Windows 10 KB5034441 security update fails with 0x80070643 errors

By Lawrence Abrams January 10, 2024 11:56 AM

Windows 10 users worldwide report problems installing Microsoft’s January Patch Tuesday updates, getting 0x80070643 errors when attempting to install the KB5034441 security update for BitLocker.

Yesterday, as part of Microsoft’s January 2024 Patch Tuesday, a security update (KB5034441) was released for CVE-2024-20666, a BitLocker encryption bypass that allows users to access encrypted data.

However, when attempting to install this update, Windows 10 users are reporting getting 0x80070643 errors and the installation failing.

On reboot, users will be greeted with a Windows Update screen stating that an error occurred and to try again later.

“There were some problems installing updates, but we’ll try again later. If you keep seeing this and want to search the web or contact support for information, this may help: (0x80070643),” reads the Windows Update error.

In a support bulletin also published yesterday, Microsoft warns that when installing the KB5034441, users are supposed to see the “Windows Recovery Environment servicing failed, (CBS_E_INSUFFICIENT_DISK_SPACE)” error when the Windows Recovery Partition is not large enough to support the update.

However, a coding error causes the Windows Update to mistakenly display the generic “0x80070643 – ERROR_INSTALL_FAILURE” error message instead.
WinRE partition too small

When installing the KB5034441 security update, Microsoft is installing a new version of the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) that fixes the BitLocker vulnerability.

Unfortunately, Windows 10 creates a recovery partition, usually around 500 MB, which is not large enough to support the new Windows RE image (winre.wim) file, causing the 0x80070643 error when attempting to install the update.

In a test by BleepingComputer this morning, a brand new install of Windows 10 using the latest ISO from Microsoft created a 522MB WinRE partition. However, even this new install has a partition that is too small, causing the KB5034441 security update not to install and display a 0x80070643 error.

The only solution Microsoft has offered at this point is to create a larger Windows Recovery Partition so there is enough room for the security update to install.

As the Windows Recovery Partition is created on the same disk as the C: partition, you must shrink the C: partition by 250 MBs and use that newly unallocated space to create a bigger Recovery Partition.

Microsoft had previously shared a support bulletin describing how to shrink the C: partition by 250 MB and create a new Recovery Partition using the reagentc.exe and dispart.exe command line utilities to accommodate WinRE security updates.

Reagentc.exe is a command line tool for managing the Windows Recovery Environment, and diskpart.exe is a command line tool to manage the device’s disk partition and volumes.

However, if you are not comfortable using command line programs, we strongly suggest you hold off on performing these steps as the vulnerability requires physical access to your device, minimizing its impact.

Instead, you should wait for a solution from Microsoft, which may offer an automated way to recreate a larger Windows Recovery partition.

Furthermore, there is always the risk of damaging partitions when shrinking and expanding them, so it is strongly advised that you back up your data before proceeding.

More Article (https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/windows-10-kb5034441-security-update-fails-with-0x80070643-errors/)

Roy Miehe | MspPortal Partners Inc. | Ceo/President

Security Software Distributor: Bitdefender , Barracuda, Phishline Training

“Where Service and Technical Skills Count”

Always amazes me Microsoft stays in businesses..but that is my personal opinion..

Article by

Jai Vijayan, Contributing Writer December 19, 2023

Attackers can chain the vulnerabilities to gain full remote code execution.
Researchers this week disclosed details on two security vulnerabilities in Microsoft Outlook that, when chained together, give attackers a way to execute arbitrary code on affected systems without any user interaction. Unusually, both of them can be triggered using a sound file.

One of the flaws, tracked as CVE-2023-35384, is actually the second patch bypass that researchers at Akamai have uncovered for a critical privilege escalation vulnerability in Outlook that Microsoft first patched in March. The second flaw that Akamai disclosed this week (CVE-2023-36710) is a remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in a feature of Windows Media Foundation, and it has to do with how Windows parses sound files.

