Trojanized Windows 10 Installer Used in Cyberattacks Against Ukrainian Government Entities

Government entities in Ukraine have been breached as part of a new campaign that leveraged trojanized versions of Windows 10 installer files to conduct post-exploitation activities. Mandiant, which discovered the "socially engineered supply chain" attack around mid-July 2022, said the malicious ISO files were distributed via Ukrainian- and Russian-language Torrent websites. It's tracking the

Hacking Using SVG Files to Smuggle QBot Malware onto Windows Systems

Phishing campaigns involving the Qakbot malware are using Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) images embedded in HTML email attachments. The new distribution method was spotted by Cisco Talos, which said it identified fraudulent email messages featuring HTML attachments with encoded SVG images that incorporate HTML script tags. HTML smuggling is a technique that relies on using legitimate features of

Researchers Demonstrate How EDR and Antivirus Can Be Weaponized Against Users

High-severity security vulnerabilities have been disclosed in different endpoint detection and response (EDR) and antivirus (AV) products that could be exploited to turn them into data wipers. "This wiper runs with the permissions of an unprivileged user yet has the ability to wipe almost any file on a system, including system files, and make a computer completely unbootable," SafeBreach Labs

Why is Robust API Security Crucial in eCommerce?

API attacks are on the rise. One of their major targets is eCommerce firms like yours.  APIs are a vital part of how eCommerce businesses are accelerating their growth in the digital world.  ECommerce platforms use APIs at all customer touchpoints, from displaying products to handling shipping. Owing to their increased use, APIs are attractive targets for hackers, as the following numbers expose

How XDR Helps Protect Critical Infrastructure

Critical infrastructure is important for societal existence, growth, and development. Societies are reliant on the services provided by critical infrastructure sectors like telecommunication, energy, healthcare, transportation, and information technology. Safety and security are necessary for the optimal operation of these critical infrastructures. Critical infrastructure is made up of digital

Chinese Hackers Using Russo-Ukrainian War Decoys to Target APAC and European Entities

The China-linked nation-state hacking group referred to as Mustang Panda is using lures related to the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War to attack entities in Europe and the Asia Pacific. That's according to the BlackBerry Research and Intelligence Team, which analyzed a RAR archive file titled "Political Guidance for the new EU approach towards Russia.rar." Some of the targeted countries include

Microsoft Alerts Cryptocurrency Industry of Targeted Cyberattacks

Cryptocurrency investment companies are the target of a developing threat cluster that uses Telegram groups to seek out potential victims. Microsoft's Security Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) is tracking the activity under the name DEV-0139, and builds upon a recent report from Volexity that attributed the same set of attacks to North Korea's Lazarus Group. "DEV-0139 joined Telegram groups

North Korean Hackers Spread AppleJeus Malware Disguised as Cryptocurrency Apps

The Lazarus Group threat actor has been observed leveraging fake cryptocurrency apps as a lure to deliver a previously undocumented version of the AppleJeus malware, according to new findings from Volexity. "This activity notably involves a campaign likely targeting cryptocurrency users and organizations with a variant of the AppleJeus malware by way of malicious Microsoft Office documents,"

CISA Warns of Actively Exploited Critical Oracle Fusion Middleware Vulnerability

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Monday added a critical flaw impacting Oracle Fusion Middleware to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) Catalog, citing evidence of active exploitation. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2021-35587, carries a CVSS score of 9.8 and impacts Oracle Access Manager (OAM) versions 11.1.2.3.0, 12.2.1.3.0, and 12.2.1.4.0. <!--

Elon Musk Confirms Twitter 2.0 will Bring End-to-End Encryption to Direct Messages

Twitter chief executive Elon Musk confirmed plans for end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for direct messages on the platform. The feature is part of Musk's vision for Twitter 2.0, which is expected to be what's called an "everything app." Other functionalities include longform tweets and payments, according to a slide deck shared by Musk over the weekend. <!--adsense--> The company's plans for

Russia-based RansomBoggs Ransomware Targeted Several Ukrainian Organizations

Ukraine has come under a fresh onslaught of ransomware attacks that mirror previous intrusions attributed to the Russia-based Sandworm nation-state group. Slovak cybersecurity company ESET, which dubbed the new ransomware strain RansomBoggs, said the attacks against several Ukrainian entities were first detected on November 21, 2022. "While the malware written in .NET is new, its deployment is

