Threat Source newsletter (Jan. 19, 2023): Talent retention and institutional knowledge

Welcome to this weeks edition of the Threat Source newsletter. Talent retention and institutional knowledge go hand in hand. Both are critical to ensuring the security of your network environment. To that end, I want to talk briefly about why talent retention isnt just about money. So I am going ...

Threat Spotlight: Cyber Criminal Adoption of IPFS for Phishing, Malware Campaigns

The InterPlanetary File System IPFS is an emerging Web3 technology that is currently seeing widespread abuse by threat actors. Cisco Talos has observed multiple ongoing campaigns that leverage the IPFS network to host their malware payloads and phishing kit infrastructure while facilitating other...

Video: How propaganda can spread on social media via memes, fake news

Cisco Talos is well-known for its work in spotting and defeating fake news, disinformation and misinformation. And state-sponsored actors, unwitting social media users and even direct government agencies have played a part in spreading fake news during Russia's invasion of Ukraine. In this video,...

Talos EMEA Monthly Threat Update: How do you know if cyber insurance is right for you?

On September's edition of the Monthly EMEA Threat Update, Hazel Burton and Martin Lee break down cyber insurance. Although many businesses and organizations will think insurance will only help them in a worst-case scenario, that worst-case scenario comes for us all eventually. Martin and Hazel...

Avos ransomware group expands with new attack arsenal

By Flavio Costa, Chris Neal and Guilherme Venere. In a recent customer engagement, we observed a month-long AvosLocker campaign. The attackers utilized several different tools, including Cobalt Strike, Sliver and multiple commercial network scanners. The initial ingress point in this incident...

Talos EMEA monthly update: Business email compromise

The latest edition of the Talos EMEA Monthly Update is available now on Cisco.com and Cisco's YouTube page. You can also view the episode in its entirety above. For June, Hazel and Martin got together to discuss business email compromise. BEC has quickly become the most lucrative attack vector...

Threat Roundup for May 20 to May 27

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between May 20 and May 27. 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 (April 21, 2022) — Sideloading apps is as safe as you make it

By Jon Munshaw. Welcome to this week’s edition of the Threat Source newsletter. If you pay attention to the video game community as much as I do, you’ve been closely following the ongoing legal battle between Apple and Epic over the sale of “Fortnite” on the Apple App Store. I promise... This is...

Beers with Talos, Ep. #120: How attackers are finding ways around MFA

Beers with Talos BWT Podcast episode No. 120 is now available. Download this episode and subscribe to Beers with Talos: Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Spotify StitcherRecorded April 6, 2022 If iTunes and Google Play aren't your thing, click here. The trend of... This is only the beginning! Please...

Threat Roundup for March 25 to April 1

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between March 25 and April 1. 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...

Arid Viper APT targets Palestine with new wave of politically themed phishing attacks, malware

By Asheer Malhotra and Vitor Ventura. Cisco Talos has observed a new wave of Delphi malware called Micropsia developed and operated by the Arid Viper APT group since 2017.This campaign targets Palestinian entities and activists using politically themed lures.The latest iteration of the implant...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Memory corruption and use-after-free vulnerabilities in Foxit PDF Reader

Aleksandar Nikolic of Cisco Talos discovered these vulnerabilities. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Cisco Talos recently discovered a memory corruption and use-after-free vulnerability in the Foxit PDF Reader. Foxit PDF Reader is one of the most popular PDF document readers currently... This is only the...

Magnat campaigns use malvertising to deliver information stealer, backdoor and malicious Chrome extension

By Tiago Pereira. Talos recently observed a malicious campaign offering fake installers of popular software as bait to get users to execute malware on their systems. This campaign includes a set of malware distribution campaigns that started in late 2018 and have targeted mainly Canada, along...

Threat Roundup for October 22 to October 29

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between Oct. 22 and Oct. 29. 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 (Oct. 28, 2021)

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw.Good afternoon, Talos readers. Most people know about chicken and waffles. But what about squirrel and waffles? They may not be the most appetizing brunch, but they are teaming up for one heck of a spam campaign. We have new research out... This is only the...

Downtime on Talos Intelligence

TalosIntelligence.com will be down for a short time on Sept. 17 around 10 a.m. ET while we perform some routine maintenance on the site. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. We expect the interruption will only last for about 30 minutes. This is only the beginning! Please visit the...

Microsoft Patch Tuesday for August 2021 — Snort rules and prominent vulnerabilities

By Jon Munshaw, with contributions from Martin Lee. Microsoft released its monthly security update Tuesday, disclosing 44 vulnerabilities in the company’s firmware and software. This is the fewest amount of vulnerabilities Microsoft has patched in a month in more than two years. There... This is...

