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Researchers have disclosed a novel technique by which malware on iOS can achieve persistence on an infected device by faking its shutdown process, making it impossible to physically determine if an iPhone is off or otherwise. The discovery — dubbed " NoReboot " — comes courtesy of mobile security firm ZecOps, which found that it's possible to block and then simulate an iOS rebooting operation, deceiving the user into believing that the phone has been powered off when, in reality, it's still running. The San Francisco-headquartered company  called  it the "ultimate persistence bug […] that cannot be patched because it's not exploiting any persistence bugs at all — only playing tricks with the human mind." NoReboot works by interfering with the routines used in iOS to shutdown and restart the device, effectively preventing them from ever happening in the first place and allowing a trojan to achieve persistence without persistence as the device is never

An ongoing  ZLoader  malware campaign has been uncovered exploiting remote monitoring tools and a nine-year-old flaw concerning Microsoft's digital signature verification to siphon user credentials and sensitive information. Israeli cybersecurity company Check Point Research, which has been tracking the sophisticated infection chain since November 2021, attributed it to a cybercriminal group dubbed MalSmoke , citing similarities with previous attacks. "The techniques incorporated in the infection chain include the use of legitimate remote management software (RMM) to gain initial access to the target machine," Check Point's Golan Cohen said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "The malware then exploits Microsoft's digital signature verification method to inject its payload into a signed system DLL to further evade the system's defenses." A banking trojan at its core, ZLoader has been employed by many an attacker to steal cookies, passwords

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

Threat actors leveraged a cloud video hosting service to carry out a supply chain attack on more than  100 real estate websites  operated by Sotheby's Realty that involved injecting malicious skimmers to steal sensitive personal information. "The attacker injected the skimmer JavaScript codes into video, so whenever others import the video, their websites get embedded with skimmer codes as well," Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 researchers  said  in a report published this week. The skimmer attacks, also called formjacking, relates to a type of cyber attack wherein bad actors insert malicious JavaScript code into the target website, most often to checkout or payment pages on shopping and e-commerce portals, to harvest valuable information such as credit card details entered by users. In the latest incarnation of the Magecart attacks, the operators behind the campaign breached the Brightcove account of Sotheby's and deployed malicious code into the player of the

Trojanized installers of the Telegram messaging application are being used to distribute the Windows-based Purple Fox backdoor on compromised systems. That's according to new research published by Minerva Labs, describing the attack as different from intrusions that typically take advantage of legitimate software for dropping malicious payloads. "This threat actor was able to leave most parts of the attack under the radar by separating the attack into several small files, most of which had very low detection rates by [antivirus] engines, with the final stage leading to Purple Fox rootkit infection," researcher Natalie Zargarov  said . First discovered in 2018, Purple Fox comes with rootkit capabilities that allow the malware to be planted beyond the reach of security solutions and evade detection. A March 2021 report from Guardicore  detailed  its worm-like propagation feature, enabling the backdoor to spread more rapidly. Then in October 2021, Trend Micro researche

Cybersecurity researchers have proposed a novel approach that harnesses electromagnetic field emanations from the Internet of Things (IoT) devices as a side-channel to glean precise knowledge about the different kinds of malware targeting the embedded systems, even in scenarios where obfuscation techniques have been applied to hinder analysis. With the rapid adoption of IoT appliances presenting an attractive attack surface for threat actors, in part due to them being equipped with higher processing power and capable of running fully functional operating systems, the latest research aims to improve malware analysis to mitigate potential security risks. The findings were presented by a group of academics from the Research Institute of Computer Science and Random Systems (IRISA) at the Annual Computer Security Applications Conference ( ACSAC ) held last month. "[Electromagnetic] emanation that is measured from the device is practically undetectable by the malware," the res

A previously unknown rootkit has been found setting its sights on Hewlett-Packard Enterprise's Integrated Lights-Out ( iLO ) server management technology to carry out in-the-wild attacks that tamper with the firmware modules and completely wipe data off the infected systems. The discovery, which is the first instance of real-world malware in iLO firmware, was documented by Iranian cybersecurity firm Amnpardaz this week. "There are numerous aspects of iLO that make it an ideal utopia for malware and APT groups: Extremely high privileges (above any level of access in the operating system), very low-level access to the hardware, being totally out of the sight of the admins, and security tools, the general lack of knowledge and tools for inspecting iLO and/or protecting it, the persistence it provides for the malware to remain even after changing the operating system, and in particular being always running and never shutting down," the researchers  said . Besides managin

