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:

  • Notes of cyber inspector: three clusters of threat in cyberspace

    September 10, 2025

    Hacktivism and geopolitically motivated APT groups have become a significant threat to many regions of the world in recent years, damaging infrastructure and important functions of government, business, and society. In late 2022 Kaspersky predicted that the involvement of hacktivist groups in all major geopolitical conflicts from now on will only increase and this is what ...

  • Deception in Depth: PRC-nexus espionage campaign hijacks web traffic to target diplomats

    August 25, 2025

    This blog post presents Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) findings and analysis of this espionage campaign, as well as the evolution of the threat actor’s operational capabilities. GTIG examine how the malware is delivered, how the threat actor utilized social engineering and evasion techniques, and technical aspects of the multi-stage malware payloads. In this campaign, the ...

  • FBI: Russian Government Cyber Actors Targeting Networking Devices, Critical Infrastructure

    August 20, 2025

    The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is warning the public, private sector, and international community of the threat posed to computer networks and critical infrastructure by cyber actors attributed to the Russian Federal Security Service’s (FSB) Center 16. The FBI detected Russian FSB cyber actors exploiting Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) and end-of-life networking devices running ...

  • Hackers breach and expose a major North Korean spying operation

    August 12, 2025

    Hackers claim to have compromised the computer of a North Korean government hacker and leaked its contents online, offering a rare window into a hacking operation by the notoriously secretive nation. The two hackers, who go by Saber and cyb0rg, published a report about the breach in the latest issue of Phrack magazine, a legendary cybersecurity ...

  • New Ransomware Charon Uses Earth Baxia APT Techniques to Target Enterprises

    August 12, 2025

    Trend Micro researchers recently identified a new ransomware family called Charon, deployed in a targeted attack observed in the Middle East’s public sector and aviation industry. The threat actor employed a DLL sideloading technique notably similar to tactics previously documented in the Earth Baxia campaigns, which have historically targeted government sectors. The attack chain leveraged a ...

  • From ClickFix to Command: A Full PowerShell Attack Chain

    August 11, 2025

    The FortiMail Workspace Security team recently identified a targeted intrusion campaign impacting multiple Israeli organizations. The adversary leveraged compromised internal email infrastructure to distribute phishing messages across the regional business landscape. These emails initiated a multi-stage, PowerShell-based infection chain that culminated in the delivery of a remote access trojan (RAT), executed entirely through PowerShell. Read more… Source:  Fortinet Sign ...