Publications

Greetings, We’re excited to announce the release of another episode of Share Today, Save Tomorrow – Episode 42: Jess Modini on Curiosity, Cyber Security, and Cross-Disciplinary Thinking, brought to you by AUSCERT. And for the first time, you can now watch the full interview on our YouTube channel, giving you a front-row seat to this engaging and insightful discussion. In this episode, Jess Modini shares perspectives drawn from her extensive background in cyber security, including five master’s specialisations and her current doctoral research in cyber epidemiology. She explores how concepts from computational biology and health sciences such as the spread of pathogens can mirror the behaviours of malware and cyber threats. The conversation dives deep into the parallels between public health and cyber defence, emphasising the importance of cross-disciplinary thinking in improving threat modelling and incident response. Tune in now to discover how breaking down traditional silos can lead to smarter, more resilient cyber defence. Cisco Confirms Active Exploits Targeting ISE Flaws Enabling Unauthenticated Root Access Date: 2025-07-22 Author: The Hacker News [Please also see AUSCERT bulletin: https://portal.auscert.org.au/bulletins/ESB-2025.4160.2/] Cisco on Monday updated its advisory of a set of recently disclosed security flaws in Identity Services Engine (ISE) and ISE Passive Identity Connector (ISE-PIC) to acknowledge active exploitation. "In July 2025, the Cisco PSIRT [Product Security Incident Response Team], became aware of attempted exploitation of some of these vulnerabilities in the wild," the company said in an alert. HPE warns of hardcoded passwords in Aruba access points Date: 2025-07-20 Author: Bleeping Computer Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) is warning of hardcoded credentials in Aruba Instant On Access Points that allow attackers to bypass normal device authentication and access the web interface. Aruba Instant On Access Points are compact, plug-and-play wireless (Wi-Fi) devices, designed primarily for small to medium-sized businesses, offering enterprise-grade features (guest networks, traffic segmentation) with cloud/mobile app management. The security issue, tracked as CVE-2025-37103 and rated “critical” (CVSS v3.1 score: 9.8), impacts Instant On Access Points running firmware version 3.2.0.1 and below. Microsoft Confirms Hackers Exploiting SharePoint Flaws, Patch Now Date: 2025-07-21 Author: Hack Read [AUSCERT has published security bulletins for these Microsoft updates: https://portal.auscert.org.au/bulletins/ASB-2025.0142/] [AUSCERT has identified impacted members (where possible) and contacted them via email] Microsoft has released new security updates to fix two serious vulnerabilities affecting on-premises SharePoint servers, warning that attackers are already exploiting them in active campaigns. The vulnerabilities, identified as CVE-2025-53770 and CVE-2025-53771, are not present in SharePoint Online, but on-premises environments using SharePoint 2019 and the SharePoint Subscription Edition are directly at risk. Sophos fixed two critical Sophos Firewall vulnerabilities Date: 2025-07-23 Author: Security Affairs Sophos has fixed five vulnerabilities (CVE-2025-6704, CVE-2025-7624, CVE-2025-7382, CVE-2024-13974, CVE-2024-13973) in Sophos Firewall that could allow an attacker to remotely execute arbitrary code. “Sophos has resolved five independent security vulnerabilities in Sophos Firewall. Every Critical and High severity vulnerability was remediated through hotfixes.” reads the advisory. “No action is required for Sophos Firewall customers to receive these fixes with the “Allow automatic installation of hotfixes” feature enabled on remediated versions (see Remediation section below). Enabled is the default setting.” Microsoft: Windows Server KB5062557 causes cluster, VM issues Date: 2025-07-22 Author: Bleeping Computer Microsoft is asking businesses to reach out for support to mitigate a known issue causing Cluster service and VM restart issues after installing this month's Windows Server 2019 security updates. As the company explains in a private advisory seen by BleepingComputer, the Cluster service (a system component essential to cluster operation) might fail to function correctly after installing the KB5062557 update released on July 8th. The same bug is also causing some nodes to fail when attempting to rejoin their cluster and triggering errors on systems where administrators have enabled the BitLocker Windows security feature on Cluster Shared Volumes (CSV) drives. ESB-2025.4160.2 – Cisco Products: CVSS (Max): 10.0 Multiple vulnerabilities in Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and Cisco ISE Passive Identity Connector (ISE-PIC) could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to issue commands on the underlying operating system as the root user. Cisco has released software updates that address these vulnerabilities. ESB-2025.5029 – firefox-esr: CVSS (Max): 9.8 Multiple security issues have been found in the Mozilla Firefox web browser, which could potentially result in the execution of arbitrary code. It is recommended to upgrade firefox-esr packages. ESB-2025.4953 – Schneider Electric EcoStruxture IT Data Center Expert: CVSS (Max): 10.0 Successful exploitation of discovered vulnerabilities could allow an attacker to disrupt operations and access system data. The problem is corrected by updating the system. ESB-2025.4930 – Apache HTTP Server: CVSS (Max): 9.1 Several security issues were fixed in Apache HTTP Server. It was discovered that the Apache HTTP Server mod_rewrite module incorrectly handled certain substitutions. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to execute scripts in directories not directly reachable by any URL, or cause a denial of service. ASB-2025.0142 – Microsoft SharePoint Server: CVSS (Max): 9.8 Microsoft released the July Security Updates to address vulnerabilities in on-premises SharePoint Server, which allowed an authorized attacker to perform spoofing over a network. Deserialization of untrusted data in on-premises Microsoft SharePoint Server allowed an unauthorized attacker to execute code over a network. Stay safe, stay patched and have a good weekend! The AUSCERT team

LISTEN HERE: AUSCERT “Share Today, Save Tomorrow” – Podcast ep 42: Jess Modini on Curiosity, Cyber Security, and Cross-Disciplinary Thinking   In this engaging conversation, Jess Modini shares insights from her extensive background in cyber security, including her five master’s specialisations and current doctoral research in cyber epidemiology. She explains how principles from computational biology and health sciences like the spread of pathogens, mirror the behaviours of malware and cyber threats. The episode dives into the parallels between public health and cyber defence, advocating for cross-disciplinary thinking to improve incident response and threat modelling. This episode was hosted by Bek Cheb The AUSCERT podcast can also be found on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts Also now available to watch on our Youtube Channel! 

