Emotet Botnet Distributing Self-Unlocking Password-Protected RAR Files to Drop Malware

The notorious Emotet botnet has been linked to a new wave of malspam campaigns that take advantage of password-protected archive files to drop CoinMiner and Quasar RAT on compromised systems. In an attack chain detected by Trustwave SpiderLabs researchers, an invoice-themed ZIP file lure was found to contain a nested self-extracting (SFX) archive, the first archive acting as a conduit to launch

Multiple Campaigns Exploit VMware Vulnerability to Deploy Crypto Miners and Ransomware

A now-patched vulnerability in VMware Workspace ONE Access has been observed being exploited to deliver both cryptocurrency miners and ransomware on affected machines. "The attacker intends to utilize a victim's resources as much as possible, not only to install RAR1Ransom for extortion, but also to spread GuardMiner to collect cryptocurrency," Fortinet FortiGuard Labs researcher Cara Lin said 

OldGremlin Ransomware Targeted Over a Dozen Russian Entities in Multi-Million Scheme

A Russian-speaking ransomware group dubbed OldGremlin has been attributed to 16 malicious campaigns aimed at entities operating in the transcontinental Eurasian nation over the course of two and a half years. "The group's victims include companies in sectors such as logistics, industry, insurance, retail, real estate, software development, and banking," Group-IB said in an exhaustive report

These 16 Clicker Malware Infected Android Apps Were Downloaded Over 20 Million Times

As many as 16 malicious apps with over 20 million cumulative downloads have been taken down from the Google Play Store after they were caught committing mobile ad fraud. The Clicker malware masqueraded as seemingly harmless utilities like cameras, currency/unit converters, QR code readers, note-taking apps, and dictionaries, among others, in a bid to trick users into downloading them,

New Ursnif Variant Likely Shifting Focus to Ransomware and Data Theft

The Ursnif malware has become the latest malware to shed its roots as a banking trojan to revamp itself into a generic backdoor capable of delivering next-stage payloads, joining the likes of Emotet, Qakbot, and TrickBot. "This is a significant shift from the malware's original purpose to enable banking fraud, but is consistent with the broader threat landscape," Mandiant researchers Sandor

Сryptocurrency and Ransomware — The Ultimate Friendship

Both cryptocurrency and ransomware are nothing new in the digital world; both have been there for a very long time, which was enough for them to find common pieces for starting their relationship. Ransomware can be like a virtual car that works on all types of fuels, and crypto is the one that is currently most recommended. No one can argue that 2020 was the year of ransomware in the cyber world

Black Basta Ransomware Hackers Infiltrate Networks via Qakbot to Deploy Brute Ratel C4

The threat actors behind the Black Basta ransomware family have been observed using the Qakbot trojan to deploy the Brute Ratel C4 framework as a second-stage payload in recent attacks. The development marks the first time the nascent adversary simulation software is being delivered via a Qakbot infection, cybersecurity firm Trend Micro said in a technical analysis released last week. The

New Prestige Ransomware Targeting Polish and Ukrainian Organizations

A new ransomware campaign targeted the transportation and logistics sectors in Ukraine and Poland on October 11 with a previously unknown payload dubbed Prestige. "The activity shares victimology with recent Russian state-aligned activity, specifically on affected geographies and countries, and overlaps with previous victims of the FoxBlade malware (also known as HermeticWiper)," the Microsoft

Mirai Botnet Hits Wynncraft Minecraft Server with 2.5 Tbps DDoS Attack

Web infrastructure and security company Cloudflare disclosed this week that it halted a 2.5 Tbps distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack launched by a Mirai botnet. Characterizing it as a "multi-vector attack consisting of UDP and TCP floods," researcher Omer Yoachimik said the DDoS attack targeted the Minecraft server Wynncraft in Q3 2022. "The entire 2.5 Tbps attack lasted about 2 minutes,

