Think Like a Hacker with Wordfence

Latest Episodes:

Episode 115: Update Your Mac: Gatekeeper Bypass Vulnerability Exploited in the Wild Apr 30, 2021

Show notes

Apple patches a gatekeeper bypass vulnerability that has been exploited in the wild on MacOS. Though this vulnerability requires some social engineering to exploit, it is believed to be actively exploited since January 9, 2021. Some Digital Ocean customers were affected by a data breach exposing personally identifiable information. A WordPress trac conversation considers blocking Federated Learning of Cohorts as a security release, and Creative Commons Search is coming to WordPress.org in a few weeks. And Google Chrome has another remote code execution bug requiring an update to patch.

Episode 114: Trifecta of Compromises Affect Enterprise Systems Apr 23, 2021

Show notes

Attacks on unpatched SolarWinds systems continue. We're now learning of a supply chain attack that started in late January 2021 affecting 29,000 customers of Codecov, as well as a zero-day under active attack affecting customers of PulseSecure VPN. Customers of these three services are well known enterprise and government organizations. In the WordPress space, there are two add-on plugins experiencing active attacks: Kaswara Modern WPBakery Page Builder Addons and The Plus Addons for Elementor. Vulnerabilities discovered by our threat intel team in Redirection for Contact Form 7 were patched. We also take a look at updates coming in WordPress 5.8 to prepare the way for WordPress full-site editing.

Episode 113: An Unprecedented FBI Operation Removes Webshells from Infected Exchange Servers Apr 16, 2021

Show notes

An FBI initiative began remotely removing webshells from infected Microsoft Exchange servers. WordPress 5.7.1 was released with a few security patches. Over 15 Elementor add on plugins were found to have vulnerabilities similar to those found in the main Elementor plugin; these additional plugin vulnerabilities affected over 3.5 million sites with over 100 vulnerable endpoints. Google Chrome was found to have two 0-day vulnerabilities. The US and UK blame Russian intelligence service hackers for the attack campaigns against SolarWinds. Organizations are still being urged to patch the five VPN and cloud vulnerabilities being exploited in ongoing attacks.

Episode 112: Wix Takes Aim at WordPress with New Ad Campaign Apr 09, 2021

Show notes

A new Wix ad campaign targets WordPress but ends up being tone deaf in both content and strategy. New details emerge about the PHP compromise, but the full story remains unclear. Facebook user data from 2019 ends up on the dark web, and Have I Been Pwned adds a phone number check to help users determine if they've been affected. GitHub Actions are being used by cryptojackers, Gigaset Android phones have been infected with malware in a supply chain attack, and new phishing methods emerge using Telegram.

Episode 111: PHP Git Repository Compromised Apr 02, 2021

Show notes

The self-hosted Git repository for PHP was compromised, with attackers adding a backdoor to a development version of PHP 8.1. The intrusion was detected by the PHP community quickly, and no production environments were affected. Ubiquiti experienced an intrusion in January that was far worse than originally reported; attackers gained access to nearly all of the AWS assets for the company who has shipped 85 million IoT devices. Some OpenSSL vulnerabilities were recently patched, and two new vulnerabilities in Linux-based operating systems could let attackers circumvent Spectre mitigations to obtain sensitive information from kernel memory.

Episode 110: Active Exploitation Continues on Unpatched Thrive Themes Mar 26, 2021

Show notes

Attackers continue to exploit recently patched vulnerabilities in Thrive Themes, though not all of them are successful. Two vulnerabilities are patched in the Facebook for WordPress plugin installed on over half a million sites. Google Chrome version 90 will use HTTPS by default, bringing significant improvements to speed and security. A ransomware insurance provider experiences a breach that could affect customers, and Slack's new "Slack Connect" feature has some security concerns.

Episode 109: This Attack Will Make You Want to Stop Using SMS 2FA Mar 19, 2021

Show notes

An attack shows how a SMS enablement service was used to bypass SMS 2FA for $16. We discuss the recently patched vulnerabilities in Elementor affecting over 7 million WordPress sites and how easily these cross-site scripting vulnerabilities can be exploited. We also talk about the SQL Injection vulnerabilities in Tutor LMS. The data center fire at OVH in France that took 3.5 million sites offline also took down some advanced persistent threat (APT) actors. And there's yet another Chrome use-after-free zero-day vulnerability being actively exploited.

Episode 108: Hack Exposes 150,000 Security Cameras at Tesla, Cloudflare and Others Mar 12, 2021

Show notes

A data breach exposes 150,000 security cameras used by organizations around the world, including Tesla and Cloudflare. State-sponsored hacking groups exploit Microsoft Exchange vulnerabilities. A fire in a French data center belonging to hosting company OVH affects millions of websites, including some prominent WordPress services like Imagify and WP Rocket. WordPress 5.7 was released this week with many new features. A zero-day vulnerability was listed for sale in a new way, as an NFT on the OpenSea NFT marketplace.

Episode 107: Two Plugin Vulnerabilities Target File Upload Capabilities Mar 05, 2021

Show notes

The Wordfence Threat intelligence team finds vulnerabilities in two plugins, the User Profile Picture plugin and the WooCommerce Upload Files plugin. WordPress 5.7 is set to release on Tuesday, March 9 with numerous enhancements for the block editor, a new robots.txt API, and a stay of execution on jQuery-migrate. A zero day affecting Microsoft Exchange Server allows attackers to steal emails. And Brave buys a search engine to add to their growing privacy-oriented portfolio.

Episode 106: Admin Password Resets, Blockchain Botnets and a Central Management RCE Feb 26, 2021

Show notes

WordPress 5.7 is due to be released on March 9, and it will allow administrators to send password reset emails to users. A botnet is abusing the Bitcoin blockchain for command and control, while VMWare fixes a critical remote code execution bug in all default vCenter installations. Android users now have an easy way to check password security. We talk about the ramifications of vulnerability disclosures and how last year's File Manager vulnerability did not have long lasting effects on plugin installation base or growth. We also discuss how investor data breach fatigue has reduced the stock price of cybersecurity failures.

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