Update, March 13: Talos on the developing situation in the Middle East

Update history Date | Description of updates ---|--- March 13, 2026 | Talos' assessment of the cyber attack on Stryker and the elevated threat landscape. Key findings and background on Handala, the Iranian-linked threat group. March 10, 2026 | Updated guidance and recommendations, IOCs, and...

BRB, pausing for a "Sanctuary Moon" marathon

Welcome to this week's edition of the Threat Source newsletter. Yesterday, Cisco Talos debuted the first Humans of Talos episode, where I interviewed Hazel Burton, a face and voice you're probably familiar with. In our conversation, Hazel shared not just the story of how she found her way onto th...

Unmasking the new Chaos RaaS group attacks

Cisco Talos Incident Response Talos IR recently observed attacks by Chaos, a relatively new ransomware-as-a-service RaaS group conducting big-game hunting and double extortion attacks. Chaos RaaS actors initiated low-effort spam flooding, escalating to voice-based social engineering for access,...

ToolShell: Details of CVEs affecting SharePoint servers

Update 2025/07/22: Microsoft has released a security update for Sharepoint Enterprise Server 2016. The update, with the ID KB5002760, is available in the following link . Cisco Talos is aware of the ongoing exploitation of CVE-2025-53770 and CVE-2025-53771 in the wild. These are path traversal...

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...

Talos joins CISA to counter cyber threats against non-profits, activists and other at-risk communities

Cisco Talos is delighted to share updates about our ongoing partnership with the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency CISA to combat cybersecurity threats facing civil society organizations. Talos has partnered with CISA on several initiatives through the Joint Cyber Defense...

What is Cracktivator software?

Cisco Talos coined the term "Cracktivator software" to reference counterfeit or modified software for pirated versions of Windows applications. One of our teammates, James Nutland, led the research to look into cracked versions of the Microsoft Windows operating system and other Microsoft...

You can try to hide your firmware from Kelly Patterson, but she’ll find it (and break it)

How her work illustrates the difference Talos vulnerability research team makes When Kelly Patterson first learned how to code by making small programs in her high school class, she preferred breaking her creations to building them. Shed make a game and then spend double the time debugging that...

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,...

Threat Roundup for May 19 to May 26

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats weve observed between May 19 and May 26. 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,...

Beyond the basics: Implementing an active defense

Active defense a key approach to protecting against major threats Having an active defense posture, where the defenders actively use threat intelligence and their own environment telemetry to uncover potential compromises, is the next stage in the cyber security maturity road. Instead of waiting...

Talos Takes 126: Year in Review - Threat Landscape Edition

Were back with another year in review focused episode. This time the focus will be the threat landscape generally and Ill be joined by threat researcher Caitlin Huey. In this episode well discuss what we found in the last year, with a focus on the general threat landscape. Well spend time...

State Sponsored Attacks in 2023 and Beyond

As we begin 2023 I wanted to take some time and look at the state sponsored threat landscape. Over the last few decades weve seen seismic shifts in how state sponsored actors attack, starting with traditional espionage with attacks like Moonlight Maze and Project Gunman and evolving into more...

The benefits of taking an intent-based approach to detecting Business Email Compromise

BEC is a multi-stage attack. Adversaries first identify targets, then they establish rapport with the victim before exploiting them for whatever their end goal is. In the case of BEC, a threat actor can impersonate any employee in the organization to trick targets. A policy that checks for...

Our current world, health care apps and your personal data

What does your autonomy mean to you? By Ashlee Benge and Jonathan Munshaw. After the recent Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the use of third-party apps to track health care has recently come under additional scrutiny for privacy implications. Many of these ap...

Vulnerability Spotlight: How misusing properly serialized data opened TCL LinkHub Mesh Wi-Fi system to 17 vulnerabilities

By Carl Hurd. The TCL LinkHub Mesh Wi-Fi system is a multi-device Wi-Fi system that allows users to expand access to their network over a large physical area. What makes the LInkHub system unique is the lack of a network interface to manage the devices individually or in the mesh. Instead, a phon...

Threat Roundup for July 15 to July 22

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between July 15 and July 22. 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...

