Threat Roundup for August 19 to August 26

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between Aug. 19 and Aug. 26. 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...

Talos Incident Response added to German BSI Advanced Persistent Threat response list

Cisco Talos Incident Response is now listed as an approved vendor on the Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik BSI Advanced Persistent Threat APT response service providers list. Talos Incident Response successfully demonstrated to the BSI, through a review of our processes and a...

Threat Roundup for August 13 to August 20

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between Aug. 13 and Aug. 20. 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 Roundup for June 25 to July 2

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between June 25 and July 2. 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...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Remote code execution vulnerability in WebKit WebAudio API

Marcin “Icewall” Noga of Cisco Talos discovered these vulnerabilities. Blog by Jon Munshaw. The WebKit browser engine contains a remote code execution vulnerability in its WebAudio API interface. A malicious web page code could trigger a use-after-free error, which could lead to arbitrary code...

2020: The year in malware

By Jon Munshaw. Nothing was normal in 2020. Our ideas of working from offices, in-person meetings, hands-on learning and basically everything else was thrown into disarray early in the year. Since then, we defenders have had to adapt. But so have workers around the globe, and those IT and securit...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Information leak vulnerability in Google Chrome WebGL

Marcin Towalski of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Blog by Jon Munshaw. The Google Chrome web browser contains a vulnerability that could be exploited by an adversary to carry out a range of malicious actions. Chrome is one of the most popular web browsers currently available to users...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Privilege escalation in Windows 10 CLFS driver

Marcin “Icewall” Noga of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Cisco Talos recently discovered a privilege escalation vulnerability in the Windows 10 Common Log File System. CLFS is a general-purpose logging service that can be used by software clients running in user-mo...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Multiple vulnerabilities in RemoteFX affects, AMD, Intel chips

Piotr Bania of Cisco Talos discovered these vulnerabilities. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Cisco Talos recently discovered multiple vulnerabilities in Intel’s Graphics Accelerator Driver and in an AMD Radeon driver. The Intel driver was released in 2019 and is used in multiple Intel integrated and...

Threat Source newsletter for June 11, 2020

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw. Good afternoon, Talos readers. We are back this week with new content, mainly around Microsoft Patch Tuesday. We have our complete breakdown of all the vulns here, as well as in-depth information on two remote code execution vulnerabilities one of our researche...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Multiple code execution vulnerabilities in Accusoft ImageGear

Emmanuel Tacheau of Cisco Talos discovered these vulnerabilities. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Cisco Talos recently discovered four code execution vulnerabilities in Accusoft ImageGear. The ImageGear library is a document-imaging developer toolkit to assist users with image conversion, creation, editing...

Threat Roundup for April 17 to April 24

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between April 17 and April 24. 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 Roundup for March 6 to March 13

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

Beers with Talos Ep. #71: I Have the Power(Shell)

Beers with Talos BWT Podcast episode No. 71 is now available. Download this episode and subscribe to Beers with Talos: If iTunes and Google Play aren't your thing, click here. Recorded Jan. 17, 2020 PowerShell is a frequent flyer in security headlines — a powerful and oft-wielded tool for attacke...

Beers with Talos Ep. #41: Sex, money and malware

Beers with Talos BWT Podcast Ep. 41 is now available. Download this episode and subscribe to Beers with Talos: If iTunes and Google Play aren't your thing, click here. Ep. 41 show notes: Recorded Nov. 9, 2018 — We tried to make this episode last week, but thanks to some technical difficulties, we...

Advanced Mobile Malware Campaign in India uses Malicious MDM

This blog post is authored by Warren Mercer and Paul Rascagneres and Andrew Williams. Summary Cisco Talos has identified a highly targeted campaign against 13 iPhones which appears to be focused on India. The attacker deployed an open-source mobile device management MDM system to control enrolled...

Beers with Talos EP 28 - APT, BGP, RCEs, and an Old RAT

Beers with Talos BWT Podcast Episode 28 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 EP28 Show Notes: Recorded April 27 - We have a special guest intro this week, since Mitch came down wit...

Malware monitor - leveraging PyREBox for malware analysis

This post was authored by Xabier Ugarte Pedrero In July 2017 we released PyREBox, a Python Scriptable Reverse Engineering Sandbox as an open source tool. This project is part of our continuous effort to create new tools to improve our workflows. PyREBox is a versatile instrumentation framework...

Back to Basics: Worm Defense in the Ransomware Age

This post was authored by Edmund Brumaghin "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George SantayanaThe PrequelIn March 2017, Microsoft released a security update for various versions of Windows, which addressed a remote code execution vulnerability affecting a protocol...

