North Korea's Hidden Cobra Strikes U.S. Targets with HOPLIGHT

A never-before-seen spyware variant called HOPLIGHT is targeting U.S. companies and government agencies in active attacks, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. In an advisory this week, the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team US-CERT said that there are nine differen...

This Week in Security News: 5G Security and Tax Scams

Welcome to our weekly roundup, where we share what you need to know about the cybersecurity news and events that happened over the past few days. This week, learn about cybersecurity and data concerns in 5G. Also, learn about cybercriminal threats during tax season. Read on: Securing Enterprises...

Sophisticated 'TajMahal APT Framework' Remained Undetected for 5 Years

Cybersecurity researchers yesterday unveiled the existence of a highly sophisticated spyware framework that has been in operation for at least last 5 years—but remained undetected until recently. Dubbed TajMahal by researchers at Kaspersky Lab, the APT framework is a high-tech modular-based malwa...

SAS 2019: Gaza Cybergang Blends Sophistication Levels in Highly Effective Spy Effort

SINGAPORE — Around 240 high-profile victims in 39 countries worldwide have become victims of an APT cyber-espionage attack, led by an organization dubbed the Gaza Cybergang that comprises several groups of varying sophistication. The victims, who were all targeted last year, include political,...

Meet ‘TajMahal,’ A New and Highly Advanced APT Framework

SINGAPORE – Researchers at Kaspersky Lab have discovered a new, highly sophisticated advanced persistent threat APT framework targeting a single Central Asian diplomatic agency. Malware samples associated with the APT reveal a complex never-before-seen code base, making it extremely hard to detec...

Project TajMahal – a sophisticated new APT framework

Executive summary 'TajMahal' is a previously unknown and technically sophisticated APT framework discovered by Kaspersky Lab in the autumn of 2018. This full-blown spying framework consists of two packages named 'Tokyo' and 'Yokohama'. It includes backdoors, loaders, orchestrators, C2...

SAS 2019: 4 Stuxnet-Related APTs Form Gossip Girl, an 'Apex Threat Actor'

SINGAPORE – The infamous Stuxnet family of industrial sabotage malware is likely the work of a mysterious “supra-group” that Chronicle researchers Juan Andres Guerrero Saad and Silas Cutler have dubbed Gossip Girl; and it’s a group that turns out to be larger and far busier than previously known...

SAS 2019 to Tackle APTs, Supply Chains and More

Kaspersky Lab’s Security Analyst Summit kicks off in Singapore next week, where elite researchers, top cybersecurity firms and global law-enforcement agencies will discuss today’s biggest cybersecurity threats and how best to squash them. This year marks the first time the global security...

APT Package Manager Persistence

This module will run a payload when the package manager is used. No handler is ran automatically so you must configure an appropriate exploit/multi/handler to connect. This module creates a pre-invoke hook for APT in apt.conf.d. The hook name syntax is numeric followed by text. This module requir...

Here's the List of ~600 MAC Addresses Targeted in Recent ASUS Hack

EXCLUSIVE — While revealing details of a massive supply chain cyber attack against ASUS customers, Russian security firm Kaspersky last week didn't release the full list all MAC addresses that hackers hardcoded into their malware to surgically target a specific pool of users. Instead, Kaspersky...

ASUS Patches Live Update Bug That Allowed APT to Infect Thousands of PCs

ASUS has expedited a patch for a major bug impacting thousands of PCs that allowed an advanced persistent threat group to launch a supply-chain attack dubbed “Operation ShadowHammer.” The vulnerability targeted a range of new ASUS PCs with a backdoor injection technique tied to the PC-maker’s...

Some ASUS Updates Drop Backdoors on PCs in 'Operation ShadowHammer'

A supply-chain attack dubbed “Operation ShadowHammer” has been uncovered, targeting users of the ASUS Live Update Utility with a backdoor injection. The China-backed BARIUM APT is suspected to be at the helm of the project. According to Kaspersky Lab, the campaign ran from June to at least Novemb...

Post-Perimeter Security: Addressing Evolving Mobile Enterprise Threats

In the era of the cloud, enterprises house sensitive corporate data outside of the traditional perimeter; employees can access this from any endpoint, including mobile devices, and from any network. This presents a host of new challenges for companies looking to protect their sensitive informatio...

A week in security (March 11 – 17)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs, we looked at the Lazarus group in our series about APT groups, we discussed the introduction of Payment Service Directive 2 PSD2 in the EU, we tackled Google’s Nest fiasco, and the launch of Mozilla's Firefox Send. In addition, we gave you an overview of the...

Threat Groups SandCat, FruityArmor Exploiting Microsoft Win32k Flaw

A newly-patched Microsoft Win32k vulnerability is being exploited in the wild by at least two threat actors, including a recently discovered advanced persistent threat APT group dubbed SandCat. The exploited vulnerability CVE-2019-0797, rated important, was patched on Tuesday as part of Microsoft...

The Advanced Persistent Threat files: Lazarus Group

We've heard a lot about Advanced Persistent Threats APTs over the past few years. As a refresher, APTs are prolonged, aimed attacks on specific targets with the intention to compromise their systems and gain information from or about that target. While the targets may be anyone or anything—a...

Researcher Claims Iranian APT Behind 6TB Data Heist at Citrix

A researcher has attributed a recently publicized attack on Citrix’ internal network to the Iranian-linked group known as IRIDIUM – and said that the data heist involved 6 terabytes of sensitive data. Resecurity posted a blog on Friday indicating that it detected a targeted attack and data breach...

A week in security (February 18 – 24)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs, we explored the world of crack hunting, gave you a 101 on the world of bots and their threats and advantages, and took a look at some clever phishing scams. We also explained how a Mac fends off malware, posted a handy “lazy person's guide to cybersecurity,” and du...

Microsoft: Russia's Fancy Bear Working to Influence EU Elections

As the May elections for European Parliament loom, Russia-linked APT groups are amping up their efforts to target journalists, think-tanks, non-governmental organizations and other members of civil society, according to Microsoft. The tech giant said on Tuesday that it has observed a recent serie...

ThreatList: APT Adversaries Up the Ante on Speed, Target Telecom

Despite law-enforcement wins in the form of several high-profile arrests and indictments during 2018, nation-state adversaries have upped their games when it comes to speed. That’s according to CrowdStrike’s 2019 Global Threat Report, which found that when analyzing how long it takes to go from...