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...

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...

Shamoon Attackers Employ New Tool Kit to Wipe Infected Systems

ARCHIVED STORY Shamoon Attackers Employ New Tool Kit to Wipe Infected Systems By Thomas Roccia · December 19, 2018 Last week the McAfee Advanced Threat Research team posted an analysis of a new wave of Shamoon “wiper” malware attacks that struck several companies in the Middle East and Europe. In...

‘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...

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...

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,...

Using Data Loss Prevention to Prevent Data Leakage via ChatGPT

Using Data Loss Prevention to Prevent Data Leakage via ChatGPT By Zak Krider · April 17, 2023 The rapid advancement of Artificial Intelligence AI technology has garnered much attention in recent weeks for its potential to enhance workplace productivity and efficiency. However, this focus on AI...

Exploiting Tragedy: Fake Donation Scams Amid Earthquake in Turkey & Syria

Exploiting Tragedy: Fake Donation Scams Amid Earthquake in Turkey & Syria By Daksh Kapur · February 23, 2023 Figure 1 image from freepik.com & flaticon.com The recent earthquake that shook Syria and Turkey left a devastating trail of destruction. The whole world has shown its support and...

Demystifying Qbot Malware

Demystifying Qbot Malware By Adithya Chandra · August 24, 2022 This blog was also written by Sushant Kumar Arya Executive summary The Trellix SecOps Team has observed an uptick in the Qbot malware infections in recent months. Qbot has been an active threat for over 14 years and continues to evolv...

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 Patrick Flynn

Meet Patrick Flynn Head of Advanced Programs Group at Trellix Threat Labs By Michael Alicea · May 24, 2022 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 critical one and how he goes abo...

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...

Trellix “Catmen Sanfrancisco” Capture the Flag Results!

Trellix “Catmen Sanfrancisco” Capture the Flag Results! By Trellix · February 28, 2022 This story was written by Steve Povolny. And just like that, it’s all over! Our annual Capture the Flag contest expired at 11:59pm PST, on February 25th. We wanted to take a moment to thank all of our...

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...

‘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...

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...

Digging Up the Past: Windows Registry Forensics Revisited

ARCHIVED STORY Digging Up the Past: Windows Registry Forensics Revisited By David Via · Jan 08, 2019 Introduction FireEye consultants frequently utilize Windows registry data when performing forensic analysis of computer networks as part of incident response and compromise assessment missions. Th...

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...

Attacks on SWIFT Banking System Benefit From Insider Knowledge

ARCHIVED STORY Attacks on SWIFT Banking System Benefit From Insider Knowledge By Trellix · May 20, 2016 In recent months, we’ve seen headlines about the compromise of a bank in Bangladesh from which cybercriminals attempted to steal US$951 million. The malware they used was able to manipulate 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...

Technical Deep Dive: The Monero Mining Campaign

Technical Deep Dive: The Monero Mining Campaign By Aswath A · February 17, 2026 Executive summary In the contemporary threat landscape, while ransomware grabs headlines with high-impact disruptions, cryptojacking operations have quietly evolved into sophisticated, persistent threats. This report...

APT28’s Stealthy Multi-Stage Campaign Leveraging CVE‑2026‑21509 and Cloud C2 Infrastructure

APT28’s Stealthy Multi-Stage Campaign Leveraging CVE‑2026‑21509 and Cloud C2 Infrastructure By Pham Duy Phuc and Alex Lanstein · February 4, 2026 Updated February 9, 2026: This analysis has been updated to clarify malware naming conventions. Introduction Russian state-sponsored threat group APT28...

From the Shadows to the Headlines: A Decade of State-Sponsored Cyber Leaks

From the Shadows to the Headlines: A Decade of State-Sponsored Cyber Leaks By Ryan Slaney and Emma DeCarli · January 20, 2026 Executive summary The December 2, 2025, publication of a massive leak revealing the inner workings of the IRGC-linked Department 40 a.k.a. APT35, Charming Kitten, and Fres...

The Bug Report - July 2025 Edition

The Bug Report – July 2025 Edition By Jonathan Omakun and Tola Olawale · August 6, 2025 Why am I here? July usually means barbecues, fireworks and pool parties—but this year, it brought something far more explosive: unauthenticated remote code execution, deserialization chaos, and an old-school...

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 ’...

Uncover the Hidden Story of Ransomware Victims – They’re Not Who You Think

Uncover the Hidden Story of Ransomware Victims – They’re Not Who You Think By Trellix Advanced Research Center · July 31, 2023 Ransomware attacks against large corporations often dominate headlines. High-profile attacks against organizations like Kaseya, Colonial Pipeline, and MOVEit might make y...

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...

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...

