Talos Vulnerability Deep Dive - TALOS-2018-0636 / CVE-2018-3971 Sophos HitmanPro.Alert vulnerability

Marcin Noga of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Introduction Sophos patched two vulnerabilities in Sophos HitmanPro.Alert in version 3.7.9.759. We publicly disclosed these issues last week here, Cisco Talos will show you the process of developing an exploit for one of these bugs. We wil...

Microsoft patches 12 critical vulnerabilities, nine of which are in Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol

Microsoft disclosed 104 vulnerabilities in its extensive range of software and services, the most in a single Patch Tuesday since July. What is most notable is that this batch of vulnerabilities includes 12 that are considered "critical," nine of which are remote code execution vulnerabilities in...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Ruby Rails Gem XSS Vulnerabilities

Vulnerabilities discovered by Zachary Sanchez of Cisco ASIG Overview Talos has discovered two XSS vulnerabilities in Ruby Rails Gems. Rails is a Ruby framework designed to create web services or web pages. Ruby Gems is a package manager for distributing software packages as 'gems'. The two XSS...

C2 With It All: From Ransomware To Carding

By Warren Mercer, Paul Rascagneres and Vitor Ventura. Summary Cisco Talos recently discovered a new server hosting a large stockpile of malicious files. Our analysis of these files shows that these attackers were able to obtain a deep level of access to victims' infrastructure — all of which...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Multiple remote code execution bugs in NitroPDF

Cory Duplantis and Aleksandar Nikolic of Cisco Talos discovered these vulnerabilities. Cisco Talos recently discovered multiple remote code execution vulnerabilities in NitroPDF. Nitro PDF allows users to save, read, sign and edit PDF files on their machines. There are two versions of the product...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Multiple remote vulnerabilities in TP-Link TL-R600VPN

Vulnerabilities discovered by Carl Hurd and Jared Rittle of Cisco Talos. Cisco Talos is disclosing multiple vulnerabilities in the TP-Link TL-R600VPN router. TP-Link produces a number of different types of small and home office SOHO routers. Talos discovered several bugs in this particular router...

Attack on Critical Infrastructure Leverages Template Injection

Contributors: Sean Baird, Earl Carter, Erick Galinkin, Christopher Marczewski & Joe Marshall Executive SummaryAttackers are continually trying to find new ways to target users with malware sent via email. Talos has identified an email-based attack targeting the energy sector, including nuclear...

ARToken: Inside an EvilTokens affiliate panel targeting Microsoft 365

Cisco Talos identified a fully-featured phishing-as-a-service PhaaS operator panel, branded "ARToken," that shares infrastructure, API contracts, and operational patterns with the EvilTokens platform documented by Sekoia and Microsoft in early 2026. The ARToken panel exposes 80+ API endpoints for...

New campaign uses government, union-themed lures to deliver Cobalt Strike beacons

By Chetan Raghuprasad and Vanja Svajcer. Cisco Talos discovered a malicious campaign in August 2022 delivering Cobalt Strike beacons that could be used in later, follow-on attacks. Lure themes in the phishing documents in this campaign are related to the job details of a government organization i...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Accusoft ImageGear PNG IHDR width code execution vulnerability

Marcin Noga of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Accusoft ImageGear contains two remote code execution vulnerabilities. ImageGear is a document and imaging library from Accusoft that developers can use to build their applications. The library contains the entire...

New 4CAN tool helps identify vulnerabilities in on-board car computers

By Alex DeTrano, Jason Royes, and Matthew Valites. Executive summary Modern automobiles contain hundreds of sensors and mechanics that communicate via computers to understand their surrounding environment. Those components provide real-time information to drivers, connect the vehicle to a global...

Know before you go: Talos Threat Research Summit

We are now just 48 hours away from the second annual Talos Threat Research Summit. After last year's success in Orlando, we are back and better than ever from San Diego on Sunday. If you plan on attending, here's what you need to know before Sunday morning. Can't make it out? You can still stream...

