Google's Built-In AI Defenses on Android Now Block 10 Billion Scam Messages a Month

Google on Thursday revealed that the scam defenses built into Android safeguard users around the world from more than 10 billion suspected malicious calls and messages every month. The tech giant also said it has blocked over 100 million suspicious numbers from using Rich Communication Services...

EvilAI Malware Masquerades as AI Tools to Infiltrate Global Organizations

Threat actors have been observed using seemingly legitimate artificial intelligence AI tools and software to sneakily slip malware for future attacks on organizations worldwide. According to Trend Micro, the campaign is using productivity or AI-enhanced tools to deliver malware targeting various...

Malicious PyPI Package Posing as Solana Tool Stole Source Code in 761 Downloads

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a malicious package on the Python Package Index PyPI repository that purports to be an application related to the Solana blockchain, but contains malicious functionality to steal source code and developer secrets. The package, named solana-token, is no...

Hackers Exploit Samsung MagicINFO, GeoVision IoT Flaws to Deploy Mirai Botnet

Threat actors have been observed actively exploiting security flaws in GeoVision end-of-life EoL Internet of Things IoT devices to corral them into a Mirai botnet for conducting distributed denial-of-service DDoS attacks. The activity, first observed by the Akamai Security Intelligence and Respon...

Microsoft Credits EncryptHub, Hacker Behind 618+ Breaches, for Disclosing Windows Flaws

A likely lone wolf actor behind the EncryptHub persona was acknowledged by Microsoft for discovering and reporting two security flaws in Windows last month, painting a picture of a "conflicted" individual straddling a legitimate career in cybersecurity and pursuing cybercrime. In a new extensive...

Researchers Link CACTUS Ransomware Tactics to Former Black Basta Affiliates

Threat actors deploying the Black Basta and CACTUS ransomware families have been found to rely on the same BackConnect BC module for maintaining persistent control over infected hosts, a sign that affiliates previously associated with Black Basta may have transitioned to CACTUS. "Once infiltrated...

4 FIN9-linked Vietnamese Hackers Indicted in $71M U.S. Cybercrime Spree

Four Vietnamese nationals with ties to the FIN9 cybercrime group have been indicted in the U.S. for their involvement in a series of computer intrusions that caused over $71 million in losses to companies. The defendants, Ta Van Tai aka Quynh Hoa and Bich Thuy, Nguyen Viet Quoc aka Tien Nguyen,...

New Attack Technique 'Sleepy Pickle' Targets Machine Learning Models

The security risks posed by the Pickle format have once again come to the fore with the discovery of a new "hybrid machine learning ML model exploitation technique" dubbed Sleepy Pickle. The attack method, per Trail of Bits, weaponizes the ubiquitous format used to package and distribute machine...

Why SaaS Security is Suddenly Hot: Racing to Defend and Comply

Recent supply chain cyber-attacks are prompting cyber security regulations in the financial sector to tighten compliance requirements, and other industries are expected to follow. Many companies still don't have efficient methods to manage related time-sensitive SaaS security and compliance tasks...

FlyingYeti Exploits WinRAR Vulnerability to Deliver COOKBOX Malware in Ukraine

Cloudflare on Thursday said it took steps to disrupt a month-long phishing campaign orchestrated by a Russia-aligned threat actor called FlyingYeti targeting Ukraine. "The FlyingYeti campaign capitalized on anxiety over the potential loss of access to housing and utilities by enticing targets to...

Recover from Ransomware in 5 Minutes—We will Teach You How!

Super Low RPO with Continuous Data Protection: Dial Back to Just Seconds Before an Attack Zerto, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, can help you detect and recover from ransomware in near real-time. This solution leverages continuous data protection CDP to ensure all workloads have the lowest...

Palo Alto Networks Releases Urgent Fixes for Exploited PAN-OS Vulnerability

Palo Alto Networks has released hotfixes to address a maximum-severity security flaw impacting PAN-OS software that has come under active exploitation in the wild. Tracked as CVE-2024-3400 CVSS score: 10.0, the critical vulnerability is a case of command injection in the GlobalProtect feature tha...

