remote code execution | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

A critical security flaw has been disclosed in the Apache Avro Java Software Development Kit (SDK) that, if successfully exploited, could allow the execution of arbitrary code on susceptible instances. The flaw, tracked as CVE-2024-47561 , impacts all versions of the software prior to 1.11.4. "Schema parsing in the Java SDK of Apache Avro 1.11.3 and previous versions allows bad actors to execute arbitrary code," the project maintainers said in an advisory released last week. "Users are recommended to upgrade to version 1.11.4 or 1.12.0, which fix this issue." Apache Avro, analogous to Google's Protocol Buffers ( protobuf ), is an open-source project that provides a language-neutral data serialization framework for large-scale data processing. The Avro team notes that the vulnerability affects any application if it allows users to provide their own Avro schemas for parsing. Kostya Kortchinsky from the Databricks security team has been credited with discov

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed that 5% of all Adobe Commerce and Magento stores have been hacked by malicious actors by exploiting a security vulnerability dubbed CosmicSting. Tracked as CVE-2024-34102 (CVSS score: 9.8), the critical flaw relates to an improper restriction of XML external entity reference (XXE) vulnerability that could result in remote code execution. The shortcoming, credited to a researcher named " spacewasp ," was patched by Adobe in June 2024. Dutch security firm Sansec, which has described CosmicSting as the "worst bug to hit Magento and Adobe Commerce stores in two years," said the e-commerce sites are being compromised at the rate of three to five per hour. The flaw has since come under widespread exploitation , prompting the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to add it to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog in mid-July 2024. Some of these attacks involve weaponizing the flaw to ste

For years, securing a company's systems was synonymous with securing its "perimeter." There was what was safe "inside" and the unsafe outside world. We built sturdy firewalls and deployed sophisticated detection systems, confident that keeping the barbarians outside the walls kept our data and systems safe. The problem is that we no longer operate within the confines of physical on-prem installations and controlled networks. Data and applications now reside in distributed cloud environments and data centers, accessed by users and devices connecting from anywhere on the planet. The walls have crumbled, and the perimeter has dissolved, opening the door to a new battlefield: identity . Identity is at the center of what the industry has praised as the new gold standard of enterprise security: "zero trust." In this paradigm, explicit trust becomes mandatory for any interactions between systems, and no implicit trust shall subsist. Every access request, regardless of its origin,

A new set of security vulnerabilities has been disclosed in the OpenPrinting Common Unix Printing System ( CUPS ) on Linux systems that could permit remote command execution under certain conditions. "A remote unauthenticated attacker can silently replace existing printers' (or install new ones) IPP urls with a malicious one, resulting in arbitrary command execution (on the computer) when a print job is started (from that computer)," security researcher Simone Margaritelli said . CUPS is a standards-based, open-source printing system for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems, including ArchLinux, Debian, Fedora, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), ChromeOS, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, openSUSE, and SUSE Linux. The list of vulnerabilities is as follows - CVE-2024-47176 - cups-browsed <= 2.0.1 binds on UDP INADDR_ANY:631 trusting any packet from any source to trigger a Get-Printer-Attributes IPP request to an attacker-controlled URL CVE-2024-47076 - libcupsfil

A critical security flaw has been disclosed in the Microchip Advanced Software Framework (ASF) that, if successfully exploited, could lead to remote code execution. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-7490 , carries a CVSS score of 9.5 out of a maximum of 10.0. It has been described as a stack-based overflow vulnerability in ASF's implementation of the tinydhcp server stemming from a lack of adequate input validation. "There exists a vulnerability in all publicly available examples of the ASF codebase that allows for a specially crafted DHCP request to cause a stack-based overflow that could lead to remote code execution," CERT Coordination Center (CERT/CC) said in an advisory. Given that the software is no longer supported and is rooted in IoT-centric code, CERT/CC has warned that the vulnerability is "likely to surface in many places in the wild." The issue impacts ASF 3.52.0.2574 and all prior versions of the software, with the agency also noting th

