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U.S. Feds Shut Down China-Linked "KV-Botnet" Targeting SOHO Routers

U.S. Feds Shut Down China-Linked "KV-Botnet" Targeting SOHO Routers

Feb 01, 2024 Cyber Threat / Network Security
The U.S. government on Wednesday said it took steps to neutralize a botnet comprising hundreds of U.S.-based small office and home office (SOHO) routers hijacked by a China-linked state-sponsored threat actor called Volt Typhoon and blunt the impact posed by the hacking campaign. The existence of the botnet, dubbed  KV-botnet , was  first disclosed  by the Black Lotus Labs team at Lumen Technologies in mid-December 2023. The law enforcement effort was  reported  by Reuters earlier this week. "The vast majority of routers that comprised the KV-botnet were Cisco and NetGear routers that were vulnerable because they had reached 'end of life' status; that is, they were no longer supported through their manufacturer's security patches or other software updates," the Department of Justice (DoJ)  said  in a press statement. Volt Typhoon  (aka DEV-0391, Bronze Silhouette, Insidious Taurus, or Vanguard Panda) is the moniker assigned to a China-based adversarial collect
China-backed Hackers Hijack Software Updates to Implant "NSPX30" Spyware

China-backed Hackers Hijack Software Updates to Implant "NSPX30" Spyware

Jan 25, 2024 Malware / Cyber Threat
A previously undocumented China-aligned threat actor has been linked to a set of adversary-in-the-middle (AitM) attacks that hijack update requests from legitimate software to deliver a sophisticated implant named NSPX30. Slovak cybersecurity firm ESET is tracking the advanced persistent threat (APT) group under the name  Blackwood . It's said to be active since at least 2018. The NSPX30 implant has been observed deployed via the update mechanisms of known software such as Tencent QQ, WPS Office, and Sogou Pinyin, with the attacks targeting Chinese and Japanese manufacturing, trading, and engineering companies as well as individuals located in China, Japan, and the U.K. "NSPX30 is a multistage implant that includes several components such as a dropper, an installer, loaders, an orchestrator, and a backdoor," security researcher Facundo Muñoz  said . "Both of the latter two have their own sets of plugins." "The implant was designed around the attackers
How to Find and Fix Risky Sharing in Google Drive

How to Find and Fix Risky Sharing in Google Drive

Mar 06, 2024Data Security / Cloud Security
Every Google Workspace administrator knows how quickly Google Drive becomes a messy sprawl of loosely shared confidential information. This isn't anyone's fault; it's inevitable as your productivity suite is purposefully designed to enable real-time collaboration – both internally and externally.  For Security & Risk Management teams, the untenable risk of any Google Drive footprint lies in the toxic combinations of sensitive data, excessive permissions, and improper sharing. However, it can be challenging to differentiate between typical business practices and potential risks without fully understanding the context and intent.  Material Security, a company renowned for its innovative method of protecting sensitive data within employee mailboxes, has recently launched  Data Protection for Google Drive  to safeguard the sprawl of confidential information scattered throughout Google Drive with a powerful discovery and remediation toolkit. How Material Security helps organ
Chinese Hackers Silently Weaponized VMware Zero-Day Flaw for 2 Years

Chinese Hackers Silently Weaponized VMware Zero-Day Flaw for 2 Years

Jan 20, 2024 Zero Day / Cyber Espionage
An advanced China-nexus cyber espionage group previously linked to the exploitation of security flaws in VMware and Fortinet appliances has been attributed to the abuse of a critical vulnerability in VMware vCenter Server as a zero-day since late 2021. "UNC3886 has a track record of utilizing zero-day vulnerabilities to complete their mission without being detected, and this latest example further demonstrates their capabilities," Google-owned Mandiant said in a Friday report. The vulnerability in question is CVE-2023-34048 (CVSS score: 9.8), an out-of-bounds write that could be put to use by a malicious actor with network access to vCenter Server to achieve remote code execution. It was fixed by the Broadcom-owned company on October 24, 2023. The virtualization services provider, earlier this week, updated its advisory to acknowledge that "exploitation of CVE-2023-34048 has occurred in the wild." UNC3886 first came to light in September 2022 when it was
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Chinese Hackers Exploited New Zero-Day in Barracuda's ESG Appliances