Modified WhatsApp App Caught Infecting Android Devices with Malware

An unofficial version of the popular WhatsApp messaging app called YoWhatsApp has been observed deploying an Android trojan known as Triada. The goal of the malware is to steal the keys that "allow the use of a WhatsApp account without the app," Kaspersky said in a new report. "If the keys are stolen, a user of a malicious WhatsApp mod can lose control over their account." <!--adsense-->

Hackers Using Vishing to Trick Victims into Installing Android Banking Malware

Malicious actors are resorting to voice phishing (vishing) tactics to dupe victims into installing Android malware on their devices, new research from ThreatFabric reveals. The Dutch mobile security company said it identified a network of phishing websites targeting Italian online-banking users that are designed to get hold of their contact details. Telephone-oriented attack delivery (TOAD), as

64,000 Additional Patients Impacted by Omnicell Data Breach - What is Your Data Breach Action Plan?

In April 2022, Omnicell reported a data breach affecting nearly 62,000 patients. The company has revealed that the incident has impacted an additional 64,000 individuals. This brings the total number of patients affected to over 126,000.  Will you be the next victim like Omnicell? If you are overlooking the importance of data protection, attackers can get you in no time.  Explore the impact of

Microsoft Patch Tuesday Fixes New Windows Zero-Day; No Patch for Exchange Server Bugs

Microsoft's Patch Tuesday update for the month of October has addressed a total of 85 security vulnerabilities, including fixes for an actively exploited zero-day flaw in the wild. Of the 85 bugs, 15 are rated Critical, 69 are rated Important, and one is rated Moderate in severity. The update, however, does not include mitigations for the actively exploited ProxyNotShell flaws in Exchange Server

Researchers Detail Malicious Tools Used by Cyber Espionage Group Earth Aughisky

A new piece of research has detailed the increasingly sophisticated nature of the malware toolset employed by an advanced persistent threat (APT) group named Earth Aughisky. "Over the last decade, the group has continued to make adjustments in the tools and malware deployments on specific targets located in Taiwan and, more recently, Japan," Trend Micro disclosed in a technical profile last week

New Report Uncovers Emotet's Delivery and Evasion Techniques Used in Recent Attacks

Threat actors associated with the notorious Emotet malware are continually shifting their tactics and command-and-control (C2) infrastructure to escape detection, according to new research from VMware. Emotet is the work of a threat actor tracked as Mummy Spider (aka TA542), emerging in June 2014 as a banking trojan before morphing into an all-purpose loader in 2016 that's capable of delivering

LofyGang Distributed ~200 Malicious NPM Packages to Steal Credit Card Data

Multiple campaigns that distributed trojanized and typosquatted packages on the NPM open source repository have been identified as the work of a single threat actor dubbed LofyGang. Checkmarx said it discovered 199 rogue packages totaling thousands of installations, with the group operating for over a year with the goal of stealing credit card data as well as user accounts associated with

BlackByte Ransomware Abuses Vulnerable Windows Driver to Disable Security Solutions

In yet another case of bring your own vulnerable driver (BYOVD) attack, the operators of the BlackByte ransomware are leveraging a flaw in a legitimate Windows driver to bypass security solutions. "The evasion technique supports disabling a whopping list of over 1,000 drivers on which security products rely to provide protection," Sophos threat researcher Andreas Klopsch said in a new technical

Eternity Group Hackers Offering New LilithBot Malware-as-a-Service to Cybercriminals

The threat actor behind the malware-as-a-service (MaaS) known as Eternity Group has been linked to new piece of malware called LilithBot. "It has advanced capabilities to be used as a miner, stealer, and a clipper along with its persistence mechanisms," Zscaler ThreatLabz researchers Shatak Jain and Aditya Sharma said in a Wednesday report. "The group has been continuously enhancing the malware,

Experts Warn of New RatMilad Android Spyware Targeting Enterprise Devices

A novel Android malware called RatMilad has been observed targeting a Middle Eastern enterprise mobile device by concealing itself as a VPN and phone number spoofing app. The mobile trojan functions as advanced spyware with capabilities that receives and executes commands to collect and exfiltrate a wide variety of data from the infected mobile endpoint, Zimperium said in a report shared with