Beers with Talos EP11 - This is How the World Ends, Not with a Whimper but with Cyber Mercenaries

Beers with Talos BWT Podcast Episode 11 is now available. Download this episode and subscribe to Beers with Talos:If iTunes and Google Play aren't your thing: www.talosintelligence.com/podcastBeers wi...

Taking the FIRST look at Crypt0l0cker

This post is authored by Matthew Molyett.Executive SummaryIn March, Talos reported on the details of Crypt0l0cker based on an extensive analysis I carried out on the sample binaries. Binaries -- plural -- because, as noted in the original blog, the Crypt0l0cker payload leveraged numerous executab...

Player 3 Has Entered the Game: Say Hello to 'WannaCry'

This post was authored by Martin Lee, Warren Mercer, Paul Rascagneres, and Craig Williams.Executive SummaryA major ransomware attack has affected many organizations across the world reportedly including Telefonica in Spain, the National Health Service in the UK, and FedEx in the US. The malware...

Introduction to COM usage by Windows threats

Component Object Model COM is a fundamental Windows technology used by legitimate applications for object activation, inter-process communication, automation and language-independent component reuse. Those same qualities make it useful to threat actors. Malware frequently uses COM interfaces for...

TP-Link, Canva, HikVision vulnerabilities

Cisco Talos' Vulnerability Discovery & Research team recently disclosed a vulnerability in HikVision, as well as 10 in TP-Link, and 19 in Canva. The vulnerabilities mentioned in this blog post have been patched by their respective vendors, all in adherence to Cisco 's third-party vulnerability...

Malvertising campaign leads to PS1Bot, a multi-stage malware framework

Cisco Talos has observed an ongoing malware campaign that seeks to infect victims with a multi-stage malware framework, implemented in PowerShell and C, which we are referring to as "PS1Bot." PS1Bot features a modular design, with several modules delivered used to perform a variety of malicious...

Duping Cloud Functions: An emerging serverless attack vector

Summary and background Google Cloud Platform GCP Cloud Functions are event-triggered, serverless functions that automatically scale and execute code in response to specific events like Hypertext Transfer Protocol HTTP requests or data changes. Tenable Research published an article discussing a...

Understanding the challenges of securing an NGO

Welcome to this week's edition of the Threat Source newsletter. Recently, I was invited to sit on a panel at the CIO4Good Conference here in Washington D.C., where I talked about incident response and cyber preparedness to a room full of CIOs who help lead wonderful missions to help others. I'm...

Seasoning email threats with hidden text salting

Cisco Talos observed an increase in the number of email threats leveraging hidden text salting also known as "poisoning" in the second half of 2024. Hidden text salting is a simple yet effective technique for bypassing email parsers, confusing spam filters, and evading detection engines that rely...

From trust to trickery: Brand impersonation over the email attack vector

Cisco recently developed and released a new feature to detect brand impersonation in emails when adversaries pretend to be a legitimate corporation. Talos has discovered a wide range of techniques threat actors use to embed and deliver brand logos via emails to their victims. Talos is providing n...

Enter the substitute teacher

Welcome to this weeks threat source newsletter with Jon out, youve got me as your substitute teacher. Im taking you back to those halcyon days of youth and that moment when you found out that you had a sub that day, will I be the teacher that just rolls in the TV cart and delivers the single...

You’re going to start seeing more tax-related spam, but remember, that doesn’t actually mean there’s more spam

Its that time of the year when not only do you have to be worried about filing your federal taxes in the U.S., you must also be on the lookout for a whole manner of tax-related scams. These are something that pop up every year through email, texts, phone calls and even physical mail -- phony...

Attackers use JavaScript URLs, API forms and more to scam users in popular online game “Roblox”

Online video games often make use of in-game virtual currency and give players the ability to purchase, trade or sell items. While these features are often selling points for players and potential revenue streams for the companies that make them, they also inevitably draw bad actors and scams. On...

Implementing an ISO-compliant threat intelligence program

Implementing a threat intelligence program that meets the definition of threat intelligence control as described in ISO/IEC 27002:2022 -- a set of standards set forth by the International Organization for Standardization -- is not onerous. The ISO/IEC 27002 standard describes a non-exhaustive lis...

Threat Roundup for May 26 to June 2

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats weve observed between May 26 and June 2. 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,...

What is a web shell?