New RansomExx Ransomware Variant Rewritten in the Rust Programming Language

The operators of the RansomExx ransomware have become the latest to develop a new variant fully rewritten in the Rust programming language, following other strains like BlackCat, Hive, and Luna. The latest version, dubbed RansomExx2 by the threat actor known as Hive0091 (aka DefrayX), is primarily designed to run on the Linux operating system, although it's expected that a Windows version will

Google Wins Lawsuit Against Russians Linked to Blockchain-based Glupteba Botnet

Google has won a lawsuit filed against two Russian nationals in connection with the operation of a botnet called Glupteba, the company said last week. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York imposed monetary sanctions against the defendants and their U.S.-based legal counsel. The defendants have also been asked to pay Google's attorney fees. The defendants' move to press

Chinese 'Mustang Panda' Hackers Actively Targeting Governments Worldwide

A notorious advanced persistent threat actor known as Mustang Panda has been linked to a spate of spear-phishing attacks targeting government, education, and research sectors across the world. The primary targets of the intrusions from May to October 2022 included counties in the Asia Pacific region such as Myanmar, Australia, the Philippines, Japan, and Taiwan, cybersecurity firm Trend Micro 

New Updates for ESET's Advanced Home Solutions

It's no secret that antivirus software is as essential to your computer as a power cord. However, the threats don't stop at your devices. For example, criminals trying to steal your data can attack your Wi-Fi router, and phishing attempts can target your email.  ESET's latest consumer product release takes a comprehensive approach to security to guard against a full range of threats. All are

Microsoft Blames Russian Hackers for Prestige Ransomware Attacks on Ukraine and Poland

Microsoft on Thursday attributed the recent spate of ransomware incidents targeting transportation and logistics sectors in Ukraine and Poland to a threat cluster that shares overlaps with the Russian state-sponsored Sandworm group. The attacks, which were disclosed by the tech giant last month, involved a strain of previously undocumented malware called Prestige and is said to have taken place

APT29 Exploited a Windows Feature to Compromise European Diplomatic Entity Network

The Russia-linked APT29 nation-state actor has been found leveraging a "lesser-known" Windows feature called Credential Roaming following a successful phishing attack against an unnamed European diplomatic entity. "The diplomatic-centric targeting is consistent with Russian strategic priorities as well as historic APT29 targeting," Mandiant researcher Thibault Van Geluwe de Berlaere said in a

Top 5 API Security Myths That Are Crushing Your Business

There are several myths and misconceptions about API security. These myths about securing APIs are crushing your business.  Why so? Because these myths are widening your security gaps. This is making it easier for attackers to abuse APIs. And API attacks are costly. Of course, you will have to bear financial losses. But there are other consequences too:  Reputational damage  Customer attrition

Last Years Open Source - Tomorrow's Vulnerabilities

Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux and Git, has his own law in software development, and it goes like this: "given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow." This phrase puts the finger on the very principle of open source: the more, the merrier - if the code is easily available for anyone and everyone to fix bugs, it's pretty safe. But is it? Or is the saying "all bugs are shallow" only true for

Australian Health Insurer Medibank Suffers Breach Exposing 3.9 Million Customers' Data

Australian health insurance firm Medibank on Wednesday disclosed that the personal information of all of its customers had been unauthorizedly accessed following a recent ransomware attack. In an update to its ongoing investigation into the incident, the firm said the attackers had access to "significant amounts of health claims data" as well as personal data belonging to its ahm health

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

A Quick Look at the "Strengthening America's Cybersecurity" Initiative

Acknowledging that you have a problem is the first step to addressing the problem in a serious way. This seems to be the reasoning for the White House recently announcing its "Strengthening America's Cybersecurity" initiative. The text of the announcement contains several statements that anyone who's ever read about cybersecurity will have heard many times over: increasing resilience, greater

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

Brazilian Police Arrest Suspected Member of Lapsus$ Hacking Group

The Federal Police of Brazil on Wednesday announced it had arrested an individual for purported links to the notorious LAPSUS$ extortionist gang. The arrest was made as part of a new law enforcement effort, dubbed Operation Dark Cloud, that was launched in August 2022, the agency noted. Not much is known about the suspect other than the fact that the person could be a teenager. The Polícia

