New NetSpectre-Class Attack Raises Device-Hardening Concern

A new type of NetSpectre attack requires no malware or malicious JavaScript, because it instead attacks victims through network connections, according to researchers at Graz University of Technology. Four scientists at the university have published findings on a new type of Spectre attack in a paper entitled NetSpectre: Read Arbitrary Memory over Network. The paper details a new CPU attack that can be carried out via network connections and does not require the attacker to host code on a targeted machine, a significant development for Spectre-class attacks. “By manipulating the branch prediction, Spectre tricks a target process into performing a sequence of memory accesses which leak secrets from chosen virtual memory locations to the attacker. This completely breaks confidentiality and renders virtually all security mechanisms on an affected system ineffective,” the researchers wrote. Until now, Spectre attacks have needed the victim to either download and run malicious code on a machine or access a website that runs malicious JavaScript in the user's browser, but Spectre attacks have now evolved from requiring local code execution privileges to the first cache-less version that uses AVX state and instructions to create a covert channel, according to Craig Dods, distinguished engineer, security, at Juniper Networks.

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Software Security

Malwarebytes Announces Consumer Identity Theft Protection Solution to Defend Against Online Fraud and Theft

PR Newswire | October 27, 2023

Malwarebytes, a global leader in real-time cyber protection, today launched an essential new consumer solution, Identity Theft Protection. The new service helps individuals secure their digital identities and defend against identity and online threats. Malwarebytes Identity Theft Protection includes real-time identity monitoring and alerts, robust credit protection and reporting and live agent-supported identity recovery and resolution services – backed by up to a $2 million identity theft insurance policy. The new service, paired with Malwarebytes' award-winning antivirus and VPN software, helps prevent criminals from stealing or using personal information to drain financial accounts, hack or impersonate social media accounts, damage a user's reputation or other online and identity-based attacks. Today's digital life is complex and sometimes deceptive. According to new research from Malwarebytes, identity theft ranks as people's third biggest concern when it comes to online security, just behind fear of financial accounts and personal data being breached – both of which play into identity theft. Of those surveyed 64% agree that identity theft protection is important, but only 13% have it. Consumers are also increasingly fearful of new technology. Malwarebytes gives consumers protection they can trust, alerting them when we see their information has been stolen and providing live agent support to restore their identity and replace lost items. Even as we spend more and more of our lives online, we all know that the internet today can't be trusted, said Mark Beare, GM of Consumer Business Unit, Malwarebytes. Consumers need a tool that not only blocks threats like malware and phishing, but that also monitors and protects their digital identity, be that social media profiles, bank accounts or email. With Malwarebytes Identity Theft Protection, we provide a robust and exhaustive suite of services so individuals and families can rest easy knowing that we are actively working to keep them safe and protect their digital identity. Malwarebytes Identity Theft Protection is available globally through a variety of tiered offerings that provide protection via computers and mobile devices across multiple operating systems including Windows, macOS, Android and iOS. Key features include: Identity Monitoring & Alerts: Continuously scours a multitude of websites and data sources, including the Dark Web, to alert if personal information is being illegally traded or sold. Recommends actions to take to protect yourself. Credit Monitoring and Protection: Ongoing tracking of credit for critical changes, such as new accounts or inquiries and applications for new lines of credit. A credit freeze also can be activated*. Breach IQ: Provides a safety score and alerts if personal information is part of a known breach*. Identity Recovery & Resolution: Assistance in the event of an identity theft incident, including guided steps to report the crime, dispute fraudulent charges, restore identity and recuperate financial losses incurred. Includes up to a $2 million insurance policy. About Malwarebytes Malwarebytes believes that when people and organizations are free from threats, they are free to thrive. Founded in 2008, Malwarebytes CEO Marcin Kleczynski had one mission: to rid the world of malware. Today, Malwarebytes' award-winning endpoint protection, privacy and threat prevention solutions along with a world-class team of threat researchers protect millions of individuals and thousands of businesses across the globe daily. Malwarebytes solutions are consistently recognized by independent tests including AVLAB and AV-TEST. The company is headquartered in California with offices in Europe and Asia. For more information and career opportunities, visit https://www.malwarebytes.com.

