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 July 6-13

Today, as we do every week, Talos is giving you a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed this week — covering the dates between July 6 and 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 ...

Beers with Talos EP12 - IrmaGerd! The Internet Ate Our Podcast!

Beers with Talos BWT Podcast Episode 12 is now available. Download this episode and subscribe to Beers with Talos:If iTunes and Google Play aren't your thing: www.talosintelligence.com/podcastbr /...

Arbitrary Code Execution Vulnerabilities in MuPDF Identified and Patched

Talos is disclosing the presence of two vulnerabilities in the Artifex MuPDF renderer. MuPDF is a lightweight PDF parsing and rendering library featuring high fidelity graphics, high speed, and compact code size which makes it a fairly popular PDF library for embedding in different projects,...

Beyond IOCs: AI-enabled threat intelligence

Welcome to this week's Threat Source newsletter. The issue of AI in cybersecurity is often portrayed as a binary choice: either a force multiplier for our adversaries, or a tool bringing professional obsolescence. The reality is more nuanced. While AI certainly brings some advantage to attackers,...

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...

The art of being ungovernable

Welcome to this week's edition of the Threat Source newsletter. " It takes very little to govern good people. Very little. And bad people can't be governed at all. Or if they could, I never heard of it." ― Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men Most of my career has been built on dichotomy:...

Ongoing exploitation of Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN vulnerabilities

Cisco Talos is tracking the active exploitation of CVE-2026-20182, an authentication bypass vulnerability in Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Controller, formerly SD-WAN vSmart, and Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager, formerly SD-WAN vManage. Successful exploitation of CVE-2026-20182 allows an unauthenticated,...

Unplug your way to better code

Welcome to this week's edition of the Threat Source newsletter. Hey, you. Yeah, you! The person endlessly scrolling or typing away at their computer. Did you touch grass today? It's just an expression, but if nature's your thing, that works just fine. What I do mean is that due to the nature of t...

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...

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...

Unleashing the Kraken ransomware group

In August 2025, Cisco Talos observed big-game hunting and double extortion attacks carried out by Kraken, a Russian-speaking group that has emerged from the remnants of the HelloKitty ransomware cartel. Talos observed in one intrusion that the Kraken actor exploited Server Message Block SMB...

Cybersecurity on a budget: Strategies for an economic downturn

During economic uncertainty, businesses face the challenge of maintaining strong cybersecurity while managing tightened budgets. Cyber threats can become more numerous, motivated, and persistent during economic downturns, making the need for resilient, cost-effective security measures critical...

Strings in the maze: Finding hidden strengths and gaps in your team

Welcome to this week's edition of the Threat Source newsletter. "The truth about the world, he said, is that anything is possible... For existence has its own order and that no man's mind can compass, that mind itself being but a fact among others." ― Cormac McCarthy, "Blood Meridian" Earlier thi...

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...

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...

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...

Year in Review: Key vulnerabilities, tools, and shifts in attacker email tactics

Over the next few weeks, we're breaking down the most critical sections of our 2024 Year in Review. This week, we examine the most frequently targeted vulnerabilities--particularly those affecting network infrastructure. We also detail a noticeable shift in adversary behavior, as threat actors mo...

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...

Threat actors using MacroPack to deploy Brute Ratel, Havoc and PhantomCore payloads

Cisco Talos recently discovered several related Microsoft Office documents uploaded to VirusTotal by various actors between May and July 2024 that were all generated by a version of a payload generator framework called "MacroPack." MacroPack is a framework designated for Red Team exercises, but w...

Heather Couk is here to keep your spirits up during a cyber emergency, even if it takes the “Rocky” music

"Gotta Fly Now" is more closely associated with corporate hype videos or conferences with thousands of attendees in a mid-market citys convention center than it is from its origins in the "Rocky" movies. But Heather Couk thinks its useful in incident response calls, too. Couk, an incident respons...

How Cisco Talos IR helped a healthcare company quickly resolve a Qakbot attack

Partnership and proactive measures reduce resolution time from weeks to mere hours. Healthcare is one of the most popular targets for threat actors, as evidenced by the fact that it was the most-targeted sector in each of Cisco Talos Incident Responses past two Quarterly Trends Reports. But if...

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...

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,...

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 Russias invasion of Ukraine. In this video,...

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...

Threat Roundup for September 23 to September 30

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats weve observed between Sept. 23 and Sept. 30. 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,...

Multiple ransomware data leak sites experience DDoS attacks, facing intermittent outages and connectivity issues

By Azim Khodjibaev, Colin Grady, Paul Eubanks. Since Aug. 20, 2022, Cisco Talos has been monitoring suspected distributed denial-of-service DDoS attacks resulting in intermittent downtime and outages affecting several ransomware-as-a-service RaaS data leak sites. While the source and origin of th...

