Earth Estries' Espionage Campaign Targets Governments and Tech Titans Across Continents

A hacking outfit nicknamed Earth Estries has been attributed to a new, ongoing cyber espionage campaign targeting government and technology industries based in the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, South Africa, Germany, and the U.S. "The threat actors behind Earth Estries are working with high-level resources and functioning with sophisticated skills and experience in cyber espionage and illicit

Hackers Can Exploit Windows Container Isolation Framework to Bypass Endpoint Security

New findings show that malicious actors could leverage a sneaky malware detection evasion technique and bypass endpoint security solutions by manipulating the Windows Container Isolation Framework. The findings were presented by Deep Instinct security researcher Daniel Avinoam at the DEF CON security conference held earlier this month. Microsoft's container architecture (and by extension, 

MMRat Android Trojan Executes Remote Financial Fraud Through Accessibility Feature

A previously undocumented Android banking trojan dubbed MMRat has been observed targeting mobile users in Southeast Asia since late June 2023 to remotely commandeer the devices and perform financial fraud. "The malware, named after its distinctive package name com.mm.user, can capture user input and screen content, and can also remotely control victim devices through various techniques, enabling

China-Linked BadBazaar Android Spyware Targeting Signal and Telegram Users

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered malicious Android apps for Signal and Telegram distributed via the Google Play Store and Samsung Galaxy Store that are engineered to deliver the BadBazaar spyware on infected devices. Slovakian company ESET attributed the campaign to a China-linked actor called GREF. "Most likely active since July 2020 and since July 2022, respectively, the campaigns

How to Prevent ChatGPT From Stealing Your Content & Traffic

ChatGPT and similar large language models (LLMs) have added further complexity to the ever-growing online threat landscape. Cybercriminals no longer need advanced coding skills to execute fraud and other damaging attacks against online businesses and customers, thanks to bots-as-a-service, residential proxies, CAPTCHA farms, and other easily accessible tools.  Now, the latest technology damaging

Malicious npm Packages Aim to Target Developers for Source Code Theft

An unknown threat actor is leveraging malicious npm packages to target developers with an aim to steal source code and configuration files from victim machines, a sign of how threats lurk consistently in open-source repositories. "The threat actor behind this campaign has been linked to malicious activity dating back to 2021," software supply chain security firm Checkmarx said in a report shared

Alert: Juniper Firewalls, Openfire, and Apache RocketMQ Under Attack from New Exploits

Recently disclosed security flaws impacting Juniper firewalls, Openfire, and Apache RocketMQ servers have come under active exploitation in the wild, according to multiple reports. The Shadowserver Foundation said that it's "seeing exploitation attempts from multiple IPs for Juniper J-Web CVE-2023-36844 (& friends) targeting /webauth_operation.php endpoint," the same day a proof-of-concept (PoC)

Critical Vulnerability Alert: VMware Aria Operations Networks at Risk from Remote Attacks

VMware has released software updates to correct two security vulnerabilities in Aria Operations for Networks that could be potentially exploited to bypass authentication and gain remote code execution. The most severe of the flaws is CVE-2023-34039 (CVSS score: 9.8), which relates to a case of authentication bypass arising as a result of a lack of unique cryptographic key generation. "A

FBI Dismantles QakBot Malware, Frees 700,000 Computers, Seizes $8.6 Million

A coordinated law enforcement effort codenamed Operation Duck Hunt has felled QakBot, a notorious Windows malware family that's estimated to have compromised over 700,000 computers globally and facilitated financial fraud as well as ransomware. To that end, the U.S. Justice Department (DoJ) said the malware is "being deleted from victim computers, preventing it from doing any more harm," adding

Chinese Hacking Group Exploits Barracuda Zero-Day to Target Government, Military, and Telecom

A suspected Chinese-nexus hacking group exploited a recently disclosed zero-day flaw in Barracuda Networks Email Security Gateway (ESG) appliances to breach government, military, defense and aerospace, high-tech industry, and telecom sectors as part of a global espionage campaign. Mandiant, which is tracking the activity under the name UNC4841, described the threat actor as "highly responsive to

