The 2023/2024 Axur Threat Landscape Report provides a comprehensive analysis of the latest cyber threats. The information combines data from the platform's surveillance of the Surface, Deep, and Dark Web with insights derived from the in-depth research and investigations conducted by the Threat Intelligence team.
Discover the full scope of digital threats in the Axur Report 2023/2024.
Overview
Governments from Australia, the U.K., and the U.S. have imposed financial sanctions on a Russian national for his alleged role in the 2022 ransomware attack against health insurance provider Medibank.
Alexander Ermakov (aka blade_runner, GistaveDore, GustaveDore, or JimJones), 33, has been tied to the breach of the Medibank network as well as the theft and release of Personally Identifiable
The threat actors behind ClearFake, SocGholish, and dozens of other e-crime outfits have established partnerships with another entity known as VexTrio as part of a massive "criminal affiliate program," new findings from Infoblox reveal.
The latest development demonstrates the "breadth of their activities and depth of their connections within the cybercrime industry," the company said,
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
The ransomware industry surged in 2023 as it saw an alarming 55.5% increase in victims worldwide, reaching a staggering 4,368 cases.
Figure 1: Year over year victims per quarter
The rollercoaster ride from explosive growth in 2021 to a momentary dip in 2022 was just a teaser—2023 roared back with the same fervor as 2021, propelling existing groups and ushering in a wave of formidable
A 29-year-old Ukrainian national has been arrested in connection with running a “sophisticated cryptojacking scheme,” netting them over $2 million (€1.8 million) in illicit profits.
The person, described as the “mastermind” behind the operation, was apprehended in Mykolaiv, Ukraine, on January 9 by the National Police of Ukraine with support from Europol and an unnamed cloud service provider
The banking malware known as Carbanak has been observed being used in ransomware attacks with updated tactics.
"The malware has adapted to incorporate attack vendors and techniques to diversify its effectiveness," cybersecurity firm NCC Group said in an analysis of ransomware attacks that took place in November 2023.
"Carbanak returned last month through new
Two British teens part of the LAPSUS$ cyber crime and extortion gang have been sentenced for their roles in orchestrating a string of high-profile attacks against a number of companies.
Arion Kurtaj, an 18-year-old from Oxford, has been sentenced to an indefinite hospital order due to his intent to get back to cybercrime "as soon as possible," BBC reported. Kurtaj, who is autistic, was
Threat hunters have discovered a rogue WordPress plugin that's capable of creating bogus administrator users and injecting malicious JavaScript code to steal credit card information.
The skimming activity is part of a Magecart campaign targeting e-commerce websites, according to Sucuri.
"As with many other malicious or fake WordPress plugins it contains some deceptive information at
German law enforcement has announced the disruption of a dark web platform called Kingdom Market that specialized in the sales of narcotics and malware to "tens of thousands of users."
The exercise, which involved collaboration from authorities from the U.S., Switzerland, Moldova, and Ukraine, began on December 16, 2023, the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) said.
Kingdom
The Chinese-speaking threat actors behind Smishing Triad have been observed masquerading as the United Arab Emirates Federal Authority for Identity and Citizenship to send malicious SMS messages with the ultimate goal of gathering sensitive information from residents and foreigners in the country.
"These criminals send malicious links to their victims' mobile devices through SMS or
The U.S. Justice Department (DoJ) has officially announced the disruption of the BlackCat ransomware operation and released a decryption tool that more than 500 affected victims can use to regain access to files locked by the malware.
Court documents show that the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) enlisted the help of a confidential human source (CHS) to act as an affiliate
Four U.S. nationals have been charged for participating in an illicit scheme that earned them more than $80 million via cryptocurrency investment scams.
The defendants – Lu Zhang, 36, of Alhambra, California; Justin Walker, 31, of Cypress, California; Joseph Wong, 32, Rosemead, California; and Hailong Zhu, 40, Naperville, Illinois – have been charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering,
Microsoft is warning of an uptick in malicious activity from an emerging threat cluster it's tracking as Storm-0539 for orchestrating gift card fraud and theft via highly sophisticated email and SMS phishing attacks against retail entities during the holiday shopping season.
