New Report Reveals North Korean Hackers Targeting Defense Firms Worldwide

North Korean state-sponsored threat actors have been attributed to a cyber espionage campaign targeting the defense sector across the world. In a joint advisory published by Germany's Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) and South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS), the agencies said the goal of the attacks is to plunder advanced defense technologies in a "

Learn How to Build an Incident Response Playbook Against Scattered Spider in Real-Time

In the tumultuous landscape of cybersecurity, the year 2023 left an indelible mark with the brazen exploits of the Scattered Spider threat group. Their attacks targeted the nerve centers of major financial and insurance institutions, culminating in what stands as one of the most impactful ransomware assaults in recent memory.  When organizations have no response plan in place for such an

Iran and Hezbollah Hackers Launch Attacks to Influence Israel-Hamas Narrative

Hackers backed by Iran and Hezbollah staged cyber attacks designed to undercut public support for the Israel-Hamas war after October 2023. This includes destructive attacks against key Israeli organizations, hack-and-leak operations targeting entities in Israel and the U.S., phishing campaigns designed to steal intelligence, and information operations to turn public opinion against Israel. Iran

Iranian Hackers Target Middle East Policy Experts with New BASICSTAR Backdoor

The Iranian-origin threat actor known as Charming Kitten has been linked to a new set of attacks aimed at Middle East policy experts with a new backdoor called BASICSTAR by creating a fake webinar portal. Charming Kitten, also called APT35, CharmingCypress, Mint Sandstorm, TA453, and Yellow Garuda, has a history of orchestrating a wide range of social engineering campaigns that cast a

RustDoor macOS Backdoor Targets Cryptocurrency Firms with Fake Job Offers

Multiple companies operating in the cryptocurrency sector are the target of an ongoing malware campaign that involves a newly discovered Apple macOS backdoor codenamed RustDoor. RustDoor was first documented by Bitdefender last week, describing it as a Rust-based malware capable of harvesting and uploading files, as well as gathering information about the infected machines. It's

How Nation-State Actors Target Your Business: New Research Exposes Major SaaS Vulnerabilities

With many of the highly publicized 2023 cyber attacks revolving around one or more SaaS applications, SaaS has become a cause for genuine concern in many boardroom discussions. More so than ever, considering that GenAI applications are, in fact, SaaS applications. Wing Security (Wing), a SaaS security company, conducted an analysis of 493 SaaS-using companies in Q4 of 2023. Their study

Chinese Hackers Using Deepfakes in Advanced Mobile Banking Malware Attacks

A Chinese-speaking threat actor codenamed GoldFactory has been attributed to the development of highly sophisticated banking trojans, including a previously undocumented iOS malware called GoldPickaxe that's capable of harvesting identity documents, facial recognition data, and intercepting SMS. "The GoldPickaxe family is available for both iOS and Android platforms,"

Critical Exchange Server Flaw (CVE-2024-21410) Under Active Exploitation

Microsoft on Wednesday acknowledged that a newly disclosed critical security flaw in Exchange Server has been actively exploited in the wild, a day after it released fixes for the vulnerability as part of its Patch Tuesday updates. Tracked as CVE-2024-21410 (CVSS score: 9.8), the issue has been described as a case of privilege escalation impacting the Exchange Server. "An attacker

Microsoft, OpenAI Warn of Nation-State Hackers Weaponizing AI for Cyber Attacks

Nation-state actors associated with Russia, North Korea, Iran, and China are experimenting with artificial intelligence (AI) and large language models (LLMs) to complement their ongoing cyber attack operations. The findings come from a report published by Microsoft in collaboration with OpenAI, both of which said they disrupted efforts made by five state-affiliated actors that used its

Ubuntu 'command-not-found' Tool Could Trick Users into Installing Rogue Packages

Cybersecurity researchers have found that it's possible for threat actors to exploit a well-known utility called command-not-found to recommend their own rogue packages and compromise systems running Ubuntu operating system. "While 'command-not-found' serves as a convenient tool for suggesting installations for uninstalled commands, it can be inadvertently manipulated by attackers through the

