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:
- Canada suffers cyberattack used to steal COVID-19 relief payments
August 16, 2020
Canadian government sites used to provide access to crucial services for immigration, taxes, pension, and benefits have been breached in a coordinated attack to steal COVID-19 relief payments. The online portal referred to as GCKey is acritical single sign-on (SSO) system used by the public to access multiple Canadian government services. Read more… Source: Bleeping Computer
- Online crime in Africa a bigger threat than ever before, INTERPOL report warns
August 14, 2020
Despite lower online connectivity, organized crime groups are using online tools for a range of illicit activities A new INTERPOL report on online organized crime in Africa shows how digitalization is transforming almost every major crime area across the continent. “Online crime now represents a bigger security issue for law enforcement in Africa than ever before,” reads ...
- Patch List: Adobe, Citrix, Intel, and vBulletin Vulns
August 14, 2020
Vulnerabilities expose enterprises’ systems to compromise. Now that many employees are working from home and operating devices outside the more secure office environments, the need to patch vulnerabilities as soon as they are discovered has become even more pressing. Aside from Microsoft, the following vendors also released patches recently: Adobe, Citrix, Intel, and vBulletin. We rounded ...
- FBI and NSA expose new Linux malware Drovorub, used by Russian state hackers
August 13, 2020
The FBI and NSA have published today a joint security alert containing details about a new strain of Linux malware that the two agencies say was developed and deployed in real-world attacks by Russia’s military hackers. The two agencies say Russian hackers used the malware, named Drovorub, was to plant backdoors inside hacked networks. Based on evidence ...
- XCSSET Mac Malware: Infects Xcode Projects, Performs UXSS Attack on Safari, Other Browsers, Leverages Zero-day Exploits
August 13, 2020
Trend Micro has discovered an unusual infection related to Xcode developer projects. Upon further investigation, we discovered that a developer’s Xcode project at large contained the source malware, which leads to a rabbit hole of malicious payloads. Most notable in our investigation is the discovery of two zero-day exploits: one is used to steal cookies ...
- CactusPete APT group’s updated Bisonal backdoor
August 13, 2020
CactusPete (also known as Karma Panda or Tonto Team) is an APT group that has been publicly known since at least 2013. Some of the group’s activities have been previously described in public by multiple sources. We have been investigating and privately reporting on this group’s activity for years as well. Historically, their activity has ...