New SkidMap Linux Malware Variant Targeting Vulnerable Redis Servers

Vulnerable Redis services have been targeted by a "new, improved, dangerous" variant of a malware called SkidMap that's engineered to target a wide range of Linux distributions. "The malicious nature of this malware is to adapt to the system on which it is executed," Trustwave security researcher Radoslaw Zdonczyk said in an analysis published last week. Some of the Linux distribution SkidMap

NYC Couple Pleads Guilty to Money Laundering in $3.6 Billion Bitfinex Hack

A married couple from New York City has pleaded guilty to money laundering charges in connection with the 2016 hack of cryptocurrency stock exchange Bitfinex, resulting in the theft of about 120,000 bitcoin. The development comes more than a year after Ilya Lichtenstein, 35, and his wife, Heather Morgan, 33, were arrested in February 2022, following the seizure of roughly 95,000 of the stolen

China's APT31 Suspected in Attacks on Air-Gapped Systems in Eastern Europe

A nation-state actor with links to China is suspected of being behind a series of attacks against industrial organizations in Eastern Europe that took place last year to siphon data stored on air-gapped systems. Cybersecurity company Kaspersky attributed the intrusions with medium to high confidence to a hacking crew called APT31, which is also tracked under the monikers Bronze Vinewood,

Hackers Deploy "SUBMARINE" Backdoor in Barracuda Email Security Gateway Attacks

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Friday disclosed details of a "novel persistent backdoor" called SUBMARINE deployed by threat actors in connection with the hack on Barracuda Email Security Gateway (ESG) appliances. "SUBMARINE comprises multiple artifacts — including a SQL trigger, shell scripts, and a loaded library for a Linux daemon — that together enable

Hackers Target Apache Tomcat Servers for Mirai Botnet and Crypto Mining

Misconfigured and poorly secured Apache Tomcat servers are being targeted as part of a new campaign designed to deliver the Mirai botnet malware and cryptocurrency miners. The findings come courtesy of Aqua, which detected more than 800 attacks against its Tomcat server honeypots over a two-year time period, with 96% of the attacks linked to the Mirai botnet. Of these attack attempts, 20% (or

Decoy Dog: New Breed of Malware Posing Serious Threats to Enterprise Networks

A deeper analysis of a recently discovered malware called Decoy Dog has revealed that it's a significant upgrade over the Pupy RAT, an open-source remote access trojan it's modeled on. "Decoy Dog has a full suite of powerful, previously unknown capabilities – including the ability to move victims to another controller, allowing them to maintain communication with compromised machines and remain

North Korean State-Sponsored Hackers Suspected in JumpCloud Supply Chain Attack

An analysis of the indicators of compromise (IoCs) associated with the JumpCloud hack has uncovered evidence pointing to the involvement of North Korean state-sponsored groups, in a style that's reminiscent of the supply chain attack targeting 3CX. The findings come from SentinelOne, which mapped out the infrastructure pertaining to the intrusion to uncover underlying patterns. It's worth noting

WormGPT: New AI Tool Allows Cybercriminals to Launch Sophisticated Cyber Attacks

With generative artificial intelligence (AI) becoming all the rage these days, it's perhaps not surprising that the technology has been repurposed by malicious actors to their own advantage, enabling avenues for accelerated cybercrime. According to findings from SlashNext, a new generative AI cybercrime tool called WormGPT has been advertised on underground forums as a way for adversaries to

Zimbra Warns of Critical Zero-Day Flaw in Email Software Amid Active Exploitation

Zimbra has warned of a critical zero-day security flaw in its email software that has come under active exploitation in the wild. "A security vulnerability in Zimbra Collaboration Suite Version 8.8.15 that could potentially impact the confidentiality and integrity of your data has surfaced," the company said in an advisory. It also said that the issue has been addressed and that it's expected to

Ransomware Extortion Skyrockets in 2023, Reaching $449.1 Million and Counting

Ransomware has emerged as the only cryptocurrency-based crime to grow in 2023, with cybercriminals extorting nearly $175.8 million more than they did a year ago, according to findings from Chainalysis. "Ransomware attackers are on pace for their second-biggest year ever, having extorted at least $449.1 million through June," the blockchain analytics firm said in a midyear crypto crime report

