What Now? Facing Cyber Threats to Infrastructure in the Aftermath of Global Political Conflicts

In January 2020, the US Department of Homeland Security issued a National Terrorism Advisory Alert warning American targets that the Iranian government may carry out physical or cyber attacks in retaliation for the US strike that killed Iranian IRGC-Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani in Iraq...

Iran-Backed APTs Collaborate on 3-Year 'Fox Kitten' Global Spy Campaign

Two Iran-backed APTs could be working together on a sprawling, three-year campaign to compromise high-value organizations from the IT, telecom, oil and gas, aviation, government and security sectors in Israel and around the world, according to a report by researchers at ClearSky. They maintain,...

Iranian Hackers Exploiting VPN Flaws to Backdoor Organizations Worldwide

A new report published by cybersecurity researchers has unveiled evidence of Iranian state-sponsored hackers targeting dozens of companies and organizations in Israel and around the world over the past three years. Dubbed "Fox Kitten," the cyber-espionage campaign is said to have been directed at...

U.S. Charges Huawei with Stealing Trade Secrets from 6 Companies

The US Department of Justice DoJ and the Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI charged Huawei with racketeering and conspiring to steal trade secrets from six US firms, in a significant escalation of a lawsuit against the Chinese telecom giant that began last year. Accusing Huawei and its affiliate...

U.S. Charges Huawei with Stealing Trade Secrets from 6 Companies

The US Department of Justice DoJ and the Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI charged Huawei with racketeering and conspiring to steal trade secrets from six US firms, in a significant escalation of a lawsuit against the Chinese telecom giant that began last year. Accusing Huawei and its affiliate...

Charming Kitten Uses Fake Interview Requests to Target Public Figures

The Iran-based hacking group Charming Kitten has resurfaced with a new campaign that uses fake interviews to target public figures to launch phishing attacks and steal victims’ email-account information. In a report released Wednesday, security researchers at Certfa Lab say they discovered the...

Hackers Exploited Twitter Bug to Find Linked Phone Numbers of Users

Twitter today issued a warning revealing that attackers abused a legitimate functionality on its platform to unauthorizedly determine phone numbers associated with millions of its users' accounts. According to Twitter, the vulnerability resided in one of the APIs that has been designed to make it...

This Week in Security News: The First Patch Tuesday Update of 2020 and Pwn2Own Vancouver Announced

Welcome to our weekly roundup, where we share what you need to know about the cybersecurity news and events that happened over the past few days. This week, learn about a major crypto-spoofing bug impacting Windows 10 that has been fixed as part of Microsoft’s January Patch Tuesday update. Also,...

Beers with Talos Ep. #70: Semper Vigilantes - Strategic Defense in a Cyber Conflict

By Mitch Neff. Beers with Talos BWT Podcast episode No. 70 is now available. Download this episode and subscribe to Beers with Talos: If iTunes and Google Play aren't your thing, click here. Recorded Jan. 6, 2020 There is a looming cyber conflict on the horizon between the U.S. and Iran. We use a...

Oil-and-Gas APT Pivots to U.S. Power Plants.

A known APT group with ties to the Iran-linked APT33, dubbed Magnallium, has expanded its targeting from the global oil-and-gas industry to specifically include electric companies in North America. That’s according to a report from Dragos, released Thursday, which noted that the discovery is part...

Threat Source newsletter (Jan. 9, 2019)

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw. Welcome to this week’s Threat Source newsletter — the perfect place to get caught up on all things Talos from the past week. We’re back after a long break for the holidays. And 2020 is already off to a fast start as tensions continue to rise in the Middle East...

Did Donald Trump and Iran Use Twitter to Prevent a War?

Tweets from US president Donald Trump and Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif Tuesday offered a fascinating glimpse at how world leaders can communicate more quickly and directly than ever in times of crisis...

How Close Is Iran to a Nuclear Weapon? Here's What We Know

Iran is no longer abiding by many of the restrictions in the landmark 2015 nuclear deal, but that doesn’t mean it’s about to build a bomb, either...

Hackers Deface U.S. Gov Website With Pro-Iran Messages

UPDATE A U.S. government website was vandalized late Saturday by hackers who posted images of a bloodied President Donald Trump being punched in the face and pro-Iran messages. The defaced website was the Federal Depository Library Program FDLP website, which makes U.S. federal government...

Release of New CISA Insights on Increased Geopolitical Tensions and Threats

Stakeholders, Today, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA issued a CISA Insights document entitled, “Increased Geopolitical Tensions and Threats” pertaining to the increased tension with Iran. You can read the new CISA Insights at CISA.gov/insights. As the Nation’s risk...

How Iran's Hackers Might Strike Back After Soleimani's Assassination

From data-destroying wipers to industrial control system hacking, Iran has a potent arsenal of cyberattacks at its disposal...

Iran Targets Mideast Oil with ZeroCleare Wiper Malware

A freshly-discovered wiper malware dubbed “ZeroCleare” has been deployed to target the energy and industrial sectors in the Middle East. According to IBM’s X-Force Incident Response and Intelligence Services IRIS, ZeroCleare so-named because of the program database pathname of its binary file was...

VMware Carbon Black Threat Report: One Year Out From the 2020 U.S. Elections, Geopolitical Tension Continues to Spawn Cyberattacks

This morning, VMware Carbon Black released its latest Global Incident Response Threat Report GIRTR. Now in its fourth edition, the GIRTR is written in partnership with VMware Carbon Black's incident response IR partner ecosystem and aggregates input from top IR experts to give you, the reader, a...

Iranian Americans Struggle to Reach Family Amid Internet Blackout

As Iran's countrywide internet shutdown approaches a full week, Iranian Americans are increasingly desperate to connect with friends and relatives...

Iran Has Shut Off its Internet

Iran has gone pretty much entirely offline in the wake of nationwide protests. This is the best article detailing what's going on; this is also good. AccessNow has a global campaign to stop Internet shutdowns. TITLE EDITED TO REDUCE CONFUSION...