The ABB Cylon Aspect BMS/BAS controller suffers from an unauthenticated shell command execution vulnerability through the deployStart.php script. This allows any user to trigger the execution of 'rundeploy.sh' script, which initializes the Java deployment server that sets various configurations, potentially causing unauthorized server initialization and performance issues.

Title: ABB Cylon Aspect 3.08.02 (deployStart.php) Unauthenticated Command Execution  
Advisory ID: ZSL-2024-5891  
Type: Local/Remote  
Impact: Security Bypass, DoS  
Risk: (5/5)  
Release Date: 30.12.2024

**Summary**

ASPECT is an award-winning scalable building energy management and control solution designed to allow users seamless access to their building data through standard building protocols including smart devices.

**Description**

The ABB Cylon Aspect BMS/BAS controller suffers from an unauthenticated shell command execution vulnerability through the deployStart.php script. This allows any user to trigger the execution of 'rundeploy.sh' script, which initializes the Java deployment server that sets various configurations, potentially causing unauthorized server initialization and performance issues.

**Vendor**

ABB Ltd. - https://www.global.abb

**Affected Version**

NEXUS Series, MATRIX-2 Series, ASPECT-Enterprise, ASPECT-Studio  
Firmware: <=3.08.02

**Tested On**

GNU/Linux 3.15.10 (armv7l)  
GNU/Linux 3.10.0 (x86\_64)  
GNU/Linux 2.6.32 (x86\_64)  
Intel(R) Atom(TM) Processor E3930 @ 1.30GHz  
Intel(R) Xeon(R) Silver 4208 CPU @ 2.10GHz  
PHP/7.3.11  
PHP/5.6.30  
PHP/5.4.16  
PHP/4.4.8  
PHP/5.3.3  
AspectFT Automation Application Server  
lighttpd/1.4.32  
lighttpd/1.4.18  
Apache/2.2.15 (CentOS)  
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (rhel-2.6.22.1.-x86\_64)  
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 24.261-b02, mixed mode)  
ErgoTech MIX Deployment Server 2.0.0

**Vendor Status**

\[21.04.2024\] Vulnerability discovered.  
\[22.04.2024\] Vendor contacted.  
\[22.04.2024\] Vendor responds.  
\[02.05.2024\] Working with the vendor.  
\[03.12.2024\] Vendor releases version 3.08.03 to address this issue.  
\[30.12.2024\] Coordinated public security advisory released.

**PoC**

abb\_aspect\_rce19.txt

**Credits**

Vulnerability discovered by Gjoko Krstic - <gjoko@zeroscience.mk\>

**References**

\[1\] https://search.abb.com/library/Download.aspx?DocumentID=9AKK108469A7497&LanguageCode=en&DocumentPartId=&Action=Launch  
\[2\] https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2024-48840  
\[3\] https://packetstorm.news/files/id/183307/

**Changelog**

\[30.12.2024\] - Initial release  
\[02.01.2025\] - Added reference \[3\]

**Contact**

Zero Science Lab

Web: https://www.zeroscience.mk  
e-mail: lab@zeroscience.mk

ABB Cylon Aspect 3.08.02 (deployStart.php) Unauthenticated Command Execution

The ABB Cylon controller suffers from an authenticated path traversal vulnerability. This can be exploited through the 'devName' POST parameter in the ethernetUpdate.php script to write partially controlled content, such as IP address values, into arbitrary file paths, potentially leading to configuration tampering and system compromise including denial of service scenario through ethernet configuration backup file overwrite.

Title: ABB Cylon Aspect 3.08.02 (ethernetUpdate.php) Authenticated Path Traversal  
Advisory ID: ZSL-2024-5890  
Type: Local/Remote  
Impact: Manipulation of Data, DoS, Security Bypass  
Risk: (4/5)  
Release Date: 30.12.2024

**Summary**

ASPECT is an award-winning scalable building energy management and control solution designed to allow users seamless access to their building data through standard building protocols including smart devices.

**Description**

The ABB Cylon controller suffers from an authenticated path traversal vulnerability. This can be exploited through the 'devName' POST parameter in the ethernetUpdate.php script to write partially controlled content, such as IP address values, into arbitrary file paths, potentially leading to configuration tampering and system compromise including denial of service scenario through ethernet configuration backup file overwrite.

**Vendor**

ABB Ltd. - https://www.global.abb

**Affected Version**

NEXUS Series, MATRIX-2 Series, ASPECT-Enterprise, ASPECT-Studio  
Firmware: <=3.08.02

**Tested On**

GNU/Linux 3.15.10 (armv7l)  
GNU/Linux 3.10.0 (x86\_64)  
GNU/Linux 2.6.32 (x86\_64)  
Intel(R) Atom(TM) Processor E3930 @ 1.30GHz  
Intel(R) Xeon(R) Silver 4208 CPU @ 2.10GHz  
PHP/7.3.11  
PHP/5.6.30  
PHP/5.4.16  
PHP/4.4.8  
PHP/5.3.3  
AspectFT Automation Application Server  
lighttpd/1.4.32  
lighttpd/1.4.18  
Apache/2.2.15 (CentOS)  
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (rhel-2.6.22.1.-x86\_64)  
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 24.261-b02, mixed mode)  
ErgoTech MIX Deployment Server 2.0.0

**Vendor Status**

\[21.04.2024\] Vulnerability discovered.  
\[22.04.2024\] Vendor contacted.  
\[22.04.2024\] Vendor responds.  
\[02.05.2024\] Working with the vendor.  
\[03.12.2024\] Vendor releases version 3.08.03 to address this issue.  
\[30.12.2024\] Public security advisory released.

**PoC**

abb\_aspect\_dir2.txt

**Credits**

Vulnerability discovered by Gjoko Krstic - <gjoko@zeroscience.mk\>

**References**

\[1\] https://search.abb.com/library/Download.aspx?DocumentID=9AKK108469A7497&LanguageCode=en&DocumentPartId=&Action=Launch  
\[2\] https://packetstorm.news/files/id/183306/

**Changelog**

\[30.12.2024\] - Initial release  
\[02.01.2025\] - Added reference \[2\]

**Contact**

Zero Science Lab

Web: https://www.zeroscience.mk  
e-mail: lab@zeroscience.mk

ABB Cylon Aspect 3.08.02 (ethernetUpdate.php) Authenticated Path Traversal

SUMMARY A recent report from the German news outlet Spiegel has revealed a significant security breach impacting hundreds…

****SUMMARY****

*   Sensitive data for 800,000 Volkswagen Group EVs was exposed on an unsecured cloud server.

*   The data leak, discovered by a whistle-blower, included GPS data and vehicle status, enabling owner tracking.

*   Affected users included politicians, police, and intelligence employees, with most vehicles in Europe.

*   The data leak revealed personal routines and locations, posing serious privacy risks.

