Midnight Blizzard conducts large-scale spear-phishing campaign using RDP files


Since October 22, 2024, Microsoft Threat Intelligence has observed Russian threat actor Midnight Blizzard sending a series of highly targeted spear-phishing emails to individuals in government, academia, defense, non-governmental organizations, and other sectors.

This activity is ongoing, and Microsoft will continue to investigate and provide updates as available. Based on our investigation of previous Midnight Blizzard spear-phishing campaigns, we assess that the goal of this operation is likely intelligence collection. Microsoft is releasing this blog to notify the public and disrupt this threat actor activity. This blog provides context on these external spear-phishing attempts, which are common attack techniques and do not represent any new compromise of Microsoft.

Read more…
Source: Microsoft


Sign up for our Newsletter


Related:

  • BadPower attack corrupts fast chargers to melt or set your device on fire

    July 20, 2020

    Chinese security researchers said they can alter the firmware of fast chargers to cause damage to connected (charging) systems, such as melt components, or even set devices on fire. The technique, named BadPower, was detailed last week in a report published by Xuanwu Lab, a research unit of Chinese tech giant Tencent. According to researchers, BadPower works ...

  • Two more cyber-attacks hit Israel’s water system

    July 20, 2020

    Two more cyber-attacks have hit Israel’s water management facilities, officials from the Water Authority said last week. Officials said the attacks took place last month, in June, and didn’t cause any damage to the attacked organizations. The first attack hit agricultural water pumps in upper Galilee, while the second one hit water pumps in the central province ...

  • Ransomware gang demands $7.5 million from Argentinian ISP

    July 20, 2020

    A ransomware gang has infected the internal network of Telecom Argentina, one of the country’s largest internet service providers, and is now asking for a $7.5 million ransom demand to unlock encrypted files. The incident took place over the weekend, on Saturday, July 18, and is considered one of Argentina’s biggest hacks. Sources inside the ISP said ...

  • Emotet-TrickBot malware duo is back infecting Windows machines

    July 20, 2020

    After awakening last week and starting to send spam worldwide, Emotet is now once again installing the TrickBot trojan on infected Windows computers. On July 17th, 2020, after over five months of inactivity, the Emotet Trojan woke up and started massive spam campaigns pretending to be payment reports, invoices, shipping information, and employment opportunities. These spam emails ...

  • Windows 10 Store ‘wsreset’ tool lets attackers bypass antivirus

    July 20, 2020

    A technique that exploits Windows 10 Microsoft Store called ‘wsreset.exe’ can delete bypass antivirus protection on a host without being detected. Wsreset.exe is a legitimate troubleshooting tool that lets users diagnose problems with the Windows Store and reset its cache. Pentester and researcher Daniel Gebert has discovered that wsreset.exe can be abused to delete arbitrary files. As wsreset.exe ...

  • Twitter Hack Update: What We Know (and What We Don’t)

    July 17, 2020

    Earlier this week, Twitter locked down thousands of verified accounts, including the accounts of Joe Biden, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Apple, Uber and others, after it became clear that hackers had been able to compromise them. The tip-off? Suddenly these high-profile accounts were all tweeting out identical links to a cryptocurrency scam. But what exactly happened? ...