- EU sanctions Russian hackers over 2015 German parliament attack
October 22, 2020
The Council of the European Union today announced sanctions imposed on Russian military intelligence officers part of the 85th Main Centre for Special Services (GTsSS) for their involvement in a 2015 hack of the German Federal Parliament (Deutscher Bundestag). EU’s sanctions include both travel bans and asset freezes and also block EU organizations and individuals from ...
- Russian state hackers stole data from US government networks
October 22, 2020
DHS Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the FBI today warned that a Russian state-sponsored APT threat group known as Energetic Bear has hacked and stolen data from US government networks during the last two months. Energetic Bear (also tracked as Berserk Bear, TeamSpy, Dragonfly, Havex, Crouching Yeti, and Koala), a hacking group active since ...
- Seedworm: Iran-Linked Group Continues to Target Organizations in the Middle East
October 21, 2020
The Iran-linked espionage group Seedworm (aka MuddyWater) has been highly active in recent months, attacking a wide range of targets, including a large number of government organizations in the Middle East. Many of the organizations attacked by Seedworm in recent months have also been targeted by a recently discovered tool called PowGoop (Downloader.Covic), suggesting that it ...
- Phishing for secrets: Russian cyber experts believe defense industry is being attacked by North Korea
October 19, 2020
A hacker group from North Korea has been attacking Russian military and industrial organizations by sending fraudulent emails, according to cybersecurity experts, who believe that Pyongyang is beginning to cast its net wider. This may come as a surprise to some, as Russia is one of very few countries with no hostility towards Pyongyang, which has ...
- NSA: Top 25 vulnerabilities actively abused by Chinese hackers
October 19, 2020
The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) warns that Chinese state-sponsored hackers exploit 25 different vulnerabilities in attacks against U.S. organizations and interests. In an advisory issued today, the NSA said that it is aware of targeted attacks by Chinese state-sponsored hackers against National Security Systems (NSS), the U.S. Defense Industrial Base (DIB), and the Department of ...
- US charges Russian hackers behind NotPetya, KillDisk, OlympicDestroyer attacks
October 19, 2020
The US Department of Justice has unsealed charges today against six Russian nationals believed to be members of one of Russia’s elite hacking and cyberwar units — known as Sandworm. In court documents today, US officials said all six suspects are officers in Unit 74455 of the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), a military intelligence agency ...
- MontysThree: Industrial espionage with steganography and a Russian accent on both sides
October 8, 2020
In summer 2020 we uncovered a previously unknown multi-module C++ toolset used in highly targeted industrial espionage attacks dating back to 2018. Initially the reason for our interest in this malware was its rarity, the obviously targeted nature of the campaign and the fact that there are no obvious similarities with already known campaigns at ...
- BAHAMUT Spies-for-Hire Linked to Extensive Nation-State Activity
October 7, 2020
A cyberespionage group known as BAHAMUT has been linked to a “staggering” number of ongoing attacks against government officials and private-sector VIPs in the Middle East and South Asia, while also engaging in wide-ranging disinformation campaigns. That’s according to BlackBerry researchers, who said that the highly resourced group is probably operating on a mercenary basis, offering ...
- XDSpy cyber-espionage group operated discretely for nine years
October 2, 2020
Researchers at ESET today published details about a threat actor that has been operating for at least nine years, yet their activity attracted almost no public attention. Going largely unnoticed for this long is a rare occurrence these days as malicious campaigns from long-standing adversaries overlap at one point or give sufficient clues for researchers to ...
- APT-C-23 Android Spyware Variant Snoops on WhatsApp, Telegram Messages
September 30, 2020
Researchers say they have uncovered a new Android spyware variant with an updated command-and-control communication strategy and extended surveillance capabilities that snoops on social media apps WhatsApp and Telegram. The malware, Android/SpyC32.A, is currently being used in active campaigns targeting victims in the Middle East. It is a new variant of an existing malware operated by ...