Greetings, This week, Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party and affiliated group Trumpet of Patriots confirmed they were hit by a ransomware attack that exposed extensive personal data. The breach, discovered on June 23, compromised years of emails, identity documents, banking details, and employment history. While systems have now been secured and restored, the organisations were unable to notify all affected individuals directly. Authorities have been informed, and impacted individuals are urged to monitor their accounts, change passwords, and review past communications for any shared sensitive information. A new CyCognito study has identified the education sector as the most exposed to cyber risk across all industries, particularly in cloud infrastructure, APIs, and web applications. Vulnerability rates in education are significantly higher, 31% for cloud assets, 38% for APIs, and 35% for web apps—compared to the industry averages of 14%, 21%, and 20%, respectively. The increased risk is attributed to rapid digital transformation, reliance on legacy systems, underfunded cyber security, and small, overstretched IT teams. The fast shift to remote learning has also introduced numerous tools without adequate security controls, making educational institutions prime targets for ransomware, data breaches, and credential theft. AUSCERT, which counts many educational organisations among its members, is helping the sector mitigate these risks through timely threat intelligence, proactive alerts, expert incident response, and vulnerability notification services. By improving asset visibility and prioritising critical actions, AUSCERT supports long-term resilience in this high-risk environment. CISA tags Citrix Bleed 2 as exploited, gives agencies a day to patch Date: 2025-07-11 Author: Bleeping Computer [AUSCERT has identified the impacted members (where possible) and contacted them via email. Please see AUSCERT bulletin: https://portal.auscert.org.au/bulletins/ESB-2025.4041.2] The U.S. Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency has confirmed active exploitation of the CitrixBleed 2 vulnerability (CVE-2025-5777) in Citrix NetScaler ADC and Gateway and is giving federal agencies one day to apply fixes. Such a short deadline for installing the patches is unprecedented since CISA released the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, showing the severity of the attacks exploiting the security issue. Interlock ransomware adopts FileFix method to deliver malware Date: 2025-07-14 Author: Bleeping Computer Hackers have adopted the new technique called 'FileFix' in Interlock ransomware attacks to drop a remote access trojan (RAT) on targeted systems. Interlock ransomware operations have increased over the past months as the threat actor started using the KongTuke web injector (aka 'LandUpdate808') to deliver payloads through compromised websites. CVSS 10 RCE in Wing FTP exploited within 24 hours, security researchers warn Date: 2025-07-11 Author: The Register Huntress security researchers observed exploitation of the CVSS 10.0 remote code execution (RCE) flaw in Wing FTP Server on July 1, just one day after its public disclosure. Wing FTP Server is a cross-platform file-transfer solution, supporting FTP, FTPS, SFTP, and HTTP/S. It is used by over 10,000 customers worldwide for secure data exchange, including Airbus, Reuters, and the US Air Force, according to its website. New Fortinet FortiWeb hacks likely linked to public RCE exploits Date: 2025-07-16 Author: Bleeping Computer [See AUSCERT bulletin https://portal.auscert.org.au/bulletins/ESB-2025.4493] Multiple Fortinet FortiWeb instances recently infected with web shells are believed to have been compromised using public exploits for a recently patched remote code execution (RCE) flaw tracked as CVE-2025-25257. News of the exploitation activity comes from threat monitoring platform The Shadowserver Foundation, which observed 85 infections on July 14 and 77 on the next day. SonicWall SMA Appliances Targeted With New ‘Overstep’ Malware Date: 2025-07-16 Author: Security Week [AUSCERT has identified the impacted members (where possible) and contacted them via email] A threat actor that may be financially motivated has been targeting SonicWall appliances with a new piece of malware, Google’s Threat Intelligence Group warned on Wednesday. The threat actor, tracked by Google as UNC6148, has been around since at least October 2024. The hackers’ malware can enable data theft, extortion and ransomware deployment, but the researchers have not been able to definitively confirm that they are financially motivated. It’s worth noting that the lines between state-sponsored hacker attacks and financially motivated cybercrime have become increasingly blurry. ESB-2025.4716 – IBM QRadar SIEM: CVSS (Max): 7.5 IBM QRadar SIEM version 7.5.0 UP12 IF02 is impacted by multiple vulnerabilities in the gRPC and HTTP/2 protocols, which can lead to denial of service (DoS) conditions. IBM has addressed these issues via Auto Update. ESB-2025.4744 – VMware Products: CVSS (Max): 9.3 Critical vulnerabilities in VMware’s VMXNET3, VMCI, PVSCSI, and vSockets components allows local admin privileged attackers to execute code or leak memory on host systems or virtual machines. Broadcom has released patches across ESXi, Workstation, Fusion, and VMware Tools to remediate them. ESB-2025.4752 – Atlassian Products: CVSS (Max): 8.8 Atlassian’s monthly Security Bulletin covers a batch of recent high-severity vulnerabilities affecting their Data Center and Server products. Users are advised to update to the listed fixed versions for each affected product to mitigate potential risks. ASB-2025.0141 – Oracle Retail Applications: CVSS (Max): 9.8 Oracle has released patches addressing multiple critical vulnerabilities in several Oracle Retail products. Some flaws allow unauthenticated remote attackers to take full control or cause denial of service, urging immediate application of fixes. Stay safe, stay patched and have a good weekend! The AUSCERT team