Chinese Hackers Exploited New Zero-Day in Barracuda's ESG Appliances

Dec 27, 2023 Zero-Day / Email Security
Barracuda has revealed that Chinese threat actors exploited a new zero-day in its Email Security Gateway (ESG) appliances to deploy backdoors on a "limited number" of devices. Tracked as  CVE-2023-7102 , the issue relates to a case of  arbitrary code execution  that resides within a third-party and open-source library named Spreadsheet::ParseExcel that's used by the Amavis scanner within the gateway to screen Microsoft Excel email attachments for malware. The company attributed the activity to a threat actor tracked by Google-owned Mandiant as  UNC4841 , which was previously linked to the  active exploitation  of another zero-day in Barracuda devices (CVE-2023-2868, CVSS score: 9.8) earlier this year. Successful exploitation of the new flaw is accomplished by means of a specially crafted Microsoft Excel email attachment. This is followed by the deployment of new variants of known implants called  SEASPY and SALTWATER  that are equipped to offer persistence and comman
Chinese Hackers Using SugarGh0st RAT to Target South Korea and Uzbekistan

Chinese Hackers Using SugarGh0st RAT to Target South Korea and Uzbekistan

Dec 01, 2023 Malware / Cyber Espionage
A suspected Chinese-speaking threat actor has been attributed to a malicious campaign that targets the Uzbekistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and South Korean users with a remote access trojan called  SugarGh0st RAT . The activity, which commenced no later than August 2023, leverages two different infection sequences to deliver the malware, which is a customized variant of  Gh0st RAT  (aka Farfli). It comes with features to "facilitate the remote administration tasks as directed by the C2 and modified communication protocol based on the similarity of the command structure and the strings used in the code," Cisco Talos researchers Ashley Shen and Chetan Raghuprasad  said . The attacks commence with a phishing email bearing decoy documents, opening which activates a multi-stage process that leads to the deployment of SugarGh0st RAT. The decoy documents are incorporated within a heavily obfuscated JavaScript dropper that's contained within a Windows Shortcut file embed
PEACHPIT: Massive Ad Fraud Botnet Powered by Millions of Hacked Android and iOS

PEACHPIT: Massive Ad Fraud Botnet Powered by Millions of Hacked Android and iOS

Oct 09, 2023 Botnet / Cyber Threat
An ad fraud botnet dubbed  PEACHPIT  leveraged an army of hundreds of thousands of Android and iOS devices to generate illicit profits for the threat actors behind the scheme. The botnet is part of a larger China-based operation codenamed  BADBOX , which also entails selling off-brand mobile and connected TV (CTV) devices on popular online retailers and resale sites that are backdoored with an  Android malware strain  called  Triada . "The PEACHPIT botnet's conglomerate of associated apps were found in 227 countries and territories, with an estimated peak of 121,000 devices a day on Android and 159,000 devices a day on iOS," HUMAN  said . The infections are said to have been realized through a collection of 39 apps that were installed more than 15 million times. Devices fitted with the BADBOX malware allowed the operators to steal sensitive data, create residential proxy exit peers, and commit ad fraud through the bogus apps. It's currently not clear how the And
Chinese Hackers TAG-74 Targets South Korean Organizations in a Multi-Year Campaign

Chinese Hackers TAG-74 Targets South Korean Organizations in a Multi-Year Campaign

Sep 26, 2023 Cyber Espionage / Malware
A "multi-year" Chinese state-sponsored cyber espionage campaign has been observed targeting South Korean academic, political, and government organizations. Recorded Future's Insikt Group, which is  tracking  the activity under the moniker TAG-74, said the adversary has been linked to "Chinese military intelligence and poses a significant threat to academic, aerospace and defense, government, military, and political entities in South Korea, Japan, and Russia." The cybersecurity firm characterized the targeting of South Korean academic institutions as in alignment with China's broader efforts to conduct intellectual property theft and expand its influence, not to mention motivated by the country's strategic relations with the U.S. Social engineering attacks mounted by the adversary make use of Microsoft Compiled HTML Help (CHM) file lures to drop a custom variant of an open-source Visual Basic Script backdoor called  ReVBShell , which subsequently ser
China Accuses U.S. of Decade-Long Cyber Espionage Campaign Against Huawei Servers

China Accuses U.S. of Decade-Long Cyber Espionage Campaign Against Huawei Servers

Sep 21, 2023 Cyber Espionage / Spyware
China's Ministry of State Security (MSS) has accused the U.S. of breaking into Huawei's servers, stealing critical data, and implanting backdoors since 2009, amid mounting geopolitical tensions between the two countries. In a  message  posted on WeChat, the government authority said U.S. intelligence agencies have "done everything possible" to conduct surveillance, secret theft, and intrusions on many countries around the world, including China, using a "powerful cyber attack arsenal." Specifics about the alleged hacks were not shared. It explicitly singled out the U.S. National Security Agency's (NSA) Computer Network Operations (formerly the Office of Tailored Access Operations or TAO) as having "repeatedly carried out systematic and platform-based attacks" against the country to plunder its "important data resources." The post went on to claim that the cyber-warfare intelligence-gathering unit hacked Huawei's servers in 200
Outlook Hack: Microsoft Reveals How a Crash Dump Led to a Major Security Breach

