Red Hat Security Advisory 2024-8461-03 - An update for krb5 is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.2 Extended Update Support.

    The following advisory data is extracted from:https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/advisories/2024/rhsa-2024_8461.jsonRed Hat officially shut down their mailing list notifications October 10, 2023.  Due to this, Packet Storm has recreated the below data as a reference point to raise awareness.  It must be noted that due to an inability to easily track revision updates without crawling Red Hat's archive, these advisories are single notifications and we strongly suggest that you visit the Red Hat provided links to ensure you have the latest information available if the subject matter listed pertains to your environment.- Packet Storm Staff====================================================================Red Hat Security AdvisorySynopsis:           Important: krb5 security updateAdvisory ID:        RHSA-2024:8461-03Product:            Red Hat Enterprise LinuxAdvisory URL:       https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:8461Issue date:         2024-10-24Revision:           03CVE Names:          CVE-2024-3596====================================================================Summary: An update for krb5 is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.2 Extended Update Support.Red Hat Product Security has rated this update as having a security impact of Important. A Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base score, which gives a detailed severity rating, is available for each vulnerability from the CVE link(s) in the References section.Description:Kerberos is a network authentication system, which can improve the security of your network by eliminating the insecure practice of sending passwords over the network in unencrypted form. It allows clients and servers to authenticate to each other with the help of a trusted third party, the Kerberos key distribution center (KDC).Security Fix(es):* freeradius: forgery attack (CVE-2024-3596)For more details about the security issue(s), including the impact, a CVSS score, acknowledgments, and other related information, refer to the CVE page(s) listed in the References section.Solution:https://access.redhat.com/articles/11258CVEs:CVE-2024-3596References:https://access.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/#importanthttps://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2263240

Red Hat Security Advisory 2024-8461-03

Red Hat Security Advisory 2024-8455-03 - An update for edk2 is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.6 Advanced Mission Critical Update Support, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.6 Update Services for SAP Solutions, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.6 Telecommunications Update Service. Issues addressed include a buffer overflow vulnerability.

    The following advisory data is extracted from:https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/advisories/2024/rhsa-2024_8455.jsonRed Hat officially shut down their mailing list notifications October 10, 2023.  Due to this, Packet Storm has recreated the below data as a reference point to raise awareness.  It must be noted that due to an inability to easily track revision updates without crawling Red Hat's archive, these advisories are single notifications and we strongly suggest that you visit the Red Hat provided links to ensure you have the latest information available if the subject matter listed pertains to your environment.- Packet Storm Staff====================================================================Red Hat Security AdvisorySynopsis:           Important: edk2 security updateAdvisory ID:        RHSA-2024:8455-03Product:            Red Hat Enterprise LinuxAdvisory URL:       https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:8455Issue date:         2024-10-24Revision:           03CVE Names:          CVE-2023-45235====================================================================Summary: An update for edk2 is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.6 Advanced Mission Critical Update Support, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.6 Update Services for SAP Solutions, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.6 Telecommunications Update Service.Red Hat Product Security has rated this update as having a security impact of Important. A Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base score, which gives a detailed severity rating, is available for each vulnerability from the CVE link(s) in the References section.Description:EDK (Embedded Development Kit) is a project to enable UEFI support for Virtual Machines. This package contains a sample 64-bit UEFI firmware for QEMU and KVM. Security Fix(es):* edk2: Buffer overflow when handling Server ID option from a DHCPv6 proxy Advertise message (CVE-2023-45235)For more details about the security issue(s), including the impact, a CVSS score, acknowledgments, and other related information, refer to the CVE page(s) listed in the References section.Solution:https://access.redhat.com/articles/11258CVEs:CVE-2023-45235References:https://access.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/#importanthttps://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2258700

Red Hat Security Advisory 2024-8455-03

Red Hat Security Advisory 2024-8449-03 - An update for edk2 is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 Advanced Mission Critical Update Support, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 Telecommunications Update Service, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 Update Services for SAP Solutions. Issues addressed include a buffer overflow vulnerability.