*   The issue stemmed from Cariad’s system misconfiguration, which has since been addressed.

A recent report from the German news outlet Spiegel has revealed a significant security breach impacting hundreds of thousands of Volkswagen Group electric vehicle owners. The investigation found that sensitive location data for 800,000 vehicles, including those from Volkswagen, Audi, SEAT, and Skoda, was left exposed on an unsecured cloud server for months. 

The vulnerability was discovered by an anonymous whistle-blower and reported to the Chaos Computer Club (CCC), a prominent European hacker association. The exposure included personal data, including GPS coordinates and vehicle status, including detailed information about VW ID.3 and ID.4 owners stored on an unsecured Amazon cloud server. This allowed anyone with the right know-how to track the movements and habits of affected owners. 

https://berlin-ak.ftp.media.ccc.de//congress/2024/h264-hd/38c3-598-deu-Wir\_wissen\_wo\_dein\_Auto\_steht\_-\_Volksdaten\_von\_Volkswagen.mp4

Reportedly, the impacted EVs were located worldwide with the majority found in Germany and other parts of Europe. The affected owners not just include ordinary citizens but also prominent figures like German politicians, police officers, and even suspected intelligence service employees just like in October 2023 when a third-party contractor exposed over 500,000 Irish Police vehicle seizure records.  

This exposure extended far beyond simple vehicle location tracking. By linking vehicle data with other personal information, the researchers were able to gain unprecedented insights into the daily lives of affected owners.

For example, according to Spiegel’s report, it was able to track the movements of two German politicians with alarming precision, pinpointing their locations at various locations including a retirement home and military barracks, and profiling a mayor with her car tracking her movements from her work to her physical therapist.

That’s not all! Spiegel discovered terabytes of data on Amazon cloud storage, including the precise location of 460,000 vehicles, which could reveal crucial details of their owners. Moreover, the data also included information about the Hamburg police department’s electric cars, politicians, business leaders, Federal Intelligent Services employees, and the US Air Force’s Ramstein Air Base drivers.

The root of this security failure lies within Cariad, the Volkswagen Group’s software division. The company confirmed that a misconfiguration within their systems allowed unauthorized access to the sensitive data.

While Cariad insists that no financial or personally identifiable information was compromised, the potential for misuse of the exposed location data remains a significant threat. Cybercriminals could exploit this information for a variety of malicious purposes, including targeted stalking, blackmail, and even physical attacks.  

The CCC promptly contacted Lower Saxony’s State Data Protection Officer, Federal Ministry of the Interior, and other security bodies, and gave VW Group and Cariad 30 days to address the issue before going public. Cariad’s technical team promptly and responsibly blocked unauthorized access to customer data.

1.  **Cicada3301 Ransomware Hits French Peugeot Dealership**
2.  **Fuel Industry Software Provider Exposes SSNs and PII Data**
3.  **Builder.ai Database Exposes 1.29 TB of Unsecured Records**
4.  **Microsoft Power Pages Expose Millions of Records Globally**
5.  **13GB Data of Automobile Insurance Giant AA Exposed Online**

Exposed Cloud Server Tracks 800,000 Volkswagen, Audi, and Skoda EVs

From Elon Musk and Donald Trump to state-sponsored hackers and crypto scammers, this was the year the online agents of chaos gained ground.

For its entire existence as a global medium, the internet's evolution has been caught in a tug of war, pulled by opposing forces: on one side, moderation and control; on the other, disruption and anarchy.

This year, the most prominent actors weighing in on the side of disruption were familiar faces: The reckless oligarchs, cybercriminals, scammers, and state-sponsored hackers who made the internet feel particularly dangerous in 2024 were, to some degree, the same forces destabilizing the online world in 2023. But perhaps more than in any other recent year, those agents of chaos seemed to persist in the face of opposition, to grow in their influence—and to win.

From Elon Musk's completed remake of X in his own tech-bro image to Trump's disinformation-fueled campaign, to Russia's ongoing cyberattacks against Ukraine, to China's relentless onslaught of digital intrusions and crypto scammers' global spread, the online experience of 2024 was messy, hazardous, and Hobbesian. And for the most part, the people who made it that way are poised to exert even more influence over the year to come.

As we do every year, WIRED has assembled a list of the most dangerous people, groups, and organizations on the internet. Here are our picks for 2024.

**Elon Musk**

After years of evolution from entrepreneur to edgelord, Musk seemed to reach his final form this year in the run-up to November's US election. Once a technologist with ambiguous politics who occasionally pursued public arguments against scuba divers, Musk now uses his megaphone of 200-million-plus followers on X, the social media platform he fully controls, to broadcast an unrelenting stream of anti-regulation, anti-immigrant, anti-transgender, anti-press, anti-progressive talking points. He's amplified and repeated disinformation, like claims after the disastrous damage done by Hurricanes Helene and Milton that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was hoarding supplies or had spent its budget on migrants instead of needy Americans. He's repeated debunked theories about voter fraud and immigrants swinging elections. In at least one case, he's even seemed to drop a reference that suggest support for the QAnon movement, which maintains bizarre theories about satanic pedophile rings that only Donald Trump can destroy.

Meanwhile, Musk continues to push his AI startup, xAI, toward one of the most no-holds-barred visions of what that technology can make possible, with little regard for safety or preventing its use for disinformation. The company this year launched new image-generation capabilities in its Grok tool that were immediately used to create images of copyrighted characters, celebrities, and political figures in compromising or sexual positions. Musk himself at one point posted an AI-generated deepfake of Kamala Harris that mocked her with her own voice—with no annotation that it was not authentic—that received 150 million views.

More than any particular political message or technology he's pushed, however, the danger Musk represents is simply that the richest man in the world can buy one of the internet's most vital media platforms, then use it, along with hundreds of millions of dollars in donations, to elect the president of his choosing and shape US policy. After Trump's election, Musk was rewarded with hundreds of billions more in net worth. The system, in other words, is working—for oligarchs like Elon Musk.

**Donald Trump**

For the next four years, Donald Trump will once again be the most powerful single person in the world. This year, he was just a very loud one. On social media platforms like X—where Musk reinstated Trump's account despite a 2021 ban following his incitement of the January 6 storming of the US Capitol—and Trump's own Truth Social, he lit fires with false claims that arguably helped fuel his path to political victory. Like Musk, he made and repeated falsehoods such as FEMA spending its budget on immigrants rather than hurricane victims, or that immigrants were stealing and eating pets. By converting Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from a third-party candidate to an endorsing ally, Trump also reciprocally endorsed RFK Jr.'s long-running stream of anti-vaccine misinformation, rhetoric that has led to childhood vaccine rates now dipping to a lower level than before the Covid-19 pandemic.

