2021 Trends Show Increased Globalized Threat of Ransomware

CISA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI, the National Security Agency NSA, the Australian Cyber Security Centre ACSC, and the United Kingdom’s National Cyber Security Centre NCSC-UK have released a joint Cybersecurity Advisory CSA highlighting a global increase in sophisticated, high-impact...

Trellix Global Defenders: Invasion of the Information Snatchers - Protecting against RedLine Infostealer

Trellix Global Defenders: Invasion of the Information Snatchers - Protecting against RedLine Infostealer By Taylor Mullins · February 7, 2022 What information are you storing in your Browsers? Storing credentials and other important information in web browsers is a helpful method to not have to...

Cyber Signals: Defending against cyber threats with the latest research, insights, and trends

We’re excited to introduce Cyber Signals, a cyber threat intelligence brief informed by the latest Microsoft threat data and research. This content, which will be released quarterly, offers an expert perspective into the current threat landscape, discussing trending tactics, techniques, and...

CISA Urges Organizations to Implement Immediate Cybersecurity Measures to Protect Against Potential Threats

In response to recent malicious cyber incidents in Ukraine—including the defacement of government websites and the presence of potentially destructive malware on Ukrainian systems—CISA has published CISA Insights: Implement Cybersecurity Measures Now to Protect Against Potential Critical Threats...

Meta Expands Facebook Protect Program to Activists, Journalists, Government Officials

Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, on Thursday announced an expansion of its Facebook Protect security program to include human rights defenders, activists, journalists, and government officials who are more likely to be targeted by bad actors across its social media platforms. "These...

Catching the big fish: Analyzing a large-scale phishing-as-a-service operation

In researching phishing attacks, we came across a campaign that used a rather high volume of newly created and unique subdomains—over 300,000 in a single run. This investigation led us down a rabbit hole as we unearthed one of the operations that enabled the campaign: a large-scale...

The evolution of a matrix: How ATT&CK for Containers was built

Note: The content of this post is being released jointly with the Center for Threat-Informed Defense. It is co-authored with Chris Ante and Matthew Bajzek. The Center post can be found here. As containers become a major part of many organizations’ IT workloads, it becomes crucial to consider the...

CISA Releases Analysis of FY20 Risk and Vulnerability Assessments

CISA has released an analysis and infographic detailing the findings from the Risk and Vulnerability Assessments RVAs conducted in Fiscal Year FY 2020 across multiple sectors. The analysis details a sample attack path a cyber threat actor could take to compromise an organization with weaknesses...

CISA’s CSET Tool Sets Sights on Ransomware Threat

CISA has released a new module in its Cyber Security Evaluation Tool CSET: the Ransomware Readiness Assessment RRA. CSET is a desktop software tool that guides network defenders through a step-by-step process to evaluate their cybersecurity practices on their networks. CSET—applicable to both...

The Future of Machine Learning and Cybersecurity

The Center for Security and Emerging Technology has a new report: "Machine Learning and Cybersecurity: Hype and Reality." Heres the bottom line: The report offers four conclusions: Machine learning can help defenders more accurately detect and triage potential attacks. However, in many cases thes...

Re-Checking Your Pulse: Updates on Chinese APT Actors Compromising Pulse Secure VPN Devices

On April 20, 2021, Mandiant published detailed results of our investigations into compromised Pulse Secure devices by suspected Chinese espionage operators. This blog post is intended to provide an update on our findings, give additional recommendations to network defenders, and discuss potential...

Update to CISA-FBI Joint Cybersecurity Advisory on DarkSide Ransomware

CISA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI have updated Joint Cybersecurity Advisory AA21-131A: DarkSide Ransomware: Best Practices for Preventing Disruption from Ransomware Attacks, originally released May 11, 2021. This update provides a downloadable STIX file of indicators of compromise...

Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Cyber Operations: Trends and Best Practices for Network Defenders

Summary The Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI, Department of Homeland Security DHS, and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA assess Russian Foreign Intelligence Service SVR cyber actors—also known as Advanced Persistent Threat 29 APT 29, the Dukes, CozyBear, and Yttrium—will...

FBI-DHS-CISA Joint Advisory on Russian Foreign Intelligence Service Cyber Operations

The Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and CISA have released a Joint Cybersecurity Advisory CSA addressing Russian Foreign Intelligence Service SVR cyber actors—also known as Advanced Persistent Threat 29 APT 29, the Dukes, CozyBear, and Yttrium—continued...

Gamifying machine learning for stronger security and AI models

To stay ahead of adversaries, who show no restraint in adopting tools and techniques that can help them attain their goals, Microsoft continues to harness AI and machine learning to solve security challenges. One area we’ve been experimenting on is autonomous systems. In a simulated enterprise...

TTP Table for Detecting APT Activity Related to SolarWinds and Active Directory/M365 Compromise

CISA has released a table of tactics, techniques, and procedures TTPs used by the advanced persistent threat APT actor involved with the recent SolarWinds and Active Directory/M365 compromise. The table uses the MITRE ATT&CK framework to identify APT TTPs and includes detection recommendations...

International Women’s Day: How to support and grow women in cybersecurity

Today, March 8, we are proud to celebrate International Women’s Day. The United Nations announced this year’s theme as “Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world.” As a woman, a mother, a daughter, a sister, a friend, and a leader at Microsoft, this is an important time t...

Talos Takes Ep. #40: Takeaways from interviewing a ransomware operator

The latest episode of Talos Takes is available now. Download this episode and subscribe to Talos Takes using the buttons below, or visit the Talos Takes page. This week, we have two guests on a Talos Takes first! to discuss our recent research paper on the LockBit ransomware. Two of the authors,...

Umbrella_android - Digital And Physical Security Advice App

Umbrella is an Android mobile app developed by Security First that provides human rights defenders with the information on what to do in any given security situation and the tools to do it. It allows the user to choose what they want to do, such as: protect data; securely make a call/email;...

Insider Report: Healthcare Security Woes Balloon in COVID-Era

In 2020, the healthcare industry began a massive shift, as legacy cybersecurity issues merged with new security challenges spurred on by the spread of COVID-19. Even before the pandemic, the medical arena wrestled with major cybersecurity challenges, including insecure medical devices, protecting...