Threat actor abuse of AI accelerates from tool to cyberattack surface

For the last year, one word has represented the conversation living at the intersection of AI and cybersecurity: speed. Speed matters, but it’s not the most important shift we are observing across the threat landscape today. Now, threat actors from nation states to cybercrime groups are embedding...

Zero-day attacks on browsers and smartphones drop, says Google

Cybercriminals are having less success targeting end-user technology with zero-day attacks, said Google's security team this week. While most attacks do still target personal technology like smartphones and browsers, the focus is moving increasingly to enterprise tech. Zero-day vulnerabilities ar...

State-Sponsored Hackers Weaponize ClickFix Tactic in Targeted Malware Campaigns

Multiple state-sponsored hacking groups from Iran, North Korea, and Russia have been found leveraging the increasingly popular ClickFix social engineering tactic to deploy malware over a three-month period from late 2024 through the beginning of 2025. The phishing campaigns adopting the strategy...

FIN7, FIN8, and Others Use Ragnar Loader for Persistent Access and Ransomware Operations

Threat hunters have shed light on a "sophisticated and evolving malware toolkit" called Ragnar Loader that's used by various cybercrime and ransomware groups like Ragnar Locker aka Monstrous Mantis, FIN7, FIN8, and Ruthless Mantis ex-REvil. "Ragnar Loader plays a key role in keeping access to...

Ransomware Extortion Drops to $813.5M in 2024, Down from $1.25B in 2023

Ransomware attacks netted cybercrime groups a total of $813.5 million in 2024, a decline from $1.25 billion in 2023. The total amount extorted during the first half of 2024 stood at $459.8 million, blockchain intelligence firm Chainalysis said, adding payment activity slumped after July 2024 by...

From 12 to 21: how we discovered connections between the Twelve and BlackJack groups

While analyzing attacks on Russian organizations, our team regularly encounters overlapping tactics, techniques, and procedures TTPs among different cybercrime groups, and sometimes even shared tools. We recently discovered one such overlap: similar tools and tactics between two hacktivist groups...

Warning: Thread Hijacking Attack Targets IT Networks, Stealing NTLM Hashes

The threat actor known as TA577 has been observed using ZIP archive attachments in phishing emails with an aim to steal NT LAN Manager NTLM hashes. The new attack chain "can be used for sensitive information gathering purposes and to enable follow-on activity," enterprise security firm Proofpoint...

New Mispadu Banking Trojan Exploiting Windows SmartScreen Flaw

The threat actors behind the Mispadu banking Trojan have become the latest to exploit a now-patched Windows SmartScreen security bypass flaw to compromise users in Mexico. The attacks entail a new variant of the malware that was first observed in 2019, Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 said in a report...

Babuk Source Code Sparks 9 Different Ransomware Strains Targeting VMware ESXi Systems

Multiple threat actors have capitalized on the leak of Babuk aka Babak or Babyk ransomware code in September 2021 to build as many as nine different ransomware families capable of targeting VMware ESXi systems. "These variants emerged through H2 2022 and H1 2023, which shows an increasing trend o...

Attention Online Shoppers: Don't Be Fooled by Their Sleek, Modern Looks — It's Magecart!

An ongoing Magecart campaign has attracted the attention of cybersecurity researchers for leveraging realistic-looking fake payment screens to capture sensitive data entered by unsuspecting users. "The threat actor used original logos from the compromised store and customized a web element known ...

Actors, Threats and Vulnerabilities 27 February to 5 March 2023

For a detailed threat digest, download the pdf file here Summary For a detailed threat digest, download the pdf file here HiveForce Labs discovered six actors that have been active in the past week. TA866, APT-C-61, and DEV-0569 are cybercrime groups that focus on Financial gain. The other three...

34 Russian Cybercrime Groups Stole Over 50 Million Passwords with Stealer Malware

As many as 34 Russian-speaking gangs distributing information-stealing malware under the stealer-as-a-service model stole no fewer than 50 million passwords in the first seven months of 2022. "The underground market value of stolen logs and compromised card details is estimated around $5.8...

Researchers Warn of Cyber Criminals Using Go-based Aurora Stealer Malware

A nascent Go-based malware known as Aurora Stealer is being increasingly deployed as part of campaigns designed to steal sensitive information from compromised hosts. "These infection chains leveraged phishing pages impersonating download pages of legitimate software, including cryptocurrency...

Russian State-Sponsored and Criminal Cyber Threats to Critical Infrastructure

Summary Actions critical infrastructure organizations should implement to immediately protect against Russian state-sponsored and criminal cyber threats: • Patch all systems. Prioritize patching known exploited vulnerabilities. • Enforce multifactor authentication. • Secure and monitor Remote...

Researchers Find New Evidence Linking Diavol Ransomware to TrickBot Gang

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details about an early development version of a nascent ransomware strain called Diavol that has been linked to threat actors behind the infamous TrickBot syndicate. The latest findings from IBM X-Force show that the ransomware sample shares similarities t...

Babuk Ransomware Gang Ransomed, New Forum Stuffed With Porn

The Babuk ransomware gang’s new rebrand isn’t going so well. It seems the cybercriminal group has been a victim of a ransomware attack of its own. Babuk’s latest endeavor, a Dark Web ransomware forum called RAMP, was crippled by a spammer over the weekend who overloaded the site with same-sex...

Arrests of members of Tetrade seed groups Grandoreiro and Melcoz

Spains Ministry of the Interior has announced the arrest of 16 individuals connected to the Grandoreiro and Melcoz also known as Mekotio cybercrime groups. Both are originally from Brazil and form part of the Tetrade umbrella, operating for a few years now in Latin America and Western Europe...

Warning the World of a Ticking Time Bomb

Globally, hundreds of thousand of organizations running Exchange email servers from Microsoft just got mass-hacked, including at least 30,000 victims in the United States. Each hacked server has been retrofitted with a "web shell" backdoor that gives the bad guys total, remote control, the abilit...

Simplifying Proactive Defense With Threat Playbooks

Security defense strategy can be extremely complex, with security teams grappling with tens of thousands of information points and evolving attacker techniques, said Derek Manky, Chief of Security Insights & Global Threat Alliances at Fortinet’s FortiGuard Labs. Derek Manky FortiGuard Labs has...

A Year Later, Cybercrime Groups Still Rampant on Facebook

Almost exactly one year ago, KrebsOnSecurity reported that a mere two hours of searching revealed more than 100 Facebook groups with some 300,000 members openly advertising services to support all types of cybercrime, including spam, credit card fraud and identity theft. Facebook responded by...