Cybercriminals Hijacking Vulnerable SSH Servers in New Proxyjacking Campaign

An active financially motivated campaign is targeting vulnerable SSH servers to covertly ensnare them into a proxy network. "This is an active campaign in which the attacker leverages SSH for remote access, running malicious scripts that stealthily enlist victim servers into a peer-to-peer (P2P) proxy network, such as Peer2Profit or Honeygain," Akamai researcher Allen West said in a Thursday

New Ongoing Campaign Targets npm Ecosystem with Unique Execution Chain

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new ongoing campaign aimed at the npm ecosystem that leverages a unique execution chain to deliver an unknown payload to targeted systems. "The packages in question seem to be published in pairs, each pair working in unison to fetch additional resources which are subsequently decoded and/or executed," software supply chain security firm Phylum said in

How Generative AI Can Dupe SaaS Authentication Protocols — And Effective Ways To Prevent Other Key AI Risks in SaaS

Security and IT teams are routinely forced to adopt software before fully understanding the security risks. And AI tools are no exception. Employees and business leaders alike are flocking to generative AI software and similar programs, often unaware of the major SaaS security vulnerabilities they're introducing into the enterprise. A February 2023 generative AI survey of 1,000 executives 

Over 100,000 Stolen ChatGPT Account Credentials Sold on Dark Web Marketplaces

Over 101,100 compromised OpenAI ChatGPT account credentials have found their way on illicit dark web marketplaces between June 2022 and May 2023, with India alone accounting for 12,632 stolen credentials. The credentials were discovered within information stealer logs made available for sale on the cybercrime underground, Group-IB said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "The number of

Adversary-in-the-Middle Attack Campaign Hits Dozens of Global Organizations

"Dozens" of organizations across the world have been targeted as part of a broad business email compromise (BEC) campaign that involved the use of adversary-in-the-middle (AitM) techniques to carry out the attacks. "Following a successful phishing attempt, the threat actor gained initial access to one of the victim employee's account and executed an 'adversary-in-the-middle' attack to bypass

Microsoft Uncovers Banking AitM Phishing and BEC Attacks Targeting Financial Giants

Banking and financial services organizations are the targets of a new multi-stage adversary-in-the-middle (AitM) phishing and business email compromise (BEC) attack, Microsoft has revealed. "The attack originated from a compromised trusted vendor and transitioned into a series of AiTM attacks and follow-on BEC activity spanning multiple organizations," the tech giant disclosed in a Thursday

Barracuda Urges Immediate Replacement of Hacked ESG Appliances

Enterprise security company Barracuda is now urging customers who were impacted by a recently disclosed zero-day flaw in its Email Security Gateway (ESG) appliances to immediately replace them. "Impacted ESG appliances must be immediately replaced regardless of patch version level," the company said in an update, adding its "remediation recommendation at this time is full replacement of the

Cloud Security Tops Concerns for Cybersecurity Leaders: EC-Council's Certified CISO Hall of Fame Report 2023

A survey of global cybersecurity leaders through the 2023 Certified CISO Hall of Fame Report commissioned by the EC-Council identified 4 primary areas of grave concern: cloud security, data security, security governance, and lack of cybersecurity talent. EC-Council, the global leader in cybersecurity education and training, released its Certified Chief Information Security Officer Hall of Fame

Active Mirai Botnet Variant Exploiting Zyxel Devices for DDoS Attacks

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has added a recently patched critical security flaw in Zyxel gear to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, citing evidence of active exploitation. Tracked as CVE-2023-28771 (CVSS score: 9.8), the issue relates to a command injection flaw impacting different firewall models that could enable an unauthenticated attacker

Don't Click That ZIP File! Phishers Weaponizing .ZIP Domains to Trick Victims

A new phishing technique called "file archiver in the browser" can be leveraged to "emulate" a file archiver software in a web browser when a victim visits a .ZIP domain. "With this phishing attack, you simulate a file archiver software (e.g., WinRAR) in the browser and use a .zip domain to make it appear more legitimate," security researcher mr.d0x disclosed last week. Threat actors, in a