A never-before-seen China-based targeted intrusion adversary dubbed Aquatic Panda has been observed leveraging  critical flaws  in the Apache Log4j logging library as an access vector to perform various post-exploitation operations, including reconnaissance and credential harvesting on targeted systems. Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike said the infiltration, which was ultimately foiled, was aimed at an unnamed "large academic institution." The state-sponsored group is believed to have been operating since mid-2020 in pursuit of intelligence collection and industrial espionage, with its attacks primarily directed against companies in the telecommunications, technology, and government sectors. The attempted intrusion exploited the newly discovered  Log4Shell  flaw (CVE-2021-44228, CVSS score: 10.0) to gain access to a vulnerable instance of the  VMware Horizon  desktop and app virtualization product, followed by running a series of malicious commands orchestrated to fetch thr

Peter Parker might not be a mastermind cryptocurrency criminal, but the name Spiderman is quickly becoming more associated with the mining landscape.  ReasonLabs , a leading provider of cybersecurity prevention and detection software, recently discovered a new form of malware hacking into customer computers in the guise of the latest Spiderman movie.  As perhaps the most  talked-about movie for some time , Spiderman: No Way Home represents an excellent opportunity for hackers. It's a chance to connect with millions of potential targets, and hack into computers all around the globe. All today's malicious actors need to do is promise their victims access to the latest movie, and they get an all-access pass to their PC.  The cryptocurrency mining malware discovered by ReasonLabs disguises itself as a torrent for the Spiderman: No Way Home movie, encouraging viewers around the world to download the file, and open the computer to criminals.  Using a Mask: Tricking Users into Dow

Researchers have discovered a new Android banking malware that targets Brazil's Itaú Unibanco with the help of lookalike Google Play Store pages to carry out fraudulent financial transactions on victim devices without their knowledge. "This application has a similar icon and name that could trick users into thinking it is a legitimate app related to Itaú Unibanco," Cyble researchers  said  in a report published last week. "The [threat actor] has created a fake Google Play Store page and hosted the malware that targets Itaú Unibanco on it under the name  'sincronizador.apk .'" The tactic of leveraging fake app store pages as a lure is not new. In March, Meta (previously Facebook)  disclosed  details of an attack campaign that used its platform as part of a broader operation to spy on Uyghur Muslims using rogue third-party websites that used replica domains for popular news portals and websites designed to resemble third-party Android app stores, where attackers put fake keyboard, pr

Apple recently fixed a security vulnerability in the macOS operating system that could be potentially exploited by a threat actor to "trivially and reliably" bypass a "myriad of foundational macOS security mechanisms" and run arbitrary code. Security researcher Patrick Wardle  detailed  the discovery in a series of tweets on Thursday. Tracked as CVE-2021-30853 (CVSS score: 5.5), the issue relates to a scenario where a rogue macOS app may circumvent  Gatekeeper  checks, which ensure that only trusted apps can be run and that they have passed an automated process called " app notarization ." The iPhone maker, crediting Gordon Long of Box with reporting the flaw, said it  addressed the weakness  with improved checks as part of macOS 11.6 updates officially released on September 20, 2021. "Such bugs are often particularly impactful to everyday macOS users as they provide a means for adware and malware authors to sidestep macOS security mechanisms, …m

Ransomware groups continue to evolve their tactics and techniques to deploy file-encrypting malware on compromised systems, notwithstanding law enforcement's disruptive actions against the cybercrime gangs to prevent them from victimizing additional companies. "Be it due to law enforcement, infighting amongst groups or people abandoning variants altogether, the RaaS [ransomware-as-a-service] groups dominating the ecosystem at this point in time are completely different than just a few months ago," Intel 471 researchers  said  in a report published this month. "Yet, even with the shift in the variants, ransomware incidents as a whole are still on the rise." Sweeping law enforcement operations  undertaken by government agencies  in recent months have brought about rapid shifts in the RaaS landscape and turned the tables on ransomware syndicates like Avaddon,  BlackMatter ,  Cl0p ,  DarkSide , Egregor, and  REvil , forcing the actors to slow down or shut down th

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of an evasive malware campaign that makes use of valid code signing certificates to sneak past security defenses and stay under the radar with the goal of deploying Cobalt Strike and BitRAT payloads on compromised systems. The binary, a loader, has been dubbed "Blister" by researchers from Elastic Security, with the malware samples having  negligible  to  zero  detections on VirusTotal. As of writing, the infection vector used to stage the attack, as well as the ultimate objectives of the intrusion, remains unknown. A notable aspect of the attacks is that they leverage a valid code signing certificate issued by  Sectigo . The malware has been observed signed with the certificate in question dating back to September 15, 2021. Elastic said it reached out to the company to ensure that the abused certificates are revoked. "Executables with valid code signing certificates are often scrutinized to a lesser degree than unsig

