Vulnerability Spotlight: Two vulnerabilities in Lantronix XPort EDGE

Kelly Leuschner of Cisco Talos discovered these vulnerabilities. Blog by Jon Munshaw.Executive summary Cisco Talos recently discovered two vulnerabilities in the Web Manager functionality of Lantronix XPort EDGE. The XPort EDGE is a next-generation wired Ethernet gateway for providing secure...

Beers with Talos EP23 - Eternal Fauxmance: Attribution Easter Eggs

Beers with Talos BWT Podcast Episode 23 is now available. Download this episode and subscribe to Beers with Talos: If iTunes and Google Play aren't your thing: www.talosintelligence.com/podcast EP23 Show Notes: Recorded 2/16/18 - This week, Mitch learns about starting a show without Matt with no...

Ransomware incidents in Japan during the first half of 2025

In the first half of 2025, the number of ransomware attacks in Japan increased by approximately 1.4 times compared to the previous year. Ransomware attackers continue to primarily target small and medium-sized enterprises in Japan. The most affected industry remains manufacturing, unchanged from...

Four zero-days included in group of 79 vulnerabilities Microsoft discloses, including one with 9.8 severity score

Microsoft disclosed four vulnerabilities that are actively being exploited in the wild as part of its regular Patch Tuesday security update this week in what's become a regular occurrence for the company's patches in 2024. Two of the zero-day vulnerabilities, CVE-2024-38226 and CVE-2024-38014,...

The private sector probably isn’t coming to save the NVD

I wrote last week about the problems arising from the massive backlog of vulnerabilities at the U.S. National Vulnerability Database. Thousands of CVEs are still without analysis data, and the once-reliable database of every single vulnerability thats disclosed and/or patched is now so far behind...

First Microsoft Patch Tuesday zero-day of 2024 disclosed as part of group of 75 vulnerabilities

Microsoft followed up one of the lightest recent Patch Tuesdays in January with a large release of vulnerabilities on Tuesday, although still far from numbers seen in the past. In all, Februarys security update from Microsoft includes 75 vulnerabilities, three of which are considered critical...

Microsoft starts off new year with relatively light Patch Tuesday, no zero-days

Microsoft followed up one of the lightest recent Patch Tuesdays in December with another month of no zero-day vulnerabilities and only two critical issues. Many of the companys monthly security updates in 2023 included vulnerabilities that were actively being exploited in the wild or had publicly...

Previewing Talos at BlackHat 2023

Welcome to this weeks edition of the Threat Source newsletter. The time has come once again for all of us well, not me specifically but lots of other Talos people to descend on Las Vegas for Hacker Summer Camp. Cisco Talos will be well-represented at BlackHat and DEF CON over the course of the ne...

Threat Source newsletter (May 11, 2023) — So much for that ransomware decline

Welcome to this weeks edition of the Threat Source newsletter. I wrote a few weeks ago about how, between the public and private sectors, the security community was making some strides in fighting back against ransomware. Reports indicate that revenue for ransomware actors was down in 2022, and...

Quarterly Report: Incident Response Trends in Q1 2023

Web shell usage spikes in Q1 compared to previous quarters, correlating with higher instances of exploitation of public-facing applications. In a novel increase compared to previous quarters, Cisco Talos Incident Response Talos IR reports that web shells were the most-observed threat in the first...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Vulnerabilities in Abode Systems home security kit could allow attacker to take over cameras, remotely disable them

Matt Wiseman of Cisco Talos discovered these vulnerabilities. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Cisco Talos recently discovered several vulnerabilities in the Abode Systems iota All-In-One Security Kit. This kit includes a main security camera and hub that can alert users of unwanted movement in their homes. ...

Signed MSI files, Raccoon and Amadey are used for installing ServHelper RAT

By Vanja Svajcer. News summaryGroup TA505 has been active for at least seven years, making wide-ranging connections with other threat actors involved in ransomware, stealing credit card numbers and exfiltrating data. One of the common tools in TA505's arsenal is ServHelper. In mid-June, Cisco...

Talos Takes Ep: #62: Don't sleep on business email compromise

By Jon Munshaw. The latest episode of Talos Takes is available now. Download this episode and subscribe to Talos Takes using the buttons below, or visit the Talos Takes page. Business email compromise may seem like last decade’s threat, but it’s still just as prevalent as ever. A recent FBI... Th...

Elizabethan England has nothing on modern-day Russia

This post was authored by Warren Mercer and Vitor Ventura The threat landscape is changing. Organizations need to defend against an ever-evolving tranche of threat actors. For a long time, the lines that distinguish state-sponsored and crimeware groups were well-defined. We believe this is... Thi...

Threat Source Newsletter (May 13, 2021)

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw. Good afternoon, Talos readers. In case you missed the Friday news drop last week, we have an update on the Lemon Duck cryptocurrency miner. It's not as eye-catching as the ransomware attacks that make the news, but Lemon Duck's... This is only the beginning!...