Sorpresa! JasperLoader targets Italy with a new bag of tricks

Nick Biasini and Edmund Brumaghin authored this blog post. Executive summary Over the past few months, a new malware loader called JasperLoader has emerged that targets Italy and other European countries with banking trojans such as Gootkit. We recently released a comprehensive analysis of the...

Recent MuddyWater-associated BlackWater campaign shows signs of new anti-detection techniques

This blog was authored by Danny Adamitis, David Maynor, and Kendall McKay Executive summary Cisco Talos assesses with moderate confidence that a campaign we recently discovered called "BlackWater" is associated with suspected persistent threat actor MuddyWater. Newly associated samples from April...

Threat Roundup for Feb. 1 to Feb. 8

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between Feb. 01 and Feb. 08. 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...

Microsoft Patch Tuesday - February 2018

Microsoft Patch Tuesday - February 2018 Today Microsoft has released its monthly set of security advisories for vulnerabilities that have been identified and addressed in various products. This month's advisory release addresses 54 new vulnerabilities with 14 of them rated critical, 38 of them...

Threat Source newsletter (April 6, 2023) — Another friendly reminder about supply chain attacks

Welcome to this weeks edition of the Threat Source newsletter. It seems like we cant go a full calendar year without a major supply chain attack. In late 2020 we had the SolarWinds incident which, doesnt that somehow seem like five years ago but also yesterday?, then the REvil ransomware group...

Malvertising: Online advertising's darker side

By Nick Biasini, Chris Neal and Matt Valites. Executive summary One of the trickiest challenges enterprises face is managing the balance between aggressively blocking malicious advertisements aka malvertising and allowing content to remain online, accessible for the average user. The days of...

Vulnerability Spotlight : Multiple Vulnerabilities in WIBU-SYSTEMS WibuKey.sys

These vulnerabilities were discovered by Marcin 'Icewall' Noga of Cisco Talos. Executive Summary WibuKey is a Digital Rights Management DRM solution that has been used in a large number of solutions such as Straton, Archicad, GRAPHISOFT, V-Ray and others. It has been leveraged by over 3,000...

Dissecting a complex vulnerability and achieving arbitrary code execution in Ichitaro Word

Cisco Talos disclosed several vulnerabilities in JustSystems Ichitaro Word Processor last year. These vulnerabilities were complex and were discovered through extensive reverse engineering. CVE-2023-35126 and its peers CVE-2023-34366, CVE-2023-38127, and CVE-2023-38128 were each assessed as...

Hunting for LoLBins

By Vanja Svajcer. Introduction Attackers' trends tend to come and go. But one popular technique we're seeing at this time is the use of living-off-the-land binaries — or "LoLBins". LoLBins are used by different actors combined with fileless malware and legitimate cloud services to improve chances...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Multiple vulnerabilities in GOG Galaxy Games

Richard Johnson and Tyler Bohan of Cisco Talos discovered these vulnerabilities. Executive summary The GOG Galaxy video game launcher contains multiple vulnerabilities that could allow a malicious actor to carry out a variety of attacks. GOG Galaxy Games is a video game storefront that allows use...

Cyber Security Week in Review (Feb. 8)

Welcome to this week's Cyber Security Week in Review, where Cisco Talos runs down all of the news we think you need to know in the security world. For more news delivered to your inbox every week, sign up for our Threat Source newsletter here. Top headlines this week Attackers continue to utilize...

New KONNI Campaign References North Korean Missile Capabilities

This blog was authored by Paul RascagneresExecutive SummaryWe recently wrote about the KONNI Remote Access Trojan RAT which has been distributed by a small number of campaigns over the past 3 years. We have identified a new distribution campaign which took place on 4th July. The malware used in...

New Ransomware Variant "Nyetya" Compromises Systems Worldwide

Note: This blog post discusses active research by Talos into a new threat. This information should be considered preliminary and will be updated as research continues.Update 2017-07-06 12:30 EDT: Updated to explain the modified DoublePulsar backdoor.Since the SamSam attacks that targeted US...

