Cybercriminals Using Telekopye Telegram Bot to Craft Phishing Scams on a Grand Scale

More details have emerged about a malicious Telegram bot called Telekopye that's used by threat actors to pull off large-scale phishing scams. "Telekopye can craft phishing websites, emails, SMS messages, and more," ESET security researcher Radek Jizba said in a new analysis. The threat actors behind the operation – codenamed Neanderthals – are known to run the criminal enterprise as a

LockBit Ransomware Exploiting Critical Citrix Bleed Vulnerability to Break In

Multiple threat actors, including LockBit ransomware affiliates, are actively exploiting a recently disclosed critical security flaw in Citrix NetScaler application delivery control (ADC) and Gateway appliances to obtain initial access to target environments. The joint advisory comes from the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),

U.S. Cybersecurity Agencies Warn of Scattered Spider's Gen Z Cybercrime Ecosystem

U.S. cybersecurity and intelligence agencies have released a joint advisory about a cybercriminal group known as Scattered Spider that's known to employ sophisticated phishing tactics to infiltrate targets. "Scattered Spider threat actors typically engage in data theft for extortion using multiple social engineering techniques and have recently leveraged BlackCat/ALPHV ransomware alongside their

Reptar: New Intel CPU Vulnerability Impacts Multi-Tenant Virtualized Environments

Intel has released fixes to close out a high-severity flaw codenamed Reptar that impacts its desktop, mobile, and server CPUs. Tracked as CVE-2023-23583 (CVSS score: 8.8), the issue has the potential to "allow escalation of privilege and/or information disclosure and/or denial of service via local access." Successful exploitation of the vulnerability could also permit a bypass of the CPU's

CacheWarp Attack: New Vulnerability in AMD SEV Exposes Encrypted VMs

A group of academics has disclosed a new "software fault attack" on AMD's Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV) technology that could be potentially exploited by threat actors to infiltrate encrypted virtual machines (VMs) and even perform privilege escalation. The attack has been codenamed CacheWarp (CVE-2023-20592) by researchers from the CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security and the

Russian Hackers Sandworm Cause Power Outage in Ukraine Amidst Missile Strikes

The notorious Russian hackers known as Sandworm targeted an electrical substation in Ukraine last year, causing a brief power outage in October 2022. The findings come from Google's Mandiant, which described the hack as a "multi-event cyber attack" leveraging a novel technique for impacting industrial control systems (ICS). "The actor first used OT-level living-off-the-land (LotL) techniques to

New Jupyter Infostealer Version Emerges with Sophisticated Stealth Tactics

An updated version of an information stealer malware known as Jupyter has resurfaced with "simple yet impactful changes" that aim to stealthily establish a persistent foothold on compromised systems. "The team has discovered new waves of Jupyter Infostealer attacks which leverage PowerShell command modifications and signatures of private keys in attempts to pass off the malware as a legitimately

Turla Updates Kazuar Backdoor with Advanced Anti-Analysis to Evade Detection

The Russia-linked hacking crew known as Turla has been observed using an updated version of a known second-stage backdoor referred to as Kazuar. The new findings come from Palo Alto Networks Unit 42, which is tracking the adversary under its constellation-themed moniker Pensive Ursa. "As the code of the upgraded revision of Kazuar reveals, the authors put special emphasis on Kazuar's ability to

YoroTrooper: Researchers Warn of Kazakhstan's Stealthy Cyber Espionage Group

A relatively new threat actor known as YoroTrooper is likely made up of operators originating from Kazakhstan. The assessment, which comes from Cisco Talos, is based on their fluency in Kazakh and Russian, use of Tenge to pay for operating infrastructure, and very limited targeting of Kazakhstani entities, barring the government's Anti-Corruption Agency. "YoroTrooper attempts to obfuscate the