Outlook Hack: Microsoft Reveals How a Crash Dump Led to a Major Security Breach

Sep 07, 2023 Cyber Attack / Email Hacking
Microsoft on Wednesday revealed that a China-based threat actor known as  Storm-0558  acquired the inactive consumer signing key to forge tokens and access Outlook by compromising an engineer's corporate account. This enabled the adversary to access a debugging environment that contained information pertaining to a crash of the consumer signing system and steal the key. The system crash took place in April 2021. "A consumer signing system crash in April of 2021 resulted in a snapshot of the crashed process ('crash dump')," the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC)  said  in a post-mortem report. "The crash dumps, which redact sensitive information, should not include the signing key. In this case, a race condition allowed the key to be present in the crash dump. The key material's presence in the crash dump was not detected by our systems." The Windows maker said the crash dump was moved to a debugging environment on the internet-connected corporate network, from where Storm-
China-Linked Flax Typhoon Cyber Espionage Targets Taiwan's Key Sectors

China-Linked Flax Typhoon Cyber Espionage Targets Taiwan's Key Sectors

Aug 25, 2023 Cyber Espionage
A nation-state activity group originating from China has been linked to cyber attacks on dozens of organizations in Taiwan as part of a suspected espionage campaign. The Microsoft Threat Intelligence team is tracking the activity under the name  Flax Typhoon , which is also known as Ethereal Panda. "Flax Typhoon gains and maintains long-term access to Taiwanese organizations' networks with minimal use of malware, relying on tools built into the operating system, along with some normally benign software to quietly remain in these networks," the company  said . It further said it hasn't observed the group weaponize the access to conduct data-collection and exfiltration. A majority of the targets include government agencies, educational institutions, critical manufacturing, and information technology organizations in Taiwan. A smaller number of victims have also been detected in Southeast Asia, North America, and Africa. The group is suspected to have been active si
Urgent FBI Warning: Barracuda Email Gateways Vulnerable Despite Recent Patches

Urgent FBI Warning: Barracuda Email Gateways Vulnerable Despite Recent Patches

Aug 25, 2023 Email Security / Vulnerability
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is warning that Barracuda Networks Email Security Gateway (ESG) appliances patched against a recently disclosed critical flaw continue to be at risk of potential compromise from suspected Chinese hacking groups. It also  deemed  the fixes as "ineffective" and that it "continues to observe active intrusions and considers all affected Barracuda ESG appliances to be compromised and vulnerable to this exploit." Tracked as  CVE-2023-2868  (CVSS score: 9.8), the zero-day bug is said to have been weaponized as early as October 2022, more than seven months before the security hole was plugged. Google-owned Mandiant is tracking the China-nexus activity cluster under the name  UNC4841 . The remote command injection vulnerability, impacting versions 5.1.3.001 through 9.2.0.006, allows for unauthorized execution of system commands with administrator privileges on the ESG product. In the attacks observed so far, a successful b
Researchers Shed Light on APT31's Advanced Backdoors and Data Exfiltration Tactics

Researchers Shed Light on APT31's Advanced Backdoors and Data Exfiltration Tactics

Aug 11, 2023 Malware / Cyber Attack
The Chinese threat actor known as APT31 (aka Bronze Vinewood, Judgement Panda, or Violet Typhoon) has been linked to a set of advanced backdoors that are capable of exfiltrating harvested sensitive information to Dropbox. The malware is part of a broader collection of  more than 15 implants  that have been put to use by the adversary in attacks targeting industrial organizations in Eastern Europe in 2022. "The attackers aimed to establish a permanent channel for data exfiltration, including data stored on air-gapped systems," Kaspersky  said  in an analysis spotlighting APT31's previously undocumented tradecraft. The intrusions employ a three-stage malware stack, each focused on disparate aspects of the attack chain: setting up persistence, gathering sensitive data, and transmitting the information to a remote server under the threat actor's control. Some variants of the second-stage backdoors also come with features designed to look up file names in the Microso
Encryption Flaws in Popular Chinese Language App Put Users' Typed Data at Risk

Encryption Flaws in Popular Chinese Language App Put Users' Typed Data at Risk

Aug 10, 2023 Privacy / Encryption
A widely used Chinese language input app for Windows and Android has been found vulnerable to serious security flaws that could allow a malicious interloper to decipher the text typed by users. The findings from the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab, which carried out an analysis of the encryption mechanism used in Tencent's Sogou Input Method , an app that has over 455 million monthly active users across Windows, Android, and iOS. The vulnerabilities are rooted in EncryptWall, the service's custom encryption system, allowing network eavesdroppers to extract the textual content and access sensitive data. "The Windows and Android versions of Sogou Input Method contain vulnerabilities in this encryption system, including a vulnerability to a CBC  padding oracle attack , which allow network eavesdroppers to recover the plaintext of encrypted network transmissions, revealing sensitive information including what users have typed," the researchers  said . CBC, s
China-Linked Hackers Strike Worldwide: 17 Nations Hit in 3-Year Cyber Campaign

