Struts bugs , Umbrella misconfig and router Guest accounts fixed Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability . Cisco has issued security alerts Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability for 30 vulnerabilities across a range of its products and services , with three being ranked Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability as critical and remotely exploitable . Some 20 different Cisco products contain Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability a vulnerable version of the Apache Struts 2 framework that is currently under active exploitation by miscreants dropping cryptocurrency miner malware on exposed systems . Of these , 18 are not vulnerable Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability to any exploitation vectors for the Struts flaw , Cisco said Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability . Five Cisco products , SocialMiner , Identity Services Engine , Finesse , Unified Contact Centre Enterprise and the Video Distribution Suite for Internet Streaming have received Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability patches for the Struts vulnerability . Cisco 's cloud-hosted Network Performance Analysis service is yet to get Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability a Struts update though . A critical flaw in the application programming interface ( API ) for Cisco 's cloud-based Umbrella allowed attackers to view and potentially modify data across multiple organisations using the secure internet gateway service . The vulnerability stems from insufficient authentication configurations for the Umbrella API , and has been patched Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability by Cisco with no user action required . Two high-impact vulnerabilities in the Umbrella Enterprise Roaming Client and Enterprise Roaming Module that could be exploited Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability by attackers to elevate user privileges to Administrator level have also been patched Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability by Cisco . A third critical vulnerability can be exploited Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability to run code remotely on the Cisco RV110W VPN firewall and RV130W and RV215W wireless VPN routers , or freeze the devices in denial of service attacks . Patches for the vulnerability address Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability an improper boundary restriction on input via the Guest user account in the devices ' web-based remote management interface , Cisco said . Cisco also patched Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability three high impact vulnerabilities in the above network devices , which could be exploited Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability to remotely execute arbitrary commands and read sensitive information on them . Of the thirty vulnerabilities disclosed Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability , 13 are ranked Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability as high impact .

Intel just announced their new Sunny Cove Architecture that comes with a lot of new bells and whistles . The Intel processor line-up has been based off the Skylake architecture since 2015 , so the new architecture is a fresh breath for the world ’ s largest chip maker . They ’ ve been in the limelight this year with hardware vulnerabilities exposed Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability , known as Spectre and Meltdown . The new designs have of course been patched Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability against those weaknesses . The new architecture ( said to be part of the Ice Lake-U CPU ) comes with a lot of new promises such as faster core , 5 allocation units and upgrades to the L1 and L2 caches . There is also support for the AVX-512 or Advanced Vector Extensions instructions set which will improve performance for neural networks and other vector arithmetic . Another significant change is the support for 52-bits of physical space and 57 bits of linear address support . Today ’ s x64 CPUs can only use bit 0 to bit 47 for an address space spanning 256TB . The additional bits mean a bump to a whooping 4 PB of physical memory and 128 PB of virtual address space . The new offering was demoed under the company ’ s 10nm process which incidentally is the same as the previously launched Cannon Lake . The new processors are due in the second half of 2019 and are being heavily marketed as a boon for the Cryptography and Artificial Intelligence Industries . The claim is that for AI , memory to CPU distance has been reduced for faster access , and that special cryptography-specific instructions have been added .

