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:
- One Million Devices Open to Wormable Microsoft BlueKeep Flaw
May 28, 2019
Researchers have discovered one million devices that are vulnerable to a “wormable” Microsoft flaw, which could open the door to a WannaCry-like cyberattack. One million devices are still vulnerable to BlueKeep, a critical Microsoft bug with “wormable” capabilities, almost two weeks after a patch was released. The flaw (CVE-2019-0708) was fixed during Microsoft’s May Patch Tuesday Security Bulletin earlier this ...
- Intense scanning activity detected for BlueKeep RDP flaw
May 26, 2019
Threat actors have started scanning the internet for Windows systems that are vulnerable to the BlueKeep (CVE-2019-0708) vulnerability. This vulnerability impacts the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) service included in older versions of the Windows OS, such as XP, 7, Server 2003, and Server 2008. Microsoft released fixes for this vulnerability on May 14, as part of the ...
- Hackers are scanning for MySQL servers to deploy GandCrab ransomware
May 24, 2019
At least one Chinese hacking crew is currently scanning the internet for Windows servers that are running MySQL databases so they can infect these systems with the GandCrab ransomware. These attacks are somewhat unique, as cyber-security firms have not seen any threat actor until now that has attacked MySQL servers running on Windows systems to infect ...
- UK says it warned 16 NATO allies of Russian hacking activities
May 23, 2019
The UK has shared information on Russian hacking attacks with 16 NATO allies over the last 18 months, a British government official said today. “I can disclose that in the last 18 months, the National Cyber Security Centre has shared information and assessments with 16 NATO Allies – and even more nations outside the Alliance – ...
- Trickbot Watch: Arrival via Redirection URL in Spam
May 20, 2019
Trend Micro discovered a variant of the Trickbot banking trojan (detected by Trend Micro as TrojanSpy.Win32.TRICKBOT.THDEAI) using a redirection URL in a spam email. In this particular case, the variant used Google to redirect from the URL hxxps://googledm:443/url?q=<trickbot downloader>, whereby the URL in the query string, url?q=<url>, is the malicious URL that the user is redirected to. ...
- Security researchers discover Linux version of Winnti malware
May 20, 2019
For the first time, security researchers have uncovered and analyzed a Linux variant of Winnti, one of the favorite hacking tools used by Beijing hackers over the past decade. Discovered by security researchers from Chronicle, Alphabet’s cyber-security division, the Linux version of the Winnti malware works as a backdoor on infected hosts, granting attackers access to ...
