- Earth Lusca Employs Sophisticated Infrastructure, Varied Tools and Techniques
January 17, 2022
Since mid-2021, Trend Micro researchers have been investigating a rather elusive threat actor called Earth Lusca that targets organizations globally via a campaign that uses traditional social engineering techniques such as spear phishing and watering holes. The group’s primary motivation seems to be cyberespionage: the list of its victims includes high value targets such as ...
- Cyber espionage campaign targets renewable energy companies
January 17, 2022
A large-scale cyber-espionage campaign targeting primarily renewable energy and industrial technology organizations have been discovered to be active since at least 2019, targeting over fifteen entities worldwide. The campaign was discovered by security researcher William Thomas, a Curated Intelligence trust group member, who employed OSINT (open-source intelligence) techniques like DNS scans and public sandbox submissions. Thomas’ analysis ...
- Fingers point to Lazarus, Cobalt, FIN7 as key hacking groups attacking finance industry
January 13, 2022
The Lazarus, Cobalt, and FIN7 hacking groups have been labeled as the most prevalent threat actors striking financial organizations today. According to “Follow the Money,” a new report published on the financial sector by Outpost24’s Blueliv on Thursday, members of these groups are the major culprits of theft and fraud in the industry today. The financial sector ...
- Iranian intel cyber suite of malware uses open source tools
January 12, 2022
FORT MEADE, Md. – To better enable defense against malicious cyber actors, U.S. Cyber Command’s Cyber National Mission Force has identified and disclosed multiple open-source tools that Iranian intelligence actors are using in networks around the world. These actors, known as MuddyWater in industry, are part of groups conducting Iranian intelligence activities, and have been seen ...
- OceanLotus hackers turn to web archive files to deploy backdoors
January 12, 2022
The OceanLotus group of state-sponsored hackers are now using the web archive file format (.MHT and .MHTML) to deploy backdoors to compromised systems. The goal is to evade detection by antivirus solutions tools which are more likely to catch commonly abused document formats and stop the victim from opening them on Microsoft Office. Also tracked as APT32 ...
- Understanding and Mitigating Russian State-Sponsored Cyber Threats to U.S. Critical Infrastructure
January 11, 2022
This joint Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA)—authored by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and National Security Agency (NSA)—is part of our continuing cybersecurity mission to warn organizations of cyber threats and help the cybersecurity community reduce the risk presented by these threats. This CSA provides an overview of Russian state-sponsored ...
- Indian Patchwork hacking group infects itself with remote access Trojan
January 10, 2022
An Indian threat group’s inner workings have been exposed after it accidentally infected its own development environment with a remote access Trojan (RAT). Dubbed Patchwork by Malwarebytes and tracked under names including Hangover Group, Dropping Elephant, Chinastrats, and Monsoon, the Indian group has been on the scene since at least 2015 and is actively launching campaigns ...
- Aquatic Panda Used Log4Shell Exploit Tools During Hands-on Intrusion Attempt – CrowdStrike
December 29, 2021
Since the vulnerability was announced, CrowdStrike’s OverWatch threat hunters have been continuously ingesting the latest insights about the Log4j vulnerability as well as publicly disclosed exploit methods to influence their continuous hunting operations. On Dec. 14, 2021, VMware issued guidance around elements of VMware’s Horizon service found to be vulnerable to Log4j exploits. This led ...
- New Flagpro malware linked to Chinese state-backed hackers
December 28, 2021
BlackTech cyber-espionage APT (advanced persistent threat) group has been spotted targeting Japanese companies using novel malware that researchers call ‘Flagpro’. The threat actor uses Flagpro in the initial stage of an attack for network reconnaissance, to evaluate the target’s environment, and to download second-stage malware and execute it. The infection chain begins with a phishing email crafted ...
- FBI: APT Actors Exploiting Newly-Identified Zero Day in ManageEngine Desktop Central
December 20, 2021
Since at least late October 2021, APT actors have been actively exploiting a zero-day, now identified as CVE-2021-44515, on ManageEngine Desktop Central servers. The APT actors were observed compromising Desktop Central servers, dropping a webshell that overrides a legitimate function of Desktop Central, downloading post-exploitation tools, enumerating domain users and groups, conducting network reconnaissance, attempting ...