- Lazarus malware strikes South Korean supply chains
November 16, 2020
Lazarus malware has been tracked in new campaigns against South Korean supply chains, made possible through stolen security certificates. On Monday, cybersecurity researchers from ESET revealed the abuse of the certificates, stolen from two separate, legitimate South Korean companies. Lazarus, also known as Hidden Cobra, is an umbrella term for select threat groups — including offshoot entities ...
- Nation-State Attackers Actively Target COVID-19 Vaccine-Makers
November 13, 2020
Three nation-state cyberattack groups are actively attempting to hack companies involved in COVID-19 vaccine and treatment research, researchers said. Russia’s APT28 Fancy Bear, the Lazarus Group from North Korea and another North Korea-linked group dubbed Cerium are believed to be behind the ongoing assaults. According to Tom Burt, corporate vice president of Customer Security and Trust ...
- Operation North Star: Behind The Scenes
November 5, 2020
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 sample, and perhaps the IP addresses of historical command and control (C2) infrastructure. The Operation North Star campaign we detailed earlier this year ...
- New APT hacking group leverages ‘KilllSomeOne’ DLL side-loading
November 5, 2020
A new, Chinese advanced persistent threat (APT) group making the rounds performs DLL side-loading attacks including the phrase “KilllSomeOne.” According to Sophos researcher Gabor Szappanos, the group — suspected to be of Chinese origin — is targeting corporate organizations in Myanmar using poorly-written English messages relating to political subjects. Side-loading utilizes DLL spoofing to abuse legitimate Windows ...
- APT trends report Q3 2020
November 3, 2020
For more than three years, the Global Research and Analysis Team (GReAT) at Kaspersky has been publishing quarterly summaries of advanced persistent threat (APT) activity. The summaries are based on our threat intelligence research and provide a representative snapshot of what we have published and discussed in greater detail in our private APT reports. They ...
- SMS Phishing Attempts Are Riding the Presidential Election Wave
October 30, 2020
SMS-based outreach has become a standard in the political playbook, with candidates and their supporters soliciting financial support, opinions, and votes through texting with increasing frequency and sophistication. In the course of protecting enterprise endpoints, Symantec, a division of Broadcom, has turned up evidence of an increasingly prevalent scam tactic in the run-up to the ...
- CISA, FBI, and CNMF Identify a New Malware Variant: ComRAT
October 29, 2020
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Department of Defense Cyber National Mission Force (CNMF) have identified a malware variant—referred to as ComRAT—used by the Russian-sponsored advanced persistent threat (APT) actor Turla. In addition, U.S. Cyber Command has released the malware sample to the malware aggregation tool and ...
- North Korea-Backed Spy Group Poses as Reporters in Spearphishing Attacks, Feds Warn
October 28, 2020
The North Korean advanced persistent threat (APT) group known as Kimsuky is actively attacking commercial-sector businesses, often by posing as South Korean reporters, according to an alert from the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Kimsuky (a.k.a. Hidden Cobra) has been operating as a cyberespionage group since 2012 under the auspices of the regime in ...
- APT groups aren’t all from Russia, China, and North Korea
October 28, 2020
Advance persistent threat (APT) hacker groups are often assumed to be state-supported organisations such as China’s APT10 aka Stone Panda, Russia’s APT28 aka Fancy Bear, or Vietnam’s APT32 aka Ocean Lotus. However, these and other groups are often identified and named by cyber intelligence firms with strong links to their national government. FireEye and Crowdstrike in ...
- US Treasury sanctions Russian research institute behind Triton malware
October 23, 2020
The US Treasury Department announced sanctions today against a Russian research institute for its role in developing Triton, a malware strain designed to attack industrial equipment. Sanctions were levied today against the State Research Center of the Russian Federation FGUP Central Scientific Research Institute of Chemistry and Mechanics (also known as CNIIHM or TsNIIKhM). A FireEye report ...