Secureworks® Counter Threat Unit™ (CTU) researchers are investigating attacks by the Iranian COBALT MIRAGE threat group, which has been operating since at least June 2020. COBALT MIRAGE is linked to the Iranian COBALT ILLUSION threat group, which predominantly uses persistent phishing campaigns to obtain initial access.…
Tag: INITIAL ACCESS
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Read More Ursnif (aka Gozi, Dreambot, ISFB) is one of the most widespread banking trojans. It has been observed evolving over the past few years. Ursnif has shown incredible theft capabilities. In 2020 Ursnif rose to prominence becoming one of the top ten most prolific pieces of malware.…
By: Max Malyutin – Orion Threat Research Team Leader
Read More Cynet’s Threat Research and Intelligence team recently discovered a new malware campaign called BumbleBee. The campaign is unique in its use of Initial Access Brokers’ (IAB) tactics to gain access to victims’ machines. In this post, we will cover what this campaign is, and how the IAB distributes the BumbleBee malware and its TTPs.…
In early December 2021, a new ransomware actor started advertising its services on a Russian underground forum. They presented themselves as ALPHV, a new generation Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) group. Shortly afterwards, they dialed up their activity, infecting numerous corporate victims around the world. The group is also known as BlackCat.…
We discovered active exploitation of a vulnerability in the Spring Framework designated as CVE-2022-22965 that allows malicious actors to download the Mirai botnet malware.
Trend Micro Threat Research observed active exploitation of the Spring4Shell vulnerability assigned as CVE-2022-22965, which allows malicious actors to weaponize and execute the Mirai botnet malware.…
LOADOUT is an obfuscated VBScript-based downloader which harvests extensive information from the infected system. The harvested information is then sent to a command-and-control (C2) server. C2 server responses for LOADOUT infections delivered GRIFFON, a JavaScript-based downloader which retrieves additional JavaScript modules using HTTP or DNS and executes them in memory.…
In this intrusion from December 2021, the threat actors utilized IcedID as the initial access vector. IcedID is a banking trojan that first appeared in 2017, usually, it is delivered via malspam campaigns and has been widely used as an initial access vector in multiple ransomware intrusions.…
The Morphisec Labs team has conducted research on the new Mars infostealer. Mars is based on the older Oski Stealer and was first discovered in June 2021. The new Mars is available for sale on several underground forums and is reported to be under constant development.…
This post describes the technical analysis of a new campaign detected by Intezer’s research team, which initiates attacks with a phishing email that uses conversation hijacking to deliver IcedID.
The underground economy is constantly evolving with threat actors specializing in specific fields. One field that has bloomed in the last few years is initial access brokers.…
A Cobalt Strike Cybercrime Syndicate and the Ransomware Hackers’ Favorite Weapon
On March 9, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the U.S. Secret Service issued an updated alert about the Conti ransomware group, encouraging organizations to review their advisory and apply the recommended mitigations.…
Information stealing malware is on the rise. Cyble Research Labs recently discovered a new malware dubbed “AvD crypto stealer” on a cybercrime forum. Upon further investigation, however, we observed that this does not function as a Crypto Stealer. This is, in fact, a disguised variant of well-known Clipper malware that can read and edit any text copied by the victim i.e.…
ESET researchers discovered a still-ongoing campaign using a previously undocumented Korplug variant, which they named Hodur due to its resemblance to the THOR variant previously documented by Unit 42 in 2020. In Norse mythology, Hodur is Thor’s blind half-brother, who is tricked by Loki into killing their half-brother Baldr.…
In December 2021, we observed an adversary exploiting the Microsoft Exchange ProxyShell vulnerabilities to gain initial access and execute code via multiple web shells. The overlap of activities and tasks was remarkably similar to that observed in our previous report, “Exchange Exploit Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware“.…
Dragos has observed consistent network communication between Emotet Command and Control (C2) servers and numerous auto manufacturing companies. These Emotet servers are suspected to be controlled by the Conti ransomware group.
At this stage, Dragos has not yet observed any confirmed initial access methods being utilized and does not have any evidence of ransomware encryption being initiated.…
BlackCat is a recent and growing ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) group that targeted several organizations worldwide over the past few months.
There are rumors of a relationship between BlackCat and the BlackMatter/DarkSide ransomware groups, infamous for attacking the Colonial Pipeline last year. According to a BlackCat representative, BlackCat is not a rebranding of BlackMatter, but its team is made from affiliates of other RaaS groups (including BlackMatter).…
Read More Summary
Multifactor Authentication (MFA): A Cybersecurity Essential• MFA is one of the most important cybersecurity practices to reduce the risk of intrusions—according to industry research, users who enable MFA are up to 99 percent less likely to have an account compromised.• Every organization should enforce MFA for all employees and customers, and every user should sign up for MFA when available.•…
What Global Network Visibility Reveals about the Resurgence of One of the World’s Most Notorious Botnets
Executive Summary
Read More Since its reemergence on Nov. 14, 2021, Black Lotus Labs has once again been tracking Emotet, one of the world’s most prolific malware distribution families which previously infected more than 1.6M devices and caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage across critical infrastructure, healthcare, government organizations and enterprises around the world.…
For additional information regarding deserialization exploits and our new hunting rule generation tool ‘HeySerial’, read our blog post, Now You Serial, Now You Don’t — Systematically Hunting for Deserialization Exploits.
USAHerds (CVE-2021-44207) Zero-DayIn three investigations from 2021, APT41 exploited a zero-day vulnerability in the USAHerds web application.…
Since the dawn of phishing, fraudulent invoicing and purchasing schemes have been one of the most common lures. The usual modus operandi involves appealing to the recipient’s desire to avoid incurring a debt, especially where a business may be involved.
FortiGuard Labs recently came across an interesting phishing e-mail masquerading as a purchase order addressed to a Ukrainian manufacturing organization that deals with raw materials and chemicals.…
In this intrusion (from November 2021), a threat actor gained its initial foothold in the environment through the use of Qbot (a.k.a. Quakbot/Qakbot) malware.
Read More Soon after execution of the Qbot payload, the malware established C2 connectivity and created persistence on the beachhead. Successful exploitation of the Zerologon vulnerability (CVE-2020-1472) allowed the threat actors to obtain domain admin privileges.…