Once his second term in office begins, Trump is poised to use digital surveillance to carry out a highly disruptive and even vindictive agenda: He's promised mass deportations of millions of immigrants starting on day one of his administration, and he's vowed to target political opponents and journalists with prosecution. There's little doubt that Trump will top this list in 2025. But in 2024, his words alone represent a clear and present danger.

**Volt Typhoon**

In the cybersecurity world, the last months of 2024 have been dominated by warnings from public officials about a Chinese state-sponsored hacking group known as Salt Typhoon, which has penetrated at least eight telecoms, in some cases accessing the real-time calls and texts of Americans. But in the midst of that cyberespionage scandal, a different, far more dangerous digital threat from China still quietly looms: A Chinese state-sponsored group called Volt Typhoon spent much of 2024 continuing its stealthy campaign to breach US critical infrastructure facilities—not to spy on communications, but to prepare for a potential cyberattack. While headlines about Volt Typhoon have largely dissipated since it was first called out and named by Microsoft in May of 2023, officials warn that the group continues to “pre-position” itself inside of networks that appear to be chosen for maximum disruption, perhaps timed to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Given that Chinese head of state Xi Jinping has told his country's military to be prepared for that invasion by 2027, now is the time to head off the digital salient of what could be a world-shaking future war.

**Sandworm**

While Volt Typhoon prepares, Sandworm attacks. The Russian hacking group, a unit of the country's GRU military intelligence agency, has in fact carried out many of the most disruptive cyberattacks of the past decade. Those attacks—mostly in Ukraine—include at least three blackouts triggered by its hacking, the destructive NotPetya malware that spread around the globe and inflicted $10 billion in damage, and countless data-destroying breaches that the group has carried out since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In 2024, as Russia fought Ukraine to a stalemate or regained territory in the east of the country, Sandworm continued to project its power beyond that front: Security firm StrikeReady discovered Sandworm targeting Ukraine's energy sector again this fall, perhaps in preparation for another round of electrical utility hacking, either to carry out its own attacks or as reconnaissance for the Russian military's now-annual physical bombing of Ukraine's grid.

**Israeli Military and Intelligence**

Last year, WIRED named both the IDF and Hamas on this list, a nod to each side's use of the internet in its propaganda efforts in the war in Gaza following Hamas' October 7 attack. This year, with Israel's adversaries in that conflict like Hamas and Hezbollah significantly weakened and in retreat, it's the Israeli forces that remain on the offensive. Israel's military continues to use AI tooling to identify targets for bombs as its strikes have killed tens of thousands of Gazan civilians and leveled entire cities in the territory. Israeli missiles continue to intermittently knock out Gaza's communications infrastructure, destroying 80 percent of the country's top telecom's cell towers and leading to information blackouts amid the destruction and starvation of that now year-plus siege. Add to all of that a still-mysterious Israeli supply chain attack that hid lethal explosives in pagers and walkie-talkies in an effort to target Hezbollah operatives, which led to immediate distrust of all communications devices in the country, and Israel's government forces remain an internet apex predator by any definition.

**Black Cat/AlphV/RansomHub**

Ransomware in 2024 was, again, one of the most abhorrent forms of cybercrime to blight the internet. But few ransomware attacks in history have been quite as dangerous and damaging as the one that targeted UnitedHealthcare subsidiary Change Healthcare early this year, carried out by a ransomware group known as Black Cat or AlphV. Even after extracting a $22 million ransom from the company—a payment processor that handles around 40 percent of all health care insurance claims across the US—the hackers' disruption of Change's network continued to prevent the company from completing payments to pharmacies, clinics, health care practices, and hospitals across the country for weeks, causing some to even go out of business. Then, as if it hadn't inflicted enough chaos, AlphV ran off with Change's ransom money instead of sharing it with a group of hackers with whom it had partnered to infiltrate the company. That led the jilted hackers to share the data stolen from Change Healthcare with another, newer ransomware crew called RansomHub, which extorted the company a second time—an unprecedented health care cybersecurity debacle.

**The Com**

Even in an age of state-sponsored Chinese cyberspies, Russian hacker saboteurs, and ransomware gangs, nihilistic young hackers remain a constant in the darker corners of the internet. And few of those corners are as dark as the ones frequented by the Com. The loose movement of online trolls and criminals who operate under the Com banner in channels on Telegram and Discord, many just in their teens, engage in some of the most despicable digital crimes possible, from petty crypto theft and ransomware to sextortion, harassment, and the creation and trade of child sexual abuse material. This year, several members of a Com subgroup of ransomware hackers known as Scattered Spider were arrested, following their alleged high-profile 2023 attacks on companies including Caesar's Entertainment and MGM Resorts. But other members of the group are allegedly responsible for the serial breaches of well over a hundred customers of the cloud provider Snowflake. It's a safe bet that the Com will continue to serve as a haven for plenty more criminal acts to come.

**Data Brokers**

Once, privacy fears centered on government agencies like the FBI and NSA and their ability to carry out mass surveillance worldwide. Now, increasingly, we give away that same surveillance data en masse to companies you've never heard of. This year, it came to light that several data brokers collect and then sell access to Americans' highly granular location data pulled from their phones. Surveillance services like Babel Street's LocateX allegedly can—and do—track visitors to sensitive locations abortion clinic or mosques. A data broker called Near Intelligence left a vast cache of location data exposed online, revealing the movements of hundreds of visitors to sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein's island in the Caribbean. Reporting on both companies has demonstrated how much private location data our devices leave behind as revelatory digital detritus, and how the possession of that data now extends far beyond government agencies to little-known firms with highly questionable privacy and security practices.

**Character.AI**

If 2023 was the year that AI tools future-shocked the internet with their seemingly abrupt rise to prominence, 2024 was the year that those tools became normalized, quietly settling into common use in spite of all their alleged flaws and ethical problems. Yet those issues are still there, and perhaps no startup better exemplifies them than Character.AI, an AI firm backed by $2.7 billion in investment from Google. According to lawsuits filed in Texas and Florida against the company, its chatbots have encouraged children to engage in self-harm and violence against their parents, and allegedly contributed to 14-year-old dying by suicide. Other chatbots hosted by the company have allegedly coached kids into developing eating disorders, role-playing as school shooters, and even seemed to be sexually grooming them. Despite repeatedly vowing to implement age restrictions, no meaningful age safeguards appear to have been added even now, according to news outlet Futurism. If this is the future of artificial intelligence, the AI era is going to be a dark age indeed.

**Crypto Scammers**

The crypto-based investment scams known as “pig butchering”—a term experts now say should be retired because it can further harm victims—pulled in a staggering $37 billion in 2023, and likely more in 2024. The victims of that explosively growing form of crimes aren't just those who fall for its scams and lose their life savings, but also many of the perpetrators of the scams themselves: As many as 200,000 people have been enslaved in compounds across Southeast Asia and forced to carry out the fraud schemes. In some cases, they've been kept in electrified shackles and faced threats of cattle prods and beatings from the gangs overseeing their work. This year, the dystopia those scammers have ushered in has begun to spread worldwide, with operations cropping up in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and West Africa. The targets of their fraud, of course, are even more global. Crypto scams have already become a top-tier form of cybercrime, and there's no end in sight to the expansion of this predatory underworld industry.