Nation-state campaign targets Talos researchers

Google's Threat Analysis Group published a blog Monday evening warning of an ongoing campaign attempting to compromise security researchers. Google TAG's blog outlines the attacker's motivations and various TTPs used in these attacks. We can confirm that multiple Cisco Talos researchers received...

Threat Update: COVID-19

Executive Summary The COVID-19 pandemic is changing everyday life for workers across the globe. Cisco Talos continues to see attackers take advantage of the coronavirus situation to lure unsuspecting users into various pitfalls such as phishing, fraud, and disinformation campaigns. Talos has not...

Threat Source newsletter (Dec. 12, 2019)

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw. Welcome to this week’s Threat Source newsletter — the perfect place to get caught up on all things Talos from the past week. We’re entering our Year in Review period. Now’s the time to look back on the top stories from 2019 and think about what we learned. In t...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Tenda AC9 /goform/WanParameterSetting command injection vulnerability

Amit Raut of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Cisco Talos recently discovered a command injection vulnerability in the Tenda AC9 router. The Tenda AC9 is one of the most popular and affordable dual-band gigabit WiFi Router available online, especially on Amazon. A command injection...

How the new Talos IR Cyber Range can prepare your employees for a cyber attack

By Gerard Johansen, Charles Iszard and Luke DuCharme. With the surge of ransomware attacks, information leaks and other cyber attacks in the headlines, most companies and organizations are aware that their employees need to be trained on how to stay safe online. But the real challenge lies in how...

Threat Roundup for April 12 to April 19

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between April 12 and April 19. As with previous roundups, this post isn't meant to be an in-depth analysis. Instead, this post will summarize the threats we've observed by highlighting key behavioral...

Deep dive in Lexmark Perceptive Document Filters Exploitation

This post authored by Marcin Noga with contributions from Nick BiasiniIntroductionTalos discovers and releases software vulnerabilities on a regular basis. We don't always publish a deep technical analysis of how the vulnerability was discovered or its potential impact. This blog will cover these...

Famous Chollima deploying Python version of GolangGhost RAT

In May 2025, Cisco Talos identified a Python-based remote access trojan RAT we call "PylangGhost," used exclusively by a North Korean-aligned threat actor. PylangGhost is functionally similar to the previously documented GolangGhost RAT, sharing many of the same capabilities. In recent campaigns,...

MoonPeak malware from North Korean actors unveils new details on attacker infrastructure

Cisco Talos is exposing infrastructure we assess with high confidence is being used by a state-sponsored North Korean nexus of threat actors we track as "UAT-5394," including for staging, command and control C2 servers, and test machines the threat actors use to test their implants. Our analysis ...

SapphireStealer: Open-source information stealer enables credential and data theft

SapphireStealer, an open-source information stealer, has been observed across public malware repositories with increasing frequency since its initial public release in December 2022. Information-stealing malware like SapphireStealer can be used to obtain sensitive information, including corporate...

Reflecting on supply chain attacks halfway through 2023

Welcome to this weeks edition of the Threat Source newsletter. Between the Talos Takes episode last week and helping my colleague Hazel with the Half-Year in Review, I realized how much I had already forgotten about 2023 already. Its been a whirlwind, personally and professionally, and I think it...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Use-after-free vulnerability in tinyobjloader

Lilith of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Cisco Talos recently discovered that a specific function of tinyobjloader does not properly validate array indexes. An adversary could trick a user into opening a specially crafted file, causing an index... This is only the...

Threat Source newsletter (July 22, 2021)

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw.Good afternoon, Talos readers. I'm compiling this Tuesday for vacation reasons, so apologies for any major stories I'm missing here. This week's Beers with Talos podcast hits the seas again. And although we've covered sea shanties in the past, this... This is on...

Talos Takes Ep. #58: How to approach the partnerships it will take to defend critical infrastructure

By Jon Munshaw. With major cyber attacks in recent years against major U.S. critical infrastructure suppliers like Norsk Hydro and Colonial Pipeline, we’re in a new world of CI cybersecurity. New threats require new approaches to defense. And in the U.S., this is likely going to include... This i...

Talos Takes Ep. #56: The first security steps you should take when you return to the office

By Jon Munshaw. The latest episode of Talos Takes is available now. Download this episode and subscribe to Talos Takes using the buttons below, or visit the Talos Takes page. We started out the COVID-19 pandemic by thinking we'd be away from the office for a month — maybe two. More than 12... Thi...

Threat Source newsletter (June 3, 2021)

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw.Good afternoon, Talos readers. If you didn't catch us live yesterday, we've uploaded the full version of our stream on Discord and Slack malware to our YouTube page. Chris Neal from Talos Outreach walked through his recent research into these campaigns... This i...

Threat Roundup for April 16 to April 23

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between April 16 and April 23. As with previous roundups, this post isn't meant to be an in-depth analysis. Instead, this post will summarize the threats we've observed by highlighting key behavioral... This is on...

Threat Roundup for March 5 to March 12

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between March 5 and March 12. As with previous roundups, this post isn't meant to be an in-depth analysis. Instead, this post will summarize the threats we've observed by highlighting key behavioral characteristic...

