ZINC weaponizing open-source software

In recent months, Microsoft has detected a wide range of social engineering campaigns using weaponized legitimate open-source software by an actor we track as ZINC. Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center MSTIC observed activity targeting employees in organizations across multiple industries includi...

Webworm Hackers Using Modified RATs in Latest Cyber Espionage Attacks

A threat actor tracked under the moniker Webworm is taking advantage of bespoke variants of already existing Windows-based remote access trojans to fly under the radar, some of which are said to be in pre-deployment or testing phases. "The group has developed customized versions of three older...

ModernLoader delivers multiple stealers, cryptominers and RATs

By Vanja Svajcer Cisco Talos recently observed three separate, but related, campaigns between March and June 2022 delivering a variety of threats, including the ModernLoader bot, RedLine information-stealer and cryptocurrency-mining malware to victims. The actors use PowerShell, .NET assemblies,...

Interpol Nabs 3 Nigerian Scammers Behind Malware-based Attacks

Interpol on Monday announced the arrest of three suspected global scammers in Nigeria for using remote access trojans RATs such as Agent Tesla to facilitate malware-enabled cyber fraud. "The men are thought to have used the RAT to reroute financial transactions, stealing confidential online...

NVIDIA’s Stolen Code-Signing Certs Used to Sign Malware

Two of NVIDIA’s code-signing certificates were part of the Feb. 23 Lapsus$ Group ransomware attack the company suffered – certificates that are now being used to sign malware so malicious programs can slide past security safeguards on Windows machines. The Feb. 23 attack saw 1TB of data bleed fro...

Experts Warn of Hacking Group Targeting Aviation and Defense Sectors

Entities in the aviation, aerospace, transportation, manufacturing, and defense industries have been targeted by a persistent threat group since at least 2017 as part of a string of spear-phishing campaigns mounted to deliver a variety of remote access trojans RATs on compromised systems. The use...

What’s with the shared VBA code between Transparent Tribe and other threat actors?

By Vanja Svajcer and Vitor Ventura. Recently, we've been researching several threat actors operating in South Asia: Transparent Tribe, SideCopy, etc., that deploy a range of remote access trojans RATs. After a hunting session in our malware sample repositories and VirusTotal while looking into...

Hackers Using New Malware Packer DTPacker to Avoid Analysis, Detection

A previously undocumented malware packer named DTPacker has been observed distributing multiple remote access trojans RATs and information stealers such as Agent Tesla, Ave Maria, AsyncRAT, and FormBook to plunder information and facilitate follow-on attacks. "The malware uses multiple obfuscatio...

Crypto Hackers Using Babadeda Crypter to Make Their Malware Undetectable

A new malware campaign has been discovered targeting cryptocurrency, non-fungible token NFT, and DeFi aficionados through Discord channels to deploy a crypter named "Babadeda" that's capable of bypassing antivirus solutions and stage a variety of attacks. "This malware installer has been used in ...

HTML smuggling surges: Highly evasive loader technique increasingly used in banking malware, targeted attacks

HTML smuggling, a highly evasive malware delivery technique that leverages legitimate HTML5 and JavaScript features, is increasingly used in email campaigns that deploy banking malware, remote access Trojans RATs, and other payloads related to targeted attacks. Notably, this technique was observe...

'Lone Wolf' Hacker Group Targeting Afghanistan and India with Commodity RATs

A new malware campaign targeting Afghanistan and India is exploiting a now-patched, 20-year-old flaw affecting Microsoft Office to deploy an array of commodity remote access trojans RATs that allow the adversary to gain complete control over the compromised endpoints. Cisco Talos attributed the...

Threat Actors Abuse Discord to Push Malware

Threat actors are abusing the core features of the popular Discord digital communication platform to persistently deliver various types of malware—in particular remote access trojans RATs that can take over systems–putting its 150 million users at risk, researchers have found. RiskIQ and CheckPoi...

‘Lone Wolf’ APT Uses Commodity RATs

An APT described as a “lone wolf” is exploiting a decades-old Microsoft Office flaw to deliver a barrage of commodity RATs to organizations in India and Afghanistan, researchers have found. Attackers use political and government-themed malicious domains as lures in the campaign, which targets...

Operation “Armor Piercer:” Targeted attacks in the Indian subcontinent using commercial RATs

By Asheer Malhotra, Vanja Svajcer and Justin Thattil. Cisco Talos is tracking a campaign targeting government personnel in India using themes and tactics similar to APT36 aka Mythic Leopard and Transparent Tribe.This campaign distributes malicious documents and archives to deliver the Netwire...

A New Wave of Malware Attack Targeting Organizations in South America

A spam campaign delivering spear-phishing emails aimed at South American organizations has retooled its techniques to include a wide range of commodity remote access trojans RATs and geolocation filtering to avoid detection, according to new research. Cybersecurity firm Trend Micro attributed the...

APT-C-36 Updates Its Spam Campaign Against South American Entities With Commodity RATs

We have continued tracking APT-C-36, also known as Blind Eagle, since our research on this threat actor in 2019. We share new findings of APT-C-36’s ongoing spam campaign targeting South American entities...

Threat Source newsletter (Aug. 26, 2021)

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw.Good afternoon, Talos readers. We have RATs on RATs on RATs over the past few weeks. And last week, we found a few more heading to Latin America to target users and try to steal their login credentials. The threat actor in this case has some compelling... This i...

Malicious Campaign Targets Latin America: The seller, The operator and a curious link

By Asheer Malhotra and Vitor Ventura, with contributions from Vanja Svajcer. Cisco Talos has observed a new malware campaign delivering commodity RATs, including njRAT and AsyncRAT.The campaign targets travel and hospitality organizations in Latin America.Techniques utilized in this campaign...

MosaicLoader Malware Delivers Facebook Stealers, RATs

A never-before-documented Windows malware strain dubbed MosaicLoader is spreading worldwide, acting as a full-service malware-delivery platform that’s being used to infect victims with remote-access trojans RATs, Facebook cookie stealers and other threats. That’s according to Bitdefender...

Attackers Blowing Up Discord, Slack with Malware

Workflow and collaboration tools like Slack and Discord have been infiltrated by threat actors, who are abusing their legitimate functions to evade security and deliver info-stealers, remote-access trojans RATs and other malware. The pandemic-induced shift to remote work drove business processes...