Weekly Threat Digest: 9-15 May 2022

For a detailed threat digest, download the pdf file here Published Vulnerabilities Interesting Vulnerabilities Active Threat Groups Targeted Countries Targeted Industries ATT&CK TTPs 650 3 1 14 10 13 The second week of May 2022 witnessed the discovery of 650 vulnerabilities out of which 3 gained...

Iranian Hackers Using New Marlin Backdoor in 'Out to Sea' Espionage Campaign

An advanced persistent threat APT group with ties to Iran has refreshed its malware toolset to include a new backdoor dubbed Marlin as part of a long-running espionage campaign that started in April 2018. Slovak cybersecurity company ESET attributed the attacks — codenamed "Out to Sea" — to a...

Lyceum APT Returns, This Time Targeting Tunisian Firms

The Lyceum threat group has resurfaced, this time with a weird variant of a remote-access trojan RAT that doesn’t have a way to talk to a command-and-control C2 server and might instead be a new way to proxy traffic between internal network clusters. Kaspersky’s Mark Lechtik – senior security...

Cybersecurity Experts Warn of a Rise in Lyceum Hacker Group Activities in Tunisia

A threat actor, previously known for striking organizations in the energy and telecommunications sectors across the Middle East as early as April 2018, has evolved its malware arsenal to strike two entities in Tunisia. Security researchers at Kaspersky, who presented their findings at the...

Lyceum group reborn

This year, we had the honor to be selected for the thirty-first edition of the Virus Bulletin conference. During the live program, we presented our research into the Lyceum group also known as Hexane, which was first exposed by Secureworks in 2019. In 2021, we have been able to identify a new...

APT Horoscope

This delightful essay matches APT hacker groups up with astrological signs. This is me: Capricorn is renowned for its discipline, skilled navigation, and steadfastness. Just like Capricorn, Helix Kitten also known as APT 35 or OilRig is a skilled navigator of vast online networks, maneuvering...

OilRig APT Drills into Malware Innovation with Unique Backdoor

A series of cyberattacks on a telecom company in the Middle East has signaled the return of the OilRig APT. The attacks also revealed a revised backdoor tool in the group’s arsenal, called RDAT. The attacks were observed in April by Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42. Researchers there said that the...

OilRig’s Poison Frog – old samples, same trick

After we wrote our private report on the OilRig leak, we decided to scan our archives with our YARA rule, to hunt for new and older samples. Aside from finding some new samples, we believe we also succeeded in finding some of the first Poison Frog samples. Poison Frog We're not quite sure whether...

NSA and NCSC Release Joint Advisory on Turla Group Activity

The National Security Agency NSA and the United Kingdom National Cyber Security Centre NCSC have released a joint advisory on advanced persistent threat APT group Turla—widely reported to be Russian and also known as Snake, Uroburos, VENEMOUS BEAR, or Waterbug. The advisory provides an update to...

OilRig APT Continues Its Ongoing Malware Evolution

OilRig, an APT group believed to have ties to Iran, has been spotted in yet another campaign in the Middle East – this time targeting victims within an undisclosed government using an evolved variant of the BondUpdater trojan. The group, which is also called Cobalt Gypsy, Crambus, Helix Kitten or...

OilRig Sends an OopsIE to Mideast Government Targets

The OilRig group is back, using a reboot of the OopsIE trojan to pump information from its favorite resource: entities in the Middle East region. OilRig, which is also called Cobalt Gypsy, Crambus, Helix Kitten or PT34, is suspected of having ties to Iran. The group was identified in 2015 and is...