The Most Dangerous People on the Internet in 2024

An overview of incidents and news surrounding Artificial Intelligence in 2024.

A popular saying is: “To err is human, but to really foul things up you need a computer.”

Even though the saying is older than you might think, it did not come about earlier than the concept of artificial intelligence (AI).

And as long as we have been waiting for AI technology to become commonplace, if AI has taught us one thing this year, then it’s that when humans and AI cooperate, amazing things can happen. But amazing is not always positive.

There have been some incidents in the past year that have made many people even more afraid of AI than they already were.

We started off 2024 with a warning from the British National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) telling us it expects AI to heighten the global ransomware threat.

A lot of AI related stories this year dealt with social media and other public sources that were scraped to train an AI model.

For example, X was accused of unlawfully using the personal data of 60 million+ users to train its AI called Grok. Underlining that fear, we saw a hoax go viral on Instagram Stories that told people they could stop Meta from harvesting content by copying and pasting some text.

Facebook had to admit that it scrapes the public photos, posts and other data from the accounts of Australian adult users to train its AI models, which no doubt contributed to Australia’s ban on social media for children under the age of 16.

As with many developing technologies, sometimes the race to stay ahead is more important than security. This was best demonstrated when an AI companion site called Muah.ai got breached and details of all its users’ fantasies were stolen. The hacker described the platform as “a handful of open-source projects duct-taped together.”

We also saw an AI supply-chain breach when a chatbot provider exposed 346,000 customer files, including ID documents, resumes, and medical records.

And if the accidents didn’t scare people off, there were also some outright scams targeting people that were eager to use some of the popular applications of AI. A free AI editor lured victims into installing an information stealer which came in both Windows and MacOS flavors.

We saw further refinement of an ongoing type of AI-supported scam known as deepfakes. Deepfakes are AI-generated realistic media, created with the aim of tricking people into thinking the content of the video or image actually happened. Deepfakes can be used in scams and in disinformation campaigns.

A deepfake of Elon Musk was named the internet’s biggest scammer as it tricked an 82-year-old into paying $690,000 through a series of transactions. And AI-generated deepfakes of celebrities, including Taylor Swift, led to calls for laws to make the creation of such images illegal.

Video aside, we reported on scammers using AI to fake the voices of loved ones to tell them they’ve been in an accident. Reportedly, with the advancements in technology, only one or two minutes of audio—perhaps taken from social media or other online sources—are needed to generate a convincing deepfake recording.

Voice recognition doesn’t always work the other way around though. Some AI models have trouble understanding spoken words. McDonalds ended its AI drive through order taker experiment with IBM after too many incidents, including customers getting 260 Chicken McNuggets or bacon added to their ice cream.

To sign off on a positive note, a mobile network operator is using AI in the battle against phone scammers. AI Granny Daisy uses several AI models that work together listening to what scammers have to say, and then responding in a lifelike manner to give the scammers the idea they are working on an “easy” target. Playing on the scammers’ biases about older people, Daisy usually acts as a chatty granny while at the same time wasting the scammers’ time that they can’t use to work on real victims.

What do you think? Do the negatives outweigh the positives when it comes to AI, or is it the other way round? Let us know in the comments section.

 2024 in AI: It&#8217;s changed the world, but it’s not all good 

The US water sector suffered a stream of cyberattacks over the past year and half, from a mix of cybercriminals, hacktivists, and nation-state hacking teams. Here's how the industry and ICS/OT security experts are working to better secure vulnerable drinking and wastewater utilities.

Source: Vyacheslav Lopatin via Alamy Stock Photo

The unprecedented wave of high-profile cyberattacks on US water utilities over the past year has just kept flowing.

In one incident, pro-Iranian hackers penetrated a Pittsburgh-area water utility's PLC and defaced the touchscreen with an anti-Israel message, forcing the utility to revert to manual control of its water pressure-regulation system. A water and wastewater operator for 500 North American communities temporarily severed connections between its IT and OT networks after ransomware infiltrated some back-end systems and exposed its customers' personal data. Customer-facing websites and the telecommunications network at the US's largest regulated water utility went dark after an October cyberattack.

Those were just some of the more chilling stories that have recently sparked fear over the security and physical safety of drinking water and wastewater systems. The cyberattacks have spurred warnings and security guidelines from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the White House, the FBI and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Water ISAC (Information Sharing and Analysis Center).

Most of the attacks landed on the softest of targets, small water utilities without security expertise and resources, in mainly opportunistic attacks. Meanwhile, cyberattacks on large utilities like Veolia and American Water hit IT, not OT, systems — none of which actually disrupted water services. Overall, the cyberattacks on water appeared to be mainly about "poking around and eroding confidence," says Gus Serino, president of I&C Secure and a former process control engineer for the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority.

Related:IoT Cloud Cracked by 'Open Sesame' Over-the-Air Attack

The race is now on to secure the water sector — especially the smaller more vulnerable utilities — from further cyberattacks. Many larger water utilities already have been "stepping up their game" in securing their OT networks, and others started building out their security infrastructures years ago, notes Dale Peterson, president of ICS/OT security consultancy Digital Bond. "My first client in 2000 was a water utility," he recalls. "Some \[large utilities\] have been working on this for a very long time."

The challenge lies in securing smaller utilities, without overprescribing them with unnecessary and high-overhead security infrastructure. Tools that require expertise and overhead are a nonstarter at sites where there isn't even dedicated IT support, much less cyber know-how. Peterson argues that government recommendations for sophisticated security monitoring systems are just plain overkill for most small utilities. These tiny outfits have bigger and more tangible priorities, he says, like replacing aging or damaged pipes in their physical infrastructure.

Related:Frenos Takes Home the Prize at 2024 DataTribe Challenge

**ICS/OT Cyber-Risk: Something in the Water?**

Like other ICS/OT industries, water utilities of all sizes have been outfitting once-isolated programmable logic controller (PLC) systems and OT equipment with remote access, so operators can more efficiently monitor and manage plants from afar — to control water pumps or check alarms, for instance. That has put traditionally isolated equipment at risk.

"They are starting and stopping pumps, setting changes, responding to alarms or failures \[in\] a system. They remote in to look at SCADA/HMI screens to see what's wrong or to take corrective action," explains I&C Secure's Serino, who works closely with water utilities. He says it's rare for those systems to be properly segmented, and VPNs are "not always" used for secure remote access.

