All news with #secrets exposure tag

postMessage Risks: Token Exposure and Trust Boundaries

🔒 MSRC presents a deep dive into misconfigured postMessage handlers across Microsoft services and the systemic risk posed by overly permissive trust models. The report, authored by Jhilakshi Sharma on August 25, 2025, documents token exfiltration, XSS, and cross-tenant impact in real-world case studies including Bing Travel, web.kusto.windows.net, and Teams apps. It summarizes mitigations such as removing vulnerable packages, tightening Teams app manifests, enforcing strict origin checks for postMessage, and applying CSP constraints to reduce attack surface.

Malicious Go Module Poses as SSH Brute-Force Tool, Steals

🔒 Researchers identified a malicious Go module that masquerades as an SSH brute-force utility but secretly exfiltrates credentials to a threat actor via a hard-coded Telegram bot. The package, golang-random-ip-ssh-bruteforce, published on June 24, 2022 and still accessible on pkg.go.dev, scans random IPv4 addresses, attempts concurrent logins from a small username/password list, and disables host key verification. On the first successful login it sends the IP, username and password to @sshZXC_bot, which forwards results to @io_ping, allowing the actor to centralize harvested credentials while distributing scanning risk.

Phishing Campaign Targets Ledger Users with Fake Update

🔒 A sophisticated phishing campaign impersonating Ledger targets Nano X and Nano S Plus users with an urgent fake firmware update notice. The email claims fragments of private keys were leaked and urges immediate action, but the sender and update domains are not affiliated with Ledger. A professionally designed scam site hosted on an unrelated domain uses a support chat to coax victims into entering their seed phrase, which grants full wallet access. Organizations and individuals should treat unsolicited firmware alerts cautiously and use trained security controls and awareness to avoid compromise.

MURKY PANDA: Trusted-Relationship Cloud Threats and TTPs

🔒 Since late 2024 CrowdStrike's Counter Adversary Operations has tracked MURKY PANDA, a China‑nexus actor targeting government, technology, academic, legal and professional services in North America. The group exploits internet‑facing appliances, rapidly weaponizes n‑day and zero‑day flaws, and deploys web shells (including Neo‑reGeorg) and the Golang RAT CloudedHope. CrowdStrike recommends auditing Entra ID service principals and activity, enabling Microsoft Graph logging, hunting for anomalous service principal sign‑ins, prioritizing patching of cloud and edge devices, and leveraging Falcon detection and SIEM capabilities.

Static Tundra: Russian State Actor Targets Cisco Devices

🔒 Cisco Talos identifies the threat cluster Static Tundra as a long-running, Russian state-sponsored actor that compromises unpatched and end-of-life Cisco networking devices to support espionage operations. The group aggressively exploits CVE-2018-0171 and leverages weak SNMP community strings to enable local TFTP retrieval of startup and running configurations, often exposing credentials and monitoring data. Talos also observed persistent firmware implants, notably SYNful Knock, and recommends immediate patching or disabling Smart Install, strengthening authentication, and implementing configuration auditing and network monitoring to detect exfiltration and implanted code.

ReVault: Deep Analysis of Dell ControlVault3 Firmware

🔒 This deep-dive by Philippe Laulheret (Talos) dissects Dell's ControlVault3 ecosystem, exposing firmware decryption, memory-corruption flaws, and exploit chains that cross the device/host boundary. The researchers recovered hardcoded keys, reverse-engineered the SCD/SMAU update mechanism, and achieved arbitrary code execution in firmware, enabling persistence and a demonstrated Windows Hello bypass. Practical attacks include forging SCD blobs, backdooring firmware to escalate to SYSTEM, and physically extracting the USH board over USB for rapid compromise.

TeaOnHer App Replicates Tea's Functionality and Breaches

🛡️ TeaOnHer, a recent iOS knock‑off of the controversial dating app Tea, has been found exposing sensitive user data. TechCrunch reported government IDs, driving licences and selfies accessible via a public web endpoint with no authentication, and the app appears to copy wording and features from the original. Newville Media did not respond to disclosure attempts, and an exposed admin credential pair was found on the company server. Until these failures are addressed, users should avoid Tea-related apps.

Arrest in Raid on XSS Forum: Who Was Detained and Why

🔍 Europol and Ukrainian authorities announced the arrest of a 38-year-old suspect tied to the Russian-language XSS crime forum after a July 22, 2025 operation led by French investigators. Authorities say the detainee served as a trusted third party, arbitrating disputes and assuring transaction security for members linked to multiple ransomware groups. Reporting traces forum activity and multiple domain registrations tied to the handle 'Toha', but investigation suggests the arrested man is likely Anton Medvedovskiy rather than alternate identities circulated online. The takedown yielded Jabber server logs and forum backups, prompting a wary, contested relaunch.

