Oracle is advising customers to update Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability their database software following the discovery Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability and disclosure Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability of a critical remote code execution vulnerability . The flaw , dubbed CVE-2018-3110 was given a CVSS base score of 9.9 ( out of 10 ) and Oracle warns Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability that successful exploit of the bug `` can result in complete compromise of the Oracle Database and shell access to the underlying server . '' `` Due to the nature of this vulnerability , Oracle strongly recommends that customers take action without delay , '' Oracle says . Vulnerable versions of Database Server include 11.2.0.4 , 12.1.0.2 , 12.2.0.1 , and 18 . Admins are advised to install Oracle 's update as soon as possible . No credit was given for discovery or reporting . The flaw itself is found Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability in the JavaVM component of Oracle Database Server and is not considered a remote code exploit flaw , as it requires the attacker have a connection to the server via Oracle Net , the protocol Oracle servers use to connect with client applications . Other than that , however , there is little else required for a successful attack that gives complete control over the host server . The Oracle patch will only pile on to what is going to be a busy week for IT departments and administrators . In addition to this fix Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability , Microsoft is releasing Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability its monthly Patch Tuesday security update for Windows , Office , and Internet Explorer/Edge today , and Adobe has posted Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability fixes for security holes in Flash Player , Acrobat/Reader , Creative Cloud , and Experience manager . Our advice is to keep a pot of coffee handy and reserve a table at the pub for when this is all over with .

A flaw in certificate pinning exposed customers of a number of high-profile banks to man-in-the-middle attacks on both iOS and Android devices . A vulnerability in the mobile apps of major banks could have allowed attackers to steal Attack.Databreach customers ' credentials including usernames , passwords , and pin codes , according to researchers . The flaw was found Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability in apps by HSBC , NatWest , Co-op , Santander , and Allied Irish bank . The banks in question have now all updated Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability their apps to protect against the flaw . Uncovered Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability by researchers in the Security and Privacy Group at the University of Birmingham , the vulnerability allows an attacker who is on the same network as the victim to perform a man-in-the-middle attack and steal information . The vulnerability lay in Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability the certificate pinning technology , a security mechanism used to prevent impersonation attacks and use of fraudulent certificates by only accepting certificates signed by a single pinned CA root certificate . While certificate pinning usually improves security , a tool developed by the researchers to perform semi-automated security-testing of mobile apps found that a flaw in the technology meant standard tests failed to detect attackers trying to take control of a victim 's online banking . As a result , certificate pinning can hide the lack of proper hostname verification , enabling man-in-the-middle attacks . The findings have been outlined Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability in a research paper and presented Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability at the Annual Computer Security Applications Conference in Orlando , Florida . The tool was run on 400 security critical apps in total , leading to the discovery Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability of the flaw . Tests found Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability apps from some of the largest banks contained the flaw which , if exploited Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability , could have enabled attackers to decrypt , view , and even modify network traffic from users of the app . That could allow them to view information entered and perform any operation that app can usually perform -- such as making payments or transferring of funds . Other attacks allowed hackers to perform in-app phishing attacks Attack.Phishing against Santander and Allied Irish bank users , allowing attackers to take over part of the screen while the app was running and steal Attack.Databreach the entered credentials . The researchers have worked with the National Cyber Security Centre and all the banks involved to fix Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability the vulnerabilities , noting that the current version of all the apps affected Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability by the pinning vulnerability are now secure . A University of Birmingham spokesperson told ZDNet all the banks were highly cooperative : `` once this was flagged to them they did work with the team to amend it swiftly . ''

Researchers from several German universities have checked the PHP codebases of over 64,000 projects on GitHub , and found Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability 117 vulnerabilities that they believe have been introduced through the use of code from popular but insufficiently reviewed tutorials . The researchers identified popular tutorials by inputing search terms such as “ mysql tutorial ” , “ php search form ” , “ javascript echo user input ” , etc . into Google Search . The first five results for each query were then manually reviewed and evaluated for SQLi and XSS vulnerabilities by following OWASP ’ s guidelines ( Reviewing Code for SQL Injection , Cross Site Scripting Prevention Cheat Sheat ) . This resulted in the discovery Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability of 9 tutorials containing vulnerable code ( 6 with SQLi , 3 with XSS ) . Based on these , they created two types of queries that they used against the aforementioned data set obtained from GitHub . “ We use strict queries to identify known vulnerable patterns in web applications , and normal queries to identify code analogues of tutorial code , ” they explained . The results were , finally , manually reviewed by the researchers . “ Thanks to our framework , we have uncovered Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability over 100 vulnerabilities in web application code that bear a strong resemblance to vulnerable code patterns found Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability in popular tutorials . More alarmingly , we have confirmed Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability that 8 instances of a SQLi vulnerability present in Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability different web applications are an outcome of code copied from a single vulnerable tutorial , ” they noted . “ Our results indicate Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability that there is a substantial , if not causal , link between insecure tutorials and web application vulnerabilities. ” “ [ Our findings ] suggest that there is a pressing need for code audit of widely consumed tutorials , perhaps with as much rigor as for production code , ” they pointed out . In their research , they evaluated only PHP application code , but their approach can be easily used to evaluate codebases in other programming languages , especially because they have made available their crawler ( GithubSpider ) and code analogue detector ( CADetector ) tools . Unfortunately , such a search can be easily replicated – “ even with limited resources such as a standard PC and a broadband DSL connection ” – by individuals or groups intent of discovering Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability vulnerabilities in software for future exploitation .

