Iranian Hackers Launch 'SpearSpecter' Spy Operation on Defense & Government Targets

The Iranian state-sponsored threat actor known as APT42 has been observed targeting individuals and organizations that are of interest to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps IRGC as part of a new espionage-focused campaign. The activity, detected in early September 2025 and assessed to be...

Phishing Campaigns Use Real-Time Checks to Validate Victim Emails Before Credential Theft

Cybersecurity researchers are calling attention to a new type of credential phishing scheme that ensures that the stolen information is associated with valid online accounts. The technique has been codenamed precision-validating phishing by Cofense, which it said employs real-time email validatio...

Fake Google Chrome Sites Distribute ValleyRAT Malware via DLL Hijacking

Bogus websites advertising Google Chrome have been used to distribute malicious installers for a remote access trojan called ValleyRAT. The malware, first detected in 2023, is attributed to a threat actor tracked as Silver Fox, with prior attack campaigns primarily targeting Chinese-speaking...

Pawn Storm Uses Brute Force and Stealth Against High-Value Targets

Based on our estimates, from approximately April 2022 until November 2023, Pawn Storm attempted to launch NTLMv2 hash relay attacks through different methods, with huge peaks in the number of targets and variations in the government departments that it targeted...

New TTPs observed in Mint Sandstorm campaign targeting high-profile individuals at universities and research orgs

Since November 2023, Microsoft has observed a distinct subset of Mint Sandstorm PHOSPHORUS targeting high-profile individuals working on Middle Eastern affairs at universities and research organizations in Belgium, France, Gaza, Israel, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In this campaign,...

BlackCat Ransomware Raises Ante After FBI Disruption

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI disclosed today that it infiltrated the worlds second most prolific ransomware gang, a Russia-based criminal group known as ALPHV and BlackCat. The FBI said it seized the gangs darknet website, and released a decryption tool that hundreds of victim...

Peach Sandstorm password spray campaigns enable intelligence collection at high-value targets

Since February 2023, Microsoft has observed password spray activity against thousands of organizations carried out by an actor we track as Peach Sandstorm HOLMIUM. Peach Sandstorm is an Iranian nation-state threat actor who has recently pursued organizations in the satellite, defense, and...

Nation-state threat actor Mint Sandstorm refines tradecraft to attack high-value targets

Over the past several months, Microsoft has observed a mature subgroup of Mint Sandstorm, an Iranian nation-state actor previously tracked as PHOSPHORUS, refining its tactics, techniques, and procedures TTPs. Specifically, this subset has rapidly weaponized N-day vulnerabilities in common...

Nation-state threat actor Mint Sandstorm refines tradecraft to attack high-value targets

Over the past several months, Microsoft has observed a mature subgroup of Mint Sandstorm, an Iranian nation-state actor previously tracked as PHOSPHORUS, refining its tactics, techniques, and procedures TTPs. Specifically, this subset has rapidly weaponized N-day vulnerabilities in common...

RTM Locker: Emerging Cybercrime Group Targeting Businesses with Ransomware

Cybersecurity researchers have detailed the tactics of a "rising" cybercriminal gang called "Read The Manual" RTM Locker that functions as a private ransomware-as-a-service RaaS provider and carries out opportunistic attacks to generate illicit profit. "The 'Read The Manual' Locker gang uses...

APT37 employs Konni malware to target high-level organizations

Threat Level Actor Report For a detailed advisory, download the pdf file here Summary The Konni remote access trojan, which is widely used malware by the APT37, is used in the attack campaign to take advantage of high-value targets from countries like the Czech Republic, Poland, and many others...

Researchers Share In-Depth Analysis of PYSA Ransomware Group

An 18-month-long analysis of the PYSA ransomware operation has revealed that the cybercrime cartel followed a five-stage software development cycle from August 2020, with the malware authors prioritizing features to improve the efficiency of its workflows. This included a user-friendly tool like ...

Spanish MSSP Targeted by BitPaymer Ransomware

ARCHIVED STORY Spanish MSSP Targeted by BitPaymer Ransomware By ATR Operational Intelligence Team · November 08, 2019 Co-authored by Marc RiveroLopez Initial Discovery This week the news hit that several companies in Spain were hit by a ransomware attack. Ransomware attacks themselves are not new...

EFF Activists, Journalists Hit By Targeted Malware Attack

Phishing and malware attacks are among the more democratic and populist threats on the Internet. You don’t have to stand in the crowd in order to be targeted; the attackers will get to you sooner or later. But while most malware campaigns are aimed at the masses, attackers often save their best...

Out-of-Band IE Patch Released as More Sites Attacked

Internet Explorer users, exposed to a zero-day vulnerability in the browser and a faulty temporary Fix It from Microsoft, finally got some relief today when the company, as promised, released an out-of-band patch. Meanwhile, a handful of new telco, manufacturing and human rights sites have been...