Microsoft Patch Tuesday for June 2021 — Snort rules and prominent vulnerabilities

By Jon Munshaw, with contributions from Edmund Brumaghin. Microsoft released its monthly security update Tuesday, disclosing 51 vulnerabilities across its suite of products, breaking last month’s 16-month record of the fewest vulnerabilities disclosed in a month by the company. There... This is...

Microsoft Patch Tuesday for March 2021 — Snort rules and prominent vulnerabilities

By Jon Munshaw, with contributions from Nick Biasini. Microsoft released its monthly security update Tuesday, disclosing 89 vulnerabilities across its suite of products, the most in any month so far this year. There are 14 critical vulnerabilities as part of this release and one considered of “lo...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Out-of-bounds read vulnerability in Slic3r could lead to information disclosure

Lilith of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Cisco Talos recently discovered an out-of-bounds read vulnerability in Slic3r's library. Slic3r is an open-source 3-D printing toolbox, mainly utilized for translating assorted 3-D printing model file types into machine cod...

Threat Roundup for January 29 to February 5

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between Jan. 29 and Feb. 5. As with previous roundups, this post isn't meant to be an in-depth analysis. Instead, this post will summarize the threatsx we've observed by highlighting key behavioral characteristics...

Interview with a LockBit ransomware operator

By Azim Khodjibaev, Dymtro Korzhevin and Kendall McKay. Ransomware is still highly prevalent in our current threat landscape — it's one of the top threats Cisco Talos Incident Response responds to. One such ransomware family we encounter is called LockBit, a ransomware-as-a-service RaaS platform...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Multiple vulnerabilities in PrusaSlicer

Lilith of Cisco Talos discovered these vulnerabilities. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Cisco Talos recently discovered two out-of-bounds write vulnerabilities in Prusa Research’s PrusaSlicer. Prusa Slicer is an open-source 3-D printer slicing program forked off Slic3r that can convert various 3-D model fil...

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,...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Internet Systems Consortium BIND server DoS

Emanuel Almeida of Cisco Systems discovered this vulnerability. Blog by Jon Munshaw. The Internet Systems Consortium’s BIND server contains a denial-of-service vulnerability that exists when processing TCP traffic through the libuv library. An attacker can exploit this vulnerability by flooding t...

Threat Source newsletter for Aug. 20, 2020

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw. Good afternoon, Talos readers. Hactivism always seems to cool and noble in the movies. Video games and TV shows have no shortage of their “hacker heroes,” too. But what are the real-world consequences of users who release sensitive information or carry out data...

Attribution: A Puzzle

By Martin Lee, Paul Rascagneres and Vitor Ventura. Introduction The attribution of cyber attacks is hard. It requires collecting diverse intelligence, analyzing it and deciding who is responsible. Rarely does the evidence available to researchers reach a level of proof that would be acceptable in...

Threat Source newsletter for July 16, 2020

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw. Good afternoon, Talos readers. If you haven’t already, we highly recommend you read our in-depth research paper on election security. This paper represents four years of hands-on research, interviews and insight into how things have changed since 2016, and what...

What to expect when you’re electing: Talos’ 2020 election security primer

By Jon Munshaw and Matt Olney. After the 2016 General Election, the talk was all around foreign meddling. Rumors swirled that some votes may have been changed or influenced by state-sponsored actors. Sanctions and accusations followed. Four years later, is the U.S. any more prepared to protect th...

Threat Source newsletter for July 2, 2020

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw. Good afternoon, Talos readers. Our latest research you should catch up on is the Valak malware. This information-stealer sneaks its way onto victim machines by hijacking legitimate email threads. The threat actors send their phishing emails and attachments in...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Two code execution vulnerabilities in Microsoft Excel

Marcin “Icewall” Noga of Cisco Talos discovered these vulnerabilities. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Cisco Talos researchers recently discovered two code execution vulnerabilities in Microsoft Excel. Microsoft released updates for these two bugs as part of their Patch Tuesday security update this week. Bo...

What scams shoppers should look out for on Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Every year, more and more Americans are taking care of their holiday shopping on Cyber Monday. Last year, consumers spent a record $6.59 billion during the annual online shopping day, an all-time record, according to Adobe Insights. Still, that doesn’t mean no one is rushing out the night of...

Threat Roundup for November 2 to November 9

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between Nov. 02 and Nov. 09. 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...

