Tag: Cyber Threats

Jun 26, 2025Ravie LakshmananCyber Attack / Malware Analysis

The ClickFix social engineering tactic as an initial access vector using fake CAPTCHA verifications increased by 517% between the second half of 2024 and the first half of this year, according to data from ESET.

“The list of threats that ClickFix attacks lead to is growing by the day, including infostealers, ransomware, remote access trojans, cryptominers, post-exploitation tools, and even custom malware from nation-state-aligned threat actors,” Jiří Kropáč, Director of Threat Prevention Labs at ESET, said.

ClickFix has become a widely popular and deceptive method that employs bogus error messages or CAPTCHA verification checks to deceive victims into copying and pasting a malicious script into either the Windows Run dialog or the Apple macOS Terminal app, and running it.

The Slovak cybersecurity company said the highest volume of ClickFix detections is concentrated around Japan, Peru, Poland, Spain, and Slovakia.

The prevalence and effectiveness of this attack method have led to threat actors advertising builders that provide other attackers with ClickFix-weaponized landing pages, ESET added.

From ClickFix to FileFix

The development comes as security researcher mrd0x demonstrated a proof-of-concept (PoC) alternative to ClickFix named FileFix that works by tricking users into copying and pasting a file path into Windows File Explorer.

The technique essentially involves achieving the same as ClickFix but in a different manner by combining File Explorer’s ability to execute operating system commands through the address bar with a web browser’s file upload feature.

In the attack scenario devised by the researcher, a threat actor may devise a phishing page that, instead of displaying a fake CAPTCHA check to the prospective target, presents a message stating a document has been shared with them and that they need to copy and paste the file path on the address bar by pressing CTRL + L.

The phishing page also includes a prominent “Open File Explorer” that, upon clicking, opens the File Explorer and copies a malicious PowerShell command to the user’s clipboard. Thus, when the victim pastes the “file path,” the attacker’s command is executed instead.

This, in turn, is achieved by altering the copied file path to prepend the PowerShell command before it followed by adding spaces to hide it from view and a pound sign (“#”) to treat the fake file path as a comment: “Powershell.exe -c ping example.com<space># C:\<path_to_file>\decoy.doc“

“Additionally, our PowerShell command will concatenate the dummy file path after a comment in order to hide the command and show the file path instead,” mrd0x said.

Phishing Campaigns Galore

The surge in ClickFix campaigns also coincides with the discovery of various phishing campaigns that –

• Leverage a .gov domain to send phishing emails that masquerade as unpaid toll to take users to bogus pages that are designed to collect their personal and financial information
• Make use of long-lived domains (LLDs), a technique called strategic domain aging, to either host or use them to redirect users to custom CAPTCHA check pages, completing which they are led to spoofed Microsoft Teams pages to steal their Microsoft account credentials
• Distribute malicious Windows shortcut (LNK) files within ZIP archives to launch PowerShell code responsible for deploying Remcos RAT
• Employ lures which supposedly warn users that their mailbox is almost full and that they need to “clear storage” by clicking a button embedded in the message, performing which takes the user to a phishing page hosted on IPFS that steals users email credentials. Interestingly, the emails also include a RAR archive attachment that, once extracted and executed, drops the XWorm malware.
• Incorporate a URL that lets to a PDF document, which, in turn, contains another URL that drops a ZIP archive, which includes an executable responsible for launching an AutoIT-based Lumma Stealer
• Weaponize a legitimate front-end platform called Vercel to host bogus sites that propagate a malicious version of LogMeIn to gain full control over victims’ machines
• Impersonate U.S. state Departments of Motor Vehicles (DMVs) to send SMS messages about unpaid toll violations and redirect recipients to deceptive sites that harvest personal information and credit card details
• Utilize SharePoint-themed emails to redirect users to credential harvesting pages hosted on “*.sharepoint[.]com” domains that siphon users’ Microsoft account passwords.

“Emails containing SharePoint links are less likely to be flagged as malicious or phishing by EDR or antivirus software. Users also tend to be less suspicious, believing Microsoft links are inherently safer,” CyberProof said.

“Since phishing pages are hosted on SharePoint, they are often dynamic and accessible only through a specific link for a limited time, making them harder for automated crawlers, scanners, and sandboxes to detect.”