DarkGate Malware Activity Spikes as Developer Rents Out Malware to Affiliates

A new malspam campaign has been observed deploying an off-the-shelf malware called DarkGate. "The current spike in DarkGate malware activity is plausible given the fact that the developer of the malware has recently started to rent out the malware to a limited number of affiliates," Telekom Security said in a report published last week. The latest report build onn recent findings from security

Survey Provides Takeaways for Security Pros to Operationalize their Remediation Life Cycle

Ask any security professional and they’ll tell you that remediating risks from various siloed security scanning tools requires a tedious and labor-intensive series of steps focused on deduplication, prioritization, and routing of issues to an appropriate “fixer” somewhere in the organization. This burden on already resource-strapped security teams is an efficiency killer.  A new study,

Citrix NetScaler Alert: Ransomware Hackers Exploiting Critical Vulnerability

Unpatched Citrix NetScaler systems exposed to the internet are being targeted by unknown threat actors in what's suspected to be a ransomware attack. Cybersecurity company Sophos is tracking the activity cluster under the moniker STAC4663. Attack chains involve the exploitation of CVE-2023-3519, a critical code injection vulnerability impacting NetScaler ADC and Gateway servers that could

Phishing-as-a-Service Gets Smarter: Microsoft Sounds Alarm on AiTM Attacks

Microsoft is warning of an increase in adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) phishing techniques, which are being propagated as part of the phishing-as-a-service (PhaaS) cybercrime model. In addition to an uptick in AiTM-capable PhaaS platforms, the tech giant noted that existing phishing services like PerSwaysion are incorporating AiTM capabilities. "This development in the PhaaS ecosystem enables

Experts Uncover How Cybercriminals Could Exploit Microsoft Entra ID for Elevated Privilege

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a case of privilege escalation associated with a Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory) application by taking advantage of an abandoned reply URL. "An attacker could leverage this abandoned URL to redirect authorization codes to themselves, exchanging the ill-gotten authorization codes for access tokens," Secureworks Counter Threat Unit (

Developers Beware: Malicious Rust Libraries Caught Transmitting OS Info to Telegram Channel

In yet another sign that developers continue to be targets of software supply chain attacks, a number of malicious packages have been discovered on the Rust programming language's crate registry. The libraries, uploaded between August 14 and 16, 2023, were published by a user named "amaperf," Phylum said in a report published last week. The names of the packages, now taken down, are as follows:

Cyberattacks Targeting E-commerce Applications

Cyber attacks on e-commerce applications are a common trend in 2023 as e-commerce businesses become more omnichannel, they build and deploy increasingly more API interfaces, with threat actors constantly exploring more ways to exploit vulnerabilities. This is why regular testing and ongoing monitoring are necessary to fully protect web applications, identifying weaknesses so they can be

KmsdBot Malware Gets an Upgrade: Now Targets IoT Devices with Enhanced Capabilities

An updated version of a botnet malware called KmsdBot is now targeting Internet of Things (IoT) devices, simultaneously branching out its capabilities and the attack surface. "The binary now includes support for Telnet scanning and support for more CPU architectures," Akamai security researcher Larry W. Cashdollar said in an analysis published this month. <!--adsense--> The latest iteration,

LockBit 3.0 Ransomware Builder Leak Gives Rise to Hundreds of New Variants

The leak of the LockBit 3.0 ransomware builder last year has led to threat actors abusing the tool to spawn new variants. Russian cybersecurity company Kaspersky said it detected a ransomware intrusion that deployed a version of LockBit but with a markedly different ransom demand procedure. "The attacker behind this incident decided to use a different ransom note with a headline related to a

Kroll Suffers Data Breach: Employee Falls Victim to SIM Swapping Attack

Risk and financial advisory solutions provider Kroll on Friday disclosed that one of its employees fell victim to a "highly sophisticated" SIM swapping attack. The incident, which took place on August 19, 2023, targeted the employee's T-Mobile account, the company said. "Specifically, T-Mobile, without any authority from or contact with Kroll or its employee, transferred that employee's phone