Barracuda Warns of Zero-Day Exploited to Breach Email Security Gateway Appliances

Email protection and network security services provider Barracuda is warning users about a zero-day flaw that it said has been exploited to breach the company's Email Security Gateway (ESG) appliances. The zero-day is being tracked as CVE-2023-2868 and has been described as a remote code injection vulnerability affecting versions 5.1.3.001 through 9.2.0.006. The California-headquartered firm 

GUAC 0.1 Beta: Google's Breakthrough Framework for Secure Software Supply Chains

Google on Wednesday announced the 0.1 Beta version of GUAC (short for Graph for Understanding Artifact Composition) for organizations to secure their software supply chains. To that end, the search giant is making available the open source framework as an API for developers to integrate their own tools and policy engines. GUAC aims to aggregate software security metadata from different sources

PyPI Repository Under Attack: User Sign-Ups and Package Uploads Temporarily Halted

The maintainers of Python Package Index (PyPI), the official third-party software repository for the Python programming language, have temporarily disabled the ability for users to sign up and upload new packages until further notice. "The volume of malicious users and malicious projects being created on the index in the past week has outpaced our ability to respond to it in a timely fashion,

Developer Alert: NPM Packages for Node.js Hiding Dangerous TurkoRat Malware

Two malicious packages discovered in the npm package repository have been found to conceal an open source information stealer malware called TurkoRat. The packages – named nodejs-encrypt-agent and nodejs-cookie-proxy-agent – were collectively downloaded approximately 1,200 times and were available for more than two months before they were identified and taken down. ReversingLabs, which broke

Searching for AI Tools? Watch Out for Rogue Sites Distributing RedLine Malware

Malicious Google Search ads for generative AI services like OpenAI ChatGPT and Midjourney are being used to direct users to sketchy websites as part of a BATLOADER campaign designed to deliver RedLine Stealer malware. "Both AI services are extremely popular but lack first-party standalone apps (i.e., users interface with ChatGPT via their web interface while Midjourney uses Discord)," eSentire

This Cybercrime Syndicate Pre-Infected Over 8.9 Million Android Phones Worldwide

A cybercrime enterprise known as Lemon Group is leveraging millions of pre-infected Android smartphones worldwide to carry out their malicious operations, posing significant supply chain risks. "The infection turns these devices into mobile proxies, tools for stealing and selling SMS messages, social media and online messaging accounts and monetization via advertisements and click fraud,"

New Phishing-as-a-Service Platform Lets Cybercriminals Generate Convincing Phishing Pages

A new phishing-as-a-service (PhaaS or PaaS) platform named Greatness has been leveraged by cybercriminals to target business users of the Microsoft 365 cloud service since at least mid-2022, effectively lowering the bar to entry for phishing attacks. "Greatness, for now, is only focused on Microsoft 365 phishing pages, providing its affiliates with an attachment and link builder that creates

New APT Group Red Stinger Targets Military and Critical Infrastructure in Eastern Europe

A previously undetected advanced persistent threat (APT) actor dubbed Red Stinger has been linked to attacks targeting Eastern Europe since 2020. "Military, transportation, and critical infrastructure were some of the entities being targeted, as well as some involved in the September East Ukraine referendums," Malwarebytes disclosed in a report published today. "Depending on the campaign,

Why Honeytokens Are the Future of Intrusion Detection

A few weeks ago, the 32nd edition of RSA, one of the world's largest cybersecurity conferences, wrapped up in San Francisco. Among the highlights, Kevin Mandia, CEO of Mandiant at Google Cloud, presented a retrospective on the state of cybersecurity. During his keynote, Mandia stated: "There are clear steps organizations can take beyond common safeguards and security tools to strengthen their

MSI Data Breach: Private Code Signing Keys Leaked on the Dark Web

The threat actors behind the ransomware attack on Taiwanese PC maker MSI last month have leaked the company's private code signing keys on their dark website. "Confirmed, Intel OEM private key leaked, causing an impact on the entire ecosystem," Alex Matrosov, founder and CEO of firmware security firm Binarly, said in a tweet over the weekend. "It appears that Intel Boot Guard may not be

