Blocking Cryptocurrency Mining Using Cisco Security Products

Cisco Talos is releasing a whitepaper addressing Cryptocurrency mining and all the ways to block it using Cisco Security products. The value of cryptocurrencies has fluctuated wildly, but the value is still high enough to garner a lot of attention, both legitimate and malicious. Most of the...

UAT-11795 deploys novel Starland RAT and bespoke WLDR C2 implant in financially motivated campaign

Cisco Talos is disclosing UAT-11795, a sophisticated, Russian-speaking, financially motivated adversary that has been conducting a malicious campaign targeting users in the U.S. and Europe since at least June 2025. Talos has discovered that the actor in this campaign delivers a Python-based remot...

Microsoft Patch Tuesday for December 2024 contains four critical vulnerabilities

The Patch Tuesday for December of 2024 includes 72 vulnerabilities, including four that Microsoft marked as "critical." The remaining vulnerabilities listed are classified as "important." Microsoft assessed that exploitation of the four "critical" vulnerabilities is "less likely." CVE-2024-49112 ...

Talos discloses multiple zero-day vulnerabilities, two of which could lead to code execution

Cisco Talos Vulnerability Research team recently disclosed three zero-day vulnerabilities that are still unpatched as of Wednesday, May 8. Two vulnerabilities in this group -- one in the Tinyroxy HTTP proxy daemon and another in the stbvorbis.c file library -- could lead to arbitrary code...

Why is the cost of cyber insurance rising?

I just bought an electric car last week, so Ive been shopping for new car insurance policies that could offer me a discount for ditching gas. Were all familiar with the boring process of entering the same information 10 times over into 10 different companies websites trying to see who comes out t...

Turns out even the NFL is worried about deepfakes

Welcome to this weeks edition of the Threat Source newsletter. Im at the point in the calendar year where Im a sponge for NFL content. I couldnt be happier to escape from my six-month American football-free slumber and am ready to watch games three days a week and listen to NFL podcasts or read...

The federal government’s cybersecurity policies are falling into place just in time to be stalled again

Welcome to this weeks edition of the Threat Source newsletter. Last week, the Biden administration released its formal roadmap for its national cybersecurity initiative meant to encourage greater investment in cybersecurity and strengthen the U.S.s critical infrastructure security and more. The...

Two remote code execution vulnerabilities disclosed in Microsoft Excel

Cisco Talos recently discovered two vulnerabilities in the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet management software that could allow a malicious actor to execute arbitrary code on the targeted machine. Microsoft disclosed these issues and patched them as part of Junes monthly security release for the...

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...

Translated: Talos' insights from the recently leaked Conti ransomware playbook

By Caitlin Huey, David Liebenberg, Azim Khodjibaev, and Dmytro Korzhevin. Executive summary Cisco Talos recently became aware of a leaked playbook that has been attributed to the ransomware-as-a-service RaaS group Conti. Talos has a team of dedicated, native-level speakers that translated these...

Case Study: Incident Response is a relationship-driven business

Proof that incident response is "the ultimate team sport" By Brad Garnett. Introduction As a seasoned incident responder, and now IR business leader here at Cisco Talos Incident Response CTIR, I have always said that incident response is the ultimate team sport. People are... This is only the...

Threat Roundup for Nov. 9 to Nov. 16

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between Nov. 09 and Nov. 16. 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 characteristics...

Vulnerability Spotlight: VMWare Workstation DoS Vulnerability

Today, Talos is disclosing a vulnerability in VMWare Workstation that could result in Denial of Service. VMWare Workstation is a widely used virtualization platform designed to run alongside a normal operating system, allowing users to use both virtualized and physical systems concurrently...

Beers with Talos EP20: Crypto, Vuln Disco, and the Spectre Meltdown

Beers with Talos BWT Podcast Episode 20 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 EP20 Show Notes: This is easily our best podcast of 2018 so far. The crew discusses the recent spike in...

Threat Round Up for January 5 - 12

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between January 05 and January 12. 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...

CoralRaider targets victims’ data and social media accounts

Cisco Talos discovered a new threat actor were calling "CoralRaider" that we believe is of Vietnamese origin and financially motivated. CoralRaider has been operating since at least 2023, targeting victims in several Asian and Southeast Asian countries. This group focuses on stealing victims...

Cybersecurity considerations to have when shopping for holiday gifts

As I wrote about last week, there are holiday shopping-related scams already popping up all over the place. But another aspect of security that many shoppers dont consider this time of year is the security of the products theyre buying, even through a legitimate online marketplace. This is a...

