Fake Ad Blocker Delivers Hybrid Cryptominer/Ransomware Infection

At its previous peak in February, the Monero Miner cryptocurrency ransominer was targeting more than 2,500 users a day, disguised as an antivirus installer. Now, the tricky hybrid malware is on the rise again, this time impersonating an ad blocker and OpenDNS service. In total, it has infected mo...

Rocke Group’s Malware Now Has Worm Capabilities

Researchers have identified an updated malware variant used by the cybercrime gang Rocke Group that targets cloud infrastructures with crypto-jacking attacks. The malware is called Pro-Ocean, which was first discovered in 2019, and has now been beefed-up with “worm” capabilities and rootkit...

Golang malware infecting Windows, Linux servers with XMRig miner

By Sudais Asif Golang malware has been active since last month targeting both Linux and Windows-based servers. This is a post from HackRead.com Read the original post: Golang malware infecting Windows, Linux servers with XMRig miner...

Threat Source newsletter (Dec. 3, 2020)

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw. Good afternoon, Talos readers. While ransomware has made all the headlines this year, that doesn’t mean cryptocurrency miners are going anywhere. We recently discovered a new actor we’re calling “Xanthe” that’s mining Monero on targets’ machines. The main...

On the trail of the XMRig miner

As protection methods improve, the developers of miners have had to enhance their own creations, often turning to non-trivial solutions. Several such solutions previously unseen by us were detected during our analysis of the open source miner XMRig. How it all began: ransominer Alongside well-kno...

Self-Propagating Lucifer Malware Targets Windows Systems

Security experts have identified a self-propagating malware, dubbed Lucifer, that targets Windows systems with cryptojacking and distributed denial-of-service DDoS attacks. The never-before-seen malware initially tries to infect PCs by bombarding them with exploits in hopes of taking advantage of...

Misconfigured Kubeflow workloads are a security risk

Azure Security Center ASC monitors and defends thousands of Kubernetes clusters running on top of AKS. Azure Security Center regularly searches for and research for new attack vectors against Kubernetes workloads. We recently published a blog post about a large scale campaign against Kubernetes...

Blue Mockingbird Monero-Mining Campaign Exploits Web Apps

A Monero cryptocurrency-mining campaign has emerged that exploits a known vulnerability in public-facing web applications built on the ASP.NET open-source web framework. The campaign has been dubbed Blue Mockingbird by the analysts at Red Canary that discovered the activity. Research uncovered th...

Malicious USB Drives Infect 35,000 Computers With Crypto-Mining Botnet

Cybersecurity researchers from ESET on Thursday said they took down a portion of a malware botnet comprising at least 35,000 compromised Windows systems that attackers were secretly using to mine Monero cryptocurrency. The botnet, named "VictoryGate," has been active since May 2019, with infectio...

New Lemon Duck Malware Campaign Targets IoT, Large Manufacturers

Printers, smart TVs and automated guided vehicles that depend on Windows 7 have become the latest juicy targets for cybercriminals leveraging a “self-spreading” variant of the malware Lemon Duck. In a report released Wednesday by TrapX Security, researchers warn manufacturers dependent on IoT...

Breaking down a two-year run of Vivin’s cryptominers

News Summary There is another large-scale cryptomining attack from an actor we are tracking as "Vivin" that has been active since at least November 2017. "Vivin" has consistently evolved over the past few years, despite having poor operational security and exposing key details of their campaign. ...

.WAVs Hide Malware in Their Depths in Innovative Campaign

UPDATE Audio .WAV files are the latest hiding place for obfuscated malicious code; a campaign has been spotted in which malicious content was secretly woven throughout the file’s audio data. The embedded code consists of two different payloads: A XMRig/Monero CPU cryptominer and Metasploit code...

Dangerous Cryptomining Worm Racks Up 850K Infections, Self-Destructs

A French and U.S. law-enforcement effort has neutralized 850,000 infections by a cryptomining worm known as Retadup, by causing the threat to destroy itself. The worm has been distributing the malicious XMRig cryptocurrency miner to computers running the Windows operating system, mostly in Latin...

Norman Cryptominer Employs Sophisticated Obfuscation Tactics

A never-before-seen cryptomining variant, dubbed “Norman” after one of its executable files, has been spotted in the wild using various techniques to hide and avoid discovery. The levels of obfuscation are notable for their sheer depth, according to an analysis. Varonis uncovered an initial sampl...

Oracle WebLogic Exploit-fest Continues with GandCrab Ransomware, XMRig

Malicious activity exploiting the recently disclosed Oracle WebLogic critical deserialization vulnerability CVE-2019-2725 is surging. Even though there’s a patch, tens of thousands of vulnerable machines represent an irresistible target for hackers, according to Unit 42 researchers at Palo Alto...

Mac "CookieMiner" Malware Aims to Gobble Crypto Funds

A newly-discovered malware is targeting Mac users’ web cookies and credentials in hopes of withdrawing funds on their cryptocurrency exchange accounts. The malware, discovered this month and aptly named “CookieMiner,” collects cryptocurrency-related cookies – in addition to compromised credential...

Mac malware combines EmPyre backdoor and XMRig miner

Earlier this week, we discovered a new piece of Mac malware that is combining two different open-source tools—the EmPyre backdoor and the XMRig cryptominer—for the purpose of evil. The malware was being distributed through an application named Adobe Zii. Adobe Zii is software that is designed to...

Fake Adobe Flash Updates Hide Malicious Crypto Miners

While fake Flash updates that push malware have traditionally been easy to spot and avoid, a new campaign has employed new tricks that stealthily download cryptocurrency miners on Windows systems. To the average user, the newly discovered samples, which have been active as early as August, seem...

Active Campaign Exploits Critical Apache Struts 2 Flaw in the Wild

It was only a matter of time before attacks were seen in the wild, and now it’s happened. A known threat actor has mounted a large cryptomining campaign using the recently disclosed Apache Struts 2 critical remote code-execution vulnerability. It uses a new malware designed for persistence and...

New Threat Actor ‘Rocke’: A Rising Monero Cryptomining Menace

Researchers are warning of a Chinese-language threat actor leveraging a wide array of Git repositories to infect vulnerable systems with Monero-based cryptomining malware. Researchers at Cisco Talos, who discovered the threat actor they call “Rocke”, said they have been tracking the adversary sin...