Jun 26, 2025Ravie LakshmananVulnerability, Network Security

Cisco has released updates to address two maximum-severity security flaws in Identity Services Engine (ISE) and ISE Passive Identity Connector (ISE-PIC) that could permit an unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary commands as the root user.

The vulnerabilities, assigned the CVE identifiers CVE-2025-20281 and CVE-2025-20282, carry a CVSS score of 10.0 each. A description of the defects is below –

• CVE-2025-20281 – An unauthenticated remote code execution vulnerability affecting Cisco ISE and ISE-PIC releases 3.3 and later that could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on the underlying operating system as root
• CVE-2025-20282 – An unauthenticated remote code execution vulnerability affecting Cisco ISE and ISE-PIC release 3.4 that could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to upload arbitrary files to an affected device and execute those files on the underlying operating system as root

Cisco said CVE-2025-20281 is the result of insufficient validation of user-supplied input, which an attacker could exploit by sending a crafted API request to obtain elevated privileges and run commands.

In contrast, CVE-2025-20282 stems from a lack of file validation checks that would otherwise prevent the uploaded files from being placed in privileged directories.

“A successful exploit could allow the attacker to store malicious files on the affected system and then execute arbitrary code or obtain root privileges on the system,” Cisco said.

The networking equipment vendor said there are no workarounds that address the issues. The shortcomings have been addressed in the below versions –

• CVE-2025-20281 – Cisco ISE or ISE-PIC 3.3 Patch 6 (ise-apply-CSCwo99449_3.3.0.430_patch4-SPA.tar.gz), 3.4 Patch 2 (ise-apply-CSCwo99449_3.4.0.608_patch1-SPA.tar.gz)
• CVE-2025-20282 – Cisco ISE or ISE-PIC 3.4 Patch 2 (ise-apply-CSCwo99449_3.4.0.608_patch1-SPA.tar.gz)

The company credited Bobby Gould of Trend Micro Zero Day Initiative and Kentaro Kawane of GMO Cybersecurity for reporting CVE-2025-20281. Kawane, who previously reported CVE-2025-20286 (CVSS score: 9.9), has also been acknowledged for reporting CVE-2025-20282.

While there is no evidence that the vulnerabilities have been exploited in the wild, it’s essential that users move quickly to apply the fixes to safeguard against potential threats.

SaaS Adoption is Skyrocketing, Resilience Hasn’t Kept Pace

SaaS platforms have revolutionized how businesses operate. They simplify collaboration, accelerate deployment, and reduce the overhead of managing infrastructure. But with their rise comes a subtle, dangerous assumption: that the convenience of SaaS extends to resilience.

It doesn’t.

These platforms weren’t built with full-scale data protection in mind. Most follow a shared responsibility model — wherein the provider ensures uptime and application security, but the data inside is your responsibility. In a world of hybrid architectures, global teams, and relentless cyber threats, that responsibility is harder than ever to manage.

Modern organizations are being stretched across:

• Hybrid and multi-cloud environments with decentralized data sprawl
• Complex integration layers between IaaS, SaaS, and legacy systems
• Expanding regulatory pressure with steeper penalties for noncompliance
• Escalating ransomware threats and insider risk
• Shrinking recovery windows and rising expectations for uptime

Built-in protections were never meant to handle this level of complexity, and they rarely do. By the time you realize the gap, the damage is already done.

Why Traditional Protection Falls Short

Too many businesses still rely on outdated, fragmented, or overly simplistic backup strategies. They assume that cloud equals safe; or worse, that native features like recycle bins or version history are “good enough.” But most built-in tools are shallow by design. They prioritize collaboration and performance, not resilience.

And while that’s great for getting work done, it’s not enough to keep your business running when the unexpected hits. Let’s break down the risks.

1. Human Error Is Ubiquitous

Start with a question: What’s the most common reason for data loss in SaaS environments? Simple mistakes. Data loss goes beyond cyberthreats and natural disasters. Files are deleted, syncs are misconfigured, records are overwritten in bulk by well-meaning users, rushed decisions, or miscommunication. These are everyday mistakes caused by trusted employees whose intentions are aligned with yours.