Greetings, We’re excited to launch a brand new season of Share Today, Save Tomorrow with Episode 41 of the AUSCERT Podcast: “New Season + AUSCERT2025 Conference Wrap-Up.” In this episode, our very own Bek Cheb, Business Manager at AUSCERT, steps behind the mic to introduce the fresh new format and direction for the season ahead. Bek also shares key insights and standout moments from the AUSCERT2025 Conference held earlier this year. Whether you’re a returning listener or tuning in for the first time, this episode offers an engaging glimpse into what’s next for AUSCERT and the wider cyber security community. If you missed any presentations from AUSCERT2025 or want to revisit your favourites, don’t forget you can access the recordings now available on our YouTube Channel. From keynote speeches to technical deep dives, you can relive the most impactful moments of the conference at your convenience. Share these sessions with colleagues and peers because sharing knowledge is at the heart of strengthening our collective cyber resilience. This week, cyber criminals have launched a global scam involving over 17,000 fake news websites impersonating well-known media outlets such as CNN, BBC, and CNBC. These fraudulent sites publish fabricated articles featuring public figures ranging from world leaders to central bank governors falsely endorsing cryptocurrency investment schemes. Victims are lured via online ads to scam platforms like Eclipse Earn or Solara, which simulate legitimate trading environments but are designed solely to steal funds and personal information. These attacks are regionally-targeted (including Australia), using localised content, native language, and trusted local brands to gain credibility. Once a user engages, their data is often resold or used in future phishing campaigns. AUSCERT recommends verifying sources, avoiding unsolicited investment offers, and reporting any suspicious sites or ads to your internal security team or national cyber authority. Microsoft Patch Tuesday, July 2025 Edition Date: 2025-07-08 Author: Krebs on Security [AUSCERT has published security bulletins for these Microsoft updates] Microsoft released updates to fix at least 137 security vulnerabilities in its Windows operating systems and supported software. None of the weaknesses addressed this month are known to be actively exploited, but 14 of the flaws earned Microsoft’s most-dire “critical” rating, meaning they could be exploited to seize control over vulnerable Windows PCs with little or no help from users. New ServiceNow flaw lets attackers enumerate restricted data Date: 2025-07-09 Author: Bleeping Computer A new vulnerability in ServiceNow, dubbed Count(er) Strike, allows low-privileged users to extract sensitive data from tables to which they should not have access. ServiceNow is a cloud-based platform that enables organizations to manage digital workflows for their enterprise operations. It is widely adopted across various industries, including public sector organizations, healthcare, financial institutions, and large enterprises. Task scams: Why you should never pay to get paid Date: 2025-07-04 Author: We Live Security Many of us have been experiencing a cost-of-living crisis for years, and the news headlines remain filled with doom-laden predictions of what the future might hold. Against this backdrop, it’s understandable why many of us are looking for a side hustle or for even a new, better-paid job. But the scammers know this, and are ready to take advantage. In 2024 alone, employment scams reported to the FBI made fraudsters over $264 million. Many of these are so-called “task scams,” where victims are actually tricked into paying a “deposit” in order to get paid. It might sound unbelievable. But it’s easier to fall for than you think. Qantas says it has been contacted by a group claiming to have stolen data of its frequent flyers Date: 2025-07-08 Author: news.com.au Qantas says it has been contacted by a group claiming to be behind the theft of the data of millions of its frequent flyers last week. The airline said in a statement late on Monday that “a potential cybercriminal has made contact” but it would not disclose if a ransom was being sought. “As this is a criminal matter, we have engaged the Australian Federal Police and won’t be commenting any further on the detail of the contact,” a Qantas spokesman said. ESB-2025.4636 – Siemens SINEC NMS Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities could allow an attacker to elevate privileges and execute arbitrary code ESB-2025.4620 – Juniper Security Director A Missing Authorization vulnerability in Juniper Networks Security Director allows an unauthenticated network-based attacker to read or tamper with multiple sensitive resources via the web interface ESB-2025.4591 – GlobalProtect App An incorrect privilege assignment vulnerability in the Palo Alto Networks GlobalProtect App on macOS devices enables a locally authenticated non administrative user to escalate their privileges to root on macOS and Linux or NT\AUTHORITY SYSTEM on Windows ESB-2025.4567 – GitLab Community Edition and Enterprise Edition GitLab has remediated an issue that, under certain conditions, could have allowed a successful attacker to execute actions on behalf of users by injecting malicious content Stay safe, stay patched and have a good weekend! The AUSCERT team

LISTEN HERE: AUSCERT “Share Today, Save Tomorrow” New Season + AUSCERT2025 Conference Wrap Up Kicking off a new season for the AUSCERT Podcast! Announcing new changes and format for this season and an overview of the recent AUSCERT2025 Conference. This episode was hosted by Bek Cheb The AUSCERT podcast can also be found on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts.

