Emotet Rises Again: Evades Macro Security via OneNote Attachments

The notorious Emotet malware, in its return after a short hiatus, is now being distributed via Microsoft OneNote email attachments in an attempt to bypass macro-based security restrictions and compromise systems. Emotet, linked to a threat actor tracked as Gold Crestwood, Mummy Spider, or TA542,...

Qakbot Evolves to OneNote Malware Distribution

Qakbot Evolves to OneNote Malware Distribution By Pham Duy Phuc, Raghav Kapoor, John Fokker J.E., Alejandro Houspanossian and Mathanraj Thangaraju · March 07, 2023 Qakbot aka QBot, QuakBot, and Pinkslipbot is a sophisticated piece of malware that has been active since at least 2007. Since the end...

Qakbot Evolves to OneNote Malware Distribution

Qakbot Evolves to OneNote Malware Distribution By Pham Duy Phuc, John Fokker J.E. and Alejandro Houspanossian · March 07, 2023 This blog was also written by Raghav Kapoor and Mathanraj Thangaraju Qakbot aka QBot, QuakBot, and Pinkslipbot is a sophisticated piece of malware that has been active...

U.S. Cybersecurity Agency Raises Alarm Over Royal Ransomware's Deadly Capabilities

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA has released a new advisory about Royal ransomware, which emerged in the threat landscape last year. "After gaining access to victims' networks, Royal actors disable antivirus software and exfiltrate large amounts of data before...

Talos Takes 128: Year in Review - Ransomware and Commodity Loaders Edition

Were back with the final year in review focused episode. This time the focus is on the ever broadening ransomware landscape and the commodity malware loaders that often support it. Ill be joined by one of the researchers from the year in review report, Aliza Johnson to talk about what we saw on t...

Post-Macro World Sees Rise in Microsoft OneNote Documents Delivering Malware

In a continuing sign that threat actors are adapting well to a post-macro world, it has emerged that the use of Microsoft OneNote documents to deliver malware via phishing attacks is on the rise. Some of the notable malware families that are being distributed using this method include AsyncRAT,...

New Research Delves into the World of Malicious LNK Files and Hackers Behind Them

Cybercriminals are increasingly leveraging malicious LNK files as an initial access method to download and execute payloads such as Bumblebee, IcedID, and Qakbot. A recent study by cybersecurity experts has shown that it is possible to identify relationships between different threat actors by...

Following the LNK metadata trail

Adversaries shift toward Shell Link LNK files, likely sparked by Microsofts decision to block macros, provides the opportunity to capitalize on information that can be provided by LNK metadata. Cisco Talos analyzed metadata in LNK files and correlated it with threat actors tactics techniques and...

HTML smugglers turn to SVG images

HTML smuggling is a technique attackers use to hide an encoded malicious script within an HTML email attachment or webpage. Once a victim receives the email and opens the attachment, their browser decodes and runs the script, which then assembles a malicious payload directly on the victims device...

Black Basta Ransomware Invades US Firms with Qakbot Malware

Threat Level Attack Report For a detailed threat advisory, download the pdf file here Summary In this latest spear-phishing campaign, the Black Basta ransomware gang employed QakBot malware, aka QBot or Pinkslipbot, to acquire an initial point of entry and migrate laterally through an organizatio...

Black Basta Ransomware Gang Actively Infiltrating U.S. Companies with Qakbot Malware

Companies based in the U.S. have been at the receiving end of an "aggressive" Qakbot malware campaign that leads to Black Basta ransomware infections on compromised networks. "In this latest campaign, the Black Basta ransomware gang is using QakBot malware to create an initial point of entry and...

CVE-2022-41073

Windows Print Spooler Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability Recent assessments: ccondon-r7 at December 29, 2022 11:52pm UTC reported: Evidently this is being used for privilege escalation in ransomware attacks when threat actors have initial access to systems through existing Raspberry Robin,...

Researchers Find Links b/w Black Basta Ransomware and FIN7 Hackers

A new analysis of tools put to use by the Black Basta ransomware operation has identified ties between the threat actor and the FIN7 aka Carbanak group. This link "could suggest either that Black Basta and FIN7 maintain a special relationship or that one or more individuals belong to both groups,...

Where is the Origin?: QAKBOT Uses Valid Code Signing

Code signing certificates help us assure the file's validity and legitimacy. However, threat actors can use that against us. In this blog, discover how QAKBOT use such tactic and learn ways how to prevent it...

Threat Source newsletter (Oct. 20, 2022) — Shields Up! No seriously, Shields Waaaaay Up

By Jon Munshaw. Welcome to this weeks edition of the Threat Source newsletter. Im very excited about this video -- its a project Ive been working on with my team for a while now. Building off what Ive written about in the past regarding fake news, this video examines what essentially equates to t...

New Ursnif Variant Likely Shifting Focus to Ransomware and Data Theft

The Ursnif malware has become the latest malware to shed its roots as a banking trojan to revamp itself into a generic backdoor capable of delivering next-stage payloads, joining the likes of Emotet, Qakbot, and TrickBot. "This is a significant shift from the malware's original purpose to enable...

Black Basta Ransomware Hackers Infiltrate Networks via Qakbot to Deploy Brute Ratel C4

The threat actors behind the Black Basta ransomware family have been observed using the Qakbot trojan to deploy the Brute Ratel C4 framework as a second-stage payload in recent attacks. The development marks the first time the nascent adversary simulation software is being delivered via a Qakbot...

Black Basta Ransomware Gang Infiltrates networks via QAKBOT, Brute Ratel, and Cobalt Strike

We analyzed a QAKBOT-related case leading to a Brute Ratel C4 and Cobalt Strike payload that can be attributed to the threat actors behind the Black Basta ransomware...

Black Basta Ransomware Gang Infiltrates Networks via QAKBOT, Brute Ratel, and Cobalt Strike

We analyzed a QAKBOT-related case leading to a Brute Ratel C4 and Cobalt Strike payload that can be attributed to the threat actors behind the Black Basta ransomware...

2021 Top Malware Strains

Summary Immediate Actions You Can Take Now to Protect Against Malware: • Patch all systems and prioritize patching known exploited vulnerabilities. • Enforce multifactor authentication MFA. • Secure Remote Desktop Protocol RDP and other risky services. • Make offline backups of your data. • Provi...