Editors note: The Need to Know is a new series from Talos, which focuses on cybersecurity terms, threats, tools and tactics that are discussed in our broader threat research. Think of this as a living encyclopedia of security terms and trends. Cisco Talos Incident Response recently released our...

New phishing-as-a-service tool “Greatness” already seen in the wild

A previously unreported phishing-as-a-service PaaS offering named "Greatness" has been used in several phishing campaigns since at least mid-2022. Greatness incorporates features seen in some of the most advanced PaaS offerings, such as multi-factor authentication MFA bypass, IP filtering and...

Emotet resumes spam operations, switches to OneNote

Emotet resumed spamming operations on March 7, 2023, after a months-long hiatus. Initially leveraging heavily padded Microsoft Word documents to attempt to evade sandbox analysis and endpoint protection, the botnets switched to distributing malicious OneNote documents on March 16. Since returning...

Threat Round up for January 27 to February 3

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats weve observed between Jan. 27 and Feb. 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,...

2022 Year in Review: Threat Landscape Livestream Replay

Did you miss our livestream covering the threat landscape section in the Cisco Talos Year in Review report? Join host Hazel Burton and special guests Caitlin Huey, Nick Biasini, and Tucker Favreau as they discuss Talos findings and experiences monitoring the threat landscape in 2022. Visit the Ye...

Quarterly Report: Incident Response Trends in Q4 2022

Syncro, a remote management and monitoring tool, emerges as an increasingly common tool for adversaries. By Caitlin Huey. Ransomware continued to be a top threat Cisco Talos Incident Response Talos IR responded to this quarter, with appearances from both previously seen and newly observed...

Talos Takes Ep. 122: Year in Review & Ukraine Activities

In this episode of Talos Takes we are joined by Kendall McKay to discuss the recently released year in review report and dig deep on our activities in Ukraine. The year in review covers a vast amount of data and intel sources to identify some of the key trends we observed in 2022. Our activities ...

Threat Source newsletter (Dec. 8, 2022): Your uncle clicked every link

Welcome to this weeks edition of the Threat Source newsletter. As we hurtle toward the end of another year I get that tightness in my chest - that feeling that I think most, if not all, Threat Source readers get at this time of year. Thats right, its once again the time of year when no matter wha...

Threat Round up for November 11 to 18

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats weve observed between Nov. 11 and Nov. 18. 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 Source newsletter (Nov. 10, 2022): Vulnerability research, movies in class, and Emotet once again

Welcome to this weeks edition of the Threat Source newsletter. Tuesday was an absolute hammer for the infosec community. Not only did we have the US elections but we had Emotet returning and a regular Microsoft Tuesday release. That release always leads me to think about the bug hunting ecosystem...

Researcher Spotlight: Globetrotting with Yuri Kramarz

From the World Cup in Qatar to robotics manufacturing in east Asia, this incident responder combines experience from multiple arenas By Jon Munshaw. Yuri “Jerzy” Kramarz helped secure everything from the businesses supporting the upcoming World Cup in Qatar to the Black Hat security conference an...

MagicRAT: Lazarus’ latest gateway into victim networks

By Jung soo An, Asheer Malhotra and Vitor Ventura. Cisco Talos has discovered a new remote access trojan RAT we're calling "MagicRAT," developed and operated by the Lazarus APT group, which the U.S. government believes is a North Korean state-sponsored actor. Lazarus deployed MagicRAT after the...

TeamTNT targeting AWS, Alibaba

By Darin Smith.TeamTNT is actively modifying its scripts after they were made public by security researchers.These scripts primarily target Amazon Web Services, but can also run in on-premise, container, or other forms of Linux instances.The group's payloads include credential stealers,... This i...

Threat Source Newsletter (Nov. 18, 2021)

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw.Good afternoon, Talos readers. This is our last newsletter before Thanksgiving in the U.S. next week, so now's as good of a time as any to remind you: If a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is. To prep online shoppers for the upcoming... This is only t...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Multiple vulnerabilities in Trend Micro Home Network Security Station

Carl Hurd and Kelly Leuschner of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Cisco Talos recently discovered multiple vulnerabilities in Trend Micro’s Home Network Security Station. The Home Network Security Station is a device that monitors and protects home... This is only t...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Remote code execution vulnerabilities in Cosori smart air fryer

Dave McDaniel of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Cisco Talos recently discovered two code execution vulnerabilities in the Cosori smart air fryer. The Cosori Smart Air Fryer is a WiFi-enabled kitchen appliance that cooks food with a variety of... This is only the...