34 Cybercriminals Arrested in Spain for Multi-Million Dollar Online Scams

Spanish law enforcement officials have announced the arrest of 34 members of a criminal group that carried out various online scams, netting the gang about €3 million ($3.2 million) in illegal profits. Authorities conducted searches across 16 locations Madrid, Malaga, Huelva, Alicante, and Murcia, seizing two simulated firearms, a katana sword, a baseball bat, €80,000 in cash, four high-end

Cisco Zero-Day Exploited to Implant Malicious Lua Backdoor on Thousands of Devices

Cisco has warned of a new zero-day flaw in IOS XE that has been actively exploited by an unknown threat actor to deploy a malicious Lua-based implant on susceptible devices. Tracked as CVE-2023-20273 (CVSS score: 7.2), the issue relates to a privilege escalation flaw in the web UI feature and is said to have been used alongside CVE-2023-20198 (CVSS score: 10.0) as part of an exploit chain. "The

U.S. DoJ Cracks Down on North Korean IT Scammers Defrauding Global Businesses

The U.S. government has announced the seizure of 17 website domains used by North Korean information technology (IT) workers as part of an illicit scheme to defraud businesses across the world, evade sanctions, and fund the country's ballistic missile program. The Department of Justice (DoJ) said the U.S. confiscated approximately $1.5 million of the revenue that these IT workers collected from

Citrix Devices Under Attack: NetScaler Flaw Exploited to Capture User Credentials

A recently disclosed critical flaw in Citrix NetScaler ADC and Gateway devices is being exploited by threat actors to conduct a credential harvesting campaign. IBM X-Force, which uncovered the activity last month, said adversaries exploited "CVE-2023-3519 to attack unpatched NetScaler Gateways to insert a malicious script into the HTML content of the authentication web page to capture user

Looney Tunables: New Linux Flaw Enables Privilege Escalation on Major Distributions

A new Linux security vulnerability dubbed Looney Tunables has been discovered in the GNU C library's ld.so dynamic loader that, if successfully exploited, could lead to a local privilege escalation and allow a threat actor to gain root privileges. Tracked as CVE-2023-4911 (CVSS score: 7.8), the issue is a buffer overflow that resides in the dynamic loader's processing of the GLIBC_TUNABLES

Critical Security Flaws Exposed in Nagios XI Network Monitoring Software

Multiple security flaws have been disclosed in the Nagios XI network monitoring software that could result in privilege escalation and information disclosure. The four security vulnerabilities, tracked from CVE-2023-40931 through CVE-2023-40934, impact Nagios XI versions 5.11.1 and lower. Following responsible disclosure on August 4, 2023, They have been patched as of September 11, 2023, with

New HijackLoader Modular Malware Loader Making Waves in the Cybercrime World

A new malware loader called HijackLoader is gaining traction among the cybercriminal community to deliver various payloads such as DanaBot, SystemBC, and RedLine Stealer. "Even though HijackLoader does not contain advanced features, it is capable of using a variety of modules for code injection and execution since it uses a modular architecture, a feature that most loaders do not have," Zscaler

Zero-Day Alert: Latest Android Patch Update Includes Fix for Newly Actively Exploited Flaw

Google has rolled out monthly security patches for Android to address a number of flaws, including a zero-day bug that it said may have been exploited in the wild. Tracked as CVE-2023-35674, the high-severity vulnerability is described as a case of privilege escalation impacting the Android Framework. “There are indications that CVE-2023-35674 may be under limited, targeted exploitation,” the

Vietnamese Cybercriminals Targeting Facebook Business Accounts with Malvertising

Malicious actors associated with the Vietnamese cybercrime ecosystem are leveraging advertising-as-a-vector on social media platforms such as Meta-owned Facebook to distribute malware. “Threat actors have long used fraudulent ads as a vector to target victims with scams, malvertising, and more,” WithSecure researcher Mohammad Kazem Hassan Nejad said. “And with businesses now leveraging the reach

Okta Warns of Social Engineering Attacks Targeting Super Administrator Privileges