Two LAPSUS$ Hackers Convicted in London Court for High-Profile Tech Firm Hacks

Two U.K. teenagers have been convicted by a jury in London for being part of the notorious LAPSUS$ (aka Slippy Spider) transnational gang and for orchestrating a series of brazen, high-profile hacks against major tech firms and demanding a ransom in exchange for not leaking the stolen information. This includes Arion Kurtaj (aka White, Breachbase, WhiteDoxbin, and TeaPotUberHacker), an

Learn How Your Business Data Can Amplify Your AI/ML Threat Detection Capabilities

In today's digital landscape, your business data is more than just numbers—it's a powerhouse. Imagine leveraging this data not only for profit but also for enhanced AI and Machine Learning (ML) threat detection. For companies like Comcast, this isn't a dream. It's reality. Your business comprehends its risks, vulnerabilities, and the unique environment in which it operates. No generic,

Navigating Legacy Infrastructure: A CISO's Actionable Strategy for Success

Every company has some level of tech debt. Unless you’re a brand new start-up, you most likely have a patchwork of solutions that have been implemented throughout the years, often under various leadership teams with different priorities and goals. As those technologies age, they can leave your organization vulnerable to cyber threats. While replacing legacy technologies can be costly, those

China-Linked Flax Typhoon Cyber Espionage Targets Taiwan's Key Sectors

A nation-state activity group originating from China has been linked to cyber attacks on dozens of organizations in Taiwan as part of a suspected espionage campaign. The Microsoft Threat Intelligence team is tracking the activity under the name Flax Typhoon, which is also known as Ethereal Panda. "Flax Typhoon gains and maintains long-term access to Taiwanese organizations' networks with minimal

Urgent FBI Warning: Barracuda Email Gateways Vulnerable Despite Recent Patches

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is warning that Barracuda Networks Email Security Gateway (ESG) appliances patched against a recently disclosed critical flaw continue to be at risk of potential compromise from suspected Chinese hacking groups. It also deemed the fixes as "ineffective" and that it "continues to observe active intrusions and considers all affected Barracuda ESG

Lazarus Group Exploits Critical Zoho ManageEngine Flaw to Deploy Stealthy QuiteRAT Malware

The North Korea-linked threat actor known as Lazarus Group has been observed exploiting a now-patched critical security flaw impacting Zoho ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus to distribute a remote access trojan called such as QuiteRAT. Targets include internet backbone infrastructure and healthcare entities in Europe and the U.S., cybersecurity company Cisco Talos said in a two-part analysis 

New Telegram Bot "Telekopye" Powering Large-scale Phishing Scams from Russia

A new financially motivated operation is leveraging a malicious Telegram bot to help threat actors scam their victims. Dubbed Telekopye, a portmanteau of Telegram and kopye (meaning "spear" in Russian), the toolkit functions as an automated means to create a phishing web page from a premade template and send the URL to potential victims, codenamed Mammoths by the criminals. "This toolkit is

The Hidden Dangers of Public Wi-Fi

Public Wi-Fi, which has long since become the norm, poses threats to not only individual users but also businesses. With the rise of remote work, people can now work from virtually anywhere: a cafe close to home, a hotel in a different city, or even while waiting for a plane at the airport. Next, let's explore the risks of connecting to public Wi-Fi, both for you personally and for businesses.

New "Whiffy Recon" Malware Triangulates Infected Device Location via Wi-Fi Every Minute

The SmokeLoader malware is being used to deliver a new Wi-Fi scanning malware strain called Whiffy Recon on compromised Windows machines. "The new malware strain has only one operation. Every 60 seconds it triangulates the infected systems' positions by scanning nearby Wi-Fi access points as a data point for Google's geolocation API," Secureworks Counter Threat Unit (CTU) said in a statement

WinRAR Security Flaw Exploited in Zero-Day Attacks to Target Traders

A recently patched security flaw in the popular WinRAR archiving software has been exploited as a zero-day since April 2023, new findings from Group-IB reveal. The vulnerability, cataloged as CVE-2023-38831, allows threat actors to spoof file extensions, thereby making it possible to launch malicious scripts contained within an archive that masquerades as seemingly innocuous image or text files.

