powershell malware | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

An ongoing espionage campaign operated by the Russia-linked Gamaredon group is targeting employees of Ukrainian government, defense, and law enforcement agencies with a piece of custom-made information stealing malware. "The adversary is using phishing documents containing lures related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine," Cisco Talos researchers Asheer Malhotra and Guilherme Venere  said  in a technical write-up shared with The Hacker News. "LNK files, PowerShell, and VBScript enable initial access, while malicious binaries are deployed in the post-infection phase." Active since 2013, Gamaredon – also known as Actinium, Armageddon, Primitive Bear, Shuckworm, and Trident Ursa – has been linked to numerous attacks aimed at Ukrainian entities in the aftermath of Russia's military invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022. The targeted phishing operation, observed as recently as August 2022, also follows similar intrusions  uncovered  by Symantec last month in

The North Korean hacking group has turned greedy. Security researchers have uncovered a new widespread malware campaign targeting cryptocurrency users, believed to be originated from Lazarus Group , a state-sponsored hacking group linked to the North Korean government. Active since 2009, Lazarus Group has been attributed to many high profile attacks, including Sony Pictures Hack , $81 million heists from the Bangladesh Bank , and the latest — WannaCry . The United States has officially blamed North Korea for global WannaCry ransomware attack that infected hundreds of thousands of computers across more than 150 countries earlier this year. In separate news, security experts have blamed Lazarus group for stealing bitcoins worth millions from the South Korean exchange Youbit , forcing it to shut down and file for bankruptcy after losing 17% of its assets. Researchers from security firm Proofpoint have published a new report, revealing a connection between Lazarus Group and a

To minimize the risk of privilege misuse, a trend in the privileged access management (PAM) solution market involves implementing just-in-time (JIT) privileged access. This approach to  privileged identity management  aims to mitigate the risks associated with prolonged high-level access by granting privileges temporarily and only when necessary, rather than providing users with continuous high-level privileges. By adopting this strategy, organizations can enhance security, minimize the window of opportunity for potential attackers and ensure that users access privileged resources only when necessary.  What is JIT and why is it important?   JIT privileged access provisioning  involves granting privileged access to users on a temporary basis, aligning with the concept of least privilege. This principle provides users with only the minimum level of access required to perform their tasks, and only for the amount of time required to do so. One of the key advantages of JIT provisioning

It is no secret that cybercriminals are becoming dramatically more adept, innovative, and stealthy with each passing day. While new forms of cybercrime are on the rise, traditional activities seem to be shifting towards more clandestine techniques that involve the exploitation of standard system tools and protocols, which are not always monitored. The latest example of such attack is DNSMessenger – a new Remote Access Trojan (RAT) that uses DNS queries to conduct malicious PowerShell commands on compromised computers – a technique that makes the RAT difficult to detect onto targeted systems. The Trojan came to the attention of Cisco's Talos threat research group by a security researcher named Simpo, who highlighted a tweet that encoded text in a PowerShell script that said 'SourceFireSux.' SourceFire is one of Cisco's corporate security products. DNSMessenger Attack Is Completely Fileless Further analysis of the malware ultimately led Talos researchers to