M-Trends 2020: Insights From the Front Lines

Today we release M-Trends 2020, the 11th edition of our popular annual FireEye Mandiant report. This latest M-Trends contains all of the statistics, trends, case studies and hardening recommendations that readers have come to expect through the years—and more. One of the most exciting takeaways...

Persistence – Modify Existing Service

It is not uncommon for APT Groups to modify an existing service on the compromised host in order to execute an arbitrary payload when the… Continue reading - Persistence - Modify Existing Service...

APT Groups Exploiting Flaws in Unpatched VPNs, Officials Warn

State-sponsored advanced persistent threat APT groups are using flaws in outdated VPN technologies from Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet and Pulse Secure to carry out cyber attacks on targets in the United States and overseas, warned U.S. and U.K. officials. The National Security Agency NSA issued a...

50k Servers Infected with Cryptomining Malware in Nansh0u Campaign

Up to 50,000 servers were infected over the past four months as part of a high-profile cryptojacking campaign, believed to orchestrated by Chinese-language adversaries. Researchers with Guardicore Labs, who disclosed the campaign Wednesday, said that the Nansh0u​ campaign named due to a text file...

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...

A week in security (March 11 – 17)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs, we looked at the Lazarus group in our series about APT groups, we discussed the introduction of Payment Service Directive 2 PSD2 in the EU, we tackled Google’s Nest fiasco, and the launch of Mozilla's Firefox Send. In addition, we gave you an overview of the...

A week in security (April 16 – April 22)

Last week, we took a stroll down memory lane talking about Facebook and MySpace, noticed a change in the Magnitude exploit kit—wherein it started adopting the GandCrab ransomware, took a good look at a new form of adware that is based on Python, chatted a bit about Russian hacking with a...

The devil’s in the Rich header

In our previous blog, we detailed our findings on the attack against the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics. For this investigation, our analysts were provided with administrative access to one of the affected servers, located in a hotel based in Pyeongchang county, South Korea. In addition, we...

Leaked NSA Dump Also Contains Tools Agency Used to Track Other Hackers

A years ago when the mysterious hacking group 'The Shadow Brokers' dumped a massive trove of sensitive data stolen from the US intelligence agency NSA, everyone started looking for secret hacking tools and zero-day exploits. A group of Hungarian security researchers from CrySyS Lab and Ukatemi ha...

Mirai Giving DDoS-as-a-Service Industry a Boost

The availability of the Mirai malware source code online isn’t a guarantee that just anyone can quickly convert it into a money-making IoT-based DDoS botnet. Researchers at Digital Shadows have been combing dark web sites such as the Hackforums where black hat Anna-Senpai dropped the Mirai code i...

Trump Comments Straddle Line of Soliciting Computer Crime

Donald Trump may have left himself an out today when he urged Russian hackers to find 30,000 emails deleted by Hillary Clinton from her private server. “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Trump said during a press conference in Florida. “I...

Attributing Advanced Attacks Remains Challenge For Researchers

Amid the connections being made between the Russian government and the attack on the Democratic National Committee DNC, researchers on Tuesday reminded us of the challenges security experts have in correctly attributing advanced attacks. In a wide-ranging Reddit AMA, members of Kaspersky Lab’s...

Underground Market Selling Cheap Access to Hacked Servers

Criminals and advanced attackers for two years have had at their disposal an extensive trading platform selling access to hacked servers worldwide. For as little as $6 USD, attackers can purchase access to a compromised machine and launch attacks or get a one-time peek at all the data on a server...

APT Groups Exploiting Patch Microsoft Office Flaw CVE-2015-2545

A Microsoft Office vulnerability patched six months ago continues to be a valuable tool for APT gangs operating primarily in Southeast Asia and the Far East. Researchers at Kaspersky Lab today published a report describing how attackers continue to flourish exploiting CVE-2015-2545, a remote code...

Power Grid Honeypot Puts Face on Attacks

TENERIFE, Spain –The rhetoric around hacking the power grid would have you believe it’s a relatively mundane practice. Policymakers, intelligence agencies and vendors, for example, spread the word gleefully, leaning on scenarios such as state-sponsored hackers shutting off the lights in the dead ...

D-Link Private Code-Signing Keys Leaked

A simple mistake by networking gear manufacturer D-Link could have opened the door for costly damage. Private keys used to sign software published by D-Link were found in the company’s open source firmware packages. While it’s unknown whether the keys were used by malicious third parties, the...

Researchers Uncover Chinese VPN Service Used by APT Crews for Cover

Building a business can be expensive and time-consuming, and owners will look for ways to save money wherever they can. Researchers from RSA Security have found a VPN provider in China that is taking this to an unusual extreme: hacking Windows servers around the world for use as VPN nodes on a...

On the Cisco Default SSH Keys, OPM Hack, the Adobe Zero Day, and More

Dennis Fisher and Mike Mimoso talk about the Cisco default SSH keys, more details of the OPM data breach, the Adobe 0-day and why we never hear about bad APT groups, only the really good ones. Download: digitalunderground208.mp3 Music by Chris Gonsalves...

Encryption and Silence Can be Targets' Best Assets

CANCUN–Things are getting real these days for executives, researchers, journalists and others involved in the security community. Targeted surveillance is a reality for many in the community, and researchers and activists are trying now to help them assess and address that threat to their privacy...

APT Groups Emerging in Middle East

CANCUN–Since security researchers and vendors began exposing the inner workings of APT groups a few years ago, virtually all of the operations that have been made public have been the work of attackers in Europe, Asia or North America. But recently, groups in the Middle East have joined the game ...