Author: Gargi

Blogs

Regulations for Start-Ups & SME’s Helps address Cyber Risk & Business Strategy

This decade has witnessed huge technological, digital and cyber security uprise and challenges which shaped the way of doing business and business strategy. Now every company is powered by software and technology and cybersecurity a top priority for organizations everywhere. Regulations are of high importance for business strategy and cyber risks. Startups under the Startup India initiative can self-certify their compliance with labor and environmental laws, reducing the risk of inspections and penalties.

For every start up owners placing their business for long term success is ultimate goal and positioning the business requires set of regulations that can bring both opportunities and challenges. Compliance brings in additional challenge but integrating compliance brings in transparency and subsequent valued positioning for clients who value transparency.

That’s putting a lot of pressure on cybersecurity leaders to level up their governance, risk, and compliance programs. India’s push towards digitization has transformed how businesses interact with regulators and the government has rolled out a range of tax incentives to bolster the growth of startups and SMEs. Further the government has been recognizing the role of innovation in the startup ecosystem and to further this strengthened IP protections.

Sector specific regulations

The government has also taken a proactive approach to sector-specific regulations and this has been for most important sectors from fintech to ecommerce, healthcare etc. Regulatory sandboxes by RBI and SEBI allow fintech startups to test new products in a controlled environment. New draft e-commerce rules aim to ensure transparency, fair competition, and consumer protection.

For emerging vibrant business it is important that business leaders stay abreast to staying abreast new regulatory changes that will help leverage the full potential of upcoming India’s vibrant business landscape.

Prioritizing Cyber security for Business Continuity with Regulations

Recently Akshay Joshi, head of World Economic Forum’s Centre for Cybersecurity highlighted that significant challenges lies in prioritizing cybersecurity and addressing these requires a combination of strong incentives and regulatory support,.

“There needs to be incentives that are brought into the mix for appropriate investments into cybersecurity,” Joshi said, emphasizing that regulation plays a crucial role.

As per WEF’s annual Global Cybersecurity Outlook Report, which found that roughly 70% of respondents agree that regulations are “really effective in terms of ensuring a baseline of cybersecurity.”

(Source: Startups and SMEs need incentives and regulations to prioritise cybersecurity: WEF official | Company Business News)

As startups and SME’s navigate through business challenges and every day there is a fresh rules emerging across industries, understanding their impact on business for CEO’S is crucial for staying ahead. By understanding the different types of regulations, startups can better navigate the landscape for your business.

For every start up owners placing their business for long term success is ultimate goal and positioning the business requires set of regulations that can bring both opportunities and challenges.

Without regulations in place innovation will be stalled and so the fair set up within the ecosystem. In the beginning embracing regulations may be daunting task but regulations play important role for startups specifically cyber security based start ups who are constantly battling warfare’s that is equivalent to cripple critical infrastructure and damage organizations affecting economies at a scale that is equivalent to any physical attack.

For Cyber security Startups any regulatory updates often focus on data privacy, financial practices and data security. For instance, recent data protection laws require companies to enhance their data security measures to safeguard customer data and information, This is done so to foster trust and loyalty among users and increase brand value.

There are Compliance that are driven by regulations and can pose challenges for start ups as this increases operational costs. These changes may demand additional investments in legal counsel or technology to ensure adherence.

If any Startup is handling customer data and if they invest in data protection solutions which is essential to bring in confidence for their customers. With GDPR and CCPA regulations, organizations might face fines for non-compliance and loose trust from investors that may restrict further funding.

Startups that proactively integrate compliance into their core strategy can position themselves as industry leaders, appealing to customers who value transparency.

Conclusion:

Cyber security is every where and is crucial from point of network and cloud security to AI, privacy, governance, forensics, and risk management, each domain plays a crucial role in keeping organizations resilient. For customers it means that their data is in safe hands.

Having a discipline structure and frameworks in place increases brand value.  However, cybercriminals are increasingly focused on targets that have weaker defenses and start ups are prime in their targets.

Any organization who implement regulations, audits certification and follow compliance enhances their defenses.
They might be handling sensitive data, but staying compliant with regulations like GDPR and HIPAA is essential. Regular security audits and employee training can significantly reliability and confidence among investors.

For business to thrive and grow regulations are step ahead towards creativity, innovation and growth,. This helps business to stay ahead of competitors and establish a reputation for innovation, also for avoiding penalties, legal consequences and reputational damage.

Blogs Security Advisory

Critical Brash Vulnerability: Blink Engine Flaw Breaks Chromium Browsers 

Overview : Brash Vulnerability works on Google Chrome and all web browsers that run on Chromium.

A newly disclosed vulnerability, Brash, exposed a critical architectural flaw in Chromium’s Blink rendering engine. Blink is Chromium’s open-source rendering engine responsible for parsing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, building the DOM and render trees, and executing script-driven updates to the browser interface.

It underpins the user experience of all Chromium-based browsers and is a core component of their performance and stability.

