Why you need to know about ransomware

Last month, a strange thing happened in cybersecurity: a type of cyberthreat typically reserved for large businesses and critical services appeared on the computers of everyday people. Starting on July 20, hundreds of individuals across the globe began reporting problems with ransomware. Ransomwa...

Magniber ransomware targets home users

If you’ve been following any news about ransomware, you may be under the impression that ransomware groups are only after organizations rather than individual people, and for the most part that’s true. However, Magniber is one ransomware that does target home users. And its back, with full force,...

Rhysida Ransomware Cracked, Free Decryption Tool Released

Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered an "implementation vulnerability" that has made it possible to reconstruct encryption keys and decrypt data locked by Rhysida ransomware. The findings were published last week by a group of researchers from Kookmin University and the Korea Internet and...

Microsoft Rolls Out Patches for 80 New Security Flaws — Two Under Active Attack

Microsoft's Patch Tuesday update for March 2023 is rolling out with remediations for a set of 80 security flaws, two of which have come under active exploitation in the wild. Eight of the 80 bugs are rated Critical, 71 are rated Important, and one is rated Moderate in severity. The updates are in...

Patch Tuesday - March 2023

Microsoft is offering fixes for 101 security issues for March 2023 Patch Tuesday, including two zero-day vulnerabilities; the most interesting of the two zero-day vulnerabilities is a flaw in Outlook which allows an attacker to authenticate against arbitrary remote resources as another user...

PT-2023-1686 · Microsoft · Windows +1

Name of the Vulnerable Software and Affected Versions: Microsoft Windows affected versions not specified Description: The issue is related to a security feature bypass vulnerability in Microsoft Windows SmartScreen. This vulnerability can be exploited by an attacker to bypass security restriction...

CISA issues alert with South Korean government about DPRK's ransomware antics

CISA and other federal agencies were joined by the National Intelligence Service NIS and the Defense Security Agency of the Republic of Korea ROK in releasing the latest cybersecurity advisory in the US government's ongoing StopRansomware effort. This alert highlights continuous state-sponsored...

December 2022 Patch Tuesday: Get Latest Security Updates from Microsoft and More

Tech giant Microsoft released its last set of monthly security updates for 2022 with fixes for 49 vulnerabilities across its software products. Of the 49 bugs, six are rated Critical, 40 are rated Important, and three are rated Moderate in severity. The updates are in addition to 24 vulnerabiliti...

Unofficial Patch Released for New Actively Exploited Windows MotW Vulnerability

An unofficial patch has been made available for an actively exploited security flaw in Microsoft Windows that makes it possible for files signed with malformed signatures to sneak past Mark-of-the-Web MotW protections. The fix, released by 0patch, arrives weeks after HP Wolf Security disclosed a...

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...

Ransomware Gangs Exploiting Windows Print Spooler Vulnerabilities

Ransomware operators such as Magniber and Vice Society are actively exploiting vulnerabilities in Windows Print Spooler to compromise victims and spread laterally across a victim's network to deploy file-encrypting payloads on targeted systems. "Multiple, distinct threat actors view this...

Exploit kits: spring 2019 review

Exploit kit activity remains fairly unchanged since our last winter review in terms of active distribution campaigns. But this spring edition will feature a new exploit kit and another atypical EK, in that it specifically goes after routers. The main driver behind these drive-by download attacks...

Exploit kits: fall 2018 review

Exploit kit EK activity continues to surprise us as the weather cools, the leaves change, and we move into the fall of 2018. Indeed, shortly after our summer review, a new exploit kit was discovered, and while no new vulnerabilities were added to the current EKs, several malvertising chains are...

A week in security (July 16 – July 22)

Last week on Labs, we looked at a Magniber expansion, explored open source vulnerabilities, and checked out the boons and drawbacks of smart assistants. We also continued our ad blocking article extravaganza, gave a whistlestop tour of third-party problems, and published our Q2 Cybercrime tactics...

Magniber ransomware improves, expands within Asia

This blog post was authored by @hasherezade and Jérôme Segura. The Magnitude exploit kit is one of the longest-serving browser exploitation toolkits among those still in use. After its inception in 2013, it enjoyed worldwide distribution with a liking for ransomware. Eventually, it became a priva...

Exploit kits: Spring 2018 review

Since our last report on exploit kits, there have been some new developments with the wider adoption of the February Flash zero-day, as well as the inclusion of a new exploit for Internet Explorer. We have not seen that many changes in the drive-by landscape for a long time, although these are th...

A week in security (October 16 – October 22)

Last week was an eventful one in security, keeping our research and intel teams on their toes. Multiple security researchers homed in on suspicious and malicious apps on Google Play, affecting thousands of Android users. A new variant of Mac malware Proton was also found in the wild, this time...

New Magniber Ransomware Targets South Korea, Asia Pacific

Researchers identified a new ransomware family called Magniber that uniquely targets only users in South Korea and the Asia-Pacific regions. The ransomware is primarily being distributed by the Magnitude exploit kit, a primary distribution vehicle in the past for Cerber ransomware. Because of...

Magniber Ransomware Wants to Infect Only the Right People

Introduction Exploit kit EK use has been on the decline since late 2016; however, certain activity remains consistent. The Magnitude Exploit Kit is one such example that continues to affect users, particularly in the APAC region. In Figure 1, which is based on FireEye Dynamic threat Intelligence...

Magniber ransomware: exclusively for South Koreans

The Magnitude exploit kit has been pretty consistent over the last few months, dropping the same payload—namely, the Cerber ransomware—and targeting a few select countries in Asia. Strangely, Magnitude EK disappeared in late September, and for a while we wondered whether this was yet another...