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...

The internet is already scary enough without April Fool’s jokes

I feel like over the past several years, the "holiday" that is April Fools Day has really died down. At this point, there are few headlines you can write that would be more ridiculous than something youd find on a news site any day of the week. And there are so many more serious issues that are...

The rise of AI-powered criminals: Identifying threats and opportunities

AIs influence is growing across the security space, bringing with it major implications for cybercriminals and defenders. The recent adoption of AI has raised significant concerns for cybersecurity due to the many ways that criminals can use AI for disruption and profit. Defenders and law...

Code leaks are causing an influx of new ransomware actors

Ransomware gangs are consistently rebranding or merging with other groups, as highlighted in our 2022 Year in Review, or these actors work for multiple ransomware-as-a-service RaaS outfits at a time, and new groups are always emerging. This trend is already continuing this year. Since 2021, there...

Threat Roundup for June 30 to July 7

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats weve observed between June 30 and July 7. 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,...

Video: Everything you need to know about ongoing state-sponsored attacks targeting network infrastructure across the globe

Cisco and Talos are continuing to track and research a series of ongoing cyber attacks and espionage targeting out-of-date and unpatched network hardware. In this video, Hazel Burton interviews Matt Olney and J.J. Cummings from Talos to discuss the "Jaguar Tooth" campaign the U.K. government and...

Developer account body snatchers pose risks to the software supply chain

Over the past several years, high-profile software supply chain attacks have increased in frequency. These attacks can be difficult to detect and source code repositories became a key focus of this research. Developer account takeovers present a substantial risk to the software supply chain becau...

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...

Nanocore, Netwire and AsyncRAT spreading campaign uses public cloud infrastructure

By Chetan Raghuprasad and Vanja Svajcer. Cisco Talos discovered a malicious campaign in October 2021 delivering variants of Nanocore, Netwire and AsyncRATs targeting user's information. According to Cisco Secure product telemetry, the victims of this campaign are primarily distributed across the...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Buffer overflow vulnerability in AnyCubic Chitubox plugin

Carl Hurd of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Cisco Talos recently discovered an exploitable heap-based buffer overflow vulnerability in the Chitubox AnyCubic plugin. Chitubox is 3-D printing software for users to download and process models and send them... This is...

Cisco recognized by Forrester as cybersecurity incident response services provider

By Brad Garnett. Cisco Talos Incident Response is proud to announce that Forrester has recognized us by including Cisco in the new Forrester report “Now Tech: Cybersecurity Incident Response Services, Q4 2021.” The Forrester report provides an overview of 36 Cybersecurity Incident Response... Thi...

Talos Takes Ep. #79: Emotet's back with the worst type of holiday present

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. Emotet is back, and it brought the worst possible holiday present just in time for peak spam season, too!. We... This is...

Threat Source Newsletter (Dec. 2, 2021)

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw.Good afternoon, Talos readers. The Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S. didn't slow us down at all, even though we were all still trying to sleep off the food coma from the long weekend. But we came back this week with lots of fun content. Cisco received... This is...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Multiple vulnerabilities in Advantech R-SeeNet

Yuri Kramarz discovered these vulnerabilities. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Cisco Talos recently discovered multiple vulnerabilities in the Advantech R-SeeNet monitoring software. R-SeeNet is the software system used for monitoring Advantech routers. It continuously collects information from... This is...

Vulnerability Spotlight: PHP deserialize vulnerability in CloudLinux Imunity360 could lead to arbitrary code execution

Marcin “Icewall” Noga of Cisco Talos. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Cisco Talos recently discovered a vulnerability in the Ai-Bolit functionality of CloudLinux Inc Imunify360 that could lead to arbitrary code execution. Imunify360 is a security platform for web-hosting servers that allows users... This is...

Talos Takes Ep. #67: What a leaked playbook tells us about the Conti ransomware group

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. There's a lot to take apart in the recently leaked Conti ransomware playbook. After a disgruntled member of the... This is...

Talos is hiring for several positions — Join our world-class security organization

Cisco Talos continues to build an elite threat intelligence and research group, and we are looking for driven, innovative and diverse security enthusiasts to join us. We are currently hiring for several positions, including multiple security engineer roles and a senior vulnerability... This is on...

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,...

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...

Threat Roundup for January 22 to January 29

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

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...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Denial of service in AMD ATIKMDAG.SYS driver

Piotr Bania of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Blog by Jon Munshaw.Cisco Talos recently discovered a denial-of-service vulnerability in the ATIKMDAG.SYS driver for some AMD graphics cards. An attacker could send the victim a specially crafted D3DKMTCreateAllocation API request to cause...

Threat Source newsletter for Sept. 24, 2020

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw. Good afternoon, Talos readers. After months years? in beta, an official release candidate is out now for Snort 3. Stay tuned for an officially official release in about a month. In other Snort rules, we also have a deep dive into our detection and prevention of...

Salfram: Robbing the place without removing your name tag

By Holger Unterbrink and Edmund Brumaghin. Threat summary Cisco Talos recently uncovered a series of email campaigns utilizing links to malicious documents hosted on legitimate file-sharing platforms to spread malware.The campaigns distributed various malware payloads including Gozi ISFB, ZLoader...

Better email classification, courtesy of you

Cisco customers with Email Security Appliances ESA or Cloud Email Security CES accounts already know the benefits of Cisco’s email filtering. Every day, millions of malicious emails are automatically sent to the trash bin. Cisco encourages customers to participate in honing those filters by...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Code execution, memory corruption vulnerabilities in Accusoft ImageGear

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

Beers with Talos Ep. #90: Hacktivism – Understanding the real-world consequences

Beers with Talos BWT Podcast episode No. 90 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 31, 2020 This week in BWT land, we’re discussin...

