How an incident response retainer can drive proactive security

Weve written before about the importance of taking a proactive approach to cybersecurity. Whether it be threat hunting, an active defense posture or just improving security instrumentation alerts and logs an organization keeps, its best for every user -- no matter the size -- to be prepared for...

Threat Roundup for March 17 to March 24

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between March 17 and March 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...

Threat Source newsletter (March 23, 2023) — Meta is threatening to ban news sharing in Canada. Good.

Welcome to this weeks edition of the Threat Source newsletter. After asking ChatGPT to write the newsletter for me two weeks ago, I was tempted to have Googles Bard do the same, but I resisted making this the newsletters new gimmick. Instead, I wanted to write about another tech giant -- Meta. Th...

Fighting the Good Fight: Life inside the Talos Ukraine Task Unit

As we spoke about in the new ThreatWise TV documentary, "People Matter: A look back on how Cisco Talos has been supporting Ukraine," war isnt something that often appears in an organizations business continuity or disaster recovery plans. In the months leading up to Russias invasion of Ukraine,...

Senderbase.org redirects to end in April

As of April 20, 2023, we are decommissioning SenderBase.org and any attempts to visit that web page will fail. Talos Intelligences website TalosIntelligence.com has served as the replacement for SenderBase.org for many years, with TalosIntelligence.com providing the same information as...

Emotet resumes spam operations, switches to OneNote

Emotet resumed spamming operations on March 7, 2023, after a months-long hiatus. Initially leveraging heavily padded Microsoft Word documents to attempt to evade sandbox analysis and endpoint protection, the botnets switched to distributing malicious OneNote documents on March 16. Since returning...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Netgear Orbi router vulnerable to arbitrary command execution

Christopher McBee and Dave McDaniel of Cisco Talos discovered these vulnerabilities. Cisco Talos recently discovered four vulnerabilities in the Netgear Orbi mesh wireless system, including the main hub router and satellite routers that extend the networks range. A mesh system allows users to set...

Vulnerability Spotlight: WellinTech ICS platform vulnerable to information disclosure, buffer overflow vulnerabilities

Carl Hurd of Cisco Talos discovered these vulnerabilities. Cisco Talos recently discovered two vulnerabilities in WellinTechs KingHistorian industrial control systems data manager. KingHistorian is a time-series database that allows users to ingest and process large amounts of data from ICS,...

Threat Roundup for March 10 to March 17

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between March 10 and March 17. 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: Node-SQLite3 issue could lead to denial of service in Ghost CMS

Dave McDaniel of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Cisco Talos recently discovered a vulnerability in node-sqlite3 that affects the Ghost content management system and could affect other software utilizing this library. Ghost is a content management system with tools to build a website,...

Threat Source newsletter (March 16, 2023) — A deep dive into Talos' work in Ukraine

Welcome to this weeks edition of the Threat Source newsletter. Were written a ton about Cisco Talos support of Ukraine and our friends and allies there. Now, we encourage you to watch and listen to the folks who have been working hands-on there. The latest episode of ThreatWise TV from Hazel Burt...

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...

Microsoft Patch Tuesday for March 2023 — Snort rules and prominent vulnerabilities

Microsoft released its monthly security update Tuesday, disclosing 83 vulnerabilities across the companys hardware and software line, including two issues that are actively being exploited in the wild, continuing a trend of zero-days appearing in Patch Tuesdays over the past few months. Two of th...

Talos uncovers espionage campaigns targeting CIS countries, embassies and EU health care agency

Cisco Talos has identified a new threat actor, which we are naming "YoroTrooper," that has been running several successful espionage campaigns since at least June 2022. YoroTroopers main targets are government or energy organizations in Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and other Commonwealth of...

Researcher Spotlight: How David Liebenberg went from never having opened Terminal to hunting international APTs

When Dave Liebenberg started his first day at Talos, he had never even opened Terminal on a Mac before -- let alone written a Snort rule or infiltrated a dark web forum. He jokes that he was a trendsetter at Talos, becoming the first of many to break into security without having any prior...

Threat Source newsletter (March 9, 2023) — Stop freaking out about ChatGPT

Welcome to this weeks edition of the Threat Source newsletter. There is no shortage of hyperbolic headlines about ChatGPT out there, everything from how it and other AI tools like it are here to replace all our jobs, make college essays a thing of the past and change the face of cybersecurity as ...