The issue allows a malicious web page to crash Chromium-based browsers within seconds, including Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Brave, Opera etc. The attack works by overloading Blink’s main UI thread using a flood of unthrottled DOM operations. A public proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit is available and can be tested on machines, that escalating the urgency for patching across all Chromium-based platforms.  

Technical Details  

Blink lacks any rate limiting or coalescing on rapid document. title updates, allowing an attacker to flood the browser with millions of DOM mutations per second.  

This saturates the browser’s main UI thread, causing extreme CPU usage and blocking event processing, which leads to the browser tab freezing or crashing within 15 to 60 seconds. The exploit can also be use to trigger after a delay or at a precise scheduled time, turning it into a highly controllable logic bomb.  

The exploit requires no special permissions beyond navigating to a malicious page, presenting a severe and immediate operational risk until patches are deployed. 

Attack Flow 

Recommendations 

You can follow the recommendations below 

  • Avoid clicking on suspicious or untrusted links, especially those prompting unexpected redirects or downloads. 
  • Keep all Chromium-based browsers (Chrome, Edge, Brave etc.) updated with the latest security patches as vendors release fixes. 
  • Enforce automatic browser updates within organizations to ensure all users receive critical patches promptly. 
  • Monitor computer endpoints for unusual CPU spikes related to browser processes, which can indicate ongoing exploitation attempts. 
  • Educate users and employees about the risk of drive-by attacks through malicious websites and the importance of security awareness. 

Conclusion: 
The Brash vulnerability reveals how a simple architectural oversight. It lets attackers crash browsers by flooding them with too many title updates too fast, causing the browser to freeze or crash. This attack can be scheduled to happen later, making it harder to detect.

Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari are immune to the attack, as are all third-party browsers on iOS, given that they are all based on WebKit.

The best defense is to keep browsers updated, avoid suspicious links and stay alert for unusual computer slowdowns.  

References: 

Blogs

Report says ChatGpt Atlas is Vulnerable for Users: Understanding Open-AI Agent Mode

Atlas’s autofill and form interaction capabilities present potential attack points

As per reports ChatGpt Atlas browser is vulnerable to attacks and is laced with inherent weakness in comparison to other browser like Google Chrome. As per ‘LayerX ‘who discovered the weakness in ChatGpt Atlas, described threat actors have the ability to inject malicious instructions into ChatGPT’s ‘memory’ and execute remote code and this works by way of cross-site request forgery requests.

These exploit can allow attackers to infect systems with malicious code, grant themselves access privileges or deploy malware. “Understanding “Agent Mode” is most important and core of Atlas which is not same for any traditional browsers. In traditional browser where users manually move from site to site, agent mode allows ChatGPT to semi-autonomously operate your browser.

For e.g. any user wanting to use ChatGPT for work related purposes, the malicious code planted earlier mostly tainted will be invoked automatically to execute remote code, allowing attackers to gain control of the user account .This may include their browser, code they are writing or systems they have access to.

Rate of Vulnerability is 90% A Warning for Users

The rate of vulnerability is 90% then other browsers as when an attacker wish they can push or inject  malicious instructions into ChatGPT’s Atlas ‘memory’ and later execute via remote code.

There is a more basic warning as well. “Atlas does not include meaningful anti-phishing protections, meaning that users of this browser are “up to 90% more vulnerable to phishing attacks than users of traditional browsers,” LayerX says.

Key pointers from research

ChatGPT’s Atlas is not resilient to Phishing attacks

Out of 103 in-the-wild attacks that LayerX tested 97 to go through, a whopping 94.2% failure rate

Compared to Edge (which stopped 53% of attacks in LayerX’s test) and Chrome (which stopped 47% of attacks),

ChatGPT Atlas was able to successfully stop only 5.8% of malicious web pages

Unlike traditional web browsers where you manually navigate the internet, agent mode allows ChatGPT to operate your browser semi-autonomously.

The technology works by giving ChatGPT access to your browsing context. It can see every open tab, interact with forms, click buttons and navigate between pages just as you would.

Importance of Security by Design for web browsing & How AI is intricately involved

The sandboxing approach which is security by design is to keep websites isolated from attacks and prevent malicious code from accessing data from other tabs is crucial to modern web architecture. This is the basis of modern web that depends on separation. But if its not implemented what can be the impact.

But in Atlas, the AI agent isn’t malicious code – it’s a trusted user with permission to see and act across all sites. In this browser isolation is not required. Here AI is not directly connected to the threat but what AI does is AI following a hostile command hidden in the environment. This opens doors to security and privacy risks many users are ill-equipped to handle.

Let me put an example : If you search for air tickets and visit a site , the Atlas ChatGpt will prompt and try to book a ticket or you search for movies in near by theater ,it attempts to book a ticket ”, it will explore options and try to book reservation. Atlas autofill’s and form interaction capabilities present potential attack points, especially when AI is making rapid decisions about information entry and submission.

This is possible when access is granted to ChatGPT for any browsing requirement or context that allows it to view and open tabs, interact with forms and navigate between pages like humans do.

