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...

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...

Hiding in Plain Sight: Multi-Actor ahost.exe Attacks

Hiding in Plain Sight: Deconstructing the Multi-Actor DLL Sideloading Campaign abusing ahost.exe By Mallikarjun Wali and Mohideen Abdul Khader · January 14, 2026 Executive summary The Trellix Advanced Research Center has uncovered an active malware campaign that exploits a DLL sideloading...

Hacktivist Groups: The Shadowy Links to Nation-State Agendas

Hacktivist Groups: The Shadowy Links to Nation-State Agendas By Ernesto Fernández Provecho · December 16, 2024 Introduction Hacktivism, the intersection of hacking and activism, has emerged as a potent force in the digital age. It involves using technology to achieve social or political goals,...

The Ongoing Saga of Job-Themed Attacks

The Ongoing Saga of Job-Themed Attacks By Daksh Kapur and Alfred Alvarado · January 23, 2024 Figure 1 - Job Themed Cyberattacks Attribution at the Bottom In late 2023, Trellix Security Researchers identified an ongoing trend where cybercriminals exploit job-themed attack vectors to target both jo...

Saints Turned Evil

Saints Turned Evil By Sushant Kumar Arya, Daksh Kapur and Rohan Shah · January 02, 2024 Attribution at the Bottom As technology advances, attackers are constantly developing new evasion mechanisms to bypass security products and stay one step ahead of security vendors and their products. We have...

Rhysida Ransomware

Rhysida Ransomware By Leandro Velasco · October 9, 2023 This blog was also written by Alexandre Mundo and Max Kersten New ransomware victims are made every day by ransom gangs with a variety of ransomware malware families, one of which is the Rhysida ransomware family. Within this blog, an...

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 ...

Keeping A Critical Eye on IoT Devices

Keeping a Critical Eye on IoT Devices By Sam Quinn · April 21, 2022 Trellix Labs is excited to announce the beginning of a new video series which captures one of our senior vulnerability researchers work on hacking an IoT device from beginning to end. This will conclude with the releasing of a ne...

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...

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...

Trellix Launches Annual CTF Competition – Catmen Sanfrancisco!

Trellix Launches Annual CTF Competition – Catmen Sanfrancisco! By Trellix · February 1, 2022 This story was written by Steve Povolny. The Advanced Threat Research team, now with Trellix, is pleased to announce the return of our second annual Capture the Flag contest featuring 12 new challenges of...

Trellix Launches Annual CTF Competition – Catmen Sanfrancisco!

Trellix Launches Annual CTF Competition – Catmen Sanfrancisco! By Trellix · February 1, 2022 This story was written by Steve Povolny. The Advanced Threat Research team, now with Trellix, is pleased to announce the return of our second annual Capture the Flag contest featuring 12 new challenges of...

Is There Really Such a Thing as a Low-Paid Ransomware Operator?

ARCHIVED STORY Is There Really Such a Thing as a Low-Paid Ransomware Operator? By Thibault Seret · October 18, 2021 Introduction Going by recent headlines you could be forgiven for thinking all ransomware operators are raking in millions of ill-gotten dollars each year from their nefarious...

Beyond Clubhouse: Vulnerable Agora SDKs Still in Widespread Use | McAfee Blogs

Beyond Clubhouse: Vulnerable Agora SDKs Still in Widespread Use Steve Povolny · FEB 18, 2021 On February 17th, 2021, McAfee disclosed findings based on a 10-month long disclosure process with major video conferencing vendor Agora, Inc. As we disclosed the findings to Agora in April 2020, this...

Triton Malware Spearheads Latest Attacks on Industrial Systems | McAfee Blogs

ARCHIVED STORY Triton Malware Spearheads Latest Attacks on Industrial Systems Alexandre Mundo · MAR 26, 2020 Malware that attacks industrial control systems ICS, such as the Stuxnet campaign in 2010, is a serious threat. This class of cyber sabotage can spy on, disrupt, or destroy systems that...

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...

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...

The Bug Report - January 2026 Edition

The Bug Report – January 2026 Edition By Jonathan Omakun · February 12, 2026 Why am I here? Welcome back to The Bug Report, the post-holiday edition, where we realize that while our resolutions to "go to the gym" have already failed, hackers’ resolutions to "break everything" are going strong. Fo...

XWorm V6: Exploring Pivotal Plugins

XWorm V6: Exploring Pivotal Plugins By Niranjan Hegde and Sijo Jacob · October 2, 2025 Introduction In the constantly evolving world of cyber threats, staying informed is not just an advantage; it's a necessity. First observed in 2022, XWorm quickly gained notoriety as a highly effective malware,...

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...

