Muddying the Tracks: The State-Sponsored Shadow Behind Chaos Ransomware

Researchers at Rapid7 say that they have spotted what they believe was an Iranian intelligence cyber unit masquerading as the Chaos ransomware gang to hide a state-sponsored espionage operation. The intrusion was spotted earlier this year, and investigators say breadcrumbs Read More …

DOJ says ransomware gang tapped into Russian government databases

A U.S. court has sentenced Latvian hacker Deniss Zolotarjovs to more than eight years in prison following his conviction for carrying out ransomware attacks. The Justice Department accused the hacker of working for a notorious Russian ransomware gang called Karakurt, Read More …

Inside Shadow-Earth-053: A China-Aligned Cyberespionage Campaign Against Government and Defense Sectors in Asia

Through ongoing analysis of ShadowPad implants targeting South and Southeast Asia, TrendAI Research has uncovered a series of new related campaigns that are tracked under a temporary intrusion set (a provisional cluster of related activity pending formal attribution) designated SHADOW-EARTH-053, Read More …

U.S. DOJ: Prolific Chinese state-sponsored contract hacker extradited from Italy

Xu Zewei (徐泽伟), 34, of the People’s Republic of China was extradited to the United States this weekend and appeared today in U.S. District Court in Houston on a nine-count indictment related to his involvement in computer intrusions between February Read More …

Governments on high alert after CISA snuffs out Firestarter backdoor on fed network

A US federal agency was successfully targeted by a previously unknown backdoor malware called Firestarter, according to CISA cybersnoops and their UK counterparts – neither of which disclosed the agency’s name. Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agencies include NASA; Homeland Security itself (cyberworkers at CISA Read More …

France confirms data breach at government agency that manages citizens’ IDs

The French government agency that handles the issuing and management of citizens’ identity documents, including national IDs, passports, and immigration documents, confirmed Wednesday that it experienced a data breach. In an announcement, the Agence Nationale des Titres Sécurisés (ANTS) said Read More …

Hungary: Nearly 800 state logins surfaced in breach data, including defense and NATO-linked accounts

Hungary’s government has discovered the hard way that the biggest threat to national security might just be its own password choices. An investigation by Bellingcat has uncovered close to 800 Hungarian government email and password pairings circulating in breach dumps, Read More …

Hack-for-hire group caught targeting Android devices and iCloud backups

Security researchers say they have identified a hack-for-hire group targeting journalists, activists, and government officials across the Middle East and North Africa. The hackers used phishing attacks to access targets’ iCloud backups and messaging accounts on Signal, and deployed Android Read More …

Sophisticated supply chain attack exploited TrueConf update process

Southeast Asian governments were recently targeted by a highly sophisticated supply chain attack as part of a wider cyber-espionage campaign, which experts believe is the work of the Chinese government. Security researchers Check Point detailed their findings on Operation TrueChaos, Read More …

Swedish government IT system hacked

A large amount of sensitive information allegedly coming from a Swedish government IT system has been posted on the darknet, according to Dagens Nyheter and Expressen. DN writes that the newspaper has taken note of the leak and that it Read More …