New SugarGh0st RAT targets Uzbekistan government and South Korea

Cisco Talos recently discovered a malicious campaign that likely started as early as August 2023, delivering a new remote access trojan RAT we dubbed "SugarGh0st." We found evidence suggesting the threat actor is targeting the Uzbekistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and users in South Korea. We...

Iranian Group Tortoiseshell Launches New Wave of IMAPLoader Malware Attacks

The Iranian threat actor known as Tortoiseshell has been attributed to a new wave of watering hole attacks that are designed to deploy a malware dubbed IMAPLoader. "IMAPLoader is a .NET malware that has the ability to fingerprint victim systems using native Windows utilities and acts as a...

Malvertisers Using Google Ads to Target Users Searching for Popular Software

Details have emerged about a malvertising campaign that leverages Google Ads to direct users searching for popular software to fictitious landing pages and distribute next-stage payloads. Malwarebytes, which discovered the activity, said it's "unique in its way to fingerprint users and distribute...

WinRAR Remote Code Execution

This module requires Metasploit: https://metasploit.com/download Current source: https://github.com/rapid7/metasploit-framework require 'zip' class MetasploitModule 'WinRAR CVE-2023-38831 Exploit', 'Description' = %q This module exploits a vulnerability in WinRAR CVE-2023-38831. When a user opens...

Ukraine's CERT Thwarts APT28's Cyberattack on Critical Energy Infrastructure

The Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine CERT-UA on Tuesday said it thwarted a cyber attack against an unnamed critical energy infrastructure facility in the country. The intrusion, per the agency, started with a phishing email containing a link to a malicious ZIP archive that activates th...

WoofLocker Toolkit Hides Malicious Codes in Images to Run Tech Support Scams

Cybersecurity researchers have detailed an updated version of an advanced fingerprinting and redirection toolkit called WoofLocker that's engineered to conduct tech support scams. The sophisticated traffic redirection scheme was first documented by Malwarebytes in January 2020, leveraging...

New Attack Alert: Freeze[.]rs Injector Weaponized for XWorm Malware Attacks

Malicious actors are using a legitimate Rust-based injector called Freeze.rs to deploy a commodity malware called XWorm in victim environments. The novel attack chain, detected by Fortinet FortiGuard Labs on July 13, 2023, is initiated via a phishing email containing a booby-trapped PDF file. It...

Attacks, Vulnerabilities and Actors 24 July to 30 July 2023

For a detailed threat digest, download the pdf file here Summary HiveForce Labs recently made several significant discoveries related to cybersecurity threats. Over the past week, We identified a total of six executed attacks, one adversary activities, and five zero-day vulnerabilities including...

Unmasking Decoy Dog Malware Toolkit Hiding in DNS Traffic

Threat Level Attack Report For a detailed threat advisory, download the pdf file here Summary Decoy Dog, a sophisticated malware toolkit uses DNS for C2 communication, evading detection with its wildcard-type behavior and encryption methods. Its origin remains mysterious, and the malwares...

Decoy Dog: New Breed of Malware Posing Serious Threats to Enterprise Networks

A deeper analysis of a recently discovered malware called Decoy Dog has revealed that it's a significant upgrade over the Pupy RAT, an open-source remote access trojan it's modeled on. "Decoy Dog has a full suite of powerful, previously unknown capabilities – including the ability to move victims...

PicassoLoader Malware Used in Ongoing Attacks on Ukraine and Poland

Government entities, military organizations, and civilian users in Ukraine and Poland have been targeted as part of a series of campaigns designed to steal sensitive data and gain persistent remote access to the infected systems. The intrusion set, which stretches from April 2022 to July 2023,...

MULTI#STORM Campaign Targets India and U.S. with Remote Access Trojans

A new phishing campaign codenamed MULTISTORM has set its sights on India and the U.S. by leveraging JavaScript files to deliver remote access trojans on compromised systems. "The attack chain ends with the victim machine infected with multiple unique RAT remote access trojan malware instances, su...

Stealth Soldier: A New Custom Backdoor Targets North Africa with Espionage Attacks

A new custom backdoor dubbed Stealth Soldier has been deployed as part of a set of highly-targeted espionage attacks in North Africa. "Stealth Soldier malware is an undocumented backdoor that primarily operates surveillance functions such as file exfiltration, screen and microphone recording,...

Facebook clickbait leads to money scam for users

Online criminals are notorious for lurking on social media sites and tricking users into visiting malicious links. We recently observed a scheme where Facebook users are clicking on posts that lead to external websites set up for the sole purpose of scamming them out of hundreds of dollars via fa...

Evasive QBot Malware Leverages Short-lived Residential IPs for Dynamic Attacks

An analysis of the "evasive and tenacious" malware known as QBot has revealed that 25% of its command-and-control C2 servers are merely active for a single day. What's more, 50% of the servers don't remain active for more than a week, indicating the use of an adaptable and dynamic C2...

New Phishing-as-a-Service Platform Lets Cybercriminals Generate Convincing Phishing Pages

A new phishing-as-a-service PhaaS or PaaS platform named Greatness has been leveraged by cybercriminals to target business users of the Microsoft 365 cloud service since at least mid-2022, effectively lowering the bar to entry for phishing attacks. "Greatness, for now, is only focused on Microsof...

Why Honeytokens Are the Future of Intrusion Detection

A few weeks ago, the 32nd edition of RSA, one of the world's largest cybersecurity conferences, wrapped up in San Francisco. Among the highlights, Kevin Mandia, CEO of Mandiant at Google Cloud, presented a retrospective on the state of cybersecurity. During his keynote, Mandia stated: "There are...

Why Honeytokens Are the Future of Intrusion Detection

A few weeks ago, the 32nd edition of RSA, one of the world's largest cybersecurity conferences, wrapped up in San Francisco. Among the highlights, Kevin Mandia, CEO of Mandiant at Google Cloud, presented a retrospective on the state of cybersecurity. During his keynote, Mandia stated: "There are...

New Decoy Dog Malware Toolkit Uncovered: Targeting Enterprise Networks

An analysis of over 70 billion DNS records has led to the discovery of a new sophisticated malware toolkit dubbed Decoy Dog targeting enterprise networks. Decoy Dog , as the name implies, is evasive and employs techniques like strategic domain aging and DNS query dribbling, wherein a series of...

New Decoy Dog Malware Toolkit Uncovered: Targeting Enterprise Networks

An analysis of over 70 billion DNS records has led to the discovery of a new sophisticated malware toolkit dubbed Decoy Dog targeting enterprise networks. Decoy Dog, as the name implies, is evasive and employs techniques like strategic domain aging and DNS query dribbling, wherein a series of...