Protect your business from password sprays with Microsoft DART recommendations

Over the past year, the Microsoft Detection and Response Team DART, along with Microsoft’s threat intelligence teams, have observed an uptick in the use of password sprays as an attack vector. This threat is a moving target with techniques and tools always changing, and Microsoft continues to fin...

New Microsoft Sysmon report in VirusTotal improves security

Today, following the 25th year anniversary of Microsoft Sysinternals, we are announcing the general availability of a new Microsoft Sysmon report in VirusTotal. Whether you’re an IT professional or a developer, you’re probably already using Microsoft Sysinternals utilities to help you manage,...

A Guide to Doing Cyberintelligence on a Restricted Budget

For those in the industry, it comes as no surprise that many cybersecurity programs have been impacted by loss of revenue during the pandemic. From cutting tooling and feed budgets to reduction in staff, it’s been challenging at best. In a recent SANS 2021 survey, “Threat Hunting In Uncertain...

Podcast: Could the Zoho Flaw Trigger SolarWinds 2.0?

A month ago, the FBI, CISA and the U.S. Coast Guard Cyber Command CGCYBER warned that state-backed advanced persistent threat APT actors are likely among those who’d been actively exploiting a critical flaw in a Zoho-owned single sign-on and password management tool since early August. At issue w...

Microsoft achieves a Leader placement in Forrester Wave for XDR

We are excited to share that Microsoft has been named a Leader in The Forrester New Wave: Extended Detection and Response XDR, Q4, 2021,1 receiving one of the highest scores in the strategy category. Microsoft 365 Defender was rated as “differentiated” in seven criteria including detection,...

4 Simple Steps for an Effective Threat Intelligence Program

Threat intelligence is a critical part of an organization's cybersecurity strategy, but given how quickly the state of cybersecurity evolves, is the traditional model still relevant? Whether you're a cybersecurity expert or someone who's looking to build a threat intelligence program from the...

Iran-linked DEV-0343 targeting defense, GIS, and maritime sectors

DEV-0343 is a new activity cluster that the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center MSTIC first observed and began tracking in late July 2021. MSTIC has observed DEV-0343 conducting extensive password spraying against more than 250 Office 365 tenants, with a focus on US and Israeli defense technolog...

What's New in InsightIDR: Q3 2021 in Review

This post offers a closer look at some of the recent updates and releases in InsightIDR, our extended detection and response solution, from Q3 2021. Welcome IntSights to the Rapid7 Insight Platform family! As you may have seen in recent communications, Rapid7 acquired IntSights, a leading provide...

How nation-state attackers like NOBELIUM are changing cybersecurity

This is the first post in a four-part series on the NOBELIUM nation-state cyberattack. Microsoft started telling the industry about this extremely advanced cyberattack in December 2020. The NOBELIUM blog series—which mirrors Microsoft’s four-part video series “Decoding NOBELIUM”—will pull the...

How nation-state attackers like NOBELIUM are changing cybersecurity

This is the first post in a four-part series on the NOBELIUM nation-state cyberattack. Microsoft started telling the industry about this extremely advanced cyberattack in December 2020. The NOBELIUM blog series—which mirrors Microsoft’s four-part video series “Decoding NOBELIUM”—will pull the...

5 Tips for Achieving Better Cybersecurity Risk Management

When thinking about cybersecurity risk management, think about the last time you were comparing health-insurance policies. Each policy offers a means to protect yourself and your family from financial losses e.g. from hospital coverage, and many policies include things that are designed to reduce...

Microsoft Warns of a Wide-Scale Phishing-as-a-Service Operation

Microsoft has opened the lid on a large-scale phishing-as-a-service PHaaS operation that's involved in selling phishing kits and email templates as well as providing hosting and automated services at a low cost, thus enabling cyber actors to purchase phishing campaigns and deploy them with minima...

A guide to combatting human-operated ransomware: Part 1

This blog is part one of a two-part series focused on how Microsoft DART helps customers with human-operated ransomware. For more guidance on human-operated ransomware and how to defend against these extortion-based attacks, refer to our human-operated ransomware docs page. Microsoft’s Detection...

SANS 2021 Threat Hunting Survey: How Organizations' Security Postures Have Evolved in the New Normal

It's that time of year once again: The SANS Institute — the most trusted resource for cybersecurity research — has conducted its sixth annual Threat Hunting Survey, sponsored by Rapid7. The goal of this survey is to better understand the current threat hunting landscape and the benefits provided ...

Exploitation of the CVE-2021-40444 vulnerability in MSHTML

Summary Last week, Microsoft reported the remote code execution vulnerability CVE-2021-40444 in the MSHTML browser engine. According to the company, this vulnerability has already been used in targeted attacks against Microsoft Office users. In attempt to exploit this vulnerability, attackers...

Afternoon Cyber Tea: Learn how to stop misinformation threats from nation-state bad actors

Information has long been wielded as an instrument of national power and influence. In today’s digital world, misinformation can also be just as powerful. On a special episode of Afternoon Cyber Tea with Ann Johnson, Sandra Joyce, Executive Vice President and Head of Mandiant Intelligence at...

Microsoft Warns of Cross-Account Takeover Bug in Azure Container Instances

Microsoft on Wednesday said it remediated a vulnerability in its Azure Container Instances ACI services that could have been weaponized by a malicious actor "to access other customers' information" in what the researchers described as the "first cross-account container takeover in the public...

Pro-PRC Influence Campaign Expands to Dozens of Social Media Platforms, Websites, and Forums in at Least Seven Languages, Attempted to Physically Mobilize Protesters in the U.S.

In June 2019, Mandiant Threat Intelligence first reported to customers a pro-People’s Republic of China PRC network of hundreds of inauthentic accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, that was at that time primarily focused on discrediting pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. Since then, the...

Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR 安全漏洞

Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR is a software application from Palo Alto Networks, Inc. It provides a security orchestration, automation, and response platform with threat intelligence management and a built-in marketplace. A security vulnerability exists in Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR, which...

Holy Grail of Security: Answer to ‘Did X Work?’ – Podcast

Get a glass. Pour in one shot of VERIS, aka the Vocabulary for Event Recording and Incident Sharing engine that generates Verizon’s funny, well-written, incredibly useful, annual Database Investigations Report DBIR. Next, add a shot of MITRE ATT&CK: the curated knowledge repository of reported...