Tag Archive for: Sicherheitslücken

Joseph Lee

Threat Report May 2025: Hack, Rinse, Repeat

May 2025 was a volcanic month for cybersecurity news, including several large breaches and new critical severity vulnerabilities. The Greenbone blog has already covered some major events, such as new actively exploited vulnerabilities in SAP Netweaver, Commvault Command Center and Ivanti EPMM. In total 4,014 new vulnerabilities were added to MITRE’s CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) program. Greenbone added over 2,500 vulnerability tests to the Enterprise Feed, many capable of detecting multiple CVEs.

In this threat report for May 2025, we will round up some of the riskiest new CVEs disclosed this month, review a nation-state backed cyber campaign impacting tech companies around the world, and review how AI is poised to escalate cyber risk with intelligent automation at all stages of the Cyber Kill Chain.

The Inevitable AI-Enabled Attack Cycle: Hack, Rinse, Repeat

AI is now a force multiplier in the cyber attack lifecycle. Threat actors are leveraging AI in two fundamental ways; expediting the conversion of public vulnerability knowledge into exploit tools, and building more convincing social engineering content. Researchers have proposed a long list of additional capabilities that AI can further optimize, including automation of initial access attacks and command-and-control (C2) operations.

Even without AI, skilled human hackers can exfiltrate sensitive information within minutes of initial access. If significant vulnerabilities exist on the LAN side of a victim’s network, manual deployment of ransomware is trivial. In 2017, WannaCry demonstrated that ransomware attacks can be automated and wormable, i.e., capable of spreading between systems autonomously.

According to Norton’s latest Gen Threat Report, data-theft has increased 186% in Q1 2025. As discussed last month, data-theft-related class action filings have risen more than 1,265% over six years. When a victim’s cyber hygiene is non-compliant, multi-million dollar settlements are the norm. The top 10 data-breach class action settlements in 2023 totaled over 515 million dollars; the largest was a 350 million dollar settlement involving T-Mobile. This stolen data is often sold on the dark web, becoming fuel for subsequent cyber attacks. We should expect AI to reach full autonomy at all stages of the Cyber Kill Chain in the near future, resulting in a fully autonomous vicious cycle of exploitation; hack, rinse, repeat.

Russian GRU-Backed Espionage Campaign Hits Global Tech and Logistic Firms

CISA (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency) and defense entities from nine other countries have warned of a cyber espionage-oriented campaign. The operation is being conducted by the Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), specifically the 85th Main Special Service Center (85th GTsSS), military unit 26165. The group is tracked under several aliases including the well-known FancyBear and APT28.

The full report outlines detailed Tactics, Techniques and Procedures (TTPs) leveraged in the campaign, which includes reconnaissance [TA0043], credential brute forcing [T1110.003], spearphishing to attain credentials and deliver malware [T1566], exploiting trust relationships to gain access [T1199], proxying attacks through compromised devices [T1665] and exploiting known software vulnerabilities – both for initial access [T1190] and privilege escalation [T1068]. The sheer diversity of attack techniques indicates a highly sophisticated threat.

The campaign targets a wide range of small office/home office (SOHO) devices, Microsoft Outlook, RoundCube Webmail and WinRAR as well as undisclosed CVEs in other internet-facing infrastructure – including corporate VPNs and SQL injection flaws. Greenbone includes detection tests for all CVEs referenced in the report. Those CVEs include:

  • CVE-2023-23397 (CVSS 9.8): A privilege escalation vulnerability in Microsoft Outlook that leverages replay of captured Net-NTLMv2 hashes.
  • CVE-2020-12641 (CVSS 9.8): Allows attackers to execute arbitrary code via shell metacharacters in a Roundcube Webmail configuration setting for `im_convert_path` or `im_identify_path`.
  • CVE-2020-35730 (CVSS 5.0): An XSS flaw in Roundcube Webmail via a plain text email message, containing a JavaScript link reference.
  • CVE-2021-44026 (CVSS 9.8): An SQL injection flaw in Roundcube via search or search_params.
  • CVE-2023-38831 (CVSS 7.8): Allows attackers to execute arbitrary code when a user attempts to view a benign file within a ZIP archive.

DragonForce Ransomware Spreads its Wings

Emerging in mid-2023, DragonForce transitioned from a hacktivist collective into a financially motivated Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) operation. Fast forward to 2025, and DragonForce has established itself as an apex threat in the ransomware ecosystem.

DragonForce ransomware attacks impacted the following countries:

  • United States – 43 confirmed incidents
  • United Kingdom – including recent May 2025 breaches of Marks & Spencer, Co-op and Harrods
  • Saudi Arabia – a data leak from a major Riyadh construction firm
  • Australia – e.g., Yakult Australia
  • Singapore – Coca-Cola operations
  • Palau – a government breach in March 2024
  • Canada – among the top five most attacked nations
  • India – has faced increased targeting, particularly in the past month

Campaigns have included exploitation of SimpleHelp remote monitoring and management (RMM) [1], Confluence Server and Data Center [2], Log4Shell (aka Log4J), Microsoft Windows vulnerabilities, as well as various flaws in Ivanti products [3]. Greenbone provides multiple active check and version detection tests for all CVEs identified in DragonForce campaigns.

DragonForce has been observed exploiting:

In line with the attack trajectory of other prominent ransomware actors, DragonForce is known to use other techniques in addition to breaching public-facing vulnerabilities such as phishing emails, credential theft, brute-force, and credential stuffing attacks on exposed services and remote management (RMM) tools like AnyDesk, Atera, and TeamViewer, for persistence and lateral movement. Therefore, organizations need comprehensive cybersecurity programs that include user awareness training to prevent social engineering attacks and regular penetration testing to simulate real-world adversarial activity.

CVE-2025-32756: Stack-Based Buffer Overflow Vulnerability in Multiple Fortinet Products

CVE-2025-32756 (CVSS 9.8), published on May 13, 2025, is a critical severity stack-based buffer overflow vulnerability [CWE-12] affecting multiple Fortinet products. It allows remote, unauthenticated attackers to execute arbitrary code via a crafted HTTP cookie. The flaw is being actively exploited in the wild – primarily against FortiVoice systems – and is linked to attacks involving malware deployment, credential theft using cron job, and network reconnaissance. Proof-of-concept details are publicly available, and a full technical analysis has been published increasing the risk factor.

Fortinet flaws have a historically high conversion rate for use in ransomware attacks. A total of 18 vulnerabilities in Fortinet products have been added to CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) list since late 2021 – 11 of these are known to be leveraged by ransomware operators. In addition to CISA, several other national CERT entities have issued alerts, including CERT-EU, the Centre for Cybersecurity Belgium (CCB), and Germany’s CERT-BUND.

The root cause is a missing length check in the `cookieval_unwrap()` function of libhttputil.so. A malicious AuthHash cookie can induce memory corruption to control the return memory address, allowing an attacker to hijack execution flow at the process level. Greenbone Enterprise Feed provides a vulnerability test to detect affected products and almost 1,000 other tests for detecting other vulnerabilities in Fortinet products.

CVE-2025-32756 affects dozens of firmware versions across multiple FortiNet products, including:

  • FortiVoice (6.4.0 – 7.2.0)
  • FortiMail (7.0.0 – 7.6.2)
  • FortiNDR (1.1 – 7.6.0)
  • FortiRecorder (6.4.0 – 7.2.3)
  • all versions of FortiCamera 1.1 and 2.0 as well as 2.1.0 – 2.1.3

Fortinet advises upgrading to the latest fixed versions immediately. If patching is not feasible, users should disable the HTTP/HTTPS administrative interface to prevent successful attacks.

Trio of SysAid Flaws Now Have CVEs and Public PoC

In May, three critical-severity vulnerabilities were disclosed affecting on-premises SysAid IT Service Management (ITSM) platform. These flaws can be chained, allowing unauthenticated Remote Code Execution (RCE). Full technical details and Proof-of-Concept (PoC) were published by watchTowr. Also, considering that SysAid vulnerabilities have been targeted by ransomware operators in the past, these flaws are especially high risk.

CVE-2025-2775, CVE-2025-2776, and CVE-2025-2777 (each CVSS 9.3) are unauthenticated XML External Entity (XXE) [CWE-611] vulnerabilities, found in the Checkin, Server URL and lshw functions respectively. All allow admin account takeover and arbitrary file read on the victim’s system. SysAid On-Prem versions ≤ 23.3.40 are affected. Notably, the flaws were patched by the vendor in March, but CVE IDs were not reserved or issued. This type of scenario contributes to a less transparent threat landscape for software users, reducing visibility and complicating operational vulnerability management. Greenbone offers detection tests for all aforementioned CVEs.

