- APT10: sophisticated multi-layered loader Ecipekac discovered in A41APT campaign
March 30, 2021
In 2019, we observed an APT campaign targeting multiple industries, including the Japanese manufacturing industry and its overseas operations, that was designed to steal information. We named the campaign A41APT (not APT41) which is derived from the host name “DESKTOP-A41UVJV” from the attacker’s system used in the initial infection. The actor leveraged vulnerabilities in Pulse ...
- Hades Ransomware Gang Exhibits Connections to Hafnium
March 29, 2021
The Hades ransomware gang has several unique characteristics that set it apart from the rest of the pack, according to researchers – including potentially having more than extortion on the to-do list. The group appears to use multiple nation-state tools and techniques. The researchers said that its investigations into the group’s cyberattacks at the end of ...
- CISA: Detecting Post-Compromise Threat Activity Using the CHIRP IOC Detection Tool
March 18, 2021
This Alert announces the CISA Hunt and Incident Response Program (CHIRP) tool. CHIRP is a forensics collection tool that CISA developed to help network defenders find indicators of compromise (IOCs) associated with activity detailed in the following CISA Alerts: AA20-352A: Advanced Persistent Threat Compromise of Government Agencies, Critical Infrastructure, and Private Sector Organizations, which primarily focuses ...
- SolarWinds-linked hacking group SilverFish abuses enterprise victims for sandbox tests
March 18, 2021
Cyberattackers involved in worldwide hacking campaigns are using the compromised systems of high-profile victims as playgrounds to test out malicious tool detection rates. On Thursday, Swiss cybersecurity firm Prodaft said that SilverFish (.PDF), an “extremely skilled” threat group, has been responsible for intrusions at over 4,720 private and government organizations including “Fortune 500 companies, ministries, airlines, ...
- China-linked TA428 Continues to Target Russia and Mongolia IT Companies
March 17, 2021
Recorded Future’s Insikt Group recently identified renewed activity attributed to the suspected Chinese threat activity group TA428. The identified activity overlaps with a TA428 campaign previously reported by Proofpoint as “Operation LagTime IT”, which targeted Russian and East Asian government information technology agencies in 2019. Based on the infrastructure, tactics, and victim organization identified, we ...
- Hackers are targeting telecoms companies to steal 5G secrets
March 16, 2021
A cyber-espionage campaign is targeting telecoms companies around the world with attacks using malicious downloads in an effort to steal sensitive data – including information about 5G technology – from compromised victims. Uncovered by cybersecurity researchers at McAfee, the campaign is targeting telecommunications providers in Southeast Asia, Europe and the United States. Dubbed Operation Diànxùn, researchers ...
- COVID-19: Examining the threat landscape a year later
March 15, 2021
A year ago — everything changed. In an effort to stem the tide of a rapidly spreading pandemic, the world shut down. Shops were forced to shut their doors, and whole countries were placed on stringent lockdowns. Schools were closed around the world, with more than one billion children affected, and the vast majority of ...
- Hafnium’s China Chopper: a ‘slick’ and tiny web shell for creating server backdoors
March 11, 2021
Researchers have provided insight into China Chopper, a web shell used by the state-sponsored Hafnium hacking group. Hafnium is a group of cyberattackers originating from China. The collective recently came into the spotlight due to Microsoft linking them to recent attacks exploiting four zero-day vulnerabilities — CVE-2021-26855, CVE-2021-26857, CVE-2021-26858, and CVE-2021-27065 — in Microsoft Exchange Server. Microsoft ...
- Microsoft Exchange Servers Face APT Attack Tsunami
March 11, 2021
Recently patched Microsoft Exchange vulnerabilities are under fire from at least 10 different advanced persistent threat (APT) groups, all bent on compromising email servers around the world. Overall exploitation activity is snowballing, according to researchers. Microsoft said in early March that it had spotted multiple zero-day exploits in the wild being used to attack on-premises versions ...
- Supernova malware clues link Chinese threat group Spiral to SolarWinds server hacks
March 8, 2021
A possible link to China has been noted by researchers examining the exploit of SolarWinds servers to deploy malware. On Monday, Secureworks’ counter threat unit (CTU) said that during late 2020, a compromised Internet-facing SolarWinds server was used as a springboard to deploy Supernova, a .NET web shell. Similar intrusions on the same network suggest that the ...