Talos Black Hat 2019 flash talk roundup

Talos went wall-to-wall at Hacker Summer Camp, showing up to Black Hat and DEFCON with talks, challenges, advice and education. Over the course of two days at Black Hat, Cisco Security hosted more than 20 talks at our booth, many featuring Talos researchers and analysts. In case you couldn't swin...

Poisoning the Well: Banking Trojan Targets Google Search Results

This blog post was authored by Edmund Brumaghin, Earl Carter and Emmanuel Tacheau.SummaryIt has become common for users to use Google to find information that they do not know. In a quick Google search you can find practically anything you need to know. Links returned by a Google search, however,...

Six critical vulnerabilities included in August’s Microsoft security update

Microsoft disclosed 73 vulnerabilities across its suite of products and software Tuesday, including six that are considered "critical." One of the vulnerabilities, which Microsoft considers to be only of "moderate" severity, has been actively exploited in the wild. The company has had to address...

Threat Advisory: Microsoft Outlook privilege escalation vulnerability being exploited in the wild

Update March 21, 2023: To aid defenders trying to detect and mitigate this vulnerability, we are providing a couple of additional resources. First, we are providing a ClamAV signature that detects this threat -- the rule can be found on our GitHub here and can be leveraged anywhere ClamAV...

Threat Advisory: Spring4Shell

UPDATE, APRIL 4, 2022: The Kenna Risk Score for CVE-2022-22965 is currently at maximum 100. This is an exceptionally rare score, of which only 415 out of 184,000 CVEs or 0.22 percent have achieved, reflecting the severity and potential effects of this vulnerability. To get a risk score this high...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Denial-of-service vulnerability in Intel IGC64 graphics driver

Piotr Bania of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Intel’s IGC64.dll graphics driver contains a denial-of-service vulnerability. An attacker could exploit this bug by supplying a malformed pixel shader if the graphics driver is operating inside a VMware guest operating...

Akira ransomware continues to evolve

Akira continues to cement its position as one of the most prevalent ransomware operations in the threat landscape, according to Cisco Talos' findings and analysis. Their success is partly due to the fact that they are constantly evolving. For example, after Akira already developed a new version o...

Taking over Milesight UR32L routers behind a VPN: 22 vulnerabilities and a full chain

Cisco Talos discovered 17 vulnerabilities 63 CVEs in the Milesight UR32L router and five vulnerabilities six CVEs in the Milesight MilesightVPN remote access solution software. An attacker could exploit the vulnerabilities discovered to completely compromise the UR32L and MilesightVPN. This post...

Prometei botnet improves modules and exhibits new capabilities in recent updates

Prometei botnet continued its activity since Cisco Talos first reported about it in 2020. Since November 2022, we have observed Prometei improving the infrastructure components and capabilities. More specifically, the botnet operators updated certain submodules of the execution chain to automate...

DNSpionage brings out the Karkoff

Warren Mercer and Paul Rascagneres authored this post. Update 4/24: The C2 section below now includes details around the XOR element of the C2 communication system. Executive summary In November 2018, Cisco Talos discovered an attack campaign, called DNSpionage, in which threat actors created a n...

OfflRouter virus causes Ukrainian users to upload confidential documents to VirusTotal

During a threat-hunting exercise, Cisco Talos discovered documents with potentially confidential information originating from Ukraine. The documents contained malicious VBA code, indicating they may be used as lures to infect organizations. The results of the investigation have shown that the...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Multiple Vulnerabilities in Foscam C1 Indoor HD Cameras

These vulnerabilities were discovered by Claudio Bozzato of Cisco Talos.Executive SummaryThe Foscam C1 Indoor HD Camera is a network-based camera that is marketed for use in a variety of applications, including use as a home security monitoring device. Talos recently identified several...

