BlackTech Targets Tech, Research, and Gov Sectors New 'Deuterbear' Tool

Technology, research, and government sectors in the Asia-Pacific region have been targeted by a threat actor called BlackTech as part of a recent cyber attack wave. The intrusions pave the way for an updated version of modular backdoor dubbed Waterbear as well as its enhanced successor referred to as Deuterbear. "Waterbear is known for its complexity, as it

How Attackers Can Own a Business Without Touching the Endpoint

Attackers are increasingly making use of “networkless” attack techniques targeting cloud apps and identities. Here’s how attackers can (and are) compromising organizations – without ever needing to touch the endpoint or conventional networked systems and services.  Before getting into the details of the attack techniques being used, let’s discuss why

Akira Ransomware Gang Extorts $42 Million; Now Targets Linux Servers

Threat actors behind the Akira ransomware group have extorted approximately $42 million in illicit proceeds after breaching the networks of more than 250 victims as of January 1, 2024. "Since March 2023, Akira ransomware has impacted a wide range of businesses and critical infrastructure entities in North America, Europe, and Australia," cybersecurity agencies from the Netherlands and the U.S.,

Hackers Target Middle East Governments with Evasive "CR4T" Backdoor

Government entities in the Middle East have been targeted as part of a previously undocumented campaign to deliver a new backdoor dubbed CR4T. Russian cybersecurity company Kaspersky said it discovered the activity in February 2024, with evidence suggesting that it may have been active since at least a year prior. The campaign has been codenamed 

OfflRouter Malware Evades Detection in Ukraine for Almost a Decade

Select Ukrainian government networks have remained infected with a malware called OfflRouter since 2015. Cisco Talos said its findings are based on an analysis of over 100 confidential documents that were infected with the VBA macro virus and uploaded to the VirusTotal malware scanning platform since 2018. More than 20 such documents have been uploaded since 2022. "The documents contained VBA

FIN7 Cybercrime Group Targeting U.S. Auto Industry with Carbanak Backdoor

The infamous cybercrime syndicate known as FIN7 has been linked to a spear-phishing campaign targeting the U.S. automotive industry to deliver a known backdoor called Carbanak (aka Anunak). "FIN7 identified employees at the company who worked in the IT department and had higher levels of administrative rights," the BlackBerry research and intelligence team said in a new write-up. "They

Recover from Ransomware in 5 Minutes—We will Teach You How!

Super Low RPO with Continuous Data Protection:Dial Back to Just Seconds Before an Attack Zerto, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, can help you detect and recover from ransomware in near real-time. This solution leverages continuous data protection (CDP) to ensure all workloads have the lowest recovery point objective (RPO) possible. The most valuable thing about CDP is that it does not use

New Android Trojan 'SoumniBot' Evades Detection with Clever Tricks

A new Android trojan called SoumniBot has been detected in the wild targeting users in South Korea by leveraging weaknesses in the manifest extraction and parsing procedure. The malware is "notable for an unconventional approach to evading analysis and detection, namely obfuscation of the Android manifest," Kaspersky researcher Dmitry Kalinin said in a technical analysis.

How to Conduct Advanced Static Analysis in a Malware Sandbox

Sandboxes are synonymous with dynamic malware analysis. They help to execute malicious files in a safe virtual environment and observe their behavior. However, they also offer plenty of value in terms of static analysis. See these five scenarios where a sandbox can prove to be a useful tool in your investigations. Detecting Threats in PDFs PDF files are frequently exploited by threat actors to

Global Police Operation Disrupts 'LabHost' Phishing Service, Over 30 Arrested Worldwide

As many as 37 individuals have been arrested as part of an international crackdown on a cybercrime service called LabHost that has been used by criminal actors to steal personal credentials from victims around the world. Described as one of the largest Phishing-as-a-Service (PhaaS) providers, LabHost offered phishing pages targeting banks, high-profile organizations, and other service

