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Cybersecurity researchers have warned of a new large-scale campaign that exploits security flaws in AVTECH IP cameras and Huawei HG532 routers to rope the devices into a Mirai botnet variant dubbed Murdoc Botnet. The ongoing activity "demonstrates enhanced capabilities, exploiting vulnerabilities to compromise devices and establish expansive botnet networks," Qualys security researcher Shilpesh Trivedi said in an analysis. The campaign is known to be active since at least July 2024, with over 1,370 systems infected to date. A majority of the infections have been located in Malaysia, Mexico, Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Evidence shows that the botnet leverages known security flaws such as CVE-2017-17215 and CVE-2024-7029 to gain initial access to the Internet of Things (IoT) devices and download the next stage payload by means of a shell script. The script, for its part, fetches the botnet malware and executes it depending on the CPU architecture. The end goal of ...

A global network of about 13,000 hijacked Mikrotik routers has been employed as a botnet to propagate malware via spam campaigns, the latest addition to a list of botnets powered by MikroTik devices. The activity "take[s] advantage of misconfigured DNS records to pass email protection techniques," Infoblox security researcher David Brunsdon said in a technical report published last week. "This botnet uses a global network of Mikrotik routers to send malicious emails that are designed to appear to come from legitimate domains." The DNS security company, which has codenamed the campaign Mikro Typo , said its analysis sprang forth from the discovery of a malspam campaign in late November 2024 that leveraged freight invoice-related lures to entice recipients into launching a ZIP archive payload. The ZIP file contains an obfuscated JavaScript file, which is then responsible for running a PowerShell script designed to initiate an outbound connection to a command-a...

A former analyst working for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) pleaded guilty to transmitting top secret National Defense Information (NDI) to individuals who did not have the necessary authorization to receive it and attempted to cover up the activity. Asif William Rahman, 34, of Vienna, was an employee of the CIA since 2016 and had a Top Secret security clearance with access to Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI). He was charged with two counts of unlawfully transmitting NDI in November 2024 following his arrest in Cambodia. He has pleaded guilty to two counts of willful retention and transmission of classified information related to the national defense. He is expected to be sentenced on May 15, 2025, potentially facing a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. According to court filings , Rahman is alleged to have retained without authorization two documents classified as Top Secret on or about October 17, 2024, and delivered it to multiple individuals who wer...

Imagine receiving a penetration test report that leaves you with more questions than answers. Questions like, "Were all functionalities of the web app tested?" or " Were there any security issues that could have been identified during testing?" often go unresolved, raising concerns about the thoroughness of the security testing. This frustration is common among many security teams. Pentest reports, while crucial, frequently lack the depth and detail necessary to truly assess the success of the project. Even with years of experience working with cybersecurity teams and managing ethical hacking projects, we frequently encountered these same issues. Whether collaborating with external pentest providers or managing our own projects as founders of Hackrate , we often faced difficulties in ensuring that the testing was as comprehensive as it needed to be. This realization inspired us to create HackGATE , a managed gateway solution built to bring transparency and contro...

Cybersecurity researchers are calling attention to a series of cyber attacks that have targeted Chinese-speaking regions like Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Mainland China with a known malware called ValleyRAT. The attacks leverage a multi-stage loader dubbed PNGPlug to deliver the ValleyRAT payload, Intezer said in a technical report published last week. The infection chain commences with a phishing page that's designed to encourage victims to download a malicious Microsoft Installer (MSI) package disguised as legitimate software.  Once executed, the installer deploys a benign application to avoid arousing suspicion, while also stealthily extracting an encrypted archive containing the malware payload. "The MSI package uses the Windows Installer's CustomAction feature, enabling it to execute malicious code, including running an embedded malicious DLL that decrypts the archive (all.zip) using a hardcoded password 'hello202411' to extract the core malware components,...

The Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA) is warning of ongoing attempts by unknown threat actors to impersonate the cybersecurity agency by sending AnyDesk connection requests. The AnyDesk requests claim to be for conducting an audit to assess the "level of security," CERT-UA added, cautioning organizations to be on the lookout for such social engineering attempts that seek to exploit user trust. "It is important to note that CERT-UA may, under certain circumstances, use remote access software such as AnyDesk," CERT-UA said . "However, such actions are taken only after prior agreement with the owners of objects of cyber defense through officially approved communication channels." However, for this attack to succeed, it's necessary that the AnyDesk remote access software is installed and operational on the target's computer. It also requires the attacker to be in possession of the target's AnyDesk identifier , suggesting th...

