Cryptominers, ransomware among top malware in IR engagements in Q4

By David Liebenberg and Kendall McKay. This summer’s most popular malware families were commonly seen, unsophisticated attacks, with phishing being the top infection vector, according to Cisco Talos Incident Response CTIR data. In addition to threat actors repeatedly deploying common threats like...

Custom dropper hide and seek

Executive summary Most users assume they are safe when surfing the web on a daily basis. But information-stealing malware can operate in the background of infected systems, looking to steal users' passwords, track their habits online and hijack personal information. Cisco Talos has monitored...

How the new Talos IR Cyber Range can prepare your employees for a cyber attack

By Gerard Johansen, Charles Iszard and Luke DuCharme. With the surge of ransomware attacks, information leaks and other cyber attacks in the headlines, most companies and organizations are aware that their employees need to be trained on how to stay safe online. But the real challenge lies in how...

Threat Source newsletter (Nov. 14, 2019)

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. It was all about the bugs this week. Patch Tuesday was especially busy for us, including our usual recap of all the vulnerabilities...

Threat Source newsletter (Nov. 7, 2019)

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. The only news we’re going to cover this week is the biggest news we’ve had in a while. Tuesday, we announced that Cisco Incident Respons...

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: Command injection bug in Exhibitor UI

Logan Sanderson of Cisco ASIG discovered this vulnerability. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Exhibitor Web UI contains an exploitable command injection vulnerability in its Config editor. Exhibitor is a ZooKeeper supervisory process. Exhibitor's Web UI does not have any form of authentication, and prior to...

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...

New partnership brings together Talos’ visibility with IR’s unmatched response capabilities

By Jon Munshaw. The threat landscape has evolved into a complex, challenging environment for organizations everywhere. A talent shortage, combined with an increase in incidents, has led to a generally weak security posture among most organizations. Defenders’ backs are up against the wall...

Microsoft Patch Tuesday — Nov. 2019: Vulnerability disclosures and Snort coverage

By Jon Munshaw. Microsoft released its monthly security update today, disclosing a variety of vulnerabilities in several of its products. The latest Patch Tuesday discloses 75 vulnerabilities, 13 of which are considered "critical," with the rest being deemed "important." This month’s security...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Remote 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 remote code execution vulnerability that exists due to a use-after-free condition. This specific bug lies in Media Foundation's MPEG4 DLL. An attacker could provide a...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Remote code execution vulnerability in Microsoft Excel

Marcin “Icewall” Noga of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Cisco Talos recently discovered a remote code execution vulnerability in Microsoft Excel. Microsoft disclosed this bug as part of their monthly security update Tuesday. This vulnerability exists in the...

Threat Roundup for November 1 to November 8

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

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: Code execution vulnerabilities in LEADTOOLS

Marcin Towalski and Cory Duplantis of Cisco Talos discovered these vulnerabilities. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Cisco Talos recently discovered multiple vulnerabilities in the LEADTOOLS line of imaging toolkits. LEADTOOLS is a collection of toolkits designed to perform a variety of functions aimed at...

CISO Advisory: Security Architecture

Security architecture and design is a vital function of a healthy enterprise. This function is fundamentally, about understanding IT architecture relationships, and ensuring security is a vital element of its implementation. This is the second paper within the series of CISO Advisories, in this...

How adversaries use politics for compromise

By Nick Biasini and Edmund Brumaghin. Executive Summary With the U.S. presidential primaries just around the corner, even malware authors can't help but get behind the frenzy. Cisco Talos recently discovered several malware distribution campaigns where the adversaries were utilizing the names and...

Beers with Talos Ep. #65: Please welcome to the show… Talos Incident Response

By Mitch Neff. Beers with Talos BWT Podcast episode No. 65 is now available. Download this episode and subscribe to Beers with Talos: If iTunes and Google Play aren't your thing, click here. Recorded Oct. 25, 2019 Today is a bit different. We normally keep things pretty neutral on this show not...