Ukraine Independence Day: Talos update

On Independence Day for Ukraine, Aug. 24, 2022, Cisco Talos provided a live update on its continued support for the region. Six months since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Dmytro Korzhevin, a senior threat intelligence researcher, JJ Cummings, Talos' national intelligence principal, and Ashlee...

Small-time cybercrime is about to explode — We aren't ready

By Nick Biasini. The cybersecurity industry tends to focus on extremely large-scale or sophisticated, state-sponsored attacks. Rightfully so, as it can be the most interesting, technically speaking. When most people think of cybercrime they think of large-scale breaches because that's what...

New SDR feature released for Cisco Secure Email

Cisco Talos today announced the release of a new mechanism that allows Cisco Secure Email customers the option to submit Sender Domain Reputation SDR disputes through TalosIntelligence.com. Customers now have the option of receiving self-service support through TalosIntelligence.com or may contin...

Researcher Spotlight: You should have been listening to Lurene Grenier years ago

The exploit researcher recently rejoined Talos after starting her career with the company’s predecessor By Jonathan Munshaw. Lurene Grenier says state-sponsored threat actors keep her up at night, even after years of studying and following them. She’s spent her security career warning people why...

The BlackByte ransomware group is striking users all over the globe

News summary Cisco Talos has been monitoring the BlackByte Ransomware Group for several months, infecting victims all over the world, from North America to Colombia, Netherlands, China, Mexico and Vietnam.The FBI released a joint cybersecurity advisory in February 2022 warning about this group,...

Threat Roundup for April 29 to May 6

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between April 29 and May 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...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Two vulnerabilities in Accusoft ImageGear could lead to DoS, arbitrary free

Emmanuel Tacheau of Cisco Talos discovered these vulnerabilities. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Cisco Talos recently discovered two new vulnerabilities in Accusoft ImageGear. The ImageGear library is a document-imaging developer toolkit that allows users to create, edit, annotate and convert... This is on...

Preparing for denial-of-service attacks with Talos Incident Response

By Yuri Kramarz. Over the years, several extorsion-style and politically motivated denial-of-service attacks increased and still pose a threat to businesses and organizations of any size that can find themselves in the crosshairs of various malicious campaigns. A detailed... This is only the...

Threat advisory: Cybercriminals compromise users with malware disguised as pro-Ukraine cyber tools

Update March 12, 2022: Cisco Talos has updated the IOC section with additional hashes. Executive summary Opportunistic cybercriminals are attempting to exploit Ukrainian sympathizers by offering malware purporting to be offensive cyber tools to target Russian entities. Once downloaded, these...

Microsoft Patch Tuesday for March 2022 — Snort rules and prominent vulnerabilities

By Jon Munshaw and Edmund Brumaghin. Microsoft released another relatively light security update Tuesday, disclosing 71 vulnerabilities, including fixes for issues in Azure and the Office suite of products. March’s Patch Tuesday only included two critical vulnerabilities, which is notable... This...

Current executive guidance for ongoing cyberattacks in Ukraine

Read this blog post in 日本語 Japanese Cyber threat activity against Ukraine, and around the world, has long been a central focus of our work. We continue to monitor the Ukraine-Russia situation by enacting a comprehensive, Talos-wide effort to provide support to our partners and customers. These...

Cisco stands on guard with our customers in Ukraine

As the Russia-led invasion intensifies, Ukraine is being attacked by bombs and bytes. Cisco is working around the clock on a global, company-wide effort to protect our customers there and ensure that nothing goes dark. Cisco Talos has taken the extraordinary step of directly operating security...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Use-after-free in Google Chrome could lead to code execution

Marcin Towalski of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Cisco Talos recently discovered an exploitable use-after-free vulnerability in Google Chrome. Google Chrome is a cross-platform web browser — and Chromium is the open-source version of the browser... This is only t...

Threat Roundup for January 28 to February 4

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between Jan. 28 and Feb. 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...

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...

2021: Looking back on the year in malware and cyber attacks, from SolarWinds to Log4j

By Jon Munshaw. It seems like we were just recovering from the aftermath of the massive SolarWinds campaign a month or two ago. And now suddenly, it’s been a year since one of the largest cyber attacks in history and moving onto another threat that could last for years. That just seemed to be...

Threat Source Newsletter (Dec. 16, 2021)

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw.Good afternoon, Talos readers. I'm just going to cut to the chase since I know all anyone wants to read about is Log4J. For the latest Talos research, continually check back on our blog post here. Above is the live stream we recorded Monday morning... This is on...

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...

Case Study: Catching threats ahead of time with a penetration test from the Cisco Talos Incident Response Red Team

By Brad Garnett, Miguel Alvarez Esmoris, Terryn Valikodath and Bob Doyle. As we mentioned in a previous case study, relationships are tried and tested during incident response. So, when a customer came to Cisco Talos Incident Response with concerns about their public-facing website, CTIR knew...