Bumblebee Malware Returns with New Tricks, Targeting U.S. Businesses

The infamous malware loader and initial access broker known as Bumblebee has resurfaced after a four-month absence as part of a new phishing campaign observed in February 2024. Enterprise security firm Proofpoint said the activity targets organizations in the U.S. with voicemail-themed lures containing links to OneDrive URLs. "The URLs led to a Word file with names such as "

Glupteba Botnet Evades Detection with Undocumented UEFI Bootkit

The Glupteba botnet has been found to incorporate a previously undocumented Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) bootkit feature, adding another layer of sophistication and stealth to the malware. "This bootkit can intervene and control the [operating system] boot process, enabling Glupteba to hide itself and create a stealthy persistence that can be extremely difficult to

PikaBot Resurfaces with Streamlined Code and Deceptive Tactics

The threat actors behind the PikaBot malware have made significant changes to the malware in what has been described as a case of "devolution." "Although it appears to be in a new development cycle and testing phase, the developers have reduced the complexity of the code by removing advanced obfuscation techniques and changing the network communications," Zscaler ThreatLabz researcher Nikolaos

Why Are Compromised Identities the Nightmare to IR Speed and Efficiency?

Incident response (IR) is a race against time. You engage your internal or external team because there's enough evidence that something bad is happening, but you’re still blind to the scope, the impact, and the root cause. The common set of IR tools and practices provides IR teams with the ability to discover malicious files and outbound network connections. However, the identity aspect - namely

U.S. DoJ Dismantles Warzone RAT Infrastructure, Arrests Key Operators

The U.S. Justice Department (DoJ) on Friday announced the seizure of online infrastructure that was used to sell a remote access trojan (RAT) called Warzone RAT. The domains – www.warzone[.]ws and three others – were "used to sell computer malware used by cybercriminals to secretly access and steal data from victims' computers," the DoJ said. Alongside the takedown, the

Hands-on Review: Myrror Security Code-Aware and Attack-Aware SCA

Introduction The modern software supply chain represents an ever-evolving threat landscape, with each package added to the manifest introducing new attack vectors. To meet industry requirements, organizations must maintain a fast-paced development process while staying up-to-date with the latest security patches. However, in practice, developers often face a large amount of security work

HijackLoader Evolves: Researchers Decode the Latest Evasion Methods

The threat actors behind a loader malware called HijackLoader have added new techniques for defense evasion, as the malware continues to be increasingly used by other threat actors to deliver additional payloads and tooling. "The malware developer used a standard process hollowing technique coupled with an additional trigger that was activated by the parent process writing to a pipe,"

After FBI Takedown, KV-Botnet Operators Shift Tactics in Attempt to Bounce Back

The threat actors behind the KV-botnet made "behavioral changes" to the malicious network as U.S. law enforcement began issuing commands to neutralize the activity. KV-botnet is the name given to a network of compromised small office and home office (SOHO) routers and firewall devices across the world, with one specific cluster acting as a covert data transfer system for other Chinese

Critical Boot Loader Vulnerability in Shim Impacts Nearly All Linux Distros

The maintainers of shim have released version 15.8 to address six security flaws, including a critical bug that could pave the way for remote code execution under specific circumstances. Tracked as CVE-2023-40547 (CVSS score: 9.8), the vulnerability could be exploited to achieve a Secure Boot bypass. Bill Demirkapi of the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) has been&

Hackers Exploit Job Boards, Stealing Millions of Resumes and Personal Data

Employment agencies and retail companies chiefly located in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region have been targeted by a previously undocumented threat actor known as ResumeLooters since early 2023 with the goal of stealing sensitive data. Singapore-headquartered Group-IB said the hacking crew's activities are geared towards job search platforms and the theft of resumes, with as many as 65

Patchwork Using Romance Scam Lures to Infect Android Devices with VajraSpy Malware

The threat actor known as Patchwork likely used romance scam lures to trap victims in Pakistan and India, and infect their Android devices with a remote access trojan called VajraSpy. Slovak cybersecurity firm ESET said it uncovered 12 espionage apps, six of which were available for download from the official Google Play Store and were collectively downloaded more than 1,400 times between