So, data risk is inherently part of owning data. But most SaaS platforms offer limited rollback options, and some don’t cover the specific types of data you actually lost. If you don’t catch the mistake in time, or if the data bypasses the recycle bin entirely, it’s gone; for many mistakes, recovery isn’t as simple as clicking “undo.”

As organizations lean more heavily on SaaS tools for business-critical operations, the cost of these errors rises. One wrong deletion shouldn’t derail a product launch, delay an audit, or disrupt customer service. But without a recovery plan that goes deeper than native tools, that’s exactly what can happen.

2. Legal, Compliance, and Regulatory Risks

Compliance is about proving you can find your data, restore it, and report on it quickly. In 2024, new regulations and smarter attackers raised the stakes even higher. Frameworks like GDPR, HIPAA, SOX, and NIS2 come with real teeth: heavy fines, operational disruption, and reputational damage.

Now, organizations can’t afford to rely on good intentions. They need tools built for full accountability. Unfortunately, most native SaaS platforms don’t give you that level of control or visibility, meaning they don’t meet most regulatory requirements. Retention policies are too short, recovery options too limited, and auditing capabilities too shallow.

Many industries require organizations to retain records for years, not weeks. Staying compliant (and staying in control) requires a real strategy and the right tools to back it up.

3. The True Cost of Data Loss

For some large enterprises, the importance of compliance is understood, but not necessarily prioritized. But, importantly, understand that fines you pay for data loss or noncompliance are just the minimum, mandatory cost. Even for the largest organizations with the heaviest checkbooks, downtime hits hard.

Data loss rarely stays in the IT department. Amid a crisis or serious incident, teams are pulled away from critical projects. Customers grow frustrated with lack of service. Revenue takes a hit as your business simply cannot continue operations. And beyond it all, trust with investors, partners, or the public begins to erode.

Too often, businesses treat data loss as hypothetical. But this landslide can start with a single missing file, record, or user. Ask any team that’s been through it, and you’ll hear, “once is enough.” Whether it was ransomware, accidental deletion, or a failed recovery, the damage is rarely isolated, and the true costs are never foreseen.

4. Internal Threats

Internal threats are some of the most underestimated risks out there, and some of the most damaging. Employees, contractors, and vendors with access to sensitive systems can expose data, whether by mistake or on purpose. With teams spread out and systems more open than ever, oversight is tougher, and internal threats can slip past traditional defenses. These aren’t headline-making attacks from the outside, but rather quiet breaches from within. By the time you catch them, critical data may already be gone.

Whether malicious or accidental, insider threats are one of the most underestimated risks in SaaS. With teams working across locations, systems, and devices, visibility is limited — and oversight is tougher than ever.

Access mismanagement, privilege creep, and poor Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) hygiene can expose sensitive data in ways external actors never could. Most SaaS platforms weren’t built to detect or respond to these kinds of quiet, internal failures.

5. Cyberthreats Are Evolving Faster Than Defense

Today’s attacks steal data, corrupt environments, and pressure businesses through multi-phase extortion. Groups like Akira have shown how easily attackers can pivot into SaaS environments, exploiting token misconfigurations and shared credentials, leading the charge on ransomware for 18 consecutive months. If something as quiet, indiscriminate, and devastating as Akira is ransomware’s most common form, it’s impossible to foresee the true danger of cyberthreats in coming years.

What we do know is that, in 2024, the average ransom payment exceeded half a million dollars, and targeted organizations of every size, type, and industry. Even when data isn’t encrypted directly, business operations still grind to a halt. And in a multi-cloud world, one compromised app can cascade across others.

SaaS providers aren’t built to defend your business against these threats. They’ll keep the lights on. They won’t get your data back.

6. Recovery Speed Defines Success

Disruptions come in many forms — ransomware, outages, natural disasters — and when they hit, the clock starts ticking. Most teams aren’t set up to recover quickly enough. According to Gartner, ransomware recovery often drags on for weeks. Downtime cuts into revenue, frustrates customers, and drains internal resources. In sectors like healthcare, finance, and government, where every minute counts, the cost can escalate fast.

Customers expect availability. When systems go dark, patience wears thin, and brand trust takes a hit. But in many organizations, recovery is still manual, clunky, or all-or-nothing. You’re forced to choose between waiting hours to restore everything — or giving up on what’s lost.