Is User’s security getting compromised

The above example gives users warning that any AI powered browser may be convenient but not without security risks and those who are ChatGpt Atlas, should give extreme cautious before choices are made . Do not share browsing history with any AI mode, instead adopt incognito mode. Any malicious code can  influence the AI’s behavior if browsing and this can happen across multiple tabs.

In case of Atlas, the condition is more vulnerable as Atlas provides inputs like humans doing and AI in disguise executing harmful commands within the environment.

Will AI Agent or Open AI make browsing safe for users or what it means to have safe browsing.

(Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c20pdy1exxvo)

Security Advisory

High-severity path traversal vulnerability was identified in Docker Compose

Docker Compose Path Traversal Vulnerability Enables Arbitrary File Write and System Compromise  

Summary: 

OEM Docker  
Severity High 
CVSS Score 8.9 
CVEs CVE-2025-62725 
Date of Announcement 2025-10-28 
Actively Exploited No 
Exploited in Wild No 
Advisory Version 1.0 

Overview 

A high-severity path traversal vulnerability was identified in Docker Compose, a widely-used tool for defining and managing multi-container Docker applications.

This flaw occurs in the handling of remote OCI-based Compose artifacts, allowing an attacker to craft malicious artifact annotations that bypass directory restrictions. As a result, malicious files can be written outside the intended cache directory on the host system.

This vulnerability can be triggered even by seemingly harmless commands such as docker compose ps or docker compose config that resolve remote artifacts. Organizations should upgrade immediately to avoid possible system compromise. 

Vulnerability Name CVE ID Product Affected Severity CVSS Score 
Path Traversal in OCI Artifacts Allowing Arbitrary File Write CVE-2025-62725 Docker Compose CLI High 8.9 

Technical Summary 

Docker Compose added support for fetching Compose files as OCI artifacts from remote registries. These artifacts contain layers with annotations indicating file paths for writing.

The vulnerability exists because Docker Compose did not sanitize or validate these path annotations prior to writing files, allowing path traversal sequences to escape the cache directory.

Attackers can exploit this by publishing malicious OCI artifacts with crafted annotations, leading to arbitrary file writes anywhere the Compose process has permissions, potentially overwriting sensitive files such as SSH authorized_keys, escalating privileges and compromising the host. The flaw affects Docker Compose versions prior to v2.40.2. 

CVE ID System Affected  Vulnerability Details Impact 
 CVE-2025-62725   Docker Compose (Linux, Windows, macOS) Path traversal via malicious remote OCI artifact annotations allowing arbitrary file write outside the Compose cache directory. 
 		Arbitrary file write, potential system compromise, privilege escalation. 

Remediation 

Apply security patches immediately to mitigate risks from privilege escalation and container escape. 

  • Update Docker-compose to v2.40.2 or the latest one. 

Conclusion 

Docker Compose vulnerability poses a serious risk of arbitrary file writes and system compromise through malicious OCI artifacts.

Due to the ease of exploitation when using remote Compose files, all users and organizations should upgrade to the patched Docker Compose version immediately, scrutinize remote artifact usage, and enhance their container security hygiene to mitigate this significant threat. 

References 

Security Advisory

Critical Apache Tomcat Vulnerabilities Enable RCE 

Summary : Security Advisory : Apache Tomcat’s security updates address two critical issues affecting widely deployed server components. Attackers can now exploit flaws in Apache Tomcat where improper URL handling and inadequate input neutralization allow unauthorized access to restricted directories.

OEM Oracle 
Severity Critical 
CVSS Score 9.6 
CVEs CVE-2025-55754, CVE-2025-55752 
POC Available No 
Actively Exploited No 
Advisory Version 1.0 

Overview  One issue allows attackers to bypass URL protections and upload malicious files, leading to remote code execution if misconfigured and another permits attackers to manipulate console outputs on Windows systems using crafted log entries.

Organizations should promptly update their servers, review configuration settings and enhance monitoring to mitigate these risks. 

Vulnerability Name CVE ID Product Affected Severity Affected Version 
Improper Neutralization of Escape, Meta, or Control Sequences Vulnerability CVE-2025-55754 Apache Tomcat Critical 11.0.0-M1 through 11.0.10,  10.1.0-M1 through 10.1.44,  9.0.0.40 through 9.0.108. 
Path Traversal Vulnerability  CVE-2025-55752 Apache Tomcat  High 11.0.0-M1 through 11.0.10, 
10.1.0-M1 through 10.1.44, 9.0.0.M11 through 9.0.108. 

Technical Summary This enable malicious file uploads, and inject control sequences affecting console behavior or system integrity.

These weaknesses increase the risk of unauthorized code execution and compromise of application environments. 

