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:

  • Evilnum hackers use the same malware supplier as FIN6, Cobalt

    July 9, 2020

    Hackers in the Evilnum group have developed a toolset that combines custom malware, legitimate utilities, and tools bought from a malware-as-a-service (MaaS) provider that caters to big fintech threat actors. The group has been active since at least 2018 and focuses on companies from the financial technology sector that offer trading and investment platforms. Its targets are ...

  • Conti ransomware uses 32 simultaneous CPU threads for blazing-fast encryption

    July 9, 2020

    A lesser-known ransomware strain known as Conti is using up to 32 simultaneous CPU threads to encrypt files on infected computers for blazing-fast encryption speeds, security researchers from Carbon Black said in a report on Wednesday. Conti is just the latest in a long string of ransomware strains that have been spotted this year. Just like ...

  • More pre-installed malware has been found in budget US smartphones

    July 9, 2020

    Pre-installed malware has been discovered on another budget handset connected to Assurance Wireless by Virgin Mobile. Back in January, cybersecurity researchers from Malwarebytes discovered unremovable malware bundled with the Android operating systems on the Unimax (UMX) U686CL, a low-end handset sold by Assurance Wireless as part of the Lifeline Assistance program, a 1985 US initiative which subsidizes telephone services for ...

  • New Mirai Variant Expands Arsenal, Exploits CVE-2020-10173

    July 8, 2020

    Researchers at Trend Micro discovered a new Mirai variant (detected as  IoT.Linux.MIRAI.VWISI) that exploits nine vulnerabilities, most notable of which is CVE-2020-10173 in Comtrend VR-3033 routers which we have not observed exploited by past Mirai variants. This discovery is a new addition to the Mirai variants that appeared in the past few months, that include SORA, UNSTABLE, and Mukashi. The case, ...

  • 15 Billion Credentials Currently Up for Grabs on Hacker Forums

    July 8, 2020

    Fifteen billion usernames and passwords for a range of internet services are currently for sale on underground forums – shedding light on the sheer scope of compromised credentials that are fueling account takeovers on the internet. A report released Wednesday — “From Exposure to Takeover” by the Digital Shadows Photon Research Team — found that 100,000 separate data ...

  • Patch Now: F5 Vulnerability with CVSS 10 Severity Score

    July 7, 2020

    F5 Networks, a provider of networking devices and services, urges users to patch their BIG-IP networking systems as soon as possible, after the provider disclosed two vulnerabilities. First of these is CVE-2020-5902, a critical remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability found in BIG-IP device’s Traffic Management User Interface (TMUI). CVE-2020-5902 received a 10 out of 10 score on the Common ...