Browsing tag

Cyber-Attack

New Variant of XLoader macOS Malware Disguised as ‘OfficeNote’ Productivity App

A new variant of an Apple macOS malware called XLoader has surfaced in the wild, masquerading its malicious features under the guise of an office productivity app called “OfficeNote.” “The new version of XLoader is bundled inside a standard Apple disk image with the name OfficeNote.dmg,” SentinelOne security researchers Dinesh Devadoss and Phil Stokes said […]

New BlackCat Ransomware Variant Adopts Advanced Impacket and RemCom Tools

Microsoft on Thursday disclosed that it found a new version of the BlackCat ransomware (aka ALPHV and Noberus) that embeds tools like Impacket and RemCom to facilitate lateral movement and remote code execution. “The Impacket tool has credential dumping and remote service execution modules that could be used for broad deployment of the BlackCat ransomware […]

China-Linked Bronze Starlight Group Targeting Gambling Sector with Cobalt Strike Beacons

An ongoing cyber attack campaign originating from China is targeting the Southeast Asian gambling sector to deploy Cobalt Strike beacons on compromised systems. Cybersecurity firm SentinelOne said the tactics, techniques, and procedures point to the involvement of a threat actor tracked as Bronze Starlight (aka Emperor Dragonfly or Storm-0401), which has been linked to the […]

Russian Hackers Use Zulip Chat App for Covert C&C in Diplomatic Phishing Attacks

An ongoing campaign targeting ministries of foreign affairs of NATO-aligned countries points to the involvement of Russian threat actors. The phishing attacks feature PDF documents with diplomatic lures, some of which are disguised as coming from Germany, to deliver a variant of a malware called Duke, which has been attributed to APT29 (aka BlueBravo, Cloaked […]

Researchers Uncover Years-Long Cyber Espionage on Foreign Embassies in Belarus

A hitherto undocumented threat actor operating for nearly a decade and codenamed MoustachedBouncer has been attributed to cyber espionage attacks aimed at foreign embassies in Belarus. “Since 2020, MoustachedBouncer has most likely been able to perform adversary-in-the-middle (AitM) attacks at the ISP level, within Belarus, in order to compromise its targets,” ESET security researcher Matthieu […]

New Attack Alert: Freeze[.]rs Injector Weaponized for XWorm Malware Attacks

Malicious actors are using a legitimate Rust-based injector called Freeze[.]rs to deploy a commodity malware called XWorm in victim environments. The novel attack chain, detected by Fortinet FortiGuard Labs on July 13, 2023, is initiated via a phishing email containing a booby-trapped PDF file. It has also been used to introduce Remcos RAT by means […]

Cybercriminals Increasingly Using EvilProxy Phishing Kit to Target Executives

Threat actors are increasingly using a phishing-as-a-service (PhaaS) toolkit dubbed EvilProxy to pull off account takeover attacks aimed at high-ranking executives at prominent companies. According to Proofpoint, an ongoing hybrid campaign has leveraged the service to target thousands of Microsoft 365 user accounts, sending approximately 120,000 phishing emails to hundreds of organizations worldwide between March […]

China-Linked Hackers Strike Worldwide: 17 Nations Hit in 3-Year Cyber Campaign

Hackers associated with China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) have been linked to attacks in 17 different countries in Asia, Europe, and North America from 2021 to 2023. Cybersecurity firm Recorded Future attributed the intrusion set to a nation-state group it tracks under the name RedHotel (previously Threat Activity Group-22 or TAG-22), which overlaps with […]

U.K. Electoral Commission Breach Exposes Voter Data of 40 Million Britons

The U.K. Electoral Commission on Tuesday disclosed a “complex” cyber attack on its systems that went undetected for over a year, allowing the threat actors to access years worth of voter data belonging to 40 million people. “The incident was identified in October 2022 after suspicious activity was detected on our systems,” the regulator said. […]

China’s APT31 Suspected in Attacks on Air-Gapped Systems in Eastern Europe

A nation-state actor with links to China is suspected of being behind a series of attacks against industrial organizations in Eastern Europe that took place last year to siphon data stored on air-gapped systems. Cybersecurity company Kaspersky attributed the intrusions with medium to high confidence to a hacking crew called APT31, which is also tracked […]

Patchwork Hackers Target Chinese Research Organizations Using EyeShell Backdoor

Threat actors associated with the hacking crew known as Patchwork have been spotted targeting universities and research organizations in China as part of a recently observed campaign. The activity, according to KnownSec 404 Team, entailed the use of a backdoor codenamed EyeShell. Patchwork, also known by the names Operation Hangover and Zinc Emerson, is suspected […]

STARK#MULE Targets Koreans with U.S. Military-themed Document Lures

An ongoing cyber attack campaign has set its sights on Korean-speaking individuals by employing U.S. Military-themed document lures to trick them into running malware on compromised systems. Cybersecurity firm Securonix is tracking the activity under the name STARK#MULE. The scale of the attacks is currently not known, and it’s not clear if any of these […]

A Data Exfiltration Attack Scenario: The Porsche Experience

As part of Checkmarx’s mission to help organizations develop and deploy secure software, the Security Research team started looking at the security posture of major car manufacturers. Porsche has a well-established Vulnerability Reporting Policy (Disclosure Policy)[1], it was considered in scope for our research, so we decided to start there, and see what we could […]

BlueBravo Deploys GraphicalProton Backdoor Against European Diplomatic Entities

The Russian nation-state actor known as BlueBravo has been observed targeting diplomatic entities throughout Eastern Europe with the goal of delivering a new backdoor called GraphicalProton, exemplifying the continuous evolution of the threat. The phishing campaign is characterized by the use of legitimate internet services (LIS) for command-and-control (C2) obfuscation, Recorded Future said in a […]

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 […]

North Korean Nation-State Actors Exposed in JumpCloud Hack After OPSEC Blunder

North Korean nation-state actors affiliated with the Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB) have been attributed to the JumpCloud hack following an operational security (OPSEC) blunder that exposed their actual IP address. Google-owned threat intelligence firm Mandiant attributed the activity to a threat actor it tracks under the name UNC4899, which likely shares overlaps with clusters already […]

Azure AD Token Forging Technique in Microsoft Attack Extends Beyond Outlook, Wiz Reports

The recent attack against Microsoft’s email infrastructure by a Chinese nation-state actor referred to as Storm-0558 is said to have a broader scope than previously thought. According to cloud security company Wiz, the inactive Microsoft account (MSA) consumer signing key used to forge Azure Active Directory (Azure AD or AAD) tokens to gain illicit access […]

Turla’s New DeliveryCheck Backdoor Breaches Ukrainian Defense Sector

The defense sector in Ukraine and Eastern Europe has been targeted by a novel .NET-based backdoor called DeliveryCheck (aka CAPIBAR or GAMEDAY) that’s capable of delivering next-stage payloads. The Microsoft threat intelligence team, in collaboration with the Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA), attributed the attacks to a Russian nation-state actor known as Turla, […]

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 […]

Beware of Big Head Ransomware: Spreading Through Fake Windows Updates

A developing piece of ransomware called Big Head is being distributed as part of a malvertising campaign that takes the form of bogus Microsoft Windows updates and Word installers. Big Head was first documented by Fortinet FortiGuard Labs last month, when it discovered multiple variants of the ransomware that are designed to encrypt files on […]