Star Blizzard’s new spear-phishing campaign, while novel in that it uses and targets WhatsApp for the first time, exhibits familiar spear-phishing TTPs for Star Blizzard, with the threat actor initiating email contact with their targets, to engage them, before sending them a second message containing a malicious link.
The sender address used by the threat actor in this campaign impersonates a US government official, continuing Star Blizzard’s practice of impersonating known political/diplomatic figures, to further ensure target engagement. The initial email sent to targets contains a quick response (QR) code purporting to direct users to join a WhatsApp group on “the latest non-governmental initiatives aimed at supporting Ukraine NGOs.”
Read more…
Source: Microsoft
Related:
- Google patches another actively exploited Chrome zero-day
April 19, 2023
Google has released a security update for the Chrome web browser to fix the second zero-day vulnerability found to be exploited in attacks this year. “Google is aware that an exploit for CVE-2023-2136 exists in the wild,” reads the security bulletin from the company. Read more… Source: Bleeping Computer
- Play ransomware gang uses custom Shadow Volume Copy data-theft tool
April 19, 2023
The Play ransomware group has developed two custom tools in .NET, namely Grixba and VSS Copying Tool, which it uses to improve the effectiveness of its cyberattacks. The two tools enable attackers to enumerate users and computers in compromised networks, gather information about security, backup, and remote administration software, and easily copy files from Volume Shadow ...
- Capita IT breach gets worse as Black Basta claims it’s now selling off stolen data
April 18, 2023
Black Basta, the extortionists who claimed they were the ones who lately broke into Capita, have reportedly put up for sale sensitive details, including bank account information, addresses, and passport photos, stolen from the IT outsourcing giant. A spokesperson for the London-based corporation, which has UK government contracts totaling £6.5 billion ($8 billion), said it hasn’t ...
- Nation-state threat actor Mint Sandstorm refines tradecraft to attack high-value targets
April 18, 2023
Over the past several months, Microsoft has observed a mature subgroup of Mint Sandstorm, an Iranian nation-state actor previously tracked as PHOSPHORUS, refining its tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs). Specifically, this subset has rapidly weaponized N-day vulnerabilities in common enterprise applications and conducted highly-targeted phishing campaigns to quickly and successfully access environments of interest. This Mint ...
- CISA Releases Four Industrial Control Systems Advisories
April 18, 2023
CISA released four Industrial Control Systems (ICS) advisories on April 18, 2023. These advisories provide timely information about current security issues, vulnerabilities, and exploits surrounding ICS. CISA encourages users and administrators to review the newly released ICS advisories for technical details and mitigations: ICSA-23-108-01 Omron CSCJ Series ICSA-23-108-02 Schneider Electric Easy UPS Online Monitoring Software Read more… Source: U.S. Cybersecurity ...
- State-sponsored campaigns target global network infrastructure
April 18, 2023
Recently, the UK’s National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) released a report on a sustained campaign by a Russian intelligence agency targeting a vulnerability in routers that Cisco had published a patch for in 2017. This campaign, dubbed “Jaguar Tooth,” is an example of a much broader trend of sophisticated adversaries targeting networking infrastructure to advance ...