New Mispadu Banking Trojan Exploiting Windows SmartScreen Flaw

The threat actors behind the Mispadu banking Trojan have become the latest to exploit a now-patched Windows SmartScreen security bypass flaw to compromise users in Mexico. The attacks entail a new variant of the malware that was first observed in 2019, Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 said in a report published last week. Propagated via phishing mails, Mispadu is a Delphi-based information stealer

U.S. Sanctions 6 Iranian Officials for Critical Infrastructure Cyber Attacks

The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced sanctions against six officials associated with the Iranian intelligence agency for attacking critical infrastructure entities in the U.S. and other countries. The officials include Hamid Reza Lashgarian, Mahdi Lashgarian, Hamid Homayunfal, Milad Mansuri, Mohammad Bagher Shirinkar, and Reza Mohammad Amin

AnyDesk Hacked: Popular Remote Desktop Software Mandates Password Reset

Remote desktop software maker AnyDesk disclosed on Friday that it suffered a cyber attack that led to a compromise of its production systems. The German company said the incident, which it discovered following a security audit, is not a ransomware attack and that it has notified relevant authorities. "We have revoked all security-related certificates and systems have been remediated or replaced

Russian APT28 Hackers Targeting High-Value Orgs with NTLM Relay Attacks

Russian state-sponsored actors have staged NT LAN Manager (NTLM) v2 hash relay attacks through various methods from April 2022 to November 2023, targeting high-value targets worldwide. The attacks, attributed to an "aggressive" hacking crew called APT28, have set their eyes on organizations dealing with foreign affairs, energy, defense, and transportation, as well as those involved with

DirtyMoe Malware Infects 2,000+ Ukrainian Computers for DDoS and Cryptojacking

The Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA) has warned that more than 2,000 computers in the country have been infected by a strain of malware called DirtyMoe. The agency attributed the campaign to a threat actor it calls UAC-0027. DirtyMoe, active since at least 2016, is capable of carrying out cryptojacking and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. In March

INTERPOL Arrests 31 in Global Operation, Identifies 1,900+ Ransomware-Linked IPs

An INTERPOL-led collaborative operation targeting phishing, banking malware, and ransomware attacks has led to the identification of 1,300 suspicious IP addresses and URLs. The law enforcement effort, codenamed Synergia, took place between September and November 2023 in an attempt to blunt the "growth, escalation and professionalization of transnational cybercrime." Involving 60 law

FritzFrog Returns with Log4Shell and PwnKit, Spreading Malware Inside Your Network

The threat actor behind a peer-to-peer (P2P) botnet known as FritzFrog has made a return with a new variant that leverages the Log4Shell vulnerability to propagate internally within an already compromised network. "The vulnerability is exploited in a brute-force manner that attempts to target as many vulnerable Java applications as possible," web infrastructure and security

Why the Right Metrics Matter When it Comes to Vulnerability Management

How’s your vulnerability management program doing? Is it effective? A success? Let’s be honest, without the right metrics or analytics, how can you tell how well you’re doing, progressing, or if you’re getting ROI? If you’re not measuring, how do you know it’s working? And even if you are measuring, faulty reporting or focusing on the wrong metrics can create blind spots and make it harder to

U.S. Feds Shut Down China-Linked "KV-Botnet" Targeting SOHO Routers

The U.S. government on Wednesday said it took steps to neutralize a botnet comprising hundreds of U.S.-based small office and home office (SOHO) routers hijacked by a China-linked state-sponsored threat actor called Volt Typhoon and blunt the impact posed by the hacking campaign. The existence of the botnet, dubbed KV-botnet, was first disclosed by the Black Lotus Labs team at

Telegram Marketplaces Fuel Phishing Attacks with Easy-to-Use Kits and Malware

Cybersecurity researchers are calling attention to the "democratization" of the phishing ecosystem owing to the emergence of Telegram as an epicenter for cybercrime, enabling threat actors to mount a mass attack for as little as $230. "This messaging app has transformed into a bustling hub where seasoned cybercriminals and newcomers alike exchange illicit tools and insights creating a dark and

