- Behind the Clouds: Attackers Targeting Governments in Southeast Asia Implement Novel Covert C2 Communication
July 14, 2025
Since late 2024, Unit 42 researchers have been tracking a cluster of suspicious activity as CL-STA-1020, targeting governmental entities in Southeast Asia. The threat actors behind this cluster of activity have been collecting sensitive information from government agencies, including information about recent tariffs and trade disputes. This campaign is particularly noteworthy due to its novel tradecraft. ...
- Impostor uses AI to impersonate Rubio and contact foreign and US officials
July 8, 2025
The State Department is warning U.S. diplomats of attempts to impersonate Secretary of State Marco Rubio and possibly other officials using technology driven by artificial intelligence, according to two senior officials and a cable sent last week to all embassies and consulates. The warning came after the department discovered that an impostor posing as Rubio had ...
- Payout offered to Afghans hit by UK data breaches
July 4, 2025
Afghan nationals whose personal information was mistakenly exposed by the Ministry of Defence in 2021 will be offered up to £4,000 each in compensation, the government has said. The data breaches affected 277 people, some of whom had worked for the UK government and were in hiding from insurgent Taliban forces at the time. Defence Minister ...
- French government hit by Chinese hackers exploiting Ivanti security flaws
July 4, 2025
In late 2024, Chinese state-sponsored threat actors abused multiple zero-day vulnerabilities in Ivanti Cloud Services Appliance (CSA) devices to access French government agencies, as well as numerous commercial entities such as telcos, finance, and transportation organizations. The news was recently confirmed by the French National Agency for the Security of Information Systems (ANSSI), which noted threat ...
- U.S. House of Representatives bans WhatsApp from staff devices
June 24, 2025
The U.S. House of Representatives’ top official has banned WhatsApp from government-issued devices used by its staff, saying the app poses potential security risks, Reuters reported, citing a memo sent to House staff. “The Office of Cybersecurity has deemed WhatsApp a high risk to users due to the lack of transparency in how it protects user ...
- US government’s vaccine website defaced with AI-generated content
June 11, 2025
A U.S. government website designed to inform the public about vaccines has been defaced and now hosts apparently AI-generated spam. The domain, which belongs to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), appears to have been hosting the same kind of content — mostly gay-themed and LGBTQ+ posts — since at least May 12, ...
- Italy and Israeli Paragon part ways after spyware affair
June 9, 2025
Italy has terminated a contract with Israeli spyware maker Paragon, a parliamentary document showed on Monday, following allegations that the Italian government used its technology to hack critics’ phones. Paragon did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Meta’s WhatsApp chat service said earlier this year Paragon spyware had targeted scores of users, including ...
- FBI probes effort to impersonate White House chief of staff Susie Wiles
May 29, 2025
One or more unknown people accessed White House chief of staff Susie Wiles’ personal cellphone and used her contacts file to reach out to other top officials and impersonate her, sources told CBS News Thursday. Some of the recipients realized the messages were suspicious because the texts and calls came from an unknown number, sources said, ...
- Mysterious hacking group Careto was run by the Spanish government
May 23, 2025
More than a decade ago, researchers at antivirus company Kaspersky identified suspicious internet traffic of what they thought was a known government-backed group, based on similar targeting and its phishing techniques. Soon, the researchers realized they had found a much more advanced hacking operation that was targeting the Cuban government, among others. Eventually the researchers were ...
- UK: Legal Aid database hacked, ‘significant amount’ of data and criminal records stolen
May 19, 2025
The UK’s Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has revealed that a cyberattack on the Legal Aid system has led to the theft of a “significant amount” of data, including criminal records. The MoJ was alerted to the attack on April 23 when data dating back as far as 2010 was accessed by the attackers. Earlier this month, ...
- Senior US Officials Impersonated in Malicious Messaging Campaign
May 15, 2025
FBI is issuing this announcement to warn and provide mitigation tips to the public about an ongoing malicious text and voice messaging campaign. Since April 2025, malicious actors have impersonated senior US officials to target individuals, many of whom are current or former senior US federal or state government officials and their contacts. If you receive ...
- Israeli spyware firm NSO to pay Meta $168m. in damages for hijacking WhatsApp servers
May 7, 2025
A federal jury in California handed Israel’s NSO Group a $168 million penalty on Tuesday for hijacking the servers of WhatsApp in order to hack users of the Meta-owned chat platform on behalf of foreign spy agencies. The case caps a six-year battle between the American social media giant and the surveillance firm. It has also ...
- Lampion Is Back With ClickFix Lures
May 6, 2025
Unit 42 researchers recently uncovered a highly focused malicious campaign targeting dozens of Portuguese organizations, particularly in the government, finance and transportation sectors. This campaign was orchestrated by the threat actors behind Lampion malware, an infostealer that focuses on sensitive banking information. This malware family has been active since at least 2019. During our investigation, we ...
- TeleMessage, a modified Signal clone used by US government officials, has been hacked
May 5, 2025
A hacker has exploited a vulnerability in TeleMessage, which provides modded versions of encrypted messaging apps such as Signal, Telegram, and WhatsApp, to extract archived messages and other data relating to U.S. government officials and companies who used the tool, 404 Media reported. TeleMessage came into the spotlight last week after it was reported that former ...
- Apple notifies new victims of spyware attacks across the world
April 30, 2025
Apple sent notifications this week to several people who the company believes were targeted with government spyware, according to two of the alleged targets. In the past, Apple has sent similar notifications to targets and victims of spyware, and directed them to contact a nonprofit that specializes in investigating such cyberattacks. Other tech companies, like Google ...
- Earth Kurma APT Campaign Targets Southeast Asian Government, Telecom Sectors
April 25, 2025
Trend Research uncovered a sophisticated APT campaign targeting government and telecommunications sectors in Southeast Asia. Named Earth Kurma, the attackers use advanced custom malware, rootkits, and cloud storage services for data exfiltration. Earth Kurma demonstrates adaptive malware toolsets, strategic infrastructure abuse, and complex evasion techniques. This campaign poses a high business risk due to targeted espionage, ...
- IronHusky updates the forgotten MysterySnail RAT to target Russia and Mongolia
April 17, 2025
Day after day, threat actors create new malware to use in cyberattacks. Each of these new implants is developed in its own way, and as a result gets its own destiny – while the use of some malware families is reported for decades, information about others disappears after days, months or several years. Kaspersky researchers observed ...
- Suspected Kimsuky (APT-Q-2) attacks South Korean companies
April 11, 2025
Kimsuky, alias Mystery Baby, Baby Coin, Smoke Screen, Black Banshe, etc., is tracked internally by Qi’anxin as APT-Q-2. The APT group was publicly disclosed in 2013, with attack activity dating as far back as 2012. Kimsuky’s main target for attacks has been South Korea, involving defense, education, energy, government, healthcare, and think tanks, with a focus ...
- GOFFEE continues to attack organizations in Russia
April 10, 2025
GOFFEE is a threat actor that first came to our attention in early 2022. Since then, Kaspersky researchers have observed malicious activities targeting exclusively entities located in the Russian Federation, leveraging spear phishing emails with a malicious attachment. Starting in May 2022 and up until summer of 2023, GOFFEE deployed modified Owowa (malicious IIS module) in ...
- Trump orders federal investigation into former CISA director Chris Krebs
April 10, 2025
President Trump on Wednesday ordered a federal investigation into Chris Krebs, the former director of U.S. cybersecurity agency CISA. In a new executive order, Trump instructed the Department of Homeland Security, which houses CISA, and the U.S. attorney general to investigate Krebs, who was fired by the Trump administration in November 2020 soon after he publicly ...