CVE ID Component Affected Vulnerability Details Impact 
CVE-2025-55752 URL Rewrite Handler (Apache Tomcat Core) A directory traversal flaw resulting from improper URL normalization and decoding order, allowing attackers to bypass /WEB-INF/ and /META-INF/ protections. If PUT requests are enabled, malicious actors can upload files to sensitive directories, potentially executing arbitrary code. Remote code execution, full server compromise if Tomcat is misconfigured with PUT enabled. 
CVE-2025-55754 Logging/Console Output Improper neutralization of ANSI escape sequences in Tomcat log messages allows crafted URLs to inject control sequences. On Windows systems with ANSI-capable consoles, attackers can manipulate the console display and clipboard or potentially induce command execution via social engineering. Console manipulation, potential administrator trickery, clipboard hijacking; less severe but can be chained for larger attacks. 

Recommendations 

Update Apache Tomcat to the following versions immediately: 

  • For 11.x version updated to v11.0.11 or latest 
  • For 10.x version updated to v10.1.45 or latest 
  • For 9.x version updated to v9.0.109 or latest 

If you not updating immediately you can follow some recommendations below 

  • Disable or restrict PUT requests unless absolutely needed to prevent unauthorized file uploads. 
  • Limit network access to Tomcat management interfaces to trusted administrators and secure sensitive directories. 
  • Monitor logs and serves activity regularly for unusual or suspicious behavior indicative of exploitation attempts. 

Conclusion: 
The patches released by Apache Tomcat fix critical remote code execution and console manipulation bugs that could compromise servers.

Though no widespread exploitation is confirmed yet, immediate patching is strongly recommended to prevent serious security incidents. Security teams should apply these updates and monitor any suspicious server activity. 

References: 

Blogs Security Advisory

Copilot Studio SupplyChain Attack Steals OAuth Tokens via CoPhishing

Summary 

The CoPhish attack is a sophisticated phishing technique exploiting Microsoft Copilot Studio to steal OAuth tokens by tricking users into granting attackers unauthorized access to their Microsoft Entra ID accounts.

By Copilot Studio’s customizable AI agents, attackers create chatbots hosted on legitimate Microsoft domains that wrap traditional OAuth consent attacks in an authentic-looking interface, increasing the likelihood of successful deception. 

Technical Details 

The attackers often use a trial license or compromised tenant to create the agent, backdooring the authentication workflow so that, post-consent, OAuth tokens are exfiltrated via HTTP to attacker infrastructure.

Few Demo links like copilotstudio.microsoft.com add credibility, closely mimicking official Microsoft Copilot services, and victims see familiar branding and login flows.

While Microsoft has implemented consent policy updates including blocking risky permissions by default for most users significant gaps remain: unprivileged users can still approve internal apps and privileged admins retain broad consent authority.

Tokens exfiltrated by CoPhish can be used for impersonation, data theft or sending further phishing emails, often going undetected as the traffic is routed through Microsoft infrastructure. 

malicious CopilotStudio page                                                                                                                         Source: securitylabs.datadoghq.com 

Attack Flow 

Step Description 
1. Build Malicious Copilot Agent Attackers create a customized Copilot Studio chatbot, usually on a trial license within their own or a compromised Microsoft tenant, configuring it to appear as a legitimate assistant. 
2. Backdoor Authentication Workflow The agent’s “Login” topic is modified to include an HTTP request that will exfiltrate any OAuth tokens granted by users during authentication. 
3. Share Demo Link Attackers generate and distribute demo website URL (like, copilotstudio.microsoft.com) pointing to the malicious chatbot, mimicking official Copilot Studio services and passing basic domain trust checks. 
4. Victim and Trigger Consent Victims access the link, interact with the familiar interface, and are prompted to login, beginning an OAuth consent flow that requests broad Microsoft Graph permissions. 
5. Token Exfiltration After the victim consents, the agent collects the issued OAuth token and sends it via HTTP to an attacker-controlled server, often relaying through Microsoft IP addresses to avoid detection in standard traffic logs. 
6. Abuse Granted Permissions Attackers use the stolen token to impersonate the victim, accessing emails, calendars, and files or conducting further malicious actions such as sending phishing emails or stealing sensitive data. 
7. Persist and Retarget Due to policy gaps, attackers can repeat the process targeting both internal and privileged users, tailoring requested app permissions and adapting to Microsoft’s evolving security measures. 

                             Source: securitylabs.datadoghq.com 

Why It’s Effective 

  • Leverages trusted Microsoft domains and branding with realistic AI chatbot flows, bypassing phishing detection and user suspicion. 
  • Bypasses multi-factor authentication by stealing fully privileged OAuth tokens that persist until revoked. 
  • Targets both regular users and privileged admins by adapting requested permissions, making it scalable and versatile. 

Recommendations 

Here are some recommendations below 

  • Enforce strict Microsoft Entra ID consent policies to limit user approval of app permissions, especially high-risk scopes. 
  • Restrict or disable user creation and publishing of Copilot Studio agents unless explicitly authorized by admins. 
  • Monitor Entra ID audit logs and Microsoft Purview for suspicious app consent, agent creation or modifications in Copilot workflows. 
  • Apply Azure AD Conditional Access requiring MFA and device compliance for accessing Copilot Studio and related AI services. 
  • Implement tenant-level Data Loss Prevention (DLP) and sensitivity labeling 
  • Educate users on phishing risks and regularly reviewing/revoking app permissions and tokens. 

