Tag Archives: IT Security

SANS Sees Phishers Use Tricky Hyphens in URLs

Posted on by

To a phisher, one tiny hyphen can make a big mark.

SANS Technology Institute Dean of Research Johannes Ullrich alerted users to a “clever” phishing tactic that uses a URL containing a “com-” domain prefix. With that tiny, easy-to-miss hyphen, threat actors can disguise a malicious destination.

Ullrich noted on the SANS site that the phishing tactic was placed into fraudulent messages alerting a user of unpaid tolls. (The FBI warned the public of toll trolls in April 2024, when there were over 2,000 complaints of attacks using fake text messages.)

How the “.com-” tactic works. A legitimate site involving Florida’s toll system (SunPass) would involve a forward slash and look something like: “sunpass.com/tolls.”

In instances discovered by Ullrich and shared on the SANS site, the phisher registers for and receives a domain that begins with “com-,” followed by seemingly random letters, then ending with a top-level domain, like .info, .top, .xyz, and even .com.

To a reader, the phishy URL appears as something like: “sunpass.com-[random letters].top”—a tricky difference to notice when you’re quickly looking on a tiny phone screen and it appears that you owe toll money.

Fraud jobs. URL obfuscation is a favorite tactic of opportunistic threat actors, who register mimicking domains to trick fans of events like the Super Bowl or the Olympics. (Business administration company CSC identified 5,000 unique domain registrations mimicking well-known sportsbooks, between Jan. 1, 2023, and Dec. 24, 2024, for example.)

According to the FTC, government impersonation scammers led to $618 million in losses in 2023, up from $497 million in 2022 and $428 million in 2021.

Dash money. Ullrich told IT Brew that he continues to see “com-” domains registered: 315 on Feb. 11, 428 on Feb. 10, and 269 on Feb 9. (The sites are often short-lived and quickly shut down as fraudulent, he added.)

Many of the questionable domains point to the same IP address, Ullrich said, suggesting one actor is registering and rotating between them.

Ullrich also shared with IT Brew a new twist on the hyphen-ishing trend: A “com.-” domain prefix with a “.com” ending to the URL, and a “case number” in between to convince targeted users that the sender is from an IT support team.

“They can use any prefix for the domain to impersonate arbitrary .com domains,” Ullrich told us in an email.

In his Feb. 5 post, Ullrich advised IT pros to review DNS queries for these kinds of prefixes.

SOURCE ARTICLE:

https://www.itbrew.com/stories/2025/02/18/sans-sees-phishers-use-tricky-hyphens-in-urls?mbcid=38663986.101742&mblid=0526c530a3f5&mid=bfeacb7fd34941195bb37df6366acc6f&utm_campaign=itb&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=morning_brew

The Art of Linux Kernel Rootkits

Posted on by

1. What is a rooktit?

A rootkit is malware whose main objective and purpose is to maintain persistence within a system, remain completely hidden, hide processes, hide directories, etc., in order to avoid detection.

This makes its detection very complex, and its mitigation even more complex, since one of the main objectives of a rootkit is to remain hidden.

A rootkit, it changes the system’s default behavior to what it wants.

1.1 What is a kernel? Userland and kernel land differences

The kernel is the core of the operating system, responsible for managing system resources and facilitating communication between hardware and software. It operates at the lowest layer of the system, for example components that operate in kernel land include the kernel itself, device drivers and kernel modules (which we call Loadable Kernel Module, short for LKM).

On the other hand, the userland or userspace is the layer where user programs and applications are executed. This is the part of the OS that interacts with the user, including browsers, text editors, games, common programs that the user uses, etc.

1.2 What is a system call?

System calls (syscalls) are fundamental in OS, they allow running processes to request services from the kernel

These services include operations such as file management, inter-process communication, process creation and management, among others.

A very practical example is when we write code in C, a simple hello world, if we analyze it with strace for example, you will notice that it uses sys_write to be able to write Hello world.

root@infect:~# cat hello.c ; ls hello
#include <stdio.h>

int main() {
    printf("Hello, World!\n");
    return 0;
}
hello
root@infect:~# strace ./hello 2>&1 | grep write

write(1, "Hello, World!\n", 14Hello, World!
root@infect:~#
Continue reading →

Palo Alto Networks Tags New Firewall Bug

Posted on by

Palo Alto Networks warns that a file read vulnerability (CVE-2025-0111) is now being chained in attacks with two other flaws (CVE-2025-0108 with CVE-2024-9474) to breach PAN-OS firewalls in active attacks.

The vendor first disclosed the authentication bypass vulnerability tracked as CVE-2025-0108 on February 12, 2025, releasing patches to fix the vulnerability. That same day, Assetnote researchers published a proof-of-concept exploit demonstrating how CVE-2025-0108 and CVE-2024-9474 could be chained together to gain root privileges on unpatched PAN-OS firewalls.

A day later, network threat intel firm GreyNoise reported that threat actors had begun actively exploiting the flaws, with attempts coming from two IP addresses.

CVE-2024-9474 is a privilege escalation flaw in PAN-OS fixed in November 2024 that allows a PAN-OS administrator to execute commands on firewalls with root privileges. Palo Alto Networks warned at the disclosure that the vulnerability was exploited as a zero-day.

CVE-2025-0111 is a file read vulnerability in PAN-OS, allowing authenticated attackers with network access to the management web interface to read files that are readable by the “nobody” user.

The CVE-2025-0111 flaw was also fixed on February 12, 2025, but the vendor updated its bulletin today to warn that it is also now being used in an exploit chain with the other two vulnerabilities in active attacks.

“Palo Alto Networks has observed exploit attempts chaining CVE-2025-0108 with CVE-2024-9474 and CVE-2025-0111 on unpatched and unsecured PAN-OS web management interfaces,” reads the updated bulletin.

While Palo Alto Networks has not shared how the exploit chain is being abused, BleepingComputer has been told they could be chained together to download configuration files and other sensitive information.

Continue reading →