PLC vendors such as Siemens are increasingly building security features into their devices, but water plants don't typically run this next-generation gear.

"I have yet to see any secure PLCs deployed" in smaller water sites, Serino says. "Even if there are new PLCs, their security features are not 'on.' So if you \[an attacker\] can get in and get access to the device on that network, you can do whatever you are capable of doing to a PLC."

Related:20% of Industrial Manufacturers Are Using Network Security as a First Line of Defense

Because many ICS/OT systems integrators that install OT systems traditionally do not also set up security for the equipment and software they install in water utility networks, these networks often are left exposed, with open ports or default credentials. "We need to help integrators making \[and installing\] SCADA equipment for these utilities make sure they are secured" for utilities, says Chris Sistrunk, technical leader of Google Cloud Mandiant's ICS/OT consulting practice and a former senior engineer at Entergy. 

Default credentials are one of the most common security weaknesses found in OT networks, as well as industrial devices sitting exposed on the public Internet. The Iranian-based Cyber Av3ngers hacking group easily broke into the Israeli-made Unitronics Vision Series PLCs at the Aliquippa Municipal Water Authority plant (as well as other water utilities and organizations), merely by logging in with the PLCs' easily discoverable factory-setting credentials.

The good news is that some major systems integrators such as Black & Veatch are working with large water utilities on building security into their new OT installations. Ian Bramson, vice president of global industrial cybersecurity at Black & Veatch, says his team works with utilities that consider security a physical safety issue. "They are looking to build \[security\] in and not bolt it in," he explains, to prevent any physical safety consequences from poor cybersecurity security controls.

**Cybersecurity Cleanup for Water**

Meanwhile, there are plenty of free cybersecurity resources for resource-strapped water utilities, including the Water-ISAC's top 12 Security Fundamentals and the American Waterworks Association (AWWA)'s free security assessment tool for water utilities that helps them map their environments to the NIST Cybersecurity Framework. Kevin Morley, manager of federal relations for the AWWA and a utility cybersecurity expert, says the tool includes a survey of the utility's technology and then provides a priority list of the security controls the utility should adopt and address, focusing on risk and resilience.

"It creates a heat map" of where the utility's security weaknesses and risks lie, he says. That helps arm a utility with a cybersecurity business case in the budget process. "They can go to leadership and say 'we did this analysis and this is what we found,'" he explains.

There's also a new cyber volunteer program that assists rural water utilities. The National Rural Water Association recently teamed up with DEF CON to match volunteer cybersecurity experts to utilities in need of cyber help. Six utilities in Utah, Vermont, Indiana, and Oregon encompass the initial cohort for the bespoke DEF CON Franklin project, where volunteer ICS/OT security experts will assess their security posture and help them secure and protect their OT systems from cyber threats.

Mandiant's Sistrunk, who serves as a volunteer cyber expert for some small utilities, points to three main and basic security steps small (and large) utilities should take to improve their defenses: enact multifactor authentication, especially for remote access to OT systems; store backups offline or with a trusted third party; and have a written response plan for who to call when a cyberattack hits.

Serino recommends a firewall as well. "Get a firewall if you don't have one, and have it configured and locked down to control data flows in and out," he says. It's common for firewalls at a water utility to be misconfigured and left wide open to outgoing traffic, he notes: "If an adversary can get in, they could establish their own persistence and command and control, so hardening up the perimeter" for both outgoing and ingoing traffic is important.

He also recommends centralized logging of OT systems, especially for larger water utilities with the resources to support logging and detection operations: "Have the ability to detect a problem so you can stop it before it reaches the end goal of causing an impact."

**About the Author**

Kelly Jackson Higgins is the Editor-in-Chief of Dark Reading. She is an award-winning veteran technology and business journalist with more than two decades of experience in reporting and editing for various publications, including Network Computing, Secure Enterprise Magazine, Virginia Business magazine, and other major media properties. Jackson Higgins was recently selected as one of the Top 10 Cybersecurity Journalists in the US, and named as one of Folio's 2019 Top Women in Media. She began her career as a sports writer in the Washington, DC metropolitan area, and earned her BA at William & Mary. Follow her on Twitter @kjhiggins.

Hackers Are Hot for Water Utilities

The ABB BMS/BAS controller suffers from an authenticated blind OS command injection vulnerability. This can be exploited to inject and execute arbitrary shell commands through the 'variant' HTTP POST parameter called by the clearProjectConfigurationAjax.php script.

Title: ABB Cylon Aspect 3.08.02 (clearProjectConfigurationAjax.php) Remote Code Execution  
Advisory ID: ZSL-2024-5888  
Type: Local/Remote  
Impact: System Access, DoS, Security Bypass  
Risk: (5/5)  
Release Date: 27.12.2024

**Summary**

ASPECT is an award-winning scalable building energy management and control solution designed to allow users seamless access to their building data through standard building protocols including smart devices.

**Description**

The ABB BMS/BAS controller suffers from an authenticated blind OS command injection vulnerability. This can be exploited to inject and execute arbitrary shell commands through the 'variant' HTTP POST parameter called by the clearProjectConfigurationAjax.php script.

**Vendor**

ABB Ltd. - https://www.global.abb

**Affected Version**

NEXUS Series, MATRIX-2 Series, ASPECT-Enterprise, ASPECT-Studio  
Firmware: <=3.08.02

**Tested On**

GNU/Linux 3.15.10 (armv7l)  
GNU/Linux 3.10.0 (x86\_64)  
GNU/Linux 2.6.32 (x86\_64)  
Intel(R) Atom(TM) Processor E3930 @ 1.30GHz  
Intel(R) Xeon(R) Silver 4208 CPU @ 2.10GHz  
PHP/7.3.11  
PHP/5.6.30  
PHP/5.4.16  
PHP/4.4.8  
PHP/5.3.3  
AspectFT Automation Application Server  
lighttpd/1.4.32  
lighttpd/1.4.18  
Apache/2.2.15 (CentOS)  
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (rhel-2.6.22.1.-x86\_64)  
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 24.261-b02, mixed mode)  
ErgoTech MIX Deployment Server 2.0.0

**Vendor Status**

\[21.04.2024\] Vulnerability discovered.  
\[22.04.2024\] Vendor contacted.  
\[22.04.2024\] Vendor responds.  
\[02.05.2024\] Working with the vendor.  
\[03.12.2024\] Vendor releases version 3.08.03 to address this issue.  
\[27.12.2024\] Coordinated public security advisory released.