Researchers Highlight Google's Gemini AI Susceptibility to LLM Threats

Google's Gemini large language model LLM is susceptible to security threats that could cause it to divulge system prompts, generate harmful content, and carry out indirect injection attacks. The findings come from HiddenLayer, which said the issues impact consumers using Gemini Advanced with Goog...

New Migo Malware Targeting Redis Servers for Cryptocurrency Mining

A novel malware campaign has been observed targeting Redis servers for initial access with the ultimate goal of mining cryptocurrency on compromised Linux hosts. "This particular campaign involves the use of a number of novel system weakening techniques against the data store itself," Cado securi...

Free Decryptor Released for Black Basta and Babuk's Tortilla Ransomware Victims

A decryptor for the Tortilla variant of the Babuk ransomware has been released by Cisco Talos, allowing victims targeted by the malware to regain access to their files. The cybersecurity firm said the threat intelligence it shared with Dutch law enforcement authorities made it possible to arrest...

Microsoft Disables MSIX App Installer Protocol Widely Used in Malware Attacks

Microsoft on Thursday said it's once again disabling the ms-appinstaller protocol handler by default following its abuse by multiple threat actors to distribute malware. "The observed threat actor activity abuses the current implementation of the ms-appinstaller protocol handler as an access vect...

Remote Encryption Attacks Surge: How One Vulnerable Device Can Spell Disaster

Ransomware groups are increasingly switching to remote encryption in their attacks, marking a new escalation in tactics adopted by financially motivated actors to ensure the success of their campaigns. "Companies can have thousands of computers connected to their network, and with remote...

DarkGate and PikaBot Malware Resurrect QakBot's Tactics in New Phishing Attacks

Phishing campaigns delivering malware families such as DarkGate and PikaBot are following the same tactics previously used in attacks leveraging the now-defunct QakBot trojan. "These include hijacked email threads as the initial infection, URLs with unique patterns that limit user access, and an...

The Importance of Continuous Security Monitoring for a Robust Cybersecurity Strategy

In 2023, the global average cost of a data breach reached $4.45 million. Beyond the immediate financial loss, there are long-term consequences like diminished customer trust, weakened brand value, and derailed business operations. In a world where the frequency and cost of data breaches are...

Microsoft Warns of Fake Skills Assessment Portals Targeting IT Job Seekers

A sub-cluster within the infamous Lazarus Group has established new infrastructure that impersonates skills assessment portals as part of its social engineering campaigns. Microsoft attributed the activity to a threat actor it calls Sapphire Sleet, describing it as a "shift in the persistent...

Russian Hackers Sandworm Cause Power Outage in Ukraine Amidst Missile Strikes

The notorious Russian hackers known as Sandworm targeted an electrical substation in Ukraine last year, causing a brief power outage in October 2022. The findings come from Google's Mandiant, which described the hack as a "multi-event cyber attack" leveraging a novel technique for impacting...

The New 80/20 Rule for SecOps: Customize Where it Matters, Automate the Rest

There is a seemingly never-ending quest to find the right security tools that offer the right capabilities for your organization. SOC teams tend to spend about a third of their...

Offensive and Defensive AI: Let's Chat(GPT) About It

ChatGPT: Productivity tool, great for writing poems, and… a security risk?! In this article, we show how threat actors can exploit ChatGPT, but also how defenders can use it for leveling up their game. ChatGPT is the most swiftly growing consumer application to date. The extremely popular...

Mysterious Kill Switch Disrupts Mozi IoT Botnet Operations

The unexpected drop in malicious activity connected with the Mozi botnet in August 2023 was due to a kill switch that was distributed to the bots. "First, the drop manifested in India on August 8," ESET said in an analysis published this week. "A week later, on August 16, the same thing happened ...

Canada Bans WeChat and Kaspersky Apps On Government Devices

Canada on Monday announced a ban on the use of apps from Tencent and Kaspersky on government mobile devices, citing an "unacceptable level of risk to privacy and security." "The Government of Canada is committed to keeping government information and networks secure," the Canadian government said...