“An attacker on the Internet can chain the vulnerabilities together to create a full, zero-click remote code execution (RCE) exploit against Outlook clients,” Akamai said in a two-part blog post this week.
Arbitrary Code Execution

Microsoft issued a patch for CVE-2023-35384 in August, after Akamai researchers contacted the company. The flaw stems from a security feature in Outlook not properly validating if a requested URL is in a local machine zone, intranet zone, or another trusted zone.

Attackers can trigger the vulnerability by sending an affected Outlook client an email reminder with a custom notification sound, according to Akamai. “An attacker can specify a UNC path that would cause the client to retrieve the sound file from any SMB server” on the Internet, instead of from a safe or trusted zone, the vendor added.

To trigger the second vulnerability, an attacker would use the first vulnerability to send a specially crafted email that downloads a malicious sound file from an attacker-controlled server.

“When the downloaded sound file is autoplayed … it can lead to code execution on the victim machine,” Akamai said.

According to Ben Barnea, security researcher at Akamai, an attacker can exploit both vulnerabilities individually or in a chained fashion. “While each one of them is a somewhat ‘weak’ vulnerability, by chaining them together against Outlook we achieved a powerful zero-click RCE vulnerability,” he says.
Patch, Then Patch Again

As noted, this is the second time that Akamai researchers have found a way around a March patch that Microsoft issued for the Outlook privilege-escalation flaw tracked as CVE-2023-23397. That original bug gives attackers a way to use a sound file to steal a user’s password hash and authenticate to services to which the user has access. As recently as Dec. 4, Microsoft warned of Russia’s Fancy Bear group (aka Forest Blizzard) actively exploiting the flaw to gain unauthorized access to email accounts in Exchange server.

Microsoft’s original patch sought to ensure that before Outlook handles emails containing custom notification reminders, it first verifies the safety of the URL for the sound file. The patch was designed to ensure that if the URL for the custom notification sound was brought in from an untrusted/unverified domain, Outlook’s default notification sound is used instead.

But then, Akamai researchers probing the patch discovered they could bypass it by adding a single character to a function in the Microsoft update. The discovery prompted Microsoft to assign the issue a separate CVE (CVE-2023-29324) and issue a patch for it in May.

The new bypass that Akamai is detailing this week also arises from an issue in the original patch — and it might not be the last problem found in the patch, either.

“The patch for the original vulnerability used a function called ‘MapUrlToZone’ to mitigate the abuse of the custom reminder sound feature,” explains Barnea, noting that the function is a complex one and increases the attack surface available to the attacker.

“As a result, the patch added more code that also had vulnerabilities in it,” he says. “We suggested to remove the abused feature instead of using patches, since the feature does more harm than good.”

Article (https://www.darkreading.com/vulnerabilities-threats/researchers-release-details-on-two-patched-outlook-zero-click-flaws?_mc=NL_DR_EDT_DR_weekly_20231221&cid=NL_DR_EDT_DR_weekly_20231221&sp_aid=120055&elq_cid=34964379&sp_eh=949bacdba1e2c4851acc11df0ff47140b1c6468716621bc723fe5fe498198bd9&sp_eh=949bacdba1e2c4851acc11df0ff47140b1c6468716621bc723fe5fe498198bd9&sp_cid=51098)

Roy Miehe | MspPortal Partners Inc. | Ceo/President

Security Software Distributor: Bitdefender , Barracuda, Axcient

“Where Service and Technical Skills Count”

By Sergiu Gatlan November 28, 2023 02:01 PM

Opinion:Proably does not surprise you

Today, Microsoft shared a temporary fix for a known issue causing Outlook Desktop to crash when sending emails from Outlook.com accounts.

This confirms customer reports regarding crashing issues when using Outlook.com accounts shared on Microsoft’s community website and other social networks since last Monday, November 20.

According to online reports, restarting, repairing Outlook, reinstalling the application, and creating a fresh Outlook profile for the impacted email account fails to address the issue.

“I’ve tried everything (safe mode, new profile, repair pst, even up to and including a system restore to attempt to roll back a previous installation) to no avail,” one of the affected users said.

These problems only affect Outlook for Microsoft 365 users and those in the Current Channel (Preview) channel using Outlook build 17029.20028.

“The issue is fixed in future builds 17029.20052+. However, this build has not been released yet,” Microsoft said.