Identity services provider Okta on Friday warned of social engineering attacks orchestrated by threat actors to obtain elevated administrator permissions. “In recent weeks, multiple U.S.-based Okta customers have reported a consistent pattern of social engineering attacks against IT service desk personnel, in which the caller’s strategy was to convince service desk personnel to reset all

Classiscam Scam-as-a-Service Raked $64.5 Million During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The Classiscam scam-as-a-service program has reaped the criminal actors $64.5 million in illicit earnings since its emergence in 2019. "Classiscam campaigns initially started out on classified sites, on which scammers placed fake advertisements and used social engineering techniques to convince users to pay for goods by transferring money to bank cards," Group-IB said in a new report. "Since

New Financial Malware 'JanelaRAT' Targets Latin American Users

Users in Latin America (LATAM) are the target of a financial malware called JanelaRAT that's capable of capturing sensitive information from compromised Microsoft Windows systems. "JanelaRAT mainly targets financial and cryptocurrency data from LATAM bank and financial institutions," Zscaler ThreatLabz researchers Gaetano Pellegrino and Sudeep Singh said, adding it "abuses DLL side-loading

New Statc Stealer Malware Emerges: Your Sensitive Data at Risk

A new information malware strain called Statc Stealer has been found infecting devices running Microsoft Windows to siphon sensitive personal and payment information. "Statc Stealer exhibits a broad range of stealing capabilities, making it a significant threat," Zscaler ThreatLabz researchers Shivam Sharma and Amandeep Kumar said in a technical report published this week. "It can steal

Industrial Control Systems Vulnerabilities Soar: Over One-Third Unpatched in 2023

About 34% of security vulnerabilities impacting industrial control systems (ICSs) that were reported in the first half of 2023 have no patch or remediation, registering a significant increase from 13% the previous year. According to data compiled by SynSaber, a total of 670 ICS product flaws were reported via the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in the first half of

Critical Zero-Days in Atera Windows Installers Expose Users to Privilege Escalation Attacks

Zero-day vulnerabilities in Windows Installers for the Atera remote monitoring and management software could act as a springboard to launch privilege escalation attacks. The flaws, discovered by Mandiant on February 28, 2023, have been assigned the identifiers CVE-2023-26077 and CVE-2023-26078, with the issues remediated in versions 1.8.3.7 and 1.8.4.9 released by Atera on April 17, 2023, and

New P2PInfect Worm Targeting Redis Servers on Linux and Windows Systems

Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered a new cloud targeting, peer-to-peer (P2P) worm called P2PInfect that targets vulnerable Redis instances for follow-on exploitation. "P2PInfect exploits Redis servers running on both Linux and Windows Operating Systems making it more scalable and potent than other worms," Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 researchers William Gamazo and Nathaniel Quist said. "This

Bad.Build Flaw in Google Cloud Build Raises Concerns of Privilege Escalation

Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered a privilege escalation vulnerability in Google Cloud that could enable malicious actors tamper with application images and infect users, leading to supply chain attacks. The issue, dubbed Bad.Build, is rooted in the Google Cloud Build service, according to cloud security firm Orca, which discovered and reported the issue. "By abusing the flaw and enabling

New TOITOIN Banking Trojan Targeting Latin American Businesses

Businesses operating in the Latin American (LATAM) region are the target of a new Windows-based banking trojan called TOITOIN since May 2023. "This sophisticated campaign employs a trojan that follows a multi-staged infection chain, utilizing specially crafted modules throughout each stage," Zscaler researchers Niraj Shivtarkar and Preet Kamal said in a report published last week. "These modules

Hackers Exploiting Unpatched WordPress Plugin Flaw to Create Secret Admin Accounts

As many as 200,000 WordPress websites are at risk of ongoing attacks exploiting a critical unpatched security vulnerability in the Ultimate Member plugin. The flaw, tracked as CVE-2023-3460 (CVSS score: 9.8), impacts all versions of the Ultimate Member plugin, including the latest version (2.6.6) that was released on June 29, 2023. Ultimate Member is a popular plugin that facilitates the