Lazarus Group Impersonates Recruiter from Meta to Target Spanish Aerospace Firm

The North Korea-linked Lazarus Group has been linked to a cyber espionage attack targeting an unnamed aerospace company in Spain in which employees of the firm were approached by the threat actor posing as a recruiter for Meta. "Employees of the targeted company were contacted by a fake recruiter...

Xenomorph Banking Trojan: A New Variant Targeting 35+ U.S. Financial Institutions

An updated version of an Android banking trojan called Xenomorph has set its sights on more than 35 financial institutions in the U.S. The campaign, according to Dutch security firm ThreatFabric, leverages phishing web pages that are designed to entice victims into installing malicious Android ap...

Critical Security Flaws Exposed in Nagios XI Network Monitoring Software

Multiple security flaws have been disclosed in the Nagios XI network monitoring software that could result in privilege escalation and information disclosure. The four security vulnerabilities, tracked from CVE-2023-40931 through CVE-2023-40934, impact Nagios XI versions 5.11.1 and lower. Followi...

Three CISOs Share How to Run an Effective SOC

The role of the CISO keeps taking center stage as a business enabler: CISOs need to navigate the complex landscape of digital threats while fostering innovation and ensuring business continuity. Three CISOs; Troy Wilkinson, CISO at IPG; Rob Geurtsen, former Deputy CISO at Nike; and Tammy Moskites...

W3LL Store: How a Secret Phishing Syndicate Targets 8,000+ Microsoft 365 Accounts

A previously undocumented "phishing empire" has been linked to cyber attacks aimed at compromising Microsoft 365 business email accounts over the past six years. "The threat actor created a hidden underground market, named W3LL Store, that served a closed community of at least 500 threat actors w...

Emerging Attacker Exploit: Microsoft Cross-Tenant Synchronization

Attackers continue to target Microsoft identities to gain access to connected Microsoft applications and federated SaaS applications. Additionally, attackers continue to progress their attacks in these environments, not by exploiting vulnerabilities, but by abusing native Microsoft functionality ...

Malicious Apps Use Sneaky Versioning Technique to Bypass Google Play Store Scanners

Threat actors are leveraging a technique called versioning to evade Google Play Store's malware detections and target Android users. "Campaigns using versioning commonly target users' credentials, data, and finances," Google Cybersecurity Action Team GCAT said in its August 2023 Threat Horizons...

Casbaneiro Banking Malware Goes Under the Radar with UAC Bypass Technique

The financially motivated threat actors behind the Casbaneiro banking malware family have been observed making use of a User Account Control UAC bypass technique to gain full administrative privileges on a machine, a sign that the threat actor is evolving their tactics to avoid detection and...

Azure AD Token Forging Technique in Microsoft Attack Extends Beyond Outlook, Wiz Reports

The recent attack against Microsoft's email infrastructure by a Chinese nation-state actor referred to as Storm-0558 is said to have a broader scope than previously thought. According to cloud security company Wiz, the inactive Microsoft account MSA consumer signing key used to forge Azure Active...

Global Retailers Must Keep an Eye on Their SaaS Stack

Brick-and-mortar retailers and e-commerce sellers may be locked in a fierce battle for market share, but one area both can agree on is the need to secure their SaaS stack. From communications tools to order management and fulfillment systems, much of today's critical retail software lives in SaaS...

Critical Security Vulnerability Discovered in WooCommerce Stripe Gateway Plugin

A security flaw has been uncovered in the WooCommerce Stripe Gateway WordPress plugin that could lead to the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive information. The flaw, tracked as CVE-2023-34000, impacts versions 7.4.0 and below. It was addressed by the plugin maintainers in version 7.4.1, which...

Cybercriminals Using Powerful BatCloak Engine to Make Malware Fully Undetectable

A fully undetectable FUD malware obfuscation engine named BatCloak is being used to deploy various malware strains since September 2022, while persistently evading antivirus detection. The samples grant "threat actors the ability to load numerous malware families and exploits with ease through...

Camaro Dragon Strikes with New TinyNote Backdoor for Intelligence Gathering

The Chinese nation-state group known as Camaro Dragon has been linked to yet another backdoor that's designed to meet its intelligence-gathering goals. Israeli cybersecurity firm Check Point, which dubbed the Go-based malware TinyNote, said it functions as a first-stage payload capable of "basic...

