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...

Validate the Efficacy of your Endpoint Security Controls Continuously with Breach and Attack Simulations

Validate the efficacy of your Endpoint Security controls continuously with Breach and Attack Simulations By Nicolas Stricher, Trellix XDR solution Architect, EMEA and Doron RosenbergTrellix Senior Sales Engineer, Israel · March 4, 2022 Efficacy of Trellix Endpoint Security At Trellix we are proud...

Digging into HermeticWiper

Digging into HermeticWiper By Max Kersten · March 2, 2022 A special thanks toMarc Elias for his help during my analysis. Additionally, I’d like to commend all researchers who have publicly shared their initial findings to help incident response teams; I hope this deep dive contributes to a furthe...

Operation ‘Harvest’: A Deep Dive into a Long-term Campaign

ARCHIVED STORY Operation ‘Harvest’: A Deep Dive into a Long-term Campaign By Christiaan Beek · September 14, 2021 A special thanks to our Professional Services’ IR team,ShadowServer, for historical context on C2 domains, and Thomas Roccia/Leandro Velasco for malware analysis support. Executive...

Securing Space 4.0 – One Small Step or a Giant Leap? - Part 2

ARCHIVED STORY Securing Space 4.0 – One Small Step or a Giant Leap? Part 2 By Eoin Carroll · September 30, 2020 McAfee Advanced Threat Research ATR is collaborating with Cork Institute of Technology CIT and its Blackrock Castle Observatory BCO and the National Space Center in Cork, Ireland. In th...

Dopple-Ganging Up on Facial Recognition

ARCHIVED STORY Dopple-ganging up on Facial Recognition Systems By Steve Povolny · August 25, 2020 Co-authored with Jesse Chick, OSU Senior and Former McAfee Intern, Primary Researcher. Special thanks to Dr. Catherine Huang, McAfee Advanced Analytics Team Special thanks to Kyle Baldes, Former McAf...

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...

My Adventures Hacking the iParcelBox

ARCHIVED STORY My Adventures Hacking the iParcelBox By Sam Quinn · June 18, 2020 In 2019, McAfee Advanced Threat Research ATR disclosed a vulnerability in a product called BoxLock. Sometime after this, the CEO of iParcelBox, a U.K. company, reached out to us and offered to send a few of their...

Model Hacking ADAS to Pave Safer Roads for Autonomous Vehicles

ARCHIVED STORY Model Hacking ADAS to Pave Safer Roads for Autonomous Vehicles Steve Povolny · FEB 19, 2020 The last several years have been fascinating for those of us who have been eagerly observing the steady move towards autonomous driving. While semi-autonomous vehicles have existed for many...

In NTDLL I Trust – Process Reimaging and Endpoint Security Solution Bypass

ARCHIVED STORY In NTDLL I Trust – Process Reimaging and Endpoint Security Solution Bypass By Eoin Carroll · June 20, 2019 Process Reimaging Overview The Windows Operating System has inconsistencies in how it determines process image FILEOBJECT locations, which impacts non-EDR Endpoint Detection a...

Rapidly Evolving Ransomware Gandcrab Version

ARCHIVED STORY Ransomware GandCrab Version 5 Partners With Crypter Service for Obfuscation By Alexandre Mundo · October 10, 2018 The GandCrab ransomware, which first appeared in January, has been updated rapidly during its short life, with Version 5.0.2 appearing this month. In this post we will...

Poor Security Exposes Medical Data to Cybercriminals

ARCHIVED STORY McAfee Researchers Find Poor Security Exposes Medical Data to Cybercriminals By Christiaan Beek · March 11, 2018 The nonperishable nature of medical data makes an irresistible target for cybercriminals. The art of hacking requires significant time and effort, encouraging experience...

The Unseen Credential Surface: How AI Agents Expose Secrets

The Unseen Credential Surface: How AI Agents Expose Secrets By Haowei Ren · October 14, 2026 There is a quiet assumption behind every AI agent: that when it "just runs a command for you," it handles your credentials as carefully as a good engineer would. It does not. This is not due to malicious...

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...

The Ghost in the Machine: Unmasking CrazyHunter's Stealth Tactics

The Ghost in the Machine: Unmasking CrazyHunter's Stealth Tactics By Aswath A · January 6, 2026 CrazyHunter ransomware has emerged as a significant and concerning threat, highlighting the increasing sophistication of cybercriminal tactics. Trellix has been actively tracking this ransomware since...

The Evolution of Russian Physical-Cyber Espionage

The Evolution of Russian Physical-Cyber Espionage By Ryan Slaney · October 6, 2025 Russian state-sponsored cyber operations, primarily those conducted by hackers belonging to its Main Intelligence Directorate GRU, also known as APT28, have long combined digital intrusions with physical tradecraft...