Want More Secure Software? Start Recognizing Security-Skilled Developers

Professional developers want to do the right thing, but in terms of security, they are rarely set up for success. Organizations must support their upskilling with precision training and incentives if they want secure software from the ground up. The cyber threat landscape grows more complex by the day, with our data widely considered highly desirable “digital gold”. Attackers are constantly

Canadian Netwalker Ransomware Affiliate Sentenced to 20 Years in U.S. Prison

A former affiliate of the Netwalker ransomware has been sentenced to 20 years in prison in the U.S., a little over three months after the Canadian national pleaded guilty to his role in the crimes. Sebastien Vachon-Desjardins, 35, has also been ordered to forfeit $21,500,000 that was illicitly obtained from dozens of victims globally, including companies, municipalities, hospitals, law

Back to Basics: Cybersecurity's Weakest Link

A big promise with a big appeal. You hear that a lot in the world of cybersecurity, where you're often promised a fast, simple fix that will take care of all your cybersecurity needs, solving your security challenges in one go.  It could be an AI-based tool, a new superior management tool, or something else – and it would probably be quite effective at what it promises to do. But is it a silver

CISA Orders Federal Agencies to Regularly Track Network Assets and Vulnerabilities

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has issued a new Binding Operational Directive (BOD) that directs federal agencies in the country to keep track of assets and vulnerabilities on their networks six months from now. To that end, Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) enterprises have been tasked with two sets of activities: Asset discovery and vulnerability

New Malware Families Found Targeting VMware ESXi Hypervisors

Threat actors have been found deploying never-before-seen post-compromise implants in VMware's virtualization software to seize control of infected systems and evade detection. Google's Mandiant threat intelligence division referred to it as a "novel malware ecosystem" that impacts VMware ESXi, Linux vCenter servers, and Windows virtual machines, allowing attackers to maintain persistent access

Cyber Attacks Against Middle East Governments Hide Malware in Windows Logo

An espionage-focused threat actor has been observed using a steganographic trick to conceal a previously undocumented backdoor in a Windows logo in its attacks against Middle Eastern governments. Broadcom's Symantec Threat Hunter Team attributed the updated tooling to a hacking group it tracks under the name Witchetty, which is also known as LookingFrog, a subgroup operating under the TA410

Brazilian Prilex Hackers Resurfaced With Sophisticated Point-of-Sale Malware

A Brazilian threat actor known as Prilex has resurfaced after a year-long operational hiatus with an advanced and complex malware to steal money by means of fraudulent transactions. "The Prilex group has shown a high level of knowledge about credit and debit card transactions, and how software used for payment processing works," Kaspersky researchers said. "This enables the attackers to keep

Researchers Warn of New Go-based Malware Targeting Windows and Linux Systems

A new, multi-functional Go-based malware dubbed Chaos has been rapidly growing in volume in recent months to ensnare a wide range of Windows, Linux, small office/home office (SOHO) routers, and enterprise servers into its botnet. "Chaos functionality includes the ability to enumerate the host environment, run remote shell commands, load additional modules, automatically propagate through

Cyber Criminals Using Quantum Builder Sold on Dark Web to Deliver Agent Tesla Malware

A recently discovered malware builder called Quantum Builder is being used to deliver the Agent Tesla remote access trojan (RAT). "This campaign features enhancements and a shift toward LNK (Windows shortcut) files when compared to similar attacks in the past," Zscaler ThreatLabz researchers Niraj Shivtarkar and Avinash Kumar said in a Tuesday write-up. <!--adsense--> Sold on the dark web for

Improve your security posture with Wazuh, a free and open source XDR

Organizations struggle to find ways to keep a good security posture. This is because it is difficult to create secure system policies and find the right tools that help achieve a good posture. In many cases, organizations work with tools that do not integrate with each other and are expensive to purchase and maintain. Security posture management is a term used to describe the process of

