Threat Roundup for August 21 to August 27

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between Aug. 21 and Aug. 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...

Barbervisor: Journey developing a snapshot fuzzer with Intel VT-x

By Cory Duplantis. One of the ways vulnerability researchers find bugs is with fuzzing. At a high level, fuzzing is the process of generating and mutating random inputs for a given target to crash it. In 2017, I started developing a bare metal hypervisor for the purposes of snapshot fuzzing:...

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...

Threat Roundup for July 17 to July 24

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between July 17 and July 24. 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. #83: The In-between, Vol. 4

Beers with Talos BWT Podcast episode No. 83 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 15, 2020 Prod. Note: Things are a hot mess right now and the team thinks that there are voice...

SigAnalyzer: Signature analysis with CASC

Executive summary ClamAV Signature Creator CASC is an IDA Pro plugin that assists in the creation of ClamAV pattern signatures. We have enhanced this plugin to also analyze these signatures. The plugin highlights matching parts in a binary when its given a particular signature. This function is...

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 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 /...

BWT EP5 - It Has Been 0-days Since This Term was Abused

Beers with Talos Episode 5 "It Has Been 0-days Since This Term was Abused" is now availableListen here:Listen via iTunesListen directly on the Talos Podcasts page.Episode Notes:The crew talks about the potential of Samba echoing WannaCry and blocking SMB ports but you already did that, RIGHT?. We...

Scripting the disassembler: Local agentic reverse engineering through vbdec’s live COM object model

Analysis tools do not need AI built in to support agentic workflows; they simply need to expose their data through an external scripting interface. Even traditional graphical user interface GUI applications can be made AI-accessible by publishing their internal object models, allowing agents to...

2025 Talos Year in Review: Speed, scale, and staying power

The 2025 Talos Year in Review is now available to view online. The pace and scale of adversary activity in 2025 placed sustained pressure on security teams across industries. As with each annual report, our goal at Talos is to provide the security community with a clear analysis of the tactics,...

Agentic AI security: Why you need to know about autonomous agents now

Agentic AI is making headlines worldwide for its potential force-multiplying capabilities, and organizations are understandably intrigued by how it can improve throughput and capabilities. However, as with any technological revolution, unforeseen issues are inevitable, and agentic AI is no...

Microsoft Patch Tuesday for February 2026 — Snort rules and prominent vulnerabilities

Microsoft has released its monthly security update for February 2026, which includes 59 vulnerabilities affecting a range of products, including two that Microsoft marked as "Critical". CVE-2026-21522 is a critical elevation of privilege vulnerability affecting Microsoft ACI Confidential...

Proactive threat hunting with Talos IR

At Cisco Talos, we understand that effective cybersecurity isn't just about responding to incidents -- it's about preventing them from happening in the first place. One of the most powerful ways we do this is through proactive threat hunting. Our Talos Incident Response Talos IR team works closel...

Lessons from Ted Lasso for cybersecurity success

Welcome to this week's edition of the Threat Source newsletter. "Be curious, not judgmental," Ted Lasso says, misattributing Walt Whitman. We forgive Ted because... well, he's Ted Lasso. If you've not watched the first season of Ted Lasso, there is a defining moment where Ted confronts a nefariou...

UAT-5647 targets Ukrainian and Polish entities with RomCom malware variants

Cisco Talos has observed a new wave of attacks active since at least late 2023, from a Russian speaking group we track as "UAT-5647", against Ukrainian government entities and unknown Polish entities. UAT-5647 is also known as RomCom and is widely attributed to Russian speaking threat actors in...

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 vulnerabilities we uncovered by fuzzing µC/OS protocol stacks

Hunting for vulnerabilities in industrial environments has become increasingly important as industrial control systems and critical infrastructure face threats from state-sponsored actors and ransomware groups hoping to cash out on million-dollar payments. Fuzzing has long been one of our favorit...

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...

How do cryptocurrency drainer phishing scams work?

By Teoderick Contreras and Jose Hernandez of Splunk, with contributions from the Splunk Threat Research Team. Cryptodrainer scams have emerged as a significant threat in the cryptocurrency ecosystem, targeting unsuspecting individuals with the promise of easy profits while covertly siphoning thei...

Operation Celestial Force employs mobile and desktop malware to target Indian entities

By Gi7w0rm, Asheer Malhotra and Vitor Ventura. Cisco Talos is disclosing a new malware campaign called "Operation Celestial Force" running since at least 2018. It is still active today, employing the use of GravityRAT, an Android-based malware, along with a Windows-based malware loader we track a...

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...

Video: Talos 2023 Year in Review highlights

In this video, experts from across Cisco Talos came together to discuss the 2023 Talos Year in Review. We chat about whats new, whats stayed the same, and how the geopolitical environment has affected the threat landscape. This video was recorded live on social media: Read the 2023 Cisco Talos Ye...

What is the dark web?

Most users interact with the internet through the web, and many of the threat actors we write about operate on the "dark web." Broadly speaking, the dark web is a small portion of the "deep web," where the deep web represents most of the Web. We know, its confusing -- lets walk through an example...

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...

Malicious campaigns target government, military and civilian entities in Ukraine, Poland

Cisco Talos has discovered a threat actor conducting several campaigns against government entities, military organizations and civilian users in Ukraine and Poland. We judge that these operations are very likely aimed at stealing information and gaining persistent remote access. The activity we...

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...

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...

Threat Roundup for July 1 to July 8

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between July 1 and July 8. 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 (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...

Ransomware: How executives should prepare given the current threat landscape

By Nate Pors. Top executives are increasingly dreading the phone call from their fellow employees notifying them that their company has been hit by a cyber attack. Nearly every week in 2021 and early 2022, a prominent organization has been in the media spotlight as their public relations team...

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...

Quarterly Report: Incident Response trends in Q1 2022

Ransomware continues as the top threat, while a novel increase in APT activity emerges By Caitlin Huey. Ransomware was still the top threat Cisco Talos Incident Response CTIR saw in active engagements this quarter, continuing a trend that started in 2020. As mentioned in the 2021... This is only...

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...

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...

Crowd-sourced attacks present new risk of crisis escalation

By Matt Olney.An unpredictable and largely unknown set of actors present a threat to organizations, despite their sometimes unsophisticated techniques. Customers who are typically focused on top-tier, state-sponsored attacks should remain aware of these highly motivated threat actors, as... This ...

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...

Beers with Talos, Ep. #115: Everybody's measured by quarters — even threat actors

Beers with Talos BWT Podcast episode No. 115 is now available. Download this episode and subscribe to Beers with Talos: Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Spotify StitcherRecorded Jan. 14, 2022. If iTunes and Google Play aren't your thing, click here. We wanted... This is only the beginning! Please...

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...

Beers with Talos, Ep. #112: A new host approaches!

Beers with Talos BWT Podcast episode No. 112 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 promised it wouldn't be long... This is only the beginning! Please vis...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Use-after-free condition 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...

Back from the dead: Emotet re-emerges, begins rebuilding to wrap up 2021

Executive summary Emotet has been one of the most widely distributed threats over the past several years. It has typically been observed being distributed via malicious spam email campaigns, and often leads to additional malware infections as it provides threat actors with an initial foothold in...

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...