Thousands of Unpatched Openfire XMPP Servers Still Exposed to High-Severity Flaw

Thousands of Openfire XMPP servers are unpatched against a recently disclosed high-severity flaw and are susceptible to a new exploit, according to a new report from VulnCheck. Tracked as CVE-2023-32315 (CVSS score: 7.5), the vulnerability relates to a path traversal vulnerability in Openfire's administrative console that could permit an unauthenticated attacker to access otherwise restricted

Tornado Cash Founders Charged in Billion-Dollar Crypto Laundering Scandal

The U.S. Justice Department (DoJ) on Wednesday unsealed an indictment against two founders of the now-sanctioned Tornado Cash cryptocurrency mixer service, charging them with laundering more than $1 billion in criminal proceeds. Both the individuals, Roman Storm and Roman Semenov, have been charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to commit sanctions violations, and

North Korean Affiliates Suspected in $40M Cryptocurrency Heist, FBI Warns

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Tuesday warned that threat actors affiliated with North Korea may attempt to cash out stolen cryptocurrency worth more than $40 million. The law enforcement agency attributed the blockchain activity to an adversary the U.S. government tracks as TraderTraitor, which is also known by the name Jade Sleet. An investigation undertaken by the FBI found

Meta Set to Enable Default End-to-End Encryption on Messenger by Year End

Meta has once again reaffirmed its plans to roll out support for end-to-end encryption (E2EE) by default for one-to-one friends and family chats on Messenger by the end of the year. As part of that effort, the social media giant said it's upgrading "millions more people's chats" effective August 22, 2023, exactly seven months after it started gradually expanding the feature to more users in

Agile Approach to Mass Cloud Credential Harvesting and Crypto Mining Sprints Ahead

Developers are not the only people who have adopted the agile methodology for their development processes. From 2023-06-15 to 2023-07-11, Permiso Security’s p0 Labs team identified and tracked an attacker developing and deploying eight (8) incremental iterations of their credential harvesting malware while continuing to develop infrastructure for an upcoming (spoiler: now launched) campaign

Syrian Threat Actor EVLF Unmasked as Creator of CypherRAT and CraxsRAT Android Malware

A Syrian threat actor named EVLF has been outed as the creator of malware families CypherRAT and CraxsRAT. "These RATs are designed to allow an attacker to remotely perform real-time actions and control the victim device's camera, location, and microphone," Cybersecurity firm Cyfirma said in a report published last week. CypherRAT and CraxsRAT are said to be offered to other cybercriminals as

Spacecolon Toolset Fuels Global Surge in Scarab Ransomware Attacks

A malicious toolset dubbed Spacecolon is being deployed as part of an ongoing campaign to spread variants of the Scarab ransomware across victim organizations globally. "It probably finds its way into victim organizations by its operators compromising vulnerable web servers or via brute forcing RDP credentials," ESET security researcher Jakub Souček said in a detailed technical write-up

Over a Dozen Malicious npm Packages Target Roblox Game Developers

More than a dozen malicious packages have been discovered on the npm package repository since the start of August 2023 with capabilities to deploy an open-source information stealer called Luna Token Grabber on systems belonging to Roblox developers. The ongoing campaign, first detected on August 1 by ReversingLabs, employs modules that masquerade as the legitimate package noblox.js, an API

CISOs Tout SaaS Cybersecurity Confidence, But 79% Admit to SaaS Incidents, New Report Finds

A new State of SaaS Security Posture Management Report from SaaS cybersecurity provider AppOmni indicates that Cybersecurity, IT, and business leaders alike recognize SaaS cybersecurity as an increasingly important part of the cyber threat landscape. And at first glance, respondents appear generally optimistic about their SaaS cybersecurity. Over 600 IT, cybersecurity, and business leaders at

Carderbee Attacks: Hong Kong Organizations Targeted via Malicious Software Updates

A previously undocumented threat cluster has been linked to a software supply chain attack targeting organizations primarily located in Hong Kong and other regions in Asia. The Symantec Threat Hunter Team, part of Broadcom, is tracking the activity under its insect-themed moniker Carderbee. The attacks, per the cybersecurity firm, leverage a trojanized version of a legitimate software called

