Threat Roundup for June 28 to July 5

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between June 28 and July 5. As with previous roundups, this post isn't meant to be an in-depth analysis. Instead, this post will summarize the threats we've observed by highlighting key behavioral characteristics,...

Iran-linked APT33 Shakes Up Cyberespionage Tactics

Following a recent report detailing APT33’s infrastructure and tactics, the Iranian state-sponsored threat actor shook up its cyberespionage efforts by adopting new tools and reassigning key domain infrastructure. The infrastructure overhaul stems from a March 2019 Symantec report exposing the...

FBI Releases Article on Protected Voices Campaign

The Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI has released an article on the Protected Voices initiative designed to mitigate the risk of cyber influence operations targeting U.S. elections. As part of the initiative, FBI offices are coordinating with political campaigns at the local, state, and federa...

Why Election Trust is Dwindling in a Post-Cambridge Analytica World

LONDON, UK – The 2018 Facebook-Cambridge Analytica incident opened the world’s eyes to how much private user data was being collected, shared and sold. But experts worry that future ramifications of this scandal go way beyond Facebook and have created distrust in the election process as a whole...

Lessons Learned Trying to Secure Congressional Campaigns

Really interesting first-hand experience from Maciej Cegłowski...

ThreatList: Top 8 Threat Actors Targeting Canada in 2019

Banking and financial services in Canada are being targeted in geo-specific attacks looking to spread varying forms of malware, according to researchers tracking thousands of malicious email campaigns between January 2019 to May 2019. In particular, campaigns are typically launched by...

Shade Ransomware Expands to U.S. Targets

Shade, a ransomware known to target Russian victims, has been spotted in several recent campaigns scoping out new locations – including in the U.S. and Japan. The ransomware, first spotted in late 2014 by Kaspersky Lab researchers, has been known for focusing on Russian victims – but more recent...

Executing on the vision of Microsoft Threat Protection

Over the last several months, we’ve provided regular updates on the rapid progress we’re making with Microsoft Threat Protection, which enables your organization to: Protect your assets with identity-driven security and powerful conditional access policies which ensure your assets are secured fro...

WhatsApp Zero-Day Exploited in Targeted Spyware Attacks

UPDATE WhatsApp is urging users to update as soon as possible, after a zero-day vulnerability found in its messaging platform was exploited by attackers who were able to inject spyware onto victims’ phones in targeted campaigns. First reported by the Financial Times, the popular messaging app...

ThreatList: Top 5 Most Dangerous Attachment Types

Researchers with F-Secure have tracked the top spam-related attachments and campaigns used so far in 2019. The verdict, ZIPs, PDF, and MS office files such as DOC and XLSM file attachments were more commonly used in huge spam campaigns than any other type attachment. In addition, researchers...

JasperLoader Emerges, Targets Italy with Gootkit Banking Trojan

Nick Biasini and Edmund Brumaghin authored this blog post with contributions from Andrew Williams. Introduction to JasperLoader Malware loaders are playing an increasingly important role in malware distribution. They give adversaries the ability to gain an initial foothold on a system and are...

GoDaddy Shutters 15,000 Subdomains Tied to 'Snake Oil' Scams

Researchers at the security firm Palo Alto Networks worked with domain registrar and web hosting firm GoDaddy to shut down 15,000 subdomains pitching ‘snake oil’ products and other scams. The takedowns are linked to affiliate marketing campaigns peddling everything from weight-loss solutions and...

A week in security (April 15 – 21)

Last week, Malwarebytes Labs revealed multiple giveaway online scam campaigns banking on the popularity and generosity of Ellen DeGeneres, weighed in on the hack that compromised legacy Microsoft email service accounts like Hotmail and MSN, explained what “like-farming” means and how to spot it o...

Hackers exploiting unpatched Chrome bug to target 500M iPhone users

By Uzair Amir In this attack, eGobbler threat group is exploiting Chrome Sandboxing bug to target iOS devices in the US and EU. Malvertising campaigns, in which malware is distributed through advertisements, have become a common norm nowadays. But, the latest malvertising campaign that’s been...

Windows Zero-Day Emerges in Active Exploits

A just-patched vulnerability in the Windows operating system that was previously unknown up until last week is being actively exploited in the wild; it opens the door for full system takeover. Discovered by Vasily Berdnikov and Boris Larin of Kaspersky Lab on St. Patrick’s Day this year, the flaw...

Malspam Campaigns Distribute HawkEye Keylogger, Post Ownership Change

The HawkEye malware kit and information-stealer has been spotted in a newfound slew of campaigns after a recent ownership change. While the keylogger has been in continuous development since 2013, in December a thread on a hacking site noted an ownership change, after which posts on hacking forum...

Sextortion profits decline despite higher volume, new techniques

Post authored by Nick Biasini and Jaeson Schultz. Sextortion spammers continue blasting away at high volume. The success they experienced with several high-profile campaigns last year has led these attackers to continue transmitting massive amounts of sextortion email. These sextortion spammers...

Spam Campaigns Spread Trickbot Malware with Tax Lure

Hackers pushing the TrickBot banking trojan are exploiting tax season by pushing malicious Microsoft Excel spreadsheet documents via spam campaigns. Researchers said that they discovered the malware in three different campaigns since Jan. 27, 2019. These campaigns target victims with emails...

Design/Logic Flaw

Uniqkey Password Manager 1.14 contains a vulnerability because it fails to recognize the difference between domains and sub-domains. The vulnerability means that passwords saved for example.com will be recommended for usersite.example.com. This could lead to successful phishing campaigns and crea...

Ad Network Sizmek Probes Account Breach

Online advertising firm Sizmek Inc. NASDAQ: SZMK says it is investigating a security incident in which a hacker was reselling access to a user account with the ability to modify ads and analytics for a number of big-name advertisers. In a recent posting to a Russian-language cybercrime forum, an...