While a limited number of customers did report they had successfully worked around this known issue by reinstalling Office, Microsoft suggests reverting to an earlier version.

To do that, type Command Prompt in the Windows search box, right-click Command Prompt and click Run as administrator.

Next, paste the following commands into the Command Prompt window and hit Enter after each:

cd %programfiles%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\ClickToRun

officec2rclient.exe /update user updatetoversion=16.0.16924.20124

Redmond also started rolling out fixes last week for some of the customers affected by another known Microsoft 365 issue behind ‘Something Went Wrong [1001]’ sign-in errors, rendering desktop Office apps unusable for many affected users.

These ongoing login issues impact customers using Excel, Word, Outlook, and PowerPoint for Microsoft 365, Microsoft 365 Apps for business, and Office apps for iOS and Android, as the company confirmed over a month ago.

Previously, it fixed another bug causing significant delays for Microsoft 365 customers when saving attachments in Outlook Desktop to a network share.

Earlier this year, Microsoft tackled various other Outlook issues, including ones blocking Microsoft 365 customers from accessing emails and calendars and causing slow starts and freezes during cache re-priming.

Article (https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-shares-temp-fix-for-outlook-crashes-when-sending-emails/)

Roy Miehe | MspPortal Partners Inc. | Ceo/President
Security Software Distributor: Bitdefender , Barracuda, Axcient
“Where Service and Technical Skills Count”

By Bill Toulas November 27, 2023 09:52 AM

My comment: Between Google and Microsoft I have no idea if you are in the frying pan or the fire. Persoanlly I would ask for a full refund if not fixed with 72 hours. I am sure some lawyer will create a class action

Google Drive users are reporting that recent files stored in the cloud have suddenly disappeared, with the cloud service reverting to a storage snapshot as it was around April-May 2023.

Google Drive is a cloud-based storage service that allows people to store and access files from any internet-connected device via their Google account. It is a widely used service by individuals and businesses (as part of Google Workspace).

A trending issue reported on Google’s support forums starting last week describes a situation where people say they lost recent data and folder structure changes.

“There is a serious issue here that needs to escalate urgently. We have a support ticket open, this has not been helpful to date,” said a Google Drive user on the support thread.

“I pay extra each month to store folders in the cloud so that it is safe, so it is devastating that all my work appears to have been lost,” another Google Drive user posted.

The activity logs on impacted accounts do not show any recent changes, confirming that the users themselves didn’t accidentally delete them.

Overall, there are no indications of a user error but rather a problem with the service’s system that prevented the synchronization of data between the local devices and Google Cloud at some point.

Some users have offline caches that might contain the missing data, but no known method exists to restore access to the data within them.

Google’s volunteer support agents have posted an alleged response from Google’s support engineers that confirms they are already investigating the issue. However, an estimate for a fix hasn’t been provided yet.

“Please accept my sincere apologies if I’m unable to join the Google Meet session. I am continously tracking this case and to be transparent with you we totally agree now that you are not the only customer affected by this behavior.

Aside from the thread link you provided there are other admins now that have reported the same behavior we encounter where after the update there are files that went missing. This is now being investigated by our Product Engineers and we are also waiting for a root cause analysis as well on how we can fix it. Due to the ongoing investigation we are unable to provide an ETA yet.

We don’t recommend as well to make changes on the root/data folder while we wait for instructions from our Engieers. I will continue to monitor the behavior of reported issue from other admins and schedule a callback tommorow same time hoping there are progress within the day that I can deliver before our Google Meet session.” – Google Support Team.

The recommendation for those affected is to avoid making changes to the root/data folder until the situation clears up and the root cause of the problem is determined.

Understandably, many users are frustrated by the loss of critical data they entrusted to the cloud-based service and, in many cases, paid for the hosting of their files.

A notable aspect of the situation is that Google’s support forums are backed by volunteers with limited insight or understanding of the cloud service, so the lack of effective assistance in critical problems like this makes it all the worse.

BleepingComputer has contacted Google for an update on the status of the internal investigation and whether the lost files are recoverable or irreversibly lost, but we have not received a response by publication time.