Ivanti has revealed that a critical security flaw impacting Cloud Service Appliance (CSA) has come under active exploitation in the wild. The new vulnerability, assigned the CVE identifier CVE-2024-8963, carries a CVSS score of 9.4 out of a maximum of 10.0. It was "incidentally addressed" by the company as part of CSA 4.6 Patch 519 and CSA 5.0. "Path Traversal in the Ivanti CSA before 4.6 Patch 519 allows a remote unauthenticated attacker to access restricted functionality," the company said in a Thursday bulletin. It also noted that the flaw could be chained with CVE-2024-8190 (CVSS score: 7.2), permitting an attacker to bypass admin authentication and execute arbitrary commands on the appliance.  Ivanti has further warned that it's "aware of a limited number of customers who have been exploited by this vulnerability," days after it disclosed active exploitation attempts targeting CVE-2024-8190. This indicates that the threat actors behind th

Broadcom on Tuesday released updates to address a critical security flaw impacting VMware vCenter Server that could pave the way for remote code execution. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-38812 (CVSS score: 9.8), has been described as a heap-overflow vulnerability in the DCE/RPC protocol . "A malicious actor with network access to vCenter Server may trigger this vulnerability by sending a specially crafted network packet potentially leading to remote code execution," the virtualization services provider said in a bulletin. The shortcoming is similar to two other remote code execution flaws, CVE-2024-37079 and CVE-2024-37080 (CVSS scores: 9.8), that VMware resolved in vCenter Server in June 2024. Also addressed by VMware is a privilege escalation flaw in the vCenter Server (CVE-2024-38813, CVSS score: 7.5) that could enable a malicious actor with network access to the instance to escalate privileges to root by sending a specially crafted network packet. Securit

SolarWinds has released fixes to address two security flaws in its Access Rights Manager (ARM) software, including a critical vulnerability that could result in remote code execution. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-28991 , is rated 9.0 out of a maximum of 10.0 on the CVSS scoring system. It has been described as an instance of deserialization of untrusted data. "SolarWinds Access Rights Manager (ARM) was found to be susceptible to a remote code execution vulnerability," the company said in an advisory. "If exploited, this vulnerability would allow an authenticated user to abuse the service, resulting in remote code execution." Security researcher Piotr Bazydlo of the Trend Micro Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) has been credited with discovering and reporting the flaw on May 24, 2024. The ZDI, which has assigned the shortcoming a CVSS score of 9.9, said it exists within a class called JsonSerializationBinder and stems from a lack of proper validation of user

A now-patched critical security flaw impacting Google Cloud Platform (GCP) Composer could have been exploited to achieve remote code execution on cloud servers by means of a supply chain attack technique called dependency confusion. The vulnerability has been codenamed CloudImposer by Tenable Research. "The vulnerability could have allowed an attacker to hijack an internal software dependency that Google pre-installs on each Google Cloud Composer pipeline-orchestration tool," security researcher Liv Matan said in a report shared with The Hacker News. Dependency confusion (aka substitution attack), which was first documented by security researcher Alex Birsan in February 2021, refers to a type of software supply chain compromise in which a package manager is tricked into pulling a malicious package from a public repository instead of the intended file of the same name from an internal repository. So, a threat actor could stage a large-scale supply chain attack by publ

Ivanti has revealed that a newly patched security flaw in its Cloud Service Appliance (CSA) has come under active exploitation in the wild. The high-severity vulnerability in question is CVE-2024-8190 (CVSS score: 7.2), which allows remote code execution under certain circumstances. "An OS command injection vulnerability in Ivanti Cloud Services Appliance versions 4.6 Patch 518 and before allows a remote authenticated attacker to obtain remote code execution," Ivanti noted in an advisory released earlier this week. "The attacker must have admin level privileges to exploit this vulnerability." The flaw impacts Ivanti CSA 4.6, which has currently reached end-of-life status, requiring that customers upgrade to a supported version going forward. That said, it has been addressed in CSA 4.6 Patch 519. "With the end-of-life status this is the last fix that Ivanti will backport for this version," the Utah-based IT software company added. "Customers mus

Ivanti has released software updates to address multiple security flaws impacting Endpoint Manager (EPM), including 10 critical vulnerabilities that could result in remote code execution. A brief description of the issues is as follows - CVE-2024-29847 (CVSS score: 10.0) - A deserialization of untrusted data vulnerability that allows a remote unauthenticated attacker to achieve code execution. CVE-2024-32840, CVE-2024-32842, CVE-2024-32843, CVE-2024-32845, CVE-2024-32846, CVE-2024-32848, CVE-2024-34779, CVE-2024-34783, and CVE-2024-34785 (CVSS scores: 9.1) - Multiple unspecified SQL injection vulnerabilities that allow a remote authenticated attacker with admin privileges to achieve code execution The flaws impact EPM versions 2024 and 2022 SU5 and earlier, with fixes made available in versions 2024 SU1 and 2022 SU6, respectively. Ivanti said it has found no evidence of the flaws being exploited in the wild as a zero-day, but it's essential that users update to the latest