Hundreds of thousands of internet gateway devices around the world , primarily residential cable modems , are vulnerable Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability to hacking because of a serious weakness in their Simple Network Management Protocol implementation . SNMP is used for automated network device identification , monitoring and remote configuration . It is supported and enabled by default in many devices , including servers , printers , networking hubs , switches and routers . Independent researchers Ezequiel Fernandez and Bertin Bervis recently found Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability a way to bypass SNMP authentication on 78 models of cable modems that ISPs from around the world have provided to their customers . Their internet scans revealed Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability hundreds of thousands of devices whose configurations could be changed remotely through the SNMP weakness that they found Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability and dubbed StringBleed . The leaking Attack.Databreach of sensitive configuration data through the default `` public '' SNMP community string is a known problem that has affected Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability many devices over the years . The two researchers first located Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability a small number of vulnerable devices , including the Cisco DPC3928SL cable modem that 's now part of Technicolor 's product portfolio following the company 's acquisition of Cisco 's Connected Devices division in 2015 . The researchers claim Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability that when they reported Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability the issue to Technicolor , the company told them that it was the result of an access misconfiguration by a single ISP in Mexico rather than a problem with the device itself . This prompted the researchers to perform a wider internet scan that resulted in the discovery Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability of 78 vulnerable cable modem models from 19 manufacturers , including Cisco , Technicolor , Motorola , D-Link and Thomson . Regardless of the cause , the problem is serious , as attackers could exploit this flaw to extract administrative and Wi-Fi passwords or to hijack devices by modifying their configurations . There 's not much that users can do if their ISP supplied them with a vulnerable device , other than ask for a different model or install their own modem . Unfortunately , not many ISPs allow their residential customers to use their own gateway devices , because they want uniformity and remote management capabilities on their networks . Determining if a particular device is vulnerable Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability to this issue is possible , but requires a bit of work . An online port scanner like ShieldsUp can be used to determine if the device responds to SNMP requests over its public IP address . If SNMP is open , a different online tool can be used to check if the device 's SNMP server returns valid responses when the `` public '' or random community strings are used . At the very least this would indicate an information leak problem .

Independent security researcher Dawid Golunski has released Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability a proof-of-concept exploit code for an unauthenticated remote code execution vulnerability in WordPress 4.6 ( CVE-2016-10033 ) , and information about an unauthorized password reset zero-day vulnerability ( CVE-2017-8295 ) in the latest version of the popular CMS . The vulnerability exists in Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability the PHPMailer library , and can be exploited Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability by unauthenticated remote attackers to gain access to and compromise an target application server on which a vulnerable WordPress Core version is installed ( in its default configuration ) . “ No plugins or non-standard settings are required to exploit the vulnerability , ” Golunski noted . The hole has been responsibly disclosed Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability to the WordPress Foundation , and has been plugged Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability in January , with the release of WordPress 4.7.1 . Still , according to the Foundation ’ s own numbers , nearly 11 percent of all WordPress installation out there are still stuck on the vulnerable version 4.6 . And , as Golunski noted Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability , it ’ s possible that older WordPress versions are also affected Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability by the same flaw , so the percentage of vulnerable installations could be considerably higher : Admins who still run these older versions of the popular CMS should upgrade Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability to newer versions , ideally to the latest one ( v4.7.4 ) . Still , even that might not be a guarantee against compromise , as Golunski has also publicly released Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability information and POC code for an unauthorized password reset vulnerability ( CVE-2017-8295 ) that the WordPress Foundation is yet to patch Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability . According to him and BeyondSecurity , whose SecuriTeam coordinated the disclosure Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability of the flaw to the WordPress developers , the discovery Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability of the vulnerability dates back to mid-2016 . Golunski found Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability it in version 4.3.1 of the CMS . “ WordPress has a password reset feature that contains Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability a vulnerability which might in some cases allow attackers to get hold of the password reset link without previous authentication . Such attack could lead to an attacker gaining unauthorized access to a victim ’ s WordPress account , ” BeyondSecurity explained . “ The vulnerability stems from WordPress using untrusted data by default when creating a password reset e-mail that is supposed to be delivered only to the e-mail associated with the owner ’ s account. ” Golunski says Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability that the issue was reported Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability to the WordPress security team multiple times , but they did not confirm whether it has been patched Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability . He ultimately decided to publish Vulnerability-related.DiscoverVulnerability his findings , and offer Vulnerability-related.PatchVulnerability a temporary solution ( “ users can enable UseCanonicalName to enforce static SERVER_NAME value ” ) .