What the continued escalation of tensions in the Middle East means for security

Cisco Talos works with many organizations around the world, monitoring and protecting against sophisticated threats every day. As such, we are watching the current state of events in the Middle East very closely for our customers and partners who may be impacted by the ongoing situation. We are...

3 Google Play Store Apps Exploit Android Zero-Day Used by NSO Group

Watch out! If you have any of the below-mentioned file managers and photography apps installed on your Android phone—even if downloaded from the official Google Store store⁠—you have been hacked and being tracked. These newly detected malicious Android apps are Camero, FileCrypt, and callCam that...

ToTok Returned to Google Play Despite ‘Spy Tool’ Claims

Mobile application ToTok has been reinstated to the Google Play app ecosystem, after it was removed last month due to claims that it was being used for government espionage. ToTok, a social app that was released in 2019 and has been downloaded by millions, gained rapid popularity in the United Ar...

Authorities Break Up Imminent Monitor Spyware Organization

The developers behind a commodity remote-access tool RAT that allows full control of a victim’s computer has been taken down by Australian and global authorities. The Imminent Monitor RAT IM-RAT first appeared in 2012, the work of a developer going by the handle of “Shockwave,” according to...

IT threat evolution Q3 2019

Targeted attacks and malware campaigns Mobile espionage targeting the Middle East At the end of June we reported the details of a highly targeted campaign that we dubbed 'Operation ViceLeaker' involving the spread of malicious Android samples via instant messaging. The campaign affected several...

APT33 Mounts Focused, Highly Targeted Botnet Attacks Against U.S. Victims

The Iran-linked, espionage-focused advanced threat group known as APT33 has been spotted using more than a dozen obfuscated botnets to carry out narrowly targeted attacks against government and academic targets in the Middle East, the U.S. and Asia. Each botnet, linked to its own...

Vital infrastructure: securing our food and agriculture

I don’t expect to hear any arguments on whether the production of our food is important or not. So why do we hardly ever hear anything about the cybersecurity in the food and agriculture sector? Depending on the country, agriculture makes up about 5 percent of the gross domestic product. That...

Eavesdropping on SMS Messages inside Telco Networks

Fireeye reports on a Chinese-sponsored espionage effort to eavesdrop on text messages: FireEye Mandiant recently discovered a new malware family used by APT41 a Chinese APT group that is designed to monitor and save SMS traffic from specific phone numbers, IMSI numbers and keywords for subsequent...

DarkUniverse APT Emerges to Deliver Sophisticated, Targeted Spy Attacks

A sophisticated espionage APT that was active for at least eight years before receding into the shadows has been uncovered — and researchers said that it may still be active. In April 2017, ShadowBrokers published one of their many leaks of cyberweapons used by the National Security Agency NSA an...

China-Linked Hackers Spy on Texts With MessageTap Malware

Researchers have discovered a new malware used for cyber-espionage efforts by China-linked threat group APT41. The malware intercepts telecom SMS server traffic and sniffs out certain phone numbers and SMS messages – particularly those with keywords relating to Chinese political dissidents. The...

Chinese Hackers Compromise Telecom Servers to Spy on SMS Messages

A group of Chinese hackers carrying out political espionage for Beijing has been found targeting telecommunications companies with a new piece of malware designed to spy on text messages sent or received by highly targeted individuals. Dubbed "MessageTap," the backdoor malware is a 64-bit ELF dat...

Chinese Hackers Compromise Telecom Servers to Spy on SMS Messages

A group of Chinese hackers carrying out political espionage for Beijing has been found targeting telecommunications companies with a new piece of malware designed to spy on text messages sent or received by highly targeted individuals. Dubbed "MessageTap ," the backdoor malware is a 64-bit ELF da...

The commoditization of mobile espionage software

By Matthew Valites with contributions by Joanne Kim and Edmund Brumaghin. Executive summary Mobile stalkerware has all sorts of wide-ranging consequences. The creators of these types of apps can track user's locations, see their social media usage and more. And they certainly open the door for...

MESSAGETAP: Who’s Reading Your Text Messages?

FireEye Mandiant recently discovered a new malware family used by APT41 a Chinese APT group that is designed to monitor and save SMS traffic from specific phone numbers, IMSI numbers and keywords for subsequent theft. Named MESSAGETAP, the tool was deployed by APT41 in a telecommunications networ...

Fancy Bear Targets Sporting, Anti-Doping Orgs As 2020 Olympics Loom

At least 16 anti-doping authorities and sporting organizations around the world have been hit by cyberattacks as the world begins to gear up for the Tokyo Summer Olympic Games, which kick off July 2020. The attacks, which began Sept. 16, have been linked to infamous Russian threat group Fancy Bea...

Microsoft Reports Global Cyberattacks on Sporting and Anti-Doping Organizations from Russian Espionage Actors

Microsoft publicly released information revealing an uptick in cyberattacks globally targeting anti-doping authorities and sporting organizations. The Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center MSTIC routinely tracks malicious activity originating from the Russian advanced persistent threat APT group 2...

Sophisticated Spy Kit Targets Russians with Rare GSM Plugin

A sophisticated cyberespionage platform called Attor has come to light, sporting an unusual capability for fingerprinting mobile devices as part of its attacks on government and diplomatic victims. According to researchers at ESET, Attor, which has flown under the radar since at least 2013, also...

Explained: war shipping

Yesterday, Mike from the mailroom came up and asked whether I knew anyone called “Simon Smith.” He received an envelope addressed to our company and to the attention of Mr. Smith, but there was no one by that name on his list of employees. It wasn’t on mine either and HR was unaware of a person b...

New Reductor Malware Hijacks HTTPS Traffic

Researchers have discovered a new malware strain, dubbed Reductor, that allows hackers to manipulate Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure HTTPS traffic by tweaking a browser’s random numbers generator, used to ensure a private connection between the client and server. Once infected, Reductor is use...

New Research into Russian Malware

There's some interesting new research about Russian APT malware: The Russian government has fostered competition among the three agencies, which operate independently from one another, and compete for funds. This, in turn, has resulted in each group developing and hoarding its tools, rather than...