We all just need to agree that ad blockers are good

I dont think this is a particularly bold take -- but Im not afraid to say that ad blockers are good! Ever since I started using one sometime in 2016, my experience of using the internet has improved exponentially. I can finally easily find a recipe for dinner on a random influencers blog, get a...

Threat Roundup for November 3 to November 10

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats weve observed between Nov. 3 and Nov. 10. As with previous roundups, this post isnt meant to be an in-depth analysis. Instead, this post will summarize the threats weve observed by highlighting key behavioral characteristics,...

Threat Roundup for October 27 to November 3

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats weve observed between Oct. 27 and Nov. 3. As with previous roundups, this post isnt meant to be an in-depth analysis. Instead, this post will summarize the threats weve observed by highlighting key behavioral characteristics,...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Vulnerability in ManageEngine OpManager could lead to XXE attack

Marcin "Icewall" Noga of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Cisco Talos recently discovered a vulnerability in ManageEngine OpManager that could lead to an XML external entity XXE attack. OpManager is network monitoring software that allows users to track and manage the performance of...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Netgear Orbi router vulnerable to arbitrary command execution

Christopher McBee and Dave McDaniel of Cisco Talos discovered these vulnerabilities. Cisco Talos recently discovered four vulnerabilities in the Netgear Orbi mesh wireless system, including the main hub router and satellite routers that extend the networks range. A mesh system allows users to set...

New MortalKombat ransomware and Laplas Clipper malware threats deployed in financially motivated campaign

Since December 2022, Cisco Talos has been observing an unidentified actor deploying two relatively new threats, the recently discovered MortalKombat ransomware and a GO variant of the Laplas Clipper malware, to steal cryptocurrency from victims. Talos observed the actor scanning the internet for...

Vulnerability Spotlight: XSS vulnerability in Ghost CMS

Dave McDaniel of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Cisco Talos recently discovered a cross-site scripting XSS vulnerability in Ghost CMS. Ghost is a content management system with tools to build a website, publish content and send newsletters. Ghost offers paid subscriptions to members a...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Data deserialization in VMware vCenter could lead to remote code execution

Marcin "Icewall" Noga of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Cisco Talos recently discovered an exploitable data deserialization vulnerability in the VMware vCenter server platform. VMware is one of the most popular virtual machine solutions currently available, and its vCenter software...

Threat Advisory: HermeticWiper

Update: March 1, 2022 Cisco Talos is aware of reporting related to additional components discovered to be associated with ongoing HermeticWiper attacks. These additional components include:HermeticWizard, which allows HermeticWiper to be propagated to and deployed on additional systems within...

Threat Advisory: Critical Apache Log4j vulnerability being exploited in the wild

Update History Date Description of UpdatesDec. 20, 2021Additional coverage and IOCs; additional detection capabilities for customers via Cisco Global Threat Alerts. Dec. 18, 2021Additional mitigation guidance; updated coverage information. Dec. 17, 2021Added additional vulnerability and... This i...

Talos Incident Response quarterly threat report — The top malware families and TTPs used in Q2 2021

By David Liebenberg and Caitlin Huey. Last quarter, ransomware was not the most dominant threat for the first time since we began compiling these reports. We theorized that this was due to a huge uptick in Microsoft Exchange exploitation, which temporarily became a primary focus for Cisco... This...

Threat Source newsletter (July 1, 2021)

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw.Good afternoon, Talos readers. There's been a lot of talk recently around how to address America's infrastructure cybersecurity. After attacks like Colonial Pipeline and JBS, everyone across the public and private sectors are wondering what... This is only the...

Threat Source Newsletter (April 15, 2021)

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw. Good afternoon, Talos readers. If you missed our webinar last week, we've got you covered. We've uploaded an extended version to our YouTube page that includes the scripts used in the presentation. This video will show you how to reverse-engineer and... This is...

Tor2Mine is up to their old tricks — and adds a few new ones

By Kendall McKay and Joe Marshall. Threat summaryCisco Talos has identified a resurgence of activity by Tor2Mine, a cryptocurrency mining group that was likely last active in 2018. Tor2Mine is deploying additional malware to harvest credentials and steal more money, including AZORult, an...

