Pwc Weekly Security Report
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Threats and Backdoor Malware Top stories vulnerabilities PwC Weekly Security Report This is a weekly digest of security news and events from around the world. Excerpts from news items are presented and web links are provided for further information. Threats and vulnerabilities Beware! You can get hacked just by opening a ‘JPEG 2000’ image Backdoor Throw your backdoored D-Link router in the bin, urges security researcher Malware Brad Pitt death hoax story on Facebook is a malware masquerading as Fox news report Top stories NGT website hacked as ‘revenge’ against surgical strike Music, latest weapon in Pak arsenal J&J warns diabetic patients: Insulin pump vulnerable to hacking World’s largest 1 Tbps DDoS attack launched from 152,000 hacked smart devices Threats and Backdoor Malware Top stories vulnerabilities Beware! You can get hacked just by opening a ‘JPEG 2000’ image Researchers have disclosed a critical zero-day The team reported the zero-day flaw to OpenJPEG vulnerability in the JPEG 2000 image file format developers in late July, and the company patched parser implemented in OpenJPEG library, which the flaw last week with the release of version 2.1.2. could allow an attacker to remotely execute arbitrary code on the affected systems. The vulnerability has been assigned a CVSS score of 7.5, categorizing it as a high-severity bug. Discovered by security researchers at Cisco Talos group, the zero-day flaw, assigned as TALOS-2016- Source: 0193/CVE-2016-8332, could allow an out-of-bound http://thehackernews.com/2016/10/openjp heap write to occur that triggers the heap eg-exploit-hack.html corruption and leads to arbitrary code execution. OpenJPEG is an open-source JPEG 2000 codec. Written in C language, the software was developed for coding and encoding JPEG2000 images, a format that is often used for tasks like embedding Our perspective image files within PDF documents through popular We urge all readers to keep in mind basic software including PdFium, Poppler, and MuPDF. information security principles and avoid opening any links or attachments originating Hackers can exploit the security vulnerability by from unknown sources. This includes emails tricking the victim into opening a specially crafted, and websites which are not known/recognised, malicious JPEG2000 image or a PDF document as they could be a trap and once clicked containing that malicious file in an email. on/opened, they could allow hackers to remotely execute malicious code on the affected The hacker could even upload the malicious system. In addition, please JPEG2000 image file to a file hosting service, like inform/educate/train employees regarding Dropbox or Google Drive, and then send that link to these basic principles of information security. the victim. For a broader security perspective, please update your network and infrastructure after Once downloaded to the system, it would create a evaluating the effect of this (and other) way for hackers to remotely execute malicious code vulnerabilities. on the affected system. The flaw was caused "due to an error while parsing mcc records in the jpeg2000 file,...resulting in an erroneous read and write of adjacent heap area memory," Cisco explained in its advisory. "Careful manipulation of heap layout and can lead to further heap metadata process memory corruption ultimately leading to code execution under attacker control.“ The researchers successfully tested the JPEG 2000 image exploit on the OpenJPEG openjp2 version 2.1.1. The flaw was discovered by Aleksandar Nikolic from the Cisco Talos Security team. Threats and Malware Top stories vulnerabilities Backdoor Throw your backdoored D-Link router in the bin, urges security researcher A router made by D-Link is so full of bugs and The router itself is based on Quanta LTE routers, backdoors, owners should throw them away rather which is a number of vulnerabilities itself. So it is no than keep using them, claimed a security surprise that the router has inherited a number of researcher. problems itself. Pierre Kim claimed that as it is so easy to hack the Kim said he had contacted D-Link over the issues in D-Link DWR-932B router that users should bin June, but he added at the present time, no update them as soon as possible. has been forthcoming. He also got in contact with CERT and it advised him to publish an advisory if “As the router has a sizable memory (168 MB), a D-Link failed to contact him with security updates. decent CPU and good free space (235 MB) with Mark James, security specialist at ESET, told us that complete toolkits installed by default (sshd, proxy replacing outdated hardware may be the only (/bin/tinyproxy -c /var/tproxy.conf), tcpdump ...), I solution if updates are slow in coming, “the costs of advise users to trash their routers because it's trivial replacing hardware are