U.S. Treasury Sanctions Iranian Firms and Individuals Tied to Cyber Attacks

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on Monday sanctioned two firms and four individuals for their involvement in malicious cyber activities on behalf of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Cyber Electronic Command (IRGC-CEC) from at least 2016 to April 2021. This includes the front companies Mehrsam Andisheh Saz Nik (MASN) […]

Linux Version of DinodasRAT Spotted in Cyber Attacks Across Several Countries

A Linux version of a multi-platform backdoor called DinodasRAT has been detected in the wild targeting China, Taiwan, Turkey, and Uzbekistan, new findings from Kaspersky reveal. DinodasRAT, also known as XDealer, is a C++-based malware that offers the ability to harvest a wide range of sensitive data from compromised hosts. In October 2023, Slovak cybersecurity […]

Finland Blames Chinese Hacking Group APT31 for Parliament Cyber Attack

The Police of Finland (aka Poliisi) has formally accused a Chinese nation-state actor tracked as APT31 for orchestrating a cyber attack targeting the country’s Parliament in 2020. The intrusion, per the authorities, is said to have occurred between fall 2020 and early 2021. The agency described the ongoing criminal probe as both demanding and time-consuming, […]

From Deepfakes to Malware: AI’s Expanding Role in Cyber Attacks

Large language models (LLMs) powering artificial intelligence (AI) tools today could be exploited to develop self-augmenting malware capable of bypassing YARA rules. “Generative AI can be used to evade string-based YARA rules by augmenting the source code of small malware variants, effectively lowering detection rates,” Recorded Future said in a new report shared with The […]

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 […]

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 Saberian, who are part […]

Albanian Parliament and One Albania Telecom Hit by Cyber Attacks

The Assembly of the Republic of Albania and telecom company One Albania have been targeted by cyber attacks, the country’s National Authority for Electronic Certification and Cyber Security (AKCESK) revealed this week. “These infrastructures, under the legislation in force, are not currently classified as critical or important information infrastructure,” AKCESK said. One Albania, which has […]

Major Cyber Attack Paralyzes Kyivstar – Ukraine’s Largest Telecom Operator

Ukraine’s biggest telecom operator Kyivstar has become the victim of a “powerful hacker attack,” disrupting customer access to mobile and internet services. “The cyberattack on Ukraine’s #Kyivstar telecoms operator has impacted all regions of the country with high impact to the capital, metrics show, with knock-on impacts reported to air raid alert network and banking […]

Sierra:21 – Flaws in Sierra Wireless Routers Expose Critical Sectors to Cyber Attacks

A collection of 21 security flaws have been discovered in Sierra Wireless AirLink cellular routers and open-source software components like TinyXML and OpenNDS. Collectively tracked as Sierra:21, the issues expose over 86,000 devices across critical sectors like energy, healthcare, waste management, retail, emergency services, and vehicle tracking to cyber threats, according to Forescout Vedere Labs. […]

Russian Hackers Linked to ‘Largest Ever Cyber Attack’ on Danish Critical Infrastructure

Russian threat actors have been possibly linked to what’s been described as the “largest cyber attack against Danish critical infrastructure,” in which 22 companies associated with the operation of the country’s energy sector were targeted in May 2023. “22 simultaneous, successful cyberattacks against Danish critical infrastructure are not commonplace,” Denmark’s SektorCERT said [PDF]. “The attackers […]

Is Your etcd an Open Door for Cyber Attacks? How to Secure Your Kubernetes Clusters & Nodes

Kubernetes has become the de facto orchestration platform for managing containerized applications, but with its widespread adoption, the security of Kubernetes clusters has come under greater scrutiny. Central to Kubernetes’ architecture is etcd, a highly-available key-value store used to persist the cluster’s state and its configuration details. While etcd is essential for the Kubernetes cluster’s […]

New SEC Rules Require U.S. Companies to Reveal Cyber Attacks Within 4 Days

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Wednesday approved new rules that require publicly traded companies to publicize details of a cyber attack within four days of identifying that it has a “material” impact on their finances, marking a major shift in how computer breaches are disclosed. “Whether a company loses a factory in […]

Microsoft Thwarts Chinese Cyber Attack Targeting Western European Governments

Microsoft on Tuesday revealed that it repelled a cyber attack staged by a Chinese nation-state actor targeting two dozen organizations, some of which include government agencies, in a cyber espionage campaign designed to acquire confidential data. The attacks, which commenced on May 15, 2023, entailed access to email accounts affecting approximately 25 entities and a […]

Hackers Are Actively Using New Mystic Stealer Malware in Cyber Attacks

Recently, the cybersecurity researchers at CYFIRMA found that hackers are actively using “Mystic Stealer Malware,” a new information stealer.  It’s been claimed that in an underground forum, this new information stealer is actively advertised by the threat actors, and for their operations, they use a Telegram channel. More than 50 active C2 servers were detected […]

Cyber Attacks Strike Ukraine’s State Bodies in Espionage Operation

The Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA) has warned of cyber attacks targeting state bodies in the country as part of an espionage campaign. The intrusion set, attributed to a threat actor tracked by the authority as UAC-0063 since 2021, leverages phishing lures to deploy a variety of malicious tools on infected systems. The […]

Escalating China-Taiwan Tensions Fuel Alarming Surge in Cyber Attacks

The rising geopolitical tensions between China and Taiwan in recent months have sparked a noticeable uptick in cyber attacks on the East Asian island country. “From malicious emails and URLs to malware, the strain between China’s claim of Taiwan as part of its territory and Taiwan’s maintained independence has evolved into a worrying surge in […]