A recently disclosed security flaw in OSGeo GeoServer GeoTools has been exploited as part of multiple campaigns to deliver cryptocurrency miners, botnet malware such as Condi and JenX, and a known backdoor called SideWalk. The security vulnerability is a critical remote code execution bug (CVE-2024-36401, CVSS score: 9.8) that could allow malicious actors to take over susceptible instances. In mid-July, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) added it to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, based on evidence of active exploitation. The Shadowserver Foundation said it detected exploitation attempts against its honeypot sensors starting July 9, 2024. According to Fortinet FortiGuard Labs, the flaw has been observed being used to deliver GOREVERSE, a reverse proxy server designed to establish a connection with a command-and-control (C2) server for post-exploitation activity. These attacks are said to target IT service providers in India, tech

A new security flaw has been addressed in the Apache OFBiz open-source enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that, if successfully exploited, could lead to unauthenticated remote code execution on Linux and Windows. The high-severity vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-45195 (CVSS score: 7.5), affects all versions of the software before 18.12.16. "An attacker with no valid credentials exploit missing view authorization checks in the web application to execute arbitrary code on the server," Rapid7 security researcher Ryan Emmons said in a new report. It's worth noting that CVE-2024-45195 is a bypass for a sequence of issues , CVE-2024-32113, CVE-2024-36104, and CVE-2024-38856, which were addressed by the project maintainers over the past few months. Both CVE-2024-32113 and CVE-2024-38856 have since come under active exploitation in the wild, with the former leveraged to deploy the Mirai botnet malware. Rapid7 said all three older shortcomings stem from the &q

Veeam has shipped security updates to address a total of 18 security flaws impacting its software products, including five critical vulnerabilities that could result in remote code execution. The list of shortcomings is below - CVE-2024-40711 (CVSS score: 9.8) - A vulnerability in Veeam Backup & Replication that allows unauthenticated remote code execution. CVE-2024-42024 (CVSS score: 9.1) - A vulnerability in Veeam ONE that enables an attacker in possession of the Agent service account credentials to perform remote code execution on the underlying machine CVE-2024-42019 (CVSS score: 9.0) - A vulnerability in Veeam ONE that allows an attacker to access the NTLM hash of the Veeam Reporter Service service account CVE-2024-38650 (CVSS score: 9.9) - A vulnerability in Veeam Service Provider Console (VPSC) that allows a low privileged attacker to access the NTLM hash of the service account on the server CVE-2024-39714 (CVSS score: 9.9) - A vulnerability in VPSC tha

Threat actors are actively exploiting a now-patched, critical security flaw impacting the Atlassian Confluence Data Center and Confluence Server to conduct illicit cryptocurrency mining on susceptible instances. "The attacks involve threat actors that employ methods such as the deployment of shell scripts and XMRig miners, targeting of SSH endpoints, killing competing crypto mining processes, and maintaining persistence via cron jobs," Trend Micro researcher Abdelrahman Esmail said . The security vulnerability exploited is CVE-2023-22527 , a maximum severity bug in older versions of Atlassian Confluence Data Center and Confluence Server that could allow unauthenticated attackers to achieve remote code execution. It was addressed by the Australian software company in mid-January 2024. Trend Micro said it observed a high number of exploitation attempts against the flaw between mid-June and end of July 2024 that leveraged it to drop the XMRig miner on unpatched hosts. At l

A South Korea-aligned cyber espionage has been linked to the zero-day exploitation of a now-patched critical remote code execution flaw in Kingsoft WPS Office to deploy a bespoke backdoor dubbed SpyGlace. The activity has been attributed to a threat actor dubbed APT-C-60 , according to cybersecurity firms ESET and DBAPPSecurity. The attacks have been found to infect Chinese and East Asian users with malware. The security flaw in question is CVE-2024-7262 (CVSS score: 9.3), which stems from a lack of proper validation of user-provided file paths. This loophole essentially allows an adversary to upload an arbitrary Windows library and achieve remote code execution. The bug "allows code execution via hijacking the control flow of the WPS Office plugin component promecefpluginhost.exe," ESET said , adding it found another way to achieve the same effect. The second vulnerability is tracked as CVE-2024-7263 (CVSS score: 9.3). The attack conceived by APT-C-60 weaponizes the