The Lesson is Clear

The shift to SaaS has reshaped how organizations approach data management, revealing crucial lessons about efficiency, agility, and resource optimization. Modern businesses have the potential to thrive when they adopt a SaaS data solution, which remains the clear, strategic choice for future-ready IT operations. But as we’ve seen, the bar is set high.

What Modern SaaS Data Resilience Looks Like

SaaS applications are incredibly powerful — but they also introduce real risk to your data. Protecting that data isn’t easy, but it’s essential. Doing it right means having the ability to:

• Restore data quickly and precisely — even down to a single object or record
• Run automated, policy-driven backups without constant oversight
• Build in security from the start with features like immutability, encryption, and RBAC
• Align retention policies with your compliance obligations
• Manage everything — SaaS, IaaS, hybrid — from a single, unified interface

It’s a long list. And a complex one. But modern resilience isn’t just a checklist — it’s a mindset. And it demands a platform built to keep up. For everything you need to know, read this e-book:

6 Essential Traits of Modern SaaS Data Resilience

SaaS Data Resilience with Veeam Data Cloud

Protecting your data shouldn’t be complicated. With Veeam Data Cloud, you’re empowered by a unified cloud platform, integrating industry-leading innovation, modern cloud-native technologies, and powerful AI acceleration to secure, protect, and manage your data wherever it resides.

• Realize True Resilience: Ensure uninterrupted business operations through intelligent automation, policy-driven protection, and precise, rapid recoveries.
• Embed Security at Every Level: Safeguard your sensitive data proactively with integrated Zero Trust architecture, robust encryption, immutability, and intelligent threat detection.
• Drive Operational Excellence: Streamline operations, significantly reduce total cost of ownership (TCO), and boost efficiency with an intuitive, AI-accelerated interface.

Don’t wait for disruption to test your readiness. Choose Veeam Data Cloud and confidently embrace a future where your data resilience strategy actively drives efficiency, compliance, and business continuity.

Jun 26, 2025Ravie LakshmananCyber Espionage / Malware

An Iranian state-sponsored hacking group associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has been linked to a spear-phishing campaign targeting journalists, high-profile cyber security experts, and computer science professors in Israel.

“In some of those campaigns, Israeli technology and cyber security professionals were approached by attackers who posed as fictitious assistants to technology executives or researchers through emails and WhatsApp messages,” Check Point said in a report published Wednesday. “The threat actors directed victims who engaged with them to fake Gmail login pages or Google Meet invitations.”

The cybersecurity company attributed the activity to a threat cluster it tracks as Educated Manticore, which overlaps with APT35 (and its sub-cluster APT42), CALANQUE, Charming Kitten, CharmingCypress, Cobalt Illusion, ITG18, Magic Hound, Mint Sandstorm (formerly Phosphorus), Newscaster, TA453, and Yellow Garuda.

The advanced persistent threat (APT) group has a long history of orchestrating social engineering attacks using elaborate lures, approaching targets on various platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn using fictitious personas to trick victims into deploying malware on their systems.

Check Point said it observed a new wave of attacks starting mid-June 2025 following the outbreak of the Iran-Israel war that targeted Israeli individuals using fake meeting decoys, either via emails or WhatsApp messages tailored to the targets. It’s believed that the messages are crafted using artificial intelligence (AI) tools.

One of the WhatsApp messages flagged by the company took advantage of the current geopolitical tensions between the two countries to coax the victim into joining a meeting, claiming they needed their immediate assistance on an AI-based threat detection system to counter a surge in cyber attacks targeting Israel since June 12.

The initial messages, like those observed in previous Charming Kitten campaigns, are devoid of any malicious artifacts and are primarily designed to gain the trust of their targets. Once the threat actors build rapport over the course of the conversation, the attack moves to the next phase by sharing links that direct the victims to fake landing pages capable of harvesting their Google account credentials.

“Before sending the phishing link, threat actors ask the victim for their email address,” Check Point said. “This address is then pre-filled on the credential phishing page to increase credibility and mimic the appearance of a legitimate Google authentication flow.”

“The custom phishing kit […] closely imitates familiar login pages, like those from Google, using modern web technologies such as React-based Single Page Applications (SPA) and dynamic page routing. It also uses real-time WebSocket connections to send stolen data, and the design allows it to hide its code from additional scrutiny.”