Hackers Exploit OpenMetadata Flaws to Mine Crypto on Kubernetes

Threat actors are actively exploiting critical vulnerabilities in OpenMetadata to gain unauthorized access to Kubernetes workloads and leverage them for cryptocurrency mining activity. That's according to the Microsoft Threat Intelligence team, which said the flaws have been weaponized since the start of April 2024. OpenMetadata is an open-source platform that operates as a

Malicious Google Ads Pushing Fake IP Scanner Software with Hidden Backdoor

A new Google malvertising campaign is leveraging a cluster of domains mimicking a legitimate IP scanner software to deliver a previously unknown backdoor dubbed MadMxShell. "The threat actor registered multiple look-alike domains using a typosquatting technique and leveraged Google Ads to push these domains to the top of search engine results targeting specific search keywords, thereby

Russian APT Deploys New 'Kapeka' Backdoor in Eastern European Attacks

A previously undocumented "flexible" backdoor called Kapeka has been "sporadically" observed in cyber attacks targeting Eastern Europe, including Estonia and Ukraine, since at least mid-2022. The findings come from Finnish cybersecurity firm WithSecure, which attributed the malware to the Russia-linked advanced persistent threat (APT) group tracked as Sandworm (aka APT44 or

GenAI: A New Headache for SaaS Security Teams

The introduction of Open AI’s ChatGPT was a defining moment for the software industry, touching off a GenAI race with its November 2022 release. SaaS vendors are now rushing to upgrade tools with enhanced productivity capabilities that are driven by generative AI. Among a wide range of uses, GenAI tools make it easier for developers to build software, assist sales teams in mundane email writing,

Critical Atlassian Flaw Exploited to Deploy Linux Variant of Cerber Ransomware

Threat actors are exploiting unpatched Atlassian servers to deploy a Linux variant of Cerber (aka C3RB3R) ransomware. The attacks leverage CVE-2023-22518 (CVSS score: 9.1), a critical security vulnerability impacting the Atlassian Confluence Data Center and Server that allows an unauthenticated attacker to reset Confluence and create an administrator account. Armed with this access, a

Hackers Exploit Fortinet Flaw, Deploy ScreenConnect, Metasploit in New Campaign

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new campaign that's exploiting a recently disclosed security flaw in Fortinet FortiClient EMS devices to deliver ScreenConnect and Metasploit Powerfun payloads. The activity entails the exploitation of CVE-2023-48788 (CVSS score: 9.3), a critical SQL injection flaw that could permit an unauthenticated attacker to execute unauthorized code or

Cisco Warns of Global Surge in Brute-Force Attacks Targeting VPN and SSH Services

Cisco is warning about a global surge in brute-force attacks targeting various devices, including Virtual Private Network (VPN) services, web application authentication interfaces, and SSH services, since at least March 18, 2024. "These attacks all appear to be originating from TOR exit nodes and a range of other anonymizing tunnels and proxies," Cisco Talos said. Successful attacks could

OpenJS Foundation Targeted in Potential JavaScript Project Takeover Attempt

Security researchers have uncovered a "credible" takeover attempt targeting the OpenJS Foundation in a manner that evokes similarities to the recently uncovered incident aimed at the open-source XZ Utils project. "The OpenJS Foundation Cross Project Council received a suspicious series of emails with similar messages, bearing different names and overlapping GitHub-associated emails," OpenJS

TA558 Hackers Weaponize Images for Wide-Scale Malware Attacks

The threat actor tracked as TA558 has been observed leveraging steganography as an obfuscation technique to deliver a wide range of malware such as Agent Tesla, FormBook, Remcos RAT, LokiBot, GuLoader, Snake Keylogger, and XWorm, among others. "The group made extensive use of steganography by sending VBSs, PowerShell code, as well as RTF documents with an embedded exploit, inside

AWS, Google, and Azure CLI Tools Could Leak Credentials in Build Logs

New cybersecurity research has found that command-line interface (CLI) tools from Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud can expose sensitive credentials in build logs, posing significant risks to organizations. The vulnerability has been codenamed LeakyCLI by cloud security firm Orca. "Some commands on Azure CLI, AWS CLI, and Google Cloud CLI can expose sensitive information in

