Advanced threat predictions for 2025

We at Kaspersky's Global Research and Analysis Team monitor over 900 APT advanced persistent threat groups and operations. At the end of each year, we take a step back to assess the most complex and sophisticated attacks that have shaped the threat landscape. These insights enable us to anticipat...

Game of Emperor: Unveiling Long Term Earth Estries Cyber Intrusions

Since 2023, APT group Earth Estries has aggressively targeted key industries globally with sophisticated techniques and new backdoors, like GHOSTSPIDER and MASOL RAT, for prolonged espionage operations...

needrestart Local Privilege Escalation

Qualys Security Advisory LPEs in needrestart CVE-2024-48990, CVE-2024-48991, CVE-2024-48992, CVE-2024-10224, and CVE-2024-11003 ======================================================================== Contents ======================================================================== Summary...

Chinese APT Gelsemium Targets Linux Systems with New WolfsBane Backdoor

The China-aligned advanced persistent threat APT actor known as Gelsemium has been observed using a new Linux backdoor dubbed WolfsBane as part of cyber attacks likely targeting East and Southeast Asia. That's according to findings from cybersecurity firm ESET based on multiple Linux samples...

Virtuozzo Hybrid Server 7.5 Update 7 (7.5.7-129)

Virtuozzo Hybrid Server 7.5 Update 7 introduces a way to convert system containers to virtual machines, support for Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, and bug fixes. Additionally, it provides a new kernel 3.10.0-1160.119.1.vz7.224.4. Vulnerability id: PSBM-159393 Memory corruption leading to a crash in nodes in...

What is known about the Spoofing – Windows MSHTML Platform (CVE-2024-43573) vulnerability from the October Microsoft Patch Tuesday?

What is known about the Spoofing - Windows MSHTML Platform CVE-2024-43573 vulnerability from the October Microsoft Patch Tuesday? In fact, just that it is being exploited in the wild. There are no write-ups or public exploits yet. The Acknowledgements section in the Microsoft bulletin is empty. I...

MacOS Malware Surges as Corporate Usage Grows

MacOS Malware Surges as Corporate Usage Grows By Ilya Kolmanovich, Prashant Kadam and Duy-Phuc Pham · October 30, 2024 This blog was also written by Joe Malenfant and Max Kersten An apple a day keeps the doctor away, While the age-old expression does have its merits, the malware landscape on...

The Crypto Game of Lazarus APT: Investors vs. Zero-days

Introduction Lazarus APT and its BlueNoroff subgroup are a highly sophisticated and multifaceted Korean-speaking threat actor. We closely monitor their activities and quite often see them using their signature malware in their attacks — a full-feature backdoor called Manuscrypt. According to our...

SideWinder APT Strikes Middle East and Africa With Stealthy Multi-Stage Attack

An advanced persistent threat APT actor with suspected ties to India has sprung forth with a flurry of attacks against high-profile entities and strategic infrastructures in the Middle East and Africa. The activity has been attributed to a group tracked as SideWinder, which is also known as...

Beyond the Surface: the evolution and expansion of the SideWinder APT group

SideWinder, aka T-APT-04 or RattleSnake, is one of the most prolific APT groups that began its activities in 2012 and was first publicly mentioned by us in 2018. Over the years, the group has launched attacks against high-profile entities in South and Southeast Asia. Its primary targets have been...

Earth Simnavaz Levies Advanced Cyberattacks Against UAE and Gulf Regions

Trend Micro's investigation into the recent activity of Earth Simnavaz provides new insights into the APT group’s evolving tactics and the immediate threat it poses to critical sectors in the UAE...

Awaken Likho is awake: new techniques of an APT group

Introduction In July 2021, a campaign was launched primarily targeting Russian government agencies and industrial enterprises. Shortly after the campaign started, we began tracking it, and published three reports in August and September 2024 through our threat research subscription on the threat...

THN Cybersecurity Recap: Last Week's Top Threats and Trends (September 16-22)

Hold on tight, folks, because last week's cybersecurity landscape was a rollercoaster! We witnessed everything from North Korean hackers dangling "dream jobs" to expose a new malware, to a surprising twist in the Apple vs. NSO Group saga. Even the seemingly mundane world of domain names and cloud...

Chinese Hackers Exploit GeoServer Flaw to Target APAC Nations with EAGLEDOOR Malware

A suspected advanced persistent threat APT originating from China targeted a government organization in Taiwan, and possibly other countries in the Asia-Pacific APAC region, by exploiting a recently patched critical security flaw impacting OSGeo GeoServer GeoTools. The intrusion activity, which w...

Iranian APT UNC1860 Linked to MOIS Facilitates Cyber Intrusions in Middle East

An Iranian advanced persistent threat APT threat actor likely affiliated with the Ministry of Intelligence and Security MOIS is now acting as an initial access facilitator that provides remote access to target networks. Google-owned Mandiant is tracking the activity cluster under the moniker...

PT-2024-6158

Name of the Vulnerable Software and Affected Versions Microsoft Windows versions prior to the fixed version Description The issue is related to a Windows MSHTML platform spoofing vulnerability, which allows attackers to execute arbitrary code remotely. This vulnerability has been exploited by the...

Blind Eagle Targets Colombian Insurance Sector with Customized Quasar RAT

The Colombian insurance sector is the target of a threat actor tracked as Blind Eagle with the end goal of delivering a customized version of a known commodity remote access trojan RAT referred to as Quasar RAT since June 2024. "Attacks have originated with phishing emails impersonating the...

Chinese Hackers Exploit Visual Studio Code in Southeast Asian Cyberattacks

The China-linked advanced persistent threat APT group known as Mustang Panda has been observed weaponizing Visual Studio Code software as part of espionage operations targeting government entities in Southeast Asia. "This threat actor used Visual Studio Code's embedded reverse shell feature to ga...

Tropic Trooper spies on government entities in the Middle East

Executive summary Tropic Trooper also known as KeyBoy and Pirate Panda is an APT group active since 2011. This group has traditionally targeted sectors such as government, healthcare, transportation and high-tech industries in Taiwan, the Philippines and Hong Kong. Our recent investigation has...

A deep dive into the most interesting incident response cases of last year

In 2023, Kasperskys Global Emergency Response Team GERT participated in services around the world that allowed our experts to gain insight into various threats and techniques used by APT groups, common crimeware and, in some cases, internal adversaries. As we highlighted in our annual report, the...