Cybersecurity Challenges for the European Railways

The European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) released in November 2020 its “Cybersecurity in Railways” report to raise awareness about the cybersecurity challenges facing Europe’s railways. The report identifies the current cybersecurity status and challenges as well as proposes cybersecurity Read More …

A Chinese hacking group is stealing airline passenger details

A suspected Chinese hacking group has been attacking the airline industry for the past few years with the goal of obtaining passenger data in order to track the movement of persons of interest. The intrusions have been linked to a Read More …

Adventures in MQTT Part II: Identifying MQTT Brokers in the Wild

The use of publicly accessible MQTT brokers is prevalent across numerous verticals and technology fields. I was able to identify systems related to energy production, hospitality, finance, healthcare, pharmaceutical manufacturing, building management, surveillance, workplace safety, vehicle fleet management, shipping, construction, Read More …

xHunt Campaign: Newly Discovered Backdoors Using Deleted Email Drafts and DNS Tunnelling for C2

The xHunt campaign has been active since at least July 2018 and we have seen this group target Kuwait government and shipping and transportation organizations. Recently, we observed evidence that the threat actors compromised a Microsoft Exchange Server at an Read More …

When Threat Actors Fly Under the Radar: Vatet, PyXie and Defray777

As security practitioners, Palo Alto Unit 42 researchers spend a lot of time focusing on the threat actors and malware families that leverage the most impactful exploits or affect the highest number of victims. But what happens when a threat Read More …

Fairfax County schools hit by Maze ransomware, student data leaked

Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS), the 10th largest school division in the US, was recently hit by ransomware according to an official statement published on Friday evening. The school district is also the largest in the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area and Read More …

FBI warns of Netwalker ransomware targeting US government and organisations

The FBI has issued a security alert about Netwalker ransomware operators targeting U.S. and foreign government organizations, advising their victims not to pay the ransom and reporting incidents to their local FBI field offices. FBI’s flash alert also provides indicators Read More …