A critical security flaw has been disclosed in the WPML WordPress multilingual plugin that could allow authenticated users to execute arbitrary code remotely under certain circumstances. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-6386 (CVSS score: 9.9), impacts all versions of the plugin before 4.6.13, which was released on August 20, 2024. Arising due to missing input validation and sanitization, the issue makes it possible for authenticated attackers, with Contributor-level access and above, to execute code on the server. WPML is a popular plugin used for building multilingual WordPress sites. It has over one million active installations. Security researcher stealthcopter, who discovered and reported CVE-2024-6386, said the problem lies in the plugin's handling of shortcodes that are used to insert post content such as audio, images, and videos. "Specifically, the plugin uses Twig templates for rendering content in shortcodes but fails to properly sanitize input, leadi

Two security vulnerabilities have been disclosed in the open-source Traccar GPS tracking system that could be potentially exploited by unauthenticated attackers to achieve remote code execution under certain circumstances. Both the vulnerabilities are path traversal flaws and could be weaponized if guest registration is enabled, which is the default configuration for Traccar 5, Horizon3.ai researcher Naveen Sunkavally said. A brief description of the shortcomings is as follows - CVE-2024-24809 (CVSS score: 8.5) - Path Traversal: 'dir/../../filename' and unrestricted upload of file with dangerous type CVE-2024-31214 (CVSS score: 9.7) - Unrestricted file upload vulnerability in device image upload could lead to remote code execution "The net result of CVE-2024-31214 and CVE-2024-24809 is that an attacker can place files with arbitrary content anywhere on the file system," Sunkavally said . "However an attacker only has partial control over the filename.

A maximum-severity security flaw has been disclosed in the WordPress GiveWP donation and fundraising plugin that exposes more than 100,000 websites to remote code execution attacks. The flaw, tracked as CVE-2024-5932 (CVSS score: 10.0), impacts all versions of the plugin prior to version 3.14.2, which was released on August 7, 2024. A security researcher, who goes by the online alias villu164, has been credited with discovering and reporting the issue. The plugin is "vulnerable to PHP Object Injection in all versions up to, and including, 3.14.1 via deserialization of untrusted input from the 'give_title' parameter," Wordfence said in a report this week. "This makes it possible for unauthenticated attackers to inject a PHP Object. The additional presence of a POP chain allows attackers to execute code remotely, and to delete arbitrary files." The vulnerability is rooted in a function named "give_process_donation_form()," which is used to vali

A previously undocumented backdoor named Msupedge has been put to use against a cyber attack targeting an unnamed university in Taiwan. "The most notable feature of this backdoor is that it communicates with a command-and-control (C&C) server via DNS traffic," the Symantec Threat Hunter Team, part of Broadcom, said in a report shared with The Hacker News. The origins of the backdoor are presently unknown as are the objectives behind the attack. The initial access vector that likely facilitated the deployment of Msupedge is said to involve the exploitation of a recently disclosed critical flaw impacting PHP ( CVE-2024-4577 , CVSS score: 9.8), which could be used to achieve remote code execution . The backdoor in question is a dynamic-link library (DLL) that's installed in the paths "csidl_drive_fixed\xampp\" and "csidl_system\wbem\." One of the DLLs, wuplog.dll, is launched by the Apache HTTP server (httpd). The parent process for the second

SolarWinds has released patches to address a critical security vulnerability in its Web Help Desk software that could be exploited to execute arbitrary code on susceptible instances. The flaw, tracked as CVE-2024-28986 (CVSS score: 9.8), has been described as a deserialization bug. "SolarWinds Web Help Desk was found to be susceptible to a Java deserialization remote code execution vulnerability that, if exploited, would allow an attacker to run commands on the host machine," the company said in an advisory. "While it was reported as an unauthenticated vulnerability, SolarWinds has been unable to reproduce it without authentication after thorough testing." The flaw impacts all versions of SolarWinds Web Help Desk including and prior to 12.8.3. It has been addressed in hotfix version 12.8.3 HF 1 . The disclosure comes as Palo Alto Networks patched a high-severity vulnerability affecting Cortex XSOAR that could result in command injection and code execution.