CERT-UA | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Ukrainian entities based in Finland have been targeted as part of a malicious campaign distributing a commercial remote access trojan known as Remcos RAT using a malware loader called IDAT Loader. The attack has been attributed to a threat actor tracked by the Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA) under the moniker UAC-0184. "The attack, as part of the IDAT Loader, used steganography as a technique," Morphisec researcher Michael Dereviashkin said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "While steganographic, or 'Stego' techniques are well-known, it is important to understand their roles in defense evasion, to better understand how to defend against such tactics." IDAT Loader , which overlaps with another loader family called Hijack Loader, has been used to serve additional payloads like DanaBot, SystemBC, and RedLine Stealer in recent months. It has also been used by a threat actor tracked as TA544 to distribute Remcos RAT and SystemBC

The Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA) has warned that more than 2,000 computers in the country have been infected by a strain of malware called DirtyMoe. The agency  attributed  the campaign to a threat actor it calls  UAC-0027 . DirtyMoe , active since at least 2016, is capable of carrying out cryptojacking and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. In March 2022, cybersecurity firm Avast revealed the malware's ability to propagate in a worm-like fashion by taking advantage of known security flaws. The DDoS botnet is known to be delivered by means of another malware referred to as  Purple Fox  or via bogus MSI installer packages for popular software such as Telegram. Purple Fox is also  equipped with a rootkit  that allows the threat actors to  hide the malware  on the machine and make it difficult to detect and remove. The exact initial access vector used in the campaign targeting Ukraine is currently unknown. CERT-UA is recommending that organiza

The introduction of Open AI's ChatGPT was a defining moment for the software industry, touching off a GenAI race with its November 2022 release. SaaS vendors are now rushing to upgrade tools with enhanced productivity capabilities that are driven by generative AI. Among a wide range of uses, GenAI tools make it easier for developers to build software, assist sales teams in mundane email writing, help marketers produce unique content at low cost, and enable teams and creatives to brainstorm new ideas.  Recent significant GenAI product launches include Microsoft 365 Copilot, GitHub Copilot, and Salesforce Einstein GPT. Notably, these GenAI tools from leading SaaS providers are paid enhancements, a clear sign that no SaaS provider will want to miss out on cashing in on the GenAI transformation. Google will soon launch its SGE "Search Generative Experience" platform for premium AI-generated summaries rather than a list of websites.  At this pace, it's just a matter of a short time befo

The Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA) has warned of a new phishing campaign orchestrated by the  Russia-linked APT28 group  to deploy previously undocumented malware such as OCEANMAP, MASEPIE, and STEELHOOK to harvest sensitive information. The activity, which was  detected  by the agency between December 15 and 25, 2023, targeted Ukrainian government entities and Polish organizations with email messages urging recipients to click on a link to view a document. However, to the contrary, the links redirect to malicious web resources that abuse JavaScript and the  "search-ms:" URI protocol handler  to drop a Windows shortcut file (LNK) that launches PowerShell commands to activate an infection chain for a new malware known as MASEPIE. MASEPIE is a Python-based tool to download/upload files and execute commands, with communications with the command-and-control (C2) server taking place over an encrypted channel using the TCP protocol. The attacks further

The threat actor known as  UAC-0099  has been linked to continued attacks aimed at Ukraine, some of which leverage a high-severity flaw in the WinRAR software to deliver a malware strain called LONEPAGE. "The threat actor targets Ukrainian employees working for companies outside of Ukraine," cybersecurity firm Deep Instinct  said  in a Thursday analysis. UAC-0099 was  first documented  by the Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA) in June 2023, detailing its attacks against state organizations and media entities for espionage motives. The attack chains leveraged phishing messages containing HTA, RAR, and LNK file attachments that led to the deployment of  LONEPAGE , a Visual Basic Script (VBS) malware that's capable of contacting a command-and-control (C2) server to retrieve additional payloads such as keyloggers, stealers, and screenshot malware. "During 2022-2023, the mentioned group received unauthorized remote access to several dozen computer

The Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA) has warned of cyber attacks targeting state bodies in the country as part of an espionage campaign. The  intrusion set , attributed to a threat actor tracked by the authority as UAC-0063 since 2021, leverages phishing lures to deploy a variety of malicious tools on infected systems. The origins of the hacking crew are presently unknown. In the attack chain described by the agency, the emails targeted an unspecified ministry and purported to be from the Embassy of Tajikistan in Ukraine. It's suspected that the messages were sent from a previously compromised mailbox. The emails come attached with a Microsoft Word document that, upon enabling macros, launches an encoded VBScript called HATVIBE, which is then used to drop additional malware. This includes a keylogger (LOGPIE), a Python-based backdoor capable of running commands sent from a remote server (CHERRYSPY), and a tool focused on exfiltrating files with specific e