Unmasking Hidden Threats: Spotting a DPRK IT-Worker Campaign

Unmasking Hidden Threats: Spotting a DPRK IT-Worker Campaign By Duy-Phuc Pham and John Fokker · September 23, 2025 In today's complex threat landscape, staying ahead of sophisticated adversaries is paramount. Organizations face constant pressure to identify threats that do not always involve...

The Silent, Fileless Threat of VShell

The Silent, Fileless Threat of VShell By Sagar Bade · August 21, 2025 Introduction Linux environments are often seen as bastions of security, favored by developers, sysadmins, and security professionals for their stability, transparency, and resistance to malware. Compared to Windows, the attack...

Threat Analysis: SquidLoader - Still Swimming Under the Radar

Threat Analysis: SquidLoader - Still Swimming Under the Radar By Charles Crofford · July 15, 2025 Executive summary A new wave of SquidLoader malware samples are actively targeting financial services institutions in Hong Kong. This sophisticated malware exhibits significant evasion capabilities,...

Blurring the Lines: How Nation-States and Organized Cybercriminals Are Becoming Alike

Blurring the Lines: How Nation-States and Organized Cybercriminals Are Becoming Alike By Tomer Shloman · January 7, 2025 The distinction between nation-state actors and organized cybercriminals is becoming increasingly blurred in our rapidly evolving cyber landscape. Historically, these groups ha...

Info Stealing Campaign Uses DLL Sideloading Through Legitimate Cisco Webex’s Binaries for Initial Execution and Defense Evasion

Info Stealing Campaign Uses DLL Sideloading Through Legitimate Cisco Webex’s Binaries for Initial Execution and Defense Evasion By Ale Houspanossian · June 17, 2024 Case Summary It was a quiet Monday morning in March 2024 when the EDR researchers with our Trellix Advanced Research Center identifi...

DarkGate again but... Improved?

DarkGate again but... Improved? By Ernesto Fernández Provecho · June 3, 2024 Executive summary During 2023, DarkGate made a comeback with a version full of new features, becoming one of the most preferred Remote Access Trojans RATs by malicious actors. However, this momentum also required...

JAVA-based Sophisticated Stealer Using Discord Bot as EventListener

JAVA-Based Sophisticated Stealer Using Discord Bot as EventListener By Trellix · January 18, 2024 This blog was written by Gurumoorthi Ramanathan Executive Summary: In mid-November 2023, Trellix Advanced Research Center team members observed a Java-based stealer being spread through cracked...

The evolution of the Kuiper ransomware

Kuiper Ransomware’s Evolution By Trellix · January 17, 2024 This blog was written by Max Kersten The Golang-based Kuiper ransomware is presented as an opportunity for other criminals to make money by ransoming one or more targets. Additionally, RobinHood, the actor behind Kuiper, states that help...

The Continued Evolution of the DarkGate Malware-as-a-Service

The Continued Evolution of the DarkGate Malware-as-a-Service By Ernesto Fernández Provecho, Pham Duy Phuc, Ciana Driscoll and Vinoo Thomas · November 21, 2023 On September 2023, the Trellix Security Operations Center SOC successfully detected and stopped an attack against Musarubra, the holding...

AI is the Solution, Not the Problem

AI is the Solution, Not the Problem By Trellix · August 07, 2023 This story was also written by Oded Margalit. AI Artificial Intelligence / ML Machine Learning has recently been painted as the master evil. In this blog I would like to suggest a different view, where we can use it to make a better...

Cybercrime Takes Advantage of 2023-Recession with Job-Themed Scams

Cybercrime Takes Advantage of 2023 Recession with Job-Themed Scams By Daksh Kapur · February 28, 2023 Figure 1 image from freepik.com and flaticon.com The current economic climate globally is grim because of the ongoing recession. In this environment, job-themed emails have become a prime target...

Targeted attack on Government Agencies

Targeted Attack on Government Agencies By Sushant Kumar Arya, Mohsin Dalla · July 13, 2022 Executive summary The Trellix Email Security Research Team has discovered a malicious campaign targeting government agencies of Afghanistan, India, Italy, Poland, and the United States since 2021. The attac...

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...

Get to Know Patrick Flynn

Meet Patrick Flynn Head of Advanced Programs Group at Trellix Threat Labs By Trellix · May 24, 2022 This blog was written by Michael Alicea At Trellix, we celebrate and champion our people. This week, I sat down with Pat Flynn, Head of Advanced Programs Group for Trellix Threat Labs. His job is a...