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...

Threat Roundup (Feb. 24 - March 3)

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats weve observed between Feb. 24 and March 3. 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,...

Threat Source newsletter (March 2, 2023) — Little victories in the fight against ransomware

Welcome to this weeks edition of the Threat Source newsletter. For years, we as a cybersecurity community have been discussing ways we can fight the global ransomware problem. This included things like pushing for more sanctions against international ransomware groups, new laws from federal...

February 24th

Today marks one year since Russia invaded Ukraine. While there is much we could say, we will simply reiterate our unwavering support of our colleagues, partners, and the people of Ukraine as they defend their country and our hope that peace and comfort come quickly to them. Everything we said one...

Threat Round up for February 17 to February 24

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats weve observed between Feb. 17 and Feb. 24. 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,...

Threat Source newsletter (Feb. 23, 2023) — Social media sites are making extra security a paid feature

Welcome to this weeks edition of the Threat Source newsletter. Social medias latest business plan seems to be charging for security. Twitter recently announced a plan to make SMS-based two-factor authentication a paid service as part of Twitter Blue -- asking users to pay either $8 or $11 monthly...

Vulnerability Spotlight: EIP Stack Group OpENer open to two remote code execution vulnerabilities

Jared Rittle of Cisco Talos discovered these vulnerabilities. Cisco Talos recently discovered three vulnerabilities in EIP Stack Group OpENer, an ethernet/IP stack for I/O adapter devices, that could allow an attacker to cause a targeted server to crash or open the door to remote code execution...

Threat Round up for February 10 to February 17

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats weve observed between Feb. 10 and Feb. 17. 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,...

Threat Source newsletter (Feb. 16, 2023) — Recapping what we may have missed so far this year

Welcome to this weeks edition of the Threat Source newsletter. I am back after more than three months away from Talos on parental leave. Having a baby really resets your expectations for "keeping up" with the world. From November through mid-January or so I had no idea what was going on with the...

Microsoft Patch Tuesday for February 2023 — Snort rules and prominent vulnerabilities

Microsoft released its monthly security update on Tuesday, disclosing 73 vulnerabilities. Of these vulnerabilities, 8 are classified as "Critical", 64 are classified as "Important", one vulnerability is classified as "Moderate." According to Microsoft none of the vulnerabilities has been publicly...

New MortalKombat ransomware and Laplas Clipper malware threats deployed in financially motivated campaign

Since December 2022, Cisco Talos has been observing an unidentified actor deploying two relatively new threats, the recently discovered MortalKombat ransomware and a GO variant of the Laplas Clipper malware, to steal cryptocurrency from victims. Talos observed the actor scanning the internet for...

Talos Takes 128: Year in Review - Ransomware and Commodity Loaders Edition

Were back with the final year in review focused episode. This time the focus is on the ever broadening ransomware landscape and the commodity malware loaders that often support it. Ill be joined by one of the researchers from the year in review report, Aliza Johnson to talk about what we saw on t...

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...

Beyond the basics: Implementing an active defense

Active defense a key approach to protecting against major threats Having an active defense posture, where the defenders actively use threat intelligence and their own environment telemetry to uncover potential compromises, is the next stage in the cyber security maturity road. Instead of waiting...

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...

Ransomware and Commodity Loader Topic Summary Report: Cisco Talos Year in Review 2022

The ransomware space is dynamic, continually adapting to changes in the geopolitical environment, actions by defenders, and efforts by law enforcement, which increased in scope and intensity in 2022. This leads groups to rebrand under different names, shut down operations, and form new strategic...

Threat Round up for January 27 to February 3

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats weve observed between Jan. 27 and Feb. 3. 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,...

Threat Source newsletter (Feb. 2, 2023): I bid you all adieu

Welcome to this weeks edition of the Threat Source newsletter. If you havent noticed yet weve had a few guest writers on this newsletter over the last few months. Alas my time covering the newsletter has ended and I leave you with one final edition. Have no fear, William Largent will be rounding...

Talos Takes 126: Year in Review - Threat Landscape Edition

Were back with another year in review focused episode. This time the focus will be the threat landscape generally and Ill be joined by threat researcher Caitlin Huey. In this episode well discuss what we found in the last year, with a focus on the general threat landscape. Well spend time...