Threat Source newsletter (Oct. 17, 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. It’s rare that iOS jailbreaks make it onto the scene. Apple is usually able to patch them out quickly. But a recent exploit is actually...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Multiple privilege escalation vulnerabilities in CleanMyMac X

Tyler Bohan of Cisco Talos discovered these vulnerabilities. Executive summary Today, Cisco Talos is disclosing several vulnerabilities in MacPaw’s CleanMyMac X software. CleanMyMac X is a cleanup application for Mac operating systems that allows users to free up extra space on their machines by...

Vulnerability Spotlight: TALOS-2018-0535 - Ocularis Recorder VMS_VA Denial of Service Vulnerability

Vulnerabilities discovered by Carlos Pacho from Talos Overview Talos is disclosing a denial-of-service vulnerability in the Ocularis Recorder. Ocularis is a video management software VMS platform used in a variety of settings, from convenience stores, to city-wide deployments. An attacker can...

Beers with Talos EP 25: WE'LL DO IT LIVE!!!

Beers with Talos BWT Podcast Episode 25 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 EP25 Show Notes: Recorded 3/13/18 - LIVE from San Jose, California. First of all – we still have a...

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,...

Abusing with style: Leveraging cascading style sheets for evasion and tracking

Cisco Talos has identified actors abusing Cascading Style Sheets CSS to 1 evade spam filters and detection engines, and 2 track users' actions and preferences. This blog is a follow-up to our previous report on how threat actors could abuse CSS using a technique called "hidden text salting" to...

There are plenty of ways to improve cybersecurity that don’t involve making workers return to a physical office

As my manager knows, Im not the biggest fan of working in a physical office. Im a picky worker -- I like my workspace to be borderline frigid, I hate dark mode on any software, and I want any and all lighting cranked all the way up. So, know that Im biased going into this, but I also cant get ove...

OAS Engine Deep Dive: Abusing low-impact vulnerabilities to escalate privileges

Open Automation Software recently released patches for multiple vulnerabilities in their OAS Engine. Cisco Talos publicly disclosed these issues after working with Open Automation Software to ensure that patches were available for users. Now that a fix has been released with Version 19, we want t...

A deep dive into Phobos ransomware, recently deployed by 8Base group

Cisco Talos has recently observed an increase in activity conducted by 8Base, a ransomware group that uses a variant of the Phobos ransomware and other publicly available tools to facilitate their operations. Most of the groups Phobos variants are distributed by SmokeLoader, a backdoor trojan. Th...

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...

Threat Roundup for October 21 to October 28

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats weve observed between Oct. 21 and Oct. 28. As with previous roundups, this post isnt meant to be an in-depth analysis. Instead, this post will summarize the threats weve observed by highlighting key behavioral characteristics,...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Memory corruption vulnerability in Daemon Tools Pro

Piotr Bania of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Cisco Talos recently discovered a memory corruption vulnerability in Disc Soft Ltd.'s Daemon Tools Pro. Daemon Tools Pro is a professional emulation software that works with disc images and virtual... This is only the...

Threat Roundup for August 6 to August 13

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between Aug. 6 and Aug. 13. 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...

Threat Source newsletter (Aug. 5, 2021)

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw.Good afternoon, Talos readers. We hope everyone is enjoying BlackHat and/or DEFCON this week, regardless of if you're attending virtually or in person. In case you missed any of our talks from BlackHat, you can check them out here, along... This is only the...

Beers with Talos, Ep. #107: Sailing the high seas in search of privateer groups

Beers with Talos BWT Podcast episode No. 107 is now available. Download this episode and subscribe to Beers with Talos: Apple Podcasts Google PodcastsSpotify StitcherIf iTunes and Google Play aren't your thing, click here. You're not going to believe this, but everyone... This is only the...

Vulnerability Spotlight: EIP Stack Group OpENer information disclosure vulnerability

Martin Zeiser of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Cisco Talos recently discovered an exploitable information disclosure vulnerability in EIP Stack Group OpENer’s Ethernet/IP UDP handler. OpENer is an Ethernet/IP stack for I/O adapter devices that... This is only the...

Talos Takes Ep. #53: The broader lesson of those air fryer vulnerabilities

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. It seemed like everyone on security Twitter had a joke when we disclosed a vulnerability in a WiFi-connected air fryer...

Talos Vulnerability Discovery Year in Review — 2020

While major attacks like ransomware and COVID-19-themed campaigns made headlines across the globe this year, many attacks were prevented through simple practices of finding, disclosing and patching vulnerabilities. Cisco Talos' Systems Vulnerability Research Team discovered 231 vulnerabilities th...

Threat Roundup for December 11 to December 18

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between Dec. 11 and Dec. 18. 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 characteristics...