White House Executive Order – Navigating EDR Implementation

White House Executive Order – Navigating Endpoint Detection and Response EDR Implementation Tom Gann · March 08, 2022 This is the fourth in a series of blogs on the Biden Administration’s Executive Order EO on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity. I encourage you to read those you may have missed...

White House Executive Order – Navigating EDR Implementation

White House Executive Order – Navigating Endpoint Detection and Response EDR Implementation Tom Gann · March 08, 2022 This is the fourth in a series of blogs on the Biden Administration’s Executive Order EO on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity. I encourage you to read those you may have missed...

Digging into HermeticWiper

Digging into HermeticWiper By Max Kersten · March 2, 2022 A special thanks to Marc 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 furth...

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...

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...

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...

How Trellix Helix detects AS-REP Roasting in Active Directory

How Trellix Helix detects AS-REP Roasting in Active Directory By Adithya Chandra and Maulik Maheta · November 13, 2025 Executive Summary Adversaries use AS-REP Roasting to extract and crack password hashes from Active Directory AD accounts with Kerberos preauthentication disabled, a...

ToolShell Unleashed: Decoding the SharePoint Attack Chain

ToolShell Unleashed: Decoding the SharePoint Attack Chain By Aniket Choukde, Aparna Aripirala, Satyajit Daulaguphu and Yadunadh · September 4, 2025 This blog was also written by Akhil Reddy Introduction A wave of active exploitation is targeting recently disclosed vulnerabilities in Microsoft...

The Bug Report - June 2025 Edition

The Bug Report - June 2025 Edition By Jonathan Omakun · July 1, 2025 Why am I here? Welcome to the June 2025 edition of The Bug Report from the Trellix Advanced Research Center, where the only thing hotter than your CPU fan is the vulnerability feed. As the temperature rises and the air condition...

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...

Unmasking ViperSoftX: In-Depth Defense Strategies Against AutoIt-Powered Threats

Trellix Global Defenders: Unmasking ViperSoftX: In-Depth Defense Strategies Against AutoIt-Powered Threats By James Murphy · August 29, 2024 There’s a common misconception that threat actors must always write complicated and custom code in every piece of their malware, skilfully evading defenses,...

The Mechanics of ViperSoftX: Exploiting AutoIt and CLR for Stealthy PowerShell Execution

The Mechanics of ViperSoftX: Exploiting AutoIt and CLR for Stealthy PowerShell Execution By Sijo Jacob · July 9, 2024 This blog was also written by Mathanraj Thangaraju Threat Summary In the dynamic landscape of cyber threats, ViperSoftX has emerged as a highly sophisticated malware, adept at...

Exploring New Techniques of Fake Browser Updates Leading to NetSupport RAT

Exploring New Techniques of Fake Browser Updates Leading to NetSupport RAT By Jonell Baltazar · August 10, 2023 This blog was also written by Antonio Ribeiro Trellix detected an ongoing campaign using fake Chrome browser updates to lure victims to install a remote administration software tool...

Shining Light on Dark Power: Yet Another Ransomware Gang

Shining Light on Dark Power: Yet Another Ransomware Gang By Pham Duy Phuc and Tomer Shloman · March 23, 2023 This blog was also written by Max Kersten Another day, another ransomware gang. The Dark Power ransomware gang is new on the block, and is trying to make a name for itself. This blog dives...

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...

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...

DotDumper: Automatically Unpacking DotNet based Malware

DotDumper: Automatically Unpacking DotNet Based Malware By Max Kersten · August 11, 2022 The automatic detection and classification of any given file in a reliable manner is often considered the holy grail of malware analysis. The trials and tribulations to get there are plenty, which is why the...

Get to Know Fred House

Meet Fred House Senior Director, Product Detection and Research By Michael Alicea · July 12, 2022 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 Labs and a consummate and “driven”...

Cyberattacks Targeting Ukraine and HermeticWiper Protections

Trellix Global Defenders: Cyberattacks Targeting Ukraine and HermeticWiper Protections By Taylor Mullins · February 28, 2022 Trellix is monitoring the ongoing cyberattacks targeting the Ukraine and any threat activity targeting entities outside of the Ukraine. Trellix is continuing to add...

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...

Ransomware Maze

ARCHIVED STORY Ransomware Maze Alexandre Mundo · MAR 26, 2020 Overview The Maze ransomware, previously known in the community as “ChaCha ransomware”, was discovered on May the 29th 2019 by Jerome Segura1. The main goal of the ransomware is to crypt all files that it can in an infected system and...

DDoS Attacks in the Netherlands Reveal Teen Gamers on Troublesome Path

ARCHIVED STORY DDoS Attacks in the Netherlands Reveal Teen Gamers on Troublesome Path By John Fokker · Febraury 22, 2018 At the end of January, the Netherlands was plagued by distributed denial of service DDoS attacks targeting various financial institutions, tech sites, and the Dutch tax...