No More Macros? Better Watch Your Search Results!

No More Macros? Better Watch Your Search Results! By Pham Duy Phuc · February 08, 2023 This blog was also written by Max Kersten Threat actors often rely on the same techniques until their hand is forced, usually due to defensive changes or chance-based opportunities, to leverage a new technique...

Dismantling a Prolific Cybercriminal Empire: REvil Arrests and Reemergence

Dismantling a Prolific Cybercriminal Empire: REvil Arrests and Reemergence By John Fokker · September 29, 2022 We’ve recently seen reports that the REvil ransomware gang is back online after the January 2022 arrests of several its members by Russian authorities claiming to dismantle the group and...

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...

Cyberattacks Rise Targeting Infrastructure and Geo Tensions

Trellix Threat Labs Research Report: Cyberattacks Targeting Critical Infrastructure Rise Along with Geopolitical Tensions By Trellix · April 27, 2022 The release of our Trellix Threat Labs Research Report: April 2022 examines cybercriminal behavior and activity related to cyber threats in the...

5G: The Final Frontier

5G: The Final Frontier This story was written by Kevin Mcgrath · April 7th, 2022 Today Trellix Threat Labs is excited to announce the release of a whitepaper dedicated to 5G and its potential security concerns. As we look at the potential of 5G, we foresee it impacting nearly every facet of digit...

Detection of ‘Leave Behinds’ From Nation-State Actors

Who left the backdoor open? By Trellix · March 28, 2022 In our recent report, In the Crosshairs: Companies and Nation-State Cyber Threats, over 800 IT decision makers from around the world were interviewed on their experiences with nation-state cyber attacks. One of the questions sought to...

Update on WhisperGate, Destructive Malware Targeting Ukraine – Threat Intelligence & Protections Update

Update on WhisperGate, Destructive Malware Targeting Ukraine – Threat Intelligence & Protections Update By Taylor Mullins, Mo Cashman and Raj Samani · January 20, 2022 Recent news reports of a “ransomware” campaign targeting Ukraine has resulted in significant press coverage regarding not only...

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...

‘Insight’ into Home Automation Reveals Vulnerability in Simple IoT Product

ARCHIVED STORY ‘Insight’ into Home Automation Reveals Vulnerability in Simple IoT Product By Douglas McKee · August 18, 2020 Eoin Carroll, Charles McFarland, Kevin McGrath, and Mark Bereza contributed to this report. The Internet of Things promises to make our lives easier. Want to remotely turn...

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...

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...

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...

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 Aids Police in Arrest of Rubella & Dryad Office Macro Builder

ARCHIVED STORY McAfee ATR Aids Police in Arrest of Rubella & Dryad Office Macro Builder By John Fokker · July 16, 2019 Everyday thousands of people receive emails with malicious attachments in their email inbox. Disguised as a missed payment or an invoice, a cybercriminal sender tries to entice 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...

Cybercrime in the Spotlight: How Crooks Capitalize on Cultural Events

ARCHIVED STORY Cybercrime in the Spotlight: How Crooks Capitalize on Cultural Events By John Fokker · July 03, 2018 Every four years, everyone’s head around the globe turns toward the television. The Olympics, the World Cup – world events like these have all eyes viewing friendly competition...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Dark Web Roast – November 2025 Edition

Dark Web Roast – November 2025 Edition By Trellix Advanced Research Center · December 9, 2025 Executive summary November 2025 delivered a masterclass in underground incompetence that would make any cybersecurity professional simultaneously laugh and cry. From the Silent data-extortion group getti...

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...

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...

Gang Wars: Breaking Trust Among Cyber Criminals

Gang Wars: Breaking Trust Among Cyber Criminals By John Fokker and Jambul Tologonov · August 5, 2025 Introduction In the final, unforgettable scene of the film Reservoir Dogs , a group of criminals — once united by a common goal — stand in a Mexican standoff, guns drawn, hearts pounding. Suspicio...

The Democratization of Phishing: Popularity of PhaaS platforms on the rise

The Democratization of Phishing: Popularity of PhaaS Platforms on the Rise By Ryan Slaney · June 30, 2025 The phishing industry is being profoundly reshaped by the surge of Phishing-as-a-Service PhaaS platforms. These accessible, often Artificial Intelligence AI-powered, offerings are democratizi...

Inside LockBit's Admin Panel Leak

Inside the LockBit's Admin Panel Leak: Affiliates, Victims and Millions in Crypto By Jambul Tologonov · June 12, 2025 Introduction On May 7, 2025, the LockBit admin panel was hacked by an anonymous actor who replaced their TOR website with the text ‘ Don’t do crime CRIME IS BAD xoxo from Prague ’...

ChatGPT: A tool for offensive cyber operations?! Not so fast!

ChatGPT: A tool for offensive cyber operations?! Not so fast! By Trellix · March 09, 2023 This story was also written by John Rodriguez. To ChatGPT or to not ChatGPT? That is a predominant question in the cyber landscape these days. It’s no surprise that AI bots have taken society by storm. On th...