Threat Source newsletter (March 11, 2021) — Featuring new SolarWinds roundtable

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw. Good afternoon, Talos readers. We have a special edition of the Threat Source newsletter to bring you this week, because we’re premiering a new video for you right now! Below, you’ll find a full roundtable we put together discussing the SolarWinds supply chain...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Use-after-free vulnerability in 3MF Consortium lib3mf

Lilith of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Blog by Jon Munshaw. 3MF Consortium’s lib3mf library is vulnerable to a use-after-free vulnerability that could allow an adversary to execute remote code on the victim machine. The lib3mf library is an open-source implementation of the 3MF file...

Threat Source newsletter (Jan. 14, 2021)

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw. Good afternoon, Talos readers. Microsoft released its monthly security update this week, disclosing 83 vulnerabilities across its suite of products to kickoff 2021. Our blog post has the most important vulnerabilities you need to know about, along with our...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Multiple vulnerabilities in SoftMaker Office TextMaker

A Cisco Talos team member discovered these vulnerabilities. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Cisco Talos recently discovered multiple vulnerabilities in SoftMaker's TextMaker software. A user could trigger these vulnerabilities by opening an attacker-created, malicious document. An adversary could use these...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Multiple vulnerabilities in NZXT computer monitoring software

Carl Hurd of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Blog by Jon Munshaw. NZXT’s CAM computer monitoring software contains multiple vulnerabilities an attacker could use to carry out a range of malicious actions. CAM provides users information on their machines, such as fan speeds, temperature...

The wolf is back...

By Warren Mercer, Paul Rascagneres and Vitor Ventura. News summaryThai Android devices and users are being targeted by a modified version of DenDroid we are calling "WolfRAT," now targeting messaging apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Line.We assess with high confidence that this modified...

Threat Source newsletter (March 5, 2020)

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw. Welcome to this week’s Threat Source newsletter — the perfect place to get caught up on all things Talos from the past week. Sure, all anyone wants to talk about is coronavirus. But what about cyber security? We’ve still got cool stuff, like this huge write-up ...

Beers with Talos Ep. #60: Summer camp flashbacks and defining your intel

Beers with Talos BWT Podcast episode No. 60 is now available. Download this episode and subscribe to Beers with Talos: If iTunes and Google Play aren't your thing, click here. Recorded Aug. 16, 2019 — The understatement of the day would be the guys were in some kind of mood when we recorded this...

Cyber Security Week in Review (Feb. 1)

Welcome to this week's Cyber Security Week in Review, where Cisco Talos runs down all of the news we think you need to know in the security world. For more news delivered to your inbox every week, sign up for our Threat Source newsletter here. Top headlines this week Apple revoked a set of...

Threat Roundup for October 12 to October 19

Today, as we do every week, Talos is giving you a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we’ve observed this week — covering the dates between Oct. 12 and 19. As with previous roundups, this post isn’t meant to be an in-depth analysis. Instead, we will summarize the threats we’ve observed by...

Threat Roundup Sept 21 - 28

Today, as we do every week, Talos is giving you a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we’ve observed this week — covering the dates between Sept. 21 and 28. As with previous roundups, this post isn’t meant to be an in-depth analysis. Instead, we will summarize the threats we’ve observed by...

Updates for BASS

This blog post was authored by Jonas Zaddach and Mariano Graziano. Cisco Talos has rolled out a series of improvements to the BASS open-source framework aimed at speeding up its ability to provide coverage for new malware families. Talos released BASS, pronounced "bæs" an open-source framework...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Simple DirectMedia Layer’s SDL2_Image

Overview Talos is disclosing several vulnerabilities identified in Simple DirectMedia Layer's SDL2Image library that could allow code execution. Simple DirectMedia Layer is a cross-platform development library designed to provide low-level access to audio, keyboard, mouse, joystick and graphics...

Threat Round-up for June 16 - June 23

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between June 16 and June 23. As with previous round-ups, this post isn't meant to be an in-depth analysis. Instead, this post will summarize the threats we've observed by highlighting key behavior characteristics,...

Delphi Used To Score Against Palestine

This blog was authored by Paul Rascagneres and Warren Mercer with contributions from Emmanuel Tacheau, Vanja Svajcer and Martin Lee.Executive SummaryTalos continuously monitors malicious emails campaigns. We identified one specific spear phishing campaign launched against targets within Palestine...

Introducing ToyMaker, an initial access broker working in cahoots with double extortion gangs

In 2023, Cisco Talos discovered an extensive compromise in a critical infrastructure enterprise consisting of a combination of threat actors. From initial access to double extortion, these actors slowly and steadily compromised a multitude of hosts in the network using a combination of various...

Miniaudio and Adobe Acrobat Reader vulnerabilities

Cisco Talos' Vulnerability Discovery & Research team recently disclosed a Miniaudio and three Adobe vulnerabilities. The vulnerabilities mentioned in this blog post have been patched by their respective vendors, all in adherence to Cisco 's third-party vulnerability disclosure policy. For Snort...