Critical WhatsApp Bugs Could Have Let Attackers Hack Devices Remotely

WhatsApp has released security updates to address two flaws in its messaging app for Android and iOS that could lead to remote code execution on vulnerable devices. One of them concerns CVE-2022-36934 (CVSS score: 9.8), a critical integer overflow vulnerability in WhatsApp that results in the execution of arbitrary code simply by establishing a video call. The issue impacts the WhatsApp and

New NullMixer Malware Campaign Stealing Users' Payment Data and Credentials

Cybercriminals are continuing to prey on users searching for cracked software by directing them to fraudulent websites hosting weaponized installers that deploy malware called NullMixer on compromised systems. "When a user extracts and executes NullMixer, it drops a number of malware files to the compromised machine," cybersecurity firm Kaspersky said in a Monday report. "It drops a wide variety

BlackCat Ransomware Attackers Spotted Fine-Tuning Their Malware Arsenal

The BlackCat ransomware crew has been spotted fine-tuning their malware arsenal to fly under the radar and expand their reach. "Among some of the more notable developments has been the use of a new version of the Exmatter data exfiltration tool, and the use of Eamfo, information-stealing malware that is designed to steal credentials stored by Veeam backup software," researchers from Symantec 

Ukraine Arrests Cybercrime Group for Selling Data of 30 Million Accounts

Ukrainian law enforcement authorities on Friday disclosed that it had "neutralized" a hacking group operating from the city of Lviv that it said acted on behalf of Russian interests. The group specialized in the sales of 30 million accounts belonging to citizens from Ukraine and the European Union on the dark web and netted a profit of $372,000 (14 million UAH) through electronic payment systems

Researchers Uncover New Metador APT Targeting Telcos, ISPs, and Universities

A previously undocumented threat actor of unknown origin has been linked to attacks targeting telecom, internet service providers, and universities across multiple countries in the Middle East and Africa. "The operators are highly aware of operations security, managing carefully segmented infrastructure per victim, and quickly deploying intricate countermeasures in the presence of security

Firing Your Entire Cybersecurity Team? Are You Sure?

What on earth were they thinking? That's what we – and other security experts – were wondering when content giant Patreon recently dismissed its entire internal cybersecurity team in exchange for outsourced services. Of course, we don't know the true motivations for this move. But, as outsiders looking in, we can guess the cybersecurity implications of the decision would be inescapable for any

Fake Indian Banking Rewards Apps Targeting Android Users with Info-stealing Malware

An SMS-based phishing campaign is targeting customers of Indian banks with information-stealing malware that masquerades as a rewards application. The Microsoft 365 Defender Research Team said that the messages contain links that redirect users to a sketchy website that triggers the download of the fake banking rewards app for ICICI Bank. "The malware's RAT capabilities allow the attacker to

Researchers Uncover Years-Long Mobile Spyware Campaign Targeting Uyghurs

A new wave of a mobile surveillance campaign has been observed targeting the Uyghur community as part of a long-standing spyware operation active since at least 2015, cybersecurity researchers disclosed Thursday. The intrusions, originally attributed to a threat actor named Scarlet Mimic back in January 2016, is said to have encompassed 20 different variants of the Android malware, which were

Malicious NPM Package Caught Mimicking Material Tailwind CSS Package

A malicious NPM package has been found masquerading as the legitimate software library for Material Tailwind, once again indicating attempts on the part of threat actors to distribute malicious code in open source software repositories. Material Tailwind is a CSS-based framework advertised by its maintainers as an "easy to use components library for Tailwind CSS and Material Design." "The

15-Year-Old Unpatched Python Vulnerability Potentially Affects Over 350,000 Projects

As many as 350,000 open source projects are believed to be potentially vulnerable to exploitation as a result of a security flaw in a Python module that has remained unpatched for 15 years. The open source repositories span a number of industry verticals, such as software development, artificial intelligence/machine learning, web development, media, security, and IT management. The shortcoming,