Conclusion: 
CoPhish highlights how AI-powered low-code platforms like Microsoft Copilot Studio can be exploited for advanced phishing attacks targeting identity systems.

Despite Microsoft’s improvements to consent policies, significant risks remain, requiring organizations to enforce strict consent controls, limit app creation, and monitor Entra ID logs vigilantly. As AI-driven tools grow, proactive security measures are essential to defend against these evolving hybrid threats leveraging trusted cloud services. 

References: 

Hashtags 

#Infosec #CyberSecurity #Microsoft #Copilot #Vulnerabilitymanagement # Patch Management #ThreatIntel CISO #CXO #Intrucept  

Security Advisory

TARmageddon Exploitable Tar Extraction Flaw Exposes Systems to Privilege Escalation 

Summary A critical vulnerability known as Tarmageddon (CVE-2025-62518) impacts multiple tar extraction utilities and libraries, including GNU tar, libarchive, Python’s tarfile module, and the Rust async-tar library. 

Severity High 
CVSS Score 7.8 
CVEs CVE-2025-62518 
POC Available Yes, public PoC and patches available (edera-dev GitHub) 
Actively Exploited Not confirmed widespread exploitation public PoC raises opportunistic risks 
Exploited in Wild No confirmed mass exploitation at time of writing 
Advisory Version 1.0 

Overview 


Tarmageddon (CVE-2025-62518) vulnerability Improper path sanitization and symlink-target validation during extraction enable a crafted tar archive to write files outside the intended extraction directory, leading to arbitrary file overwrite, privilege escalation, or remote code execution when executed by privileged or automated services. 

                Vulnerability Name CVE ID Product Affected Severity Fixed Version 
Tar path traversal / symlink bypass (async-tar RCE vector) CVE-2025-62518 GNU tar, libarchive, Python tarfile, Rust async-tar and downstream tools High Patches released by maintainers; reference fixes in Edera patch repository  and vendor advisories 

Technical Summary 

Root cause: insufficient canonicalization of file paths and incomplete sanitization of symlink targets within tar archive headers. Behavioral details: Path traversal via ../ sequences and chained symlinks allows crafted archives to escape the extraction root and overwrite system binaries, configuration files, or startup scripts.

A public proof-of-concept confirms this behavior in affected async-tar implementations. Fix: apply upstream and distribution patches that normalize paths and validate symlink targets (edera-dev patches).

Exploitability: public PoC exists for CVE-2025-62518, highest risk when automated extractions run with elevated privileges (CI/CD, build, backup). Manual extraction is lower risk. Impact: Malicious extraction can overwrite critical files, allow service takeover or remote code execution, and lead to full host compromise if run as root. 

CVE ID System Affected  Vulnerability Details Impact 
CVE-2025-62518 Tar libraries and tools async-tar, GNU tar, libarchive, Python tarfile, and any tools that use them. Crafted tar entries can bypass path checks and write outside the extraction folder (PoC available). Can overwrite files, allow privilege escalation/RCE if run as root, and contaminate build/CI artifacts. 

Remediation: 

  • Apply patches immediately — update tar libraries and utilities with vendor or distribution fixes (Edera patches where applicable). 
  • Disable automatic extraction of untrusted archives in gateways, ingestion services and CI/CD systems. 
  • Use least privilege for extraction processes — avoid root / Administrator contexts. 
  • Replace unsafe extraction calls (e.g., tarfile.extractall()) with secure wrappers that validate path components and reject traversal or symlink abuses. 
  • Sandbox extraction inside containers or VMs with strict filesystem scoping (read-only mounts, AppArmor/SELinux confinement). 
  • Inventory and update all images, containers, and build artifacts that bundle tar utilities or tar libraries. 

Detection Guidance: Lab verification: Use the public PoC only in isolated virtual environments to validate that patched version block path traversal and symlink exploits. 

SIEM / EDR indicators: 

  • File create/write events to sensitive paths (/etc, /usr/bin, /var, application config dirs) immediately following tar extraction processes. 
  • Creation of symlinks or reparse-points by tar-related processes. 
  • Processes invoking tar or Python extraction libraries writing outside expected extraction directories. 

Conclusion: 
Tarmageddon (CVE-2025-62518) is a high-risk archive extraction vulnerability that affects widely used tar utilities and libraries, including GNU tar, libarchive, Python’s tarfile, and the Rust async-tar implementation.

This vulnerability should be treated as a Priority-1 patch event for any environment performing automated or privileged tar extractions. Organizations are strongly advised to apply vendor patches immediately, enforce sandboxed extraction workflows, and implement strict least-privilege and path-validation controls to prevent arbitrary file overwrites, privilege escalation, and potential supply-chain compromise. 

