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...

ClearFake WebDAV infection chain delivers Amatera stealer, ZigCryptoStealer, and NetSupport Manager

Cisco Talos began an investigation after observing a DLL named "verification.google" executing from WebDAV at a Ukrainian government organization. We assess with moderate confidence that the attacks are not targeted at a particular organization, but are a part of a cryptocurrency and...

[Video] Where protection starts: Cisco Talos Intelligence Integrations

!\Video\ Where protection starts: Cisco Talos Intelligence Integrationshttps://storage.ghost.io/c/af/a0/afa04ee3-414f-4481-8d23-7e7c146f192e/content/images/2026/07/Talosintegrationsheader-2.jpg Cybersecurity has always involved elements of uncertainty. Every day, security teams are asked to make...

The serpent’s tongue: Luring the Python out of its den

Python's popularity, readable syntax, and extensive third-party library ecosystem make it an attractive target for threat actors seeking to compromise developer devices and infrastructure. Malicious packages and supply-chain attacks are increasingly common, exploiting the trust built into Python'...

Winning 54% of the time

Welcome to this week's Threat Source newsletter. There's a fairly cliche phrase in cybersecurity that I'm sure our audience is familiar with: Attackers only need to be right once, whereas defenders need to be right 100% of the time. I guess it captures the asymmetry of this industry, but I've nev...

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...

Patch, track, repeat: The 2025 CVE retrospective

Welcome to this week's edition of the Threat Source newsletter. It's time to look back at a year that pushed the vulnerability landscape to new heights. I'll admit this retrospective is arriving a bit later than planned. With 48,196 CVEs in 2025 a stunning 132 vulnerabilities per day, the analysi...

Trick, treat, repeat

Welcome to this week's edition of the Threat Source newsletter. This one is pretty much an updated, Halloween-themed version of my newsletter from July, including data up through Q3. October 14th has passed, so free support for Windows 10 has come to an end, leaving you with no more fixes unless...

Decrement by one to rule them all: AsIO3.sys driver exploitation

Introduction Armoury Crate and AI Suite are applications used to manage and monitor ASUS motherboards and related components such as the processor, RAM or the increasingly popular RGB lighting. These types of applications often install drivers in the system, which are necessary for direct...

Everyone's on the cyber target list

Welcome to this week's edition of the Threat Source newsletter. I've discovered that being a rent guarantor for someone is an involved experience. While I'm glad that I can help out a loved one secure a better rental property, the process of verifying my identity and ability to cover any missed...

Redefining IABs: Impacts of compartmentalization on threat tracking and modeling

Cisco Talos has observed a growing trend of attack kill chains being split into two stages -- initial compromise and subsequent exploitation -- executed by separate threat actors. This compartmentalization increases the complexity and difficulty of performing threat modeling and actor profiling...

The IT help desk kindly requests you read this newsletter

Welcome to this week's edition of the Threat Source newsletter. Authority bias is one of the many things that shape how we think. Taking the advice of someone with recognized authority is often far easier and usually leads to a better outcome than spending time and effort in researching the...

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...

Threat Spotlight: WarmCookie/BadSpace

WarmCookie is a malware family that emerged in April 2024 and has been distributed via regularly conducted malspam and malvertising campaigns. WarmCookie, observed being used for initial access and persistence, offers a means for continuous long-term access to compromised environments and is used...

The massive computer outage over the weekend was not a cyber attack, and I’m not sure why we have to keep saying that

Youre not going to believe this, but there was a lot of misinformation on social media over the weekend after the massive CrowdStrike/Microsoft outage. As airlines cancelled flights, hospitals had to reschedule patients and some companies just flat-out couldnt work on Friday, people were quick to...

Recommendations that defenders can use from Talos’ Year in Review Report

The Talos Year in Review is available now and contains a wealth of insights about how the threat landscape has shifted in 2023. With new ransomware strains emerging from leaked source code, commodity loaders adding more reconnaissance measures to their belts, and geopolitical events influencing A...

The malware, attacker trends and more that shaped the threat landscape in 2023

The 2023 Cisco Talos Year in Review is now available to download. Once again, the Talos team has meticulously combed through a massive amount of data to analyze the major trends that have shaped the threat landscape in 2023. Global conflict influenced a lot of these trends, altering the tactics a...

