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The threat actors behind the BianLian ransomware have been observed exploiting security flaws in JetBrains TeamCity software to conduct their extortion-only attacks. According to a  new report  from GuidePoint Security, which responded to a recent intrusion, the incident "began with the exploitation of a TeamCity server which resulted in the deployment of a PowerShell implementation of BianLian's Go backdoor." BianLian  emerged  in June 2022, and has since pivoted exclusively to exfiltration-based extortion following the  release of a decryptor  in January 2023. The attack chain observed by the cybersecurity firm entails the exploitation of a vulnerable TeamCity instance using  CVE-2024-27198  or  CVE-2023-42793  to gain initial access to the environment, followed by creating new users in the build server and executing malicious commands for post-exploitation and lateral movement. It's currently not clear which of the two flaws were weaponized by the threat acto

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered an updated version of an Android banking malware called Chameleon that has expanded its targeting to include users in the U.K. and Italy. "Representing a restructured and enhanced iteration of its predecessor, this evolved Chameleon variant excels in executing Device Takeover (DTO) using the accessibility service, all while expanding its targeted region," Dutch mobile security firm ThreatFabric  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. Chameleon was  previously documented  by Cyble in April 2023, noting that it had been used to single out users in Australia and Poland since at least January. Like other banking malware, it's known to abuse its permissions to Android's accessibility service to harvest sensitive data and conduct overlay attacks. The rogue apps containing the earlier version were hosted on phishing pages and found to impersonate genuine institutions in the countries, such as the Australian Taxation Offic

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A pro-Hamas threat actor known as  Gaza Cyber Gang  is targeting Palestinian entities using an updated version of a backdoor dubbed Pierogi. The findings come from SentinelOne, which has given the malware the name Pierogi++ owing to the fact that it's implemented in the C++ programming language unlike its Delphi- and Pascal-based predecessor. "Recent Gaza Cybergang activities show consistent targeting of Palestinian entities, with no observed significant changes in dynamics since the start of the Israel-Hamas war," security researcher Aleksandar Milenkoski  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. Gaza Cyber Gang, believed to be  active since at least  2012, has a history of striking targets throughout the Middle East, particularly Israel and Palestine, often leveraging spear-phishing as a method of initial access. Some of the  notable   malware   families  in its  arsenal   include  BarbWire, DropBook, LastConn, Molerat Loader, Micropsia, NimbleMamba, SharpSt

The Iranian state-sponsored threat actor known as  OilRig  deployed three different downloader malware throughout 2022 to maintain persistent access to victim organizations located in Israel. The three new downloaders have been named ODAgent, OilCheck, and OilBooster by Slovak cybersecurity company ESET. The attacks also involved the use of an updated version of a known OilRig downloader dubbed  SampleCheck5000  (or SC5k). "These lightweight downloaders [...] are notable for using one of several legitimate cloud service APIs for [command-and-control] communication and data exfiltration: the Microsoft Graph OneDrive or Outlook APIs, and the Microsoft Office Exchange Web Services (EWS) API," security researchers Zuzana Hromcová and Adam Burgher  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. By using well-known cloud service providers for command-and-control communication, the goal is to blend with authentic network traffic and cover up the group's attack infrastructure

Microsoft has warned that adversaries are using OAuth applications as an automation tool to deploy virtual machines (VMs) for cryptocurrency mining and launch phishing attacks. "Threat actors compromise user accounts to create, modify, and grant high privileges to OAuth applications that they can misuse to hide malicious activity," the Microsoft Threat Intelligence team  said  in an analysis. "The misuse of OAuth also enables threat actors to maintain access to applications even if they lose access to the initially compromised account." OAuth , short for Open Authorization, is an  authorization and delegation framework  (as opposed to authentication) that provides applications the ability to securely access information from other websites without handing over passwords. In the attacks detailed by Microsoft, threat actors have been observed launching phishing or password-spraying attacks against poorly secured accounts with permissions to create or modify OAuth

The threat actor known as COLDRIVER has continued to engage in credential theft activities against entities that are of strategic interests to Russia while simultaneously improving its detection evasion capabilities. The Microsoft Threat Intelligence team is tracking under the cluster as  Star Blizzard  (formerly SEABORGIUM). It's also called Blue Callisto, BlueCharlie (or TAG-53), Calisto (alternately spelled Callisto), Gossamer Bear, and TA446. The adversary "continues to prolifically target individuals and organizations involved in international affairs, defense, and logistics support to Ukraine, as well as academia, information security companies, and other entities aligning with Russian state interests," Redmond  said . Star Blizzard , linked to Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), has a  track record  of setting up lookalike domains that impersonate the login pages of targeted companies. It's known to be active since at least 2017. In August 2023,

Apple has  released  software updates for iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and Safari web browser to address two security flaws that it said have come under active exploitation in the wild on older versions of its software. The vulnerabilities, both of which reside in the WebKit web browser engine, are described below - CVE-2023-42916  - An out-of-bounds read issue that could be exploited to leak sensitive information when processing web content. CVE-2023-42917  - A memory corruption bug that could result in arbitrary code execution when processing web content. Apple said it's aware of reports exploiting the shortcomings "against versions of iOS before iOS 16.7.1," which was released on October 10, 2023. Clément Lecigne of Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG) has been credited with discovering and reporting the twin flaws. The iPhone maker did not provide additional information regarding ongoing exploitation, but previously disclosed zero-days in iOS have been used to  de