    The following advisory data is extracted from:https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/advisories/2024/rhsa-2024_8449.jsonRed Hat officially shut down their mailing list notifications October 10, 2023.  Due to this, Packet Storm has recreated the below data as a reference point to raise awareness.  It must be noted that due to an inability to easily track revision updates without crawling Red Hat's archive, these advisories are single notifications and we strongly suggest that you visit the Red Hat provided links to ensure you have the latest information available if the subject matter listed pertains to your environment.- Packet Storm Staff====================================================================Red Hat Security AdvisorySynopsis:           Important: edk2 security updateAdvisory ID:        RHSA-2024:8449-03Product:            Red Hat Enterprise LinuxAdvisory URL:       https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:8449Issue date:         2024-10-24Revision:           03CVE Names:          CVE-2023-45235====================================================================Summary: An update for edk2 is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 Advanced Mission Critical Update Support, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 Telecommunications Update Service, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 Update Services for SAP Solutions.Red Hat Product Security has rated this update as having a security impact of Important. A Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base score, which gives a detailed severity rating, is available for each vulnerability from the CVE link(s) in the References section.Description:EDK (Embedded Development Kit) is a project to enable UEFI support for Virtual Machines. This package contains a sample 64-bit UEFI firmware for QEMU and KVM. Security Fix(es):* edk2: Buffer overflow when handling Server ID option from a DHCPv6 proxy Advertise message (CVE-2023-45235)For more details about the security issue(s), including the impact, a CVSS score, acknowledgments, and other related information, refer to the CVE page(s) listed in the References section.Solution:https://access.redhat.com/articles/11258CVEs:CVE-2023-45235References:https://access.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/#importanthttps://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2258700

Red Hat Security Advisory 2024-8449-03

Red Hat Security Advisory 2024-8447-03 - An update for python3.12 is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.4 Extended Update Support.

    The following advisory data is extracted from:https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/advisories/2024/rhsa-2024_8447.jsonRed Hat officially shut down their mailing list notifications October 10, 2023.  Due to this, Packet Storm has recreated the below data as a reference point to raise awareness.  It must be noted that due to an inability to easily track revision updates without crawling Red Hat's archive, these advisories are single notifications and we strongly suggest that you visit the Red Hat provided links to ensure you have the latest information available if the subject matter listed pertains to your environment.- Packet Storm Staff====================================================================Red Hat Security AdvisorySynopsis:           Moderate: python3.12 security updateAdvisory ID:        RHSA-2024:8447-03Product:            Red Hat Enterprise LinuxAdvisory URL:       https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:8447Issue date:         2024-10-24Revision:           03CVE Names:          CVE-2024-6232====================================================================Summary: An update for python3.12 is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.4 Extended Update Support.Red Hat Product Security has rated this update as having a security impact of Moderate. A Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base score, which gives a detailed severity rating, is available for each vulnerability from the CVE link(s) in the References section.Description:Python 3.12 is an accessible, high-level, dynamically typed, interpreted programming language, designed with an emphasis on code readability. It includes an extensive standard library, and has a vast ecosystem of third-party libraries.  The python3.12 package provides the \"python3.12\" executable: the reference interpreter for the Python language, version 3. The majority of its standard library is provided in the python3.12-libs package, which should be installed automatically along with python3.12. The remaining parts of the Python standard library are broken out into the python3.12-tkinter and python3.12-test packages, which may need to be installed separately.  Documentation for Python is provided in the python3.12-docs package.  Packages containing additional libraries for Python are generally named with the \"python3.12-\" prefix.Security Fix(es):* python: cpython: tarfile: ReDos via excessive backtracking while parsing header values (CVE-2024-6232)For more details about the security issue(s), including the impact, a CVSS score, acknowledgments, and other related information, refer to the CVE page(s) listed in the References section.Solution:https://access.redhat.com/articles/11258CVEs:CVE-2024-6232References:https://access.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/#moderatehttps://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2309426

Red Hat Security Advisory 2024-8447-03

Red Hat Security Advisory 2024-8446-03 - An update for python3.9 is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.4 Extended Update Support.