Threat Source newsletter for Aug. 6, 2020

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw. Good afternoon, Talos readers. We spend a lot of time talking about what you should do to keep your data safe, and how other organizations should be prepared for the worst. But what happens if the worst happens to you? In the latest Beers with Talos episode, we...

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 June 18, 2020

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw. Good afternoon, Talos readers. Now that Cisco Live is over, you can access both of Talos’ talks on-demand here if you registered for the online event. The latest Beers with Talos episode covers how to push your career in cyber security forward when you feel lik...

Beers with Talos Ep. #52: I don't trust you because I care

Beers with Talos BWT Podcast Ep. 52 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 26, 2019 - Since Craig decided to skip the podcast today, we decided to invite one of Austin’s top actual security...

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...

Threat Roundup for June 22-29

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between June 22 and June 29. 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 behavioral characteristic...

Beers with Talos EP27: Smart Install, Vuln Process Realities, and Professional Wrestling

Beers with Talos BWT Podcast Episode 27 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 EP27 Show Notes: Recorded 4/13/18 - We just upgraded all our gear, so naturally we had a straight tech...

Beers with Talos EP 21: How to Hire the Best, Attribution Without Apaches is Useless

Beers with Talos BWT Podcast Episode 21 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 EP21 Show Notes: It is a packed episode this time! We are joined by Edmund from the Talos Outreach Grou...

Beers with Talos EP 17: Greek Gods, Trojans, and the Spice Girls as Spirit Animals

Beers with Talos BWT Podcast Episode 17 is now available. Download this episode and subscribe to Beers with Talos:img bo...

China-nexus UAT-11587 targets government and policy organizations across Asia with Antino backdoor

Cisco Talos uncovered a cluster of activity we track as UAT-11587 targeting government and policy organizations across Asia, including in Taiwan, India, the Philippines, and Cambodia, to deliver a previously undocumented backdoor referred to as "Antino" in developer artifacts. Talos first observe...

Describing attacks with crime script analysis

Crime script analysis is a narrative-driven technique that can be used alongside, or as an alternative to, tactics, techniques, and procedures TTPs -- creating human-readable stories that describe attacks in a way non-technical audiences can understand. By analyzing the attacker's workflow, we ca...

Winning the cyber marathon with Tony Giandomenico

In the high-speed world of cybersecurity, the difference between a breach and a breakthrough often comes down to endurance. Tony Giandomenico, Senior Director of Product Management with Cisco Talos, joins me to discuss how he balances the intensity of leading major product launches with the...

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...

State-sponsored actors, better known as the friends you don’t want

State-sponsored actors don't break in. They log in, and they use your own tools to stay invisible for months. Responding to a state-sponsored threat is nothing like responding to ransomware, and the differences can make or break the outcome. From logging and baselines to OT segmentation and suppl...

IR Trends Q1 2026: Phishing reemerges as top initial access vector, as attacks targeting public administration persist

Phishing reemerged as the most observed means of gaining initial access, accounting for over a third of the engagements where initial access could be determined. Phishing has not been the top vector for initial access since Q2 2025. Public administration and health care tied as the most targeted...

IR Trends Q2 2025: Phishing attacks persist as actors leverage compromised valid accounts to enhance legitimacy

Phishing remained the top method of initial access this quarter, appearing in a third of all engagements - a decrease from 50 percent last quarter. Threat actors largely leveraged compromised internal or trusted business partner email accounts to deploy malicious emails, bypassing security contro...

MaaS operation using Emmenhtal and Amadey linked to threats against Ukrainian entities

In April 2025 Cisco Talos identified a Malware-as-a-Service MaaS operation that utilized Amadey to deliver payloads. The MaaS operators used fake GitHub accounts to host payloads, tools and Amadey plug-ins, likely as an attempt to bypass web filtering and for ease of use. Several operator tactics...

Threat actors thrive in chaos

Welcome to this week's edition of the Threat Source newsletter. If there's one thing that threat actors love, it's chaos. Headlines in the news that provoke an emotional response make excellent phishing lures because the intense feelings invoked by a provocative subject line cause our critical...

Sellers can get scammed too, and Joe goes off on a rant about imposter syndrome

Welcome to this week's edition of the Threat Source newsletter. Hello again my friends! Geez, it's been a year am I right? Lemons its February you say?! Oof. Imposter syndrome. You've heard the term I'm sure, but what is it? Basically: imposter syndrome is the persistent feeling of self-doubt and...

The 2024 Threat Landscape State of Play

As we head into the final furlong of 2024, we caught up with Talos' Head of Outreach Nick Biasini to ask him what sort of year it's been so far in the threat landscape. In this video, Nick outlines his two major areas of concern. He also focusses on one state-sponsored actor that has been...

The top stories coming out of the Black Hat cybersecurity conference

Over the next two weeks, two of the largest cybersecurity conferences in the world will take place in Las Vegas: Black Hat and DEF CON. That means product announcements, buzzwords and stories about "X smart appliance could burn your house down!" or something like that. Over the next two weeks, Il...

"There is no business school class that would ever sit down and design Talos"

As part of the celebrations of Cisco Talos turning 10, wed like to take you back to where it all began: How we formed our mission of protecting our customers and making the internet suck a bit less, an insight into our culture, and how we came to work with some of the most talented human beings o...

Apple and Google are taking steps to curb the abuse of location-tracking devices — but what about others?

Since the advent of products like the Tile and Apple AirTag, both used to keep track of easily lost items like wallets, keys and purses, bad actors and criminals have found ways to abuse them. These adversaries can range from criminals just looking to do something illegal for a range of reasons,...