Russia’s Fancy Bear Hackers Are Hitting US Campaign Targets Again

Microsoft says the GRU hacking group has attacked hundreds of organizations over the past year, many of them tied to the upcoming election...

Ransom Demands Return: New DDoS Extortion Threats From Old Actors Targeting Finance and Retail

Update 08/24/2020 As mentioned below, the Akamai SIRT has been tracking attacks from the so-called Armada Collective and Fancy Bear actors, who are sending ransom letters to various industry verticals such as finance, travel, and e-commerce. In addition to the...

The NSA and FBI Expose Fancy Bear's Sneaky Hacking Tool

Plus: TikTok tracking, Russian SIMs, and more of this week's top security news...

Black Hat 2020: Influence Campaigns Are a Cybersecurity Problem

Social media used as a cudgel for nation-states to sway opinion is a cybersecurity threat CISOs can’t ignore — and need to understand better and mitigate against. That’s the message from Renée DiResta, research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory, who said she is seeing a steady growth a...

Russia's GRU Hackers Hit US Government and Energy Targets

A previously unreported Fancy Bear campaign persisted for well over a year—and indicates that the notorious group has broadened its focus...

Reddit Says Influence Campaign is Behind Leaked U.S.-U.K. Trade Documents

Reddit has revealed that key U.S.-U.K. trade documents posted on its site were likely done so as part of a broader political-influence campaign that first appeared on Facebook and tied to Russia-based operatives. The online media aggregator says it has linked documents that were leaked on its sit...

A week in security (October 28 – November 3)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs, we celebrated the birth of the Internet 50 years ago, highlighted reports about the US Federal Trade Commission FTC filing a case against stalkerware developer Retina-X, issued a PSI on disaster donation scams, looked at the top cybersecurity challenged SMBs face,...

News Wrap: Office 365 Voicemail Phish and Bed Bath and Beyond Breach

Threatpost editors Tara Seals and Lindsey O’Donnell break down the top security news of this week, from data breaches to advanced persistent threat APT activity. Top stories include: A Microsoft alert that APT group Fancy Bear has targeted anti-doping authorities and sporting organizations around...

Fancy Bear Targets Sporting, Anti-Doping Orgs As 2020 Olympics Loom

At least 16 anti-doping authorities and sporting organizations around the world have been hit by cyberattacks as the world begins to gear up for the Tokyo Summer Olympic Games, which kick off July 2020. The attacks, which began Sept. 16, have been linked to infamous Russian threat group Fancy Bea...

Russian Hackers Targeting Anti-Doping Agencies Ahead of 2020 Tokyo Olympics

As Japan gears up for the upcoming 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo for the next year, the country needs to brace itself for sophisticated cyberattacks, especially from state-sponsored hackers. Microsoft has issued a short notice, warning about a new wave of highly targeted cyberattacks by a group o...

Russian Hackers Targeting Anti-Doping Agencies Ahead of 2020 Tokyo Olympics

As Japan gears up for the upcoming 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo for the next year, the country needs to brace itself for sophisticated cyberattacks, especially from state-sponsored hackers. Microsoft has issued a short notice, warning about a new wave of highly targeted cyberattacks by a group o...

Zebrocy Retools for New Political Attacks

The APT known as the Sednit threat group also known as Sofacy, APT28 and Fancy Bear has kicked off a fresh spearphishing campaign, that was spotted targeting government entities with the Zebrocy backdoor. The malware features a rewritten and newly-improved backdoor and downloader, indicating an...

A week in security (August 5 – 11)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs, we explained how brain-machine interface BMI technology could usher in a world of Internet of Thoughts, why having backdoors is problematic, and how we can improve the security of our smart homes. To cap off Hacker Summer Camp week, the Labs team released a special...

PT-2019-1817 · Microsoft · Windows

Name of the Vulnerable Software and Affected Versions: Windows affected versions not specified Description: The issue is related to a component of the Windows operating system, specifically the Win32k component, which has insufficient access restrictions. This can be exploited by an attacker to...

Sofacy Russia-Linked APT Debuts Fresh Zebrocy Variant

The Zebrocy trojan – a custom downloader malware used by Russia-linked APT Sofacy a.k.a. APT28, Fancy Bear or Sednit – has a new variant. While it’s functionally much the same as its other versions, the new code was written using the Go programming language. The similarities between the new paylo...

Russia's Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear Hackers May Have New Phishing Tricks

Two new reports show an uptick in sophisticated phishing attacks originating from—where else—Russia...

Pentagon Draws Back the Veil on APT Malware with Sudden Embrace of VirusTotal

The Pentagon has suddenly started uploading malware samples from APTs and other nation-state sources to the website VirusTotal, which is essentially a malware zoo that’s used by security pros and antivirus/malware detection engines to gain a better understanding of the threat landscape. The Cyber...

Fancy Bear’s VPNfilter malware is back with 7 new modules

By Waqas Cisco’s Talos researchers have identified that Russia’s VPNfilter is way more dangerous than it is believed to be. The malware, which prompted the FBI to urge people to reboot their internet routers, contains seven additional third-stage modules that are infecting countless global...

Cybersecurity Researchers Spotted First-Ever UEFI Rootkit in the Wild

Cybersecurity researchers at ESET have unveiled what they claim to be the first-ever UEFI rootkit being used in the wild, allowing hackers to implant persistent malware on the targeted computers that could survive a complete hard-drive wipe. Dubbed LoJax, the UEFI rootkit is part of a malware...

VPNFilter Router Malware Adds 7 New Network Exploitation Modules

Security researchers have discovered even more dangerous capabilities in VPNFilter—the highly sophisticated multi-stage malware that infected 500,000 routers worldwide in May this year, making it much more widespread and sophisticated than earlier. Attributed to Russia's APT 28, also known as...