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...

Threat Roundup for July 31 to August 7

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between July 31 and Aug. 7. 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: Remote code execution vulnerabilities in LEADTOOLS 20

Cory Duplantis of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Cisco Talos recently discovered a remote code execution vulnerability in the LEADTOOLS line of imaging toolkits. LEADTOOLS is a collection of toolkits designed to perform a variety of functions aimed at integrating...

Threat Roundup for May 29 to June 5

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between May 29 and June 5. 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: Information disclosure in Windows 10 Kernel

Marcin Towalski of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Cisco Talos recently discovered an information disclosure vulnerability in the Windows 10 kernel. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by tricking the victim into opening a specially crafted executable,...

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...

Beers with Talos Ep. #51: Sea Turtles yeeting packets

Beers with Talos BWT Podcast Ep. No. 51 is now available. Download this episode and subscribe to Beers with Talos: If iTunes and Google Play aren't your thing, click here. Recorded April 12, 2019 — Today, we rip through a few other things to spend most of our time discussing Sea Turtle, the lates...

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...

GPlayed's younger brother is a banker — and it's after Russian banks

This blog post is authored by Vitor Ventura. Introduction Cisco Talos published its findings on a new Android trojan known as "GPlayed" on Oct. 11. At the time, we wrote that the trojan seemed to be in the testing stages of development, based on the malware's code patterns, strings and telemetry...

Gandcrab Ransomware Walks its Way onto Compromised Sites

This blog post authored by Nick Biasini with contributions from Nick Lister and Christopher Marczewski. Despite the recent decline in the prevalence of ransomware in the threat landscape, Cisco Talos has been monitoring the now widely distributed ransomware called Gandcrab. Gandcrab uses both...

Critical Infrastructure at Risk: Advanced Actors Target Smart Install Client

Update: 4/9 Cisco PSIRT has released additional guidance available here. Cisco has recently become aware of specific advanced actors targeting Cisco switches by leveraging a protocol misuse issue in the Cisco Smart Install Client. Several incidents in multiple countries, including some specifical...

Forgot About Default Accounts? No Worries, GoScanSSH Didn’t

This blog post was authored by Edmund Brumaghin, Andrew Williams, and Alain Zidouemba. Executive Summary During a recent Incident Response IR engagement, Talos identified a new malware family that was being used to compromise SSH servers exposed to the internet. This malware, which we have named...

Vulnerability Spotlight: TALOS-2017-0393 / CVE-2017-2886 - ACDSee Ultimate 10 Remote Code Execution Vulnerability

Vulnerability discovered by Piotr Bania of Cisco Talos. Overview Talos has discovered a remote code execution vulnerability in the ACDSee Ultimate 10 application from ACD Systems International Inc. Exploiting this vulnerabilities can potentially allow an attacker to gain full control over the...

Beers with Talos EP 13:A Vast CCleanup, Strutting Your Stuff, and the Ex$ploit Economy

Beers with Talos BWT Podcast Episode 13 is now available. Download this episode and subscribe to Beers with Talos:If iTunes and Google Play aren't your thing: a href="ht...

The Internet of Vulnerable Things

IntroductionTechnological progress is resulting in computing systems that are smaller, cheaper and consuming less power. These micro-computing systems are able to be integrated into everyday objects; when coupled with ubiquitous wireless connectivity these devices form the “Internet of Things”. T...

Close Encounters of the Human Kind

Welcome to this week's Threat Source newsletter. I love a Spielberg summer. His ability to imbue a sense of wonder, awe, curiosity, and connection means he's in a league of his own. Granted, I haven't felt that from him in a while, but when he hits? Oof. I feel like I need somebody to reach acros...

State-sponsored threats: Different objectives, similar access paths

Across the Talos 2025 Year in Review, state-sponsored threat activity from China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran all had varying motivations, such as espionage, disruption, financial gain, and geopolitical influence. But when you look at how these operations actually unfold, similar tactics,...

IR Trends Q4 2025: Exploitation remains dominant, phishing campaign targets Native American tribal organizations

Threat actors predominately exploited public-facing applications for the second quarter in a row, with this tactic appearing in nearly 40 percent of Cisco Talos Incident Response Talos IR engagements -- a notable decrease from over 60 percent last quarter, when engagements involving ToolShell...

UAT-9686 actively targets Cisco Secure Email Gateway and Secure Email and Web Manager

Cisco Talos recently discovered a campaign targeting Cisco AsyncOS Software for Cisco Secure Email Gateway, formerly known as Cisco Email Security Appliance ESA, and Cisco Secure Email and Web Manager, formerly known as Cisco Content Security Management Appliance SMA. We assess with moderate...

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

Microsoft has released its monthly security update for August 2025, which includes 111 vulnerabilities affecting a range of products, including 13 that Microsoft marked as "critical". In this month's release, Microsoft observed none of the included vulnerabilities being actively exploited in the...

New TorNet backdoor seen in widespread campaign

Cisco Talos discovered an ongoing malicious campaign operated by a financially motivated threat actor since as early as July 2024 targeting users, predominantly in Poland and Germany, based on the phishing email language. The actor has delivered different payloads, including Agent Tesla, Snake...

Checking in on the state of cybersecurity and the Olympics

With the 2024 Olympics Opening Ceremony only two weeks away now, there is one thing thats an absolute guarantee of one thing happening during the traditionally unpredictable games: Cyber attacks. Every time there is a new Olympic Games, theres a renewed discussion about how threat actors,...

How are attackers trying to bypass MFA?

