Unit 42 researchers uncovered a campaign by an initial access broker (IAB) to exploit leaked Machine Keys — cryptographic keys used on ASP.NET sites — to gain access to targeted organizations.
IABs breach organizations and then sell that access to other threat actors. This report analyzes the tools used in these attacks. Palo Alto track this actor as the temporary group TGR-CRI-0045. The group seems to follow an opportunistic approach but has attacked organizations in Europe and the U.S. in the following industries: financial services, manufacturing, wholesale and retail, high technology, and transportation and logistics. The IAB used these leaked keys to sign malicious payloads that provide unauthorized access to targeted servers, in a technique called ASP.NET View State deserialization.
Read more…
Source: Palo Alto Unit 42
Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber secnews and insights delivered right to your inbox.
Related:
- New Linux Kernel Bug Affects Red Hat, CentOS, and Debian Distributions
September 26, 2018
Security researchers have published the details and proof-of-concept (PoC) exploits of an integer overflow vulnerability in the Linux kernel that could allow an unprivileged user to gain superuser access to the targeted system. The vulnerability, discovered by cloud-based security and compliance solutions provider Qualys, which has been dubbed “Mutagen Astronomy,” affects the kernel versions released between ...
- Over 80 Cisco Products Affected by FragmentSmack DoS Bug
September 25, 2018
Cisco is currently looking into its product line to determine which products and services use Linux kernel 3.9 or above, which is vulnerable to the FragmentSmack denial-of-service (DoS) bug. The networking hardware manufacturer already assembled a list of more than 80 products that are affected by the vulnerability. Many of them expect a fix by February ...
- macOS Mojave Privacy Bypass Flaw Allows Access to Protected Files
September 24, 2018
A security researcher shows on Mojave’s release day that Apple’s latest privacy protection implementations in macOS are not sufficiently strong. In a minute-long clip, Patrick Wardle shows that the security in the dark-themed macOS can be bypassed to reach sensitive user data, such as the information in the address book. Talking to BleepingComputer, Wardle says that he ...
- Adwind RAT Scurries By AV Software With New DDE Variant
September 24, 2018
A newly-discovered spam campaign is spreading the Adwind 3.0 remote-access tool (RAT) – and using a fresh take on the Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) code-injection technique for anti-virus evasion. The spam campaign features two types of droppers that leverage a new variant to the already-known DDE code-injection attack on Microsoft Excel – enabling them to bypass ...
- New Virobot malware works as ransomware, keylogger, and botnet
September 21, 2018
A newly discovered malware strain is a multi-tasking threat that besides working as ransomware and encrypting users’ files, it can also log and steal their keystrokes, and add infected computers to a spam-sending botnet. This new threat is named Virobot and appears to be under development, and comprised of multiple components that allow it to work ...
- Major Irish utility networks vulnerable to cyber attacks set to have security increased
September 19, 2018
Our water supplies, electricity and gas grids and phone networks are all vulnerable to cyber-attacks from tech-terrorists and are about to have their security beefed-up. That is because all of our utilities and essential State services are in some way or another reliant on digital technology, which in turn makes them vulnerable to digital attack. Minister Denis ...