Predicting 2026

Welcome to this week's edition of the Threat Source newsletter. It's become traditional at this time of year to make predictions about cybersecurity for the coming year. Obviously, no one has a crystal ball to predict the future, and if they did, they would be quietly making a fortune rather than...

Healthcare's Diagnosis is Critical: The Cure is Cybersecurity Hygiene

Cybersecurity in healthcare has never been more urgent. As the most vulnerable industry and largest target for cybercriminals, healthcare is facing an increasing wave of cyberattacks. When a hospital's systems are held hostage by ransomware, it's not just data at risk — it's the care of patients...

Iranian MOIS-Linked Hackers Behind Destructive Attacks on Albania and Israel

An Iranian threat actor affiliated with the Ministry of Intelligence and Security MOIS has been attributed as behind destructive wiping attacks targeting Albania and Israel under the personas Homeland Justice and Karma, respectively. Cybersecurity firm Check Point is tracking the activity under t...

Russian APT Deploys New 'Kapeka' Backdoor in Eastern European Attacks

A previously undocumented "flexible" backdoor called Kapeka has been "sporadically" observed in cyber attacks targeting Eastern Europe, including Estonia and Ukraine, since at least mid-2022. The findings come from Finnish cybersecurity firm WithSecure, which attributed the malware to the...

Albanian Parliament and One Albania Telecom Hit by Cyber Attacks

The Assembly of the Republic of Albania and telecom company One Albania have been targeted by cyber attacks, the country's National Authority for Electronic Certification and Cyber Security AKCESK revealed this week. "These infrastructures, under the legislation in force, are not currently...

Advanced threat predictions for 2024

Advanced persistent threats APTs are the most dangerous threats, as they employ complex tools and techniques, and often are highly targeted and hard to detect. Amid the global crisis and escalating geopolitical confrontations, these sophisticated cyberattacks are even more dangerous, as there is...

CERT-UA Warns of SmokeLoader and RoarBAT Malware Attacks Against Ukraine

An ongoing phishing campaign with invoice-themed lures is being used to distribute the SmokeLoader malware in the form of a polyglot file, according to the Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine CERT-UA. The emails, per the agency, are sent using compromised accounts and come with a ZIP...

State-sponsored campaigns target global network infrastructure

Cisco is deeply concerned by an increase in the rate of high-sophistication attacks on network infrastructure -- that we have observed and have seen corroborated by numerous reports issued by various intelligence organizations -- indicating state-sponsored actors are targeting routers and firewal...

Iranian Hackers Using SimpleHelp Remote Support Software for Persistent Access

The Iranian threat actor known as MuddyWater is continuing its time-tested tradition of relying on legitimate remote administration tools to commandeer targeted systems. While the nation-state group has previously employed ScreenConnect, RemoteUtilities, and Syncro, a new analysis from Group-IB h...

Iran-Based Hackers Caught Carrying Out Destructive Attacks Under Ransomware Guise

The Iranian nation-state group known as MuddyWater has been observed carrying out destructive attacks on hybrid environments under the guise of a ransomware operation. That's according to new findings from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence team, which discovered the threat actor targeting both...

Iran-Based Hackers Caught Carrying Out Destructive Attacks Under Ransomware Guise

The Iranian nation-state group known as MuddyWater has been observed carrying out destructive attacks on hybrid environments under the guise of a ransomware operation. That's according to new findings from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence team, which discovered the threat actor targeting both...

New “Prestige” ransomware impacts organizations in Ukraine and Poland

The Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center MSTIC has identified evidence of a novel ransomware campaign targeting organizations in the transportation and related logistics industries in Ukraine and Poland utilizing a previously unidentified ransomware payload. We observed this new ransomware, which...

Evaluation of cyber activities and the threat landscape in Ukraine

Introduction When the war in Ukraine broke out, many analysts were surprised to discover that what was simultaneously happening in the cyber domain did not match their predictions1. Since the beginning of the fighting, new cyberattacks taking place in Ukraine have been identified every week, whic...

CISA Urges Organizations to Patch Actively Exploited F5 BIG-IP Vulnerability

.jpg The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA has added the recently disclosed F5 BIG-IP flaw to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog following reports of active abuse in the wild. The flaw, assigned the identifier CVE-2022-1388 CVSS score: 9.8, concerns a critical bu...

Microsoft Documents Over 200 Cyberattacks by Russia Against Ukraine

At least six different Russia-aligned actors launched no less than 237 cyberattacks against Ukraine from February 23 to April 8, including 38 discrete destructive attacks that irrevocably destroyed files in hundreds of systems across dozens of organizations in the country. "Collectively, the cybe...

DEV-0537 criminal actor targeting organizations for data exfiltration and destruction

March 24, 2022 update - As Microsoft continues to track DEV-0537’s activities, tactics, and tools, were sharing new detection, hunting, and mitigation information to give you additional insights on remaining vigilant against these attacks. In recent weeks, Microsoft Security teams have been...

Ransomware: February 2022 review

The Malwarebytes Threat Intelligence team continuously monitors the threat landscape to stay on top of existing and emerging attacks. In this February 2022 ransomware review, we go over some the most successful ransomware incidents based on both open source and dark web intelligence. BlackByte...

What the Rise in Cyber-Recon Means for Your Security Strategy

As we move into 2022, bad actors are ramping up their reconnaissance efforts to ensure more successful and more impactful cyberattacks. And that means more zero-day exploits are on the horizon. When seen through an attack chain such as the MITRE ATT&CK framework, campaigns are frequently discusse...

MosesStaff Locks Up Targets, with No Ransom Demand, No Decryption

The MosesStaff hacking group is aiming politically motivated, destructive attacks at Israeli targets, looking to inflict the most damage possible, researchers warned. Unlike other anti-Zionist hacktivists like the Pay2Key and BlackShadow gangs, which look to extort their victims and cause...

New 'Moses Staff' Hacker Group Targets Israeli Companies With Destructive Attacks

A new politically-motivated hacker group named "Moses Staff" has been linked to a wave of targeted attacks targeting Israeli organizations since September 2021 with the goal of plundering and leaking sensitive information prior to encrypting their networks, with no option to regain access or...