Security Leftovers
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iTWire - Optus sets aside $140m for costs associated with data breach
Telco Singtel Optus has set aside $140 million for costs associated with the catastrophic breach it announced in September, with the company announcing this as part of its half-year results on Thursday.
The money is for paying for replacement of identity documents such as passports and driving licences and also recovery activities.
In a statement, chief executive Kelly Bayer Rosmarin said: "“We recognise how painful the exposure of personal information from the cyber attack on Optus customers has been, and we are deeply sorry.
“We have listened to our customers’ feedback and are committed to finding improvements and ensuring a safer future against cyber crime.
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New UEFI Firmware Flaws Reported in Several Lenovo Notebook Models [Ed: UEFI is the opposite of security and can impose back doors]
PC maker Lenovo has addressed yet another set of three shortcomings in the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) firmware affecting several Yoga, IdeaPad, and ThinkBook devices.
"The vulnerabilities allow disabling UEFI Secure Boot or restoring factory default Secure Boot databases (incl. dbx): all simply from an OS," Slovak cybersecurity firm ESET explained in a series of tweets.
UEFI refers to software that acts as an interface between the operating system and the firmware embedded in the device's hardware. Because UEFI is responsible for launching the operating system when a device is powered on, it has made the technology an attractive option for threat actors looking to drop malware that's difficult to detect and remove.
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High-Severity Flaw Reported in Critical System Used in Oil and Gas Companies
Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new vulnerability in a system used across oil and gas organizations that could be exploited by an attacker to inject and execute arbitrary code.
The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2022-0902 (CVSS score: 8.1), is a path-traversal vulnerability in ABB Totalflow flow computers and remote controllers.
"Attackers can exploit this flaw to gain root access on an ABB flow computer, read and write files, and remotely execute code," industrial security company Claroty said in a report shared with The Hacker News.
[...]
"A successful exploit of this issue could impede a company's ability to bill customers, forcing a disruption of services, similar to the consequences suffered by Colonial Pipeline following its 2021 [Microsoft Windows] ransomware attack,"