The 5 Most-Wanted Threatpost Stories of 2021

As 2021 draws to a close, and the COVID-19 pandemic drags on, it’s time to take stock of what resonated with our 1 million+ monthly visitors this year, with an eye to summing up some hot trends gleaned from looking at the most-read stories on the Threatpost site. While 2020 was all about...

‘Tropic Trooper’ Reemerges to Target Transportation Outfits

They’ve been an active threat group since 2011, but a recent uptick in activity from Earth Centaur – previously known as Tropic Trooper – aimed specifically at transportation and government agencies is setting off alarm bells among experts. Trend Micro researchers have been tracking Tropic...

Log4Shell Is Spawning Even Nastier Mutations

The internet has a fast-spreading, malignant cancer – otherwise known as the Apache Log4j logging library exploit – that’s been rapidly mutating and attracting swarms of attackers since it was publicly disclosed last week. Most of the attacks focus on cryptocurrency mining done on victims’ dimes,...

SolarWinds Attackers Spotted Using New Tactics, Malware

One year after the notorious and far-reaching SolarWinds supply-chain attacks, its orchestrators are on the offensive again. Researchers said they’ve seen the threat group – which Microsoft refers to as “Nobelium” and which is linked to Russia’s spy agency – compromising global business and...

Researchers Detail How Pakistani Hackers Targeting Indian and Afghan Governments

A Pakistani threat actor successfully socially engineered a number of ministries in Afghanistan and a shared government computer in India to steal sensitive Google, Twitter, and Facebook credentials from its targets and stealthily obtain access to government portals. Malwarebytes' latest findings...

Threats to ICS and industrial enterprises in 2022

Continuing trends In recent years, we have observed various trends in the changing threat landscape for industrial enterprises, most of which have been evolving for some time. We can say with high confidence that many of these trends will not only continue, but gain new traction in the coming yea...

Hackers Exploiting ProxyLogon and ProxyShell Flaws in Spam Campaigns

Threat actors are exploiting ProxyLogon and ProxyShell exploits in unpatched Microsoft Exchange Servers as part of an ongoing spam campaign that leverages stolen email chains to bypass security software and deploy malware on vulnerable systems. The findings come from Trend Micro following an...

Iranian Government-Sponsored APT Cyber Actors Exploiting Microsoft Exchange and Fortinet Vulnerabilities

CISA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI, the Australian Cyber Security Centre ACSC, and the United Kingdom’s National Cyber Security Centre NCSC have released a joint Cybersecurity Advisory highlighting ongoing malicious cyber activity by an advanced persistent threat APT group that FBI,...

The features all Incident Response Plans need to have

By Paul Lee, Yuri Kramarz and Martin Lee. Adversaries are always growing their capabilities and changing their tactics, leading to a greater number of incidents and data breaches. This is supported by organizations such as ITRC who reports that the number of data breaches in 2021 is already...

A Review and Analysis of 2021 Buer Loader Campaigns

Buer Loader has established itself well in the underground market and has since seen continuous development. In this blog entry, we review its 2021 campaigns, tactics, and activity...

Mekotio Banking Trojan Resurges with Tweaked Code, Stealthy Campaign

The Mekotio Latin American banking trojan is bouncing back after several of the gang that operates it were arrested in Spain. More than 100 attacks in recent weeks have featured a new infection routine, indicating that the group continues to actively retool. “The new campaign started right after...

Grief Ransomware Targets NRA

A ransomware group tied to Russia claims to have stolen data from the National Rifle Association NRA in a ransomware attack on the controversial gun-rights group, which has declined to comment on the situation. The Grief ransomware gang listed the NRA as a victim of its nefarious activity on its...

Hackers Stealing Browser Cookies to Hijack High-Profile YouTube Accounts

Since at least late 2019, a network of hackers-for-hire have been hijacking the channels of YouTube creators, luring them with bogus collaboration opportunities to broadcast cryptocurrency scams or sell the accounts to the highest bidder. That's according to a new report published by Google's...

BlackMatter Ransomware

Summary Actions You Can Take Now to Protect Against BlackMatter Ransomware • Implement and enforce backup and restoration policies and procedures. • Usestrong, unique passwords. • Usemulti-factor authentication. • Implement network segmentation and traversal monitoring. Note: this advisory uses t...

TrickBot Gang Enters Cybercrime Elite with Fresh Affiliates

The cybercriminals behind the infamous TrickBot trojan have signed two additional distribution affiliates, dubbed Hive0106 aka TA551 and Hive0107 by IBM X-Force. The result? Escalating ransomware hits on corporations, especially using the Conti ransomware. The development also speaks to the...

The joy of phishing your employees

Many companies set up phishing test programs for their employees, often as part of a compliance requirement involving ongoing employee education on security topics. The aim of these programs is to train employees on how to spot a malicious link, not click it, and forward it on to the appropriate...

How cyberattacks are changing according to new Microsoft Digital Defense Report

In 2021, cybercrime has become more sophisticated, widespread, and relentless. Criminals have targeted critical infrastructure—healthcare,1 information technology,2 financial services,3 energy sectors4—with headline-grabbing attacks that crippled businesses and harmed consumers. But there are...

Assess Your Risk From Ransomware Attacks, Powered by Qualys Research

Ransomware attacks are among the most significant cyber threats facing businesses today. Recent warnings about Conti ransomware, issued by a joint cybersecurity advisory from the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA, FBI and National Security Agency, are a strong signal that...

SAS 2021: FinSpy Surveillance Kit Re-Emerges Stronger Than Ever

The FinSpy surveillance kit has been driven from its hiding place following an eight-month investigation by Kaspersky researchers. Detections of the spyware trojan have dwindled since 2018, but it turns out that it hasn’t gone away – it’s simply been hiding behind various first-stage implants tha...

Porn Problem: Adult Ads Persist on US Gov’t, Military Sites

U.S. military and government website subdomains have a sticky problem: They’re “quite vulnerable” to blackhat SEO tactics that result in persistent redirects to spammy Viagra ads and porn videos. An example is one that showed up on a dot.mil subdomain on the Minnesota National Guard site you can...