Greetings, This week, Qantas experienced a major cyber attack compromising the personal data of up to six million customers. The breach, caused by a social engineering technique known as "vishing," exploited a third-party call centre system and exposed names, email addresses, phone numbers, birth dates, and frequent flyer numbers. Crucially, no passwords, PINs, credit card details, or passport information were accessed, and multi-factor authentication continues to protect frequent flyer accounts. Qantas is actively investigating the incident and will contact affected customers directly. Meanwhile, cyber security experts urge individuals to stay vigilant against phishing attempts, use strong and unique passwords, enable two-factor authentication, and monitor their accounts for unusual activity. Support lines have been set up to assist those impacted. This incident highlights the importance of securing supply chains. The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), offers a 12-principle framework to guide organisations through risk assessment, control, verification, and continuous improvement. The framework helps stakeholders set clear security requirements, embed them into contracts, and build long-term resilience. AUSCERT also offers a dedicated course on ‘Managing Third-Party Cyber Security Risk’, equipping participants with a deep understanding of third-party threats and the skills to identify, assess, and mitigate them. The course explores the business and data impacts of supplier vulnerabilities, outlines best-practice controls, and highlights the importance of ongoing monitoring and vendor assessments to ensure robust cyber security. Cisco scores a perfect 10 for a critical comms flaw Date: 2025-07-02 Author: The Register [See AUSCERT Bulletin https://portal.auscert.org.au/bulletins/ESB-2025.4373] If you're running the Engineering-Special (ES) builds of Cisco Unified Communications Manager or its Session Management Edition, you need to apply Cisco's urgent patch after someone at Switchzilla made a big mistake. There is an ostensible purpose behind the mistake, dubbed CVE-2025-20309, with a critical rating of 10.0. The credentials have been left in there to make development work easier, Cisco said in its advisory. Qantas discloses cyberattack amid Scattered Spider aviation breaches Date: 2025-07-01 Author: Bleeping Computer Australian airline Qantas disclosed that it detected a cyberattack on Monday after threat actors gained access to a third-party platform containing customer data. This attack comes as cybersecurity firms warn that hackers known as "Scattered Spider" have begun targeting the aviation and transportation industries. While it is unclear if this group is behind the Qantas attack, BleepingComputer has learned the incident shares similarities with other recent attacks by the threat actors. Microsoft security updates address CrowdStrike crash, kill ‘Blue Screen of Death’ Date: 2025-06-27 Author: CyberScoop Third-party antivirus software will no longer have access to the Windows kernel as Microsoft rolls out changes to reduce IT downtime from unexpected crashes or disruptions. When a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike last year caused possibly the largest IT outage in history, Microsoft ended up taking much of the blame. Hacker Conversations: Rachel Tobac and the Art of Social Engineering Date: 2025-06-30 Author: Security Week Social engineering is the art of persuasion. Mostly, this is a good thing. Misused, it can have disastrous effects. Rachel Tobac is a cyber social engineer. She is skilled at persuading people to do what she wants, rather than what they know they ought to do. Does this make her a hacker? “Yes. I am a hacker. I hack people. I hack people over the phone, via email, by text message, across social media – and occasionally in person.” Social engineers hack people rather than computers. Initial Access Broker Self-Patches Zero Days as Turf Control Date: 2025-07-03 Author: Dark Reading A likely China-nexus threat actor has been exploiting unpatched Ivanti vulnerabilities to gain initial access to victim networks and then patching the systems to block others from breaking in to the same network. ESB-2025.4269 – Sudo: CVSS (Max): 9.3 Sudo vulnerabilities in Ubuntu allow local attackers to bypass host restrictions or execute arbitrary commands as root, impacting several versions. Users are advised to update to the latest sudo package versions to resolve these issues. ESB-2025.4333 – FESTO Didactic CP, MPS 200, and MPS 400 Firmware: CVSS (Max): 9.8 A memory protection bypass vulnerability in FESTO Didactic CP, MPS 200, and MPS 400 firmware can allow remote attackers to write arbitrary code or read sensitive data. Users are advised to update to Siemens Simatic S7-1500/ET200SP firmware version 2.9.2 or higher to mitigate risks. ESB-2025.4337 – Voltronic Power and PowerShield UPS Monitoring Software: CVSS (Max): 10.0 Voltronic Power and PowerShield UPS monitoring software contain critical vulnerabilities that allow unauthenticated remote attackers to execute arbitrary code or shut down UPS-connected devices. CISA advises minimizing network exposure and isolate from business networks to mitigate these risks. ESB-2025.4411 – Mitsubishi Electric MELSOFT Update Manager: CVSS (Max): 8.1 Mitsubishi Electric MELSOFT Update Manager versions 1.000A to 1.012N contain vulnerabilities that are actively being exploited. Users are advised to update to version 1.013P or later to mitigate these risks. Stay safe, stay patched and have a good weekend! The AUSCERT team

Greetings, Cyber criminals are increasingly adopting and selling "uncensored" Large Language Models (LLMs) on dark web forums like BreachForums. Rather than building malicious AI tools from scratch, they are "jailbreaking" legitimate, powerful models from mainstream companies like xAI (the creator of Grok) and the French firm Mistral AI (creator of Mixtral). Many of these tools are being sold as WormGPT or variants with similar names and functionality, including FraudGPT and EvilGPT. On a potentially related note, research claims a 90% success rate in jailbreaking LLMs. AUSCERT is urging its members and the wider community to prepare for a surge in cyber incidents as the End of Financial Year (EOFY) approaches. Cybercriminals are once again exploiting this high-activity period—this time with more sophisticated tactics than ever before. AUSCERT has observed a sharp and consistent rise in phishing scams, particularly those impersonating trusted government and taxation agencies. The increased volume of payments, invoicing, and accounting activity during EOFY creates ideal conditions for threat actors to target already time-poor and pressured organisations. To help you stay prepared, AUSCERT has compiled key insights and practical guidance in our latest article. Read it here to learn how to better protect your organisation during this critical time. Citrix Releases Emergency Patches for Actively Exploited CVE-2025-6543 in NetScaler ADC Date: 2025-06-25 Author: The Hacker News [AUSCERT has published security bulletins for these updates: https://portal.auscert.org.au/bulletins/ESB-2025.4172] [AUSCERT has identified the impacted members (where possible) and contacted them via email] Citrix has released security updates to address a critical flaw affecting NetScaler ADC that it said has been exploited in the wild. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-6543, carries a CVSS score of 9.2 out of a maximum of 10.0. It has been described as a case of memory overflow that could result in unintended control flow and denial-of-service. However, successful exploitation requires the appliance to be configured as a Gateway (VPN virtual server, ICA Proxy, CVPN, RDP Proxy) or AAA virtual server. Flaw in Notepad++ installer could grant attackers SYSTEM access (CVE-2025-49144) Date: 2025-06-25 Author: Help Net Security A high-severity vulnerability (CVE-2025-49144) in the Notepad++ installer could be exploited by unprivileged users to gain SYSTEM-level privileges through insecure executable search paths. There is currently no indication that the vulnerability is being leveraged by attackers, though technical details and a proof-of-concept (PoC) have been published – and redacted shortly after for security reasons. No, the 16 billion credentials leak is not a new data breach Date: 2025-06-19 Author: Bleeping Computer News broke today about "one of the largest data breaches in history," sparking wide media coverage filled with warnings and fear-mongering. However, it appears to just be a compilation of previously leaked credentials stolen by infostealers, exposed in data breaches, and via credential stuffing attacks. To be clear, this is not a new data breach, or a breach at all, and the websites involved were not recently