    The following advisory data is extracted from:https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/advisories/2024/rhsa-2024_8446.jsonRed Hat officially shut down their mailing list notifications October 10, 2023.  Due to this, Packet Storm has recreated the below data as a reference point to raise awareness.  It must be noted that due to an inability to easily track revision updates without crawling Red Hat's archive, these advisories are single notifications and we strongly suggest that you visit the Red Hat provided links to ensure you have the latest information available if the subject matter listed pertains to your environment.- Packet Storm Staff====================================================================Red Hat Security AdvisorySynopsis:           Moderate: python3.9 security updateAdvisory ID:        RHSA-2024:8446-03Product:            Red Hat Enterprise LinuxAdvisory URL:       https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:8446Issue date:         2024-10-24Revision:           03CVE Names:          CVE-2024-6232====================================================================Summary: An update for python3.9 is now available for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.4 Extended Update Support.Red Hat Product Security has rated this update as having a security impact of Moderate. A Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base score, which gives a detailed severity rating, is available for each vulnerability from the CVE link(s) in the References section.Description:Python is an interpreted, interactive, object-oriented programming language, which includes modules, classes, exceptions, very high level dynamic data types and dynamic typing. Python supports interfaces to many system calls and libraries, as well as to various windowing systems.Security Fix(es):* python: cpython: tarfile: ReDos via excessive backtracking while parsing header values (CVE-2024-6232)For more details about the security issue(s), including the impact, a CVSS score, acknowledgments, and other related information, refer to the CVE page(s) listed in the References section.Solution:https://access.redhat.com/articles/11258CVEs:CVE-2024-6232References:https://access.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/#moderatehttps://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2309426

Red Hat Security Advisory 2024-8446-03

Red Hat Security Advisory 2024-8263-03 - Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform release 4.16.18 is now available with updates to packages and images that fix several bugs and add enhancements.

The following advisory data is extracted from:

https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/advisories/2024/rhsa-2024_8263.json

Red Hat officially shut down their mailing list notifications October 10, 2023.  Due to this, Packet Storm has recreated the below data as a reference point to raise awareness.  It must be noted that due to an inability to easily track revision updates without crawling Red Hat's archive, these advisories are single notifications and we strongly suggest that you visit the Red Hat provided links to ensure you have the latest information available if the subject matter listed pertains to your environment.

- Packet Storm Staff

====================================================================  
Red Hat Security Advisory

Synopsis:           Important: OpenShift Container Platform 4.16.18 packages and security update  
Advisory ID:        RHSA-2024:8263-03  
Product:            Red Hat OpenShift Enterprise  
Advisory URL:       https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:8263  
Issue date:         2024-10-24  
Revision:           03  
CVE Names:          CVE-2024-9341  
====================================================================

Summary: 

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform release 4.16.18 is now available with updates to packages and images that fix several bugs and add enhancements.

This release includes a security update for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.16.

Red Hat Product Security has rated this update as having a security impact of  Important. A Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base score, which gives a detailed severity rating, is available for each vulnerability from the CVE link(s) in the References section.

Description:

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform is Red Hat's cloud computing Kubernetes application platform solution designed for on-premise or private cloud deployments.

This advisory contains the RPM packages for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.16.18. See the following advisory for the container images for this release:

https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:8260

Security Fix(es):

* encoding/gob: golang: Calling Decoder.Decode on a message which contains  
deeply nested structures can cause a panic due to stack exhaustion  
(CVE-2024-34156)  
* Podman: Buildah: cri-o: FIPS Crypto-Policy Directory Mounting Issue in  
containers/common Go Library (CVE-2024-9341)  
* go/parser: golang: Calling any of the Parse functions containing deeply  
nested literals can cause a panic/stack exhaustion (CVE-2024-34155)  
* go/build/constraint: golang: Calling Parse on a \"// +build\" build tag  
line with deeply nested expressions can cause a panic due to stack  
exhaustion (CVE-2024-34158)

For more details about the security issue(s), including the impact, a CVSS score, acknowledgments, and other related information, refer to the CVE page(s) listed in the References section.

