Governments issue alerts after ‘sophisticated’ state-backed actor found exploiting flaws in Cisco security boxes


A previously unknown and “sophisticated” nation-state group compromised Cisco firewalls as early as November 2023 for espionage purposes — and possibly attacked network devices made by other vendors including Microsoft, according to warnings from the networking giant and three Western governments.

A Cisco spokesperson declined to comment on which country the snooping crew – tracked as UAT4356 by Talos and as STORM-1849 by Microsoft – is affiliated with. The disclosures, however, come as both Russian and China-backed hacking groups have been found burrowing into critical infrastructure systems and government agencies, with China specifically targeting Cisco gear.

Read more…
Source: MSN News


Sign up for our Newsletter


Related:

  • Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Exploiting JetBrains TeamCity CVE Globally

    December 13, 2023

    The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and partners assess Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) cyber actors – also known as Advanced Persistent Threat 29 (APT 29), the Dukes, CozyBear, and NOBELIUM/Midnight Blizzard – are exploiting CVE-2023-42793 a at a large scale, targeting servers hosting JetBrains TeamCity software since September 2023. Software developers use TeamCity software ...

  • Russian diplomat accuses West of patronizing Ukrainian IT army that commits cybercrime

    December 12, 2023

    The US-led West supervises Ukraine’s so-called IT army that may be responsible for cybercrime, Russia’s representative Irina Tyazhlova said on Monday. Addressing a meeting of the UN Open-ended Working Group (OEWG) on security of and in the use of information and telecommunication technologies (ICTs), she said: “Other numerous malicious activities with the use of ICTs were ...

  • U.S., South Korea, Japan to step up actions on North Korea cyber threats

    December 9, 2023

    The United States, South Korea and Japan agreed new initiatives on Saturday to respond to North Korea’s threats in cyberspace, including cryptocurrency abuses and space launches, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said. The three countries’ national security advisers met in Seoul as Pyongyang warned that it would deploy more spy satellites. Read more… Source: MSN News  

  • Russian FSB cyber actor Star Blizzard continues worldwide spear-phishing campaigns

    December 8, 2023

    The Russia-based actor Star Blizzard (formerly known as SEABORGIUM, also known as Callisto Group/TA446/COLDRIVER/TAG-53/BlueCharlie) continues to successfully use spear-phishing attacks against targeted organisations and individuals in the UK, and other geographical areas of interest, for information-gathering activity. The UK National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the US Federal Bureau ...

  • Star Blizzard increases sophistication and evasion in ongoing attacks

    December 7, 2023

    Microsoft Threat Intelligence continues to track and disrupt malicious activity attributed to a Russian state-sponsored actor we track as Star Blizzard (formerly SEABORGIUM, also known as COLDRIVER and Callisto Group). Star Blizzard has improved their detection evasion capabilities since 2022 while remaining focused on email credential theft against the same targets. Star Blizzard, whose activities we ...

  • TA422’s Dedicated Exploitation Loop – the Same Week After Week

    December 5, 2023

    Starting in March 2023, Proofpoint researchers have observed the Russian advanced persistent threat (APT) TA422 readily use patched vulnerabilities to target a variety of organizations in Europe and North America. TA422 overlaps with the aliases APT28, Forest Blizzard, Pawn Storm, Fancy Bear, and BlueDelta, and is attributed by the United States Intelligence Community to the Russian ...