Threat Source newsletter (May 26, 2022) — BlackByte adds itself to the grocery list of big game hunters

By Jon Munshaw. Welcome to this week’s edition of the Threat Source newsletter. Given the recent tragedies in the U.S., I don’t feel it’s appropriate to open by being nostalgic or trying to be witty — let’s just stick to some security news this week. The one big... This is only the beginning!...

Bitter APT adds Bangladesh to their targets

Cisco Talos has observed an ongoing malicious campaign since August 2021 from the Bitter APT group that appears to target users in Bangladesh, a change from the attackers' usual victims.As part of this, there's a new trojan based on Apost Talos is calling "ZxxZ," that, among other... This is only...

Talos Takes Ep. #82: Log4j followed us in 2022

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's a new year, but unfortunately, we're facing the same cybersecurity problems. Log4j followed us into the holidays,...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Multiple code execution vulnerabilities in LibreCAD

Lilith of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Cisco Talos recently discovered three vulnerabilities in LibreCAD’s libdfxfw open-source library. This library reads and writes .dxf and .dwg files — the primary file format for vector graphics in CAD... This is only the...

SQUIRRELWAFFLE Leverages malspam to deliver Qakbot, Cobalt Strike

By Edmund Brumaghin, Mariano Graziano and Nick Mavis. Executive summary Recently, a new threat, referred to as "SQUIRRELWAFFLE" is being spread more widely via spam campaigns, infecting systems with a new malware loader. This is a malware family that's been spread with increasing regularity and...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Information disclosure vulnerability in D-LINK DIR-3040 mesh router

Dave McDaniel of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Cisco Talos recently discovered an exploitable information disclosure vulnerability in the D-LINK DIR-3040 smart WiFi mesh router that could allow an adversary to eventually turn off the device or remove other... Thi...

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 April 23 to April 30

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between April 23 and April 30. 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...

Talos Takes Ep. #44: A roundtable discussion on SolarWinds

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. Welcome to the first-ever XL edition of Talos Takes. This one is a little longer than usual, but we promise you it’s worth it. We recently...

Threat Roundup for February 19 to February 26

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

Threat Source newsletter (Dec. 17, 2020)

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw. Good afternoon, Talos readers. This will be our last Threat Source newsletter of the year. We’ll be on a few-week break for the holidays until Jan. 7. Of course, all anyone wants to talk about this week is the SolarWinds supply chain attack. There are still man...

Threat Source newsletter (Dec. 10, 2020)

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw. Good afternoon, Talos readers. Cyber security firm FireEye recently disclosed an incident that was reported to have resulted in the inadvertent disclosure of various internally developed offensive security tools OSTs that were used across FireEye red-team...

Threat Roundup for October 30 to November 6

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between Oct. 30 and Nov. 6. 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,...

What to expect when you’re electing: A recap

We’re roughly two weeks out from Election Day in America, although millions of early and mail-in votes have already been cast. In the coming days, there’s sure to be a flurry of news stories about disinformation, allegations of voter fraud, the back-and-forth between parties and talks of when the...

Dynamic Data Resolver - Version 1.0.1 beta

By Holger Unterbrink. Cisco Talos is releasing a new beta version of Dynamic Data Resolver DDR today. This release comes with a new architecture for samples using multi-threading. The process and thread tracing has been completely reimplemented. We also fixed a few bugs and memory leaks. Another...

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 25, 2020

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw. Good afternoon, Talos readers. We recently decided to replace our use of the terms "blacklist" and "whitelist" with "block list" and "allow list.” Even though these terms are commonly in use in the security industry, we will not go along with casually assigning...

Quarterly report: Incident Response trends in Summer 2020

By David Liebenberg and Caitlin Huey. For the fourth quarter in a row, Ryuk dominated the threat landscape in incident response. As we mentioned in last quarter’s report, Ryuk has shifted from relying on commodity trojans to using living-off-the-land tools. This has led to a decrease in...

Beers with Talos Ep. #82: Talos IR quarterly threat trends

Beers with Talos BWT Podcast episode No. 82 is now available. Download this episode and subscribe to Beers with Talos: If iTunes and Google Play aren't your thing, click here. Recorded May 8, 2020 Brad Garnett from Cisco Talos Incident Response joins us today to talk about DFIR, the Talos Quarter...