The fake page is part of a custom phishing kit that can not only capture their credentials, but also two-factor authentication (2FA) codes, effectively facilitating 2FA relay attacks. The kit also incorporates a passive keylogger to record all keystrokes entered by the victim and exfiltrate them in the event the user abandons the process midway.

Some of the social engineering efforts have also involved the use of Google Sites domains to host bogus Google Meet pages with an image that mimics the legitimate meeting page. Clicking anywhere on the image directs the victim to phishing pages that trigger the authentication process.

“Educated Manticore continues to pose a persistent and high-impact threat, particularly to individuals in Israel during the escalation phase of the Iran-Israel conflict,” Check Point said.

“The group continues to operate steadily, characterized by aggressive spear-phishing, rapid setup of domains, subdomains, and infrastructure, and fast-paced takedowns when identified. This agility allows them to remain effective under heightened scrutiny.”

Jun 26, 2025Ravie LakshmananThreat Intelligence / Ransomware

Cybersecurity researchers are calling attention to a series of cyber attacks targeting financial organizations across Africa since at least July 2023 using a mix of open-source and publicly available tools to maintain access.

Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 is tracking the activity under the moniker CL-CRI-1014, where “CL” refers to “cluster” and “CRI” stands for “criminal motivation.”

It’s suspected that the end goal of the attacks is to obtain initial access and then sell it to other criminal actors on underground forums, making the threat actor an initial access broker (IAB).

“The threat actor copies signatures from legitimate applications to forge file signatures, to disguise their toolset and mask their malicious activities,” researchers Tom Fakterman and Guy Levi said. “Threat actors often spoof legitimate products for malicious purposes.”

The attacks are characterized by the deployment of tools like PoshC2 for command-and-control (C2), Chisel for tunneling malicious network traffic, and Classroom Spy for remote administration.

The exact method the threat actors use to breach target networks is not clear. Once a foothold is obtained, the attack chains have been found to deploy MeshCentral Agent and later Classroom Spy to commandeer the machines, and then drop Chisel to bypass firewalls and spread PoshC2 to other Windows hosts on the compromised network.

To sidestep detection efforts, the payloads are passed off as legitimate software, using the icons of Microsoft Teams, Palo Alto Networks Cortex, and Broadcom VMware Tools. PoshC2 is persisted on the systems using three different methods –

• Setting up a service
• Saving a Windows shortcut (LNK) file to the tool in the Startup folder
• Using a scheduled task under the name “Palo Alto Cortex Services”

In some incidents observed by the cybersecurity company, the threat actors are said to have stolen user credentials and used them to set up a proxy using PoshC2.

“PoshC2 can use a proxy to communicate with a command-and-control (C2) server, and it appears that the threat actor tailored some of the PoshC2 implants specifically for the targeted environment,” the researchers noted.

This is not the first time PoshC2 has been used in attacks aimed at financial services in Africa. In September 2022, Check Point detailed a spear-phishing campaign dubbed DangerousSavanna that targeted financial and insurance companies located in Coast, Morocco, Cameroon, Senegal, and Togo to deliver Metasploit, PoshC2, DWservice, and AsyncRAT.

The disclosure comes as Trustwave SpiderLabs shed light on a new ransomware group called Dire Wolf that has already claimed 16 victims across the U.S., Thailand, Taiwan, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, India, Italy, Peru, and Singapore since its emergence last month. The top targeted sectors are technology, manufacturing, and financial services.

Analysis of the Dire Wolf locker has revealed that it’s written in Golang, and comes with capabilities to disable system logging, terminate a hard-coded list of 75 services and 59 applications, and inhibit recovery efforts by deleting shadow copies.

“Although no initial access, reconnaissance or lateral movement techniques used by Dire Wolf are known at this point, organizations shall follow good security practices as well as enable monitoring for the techniques revealed in this analysis,” the company said.

Jun 26, 2025Ravie LakshmananVulnerability / Firmware Security

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Wednesday added three security flaws, each impacting AMI MegaRAC, D-Link DIR-859 router, and Fortinet FortiOS, to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, based on evidence of active exploitation.