In this situation, Google Drive users should refrain from changing their cloud storage as it might complicate the recovery process. Instead, your best bet would be to contact Google Support, open a new case, and monitor for official updates.

Until the problem is resolved, it would be more prudent to backup important files locally or use a different cloud service.
Article (https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/google/google-drive-users-angry-over-losing-months-of-stored-data/)

Roy Miehe | MspPortal Partners Inc. | Ceo/President
Security Software Distributor: Bitdefender , Barracuda, Axcient
“Where Service and Technical Skills Count”

This could affect the economy

By Bill Toulas November 13, 2023 02:06 PM

A cyberattack on international logistics firm DP World Australia has severely disrupted the regular freight movement in multiple large Australian ports.

DP World has an annual revenue of over $10 billion and specializes in cargo logistics, port terminal operations, maritime services, and free trade zones.

It is responsible for operating 82 marine and inland terminals in 40 countries. It handles about 70 million containers carried annually by 70,000 vessels, corresponding to roughly 10% of the global container traffic.

DP World has a significant presence in Australia, handling 40% of the nation’s container trade. It operates logistics terminals in the ports of Bing Bong, Fremantle, Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne.

According to a statement the firm shared with BleepingComputer, a cyberattack on Friday, November 10 disrupted landside freight operations at its ports.

In response, the company activated its emergency plans and engaged with cybersecurity experts to overcome problems caused by the incident. It is currently testing key systems required to resume normal business operations.

Since Friday, roughly 30,000 shipping containers of varying importance and value remained unmoved and crowded to the brim the available storage spaces. At the moment, operations are being restored gradually.

The estimated damages are in the millions of dollars, as many of the stranded containers hold time-sensitive goods such as blood plasma, wagyu beef, and lobsters
Article (https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/dp-world-cyberattack-blocks-thousands-of-containers-in-ports/)

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Pizza Hut Australia warns 193,000 customers of a data breach
Article (https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/pizza-hut-australia-warns-193-000-customers-of-a-data-breach/)

Pharmacy provider Truepill data breach hits 2.3 million customers
Article (https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/pharmacy-provider-truepill-data-breach-hits-23-million-customers/

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McLaren Health Care says data breach impacted 2.2 million people
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Kyocera AVX says ransomware attack impacted 39,000 individuals
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Article (https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-fixes-critical-azure-cli-flaw-that-leaked-credentials-in-logs/)

Roy Miehe | MspPortal Partners Inc. | Ceo/President
Security Software Distributor: Bitdefender , Barracuda, Axcient
“Where Service and Technical Skills Count”

1) SEC Charges Against SolarWinds CISO Send Shockwaves Through Security Ranks
The legal actions may have a chilling effect on hiring CISOs, who are already in short supply, but may also expose just how budget-constrained most security executives are.
Article (https://www.darkreading.com/attacks-breaches/sec-charges-against-solarwinds-ciso-send-shockwaves-through-security-ranks?_mc=NL_DR_EDT_DR_weekly_20231102&cid=NL_DR_EDT_DR_weekly_20231102&sp_aid=119087&elq_cid=34964379&sp_eh=949bacdba1e2c4851acc11df0ff47140b1c6468716621bc723fe5fe498198bd9&sp_eh=949bacdba1e2c4851acc11df0ff47140b1c6468716621bc723fe5fe498198bd9&sp_cid=50368)

2) Boeing Confirms Cyberattack, System Compromise
The aerospace giant said it’s alerting customers that its parts and distribution systems have been impacted by cyberattack.
Article (https://www.darkreading.com/endpoint/boeing-confirms-system-compromise-alerting-customers?_mc=NL_DR_EDT_DR_weekly_20231102&cid=NL_DR_EDT_DR_weekly_20231102&sp_aid=119087&elq_cid=34964379&sp_eh=949bacdba1e2c4851acc11df0ff47140b1c6468716621bc723fe5fe498198bd9&sp_eh=949bacdba1e2c4851acc11df0ff47140b1c6468716621bc723fe5fe498198bd9&sp_cid=50368)

