- This is how EKANS ransomware is targeting industrial control systems
July 2, 2020
New samples of the EKANS ransomware have revealed how today’s cyberattackers are using a variety of methods to compromise key industrial companies. In a research report published on Wednesday, FortiGuard Labs researchers Ben Hunter and Fred Gutierrez said that malware designed to attack industrial control systems (ICS) continues to be lucrative for threat actors. While ransomware only accounted for ...
- TrickBot malware now checks screen resolution to evade analysis
July 1, 2020
The infamous TrickBot trojan has started to check the screen resolutions of victims to detect whether the malware is running in a virtual machine. When researchers analyze malware, they typically do it in a virtual machine that is configured with various analysis tools. Due to this, malware commonly uses anti-VM techniques to detect whether the malware is ...
- Australia to invest a record A$1.35bn in cyber security
July 1, 2020
Dubbed the Cyber Enhanced Situational Awareness and Response (Cesar) package, the investment will help Australia identify cyber threats, disrupt foreign cyber criminals and build industry partnerships, said Australian prime minister Scott Morrison yesterday. Noting that malicious cyber activity undermines the government’s efforts to protect Australia’s economy, national security and sovereignty, Morrison said the record investment will ...
- New EvilQuest ransomware discovered targeting macOS users
June 30, 2020
Security researchers have discovered this week a new ransomware strain targeting macOS users. Named OSX.EvilQuest, this ransomware is different from previous macOS ransomware threats because besides encrypting the victim’s files, EvilQuest also installs a keylogger, a reverse shell, and steals cryptocurrency wallet-related files from infected hosts. “Armed with these capabilities, the attacker can main full control over ...
- Developer of Mirai, Qbot-based DDoS botnets jailed for 13 months
June 26, 2020
A 22-year-old Washington man was sentenced to 13 months in prison for renting and developing Mirai and Qbot-based DDoS botnets used in DDoS attacks against targets from all over the world. Schuchman, also known as Nexus Zeta, pleaded guilty to the charges of being involved in the creation and operation of the Satori , Okiru, Masuta, and Tsunami/Fbot botnets and was released to the ...
- DarkCrewFriends Returns with Botnet Strategy
June 26, 2020
The hackers-for-hire group DarkCrewFriends has resurfaced and is targeting content management systems to build a botnet. The botnet can be marshalled into service to carry out a variety of criminal activities, including distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, command execution, information exfiltration or sabotage of an infected system. Researchers said they observed DarkCrewFriends exploiting an unrestricted file upload ...
- Threat Assessment: EKANS Ransomware
June 26, 2020
Unit 42 researchers have observed recent EKANS (Snake backward) ransomware activity affecting multiple industries in the U.S and Europe. As a result, we’ve created this threat assessment report for the activities of this ransomware. Identified techniques and campaigns can be visualized using the Unit 42 Playbook Viewer. EKANS, which was first observed in January 2020, has relatively ...
- Exposed Frost & Sullivan databases for sale on hacking forum
June 24, 2020
U.S. business consulting firm Frost & Sullivan was breached after data from an unsecured backup folder exposed on the Internet was sold on a hacker forum. Frost & Sullivan is a business consulting firm that assists companies in growth strategy, market research, on corporate training. With 40 locations throughout the world and over 1,800 employees, Frost ...
- Lucifer: New Cryptojacking and DDoS Hybrid Malware Exploiting High and Critical Vulnerabilities to Infect Windows Devices
June 24, 2020
On May 29, 2020, Unit 42 researchers discovered a new variant of a hybrid cryptojacking malware from numerous incidents of CVE-2019-9081 exploitation in the wild. A closer look revealed the malware, which we’ve dubbed “Lucifer”, is capable of conducting DDoS attacks and well-equipped with all kinds of exploits against vulnerable Windows hosts. The first wave of the ...
- Magnitude exploit kit – evolution
June 24, 2020
Exploit kits are not as widespread as they used to be. In the past, they relied on the use of already patched vulnerabilities. Newer and more secure web browsers with automatic updates simply do not allow known vulnerabilities to be exploited. It was very different back in the heyday of Adobe Flash because it’s just ...