compromised to steal these credentials. Instead, these stolen credentials were likely circulating for some time, if not for years. It was then collected by a cybersecurity firm, researchers, or threat actors and repackaged into a database that was exposed on the Internet. Reported Impersonation Scams Surge 148% as AI Takes Hold Date: 2025-06-24 Author: Infosecurity Magazine The volume of impersonation scams has soared 148% year-on-year (YoY) thanks in part to AI tools making life easier for cybercriminals, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC). The US non-profit’s new 2025 Trends in Identity Report is based on analysis of identity crimes (compromise, theft and misuse) reported to it by victims from April 1 2024 to March 31 2025. Identity Is the New Perimeter: Why Proofing and Verification Are Business Imperatives Date: 2025-06-24 Author: Security Week Digital transformation has unlocked new opportunities – not just for innovation and growth, but also for cybercriminals seeking to exploit personal and sensitive information. According to the Future of Global Identity Verification report, more than two-thirds (69%) of organizations have experienced an increase in fraud attempts. Among companies with over 5,000 employees, the average annual direct cost of identity fraud is $13 million. That figure rises sharply with organizational size; for enterprises with more than 10,000 employees, 20% report annual direct and indirect identity fraud costs exceeding $50 million. ESB-2025.4180 – NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway Multiple vulnerabilities have been discovered in NetScaler ADC (formerly Citrix ADC) and NetScaler Gateway (formerly Citrix Gateway). ESB-2025.4160 – Cisco Products Multiple vulnerabilities in Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) and Cisco ISE Passive Identity Connector (ISE-PIC) could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to issue commands on the underlying operating system as the root user. ESB-2025.4093 – Apache Log4j Apache Log4j could be made to run programs as your login if it opened a specially crafted file. An attacker could possibly use these issues to enable the execution of arbitrary code. ( CVE-2022-23302 , CVE-2022-23305 , CVE-2022-23307 ) ESB-2025.4080 – IBM Security QRadar SIEM IBM QRadar SIEM includes vulnerable components (e.g., framework libraries) that could be identified and exploited with automated tools. These have been addressed in the update. Stay safe, stay patched and have a good weekend! The AUSCERT team

As we approach the End of Financial Year (EOFY), cyber criminals are once again exploiting this high-activity period, only this year their tactics are more sophisticated than ever. AUSCERT has observed a consistent and sharp rise in phishing scams, particularly those impersonating trusted government and taxation agencies. The surge in payments, invoicing, and accounting workflows during EOFY creates a perfect storm of opportunity for threat actors to target organisations already under pressure. Phishing scams have risen significantly in recent years, with reported incidents rising from 1,100 in 2022 to 2,500 in 2023, and reaching 2,960 in 2024. These scams often feature official-looking branding, convincing language, and urgent calls to action. Common tactics include prompting users to click malicious links, scan QR codes, or download attachments—typically under the disguise of tax refunds, account issues, or penalty warnings. Among AUSCERT’s members, unsurprisingly the Financial and Insurance Services industry remains the most heavily impacted during this time. Given its access to high-value data and essential services, this sector is a prime target for fraud, identity theft, and business email compromise (BEC), making vigilance during EOFY more critical than ever. Alarmingly, phishing threats are becoming even more difficult to detect with the rise of AI-generated scams. Artificial intelligence is now being used to craft highly personalised and scalable phishing campaigns that mimic human language and behaviour. These AI-powered scams are more deceptive, harder to identify, and faster to deploy making them a serious challenge for both individuals and organisations. To stay safe from ATO and MyGov-related phishing scams this tax season, it’s important to take the following precautions: Verify the source: Don’t trust unsolicited emails, calls, or texts. The ATO and myGov will never ask for sensitive information via email or SMS. Contact them directly using official channels. Hang up on threats: If a caller pressures you to pay or threatens arrest, end the call immediately. Legitimate agencies don’t behave this way. Avoid unknown links and attachments: Never click on unexpected links or open attachments from unknown sources. Be wary of urgency: Scammers use urgency to rush decisions. Take your time to verify before taking the next step. Protect personal information: Don’t share financial or personal details without validating the request through different communications channels. Report suspicious activity: Report phishing attempts to the ATO, ACSC, or ScamWatch. Keep software updated: Ensure your devices have the latest security updates and antivirus protection to defend against malware and phishing. Get Help: If you have been scammed as an individual, contact IDCARE. If your organisation has been impacted and you are an AUSCERT member, contact us. If not, contact the ACSC. By staying alert and applying strong cyber hygiene practices, both individuals and businesses can reduce the risk of falling victim to sophisticated phishing scams this tax season.

AUSCERT2025 Conference recap On the 20th of May the AUSCERT2025 Cyber Security Conference launched with two days of tutorials followed by two days of conference sessions, all centred around this year’s powerful theme: Evolve and Thrive. This theme wasn’t chosen lightly. In a world where cyber threats evolve daily, our industry must continuously innovate, adapt, and stay ahead of the curve. Evolve and Thrive captures that spirit perfectly, resonating deeply with attendees. The venue theming, featuring hand-drawn artwork, a dark ominous backdrop, and cyberpunk dinosaurs, was a visual hit. Sparking conversations and compliments from everyone in attendance. Hands-on Workshops with Industry Leaders During the tutorial days (20th – 21st), delegates had the opportunity to attend hands-on workshops led by industry leaders such as Bruce Large, Paul McCarty, and Chris Gatford. Topics ranged from Generative AI Security to Detection Engineering and ISO270001 Compliance. These tutorial days, offered as a complimentary add-on to conference registration, continue to be a favourite way for attendees to upskill in a practical and engaging environment. A Grand Opening and Powerful Keynotes The main conference began with a moving Welcome to Country followed by opening remarks from AUSCERT’s Director David Stockdale and AUSCERT’s General Manager Ivano Bongiovanni. Our keynote lineup, Jess Modini, Lt. General Michelle McGuinness and Professor Marek Kowalkiewicz, deliver compelling presentations to a packed room of over 900 delegates. Post conference feedback confirmed what we already know, the keynotes were a standout success. Adapting and Thriving Even in the Face of a Cyclone If you attended AUSCERT2025, you might have noticed that the Sponsorship Exhibition was a little different this year. Due to damage from Cycle Alfred, our usual marquee at The Star was unavailable. The AUSCERT Events team quicky pivoted, adapting to a new space with a smaller footprint. The result? A bright, open exhibition area that made the most of the Gold Cost’s beautiful spring weather and natural light. This created a vibrant atmosphere that exhibitor and delegates alike appreciated. A Glimpse into the Future: ICCs and Team Oceania. If you passed though the foyer on Wednesday or Thursday, you may have seen a group of very focused women typing furiously. This was the awesome women of Team Oceania, absolutely killing it. They were participating in a miniature Capture the Flag (CTF) challenge against several other international teams of women. This activation was our exciting first step in promoting AUSCERT2026, where we’ll proudly host the International Cybersecurity Championships (ICCs)! Community, Connection, and Cuddles We brought back beloved initiatives like our beloved Puppy Cuddle area, while also rethinking and retiring elements that no longer served our community. This year we focused on what our delegate truly value, connection, learning, and fun. Looking ahead to AUSCERT2026, we are already planning something extraordinary with hosting the ICCs. There will be challenges no doubt, but as always, we’ll rise to the challenge and deliver an unforgettable conference for our member and delegates alike!