Critical Bug in Siemens SIMATIC PLCs Could Let Attackers Steal Cryptographic Keys

A vulnerability in Siemens Simatic programmable logic controller (PLC) can be exploited to retrieve the hard-coded, global private cryptographic keys and seize control of the devices. "An attacker can use these keys to perform multiple advanced attacks against Siemens SIMATIC devices and the related TIA Portal, while bypassing all four of its access level protections," industrial cybersecurity

19-Year-Old Teen Arrested for Using Leaked Optus Breach Data in SMS Scam

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) has arrested a 19-year-old teen from Sydney for allegedly attempting to leverage the data leaked following the Optus data breach late last month to extort victims. The suspect is said to have carried out a text message blackmail scam, demanding that the recipients transfer $2,000 to a bank account or risk getting their personal information misused for

Telstra Telecom Suffers Data Breach Potentially Exposing Employee Information

Australia's largest telecommunications company Telstra disclosed that it was the victim of a data breach through a third-party, nearly two weeks after Optus reported a breach of its own. "There has been no breach of Telstra's systems," Narelle Devine, the company's chief information security officer for the Asia Pacific region, said. "And no customer account data was involved." <!--adsense--> It

Russian Hacker Arrested in India for Reportedly Helping Students Cheat in JEE-Main Exam

India's Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Monday disclosed that it has detained a Russian national for allegedly hacking into a software platform used to conduct engineering entrance assessments in the country in 2021. "The said accused was detained by the Bureau of Immigration at Indira Gandhi International Airport, Delhi while arriving in India from Almaty, Kazakhstan," the primary

Popular YouTube Channel Caught Distributing Malicious Tor Browser Installer

A popular Chinese-language YouTube channel has emerged as a means to distribute a trojanized version of a Windows installer for the Tor Browser. Kaspersky dubbed the campaign OnionPoison, with all of the victims located in China. The scale of the attack remains unclear, but the Russian cybersecurity company said it detected victims appearing in its telemetry in March 2022. The malicious version

BEC Scammer Gets 25-Year Jail Sentence for Stealing Over $9.5 Million

A 46-year-old man in the U.S. has been sentenced to 25 years in prison after being found guilty of laundering over $9.5 million accrued by carrying out cyber-enabled financial fraud. Elvis Eghosa Ogiekpolor of Norcross, Georgia, operated a money laundering network that opened at least 50 business bank accounts for illicitly receiving funds from unsuspecting individuals and businesses after

Optus Hack Exposes Data of Nearly 2.1 Million Australian Telecom Customers

Australian telecom giant Optus on Monday confirmed that nearly 2.1 million of its current and former customers suffered a leak of their personal information and at least one form of identification number as a result of a data breach late last month. The company also said it has engaged the services of Deloitte to conduct an external forensic assessment of the attack to "understand how it

Hackers Using PowerPoint Mouseover Trick to Infect Systems with Malware

The Russian state-sponsored threat actor known as APT28 has been found leveraging a new code execution method that makes use of mouse movement in decoy Microsoft PowerPoint documents to deploy malware. The technique "is designed to be triggered when the user starts the presentation mode and moves the mouse," cybersecurity firm Cluster25 said in a technical report. "The code execution runs a

Facebook Shuts Down Covert Political 'Influence Operations' from Russia and China

Meta Platforms on Tuesday disclosed it took steps to dismantle two covert influence operations originating from China and Russia for engaging in coordinated inauthentic behavior (CIB) so as to manipulate public debate. While the Chinese operation sets its sights on the U.S. and the Czech Republic, the Russian network primarily targeted Germany, France, Italy, Ukraine and the U.K. with themes

Ukraine Says Russia Planning Massive Cyberattacks on its Critical Infrastructures

The Ukrainian government on Monday warned of "massive cyberattacks" by Russia targeting critical infrastructure facilities located in the country and that of its allies. The attacks are said to be targeting the energy sector, the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine (GUR) said. "By the cyberattacks, the enemy will try to increase the effect of missile strikes on

North Korea's Lazarus Hackers Targeting macOS Users Interested in Crypto Jobs

The infamous Lazarus Group has continued its pattern of leveraging unsolicited job opportunities to deploy malware targeting Apple's macOS operating system. In the latest variant of the campaign observed by cybersecurity company SentinelOne last week, decoy documents advertising positions for the Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange firm Crypto[.]com have been used to mount the attacks. The

