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...

Threat Roundup for October 29 to November 5

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between Oct. 29 and Nov. 5. 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...

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...

Threat Source newsletter (Nov. 4, 2021)

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw.Good afternoon, Talos readers. A series of vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange Server made waves earlier this year for coming under attack. And while they've come and gone from the headlines since then, attackers are still very much paying... This is only the...

Microsoft Exchange vulnerabilities exploited once again for ransomware, this time with Babuk

By Chetan Raghuprasad and Vanja Svajcer, with contributions from Caitlin Huey. Cisco Talos recently discovered a malicious campaign deploying variants of the Babuk ransomware predominantly affecting users in the U.S. with smaller number of infections in U.K., Germany, Ukraine, Finland, Brazil,...

Threat Roundup for October 22 to October 29

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between Oct. 22 and Oct. 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...

Threat Source newsletter (Oct. 28, 2021)

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw.Good afternoon, Talos readers. Most people know about chicken and waffles. But what about squirrel and waffles? They may not be the most appetizing brunch, but they are teaming up for one heck of a spam campaign. We have new research out... This is only the...

Quarterly Report: Incident Response trends from Q3 2021

Ransomware again dominated the threat landscape, while BEC grew By David Liebenberg and Caitlin Huey. Once again, ransomware was the most dominant threat observed in Cisco Talos Incident Response CTIR engagements this quarter. CTIR helped resolve several significant... This is only the beginning!...

SQUIRRELWAFFLE Leverages malspam to deliver Qakbot, Cobalt Strike

By Edmund Brumaghin, Mariano Graziano and Nick Mavis. Executive summary Recently, a new threat, referred to as "SQUIRRELWAFFLE" is being spread more widely via spam campaigns, infecting systems with a new malware loader. This is a malware family that's been spread with increasing regularity and...

Malicious campaign uses a barrage of commodity RATs to target Afghanistan and India

Cisco Talos recently discovered a threat actor using political and government-themed malicious domains to target entities in India and Afghanistan.These attacks use dcRAT and QuasarRAT for Windows delivered via malicious documents exploiting CVE-2017-11882 — a memory corruption vulnerability in...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Multiple vulnerabilities in ZTE MF971R LTE router

Marcin “Icewall” Noga of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Cisco Talos recently discovered multiple vulnerabilities in the ZTE MF971R LTE portable router. The MF971R is a portable router with Wi-Fi support and works as an LTE/GSM modem. An attacker could... This is...

Threat Roundup for October 15 to October 22

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between Oct. 15 and Oct. 22. 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 (Oct. 21, 2021)

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw.Good afternoon, Talos readers. We're writing this on Wednesday for PTO reasons, so apologies if we miss any major news that happens after Wednesday afternoon. Above, you can watch our awesome live stream from Monday with Brad Garnett from... This is only the...

Beers with Talos, Ep. #110: The 10 most-exploited vulnerabilities this year (You won't believe No. 6!)

Beers with Talos BWT Podcast episode No. 110 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. We mainly spend this episode doing some catching up... This is only the...

Threat Roundup for October 8 to October 15

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between Oct. 8 and Oct. 15. 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 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 Source newsletter (Oct. 14, 2021)

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw.Good afternoon, Talos readers. It's still Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and what better way to celebrate by patching and then patching some more? This week was Microsoft Patch Tuesday, which only included two critical vulnerabilities, but still... This is only...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Code execution vulnerabilities in Nitro Pro PDF

A Cisco Talos team member discovered these vulnerabilities. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Cisco Talos recently discovered multiple vulnerabilities in the Nitro Pro PDF reader that could allow an attacker to execute code in the context of the application. Nitro Pro PDF is part of Nitro Software’s... This i...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Use-after-free vulnerability in Microsoft Excel could lead to code execution

Marcin “Icewall” Noga of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Cisco Talos recently discovered a use-after-free vulnerability in the ConditionalFormatting functionality of Microsoft Office Excel 2019 that could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code on the... This i...

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

By Jon Munshaw, with contributions from Asheer Malhotra. Microsoft released its monthly security update Tuesday, disclosing 78 vulnerabilities in the company’s various software, hardware and firmware offerings. This month’s release is particularly notable because there are only... This is only th...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Vulnerabilities in Anker Eufy Homebase could lead to code execution, buffer overflows

Lilith of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Cisco Talos recently discovered two vulnerabilities in the Anker Eufy Homebase. The Eufy Homebase 2 is the video storage and networking gateway that works with Anker’s Eufy Smarthome ecosystem. All Eufy... This is only the...

Threat Roundup for October 1 to October 8

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between Oct. 1 and Oct. 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 Advisory: Apache HTTP Server zero-day vulnerability opens door for attackers

A recently discovered vulnerability in Apache HTTP Server CVE-2021-41733 is being actively exploited in the wild. This vulnerability is a path traversal and file disclosure vulnerability that could allow an attacker to map URLs outside of the document root. It could also result in the exposure...

Talos Takes Ep. #71 (NCSAM edition): Reflecting on ransomware in 2021

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. We are from the first or last people to say this, but 2021 is the year of ransomware. It’s by far the biggest story... Thi...