**PoC**

abb\_aspect\_rce18.txt

**Credits**

Vulnerability discovered by Gjoko Krstic - <gjoko@zeroscience.mk\>

**References**

\[1\] https://search.abb.com/library/Download.aspx?DocumentID=9AKK108469A7497&LanguageCode=en&DocumentPartId=&Action=Launch  
\[2\] https://packetstorm.news/files/id/183300/

**Changelog**

\[27.12.2024\] - Initial release  
\[30.12.2024\] - Added reference \[2\]

**Contact**

Zero Science Lab

Web: https://www.zeroscience.mk  
e-mail: lab@zeroscience.mk

ABB Cylon Aspect 3.08.02 (clearProjectConfigurationAjax.php) Remote Code Execution

The ABB BMS/BAS controller suffers from an authenticated blind OS command injection vulnerability. This can be exploited to inject and execute arbitrary shell commands through the 'instance' HTTP POST parameter called by calendarUpdate.php script.

Title: ABB Cylon Aspect 3.08.02 (calendarUpdate.php) Remote Code Execution  
Advisory ID: ZSL-2024-5887  
Type: Local/Remote  
Impact: System Access, DoS, Security Bypass  
Risk: (5/5)  
Release Date: 27.12.2024

**Summary**

ASPECT is an award-winning scalable building energy management and control solution designed to allow users seamless access to their building data through standard building protocols including smart devices.

**Description**

The ABB BMS/BAS controller suffers from an authenticated blind OS command injection vulnerability. This can be exploited to inject and execute arbitrary shell commands through the 'instance' HTTP POST parameter called by calendarUpdate.php script.

**Vendor**

ABB Ltd. - https://www.global.abb

**Affected Version**

NEXUS Series, MATRIX-2 Series, ASPECT-Enterprise, ASPECT-Studio  
Firmware: <=3.08.02

**Tested On**

GNU/Linux 3.15.10 (armv7l)  
GNU/Linux 3.10.0 (x86\_64)  
GNU/Linux 2.6.32 (x86\_64)  
Intel(R) Atom(TM) Processor E3930 @ 1.30GHz  
Intel(R) Xeon(R) Silver 4208 CPU @ 2.10GHz  
PHP/7.3.11  
PHP/5.6.30  
PHP/5.4.16  
PHP/4.4.8  
PHP/5.3.3  
AspectFT Automation Application Server  
lighttpd/1.4.32  
lighttpd/1.4.18  
Apache/2.2.15 (CentOS)  
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (rhel-2.6.22.1.-x86\_64)  
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 24.261-b02, mixed mode)  
ErgoTech MIX Deployment Server 2.0.0

**Vendor Status**

\[21.04.2024\] Vulnerability discovered.  
\[22.04.2024\] Vendor contacted.  
\[22.04.2024\] Vendor responds.  
\[02.05.2024\] Working with the vendor.  
\[03.12.2024\] Vendor releases version 3.08.03 to address this issue.  
\[27.12.2024\] Public security advisory released.

**PoC**

abb\_aspect\_rce17.txt

**Credits**

Vulnerability discovered by Gjoko Krstic - <gjoko@zeroscience.mk\>

**References**

\[1\] https://search.abb.com/library/Download.aspx?DocumentID=9AKK108469A7497&LanguageCode=en&DocumentPartId=&Action=Launch  
\[2\] https://packetstorm.news/files/id/183299/

**Changelog**

\[27.12.2024\] - Initial release  
\[30.12.2024\] - Added reference \[2\]

**Contact**

Zero Science Lab

Web: https://www.zeroscience.mk  
e-mail: lab@zeroscience.mk

ABB Cylon Aspect 3.08.02 (calendarUpdate.php) Remote Code Execution

IN THIS ARTICLE: Hackers have released what they claim to be the second batch of data stolen in…

****IN THIS ARTICLE:****

*   **Hackers’ Claims:** IntelBroker released a second batch of extracted Cisco data, amounting to 4.84 GB, from the October 2024 breach, claiming it is part of a 4.5 TB trove.

*   **Leaked Data Contents:** The data includes sensitive files such as software artifacts, network configurations, testing logs, cloud server images, and cryptographic signatures, exposing intellectual property and operational insights.

*   **Misconfigured Resource Exploitation:** The data originated from a misconfigured, public-facing DevHub resource left exposed without password protection, allowing hackers to download it.

*   **Cisco’s Response:** Cisco acknowledged the incident, stated public access was disabled, and confirmed no servers were breached or sensitive data compromised, though hackers contest this claim.

*   **IntelBroker’s Track Record:** The hacker, known for breaching Apple, AMD, Europol, and others, highlights ongoing exploitation of misconfigured systems, a persistent issue in cybersecurity.

Hackers have released what they claim to be the second batch of data stolen in the alleged Cisco data incident from October 2024. According to **IntelBroker**, the hacker behind the breach, the latest leak, published on Christmas Eve on Breach Forums, contains 4.84 GB of data, part of an allegedly stolen 4.5 TB.

IntelBroker on Breach Forums (Screenshot credit: Hackread.com)

As seen by Hackread.com, the leaked data includes a trove of sensitive files, such as proprietary software development artifacts like Java binaries, source code, and application archives; network-related files including Cisco XRv9K virtual router images and configurations; testing logs and scripts; operational data such as Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP) logs and packages; cloud server disk images; and cryptographic signatures for payment SDKs like Weixin Pay.

Additionally, the leak contains configuration files, internal project archives, and other miscellaneous documents, potentially exposing intellectual property, network configurations, and operational insights.

File tree shared by IntelBroker on Breach Forums (Screenshot credit: Hackread.com)

****Background****

Notably, the leaked data originates from a misconfigured, public-facing DevHub resource that Cisco reportedly left exposed without password protection or security authentication, enabling the hackers to download the entire dataset **in October 2024.**

IntelBroker who accessed the misconfigured server claims they managed to extract 4.5TB of information. The first part of the data leak, which included 2.9 GB of files, was **published on December 17, 2024**.

****Cisco’s Response****

Cisco **acknowledged** (PDF) the October 2024 incident and stated that public access was disabled. The company also confirmed that none of its servers were breached and no sensitive data was compromised. However, the hackers claim otherwise, particularly regarding the extracted data.

Regarding the latest leak, Cisco noted on its incident response page that it is aware of the claims made by IntelBroker, asserting that the data published this time also stems from the October 14, 2024, incident.

> _“On Wednesday, December 25, 2024, at 17:07 EST, the threat actor IntelBroker posted on X about releasing more data. At 17:40 EST, IntelBroker released 4.45 GB of data for free on BreachForums. We have analyzed the post data, and it aligns with the known data set from October 14, 2024.”_  
> 
> Cisco

****Intel Broker and Previous Breaches****

Intel Broker is known for high-profile data breaches. **In June 2024**, the hacker claimed to have breached Apple Inc., stealing source code for internal tools. The same hacker boasted about **breaching AMD** (Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.), and stealing employee and product information.

