Detecting Credential Stealing Attacks Through Active In-Network Defense

ARCHIVED STORY Detecting Credential Stealing Attacks Through Active In-Network Defense By Chintan Shah · September 22, 2021 Executive Summary Today, enterprises tend to use multiple layers of security defenses, ranging from perimeter defense on network entry points to host based security solution...

Operation Dianxun Cyberespionage Campaign Targeting Telecommunication Companies

ARCHIVED STORY Operation Diànxùn: Cyberespionage Campaign Targeting Telecommunication Companies By Thomas Roccia · MAR 16, 2021 In this report the McAfee Advanced Threat Research ATR Strategic Intelligence team details an espionage campaign, targeting telecommunication companies, dubbed Operation...

Our Experiences Participating in Microsoft’s Azure Sphere Bounty Program | McAfee Blogs

CSI: Evidence Indicators for Targeted Ransomware Attacks – Part II Christiaan Beek · FEB 20, 2020 In our first article we discussed the growing pattern of targeted ransomware attacks where the first infection stage is often an info-stealer kind of malware used to gain credentials/access to...

CSI Evidence Indicators for Targeted Ransomware Attacks

ARCHIVED STORY CSI: Evidence Indicators for Targeted Ransomware Attacks – Part I By Trellix · Febraury 12, 2020 For many years now I have been working and teaching in the field of digital forensics, malware analysis and threat intelligence. During one of the classes we always talk about Lockard’s...

Analysis of LooCipher, a New Ransomware Family Observed This Year

ARCHIVED STORY Analysis of LooCipher, a New Ransomware Family Observed This Year By ATR Operational Intelligence Team · December 05, 2019 Co-authored by Marc RiveroLopez. Initial Discovery This year seems to again be the year for ransomware. Notorious attacks were made using ransomware and new...

McAfee ATR Analyzes Sodinokibi aka REvil Ransomware-as-a-Service - Crescendo

McAfee ATR Analyzes Sodinokibi aka REvil Ransomware-as-a-Service – Crescendo By Jessica Saavedra-Morales · October 20, 2019 Episode 4: Crescendo This is the final installment of the McAfee Advanced Threat Research ATR analysis of Sodinokibi and its connections to GandGrab, the most prolific...

McAfee ATR Analyzes Sodinokibi aka REvil Ransomware-as-a-Service – Follow The Money

ARCHIVED STORY McAfee ATR Analyzes Sodinokibi aka REvil Ransomware-as-a-Service – Follow The Money By John Fokker · October 14, 2019 Episode 3: Follow the Money This is the third installment of the McAfee Advanced Threat Research ATR analysis of Sodinokibi and its connections to GandCrab, the mos...

HVACking: Understanding the Delta Between Security and Reality

ARCHIVED STORY HVACking: Understanding the Delta Between Security and Reality By Douglas McKee · August 09, 2019 The McAfee Labs Advanced Threat Research team is committed to uncovering security issues in both software and hardware to help developers provide safer products for businesses and...

Crypto Currency Laundering Service, BestMixer.io, Taken Down by Law Enforcement

ARCHIVED STORY Cryptocurrency Laundering Service, BestMixer.io, Taken Down by Law Enforcement By John Fokker · May 22, 2019 A much overlooked but essential part in financially motivated cybercrime is making sure that the origins of criminal funds are obfuscated or made to appear legitimate, a...

Ryuk, Exploring the Human Connection

ARCHIVED STORY Ryuk, Exploring the Human Connection By John Fokker · Febraury 19, 2019 In collaboration with Bill Siegel and Alex Holdtman from Coveware At the beginning of 2019, McAfee ATR published an article describing how the hasty attribution of Ryuk ransomware to North Korea was missing the...

Fallout Exploit Kit Releases the Kraken Ransomware on Its Victims

ARCHIVED STORY Fallout Exploit Kit Releases the Kraken Ransomware on Its Victims By John Fokker · October 30, 2018 Alexandr Solad and Daniel Hatheway of Recorded Future are coauthors of this post. Read Recorded Future’s version of this analysis. Rising from the deep, Kraken Cryptor ransomware has...

80 to 0 in Under 5 Seconds: Falsifying a Medical Patient's Vitals

ARCHIVED STORY 80 to 0 in Under 5 Seconds: Falsifying a Medical Patient's Vitals By Douglas McKee · August 11, 2018 The author thanks Shaun Nordeck, MD, for his assistance with this report. With the explosion of growth in technology and its influence on our lives, we have become increasingly...

