Evolving trends in Iranian threat actor activity – MSTIC presentation at CyberWarCon 2021

Over the past year, the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center MSTIC has observed a gradual evolution of the tools, techniques, and procedures employed by malicious network operators based in Iran. At CyberWarCon 2021, MSTIC analysts presented their analysis of these trends in Iranian nation state...

Digging Deeper – An In-Depth Analysis of a Fast Flux Network

Fast Flux is a DNS technique used by botnets to hide various types of malicious activities, such as phishing, web proxying, malware delivery, and malware communication, behind an ever-changing network of compromised hosts acting as proxies. The Fast Flux network concept was first introduced in...

Threat from Organized Cybercrime Syndicates Is Rising

From encrypting communications to fencing ill-gotten gains on underground sites, organized crime is cashing in on the digital revolution. The latest organized crime threat assessment from Europol issues a dire warning about the corrosive effect the rising influence of criminal syndicates is havin...

US Sanctions Pegasus-maker NSO Group and 3 Others For Selling Spyware

The U.S. Commerce Department on Wednesday added four companies, including Israel-based spyware companies NSO Group and Candiru, to a list of entities engaging in "malicious cyber activities." The agency said the two companies were added to the list based on evidence that "these entities developed...

Ransomware Gangs Target Corporate Financial Activities

Ransomware gangs are zeroing in on publicly held companies with the threat of financial exposure in an effort to encourage ransom payments, the FBI is warning. In an alert issued this week PDF, the Bureau said that activity over the course of the past year shows a trend toward targeting companies...

Shrootless: Microsoft finds Apple macOS vulnerability

Microsoft researchers have discovered a vulnerability in macOS, dubbed Shrootless, that can allow attackers to bypass System Integrity Protection SIP and perform malicious activities, such as gaining root privileges and installing rootkits on vulnerable devices. Microsoft reported the Shrootless...

Microsoft Digital Defense Report shares new insights on nation-state attacks

Microsoft is proud to promote Cybersecurity Awareness Month as part of our ongoing commitment to security for all. Year-round, Microsoft tracks nation-state threat activities to help protect organizations and individuals from these advanced persistent actors. We’re constantly improving our...

VECTR - A Tool That Facilitates Tracking Of Your Red And Blue Team Testing Activities To Measure Detection And Prevention Capabilities Across Different Attack Scenarios

VECTR documentation can be found here: https://docs.vectr.io VECTR Community Discord Channel: https://discord.gg/2FRd8zf728 VECTR is a tool that facilitates tracking of your red and blue team testing activities to measure detection and prevention capabilities across different attack scenarios...

A Matter of Perspective: Agent-Based and Agentless Approaches to Cloud Security, Part 1

When it comes to securing your cloud assets' activities at runtime, the first step is deciding how. There are enough possible solutions that you're likely to find yourself at a crossroads trying to decide between them. The factors that may affect your choice include: Friction level — How...

Code injection

A vulnerability has been identified in SAP SuccessFactors Mobile Application for Android - versions older than 2108, which allows an attacker to prevent legitimate users from accessing a service, either by crashing or flooding the service, which can lead to denial of service. The vulnerability is...

Iran-linked DEV-0343 targeting defense, GIS, and maritime sectors

DEV-0343 is a new activity cluster that the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center MSTIC first observed and began tracking in late July 2021. MSTIC has observed DEV-0343 conducting extensive password spraying against more than 250 Office 365 tenants, with a focus on US and Israeli defense technolog...

Researchers Discover UEFI Bootkit Targeting Windows Computers Since 2012

Cybersecurity researchers on Tuesday revealed details of a previously undocumented UEFI Unified Extensible Firmware Interface bootkit that has been put to use by threat actors to backdoor Windows systems as early as 2012 by modifying a legitimate Windows Boot Manager binary to achieve persistence...

Feds Sanctions SUEX Cryptocurrency Exchange for Laundering Ransomware Payouts

In an unprecedented move, the federal government has sanctioned a cryptocurrency exchange for laundering ransom transactions for cybercriminals and helping them evade law-enforcement activity. As part of its continued hardline against ransomware attacks, the U.S. Department of Treasury has...

What is the Dark Web? The Dark Web explained

You may have seen the Dark Web referenced in popular TV shows and have gotten the wrong idea, or if you already knew about it, you may have snorted in derision. The Dark Web is also sometimes called the Deep Web, when in fact the Dark Web is only a part of the Deep Web. Terminology Surface Web is...

Brace yourselves: Holiday shopping season is coming

The E-commerce market has seen tremendous revenue growth during the pandemic. Along with that good news for E-business, there has been an increase in fraudulent activities online that may cost retailers over $20 billion in losses by the end of 2021. According to eMarketer, worldwide retail...

Phony Call Centers Tricking Users Into Installing Ransomware and Data-Stealers

An ongoing malicious campaign that employs phony call centers has been found to trick victims into downloading malware capable of data exfiltration as well as deploying ransomware on infected systems. The attacks — dubbed "BazaCall" — eschew traditional social engineering techniques that rely on...

APT trends report Q2 2021

For more than four years, the Global Research and Analysis Team GReAT at Kaspersky has been publishing quarterly summaries of advanced persistent threat APT activity. The summaries are based on our threat intelligence research and provide a representative snapshot of what we have published and...

US and Global Allies Accuse China of Massive Microsoft Exchange Attack

The U.S. government and its key allies, including the European Union, the U.K., and NATO, formally attributed the massive cyberattack against Microsoft Exchange email servers to state-sponsored hacking crews working affiliated with the People's Republic of China's Ministry of State Security MSS. ...

China's New Law Requires Vendors to Report Zero-Day Bugs to Government

The Cyberspace Administration of China CAC has issued new stricter vulnerability disclosure regulations that mandate software and networking vendors affected with critical flaws to mandatorily disclose them first-hand to the government authorities within two days of filing a report. The...

Threats Ride on the Covid-19 Vaccination Wave

We continue monitoring cybercriminals and threats that abuse the pandemic. In this update, we detail trends in malicious activities and deployments that exploit vaccination developments and processes worldwide...