All OpenShift Container Platform 4.16 users are advised to upgrade to these updated packages and images when they are available in the appropriate release channel. To check for available updates, use the OpenShift CLI (oc) or web console. Instructions for upgrading a cluster are available at https://docs.openshift.com/container-platform/4.16/updating/updating_a_cluster/updating-cluster-cli.html

Solution:

https://docs.openshift.com/container-platform/4.16/release_notes/ocp-4-16-release-notes.html

CVEs:

CVE-2024-9341

References:

https://access.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/#important  
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2310527  
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2310528  
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2310529  
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2315691

Red Hat Security Advisory 2024-8263-03

Red Hat Security Advisory 2024-8260-03 - Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform release 4.16.18 is now available with updates to packages and images that fix several bugs and add enhancements. Issues addressed include a denial of service vulnerability.

The following advisory data is extracted from:

https://security.access.redhat.com/data/csaf/v2/advisories/2024/rhsa-2024_8260.json

Red Hat officially shut down their mailing list notifications October 10, 2023.  Due to this, Packet Storm has recreated the below data as a reference point to raise awareness.  It must be noted that due to an inability to easily track revision updates without crawling Red Hat's archive, these advisories are single notifications and we strongly suggest that you visit the Red Hat provided links to ensure you have the latest information available if the subject matter listed pertains to your environment.

- Packet Storm Staff

====================================================================  
Red Hat Security Advisory

Synopsis:           Important: OpenShift Container Platform 4.16.18 bug fix and security update  
Advisory ID:        RHSA-2024:8260-03  
Product:            Red Hat OpenShift Enterprise  
Advisory URL:       https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:8260  
Issue date:         2024-10-24  
Revision:           03  
CVE Names:          CVE-2024-3727  
====================================================================

Summary: 

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform release 4.16.18 is now available with updates to packages and images that fix several bugs and add enhancements.

This release includes a security update for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.16.

Red Hat Product Security has rated this update as having a security impact of Important. A Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base score, which gives a detailed severity rating, is available for each vulnerability from the CVE link(s) in the References section.

Description:

Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform is Red Hat's cloud computing Kubernetes application platform solution designed for on-premise or private cloud deployments.

This advisory contains the container images for Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 4.16.18. See the following advisory for the RPM packages for this release:

https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2024:8263

Space precludes documenting all of the container images in this advisory. See the following Release Notes documentation, which will be updated shortly for this release, for details about these changes:

https://docs.openshift.com/container-platform/4.16/release_notes/ocp-4-16-release-notes.html

Security Fix(es):

* encoding/gob: golang: Calling Decoder.Decode on a message which contains  
deeply nested structures can cause a panic due to stack exhaustion  
(CVE-2024-34156)  
* containers/image: digest type does not guarantee valid type  
(CVE-2024-3727)  
* net/http: Denial of service due to improper 100-continue handling in  
net/http (CVE-2024-24791)  
* jose-go: improper handling of highly compressed data (CVE-2024-28180)  
* go/parser: golang: Calling any of the Parse functions containing deeply  
nested literals can cause a panic/stack exhaustion (CVE-2024-34155)  
* go/build/constraint: golang: Calling Parse on a \"// +build\" build tag  
line with deeply nested expressions can cause a panic due to stack  
exhaustion (CVE-2024-34158)

For more details about the security issue(s), including the impact, a CVSS score, acknowledgments, and other related information, refer to the CVE page(s) listed in the References section.

All OpenShift Container Platform 4.16 users are advised to upgrade to these updated packages and images when they are available in the appropriate release channel. To check for available updates, use the OpenShift CLI (oc) or web console. Instructions for upgrading a cluster are available at https://docs.openshift.com/container-platform/4.16/updating/updating_a_cluster/updating-cluster-cli.html

Solution:

CVEs:

CVE-2024-3727

References:

https://access.redhat.com/security/updates/classification/#important  
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2268854  
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2274767  
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2295310  
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2310527  
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2310528  
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2310529  
https://issues.redhat.com/browse/OCPBUGS-33692  
https://issues.redhat.com/browse/OCPBUGS-33693  
https://issues.redhat.com/browse/OCPBUGS-39415  
https://issues.redhat.com/browse/OCPBUGS-41364  
https://issues.redhat.com/browse/OCPBUGS-41805  
https://issues.redhat.com/browse/OCPBUGS-41904  
https://issues.redhat.com/browse/OCPBUGS-42014  
https://issues.redhat.com/browse/OCPBUGS-42369  
https://issues.redhat.com/browse/OCPBUGS-42420  
https://issues.redhat.com/browse/OCPBUGS-42432  
https://issues.redhat.com/browse/OCPBUGS-42724  
https://issues.redhat.com/browse/OCPBUGS-42933  
https://issues.redhat.com/browse/OCPBUGS-43056  
https://issues.redhat.com/browse/OCPBUGS-43063  
https://issues.redhat.com/browse/OCPBUGS-43104  
https://issues.redhat.com/browse/OCPBUGS-43105  
https://issues.redhat.com/browse/OCPBUGS-43308  
https://issues.redhat.com/browse/OCPBUGS-43433  
https://issues.redhat.com/browse/OCPBUGS-43467

Red Hat Security Advisory 2024-8260-03

A security flaw impacting the Wi-Fi Test Suite could enable unauthenticated local attackers to execute arbitrary code with elevated privileges.
The CERT Coordination Center (CERT/CC) said the vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-41992, said the susceptible code from the Wi-Fi Alliance has been found deployed on Arcadyan FMIMG51AX000J routers.
"This flaw allows an unauthenticated local attacker to

Vulnerability / Wi-Fi Security

A security flaw impacting the Wi-Fi Test Suite could enable unauthenticated local attackers to execute arbitrary code with elevated privileges.

The CERT Coordination Center (CERT/CC) said the vulnerability, tracked as **CVE-2024-41992**, said the susceptible code from the Wi-Fi Alliance has been found deployed on Arcadyan FMIMG51AX000J routers.

"This flaw allows an unauthenticated local attacker to exploit the Wi-Fi Test Suite by sending specially crafted packets, enabling the execution of arbitrary commands with root privileges on the affected routers," the CERT/CC said in an advisory released Wednesday.

Wi-Fi Test Suite is an integrated platform developed by the Wi-Fi Alliance that automates testing Wi-Fi components or devices. While open-source components of the toolkit are publicly available, the full package is available only to its members.

SSD Secure Disclosure, which released details of the flaw back in August 2024, described it as a case of command injection that could enable a threat actor to execute commands with root privileges. It was originally reported to the Wi-Fi Alliance in April 2024.

An independent researcher, who goes by the online alias "fj016" has been credited with uncovering and reporting the security shortcomings. The researcher has also made available a proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit for the flaw.

CERT/CC noted that the Wi-Fi Test Suite is not intended for use in production environments, and yet has been discovered in commercial router deployments.

"An attacker who successfully exploits this vulnerability can gain full administrative control over the affected device," it said.

"With this access, the attacker can modify system settings, disrupt critical network services, or reset the device entirely. These actions can result in service interruptions, compromise of network data, and potential loss of service for all users dependent on the affected network."

In the absence of a patch, vendors who have included the Wi-Fi Test Suite are recommended to either remove it completely from production devices or update it to version 9.0 or later to mitigate the risk of exploitation.

The Hacker News has reached out to the Wi-Fi Alliance for further comment, and we will update the story when we hear back.

Found this article interesting? Follow us on Twitter __ and LinkedIn to read more exclusive content we post.

Researchers Discover Command Injection Flaw in Wi-Fi Alliance's Test Suite

Renewable energy firms deal with a large cyberattack surface area, given the distributed nature of power generation and more pervasive connectivity.

Source: KanawatTH via Shutterstock

Renewable energy companies lag behind their more traditional peers when it comes to the cybersecurity readiness of their infrastructure, raising concerns that attackers targeting critical infrastructure could find easier prey among "green" energy firms.