New Variant of XLoader macOS Malware Disguised as 'OfficeNote' Productivity App

A new variant of an Apple macOS malware called XLoader has surfaced in the wild, masquerading its malicious features under the guise of an office productivity app called "OfficeNote." "The new version of XLoader is bundled inside a standard Apple disk image with the name OfficeNote.dmg," SentinelOne security researchers Dinesh Devadoss and Phil Stokes said in a Monday analysis. "The application

Ivanti Warns of Critical Zero-Day Flaw Being Actively Exploited in Sentry Software

Software services provider Ivanti is warning of a new critical zero-day flaw impacting Ivanti Sentry (formerly MobileIron Sentry) that it said is being actively exploited in the wild, marking an escalation of its security woes. Tracked as CVE-2023-38035 (CVSS score: 9.8), the issue has been described as a case of authentication bypass impacting versions 9.18 and prior due to what it called an

Critical Adobe ColdFusion Flaw Added to CISA's Exploited Vulnerability Catalog

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has added a critical security flaw in Adobe ColdFusion to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, based on evidence of active exploitation. The vulnerability, cataloged as CVE-2023-26359 (CVSS score: 9.8), relates to a deserialization flaw present in Adobe ColdFusion 2018 (Update 15 and earlier) and ColdFusion 2021 (

New WinRAR Vulnerability Could Allow Hackers to Take Control of Your PC

A high-severity security flaw has been disclosed in the WinRAR utility that could be potentially exploited by a threat actor to achieve remote code execution on Windows systems. Tracked as CVE-2023-40477 (CVSS score: 7.8), the vulnerability has been described as a case of improper validation while processing recovery volumes. "The issue results from the lack of proper validation of user-supplied

How to Investigate an OAuth Grant for Suspicious Activity or Overly Permissive Scopes

From a user’s perspective, OAuth works like magic. In just a few keystrokes, you can whisk through the account creation process and gain immediate access to whatever new app or integration you’re seeking. Unfortunately, few users understand the implications of the permissions they allow when they create a new OAuth grant, making it easy for malicious actors to manipulate employees into giving

This Malware Turned Thousands of Hacked Windows and macOS PCs into Proxy Servers

Threat actors are leveraging access to malware-infected Windows and macOS machines to deliver a proxy server application and use them as exit nodes to reroute proxy requests. According to AT&T Alien Labs, the unnamed company that offers the proxy service operates more than 400,000 proxy exit nodes, although it's not immediately clear how many of them were co-opted by malware installed on

HiatusRAT Malware Resurfaces: Taiwan Firms and U.S. Military Under Attack

The threat actors behind the HiatusRAT malware have returned from their hiatus with a new wave of reconnaissance and targeting activity aimed at Taiwan-based organizations and a U.S. military procurement system. Besides recompiling malware samples for different architectures, the artifacts are said to have been hosted on new virtual private servers (VPSs), Lumen Black Lotus Labs said in a report

WoofLocker Toolkit Hides Malicious Codes in Images to Run Tech Support Scams

Cybersecurity researchers have detailed an updated version of an advanced fingerprinting and redirection toolkit called WoofLocker that's engineered to conduct tech support scams. The sophisticated traffic redirection scheme was first documented by Malwarebytes in January 2020, leveraging JavaScript embedded in compromised websites to perform anti-bot and web traffic filtering checks to serve

New Juniper Junos OS Flaws Expose Devices to Remote Attacks - Patch Now

Networking hardware company Juniper Networks has released an "out-of-cycle" security update to address multiple flaws in the J-Web component of Junos OS that could be combined to achieve remote code execution on susceptible installations. The four vulnerabilities have a cumulative CVSS rating of 9.8, making them Critical in severity. They affect all versions of Junos OS on SRX and EX Series. "By

Thousands of Android Malware Apps Using Stealthy APK Compression to Evade Detection

Threat actors are using Android Package (APK) files with unknown or unsupported compression methods to elude malware analysis. That's according to findings from Zimperium, which found 3,300 artifacts leveraging such compression algorithms in the wild. 71 of the identified samples can be loaded on the operating system without any problems. There is no evidence that the apps were available on the

