Security Leftovers
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Security updates for Thursday [LWN.net]
Security updates have been issued by Debian (chromium, epiphany-browser, freecad, and schroot), Fedora (freeciv, microcode_ctl, qemu, and rsync), Oracle (httpd), SUSE (aws-efs-utils, python-ansi2html, python-py, python-pytest-html, python-pytest-metadata, python-pytest-rerunfailures, python-coverage, python-oniconfig, python-unittest-mixins, bluez, curl, gnutls, kernel, ntfs-3g_ntfsprogs, podman, and ucode-intel), and Ubuntu (zlib).
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The new USB Rubber Ducky is more dangerous than ever - The Verge
Already, previous versions of the Rubber Ducky could carry out attacks like creating a fake Windows pop-up box to harvest a user’s login credentials or causing Chrome to send all saved passwords to an attacker’s webserver. But these attacks had to be carefully crafted for specific operating systems and software versions and lacked the flexibility to work across platforms.
The newest Rubber Ducky aims to overcome these limitations. It ships with a major upgrade to the DuckyScript programming language, which is used to create the commands that the Rubber Ducky will enter into a target machine. While previous versions were mostly limited to writing keystroke sequences, DuckyScript 3.0 is a feature-rich language, letting users write functions, store variables, and use logic flow controls (i.e., if this… then that).
That means, for example, the new Ducky can run a test to see if it’s plugged into a Windows or Mac machine and conditionally execute code appropriate to each one or disable itself if it has been connected to the wrong target. It also can generate pseudorandom numbers and use them to add variable delay between keystrokes for a more human effect.
Perhaps most impressively, it can steal data from a target machine by encoding it in binary format and transmitting it through the signals meant to tell a keyboard when the CapsLock or NumLock LEDs should light up. With this method, an attacker could plug it in for a few seconds, tell someone, “Sorry, I guess that USB drive is broken,” and take it back with all their passwords saved.
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Ransomware attacks on rise, Finserv Sector shows high resilience with layered defences
The firm said when compared to other sectors, financial services organizations showed some of the highest resilience despite the rise in ransomware attacks, with only 54% reporting that attackers successfully encrypted their data, compared to the global average of 65% across all sectors, 10% being able to get the entirety of their data back after encryption, compared with 4% across all sectors and 62% being able to recover from an attack in just a week, compared with the global average of 53% across all sectors.
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Estonia subjected to 'extensive' cyberattacks after moving Soviet monuments [iophk: Windows TCO]
CIO and Undersecretary for Digital Transformation Luukas Ilves commented on social media: "Yesterday, Estonia was subject to the most extensive cyberattacks it has faced since 2007. Attempted DDoS attacks targeted both public institutions and the private sector.
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The 14 Scariest Things We Saw at Black Hat 2022
Black Hat never fails to deliver exciting, enlightening, and distressing discussions about the state of cybersecurity. This is what we saw at Black Hat that impressed and worried us the most.