Threat Source newsletter for May 7, 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. With all of us working from home, Beers with Talos episodes are coming out faster than ever. This week, we have an actual episode with...

Threat Source (April 25)

Newsletter compiled by Jonathan Munshaw. Welcome to this week’s Threat Source newsletter — the perfect place to get caught up on all things Talos from the past week. If you haven’t yet, there’s still time to register for this year’s Talos Threat Research Summit — our second annual conference by...

Talos Vulnerability Discovery Year in Review - 2018

Introduction Cisco Talos' Vulnerability Discovery Team investigates software and operating system vulnerabilities in order to discover them before malicious threat actors. We provide this information to vendors so that they can create patches and protect their customers as soon as possible. We...

Not So Crystal Clear - Zeus Variant Spoils Ukrainian Holiday

This post was authored by Edmund Brumaghin with contributions from Ben Baker, Dave Maynor and Matthew Molyett. Introduction Talos has observed a cyber attack which was launched using the official website of Ukraine-based accounting software developer Crystal Finance Millennium CFM. This vector is...

[Webinar] Tales from the Frontlines: An exclusive briefing on Q2 incidents

!\Webinar\ Tales from the Frontlines: An exclusive briefing on Q2 incidentshttps://storage.ghost.io/c/af/a0/afa04ee3-414f-4481-8d23-7e7c146f192e/content/images/2026/08/2-1-no-copy.jpg Have you ever read the Talos IR Quarterly Trends report and wondered, "How did that phishing or ransomware campai...

Don’t swing at everything

Welcome to this week's edition of the Threat Source newsletter. Lately I've found myself thinking a lot about the Australian TV series Mr. Inbetween IMDb 8.7/10 -- not because I'm a hitman for hire, but because I literally feel in-between. Specifically, in-between what I'd call the "pre-Mythos" a...

Begun, the Patch Wars have

Welcome to this week's edition of the Threat Source newsletter. We all knew, to some degree or another, that this summer was going to a hot mess. I don't mean FIFA drama or record setting heat waves. I mean the slow but steady momentum that AI frontier models were accruing for vulnerability...

Great responsibility, without great power

Welcome to this week's edition of the Threat Source newsletter. As I'm writing this, today April 28 is International Superhero Day. If you don't know the origin story behind this, perhaps you would assume that this day was dreamed up by Marvel. And… you would be correct. However, it's not a pure...

New Dohdoor malware campaign targets education and health care

Cisco Talos discovered an ongoing malicious campaign since at least as early as December 2025 by a threat actor we track as "UAT-10027," delivering a previously undisclosed backdoor dubbed "Dohdoor." Dohdoor utilizes the DNS-over-HTTPS DoH technique for command-and-control C2 communications and h...

Microsoft Patch Tuesday for October 2025 — Snort rules and prominent vulnerabilities

Microsoft has released its monthly security update for October 2025, addressing 175 Microsoft CVEs and 21 non-Microsoft CVEs. Among these, 17 vulnerabilities are considered critical and 11 are flagged as important and considered more likely to be exploited. Current intelligence shows that three o...

CISA is warning us (again) about the threat to critical infrastructure networks

Government-run water systems and other critical infrastructure are still at risk from state-sponsored actors, according to a renewed warning from the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. CISA released an advisory last week on the matter of days after a small water treatment...

Snowflake isn’t an outlier, it’s the canary in the coal mine

By Nick Biasini with contributions from Kendall McKay and Guilherme Venere Headlines continue to roll in about the many implications and follow-on attacks originating from leaked and/or stolen credentials for the Snowflake cloud data platform. Adversaries obtained stolen login credentials for...

Talos releases new macOS open-source fuzzer

Cisco Talos has developed a fuzzer that enables us to test macOS software on commodity hardware. Fuzzer utilizes a snapshot-based fuzzing approach and is based on WhatTheFuzz framework. Support for VM state extraction was implemented and WhatTheFuzz was extended to support the loading of VMWare...