FISA

  As cyber threats continue to mount amidst the Israel-Gaza conflict, threat actors have been observed using a malicious version of the ‘RedAlert – Rocket Alerts’ app to spread spyware. The app is popularly used by Israelis and, with the latest attacks in South Israel, the number of users for the app has exploded as more and more people are seeking timely warnings about airstrikes in their area. Understanding the fake app campaign According to  Cloudflare , the malicious version of the app is being distributed via a readalert[.]com website which was created on October 12.  This development comes two days after a threat actor group named AnonGhost exploited a security issue in the ‘Red Alert: Israel’ app to intercept requests, expose servers and APIs, and send fake alerts to users, including nuclear bomb messages.  The website provides the option to download the app for the iOS and Android platforms.  While the iOS download redirects a user to the legitimate proj...

The three zero-day flaws addressed by Apple on September 21, 2023, were leveraged as part of an iPhone exploit chain in an attempt to deliver a spyware strain called  Predator  targeting former Egyptian member of parliament Ahmed Eltantawy between May and September 2023. "The targeting took place after Eltantawy publicly stated his plans to run for President in the 2024 Egyptian elections," the Citizen Lab said, attributing the attack with high confidence to the Egyptian government owing to it being a known customer of the commercial spying tool. According to a joint investigation conducted by the Canadian interdisciplinary laboratory and Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG), the mercenary surveillance tool is said to have been delivered via links sent on SMS and WhatsApp. "In August and September 2023, Eltantawy's Vodafone Egypt mobile connection was persistently selected for targeting via network injection; when Eltantawy visited certain websites not...

Apple on Thursday released emergency security updates for iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and watchOS to address two zero-day flaws that have been exploited in the wild to deliver NSO Group's Pegasus mercenary spyware. The issues are described as below - CVE-2023-41061  - A validation issue in Wallet that could result in arbitrary code execution when handling a maliciously crafted attachment. CVE-2023-41064  - A buffer overflow issue in the Image I/O component that could result in arbitrary code execution when processing a maliciously crafted image. While CVE-2023-41064 was found by the Citizen Lab at the University of Torontoʼs Munk School, CVE-2023-41061 was discovered internally by Apple, with "assistance" from the Citizen Lab. The updates are available for the following devices and operating systems - iOS 16.6.1 and iPadOS 16.6.1  - iPhone 8 and later, iPad Pro (all models), iPad Air 3rd generation and later, iPad 5th generation and later, and iPad mini 5th ge...

  Cybersecurity researchers have discovered malicious Android apps for Signal and Telegram distributed via the Google Play Store and Samsung Galaxy Store that are engineered to deliver the BadBazaar spyware on infected devices. Slovakian company ESET attributed the campaign to a China-linked actor called GREF. "Most likely active since July 2020 and since July 2022, respectively, the campaigns have distributed the Android BadBazaar espionage code through the Google Play store, Samsung Galaxy Store, and dedicated websites representing the malicious apps Signal Plus Messenger and FlyGram," security researcher Lukáš Štefanko said in a new report shared with The Hacker News. Victims have been primarily detected in Germany, Poland, and the U.S., followed by Ukraine, Australia, Brazil, Denmark, Congo-Kinshasa, Hong Kong, Hungary, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, and Yemen. BadBazaar was first documented by Lookout in November 2022 as target...