**In May 2024**, Intel Broker hacked Europol, a breach that the agency later confirmed. Some of the hacker’s previous data breaches are listed below:

*   **Tech in Asia**
*   **Space-Eyes**
*   **Home Depot**
*   **Facebook Marketplace**
*   **Staffing giant Robert Half**
*   **U.S. contractor Acuity Inc.**
*   **Los Angeles International Airport**
*   **Alleged breaches of HSBC and Barclays Bank**

Nevertheless, the partial leak goes on to show ongoing exploitation of misconfigured systems and exposed data. The scale of exploitation is evident, as even high-profile hackers like ShinyHunters and Nemesis **have targeted** misconfigured servers and S3 buckets.

1.  **IntelBroker Claim Access to Nokia Internal Data, Selling for $20K**
2.  **Europol Hacked: IntelBroker Claims Major Law Enforcement Breach**
3.  **IntelBroker Space-Eyes Breach, Targeting US National Security Data**
4.  **IntelBroker Claims Breach of Top Cybersecurity Firm, Selling Access**
5.  **AMD Data Breach: IntelBroker Claims Theft of Employee, Product Info**

Hackers Release Second Batch of Stolen Cisco Data

From zero-day exploits to 5G network vulnerabilities, these are the threats that are expected to persist over the next 12 months.

In 2024, we at Dark Reading covered a variety of attacks, exploits, and, of course, vulnerabilities across the board. Here, we recount 10 emerging threats organizations should be prepared for — as detailed by Dr. Jason Clark in "10 Emerging Vulnerabilities Every Enterprise Should Know," a Dark Reading webinar — as they continuously rise and develop in 2025.

**Zero-Day Exploits**

Zero-days and their increase in volume across the cybersecurity landscape is a particularly concerning trend, as there is no patch for these bugs when they're discovered. Attackers are also able to exploit systems using these vulnerabilities undetected, as safeguards have not been put in place by organizations or enterprises yet.

High-profile zero-day vulnerabilities include Log4Shell, tracked as CVE-2021-44228, a critical RCE bug within Log4j's Java Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI). By exploiting the vulnerability, attackers were able to easily take control of vulnerable systems, a considerable threat as Log4j is used in nearly every Java application.

Other vulnerabilities include PrintNightmare and Proxyshell, both remote execution flaws that were exploited quickly and widely, according to Clark.

"The rise in zero-day exploits is partly driven by just more sophisticated threat actors," Clark said in the Dark Reading webinar. "This can include things like nation-states and also using them in targeted attacks."

Chad Graham, cyber incident response team (CIRT) manager at Critical Start, however, believes that advancements with AI will change the landscape in 2025.

"Both attackers and defenders will rely on AI-driven tools to automate the search for hidden software flaws," Graham says. "This shift will likely result in a more dynamic cybersecurity landscape, where continuous innovation and adaptation become the norm."

**Supply Chain Attacks**

Supply chain attacks remain an active threat and tend toward the severe as their impact cascades on to multiple parties: customers, suppliers, and other third parties. Attackers exploit a trusted resource and ultimately gain access to not just one organization, but multiple. These kinds of threats remain concerning as organizations depend more and more on outsourcing services.

The best known example is the SolarWinds breach, which impacted the SolarWinds Orion system, at the hands of a group known as Nobelium. More than 30,000 organizations — including state and federal agencies — used the Orion network management system, resulting in the backdoor malware compromising thousands of data, network, and systems.

Tracked as CVE-2020-10148 with a CVSS score of 9.8, the authentication bypass bug allowed an unauthenticated attacker to execute API commands. The attackers in question were advanced persistent threat (APT) actors who infiltrated into the SolarWinds’ supply chain to insert a backdoor.

"The complexity of modern supply chains makes it challenging to secure all the dependencies," Clark said in the webinar. "This underscores the need for rigorous third-party risk management."

In the year ahead, Dana Simberkoff, chief risk, privacy, and information security officer at AvePoint, believes that there will be a sharpened focus on supply chains and third-party risk management.

"The CrowdStrike incident wasn't just a wake-up call — it was a stark reminder that in our interconnected ecosystem, one weak link can trigger a catastrophic chain reaction," Simberkoff says.

**Remote Work Infrastructure Exploits**

Since 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations have leaned into remote and hybrid work offerings, increasing the risk of cybersecurity threats and becoming a significant concern. Attackers focus on vulnerabilities that allow users to engage in remote work such as VPNs, remote desktop protocols (RDPs), and phishing attacks through platforms such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams.

There have been several notable incidents in which VPNs and RDPs were leveraged, allowing threat actors to gain access to enterprise systems and networks. In addition, remote workers are often operating from less secure environments, causing an uptick in phishing attacks as the threat actors try to take advantage of these blind spots.

"The shift to remote work has expanded the overall attack surface, Clark said in the webinar. "Remote workers often need more security controls than those that are working \[onsite\], which can lead to significant vulnerabilities."

Recent examples of vulnerabilities remote and hybrid work vulnerabilities include CVE-2024-38199, a remote code execution vulnerability (RCE) in the Windows or Line Printer Deamon (LPD) Service, and CVE-2024-21433, a Windows Print Spooler elevation of privilege vulnerability.

"Remote work infrastructure will continue to be a prime target for cybercriminals in 2025, with an increase in sophisticated attacks on cloud services, VPNs, and collaboration tools," says Stephen Kowski, field CTO at SlashNext Email Security+. "We'll likely see more AI-powered threats designed to bypass traditional security measures, exploiting vulnerabilities in interconnected devices and home networks."

**Exploitation of AI and Machine Learning Systems**

With the rise of AI and its increasing use amid the public, comes widespread risk of exploitation from attackers. Clark noted of adversarial attacks, data poisoning, and model inversion attacks that are at the forefront of emerging threats for AI and machine learning (ML) systems in particular. 

The nature of some ML systems requires feeding a system information for the best results, the system becoming more familiar with the user over time. When attacks target these systems, it can lead to unauthorized access to sensitive data stored and processed within these tools, as well as incorrect predictions or biased decisions.

"AI models will be key areas of exploitation in 2025," says Rom Carmel, co-founder and CEO at Apono. "As AI and machine learning become integral to identity verification systems, attackers will find ways to poison AI models or bypass them."

AI can also simply be manipulated for malicious ends, as seen when an AI deepfake robocall was created to impersonate US President Joe Biden to encourage individuals not to vote in the New Hampshire's Democratic primary, an event that could have had severe consequences on the US electoral process.

"The threat landscape is evolving with the rapid adoption of AI and ML," Clark said in the webinar. "Attackers increasingly focus on these systems to undermine their reliability and exploit vulnerability."

**Cloud Misconfigurations**

As organizations continue to shift their operations to the cloud, it will continue to emerge as a space for threat actors to thrive, often due to the cloud simply not being set up correctly.

Common examples of threats that circulate within the cloud are publicly accessible S3 buckets, misconfigured security groups in AWS, and exposed databases.