2022 Year in Review: Threat Landscape Livestream Replay

Did you miss our livestream covering the threat landscape section in the Cisco Talos Year in Review report? Join host Hazel Burton and special guests Caitlin Huey, Nick Biasini, and Tucker Favreau as they discuss Talos findings and experiences monitoring the threat landscape in 2022. Visit the Ye...

Threat Round up for January 20 to January 27

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats weve observed between Jan. 20 and Jan. 27. 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,...

What Old is New Again and What's Old is Me?

Welcome to this weeks edition of the Threat Source newsletter. Whats old is new again and whats old is still old. The fact that we are seeing a comeback of this USB thumb drive nonsense is giving me heartburn, and a headache, and my left eye is twitching … and maybe numbness in my legs? Yes, I am...

Vulnerability Spotlight: OS command injection, directory traversal and other vulnerabilities found in Siretta Quartz-Gold and FreshTomato

Francesco Benvenuto of Cisco Talos discovered these vulnerabilities. Cisco Talos recently discovered several vulnerabilities in the Siretta Quartz-Gold router. Talos also discovered vulnerabilities in FreshTomato while investigating the Siretta router. The Siretta Quartz-Gold is an industrial...

Quarterly Report: Incident Response Trends in Q4 2022

Syncro, a remote management and monitoring tool, emerges as an increasingly common tool for adversaries. By Caitlin Huey. Ransomware continued to be a top threat Cisco Talos Incident Response Talos IR responded to this quarter, with appearances from both previously seen and newly observed...

Threat Landscape Topic Summary Report: Cisco Talos Year in Review 2022

While our ongoing support to Ukraine and response to the Log4j vulnerabilities were two of our most comprehensive and impactful efforts in 2022, we also dealt with a multitude of other threats as the security community faced an expanding set of adversaries and malware. In January, we identified...

State Sponsored Attacks in 2023 and Beyond

As we begin 2023 I wanted to take some time and look at the state sponsored threat landscape. Over the last few decades weve seen seismic shifts in how state sponsored actors attack, starting with traditional espionage with attacks like Moonlight Maze and Project Gunman and evolving into more...

Threat Round up for January 13 to January 20

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats weve observed between Jan. 13 and Jan. 20. 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,...

Threat Source newsletter (Jan. 19, 2023): Talent retention and institutional knowledge

Welcome to this weeks edition of the Threat Source newsletter. Talent retention and institutional knowledge go hand in hand. Both are critical to ensuring the security of your network environment. To that end, I want to talk briefly about why talent retention isnt just about money. So I am going ...

Vulnerability Spotlight: XSS vulnerability in Ghost CMS

Dave McDaniel of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Cisco Talos recently discovered a cross-site scripting XSS vulnerability in Ghost CMS. Ghost is a content management system with tools to build a website, publish content and send newsletters. Ghost offers paid subscriptions to members a...

Following the LNK metadata trail

Adversaries shift toward Shell Link LNK files, likely sparked by Microsofts decision to block macros, provides the opportunity to capitalize on information that can be provided by LNK metadata. Cisco Talos analyzed metadata in LNK files and correlated it with threat actors tactics techniques and...

Threat Round up for January 6 to January 13

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats weve observed between Jan. 6 and Jan. 13. 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,...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Integer and buffer overflow vulnerabilities found in QT QML

Emma Reuter and Theo Morales of ASIG and Aleksandar Nikolic of Cisco Talos discovered these vulnerabilities. Cisco ASIG and Cisco Talos recently discovered code execution vulnerabilities in QT QML. Qt is a popular software suite primarily used to create graphical user interfaces. It also contains...

Threat Source newsletter (Jan. 12, 2023): Did ChatGPT write our newsletter?

Welcome to this weeks edition of the Threat Source newsletter. We tried to get ChatGPT to write this weeks newsletter but it was at capacity, so youll have to stick with us for another week. Or maybe thats just what the robots want you to think, you be the judge. The one big thing This week Talos...

How to instrument system applications on Android stock images

By Vitor Ventura This post is the result of research presented at Recon Montreal 2022. Two slide decks are provided along with this research . One is the presentation showing the whole process and how to do it on Google Play Protect services. The other one is a workshop on how to do it on an...