China-Linked Hackers Strike Worldwide: 17 Nations Hit in 3-Year Cyber Campaign

Aug 09, 2023 Cyber Espionage / Cyber Attacks
Hackers associated with China's Ministry of State Security (MSS) have been linked to attacks in 17 different countries in Asia, Europe, and North America from 2021 to 2023. Cybersecurity firm Recorded Future attributed the intrusion set to a nation-state group it tracks under the name  RedHotel  (previously Threat Activity Group-22 or TAG-22), which overlaps with a cluster of activity broadly monitored as  Aquatic Panda ,  Bronze University , Charcoal Typhoon,  Earth Lusca , and  Red Scylla  (or Red Dev 10). Active since 2019, some of the prominent sectors targeted by the prolific actor encompass academia, aerospace, government, media, telecommunications, and research. A majority of the victims during the period were government organizations. "RedHotel has a dual mission of intelligence gathering and economic espionage," the cybersecurity company  said , calling out its persistence, operational intensity, and global reach. "It targets both government entities for
China's APT31 Suspected in Attacks on Air-Gapped Systems in Eastern Europe

China's APT31 Suspected in Attacks on Air-Gapped Systems in Eastern Europe

Aug 01, 2023 Cyber Attack / Data Safety
A nation-state actor with links to China is suspected of being behind a series of attacks against industrial organizations in Eastern Europe that took place last year to siphon data stored on air-gapped systems. Cybersecurity company Kaspersky attributed the intrusions with medium to high confidence to a hacking crew called  APT31 , which is also tracked under the monikers Bronze Vinewood, Judgement Panda, and Violet Typhoon (formerly Zirconium), citing commonalities in the tactics observed. The attacks entailed the use of more than 15 distinct implants and their variants, broken down into three broad categories based on their ability to establish persistent remote access, gather sensitive information, and transmit the collected data to actor-controlled infrastructure. "One of the implant types appeared to be a sophisticated modular malware, aimed at profiling removable drives and contaminating them with a worm to exfiltrate data from isolated, or air-gapped, networks of indus
Azure AD Token Forging Technique in Microsoft Attack Extends Beyond Outlook, Wiz Reports

Azure AD Token Forging Technique in Microsoft Attack Extends Beyond Outlook, Wiz Reports

Jul 21, 2023 Email Security / Cyber Attack
The recent attack against  Microsoft's email infrastructure  by a Chinese nation-state actor referred to as Storm-0558 is said to have a broader scope than previously thought. According to cloud security company Wiz, the inactive Microsoft account (MSA) consumer signing key used to forge Azure Active Directory (Azure AD or AAD) tokens to gain illicit access to Outlook Web Access (OWA) and Outlook.com could also have allowed the adversary to forge access tokens for various types of Azure AD applications. This  includes  every application that supports personal account authentication, such as OneDrive, SharePoint, and Teams; customers applications that support the "Login with Microsoft functionality," and multi-tenant applications in certain conditions. "Everything in the world of Microsoft leverages Azure Active Directory auth tokens for access," Ami Luttwak, chief technology officer and co-founder of Wiz, said in a statement. "An attacker with an AAD si
Chinese APT41 Hackers Target Mobile Devices with New WyrmSpy and DragonEgg Spyware

Chinese APT41 Hackers Target Mobile Devices with New WyrmSpy and DragonEgg Spyware

Jul 19, 2023 Spyware / Mobile Security
The prolific China-linked nation-state actor known as APT41 has been linked to two previously undocumented strains of Android spyware called WyrmSpy and DragonEgg. "Known for its exploitation of web-facing applications and infiltration of traditional endpoint devices, an established threat actor like APT 41 including mobile in its arsenal of malware shows how mobile endpoints are high-value targets with coveted corporate and personal data," Lookout  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. APT41, also tracked under the names Axiom, Blackfly, Brass Typhoon (formerly Barium), Bronze Atlas, HOODOO, Wicked Panda, and Winnti, is known to be operational since at least 2007, targeting a wide range of industries to conduct intellectual property theft. Recent attacks mounted by the adversarial collective have  leveraged  an open-source red teaming tool known as Google Command and Control (GC2) as part of attacks aimed at media and job platforms in Taiwan and Italy. The init
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