References:  

Blogs Security Advisory

Samsung Galaxy S25 Zero-Day Exploit Exposes Camera & Location 

Summary 

At Pwn2Own Ireland 2025, researchers Ben R. and Georgi G. from Interrupt Labs successfully exploited a zero-day vulnerability in the Samsung Galaxy S25. The flaw allowed them to gain remote control of the device, activate the camera, and track the user’s real-time location without interaction.

This achievement, earning them $50,000 and 5 Master of Pwn points, highlighted ongoing security weaknesses even in flagship smartphones with extensive testing. The exploit’s discovery underlined broader concerns about the pace of Android feature development outstripping security hardening efforts across system and multimedia libraries. 

The Galaxy S25 zero-day exploit underscores the persistent threat of critical security flaws even in top-tier consumer devices. Although discovered in a controlled, ethical hacking event, such vulnerabilities pose substantial risks if leveraged by malicious actors.

Vulnerability Details 

The vulnerability originated from an improper input validation issue within the Galaxy S25’s software stack. Through carefully crafted malicious inputs, the researchers bypassed Samsung’s built-in security safeguards and executed arbitrary code remotely.

The exploit provided persistent access, enabling control over cameras, GPS, and potentially other sensitive device components, effectively transforming the smartphone into a covert surveillance tool. Because the issue existed at a deep system level, it required no user interaction, making it particularly severe. The vulnerability had not been previously disclosed, meaning Samsung and the public were both unaware until the competition’s revelation. 

Key characteristics: 

The key characteristics of the Samsung Galaxy S25 zero-day vulnerability are as follows: 

  • Type of Vulnerability: Improper input validation bug within the device’s software stack, allowing remote code execution without user interaction.​ 
  • Impact: Enables attackers to take full control of the device, activate the camera, and track real-time GPS location, effectively turning the device into a surveillance tool.​ 
  • Discovery and Exploit: Uncovered during Pwn2Own Ireland 2025 by researchers Ben R. and Georgi G., showcasing a sophisticated exploit chain that bypassed Samsung’s security measures.​ 
  • Persistence: Vulnerability allows persistent access, which can be exploited silently without user awareness or interaction.​ 
  • Disclosure and Remediation: The flaw was previously undisclosed, with responsible disclosure leading to Samsung preparing a security patch. No official statement has been issued yet, but a fix is anticipated.​ 
  • Severity and Potential Damage: The exploit can compromise sensitive personal data, private communications, and location, highlighting significant privacy and security risks. 

Attack Flow 

Step Description 
1. Craft Malicious Input  Attackers develop specially crafted malicious inputs targeting the vulnerable components within the Samsung Galaxy S25’s software stack, particularly exploiting the improper input validation flaw. 
2. Deliver Payload The malicious payload is delivered via crafted multimedia or system input, such as manipulated images or software commands, that bypass Samsung’s existing safeguards. 
3. Bypass Security Measures The input validation flaw allows the malicious data to bypass security checks, executing remote code without requiring user interaction or consent, gaining initial access to the device’s system. 
4. Gain Persistent Control Once the malicious code executes, attackers establish persistent control over the device, enabling continuous access to core functionalities like camera activation and GPS tracking silently and covertly. 
5. Exploit Device Capabilities Attackers leverage control to activate the device’s camera and GPS in real-time, turning the device into a surveillance tool capable of capturing photos, videos, and tracking location discreetly. 
6. Maintain Stealth & Avoid Detection The exploit chain is designed to evade detection by Samsung’s defenses during the attack window, allowing attackers to operate covertly without triggering security alerts or user notifications. 
7. Exploit and Monetize The compromised device becomes a tool for espionage, data theft, or targeted surveillance, which can be exploited for malicious purposes or sold on criminal markets if attacker exploits are monetized. 

Proof-of-Concept 

The proof-of-concept for the Samsung Galaxy S25 zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2025-21043) demonstrates how specially crafted malicious images can exploit an out-of-bounds write flaw in Samsung’s closed-source image parsing library libimagecodec.quram.so. This flaw allows remote code execution with elevated privileges without requiring user interaction.

The exploit involves delivering a malicious payload embedded in an image file that, when processed by the vulnerable library, triggers memory corruption leading to arbitrary code execution and persistent control over the device.

This has been confirmed in cybersecurity forums and independent analyses, with active exploitation observed in the wild primarily via social engineering through messaging platforms like WhatsApp. The PoC confirms that attackers can bypass conventional security mechanisms and gain deep system control, enabling surveillance actions such as camera activation and location tracking. This underscores the critical need for applying the latest security patches released by Samsung.  