SysAid has a global presence of over 10,000 customers across 140 countries, including organizations such as Coca-Cola, Panasonic, Adobe, and LG. While it holds a smaller share of the ITSM market compared to larger competitors like ServiceNow or Jira Service Management, it remains a popular solution for mid-sized businesses.

A CVSS 10 in Cisco IOS XE Wireless Controller

CVE-2025-20188 is a new critical-severity (CVSS 10) vulnerability disclosed in May 2025. It affects Cisco’s flagship platform, the Catalyst 9800 Series. Although not known to be actively exploited yet, a full technical walkthrough is now available, which will provide less sophisticated threat actors with a head start.

The root cause of the vulnerability is a hard-coded JSON Web Token (JWT) which could allow the attacker to upload files, perform path traversal, and execute arbitrary commands with root privileges via specially crafted HTTP request. Specifically, a hardcoded fallback secret – the string `notfound` – is used to verify the authenticity of a JWT if `/tmp/nginx_jwt_key` is not present.

Although this key file may be generated at certain times, such as when an administrator logs into the management console, it may not be present at certain times, such as immediately after a device reboot or service start.

Crucially, the flaw does not affect all HTTP endpoints – it is limited to the Out-of-Band Access Point (AP) Image Download feature of Cisco IOS XE Software for WLAN Controllers (WLCs). While Cisco’s advisory claims this service is not enabled by default, Horizon.ai researchers found that it was. Therefore, while there are several conditions affecting the exploitability of CVE-2025-20188, if those conditions are present, exploitation is trivial – and likely affects many organizations.

Cisco has released an advisory which recommends that affected users either upgrade to the patched version, or disable the Out-of-Band AP Image Download feature. Greenbone Enterprise Feed includes a version detection test for identifying affected devices and verifying patch level.

Summary

May 2025 delivered a surge of critical vulnerabilities, major breaches and escalating nation-state activity. It’s important to keep in mind that AI-enhanced attack cycles are destined to become a reality – the chaotic and urgent cybersecurity landscape shows no sign of easing any time soon.

New actively exploited flaws in Cisco, Fortinet, and SysAid products force organizations to maintain vigilant, continuous detection efforts, followed by prioritization and mitigation.

Greenbone’s Enterprise coverage helps security teams see vulnerabilities that threat actors can exploit to stay ahead in a fast-moving threat landscape.

Contact Test Now Buy Here Back to Overview

/by
Joseph Lee

Attackers Advance on Two New Ivanti EPMM Flaws

Just last month, CVE-2025-22457 (CVSS 9.8) affecting Ivanti Connect Secure, Policy Secure, and ZTA Gateways was recognized as a vector for ransomware. Now, two new CVEs have been added to the growing list of high-risk Ivanti vulnerabilities; CVE-2025-4427 and CVE-2025-4428 affecting Ivanti EPMM (Endpoint and Patch Management Mobile) are under active exploitation.

Greenbone includes active check and version detection tests addressing both new CVEs and many other flaws in Ivanti products, allowing users to identify vulnerable instances, proceed with the patch process and verify security compliance once patches have been applied. In this blog post we will review the technical details of both new CVEs and assess the role that Ivanti has played in the global cyber risk calculus.

Two New CVEs in Ivanti EPMM Combine for Unauthorized Access

At the time of disclosure, Ivanti admitted that on-premises EPMM customers had already been breached. However, cloud security firm Wiz claims that self-managed cloud instances have also been effectively exploited by attackers. A full technical description of the attack chain is publicly available, making exploit development easier for attackers and further increasing the risk.

Here is a brief summary of each CVE:

  • CVE-2025-4427 (CVSS 5.3): An authentication bypass in the API component of Ivanti EPMM 12.5.0.0 and prior allows attackers to access protected resources without proper credentials via the API.
  • CVE-2025-4428 (CVSS 7.2): Remote Code Execution (RCE) in the API component of Ivanti EPMM 12.5.0.0 and prior allows authenticated attackers to execute arbitrary code via crafted API requests.

Ivanti has released patches to remediate the flaws. Users should update EPMM to at least version 11.12.0.5, 12.3.0.2, 12.4.0.2 or 12.5.0.1. If immediate patching is not possible, Ivanti recommends restricting API access using either the built-in Portal ACLs (Access Control Lists with the “API Connection” type) or an external WAF (Web Application Firewall). Network-based ACLs are discouraged by the vendor, since they may block some EPMM functionality. While these mitigations reduce risk, they can impact functionality for certain EPMM integrations, such as Microsoft Autopilot and Graph API. Ivanti also offers an RPM file which can be used to patch EPMM via SSH command line access.

The Invanti EPMM Exploit Chain

The exploit chain in Ivanti EPMM begins with CVE-2025-4427. Due to an insecure configuration in the application’s security.xml file, certain endpoints (specifically /rs/api/v2/featureusage) partially process requests if the format parameter is provided. This pre-auth processing allowed unauthenticated requests to access functions that should be protected. This access control flaw caused by CVE-2025-4427 sets the stage for RCE via CVE-2025-4428.

CVE-2025-4428 allows RCE via an Expression Language (EL) injection via HTTP requests. If the format parameter supplied in a request is invalid as per the EPMM’s specification (neither “cve” or “json”), its value is appended to an error message without sanitization and logged via Spring Framework’s message templating engine. By supplying specially crafted values in the format parameter, attackers can execute arbitrary Java code because the logged message is evaluated as an EL formatted string.

Researchers have pointed out these risks associated with message templating engines are well documented and rebuked Ivanti’s claims that the vulnerability was due to a flaw in a third-party library, rather than their own oversight. Also, if the conditions leading to exploitation of CVE-2025-4428 sounds familiar, it is reminiscent of the infamous Log4Shell vulnerability. Like Log4Shell, CVE-2025-4428 results from passing unsanitized user input into an expression engine which will interpret special commands from a formatted string. In the case of Log4Shell, malicious string formatting in JNDI lookups (e.g., ${jndi:ldap://…}), could trigger RCE.

Risk Assessment: Attackers Advance on Ivanti Flaws

Ivanti has been in the hot seat for the past few years. Attackers have often exploited flaws in Ivanti’s products to gain initial access to their victim’s networks. Across all product lines, the vendor has been the subject of 61 Critical severity (CVSS >= 9.0) CVEs since the start of 2023. 30 of these have been added to CISA KEV (Known Exploited Vulnerabilities of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency), although the true tally of actively exploited flaws may be higher. Ivanti CVEs have a high conversion rate for use in ransomware attacks; CISA notes 8 CVEs in this category.

In early 2024, the European Commission, ENISA, CERT-EU and Europol issued a joint statement addressing active exploitation of Ivanti Connect Secure and Policy Secure Gateway products. In the US, CISA directed all federal civilian agencies to disconnect these products and assume they had been breached [1][2]. CISA, the FBI and cybersecurity agencies from the UK, Australia and Canada issued a joint advisory warning of ongoing exploitation. By late 2024, CISA had also alerted to active exploitation of Ivanti Cloud Service Appliances (CSA), warning that both state-sponsored and financially motivated threat actors were successfully targeting unpatched systems.

In 2025, on January 8th, CISA warned that newly disclosed CVE-2025-0282 and CVE-2025-0283 in Ivanti Connect Secure, Policy Secure and ZTA Gateways were also under active exploitation. Unfortunately, attackers continue to advance on new flaws in Ivanti’s products well into 2025 including CVE-2025-22457 [3][4] and now, two new CVEs in EPMM discussed above.

Dennis Kozak replaced Jeff Abbott as Ivanti’s CEO effective January 1, 2025 despite a mid-2024 pledge from Mr. Abbot for improved product security. No public statement was made linking the succession to the Utah company’s security challenges, however it happened with only a few weeks’ notice. Executives have not been called to testify before US congress as many other cybersecurity leaders have following high-risk incidents including Sudhakar Ramakrishna (CEO of SolarWinds), Brad Smith (President of Microsoft) and George Kurtz (CEO of CrowdStrike).

Echoes from EPMM’s Past: CVE-2023-35078 and CVE-2023-35082

In addition to the vortex of vulnerabilities discussed above, CVE-2023-35078 (CVSS 9.8) and CVE-2023-35082 (CVSS 9.8), disclosed in July and August 2023 respectively, also provided unauthenticated RCE for Ivanti EPMM. Public exploitation kicked off almost immediately after their disclosure in 2023.

CVE-2023-35078 was exploited to breach the Norwegian government, compromising data from twelve ministries [3][4]. CISA issued an urgent advisory (AA23-214A) citing confirmed exploitation by Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) actors and advising all federal agencies to take immediate mitigation steps. Even back in 2023, the speed and breadth of the attacks underscored Ivanti’s growing profile as a repeat offender, enabling espionage and financially motivated cybercrime.