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Software Security

Lacework and Snowflake Expand Their Alliance to Secure Cloud Business

Lacework | September 15, 2023

Lacework, a company specializing in data-driven cloud security, and Snowflake, a prominent Data Cloud company, have jointly announced an expanded partnership. This partnership aims to propel the evolution of cloud infrastructure while enhancing cloud security automation at scale. Through this extended collaboration, security teams gain direct access to their Lacework cloud security data using Snowflake's secure data sharing, thus enabling unified visibility and tailored automation. Ulfar Erlingsson, Chief Architect, Lacework, said, Snowflake has been a dedicated platform partner as Lacework has scaled our business to support over 900 customers — ranging from small, early-stage startups to some of the most sophisticated enterprises running in the cloud space today — whose operations result in tremendous volume, variety, and velocity of security-relevant data. [Source – Cision PR Newswire] Erlingsson mentioned that, over the past seven years, Lacework had successfully conducted timely and efficient data processing by utilizing the Snowflake Data Cloud, even among a highly skewed set of customers. He further explained that their extended partnership with Snowflake would enhance their ability to serve joint customers at a cloud scale. This would apply whether customers needed them to handle only a small amount of security data or data processing at rates as high as 10s of gigabytes per second. As generative AI advances and becomes more accessible across various industries, the frequency and severity of cybersecurity threats are on the rise. This trend is driven by businesses accelerating their development processes and increasing cloud data generation. Addressing this new era of cloud security necessitates a fundamentally fresh approach, and Lacework's platform is designed to efficiently manage the substantial volume of data within an organization's cloud ecosystem. This includes data related to code, identities, containers, and multi-cloud infrastructure, with Snowflake serving as a critical platform partner. Through the combined capabilities of Lacework's security platform and Snowflake's Data Cloud, customers gain the ability to extend the value of cloud security data throughout their organization. This enables organizations to thoroughly assess their security and compliance status. Head of Cybersecurity Strategy at Snowflake, Omer Singer, said, Among the many potential advantages of generative AI is the ability for enterprises to deploy new applications faster, which places even more emphasis on the need to have scalable infrastructure and solutions. The combination of Snowflake and Lacework will continue to assist organizations scale their cloud businesses securely in the new era. [Source – Cision PR Newswire] About Lacework Lacework protects organizations in the cloud, enabling them to innovate with greater speed and assurance. Lacework's platform is designed to scale with the variety, volume, and velocity of cloud data across an organization's cloud environment, including code, containers, identities, and multi-cloud infrastructure. Only Lacework provides Security and Development teams with a connected and prioritized end-to-end view that identifies the most significant hazards and security events. About Snowflake The Snowflake enables all organizations to mobilize their data with its Data Cloud. Customers utilize the Data Cloud to integrate disparate data sources, power data applications, discover and securely share data, and implement a variety of AI/ML and analytic workloads. Snowflake provides a singular data experience that transcends multiple clouds and geographies, regardless of where data or users reside. Snowflake Data Cloud is used by thousands of customers across numerous industries, including 639 of the 2023 Forbes Global 2000 as of July 31, 2023.

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API Security

Data Theorem Introduces Industry’s First CNAPP Workflow Optimizations for Attack Path Analysis and Protection of APIs and Software Supply Chains

