Cybercriminals and Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) actors share a common interest in proxy anonymization layers and Virtual Private Network (VPN) nodes to hide traces of their presence and make detection of malicious activities more difficult. This shared interest results in malicious internet traffic blending financial and espionage motives.
A prominent example of this includes a cybercriminal botnet (operating since at least 2016) that used compromised Ubiquiti EdgeRouter devices, which was disrupted by the FBI and other international partners on January 26, 2024. In April 2022, the APT group Pawn Storm (also known as APT28 and Forest Blizzard) managed to gain access to the bots in this botnet, which the threat actor then used for its own persistent espionage campaigns.
Read more…
Source: Trend Micro
Related:
- Volt Typhoon Actors Exploiting Insecure SOHO Routers
January 31, 2024
Threat actors—particularly the People’s Republic of China (PRC)—sponsored Volt Typhoon group—are compromising small office/home office (SOHO) routers by exploiting software defects that manufacturers must eliminate through secure software design and development. Specifically, Volt Typhoon actors are exploiting security defects in SOHO routers to use them as launching pads to further compromise U.S. critical infrastructure entities. CISA ...
- The NSA buys Americans’ internet data, newly released documents show
January 26, 2024
The National Security Agency has been buying Americans’ web browsing data from commercial data brokers without warrants, intelligence officials disclosed in documents made public by a US senator Thursday. The purchases include information about the websites Americans visit and the apps that they use, said Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden, releasing newly unclassified letters he received ...
- 7777-Botnet Infection Vectors
January 18, 2024
In October 2023, the 7777-Botnet was first discussed in a writeup titled, The Curious Case of the 7777-Botnet. The author, supported by other researchers, describes a ~10,000 node botnet that’s purpose is to brute-force Microsoft Azure user credentials. It employs targeted, low-volume methods that are so effective that they were only discovered due to a geolocation ...
- Actively exploited 0-days in Ivanti VPN are letting hackers backdoor networks
January 10, 2024
Unknown threat actors are actively targeting two critical zero-day vulnerabilities that allow them to bypass two-factor authentication and execute malicious code inside networks that use a widely used virtual private network appliance sold by Ivanti, researchers said Wednesday. Ivanti reported bare-bones details concerning the zero-days in posts published on Wednesday that urged customers to follow mitigation ...
- ‘Lazy’ broadband engineers blamed for exposing hospitals and banks to cyber attacks
January 2, 2024
Hospitals and banks are more exposed to cyber attacks because “lazy” broadband engineers are failing to fill in crucial forms, it has been alleged. Industry sources warned of a “Wild West” among contractors who are not handing over information about when and where they are working on BT’s network. Read more… Source: MSN News
- Exploring Encrypted Attacks Amidst the AI Revolution
December 14, 2023
Zscaler ThreatLabz researchers analyzed 29.8 billion blocked threats embedded in encrypted traffic from October 2022 to September 2023 in the Zscaler cloud, presenting their findings in the Zscaler ThreatLabz 2023 State of Encrypted Attacks Report. According to the Google Transparency Report, encrypted traffic saw a significant rise in the last decade, reaching 95% of global traffic ...