Cisco Systems yesterday issued 17 security advisories , disclosing Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability vulnerabilities in multiple products , including at least three critical flaws . One of them , a privileged access bug found in Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability seven models of its Small Business Switches , has not yet been patched Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability , but the company has recommended a workaround to limit its potential for damage . Designated CVE-2018-15439 with a CVSS score of 9.8 , the unsolved privileged access vulnerability could allow a remote attacker to bypass an affected device ’ s user authentication mechanism and obtain full admin rights without the proper administrators being notified . Although there is currently no software fix , a Cisco advisory says users can implement a workaround by “ adding at least one user account with access privilege set to level 15 in the device configuration. ” Affected device models are the Cisco Small Business 200 Series Smart Switches , Small Business 300 Series Managed Switches , Small Business 500 Series Stackable Managed Switches , 250 Series Smart Switches , 350 Series Managed Switches , 350X Series Stackable Managed Switches and 550X Series Stackable Managed Switches . The other critical flaws confirmed Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability in Cisco products were an authentication bypass vulnerability in the Stealthwatch Management Console of Cisco Stealthwatch Enterprise and a remote shell command execution bug in Unity Express . These also carry CVSS scores of 9.8 . Cisco published a fourth critical advisory warning Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability of a remote code execution bug in the Apache Struts Commons FileUpload Library ; however , it is unknown at this time if any Cisco products and services are affected . Additional vulnerabilities were found Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability in the Cisco ’ s Meraki networking devices , Video Surveillance Media Server , Content Security Management Appliance , Registered Envelope Service , Price Service Catalog , Prime Collaboration Assurance , Meeting Server , Immunet and AMP for Endpoints , Firepower System Software , Energy Management Suite and Integrated Management Controller Supervisor . And in one final , odd advisory , Cisco acknowledged that a flub in its QA practices allowed dormant exploit code for the Dirty Cow vulnerability to be included in shipping software images for its Expressway Series and Cisco TelePresence Video Communication Server ( VCS ) software . “ The presence of the sample , dormant exploit code does not represent nor allow an exploitable vulnerability on the product , nor does it present a risk to the product itself as all of the required patches for this vulnerability have been integrated Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability into all shipping software images , ” said the advisory . “ The affected software images have proactively been removed from the Cisco Software Center and will soon be replaced Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability with fixed software images . ”

There ’ s no question that Friday ’ s WannaCry ransomware attack Attack.Ransom , which spread like wildfire , was bad . Its ability to spread like a worm by exploiting a Microsoft vulnerability was certainly new ground for a ransomware campaign . But along the way , there ’ s been a lot of fear and hype . Perspective is in order . Here ’ s a look at the latest in Sophos ’ investigation , including a recap of how it is protecting customers . From there , we look at how this fits into overall attack trends and how , in the grand scheme of things , this doesn ’ t represent a falling sky . With the code behind Friday ’ s attack in the wild , we should expect copycats to cook up their own campaigns in the coming days to capitalize on the money-making opportunity in front of them . Over the weekend , accounts set up to collect ransom payments Attack.Ransom had received smaller amounts than expected for an attack of this size . But by Monday morning , the balances were on the rise , suggesting that more people were responding to the ransom message Monday . On Saturday , three ransomware-associated wallets had received 92 bitcoin payments Attack.Ransom totaling $ 26,407.85 USD . By Sunday , the number between the three wallets was up to $ 30,706.61 USD . By Monday morning , 181 payments Attack.Ransom had been made totaling 29.46564365 BTC ( $ 50,504.23 USD ) . Analysis seems to confirm that Friday ’ s attack was launched using suspected NSA code leaked by a group of hackers known as the Shadow Brokers . It used a variant of the Shadow Brokers ’ APT EternalBlue Exploit ( CC-1353 ) , and used strong encryption on files such as documents , images , and videos . A perfect attack would self-propagate but would do so slowly , randomly and unpredictably . This one was full throttle , but hardly to its detriment . Here we had something that spread like wildfire , but the machines that were impacted Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability were probably still susceptible to secondary attacks because the underlying vulnerability probably hasn ’ t been patched Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability . The problem is that exploit and payload are separate . The payload went fast and got stopped , but that ’ s just one of an infinite number of possibilities that can spread through the unsolved exploit . Companies still using Windows XP are particularly susceptible to this sort of attack . First launched in 2001 , the operating system is now 16 years old and has been superseded by Windows Vista and Windows 7 , 8 and 10 upgrades . It remains to be seen who was behind this attack . Sophos is cooperating with law enforcement to provide any intelligence it can gather about the origins and attack vectors . The company believes initial infections may have arrived via an email with a malicious payload that a user was tricked Attack.Phishing into opening . Sophos continues to update protections against the threat . Sophos Customers using Intercept X and Sophos EXP products will also see this ransomware blocked by CryptoGuard . Please note that while Intercept X and EXP will block the underlying behavior and restore deleted or encrypted files in all cases we have seen , the offending ransomware splash screen and note may still appear . For updates on the specific strains being blocked , Sophos is continually updating a Knowledge-Base Article on the subject . Meanwhile , everyone is urged to update their