Hackers Exploiting Ivanti VPN Flaws to Deploy KrustyLoader Malware

A pair of recently disclosed zero-day flaws in Ivanti Connect Secure (ICS) virtual private network (VPN) devices have been exploited to deliver a Rust-based payload called KrustyLoader that's used to drop the open-source Sliver adversary simulation tool. The security vulnerabilities, tracked as CVE-2023-46805 (CVSS score: 8.2) and CVE-2024-21887 (CVSS score: 9.1), could be abused

Brazilian Feds Dismantle Grandoreiro Banking Trojan, Arresting Top Operatives

A Brazilian law enforcement operation has led to the arrest of several Brazilian operators in charge of the Grandoreiro malware. The Federal Police of Brazil said it served five temporary arrest warrants and 13 search and seizure warrants in the states of São Paulo, Santa Catarina, Pará, Goiás, and Mato Grosso. Slovak cybersecurity firm ESET, which provided additional

China-Linked Hackers Target Myanmar's Top Ministries with Backdoor Blitz

The China-based threat actor known as Mustang Panda is suspected to have targeted Myanmar's Ministry of Defence and Foreign Affairs as part of twin campaigns designed to deploy backdoors and remote access trojans. The findings come from CSIRT-CTI, which said the activities took place in November 2023 and January 2024 after artifacts in connection with the attacks were uploaded to the

New ZLoader Malware Variant Surfaces with 64-bit Windows Compatibility

Threat hunters have identified a new campaign that delivers the ZLoader malware, resurfacing nearly two years after the botnet's infrastructure was dismantled in April 2022. A new variant of the malware is said to have been in development since September 2023, Zscaler ThreatLabz said in an analysis published this month. "The new version of ZLoader made significant changes to the loader

Researchers Uncover How Outlook Vulnerability Could Leak Your NTLM Passwords

A now-patched security flaw in Microsoft Outlook could be exploited by threat actors to access NT LAN Manager (NTLM) v2 hashed passwords when opening a specially crafted file. The issue, tracked as CVE-2023-35636 (CVSS score: 6.5), was addressed by the tech giant as part of its Patch Tuesday updates for December 2023. "In an email attack scenario, an attacker could exploit the

AllaKore RAT Malware Targeting Mexican Firms with Financial Fraud Tricks

Mexican financial institutions are under the radar of a new spear-phishing campaign that delivers a modified version of an open-source remote access trojan called AllaKore RAT. The BlackBerry Research and Intelligence Team attributed the activity to an unknown Latin America-based financially motivated threat actor. The campaign has been active since at least 2021. "Lures use Mexican Social

Microsoft Warns of Widening APT29 Espionage Attacks Targeting Global Orgs

Microsoft on Thursday said the Russian state-sponsored threat actors responsible for a cyber attack on its systems in late November 2023 have been targeting other organizations and that it's currently beginning to notify them. The development comes a day after Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) revealed that it had been the victim of an attack perpetrated by a hacking crew

LODEINFO Fileless Malware Evolves with Anti-Analysis and Remote Code Tricks

Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered an updated version of a backdoor called LODEINFO that's distributed via spear-phishing attacks. The findings come from Japanese company ITOCHU Cyber & Intelligence, which said the malware "has been updated with new features, as well as changes to the anti-analysis (analysis avoidance) techniques." LODEINFO (versions 0.6.6 and 0.6.7

What is Nudge Security and How Does it Work?