Widely-Used PuTTY SSH Client Found Vulnerable to Key Recovery Attack

The maintainers of the PuTTY Secure Shell (SSH) and Telnet client are alerting users of a critical vulnerability impacting versions from 0.68 through 0.80 that could be exploited to achieve full recovery of NIST P-521 (ecdsa-sha2-nistp521) private keys. The flaw has been assigned the CVE identifier CVE-2024-31497, with the discovery credited to researchers Fabian Bäumer and Marcus

Identity in the Shadows: Shedding Light on Cybersecurity's Unseen Threats

In today's rapidly evolving digital landscape, organizations face an increasingly complex array of cybersecurity threats. The proliferation of cloud services and remote work arrangements has heightened the vulnerability of digital identities to exploitation, making it imperative for businesses to fortify their identity security measures. Our recent research report, The Identity Underground

FTC Fines Mental Health Startup Cerebral $7 Million for Major Privacy Violations

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has ordered mental telehealth company Cerebral from using or disclosing personal medical data for advertising purposes. It has also been fined more than $7 million over charges that it revealed users' sensitive personal health information and other data to third-parties for advertising purposes and failed to honor its easy cancellation policies. "Cerebral

Hive RAT Creators and $3.5M Cryptojacking Mastermind Arrested in Global Crackdown

Two individuals have been arrested in Australia and the U.S. in connection with an alleged scheme to develop and distribute a remote access trojan called Hive RAT (previously Firebird). The U.S. Justice Department (DoJ) said the malware "gave the malware purchasers control over victim computers and enabled them to access victims' private communications, their login credentials, and

Intel and Lenovo BMCs Contain Unpatched Lighttpd Server Flaw

A security flaw impacting the Lighttpd web server used in baseboard management controllers (BMCs) has remained unpatched by device vendors like Intel and Lenovo, new findings from Binarly reveal. While the original shortcoming was discovered and patched by the Lighttpd maintainers way back in August 2018 with version 1.4.51, the lack of a CVE identifier or an advisory meant that

AI Copilot: Launching Innovation Rockets, But Beware of the Darkness Ahead

Imagine a world where the software that powers your favorite apps, secures your online transactions, and keeps your digital life could be outsmarted and taken over by a cleverly disguised piece of code. This isn't a plot from the latest cyber-thriller; it's actually been a reality for years now. How this will change – in a positive or negative direction – as artificial intelligence (AI) takes on

Muddled Libra Shifts Focus to SaaS and Cloud for Extortion and Data Theft Attacks

The threat actor known as Muddled Libra has been observed actively targeting software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications and cloud service provider (CSP) environments in a bid to exfiltrate sensitive data. "Organizations often store a variety of data in SaaS applications and use services from CSPs," Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 said in a report published last week. "The threat

Timing is Everything: The Role of Just-in-Time Privileged Access in Security Evolution

To minimize the risk of privilege misuse, a trend in the privileged access management (PAM) solution market involves implementing just-in-time (JIT) privileged access. This approach to privileged identity management aims to mitigate the risks associated with prolonged high-level access by granting privileges temporarily and only when necessary, rather than providing users with

Chinese-Linked LightSpy iOS Spyware Targets South Asian iPhone Users

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a "renewed" cyber espionage campaign targeting users in South Asia with the aim of delivering an Apple iOS spyware implant called LightSpy. "The latest iteration of LightSpy, dubbed 'F_Warehouse,' boasts a modular framework with extensive spying features," the BlackBerry Threat Research and Intelligence Team said in a report published last

Palo Alto Networks Releases Urgent Fixes for Exploited PAN-OS Vulnerability

Palo Alto Networks has released hotfixes to address a maximum-severity security flaw impacting PAN-OS software that has come under active exploitation in the wild. Tracked as CVE-2024-3400 (CVSS score: 10.0), the critical vulnerability is a case of command injection in the GlobalProtect feature that an unauthenticated attacker could weaponize to execute arbitrary code with root