Talos, Cisco Incident Response team up to offer more protection than ever

By Sean Mason Over the years, I've had the honor and privilege to work within some of the greatest security teams on the planet, working alongside such passionate and talented people at Cisco makes delivering this announcement perhaps the greatest honor yet. The best security organizations on the...

The latest on BlueKeep and DejaBlue vulnerabilities — Using Firepower to defend against encrypted DejaBlue

Update 11/04/2019: There have been several public reports of active exploitation of CVE-2019-0708, commonly referred to as “BlueKeep.” Preliminary reports indicate that the vulnerability is being exploited by adversaries who are leveraging access to compromised systems to install cryptocurrency...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Two remote code execution vulnerabilities in Investintech Able2Extract

Piotr Bania of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Blog by Jon Munshaw. Cisco Talos recently discovered two remote code execution vulnerabilities in Investintech’s Able2Extract Professional. This software is a cross-platform PDF tool for Windows, Mac and Linux that converts PDFs and allows...

Cisco Talos helps CISOs get back to basics with advisory series

At Cisco Talos, we try to build detections for every threat we see to provide customers with a portfolio capable of identifying and stopping threats at various stages of an attack's lifecycle. Deploying the best suite of layered security tools is an integral part of protecting an organization. Bu...

Threat Roundup for October 25 to November 1

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between Oct. 25 and Nov. 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 characteristics,...

Threat Source newsletter (Oct. 31, 2019)

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. We’re scared of stalkerware, and you should be, too. These spyware apps are becoming more popular among everyone from nation-states to...

The commoditization of mobile espionage software

By Matthew Valites with contributions by Joanne Kim and Edmund Brumaghin. Executive summary Mobile stalkerware has all sorts of wide-ranging consequences. The creators of these types of apps can track user's locations, see their social media usage and more. And they certainly open the door for...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Multiple vulnerabilities in YouPHPTube

Yuri Kramarz of Security Advisory EMEAR discovered these vulnerabilities. Post by Jon Munshaw. YouPHPTube contains multiple vulnerabilities that could allow an attacker to carry out a variety of malicious activities. Specially crafted, attacker-created web requests can allow an attacker to inject...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Denial-of-service in VMWare Fusion 11

Piotr Bania of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Executive summary VMware Fusion 11 contains an exploitable denial-of-service vulnerability. VMWare Fusion is an application for Mac operating systems that allows users to run other OSs in a virtual environment, such as Windows and Linux. A...

Threat Roundup for October 18 to October 25

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between Oct. 18 and Oct. 25. 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. #64: Your problem isn’t complex, it's simply complexity

By Mitch Neff Beers with Talos BWT Podcast episode No. 64 is now available. Download this episode and subscribe to Beers with Talos: If iTunes and Google Play aren't your thing, click here. Recorded Oct. 10, 2019 This episode lives up to its name, by trying to only take on a minimal topic and the...

Threat Source newsletter (Oct. 24, 2019)

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. Never assume that a malware family is really dead. We’ve done it time and time again with things like Emotet, and Gustuff is proving it...

CISO Advisory: Governance & Risk Management

Businesses are built on risk. No matter how prepared they are, there is no guarantee that any decision will result in the expected outcome. But through good management, the likelihood of success can be improved. In the first in a series of CISO Advisories this paper address Governance & Risk...

Gustuff return, new features for victims

By Vitor Ventura with contributions from Chris Neal. Executive summary The Gustuff banking trojan is back with new features, months after initially appearing targeting financial institutions in Australia. Cisco Talos first reported on Gustuff in April. Soon after, the actors behind Gustuff starte...

Threat Roundup for October 11 to October 18

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between Oct. 11 and Oct. 18. 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 (Oct. 17, 2019)

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. It’s rare that iOS jailbreaks make it onto the scene. Apple is usually able to patch them out quickly. But a recent exploit is actually...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Another fix for Adobe Acrobat Reader DC text field value remote code execution

Aleksandar Nikolic of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Cisco Talos once again would like to bring attention to a remote code execution vulnerability in Adobe Acrobat Reader. Acrobat, which is one of the most popular PDF readers on the market, contains a bug when the software incorrectly...