In a study of 250 energy companies worldwide, oil and natural-gas firms scored the highest — with the average company scoring a 94, or "A" — while the lowest scores belonged to renewable energy companies, which scored a median of 85, or a "B." Green energy firms tend to have distributed generation infrastructure (such as rooftop solar or wind turbines) and are usually more Internet-connected than traditional energy companies — both attributes that can undermine their defensive posture, says Ryan Sherstobitoff, senior vice president for threat research at SecurityScorecard, the cybersecurity risk firm that conducted the study.

Overall, the attack surfaces between traditional energy infrastructure and renewable energy infrastructure can be quite different, he says.

"Oil and gas have legacy technologies, but these legacy technologies are most likely not Internet-facing," Sherstobitoff says. "Whereas the cybersecurity posture of renewable energy may not necessarily be \[to the level of other\] critical infrastructure itself ... but nonetheless has public-facing portals and other public-facing issues."

The concerns come as the US and other countries invest in green energy infrastructure and scramble to put in place more cybersecurity defenses to protect their critical infrastructure. Nation-state groups have targeted the critical infrastructure of the US and its allies, and while the distributed nature of green energy generation could mitigate widespread outages, their Internet connections represent a weak point, according to the SecurityScorecard report, which was in collaboration with consultancy KPMG.

**Distributed Green Systems Harder to Defend**

Overall, the energy sector did quite well in the survey of firms. Of the 250 organizations on which data was collected, 81% either scored an A or B. Only 8% of energy firms showed signs of compromise in their external infrastructure, but two-thirds of the breaches were connected to third-party partners, SecurityScorecard reported.

Attacks could prevent renewable energy companies from managing their generation sites to disrupting consumers' power, Sherstobitoff says.

"You could imagine disrupting the ability for these renewable energy devices to connect back and phone home, then you have chaos, because then they can't check in, can't get their status," he says. "If \[the infrastructure\] depends on getting a status code in order to function, it needs to connect back ... that's another breaking function."

Already, some green energy infrastructure has fallen prey to attackers. Charging stations for electric vehicles typically require connectivity, which makes them vulnerable to both compromise and disruption. In 2022, pro-Ukrainian hacktivists compromised chargers in Moscow to display messages of support for Ukraine. In 2019, a solar firm could no longer manage its 500 megawatts of wind and solar sites in the western US after a denial-of-service attack targeted an unpatched firewall, the FBI stated in a Private Industry Notification (PIN) in July.

The risk could extend all the way to homeowners, who increasingly have adopted rooftop solar and need to be connected to be able to deliver their solar power and be credited.

"This issue will only become more important as small solar systems continue to grow. When every house is a power plant, every house is a target," Morten Lund, of counsel for Foley & Lardner LLP, wrote in a brief directed at energy companies. "In many ways, the distributed nature of solar energy provides significant protection against catastrophic failures. But without sufficient protection at the project level, this strength quickly becomes a weakness."

**Third-Party Suppliers Cause Concern**

The energy sector is also open to greater third-party risk, with 47% of breaches of energy companies involving a third party, compared with 29% across all industries. In addition, many green energy projects tend to be locally managed or developed by a smaller startup, which could raise risks, especially as the US rushes to adopt more green infrastructure, the FBI stated in its PIN.

"With federal and local legislature advocating for renewable energies, the industry will expand to keep pace, providing more opportunities and targets for malicious cyber actors," the FBI stated.

The US National Strategy for Cyberspace calls out renewable energy as a key industry to defend online. Rich countries tend to have better defenses than poorer economies, as they have better regulations and organizations have more budget to spend on security.

Regulations continue to be the top reason energy firms invest in cybersecurity, with nearly half of companies (49%) citing regulatory requirements among their top three reasons for assigning budget, compared with 38% citing a cybersecurity incident or near miss affecting their company, according to risk management consultancy DNV's "Energy Cyber Priority 2023" report.

"Most renewable sites have not been developed with cybersecurity in mind, but several companies are picking up quickly," says Auke Huistra, DNV Cyber's industrial and operational technology cybersecurity director. "From our engagements, we have seen immature but also mature green energy companies. What we do see is that \[cybersecurity gets\] more and more attention ... driven by incidents in the industry as well as regulations."