New Mystic Stealer Malware Targets 40 Web Browsers and 70 Browser Extensions

A new information-stealing malware called Mystic Stealer has been found to steal data from about 40 different web browsers and over 70 web browser extensions. First advertised on April 25, 2023, for $150 per month, the malware also targets cryptocurrency wallets, Steam, and Telegram, and employs extensive mechanisms to resist analysis. "The code is heavily obfuscated making use of polymorphic

Beware: 1,000+ Fake Cryptocurrency Sites Trap Users in Bogus Rewards Scheme

A previously undetected cryptocurrency scam has leveraged a constellation of over 1,000 fraudulent websites to ensnare users into a bogus rewards scheme since at least January 2021. "This massive campaign has likely resulted in thousands of people being scammed worldwide," Trend Micro researchers said in a report published last week, linking it to a Russian-speaking threat actor named "Impulse

N. Korean ScarCruft Hackers Exploit LNK Files to Spread RokRAT

Cybersecurity researchers have offered a closer look at the RokRAT remote access trojan that's employed by the North Korean state-sponsored actor known as ScarCruft. "RokRAT is a sophisticated remote access trojan (RAT) that has been observed as a critical component within the attack chain, enabling the threat actors to gain unauthorized access, exfiltrate sensitive information, and potentially

China's Stealthy Hackers Infiltrate U.S. and Guam Critical Infrastructure Undetected

A stealthy China-based group managed to establish a persistent foothold into critical infrastructure organizations in the U.S. and Guam without being detected, Microsoft and the "Five Eyes" nations said on Wednesday. The tech giant's threat intelligence team is tracking the activity, which includes post-compromise credential access and network system discovery, under the name Volt Typhoon. The

Zero Trust + Deception: Join This Webinar to Learn How to Outsmart Attackers!

Cybersecurity is constantly evolving, but complexity can give hostile actors an advantage. To stay ahead of current and future attacks, it's essential to simplify and reframe your defenses. Zscaler Deception is a state-of-the-art next-generation deception technology seamlessly integrated with the Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange. It creates a hostile environment for attackers and enables you to track

Vietnamese Threat Actor Infects 500,000 Devices Using 'Malverposting' Tactics

A Vietnamese threat actor has been attributed as behind a "malverposting" campaign on social media platforms to infect over 500,000 devices worldwide over the past three months to deliver variants of information stealers such as S1deload Stealer and SYS01stealer. Malverposting refers to the use of promoted social media posts on services like Facebook and Twitter to mass propagate malicious

Why Your Detection-First Security Approach Isn't Working

Stopping new and evasive threats is one of the greatest challenges in cybersecurity. This is among the biggest reasons why attacks increased dramatically in the past year yet again, despite the estimated $172 billion spent on global cybersecurity in 2022. Armed with cloud-based tools and backed by sophisticated affiliate networks, threat actors can develop new and evasive malware more quickly

ScarCruft's Evolving Arsenal: Researchers Reveal New Malware Distribution Techniques

The North Korean advanced persistent threat (APT) actor dubbed ScarCruft is using weaponized Microsoft Compiled HTML Help (CHM) files to download additional malware onto targeted machines. According to multiple reports from AhnLab Security Emergency response Center (ASEC), SEKOIA.IO, and Zscaler, the development is illustrative of the group's continuous efforts to refine and retool its tactics

Threat Actors Adopt Havoc Framework for Post-Exploitation in Targeted Attacks

An open source command-and-control (C2) framework known as Havoc is being adopted by threat actors as an alternative to other well-known legitimate toolkits like Cobalt Strike, Sliver, and Brute Ratel. Cybersecurity firm Zscaler said it observed a new campaign in the beginning of January 2023 targeting an unnamed government organization that utilized Havoc. "While C2 frameworks are prolific, the