In today’s highly distributed workplace, every employee has the ability to act as their own CIO, adopting new cloud and SaaS technologies whenever and wherever they need. While this has been a critical boon to productivity and innovation in the digital enterprise, it has upended traditional approaches to IT security and governance. Nudge Security is the world’s first and only solution to address

Kasseika Ransomware Using BYOVD Trick to Disarm Security Pre-Encryption

The ransomware group known as Kasseika has become the latest to leverage the Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver (BYOVD) attack to disarm security-related processes on compromised Windows hosts, joining the likes of other groups like Akira, AvosLocker, BlackByte, and RobbinHood. The tactic allows "threat actors to terminate antivirus processes and services for the deployment of ransomware," Trend

Malicious NPM Packages Exfiltrate Hundreds of Developer SSH Keys via GitHub

Two malicious packages discovered on the npm package registry have been found to leverage GitHub to store Base64-encrypted SSH keys stolen from developer systems on which they were installed. The modules named warbeast2000 and kodiak2k were published at the start of the month, attracting 412 and 1,281 downloads before they were taken down by the npm

From Megabits to Terabits: Gcore Radar Warns of a New Era of DDoS Attacks

As we enter 2024, Gcore has released its latest Gcore Radar report, a twice-annual publication in which the company releases internal analytics to track DDoS attacks. Gcore’s broad, internationally distributed network of scrubbing centers allows them to follow attack trends over time. Read on to learn about DDoS attack trends for Q3–Q4 of 2023, and what they mean for developing a robust

~40,000 Attacks in 3 Days: Critical Confluence RCE Under Active Exploitation

Malicious actors have begun to actively exploit a recently disclosed critical security flaw impacting Atlassian Confluence Data Center and Confluence Server, within three days of public disclosure. Tracked as CVE-2023-22527 (CVSS score: 10.0), the vulnerability impacts out-of-date versions of the software, allowing unauthenticated attackers to achieve remote code execution on susceptible

MavenGate Attack Could Let Hackers Hijack Java and Android via Abandoned Libraries

Several public and popular libraries abandoned but still used in Java and Android applications have been found susceptible to a new software supply chain attack method called MavenGate. "Access to projects can be hijacked through domain name purchases and since most default build configurations are vulnerable, it would be difficult or even impossible to know whether an attack was being performed

Invoice Phishing Alert: TA866 Deploys WasabiSeed & Screenshotter Malware

The threat actor tracked as TA866 has resurfaced after a nine-month hiatus with a new large-volume phishing campaign to deliver known malware families such as WasabiSeed and Screenshotter. The campaign, observed earlier this month and blocked by Proofpoint on January 11, 2024, involved sending thousands of invoice-themed emails targeting North America bearing decoy PDF files. "The PDFs

Experts Warn of macOS Backdoor Hidden in Pirated Versions of Popular Software

Pirated applications targeting Apple macOS users have been observed containing a backdoor capable of granting attackers remote control to infected machines. "These applications are being hosted on Chinese pirating websites in order to gain victims," Jamf Threat Labs researchers Ferdous Saljooki and Jaron Bradley said. "Once detonated, the malware will download and execute multiple payloads

TensorFlow CI/CD Flaw Exposed Supply Chain to Poisoning Attacks

Continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) misconfigurations discovered in the open-source TensorFlow machine learning framework could have been exploited to orchestrate supply chain attacks. The misconfigurations could be abused by an attacker to "conduct a supply chain compromise of TensorFlow releases on GitHub and PyPi by compromising TensorFlow's build agents via

MFA Spamming and Fatigue: When Security Measures Go Wrong

In today's digital landscape, traditional password-only authentication systems have proven to be vulnerable to a wide range of cyberattacks. To safeguard critical business resources, organizations are increasingly turning to multi-factor authentication (MFA) as a more robust security measure. MFA requires users to provide multiple authentication factors to verify their identity, providing an

Iranian Hackers Masquerade as Journalists to Spy on Israel-Hamas War Experts

High-profile individuals working on Middle Eastern affairs at universities and research organizations in Belgium, France, Gaza, Israel, the U.K., and the U.S. have been targeted by an Iranian cyber espionage group called Mint Sandstorm since November 2023. The threat actor "used bespoke phishing lures in an attempt to socially engineer targets into downloading malicious files," the

