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:
- Ransomware gangs are getting a lot quicker at encrypting networks
April 20, 2022
A highly successful and aggressive ransomware gang is getting even faster at encrypting networks as they look to extort ransom payments from as many victims as possible. Researchers at Mandiant examined ransomware attacks by a cyber-criminal group they refer to as FIN12 – responsible for one in five attacks investigated by the cybersecurity company – and ...
- Five Eyes nations fear wave of Russian attacks against critical infrastructure
April 20, 2022
The Five Eyes nations’ cybersecurity agencies this week urged critical infrastructure to be ready for attacks by crews backed by or sympathetic to the Kremlin amid strong Western opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The joint alert, issued by cybersecurity authorities in the US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, provides technical details on more than ...
- Lenovo patches UEFI firmware vulnerabilities impacting millions of users
April 19, 2022
Lenovo has patched a trio of bugs that could be abused to perform UEFI attacks. Discovered by ESET researcher Martin Smolár, the vulnerabilities, assigned as CVE-2021-3970, CVE-2021-3971, and CVE-2021-3972, could be exploited to “deploy and successfully execute UEFI malware either in the form of SPI flash implants like LoJax or ESP implants like ESPecter” in the ...
- AWS’s Log4Shell Hot Patch Vulnerable to Container Escape and Privilege Escalation
April 19, 2022
ollowing Log4Shell, AWS released several hot patch solutions that monitor for vulnerable Java applications and Java containers and patch them on the fly. Each solution suits a different environment, covering standalone servers, Kubernetes clusters, Elastic Container Service (ECS) clusters and Fargate. The hot patches aren’t exclusive to AWS environments and can be installed onto any ...
- Critically Underrated: Studying the Data Distribution Service (DDS) Protocol
April 19, 2022
Despite being unknown even to industry practitioners, the Data Distribution Service (DDS) protocol has been in use for more than a decade. This middleware software technology is responsible for running billions of public and private devices and mechanisms currently in use. DDS is integral in embedded systems that require real-time machine-to-machine communication, facilitating a reliable ...
- TraderTraitor: North Korean State-Sponsored APT Targets Blockchain Companies
April 18, 2022
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the U.S. Treasury Department (Treasury) are issuing this joint Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA) to highlight the cyber threat associated with cryptocurrency thefts and tactics used by a North Korean state-sponsored advanced persistent threat (APT) group since at least 2020. This group is commonly ...

