information about .au Direct Domain names. We encourage all our members who consider their domains to be registered in .au direct, to do so within six months to avoid any potential issues arising later. ASB-2022.0072 – Potential Cyberattacks : US President warns the public to be aware of possible escalation of cyber-attacks from Russia. ASB-2022.0073 – Lapsus $ Okta incident: AUSCERT’s advisory on Lapsus$ Okta incident includes Microsoft recommended defence against DEV-0537. ESB-2022.1275 – VMware Carbon Black App Control (AppC): CVSS (Max): 9.1 Updates are available to remediate the vulnerabilities in VMware Carbon Black App Control. Stay safe, stay patched and have a good weekend! The AUSCERT team

Greetings, Today, March 18th, is World Sleep Day – yes, really! There are many benefits from having quality sleep that includes improved mental health, mood, and decision-making. It has also been recognised as significant in preventative health and wellbeing, alongside fitness and nutrition. There are many ways that we can each improve our sleep that ranges from exercise in the morning to a warm shower at night and setting cut-off times from technology each evening to allow a wind down before sleep. The Sleep Health Foundation is on a mission to improve as many lives through better sleep and have a range of resources and activities designed to help them with that goal. Some folks that may be taking on some suggestions on improved sleep ahead of their presentations are our Speakers for this year’s AUSCERT2022 Cyber Security Conference! That’s right, we have officially announced our line-up that includes Keynote Speakers Kath Koschel of The Kindness Factory and Lesley Carhart amongst some familiar faces and first-timers. Visit the AUSCERT2022 website to see our speaking line-up and, perhaps register yourself to come along to the Gold Coast this May? Lastly, we wanted to advise, or remind those in the know, of the upcoming release of .au direct domain names. As detailed in our recent blog, the Australian Domain Administration (auDA) will be making the shorter and simpler domain names available from Thursday, March 24th, 2022. The blog highlights the advantages of the upcoming release but also outlines some precautionary measures that may apply to you and your business. QNAP warns severe Linux bug affects most of its NAS devices Date: 2022-03-14 Author: Bleeping Computer Taiwanese hardware vendor QNAP warns most of its Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices are impacted by a high severity Linux vulnerability dubbed ‘Dirty Pipe’ that allows attackers with local access to gain root privileges. The ‘Dirty Pipe’ security bug affects Linux Kernel 5.8 and later versions, even on Android devices. If successfully exploited, it allows non-privileged users to inject and overwrite data in read-only files, including SUID processes that run as root. Android malware Escobar steals your Google Authenticator MFA codes Date: 2022-03-12 Author: Bleeping Computer The Aberebot Android banking trojan has returned under the name ‘Escobar’ with new features, including stealing Google Authenticator multi-factor authentication codes. The new features in the latest Aberebot version also include taking control of the infected Android devices using VNC, recording audio, and taking photos, while also expanding the set of targeted apps for credential theft. New ransomware LokiLocker bundles destructive wiping component Date: 2022-03-17 Author: CSO Online A new ransomware operation dubbed LokiLocker has slowly been gaining traction since August among cybercriminals, researchers warn. The malicious program uses a relatively rare code obfuscation technique and includes a file wiper component that attackers could use against non-compliant victims. “LokiLocker is a relatively new ransomware family targeting English-speaking victims and Windows PCs. The threat was first seen in the wild in mid-August 2021,” researchers from BlackBerry’s Research & Intelligence Team said in a new report. New Linux botnet exploits Log4J, uses DNS tunneling for comms Date: 2022-03-15 Author: Bleeping Computer A recently discovered botnet under active development targets Linux systems, attempting to ensnare them into an army of bots ready to steal sensitive info, installing rootkits, creating reverse shells, and acting as web traffic proxies. The newly found malware, dubbed B1txor20 by researchers at Qihoo 360’s Network Security Research Lab (360 Netlab), focuses its attacks on Linux ARM, X64 CPU architecture devices. The botnet uses exploits targeting the Log4J vulnerability to infect new hosts, a very appealing attack vector seeing that dozens of vendors use the vulnerable Apache Log4j logging library. Ukraine invasion opens political rift between cybercriminals Date: 2022-03-15 Author: The Register Cybercriminals are taking sides over Russia’s deadly invasion of Ukraine, putting either the West or Moscow in their sights, according to Accenture. The consultancy giant’s Cyber Threat Intelligence team, which tracks illicit dark-web activity, said in a report dated Monday that this is the first time it has witnessed “financially motivated threat actors divided along ideological factions.” ESB-2022.1083 – macOS Monterey: CVSS (Max): 9.1* Apple has released advisory to address multiple vulnerabilities in the packages used in macOS ESB-2022.1076 – Apache HTTP Server: CVSS (Max): 7.4 Multiple vulnerabilities affecting Apache HTTP server have been fixed in version 2.4.53 ESB-2022.1108 – squid: CVSS (Max): 9.6 An incorrect input validation vulnerability leading to cache poisoning has been addressed ESB-2022.1147 – Bind 9.18.0: CVSS (Max): 7.0 ISC advises updates to Bind to address multiple vulnerabilities. ESB-2022.1165 – Treck TCP/IP Stack: CVSS (Max): 10.0 Treck TCP/IP Stack is widely used in embedded systems. It is recommended to update the version to 6.0.1.67 or later ASB-2022.0070 – Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based): CVSS (Max): 6.3* Microsoft has advised users to update Edge (Chromium based) to address multiple vulnerabilities assigned by Google Chrome Stay safe, stay patched and have a good weekend! The AUSCERT team