The list of vulnerabilities is as follows –

• CVE-2024-54085 (CVSS score: 10.0) – An authentication bypass by spoofing vulnerability in the Redfish Host Interface of AMI MegaRAC SPx that could allow a remote attacker to take control
• CVE-2024-0769 (CVSS score: 5.3) – A path traversal vulnerability in D-Link DIR-859 routers that allows for privilege escalation and unauthorized control (Unpatched)
• CVE-2019-6693 (CVSS score: 4.2) – A hard-coded cryptographic key vulnerability in FortiOS, FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer that’s used to encrypt password data in CLI configuration, potentially allowing an attacker with access to the CLI configuration or the CLI backup file to decrypt the sensitive data

Firmware security company Eclypsium, which disclosed CVE-2024-54085 earlier this year, said the flaw could be exploited to carry out a wide-range of malicious actions, including deploying malware and tampering with device firmware.

There are currently no details on how the shortcoming is being weaponized in the wild, who may be exploiting it, and the scale of the attacks. The Hacker News has reached out to Eclypsium for comment, and we will update the story if we get a response.

The exploitation of CVE-2024-0769 was revealed by threat intelligence firm GreyNoise exactly a year ago as part of a campaign designed to dump account names, passwords, groups, and descriptions for all users of the device.

It’s worth noting that D-Link DIR-859 routers have reached end-of-life (EoL) as of December 2020, meaning the vulnerability will remain unpatched on these devices. Users are advised to retire and replace the product.

As for the abuse of CVE-2019-6693, multiple security vendors have reported that threat actors linked to the Akira ransomware scheme have leveraged the vulnerability to obtain initial access to target networks.

In light of the active exploitation of these flaws, Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agencies are required to apply the necessary mitigations by July 16, 2025, to secure their networks.

Jun 26, 2025Ravie LakshmananArtificial Intelligence / Data Protection

Popular messaging platform WhatsApp has added a new artificial intelligence (AI)-powered feature that leverages its in-house solution Meta AI to summarize unread messages in chats.

The feature, called Message Summaries, is currently rolling out in the English language to users in the United States, with plans to bring it to other regions and languages later this year.

It “uses Meta AI to privately and quickly summarize unread messages in a chat, so you can get an idea of what is happening, before reading the details in your unread messages,” WhatsApp said in a post.

Message Summaries is optional and is disabled by default. The Meta-owned service said users can also enable “Advanced Chat Privacy” to choose which chats can be shared for providing AI-related features.

Most importantly, it’s made possible by Private Processing, which WhatsApp launched back in April as a way to enable AI capabilities in a privacy-preserving manner.

Private Processing is designed to process AI requests within a secure environment called the confidential virtual machine (CVM) on the cloud by establishing a secure application session between a user’s device and the Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) over an Oblivious HTTP (OHTTP) connection.

The company reiterated that the technology prevents any third-party, including Meta and WhatsApp, from having to see the actual message contents to generate the summaries.

“No one else in the chat can see that you summarized unread messages either,” it said. “This means your privacy is protected at all times.”

The development comes as the U.S. House of Representatives added WhatsApp to a list of apps banned from government-issued devices, citing security concerns.

Jun 25, 2025Ravie LakshmananSaaS Security / Vulnerability

New research has uncovered continued risk from a known security weakness in Microsoft’s Entra ID, potentially enabling malicious actors to achieve account takeovers in susceptible software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications.

Identity security company Semperis, in an analysis of 104 SaaS applications, found nine of them to be vulnerable to Entra ID cross-tenant nOAuth abuse.

First disclosed by Descope in June 2023, nOAuth refers to a weakness in how SaaS applications implement OpenID Connect (OIDC), which refers to an authentication layer built atop OAuth to verify a user’s identity.

The authentication implementation flaw essentially allows a bad actor to change the mail attribute in the Entra ID account to that of a victim’s and take advantage of the app’s “Log in with Microsoft” feature to hijack that account.

The attack is trivial, but it also works because Entra ID permits users to have an unverified email address, opening the door to user impersonation across tenant boundaries.

It also exploits the fact that an app using multiple identity providers (e.g., Google, Facebook, or Microsoft) could inadvertently allow an attacker to sign in to a target user’s account simply because the email address is used as the sole criteria to uniquely identify users and merge accounts.