Trellix 2024 Threat Predictions

Trellix 2024 Threat Predictions By Trellix · October 30, 2023 Introduction This last year we have seen upheaval across the cybersecurity landscape. The need for effective, worldwide threat intelligence continues to grow as geopolitical and economic developments create an increasingly complicated...

Discord, I Want to Play a Game

Discord, I Want to Play a Game By Ernesto Fernández Provecho and David Pastor Sanz Threatray · October 16, 2023 Discord is the first choice for gamers when they want to chat with some friends while playing an online computer game. Moreover, it is also a major choice for users that simply want to...

Skuld: The Infostealer that Speaks Golang

Skuld: The Infostealer that Speaks Golang By Ernesto Fernández Provecho · June 13, 2023 In May 2023, the Trellix Advanced Research Center discovered a new Golang stealer, known as Skuld, that compromised systems worldwide, something that security researchers had also noticed. The usage of Golang,...

A Royal Analysis of Royal Ransom

A Royal Analysis of Royal Ransom By Trellix · April 3, 2023 This blog was also written by Alexandre Mundo and Max Kersten We would like to thank Advanced Cyber Services team within Trellix Professional Services for the incident response-related data. Emerging in early 2022 as a private group whic...

We Don’t Just Patch – We Hack

We Don’t Just Patch – We Hack By Trellix · February 1, 2023 This blog was written by Douglas McKee If you have read any security advisories, technology news articles or even our very own Bug Report, you have continually been bombarded with the message to patch, patch, patch! Patching is critical ...

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...

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...

ATR Team Finds Vulnerability in Agora Video SDK

ARCHIVED STORY Don’t Call Us We’ll Call You: McAfee ATR Finds Vulnerability in Agora Video SDK Douglas McKee · FEB 17, 2021 The McAfee Advanced Threat Research ATR team is committed to uncovering security issues in both software and hardware to help developers provide safer products for businesse...

‘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...

Six Hundred Million Reasons to Celebrate: No More Ransom Turns FOUR!!

ARCHIVED STORY Six Hundred Million Reasons to Celebrate: No More Ransom Turns FOUR!! By John Fokker · July 27, 2020 Happy Birthday! Today we mark the fourth anniversary of the NoMoreRansom initiative with over 4.2 million visitors, from 188 countries, stopping an estimated $632 million in ransom...

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...

We Be Jammin’ – Bypassing Chamberlain myQ Garage Doors

ARCHIVED STORY We Be Jammin’ – Bypassing Chamberlain myQ Garage Doors Sam Quinn · JAN 06, 2020 The idea of controlling your garage door remotely and verifying that everything is secure at home, or having packages delivered directly into your garage is enticing for many people. The convenience tha...

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...

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...

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...

Dark Web Roast - August 2025 Edition

Dark Web Roast - August 2025 Edition By Trellix Advanced Research Center · September 18, 2025 Executive Summary August 2025 delivered a masterclass in cybercriminal incompetence that would make amateur hour look professional. From racist social engineering recruiters who prioritize race over actu...

LockBit3.0: A Threat that Persists

LockBit3.0: A Threat that Persists By Alexandre Mundo · November 17, 2022 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 variant presented with a mix of...

Wipermania: An All You Can Wipe Buffet

Wipermania: An All You Can Wipe Buffet By Trellix · November 15, 2022 This blog was written by Max Kersten In early 2022, Ukrainian companies were struck by multiple destructive wipers, attacking various organizations across sectors. This raised questions about the usage and impact of “digital...

2022 Election Phishing Attacks Target Election Workers

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

The Hermit Kingdom’s Ransomware Play

The Hermit Kingdom’s Ransomware play By Trellix · May 3, 2022 With a special thanks to @ValidHorizon who helped and shared information In February 2016, news broke about what is now known as the ‘Bangladesh Bank Heist’. Hackers attempted to transfer nearly one billion USD through the SWIFT system...

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,...

BlackMatter Ransomware Analysis; The Dark Side Returns

ARCHIVED STORY BlackMatter Ransomware Analysis; The Dark Side Returns By Alexandre Mundo and Marc Elias · September 22, 2021 BlackMatter is a new ransomware threat discovered at the end of July 2021. This malware started with a strong group of attacks and some advertising from its developers that...

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...

See Ya Sharp: A Loaders Tale | McAfee Blogs

ARCHIVED STORY See Ya Sharp: A Loader’s Tale Max Kersten · Aug 04, 2021 Introduction The DotNet based CyaX-Sharp loader, also known as ReZer0, is known to spread commodity malware, such as AgentTesla. In recent years, this loader has been referenced numerous times, as it was used in campaigns...

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...

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...

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...

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...