Greetings, As Privacy Awareness Week 2025 unfolds, it’s encouraging to see strong support across the industry. Organisations are actively engaging in meaningful conversations about the role of privacy and it’s clear that data protection is no longer just a regulatory obligation. It’s now recognised as a core business value and a collective responsibility. Creating a privacy-conscious digital environment requires genuine collaboration between industry, government, and individuals. By working together, we can build a future where data is protected, respected, and used responsibly. Here are a few key reminders: Collect Only What’s Necessary – Limit data collection to what’s essential to reduce risk and strengthen compliance. Embed Privacy in Culture – Treat privacy as a core organisational value, not just a regulatory requirement. Everyone Has a Role – From daily habits to major decisions, individual actions directly influence privacy and security. Privacy Awareness Week is more than a one-week focus – it’s a long-term commitment. By embedding privacy into our culture, practices, and mindset, we not only meet today’s standards but also lay the foundation for a safer digital future. Critical Vulnerability Patched in Citrix NetScaler Date: 2025-06-18 Author: Security Week Citrix on Tuesday announced patches for four vulnerabilities across three products, including a critical-severity issue in NetScaler ADC and NetScaler Gateway. The critical flaw, tracked as CVE-2025-5777 (CVSS score of 9.3), is described as an out-of-bounds memory read caused by insufficient input validation. Only NetScaler deployments configured as Gateway (VPN virtual server, ICA Proxy, CVPN, RDP Proxy) or as Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting (AAA) virtual server are affected, Citrix explains in its advisory. Critical Vulnerabilities Patched in Trend Micro Apex Central, Endpoint Encryption Date: 2025-06-13 Author: Security Week Trend Micro has released patches for ten vulnerabilities in Apex Central and Endpoint Encryption (TMEE) PolicyServer, including critical-severity flaws leading to remote code execution (RCE). The update for Apex Central resolves two critical bugs leading to RCE, tracked as CVE-2025-49219 and CVE-2025-49220 (CVSS score of 9.8). The security defects are similar, but were discovered in different methods, the company says. Google Chrome Zero-Day CVE-2025-2783 Exploited by TaxOff to Deploy Trinper Backdoor Date: 2025-06-17 Author: The Hacker News A now-patched security flaw in Google Chrome was exploited as a zero-day by a threat actor known as TaxOff to deploy a backdoor codenamed Trinper. The attack, observed in mid-March 2025 by Positive Technologies, involved the use of a sandbox escape vulnerability tracked as CVE-2025-2783 (CVSS score: 8.3). Google addressed the flaw later that month after Kaspersky reported in-the-wild exploitation in a campaign dubbed Operation ForumTroll targeting various Russian organizations. High-Severity Vulnerabilities Patched in Tenable Nessus Agent Date: 2025-06-16 Author: Security Week Tenable has released patches for three high-severity vulnerabilities in Nessus Agent for Windows that could be exploited to perform file operations and execute code with elevated privileges. Tracked as CVE-2025-36631 (CVSS score of 8.4), the first bug could allow users logged in to non-administrative accounts to overwrite arbitrary local system files with log content, with System privileges. The second flaw, CVE-2025-36632 (CVSS score of 7.8), allows non-administrative users to execute arbitrary code with System privileges. Finally, CVE-2025-36633 (CVSS score of 8.8) allows users in a non-administrative position to arbitrarily delete local system files, also with System privileges. Microsoft: DHCP issue hits KB5060526, KB5060531 of Windows Server Date: 2025-06-17 Author: Windows Latest [See AUSCERT Bulletin https://portal.auscert.org.au/bulletins/ASB-2025.0104] Microsoft confirmed that the DHCP server service might stop responding or refuse to connect after the June 2025 Update for Windows Server. The DHCP issue affects Windows Server 2025 (KB5060842), Windows Server 2022 (KB5060526), Windows Server 2019 (KB5060531), and Windows Server 2016 (KB5061010). As per user reports spotted by Windows Latest, as soon as you install Windows Server 2016 (KB5061010) or another update listed above, you won’t be able to use the DHCP server. The DHCP server connection would immediately fail after 20-50 seconds of booting the server, but as soon as you remove the update, you’ll be able to use DHCP again. ESB-2025.3989 – Multi-Linux Manager Client Tools – CVSS (Max) 9.9 This SUSE update resolves eight vulnerabilities, fixes various bugs, contains four new features and has six security fixes. Affected products include openSUSE Leap, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop/High Performance Computing/Micro/Real Time/Server/Client Tools/Proxy/Retail Branch Server. ESB-2025.3938 – moodle – CVSS (Max) 10.0 This security fix resolves an SQL injection risk in the upstream AD0db library. The core Moodle LMS was NOT affected by this vulnerability, however as a precaution, this library has been upgraded to remove the risk entirely, in case any third party code/plugins uses the vulnerable code. ESB-2025.3926 – webkit2gtk – CVSS (Max) 9.8 This update resolves various vulnerabilities including denial of service, unexpected process crashes, exfiltrate data cross-origin, cross-site scripting attacks, and memory corruption. For Debian 11 bullseye, these problems have been fixed in version 2.48.3-1~deb11u1. It is recommend to upgrade webkit2gtk packages. ESB-2025.4024 – samba – CVSS (Max) 9.8 Several security issues were fixed in Samba. A remote attacker could possibly use this issue to cause Samba to crash, resulting in a denial of service, escalate privileges, or possibly execute arbitrary code. ESB-2025.4023 – Python – CVSS (Max) 9.4 Python could be made to overwrite files from incorrectly handled tar archive extraction with the filtering option. An attacker could possibly use this issue to modify files in arbitrary filesystem locations and cause data loss. The problem can be corrected by updating the system. Stay safe, stay patched and have a good weekend! The AUSCERT team