Semperis’ threat model focuses on a variant of nOAuth, specifically finding applications that allow for Entra ID cross-tenant access. In other words, both the attacker and the victim are on two different Entra ID tenants.

“nOAuth abuse is a serious threat that many organizations may be exposed to,” Eric Woodruff, chief identity architect at Semperis, said. “It’s low effort, leaves almost no trace and bypasses end‑user protections.”

“An attacker that successfully abuses nOAuth would be able not only to gain access to the SaaS application data, but also potentially to pivot into Microsoft 365 resources.”

Semperis said it reported the findings to Microsoft in December 2024, prompting the Windows maker to reiterate recommendations it gave back in 2023, coinciding with the public disclosure of nOAuth. It also noted that vendors that do not comply with the guidelines risk getting their apps removed from the Entra App Gallery.

Microsoft has also emphasized that the use of claims other than subject identifier (referred to as the “sub” claim) to uniquely identify an end user in OpenID Connect is non-compliant.

“If an OpenID Connect relying party uses any other claims in a token besides a combination of the sub (subject) claim and the iss (issuer) claim as a primary account identifier in OpenID Connect, they’re breaking the contract of expectations between federated identity provider and relying party,” the company noted at that time.

Mitigating nOAuth ultimately rests in the hands of developers, who must properly implement authentication to prevent account takeovers by creating a unique, immutable user identifier.

“nOAuth abuse exploits cross-tenant vulnerabilities and can lead to SaaS application data exfiltration, persistence, and lateral movement,” the company said. “The abuse is difficult for customers of vulnerable applications to detect and impossible for customers of vulnerable applications to defend against.”

The disclosure comes as Trend Micro revealed that misconfigured or overly privileged containers in Kubernetes environments can be used to facilitate access to sensitive Amazon Web Services (AWS) credentials, enabling attackers to conduct follow-on activities.

The cybersecurity company said attackers can exploit excessive privileges granted to containers using methods like packet sniffing of unencrypted HTTP traffic to access plaintext credentials and API spoofing, which uses manipulated Network Interface Card (NIC) settings to intercept Authorization tokens and gain elevated privileges.

“The findings […] highlight critical security considerations when using Amazon EKS Pod Identity for simplifying AWS resource access in Kubernetes environments,” security researcher Jiri Gogela said.

“These vulnerabilities underscore the importance of adhering to the principle of least privilege, ensuring container configurations are scoped appropriately, and minimizing opportunities for exploitation by malicious actors.”

Jun 25, 2025Ravie LakshmananVulnerability / Network Security

Citrix has released security updates to address a critical flaw affecting NetScaler ADC that it said has been exploited in the wild.

The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-6543, carries a CVSS score of 9.2 out of a maximum of 10.0.

It has been described as a case of memory overflow that could result in unintended control flow and denial-of-service. However, successful exploitation requires the appliance to be configured as a Gateway (VPN virtual server, ICA Proxy, CVPN, RDP Proxy) or AAA virtual server.

The shortcoming impacts the below versions –

• NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway 14.1 prior to 14.1-47.46
• NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway 13.1 prior to 13.1-59.19
• NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway 12.1 and 13.0 (vulnerable and end-of-life)
• NetScaler ADC 13.1-FIPS and NDcPP prior to 13.1-37.236-FIPS and NDcPP

“Secure Private Access on-prem or Secure Private Access Hybrid deployments using NetScaler instances are also affected by the vulnerabilities,” Citrix said.

“Customers need to upgrade these NetScaler instances to the recommended NetScaler builds to address the vulnerabilities.”

The company did not reveal how the flaw is being exploited in real-world attacks, but said “exploits of CVE-2025-6543 on unmitigated appliances have been observed.”

The disclosure comes shortly after Citrix patched another critical-rated security flaw in NetScaler ADC (CVE-2025-5777, CVSS score: 9.3) that could be exploited by threat actors to gain access to susceptible appliances.

Jun 25, 2025Ravie LakshmananData Privacy / Vulnerability

Cybersecurity researchers have detailed two now-patched security flaws in SAP Graphical User Interface (GUI) for Windows and Java that, if successfully exploited, could have enabled attackers to access sensitive information under certain conditions.