Summary

Ivanti EPMM is susceptible to two new vulnerabilities; CVE-2025-4427 and CVE-2025-4428 can be combined for unauthorized remote code execution. Now under active exploitation, they underscore a troubling pattern of high-severity flaws in Ivanti products. Ivanti has released patches to remediate the flaws and users should update EPMM to at least version 11.12.0.5, 12.3.0.2, 12.4.0.2 or 12.5.0.1.

Greenbone’s vulnerability detection capabilities extend to include tests for CVE-2025-4427 and CVE-2025-4428 allowing Ivanti EPMM users to identify all vulnerable instances and verify security compliance once patches have been applied.

/by
Greenbone AG

Greenbone Detection Stays Strong Despite NIST NVD Outage

Despite the NVD (National Vulnerability Database) outage of the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology), Greenbone’s detection engine remains fully operational, offering reliable, vulnerability scanning without relying on missing CVE enrichment data.

Since 1999 The MITRE Corporation’s Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) has provided free public vulnerability intelligence by publishing and managing information about software flaws. NIST has diligently enriched these CVE reports since 2005; adding context to enhance their use for cyber risk assessment. In early 2024, the cybersecurity community was caught off guard as the NIST NVD ground to a halt. Now roughly one year later, the outage had not been fully resolved [1][2]. With an increasing number of CVE submissions each year, NIST’s struggles have left a large percentage without context such as a severity score (CVSS), affected product lists (CPE) and weakness classifications (CWE).

Recent policy shifts pushed by the Trump administration have created further uncertainty about the future of vulnerability information sharing and the many security providers that depend upon it. The FY 2025 budget for CISA includes notable reductions in specific areas such as a 49.8 million Dollar decrease in Procurement, Construction and Improvements and a 4.7 million Dollar cut in Research and Development. In response to the funding challenges, CISA has taken actions to reduce spending, including adjustments to contracts and procurement strategies.

​To be clear, there has been no outage of the CVE program yet. On April 16, the CISA issued a last minute directive to extend its contract with MITRE to ensure the operation of the CVE Program for an additional 11 months just hours before the contract was set to expire. However, nobody can predict how future events will unfold. The potential impact to intelligence sharing is alarming, perhaps signaling a new dimension to a “Cold Cyberwar” of sorts.

This article includes a brief overview of how the CVE program operates, and how Greenbone’s detection capabilities remain strong throughout the NIST NVD outage.

An Overview of the CVE Program Operations

The MITRE Corporation is a non-profit tasked with supporting US homeland security on multiple fronts including defensive research to protect critical infrastructure and cybersecurity. MITRE operates the CVE program, acting as the Primary CNA (CVE Numbering Authority) and maintaining the central infrastructure for CVE ID assignment, record publication, communication workflows among all CNAs and ADPs (Authorized Data Publishers) and program governance. MITRE provides CVE data to the public through its CVE.org website and the cvelistV5 GitHub repository, which contains all CVE Records in structured JSON format. The result has been highly efficient, standardized vulnerability reporting and seamless data sharing across the cybersecurity ecosystem.

After a vulnerability description is submitted to MITRE by a CNA, NIST has historically added:

  • CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System): A severity score and detailed vector string that includes the risk context for Attack Complexity (AC), Impact to Confidentiality (C), Integrity (I), and Availability (A), as well as other factors.
  • CPE (Common Platform Enumeration): A specially formatted string that acts to identify affected products by relaying the product name, vendor, versions, and other architectural specifications.
  • CWE (Common Weakness Enumeration): A root-cause classification according to the type of software flaw involved.

CVSS allows organizations to more easily determine the degree of risk posed by a particular vulnerability and strategically conduct remediation accordingly. Also, because initial CVE reports only require a non-standardized affected product declaration, NIST’s addition of CPE allows vulnerability management platforms to conduct CPE matching as a fast, although somewhat unreliable way to determine whether a CVE exists within an organization’s infrastructure or not.

For a more detailed perspective on how the vulnerability disclosure process works and how CSAF 2.0 offers a decentralized alternative to MITRE’s CVE program, check out our article: How CSAF 2.0 Advances Automated Vulnerability Management. Next, let’s take a closer look at the NIST NVD outage and understand what makes Greenbone’s detection capabilities resilient against the NIST NVD outage.

The NIST NVD Outage: What Happened?

Starting on February 12, 2024, the NVD drastically reduced its enrichment of Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) with critical metadata such as CVSS, CPE and CWE product identifiers. The issue was first identified by Anchore’s VP of Security. As of May 2024, roughly 93% of CVEs added after February 12 were unenriched. By September 2024, NIST had failed to meet its self-imposed deadline; 72.4% of CVEs and 46.7% of new additions to CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEVs) were still unenriched [3].

The slowdown in NVD’s enrichment process had significant repercussions for the cybersecurity community not only because enriched data is critical for defenders to effectively prioritize security threats, but also because some vulnerability scanners depend on this enriched data to implement their detection techniques.

As a cybersecurity defender, it’s worthwhile asking: was Greenbone affected by the NIST NVD outage? The short answer is no. Read on to find out why Greenbone’s detection capabilities are resilient against the NIST NVD outage.

Greenbone Detection Strong Despite the NVD Outage

Without enriched CVE data, some vulnerability management solutions become ineffective because they rely on CPE matching to determine if a vulnerability exists within an organization’s infrastructure.  However, Greenbone is resilient against the NIST NVD outage because our products do not depend on CPE matching. Greenbone’s OPENVAS vulnerability tests can be built from un-enriched CVE description. In fact, Greenbone can and does include detection for known vulnerabilities and misconfigurations that don’t even have CVEs such as CIS compliance benchmarks [4][5].

To build Vulnerability Tests (VT) Greenbone employs a dedicated team of software engineers who identify the underlying technical aspects of vulnerabilities. Greenbone does include a CVE Scanner feature capable of traditional CPE matching. However, unlike solutions that rely solely on CPE data from NIST NVD to identify vulnerabilities, Greenbone employs detection techniques that extend far beyond basic CPE matching. Therefore, Greenbone’s vulnerability detection capabilities remain robust even in the face of challenges such as the recent outage of the NIST NVD.

To achieve highly resilient, industry leading vulnerability detection, Greenbone’s OPENVAS Scanner component actively interacts with exposed network services to construct a detailed map of a target network’s attack surface. This includes identifying services that are accessible via network connections, probing them to determine products, and executing individual Vulnerability Tests (VT) for each CVE or non-CVE security flaw to actively verify whether they are present. Greenbone’s Enterprise Vulnerability Feed contains over 180,000 VTs, updated daily, to detect the latest disclosed vulnerabilities, ensuring rapid detection of the newest threats.

In addition to its active scanning capabilities, Greenbone supports agentless data collection via authenticated scans. Gathering detailed information from endpoints, Greenbone evaluates installed software packages against issued CVEs. This method provides precise vulnerability detection without depending on enriched CPE data from the NVD.

Key Takeways:

  • Independence from enriched CVE data: Greenbone’s vulnerability detection does not rely on enriched CVE data provided by NIST’s NVD, ensuring uninterrupted performance during outages. A basic description of a vulnerability allows Greenbone’s vulnerability test engineers to develop a detection module.
  • Detection beyond CPE matching: While Greenbone includes a CVE Scanner feature for CPE matching, its detection capabilities extend far beyond this basic approach, utilizing several methods that actively interact with scan targets.
  • Attack surface mapping: The OPENVAS Scanner actively interacts with exposed services to map network attack surface, identifying all network reachable services. Greenbone also performs authenticated scans to gather data directly from endpoint internals. This information is processed to identify vulnerable packages. Enriched CVE data such as CPE is not required.
  • Resilience to NVD enrichment outages: Greenbone’s detection methods remain effective even without NVD enrichment, leveraging CVE descriptions provided by CNAs to create accurate active checks and version-based vulnerability assessments.

Greenbone’s Approach is Practical, Effective and Resilient

Greenbone exemplifies the gold standard of practicality, effectiveness and resilience, achieving a benchmark that IT security teams should be striving to achieve. By leveraging active network mapping, authenticated scans and actively interacting with target infrastructure, Greenbone ensures reliable, resilient detection capabilities in diverse environments.

This higher standard enables organizations to confidently address vulnerabilities, even in complex and dynamic threat landscapes. Even in the absence of NVD enrichment, Greenbone’s detection methods remain effective. With only a general description Greenbone’s VT engineers can develop accurate active checks and product version-based vulnerability assessments.

Through a fundamentally resilient approach to vulnerability detection, Greenbone ensures reliable vulnerability management, setting itself apart in the cybersecurity landscape.

NVD / NIST / MITRE Alternatives

The MITRE issue is a wake-up call for digital sovereignty, and the EU has already (and fast) reacted. A long-awaited alternative, the EuVD by the ENISA, the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity, is there, and will be covered in one of our upcoming blog posts.