14 Suspected Cybercriminals Arrested Across Africa in Coordinated Crackdown

A coordinated law enforcement operation across 25 African countries has led to the arrest of 14 suspected cybercriminals, INTERPOL announced Friday. The exercise, conducted in partnership with AFRIPOL, enabled investigators to identify 20,674 cyber networks that were linked to financial losses of more than $40 million. "The four-month Africa Cyber Surge II operation was launched in April 2023

The Vulnerability of Zero Trust: Lessons from the Storm 0558 Hack

While IT security managers in companies and public administrations rely on the concept of Zero Trust, APTS (Advanced Persistent Threats) are putting its practical effectiveness to the test. Analysts, on the other hand, understand that Zero Trust can only be achieved with comprehensive insight into one's own network.  Just recently, an attack believed to be perpetrated by the Chinese hacker group

New Wave of Attack Campaign Targeting Zimbra Email Users for Credential Theft

A new "mass-spreading" social engineering campaign is targeting users of the Zimbra Collaboration email server with an aim to collect their login credentials for use in follow-on operations. The activity, active since April 2023 and still ongoing, targets a wide range of small and medium businesses and governmental entities, most of which are located in Poland, Ecuador, Mexico, Italy, and Russia

New BlackCat Ransomware Variant Adopts Advanced Impacket and RemCom Tools

Microsoft on Thursday disclosed that it found a new version of the BlackCat ransomware (aka ALPHV and Noberus) that embeds tools like Impacket and RemCom to facilitate lateral movement and remote code execution. "The Impacket tool has credential dumping and remote service execution modules that could be used for broad deployment of the BlackCat ransomware in target environments," the company's

Google Chrome's New Feature Alerts Users About Auto-Removal of Malicious Extensions

Google has announced plans to add a new feature in the upcoming version of its Chrome web browser to proactively alert users when an extension they have installed has been removed from the Chrome Web Store. The feature, set for release alongside Chrome 117, allows users to be notified when an add-on has been unpublished by a developer, taken down for violating Chrome Web Store policy, or marked

NoFilter Attack: Sneaky Privilege Escalation Method Bypasses Windows Security

A previously undetected attack method called NoFilter has been found to abuse the Windows Filtering Platform (WFP) to achieve privilege escalation in the Windows operating system. "If an attacker has the ability to execute code with admin privilege and the target is to perform LSASS Shtinkering, these privileges are not enough," Ron Ben Yizhak, a security researcher at Deep Instinct, told The

China-Linked Bronze Starlight Group Targeting Gambling Sector with Cobalt Strike Beacons

An ongoing cyber attack campaign originating from China is targeting the Southeast Asian gambling sector to deploy Cobalt Strike beacons on compromised systems.  Cybersecurity firm SentinelOne said the tactics, techniques, and procedures point to the involvement of a threat actor tracked as Bronze Starlight (aka Emperor Dragonfly or Storm-0401), which has been linked to the use of short-lived 

New LABRAT Campaign Exploits GitLab Flaw for Cryptojacking and Proxyjacking Activities

A new, financially motivated operation dubbed LABRAT has been observed weaponizing a now-patched critical flaw in GitLab as part of a cryptojacking and proxyjacking campaign. "The attacker utilized undetected signature-based tools, sophisticated and stealthy cross-platform malware, command-and-control (C2) tools which bypassed firewalls, and kernel-based rootkits to hide their presence," Sysdig 

New Apple iOS 16 Exploit Enables Stealthy Cellular Access Under Fake Airplane Mode

Cybersecurity researchers have documented a novel post-exploit persistence technique on iOS 16 that could be abused to fly under the radar and maintain access to an Apple device even when the victim believes it is offline. The method "tricks the victim into thinking their device's Airplane Mode works when in reality the attacker (following successful device exploit) has planted an artificial

Why You Need Continuous Network Monitoring?

Changes in the way we work have had significant implications for cybersecurity, not least in network monitoring. Workers no longer sit safely side-by-side on a corporate network, dev teams constantly spin up and tear down systems, exposing services to the internet. Keeping track of these users, changes and services is difficult – internet-facing attack surfaces rarely stay the same for long. But