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Password manager LastPass has released an update last week to fix a security bug that exposes credentials entered on a previously visited site. The bug was discovered last month by Tavis Ormandy, a security researcher with Project Zero, Google's elite security and bug-hunting team. LastPass believed to be the most popular password manager app today, fixed the reported issue in version 4.33.0, released last week, on September 12. In a blog post, the company said the bug only impacts its Chrome and Opera browser extensions. If users have not enabled an auto-update mechanism for their LastPass browser extensions, they're advised to perform a manual update as soon as possible. This is because yesterday, Ormandy published details about the security flaw he found. The security researcher's bug report walks an attacker through the steps necessary to reproduce the bug. Since the bug relies on executing malicious JavaScript code alone, with no other user interaction, the bug is considered dangerous and potentially exploitable. Attackers could lure users on malicious pages and exploit the vulnerability to extract the credentials users had entered on previously-visited sites. According to Ormandy, this isn't as hard as it sounds, as an attacker could easily disguise a malicious link behind a Google Translate URL, trick users into visiting the link, and then extract credentials from a previously visited site. Like any other applications, password managers are sometimes vulnerable to bugs, which are in all cases eventually fixed. Despite this vulnerability, users are still advised to rely on a password manager whenever they can. Using a password manager is many times better than leaving passwords stored inside a browser, from where they can be easily extracted by forensic tools and malware. For more visit OUR FORUM.

 

China's internet could continue to operate as a national intranet in the case of a cyber-attack or foreign intervention. The structure of the Chinese internet is unlike any other country, being similar to a gigantic intranet, according to research published by Oracle last week. The country has very few connection points to the global internet, has zero foreign telcos operating within its borders, and Chinese-to-Chinese internet traffic never leaves the country. All of these allow China to disconnect itself at will from the global internet and continue to operate, albeit with no connectivity to western services. "Put plainly, in terms of resilience, China could effectively withdraw from the global public internet and maintain domestic connectivity (essentially having an intranet)," Oracle's Dave Allen said. "This means the rest of the world could be restricted from connecting into China, and vice versa for external connections for Chinese businesses/users."

Windows 10 KB4515384 is the latest cumulative update that Microsoft released on September 10 with a fix for high CPU usage bug and multiple vulnerabilities. Microsoft initially stated that the cumulative update comes without any known issues, but the company has now updated the changelog to confirm a bug affecting both Start menu and Windows Search. Microsoft has also confirmed audio issues in this cumulative update. It looks like Windows 10 KB4515384 is plagued by several other issues as well, including a bug that disables Ethernet or WiFi connectivity. A number of users are reporting on Microsoft community forum, Reddit and Windows 10’s Feedback Hub that network adapters have stopped working after applying this update. “Cumulative update (kb4515384) causes the NIC to fail to enable with a code 10 error. Reinstalling network drivers from Intel or Windows Update sources does not resolve the issue. However removing the update through the ‘Programs & Software’ panel or using a recovery point set *before* the update fully resolves the issue,” a user documented the bug on Feedback Hub. “KB4515384 breaks ethernet and wifi adapters on my PC. Appears to create new devices as they’re labeled ‘#2’ and when exposing hidden devices in Device Manager the previously named devices appear. Uninstalling these / new or old drivers do not fix the issues (i.e. “ethernet unplugged” which it is clearly not). The only option was to uninstall this update,” another user confirmed the annoying bug on Feedback Hub. If you are affected by broken network adapters bug, you can disable and re-enable the adapter in Device Manager, and you might be able to use the adapters again after a system reboot. Follow this on OUR FORUM.

  

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