State-Sponsored | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Microsoft and the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) on Thursday announced the seizure of 107 internet domains used by state-sponsored threat actors with ties to Russia to facilitate computer fraud and abuse in the country. "The Russian government ran this scheme to steal Americans' sensitive information, using seemingly legitimate email accounts to trick victims into revealing account credentials," said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. The activity has been attributed to a threat actor called COLDRIVER , which is also known by the names Blue Callisto, BlueCharlie (or TAG-53), Calisto (alternately spelled Callisto), Dancing Salome, Gossamer Bear, Iron Frontier, Star Blizzard (formerly SEABORGIUM), TA446, and UNC4057. Active since at least 2012, the group is assessed to be an operational unit within Center 18 of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). In December 2023, the U.K. and U.S. governments sanctioned two members of the group – Aleksandrovich Peretyat...

A previously undocumented threat actor called CeranaKeeper has been linked to a string of data exfiltration attacks targeting Southeast Asia. Slovak cybersecurity firm ESET, which observed campaigns targeting governmental institutions in Thailand starting in 2023, attributed the activity cluster as aligned to China, leveraging tools previously identified as used by the Mustang Panda actor. "The group constantly updates its backdoor to evade detection and diversifies its methods to aid massive data exfiltration," security researcher Romain Dumont said in an analysis published today. "CeranaKeeper abuses popular, legitimate cloud and file-sharing services such as Dropbox and OneDrive to implement custom backdoors and extraction tools." Some of the other countries targeted by the adversary include Myanmar, the Philippines, Japan, and Taiwan, all of which have been targeted by Chinese state-sponsored threat actors in recent years. ESET described CeranaKeeper a...

Vulnerability Management (VM) has long been a cornerstone of organizational cybersecurity. Nearly as old as the discipline of cybersecurity itself, it aims to help organizations identify and address potential security issues before they become serious problems. Yet, in recent years, the limitations of this approach have become increasingly evident.  At its core, Vulnerability Management processes remain essential for identifying and addressing weaknesses. But as time marches on and attack avenues evolve, this approach is beginning to show its age. In a recent report, How to Grow Vulnerability Management into Exposure Management (Gartner, How to Grow Vulnerability Management Into Exposure Management, 8 November 2024, Mitchell Schneider Et Al.), we believe Gartner® addresses this point precisely and demonstrates how organizations can – and must – shift from a vulnerability-centric strategy to a broader Exposure Management (EM) framework. We feel it's more than a worthwhile read an...

Three different organizations in the U.S. were targeted in August 2024 by a North Korean state-sponsored threat actor called Andariel as part of a likely financially motivated attack. "While the attackers didn't succeed in deploying ransomware on the networks of any of the organizations affected, it is likely that the attacks were financially motivated," Symantec, part of Broadcom, said in a report shared with The Hacker News. Andariel is a threat actor that's assessed to be a sub-cluster within the infamous Lazarus Group. It's also tracked as APT45, DarkSeoul, Nickel Hyatt, Onyx Sleet (formerly Plutonium), Operation Troy, Silent Chollima, and Stonefly. It's been active since at least 2009. An element within North Korea's Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB), the hacking crew has a track record of deploying ransomware strains such as SHATTEREDGLASS and Maui , while also developing an arsenal of custom backdoors like Dtrack (aka Valefor and Preft), ...

A trio of threat activity clusters linked to China has been observed compromising more government organizations in Southeast Asia as part of a renewed state-sponsored operation codenamed Crimson Palace , indicating an expansion in the scope of the espionage effort. Cybersecurity firm Sophos, which has been monitoring the cyber offensive, said it comprises three intrusion sets tracked as Cluster Alpha (STAC1248), Cluster Bravo (STAC1870), and Cluster Charlie (STAC1305). STAC is an abbreviation for "security threat activity cluster." "The attackers consistently used other compromised organizational and public service networks in that region to deliver malware and tools under the guise of a trusted access point," security researchers Mark Parsons, Morgan Demboski, and Sean Gallagher said in a technical report shared with The Hacker News. A noteworthy aspect of the attacks is that it entails the use of an unnamed organization's systems as a command-and-control ...

Meta Platforms on Friday became the latest company after Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI to expose the activities of an Iranian state-sponsored threat actor, who it said used a set of WhatsApp accounts that attempted to target individuals in Israel, Palestine, Iran, the U.K., and the U.S. The activity cluster, which originated from Iran, "appeared to have focused on political and diplomatic officials, and other public figures, including some associated with administrations of President Biden and former President Trump," Meta said . The social media giant attributed it to a nation-state actor tracked as APT42, which is also known as Charming Kitten, Damselfly, Mint Sandstorm (formerly Phosphorus), TA453, and Yellow Garuda. It's assessed to be linked to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The adversarial collective is well-known for its use of sophisticated social engineering lures to spear-phish targets of interest with malware and steal their credenti...

A new remote access trojan called MoonPeak has been discovered as being used by a state-sponsored North Korean threat activity cluster as part of a new campaign. Cisco Talos attributed the malicious cyber campaign to a hacking group it tracks as UAT-5394, which it said exhibits some level of tactical overlaps with a known nation-state actor codenamed Kimsuky . MoonPeak, under active development by the threat actor, is a variant of the open-source Xeno RAT malware, which was previously deployed as part of phishing attacks that were designed to retrieve the payload from actor-controlled cloud services like Dropbox, Google Drive, and Microsoft OneDrive. Some of the key features of Xeno RAT include the ability to load additional plugins, launch and terminate processes, and communicate with a command-and-control (C2) server. Talos said the commonalities between the two intrusion sets either indicate UAT-5394 is actually Kimsuky (or its sub-group) or it's another hacking crew wi...

A newly patched security flaw in Microsoft Windows was exploited as a zero-day by Lazarus Group , a prolific state-sponsored actor affiliated with North Korea. The security vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2024-38193 (CVSS score: 7.8), has been described as a privilege escalation bug in the Windows Ancillary Function Driver (AFD.sys) for WinSock. "An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain SYSTEM privileges," Microsoft said in an advisory for the flaw last week. It was addressed by the tech giant as part of its monthly Patch Tuesday update. Credited with discovering and reporting the flaw are Gen Digital researchers Luigino Camastra and Milánek. Gen Digital owns a number of security and utility software brands like Norton, Avast, Avira, AVG, ReputationDefender, and CCleaner. "This flaw allowed them to gain unauthorized access to sensitive system areas," the company disclosed last week, adding it discovered the exploitation in early J...