Marriott Revises Breach Scope to 383M Records

Marriott has revised downward its estimate on the number of guests whose passport numbers and payment card data were impacted in its recent data breach. After the hospitality giant confirmed in November that there had been unauthorized access to its Starwood guest reservations database from 2014 ...

Newsmaker Interview: Bruce Schneier on Physical Cyber Threats

Attacks on physical devices and infrastructure offer a new target for cyber crime, a new opportunity for espionage and even a few front in cyber war. Rather than exploit computers and their applications, the Internet of Things allows malicious actors to go after a whole new category of devices,...

First-Ever UEFI Rootkit Tied to Sednit APT

LEIPZIG, GERMANY – Researchers hunting cyber-espionage group Sednit an APT also known as Sofacy, Fancy Bear and APT28 say they have discovered the first-ever instance of a rootkit targeting the Windows Unified Extensible Firmware Interface UEFI in successful attacks. The discussion of Sednit was...

U.S. Indicts Chinese Duo for Massive, Years-Long Spy Campaign

The Department of Justice on Thursday charged two Chinese hackers with stealing “hundreds of gigabytes” of data from more than 45 other governmental organizations and U.S.-based companies. This has potentially significant national security ramifications: Targets included the NASA Goddard Space...

Hacking Diplomatic Cables Is Expected. Exposing Them Is Not

Spies try to access government communications all the time. But an incident this week tested the limits of what happens when those compromises get discovered...

Charming Kitten Iranian Espionage Campaign Thwarts 2FA

A range of political and civil society targets are under fire in an APT attack dubbed the Return of Charming Kitten. The campaign has been tailored to get around two-factor authentication in order to compromise email accounts and start monitoring communications. According to researchers at Certfa...

Beers with Talos EP 43: Espionage, Encryption, and CISO Square One

Beers with Talos BWT Podcast Ep. 43 is now available. Download this episode and subscribe to Beers with Talos: If iTunes and Google Play aren't your thing, click here. Ep. 43 show notes: Recorded Dec. 7, 2018. Several of us are under the weather, but the show must go on. We did our best, as alway...

Marriott Hack Reported as Chinese State-Sponsored

The New York Times and Reuters are reporting that China was behind the recent hack of Marriott Hotels. Note that this is still uncomfirmed, but interesting if it is true. Reuters: Private investigators looking into the breach have found hacking tools, techniques and procedures previously used in...

Super Micro Says Its Gear Wasn't Bugged By Chinese Spies

U.S.-based computing vendor Super Micro has issued the findings of an investigation that it says proves that its hardware was not bugged by the Chinese government. Super Micro, which specializes in green computing for data centers and cloud computing, enterprise IT, big data, high performance...

Microsoft Issues Patch for Windows Zero-Day Flaw Under Active Attack

Microsoft today, on its year-end December Patch Tuesday, released security updates to patch a total 39 vulnerabilities its Windows operating systems and applications—10 of which are rated as critical and other important in severity. One of the security vulnerabilities patched by the tech giant th...

U.S. Military Members Catfished and Hooked for Thousands of Dollars

A sextortion ring that aimed “catfish” efforts at U.S. military service members has been uncovered. The scam bilked 442 service members from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps out of more than $560,000. An 11-month investigation, dubbed “Operation Surprise Party” and carried out by the...

APT29 Re-Emerges After 2 Years with Widespread Espionage Campaign

A phishing campaign bent on espionage, believed to be launched by the nation-state threat group known as APT29, is targeting high-value targets across the think-tank, law enforcement, media, U.S. military, imagery, transportation, pharmaceutical, national government and defense contracting sector...

Microsoft Patches Zero-Day Bug in Win7, Server 2008 and 2008 R2

Microsoft patched a zero-day vulnerability that enabled attackers to escalate privileges on targeted systems, which include Windows 7, Server 2008 and Server 2008 R2 systems. The vulnerability, rated important, was part of Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday November security bulletin, which included 62...

IT threat evolution Q3 2018

Targeted attacks and malware campaigns Lazarus targets cryptocurrency exchange Lazarus is a well-established threat actor that has conducted cyber-espionage and cybersabotage campaigns since at least 2009. In recent years, the group has launched campaigns against financial organizations around th...

Feds accuse Chinese firm of stealing trade secrets of US tech giant

By Uzair Amir The US Justice Department has accused China to be involved in industrial espionage. According to a press release from the department, the Chinese government has made memory chips that store data its centralized science and technology strategy only to cover its espionage activities. ...

Chinese Threat Actors Indicted For Stealing Aviation Trade Secrets

Hot on the heels of the Carbon Black Quarterly IR Threat Report, specifically calling out increased cybercrime activity from China, the US Department of Justice has indicted ten Chinese Nationals for perpetrating attacks against U.S. and French aviation companies in a stunning display of state...

Russia launched Triton malware to sabotage Saudi petrochemical plant

By Waqas A few days ago it was reported that a new malware called GreyEnergy has been targeting high-profile industrial and energy sector with espionage and fingers were pointed at Russian hackers. Now, it has been revealed that Petrochemical plants in Saudi Arabia have been on the radar of...

DarkPulsar FAQ

What's it all about? In March 2017, a group of hackers calling themselves "the Shadow Brokers" published a chunk of stolen data that included two frameworks: DanderSpritz and FuzzBunch. The Fuzzbunch framework contains various types of plugins designed to analyze victims, exploit vulnerabilities,...

New APT Could Signal Reemergence of Notorious Comment Crew

A recently observed APT campaign, dubbed Operation Oceansalt, could herald the return of the infamous China-linked hacking group known as Comment Crew or APT1. Attacks are cunning and are defined by their their deep targeting and use of an innovative multi-wave attack methodology. Operation...

GreyEnergy Spy APT Mounts Sophisticated Effort Against Critical Infrastructure

A new APT group, dubbed GreyEnergy by researchers, has emerged as a successor to the infamous BlackEnergy APT group, which was behind the electric grid cyberattack and resulting power outage in the Ukraine in December 2015. However, GreyEnergy’s focus and targeting revolve around cyber-espionage...