- How Threat Intelligence Helps the Energy Sector Fight Cyberespionage
August 13, 2019
When it comes to cyber threats, some industries have it harder than others. Few are as heavily targeted by sophisticated cyberattacks as the energy sector. Over the last decade, state-sponsored hacking groups have routinely targeted utility networks and other energy providers for the purposes of espionage and disruption. And according to the latest research, advanced persistent threat (APT) ...
- Hunting the Public Cloud for Exposed Hosts and Misconfigurations
August 12, 2019
This research explores the security landscape of the Internet-facing services hosted in Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform. Public cloud is becoming increasingly popular and the reported total spending on cloud infrastructure grew 45.6% in 2018. Amazon AWS maintained its lead with a 31.3% share of the Cloud Service Provider (CSP) market, followed by Microsoft ...
- Recent Cloud Atlas activity
August 12, 2019
Also known as Inception, Cloud Atlas is an actor that has a long history of cyber-espionage operations targeting industries and governmental entities. We first reported Cloud Atlas in 2014 and we’ve been following its activities ever since. From the beginning of 2019 until July, we have been able to identify different spear-phishing campaigns related to this threat actor ...
- IT threat evolution Q2 2019: Targeted attacks and malware campaigns
August 12, 2019
In March, we published the results of our investigation into a sophisticated supply-chain attack involving the ASUS Live Update Utility, used to deliver BIOS, UEFI and software updates to ASUS laptops and desktops. The attackers added a backdoor to the utility and then distributed it to users through official channels. ASUS was not the only company used ...
- Microsoft Says Russia’s Strontium Behind IoT Hacks
August 7, 2019
Russian hackers have been identified by security experts at Microsoft as being behind a series of attacks on IoT devices. Microsoft’s Threat Intelligence Center said in a blog posting that the Russian state-linked hackers were Strontium. The Strontium hackers are also known as the Fancy Bear group, or alternatively ‘APT28′ and are closely linked to the Russian military intelligence ...
- Cyberattacks against industrial targets have doubled over the last 6 months
August 5, 2019
Cyberattacks designed to cause damage have doubled in the past six months and 50 percent of organizations affected are in the manufacturing sector, researchers say. On Monday, IBM’s X-Force IRIS incident response team published new research based on recent cyberattacks they have been called in to assist with, and the main trend the group is witnessing is the ...
- A cyber-espionage group has been stealing files from the Venezuelan military
August 5, 2019
A cyber-espionage group known as “Machete” has been observed stealing sensitive files from the Venezuelan military, according to an ESET report published today. The group, known to have been active since 2010, has historically gone after a wide range of targets from all over the world. However, ESET said that starting with this year, Machete has ...
- Nation-State APTs Target U.S. Utilities With Dangerous Malware
August 2, 2019
Researchers believe that nation-state actors are behind several spearphishing campaigns targeting U.S. utility companies with a newly-identified malware, which has the capabilities to view system data and reboot machines. Lure emails were sent to three U.S. utilities companies between July 19 and 25. They purported to be from a U.S.-based engineering licensing board, but actually contained ...
- Inside Malware Markets: Current Trends and Competitive Forces
July 30, 2019
Regardless of location, legitimacy, or legality, markets of all kinds act in accordance with a prevailing set of forces. Made famous by business management guru Michael Porter, his eponymous Five Forces generally dictate how markets will operate — that includes markets for malware. Porter’s Five Forces Rivalry Among Existing Competitors Bargaining Power of Suppliers Bargaining Power of Buyers Threat of ...
- Iran-Linked APT34 Invites Victims to LinkedIn for Fresh Malware Infections
July 19, 2019
A recent phishing campaign by Iran-linked threat actor APT34 made use of a savvy approach: Asking victims to join their social network. According to FireEye, the adversaries masqueraded as a Cambridge University lecturer, including setting up a LinkedIn page, in order to gain victims’ trust. From there the attackers asked their “friends” to open malicious documents. APT34, ...