Over 39,000 Unauthenticated Redis Instances Found Exposed on the Internet

An unknown attacker targeted tens of thousands of unauthenticated Redis servers exposed on the internet in an attempt to install a cryptocurrency miner. It's not immediately known if all of these hosts were successfully compromised. Nonetheless, it was made possible by means of a "lesser-known technique" designed to trick the servers into writing data to arbitrary files – a case of unauthorized

Russian Sandworm Hackers Impersonate Ukrainian Telecoms to Distribute Malware

A threat cluster linked to the Russian nation-state actor tracked as Sandworm has continued its targeting of Ukraine with commodity malware by masquerading as telecom providers, new findings show. Recorded Future said it discovered new infrastructure belonging to UAC-0113 that mimics operators like Datagroup and EuroTransTelecom to deliver payloads such as Colibri loader and Warzone RAT. The

U.S. Charges 3 Iranian Hackers and Sanctions Several Others Over Ransomware Attacks

The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on Wednesday announced sweeping sanctions against ten individuals and two entities backed by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) for their involvement in ransomware attacks at least since October 2020. The agency said the cyber activity mounted by the individuals is partially attributable to intrusion sets tracked

Lorenz Ransomware Exploit Mitel VoIP Systems to Breach Business Networks

The operators behind the Lornenz ransomware operation have been observed exploiting a now-patched critical security flaw in Mitel MiVoice Connect to obtain a foothold into target environments for follow-on malicious activities. "Initial malicious activity originated from a Mitel appliance sitting on the network perimeter," researchers from cybersecurity firm Arctic Wolf said in a report

How to Do Malware Analysis?

Based on the findings of Malwarebytes' Threat Review for 2022, 40 million Windows business computers' threats were detected in 2021. In order to combat and avoid these kinds of attacks, malware analysis is essential. In this article, we will break down the goal of malicious programs' investigation and how to do malware analysis with a sandbox. What is malware analysis?  Malware analysis is a

Researchers Detail OriginLogger RAT — Successor to Agent Tesla Malware

Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 has detailed the inner workings of a malware called OriginLogger, which has been touted as a successor to the widely used information stealer and remote access trojan (RAT) known as Agent Tesla. A .NET based keylogger and remote access, Agent Tesla has had a long-standing presence in the threat landscape, allowing malicious actors to gain remote access to targeted

Asian Governments and Organizations Targeted in Latest Cyber Espionage Attacks

Government and state-owned organizations in a number of Asian countries have been targeted by a distinct group of espionage hackers as part of an intelligence gathering mission that has been underway since early 2021. "A notable feature of these attacks is that the attackers leveraged a wide range of legitimate software packages in order to load their malware payloads using a technique known as 

High-Severity Firmware Security Flaws Left Unpatched in HP Enterprise Devices

A number of firmware security flaws uncovered in HP's business-oriented high-end notebooks continue to be left unpatched in some devices even months after public disclosure. Binarly, which first revealed details of the issues at the Black Hat USA conference in mid-August 2022, said the vulnerabilities "can't be detected by firmware integrity monitoring systems due to limitations of the Trusted

New Vulnerabilities Reported in Baxter's Internet-Connected Infusion Pumps

Multiple security vulnerabilities have been disclosed in Baxter's internet-connected infusion pumps used by healthcare professionals in clinical environments to dispense medication to patients. "Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities could result in access to sensitive data and alteration of system configuration," the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said in

Chinese Hackers Target Government Officials in Europe, South America, and Middle East

A Chinese hacking group has been attributed to a new campaign aimed at infecting government officials in Europe, the Middle East, and South America with a modular malware known as PlugX. Cybersecurity firm Secureworks said it identified the intrusions in June and July 2022, once again demonstrating the adversary's continued focus on espionage against governments around the world. "PlugX is

Shopify Fails to Prevent Known Breached Passwords

A recent report revealed that ecommerce provider, Shopify uses particularly weak password policies on the customer-facing portion of its Website. According to the report, Shopify's requires its customers to use a password that is at least five characters in length and that does not begin or end with a space.  According to the report, Specops researchers analyzed a list of a billion passwords

