IcedID | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Cybersecurity researchers have observed a spike in email phishing campaigns starting early March 2024 that delivers  Latrodectus , a nascent malware loader believed to be the successor to the IcedID malware. "These campaigns typically involve a recognizable infection chain involving oversized JavaScript files that utilize WMI's ability to invoke msiexec.exe and install a remotely-hosted MSI file, remotely hosted on a WEBDAV share," Elastic Security Labs researchers Daniel Stepanic and Samir Bousseaden  said . Latrodectus comes with standard capabilities that are typically expected of malware designed to deploy additional payloads such as QakBot, DarkGate, and  PikaBot , allowing threat actors to conduct various post-exploitation activities. An analysis of the latest Latrodectus artifacts has revealed an extensive focus on enumeration and execution as well as the incorporation of a self-delete technique to delete running files. The malware, besides masquerading as lib...

Threat hunters have discovered a new malware called  Latrodectus  that has been distributed as part of email phishing campaigns since at least late November 2023. "Latrodectus is an up-and-coming downloader with various sandbox evasion functionality," researchers from Proofpoint and Team Cymru  said  in a joint analysis published last week, adding it's designed to retrieve payloads and execute arbitrary commands. There is evidence to suggest that the downloader is likely written by the same threat actors behind the  IcedID malware , with the downloader put to use by initial access brokers (IABs) to facilitate the deployment of other malware. Latrodectus has been primarily linked to two different IABs tracked by Proofpoint under the names  TA577  (aka Water Curupira) and TA578, the former of which has also been linked to the distribution of QakBot and PikaBot. As of mid-January 2024, it's been employed almost exclusively by TA578 in email threat ca...

Everybody knows browser extensions are embedded into nearly every user's daily workflow, from spell checkers to GenAI tools. What most IT and security people don't know is that browser extensions' excessive permissions are a growing risk to organizations. LayerX today announced the release of the Enterprise Browser Extension Security Report 2025 , This report is the first and only report to merge public extension marketplace statistics with real-world enterprise usage telemetry. By doing so, it sheds light on one of the most underestimated threat surfaces in modern cybersecurity: browser extensions. The report reveals several findings that IT and security leaders will find interesting, as they build their plans for H2 2025. This includes information and analysis on how many extensions have risky permissions, which kinds of permissions are given, if extension developers are to be trusted, and more. Below, we bring key statistics from the report. Highlights from the Enterprise Browse...

A Ukrainian national has pleaded guilty in the U.S. to his role in two different malware schemes, Zeus and IcedID, between May 2009 and February 2021. Vyacheslav Igorevich Penchukov (aka Vyacheslav Igoravich Andreev, father, and tank), 37, was  arrested  by Swiss authorities in October 2022 and extradited to the U.S. last year. He was added to the FBI's most-wanted list in 2012. The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ)  described  Penchukov as a "leader of two prolific malware groups" that infected thousands of computers with malware, leading to ransomware and the theft of millions of dollars. This included the Zeus banking trojan that facilitated the theft of bank account information, passwords, personal identification numbers, and other details necessary to login to online banking accounts. Penchukov and his co-conspirators, as part of the "wide-ranging racketeering enterprise" dubbed Jabber Zeus gang, then masqueraded as employees of the victims to initiate ...

Microsoft has warned of a new wave of CACTUS ransomware attacks that leverage malvertising lures to deploy DanaBot as an initial access vector. The DanaBot infections led to "hands-on-keyboard activity by ransomware operator Storm-0216 (Twisted Spider, UNC2198), culminating in the deployment of CACTUS ransomware," the Microsoft Threat Intelligence team  said  in a series of posts on X (formerly Twitter). DanaBot , tracked by the tech giant as Storm-1044, is a multi-functional tool along the lines of Emotet, TrickBot, QakBot, and IcedID that's capable of acting as a stealer and a point of entry for next-stage payloads. UNC2198, for its part, has been previously observed infecting endpoints with IcedID to deploy ransomware families such as Maze and Egregor, as  detailed  by Google-owned Mandiant in February 2021. Per Microsoft, the threat actor has also taken advantage of initial access provided by QakBot infections. The shift to DanaBot, therefore, is likely the...