3) Boeing Breached by Ransomware, LockBit Gang Claims
LockBit gives Boeing a Nov. 2 deadline to pay the ransom or have its sensitive documents leaked to the public, but it hasn’t given evidence of the compromise.
Article (https://www.darkreading.com/endpoint/boeing-breached-ransomware-lockbit-gang-claims?_mc=NL_DR_EDT_DR_weekly_20231102&cid=NL_DR_EDT_DR_weekly_20231102&sp_aid=119087&elq_cid=34964379&sp_eh=949bacdba1e2c4851acc11df0ff47140b1c6468716621bc723fe5fe498198bd9&sp_eh=949bacdba1e2c4851acc11df0ff47140b1c6468716621bc723fe5fe498198bd9&sp_cid=50368)

4) OpenAI confirms DDoS attacks behind ongoing ChatGPT outages
During the last 24 hours, OpenAI has been addressing what it describes as “periodic outages” linked to DDoS attacks affecting its API and ChatGPT services.
By Sergiu Gatlan November 09, 2023 03:18 AM
Article (https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/openai-confirms-ddos-attacks-behind-ongoing-chatgpt-outages/)

Roy Miehe | MspPortal Partners Inc. | Ceo/President
Security Software Distributor: Bitdefender , Barracuda, Axcient
“Where Service and Technical Skills Count”

By Sergiu Gatlan October 11, 2023 12:10 PM 0

Microsoft is investigating Exchange Online mail delivery issues causing “Server busy” errors and delays when receiving emails from outside organizations.
According to user reports online, the Exchange Online problems started this morning, affecting Microsoft 365 customers worldwide, across the Americas, Europe, and Asia.
Microsoft confirmed the ongoing issues this morning, at 6 AM GMT+2, saying that “some users may encounter delays receiving external email messages in Exchange Online. Affected users may see a ‘451 4.7.500 Server busy’ error message.”
“We’re analyzing sample throttling IPs from simple messages to confirm whether the issue with the portion of SOL infrastructure is causing impact, before we begin formulating a remediation plan,” the company added.
“Impact is specific to some users who are served through the affected infrastructure.”
More information on these ongoing Exchange Online issues is available under EX680695 in the Microsoft 365 admin center.
Linked to IP-address anti-spam rules

In a subsequent update, Redmond said the cause of the issues could be linked to the erroneous enforcement of IP address anti-spam rules for affected customers.
“We’ve identified that a recent service update, applied to a section of infrastructure responsible for enforcing IP address anti-spam rules, contains a change which is inadvertently causing impact,” Microsoft said.
This confirms user reports saying that, in some cases, they’re seeing thousands of emails added to the outbound queue because of Exchange Online’s spam filter.
Microsoft has yet to confirm the regions affected by this Exchange Online outage and if it also impacts Exchange Online outgoing mail delivery.

Today’s incident follows Article emultiple Exchange Online outages since the start of the year,(https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/new-microsoft-365-outage-causes-exchange-online-connectivity-issues/) blocking customers worldwide from accessing their mailboxes and sending or receiving emails.

Article (https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/new-microsoft-365-outage-causes-exchange-online-connectivity-issues/)

Roy Miehe | MspPortal Partners Inc. | Ceo/President
Security Software Distributor: Bitdefender , Barracuda, Axcient
“Where Service and Technical Skills Count”

We do have a solution..

By Sergiu Gatlan October 4, 2023 02:19 PM
Apple released emergency security updates to patch a new zero-day security flaw exploited in attacks targeting iPhone and iPad users.

“Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been actively exploited against versions of iOS before iOS 16.6,” the company said in an advisory issued on Wednesday.

The zero-day (CVE-2023-42824) is caused by a weakness discovered in the XNU kernel that enables local attackers to escalate privileges on unpatched iPhones and iPads.

While Apple said it addressed the security issue in iOS 17.0.3 and iPadOS 17.0.3 with improved checks, it has yet to reveal who found and reported the flaw.

The list of impacted devices is quite extensive, and it includes:

iPhone XS and later
iPad Pro 12.9-inch 2nd generation and later, iPad Pro 10.5-inch, iPad Pro 11-inch 1st generation and later, iPad Air 3rd generation and later, iPad 6th generation and later, and iPad mini 5th generation and later

Apple also addressed a zero-day tracked as CVE-2023-5217 and caused by a heap buffer overflow weakness in the VP8 encoding of the open-source libvpx video codec library, which could allow arbitrary code execution following successful exploitation.

