Editor’s note: There is a lot going on in the world of IT, from emerging technologies to digital transformation and new cybersecurity threats. However, we can’t possibly cover it all, so we’ll bring you this curated summary of IT and enterprise technology stories each week.
Microsoft Discovers macOS App Sandbox escape bug
Microsoft says it has discovered a dangerous vulnerability in macOS that could allow specially crafted codes to escape the App Sandbox and run unrestricted on the system. Microsoft says it first discovered the flaw in October 2021 and shared the findings with Apple, which issued a security update in May to fix the bug. The company says it discovered the vulnerability while researching potential ways to run and detect malicious macros in Microsoft Office on macOS. Read Microsoft’s security blog on this.
New Google cloud offerings
Google has released several new cloud offerings and integrations, including the preview release of the company’s first VM family based on the Arm architecture Tau T2A, a new managed service for scheduling batch jobs at any scale, the general availability of Rocky Linux Optimized for Google Cloud, a new integration between Google Meet and Miro, and more. Read more about Google’s new cloud offerings here.
Large-scale phishing campaign
Also discovered by Microsoft security experts was a large-scale phishing campaign that since September 2021 has targeted more than 10,000 organizations by leveraging adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) phishing sites to steal passwords, hijack a user’s sign-in session and skip the authentication process even when multi-factor authentication was enabled. Those stolen credentials and session cookies were then used to access mailboxes and perform follow-on business email compromise campaigns against other targets. Read Microsoft’s security blog on this.
The last decade of critical software bugs
A new report from managed detection and response provider Trustwave finds that the number of vulnerabilities reported over the last few years has skyrocketed, including 10 such bugs the company identifies as the most egregious security flaws of the past decade. These includes the SolarWinds Orion compromise, EternalBlue, BlueKeep, Heartbleed, Sandworm and more.
Citing Shodan reports, some of these vulnerabilities still exist in hundreds of thousands of systems. Read Trustwave’s report here.
Autopatch rolls out to Windows Enterprise E3, E5 license holders; support for Windows 365
Microsoft has officially rolled out Windows Autopatch to organizations with Windows Enterprise E3 or E5 licenses to help IT departments streamline the application of the company’s monthly security update release. The company says Autopatch will also now support the updating of Windows 365 cloud PCs. We covered the initial announcement and public preview release. Read this Tech Community blog for more information.
Google’s research on cyberattack trends
Google’s Cybersecurity Action Team published another issue of the company’s Threat Horizons Report, which is based on observations from Google’s security professionals. According to Google, threat actors are crafting their phishing emails to look more legitimate, and they are even communicating with end users to establish trust before launching their attacks. In addition to an update on cyberattacks related to the war in Ukraine, Google says it continues to see attackers scanning for and compromising misconfigured cloud infrastructure, with ransomware and cryptomining the end goal. Google’s report also details how attacks leveraging the software supply chain are increasing. Read the full report here.
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