Greetings, We are excited to announce our second keynote speaker for AUSCERT2022, Lesley Carhart. Lesley, also known by her Twitter handle ‘Hacks4Pancakes’, is the Director of Incident Response for North America at the industrial cybersecurity company Dragos, Inc., leading response to and proactively hunting for threats in customers’ ICS environments. You may find Lesley organizing resume and interview clinics at several cybersecurity conferences, lecturing, and blogging and tweeting prolifically about cybersecurity. When not working, Lesley enjoys being a youth martial arts instructor. This is Lesley’s first time speaking in-person Down Under and we can’t wait to see them on the Gold Coast in May! If you’d like to see Lesley in person or, perhaps one of our many other informative and engaging presenters, why not register today to ensure that you don’t miss out? AUSCERT2022 will again be held at The Star Gold Coast and will be broadcast virtually, allowing you to attend in the format that suits you best. As it enters the second week, the invasion of Ukraine continues to reveal risks, real and potential, for individuals and organisations the world over. Harvard Business Review discusses possible preventative measures to take in order to be as safe as possible and, what a global cyberwar may look like. New Linux bug gives root on all major distros, exploit released Date: 2022-03-07 Author: Bleeping Computer [Refer AUSCERT Security Bulletin: ASB-2022.0061] A new Linux vulnerability known as ‘Dirty Pipe’ allows local users to gain root privileges through publicly available exploits. Today, security researcher Max Kellermann responsibly disclosed the ‘Dirty Pipe’ vulnerability and stated that it affects Linux Kernel 5.8 and later versions, even on Android devices. The vulnerability is tracked as CVE-2022-0847 and allows a non-privileged user to inject and overwrite data in read-only files, including SUID processes that run as root. Malware now using NVIDIA’s stolen code signing certificates Date: 2022-03-05 Author: Bleeping Computer Threat actors are using stolen NVIDIA code signing certificates to sign malware to appear trustworthy and allow malicious drivers to be loaded in Windows. This week, NVIDIA confirmed that they suffered a cyberattack that allowed threat actors to steal employee credentials and proprietary data. The extortion group, known as Lapsus$, states that they stole 1TB of data during the attack and began leaking the data online after NVIDIA refused to negotiate with them. Big tech decries Australia’s anti-trolling Bill for not allowing innocent dissemination defence Date: 2022-03-07 Author: ZDNet Meta, Twitter, and YouTube have all echoed the same concerns about Australia’s proposed anti-trolling laws, saying it would place an “unprecedented level” of defamation risk on social media platforms as it seeks to remove the defence of innocent dissemination. The innocent dissemination defence allows entities, such as social media platforms, to not be liable for defamation if they had no knowledge of the defamatory material, and their failure to detect the material was not due to negligence. Russia-Ukraine war: NYC on ‘ultra-high alert’ amid increased risk of Russian retaliatory cyberattack Date: 2022-03-07 Author: Fox News New York state is facing “increased risk” of cyberattack from Russian retaliators, while city agents have seen more breach attempts amid heightened tensions that have arisen from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, officials said Monday. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat, met with New York City and police department officials on Monday morning. The New York Police Department (NYPD) has found no specific credible cybersecurity threats to the city so far, but not for a lack of effort, officials have said. Samsung confirms hackers stole Galaxy devices source code Date: 2022-03-07 Author: Bleeping Computer Samsung Electronics confirmed on Monday that its network was breached and the hackers stole confidential information, including source code present in Galaxy smartphones. As first reported by BleepingComputer, the data extortion group Lapsus$ leaked at the end of last week close to 190GB of archives claiming to have been stolen from Samsung Electronics. Smartphone malware is on the rise, here’s what to watch out for Date: 2022-03-10 Author: ZDNet There’s been a surge in mobile malware attacks as cyber criminals ramp up their attempts to deliver malicious text messages and applications to users in order to steal sensitive information including passwords and bank details. Cybersecurity researchers at Proofpoint say they detected a 500% jump in attempted mobile malware attacks during the first few months of 2022, with significant peaks at the beginning and end of February. Internet Backbone Giant Lumen Shuns .RU Date: 2022-03-08 Author: Krebs on Security Lumen Technologies, an American company that operates one of the largest Internet backbones and carries a significant percentage of the world’s Internet traffic, said today it will stop routing traffic for organizations based in Russia. Lumen’s decision comes just days after a similar exit by backbone provider Cogent, and amid a news media crackdown in Russia that has already left millions of Russians in the dark about what is really going on with their president’s war in Ukraine. ASB-2022.0062 – ALERT Microsoft Windows, Windows Server, Remote Desktop Client and Image/Video Extensions: CVSS (Max): 8.8 Microsoft has released its monthly security patch update for the month of March 2022 and also noted that exploitation of CVE-2022-24508 is more likely to be targeted by threat actors ESB-2022.0967 – Adobe After Effects: CVSS (Max): 7.8 Adobe has released an update for Adobe After Effects for Windows and macOS. Successful exploitation could lead to arbitrary code execution in the context of the current user ASB-2022.0065 – ALERT Microsoft Exchange Server: CVSS (Max): 8.8 Microsoft recommends updating the software with the version made available on the Microsoft Update Catalogue in its monthly security patch update ESB-2022.0991 – MozillaFirefox: CVSS (Max): 8.8 Mozilla released a security update for two new vulnerabilities in Mozilla Firefox Stay safe, stay patched and have a good weekend! The AUSCERT team