Checkrain fake iOS jailbreak leads to click fraud

By Warren Mercer and Paul Rascagneres. Introduction Attackers are capitalizing on the recent discovery of a new vulnerability that exists across legacy iOS hardware. Cisco Talos recently discovered a malicious actor using a fake website that claims to give iPhone users the ability to jailbreak...

Beers with Talos Ep. #63: The third law of thermodynamics

Beers with Talos BWT Podcast episode No. 63 is now available. Download this episode and subscribe to Beers with Talos: If iTunes and Google Play aren't your thing, click here. Recorded Sept. 27, 2019 We are missing Matt and Joel this time, so Mitch, Craig and Nigel are taking you through this...

Threat Roundup for October 4 to October 11

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between Oct. 4 and Oct. 11. 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,...

Talos takes home top research honors at Virus Bulletin conference

By Jon Munshaw Researchers from Cisco Talos brought up the top award at this year’s Virus Bulletin conference. Talos received the Péter Ször Award — named for the prolific security researcher who was a longtime contributor to Virus Bulletin and passed away in 2013 — for our research into several...

Threat Source newsletter (Oct. 10, 2019)

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. It’s that time again to update all your Microsoft products. The company released its monthly update Tuesday, disclosing more than 60...

New IDA Pro plugin provides TileGX support

By Jonas Zaddach Overview Cisco Talos has a new plugin available for IDA Pro that provides a new disassembler for TileGX binaries. This tool should assist researchers in reverse-engineering threats in IDA Pro that target TileGX. We started developing this tool after the VPNFilter campaign last...

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 vulnerabilities in Schneider Electric Modicon M580

Jared Rittle and Patrick DeSantis of Cisco Talos discovered these vulnerabilities. Blog by Jon Munshaw. There are several vulnerabilities in the Schneider Electric Modicon M580 that could lead to a variety of conditions, the majority of which can cause a denial of service. The Modicon M580 is the...

Microsoft Patch Tuesday — Oct. 2019: Vulnerability disclosures and Snort coverage

By Jon Munshaw. Microsoft released its monthly security update today, disclosing a variety of vulnerabilities in several of its products. The latest Patch Tuesday discloses 60 vulnerabilities, nine of which are considered "critical," with the rest being deemed "important." This month’s security...

How Tortoiseshell created a fake veteran hiring website to host malware

By Warren Mercer and Paul Rascagneres with contributions from Jungsoo An. Introduction Cisco Talos recently discovered a threat actor attempting to take advantage of Americans who may be seeking a job, especially military veterans. The actor, previously identified by Symantec as Tortoiseshell,...

Threat Roundup for September 27 to October 4

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between Sept. 27 and Oct. 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 characteristics...

Divergent: "Fileless" NodeJS Malware Burrows Deep Within the Host

Update 09/27/2019: Additional information regarding the malware interaction with various online advertisements has been included to highlight the click-fraud related network communications associated with Divergent. Executive summary Cisco Talos recently discovered a new malware loader being used...

Open Document format creates twist in maldoc landscape

By Warren Mercer and Paul Rascagneres. Introduction Cisco Talos recently observed attackers changing the file formats they use in an attempt to thwart common antivirus engines. This can happen across other file formats, but today, we are showing a change of approach for an actor who has deemed...

Vulnerability Spotlight: Foxit PDF Reader JavaScript Array.includes remote code execution vulnerability

Aleksandar Nikolic of Cisco Talos discovered this vulnerability. Foxit PDF Reader contains a remote code execution vulnerability in its JavaScript engine. Foxit aims to be one of the most feature-rich PDF readers on the market, and contains many similar functions to that of Adobe Acrobat Reader...

Threat Roundup for September 20 to September 27

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between Sept. 20 and Sept. 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...