CERT-UA Warns of SmokeLoader and RoarBAT Malware Attacks Against Ukraine

An ongoing phishing campaign with invoice-themed lures is being used to distribute the SmokeLoader malware in the form of a polyglot file, according to the Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA). The emails, per the agency, are sent using compromised accounts and come with a ZIP archive that, in reality, is a polyglot file containing a decoy document and a JavaScript file. The

Packagist Repository Hacked: Over a Dozen PHP Packages with 500 Million Installs Compromised

PHP software package repository Packagist revealed that an "attacker" gained access to four inactive accounts on the platform to hijack over a dozen packages with over 500 million installs to date. "The attacker forked each of the packages and replaced the package description in composer.json with their own message but did not otherwise make any malicious changes," Packagist's Nils Adermann said

Meta Takes Down Malware Campaign That Used ChatGPT as a Lure to Steal Accounts

Meta said it took steps to take down more than 1,000 malicious URLs from being shared across its services that were found to leverage OpenAI's ChatGPT as a lure to propagate about 10 malware families since March 2023. The development comes against the backdrop of fake ChatGPT web browser extensions being increasingly used to steal users' Facebook account credentials with an aim to run

Apple and Google Join Forces to Stop Unauthorized Location-Tracking Devices

Apple and Google have teamed up to work on a draft industry-wide specification that's designed to tackle safety risks and alert users when they are being tracked without their knowledge or permission using devices like AirTags. "The first-of-its-kind specification will allow Bluetooth location-tracking devices to be compatible with unauthorized tracking detection and alerts across Android and

ChatGPT is Back in Italy After Addressing Data Privacy Concerns

OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, has officially made a return to Italy after the company met the data protection authority's demands ahead of April 30, 2023, deadline. The development was first reported by the Associated Press. OpenAI's CEO, Sam Altman, tweeted, "we're excited ChatGPT is available in [Italy] again!" The reinstatement comes following Garante's decision to temporarily block 

Microsoft Confirms PaperCut Servers Used to Deliver LockBit and Cl0p Ransomware

Microsoft has confirmed that the active exploitation of PaperCut servers is linked to attacks that are designed to deliver Cl0p and LockBit ransomware families. The tech giant's threat intelligence team is attributing a subset of the intrusions to a financially motivated actor it tracks under the name Lace Tempest (formerly DEV-0950), which overlaps with other hacking groups like FIN11, TA505,

Google Cloud Introduces Security AI Workbench for Faster Threat Detection and Analysis

Google's cloud division is following in the footsteps of Microsoft with the launch of Security AI Workbench that leverages generative AI models to gain better visibility into the threat landscape.  Powering the cybersecurity suite is Sec-PaLM, a specialized large language model (LLM) that's "fine-tuned for security use cases." The idea is to take advantage of the latest advances in AI to augment

N.K. Hackers Employ Matryoshka Doll-Style Cascading Supply Chain Attack on 3CX

The supply chain attack targeting 3CX was the result of a prior supply chain compromise associated with a different company, demonstrating a new level of sophistication with North Korean threat actors. Google-owned Mandiant, which is tracking the attack event under the moniker UNC4736, said the incident marks the first time it has seen a "software supply chain attack lead to another software

Lazarus Group Adds Linux Malware to Arsenal in Operation Dream Job

The notorious North Korea-aligned state-sponsored actor known as the Lazarus Group has been attributed to a new campaign aimed at Linux users. The attacks are part of a persistent and long-running activity tracked under the name Operation Dream Job, ESET said in a new report published today. The findings are crucial, not least because it marks the first publicly documented example of the

Google TAG Warns of Russian Hackers Conducting Phishing Attacks in Ukraine

Elite hackers associated with Russia's military intelligence service have been linked to large-volume phishing campaigns aimed at hundreds of users in Ukraine to extract intelligence and influence public discourse related to the war. Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG), which is monitoring the activities of the actor under the name FROZENLAKE, said the attacks continue the "group's 2022 focus