The libvpx bug was previously patched by Google in the Chrome web browser and by Microsoft in its Edge, Teams, and Skype products.

CVE-2023-5217 was discovered by security researcher Clément Lecigne who is part of Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG), a team of security experts known for often finding zero-days abused in government-backed targeted spyware attacks targeting high-risk individuals.
17 zero-days exploited in attacks fixed this year

CVE-2023-42824 is the 17th zero-day vulnerability exploited in attacks that Apple has fixed since the start of the year.

Apple also recently patched three other zero-day bugs (CVE-2023-41991, CVE-2023-41992, and CVE-2023-41993) reported by Citizen Lab and Google TAG researchers and exploited in spyware attacks to install Cytrox’s Predator spyware.

Citizen Lab disclosed two other zero-days (CVE-2023-41061 and CVE-2023-41064)—fixed by Apple last month—abused as part of a zero-click exploit chain (dubbed BLASTPASS) to infect fully patched iPhones with NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware.

Since January 2023, Apple has addressed a total of 17 zero-days exploited to target iPhones and Macs, including:

two zero-days (CVE-2023-37450 and CVE-2023-38606) in July
three zero-days (CVE-2023-32434, CVE-2023-32435, and CVE-2023-32439) in June
three more zero-days (CVE-2023-32409, CVE-2023-28204, and CVE-2023-32373) in May
two zero-days (CVE-2023-28206 and CVE-2023-28205) in April
and another WebKit zero-day (CVE-2023-23529) in February

Today’s iOS 17.0.3 release also addresses a known issue causing iPhones running iOS 17.0.2 and lower to overheat.

“This update provides important bug fixes, security updates, and addresses an issue that may cause iPhone to run warmer than expected,” Apple said.

Roy Miehe | MspPortal Partners Inc. | Ceo/President
Security Software Distributor: Bitdefender , Barracuda, Axcient
“Where Service and Technical Skills Count”

New Site Status Page (https://cloudstatus.mspportalpartners.net)

By Bill Toulas September 26, 2023 05:32 PM

OUTLOOK

Hackers are utilizing a new trick of using zero-point fonts in emails to make malicious emails appear as safely scanned by security tools in Microsoft Outlook.

Although the ZeroFont phishing technique has been used in the past, this is the first time it has been documented as used in this way.

In a new report by ISC Sans analyst Jan Kopriva, the researcher warns that this trick could make a massive difference in the effectiveness of phishing operations, and users should be aware of its existence and use in the wild.

ZeroFont attacks
The ZeroFont attack method, first documented by Avanan in 2018, is a phishing technique that exploits flaws in how AI and natural language processing (NLP) systems in email security platforms analyze text.

It involves inserting hidden words or characters in emails by setting the font size to zero, rendering the text invisible to human targets, yet keeping it readable by NLP algorithms.

This attack aims to evade security filters by inserting invisible benign terms that mix with suspicious visible content, skewing AI’s interpretation of the content and the result of security checks.

In its 2018 report, Avanan warned that ZeroFont bypassed Microsoft’s Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) even when the emails contained known malicious keywords.

Hiding bogus antivirus scans
In a new phishing email seen by Kopriva, a threat actor uses the ZeroFont attack to manipulate message previews on widely used email clients such as Microsoft Outlook.

Specifically, the email in question displayed a different message in Outlook’s email list than in the preview pane.

As you can see below, the email listing pane reads “Scanned and secured by Isc®Advanced Threat protection (APT): 9/22/2023T6:42 AM,” whereas the beginning of the email in the preview/reading pane displays “Job Offer | Employment Opportunity.”
This discrepancy is achieved by leveraging ZeroFont to hide the bogus security scan message at the start of the phishing email, so while it’s not visible to the recipient, Outlook still grabs it and displays it as a preview on the email listing pane.

The goal is to instill a false sense of legitimacy and security in the recipient.

By presenting a deceptive security scan message, the likelihood of the target opening the message and engaging with its content rises.