Windows environments as described in Microsoft Security Bulletin MS17-010 – Critical . For those using older versions of Windows , Microsoft has provided Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability Customer Guidance for WannaCrypt attacks Attack.Ransom and has made the decision to make the Security Update for platforms in custom support only – Windows XP , Windows 8 , and Windows Server 2003 – broadly available for download Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability . As severe as this attack was , it ’ s important to note that we ’ re not looking at a shift in the overall attack trend . This attack represents a merging of old behaviors into a perfect storm . SophosLabs VP Simon Reed said : This attack demonstrates the opportunistic nature of commercial malware authors to re-use the most powerful of exploit techniques to further their aims , which is ultimately to make money . In the final analysis , the same advice as always applies for those who want to avoid such attacks . To guard against malware exploiting Microsoft vulnerabilities : To guard against ransomware in general : Finally , there ’ s the question of whether victims should pay the ransom Attack.Ransom or stand their ground . Sophos has mostly taken a neutral stance on the issue . In the case of this attack , paying the ransom Attack.Ransom doesn ’ t seem to be helping the victims so far . Therefore , Levy believes paying the WannaCry ransom Attack.Ransom is ill-advised : In general , paying Attack.Ransom is a bad idea unless the organization is truly desperate to get irreplaceable data back and when it is known that the ransom payment Attack.Ransom works . In this attack , it doesn ’ t appear to work . It ’ s been referred to as a ‘ kill switch ’ – that all the malware author had to do to throw the breaks on for some reason was to register some obscure domains . In the event a security researcher found the domains and registered them . He speculates that its not actually a kill switch but may be a form of sandbox detection ( malware wants to run in the real world and hide when it ’ s in a researcher ’ s sandbox . ) The thinking goes that in the kind of sandbox environment used by security researchers the domains might appear to be registered when in fact they are not . If the malware can get a response from the unregistered domains it thinks it ’ s in a sandbox and shuts down . If you blocklist the domains in your network then you ’ re turning off the “ kill switch ” . If you allowlist the domains you ’ re allowing access to the kill switch .

A security flaw affecting Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability LibreOffice and Apache OpenOffice has been fixed Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability in one of the two open-source office suites . The other still appears to be vulnerable Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability . Before attempting to guess which app has yet to be patched Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability , consider that Apache OpenOffice for years has struggled attract more contributors . And though the number of people adding code to the project has grown since last we checked , the project missed its recent January report to the Apache Foundation . The upshot is : security holes are n't being patched Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability , it seems . The issue , identified Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability by security researcher Alex Inführ , is that there 's a way to achieve remote code execution by triggering an event embedded in an ODT ( OpenDocument Text ) file . In a blog post on Friday , Inführ explains Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability how he found Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability a way to abuse the OpenDocument scripting framework by adding an onmouseover event to a link in an ODT file . The event , which fires when a user 's mouse pointer moves over the link , can traverse local directories and execute a local Python script . After trying various approaches to exploit the vulnerability , Inführ found Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability that he could rig the event to call a specific function within a Python file included with the Python interpreter that ships with LibreOffice . `` For the solution I looked into the Python parsing code a little more in depth and discovered that it is not only possible to specify the function you want to call inside a python script , but it is possible to pass parameters as well , '' he said . The exploit was tested on Windows , and should work on Linux , too . Inführ says Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability he reported Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability the bug on October 18 and it was fixed Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability in LibreOffice by the end of the month . RedHat assigned Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability it CVE-2018-16858 in mid-November and gave Inführ a disclosure Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability date of January 31 , 2019 . When he published Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability on February 1 , in conjunction with the LibreOffice fix notification , OpenOffice still had not been patched Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability . Inführ says Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability he reconfirmed Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability that he could go ahead with disclosure Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability even though OpenOffice 4.16 has yet to be fixed Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability . His proof-of-concept exploit does n't work with OpenOffice out-of-the-box because the software does n't allow parameters to be passed in the same way as the unpatched version of LibreOffice did . However , he says Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability that the path traversal issue can still be abused to execute a local Python file and cause further mischief and damage . We 're imagining specifically targeted netizens being tricked Attack.Phishing into opening a ZIP file , unpacking an ODT and Python script , and then the ODT document attempting to execute the Python script when the victim rolls their mouse over a link , for instance . The Register tried to reach two OpenOffice contributors to find out what 's going on . We 've not heard back . According to Inführ , OpenOffice users can mitigate the risk by removing or renaming the pythonscript.py file in the installation folder .