extremely insignificant for an attacker to use this router as an attack vector when it comes to dealing with malware infections or (ie: hosting a sniffing tool, LAN hacking, active data breaches.” MiTM tool, spamming zombie),” he said in a posting on Seclists. He added that making sure updates and firmware fixes are released in a timely manner is of utmost The router has 20 vulnerabilities, according to Kim. importance. These also include backdoors, backdoor accounts with easy-to-guess passwords, a default Wi-Fi “Hardware security is just as important as software Protected Setup PIN, and a weak WPD PIN security but harder to accomplish. Not only is it generation algorithm. hard for manufacturers to make the updates available, but even harder still in letting all affected He warned that as there was a lack of response from users know about the updates and how to install the vendor about the vulnerabilities, he wasn't them. It also needs to be fairly effortless for the end expecting any security fixes to the router. He also user to apply those updates, over-the-air (OTA) said that users should stop using the device until updates come with their own security issues but fixes are in place. make it easier for the end user to apply. Whichever process they choose to use will have its challenges but sadly that's the nature of security, all too often we choose simplicity over security.” Threats and Malware Top stories vulnerabilities Backdoor Throw your backdoored D-Link router in the bin, urges security researcher A D-Link spokesperson responded: “Security is of the utmost importance to D-Link across all product lines. This is not just through the development process but also through regular firmware updates to comply with the current safety and quality standards. It has recently been reported that multiple vulnerabilities are found on hardware version B1 of the D-Link DWR-932 4G LTE Mobile Router. Only this end-of-life hardware version B1 is potentially affected by the reported vulnerabilities. The current shipping hardware version D1 or any other hardware versions are not affected. We are currently working vigorously to investigate and verify all the reported vulnerabilities, and will subsequently provide a corrective course of action within the coming days.” Source: http://www.pcauthority.com.au/News/438 744,throw-your-backdoored-d-link-router- in-the-bin-urges-security-researcher.aspx Our perspective While the current vulnerability affects older/end- of-life versions of D-Link routers, the risk may be minimal. However, it is recommended to upgrade your D-Link routers to the latest firmware. Organisations are also advised to keep a check on and apply all the latest updates and firmware fixes which are released in a timely manner. If, for some reason, your devices are not supported, or the above fixes/solutions are not available or not possible, we strongly advise users to stop using the device until fixes are in place. Threats and Backdoor Top stories vulnerabilities Malware Brad Pitt death hoax story on Facebook is a malware masquerading as Fox news report Amid the Bragelina drama, hackers have gone ahead The data breach reports come just as the company is and declared Brad Pitt dead in a false story that is trying to negotiate a deal to sell itself to Verizon for masquerading as a Fox news report on Facebook. $4.8 Billion. So, if the breach reports negatively The story is a typical malware run by hackers to gain impact its share price, even for the time being, it access to personal information. could cost the company and its shareholders a slice of its buyout value. The article - FOX BREAKING NEWS: BRAD PITT found dead (SUICIDE) - has been doing the rounds Over past few months, a large number of data on Facebook since Pitt and his estranged wife breaches have been reported to plague companies Angelina Jolie announced their divorce plans. The like LinkedIn, MySpace, Tumblr, and VK.com as link preview on Facebook shows Brad Pitt's black hackers put up for sale massive data dumps of user and white picture with RIP on it. credentials stolen earlier in the decade. Source: A click on the story directs the users to a permissions page and asks for their user id and http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/brad-pitt-death- password. With this phishing attempt the hacker hoax-story-facebook-malware- aims to access the user's account. masquerading-fox-news-report-1583727 Those who managed to bypass the redirected page were able to see a few lines of the hoax story that reads," Brad Pitt, 52, a multi-awarded American actor and husband of Angelina Jolie, 41, shot himself in the head at a shooting range on Sunday. Our perspective He was under significant stress because the couple were going through a divorce and he had a history of We advise you to change the password of depression." your account if you happened to click on the above-mentioned link.