New Hive0117 phishing campaign imitates conscription summons to deliver DarkWatchman malware
phishing campaign likely conducted by Hive0117 delivering the fileless malware DarkWatchman, directed at individuals associated with major energy, finance, transport, and software security industries based in Russia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, and Estonia. DarkWatchman malware is capable of keylogging, collecting system information, and deploying secondary payloads.…
By Aleksandar Milenkoski and Tom Hegel
Executive Summary SentinelLabs has identified suspected-Chinese malware and infrastructure potentially involved in China-associated operations directed at the gambling sector within Southeast Asia. The threat actors drop Adobe Creative Cloud, Microsoft Edge, and McAfee VirusScan executables vulnerable to DLL hijacking to deploy Cobalt Strike beacons.…Threat actors constantly take notice of the work and takedown efforts initiated by security researchers. In this constant game of cat and mouse chasing, tactics and techniques keep evolving from simple to more complex, and more covert.
This is a trend we have observed time and time again, no matter the playing field, from exploit kits to credit card skimmers.…
Published On : 2023-08-11
EXECUTIVE SUMMARYThe Cyfirma Research team has recently discovered a disguised Stealthy MSI Loader being advertised in underground forums by Russian threat actor, showcasing its remarkable ability to evade detection by both Virus Total scan and Windows Defender. Additionally, through our investigation, we have established a link between this MSI Loader and the BatLoader campaign observed in March 2023, highlighting potential coordination between these threats.…
A Data-Driven Approach Based on Analysis of Network Telemetry
In this blog post, we will provide an update on our high-level analysis of QakBot infrastructure, following on from our previous blog post. We will pick up the timeline from where we left it, basing our findings on data collected between 1 May and 20 July 2023.…
By Tom Hegel and Aleksandar Milenkoski
Executive Summary SentinelLabs identified an intrusion into the Russian defense industrial base, specifically a missile engineering organization NPO Mashinostroyeniya. Our findings identify two instances of North Korea related compromise of sensitive internal IT infrastructure within this same Russian DIB organization, including a specific email server, alongside use of a Windows backdoor dubbed OpenCarrot.…EclecticIQ analysts assess with high confidence that two observed PDF documents are part of an ongoing campaign targeting Ministries of Foreign Affairs of NATO aligned countries. The PDF files masquerade as coming from the German embassy and contained two diplomatic invitation lures.
One of the PDFs delivered a variant of Duke – a malware that has been linked to Russian state-sponsored cyber espionage activities of APT29.…
Insikt Group has been tracking the threat activity group BlueCharlie, associated with the Russia-nexus group Callisto/Calisto, COLDRIVER, and Star Blizzard/SEABORGIUM. BlueCharlie, a Russia-linked threat group active since 2017, focuses on information gathering for espionage and hack-and-leak operations. BlueCharlie has evolved its tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) and built new infrastructure, indicating sophistication in adapting to public disclosures and improving operations security.…
On a bi-weekly basis, FortiGuard Labs gathers data on ransomware variants of interest that have been gaining traction within our datasets and the OSINT community. The Ransomware Roundup report aims to provide readers with brief insights into the evolving ransomware landscape and the Fortinet solutions that protect against those variants.…
Introduction
In this blog post, we will provide an update on our continued analysis and tracking of infrastructure associated with IcedID’s BackConnect (BC) protocol; a continuation of the analysis we shared in late-December 2022, which you can read here, in addition to our campaign metrics and infrastructure tracking blog posts.…
Trustwave SpiderLabs discovered a new version of the Rilide Stealer extension targeting Chromium-based browsers such as Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Brave, and Opera. This malware uses a creative way to work around the Chrome Extension Manifest V3 from Google which is aimed at blocking the installation of malicious extensions for chromium browsers.…
Microsoft Threat Intelligence has identified highly targeted social engineering attacks using credential theft phishing lures sent as Microsoft Teams chats by the threat actor that Microsoft tracks as Midnight Blizzard (previously tracked as NOBELIUM). This latest attack, combined with past activity, further demonstrates Midnight Blizzard’s ongoing execution of their objectives using both new and common techniques.…
Recorded Future’s Insikt Group has been monitoring the activities of Russian state actors who are intensifying their efforts to hide command-and-control network traffic using legitimate internet services (LIS) and expanding the range of services misused for this purpose. BlueBravo is a threat group tracked by Insikt Group, whose actions align with those of the Russian advanced persistent threat (APT) groups APT29 and Midnight Blizzard, both attributed to Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR).…
The threat actor behind the RomCom RAT has been particularly active since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Since its discovery, we have carefully followed its campaigns and referred to it as an unattributed threat actor, although for the purposes of this report we’ve referred to it simply as RomCom.…
At the end of 2019, the team at the Positive Technologies Expert Security Center (PT ESC) discovered a new cybercrime group, which they dubbed Space Pirates. It had been active since at least 2017. The first-ever comprehensive research paper describing the group saw light in early 2022. The Space Pirates group have since stepped up attacks on Russian companies: we have come across the group frequently while investigating cyberattacks in the past year.…
To obtain a better perspective of attacks worldwide, Trustwave has implemented a network of honeypots located in multiple countries across the globe. By distributing honeypots in such a manner, we can gather a reliable set of information on the methods and techniques used by attackers and their botnets.…
This post is also available in: 日本語 (Japanese)
Executive SummaryRussia’s Foreign Intelligence Service hackers, which we call Cloaked Ursa (aka APT29, UAC-0004, Midnight Blizzard/Nobelium, Cozy Bear) are well known for targeting diplomatic missions globally. Their initial access attempts over the past two years have predominantly used phishing lures with a theme of diplomatic operations such as the following:
Notes verbale (semiformal government-to-government diplomatic communications) Embassies’ operating status updates Schedules for diplomats Invitations to embassy eventsThese types of lures are generally sent to individuals who handle this type of embassy correspondence as part of their daily jobs.…
We all have thoughts that keep us up at night.
Will the ticking noise the car made end up being an expensive repair? When will YouTube superstar John Hammond respond to my posted fanfiction? And are there user agents in Microsoft 365’s security telemetry that we can use to detect potential business email compromise (BEC)?…
August 8, 2023 update: Microsoft released security updates to address CVE-2023-36884. Customers are advised to apply patches, which supersede the mitigations listed in this blog, as soon as possible.
Microsoft has identified a phishing campaign conducted by the threat actor tracked as Storm-0978 targeting defense and government entities in Europe and North America.…