"Cloud misconfigurations can have severe impacts related to data breaches, unauthorized access to critical systems, financial loss, and reputational damage," Clark said. He added that the complexity of these environments is going to increase leading to more frequent configuration errors.

In the past, Amazon and Microsoft cloud environments have exposed customer data, such as viewing habits, names, email addresses, email content, and phone numbers. The leaks aren't due to vulnerabilities but misconfigurations ranging from insecure read-and-write permissions to inaccurate access lists and misconfigured policies.

"To successfully prevent cloud breaches in 2025, companies need to focus on three key areas: visibility, access control, and continuous monitoring," says Jason Soroko, senior fellow at Sectigo. "Cloud environments are dynamic, so your security needs to be dynamic too."

**IoT Device Vulnerabilities**

IoT devices are allowing for emerging threats to thrive, being easy targets for threat actors to exploit, whether it be due to weak default passwords, lack of encryption, or insecure firmware.

Common attacks that IoT devices face are data theft, network breaches, and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. A recent example emerged in the Common Unix Printing System (CUPS) for managing printers and print jobs. The series of vulnerabilities, tracked as CVE-2024-47176, CVE-2024-47076, CVE-2024-47175, and CVE-2024-47177 could allow bad actors to stage DDoS attacks within seconds for less than 1 cent while using an available cloud platform.

"Just the sheer volume of connected devices really exacerbates the threat," Clark noted in the webinar. "Securing these devices becomes really challenging due to their diversity and often limited processing power for adding security features."

And as the use of IoT, OT, and 5G networks continues to rise, organizations will need cyber threat intelligence (CTI) to extend beyond traditional IT environments, says Callie Guenther, senior manager, cyber threat research at Critical Start. "This expansion, which will continue throughout 2025, will add complexity to CTI, requiring more granular insights and specific intelligence data."

**Cryptographic Weaknesses**

According to Clark, cryptographic weaknesses continue to pose a significant threat because these kinds of vulnerabilities undermine the foundation of secure communication and data protection. These weaknesses often manifest in one of two ways: flaws in encryption algorithms, or how the algorithms are implemented.

"The rising threat is kind of compounded by the fact that as computational capability advances, that previously secure crypto standard now becomes increasingly more vulnerable," Clark said in the webinar.

He recommended regularly updating cryptographic libraries, and enforcing strong encryption protocols to avoid exploitation attempts like man-in-the middle attacks, data integrity issues, and the exposed sensitive information.

Just recently, Acros Security discovered a vulnerability, similar to CVE-2024-38030, that enables an attack in which a vulnerable device is coerced into sending NTLM hashes, which is the cryptographic version of a user's password, to a threat actor.

"We have never before required from \[cloud service providers\] such granular and detailed information on the type of encryption in use, but customers (government and non-government customers alike) will require this level of detail to ensure their encryption standards are being met," says Philip George, executive technical strategist at InfoSec Global Federal.

**API Security Gaps**

More organizations are relying on APIs to connect systems; however, these APIs are at risk when they have flaws in the design or the implementation of the APIs. Attackers are able to breach systems through unauthorized access, allowing them to manipulate certain restricted actions.

A notable example of this is the exposure of user data through Facebook’s API, though these flaws are also abundant in other sectors such as healthcare or financial services. 

Gaps in API security ultimately serve as a launchpad, often for data breaches which can lead to the loss of sensitive information, unauthorized transactions, reputational damage, and significant financial loss.

"The threat is escalating as API is becoming more prevalent, increasing the number of potential attack surfaces," Clark said. "To mitigate these risks, it's essential to secure your API endpoints, enforce robust authentication mechanisms, and regularly update and audit API access."

A Docusign API was recently used in a wide-scale phishing campaign due to its "API-friendly environment," which is beneficial for businesses but also provides a way for bad actors to conduct malicious operations. The flaw could ultimately could have led to instances of fraud, though there are ways for users to avoid and detect such API abuse.

In the coming year, the cyber landscape will continue to evolve, API being in the forefront of these changes.

"We anticipate a rise in sophisticated API attacks using automation, artificial intelligence, and advanced evasion techniques to exploit vulnerabilities and bypass traditional security measures," says Eric Schwake, director of cybersecurity strategy at Salt Security. "One significant risk will stem from the exploitation of API misconfigurations, which often occur due to the fast pace of development and deployment. This situation will challenge organizations to adopt a more proactive and comprehensive approach to API security."

**Ransomware Evolution**

"We could do a whole webinar on ransomware," Clark said in the webinar, which raises the question: Can ransomware even be considered an emerging threat? 

The answer is yes, though ransomware attacks have become one of the most disruptive and costly cyberattacks out there largely due to their rapid evolution.

One of the most notable ransomware attacks occurred on Colonial Pipeline, which shut down its entire operations for the first time, leading to fuel shortages and four states on the East Coast declaring a state of emergency. The ransomware attack prompted action from national security and the executive branch and forced a reevaluation of the nation's critical infrastructure security.

Threat actors know they can win big when demanding ransoms from organizations, such as those in the healthcare sector, which will pay these high prices in order to help patients in need.

"As these attacks are becoming more targeted and, frankly, aggressive, it's crucial to start to implement backup strategies that are robust, strengthen your overall incident response plans, and continuously educate your employees on recognizing and avoiding things like phishing attempts that can often serve as an entry point for ransomware," Clark said in the webinar.

Backups may not always be an option, according to Brandon Williams, chief technology officer at Conversant Group.

"Some threat actors have moved to deleting data as part of their normal motions," he says. "If this gains traction in 2025, organizations will not have a method to recover by simply paying a ransom and hoping to get a working decryption tool. The only method of recovery will be backups; however, data shows that backups do not typically survive these breaches."

**5G Network Vulnerabilities**

5G networks are being rapidly deployed, and with them come threat actors' awareness and exploitation of its vulnerabilities. Attackers are increasingly able to target 5G infrastructure with ease, and these open the door for even bigger threats such as large-scale DDoS attacks, unauthorized data access, and disruption of our critical services.

"As we consider the rising threat, the global rollout of 5G brings an increasing number of connected devices," Clark said in the webinar. "The rising number amplifies their attack risk, particularly given their reliance on cloud-native infrastructures."

At Black Hat 2024 in Las Vegas, seven Penn State University researchers detailed how mobile devices are at risk of data theft and denial of service due to 5G technology vulnerabilities. Threat actors use these resources simply by providing someone with an Internet connection, allowing easy access to spying, phishing, and more. 

"Vulnerabilities such as lack of initial broadcast message authentication, spectrum slicing, silent downgrade, and unsecured DNS paging currently affect 5G networks," says Mayuresh Dani, manager, security research, at Qualys Threat Research Unit. "In the year to come, these will continue affecting 5G networks and vulnerabilities in unsecured base stations will multiply snooping attacks."

Tag

#intel