Ex-Security Engineer Jailed 3 Years for $12.3 Million Crypto Exchange Thefts

A former security engineer has been sentenced to three years in prison in the U.S. for charges relating to hacking two decentralized cryptocurrency exchanges in July 2022 and stealing over $12.3 million. Shakeeb Ahmed, the defendant in question, pled guilty to one count of computer fraud in December 2023 following his arrest in July. "At the time of both attacks,

U.S. Treasury Hamas Spokesperson for Cyber Influence Operations

The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on Friday announced sanctions against an official associated with Hamas for his involvement in cyber influence operations. Hudhayfa Samir ‘Abdallah al-Kahlut, 39, also known as Abu Ubaida, has served as the public spokesperson of Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, since at least 2007. "He publicly

Hackers Deploy Python Backdoor in Palo Alto Zero-Day Attack

Threat actors have been exploiting the newly disclosed zero-day flaw in Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS software dating back to March 26, 2024, nearly three weeks before it came to light yesterday. The network security company's Unit 42 division is tracking the activity under the name Operation MidnightEclipse, attributing it as the work of a single threat actor of

Popular Rust Crate liblzma-sys Compromised with XZ Utils Backdoor Files

"Test files" associated with the XZ Utils backdoor have made their way to a Rust crate known as liblzma-sys, new findings from Phylum reveal. liblzma-sys, which has been downloaded over 21,000 times to date, provides Rust developers with bindings to the liblzma implementation, an underlying library that is part of the XZ Utils data compression software. The

Code Keepers: Mastering Non-Human Identity Management

Identities now transcend human boundaries. Within each line of code and every API call lies a non-human identity. These entities act as programmatic access keys, enabling authentication and facilitating interactions among systems and services, which are essential for every API call, database query, or storage account access. As we depend on multi-factor authentication and passwords to safeguard

Iranian MuddyWater Hackers Adopt New C2 Tool 'DarkBeatC2' in Latest Campaign

The Iranian threat actor known as MuddyWater has been attributed to a new command-and-control (C2) infrastructure called DarkBeatC2, becoming the latest such tool in its arsenal after SimpleHarm, MuddyC3, PhonyC2, and MuddyC2Go. "While occasionally switching to a new remote administration tool or changing their C2 framework, MuddyWater’s methods remain constant," Deep

Zero-Day Alert: Critical Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS Flaw Under Active Attack

Palo Alto Networks is warning that a critical flaw impacting PAN-OS software used in its GlobalProtect gateways is being actively exploited in the wild. Tracked as CVE-2024-3400, the issue has a CVSS score of 10.0, indicating maximum severity. "A command injection vulnerability in the GlobalProtect feature of Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS software for specific PAN-OS versions and distinct

Sneaky Credit Card Skimmer Disguised as Harmless Facebook Tracker

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a credit card skimmer that's concealed within a fake Meta Pixel tracker script in an attempt to evade detection. Sucuri said that the malware is injected into websites through tools that allow for custom code, such as WordPress plugins like Simple Custom CSS and JS or the "Miscellaneous Scripts" section of the Magento admin panel. "

U.S. Federal Agencies Ordered to Hunt for Signs of Microsoft Breach and Mitigate Risks

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Thursday issued an emergency directive (ED 24-02) urging federal agencies to hunt for signs of compromise and enact preventive measures following the recent compromise of Microsoft's systems that led to the theft of email correspondence with the company. The attack, which came to light earlier this year, has been

Python's PyPI Reveals Its Secrets

GitGuardian is famous for its annual State of Secrets Sprawl report. In their 2023 report, they found over 10 million exposed passwords, API keys, and other credentials exposed in public GitHub commits. The takeaways in their 2024 report did not just highlight 12.8 million new exposed secrets in GitHub, but a number in the popular Python package repository PyPI. PyPI,

