- Novel ‘Victory’ Backdoor Spotted in Chinese APT Campaign
June 7, 2021
An ongoing surveillance operation has been uncovered that targets a Southeast Asian government, researchers said – using a previously unknown espionage malware. According to Check Point Research, the attack involves spear-phishing emails with malicious Word documents to gain initial access, along with the exploitation of older, known Microsoft Office security vulnerabilities. But most notable, researchers said, ...
- New SkinnyBoy malware used by Russian hackers to breach sensitive orgs
June 3, 2021
Security researchers have discovered a new piece of malware called SkinnyBoy that was used in spear-phishing campaigns attributed to Russian-speaking hacking group APT28. The threat actor, also known as Fancy Bear, Sednit, Sofacy, Strontium, or PwnStorm, used SkinnyBoy in attacks targeting military and government institutions earlier this year. SkinnyBoy is intended for an intermediary stage of the ...
- Email spoofing: how attackers impersonate legitimate senders
June 3, 2021
In a nutshell, email spoofing is the creation of fake emails that seem legitimate. This article analyzes the spoofing of email addresses through changing the From header, which provides information about the sender’s name and address. SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, the main email transmission protocol in TCP/IP networks) offers no protection against spoofing, so it ...
- US seizes domains used by APT29 in recent USAID phishing attacks
June 1, 2021
The US Department of Justice has seized two Internet domains used in recent phishing attacks impersonating the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to distribute malware and gain access to internal networks. The two domains seized by the DOJ are theyardservicecom and were used to receive data exfiltrated from victims of the targeted phishing ...
- Russian gang behind SolarWinds hack returns with phishing attack disguised as mail from US aid agency
May 28, 2021
Nobelium, the Russia-aligned gang identified as the perpetrators of the supply chain attack on SolarWinds’ Orion software, has struck again, Microsoft vice president Tom Burt in a blogpost Thursday. Burt’s post says the attacks saw Nobelium gain access to accounts on the email marketing service “Constant Contact” operated by The United States Agency for International Development ...
- Re-Checking Your Pulse: Updates on Chinese APT Actors Compromising Pulse Secure VPN Devices
May 27, 2021
Mandiant published detailed results of our investigations into compromised Pulse Secure devices by suspected Chinese espionage operators. This blog post is intended to provide an update on our findings, give additional recommendations to network defenders, and discuss potential implications for U.S.-China strategic relations. Mandiant continues to gather evidence and respond to intrusions involving compromises of Pulse ...
- Elizabethan England has nothing on modern-day Russia
May 26, 2021
The threat landscape is changing. Organizations need to defend against an ever-evolving tranche of threat actors. For a long time, the lines that distinguish state-sponsored and crimeware groups were well-defined. We believe this is no longer the case. In today’s landscape, there are groups that, although their modus operandi (MO) is consistent with crimeware groups, ...
- Iranian hacking group targets Israel with wiper disguised as ransomware
May 25, 2021
An Iranian hacking group has been observed camouflaging destructive attacks against Israeli targets as ransomware attacks while maintaining access to victims’ networks for months in what looks like an extensive espionage campaign. The threat actor, tracked as Agrius by SentinelLabs researchers, has targeted Israel starting with December 2020. “Initially engaged in espionage activity, Agrius deployed a set ...
- North Korean hackers behind CryptoCore multi-million dollar heists
May 24, 2021
Security researchers piecing together evidence from multiple attacks on cryptocurrency exchanges, attributed to a threat actor they named CryptoCore have established a strong connection to the North Korean state-sponsored group Lazarus. The group is believed to have stolen hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars by breaching cryptocurrency exchanges in the U.S., Israel, Europe, and Japan over ...
- Russian state hackers switch targets after US joint advisories
May 7, 2021
Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) operators have switched their attacks to target new vulnerabilities in reaction to US govt advisories published last month with info on SVR tactics, tools, techniques, and capabilities used in ongoing attacks. The warning comes after US and UK governments formally attributed the SolarWinds supply-chain attack and COVID-19 vaccine developer targeting to Russian SVR ...