CISA Warns of Flaws in Siemens, GE Digital, and Contec Industrial Control Systems

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has published four Industrial Control Systems (ICS) advisories, calling out several security flaws affecting products from Siemens, GE Digital, and Contec. The most critical of the issues have been identified in Siemens SINEC INS that could lead to remote code execution via a path traversal flaw (CVE-2022-45092, CVSS score: 9.9)

Google Launches OSV-Scanner Tool to Identify Open Source Vulnerabilities

Google on Tuesday announced the open source availability of OSV-Scanner, a scanner that aims to offer easy access to vulnerability information about various projects. The Go-based tool, powered by the Open Source Vulnerabilities (OSV) database, is designed to connect "a project's list of dependencies with the vulnerabilities that affect them," Google software engineer Rex Pan in a post shared

Hack-for-Hire Group Targets Travel and Financial Entities with New Janicab Malware Variant

Travel agencies have emerged as the target of a hack-for-hire group dubbed Evilnum as part of a broader campaign aimed at legal and financial investment institutions in the Middle East and Europe. The attacks, which took place during 2020 and 2021 and likely went as far back as 2015, involved a revamped variant of a malware called Janicab that leverages a number of public services like WordPress

3 New Vulnerabilities Affect OT Products from German Companies Festo and CODESYS

Researchers have disclosed details of three new security vulnerabilities affecting operational technology (OT) products from CODESYS and Festo that could lead to source code tampering and denial-of-service (DoS). The vulnerabilities, reported by Forescout Vedere Labs, are the latest in a long list of flaws collectively tracked under the name OT:ICEFALL. "These issues exemplify either an

Ducktail Malware Operation Evolves with New Malicious Capabilities

The operators of the Ducktail information stealer have demonstrated a "relentless willingness to persist" and continued to update their malware as part of an ongoing financially driven campaign. "The malware is designed to steal browser cookies and take advantage of authenticated Facebook sessions to steal information from the victim's Facebook account," WithSecure researcher Mohammad Kazem

U.S. Authorities Seize Domains Used in 'Pig butchering' Cryptocurrency Scams

The U.S. Justice Department (DoJ) on Monday announced the takedown of seven domain names in connection to a "pig butchering" cryptocurrency scam. The fraudulent scheme, which operated from May to August 2022, netted the actors over $10 million from five victims, the DoJ said. Pig butchering, also called Sha Zhu Pan, is a type of scam in which swindlers lure unsuspecting investors into sending

Malicious Google Play Store App Spotted Distributing Xenomorph Banking Trojan

Google has removed two new malicious dropper apps that have been detected on the Play Store for Android, one of which posed as a lifestyle app and was caught distributing the Xenomorph banking malware. "Xenomorph is a trojan that steals credentials from banking applications on users' devices," Zscaler ThreatLabz researchers Himanshu Sharma and Viral Gandhi said in an analysis published Thursday.

Experts Find URLScan Security Scanner Inadvertently Leaks Sensitive URLs and Data

Security researchers are warning of "a trove of sensitive information" leaking through urlscan.io, a website scanner for suspicious and malicious URLs. "Sensitive URLs to shared documents, password reset pages, team invites, payment invoices and more are publicly listed and searchable," Positive Security co-founder, Fabian Bräunlein, said in a report published on November 2, 2022. The

Researchers Detail New Malware Campaign Targeting Indian Government Employees

The Transparent Tribe threat actor has been linked to a new campaign aimed at Indian government organizations with trojanized versions of a two-factor authentication solution called Kavach. "This group abuses Google advertisements for the purpose of malvertising to distribute backdoored versions of Kavach multi-authentication (MFA) applications," Zscaler ThreatLabz researcher Sudeep Singh said 

Hackers Using Rogue Versions of KeePass and SolarWinds Software to Distribute RomCom RAT

