Back in October 2022, Kaspersky GReAT was looking into a peculiar advertisement on a hacking forum. A cybercriminal had been advertising a UEFI bootkit, dubbed BlackLotus, that could bypass Secure Boot, for $5,000. Given the low price for such powerful capabilities, the cybersecurity community initially took this advertisement with a grain of salt. As no BlackLotus samples were found in the wild, no one could at the time verify the claims made in the forum post.
However, about half a year later, in March 2023, ESET confirmed that the BlackLotus advertisement was genuine. The researchers tracked down samples of this bootkit and confirmed that it can indeed bypass Secure Boot through a vulnerability called Baton Drop (CVE-2022-21894). As this vulnerability was still exploitable in 2023, Microsoft had to release multiple security updates to address it.
Read more…
Source: Kaspersky
Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox
Related:
- Sophisticated Hacks Against Android, Windows Reveal Zero-Day Trove
January 13, 2021
Google researchers have detailed a major hacking campaign that was detected in early 2020, which mounted a series of sophisticated attacks, some using zero-day flaws, against Windows and Android platforms. Working together, researchers from Google Project Zero and the Google Threat Analysis Group (TAG) uncovered the attacks, which were “performed by a highly sophisticated actor,” Ryan ...
- Hackers leak stolen Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine data online
January 12, 2021
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) today revealed that some of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine data stolen from its servers in December was leaked online. EMA is a decentralized agency responsible for reviewing and approving COVID-19 vaccines, as well as for evaluating, monitoring, and supervising any new medicines introduced to the EU. “The ongoing investigation of the cyberattack ...
- Critical Microsoft Defender Bug Actively Exploited; Patch Tuesday Offers 83 Fixes
January 12, 2021
Microsoft addressed 10 critical bugs, one under active exploit and another publicly known, in its January Patch Tuesday roundup of fixes. In total it patched 83 vulnerabilities. The most serious bug is a flaw in Microsoft’s Defender anti-malware software that allows remote attackers to infect targeted systems with executable code. Security experts are warning that Windows ...
- macOS malware used run-only AppleScripts to avoid detection for five years
January 12, 2021
For more than five years, macOS users have been the targets of a sneaky malware operation that used a clever trick to avoid detection and hijacked the hardware resources of infected users to mine cryptocurrency behind their backs. Named OSAMiner, the malware has been distributed in the wild since at least 2015 disguised in pirated (cracked) ...
- New Zealand Reserve Bank breached using bug patched on Xmas Eve
January 12, 2021
A recent data breach at the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, known as Te Pūtea Matua, was caused by attackers exploiting a critical vulnerability patched the same day. Over the weekend, the Reserve Bank disclosed that they suffered a data breach after an attacker hacked a third-party file sharing service containing sensitive data. In a new advisory ...
- Mimecast Certificate Hacked in Microsoft Email Supply-Chain Attack
January 12, 2021
A Mimecast-issued certificate used to authenticate some of the company’s products to Microsoft 365 Exchange Web Services has been “compromised by a sophisticated threat actor,” the company has announced. Mimecast provides email security services that customers can apply to their Microsoft 365 accounts by establishing a connection to Mimecast’s servers. The certificate in question is used ...