Beers with Talos Ep. #38 — More fun with VPNFilter; Getting pwnd via spreadsheet

Beers with Talos BWT Podcast Ep. 38 is now available. Download this episode and subscribe to Beers with Talos: If iTunes and Google Play aren't your thing, click here. Ep. 38 show notes: Recorded Sept. 21, 2018 — The whole crew is back together! On the agenda today is VPNFilter part III, now...

Olympic Destroyer Takes Aim At Winter Olympics

This blog post is authored by Warren Mercer and Paul Rascagneres. Ben Baker and Matthew Molyett contributed to this post. Update 2/13 08:30 We have updated the information regarding the use of stolen credentials Update 2/12 12:00: We have updated the destructor section with action taken against...

Beers with Talos EP 18: Kitties in My Blockchain, Obfuscating Pronunciations, and Other Security Stuff

Beers with Talos BWT Podcast Episode 18 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 EP18 Show Notes: It’s the last full episode of the year! Thanks to you and the diligent work of Matt’s...

Beers with Talos EP 15: Landing a Job, Phishing Midstream, and Paul’s IDA Palette

Beers with Talos BWT Podcast Episode 15 is now available. Download this episode and subscribe to Beers with Talos:img border="0" data-original-height="45" data-original-width="160" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-E-RSSZ9jbUY/WaWCkLGZnZI/AAAAAAAAAJE/Ciiz-Si4oA0cgR9tMGSGbT9336qr...

Threat Round-up for May 05 - May 12

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

The safety penalty: Reclaiming operational sovereignty in the age of AI

As frontier models advance in cyber capability, their guardrails also become more restrictive. Defenders relying on these models to power core SOC processes cannot afford to pay the "safety penalty" of being blocked by these safeguards. Organizations should monitor model refusal rates and use the...

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...

Hypotheses, telemetry, and human judgment: Inside Cisco Talos Threat Hunting

By Ron Scott-Adams Most security tools operate on a simple principle: If a known-bad pattern appears, fire an alert. This works well enough for many threats, but it fails against adversaries who closely study detection thresholds and deliberately stay under them. Cisco Talos Threat Hunting operat...

Knife Cutting the Edge: Disclosing a China-nexus gateway-monitoring AitM framework

Cisco Talos uncovered "DKnife," a fully featured gateway-monitoring and adversary-in-the-middle AitM framework comprising seven Linux-based implants that perform deep-packet inspection, manipulate traffic, and deliver malware via routers and edge devices. Based on the artifact metadata, DKnife ha...

Brushstrokes and breaches with Terryn Valikodath

Cisco Talos is kicking off the new year with a behind-the-scenes look at incident response through the eyes of Terryn Valikodath, Senior Incident Response Consultant at Talos. In this episode, Amy sits down with Terryn to explore the realities of a job that blends technical know-how with...

The Booker Prize Longlist and Hacker Summer Camp

Welcome to this week's edition of the Threat Source newsletter. This week the Booker Prize Longlist was released and it featured several books I've read this year a couple that are on my TBR To Be Read, a couple that I had not heard of, and a couple that make me scratch my head and question why...

Defining a new methodology for modeling and tracking compartmentalized threats

In the evolving cyberthreat landscape, Cisco Talos is witnessing a significant shift towards compartmentalized attack kill chains, where distinct stages -- such as initial compromise and subsequent exploitation -- are executed by multiple threat actors. This trend complicates traditional threat...

IR Trends Q1 2025: Phishing soars as identity-based attacks persist

Phishing attacks spiked this quarter as threat actors leveraged this method of initial access in half of all engagements, a vast increase from previous quarters. Conversely, the use of valid accounts for initial access was rarely seen this quarter, despite being the top observed method in 2024,...

Unmasking the new XorDDoS controller and infrastructure

Cisco Talos observed an existing distributed denial-of-service DDoS malware known as XorDDoS, continuing to spread globally between November 2023 and February 2025. A significant finding shows that over 70 percent of attacks using XorDDoS targeted the United States from Nov. 2023 to Feb. 2025. Th...

Changing the narrative on pig butchering scams

Welcome to this week's edition of the Threat Source Newsletter. Love is in the air this week. Wait, is that love? Or is it some tech bro with a housing development company that would totally love to meet in person but can't this week emailing you about an investment opportunity in his...

Find the helpers

Welcome to this week's edition of the Threat Source newsletter. "When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.'" ― Fred Rogers There's no world where following Mr. Roger's advice is wrong...

Are hardware supply chain attacks “cyber attacks?”

The recent attacks in the Middle East triggering explosions on pagers has raised new fears around physical hardware supply chain attacks. In cybersecurity, we typically consider supply chain attacks to target software, in which adversaries infect a legitimate tool with a malicious, fake update th...