Hacker Behind Optus Breach Releases 10,200 Customer Records in Extortion Scheme

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) on Monday disclosed it's working to gather "crucial evidence" and that it's collaborating with overseas law enforcement authorities following the hack of telecom provider Optus. "Operation Hurricane has been launched to identify the criminals behind the alleged breach and to help shield Australians from identity fraud," the AFP said in a statement. The

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

Void Balaur Hackers-for-Hire Targeting Russian Businesses and Politics Entities

A hack-for-hire group that was first exposed in 2019 has expanded its focus to set its sights on entities with business or political ties to Russia. Dubbed Void Balaur, the cyber mercenary collective has a history of launching cyberattacks against biotechnology and telecom companies since 2015. As many as 3,500 victims have been reported as of November 2021. "Void Balaur [...] primarily dabbles

Why Zero Trust Should be the Foundation of Your Cybersecurity Ecosystem

For cybersecurity professionals, it is a huge challenge to separate the “good guys” from the “villains”. In the past, most cyberattacks could simply be traced to external cybercriminals, cyberterrorists, or rogue nation-states. But not anymore. Threats from within organizations – also known as “insider threats” – are increasing and cybersecurity practitioners are feeling the pain.  Traditional

Critical Remote Hack Flaws Found in Dataprobe's Power Distribution Units

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Tuesday released an industrial control systems (ICS) advisory warning of seven security flaws in Dataprobe's iBoot-PDU power distribution unit product, mostly used in industrial environments and data centers. "Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities could lead to unauthenticated remote code execution on the Dataprobe

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

Uber Blames LAPSUS$ Hacking Group for Recent Security Breach

Uber on Monday disclosed more details related to the security incident that happened last week, pinning the attack on a threat actor it believes is affiliated to the notorious LAPSUS$ hacking group. "This group typically uses similar techniques to target technology companies, and in 2022 alone has breached Microsoft, Cisco, Samsung, NVIDIA, and Okta, among others," the San Francisco-based

6 Top API Security Risks! Favored Targets for Attackers If Left Unmanaged

Security threats are always a concern when it comes to APIs. API security can be compared to driving a car. You must be cautious and review everything closely before releasing it into the world. By failing to do so, you're putting yourself and others at risk. API attacks are more dangerous than other breaches. Facebook had a 50M user account affected by an API breach, and an API data breach on

North Korean Lazarus Hackers Targeting Energy Providers Around the World

A malicious campaign mounted by the North Korea-linked Lazarus Group targeted energy providers around the world, including those based in the United States, Canada, and Japan, between February and July 2022. “The campaign is meant to infiltrate organizations around the world for establishing long-term access and subsequently exfiltrating data of interest to the adversary’s nation-state,” Cisco

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

North Korean Hackers Deploying New MagicRAT Malware in Targeted Campaigns

The prolific North Korean nation-state actor known as the Lazarus Group has been linked to a new remote access trojan called MagicRAT. The previously unknown piece of malware is said to have been deployed in victim networks that had been initially breached via successful exploitation of internet-facing VMware Horizon servers, Cisco Talos said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "While being

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 

FBI Warns Investors to Take Precautions with Decentralized Financial Platforms

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Monday warned of cyber criminals increasingly exploiting flaws in decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms to plunder cryptocurrency. "The FBI has observed cyber criminals exploiting vulnerabilities in the smart contracts governing DeFi platforms to steal investors' cryptocurrency," the agency said in a notification. Attackers are said to have used

North Korea Hackers Spotted Targeting Job Seekers with macOS Malware

The North Korea-backed Lazarus Group has been observed targeting job seekers with malware capable of executing on Apple Macs with Intel and M1 chipsets. Slovak cybersecurity firm ESET linked it to a campaign dubbed "Operation In(ter)ception" that was first disclosed in June 2020 and involved using social engineering tactics to trick employees working in the aerospace and military sectors into

Russian State Hackers Continue to Attack Ukrainian Entities with Infostealer Malware

Russian state-sponsored actors are continuing to strike Ukrainian entities with information-stealing malware as part of what's suspected to be an espionage operation. Symantec, a division of Broadcom Software, attributed the malicious campaign to a threat actor tracked Shuckworm, also known as Actinium, Armageddon, Gamaredon, Primitive Bear, and Trident Ursa. The findings have been corroborated 

