There’s new research that demonstrates security vulnerabilities in all of the AMD and Intel chips with micro-op caches, including the ones that were specifically engineered to be resistant to the Spectre/Meltdown attacks of three years ago.

Details:

The new line of attacks exploits the micro-op cache: an on-chip structure that speeds up computing by storing simple commands and allowing the processor to fetch them quickly and early in the speculative execution process, as the team explains in a writeup from the University of Virginia. Even though the processor quickly realizes its mistake and does a U-turn to go down the right path, attackers can get at the private data while the processor is still heading in the wrong direction…

Phishers targeting Microsoft Office 365 users increasingly are turning to specialized links that take users to their organization’s own email login page. After a user logs in, the link prompts them to install a malicious but innocuously-named app that gives the attacker persistent, password-free access to any of the user’s emails and files, both of which are then plundered to launch malware and phishing scams against others.

When normal computer users fall into the nasty habit of recycling passwords, the result is most often some type of financial loss. When cybercriminals develop the same habit, it can eventually cost them their freedom.

This is an impressive hack:

Security researchers Ralf-Philipp Weinmann of Kunnamon, Inc. and Benedikt Schmotzle of Comsecuris GmbH have found remote zero-click security vulnerabilities in an open-source software component (ConnMan) used in Tesla automobiles that allowed them to compromise parked cars and control their infotainment systems over WiFi. It would be possible for an attacker to unlock the doors and trunk, change seat positions, both steering and acceleration modes — in short, pretty much what a driver pressing various buttons on the console can do. This attack does not yield drive control of the car though…

Nice excerpt from Martin Wallin’s book Squid.
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.
Read my blog posting guidelines here.

Apple just patched a MacOS vulnerability that bypassed malware checks.

The flaw is akin to a front entrance that’s barred and bolted effectively, but with a cat door at the bottom that you can easily toss a bomb through. Apple mistakenly assumed that applications will always have certain specific attributes. Owens discovered that if he made an application that was really just a script—code that tells another program what do rather than doing it itself—and didn’t include a standard application metadata file called “info.plist,” he could silently run the app on any Mac. The operating system wouldn’t even give its most basic prompt: “This is an application downloaded from the Internet. Are you sure you want to open it?”…

Apple just patched a MacOS vulnerability that bypassed malware checks.

The flaw is akin to a front entrance that’s barred and bolted effectively, but with a cat door at the bottom that you can easily toss a bomb through. Apple mistakenly assumed that applications will always have certain specific attributes. Owens discovered that if he made an application that was really just a script—code that tells another program what do rather than doing it itself—and didn’t include a standard application metadata file called “info.plist,” he could silently run the app on any Mac. The operating system wouldn’t even give its most basic prompt: “This is an application downloaded from the Internet. Are you sure you want to open it?”…

Some of the world’s top tech firms are backing a new industry task force focused on disrupting cybercriminal ransomware gangs by limiting their ability to get paid, and targeting the individuals and finances of the organized thieves behind these crimes.

In this entertaining story of French serial criminal Rédoine Faïd and his jailbreaking ways, there’s this bit about cell phone surveillance:
After Faïd’s helicopter breakout, 3,000 police officers took part in the manhunt. According to the …