Cryptocurrency Stealer Malware Distributed via 13 NuGet Packages

Cybersecurity researchers have detailed the inner workings of the cryptocurrency stealer malware that was distributed via 13 malicious NuGet packages as part of a supply chain attack targeting .NET developers. The sophisticated typosquatting campaign, which was uncovered by JFrog late last month, impersonated legitimate packages to execute PowerShell code designed to retrieve a follow-on binary

Cryptocurrency Companies Targeted in Sophisticated 3CX Supply Chain Attack

The adversary behind the supply chain attack targeting 3CX deployed a second-stage implant specifically singling out a small number of cryptocurrency companies. Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky, which has been internally tracking the versatile backdoor under the name Gopuram since 2020, said it observed an increase in the number of infections in March 2023 coinciding with the 3CX breach.

Italian Watchdog Bans OpenAI's ChatGPT Over Data Protection Concerns

The Italian data protection watchdog, Garante per la Protezione dei Dati Personali (aka Garante), has imposed a temporary ban of OpenAI's ChatGPT service in the country, citing data protection concerns. To that end, it has ordered the company to stop processing users' data with immediate effect, stating it intends to investigate the company over whether it's unlawfully processing such data in

Winter Vivern APT Targets European Government Entities with Zimbra Vulnerability

The advanced persistent threat (APT) actor known as Winter Vivern is now targeting officials in Europe and the U.S. as part of an ongoing cyber espionage campaign. "TA473 since at least February 2023 has continuously leveraged an unpatched Zimbra vulnerability in publicly facing webmail portals that allows them to gain access to the email mailboxes of government entities in Europe," Proofpoint 

Cyber Police of Ukraine Busted Phishing Gang Responsible for $4.33 Million Scam

The Cyber Police of Ukraine, in collaboration with law enforcement officials from Czechia, has arrested several members of a cybercriminal gang that set up phishing sites to target European users. Two of the apprehended affiliates are believed to be organizers, with 10 others detained in other territories across the European Union. The suspects are alleged to have created more than 100 phishing

3CX Supply Chain Attack — Here's What We Know So Far

Enterprise communications software maker 3CX on Thursday confirmed that multiple versions of its desktop app for Windows and macOS are affected by a supply chain attack. The version numbers include 18.12.407 and 18.12.416 for Windows and 18.11.1213, 18.12.402, 18.12.407, and 18.12.416 for macOS. The issue has been assigned the CVE identifier CVE-2023-29059. The company said it's engaging the

OpenAI Reveals Redis Bug Behind ChatGPT User Data Exposure Incident

OpenAI on Friday disclosed that a bug in the Redis open source library was responsible for the exposure of other users' personal information and chat titles in the upstart's ChatGPT service earlier this week. The glitch, which came to light on March 20, 2023, enabled certain users to view brief descriptions of other users' conversations from the chat history sidebar, prompting the company to

Fake ChatGPT Chrome Browser Extension Caught Hijacking Facebook Accounts

Google has stepped in to remove a bogus Chrome browser extension from the official Web Store that masqueraded as OpenAI's ChatGPT service to harvest Facebook session cookies and hijack the accounts. The "ChatGPT For Google" extension, a trojanized version of a legitimate open source browser add-on, attracted over 9,000 installations since March 14, 2023, prior to its removal. It was originally

New Cyber Platform Lab 1 Decodes Dark Web Data to Uncover Hidden Supply Chain Breaches

2022 was the year when inflation hit world economies, except in one corner of the global marketplace – stolen data. Ransomware payments fell by over 40% in 2022 compared to 2021. More organisations chose not to pay ransom demands, according to findings by blockchain firm Chainalysis. Nonetheless, stolen data has value beyond a price tag, and in risky ways you may not expect. Evaluating stolen

Winter Vivern APT Group Targeting Indian, Lithuanian, Slovakian, and Vatican Officials

The advanced persistent threat known as Winter Vivern has been linked to campaigns targeting government officials in India, Lithuania, Slovakia, and the Vatican since 2021. The activity targeted Polish government agencies, the Ukraine Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Italy Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and individuals within the Indian government, SentinelOne said in a report shared with The