Threat Source newsletter (Oct. 7, 2021)

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw.Good afternoon, Talos readers. Every day, we see mountains and mountains of data. So how do we comb through all of it to find out what's important to customers and users? Well, there are many ways, but we wanted to give readers and researchers a look... This is...

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 Roundup for September 24 to October 1

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between Sept. 24 and Oct. 1. 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 Takes Ep. #70: Let's put a positive spin on this whole working from home thing for once

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. As part of National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, we're releasing a special series of Talos Takes episodes focused on...

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...

A wolf in sheep's clothing: Actors spread malware by leveraging trust in Amnesty International and fear of Pegasus

By Vitor Ventura and Arnaud Zobec. Threat actors are impersonating the group Amnesty International and promising to protect against the Pegasus spyware as part of a scheme to deliver malware. Amnesty International recently made international headlines when it released a groundbreaking report on...

Threat Roundup for September 17 to September 24

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

Talos Takes Ep. #69: Our armadillo in shining armor

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. We also preach the importance of multi-factor authentication. But what happens when the bad guys start going after... This...

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...

Operation “Armor Piercer:” Targeted attacks in the Indian subcontinent using commercial RATs

By Asheer Malhotra, Vanja Svajcer and Justin Thattil. Cisco Talos is tracking a campaign targeting government personnel in India using themes and tactics similar to APT36 aka Mythic Leopard and Transparent Tribe.This campaign distributes malicious documents and archives to deliver the Netwire...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Information disclosure vulnerability in D-LINK DIR-3040 mesh router

Dave McDaniel of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Cisco Talos recently discovered an exploitable information disclosure vulnerability in the D-LINK DIR-3040 smart WiFi mesh router that could allow an adversary to eventually turn off the device or remove other... Thi...

TinyTurla - Turla deploys new malware to keep a secret backdoor on victim machines

News summary Cisco Talos recently discovered a new backdoor used by the Russian Turla APT group.We have seen infections in the U.S., Germany and, more recently, in Afghanistan. It is likely used as a stealth second-chance backdoor to keep access to infected devicesIt can be used to download,...

Threat Roundup for September 10 to September 17

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between Sept. 10 and Sept. 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... 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...

Threat Source newsletter (Sept. 16, 2021)

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw.Good afternoon, Talos readers. It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a rat! We've been tracking a series of trojans targeting the aviation industry, and trying to lure victims in by sending them spam related to flight itineraries and other transportation... This is on...

Operation Layover: How we tracked an attack on the aviation industry to five years of compromise

By Tiago Pereira and Vitor Ventura. Cisco Talos linked the recent aviation targeting campaigns to an actor who has been targeting the aviation industry for two years.The same actor has been running successful malware campaigns for more than five years.Although always using commodity malware, the...

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

By Jon Munshaw, with contributions from Holger Unterbrink. Microsoft released its monthly security update Tuesday, disclosing 85 vulnerabilities across the company’s firmware and software. This month’s release is headlined by an official patch for the critical remote code execution... This is onl...

Downtime on Talos Intelligence

TalosIntelligence.com will be down for a short time on Sept. 17 around 10 a.m. ET while we perform some routine maintenance on the site. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. We expect the interruption will only last for about 30 minutes. This is only the beginning! Please visit the...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Code execution vulnerability in Nitro Pro PDF

A Cisco Talos team member discovered these vulnerabilities. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Cisco Talos recently discovered a vulnerability in the Nitro Pro PDF reader that could allow an attacker to execute code in the context of the application. Nitro Pro PDF is part of Nitro Software’s... This is only th...

Threat Roundup for September 3 to September 10

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between Sept. 3 and Sept. 10. 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 Takes Ep. #67: What a leaked playbook tells us about the Conti ransomware group

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. There's a lot to take apart in the recently leaked Conti ransomware playbook. After a disgruntled member of the... This is...

Talos release protection against zero-day vulnerability in Microsoft MSHTML

Cisco Talos released new SNORT® rules Thursday to protect against the exploitation of a zero-day vulnerability in Microsoft MSHTML that the company warns is being actively exploited in the wild. Users are encouraged to deploy SIDs 58120 – 58129, Snort 3 SID 300049 and ClamAV... This is only the...

Threat Source newsletter (Sept. 9, 2021)

Newsletter compiled by Jon Munshaw.Good afternoon, Talos readers. The biggest security news this week is no doubt another Microsoft zero-day. On the heels of PrintNightmare and multiple Exchange Server vulnerabilities comes a code execution vulnerability in MSHTML, the rendering engine... This is...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Heap buffer overflow vulnerability in Ribbonsoft dxflib library

Lilith of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Cisco Talos recently discovered an exploitable heap-based buffer overflow vulnerability in Ribbonsoft’s dxflib library that could lead to code execution. The dxflib library is a C++ library utilized by... This is only the...

Threat Roundup for August 27 to September 3

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between Aug. 27 and Sept. 3. 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 Takes Ep. #66: Dude, where's my bandwidth?

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. “Proxyware” sounds like a complicated topic that you’re too afraid to ask about. But really, it’s just software that... Th...