Business Wire | October 25, 2023

Data Theorem, Inc., a leading provider of modern application security, today introduced an industry-first attack path analysis of APIs and software supply chain exploits to its Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP) called Cloud Secure. The new release includes machine learning (ML)-based hacker toolkits and improved visualizations that boost discovery of potential data breaches in first-party APIs and third-party software supply chain assets hosted in multi-cloud environments. As a result of today’s launch, organizations can now leverage an advanced ML-based CNAPP solution to best secure their cloud-native apps and discover weaknesses which could lead to data breaches. Previously, organizations had to rely on cloud security posture management (CSPM) and agent-based cloud workload protection platforms (CWPP) that lack the ability to accurately detect attack surfaces such as first- and third-party APIs that lead to the critical path hackers utilize to successfully exploit vulnerabilities and extract sensitive data. Data Theorem’s new release of Cloud Secure now delivers Cloud Hacker Toolkits powered by a new set of visualization features and ML enhancements for exploit prioritization, helping organizations focus on the most critical vulnerabilities that hackers can take advantage of for a cyberattack to extract data from cloud-native apps. In addition, Cloud Secure now offers ML-powered optimized Cloud Assets inventory with new visualizations for organizations to better understand the relationships between applications (mobile and web), APIs (first and third party), and the myriad of cloud resources. As a result, organizations for the first time can have an accurate inventory of their cloud-native and cloud-hosted applications, and visualize the growing attack surfaces including APIs they develop themselves and APIs that come from leveraging open-source software, third-party software development kits (SDKs), and public cloud services within their software supply chains. As we have seen, machine learning, and particularly generative language learning model (LLM), offers a new set of innovations and creativity for both security practitioners and attackers, said Doug Dooley, Data Theorem COO. Data Theorem is pleased to offer the industry’s first CNAPP solution which leverages some of the more useful elements of machine learning combined with run-time analysis, observability, and active protection. Cloud Secure continues to lead the industry as the most application-centric CNAPP offering helping organizations uncover new attack vectors in cloud-native applications and APIs that ultimately prevent large-scale data breaches. ML-powered Hacker Tool Kits and Optimized Cloud Assets, in addition to Cloud Secure’s other advancements in this new release, uniquely protect organizations’ cloud applications in multi-cloud environments. Cloud Secure now also offers a new UI design that improves the end-to-end CNAPP workflow for organizations with new dashboard, inventory, security testing, and cloud-native protection sections. For example, the Cloud-Native Protection visualization graph with Cloud Abuse highlights priority events, actors, and attack path analysis that uniquely helps organizations diagnose near real-time data breaches and attempts at exfiltration attacks. In addition, Cloud Secure’s Enhanced Compliance Summary section with status and on-demand reporting downloads automates the audit processes to help organizations prove compliance. Cloud Secure, powered by Data Theorem’s award-winning Analyzer Engine, helps organizations secure their cloud-native applications and address regulatory compliance for cloud monitoring and reporting. It is the industry’s first solution delivering full-stack attack path analysis for cloud-native applications that starts at the client layer (mobile and web), protects the network layer (APIs), and extends down through the underlying infrastructure (cloud services). Its combination of attack path analysis and run-time active protections enables both offensive and defensive security capabilities to best prevent data breaches of cloud-native applications, embedded APIs, and serverless cloud functions. Data Theorem’s broad AppSec portfolio protects organizations from data breaches with application security testing and protection for modern web frameworks, API-driven microservices and cloud resources. Its solutions are powered by its award-winning Analyzer Engine which leverages a new type of dynamic and runtime analysis that is fully integrated into the CI/CD process, and enables organizations to conduct continuous, automated security inspection and remediation. Data Theorem is one of the first vendors to provide a full stack application security analyzer that connects attack surfaces of applications starting at the client layers found in mobile and web, the network layers found in APIs, and the infrastructure layers found in cloud services. About Data Theorem Data Theorem is a leading provider of modern application security, helping customers prevent AppSec data breaches. Its products focus on API security, cloud (serverless apps, CSPM, CWPP, CNAPP), mobile apps (iOS and Android), and web apps (single-page apps). Its core mission is to analyze and secure any modern application anytime, anywhere. The award-winning Data Theorem Analyzer Engine continuously analyzes APIs, Web, Mobile, and Cloud applications in search of security flaws and data privacy gaps. The company has detected more than 5 billion application incidents and currently secures more than 25,000 modern applications for its enterprise customers around the world. Data Theorem is headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif., with offices in New York and Paris. For more information visit www.datatheorem.com.

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Cloud Security

Checkmarx Introduces AI-Powered Checkmarx One Platform’s 3.0 Version

Checkmarx | October 12, 2023

Checkmarx, a leading provider of cloud-native application security solutions, has launched version 3.0 of its AI-powered Checkmarx One enterprise AppSec platform. Specifically developed for enterprise cloud development, Checkmarx One 3.0 enhances the developer experience significantly. It extends the AI-driven security features of the platform's CheckAI Plug-in, augments its reporting and analytics capabilities, and bolsters its Supply Chain Security solution, ensuring robust and efficient application security for enterprises. Sandeep Johri, CEO at Checkmarx, stated, Checkmarx One is the AI-driven application security (AppSec)platform for today and for the future. Enterprise CISOs now see the strength of their AppSec as critical to their overall security postures. Johri mentioned the importance of harnessing AI to safeguard intricate enterprise applications. They highlighted the need for the platform to be user-friendly for developers while providing a strong defense against software supply chain attacks. Checkmarx One Version 3.0 offers: AI-Powered Application Security Seamless Developer Experience Expanded Supply Chain Security Capabilities Advanced API Security Consolidated, Simplified AppSec Advanced Reporting and Analytics Amit Daniel, Chief Marketing Officer at Checkmarx, said, Checkmarx One offers tremendous and measurable benefits for our customers, improving both developer experience and application security for a more seamless faster time-to-market and AppSec experience. Daniel mentioned that a Fortune 500 customer tailored their AppSec solution, enhanced their AppSec skills through secure code training, and established a security champions program to connect development and AppSec teams. As a result, there was a 1600x increase in the number of vulnerabilities remediated, significantly enhancing enterprise security. About Checkmarx Checkmarx, a leader in enterprise application security, offers Checkmarx One, a cloud-native AppSec platform promoting DevSecTrust in enterprises. Informed by insights from their renowned AppSec security research team and powered by AI-driven technology, the platform empowers AppSec, CISOs, and development leaders to focus on key business impact areas. It secures every development phase for all applications, from initial coding to production, harmonizing the evolving needs of security and development teams. Going beyond traditional paradigms, Checkmarx ensures security permeates every aspect. The company serves 1,800+ customers, including 60% of Fortune 100 organizations, and is committed to its customers' safety and the security of applications shaping daily lives.

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