In the latest Cisco Talos Incident Response Quarterly Trends report, instances related to multi-factor authentication MFA were involved in nearly half of all security incidents that our team responded to in the first quarter of 2024. In 25% of engagements, the underlying cause was users accepting...

James Nutland studies what makes threat actors tick, growing our understanding of the current APT landscape

If state-sponsored actors are after one thing, its to spread fear and uncertainty across the internet. Theres always money to be made targeting individual businesses and organizations, but for James Nutlands work, its always about the bigger picture. And his background in studying counterterroris...

Why Apple added protection against quantum computing when quantum computing doesn’t even exist yet

Apple released a new update for nearly all its devices that provides an all-new type of encryption for its iMessages to the point that, in theory, iMessages are now protected against attacks from quantum computers. This is a little tricky because, as weve covered before, quantum computers dont...

Video series discussing the major threat actor trends from 2023

In this video series, Talos Director of Threat Intelligence and Interdiction Matt Olney and Head of Outreach Nick Biasini share their insights on the most significant cybersecurity threats from the past year. From attacks on network infrastructure to the latest APT activities, as well as an updat...

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...

Generating FLIRT signatures for Nim and other non-C programming languages

Adversaries are increasingly writing malware in programming languages such as Go, Rust, or Nim, because they present challenges to investigators using reverse-engineering tools designed to work best against the C family of languages. Its often difficult for reverse engineers examining non-C...

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,...

APT Topic Summary Report: Cisco Talos Year in Review 2022

State-sponsored or state-aligned advanced persistent threats APTs adapted to the changing geopolitical landscape in 2022. Cisco Talos observed several offensive cyber campaigns linked to several groups stemming from Russia, Iran, China, North Korea, and countries in the Indian subcontinent. These...

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...

Transparent Tribe begins targeting education sector in latest campaign

Cisco Talos has been tracking a new malicious campaign operated by the Transparent Tribe APT group. This campaign involves the targeting of educational institutions and students in the Indian subcontinent, a deviation from the adversary's typical focus on government entities. The attacks result i...

Transparent Tribe campaign uses new bespoke malware to target Indian government officials

By Asheer Malhotra and Justin Thattil with contributions from Kendall McKay. Cisco Talos has observed a new Transparent Tribe campaign targeting Indian government and military entities. While the actors are infecting victims with CrimsonRAT, their well-known malware of choice, they are also...

Threat Source newsletter (March 17, 2022) — Channelling productive worry to help Ukraine

By Jon Munshaw. Welcome to this week’s edition of the Threat Source newsletter. Cisco Talos continues to be heads-down working on the current Ukraine situation. This is incredibly difficult for everyone across the globe, especially for those directly affected. But that doesn’t mean those of... Th...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Vulnerability in Apple iOS, iPad OS and MacOS could lead to disclosure of sensitive memory data

Jaewon Min of Cisco Talos discovered these vulnerabilities. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Cisco Talos recently discovered an out-of-bounds read vulnerability in Apple’s macOS and iOS operating systems that could lead to the disclosure of sensitive memory content. An attacker could capitalize on that... Th...

Threat Source newsletter (Aug. 26, 2021)

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw.Good afternoon, Talos readers. We have RATs on RATs on RATs over the past few weeks. And last week, we found a few more heading to Latin America to target users and try to steal their login credentials. The threat actor in this case has some compelling... This i...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Multiple vulnerabilities in AT&T Labs’ Xmill utility

Carl Hurd of Cisco Talos discovered these vulnerabilities. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Cisco Talos recently discovered multiple vulnerabilities in AT&T Labs’ Xmill utility. An attacker could take advantage of these issues to carry out a variety of malicious actions, including corrupting the... This is...

Threat Roundup for May 28 to June 4

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between May 28 and June 4. 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 Roundup for May 7 to May 14

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between May 7 and May 14. 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 Takes Ep. #43: What you should know about the Microsoft Exchange Server zero-days

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 put this episode together quickly this week to address the zero-day vulnerabilities Microsoft disclosed earlier this week in Exchange...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Multiple vulnerabilities in Foxit PDF Reader JavaScript engine

Aleksandar Nikolic of Cisco Talos discovered these vulnerabilities. Blog by Jon Munshaw.Executive summary Cisco Talos recently discovered multiple vulnerabilities in Foxit PDF Reader’s JavaScript engine. Foxit PDF Reader is a commonly used PDF reader that contains many features, including the...

Threat Roundup for October 23 to October 30

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

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...

Threat Source newsletter for July 30, 2020

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw. Good afternoon, Talos readers. Adversaries love to use headlines as part of their spam campaigns. From COVID-19, to Black Lives Matter and even Black Friday every year, the bad guys are wanting to capitalize on current events. Why is this the case, and when do...

Beers with Talos Ep. #88: It’s not about the vote, it’s about trust

Beers with Talos BWT Podcast episode No. 88 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. By Mitch Neff. Recorded July 7, 2020 Nigel is out this week, but we have a...

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...

Beers with Talos Ep. #84: Mid-career advancement in cyber security

Beers with Talos BWT Podcast episode No. 84 is now available. Download this episode and subscribe to Beers with Talos: If iTunes and Google Play aren't your thing, click here. By Mitch Neff. Recorded May 26, 2020 Prod. Note: Things are a hot mess right now and the team thinks that there are voice...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Remote code execution vulnerability in Firefox’s SharedWorkerService function

Marcin “Icewall” Noga of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Blog by Jon Munshaw. The Mozilla Firefox web browser contains a vulnerability in its SharedWorkerService function that could allow an attacker to gain the ability to remotely execute code on a target’s machine. This vulnerability...