The Business of Hackers-for-Hire Threat Actors

Today's web has made hackers' tasks remarkably easy. For the most part, hackers don't even have to hide in the dark recesses of the web to take advantage of people any longer; they can be found right in plain sight on social media sites or forums, professionally advertised with their websites, and may even approach you anonymously through such channels as Twitter. Cybercrime has entered a new

VirusTotal Reveals Most Impersonated Software in Malware Attacks

Threat actors are increasingly mimicking legitimate applications like Skype, Adobe Reader, and VLC Player as a means to abuse trust relationships and increase the likelihood of a successful social engineering attack. Other most impersonated legitimate apps by icon include 7-Zip, TeamViewer, CCleaner, Microsoft Edge, Steam, Zoom, and WhatsApp, an analysis from VirusTotal has revealed. "One of the

Chinese Hackers Using New Manjusaka Hacking Framework Similar to Cobalt Strike

Researchers have disclosed a new offensive framework referred to as Manjusaka that they call is a "Chinese sibling of Sliver and Cobalt Strike." "A fully functional version of the command-and-control (C2), written in Golang with a User Interface in Simplified Chinese, is freely available and can generate new implants with custom configurations with ease, increasing the likelihood of wider

Microsoft Links Raspberry Robin USB Worm to Russian Evil Corp Hackers

Microsoft on Friday disclosed a potential connection between the Raspberry Robin USB-based worm and an infamous Russian cybercrime group tracked as Evil Corp. The tech giant said it observed the FakeUpdates (aka SocGholish) malware being delivered via existing Raspberry Robin infections on July 26, 2022. Raspberry Robin, also called QNAP Worm, is known to spread from a compromised system via

Researchers Warn of Increase in Phishing Attacks Using Decentralized IPFS Network

The decentralized file system solution known as IPFS is becoming the new "hotbed" for hosting phishing sites, researchers have warned. Cybersecurity firm Trustwave SpiderLabs, which disclosed specifics of the spam campaigns, said it identified no less than 3,000 emails containing IPFS phishing URLs as an attack vector in the last three months. IPFS, short for InterPlanetary File System, is a

Ukrainian Radio Stations Hacked to Broadcast Fake News About Zelenskyy's Health

Ukrainian radio operator TAVR Media on Thursday became the latest victim of a cyberattack, resulting in the broadcast of a fake message that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was seriously ill. "Cybercriminals spread information that the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is allegedly in intensive care, and his duties are performed by the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada, Ruslan Stefanchuk,"

New Rust-based Ransomware Family Targets Windows, Linux, and ESXi Systems

Kaspersky security researchers have disclosed details of a brand-new ransomware family written in Rust, making it the third strain after BlackCat and Hive to use the programming language. Luna, as it's called, is "fairly simple" and can run on Windows, Linux, and ESXi systems, with the malware banking on a combination of Curve25519 and AES for encryption. <!--adsense--> "Both the Linux and ESXi

Russian Hackers Tricked Ukrainians with Fake "DoS Android Apps to Target Russia"

Russian threat actors capitalized on the ongoing conflict against Ukraine to distribute Android malware camouflaged as an app for pro-Ukrainian hacktivists to launch distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against Russian sites. Google Threat Analysis Group (TAG) attributed the malware to Turla, an advanced persistent threat also known as Krypton, Venomous Bear, Waterbug, and Uroburos, and

Pegasus Spyware Used to Hack Devices of Pro-Democracy Activists in Thailand

Thai activists involved in the country's pro-democracy protests have had their smartphones infected with NSO Group's infamous Pegasus government-sponsored spyware. At least 30 individuals, spanning activists, academics, lawyers, and NGO workers, are believed to have been targeted between October 2020 and November 2021, many of whom have been previously detained, arrested and imprisoned for their

Microsoft Warns of Large-Scale AiTM Phishing Attacks Against Over 10,000 Organizations

Microsoft on Tuesday disclosed that a large-scale phishing campaign targeted over 10,000 organizations since September 2021 by hijacking Office 365's authentication process even on accounts secured with multi-factor authentication (MFA). "The attackers then used the stolen credentials and session cookies to access affected users' mailboxes and perform follow-on business email compromise (BEC)