It is possible that Outlook isn’t the only email client that grabs the first portion of an email to preview a message without checking if its font size is valid, so vigilance is advised for users of other software, too.

Article (https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/new-zerofont-phishing-tricks-outlook-into-showing-fake-av-scans/)

Roy Miehe | MspPortal Partners Inc. | Ceo/President
Security Software Distributor: Bitdefender , Barracuda, Axcient
“Where Service and Technical Skills Count”

Updated on: 22 September 2023 by Vilius Petkauskas Deputy Editor
Article
(https://cybernews.com/news/tmobile-data-breach-new-hack/)

T-Mobile, the global telecoms giant, could be facing a third data breach in less than 12 months. Cybercriminals say they’ve exposed employee credentials, customer info, and other sensitive data.
T-Mobile, the Deutsche Telekom-owned brand with operating subsidiaries in the US, Poland, and other countries, could be heading for a rocky end to the year, with a third major data breach on its hands.
Threat actors posted a database on a cybercriminal forum, which they claim contains information stolen in April 2023. The post says the stolen data includes employee credentials, partial Social Security numbers (SSNs), email addresses, customer data, T-Mobile’s sales and analytics data, and other information.

The post advertising the leak is called “T-Mobile, Connectivity Source”. Connectivity Source is one of T-Mobile’s authorized retailers serving customers T-Mobile branded stores.

According to the Cybernews research team, the sample data that attackers posted appears legitimate. So far, there’s no confirmed information about what data the leaked dataset contains. However, the team said that attackers posted a massive amount of data, 90 GB in total.

Cybernews has reached out to T-Mobile for confirmation, however, we did not receive a reply before publishing this article.

According to malware researchers vx-underground, who claim to have insider knowledge about the breach, the data was stolen shortly after T-Mobile‘s second hack of this year, which occurred in March, 2023.

Also in March, the company disclosed a cyberattack in which attackers may have accessed T-Mobile account PINs, SSNs, full names, and other data. In January 2023, T-Mobile USA suffered a breach involving the accounts of 37 million of its cell phone users.

The company has suffered numerous data breaches in the past as well. In August 2021, T-Mobile reported a data breach after an online forum said that the personal data of more than 100 million of the company’s users was leaked.

Bleeping Computers Comments:
By Sergiu Gatlan
September 20, 2023 05:11 PM 2

T-Mobile app glitch let users see other people’s account info

T-Mobile says a cyberattack did not cause this incident, and its systems were not breached.

Also, despite the significant wave of customers reporting that they’ve been affected by this issue, T-Mobile says the incident had limited impact, only affecting less than 100 individuals.

“There was no cyberattack or breach at T-Mobile,” a spokesperson told BleepingComputer when asked for more details.

“This was a temporary system glitch related to a planned overnight technology update involving limited account information for fewer than 100 customers, which was quickly resolved.”
Nine data breaches since 2018
In May, T-Mobile disclosed the second data breach since the start of 2023 after hundreds of customers had their personal information exposed between late February and March after attackers hacked into the carrier’s systems.

In January, the mobile carrier revealed another data breach after the sensitive info of 37 million customers was stolen using one of its Application Programming Interfaces (APIs).

Since 2018, T-Mobile has been hit by seven other data breaches:

In August 2018, attackers accessed the data of around 3% of all T-Mobile customers.
In 2019, T-Mobile exposed the account info of an undisclosed number of prepaid customers.
In March 2020, T-Mobile employees were affected by a breach exposing their personal and financial information.
In December 2020, threat actors accessed customer proprietary network info (phone numbers, call records).
In February 2021, an internal T-Mobile app was accessed by unknown attackers without authorization.
In August 2021, hackers brute-forced their way through T-Mobile’s network following a breach of one of its testing environments.
In April 2022, the notorious Lapsus$ extortion gang breached T-Mobile’s network using stolen credentials.

Article (https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/t-mobile-app-glitch-let-users-see-other-peoples-account-info/)

Roy Miehe | MspPortal Partners Inc. | Ceo/President
Security Software Distributor: Bitdefender , Barracuda, Axcient
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