Memcached - A Story of Failed Patching & Vulnerable Servers

This blog authored by Aleksandar Nikolich and David Maynor with contributions from Nick BiasiniMemcached - Not secure, Not Patched Fast Enough Recently high profile vulnerabilities in systems were used to unleash several global ransomware attacks that greatly impacted organizations. These types o...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Code execution vulnerability in Microsoft Excel

Marcin Noga of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Microsoft Excel contains a code execution vulnerability. This specific bug lies in the component of Excel that handles the Microsoft Office HTML and XML file types, first introduced in Office 2000. Microsoft disclosed...

Threat Source newsletter (Jan. 30, 2020)

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw. Welcome to this week’s Threat Source newsletter — the perfect place to get caught up on all things Talos from the past week. Be sure to pay close attention Tuesday for some changes we have coming to Snort.org. We’ll spare you the details for now, but please bea...

All the places you can see and hear Talos at Black Hat 2019

It is once again time for Security Summer Camp – the annual week when security experts descend upon Las Vegas for Black Hat and DEFCON. Talos will be around all week, but we want to start off with a Black Hat preview — the Defcon one will be here later today. Throughout the conference, Talos...

Microsoft Patch Tuesday — December 2018: Vulnerability disclosures and Snort coverage

Microsoft released its monthly security update today, disclosing a variety of vulnerabilities in several of its products. The latest Patch Tuesday covers 38 vulnerabilities, nine of which are rated “critical” and 29 that are considered “important.” There are no “moderate” or “low” vulnerabilities...

Largest Patch Tuesday in 3 months includes 5 critical vulnerabilities

Microsoft released its monthly security update on Tuesday, disclosing 142 vulnerabilities across its suite of products and software. Of those, there are five critical vulnerabilities, and every other security issue disclosed this month is considered "important." This is the largest Patch Tuesday...

New Research Paper: Prevalence and impact of low-entropy packing schemes in the malware ecosystem

Detection of malware is a constant battle between the technologies designed to detect and prevent malware and the authors creating them. One common technique adversaries leverage is packing binaries. Packing an executable is similar to applying compression or encryption and can inhibit the abilit...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Multiple vulnerabilities in NVIDIA Windows GPU Display Driver, VMware ESXi, Workstation and Fusion

Piotr Bania of Cisco Talos discovered these vulnerabilities. Executive summary VMware ESXi, Workstation and Fusion are affected by an out-of-bounds write vulnerability that can be triggered using a specially crafted shader file. This vulnerability can be triggered from a VMware guest, affecting t...

Vulnerability Spotlight: TALOS-2018-0635/0636 - Sophos HitmanPro.Alert memory disclosure and code execution vulnerabilities

Marcin Noga of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Overview Cisco Talos is disclosing two vulnerabilities in Sophos HitmanPro.Alert, a malware detection and protection tool. Both vulnerabilities lie in the input/output control IOCTL message handler. One could allow an attacker to read kern...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Multiple Vulnerabilities in Sony IPELA E Series Camera

Vulnerabilities discovered by Cory Duplantis and Claudio Bozzato of Cisco Talos. Overview Today, Cisco Talos is disclosing several vulnerabilities discovered with the Sony IPELA E Series Network Camera. Sony IPELA Cameras are network-facing cameras used for monitoring and surveillance...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Foxit PDF Reader JavaScript Remote Code Execution Vulns

Overview Discovered by Aleksandar Nikolic of Cisco Talos. Talos is disclosing a pair of vulnerabilities in Foxit PDF Reader. Foxit PDF Reader is a popular free program for viewing, creating, and editing PDF documents. It is commonly used as an alternative to Adobe Acrobat Reader and has a widely...

Operation Blacksmith: Lazarus targets organizations worldwide using novel Telegram-based malware written in DLang

Cisco Talos recently discovered a new campaign conducted by the Lazarus Group were calling "Operation Blacksmith," employing at least three new DLang-based malware families, two of which are remote access trojans RATs, where one of these uses Telegram bots and channels as a medium of command and...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Code execution vulnerability in Microsoft Media Foundation

Marcin Noga of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Microsoft Media Foundation’s framework contains a code execution vulnerability. This specific bug lies in Media Foundations’ MPEG4 DLL. An attacker could provide a user with a specially crafted ASF file to exploit this...