Researchers Say China State-backed Hackers Breached a Digital Certificate Authority

A suspected Chinese state-sponsored actor breached a digital certificate authority as well as government and defense agencies located in different countries in Asia as part of an ongoing campaign since at least March 2022. Symantec, by Broadcom Software, linked the attacks to an adversarial group...

Microsoft Warns of Uptick in Hackers Leveraging Publicly-Disclosed 0-Day Vulnerabilities

Microsoft is warning of an uptick among nation-state and criminal actors increasingly leveraging publicly-disclosed zero-day vulnerabilities for breaching target environments. The tech giant, in its 114-page Digital Defense Report, said it has "observed a reduction in the time between the...

Researchers Expose Over 80 ShadowPad Malware C2 Servers

As many as 85 command-and-control C2 servers have been discovered supported by the ShadowPad malware since September 2021, with infrastructure detected as recently as October 16, 2022. That's according to VMware's Threat Analysis Unit TAU, which studied three ShadowPad variants using TCP, UDP, an...

SideWinder APT Using New WarHawk Backdoor to Target Entities in Pakistan

SideWinder, a prolific nation-state actor mainly known for targeting Pakistan military entities, compromised the official website of the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority NEPRA to deliver a tailored malware called WarHawk. "The newly discovered WarHawk backdoor contains various malicio...

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...

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

By Jon Munshaw. Welcome to this week’s edition of the Threat Source newsletter. I’m very excited about this video I’ve embedded below — it’s a project I’ve been working on with my team for a while now. Building off what I’ve written about in the past regarding fake news, this video examines what...

Chinese APT's favorite vulnerabilities revealed

In a joint cybersecurity advisory, the National Security Agency NSA, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI have revealed the top CVEs used by state-sponsored threat actors from China. The advisory aims to "inform federal and state,...

Microsoft Issues Improved Mitigations for Unpatched Exchange Server Vulnerabilities

Microsoft on Friday disclosed it has made more improvements to the mitigation method offered as a means to prevent exploitation attempts against the newly disclosed unpatched security flaws in Exchange Server. To that end, the tech giant has revised the blocking rule in IIS Manager from...

Top CVEs Actively Exploited By People’s Republic of China State-Sponsored Cyber Actors

Summary This joint Cybersecurity Advisory CSA provides the top Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures CVEs used since 2020 by People’s Republic of China PRC state-sponsored cyber actors as assessed by the National Security Agency NSA, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA, and Feder...

Top CVEs Actively Exploited by People’s Republic of China State-Sponsored Cyber Actors   

CISA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI, and the National Security Agency NSA have released a joint Cybersecurity Advisory CSA providing the top Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures CVEs used since 2020 by People’s Republic of China PRC state-sponsored cyber actors. PRC state-sponsored cybe...

Mitigation for Exchange Zero-Days Bypassed! Microsoft Issues New Workarounds

Microsoft has revised its mitigation measures for the newly disclosed and actively exploited zero-day flaws in Exchange Server after it was found that they could be trivially bypassed. The two vulnerabilities, tracked as CVE-2022-41040 and CVE-2022-41082, have been codenamed ProxyNotShell due to...

North Korean Hackers Weaponizing Open-Source Software in Latest Cyber Attacks

A "highly operational, destructive, and sophisticated nation-state activity group" with ties to North Korea has been weaponizing open source software in their social engineering campaigns aimed at companies around the world since June 2022. Microsoft's threat intelligence teams, alongside LinkedI...

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...

Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Affiliated Cyber Actors Exploiting Vulnerabilities for Data Extortion and Disk Encryption for Ransom Operations

CISA, Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI, National Security Agency NSA, U.S. Cyber Command USCC - Cyber National Mission Force CNMF, Department of the Treasury, Australian Cyber Security Centre ACSC, Canadian Centre for Cyber Security CCCS, and United Kingdom’s National Cyber Security Centre NCS...

U.S. Imposes New Sanctions on Iran Over Cyberattack on Albania

The U.S. Treasury Department on Friday announced sanctions against Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security MOIS and its Minister of Intelligence, Esmaeil Khatib, for engaging in cyber-enabled activities against the nation and its allies. "Since at least 2007, the MOIS and its cyber actor...

Chinese Hackers Target Government Officials in Europe, South America, and Middle East

A Chinese hacking group has been attributed to a new campaign aimed at infecting government officials in Europe, the Middle East, and South America with a modular malware known as PlugX. Cybersecurity firm Secureworks said it identified the intrusions in June and July 2022, once again demonstrati...

MagicRAT: Lazarus’ latest gateway into victim networks

By Jung soo An, Asheer Malhotra and Vitor Ventura. Cisco Talos has discovered a new remote access trojan RAT we're calling "MagicRAT," developed and operated by the Lazarus APT group, which the U.S. government believes is a North Korean state-sponsored actor. Lazarus deployed MagicRAT after the...

Researcher Spotlight: How Asheer Malhotra looks for ‘instant gratification’ in threat hunting

The India native has transitioned from a reverse-engineer hobbyist to a public speaker in just a few years By Jon Munshaw. Ninety percent of Asheer Malhotra’s work will never see the light of day. But it’s that 10 percent that keeps him motivated to keep looking for something new. The Talos...

Threat Source newsletter (Aug. 25, 2022) — We're still not talking about Ukraine enough

By Jon Munshaw. Welcome to this week’s edition of the Threat Source newsletter. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was once the most talked about story in the world. Six months into the conflict, modern attention spans have moved on to other news stories. But Ukraine Independence Day yesterday should...

Ukraine war spotlights agriculture sector's vulnerability to cyber attack

By Joe Marshall. The war in Ukraine has caused massive problems for global food supplies, underscoring the high impact of disruptive events to agriculture entities and related organizations. The challenges to the Ukrainian agriculture sector imposed by the war--and global ripple effects--have bee...