Contact Test Now Buy Here Back to Overview

/by
Joseph Lee

January 2025 Threat Report: Fortune Favors the Prepared

This year, many large organizations around the world will be forced to reckon with the root-cause of cyber intrusions. Many known vulnerabilities are an open gateway to restricted network resources. Our first Threat Report of 2025 reviews some disastrous breaches from 2024 and then dives into some pressing cybersecurity vulnerabilities from this past month.

However, to be clear, the vulnerabilities discussed here merely scratch the surface. In January 2025, over 4,000 new CVEs (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) were published; 22 with the maximum CVSS score of 10, and 375 rated critical severity. The deluge of critical severity flaws in edge networking devices has not abated. Newly attacked flaws in products from global tech giants like Microsoft, Apple, Cisco, Fortinet, Palo Alto Networks, Ivanti, Oracle and others have been appended to CISA’s (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency) Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog.

Software Supply Chain: the User’s Responsibility

We are all running software we didn’t design ourselves. This places a huge emphasis on trust. Where trust is uncertain – whether due to fears of poor diligence, malice or human error – cybersecurity responsibility still rests on the end-user. Risk assurances depend heavily on technical knowledge and collective effort. Defenders need to remember these facts in 2025.

When supply chain security fails, ask why! Did the software vendor provide the required tools to take control of your own security outcomes? Is your IT security team executing diligent vulnerability discovery and remediation? Are your resources segmented with strong access controls? Have employees been trained to identify phishing attacks? Are other reasonable cybersecurity measures in place? Organizations need to mature their ransomware-readiness, implement regular vulnerability assessments and prioritized patch management. And they should verify reliable backup strategies can meet recovery targets and prioritize other fundamental security controls to protect sensitive data and prevent downtime.

Fortune Favors the Prepared

Assessing 2024, the UK’s NCSC (National Cyber Security Center) annual review painted a grim picture; significant cyberattacks had increased three times compared to 2023. For a birds-eye view, CSIS (The Center for International Strategic & International Studies) has posted an extensive list of the most significant cyber incidents of 2024. The landscape has been shaped by the Russia Ukraine conflict and an accelerated shift from globalization to adversarialism.

Check Point Research found that 96% of all vulnerabilities exploited in 2024 were over a year old. These are positive findings for proactive defenders. Entities conducting vulnerability management will fare much better against targeted ransomware and mass exploitation attacks. One thing is clear: proactive cybersecurity reduces the cost of a breach.

Let’s review two of the most significant breaches from 2024:

  • The Change Healthcare Breach: Overall in 2024, breaches of healthcare entities were down from 2023’s record setting year. However, the ransomware attack against Change Healthcare set a new record for the number of affected individuals at 190 million, with total costs so far reaching 2,457 billion Dollar. The State of Nebraska has now filed a lawsuit against Change Healthcare for operating outdated IT systems that failed to meet enterprise security standards. According to IBM, breaches in the healthcare industry are the most costly, averaging 9.77 million Dollar in 2024.
  • Typhoon Teams Breach 9 US Telecoms: The “Typhoon” suffix is used by Microsoft’s threat actor naming convention for groups with Chinese origins. The Chinese state-sponsored adversary known as Salt Typhoon infiltrated the networks of at least nine major U.S. telecommunications companies, accessing user’s call and text metadata and audio recordings of high-profile government officials. Volt Typhoon breached Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel) and other telecom operators globally. The “Typhoons” exploited vulnerabilities in outdated network devices, including unpatched Microsoft Exchange Server, Cisco routers, Fortinet and Sophos Firewalls and Ivanti VPN appliances. Greenbone is able to detect all known software vulnerabilities associated with Salt Typhoon and Volt Typhoon attacks [1][2].

UK May Ban Ransomware Payments in Public Sector

The UK government’s framework to combat ransomware has proposed a ban on ransom payments by public sector entities and critical infrastructure operators with hopes to deter cyber criminals from targeting them in the first place. However, a new report from The National Audit Office (NAO), the UK’s independent public spending watchdog, says “cyber threat to UK government is severe and advancing quickly”.

The FBI, CISA and NSA all advise against paying ransoms. After all, paying a ransom does not guarantee the recovery of encrypted data or prevent the public release of stolen data, and may even encourage further extortion. On the flip side IBM’s security think-tank acknowledges that many SME organizations could not fiscally survive the downtime imposed by ransomware. While both sides make points here, could enriching cyber criminals while failing to shore-up local talent result in a positive outcome?

Vulnerability in SonicWall SMA 1000 Actively Exploited

Microsoft Threat Intelligence has uncovered active exploitation of SonicWall SMA 1000 gateways via CVE-2025-23006 (CVSS 9.8 Critical). The flaw is caused by improper handling of untrusted data during deserialization [CWE-502]. It could allow an unauthenticated attacker with access to the internal Appliance Management Console (AMC) or Central Management Console (CMC) interface to execute arbitrary OS commands. SonicWall has released hotfix version 12.4.3-02854 to address the flaw.

While no publicly available exploit code has been identified, numerous government agencies have issued alerts including Germany’s BSI CERT-Bund, Canadian Center for Cybersecurity, CISA, and the UK’s NHS (National Health Service). Greenbone is able to detect SonicWall systems impacted by CVE-2025-23006 by remotely checking the version identified from the service banner.

CVE-2024-44243 for Persistent Rootkit in macOS

January 2025 was a firestorm month for Apple security. Microsoft Threat Intelligence has found time to security test macOS, discovering a vulnerability that could allow installed apps to modify the OS System Integrity Protection (SIP). According to Microsoft, this could allow attackers to install rootkits, persistent malware and bypass Transparency, Consent and Control (TCC) which grants granular access permissions to applications on a per-folder basis. While active exploitation has not been reported, Microsoft has released technical details on their findings.

As January closed, a batch of 88 new CVEs, 17 with critical severity CVSS scores were published affecting the full spectrum of Apple products. One of these, CVE-2025-24085, was observed in active attacks and added to CISA’s KEV catalog. On top of these, dual speculative execution vulnerabilities in Apple’s M-series chips dubbed SLAP and FLOP were disclosed but have not yet been assigned CVEs. For SLAP, researchers leveraged chip flaws to exploit Safari WebKit’s heap allocation techniques and manipulated JavaScript string metadata to enable out-of-bounds speculative reads, allowing them to extract sensitive DOM content from other open website tabs. For FLOP, researchers demonstrated that sensitive data can be stolen from Safari and Google Chrome; bypassing Javascript type checking in Safari WebKit and Chrome’s Site Isolation via WebAssembly.

Furthermore, five high severity vulnerabilities were also published affecting Microsoft Office for macOS. Each potentially forfeiting Remote Code Execution (RCE) to an attacker. Affected products include Microsoft Word (CVE-2025-21363), Excel (CVE-2025-21354 and CVE-2025-21362) and OneNote (CVE-2025-21402) for macOS. While no technical details about these vulnerabilities are yet available, all have high CVSS ratings and users should update as soon as possible.

The Greenbone Enterprise Feed includes detection for missing macOS security updates and many other CVEs affecting applications for macOS including the five newly disclosed CVEs in Microsoft Office for Mac.

6 CVEs in Rsync Allow Both Server and Client Takeover

The combination of two newly discovered vulnerabilities may allow the execution of arbitrary code on vulnerable rsyncd servers while having only anonymous read access. CVE-2024-12084, a heap buffer overflow and CVE-2024-12085, an information leak flaw are the culprits. Public mirrors using rsyncd represent the highest risk since they inherently lack access control.

The researchers also found that a weaponized rsync server can read and write arbitrary files on connected clients. This can allow theft of sensitive information and potentially execution of malicious code by modifying executable files.

Here is a summary of the new flaws ordered by CVSS severity:

Collectively, these flaws present serious risk of RCE, data exfiltration and installing persistent malware on both rsyncd servers and unsuspecting clients. Users must update to the patched version, thoroughly look for any Indicators of Compromise (IoC) on any systems that have used rsync, and potentially redeploy file sharing infrastructure. Greenbone is able to detect all known vulnerabilities in rsync and non-compliance with critical security updates.

CVE-2025-0411: 7-Zip Offers MotW Bypass

On January 25, 2025, CVE-2025-0411 (CVSS 7.5 High) was published affecting 7-Zip archiver. The flaw allows bypassing the Windows security feature Mark of the Web (MotW) via specially crafted archive files. MoTW tags files downloaded from the internet with a Zone Identifier alternate data stream (ADS), warning when they originate from an untrusted source. However, 7-Zip versions before 24.09 do not pass the MotW flag to files within nested archives. Exploiting CVE-2025-0411 to gain control of a victim’s system requires human interaction. Targets must open a trojanized archive and then further execute a malicious file contained within.