Top Secret INSCOM Data Exposed via Public AWS S3 Repository

🔓 On September 27, 2017, UpGuard researcher Chris Vickery discovered an Amazon S3 bucket at the AWS subdomain "inscom" that was publicly accessible and contained 47 entries with three downloadable files. One download, an .ova virtual appliance named "ssdev," included a virtual hard drive with partitions and metadata labeled Top Secret and NOFORN. The exposed assets also contained private keys, hashed passwords, a ReadMe referencing the Pentagon cloud project Red Disk, and a classification-training snapshot. UpGuard notified INSCOM and the repository was promptly secured.

AggregateIQ GitLab Leak Reveals Political Targeting Tools

🔓 The UpGuard Cyber Team discovered a publicly accessible GitLab repository belonging to AggregateIQ that exposed code, tools, and credentials used in political data operations. The leak includes an apparent campaign platform called Ripon, state configuration files, voicemail scripts, and integrations for services like Twilio and Facebook. Exposed keys, tokens, and AWS credentials raise risks of misuse and highlight ties between AIQ and Cambridge Analytica that warrant further investigation.

HCL Exposed New-Hire Passwords and Project Reports

🔓 In May 2019 UpGuard researchers discovered publicly accessible HCL pages that exposed personal information, plaintext passwords for new hires, and detailed project reports. The data was dispersed across multiple subdomains and web UIs, including HR dashboards, recruiting approval panels, and a SmartManage reporting interface. After notifying HCL's Data Protection Officer, the researcher confirmed the anonymous-access pages were taken offline within days. The incident underscores the risk of misconfigured application pages and the importance of clear reporting channels and prompt incident response.

PQE Data Exposure Reveals Critical Infrastructure Details

⚠️ The UpGuard Cyber Risk Team discovered a publicly accessible rsync repository belonging to Texas-based Power Quality Engineering (PQE) that exposed sensitive electrical infrastructure data for clients including Dell, Oracle, and Texas Instruments. Up to 205 GB of reports, schematics, infrared imagery and a plaintext file of internal passwords were downloadable. The exposure, discovered on July 6, 2017 and remediated after notification, illustrates vendor risk and misconfigured services. Recommended mitigations included restricting rsync access, enforcing authentication and network ACLs, and implementing continuous vendor monitoring.

Exposed rsync Server Leaked Oklahoma Securities Data

🔓 UpGuard's Data Breach Research team discovered and secured a publicly accessible rsync storage server containing data belonging to the Oklahoma Department of Securities. The exposure included approximately 3 TB and millions of files spanning 1986–2016, including email archives, virtual machine images, system credentials, and personal records. UpGuard identified the host via Shodan, notified state officials, and public access was removed the same day.

Nokia/MTS Telecom Inventory Exposure Reveals SORM Data

🔒 UpGuard discovered and secured a 1.7 TB publicly accessible storage repository that contained detailed documentation of telecommunications infrastructure across Russia, including schematics, administrative credentials, email archives and photographs. The dataset, hosted on an rsync server, appears to relate primarily to projects by Nokia and carrier MTS. Files included installation instructions and images for SORM interception hardware, raising significant operational and national-security risks. UpGuard notified Nokia and access was closed within days.

Data Warehouse Vendor Publicly Exposed a Terabyte of Backups

🔒 An UpGuard researcher discovered three publicly accessible Amazon S3 buckets tied to Attunity, a data integration vendor now part of Qlik. One bucket contained a sampled terabyte of backups, including roughly 750 GB of compressed email archives and OneDrive backups with system credentials, project documents, client lists, and employee PII. The researcher notified the vendor on May 16, 2019, and public access was removed the following day. The incident highlights how backup misconfigurations can expose credentials and sensitive corporate and customer data.

Open NAS Exposed Thousands' PII at Maryland JIA Systems

🔒 UpGuard discovered a publicly accessible network-attached storage (NAS) device belonging to the Maryland Joint Insurance Association (JIA), exposing backups and administrative files. The repository contained customer PII—including full Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses, phone numbers, insurance policy identifiers, and check images showing full bank account numbers—alongside plaintext internal credentials and third-party access details. UpGuard notified JIA and the device was secured; the exposure highlights serious configuration and vendor-risk failures that can rapidly put vulnerable policyholders at risk.