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QakBot

FBI Dismantles QakBot Malware, Frees 700,000 Computers, Seizes $8.6 Million

A coordinated law enforcement effort codenamed Operation Duck Hunt has felled QakBot, a notorious Windows malware family that’s estimated to have compromised over 700,000 computers globally and facilitated financial fraud as well as ransomware. To that end, the U.S. Justice Department (DoJ) said the malware is “being deleted from victim computers, preventing it from doing […]

QakBot Malware Operators Expand C2 Network with 15 New Servers

The operators associated with the QakBot (aka QBot) malware have set up 15 new command-and-control (C2) servers as of late June 2023. The findings are a continuation of the malware’s infrastructure analysis from Team Cymru, and arrive a little over two months after Lumen Black Lotus Labs revealed that 25% of its C2 servers are […]

Evasive QBot Malware Leverages Short-lived Residential IPs for Dynamic Attacks

An analysis of the “evasive and tenacious” malware known as QBot has revealed that 25% of its command-and-control (C2) servers are merely active for a single day. What’s more, 50% of the servers don’t remain active for more than a week, indicating the use of an adaptable and dynamic C2 infrastructure, Lumen Black Lotus Labs […]

Hacking Using SVG Files to Smuggle QBot Malware onto Windows Systems

Phishing campaigns involving the Qakbot malware are using Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) images embedded in HTML email attachments. The new distribution method was spotted by Cisco Talos, which said it identified fraudulent email messages featuring HTML attachments with encoded SVG images that incorporate HTML script tags. HTML smuggling is a technique that relies on using […]

Black Basta Ransomware Gang Actively Infiltrating U.S. Companies with Qakbot Malware

Companies based in the U.S. have been at the receiving end of an “aggressive” Qakbot malware campaign that leads to Black Basta ransomware infections on compromised networks. “In this latest campaign, the Black Basta ransomware gang is using QakBot malware to create an initial point of entry and move laterally within an organization’s network,” Cybereason […]

New Ursnif Variant Likely Shifting Focus to Ransomware and Data Theft

The Ursnif malware has become the latest malware to shed its roots as a banking trojan to revamp itself into a generic backdoor capable of delivering next-stage payloads, joining the likes of Emotet, Qakbot, and TrickBot. “This is a significant shift from the malware’s original purpose to enable banking fraud, but is consistent with the […]

Researchers Uncover New Attempts by Qakbot Malware to Evade Detection

The operators behind the Qakbot malware are transforming their delivery vectors in an attempt to sidestep detection. “Most recently, threat actors have transformed their techniques to evade detection by using ZIP file extensions, enticing file names with common formats, and Excel (XLM) 4.0 to trick victims into downloading malicious attachments that install Qakbot,” Zscaler Threatlabz […]

Hackers Using Squirrelwaffle Loader to Deploy Qakbot and Cobalt Strike

A new spam email campaign has emerged as a conduit for a previously undocumented malware loader that enables the attackers to gain an initial foothold into enterprise networks and drop malicious payloads on compromised systems. “These infections are also used to facilitate the delivery of additional malware such as Qakbot and Cobalt Strike, two of […]

QakBot/Pinkslipbot: This Malware Remains Active Even After Being Deleted From PC

Short Bytes: The security researchers from McAfee have detected a banking trojan that infects home and enterprise computers using universal plug and play (UPnP) for opening ports. Pinkslipbot, also called QakBot, continues to use infected machines as its control server even after it’s removed. It’s, probably, the first malware that uses HTTPS-based control servers. McAfee has also […]

A Banking Trojan Called “QakBot ” Attack Thousands of Windows Active Directory and users to get locksout of their Company’s Domain

An Existing Banking Trojan called “QakBot ” attack Windows  Active Directory users and leads to locks out the thousands of Active Directory users which caused a big impact for Organizations in terms of access their networked assets. Windows Active Directory performs a centralized  Domain management control to authenticates, authorizes and Policy and Procedure. all users […]