Operation Dragonfly Analysis Suggests Links to Earlier Attacks

ARCHIVED STORY Operation Dragonfly Analysis Suggests Links to Earlier Attacks By Trellix · December 17, 2017 On September 6, Symantec published details of the Dragonfly campaign, which targeted dozens of energy companies throughout 2017. This attack was effectively Dragonfly 2.0, an update to a...

How A Simple Misconfiguration Can Fuel Offline Attacker Tools

How A Simple Misconfiguration Can Fuel Offline Attacker Tools By Grant McDonald · April 9, 2026 It’s no secret that misconfigurations are a gateway for attackers. But that doesn’t mean misconfigurations won’t happen or that attackers won’t attempt to exploit them. In the latest research from our...

Dark Web Roast February 2026 Edition

Dark Web Roast - February 2026 Edition By Trellix Advanced Research Center · March 18, 2026 Executive Summary February 2026 delivered another stellar month in the ongoing theatre of the absurd that is the cybercriminal underground, where ransomware gangs bulk-scheduled their extortion like a...

Malware-As-A-Service Redefined: Why XWorm is outpacing every other RAT in the underground malware market

Malware-As-A-Service Redefined: Why XWorm is outpacing every other RAT in the underground malware market By Boggavarapu R S S Srinivas Gupta and Ravishankar N C · March 12, 2026 Introduction In the evolving landscape of cybercrime, threat actors are constantly pursuing the "perfect" weapon: malwa...

The Crown Jewels of Active Directory: How Trellix Helix Detects NTDS.dit Theft

The Crown Jewels of Active Directory: How Trellix Helix Detects NTDS.dit Theft By Adithya Chandra and Maulik Maheta · February 2, 2026 Executive summary Active Directory serves as the central repository for an organization's authentication infrastructure. Malicious actors frequently focus on...

The Developer's Newest Bug: Speed

The Developer's Newest Bug: Speed By Tola Olawale · December 2, 2025 Artificial intelligence AI has unequivocally entered its “main character” era, moving from a niche tool to a universal creator. This massive shift has given rise to "vibe coding ": the practice of using AI to generate functional...

SideWinder's Shifting Sands: Click Once for Espionage

SideWinder's Shifting Sands: Click Once for Espionage By Ernesto Fernández Provecho and Pham Duy Phuc · October 22, 2025 In September 2025, the Trellix Advanced Research Center ARC detected a campaign targeting a European embassy located in New Delhi, India. Further investigation led to the...

Dark Web Roast - September 2025 Edition

Dark Web Roast - September 2025 Edition By Trellix Advanced Research Center · October 14, 2025 Executive Summary September 2025 brought us a delightful buffet of underground incompetence that makes one wonder if cybercriminals are actively competing for the "Most Spectacular Failure" award. From...

The Coordinated Embassy Hunt: Unmasking the DPRK-linked GitHub C2 Espionage Campaign

The Coordinated Embassy Hunt: Unmasking the DPRK-linked GitHub C2 Espionage Campaign By Pham Duy Phuc and Alex Lanstein · August 18, 2025 The Trellix Advanced Research Center uncovered a sophisticated espionage operation targeting diplomatic missions across several regions in South Korea during...

The Growing Threat of Vishing: How Cybercriminals Are Using Multimedia to Target You

The Growing Threat of Vishing: How Cybercriminals Are Using Multimedia to Target You By Mark Joseph Marti and Sandra Pagkaliwagan · May 8, 2025 Introduction Imagine being hacked through a phone call, and you can't even complain because you were the one who provided your sensitive information or...

No symbols? No problem!

No symbols? No problem! By Trellix · August 9, 2024 This blog was written by Max Kersten Malware analysts know it all too well: the ominous feeling that washes over you when opening an unknown file in your favorite analysis tool and being greeted with hundreds or thousands of unknown functions,...

Cracking Cobalt Strike: Taking Down Malicious Cybercriminal Infrastructure with Threat Intelligence

Cracking Cobalt Strike Taking Down Malicious Cybercriminal Infrastructure with Threat Intelligence By Joao Marques, John Fokker and Leandro Velasco · July 3, 2024 Introduction In a significant global effort to combat cybercrime, law enforcement agencies from around the world have joined forces to...

Email Cyberattacks on Arab Countries Rise in Lead to Global Football Tournament

Email Cyberattacks on Arab Countries Rise in Lead to Global Football Tournament By Daksh Kapur · November 17, 2022 This story was also written by Sparsh Jain. Figure 1 Global eyes are soon to be turned to the first global football tournament to be held in the Arab world kicking off on November 20...