Conti Group Targets ESXi Hypervisors With its Linux Variant

Conti Group Targets ESXi Hypervisors With its Linux Variant By Marc Elias, Jambul Tologonov and Alexandre Mundo · Apr 20, 2022 Despite the leak of the conversations of the Conti members that happened in March 2022, which we analyzed and published recently, the group seems to continue its operatio...

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...

Operation North Star: Summary Of Our Latest Analysis | McAfee Blogs

Operation North Star: Summary Of Our Latest Analysis By Trellix · NOV 05, 2020 McAfee’s Advanced Threat Research ATR today released research that uncovers previously undiscovered information on how Operation North Star evaluated its prospective victims and launched attacks on organizations in...

On Drovorub: Linux Kernel Security Best Practices | McAfee Blogs

ARCHIVED STORY On Drovorub: Linux Kernel Security Best Practices By ATR Operational Intelligence Team/b · AUG 13, 2020 Intro In a U.S. government cyber security advisory released today, the National Security Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation warn of a previously undisclosed piece of Linu...

CSI: Evidence Indicators for Targeted Ransomware Attacks - Part II | 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...

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...

McAfee ATR Analyzes Sodinokibi aka REvil Ransomware-as-a-Service - The All-Stars | McAfee Blogs

McAfee ATR Analyzes Sodinokibi aka REvil Ransomware-as-a-Service – The All-Stars John Fokker · OCT 02, 2019 Episode 2: The All-Stars Analyzing Affiliate Structures in Ransomware-as-a-Service Campaigns This is the second installment of the McAfee Advanced Threat Research ATR analysis of Sodinokibi...

Your Smart Coffee Maker is Brewing Up Trouble

ARCHIVED STORY Your Smart Coffee Maker is Brewing Up Trouble By Sam Quinn · Febraury 25, 2019 IOT devices are notoriously insecure and this claim can be backed up with a laundry list of examples. With more devices “needing” to connect to the internet, the possibility of your WiFi enabled toaster...

IoT Devices: The Gift that Keeps on Giving… to Hackers

ARCHIVED STORY IoT Devices: The Gift that Keeps on Giving… to Hackers By Tim Hux · November 16, 2017 McAfee Advanced Threat Research onMost Hackable Gifts You’ve probably noticed the recent increase in Internet connected drones, digital assistants, toys, appliances and other devices hitting the...

‘Popcorn Time’ Ransomware Sure to Cause Indigestion

ARCHIVED STORY ‘Popcorn Time’ Ransomware Sure to Cause Indigestion By Tim Hux · December 19, 2016 In early December the new ransomware “Popcorn Time” was discovered. It gives the victim the option of paying the ransom or infecting two other individuals and getting them to pay. “Popcorn Time” is a...

The Anatomy of HTML Attachment Phishing

The Anatomy of HTML Attachment Phishing: One Code, Many Variants By Niranjan Hegde and Sijo Jacob · June 14, 2023 This blog was also written by Mathanraj Thangaraju Introduction Phishing is the malevolent practise of pretending to be a reliable entity in electronic communication to steal sensitiv...

The Bug Report – August 2026 Edition

The Bug Report – August 2026 Edition By Jonathan Omakun · September 3, 2026 Why am I here? Sharpen your pencils and pull out those fresh notebooks; we're back with the bug report! Half the world is squeezing the last drops of joy out of their summer vacations, and the other half is on the...

Understanding Iranian Capabilities and Hacktivist Activities

Understanding Iranian Capabilities and Hacktivist Activities By John Fokker · June 23, 2025 As geopolitical tensions flare again in the Middle East, cyber operations are increasingly becoming an extension of physical conflict. State-aligned threat actors, patriotic hackers, and ideologically...

LockBit3.0: A Threat that Persists

LockBit3.0: A Threat that Persists By Trellix · November 17, 2022 This blog was written by Alexandre Mundo LockBit is a very well-known family of ransomware that has created havoc worldwide over the last few years. In March 2022, a new variant of the ransomware was discovered. The LockBit3.0...

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...

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...

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: LAPSUS$ Data Breaches and Proactive Protections

Trellix Global Defenders: LAPSUS$ Data Breaches and Proactive Protections By Taylor Mullins · March 23, 2022 Trellix is continuing to monitor the threat activity related to the LAPSUS$ threat group and their recent breaches of large organizations such as NVIDIA, Samsung, Microsoft, and Okta. This...

Operation North Star: Behind The Scenes | McAfee Blogs

ARCHIVED STORY Operation North Star: Behind The Scenes Christiaan Beek · NOV 05, 2020 Executive Summary It is rare to be provided an inside view on how major cyber espionage campaigns are conducted within the digital realm. The only transparency afforded is a limited view of victims, a malware...