Security Newsletter

Issue #193 · 14 April 2023

Breaches, patches, and hacking cars through their headlights.

Supported by 1Password and SecAlerts.

News

Hi friends!

Last week felt somewhat calm on the infosec front, apart from the usual range of massive breaches and chaos of course. It's all relative.

One exciting thing I wanted to share: I'm moving away from full-time employment to taking my first steps into "being my own boss". I'm going to focus on helping multiple clients with their security, both on an advisory level (think vCISO) and from a security engineering perspective. If you have any advice for me going on this path, like good or bad experiences you previously had as a customer or service provider, I'd appreciate a ping. And if you want to work with me, make it a shout :-)

Cheers!

Dieter Van der Stock

Breaches and leaks

  • Computing giant MSI was breached and infected with ransomware: link.
  • SD Worx, an HR and payroll giant, had to shut down all IT systems for its UK and Ireland services because of an attack: link.
  • The owner of KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell disclosed a ransomware attack that happened in January: link.
  • Kodi had its forums breached with user data and private messages stolen and offered for sale: link.
  • Huyndai had a data breach impacting Italian and French customers and potential customers who took a test drive: link.
  • German shipbuilder Lürssen suffered a ransomware attack: link.

Dieter Van der Stock

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Ambitious project by Microsoft and Fortra to stop Cobalt Strike abusemicrosoft.com

Cobalt Strike is a post-exploitation tool which helps with command and control, lateral movement, and a whole range of other things. In theory it is a legitimate, white-hat piece of software used by red teams, but cracked versions are often used by attackers. Microsoft is teaming up with Fortra, the owners of Cobalt Strike, to take down as many cracked copies as they can.

FBI and FCC warn against using public chargersdarkreading.com

Maybe not new to most of you, but if you can avoid it then don't use public charging hubs. Once you plug in your USB cable it could be used to install malware on your phone. What was new to me was that this has a name, called "Juice Jacking". And that if you have to use the outlet you can block data transfer by using so called "data condoms". Ow my.

Hijacking cars through the headlightsdarkreading.com

Interesting read on the hijacking of some cars by breaking into the electronic control unit (ECU) of one of the headlights, of all places, and using it to move further onto the CAN bus.

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