Get to Know Fred House

Meet Fred House Senior Director, Product Detection and Research By Trellix · July 12, 2022 This blog was written by Michael Alicea At Trellix, we celebrate and champion our people. For a long time now, I’ve been looking forward to connecting with Fred House, a Senior Director at Trellix Threat La...

The Sound of Malware

The Sound of Malware By Trellix · June 23, 2022 Do, a debugger, you often use Re, a reverse engineer Mi, a name, I call myself Anyways…. By now, you must be very thankful I reminded you of this famous song; I am sure it will be stuck in your head the rest of the day. You’re welcome! Confused on h...

Executive Summary: Organizations and Nation-State Cyber Threats

Executive Summary: Organizations and Nation-State Cyber Threats By John Fokker · March 28, 2022 Traditionally when we talk about threat actors, we first need to make the split between cybercrime and nation-state sponsored operations. Where cybercrime is mostly focused on financial gain,...

Nation-State Crosshairs: France, Germany & United Kingdom

In the Nation-State Crosshairs: France, Germany & the United Kingdom By Trellix · March 28, 2022 Today Trellix and the Center for Strategic and International Studies CSIS released a global report, In the Crosshairs: Organizations and Nation-State Cyber Threats, examining security professionals’...

PlugX: A Talisman to Behold

PlugX: A Talisman to Behold By Max Kersten, Marc Elias, Leandro Velasco, and Alexandre Mundo Alguacil · March 28, 2022 For over a decade, the PlugX malware has been observed internationally with different variants found around the world. This blog covers a PlugX variant that we have named Talisma...

Looking Over the Nation-State Actors’ Shoulders

Looking over the nation-state actors’ shoulders: Even they have a difficult day sometimes By Trellix and Marc Elias · Febraury 17, 2022 Have you ever been curious about how nation-state actors operate and what their day-to-day work looks like? This blog reveals some of these details observed base...

Nation States Will Weaponize Social and Recruit Bad Guys with Benefits in 2022

ARCHIVED STORY Nation States Will Weaponize Social and Recruit Bad Guys with Benefits in 2022 By Raj Samani · October 31, 2021 McAfee Enterprise and FireEye recently released its 2022 Threat Predictions. In this blog, we take a deeper dive into the continuingly aggressive role Nation States will...

Babuk: Biting off More than they Could Chew by Aiming to Encrypt VM and *nix Systems? | McAfee Blogs

Babuk: Biting off More than they Could Chew by Aiming to Encrypt VM and nix Systems? Thibault Seret · JUL 28, 2021 Co-written with Northwave’s Noël Keijzer. Executive Summary For a long time, ransomware gangs were mostly focused on Microsoft Windows operating systems. Yes, we observed the...

Operation Dianxun Cyberespionage Campaign Targeting Telecommunication Companies

ARCHIVED STORY Operation Diànxùn: Cyberespionage Campaign Targeting Telecommunication Companies By Thomas Roccia · MAR 16, 2021 In this report the McAfee Advanced Threat Research ATR Strategic Intelligence team details an espionage campaign, targeting telecommunication companies, dubbed Operation...

McAfee ATR Thinks in Graphs | McAfee Blogs

ARCHIVED STORY McAfee ATR Thinks in Graphs By Valentine Mairet · MAR 08, 2021 · 19 MIN READ 0. Introduction John Lambert, a distinguished researcher specializing in threat intelligence at Microsoft, once said these words that changed perspectives: “Defenders think in lists. Attackers think in...

Babuk Ransomware

ARCHIVED STORY Babuk Ransomware By Alexandre Mundo · February 23, 2021 Executive Summary Babuk ransomware is a new ransomware threat discovered in 2021 that has impacted at least five big enterprises, with one already paying the criminals $85,000 after negotiations. As with other variants, this...

Robot Character Analysis Reveals Trust Issues

ARCHIVED STORY Robot Character Analysis Reveals Trust Issues By Douglas McKee · August 05, 2020 Retired Marine fighter pilot and Top Gun instructor Dave Berke said “Every single thing you do in your life, every decision you make, is an OODA Loop.” OODA Loop? Observe–Orient–Decide–Act, the “OODA...

Introduction and Application of Model Hacking

ARCHIVED STORY Introduction and Application of Model Hacking By Steve Povolny · Febraury 19, 2020 Catherine Huang, Ph.D., and Shivangee Trivedi contributed to this blog. The term “Adversarial Machine Learning” AML is a mouthful! The term describes a research field regarding the study and design o...