Zero-Day Alert: Update Chrome Now to Fix New Actively Exploited Vulnerability

Google on Tuesday released updates to fix four security issues in its Chrome browser, including an actively exploited zero-day flaw. The issue, tracked as CVE-2024-0519, concerns an out-of-bounds memory access in the V8 JavaScript and WebAssembly engine, which can be weaponized by threat actors to trigger a crash. <!-- adsense --> "By reading out-of-bounds memory, an attacker might be able to

Inferno Malware Masqueraded as Coinbase, Drained $87 Million from 137,000 Victims

The operators behind the now-defunct&nbsp;Inferno Drainer&nbsp;created more than 16,000 unique malicious domains over a span of one year between 2022 and 2023. The scheme “leveraged high-quality phishing pages to lure unsuspecting users into connecting their cryptocurrency wallets with the attackers’ infrastructure that spoofed Web3 protocols to trick victims into authorizing transactions,”

DDoS Attacks on the Environmental Services Industry Surge by 61,839% in 2023

The environmental services industry witnessed an “unprecedented surge” in HTTP-based distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, accounting for half of all its HTTP traffic. This marks a 61,839% increase in DDoS attack traffic year-over-year, web infrastructure and security company Cloudflare said in its DDoS threat report for 2023 Q4 published last week. “This surge in cyber attacks coincided

New Findings Challenge Attribution in Denmark's Energy Sector Cyberattacks

The cyber attacks targeting the energy sector in Denmark last year may not have had the involvement of the Russia-linked Sandworm hacking group,&nbsp;new findings&nbsp;from Forescout show. The intrusions, which&nbsp;targeted around 22 Danish energy organizations&nbsp;in May 2023, occurred in two distinct waves, one which exploited a security flaw in Zyxel firewall (CVE-2023-28771) and a

Applying the Tyson Principle to Cybersecurity: Why Attack Simulation is Key to Avoiding a KO

Picture a cybersecurity landscape where defenses are impenetrable, and threats are nothing more than mere disturbances deflected by a strong shield. Sadly, this image of fortitude remains a pipe dream despite its comforting nature. In the security world, preparedness is not just a luxury but a necessity. In this context, Mike Tyson's famous adage, "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in

New Python-based FBot Hacking Toolkit Aims at Cloud and SaaS Platforms

A new Python-based hacking tool called&nbsp;FBot&nbsp;has been uncovered targeting web servers, cloud services, content management systems (CMS), and SaaS platforms such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft 365, PayPal, Sendgrid, and Twilio. “Key features include credential harvesting for spamming attacks, AWS account hijacking tools, and functions to enable attacks against PayPal and various

There is a Ransomware Armageddon Coming for Us All

Generative AI will enable anyone to launch sophisticated phishing attacks that only Next-generation MFA devices can stop The least surprising headline from 2023 is that ransomware again set new records for a number of incidents and the damage inflicted. We saw new headlines every week, which included a who’s-who of big-name organizations. If MGM, Johnson Controls, Chlorox, Hanes Brands, Caesars

Mandiant's X Account Was Hacked Using Brute-Force Attack

The compromise of Mandiant's X (formerly Twitter) account last week was likely the result of a "brute-force password attack," attributing the hack to a drainer-as-a-service (DaaS) group. "Normally, [two-factor authentication] would have mitigated this, but due to some team transitions and a change in X's 2FA policy, we were not adequately protected," the threat intelligence firm&nbsp;said&nbsp;

Getting off the Attack Surface Hamster Wheel: Identity Can Help

IT professionals have developed a sophisticated understanding of the enterprise attack surface – what it is, how to quantify it and how to manage it.&nbsp; The process is simple: begin by thoroughly assessing the attack surface, encompassing the entire IT environment. Identify all potential entry and exit points where unauthorized access could occur. Strengthen these vulnerable points using

Alert: Water Curupira Hackers Actively Distributing PikaBot Loader Malware

A threat actor called Water Curupira has been observed actively distributing the&nbsp;PikaBot&nbsp;loader malware as part of spam campaigns in 2023. “PikaBot’s operators ran phishing campaigns, targeting victims via its two components — a loader and a core module — which enabled unauthorized remote access and allowed the execution of arbitrary commands through an established connection with