Source: https://x.com/thezdi/status/1981316237897396298 

Why It’s Effective 

  • Code Execution via Input Validation Flaw: Exploits improper input validation within the Galaxy S25’s software stack, allowing malicious payloads to bypass safeguards and execute remote code seamlessly alongside legitimate system processes. 
  • Zero-Click Capability: Operates without requiring any user interaction, enabling silent compromise through automated payloads that trigger upon data processing or system-level input handling. 
  • Persistent Access: Establishes continuous control after initial compromise, granting long-term ability to activate hardware components like camera and GPS without detection by standard security mechanisms. 
  • Stealth Operations: Exploit chain hides within multimedia and system library processes, avoiding visible alerts or performance anomalies that might indicate compromise to the user. 
  • Advanced Evasion: Utilizes legitimate system libraries and resource calls, reducing the likelihood of being flagged by mobile antivirus or Samsung Knox runtime protections. 
  • High Impact Vector: Enables complete device surveillance, capturing photos, videos, and location data covertly, illustrating real-world severity when attackers weaponize such system-level access. 

Remediation: 

  • Update Samsung Galaxy devices immediately with the latest September 2025 Security Maintenance Release (SMR) patch that fixes CVE-2025-21043. 
  • Manually check for software updates via Settings > Software Update > Download and Install to ensure the fix is applied promptly. 
  • Enable automatic security updates on Samsung devices for timely future patching without delay. 
  • For enterprises, enforce patch deployment policies through Mobile Device Management (MDM) or Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) tools to cover all mobile endpoints. 
  • Restrict app permissions, especially camera and location access, to minimize exposure in case of compromise. 
  • Avoid opening images from untrusted sources or suspicious messaging apps, as the vulnerability exploits image parsing. 
  • Implement continuous mobile threat detection to identify abnormal device behavior indicative of compromise. 
  • Educate users and IT teams about the critical nature of this vulnerability and the importance of timely patching. 

This ensures comprehensive mitigation of vulnerability while reducing risk and exposure to active exploits. 

Conclusion: 


This incident reinforces the value of responsible disclosure mechanisms like Pwn2Own, where manufacturers receive detailed technical reports to develop patches before public release. Samsung has yet to issue a formal statement but is expected to roll out a security update imminently.

In the meantime, users are advised to enable automatic updates, remain cautious with app permissions and untrusted networks, and monitor official channels for patches to mitigate potential exploitation risks. 

References: 

Security Advisory

Microsoft Teams Access Token Vulnerability Allows Attack Vector for Data Exfiltration

Summary: Microsoft Teams Access Token Vulnerability: New Attack Vector for Data Exfiltration

A recently uncovered vulnerability in Microsoft Teams for Windows allows attackers with local access to extract encrypted authentication tokens, granting unauthorized access to chats, emails and SharePoint files.

This technique, detailed by researcher Brahim El Fikhi on October 23, 2025, leverages the Windows Data Protection API (DPAPI) to decrypt tokens stored in a Chromium-like Cookies database.

Attackers can use these tokens for impersonation, lateral movement, or social engineering, bypassing recent security enhancements and posing significant risks to enterprise environments.

Vulnerability Details

The vulnerability, identified in Microsoft Teams desktop applications, involves the extraction of encrypted access tokens stored in the SQLite Cookies database at %AppData%\Local\Packages\MSTeams_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache\Microsoft\MSTeams\EBWebView\Cookies. Unlike earlier versions that stored tokens in plaintext (a flaw exposed by Vectra AI in 2022), current versions use AES-256-GCM encryption protected by DPAPI, tied to user or machine credentials. However, attackers with local access can decrypt these tokens using tools like ProcMon and Mimikatz, exploiting the embedded msedgewebview2.exe process that handles authentication via login.microsoftonline.com.

Source: blog.randorisec.fr, cybersecuritynews
Attack Flow

StepDescription
CraftAttackers use ProcMon to monitor msedgewebview2.exe and identify the Cookies database write operations.
AccessThe ms-teams.exe process is terminated to unlock the Cookies file, which is locked during operation.
ExtractThe encrypted token is retrieved from the Cookies database, with fields like host_key (e.g., teams.microsoft.com), name, and encrypted_value (prefixed with “v10”).
DecryptThe DPAPI-protected master key is extracted from %AppData%\Local\Packages\MSTeams_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache\Microsoft\MSTeams\EBWebView\Local State and decrypted using Windows APIs or tools like Mimikatz.
ExploitDecrypted tokens are used with tools like GraphSpy to access Teams chats, send messages, read emails, or interact with SharePoint via Microsoft Graph API

Why It’s Effective

  • Local Access Exploitation: The attack requires only local access, achievable via malware or compromised endpoints, bypassing MFA and remote defenses.
  • Stealthy Execution: The use of standard Windows APIs (DPAPI) and embedded browser processes evades traditional monitoring.
  • Authority Abuse: Tokens enable impersonation through trusted APIs, amplifying risks of phishing or data theft via Teams, Outlook, or SharePoint.

Recommendations:

  • Monitor Processes – Deploy EDR rules to detect abnormal ms-teams.exe terminations or msedgewebview2.exe file writes.
  • Enforce Encryption – Use app-bound encryption and prefer web-based Teams to avoid local token storage.
  • Token Rotation – Implement Entra ID policies to rotate access tokens regularly and audit Graph API logs for anomalies.
  • Limit Privileges – Restrict local admin access to prevent DPAPI key extraction.
  • User Awareness – Train users to recognize phishing attempts via Teams or email, especially those leveraging impersonation

Conclusion:
This vulnerability underscores the evolving threat landscape for collaboration platforms like Microsoft Teams. As attackers refine techniques to exploit trusted systems, organizations must enhance endpoint monitoring and adopt stricter access controls. By implementing the outlined mitigations, security teams can reduce the risk of token-based attacks and safeguard sensitive data.