Hackers Win $105,000 for Reporting Critical Security Flaws in Sonos One Speakers

Multiple security flaws uncovered in Sonos One wireless speakers could be potentially exploited to achieve information disclosure and remote code execution, the Zero Day Initiative ZDI said in a report published last week. The vulnerabilities were demonstrated by three different teams from Qrious...

Cisco Warns of Vulnerability in Popular Phone Adapter, Urges Migration to Newer Model

Cisco has warned of a critical security flaw in SPA112 2-Port Phone Adapters that it said could be exploited by a remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on affected devices. The issue, tracked as CVE-2023-20126, is rated 9.8 out of a maximum of 10 on the CVSS scoring system. The company credit...

New All-in-One "EvilExtractor" Stealer for Windows Systems Surfaces on the Dark Web

A new "all-in-one" stealer malware named EvilExtractor also spelled Evil Extractor is being marketed for sale for other threat actors to steal data and files from Windows systems. "It includes several modules that all work via an FTP service," Fortinet FortiGuard Labs researcher Cara Lin said. "I...

Why Shadow APIs are More Dangerous than You Think

Shadow APIs are a growing risk for organizations of all sizes as they can mask malicious behavior and induce substantial data loss. For those that aren't familiar with the term, shadow APIs are a type of application programming interface API that isn't officially documented or supported. Contrary...

Iran-Based Hackers Caught Carrying Out Destructive Attacks Under Ransomware Guise

The Iranian nation-state group known as MuddyWater has been observed carrying out destructive attacks on hybrid environments under the guise of a ransomware operation. That's according to new findings from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence team, which discovered the threat actor targeting both...

New Cyber Platform Lab 1 Decodes Dark Web Data to Uncover Hidden Supply Chain Breaches

2022 was the year when inflation hit world economies, except in one corner of the global marketplace – stolen data. Ransomware payments fell by over 40% in 2022 compared to 2021. More organisations chose not to pay ransom demands, according to findings by blockchain firm Chainalysis. Nonetheless,...

KamiKakaBot Malware Used in Latest Dark Pink APT Attacks on Southeast Asian Targets

The Dark Pink advanced persistent threat APT actor has been linked to a fresh set of attacks targeting government and military entities in Southeast Asian countries with a malware called KamiKakaBot. Dark Pink, also called Saaiwc, was extensively profiled by Group-IB earlier this year, describing...

PureCrypter Malware Targets Government Entities in Asia-Pacific and North America

Government entities in Asia-Pacific and North America are being targeted by an unknown threat actor with an off-the-shelf malware downloader known as PureCrypter to deliver an array of information stealers and ransomware. "The PureCrypter campaign uses the domain of a compromised non-profit...

Cyber Espionage Group Earth Kitsune Deploys WhiskerSpy Backdoor in Latest Attacks

The cyber espionage threat actor tracked as Earth Kitsune has been observed deploying a new backdoor called WhiskerSpy as part of a social engineering campaign. Earth Kitsune, active since at least 2019, is known to primarily target individuals interested in North Korea with self-developed malwar...

Python Developers Beware: Clipper Malware Found in 450+ PyPI Packages!

Malicious actors have published more than 451 unique Python packages on the official Python Package Index PyPI repository in an attempt to infect developer systems with clipper malware. Software supply chain security company Phylum, which spotted the libraries, said the ongoing activity is a...

Unknown Actors are Deploying RomCom RAT to Target Ukrainian Military

The threat actor behind a remote access trojan called RomCom RAT has been observed targeting Ukrainian military institutions as part of a new spear-phishing campaign that commenced on October 21, 2022. The development marks a shift in the attacker's modus operandi, which has been previously...

Facebook Detects 400 Android and iOS Apps Stealing Users Log-in Credentials

Meta Platforms on Friday disclosed that it had identified over 400 malicious apps on Android and iOS that it said targeted online users with the goal of stealing their Facebook login information. "These apps were listed on the Google Play Store and Apple's App Store and disguised as photo editors...