The Role of Domain-Specific Features in Malware Detection: A MacOS Case Study

Despite the growing popularity of macOS among end users and enterprise systems, malware research has primarily focused on Windows and Android operating systems, leaving the problem of macOS malware detection relatively unexplored. Indeed, the specificity of the operating system and the unique...

New XCSSET malware adds new obfuscation, persistence techniques to infect Xcode projects

Microsoft Threat Intelligence has uncovered a new variant of XCSSET, a sophisticated modular macOS malware that infects Xcode projects, in the wild during routine threat hunting. Its first known variant since 2022, this latest XCSSET malware features enhanced obfuscation methods, updated...

Hackers Target Middle East Governments with Evasive "CR4T" Backdoor

Government entities in the Middle East have been targeted as part of a previously undocumented campaign to deliver a new backdoor dubbed CR4T. Russian cybersecurity company Kaspersky said it discovered the activity in February 2024, with evidence suggesting that it may have been active since at...

TimbreStealer campaign targets Mexican users with financial lures

Cisco Talos has discovered a new campaign operated by a threat actor distributing a previously unknown malware were calling "TimbreStealer." This threat actor was observed distributing TimbreStealer via a spam campaign using Mexican tax-related themes starting in at least November 2023. The threa...

Old Blackmoon Trojan, NEW Monetization Approach

Rapid7 is tracking a new, more sophisticated and staged campaign using the Blackmoon trojan, which appears to have originated in November 2022. The campaign is actively targeting various businesses primarily in the USA and Canada. However, it is not used to steal credentials, instead, it implemen...

Threat Round up for November 11 to 18

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats weve observed between Nov. 11 and Nov. 18. As with previous roundups, this post isnt meant to be an in-depth analysis. Instead, this post will summarize the threats weve observed by highlighting key behavioral characteristics,...

PersistenceSniper - Powershell Script That Can Be Used By Blue Teams, Incident Responders And System Administrators To Hunt Persistences Implanted In Windows Machines

PersistenceSniper is a Powershell script that can be used by Blue Teams, Incident Responders and System Administrators to hunt persistences implanted in Windows machines. The script is also available on Powershell Gallery. --- The Why Why writing such a tool, you might ask. Well, for starters, I...

The evolution of a Mac trojan: UpdateAgent’s progression

Our discovery and analysis of a sophisticated Mac trojan in October exposed a year-long evolution of a malware family—and depicts the rising complexity of threats across platforms. The trojan, tracked as UpdateAgent, started as a relatively basic information-stealer but was observed distributing...

How to proactively defend against Mozi IoT botnet

Mozi is a peer-to-peer P2P botnet that uses a BitTorrent-like network to infect IoT devices such as network gateways and digital video records DVRs. It works by exploiting weak telnet passwords1 and nearly a dozen unpatched IoT vulnerabilities2 and it’s been used to conduct distributed...

How to proactively defend against Mozi IoT botnet

Mozi is a peer-to-peer P2P botnet that uses a BitTorrent-like network to infect IoT devices such as network gateways and digital video records DVRs. It works by exploiting weak telnet passwords1 and nearly a dozen unpatched IoT vulnerabilities2 and it’s been used to conduct distributed...

Tenacity – An Adversary Emulation Tool for Persistence

Persistence is one of the more sought-after techniques of an attacker or adversary. Persistence is achieved through a set of tactics or techniques that adversaries use to maintain their foothold on compromised systems across restarts, changed credentials, and other interruptions that could cut of...

SharPersist: Windows Persistence Toolkit in C#

Background PowerShell has been used by the offensive community for several years now but recent advances in the defensive security industry are causing offensive toolkits to migrate from PowerShell to reflective C to evade modern security products. Some of these advancements include Script Block...

Shining a Light on a New Technique for Stealth Persistence

Red teamers like myself and my team are driven by a desire to out-innovate the bad guys – to help the good guys. We study their methods, strive to think like they do, work to better understand attacker techniques and test our mettle against the spectrum of technologies in use today to find new wa...

Iran-Linked Group ‘TEMP.Zagros’ Updates Tactics, Techniques In Latest Campaign

Researchers say a massive phishing campaign targeting Asia and Middle East regions is linked to an Iranian-based threat actor TEMP.Zagros, also known as MuddyWater. This latest attack illustrates an evolution by the threat actor, which has now adopted new tactics, techniques and procedures. “We...

RAT Distributed Via Google Drive Targets East Asia

Researchers said that they are tracking a new remote access Trojan dubbed UBoatRAT that is targeting individuals or organizations linked to South Korea or the video game industry. While targets aren’t 100 percent clear, researchers at Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 said UBoatRAT threats are evolving...