The goal of the attacks is to propagate booby-trapped links that direct victims to adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM
Microsoft on Wednesday said it obtained a court order to seize infrastructure set up by a group called Storm-1152 that peddled roughly 750 million fraudulent Microsoft accounts and tools through a network of bogus websites and social media pages to other criminal actors, netting the operators millions of dollars in illicit revenue.
"Fraudulent online accounts act as the gateway to a host of
Unauthorized websites distributing trojanized versions of cracked software have been found to infect Apple macOS users with a new Trojan-Proxy malware.
"Attackers can use this type of malware to gain money by building a proxy server network or to perform criminal acts on behalf of the victim: to launch attacks on websites, companies and individuals, buy guns, drugs, and other illicit
A CACTUS ransomware campaign has been observed exploiting recently disclosed security flaws in a cloud analytics and business intelligence platform called Qlik Sense to obtain a foothold into targeted environments.
"This campaign marks the first documented instance [...] where threat actors deploying CACTUS ransomware have exploited vulnerabilities in Qlik Sense for initial access,"
Account credentials, a popular initial access vector, have become a valuable commodity in cybercrime. As a result, a single set of stolen credentials can put your organization’s entire network at risk.
According to the 2023 Verizon Data Breach Investigation Report, external parties were responsible for 83 percent of breaches that occurred between November 2021 and October 2022.&
A coordinated law enforcement operation has led to the arrest of key individuals in Ukraine who are alleged to be a part of several ransomware schemes.
"On 21 November, 30 properties were searched in the regions of Kyiv, Cherkasy, Rivne, and Vinnytsia, resulting in the arrest of the 32-year-old ringleader," Europol said in a statement today. "Four of the ringleader's most active
The ransomware strain known as Play is now being offered to other threat actors "as a service," new evidence unearthed by Adlumin has revealed.
"The unusual lack of even small variations between attacks suggests that they are being carried out by affiliates who have purchased the ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) and are following step-by-step instructions from playbooks delivered with it," the
Phishing attacks are steadily becoming more sophisticated, with cybercriminals investing in new ways of deceiving victims into revealing sensitive information or installing malicious software. One of the latest trends in phishing is the use of QR codes, CAPTCHAs, and steganography. See how they are carried out and learn to detect them.
Quishing
Quishing, a phishing technique resulting from the
An unknown threat actor has been observed publishing typosquat packages to the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository for nearly six months with an aim to deliver malware capable of gaining persistence, stealing sensitive data, and accessing cryptocurrency wallets for financial gain.
The 27 packages, which masqueraded as popular legitimate Python libraries, attracted thousands of downloads,
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
The Vietnamese threat actors behind the Ducktail stealer malware have been linked to a new campaign that ran between March and early October 2023, targeting marketing professionals in India with an aim to hijack Facebook business accounts.
"An important feature that sets it apart is that, unlike previous campaigns, which relied on .NET applications, this one used Delphi as the programming
A sub-cluster within the infamous Lazarus Group has established new infrastructure that impersonates skills assessment portals as part of its social engineering campaigns.
Microsoft attributed the activity to a threat actor it calls Sapphire Sleet, describing it as a "shift in the persistent actor's tactics."
Sapphire Sleet, also called APT38, BlueNoroff, CageyChameleon, and CryptoCore, has a
The U.S. Department of the Treasury imposed sanctions against a 37-year-old Russian woman for taking part in the laundering of virtual currency for the country's elites and cybercriminal crews, including the Ryuk ransomware group.
Ekaterina Zhdanova, per the department, is said to have facilitated large cross border transactions to assist Russian individuals to gain access to Western financial
The prolific threat actor known as Scattered Spider has been observed impersonating newly hired employees in targeted firms as a ploy to blend into normal on-hire processes and takeover accounts and breach organizations across the world.
Microsoft, which disclosed the activities of the financially motivated hacking crew, described the adversary as "one of the most dangerous financial criminal
A former employee of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) has pleaded guilty to charges accusing him of attempting to transmit classified defense information to Russia.
Jareh Sebastian Dalke, 31, served as an Information Systems Security Designer for the NSA from June 6, 2022, to July 1, 2022, where he had Top Secret clearance to access sensitive documents. The latest development comes more
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