TA547 Phishing Attack Hits German Firms with Rhadamanthys Stealer

A threat actor tracked as TA547 has targeted dozens of German organizations with an information stealer called Rhadamanthys as part of an invoice-themed phishing campaign. "This is the first time researchers observed TA547 use Rhadamanthys, an information stealer that is used by multiple cybercriminal threat actors," Proofpoint said. "Additionally, the actor appeared to

Apple Updates Spyware Alert System to Warn Victims of Mercenary Attacks

Apple on Wednesday revised its documentation pertaining to its mercenary spyware threat notification system to mention that it alerts users when they may have been individually targeted by such attacks. It also specifically called out companies like NSO Group for developing commercial surveillance tools such as Pegasus that are used by state actors to pull off "individually targeted

Fortinet Rolls Out Critical Security Patches for FortiClientLinux Vulnerability

Fortinet has released patches to address a critical security flaw impacting FortiClientLinux that could be exploited to achieve arbitrary code execution. Tracked as CVE-2023-45590, the vulnerability carries a CVSS score of 9.4 out of a maximum of 10. "An Improper Control of Generation of Code ('Code Injection') vulnerability [CWE-94] in FortiClientLinux may allow an unauthenticated attacker to

'eXotic Visit' Spyware Campaign Targets Android Users in India and Pakistan

An active Android malware campaign dubbed eXotic Visit has been primarily targeting users in South Asia, particularly those in India and Pakistan, with malware distributed via dedicated websites and Google Play Store. Slovak cybersecurity firm said the activity, ongoing since November 2021, is not linked to any known threat actor or group. It's tracking the group behind the operation under the

Raspberry Robin Returns: New Malware Campaign Spreading Through WSF Files

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new Raspberry Robin campaign wave that has been propagating the malware through malicious Windows Script Files (WSFs) since March 2024. "Historically, Raspberry Robin was known to spread through removable media like USB drives, but over time its distributors have experimented with other initial infection vectors," HP Wolf Security researcher Patrick

Beware: GitHub's Fake Popularity Scam Tricking Developers into Downloading Malware

Threat actors are now taking advantage of GitHub's search functionality to trick unsuspecting users looking for popular repositories into downloading spurious counterparts that serve malware. The latest assault on the open-source software supply chain involves concealing malicious code within Microsoft Visual Code project files that's designed to download next-stage payloads from a remote URL,

Hands-on Review: Cynomi AI-powered vCISO Platform

The need for vCISO services is growing. SMBs and SMEs are dealing with more third-party risks, tightening regulatory demands and stringent cyber insurance requirements than ever before. However, they often lack the resources and expertise to hire an in-house security executive team. By outsourcing security and compliance leadership to a vCISO, these organizations can more easily obtain

Researchers Uncover First Native Spectre v2 Exploit Against Linux Kernel

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed what they say is the "first native Spectre v2 exploit" against the Linux kernel on Intel systems that could be exploited to read sensitive data from the memory. The exploit, called Native Branch History Injection (BHI), can be used to leak arbitrary kernel memory at 3.5 kB/sec by bypassing existing Spectre v2/BHI mitigations, researchers from Systems and

Webinar: Learn How to Stop Hackers from Exploiting Hidden Identity Weaknesses

We all know passwords and firewalls are important, but what about the invisible threats lurking beneath the surface of your systems? Identity Threat Exposures (ITEs) are like secret tunnels for hackers – they make your security way more vulnerable than you think. Think of it like this: misconfigurations, forgotten accounts, and old settings are like cracks in your digital fortress walls. Hackers

Microsoft Fixes 149 Flaws in Huge April Patch Release, Zero-Days Included

Microsoft has released security updates for the month of April 2024 to remediate a record 149 flaws, two of which have come under active exploitation in the wild. Of the 149 flaws, three are rated Critical, 142 are rated Important, three are rated Moderate, and one is rated Low in severity. The update is aside from 21 vulnerabilities that the company addressed in its