Microsoft Warns of Ransomware Attacks by Iranian Phosphorus Hacker Group

Microsoft's threat intelligence division on Wednesday assessed that a subgroup of the Iranian threat actor tracked as Phosphorus is conducting ransomware attacks as a "form of moonlighting" for personal gain. The tech giant, which is monitoring the activity cluster under the moniker DEV-0270 (aka Nemesis Kitten), said it's operated by a company that functions under the public aliases Secnerd and

Some Members of Conti Group Targeting Ukraine in Financially Motivated Attacks

Former members of the Conti cybercrime cartel have been implicated in five different campaigns targeting Ukraine from April to August 2022. The findings, which come from Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG), builds upon a prior report published in July 2022 detailing the continued cyber activity aimed at the Eastern European nation amid the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war. "UAC-0098 is a threat

New Stealthy Shikitega Malware Targeting Linux Systems and IoT Devices

A new piece of stealthy Linux malware called Shikitega has been uncovered adopting a multi-stage infection chain to compromise endpoints and IoT devices and deposit additional payloads. "An attacker can gain full control of the system, in addition to the cryptocurrency miner that will be executed and set to persist," AT&T Alien Labs said in a new report published Tuesday. The findings add to a

Mirai Variant MooBot Botnet Exploiting D-Link Router Vulnerabilities

A variant of the Mirai botnet known as MooBot is co-opting vulnerable D-Link devices into an army of denial-of-service bots by taking advantage of multiple exploits. "If the devices are compromised, they will be fully controlled by attackers, who could utilize those devices to conduct further attacks such as distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks," Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 said in a

Integrating Live Patching in SecDevOps Workflows

SecDevOps is, just like DevOps, a transformational change that organizations undergo at some point during their lifetime. Just like many other big changes, SecDevOps is commonly adopted after a reality check of some kind: a big damaging cybersecurity incident, for example. A major security breach or, say, consistent problems in achieving development goals signals to organizations that the

Researchers Find New Android Spyware Campaign Targeting Uyghur Community

A previously undocumented strain of Android spyware with extensive information gathering capabilities has been found disguised as a book likely designed to target the Uyghur community in China. The malware comes under the guise of a book titled "The China Freedom Trap," a biography written by the exiled Uyghur leader Dolkun Isa. <!--adsense--> "In light of the ongoing conflict between the

QNAP Warns of New DeadBolt Ransomware Attacks Exploiting Photo Station Flaw

QNAP has issued a new advisory urging users of its network-attached storage (NAS) devices to upgrade to the latest version of Photo Station following yet another wave of DeadBolt ransomware attacks in the wild by exploiting a zero-day flaw in the software. The Taiwanese company said it detected the attacks on September 3 and that "the campaign appears to target QNAP NAS devices running Photo

Fake Antivirus and Cleaner Apps Caught Installing SharkBot Android Banking Trojan

The notorious Android banking trojan known as SharkBot has once again made an appearance on the Google Play Store by masquerading as antivirus and cleaner apps. "This new dropper doesn't rely on Accessibility permissions to automatically perform the installation of the dropper Sharkbot malware," NCC Group's Fox-IT said in a report. "Instead, this new version asks the victim to install the

The Ultimate Security Blind Spot You Don't Know You Have

How much time do developers spend actually writing code? According to recent studies, developers spend more time maintaining, testing and securing existing code than they do writing or improving code. Security vulnerabilities have a bad habit of popping up during the software development process, only to surface after an application has been deployed. The disappointing part is that many of these

New Evidence Links Raspberry Robin Malware to Dridex and Russian Evil Corp Hackers

Researchers have identified functional similarities between a malicious component used in the Raspberry Robin infection chain and a Dridex malware loader, further strengthening the operators' connections to the Russia-based Evil Corp group. The findings suggest that "Evil Corp is likely using Raspberry Robin infrastructure to carry out its attacks," IBM Security X-Force researcher Kevin Henson