Greetings, Next week is Privacy Awareness Week, running from 16 to 22 June. This annual initiative encourages individuals, organisations and government agencies to take privacy seriously and raise awareness about the importance of protecting personal information. The 2025 theme is “Privacy: It’s Everyone’s Business”, and we’re being asked to shout it from the rooftops! Led by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC), Privacy Awareness Week is supported by state and territory privacy regulators as well as members of the Asia Pacific Privacy Authorities forum. Privacy is protected both in Australia and internationally through a range of laws. The OAIC primarily administers the Privacy Act 1988, which is the key piece of federal legislation governing the handling of personal information. In addition, each Australian state and territory has its own privacy laws that apply to their public sector agencies. A recent Help Net Security article highlights the growing threat of Vendor Email Compromise (VEC) attacks, which have led to over $300 million in attempted thefts within a year. VEC attacks involve cyber criminals impersonating trusted vendors to trick employees into actions like transferring funds or disclosing sensitive information. The report found that 72% of employees in large organisations (50,000+ staff) who read a VEC email went on to engage with it, with entry-level sales staff being particularly vulnerable. Industries like telecommunications and energy/utilities saw the highest engagement rates, and prior victims were more likely to be targeted again. The report also revealed that VEC attacks are significantly underreported—only 1.46% of advanced text-based email threats were flagged to security teams, leaving organisations unaware of many potential breaches. In regions like Europe, the Middle East and Africa, engagement with VEC was 90% higher than with BEC (Business Email Compromise) attacks, yet detection and response lag behind. Two Distinct Botnets Exploit Wazuh Server Vulnerability to Launch Mirai-Based Attacks Date: 2025-06-09 Author: The Hacker News A now-patched critical security flaw in the Wazur Server is being exploited by threat actors to drop two different Mirai botnet variants and use them to conduct distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. Akamai, which first discovered the exploitation efforts in late March 2025, said the malicious campaign targets CVE-2025-24016 (CVSS score: 9.9), an unsafe deserialization vulnerability that allows for remote code execution on Wazuh servers. Critical Vulnerability Patched in SAP NetWeaver Date: 2025-06-10 Author: Security Week [AUSCERT has identified the impacted members (where possible) and contacted them via email] Enterprise software maker SAP on Tuesday announced the release of 14 new security patches as part of its June 2025 Security Patch Day, including a note addressing a critical-severity vulnerability in NetWeaver. Tracked as CVE-2025-42989 (CVSS score of 9.6), the critical bug is described as a missing authorization check in the NetWeaver application server for ABAP. Google patched bug leaking phone numbers tied to accounts Date: 2025-06-09 Author: Bleeping Computer A vulnerability allowed researchers to brute-force any Google account's recovery phone number simply by knowing a their profile name and an easily retrieved partial phone number, creating a massive risk for phishing and SIM-swapping attacks. The attack method involves abusing a now-deprecated JavaScript-disabled version of the Google username recovery form, which lacked modern anti-abuse protections. Fortinet, Ivanti Patch High-Severity Vulnerabilities Date: 2025-06-11 Author: Security Week [See AUSCERT bulletin for Fortinet: https://portal.auscert.org.au/bulletins/ESB-2025.3786] Fortinet and Ivanti on Tuesday announced fixes for over a dozen vulnerabilities across their product portfolios, including multiple high-severity flaws. Ivanti released a Workspace Control (IWC) update to address three high-severity bugs that could lead to credential leaks. Tracked as CVE-2025-5353, CVE-2025-22463, and CVE-2025-22455, the issues exist because of hardcoded keys in IWC versions 10.19.0.0 and prior, which could allow authenticated attackers to decrypt stored SQL credentials and environment passwords. INTERPOL Dismantles 20,000+ Malicious IPs Linked to 69 Malware Variants in Operation Secure Date: 2025-06-11 Author: The Hacker News INTERPOL on Wednesday announced the dismantling of more than 20,000 malicious IP addresses or domains that have been linked to 69 information-stealing malware variants. The joint action, codenamed Operation Secure, took place between January and April 2025, and involved law enforcement agencies from 26 countries to identify servers, map physical networks, and execute targeted takedowns. "These coordinated efforts resulted in the takedown of 79 percent of identified suspicious IP addresses," INTERPOL said in a statement. "Participating countries reported the seizure of 41 servers and over 100 GB of data, as well as the arrest of 32 suspects linked to illegal cyber activities." ESB-2025.3716 – roundcube: CVSS (Max): 9.9 Debian addresses CVE-2025-49113 in Roundcube 1.4.15+dfsg.1-1+deb11u5. This vulnerability allows authenticated attackers to execute arbitrary code via PHP object deserialization. ESB-2025.3819 – Adobe Commerce and Magento Open Source: CVSS (Max): 9.1 Adobe has released a security update for Adobe Commerce and Magento Open Source. This update resolves critical and important vulnerabilities.  Exploitation could result in security feature bypass, privilege escalation, and arbitrary code execution. ESB-2025.3831 – GitLab Community Edition and Enterprise: CVSS (Max): 8.7 GitLab addresses several high-severity vulnerabilities, including HTML injection and cross-site scripting flaws, which could lead to account takeover or unauthorized actions across GitLab Community and Enterprise Editions. ASB-2025.0104 – Microsoft Windows: CVSS (Max): 8.8 Microsoft's June 2025 Patch Tuesday addressed 66 vulnerabilities, including two actively exploited flaws. CVE-2025-33053 is a one-click WebDAV flaw that lets attackers run code remotely if a user clicks a malicious link. Stay safe, stay patched and have a good weekend! The AUSCERT team