What do identity risks, data security risks and third-party risks all have in common? They are all made much worse by SaaS sprawl. Every new SaaS account adds a new identity to secure, a new place where sensitive data can end up, and a new source of third party risk. Learn how you can protect this sprawling attack surface in 2025. What do identity risks, data security risks and third-party risks all have in common? They are all made much worse by SaaS sprawl. Every new SaaS account adds a new identity to secure, a new place where sensitive data can end up, and a new source of third-party risk. And, this growing attack surface, much of which is unknown or unmanaged in most orgs, has become an attractive target for attackers. So, why should you prioritize securing your SaaS attack surface in 2025? Here are 4 reasons. ‍ 1. Modern work runs on SaaS. When's the last time you used something other than a cloud-based app to do your work? Can't remember? You're not alone.  Outside of ...

New research has uncovered security vulnerabilities in multiple tunneling protocols that could allow attackers to perform a wide range of attacks. "Internet hosts that accept tunneling packets without verifying the sender's identity can be hijacked to perform anonymous attacks and provide access to their networks," Top10VPN said in a study, as part of a collaboration with KU Leuven professor and researcher Mathy Vanhoef. As many as 4.2 million hosts have been found susceptible to the attacks, including VPN servers, ISP home routers, core internet routers, mobile network gateways, and content delivery network (CDN) nodes. China, France, Japan, the U.S., and Brazil top the list of the most affected countries. Successful exploitation of the shortcomings could permit an adversary to abuse a susceptible system as one-way proxies, as well as conduct denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. "An adversary can abuse these security vulnerabilities to create one-way proxies an...

The Threat actor known as DoNot Team has been linked to a new Android malware as part of highly targeted cyber attacks. The artifacts in question, named Tanzeem (meaning "organization" in Urdu) and Tanzeem Update, were spotted in October and December 2024 by cybersecurity company Cyfirma. The apps in question have been found to incorporate identical functions, barring minor modifications to the user interface. "Although the app is supposed to function as a chat application, it does not work once installed, shutting down after the necessary permissions are granted," Cyfirma noted in a Friday analysis. "The app's name suggests that it is designed to target specific individuals or groups both inside and outside the country." DoNot Team, also tracked as APT-C-35, Origami Elephant, SECTOR02, and Viceroy Tiger, is a hacking group believed to be of Indian origin, with historical attacks leveraging spear-phishing emails and Android malware families to...

As the digital world becomes more complicated, the lines between national security and cybersecurity are starting to fade. Recent cyber sanctions and intelligence moves show a reality where malware and fake news are used as tools in global politics. Every cyberattack now seems to have deeper political consequences. Governments are facing new, unpredictable threats that can't be fought with old-school methods. To stay ahead, we need to understand how cybersecurity is now tied to diplomacy, where the safety of networks is just as important as the power of words. ⚡ Threat of the Week U.S. Treasury Sanctions Chinese and North Korean Entities — The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) leveled sanctions against a Chinese cybersecurity company (Sichuan Juxinhe Network Technology Co., LTD.) and a Shanghai-based cyber actor (Yin Kecheng) over their alleged links to Salt Typhoon and Silk Typhoon threat clusters. Kecheng was associated with the breach of...

Every week seems to bring news of another data breach, and it's no surprise why: securing sensitive data has become harder than ever. And it's not just because companies are dealing with orders of magnitude more data. Data flows and user roles are constantly shifting, and data is stored across multiple technologies and cloud environments. Not to mention, compliance requirements are only getting stricter and more elaborate.  The problem is that while the data landscape has evolved rapidly, the usual strategies for securing that data are stuck in the past. Gone are the days when data lived in predictable places, with access controlled by a chosen few. Today, practically every department in the business needs to use customer data, and AI adoption means huge datasets, and a constant flux of permissions, use cases, and tools. Security teams are struggling to implement effective strategies for securing sensitive data, and a new crop of tools, called data security platforms, have appear...

Cybersecurity researchers have identified three sets of malicious packages across the npm and Python Package Index (PyPI) repository that come with capabilities to steal data and even delete sensitive data from infected systems. The list of identified packages is below - @async-mutex/mutex, a typosquat of async-mute (npm) dexscreener, which masquerades as a library for accessing liquidity pool data from decentralized exchanges (DEXs) and interacting with the DEX Screener platform (npm) solana-transaction-toolkit (npm) solana-stable-web-huks (npm) cschokidar-next, a typosquat of chokidar (npm) achokidar-next, a typosquat of chokidar (npm) achalk-next, a typosquat of chalk (npm) csbchalk-next, a typosquat of chalk (npm) cschalk, a typosquat of chalk (npm) pycord-self, a typosquat of discord.py-self (PyPI) Supply chain security company Socket, which discovered the packages, said the first four packages are designed to intercept Solana private keys and transmit them throug...