Cisco Talos | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Security researchers have detailed the inner workings of the commercial Android spyware called Predator, which is marketed by the Israeli company Intellexa (previously Cytrox). Predator was  first documented  by Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG) in May 2022 as part of attacks leveraging five different zero-day flaws in the Chrome web browser and Android. The spyware, which is delivered by means of another loader component known as Alien, is equipped to record audio from phone calls and VoIP-based apps as well as gather contacts and messages, including from Signal, WhatsApp, and Telegram. Its other functionalities allow it to hide applications and prevent applications from being executed upon rebooting the handset. "A deep dive into both spyware components indicates that Alien is more than just a loader for Predator and actively sets up the low-level capabilities needed for Predator to spy on its victims," Cisco Talos  said  in a technical report. Spyware lik...

The threat actor behind the information-stealing malware known as  Typhon Reborn  has resurfaced with an updated version (V2) that packs in improved capabilities to evade detection and resist analysis. The new version is offered for sale on the criminal underground for $59 per month, $360 per year, or alternatively, for $540 for a lifetime subscription. "The stealer can harvest and exfiltrate sensitive information and uses the Telegram API to send stolen data to attackers," Cisco Talos researcher Edmund Brumaghin  said  in a Tuesday report. Typhon was  first documented  by Cyble in August 2022, detailing its myriad features, including hijacking clipboard content, capturing screenshots, logging keystrokes, and stealing data from crypto wallet, messaging, FTP, VPN, browser, and gaming apps. Based on another stealer malware called  Prynt Stealer , Typhon is also capable of delivering the XMRig cryptocurrency miner. In November 2022, Palo Alto Network...

A previously undocumented threat actor dubbed  YoroTrooper  has been targeting government, energy, and international organizations across Europe as part of a cyber espionage campaign that has been active since at least June 2022. "Information stolen from successful compromises include credentials from multiple applications, browser histories and cookies, system information and screenshots," Cisco Talos researchers Asheer Malhotra and Vitor Ventura  said  in a Tuesday analysis. Prominent countries targeted include Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and other Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) nations. The threat actor is believed to be Russian-speaking owing to the victimology patterns and the presence of Cyrillic snippets in some of the implants. That said, the YoroTrooper intrusion set has been found to exhibit tactical overlaps with the  PoetRAT team  that was  documented  in 2020 as leveraging coronavirus-themed baits...

Romanian cybersecurity company Bitdefender has  released  a free universal decryptor for a nascent file-encrypting malware known as MortalKombat . MortalKombat is a new ransomware strain that emerged in January 2023. It's based on a commodity ransomware dubbed Xorist and has been observed in attacks targeting entities in the U.S., the Philippines, the U.K., and Turkey. Xorist , detected since 2010, is distributed as a ransomware builder, allowing cyber threat actors to create and customize their own version of the malware. This includes the ransom note, the file name of the ransom note, the list of file extensions targeted, the wallpaper to be used, and the extension to be used on encrypted files. A decryptor for Xorist was made available by Emsisoft in May 2016. MortalKombat notably was deployed in recent attacks mounted by an unnamed financially motivated threat actor as a part of a phishing campaign aimed at a wide range of organizations. "MortalKombat encrypts vari...

The notorious Emotet malware has returned with renewed vigor as part of a high-volume malspam campaign designed to drop payloads like  IcedID  and  Bumblebee . "Hundreds of thousands of emails per day" have been sent since early November 2022, enterprise security company Proofpoint  said  last week, adding, "the new activity suggests Emotet is returning to its full functionality acting as a delivery network for major malware families." Among the primary countries targeted are the U.S., the U.K., Japan, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Mexico, and Brazil. The Emotet-related activity was last observed in July 2022, although  sporadic   infections  have been  reported  since then. In mid-October, ESET  revealed  that Emotet may be readying for a new wave of attacks, pointing out updates to its "systeminfo" module. The malware, which is attributed to a threat actor known as Mummy Spider (aka Gold Crestwood or TA542), staged a r...

A social engineering campaign leveraging job-themed lures is weaponizing a years-old remote code execution flaw in Microsoft Office to deploy Cobalt Strike beacons on compromised hosts. "The payload discovered is a leaked version of a Cobalt Strike beacon," Cisco Talos researchers Chetan Raghuprasad and Vanja Svajcer  said  in a new analysis published Wednesday. "The beacon configuration contains commands to perform targeted process injection of arbitrary binaries and has a high reputation domain configured, exhibiting the redirection technique to masquerade the beacon's traffic." The malicious activity, discovered in August 2022, attempts to exploit the vulnerability  CVE-2017-0199 , a remote code execution issue in Microsoft Office, that allows an attacker to take control of an affected system. The entry vector for the attack is a phishing email containing a Microsoft Word attachment that employs job-themed lures for roles in the U.S. government and Publ...

A large software development company whose software is used by different state entities in Ukraine was at the receiving end of an "uncommon" piece of malware, new research has found. The malware, first observed on the morning of May 19, 2022, is a custom variant of the open source backdoor known as  GoMet  and is designed for maintaining persistent access to the network. "This access could be leveraged in a variety of ways including deeper access or to launch additional attacks, including the potential for software supply chain compromise," Cisco Talos  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. Although there are no concrete indicators linking the attack to a single actor or group, the cybersecurity firm's assessment points to Russian nation-state activity. Public reporting into the use of GoMet in real-world attacks has so far uncovered only two documented cases to date: one in 2020, coinciding with the disclosure of  CVE-2020-5902 , a critical remot...

The advanced persistent threat (APT) group known as Transparent Tribe has been attributed to a new ongoing phishing campaign targeting students at various educational institutions in India at least since December 2021. "This new campaign also suggests that the APT is actively expanding its network of victims to include civilian users," Cisco Talos  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. Also tracked under the monikers APT36, Operation C-Major, PROJECTM, Mythic Leopard, the Transparent Tribe actor is  suspected  to be of Pakistani origin and is known to strike government entities and think tanks in India and Afghanistan with custom malware such as CrimsonRAT, ObliqueRAT, and CapraRAT. But the targeting of educational institutions and students, first  observed  by India-based K7 Labs in May 2022, indicates a deviation from the adversary's typical focus. "The latest targeting of the educational sector may align with the strategic goals of espion...