TLDR InfoSec

TLDR INFORMATION SECURITY 2023-09-25

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01GENERAL

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HOW TO MINIMIZE THIRD-PARTY RISK WITH VENDOR MANAGEMENT

Companies are using more external software than ever. Third-party risk is a key concern, and compliance frameworks like SOC 2 and ISO 27001 require a robust vendor management program. At the same time, the proliferation of SaaS and shadow IT

vanta.comSponsor

02ATTACKS & VULNERABILITIES

NEW VULNERABILITY IN GCC STACK SMASHING PROTECTION ON ARM64

A new vulnerability was found in which GCC’s stack smashing protection has no effect on variable length arrays or buffers allocated with alloca(). The vulnerability targeted 64-bit ARM architecture. This article includes details about the vulnerability, a demonstration of the vulnerability, and a discussion of the response. A fix is available on the GCC mailing list.

rtx.meta.security16 min read

SPYWARE CAN INFECT YOUR DEVICES FROM THE ADS YOU SEE ONLINE

Israeli tech firm Insanet has developed spyware capable of being delivered through online ad networks and infecting Windows-based computers and Android phones as well as iPhones. The "Sherlock'' spyware's deployment has raised concerns due to its ability to clandestinely infiltrate devices, monitor activities, and collect sensitive information. The Israeli government has approved its sale, which potentially puts many at risk.

theconversation.com3 min read

EVASIVE GELSEMIUM HACKERS SPOTTED IN ATTACK AGAINST ASIAN GOVT

The Gelsemium cyberespionage group, which has been operational since 2014, has been spotted in attacks targeting a Southeast Asian government. The group is known for its technical capacity and programming knowledge, which has helped them fly under the radar for many years.

bleepingcomputer.com2 min read

03STRATEGIES & TACTICS

Helpdesk operators are prime targets for exploitation. Recent breaches have highlighted the need for better defense against attacks on these targets. This post says helpdesk vulnerabilities are mostly tech and process gaps, not people. It covers attacker tactics and recommends processes and tech fixes to protect against helpdesk attacks.

praetorian.com10 min read

PEELING BACK THE CURTAINS WITH CALL STACKS

This blog post from Elastic Security on leveraging call stacks to reduce false positives, reduce false negatives, and increase visibility. The post begins with an overview of what call stacks are, then discusses how to leverage them for event explainability and walks through examples of other detection use cases.

elastic.co13 min read

BLOCKING VS CODE EMBEDDED REVERSE SHELL BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE

Microsoft added a tunnel feature to VS Code in July 2023 that allows users to share their Visual Studio desktop via the web. This is a prime utility for attackers to establish persistence. This article provides some methods to disable the usage of VS Code tunnel as well as some methods to detect its usage.

ipfyx.fr10 min read

04LAUNCHES & TOOLS

EXTRACTBITLOCKERKEYS

ExtractBitLockerKeys is a Powershell or Python script for system administrators or attackers conducting post-exploitation to extract BitLocker recovery keys from a domain.

github.comGitHub repository

DONUT-DECRYPTOR

donut-decryptor is a Python script that searches files for known indicators of the donut obfuscator’s loader shell code. If found, it will locate, decrypt, and parse the shell code, dumping any configuration data or modules to disk.

github.comGitHub repository

KERNEL-HARDENING-CHECKER

kernel-hardening-checker (formerly kconfig-hardened-check) is a tool for checking the security hardening options of the Linux kernel. It supports checking Kconfig options, sysctl parameters, and boot configs. The repository also contains a map of kernel configuration options and vulnerability classes.

github.comGitHub repository

05MISCELLANEOUS

THE 2023 IDA PLUGINS CONTEST

Hex-Rays runs a contest every year to develop novel and interesting plug-ins for IDA. This year, 9 plug-ins were selected from the submissions, including tools to query ChatGPT, analyze functions, and generate unique URIs from disassembled code.

hex-rays.com5 min read

SOURCE PROJECTS

The GitHub Security Lab has reached the milestone of disclosing over 500 CVEs (records of security vulnerabilities) in open source projects. The Security Lab is a team of security experts who audit open source projects and help their maintainers fix vulnerabilities for free. They have reported and helped fix over 1,000 vulnerabilities with a fix rate of 96%.

github.blog7 min read

COMBINED

The FBI claims that Beijing has a cyber espionage program that is larger than all of its major competitors combined. Even if every FBI cyber agent and intelligence analyst focused on China exclusively, Chinese hackers would still outnumber them by at least 50 to 1.

reuters.com1 min read