Cascading Shadows: An Attack Chain Approach to Avoid Detection and Complicate Analysis


In December 2024, Palo Alto Unit 42 researchers uncovered an attack chain that employs distinct, multi-layered stages to deliver malware like Agent Tesla variants, Remcos RAT or XLoader.

Attackers increasingly rely on such complex delivery mechanisms to evade detection, bypass traditional sandboxes, and ensure successful payload delivery and execution. The phishing campaign we analyzed used deceptive emails posing as an order release request to deliver a malicious attachment. This multi-layered attack chain leverages multiple execution paths to evade detection and complicate analysis.

Read more…
Source: Palo Alto Unit 42


Sign up for our Newsletter
The latest news and insights delivered right to your inbox.


Related:

  • FIN7.5: the infamous cybercrime rig “FIN7” continues its activities

    May 8, 2019

    On August 1, 2018, the US Department of Justice announced that it had arrested several individuals suspected of having ties to the FIN7 cybercrime rig. FIN7 operations are linked to numerous intrusion attempts having targeted hundreds of companies since at least as early as 2015. Interestingly, this threat actor created fake companies in order to ...

  • Surge of MegaCortex ransomware attacks detected

    May 6, 2019

    UK cyber-security firm Sophos reported detecting a spike in ransomware attacks at the end of last week from a new strain named MegaCortex. Sophos said the ransomware appears to have been designed to target large enterprise networks as part of carefully planned targeted intrusions –in a tactic that is known as “big-game hunting.” The modus operandi is ...

  • Compromised Office 365 Accounts Used to Send 1.5 Million Email Threats in March

    May 6, 2019

    Microsoft Office 365 remains an attractive target for cybercriminals as it continues to be used by businesses worldwide. In a new report from Barracuda Networks, the company revealed that more than 1.5 million malicious and spam emails were sent from thousands of compromised Office 365 accounts of their customers in March 2019 alone. The increase in the ...

  • Mysterious hacker has been selling Windows 0-days to APT groups for three years

    May 1, 2019

    For the past three years, a mysterious hacker has been selling Windows zero-days to at least three cyber-espionage groups, as well as cyber-crime gangs, researchers from Kaspersky Lab have told ZDNet. The hacker’s activity reinforces recent assessments that some government-backed cyber-espionage groups –also known as APTs (advanced persistent threats)– will regularly buy zero-day exploits from third-party entities, ...

  • Dell laptops and computers vulnerable to remote hijacks

    May 1, 2019

    A vulnerability in the Dell SupportAssist utility exposes Dell laptops and personal computers to a remote attack that can allow hackers to execute code with admin privileges on devices using an older version of this tool and take over users’ systems. Dell has released a patch for this security flaw on April 23; however, many users are likely ...

  • APT trends report Q1 2019

    April 30, 2019

    For just under two years, the Global Research and Analysis Team (GReAT) at Kaspersky Lab 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. ...