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Cisco and Talos are continuing to track and research a series of ongoing cyber attacks and espionage targeting out-of-date and unpatched network hardware.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...

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 Source newsletter (May 19, 2022) — Why I'm missing the days of iPods and LimeWire

By Jon Munshaw. Welcome to this week’s edition of the Threat Source newsletter. I will openly admit that I still own a “classic” iPod — the giant brick that weighed down my skinny jeans in high school and did nothing except play music. There are dozens of hours of music on there that I... This is...

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...

Threat Spotlight: AsyncRAT campaigns feature new version of 3LOSH crypter

By Edmund Brumaghin, with contributions from Alex Karkins. Ongoing malware distribution campaigns are using ISO disk images to deliver AsyncRAT, LimeRAT and other commodity malware to victims.The infections leverage process injection to evade detection by endpoint security software.These...

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: WiFi-connected security camera could be manipulated to spy on communications, among other malicious actions

Francesco Benvenuto of Cisco Talos discovered these vulnerabilities. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Cisco Talos recently discovered several vulnerabilities in the Reolink RLC-410W security camera that could allow an attacker to perform several malicious actions, including performing man-in-the-middle... Th...

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...

Beers with Talos, Ep. #111: We say goodbye to Craig and his killer robots

Beers with Talos BWT Podcast episode No. 111 is now available. Download this episode and subscribe to Beers with Talos: Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Spotify StitcherIf iTunes and Google Play aren't your thing, click here. We apologize for holding onto this... This is only the beginning! Please...

Microsoft Patch Tuesday for Nov. 2021 — Snort rules and prominent vulnerabilities

By Jon Munshaw and Tiago Pereira. Microsoft released its monthly security update Tuesday, disclosing 56 vulnerabilities in the company’s various software, hardware and firmware offerings, including one that’s actively being exploited in the wild. November’s security update... This is only the...

The features all Incident Response Plans need to have

By Paul Lee, Yuri Kramarz and Martin Lee. Adversaries are always growing their capabilities and changing their tactics, leading to a greater number of incidents and data breaches. This is supported by organizations such as ITRC who reports that the number of data breaches in 2021 is already...

Talos Takes Ep. #73 (NCSAM edition): Fight the phish from land, sea and air

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. Most people may think of spam as being the classic email promising that you've won the lottery or some great prize,... Thi...

Threat hunting in large datasets by clustering security events

By Tiago Pereira. Security tools can produce very large amounts of data that even the most sophisticated organizations may struggle to manage. Big data processing tools, such as spark, can be a powerful tool in the arsenal of security teams.This post walks through threat hunting on large...

Threat Source newsletter (Sept. 30, 2021)

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw.Good afternoon, Talos readers. In the latest example of attackers trying to capitalize on current headlines, we've spotted a group using the recent fervor around the Pegasus spyware to spread malware. We've detailed a campaign in which the... This is only the...

Threat Source newsletter (Sept. 23, 2021)

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw.Good afternoon, Talos readers. The Russian APT Turla is one of the most notorious threat actors out there today. And they aren't stopping, recently adding a new backdoor to their arsenal that serves as a "last chance" to retain a foothold on victim... This is on...

Talos Takes Ep. #68: The various pivots and pitfalls in a malware investigation

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. On this week's episode, Vitor Ventura from our research team walks through his recent work on connecting several... This i...

Domain dumpster diving

By Jaeson Schultz. Dumpster diving — searching through the trash looking for items of value — has long been a staple of hacking culture. In the 1995 movie "Hackers," Acid Burn and Crash Override are seen dumpster diving for information they can use to help them "hack the Gibson." Of course, not a...

Threat Roundup for February 12 to February 19

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between Feb. 12 and Feb. 19. 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 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...

Back from vacation: Analyzing Emotet’s activity in 2020

By Nick Biasini, Edmund Brumaghin, and Jaeson Schultz. Emotet is one of the most heavily distributed malware families today. Cisco Talos observes large quantities of Emotet emails being sent to individuals and organizations around the world on an almost daily basis. These emails are typically sen...

Microsoft Patch Tuesday for Nov. 2020 — Snort rules and prominent vulnerabilities

By Jon Munshaw, with contributions from Joe Marshall. Microsoft released its monthly security update Tuesday, disclosing just over 110 vulnerabilities across its products. This is a slight jump from last month when Microsoft disclosed one of their lowest vulnerability totals in months. Eighteen o...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Multiple JavaScript vulnerabilities in Adobe Acrobat Reader

Aleksandar Nikolic of Cisco Talos discovered these vulnerabilities. Blog by Joe Marshall Cisco Talos recently discovered an heap buffer overflow and a use after free vulnerability in Adobe Acrobat Reader. Adobe Acrobat Reader is one of the most popular and feature-rich PDF readers on the market. ...

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...

LodaRAT Update: Alive and Well

By Chris Neal. During our continuous monitoring of LodaRAT, Cisco Talos observed changes in the threat that add new functionality. Multiple new versions of LodaRAT have been spotted being used in the wild.These new versions of LodaRAT abandoned their previous obfuscation techniques.Direct...

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...

Quarterly Report: Incident Response trends in Summer 2020

By David Liebenberg and Caitlin Huey. For the fifth quarter in a row, Cisco Talos Incident Response CTIR observed ransomware dominating the threat landscape. Infections involved a wide variety of malware families including Ryuk, Maze, LockBit, and Netwalker, among others. In a continuation of...

Threat Source newsletter for Aug. 27, 2020

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw. Good afternoon, Talos readers. As part of our continued look at election security ahead of the November election, we have another research paper out this week. This time, we’re taking a closer look at disinformation campaigns, popularly known as “fake news.” Th...

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...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Google Chrome PDFium memory corruption vulnerability

Aleksandar Nikolic of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Blog by Jon Munshaw. The PDF renderer inside Google Chrome, known as PDFium, contains a memory corruption vulnerability that could be exploited by an adversary. PDFium is open-source software that is utilized in the Chrome browser a...

Updates to Snort setup guides

Our documentation on Snort 3 running on CentOS and the Snort Rules Writing guide to Snort 3. Thanks to community member Yaser for providing the updates. The Snort 3 guide now has expanded information on logging options — such as syslog and JSON. There is also a new performance optimization sectio...

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...