GuLoader: The NSIS Vantage Point

GuLoader: The NSIS Vantage Point By Nico Paulo Yturriaga · January 24, 2023 GuLoader is an advanced shellcode downloader infamous for using anti-analysis tricks to evade detection and obstruct reverse engineering. As of this writing, the GuLoader campaign is aggressively ongoing. Trellix’s...

2022 Election Phishing Attacks Target Election Workers

2022 Election Phishing Attacks Target Election Workers By Rohan Shah · October 12, 2022 This blog was written by Patrick Flynn and Fred House Highly publicized campaign and political party breaches during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign raised election security as a critical issue among U.S...

Evolution of BazarCall Social Engineering Tactics

Evolution of BazarCall Social Engineering Tactics By Daksh Kapur · October 6, 2022 What is BazarCall? As nicely defined in this article by Microsoft: BazarCall campaigns forgo malicious links or attachments in email messages in favor of phone numbers that recipients are misled into calling. It’s ...

Get to Know Anne An

Meet Anne An Senior Security Researcher By Michael Alicea · August 25, 2022 At Trellix, we celebrate and champion our people. I’ve been hearing a lot recently about one of my colleagues, Anne An. My sources tell me she is a highly technical and “intuitive” researcher embedded on our frontlines as...

Growling Bears Make Thunderous Noise

Growling Bears Make Thunderous Noise By Trellix · June 6, 2022 Per public attribution, Russian cybercriminal groups have always been active. Their tactics, techniques, and procedures TTPs have not significantly evolved over time, although some changes have been observed. Lately, the threat...

Ukrainian Companies Targeted by Wipers - Impact & Prevention

War, weapons, and wipers By Max Kersten · March 31, 2022 In the recent weeks, Ukrainian companies have been targeted by wipers, likely created by pro-Russian actors. There has been a lot of talk about a “cyber war” and the usage of “cyber weapons.” Whereas the digital domain is certainly abused,...

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’...

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’...

Trellix Global Defenders: Invasion of the Information Snatchers - Protecting against RedLine Infostealer

Trellix Global Defenders: Invasion of the Information Snatchers - Protecting against RedLine Infostealer By Taylor Mullins · February 7, 2022 What information are you storing in your Browsers? Storing credentials and other important information in web browsers is a helpful method to not have to...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Industrial Security Featuring Delta's enteliBUS Manager

ARCHIVED STORY From Building Control to Damage Control: A Case Study in Industrial Security Featuring Delta's enteliBUS Manager By Mark Bereza · August 09, 2019 Management. Control. It seems that you can’t stick five people in a room together without one of them trying to order the others around...

Avaya Deskphone: Decade-Old Vulnerability Found in Phone's Firmware

ARCHIVED STORY Avaya Deskphone: Decade-Old Vulnerability Found in Phone’s Firmware By Philippe Laulheret · August 08, 2019 Avaya is the second largest VOIP solution provider source with an install base covering 90% of the Fortune 100 companies source, with products targeting a wide spectrum of...

LockerGoga Ransomware Family Used in Targeted Attacks

ARCHIVED STORY LockerGoga Ransomware Family Used in Targeted Attacks By ATR Operational Intelligence Team · April 29, 2019 Co-authored by Marc RiveroLopez. Initial discovery Once again, we have seen a significant new ransomware family in the news. LockerGoga, which adds new features to the tried...

Ryuk Ransomware Attack: Rush to Attribution Misses the Point

ARCHIVED STORY Ryuk Ransomware Attack: Rush to Attribution Misses the Point By John Fokker · January 09, 2019 Senior analyst Ryan Sherstobitoff contributed to this report. During the past week, an outbreak of Ryuk ransomware that impeded newspaper printing services in the United States has garner...

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...

Introducing pywintrace: A Python Wrapper for ETW

ARCHIVED STORY Introducing pywintrace: A Python Wrapper for ETW By Anthony Berglund, Kevin Boyd · September 19, 2017 Introduction Event tracing for Windows ETW is a lightweight logging facility first introduced with Windows 2000. Originally intended as a software diagnostic, troubleshooting and...

The Ghost SPN Attack: Catching Stealthy Kerberoasting Before It's Too Late Using Trellix NDR

The Ghost SPN Attack: Catching Stealthy Kerberoasting Before It's Too Late Using Trellix NDR By Maulik Maheta and Henry Bernabe · March 23, 2026 Executive summary As organizations adopt an identity-first security posture, adversaries are increasingly exploiting the "identity fabric” using...

The Iranian Cyber Capability 2026

The Iranian Cyber Capability 2026 By John Fokker and Ernesto Fernández Provecho · March 5, 2026 Introduction In 2024, we published an assessment of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s cyber capabilities, outlining the structure, tradecraft, and strategic intent of Iranian-aligned threat actors. The co...