Qakbot-affiliated actors distribute Ransom Knight malware despite infrastructure takedown

The threat actors behind the Qakbot malware have been conducting a campaign since early August 2023 in which they have been distributing Ransom Knight ransomware and the Remcos backdoor via phishing emails. Notably, this activity appeared to begin before the FBI seized Qakbot infrastructure in la...

Threat Roundup for June 9 to June 16

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats weve observed between June 9 and June 16. 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,...

Cybersecurity for businesses of all sizes: A blueprint for protection

One of the primary reasons why cybersecurity remains a complex undertaking is the increased sophistication of modern cyber threats. As the internet and digital technologies continue to advance, so do the methods and tools cybercriminals use. This means that even the most secure systems are...

Threat Source newsletter (Feb. 9, 2023): Don't let criminals exploit your empathy

Welcome to this weeks edition of the Threat Source newsletter. Our hearts are with the people of Turkey and Syria and all those impacted by the tragic earthquake. The Cisco Foundation has launched a matching campaign to support local disaster relief organizations. As a person its always difficult...

2022 Year in Review: Ransomware & Commodity Loaders Livestream Replay

Did you miss our livestream covering the ransomware and commodity loader section in the Cisco Talos Year in Review report? Join host Mitch Neff and special guests Aliza Johnson, Azim Khodjibaev, and Nick Biasini as they discuss Talos findings and experiences monitoring ransomware and commodity...

Ukraine Topic Summary Report: Cisco Talos Year in Review 2022

Talos ongoing support for Ukraine has been a large focus of our operational efforts this year. Driven by our core mission of protecting the Ukrainian people and infrastructure, Talos launched a task force of 40+ volunteers dedicated to defending our customers and partners within. This team of...

Beers with Talos Ep. 129: Talos Year in Review 2022 w/ Dave Liebenberg

‌ With this episode, we set out to discuss the premiere of the Talos Year in Review report - a look back at the major threats, trends, and topics from 2022 and what we should take forward into 2023. Dave Liebenberg runs the team behind this report and joins us to discuss why his team undertook th...

Developer account body snatchers pose risks to the software supply chain

By Jaeson Schultz. 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...

Researcher Spotlight: Globetrotting with Yuri Kramarz

From the World Cup in Qatar to robotics manufacturing in east Asia, this incident responder combines experience from multiple arenas Yuri "Jerzy" Kramarz helped secure everything from the businesses supporting the upcoming World Cup in Qatar to the Black Hat security conference and critical...

EMEAR Monthly Talos Update: Training the next generation of cybersecurity researchers

Cisco Talos and Cisco Secure have the latest edition of the Talos EMEAR Threat Update series out now, which you can watch above or over at this link, where Martin Lee and Hazel Burton talk about the cybersecurity skills gap that currently exists and how we can better train the next generation of...

Researcher Spotlight: Around the security world and back again with Nick Biasini

By Jon Munshaw. Nick Biasini’s seen it all. Going on a nearly 20-year security career, he’s been a part of some of Cisco Talos’ largest undertakings in the company’s history. From an attack on the global Olympic Games, to a wireless router malware that affected hundreds of... This is only the...

Researcher Spotlight: Martin Lee, EMEAR lead, Talos Strategic Communications

Who knew you could connect Moses to threat intelligence? By Jon Munshaw. When the security community usually thinks about the origins of cybersecurity and threat intelligence, the conversation may quickly center around the codebreakers in World War II or the Creeper software developed... This is...

Threat Source newsletter (May 12, 2022) — Mandatory MFA adoption is great, but is it too late?

By Jon Munshaw. Welcome to this week’s edition of the Threat Source newsletter. Mandatory multi-factor authentication is all the rage nowadays. GitHub just announced that all contributors would have to enroll in MFA by 2023 to log into their accounts. And Google announced as part of... This is on...

Threat Source newsletter (May 5, 2022) — Emotet is using up all of its nine lives

By Jon Munshaw. Welcome to this week’s edition of the Threat Source newsletter. Emotet made headlines last week for being “back” after a major international law enforcement takedown last year. But I’m here to argue that Emotet never left, and honestly, I’m not sure it ever... This is only the...