References:

Blogs

AWS Recent Outage, Effects What we need to know

The recent disruption that sparked world wide impact and effect is the AWS outage. The AWS (Amazon web services) disruption happened on October 20, 2025, centered on its “US‑EAST‑1” cloud region . The disruption triggered a series of failures and disrupted normal working of number of consumer apps, finance, government portals and parts of Amazon’s own services.

The AWS outage a case of internet outage, impacted over disruptions at over 3,500 companies across more than 60 countries, placing this among the largest internet outages on record for Downdetector.

Now the crucial question that hovers the mind is how the disruption affected digital services and what does this means to organizations relying on third party cloud service providers, to developers and other who are in the ecosystem and rely on AWS service that run uptime.

AWS covers 30% of the global cloud infrastructure market and such a kind of disruption is hard for the world relying on AWS infra. Many global apps and websites rely heavily on AWS for cloud hosting and data processing, which means the disruption can rapidly become widespread and create a knock out effect to many services and businesses to return to normal may witness challenege.

Origin of the AWS incident:

The incident originated in the US-EAST-1 (Northern Virginia) region one of AWS’s oldest and most heavily utilized hubs — and impacted key services such as DynamoDB, EC2, Lambda, and SQS.

As services in all these started failing the spread was wide and impacted AWS’s internal infrastructure and external applications, affecting end-user experiences who were on Snapchat, Pinterest, Fortnite, Signal etc.
Earlier it happened in the same region US-East-1. If we go by history (2017, 2021 & 2023).

The outage echoes shed light on the most crucial point, i.e. over reliance on single point of cloud infrastructure. AWS pointed on DNS issues and admitted global services or features that rely on US-EAST-1 endpoints, such as IAM updates and DynamoDB Global tables, “may also be experiencing issues.”

DNS Issue resolved as per AWS:

After the disruption and AWS says the DNS issue has “been fully mitigated”, and most AWS Service operations are succeeding normally now. However, it added that some requests may be throttled “while we work toward full resolution.”

Technical Analysis AWS Disruption:

The investigation revealed how a control plane failure in the US-EAST-1 region, triggered by an unexpected behavior within AWS’s internal load balancing and routing layer. So a configuration change happened in the service responsible for metadata and service discovery propagated inconsistently.

This lead to authentication and routing failures for dependent instances and services which further expanded and caused choke and resource exhaustion across interdependent services like EC2, Lambda, and S3, all of which rely on low-latency internal communication.

The largest hit services

The heaviest‑hit services by report count included Snapchat (~3M), AWS itself (~2.5M), Roblox (~716k), Amazon retail (~698k), Reddit (~397k), Ring (~357k) and Instructure (~265k). The UK alone generated more than 1.5M reports, far exceeding a typical day’s ~1M global baseline across all markets, highlighting both the unique intensity and breadth of this event.

Country wise bifurcation on AWS outage & results

(Image sources: Revealing the Cascading Impacts of the AWS Outage | Ookla®)

What amplified the disruption of AWS

All apps we are using are mostly chain together managed services like storage, queues, and serverless functions. If DNS cannot reliably resolve a critical endpoint (for example, the DynamoDB API involved here), errors cascade through upstream APIs and cause visible failures in apps users do not associate with AWS. That is precisely what Downdetector recorded across Snapchat, Roblox, Signal, Ring, HMRC, and others.

Cloud infrastructure should be of national importance

The AWS outage/ disruption highlighted how cloud infrastructures are not risk free and over dependence eon single point. Any fault in the infrastructure stack on which everything else depends and from which failures can trigger and subsequent redundancy.

The need of the hour is to recognize that Cloud infrastructure should be of national importance and any failure on the entire stack can be overcome with systematic approach. This will require by pulling down or dismantling each part and diversify the route so that on event of outage , the rest of the part of can be recovered by not depending on single point of the platform.

Organizations relying solely on a single AWS region or without robust multi-region, multi-cloud, or hybrid failover mechanisms faced significant downtime and operational risk, a wake up call for governments.

Various government across Europe recognized the risk associated with cloud infrastructure introduced policy’s for e.g., EU’s flagship Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) introduces EU-level oversight of critical ICT third-party providers, while the UK’s Critical Third Parties act for finance. These tool kits will act as balancers when it comes to reporting, stress management, incident reporting and adhering to transparency that is required as mandate.

Why Network resilience is important ?

The AWS disruption highlighted importance of network resilience. The reason being network resilience prevents single points of failure with backup systems and alternative pathways. Further this helps to adapt to sudden increases in demand without degrading performance. At the same time efficiently reallocates resources and adapts to changing conditions.



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