Interestingly, research from Cofence found government websites around the world have been leveraged for credential phishing, malware delivery and command-and-control (C2) operations via CVE-2024-25608, a Liferay digital platform vulnerability. This flaw allows attackers to redirect users from trusted .gov URLs to malicious phishing sites. Combining redirection from a trusted .gov domain with the 7-Zip flaw has significant potential for stealthy malware distribution.

Considering the risks, users should manually upgrade to version 24.09, which has been available since late 2024. As discussed in the introduction above, software supply chain security often lies in a grey zone, we all depend on software beyond our control. Notably, prior to the publication of CVE-2025-0411, 7-Zip had not alerted users to a security flaw. Furthermore, although 7-Zip is open-source, the product’s GitHub account does not reveal many details or contact information for responsible disclosure.

Furthermore, the CVE has triggered DFN-CERT and BSI CERT-Bund advisories [1][2]. Greenbone is able to detect the presence of vulnerable versions of 7-Zip.

Summary

This edition of our monthly Threat Report reviewed major breaches from 2024 and newly discovered critical vulnerabilities in January 2025. The software supply chain presents elevated risk to all organizations large and small from both open-source and closed-source products. However, open-source software offers transparency and the opportunity for stakeholders to engage proactively in their own security outcomes, either collectively or independently. While cybersecurity costs are significant, advancing technical capabilities will increasingly be a determinant factor in both enterprise and national security. Fortune favors the prepared.

Contact Test Now Buy Here Back to Overview

/by
Joseph Lee

October 2024 Threat Report: Ransomware Rising Defenders Must Respond

October was European Cyber Security Month (ECSM) and International Cybersecurity Awareness month with the latter’s theme being “Secure Our World”. It’s safe to say that instilling best practices for online safety to individuals, businesses and critical infrastructure is mission critical in 2024. At Greenbone, in addition to our Enterprise vulnerability management products, we are happy to make enterprise grade IT security tools more accessible via our free Community Edition, Community Portal and vibrant Community Forum to discuss development, features and get support.

Our core message to cybersecurity decision makers is clear: To patch or not to patch isn’t a question. How to identify vulnerabilities and misconfigurations before an attacker can exploit them is. Being proactive is imperative; once identified, vulnerabilities must be prioritized and fixed. While alerts to active exploitation can support prioritization, waiting to act is unacceptable in high risk scenarios. Key performance indicators can help security teams and executive decision makers track progress quantitatively and highlight areas that need improvement.

In this month’s Threat Tracking blog post, we will review this year’s ransomware landscape including the root causes of ransomware attacks and replay some of the top cyber threats that emerged in October 2024.

International Efforts to Combat Ransomware Continue

The International Counter Ransomware Initiative (CRI), consisting of 68 countries and organizations (notably lacking Russia and China), convened in Washington, D.C., to improve ransomware resilience globally. The CRI aims to reduce global ransomware payments, improve incident reporting frameworks, strengthen partnerships with the cyber insurance industry to lessen the impact of ransomware incidents, and enhance resilience by establishing standards and best practices for both preventing and recovering from ransomware attacks.

Microsoft’s Digital Defense Report 2024 found the rate of attacks has increased so far in 2024, yet fewer breaches are reaching the encryption phase. The result is fewer victims paying ransom overall. Findings from Coveware, Kaseya, and the Chainanalysis blockchain monitoring firm also affirm lower rates of payout. Still, ransomware gangs are seeing record profits; more than 459 million US-Dollar were extorted during the first half of 2024. This year also saw a new single incident high; a 75 million US-Dollar extortion payout amid a trend towards “big game hunting” – targeting large firms rather than small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs).

What Is the Root Cause of Ransomware?

How are successful ransomware attacks succeeding in the first place? Root cause analyses can help: A 2024 Statista survey of organizations worldwide reports exploited software vulnerabilities are the leading root cause of successful ransomware attacks, implicated in 32% of successful attacks. The same survey ranked credential compromise the second-most common cause and malicious email (malspam and phishing attacks) third. Security experts from Symantec claim that exploitation of known vulnerabilities in public facing applications has become the primary initial access vector in ransomware attacks. Likewise, KnowBe4, a security awareness provider, ranked social engineering and unpatched software as the top root causes of ransomware.

These findings bring us back to our core message and highlight the importance of Greenbone’s industry leading core competency: helping defenders identify vulnerabilities lurking in their IT infrastructure so they can fix and close exploitable security gaps.

FortiJump: an Actively Exploited CVE in FortiManager

In late October 2024, Fortinet alerted its customers to a critical severity RCE vulnerability in FortiManager, the company’s flagship network security management solution. Dubbed “FortiJump” and tracked as CVE-2024-47575 (CVSS 9.8), the vulnerability is classified as “Missing Authentication for Critical Function” [CWE-306] in FortiManager’s fgfm daemon. Google’s Mandiant has retroactively searched logs and confirmed this vulnerability has been actively exploited since June 2024 and describes the situation as a mass exploitation scenario.

Another actively exploited vulnerability in Fortinet products, CVE-2024-23113 (CVSS 9.8) was also added to CISA’s KEV catalog during October. This time the culprit is an externally-controlled format string in FortiOS that could allow an attacker to execute unauthorized commands via specially crafted packets.

Greenbone is able to detect devices vulnerable to FortiJump, FortiOS devices susceptible to CVE-2024-23113 [1][2][3], and over 600 other flaws in Fortinet products.

Iranian Cyber Actors Serving Ransomware Threats

The FBI, CISA, NSA and other US and international security agencies issued a joint advisory warning of an ongoing Iranian-backed campaign targeting critical infrastructure networks particularly in healthcare, government, IT, engineering and energy sectors. Associated threat groups are attributed with ransomware attacks that primarily gain initial access by exploiting public facing services [T1190] such as VPNs. Other techniques used in the campaign include brute force attacks [T1110], password spraying [T1110.003], and MFA fatigue attacks.

The campaign is associated with exploitation of the following CVEs:

Greenbone can detect all CVEs referenced in the campaign advisories, providing defenders with visibility and the opportunity to mitigate risk. Furthermore, while not tracked as a CVE, preventing brute force and password spraying attacks is cybersecurity 101. While many authentication services do not natively offer brute force protection, add-on security products can be configured to impose a lockout time after repeated login failures. Greenbone can attest compliance with CIS security controls for Microsoft RDP including those that prevent brute-force and password spraying login attacks.

Finally, according to the EU’s Cyber Resilience Act’s (CRA), Annex I, Part I (2)(d), products with digital elements must “ensure protection from unauthorized access by appropriate control mechanisms”, including systems for authentication, identity and access management, and should also report any instances of unauthorized access. This implies that going forward the EU will eventually require all products to have built-in brute force protection rather than relying on third-party rate limiting tools such as fail2ban for Linux.

Unencrypted Cookies in F5 BIG-IP LTM Actively Exploited

CISA has observed that cyber threat actors are exploiting unencrypted persistent cookies on F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) systems. Once stolen, the cookies are used to identify other internal network devices which can further allow passive detection of vulnerabilities within a network. Similar to most web-applications, BIG-IP passes an  HTTP cookie between the client and server to track user sessions. The cookie, by default, is named BIGipServer<pool_name> and its value contains the encoded IP address and port of the destination server.

F5 BIG-IP is a network traffic management suite and LTM is the core module that provides load balancing and traffic distribution across servers. CISA advises organizations to ensure persistent cookies are encrypted. F5 offers guidance for setting up cookie encryption and a diagnostic tool, BIG-IP iHealth to detect unencrypted cookie persistence profiles.

While active exploitation increases the threat to organizations who have not remediated this weakness, the vulnerability has been known since early 2018.  Greenbone has included detection for this weakness since January 2018, allowing users to identify and close the security gap presented by unencrypted cookies in F5 BIG-IP LTM since its disclosure.

New High Risk Vulnerabilities in Palo Alto Expedition

Several new high risk vulnerabilities have been disclosed in Palo Alto’s Expedition, a migration tool designed to streamline the transition from third-party security configurations to Palo Alto’s PAN-OS. While not observed in active campaigns yet, two of the nine total CVEs assigned to Palo Alto in October were rated with EPSS scores in the top 98th percentile.  EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System) is a machine learning prediction model that estimates the likelihood of a CVE being exploited in the wild within 30 days from the model prediction.

Here is a brief technical description of each CVE:

  • CVE-2024-9463 (CVSS 7.5, EPSS 91.34%): An OS command injection vulnerability in Palo Alto’s Expedition allows an unauthenticated attacker to run arbitrary OS commands as root in Expedition, resulting in disclosure of usernames, cleartext passwords, device configurations and device API keys of PAN-OS firewalls.
  • CVE-2024-9465 (CVSS 9.1, EPSS 73.86%): An SQL injection vulnerability in Palo Alto Networks Expedition allows an unauthenticated attacker to reveal sensitive database contents, such as password hashes, usernames, device configurations and device API keys. Once this information has been obtained, attackers can create and read arbitrary files on affected systems.