Critical 'BatBadBut' Rust Vulnerability Exposes Windows Systems to Attacks

A critical security flaw in the Rust standard library could be exploited to target Windows users and stage command injection attacks. The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-24576, has a CVSS score of 10.0, indicating maximum severity. That said, it only impacts scenarios where batch files are invoked on Windows with untrusted arguments. "The Rust standard library did not properly escape

10-Year-Old 'RUBYCARP' Romanian Hacker Group Surfaces with Botnet

A threat group of suspected Romanian origin called RUBYCARP has been observed maintaining a long-running botnet for carrying out crypto mining, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS), and phishing attacks. The group, believed to be active for at least 10 years, employs the botnet for financial gain, Sysdig said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "Its primary method of operation

Hackers Targeting Human Rights Activists in Morocco and Western Sahara

Human rights activists in Morocco and the Western Sahara region are the targets of a new threat actor that leverages phishing attacks to trick victims into installing bogus Android apps and serve credential harvesting pages for Windows users. Cisco Talos is tracking the activity cluster under the name Starry Addax, describing it as primarily singling out activists associated with

Researchers Discover LG Smart TV Vulnerabilities Allowing Root Access

Multiple security vulnerabilities have been disclosed in LG webOS running on its smart televisions that could be exploited to bypass authorization and gain root access on the devices. The findings come from Romanian cybersecurity firm Bitdefender, which discovered and reported the flaws in November 2023. The issues were fixed by LG as part of updates released on March 22, 2024. The

CL0P's Ransomware Rampage - Security Measures for 2024

2023 CL0P Growth  Emerging in early 2019, CL0P was first introduced as a more advanced version of its predecessor the ‘CryptoMix’ ransomware, brought about by its owner CL0P ransomware, a cybercrime organisation. Over the years the group remained active with significant campaigns throughout 2020 to 2022. But in 2023 the CL0P ransomware gang took itself to new heights and became one of the

Attackers Using Obfuscation Tools to Deliver Multi-Stage Malware via Invoice Phishing

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered an intricate multi-stage attack that leverages invoice-themed phishing decoys to deliver a wide range of malware such as Venom RAT, Remcos RAT, XWorm, NanoCore RAT, and a stealer that targets crypto wallets. The email messages come with Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file attachments that, when clicked, activate the infection sequence, Fortinet

Critical Flaws Leave 92,000 D-Link NAS Devices Vulnerable to Malware Attacks

Threat actors are actively scanning and exploiting a pair of security flaws that are said to affect as many as 92,000 internet-exposed D-Link network-attached storage (NAS) devices. Tracked as CVE-2024-3272 (CVSS score: 9.8) and CVE-2024-3273 (CVSS score: 7.3), the vulnerabilities impact legacy D-Link products that have reached end-of-life (EoL) status. D-Link, in

Google Chrome Adds V8 Sandbox - A New Defense Against Browser Attacks

Google has announced support for what's called a V8 Sandbox in the Chrome web browser in an effort to address memory corruption issues. The sandbox, according to V8 security technical lead Samuel Groß, aims to prevent "memory corruption in V8 from spreading within the host process." The search behemoth has described V8 Sandbox as a lightweight, in-process sandbox

Watch Out for 'Latrodectus' - This Malware Could Be In Your Inbox

Threat hunters have discovered a new malware called Latrodectus that has been distributed as part of email phishing campaigns since at least late November 2023. "Latrodectus is an up-and-coming downloader with various sandbox evasion functionality," researchers from Proofpoint and Team Cymru said in a joint analysis published last week, adding it's designed to retrieve

The Drop in Ransomware Attacks in 2024 and What it Means

The ransomware industry surged in 2023 as it saw an alarming 55.5% increase in victims worldwide, reaching a staggering 5,070. But 2024 is starting off showing a very different picture. While the numbers skyrocketed in Q4 2023 with 1309 cases, in Q1 2024, the ransomware industry was down to 1,048 cases. This is a 22% decrease in ransomware attacks compared to Q4 2023. Figure