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Infosecurity Magazine – The North Carolina city of Durham has become the latest US municipality struck by ransomware after reports suggested the Ryuk variant forced key services offline. “Cities need to start investing more on cybersecurity in general, including education, threat assessment, monitoring, prevention, etc. in order to have well established plans for quick reaction and recovery from cyber-attacks,” commented Cesar Cerrudo, CTO of IOActive.

Dark Reading – To get back up and running quickly, and because it’s cheaper, city and county governments often pay the ransom, especially if insurance companies are footing the bill. The result: More ransomware. “Cybercriminals are turning their weapons and targeting local governments because they are easier and juicier targets.”

Helpnet Security – A vulnerability (CVE-2020-8597) in the Point-to-Point Protocol Daemon (pppd) software, which comes installed on many Linux-based and Unix-like operating systems and networking devices, can be exploited by unauthenticated attackers to achieve code execution on – and takeover of – a targeted system.

The Hacker News – The US-CERT today issued advisory warning users of a new dangerous 17-year-old remote code execution vulnerability affecting the PPP daemon (pppd) software that comes installed on almost all Linux based operating systems, as well as powers the firmware of many other networking devices. The affected pppd software is an implementation of Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) that enables communication and data transfer between nodes, primarily used to establish internet links such as those over dial-up modems, DSL broadband connections, and Virtual Private Networks.

adslzone – Every few weeks we have news of a serious vulnerability discovered that puts us at risk as users of certain products or services. In this case, a major security flaw has been discovered in a Point-to-Point Protocol Daemon (pppd) software . The problem with this vulnerability is that it has been present for 17 years and no one had located it until now, allowing arbitrary code to be executed on the affected devices or systems (or malware ) to take control of them. Most Linux systems, some routers and TP-Link or OpenWRT network devices are affected.