Four Critical CVEs in Mozilla Firefox: One Actively Exploited

As mentioned before on our Threat Tracking blog, browser security is critical for preventing initial access, especially for workstation devices. In October 2024, seven new critical severity and 19 other less critical vulnerabilities were disclosed in Mozilla Firefox < 131.0 and Thunderbird < 131.0.1. One of these, CVE-2024-9680, was observed being actively exploited against Tor network users and added to CISA’s known exploited catalog. Greenbone includes vulnerability tests to identify all affected Mozilla products.

The seven new critical severity disclosures are:

  • CVE-2024-9680 (CVSS 9.8): Attackers achieved unauthorized RCE in the content process by exploiting a Use-After-Free in Animation timelines. CVE-2024-9680 is being exploited in the wild.
  • CVE-2024-10468 (CVSS 9.8): Potential race conditions in IndexedDB allows memory corruption, leading to a potentially exploitable crash.
  • CVE-2024-9392 (CVSS 9.8): A compromised content process enables arbitrary loading of cross-origin pages.
  • CVE-2024-10467, CVE-2024-9401 and CVE-2024-9402 (CVSS 9.8): Memory safety bugs present in Firefox showed evidence of memory corruption. Security researchers presume that with enough effort some of these could have been exploited to run arbitrary code.
  • CVE-2024-10004 (CVSS 9.1): Opening an external link to an HTTP website when Firefox iOS was previously closed and had an HTTPS tab open could result in the padlock icon showing an HTTPS indicator incorrectly.

Summary

Our monthly Threat Tracking blog covers major cybersecurity trends and high-risk threats. Key insights for October 2024 include expanded efforts to counter ransomware internationally and the role proactive vulnerability management plays in preventing successful ransomware attacks. Other highlights include Fortinet and Palo Alto vulnerabilities actively exploited and updates on an Iranian-backed cyber attack campaign targeting public-facing services of critical infrastructure sector entities. Additionally, F5 BIG-IP LTM’s unencrypted cookie vulnerability, exploited for reconnaissance, and four new Mozilla Firefox vulnerabilities, one actively weaponized, underscore the need for vigilance.

Greenbone facilitates identification and remediation of these vulnerabilities and more, helping organizations enhance resilience against evolving cyber threats. Prioritizing rapid detection and timely patching remains crucial for mitigating risk.

Contact Test Now Buy Here Back to Overview

/by
Andreas Bergler

Greenbone at it-sa 2024: Three Exciting Days at the Trade Fair and a Record Number of Visitors 

it-sa 2024 in Nuremberg was a great success not only for the organizers but also for us: three days full of inspiring conversations, new contacts and important insights into the current security requirements of existing and potential customers. As one of the most important trade fairs for IT security in Europe, it-sa was the ideal platform for us to present the latest developments to a broad audience. Our keynote, held by CEO Dr. Jan-Oliver Wagner, attracted numerous trade visitors. Under the title “Be secure and stay secure”, he provided insights into the importance of our portfolio for proactive corporate security.

The Greenbone team at the partner stand at it-sa 2024 in Nuremberg.”

The Greenbone team at it-sa 2024 was pleased to welcome twice as many visitors as in the previous year.

 

Keynote: Vulnerability Management as the Basis for Cyber Security

In his keynote, Jan-Oliver Wagner spoke about the growing importance of vulnerability management as the fundamental building block of a comprehensive security strategy. Companies and organizations of all sizes are facing the challenge of dealing with the ever-increasing threat of cyber attacks. Especially because the number of attacks has increased dramatically in recent years and that high tens of millions have already been paid in cyber extortion, it is clear that cybersecurity is no longer just “nice to have”, but essential for survival. 

Jan-Oliver Wagner called for threats to be detected as early as possible and for risks to be managed proactively. He presented vulnerability management as “the first line of defense” against attackers. With Greenbone solutions, companies can continuously check their IT infrastructure for security vulnerabilities: “Vulnerability management is the basis of a sustainable and highly effective security strategy.” Security teams are often faced with the difficult task of assessing risks appropriately and making the right decisions. “The goal is to stay one step ahead of attackers. Our solutions not only identify security vulnerabilities, but also help prioritize which vulnerabilities need to be addressed most urgently.”

Inspiring Conversations and New Contacts: the Trade Fair Highlights

The trade fair enabled us to engage directly with industry visitors, customers and partners, answer their questions and better understand their perspectives. With many technical discussions in just three days, the number of visitors to our partner stand at ADN more than doubled compared to last year, reports Ingo Conrads, Chief Sales Officer: “We were particularly pleased about the many new prospects and partners with whom we were able to discuss many new business opportunities.” 

Dr. Jan-Oliver Wagner, CEO of Greenbone, during his keynote speech 'Be secure and stay secure' at it-sa 2024 in Nuremberg.

Greenbone CEO Dr. Jan-Oliver Wagner giving the keynote “Be secure and stay secure” at it-sa 2024.

Many visitors already knew Greenbone as a brand, partly by OpenVAS in the past. But new products such as Greenbone Basic were also a discovery for many, showing how comprehensive and scalable our solutions have become – from entry-level to enterprise products for the public sector. The diversity of our portfolio and our services in particular generated surprise and interest. An overview of the various possible uses of our solutions is available on our website.

Thank You for the Successful Trade Fair!

it-sa 2024 was a great success and an inspiring experience for us. Once again, the trade fair showed how important vulnerability management has become and that Greenbone is making an important contribution to IT security. Many thanks to our distribution partner ADN for the excellent cooperation at the partner stand – and many thanks to all visitors for the interesting discussions and valuable feedback!

Together we are working to ensure that companies are secure – and stay secure. 

Contact Test Now Buy Here Back to Overview

/by
Andreas Bergler

… and Action! Greenbone at the it-sa Expo&Congress

Next week, it-sa, one of the largest platforms for IT security solutions, will kick off. On the opening day, October 22, 2024, from 11:00 a.m., Greenbone’s CEO Dr. Jan-Oliver Wagner will show how companies can remain capable of managing crisis situations. With the “Action” in Forum 6-B “Be secure and stay secure” he shows ways out of the growing threats posed by cyber risks. It is not for nothing that his overview of the possibilities and potential of vulnerability management is not called a “lecture”, but “action”: action is needed!

Take Action!

In times when ransomware gangs are trying to extort tens of millions of dollars, it’s essential for companies and organizations to act as early as possible to ensure the security of their IT systems, data and business operations. Every investment in cyber security pays off many times over when the acquisition costs of a corresponding proactive solution are compared with the costs incurred by a security breach – the costs of paying ransom are devastating. As with any calculation of interest and compound interest: the earlier the investment, the more it pays off. 

Greenbone’s solutions start at the earliest possible point in the history of cyber risks: the proactive detection of security vulnerabilities in your own IT infrastructure. Proactive vulnerability management goes hand in hand with a well-founded security strategy. Security intelligence is continuously provided, systems are monitored and results are compared and matched to known vulnerabilities.

Gaining a Knowledge Advantage

Because criminals make their attacks on their victims’ networks as impactful and widespread as possible in order to maximize their profits, IT managers should make it as difficult as possible in return. Vulnerability management offers companies a decisive advantage in the race against potential attackers. Vulnerabilities are often exploited before they are publicly announced, but once they are known, the race between attacker and the attacked enters the hot phase: attack vectors should be closed faster than cybercriminals can exploit them.

Manage Risks

To prevent the security risk from escalating, Greenbone solutions now access over 180,000 automated vulnerability tests. This reduces the potential attack surface by 99% compared to companies that do not use vulnerability management. These immense opportunities for risk minimization require prudent security management. The more vulnerabilities get uncovered, the more pressing the need for action becomes. Which IT systems require immediate help? Which assets and interaction paths in the company are particularly critical and which security measures should be prioritized? 

Only those who have plausible answers to these questions will be able to keep the overall risk of cyber attacks as low as possible in the long term. Jan-Oliver Wagner will identify top priorities and how a corresponding “triage” can be practiced among data and systems in day-to-day operations in the it-sa action “Be secure and stay secure”. Join us!

Visit us at our booth 6-346 or make an appointment right away and get your free ticket to the trade show. We look forward to your visit!

Make an appointment!

Contact Test Now Buy Here Back to Overview

/by
Joseph Lee

September 2024 Threat Tracking: Speed Before Safety?