Threat Source newsletter (April 28, 2022) — The 2022 Cybersecurity Mock Draft

By Jon Munshaw. Welcome to this week’s edition of the Threat Source newsletter that’s going to be a little different, but bear with me. In honor of the NFL Draft starting this evening — an event that Cisco is helping to secure — I thought it’d be appropriate to look at building a... This is only...

Threat Source newsletter (April 7, 2022) — More money for cybersecurity still doesn't solve the skills gap problem

By Jon Munshaw. Welcome to this week’s edition of the Threat Source newsletter. U.S. President Joe Biden’s proposed budget would include an 11 percent increase in the federal government’s IT budget, including a total of $10.9 billion for cybersecurity. On the surface — this is all... This is only...

Threat Roundup for April 1 to April 8

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

Beers with Talos, Ep. #119: If it walks like a BlackCat, smells like a BlackCat...

Beers with Talos BWT Podcast episode No. 119 is now available. Download this episode and subscribe to Beers with Talos: Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Spotify StitcherRecorded March 25, 2022. If iTunes and Google Play aren't your thing, click here. We're... This is only the beginning! Please visi...

Threat Advisory: Opportunistic cyber criminals take advantage of Ukraine invasion

By Edmund Brumaghin, with contributions from Jonathan Byrne, Perceo Lemos and Vasileios Koutsoumpogeras. Executive Summary Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, we have observed threat actors using email lures with themes related to the conflict, including humanitarian assistance and...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Vulnerabilities in Lansweeper could lead to JavaScript, SQL injections

Marcin “Icewall” Noga of Cisco Talos discovered these vulnerabilities. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Cisco Talos recently discovered multiple vulnerabilities in the Lansweeper IT asset management solution that could allow an attacker to inject JavaScript or SQL code on the targeted... This is only the...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Vulnerability in Hancom Office could lead to memory corruption, code execution

Marcin “Icewall” Noga of Cisco Talos discovered these vulnerabilities. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Cisco Talos recently discovered a vulnerability in Hancom Office — a popular software suite in South Korea — that could allow an attacker to corrupt memory on the targeted machine or execute remote... This...

Iranian APT MuddyWater targets Turkish users via malicious PDFs, executables

By Asheer Malhotra and Vitor Ventura. Cisco Talos has observed a new campaign targeting Turkish private organizations alongside governmental institutions. Talos attributes this campaign with high confidence to MuddyWater — an APT group recently attributed to Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and...

Threat Roundup for January 14 to January 21

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between Jan. 14 and Jan. 21. 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. #114: And then there were two...

Beers with Talos BWT Podcast episode No. 114 is now available. Download this episode and subscribe to Beers with Talos: Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Spotify StitcherRecorded Dec. 9, 2021. If iTunes and Google Play aren't your thing, click here. We joked... This is only the beginning! Please vis...

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: Heap buffer overflow 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 heap-based buffer overflow vulnerability in Google Chrome. Google Chrome is a cross-platform web browser — and Chromium is the open-source version of... This is only t...

Threat Roundup for December 3 to December 10

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between Dec. 3 and Dec. 10. As with previous roundups, this post isn't meant tobifj be an in-depth analysis. Instead, this post will summarize the threats we've observed by highlighting key behavioral... This is...

Talos Takes Ep. #80: I'll have a blue Christmas without a CTIR retainer

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. It's the holiday season, which means last-minute shopping, family time and cheer. Oh, and it's never a bad time to... This...

Threat Source Newsletter (Dec. 9, 2021)

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw.Good afternoon, Talos readers. The good news keeps rolling in for our Incident Response team, who received another accolade by being featured in Forrester's recent quarterly report on the incident readiness industry. This comes on the heels of the team... This i...

Threat Roundup for November 12 to November 19

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

Talos’ tips for staying safe while shopping online this holiday season

By Jon Munshaw. Attackers will resort to all tactics to trick users into downloading malware, handing over credit card data or completing compromising their machine. No topic is off-limits, and threat actors have resorted to using everything from PlayStation 5 sales, to COVID-19 cures... This is...

Threat Roundup for November 5 to November 12

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between Nov. 5 and Nov. 12. 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 (Nov. 11, 2021)

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw.Good afternoon, Talos readers. It's important to be proactive, and not reactive, with your security. It's always better to see the worst coming and block it than have to scramble to deal with the worst-case scenario in the moment. That's why it's so... This is...