The operators of RomCom RAT malware are continuing to evolve their campaigns by distributing rogue versions of software such as SolarWinds Network Performance Monitor, KeePass password manager, and PDF Reader Pro via fake copycat websites. Targets of the operation consist of victims in Ukraine and select English-speaking countries like the U.K. "Given the geography of the targets and the current

Unknown Actors are Deploying RomCom RAT to Target Ukrainian Military

The threat actor behind a remote access trojan called RomCom RAT has been observed targeting Ukrainian military institutions as part of a new spear-phishing campaign that commenced on October 21, 2022.  The development marks a shift in the attacker's modus operandi, which has been previously attributed to spoofing legitimate apps like Advanced IP Scanner and pdfFiller to drop backdoors on

New PHP Version of Ducktail Malware Hijacking Facebook Business Accounts

A PHP version of an information-stealing malware called Ducktail has been discovered in the wild being distributed in the form of cracked installers for legitimate apps and games, according to the latest findings from Zscaler. "Like older versions (.NetCore), the latest version (PHP) also aims to exfiltrate sensitive information related to saved browser credentials, Facebook account information,

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,

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

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

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

Why Vulnerability Scanning is Critical for SOC 2

SOC 2 may be a voluntary standard, but for today's security-conscious business, it's a minimal requirement when considering a SaaS provider. Compliance can be a long and complicated process, but a scanner like Intruder makes it easy to tick the vulnerability management box. Security is critical for all organisations, including those that outsource key business operations to third parties like

Prynt Stealer Contains a Backdoor to Steal Victims' Data Stolen by Other Cybercriminals

Researchers discovered a private Telegram channel-based backdoor in the information stealing malware, dubbed Prynt Stealer, which its developer added with the intention of secretly stealing a copy of victims' exfiltrated data when used by other cybercriminals. "While this untrustworthy behavior is nothing new in the world of cybercrime, the victims' data end up in the hands of multiple threat

New Grandoreiro Banking Malware Campaign Targeting Spanish Manufacturers

Organizations in the Spanish-speaking nations of Mexico and Spain are in the crosshairs of a new campaign designed to deliver the Grandoreiro banking trojan.  "In this campaign, the threat actors impersonate government officials from the Attorney General's Office of Mexico City and from the Public Ministry in the form of spear-phishing emails in order to lure victims to download and execute '

Penetration Testing or Vulnerability Scanning? What's the Difference?

Pentesting and vulnerability scanning are often confused for the same service. The problem is, business owners often use one when they really need the other. Let's dive in and explain the differences. People frequently confuse penetration testing and vulnerability scanning, and it's easy to see why. Both look for weaknesses in your IT infrastructure by exploring your systems in the same way an

Researchers Uncover Classiscam Scam-as-a-Service Operations in Singapore

A sophisticated scam-as-a-service operation dubbed Classiscam has now infiltrated into Singapore, more than 1.5 years after expanding to Europe. "Scammers posing as legitimate buyers approach sellers with the request to purchase goods from their listings and the ultimate aim of stealing payment data," Group-IB said in a report shared with The Hacker News. The cybersecurity firm called the

Microsoft Adds Default Protection Against RDP Brute-Force Attacks in Windows 11

Microsoft is now taking steps to prevent Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) brute-force attacks as part of the latest builds for the Windows 11 operating system in an attempt to raise the security baseline to meet the evolving threat landscape. To that end, the default policy for Windows 11 builds – particularly, Insider Preview builds 22528.1000 and newer – will automatically lock accounts for 10

Several New Play Store Apps Spotted Distributing Joker, Facestealer and Coper Malware

Google has taken steps to ax dozens of fraudulent apps from the official Play Store that were spotted propagating Joker, Facestealer, and Coper malware families through the virtual marketplace. While the Android storefront is considered to be a trusted source for discovering and installing apps, bad actors have repeatedly found ways to sneak past security barriers erected by Google in hopes of