A 2023 World Economic Forum report surveyed 151 global organizational leaders and found that 93% of cyber leaders and 86% business leaders believe a catastrophic cyber event is likely within the next two years. Still, many software vendors prioritize rapid development and product innovation above security. This month, CISA’s Director Jen Easterly stated software vendors “are building problems that open the doors for villains” and that “we don’t have a cyber security problem – we have a software quality problem”. Downstream, customers benefit from innovative software solutions, but are also exposed to the risks from poorly written software applications; financially motivated ransomware attacks, wiper malware, nation-state espionage and data theft, costly downtime, reputational damage and even insolvency.

However astute, the Director’s position glosses over the true cyber risk landscape. For example, as identified by Bruce Schneier back in 1999; IT complexity increases the probability of human error leading to misconfigurations [1][2][3]. Greenbone identifies both known software vulnerabilities and misconfigurations with industry leading vulnerability test coverage and compliance tests attesting CIS controls and other standards such as the BSI basic controls for Microsoft Office.

At the end of the day, organizations hold responsibility to their stakeholders, customers and the general public. They need to stay focused and protect themselves with fundamental IT security activities including Vulnerability Management. In September 2024’s Threat Tracking blog post, we review the most pressing new developments in the enterprise cybersecurity landscape threatening SMEs and large organizations alike.

SonicOS Exploited in Akira Ransomware Campaigns

CVE-2024-40766 (CVSS 10 Critical) impacting SonicWall’s flagship OS SonicOS, has been identified as a known vector for campaigns distributing Akira ransomware. Akira, originally written in C++, has been active since early 2023. A second Rust-based version became the dominant strain in the second half of 2023. The primary group behind Akira is believed to stem from the dissolved Conti ransomware gang. Akira is now operated as a Ransomware as a Service (RaaS) leveraging a double extortion tactic against targets in Germany and across the EU, North America, and Australia. As of January 2024, Akira had compromised over 250 businesses and critical infrastructure entities, extorting over 42 million US-Dollar.

Akira’s tactics include exploiting known vulnerabilities for initial access such as:

Greenbone includes tests to identify SonicWall devices vulnerable to CVE-2024-40766 [1][2] and all other vulnerabilities exploited by the Akira ransomware gang for initial access.

Urgent Patch for Veeam Backup and Restoration

Ransomware is the apex cyber threat, especially in healthcare. The US Human and Healthcare Services (HHS) reports that large breaches increased by 256% and ransomware incidents by 264% over the past five years. Organizations have responded with more proactive cybersecurity measures to prevent initial access and more robust incident response and recovery, including more robust backup solutions. Backup systems are thus a prime target for ransomware operators.

Veeam is a leading vendor of enterprise backup solutions globally and promotes its products as a viable safeguard against ransomware attacks. CVE-2024-40711 (CVSS 10 Critical), a recently disclosed vulnerability in Veeam Backup and Recovery is especially perilous since it could allow hackers to target the last line of protection against ransomware – backups. The vulnerability was discovered and responsibly reported by Florian Hauser of CODE WHITE GmbH, a German cybersecurity research company. Unauthorized Remote Code Execution (RCE) via CVE-2024-40711 was quickly verified by security researchers within 24 hours of the disclosure, and proof-of-concept code is now publicly available online, compounding the risk.

Veeam Backup & Replication version 12.1.2.172 and all earlier v12 builds are vulnerable and customers need to patch affected instances with urgency. Greenbone can detect CVE-2024-40711 in Veeam Backup and Restoration allowing IT security teams to stay one step ahead of ransomware gangs.

Blast-RADIUS Highlights a 20 Year old MD5 Collision Attack

RADIUS is a powerful and flexible authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) protocol used in enterprise environments to validate user-supplied credentials against a central authentication service such as Active Directory (AD), LDAP, or VPN services. Dubbed BlastRADIUS, CVE-2024-3596 is a newly disclosed attack against the UDP implementation of RADIUS, accompanied by a dedicated website, research paper, and attack details. Proof-of-concept code is also available from a secondary source.

Blast-RADIUS is an Adversary in The Middle (AiTM) attack that exploits a chosen-prefix collision weakness in MD5 originally identified in 2004 and improved in 2009. The researchers exponentially reduced the time required to spoof MD5 collisions and released their improved version of hashclash. The attack can allow an active AiTM positioned between a RADIUS client and a RADIUS server to trick the client into honoring a forged Access-Accept response despite the RADIUS server issuing a Access-Reject response. This is accomplished by computing an MD5 collision between the expected Access-Reject and a forged Access-Accept response allowing an attacker to approve login requests.

Greenbone can detect a wide array vulnerable RADIUS implementations in enterprise networking devices such as F5 BIG-IP [1], Fortinet FortiAuthenticator [2] and FortiOS [3], Palo Alto PAN-OS [4], Aruba CX Switches [5] and ClearPass Policy Manager [6], and on the OS level in Oracle Linux [7][8], SUSE [9][10][11], OpenSUSE [12][13], Red Had [14][15], Fedora [16][17], Amazon [18], Alma [19][20], and Rocky Linux [21][22] among others.

Urgent: CVE-2024-27348 in Apache HugeGraph-Server

CVE-2024-27348 (CVSS 9.8 Critical) is a RCE vulnerability in the open-source Apache HugeGraph-Server that affects all versions of 1.0 before 1.3.0 in Java8 and Java11. HugeGraph-Server provides an API interface used to store, query, and analyze complex relationships between data points and is commonly used for analyzing data from social networks, recommendation systems and for fraud detection.

CVE-2024-27348 allows attackers to bypass the sandbox restrictions within the Gremlin query language by exploiting inadequate Java reflection filtering. An attacker can leverage the vulnerability by crafting malicious Gremlin scripts and submitting them via API to the HugeGraph /gremlin endpoint to execute arbitrary commands. The vulnerability can be exploited via remote, adjacent, or local access to the API and can enable privilege escalation.

It is being actively exploited in hacking campaigns. Proof-of-concept exploit code [1][2][3] and an in-depth technical analysis are publicly available giving cyber criminals a head start in developing attacks. Greenbone includes an active check and version detection test to identify vulnerable instances of Apache HugeGraph-Server. Users are advised to update to the latest version.

Ivanti has Been an Open Door for Attackers in 2024

Our blog has covered vulnerabilities in Invati products several times this year [1][2][3]. September 2024 was another hot month for weaknesses in Ivanti products. Ivanti finally patched CVE-2024-29847 (CVSS 9.8 Critical), a RCE vulnerability impacting Ivanti Endpoint Manager (EPM), first reported in May 2024. Proof-of-concept exploit code and a technical description are now publicly available, increasing the threat. Although there is no evidence of active exploitation yet, this CVE should be considered high priority and patched with urgency.

However, in September 2024, CISA also identified a staggering four new vulnerabilities in Ivanti products being actively exploited in the wild. Greenbone can detect all of these new additions to CISA KEV and previous vulnerabilities in Ivanti products. Here are the details:

Summary

In this month’s Threat Tracking blog, we highlighted major cybersecurity developments including critical vulnerabilities such as CVE-2024-40766 exploited by Akira ransomware, CVE-2024-40711 impacting Veeam Backup and the newly disclosed Blast-RADIUS attack that could impact enterprise AAA. Proactive cybersecurity activities such as continuous vulnerability management and compliance attestation help to mitigate risks from ransomware, wiper malware, and espionage campaigns, allowing defenders to close security gaps before adversaries can exploit them.

Contact Test Now Buy Here Back to Overview

/by
Joseph Lee

August 2024 Threat Tracking: Threats on the Rise

The cybersecurity risk environment has been red hot through the first half of 2024. Critical vulnerabilities in even the most critical technologies are perpetually open to cyber attacks, and defenders face the continuous struggle to identify and remediate these relentlessly emerging security gaps. Large organizations are being targeted by sophisticated “big game hunting” campaigns by ransomware gangs seeking to hit the ransomware jackpot. The largest ransomware payout ever was reported in August – 75 million Dollar to the Dark Angels gang. Small and medium sized enterprises are targeted on a daily basis by automated “mass exploitation” attacks, also often seeking to deliver ransomware [1][2][3].

A quick look at CISA’s Top Routinely Exploited Vulnerabilities shows us that even though cyber criminals can turn new CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) information into exploit code in a matter of days or even hours, older vulnerabilities from years past are still on their radar.

In this month’s Threat Tracking blog post, we will point out some of the top cybersecurity risks to enterprise cybersecurity, highlighting vulnerabilities recently reported as actively exploited and other critical vulnerabilities in enterprise IT products.

The BSI Improves LibreOffice’s Mitigation of Human Error

OpenSource Security on behalf of the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) recently identified a secure-by-design flaw in LibreOffice. Tracked as CVE-2024-6472 (CVSS 7.8 High), it was found that users could enable unsigned macros embedded in LibreOffice documents, overriding the “high security mode” setting. While exploitation requires human interaction, the weakness addresses a false sense of security, that unsigned macros could not be executed when “high security mode” enabled.