The vulnerabilities, tracked as CVE-2025-0055 and CVE-2025-0056 (CVSS scores: 6.0), were patched by SAP as part of its monthly updates for January 2025.

“The research discovered that SAP GUI input history is stored insecurely, both in the Java and Windows versions,” Pathlock researcher Jonathan Stross said in a report shared with The Hacker News.

SAP GUI user history allows users to access previously entered values in input fields with the goal of saving time and reducing errors. This historical information is stored locally on devices. This can include usernames, national IDs, social security numbers (SSNs), bank account numbers, and internal SAP table names.

The vulnerabilities identified by Pathlock are rooted in this input history feature, allowing an attacker with administrative privileges or access to the victim’s user directory on the operating system to access the data within a predefined directory based on the SAP GUI variant.

• SAP GUI for Windows – %APPDATA%LocalLowSAPGUICacheHistorySAPHistory<WINUSER>.db
• SAP GUI for Java – %APPDATA%LocalLowSAPGUICacheHistory or $HOME/.SAPGUI/Cache/History (Windows or Linux) and $HOME/Library/Preferences/SAP/Cache/History (macOS)

The issue is that the inputs are saved in the database file using a weak XOR-based encryption scheme in the case of SAP GUI for Windows, which makes them trivial to decode with minimal effort. In contrast, SAP GUI for Java stores these historical entries in an unencrypted fashion as Java serialized objects.

As a result, depending on the user input provided in the past, the disclosed information could include anything between non-critical data to highly sensitive data, thereby impacting the confidentiality of the application.

“Anyone with access to the computer can potentially access the history file and all sensitive information it stores,” Stross said. “Because the data is stored locally and weakly (or not at all) encrypted, exfiltration through HID injection attacks (like USB Rubber Ducky) or phishing becomes a real threat.”

To mitigate any potential risks associated with information disclosure, it’s advised to disable the input history functionality and delete existing database or serialized object files from the aforementioned directories.

Citrix Patches CVE-2025-5777

The disclosure comes as Citrix patched a critical-rated security flaw in NetScaler (CVE-2025-5777, CVSS score: 9.3) that could be exploited by threat actors to gain access to susceptible appliances.

The shortcoming stems from insufficient input validation that may enable unauthorized attackers to grab valid session tokens from memory via malformed requests, effectively bypassing authentication protections. However, this only works when Netscaler is configured as a Gateway or AAA virtual server.

The vulnerability has been codenamed Citrix Bleed 2 by security researcher Kevin Beaumont, owing to its similarities to CVE-2023-4966 (CVSS score: 9.4), which came under active exploitation in the wild two years ago.

It has been addressed in the following versions –

• NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway 14.1-43.56 and later releases
• NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway 13.1-58.32 and later releases of 13.1
• NetScaler ADC 13.1-FIPS and 13.1-NDcPP 13.1-37.235 and later releases of 13.1-FIPS and 13.1-NDcPP
• NetScaler ADC 12.1-FIPS 12.1-55.328 and later releases of 12.1-FIPS

Secure Private Access on-prem or Secure Private Access Hybrid deployments using NetScaler instances are also affected by the vulnerabilities. Citrix is recommending that users run the following commands to terminate all active ICA and PCoIP sessions after all NetScaler appliances have been upgraded –

kill icaconnection -all
kill pcoipConnection -all

The company is also urging customers of NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway versions 12.1 and 13.0 to move to a support version as they are now End Of Life (EOL) and no longer supported.

While there is no evidence that the flaw has been weaponized, watchTowr CEO Benjamin Harris said it “checks all the boxes” for attacker interest and that exploitation could be around the corner.

“CVE-2025-5777 is shaping up to be every bit as serious as CitrixBleed, a vulnerability that caused havoc for end-users of Citrix Netscaler appliances in 2023 and beyond as the initial breach vector for numerous high-profile incidents,” Benjamin Harris, CEO at watchTowr, told The Hacker News.

“The details surrounding CVE-2025-5777 have quietly shifted since its initial disclosure, with fairly important pre-requisites or limitations being removed from the NVD CVE description — specifically, the comment that this vulnerability was in the lesser-exposed Management Interface has now been removed — leading us to believe that this vulnerability is significantly more painful than perhaps first signaled.”