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A Chinese cyberespionage group known for targeting Southeast Asia leveraged flaws in the Microsoft Exchange Server that came to light earlier this March to deploy a previously undocumented variant of a remote access trojan (RAT) on compromised systems. Attributing the intrusions to a threat actor named  PKPLUG  (aka  Mustang Panda  and HoneyMyte), Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 threat intelligence team said it identified a new version of the modular PlugX malware, called THOR, that was delivered as a post-exploitation tool to one of the breached servers. Dating back to as early as 2008,  PlugX  is a fully-featured second-stage implant with capabilities such as file upload, download, and modification, keystroke logging, webcam control, and access to a remote command shell. "The variant observed [...] is unique in that it contains a change to its core source code: the replacement of its trademark word 'PLUG' to 'THOR,'" Unit 42 researchers Mike Harbison an

Threat actors with suspected ties to Iran have been found to leverage instant messaging and VPN apps like Telegram and Psiphon to install a Windows remote access trojan (RAT) capable of stealing sensitive information from targets' devices since at least 2015. Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky, which pieced together the activity, attributed the campaign to an advanced persistent threat (APT) group it tracks as Ferocious Kitten, a group that has singled out Persian-speaking individuals allegedly based in the country while successfully operating under the radar. "The targeting of Psiphon and Telegram, both of which are quite popular services in Iran, underlines the fact that the payloads were developed with the purpose of targeting Iranian users in mind," Kaspersky's Global Research and Analysis Team (GReAT)  said . "Moreover, the decoy content displayed by the malicious files often made use of political themes and involved images or videos of resistance bas

As work ebbs with the typical end-of-year slowdown, now is a good time to review user roles and privileges and remove anyone who shouldn't have access as well as trim unnecessary permissions. In addition to saving some unnecessary license fees, a clean user inventory significantly enhances the security of your SaaS applications. From reducing risk to protecting against data leakage, here is how you can start the new year with a clean user list.  How Offboarded Users  Still  Have Access to Your Apps When employees leave a company, they trigger a series of changes to backend systems in their wake. First, they are removed from the company's identity provider (IdP), which kicks off an automated workflow that deactivates their email and removes access to all internal systems. When enterprises use an SSO (single sign-on), these former employees lose access to any online properties – including SaaS applications – that require SSO for login.  However, that doesn't mean that former employee

Security researchers on Tuesday uncovered new delivery and evasion techniques adopted by Agent Tesla remote access trojan (RAT) to get around defense barriers and monitor its victims. Typically spread through social engineering lures, the Windows spyware not only now targets Microsoft's Antimalware Scan Interface ( AMSI ) in an attempt to defeat endpoint protection software, it also employs a multi-stage installation process and makes use of Tor and Telegram messaging API to communicate with a command-and-control (C2) server. Cybersecurity firm Sophos , which observed two versions of Agent Tesla — version 2 and version 3 — currently in the wild, said the changes are yet another sign of Agent Tesla's constant evolution designed to make a sandbox and static analysis more difficult. "The differences we see between v2 and v3 of Agent Tesla appear to be focused on improving the success rate of the malware against sandbox defenses and malware scanners, and on providing more