KeyTrap: DoS Attack Against DNSSEC

In February 2024, academics at the German National Research Center for Applied Cybersecurity (ATHENE) in Darmstadt disclosed “the worst attack on DNS ever discovered”. According to German researchers, a single packet can cause a “Denial of Service” (DoS) by exhausting a DNSSEC-validating DNS resolver. Dubbed “KeyTrap”, attackers can exploit the weakness to prevent clients using a compromised DNS server from accessing the internet or local network resources. The culprit is a design flaw in the current DNSSEC specification [RFC-9364] that dates back more than 20 years [RFC-3833].

Published in February 2024 and tracked as CVE-2023-50387 (CVSS 7.5 High), exploitation of the vulnerability is considered trivial and proof-of-concept code is available on GitHub. The availability of exploit code means that low skilled criminals can easily launch attacks. Greenbone can identify systems with vulnerable DNS applications impacted by CVE-2023-50387 with local security checks (LSC) for all operating systems.

CVE-2024-23897 in Jenkins Used to Breach Indian Bank

CVE-2024-23897 (CVSS 9.8 Critical) in Jenkins (versions 2.441 and LTS 2.426.2 and earlier) is being actively exploited and used in ransomware campaigns including one against the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). Jenkins is an open-source automation server used primarily for continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD) in software development operations (DevOps).

The Command Line Interface (CLI) in affected versions of Jenkins contains a path traversal vulnerability [CWE-35] caused by a feature that replaces the @-character followed by a file path with the file’s actual contents. This allows attackers to read the contents of sensitive files including those that provide unauthorized access and subsequent code execution. CVE-2024-23897 and its use in ransomware attacks follows a joint CISA and FBI alert for software vendors to address path traversal vulnerabilities [CWE-35] in their products. Greenbone includes an active check [1] and two version detection tests [2][3] for identifying vulnerable versions of Jenkins on Windows and Linux.

2 New Actively Exploited CVEs in String of Apache OFBiz Flaws

Apache OFBiz (Open For Business) is a popular open-source enterprise resource planning (ERP) and e-commerce software suite developed by the Apache Software Foundation. In August 2024, CISA alerted the cybersecurity community to active exploitation of Apache OFBiz via CVE-2024-38856 (CVSS 9.8 Critical) affecting versions before 18.12.13. CVE-2024-38856 is a path traversal vulnerability [CWE-35] that affects OFBiz’s “override view” functionality allowing unauthenticated attackers Remote Code Execution (RCE) on the affected system.

CVE-2024-38856 is a bypass of a previously patched vulnerability, CVE-2024-36104, just published in June 2024, indicating that the initial fix did not fully remediate the problem. This also builds upon another 2024 vulnerability in OFBiz, CVE-2024-32113 (CVSS 9.8 Critical), which was also being actively exploited to distribute Mirai botnet. Finally, in early September 2024, two new critical severity CVEs, CVE-2024-45507 and CVE-2024-45195 (CVSS 9.8 Critical) were added to the list of threats impacting current versions of OFBiz.

Due to the notice of active exploitation and Proof-of-Concept (PoC) exploits being readily available for CVE-2024-38856 [1][2] and CVE-2024-32113 [1][2] affected users need to patch urgently. Greenbone can detect all aforementioned CVEs in Apache OFBiz with both active and version checks.

CVE-2022-0185 in the Linux Kernel Actively Exploited

CVE-2022-0185 (CVSS 8.4 High), an heap-based buffer overflow vulnerability in the Linux kernel, was added to CISA KEV in August 2024. Publicly available PoC-exploit-code and detailed technical descriptions of the vulnerability have contributed to the increase in cyber attacks exploiting CVE-2022-0185.

In CVE-2022-0185 in Linux’s “legacy_parse_param()” function within the Filesystem Context functionality the length of supplied parameters is not being properly verified. This flaw allows an unprivileged local user to escalate their privileges to the root user.

Greenbone could detect CVE-2022-0185 since it was disclosed in early 2022 via vulnerability test modules covering a wide set of Linux distributions including Red Hat, Ubuntu, SuSE, Amazon Linux, Rocky Linux, Fedora, Oracle Linux and Enterprise products such as IBM Spectrum Protect Plus.

New VoIP and PBX Vulnerabilities

A handful of CVEs were published in August 2024 impacting enterprise voice communication systems. The vulnerabilities were disclosed in Cisco’s small business VOIP systems and Asterisk, a popular open-source PBX branch system. Let’s dig into the specifics:

Cisco Small Business IP Phones Offer RCE and DoS

Three high severity vulnerabilities were disclosed that impact the web-management console of Cisco Small Business SPA300 Series and SPA500 Series IP Phones. While underscoring the importance of not exposing management consoles to the internet, these vulnerabilities also represent a vector for an insider or dormant attacker who has already gained access to an organization’s network to pivot their attacks to higher value assets and disrupt business operations.

Greenbone includes detection for all newly disclosed CVEs in Cisco Small Business IP Phone. Here is a brief technical description of each:

  • CVE-2024-20454 and CVE-2024-20450 (CVSS 9.8 Critical): An unauthenticated, remote attacker could execute arbitrary commands on the underlying operating system with root privileges because incoming HTTP packets are not properly checked for size, which could result in a buffer overflow.
  • CVE-2024-20451 (CVSS 7.5 High): An unauthenticated, remote attacker could cause an affected device to reload unexpectedly causing a Denial of Service because HTTP packets are not properly checked for size.

CVE-2024-42365 in Asterisk PBX Telephony Toolkit

Asterisk is an open-source private branch exchange (PBX) and telephony toolkit. PBX is a system used to manage internal and external call routing and can use traditional phone lines (analog or digital) or VoIP (IP PBX). CVE-2024-42365, published in August 2024, impacts versions of asterisk before 18.24.2, 20.9.2 and 21.4.2 and certified-asterisk versions 18.9-cert11 and 20.7-cert2. An exploit module has also been published for the Metasploit attack framework adding to the risk, however, active exploitation in the wild has not yet been observed.

Greenbone can detect CVE-2024-42365 via network scans. Here is a brief technical description of the vulnerability:

  • CVE-2024-42365 (CVSS 8.8 High): An AMI user with “write=originate” may change all configuration files in the “/etc/asterisk/” directory. This occurs because they are able to curl remote files and write them to disk but are also able to append to existing files using the FILE function inside the SET application. This issue may result in privilege escalation, Remote Code Execution or blind server-side request forgery with arbitrary protocols.

Browsers: Perpetual Cybersecurity Threats

CVE-2024-7971 and CVE-2024-7965, two new CVSS 8.8 High severity vulnerabilities in the Chrome browser, are being actively exploited for RCE. Either CVE can be triggered when victims are tricked into simply visiting a malicious web page. Google acknowledges that exploit code is publicly available, giving even low skilled cyber criminals the ability to launch attacks. Google Chrome has seen a steady stream of new vulnerabilities and active exploitation in recent years. A quick inspection of Mozilla Firefox shows a similar continuous stream of critical and high severity CVEs; seven Critical and six High severity vulnerabilities were disclosed in Firefox during August 2024, although active exploitation of these has not been reported.

The continuous onslaught of vulnerabilities in major browsers underscores the need for diligence to ensure that updates are applied as soon as they become available. Due to Chrome’s high market share of over 65% (over 70% considering Chromium-based Microsoft Edge) its vulnerabilities receive increased attention from cyber criminals. Considering the high number of severe vulnerabilities impacting Chromium’s V8 engine (more than 40 so far in 2024), Google Workspace admins might consider disabling V8 for all users in their organization to increase security. Other options for hardening browser security in high-risk scenarios include using remote browser isolation, network segmentation and booting from secure baseline images to ensure endpoints are not compromised.

Greenbone includes active authenticated vulnerability tests to identify vulnerable versions of browsers for Linux, Windows and macOS.

Summary

New critical and remotely exploitable vulnerabilities are being disclosed at record shattering rates amidst a red hot cyber risk environment. Asking IT security teams to manually track newly exposed vulnerabilities in addition to applying patches imposes an impossible burden and risks leaving critical vulnerabilities undetected and exposed. Vulnerability management is considered a fundamental cybersecurity activity; defenders of large, medium and small organizations need to employ tools such as Greenbone to automatically seek and report vulnerabilities across an organization’s IT infrastructure. 

Conducting automated network vulnerability scans and authenticated scans of each system’s host attack surface can dramatically reduce the workload on defenders, automatically providing them with a list of remediation tasks that is sortable according to threat severity.

Contact Test Now Buy Here Back to Overview

/by