**About the Author**

Veteran technology journalist of more than 20 years. Former research engineer. Written for more than two dozen publications, including CNET News.com, Dark Reading, MIT's Technology Review, Popular Science, and Wired News. Five awards for journalism, including Best Deadline Journalism (Online) in 2003 for coverage of the Blaster worm. Crunches numbers on various trends using Python and R. Recent reports include analyses of the shortage in cybersecurity workers and annual vulnerability trends.

Cybersecurity Isn't Easy When You're Trying to Be Green

Apple has publicly made available its Private Cloud Compute (PCC) Virtual Research Environment (VRE), allowing the research community to inspect and verify the privacy and security guarantees of its offering.
PCC, which Apple unveiled earlier this June, has been marketed as the "most advanced security architecture ever deployed for cloud AI compute at scale." With the new technology, the idea is

Cloud Security / Artificial Intelligence

Apple has publicly made available its Private Cloud Compute (PCC) Virtual Research Environment (VRE), allowing the research community to inspect and verify the privacy and security guarantees of its offering.

PCC, which Apple unveiled earlier this June, has been marketed as the "most advanced security architecture ever deployed for cloud AI compute at scale." With the new technology, the idea is to offload computationally complex Apple Intelligence requests to the cloud in a manner that doesn't sacrifice user privacy.

Apple said it's inviting "all security and privacy researchers — or anyone with interest and a technical curiosity — to learn more about PCC and perform their own independent verification of our claims."

To further incentivize research, the iPhone maker said it's expanding the Apple Security Bounty program to include PCC by offering monetary payouts ranging from $50,000 to $1,000,000 for security vulnerabilities identified in it.

This includes flaws that could allow execution of malicious code on the server, and exploits capable of extracting users' sensitive data, or information about the user's requests.

The VRE aims to offer a suite of tools to help researchers carry out their analysis of PCC from the Mac. It comes with a virtual Secure Enclave Processor (SEP) and leverages built-in macOS support for paravirtualized graphics to enable inference.

Apple also said it's making the source code associated with some components of PCC accessible via GitHub to facilitate a deeper analysis. This includes CloudAttestation, Thimble, splunkloggingd, and srd\_tools.

"We designed Private Cloud Compute as part of Apple Intelligence to take an extraordinary step forward for privacy in AI," the Cupertino-based company said. "This includes providing verifiable transparency – a unique property that sets it apart from other server-based AI approaches."

The development comes as broader research into generative artificial intelligence (AI) continues to uncover novel ways to jailbreak large language models (LLMs) and produce unintended output.

Earlier this week, Palo Alto Networks detailed a technique called Deceptive Delight that involves mixing malicious and benign queries together to trick AI chatbots into bypassing their guardrails by taking advantage of their limited "attention span."

The attack requires a minimum of two interactions, and works by first asking the chatbot to logically connect several events – including a restricted topic (e.g., how to make a bomb) – and then asking it to elaborate on the details of each event.

Researchers have also demonstrated what's called a ConfusedPilot attack, which targets Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) based AI systems like Microsoft 365 Copilot by poisoning the data environment with a seemingly innocuous document containing specifically crafted strings.

"This attack allows manipulation of AI responses simply by adding malicious content to any documents the AI system might reference, potentially leading to widespread misinformation and compromised decision-making processes within the organization," Symmetry Systems said.

Separately, it has been found that it's possible to tamper with a machine learning model's computational graph to plant "codeless, surreptitious" backdoors in pre-trained models like ResNet, YOLO, and Phi-3, a technique codenamed ShadowLogic.

"Backdoors created using this technique will persist through fine-tuning, meaning foundation models can be hijacked to trigger attacker-defined behavior in any downstream application when a trigger input is received, making this attack technique a high-impact AI supply chain risk," Hidden Layer researchers Eoin Wickens, Kasimir Schulz, and Tom Bonner said.

"Unlike standard software backdoors that rely on executing malicious code, these backdoors are embedded within the very structure of the model, making them more challenging to detect and mitigate."

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