Multiple threat actors have been observed using two new variants of the  IcedID malware  in the wild with more limited functionality that removes functionality related to online banking fraud. IcedID, also known as BokBot, started off as a banking trojan in 2017. It's also capable of delivering additional malware, including ransomware. "The well-known IcedID version consists of an initial loader which contacts a Loader [command-and-control] server, downloads the standard DLL Loader, which then delivers the standard IcedID Bot," Proofpoint  said  in a new report published Monday. One of the new versions is a Lite variant that was  previously highlighted  as being dropped as a follow-on payload by the  Emotet malware  in November 2022. Also newly observed in February 2023 is a Forked variant of IcedID. Both these variants are designed to drop what's called a Forked version of IcedID Bot that leaves out the web injects and backconnect functiona...

Cybercriminals are increasingly leveraging malicious LNK files as an initial access method to download and execute payloads such as Bumblebee, IcedID, and Qakbot. A recent study by cybersecurity experts has shown that it is possible to identify relationships between different threat actors by analyzing the metadata of malicious LNK files, uncovering information such as the specific tools and techniques used by different groups of cybercriminals, as well as potential links between seemingly unrelated attacks. "With the increasing usage of LNK files in attack chains, it's logical that threat actors have started developing and using tools to create such files," Cisco Talos researcher Guilherme Venere said in a report shared with The Hacker News. This comprises tools like  NativeOne 's  mLNK Builder  and  Quantum Builder , which allow subscribers to generate rogue shortcut files and evade security solutions. Some of the major malware families that have used LNK fil...

A recent IcedID malware attack enabled the threat actor to compromise the Active Directory domain of an unnamed target less than 24 hours after gaining initial access, while also borrowing techniques from other groups like Conti to meet its goals. "Throughout the attack, the attacker followed a routine of recon commands, credential theft, lateral movement by abusing Windows protocols, and executing Cobalt Strike on the newly compromised host," Cybereason researchers  said  in a report published this week. IcedID , also known by the name BokBot, started its life as a banking trojan in 2017 before evolving into a  dropper for other malware , joining the likes of  Emotet ,  TrickBot ,  Qakbot ,  Bumblebee , and  Raspberry Robin . Attacks involving the delivery of IcedID have  leveraged a variety of methods , especially in the wake of  Microsoft's decision to block macros  from Office files downloaded from the web. The intrusion d...

A new analysis of Raspberry Robin's attack infrastructure has  revealed  that it's possible for other threat actors to repurpose the infections for their own malicious activities, making it an even more potent threat. Raspberry Robin (aka QNAP worm), attributed to a threat actor dubbed DEV-0856, is a malware that has  increasingly   come under the radar  for being used in attacks aimed at finance, government, insurance, and telecom entities. Given its use by multiple threat actors to drop a wide range of payloads such as SocGholish , Bumblebee ,  TrueBot ,  IcedID , and  LockBit  ransomware, it's believed to be a pay-per-install (PPI) botnet capable of serving next-stage malware. Raspberry Robin, notably, employs infected USB drives as a propagation mechanism and leverages breached QNAP network-attached storage (NAS) devices as first-level command-and-control (C2). Cybersecurity firm SEKOIA said it was able to identify at least eight vi...

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...

Cybercriminal actors previously observed delivering BazaLoader and IcedID as part of their malware campaigns are said to have transitioned to a new loader called Bumblebee that's under active development. "Based on the timing of its appearance in the threat landscape and use by multiple cybercriminal groups, it is likely Bumblebee is, if not a direct replacement for BazaLoader, then a new, multifunctional tool used by actors that historically favored other malware," enterprise security firm Proofpoint  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. Campaigns distributing the new highly sophisticated loader are said to have commenced in March 2022, while sharing overlaps with malicious activity leading to the deployment of Conti and Diavol ransomware, raising the possibility that the loader could act as a precursor for ransomware attacks. "Threat actors using Bumblebee are associated with malware payloads that have been linked to follow-on ransomware campaigns,...

The Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA) has warned of a new wave of social engineering campaigns delivering IcedID malware and leveraging Zimbra exploits with the goal of stealing sensitive information. Attributing the IcedID phishing attacks to a threat cluster named UAC-0041, the agency  said  the infection sequence begins with an email containing a Microsoft Excel document (Мобілізаційний реєстр.xls or Mobilization Register.xls) that, when opened, prompts the users to enable macros, leading to the deployment of IcedID. The  information-stealing malware , also known as BokBot, has followed a similar trajectory to that of TrickBot, Emotet, and ZLoader, evolving from its earlier roots as a banking trojan to a full-fledged crimeware service that facilities the retrieval of next-stage implants such as ransomware. The  second set of targeted intrusions  relate to a new threat group dubbed UAC-0097, with the email including a number of image ...