Greetings, The Australian Government has enacted new legislation requiring certain organisations to report ransomware and cyber extortion payments within 72 hours. Effective from 30 May 2025, the law applies to businesses with an annual turnover of at least AUD $3 million, as well as all entities within the critical infrastructure sector. If an organisation is a reporting entity, as defined under Part 3 of the Cyber Security Act 2024, they must submit a report via the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) at cyber.gov.au/report within 72 hours of making a ransomware or cyber extortion payment or becoming aware that a payment has been made on their behalf. The regulation covers both monetary and non-monetary payments made in response to ransomware or extortion demands, whether paid directly or via a third party. Reports must include key details such as the nature of the incident, the attacker’s demands, contact information, communications, the payment amount and any other relevant information. The Department of Home Affairs will work with organisations to support the reporting process, identify challenges, and ensure smooth implementation. While the ASD will not enforce compliance within the first six months, it will support entities in responding to, mitigating, and recovering from cyber incidents. This legislation aims to increase transparency and strengthen Australia’s cyber resilience by improving visibility of ransomware activity and informing future protective measures. Critical 10-Year-Old Roundcube Webmail Bug Allows Authenticated Users Run Malicious Code Date: 2025-06-03 Author: The Hacker News [Please see AUSCERT bulletin: https://portal.auscert.org.au/bulletins/ESB-2025.3551/] Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a critical security flaw in the Roundcube webmail software that has gone unnoticed for a decade and could be exploited to take over susceptible systems and execute arbitrary code. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2025-49113, carries a CVSS score of 9.9 out of 10.0. It has been described as a case of post-authenticated remote code execution via PHP object deserialization. Hewlett Packard Enterprise warns of critical StoreOnce auth bypass Date: 2025-06-03 Author: Bleeping Computer Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has issued a security bulletin to warn about eight vulnerabilities impacting StoreOnce, its disk-based backup and deduplication solution. Among the flaws fixed this time is a critical severity (CVSS v3.1 score: 9.8) authentication bypass vulnerability tracked under CVE-2025-37093, three remote code execution bugs, two directory traversal problems, and a server-side request forgery issue. Microsoft and CrowdStrike Launch Shared Threat Actor Glossary to Cut Attribution Confusion Date: 2025-06-03 Author: The Hacker News Microsoft and CrowdStrike have announced that they are teaming up to align their individual threat actor taxonomies by publishing a new joint threat actor mapping. "By mapping where our knowledge of these actors align, we will provide security professionals with the ability to connect insights faster and make decisions with greater confidence," Vasu Jakkal, corporate vice president at Microsoft Security, said. The initiative is seen as a way to untangle the menagerie of nicknames that private cybersecurity vendors assign to various hacking groups that are broadly categorized as a nation-state, financially motivated, influence operations, private sector offensive actors, and emerging clusters. New Chrome Zero-Day Actively Exploited; Google Issues Emergency Out-of-Band Patch Date: 2025-06-03 Author: The Hacker News [Please see AUSCERT bulletin: https://portal.auscert.org.au/bulletins/ESB-2025.3591/] Google on Monday released out-of-band fixes to address three security issues in its Chrome browser, including one that it said has come under active exploitation in the wild. The high-severity flaw is being tracked as CVE-2025-5419 (CVSS score: 8.8), and has been flagged as an out-of-bounds read and write vulnerability in the V8 JavaScript and WebAssembly engine. "Out-of-bounds read and write in V8 in Google Chrome prior to 137.0.7151.68 allowed a remote attacker to potentially exploit heap corruption via a crafted HTML page," reads the description of the bug on the NIST's National Vulnerability Database (NVD). Exploit details for max severity Cisco IOS XE flaw now public Date: 2025-05-31 Author: Bleeping Computer [See AUSCERT bulletin: https://portal.auscert.org.au/bulletins/ESB-2025.2902/] Technical details about a maximum-severity Cisco IOS XE WLC arbitrary file upload flaw tracked as CVE-2025-20188 have been made publicly available, bringing us closer to a working exploit. The write-up by Horizon3 researchers does not contain a 'ready-to-run' proof of concept RCE exploit script, but it does provide enough information for a skilled attacker or even an LLM to fill in the missing pieces. Given the immediate risk of weaponization and widespread use in attacks, it is recommended that impacted users take action now to protect their endpoints. ESB-2025.3572 – Splunk Universal Forwarder: CVSS (Max): 9.8 Splunk has addressed multiple critical and high-severity third-party package vulnerabilities in Universal Forwarder versions 9.1.9 to 9.4.2. Users are advised to upgrade to the latest fixed versions and manually remove deprecated binaries if present. ESB-2025.3573 – Splunk Enterprise: CVSS (Max): 9.8 Splunk has addressed multiple critical and high-severity CVEs by updating or removing third-party packages in Splunk Enterprise versions 9.4.2, 9.3.4, 9.2.6, and 9.1.9. ESB-2025.3597 – Schneider Electric Wiser Home Automation: CVSS (Max): 9.8 A critical buffer overflow vulnerability in Schneider Electric's Wiser AvatarOn and Cuadro H 5P Socket devices could allow remote code injection or authentication bypass. As these products are end-of-life, users are advised to disable firmware updates or remove them from service to mitigate risk. ESB-2025.3659 – Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE): CVSS (Max): 9.9 A critical vulnerability (CVE-2025-20286) in Cisco Identity Services Engine cloud deployments causes shared static credentials across environments, enabling unauthenticated remote attackers to access or disrupt systems. Only cloud-based Primary Admin nodes are affected; Cisco has released patches, with no workarounds available. Stay safe, stay patched and have a good weekend! The AUSCERT team