The Cloning of The Ring – Who Can Unlock Your Door?

ARCHIVED STORY The Cloning of The Ring - Who Can Unlock Your Door? By Eoin Carroll · January 06, 2020 Steve Povolny contributed to this report. The Cloning of The Ring McAfee’s Advanced Threat Research team performs security analysis of products and technologies across nearly every industry...

Spanish MSSP Targeted by BitPaymer Ransomware

ARCHIVED STORY Spanish MSSP Targeted by BitPaymer Ransomware By ATR Operational Intelligence Team · November 08, 2019 Co-authored by Marc RiveroLopez Initial Discovery This week the news hit that several companies in Spain were hit by a ransomware attack. Ransomware attacks themselves are not new...

McAfee ATR Analyzes Sodinokibi aka REvil Ransomware-as-a-Service - Crescendo

McAfee ATR Analyzes Sodinokibi aka REvil Ransomware-as-a-Service – Crescendo By Jessica Saavedra-Morales · October 20, 2019 Episode 4: Crescendo This is the final installment of the McAfee Advanced Threat Research ATR analysis of Sodinokibi and its connections to GandGrab, the most prolific...

Mr. Coffee with WeMo: Double Roast

ARCHIVED STORY Mr. Coffee with WeMo: Double Roast By Sam Quinn · May 30, 2019 McAfee Advanced Threat Research recently released a blog detailing a vulnerability in the Mr. Coffee Coffee Maker with WeMo. Please refer to the earlier blog to catch up with the processes and techniques I used to...

Crypto Currency Laundering Service, BestMixer.io, Taken Down by Law Enforcement

ARCHIVED STORY Cryptocurrency Laundering Service, BestMixer.io, Taken Down by Law Enforcement By John Fokker · May 22, 2019 A much overlooked but essential part in financially motivated cybercrime is making sure that the origins of criminal funds are obfuscated or made to appear legitimate, a...

Apply MITRE’s ‘ATT&CK’ Model to Check Your Defenses

ARCHIVED STORY Apply MITRE’s ‘ATT&CK’ Model to Check Your Defenses By Trellix · June 18, 2018 Every week we read about adversaries attacking their targets as part of online criminal campaigns. Information gathering, strategic advantage, and theft of intellectual property are some of the...

Fileless Multi-Stage Remcos RAT: From Phishing to Memory-Resident Execution

Fileless Multi-Stage Remcos RAT: From Phishing to Memory-Resident Execution By Madhini Muralidharan · March 11, 2026 Traditional malware campaigns rely heavily on dropping executable files to disk—artifacts that defenders can scan, quarantine, and analyze with signature-based security tools. Mode...

When SPNs Go Rogue: Detection and Remediation with Trellix NDR

When SPNs Go Rogue: Detection and Remediation with Trellix NDR By Maulik Maheta and Henry Bernabe · February 10, 2026 Executive summary Service Principal Names SPNs are essential for Kerberos authentication in Active Directory AD, but misconfigurations, such as assigning SPNs to standard user...

Today’s threat landscape demands a proactive OT security strategy

Today’s threat landscape demands a proactive OT security strategy By John Fokker and Mo Cashman · November 18, 2025 Overview: The operational technology OT security landscape is undergoing rapid transformation, marked by an escalation in advanced threats. As reported in Trellix’s November...

Dark Web Roast - October 2025 Edition

Dark Web Roast - October 2025 Edition By Trellix Advanced Research Center · November 13, 2025 Executive Summary Welcome to October 2025, where the cybercrime underground has officially become more absurd than a fever dream. This month’s headline was xltshirt being royally fleeced out of $3,000 fo...

When AD Gets Breached: Detecting NTDS.dit Dumps and Exfiltration with Trellix NDR

When AD Gets Breached: Detecting NTDS.dit Dumps and Exfiltration with Trellix NDR By Maulik Maheta · September 25, 2025 Executive summary Active Directory AD stores the digital keys to an organization's kingdom. When attackers gain access to a network, they often target the NTDS.dit file, which...

The Bug Report – August 2025 Edition

The Bug Report – August 2025 Edition By Jonathan Omakun, Tola Olawale · August 27, 2025 Why am I here? Welcome back to The Bug Report! Did you miss us? The Trellix Advanced Research Center has been playing a high-stakes game of whack-a-mole with this month's vulnerabilities. We've dug through all...