The transportation industry and government agencies related to the sector are the victims of an ongoing campaign since July 2020 by a sophisticated and well-equipped cyberespionage group in what appears to be yet another uptick in malicious activities that are "just the tip of the iceberg." "The group tried to access some internal documents (such as flight schedules and documents for financial plans) and personal information on the compromised hosts (such as search histories)," Trend Micro researchers Nick Dai, Ted Lee, and Vickie Su  said  in a report published last week. Earth Centaur, also known by the monikers  Pirate Panda  and Tropic Trooper, is a long-running threat group focused on information theft and espionage that has led targeted campaigns against government, healthcare, transportation, and high-tech industries in Taiwan, the Philippines, and Hong Kong dating all the way back to 2011. The hostile agents, believed to be a Chinese-speaking actor, are

A U.S. federal government commission associated with international rights has been targeted by a backdoor that reportedly compromised its internal network in what the researchers described as a "classic APT-type operation."  "This attack could have given total visibility of the network and complete control of a system and thus could be used as the first step in a multi-stage attack to penetrate this, or other networks more deeply," Czech security company Avast  said  in a report published last week. The name of the federal entity was not disclosed, but reports from  Ars Technica  and  The Record  tied it to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom ( USCIRF ). Avast said it was making its findings public after unsuccessful attempts to directly notify the agency about the intrusion and through other channels put in place by the U.S. government. At this stage, only "parts of the attack puzzle" have been uncovered, leaving the door open for

Industrial and government organizations, including enterprises in the military-industrial complex and research laboratories, are the targets of a new malware botnet dubbed  PseudoManyscrypt  that has infected roughly 35,000 Windows computers this year alone. The name comes from its similarities to the  Manuscrypt   malware , which is part of the  Lazarus  APT group's attack toolset, Kaspersky researchers said, characterizing the operation as a "mass-scale spyware attack campaign." The Russian cybersecurity company said it first detected the series of intrusions in June 2021. At least 7.2% of all computers attacked by the malware are part of industrial control systems (ICS) used by organizations in engineering, building automation, energy, manufacturing, construction, utilities, and water management sectors that are located mainly in India, Vietnam, and Russia. Approximately a third (29.4%) of non-ICS computers are situated in Russia (10.1%), India (10%), and Brazil (9.

Cryptocurrency users in Ethiopia, Nigeria, India, Guatemala, and the Philippines are being targeted by a new variant of the Phorpiex botnet called  Twizt  that has resulted in the theft of virtual coins amounting to $500,000 over the last one year. Israeli security firm Check Point Research, which detailed the attacks, said the latest evolutionary version "enables the botnet to operate successfully without active [command-and-control] servers," adding it supports no less than 35 wallets associated with different blockchains, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dash, Dogecoin, Litecoin, Monero, Ripple, and Zilliqa, to facilitate crypto theft. Phorpiex , otherwise known as Trik, is known for its sextortion spam and ransomware campaigns as well as cryptojacking, a scheme that leverages the targets' devices such as computers, smartphones, and servers to secretly mine cryptocurrency without their consent or knowledge. It's also infamous for its use of a technique called  cry

A new JavaScript-based remote access Trojan (RAT) propagated via a social engineering campaign has been observed employing sneaky "fileless" techniques as part of its detection-evasion methods to elude discovery and analysis. Dubbed DarkWatchman by researchers from Prevailion's Adversarial Counterintelligence Team (PACT), the malware uses a resilient domain generation algorithm ( DGA ) to identify its command-and-control (C2) infrastructure and utilizes the Windows Registry for all of its storage operations, thereby enabling it to bypass antimalware engines. The RAT "utilizes novel methods for fileless persistence, on-system activity, and dynamic run-time capabilities like self-updating and recompilation," researchers Matt Stafford and Sherman Smith  said , adding it "represents an evolution in fileless malware techniques, as it uses the registry for nearly all temporary and permanent storage and therefore never writes anything to disk, allowing it to o

Malicious actors are deploying a previously undiscovered binary, an Internet Information Services ( IIS ) webserver module dubbed " Owowa ," on Microsoft Exchange Outlook Web Access servers with the goal of stealing credentials and enabling remote command execution. "Owowa is a C#-developed .NET v4.0 assembly that is intended to be loaded as a module within an IIS web server that also exposes Exchange's Outlook Web Access (OWA)," Kaspersky researchers Paul Rascagneres and Pierre Delcher  said . "When loaded this way, Owowa will steal credentials that are entered by any user in the OWA login page, and will allow a remote operator to run commands on the underlying server." The idea that a rogue IIS module can be fashioned as a backdoor is not new. In August 2021, an exhaustive study of the IIS threat landscape by Slovak cybersecurity company ESET revealed  as many as 14 malware families that were developed as native IIS modules in an attempt to interc