Authorities Shut Down ChipMixer Platform Tied to Crypto Laundering Scheme

A coalition of law enforcement agencies across Europe and the U.S. announced the takedown of ChipMixer, an unlicensed cryptocurrency mixer that began its operations in August 2017. "The ChipMixer software blocked the blockchain trail of the funds, making it attractive for cybercriminals looking to launder illegal proceeds from criminal activities such as drug trafficking, weapons trafficking,

Microsoft Warns of Large-Scale Use of Phishing Kits to Send Millions of Emails Daily

An open source adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) phishing kit has found a number of takers in the cybercrime world for its ability to orchestrate attacks at scale. The Microsoft Threat Intelligence team is tracking the threat actor behind the development of the kit under its emerging moniker DEV-1101. An AiTM phishing attack typically involves a threat actor attempting to steal and intercept a

New Mirai Botnet Variant 'V3G4' Exploiting 13 Flaws to Target Linux and IoT Devices

A new variant of the notorious Mirai botnet has been found leveraging several security vulnerabilities to propagate itself to Linux and IoT devices. Observed during the second half of 2022, the new version has been dubbed V3G4 by Palo Alto Networks Unit 42, which identified three different campaigns likely conducted by the same threat actor. "Once the vulnerable devices are compromised, they

Researchers Hijack Popular NPM Package with Millions of Downloads

A popular npm package with more than 3.5 million weekly downloads has been found vulnerable to an account takeover attack. "The package can be taken over by recovering an expired domain name for one of its maintainers and resetting the password," software supply chain security company Illustria said in a report. While npm's security protections limit users to have only one active email address

Researchers Uncover Obfuscated Malicious Code in PyPI Python Packages

Four different rogue packages in the Python Package Index (PyPI) have been found to carry out a number of malicious actions, including dropping malware, deleting the netstat utility, and manipulating the SSH authorized_keys file. The packages in question are aptx, bingchilling2, httops, and tkint3rs, all of which were collectively downloaded about 450 times before they were taken down. While

CERT-UA Alerts Ukrainian State Authorities of Remcos Software-Fueled Cyber Attacks

The Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA) has issued an alert warning of cyber attacks against state authorities in the country that deploy a legitimate remote access software named Remcos. The mass phishing campaign has been attributed to a threat actor it tracks as UAC-0050, with the agency describing the activity as likely motivated by espionage given the toolset employed. The

The Pivot: How MSPs Can Turn a Challenge Into a Once-in-a-Decade Opportunity

Cybersecurity is quickly becoming one of the most significant growth drivers for Managed Service Providers (MSPs). That's the main insight from a recent study from Lumu: in North America, more than 80% of MSPs cite cybersecurity as a primary growth driver of their business. Service providers have a huge opportunity to expand their business and win new customers by developing their cybersecurity

Auditing Kubernetes with Open Source SIEM and XDR

Container technology has gained traction among businesses due to the increased efficiency it provides. In this regard, organizations widely use Kubernetes for deploying, scaling, and managing containerized applications. Organizations should audit Kubernetes to ensure compliance with regulations, find anomalies, and identify security risks. The Wazuh open source platform plays a critical role in

ISC Releases Security Patches for New BIND DNS Software Vulnerabilities

The Internet Systems Consortium (ISC) has released patches to address multiple security vulnerabilities in the Berkeley Internet Name Domain (BIND) 9 Domain Name System (DNS) software suite that could lead to a denial-of-service (DoS) condition. "A remote attacker could exploit these vulnerabilities to potentially cause denial-of-service conditions and system failures," the U.S. Cybersecurity

Mailchimp Suffers Another Security Breach Compromising Some Customers' Information

Popular email marketing and newsletter service Mailchimp has disclosed yet another security breach that enabled threat actors to access an internal support and account admin tool to obtain information about 133 customers. "The unauthorized actor conducted a social engineering attack on Mailchimp employees and contractors, and obtained access to select Mailchimp accounts using employee