Google has rolled out security updates to fix seven security issues in its Chrome browser, including a zero-day that has come under active exploitation in the wild. Tracked as  CVE-2023-6345 , the high-severity vulnerability has been described as an integer overflow bug in Skia, an open source 2D graphics library. Benoît Sevens and Clément Lecigne of Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG) have been credited with discovering and reporting the flaw on November 24, 2023. As is typically the case, the search giant  acknowledged  that "an exploit for CVE-2023-6345 exists in the wild," but stopped short of sharing additional information surrounding the nature of attacks and the threat actors that may be weaponizing it in real-world attacks. It's worth noting that Google released patches for a similar integer overflow flaw in the same component ( CVE-2023-2136 ) in April 2023 that had also come under active exploitation as a zero-day, raising the possibility that CVE-202

More details have emerged about a malicious Telegram bot called  Telekopye  that's used by threat actors to pull off large-scale phishing scams. "Telekopye can craft phishing websites, emails, SMS messages, and more," ESET security researcher Radek Jizba  said  in a new analysis. The  threat actors behind the operation  – codenamed Neanderthals – are known to run the criminal enterprise as a legitimate company, spawning a hierarchical structure that encompasses different members who take on various roles. Once aspiring Neanderthals are recruited via advertisements on underground forums, they are invited to join designated Telegram channels that are used for communicating with other Neanderthals and keeping track of transaction logs. The ultimate goal of the operation is to pull off one of the three types of scams: seller, buyer, or refund. In the case of the former, Neanderthals pose as sellers and try to lure unwary Mammoths into purchasing a non-existent item. Bu

Delivery- and shipping-themed email messages are being used to deliver a sophisticated malware loader known as  WailingCrab . "The malware itself is split into multiple components, including a loader, injector, downloader and backdoor, and successful requests to C2-controlled servers are often necessary to retrieve the next stage," IBM X-Force researchers Charlotte Hammond, Ole Villadsen, and Kat Metrick  said . WailingCrab, also called WikiLoader, was  first documented  by Proofpoint in August 2023, detailing campaigns targeting Italian organizations that used the malware to ultimately deploy the Ursnif (aka Gozi) trojan. It was spotted in the wild in late December 2022. The malware is the handiwork of a threat actor known as TA544, which is also tracked as Bamboo Spider and Zeus Panda. IBM X-Force has named the cluster Hive0133. Actively maintained by its operators, the malware has been observed incorporating features that prioritize stealth and allows it to resist an

Multiple threat actors, including LockBit ransomware affiliates, are  actively exploiting  a recently disclosed critical security flaw in Citrix NetScaler application delivery control (ADC) and Gateway appliances to obtain initial access to target environments. The joint advisory comes from the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC), and Australian Signals Directorate's Australian Cyber Security Center (ASD's ACSC). "Citrix Bleed, known to be leveraged by LockBit 3.0 affiliates, allows threat actors to bypass password requirements and multifactor authentication (MFA), leading to successful session hijacking of legitimate user sessions on Citrix NetScaler web application delivery control (ADC) and Gateway appliances," the agencies  said . "Through the takeover of legitimate user sessions, malicious actors acquire elevated permissions to

Android smartphone users in India are the target of a new malware campaign that employs social engineering lures to install fraudulent apps that are capable of harvesting sensitive data. "Using social media platforms like WhatsApp and Telegram, attackers are sending messages designed to lure users into installing a malicious app on their mobile device by impersonating legitimate organizations, such as banks, government services, and utilities," Microsoft threat intelligence researchers Abhishek Pustakala, Harshita Tripathi, and Shivang Desai  said  in a Monday analysis. The ultimate goal of the operation is to capture banking details, payment card information, account credentials, and other personal data. The attack chains involve sharing malicious APK files via social media messages sent on WhatsApp and Telegram by falsely presenting them as banking apps and inducing a sense of urgency by claiming that the targets' bank accounts will be blocked unless they update their permanent a

Phishing campaigns delivering malware families such as DarkGate and PikaBot are following the same tactics previously used in attacks leveraging the now-defunct QakBot trojan. "These include hijacked email threads as the initial infection, URLs with unique patterns that limit user access, and an infection chain nearly identical to what we have seen with QakBot delivery," Cofense  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. "The malware families used also follow suit to what we would expect QakBot affiliates to use." QakBot, also called QBot and Pinkslipbot, was  shut down  as part of a coordinated law enforcement effort codenamed Operation Duck Hunt earlier this August. The use of DarkGate and PikaBot in these campaigns is not surprising as they can both act as conduits to deliver additional payloads to compromised hosts, making them both an attractive option for cybercriminals. PikaBot's parallels to QakBot were  previously highlighted  by Zscaler in its analysis of the malw

A hacking group that leveraged a recently disclosed security flaw in the WinRAR software as a zero-day has now been categorized as an entirely new advanced persistent threat (APT). Cybersecurity company NSFOCUS has described  DarkCasino  as an "economically motivated" actor that first came to light in 2021. "DarkCasino is an APT threat actor with strong technical and learning ability, who is good at integrating various popular APT attack technologies into its attack process," the company  said  in an analysis. "Attacks launched by the APT group DarkCasino are very frequent, demonstrating a strong desire to steal online property." DarkCasino was most recently linked to the zero-day exploitation of  CVE-2023-38831  (CVSS score: 7.8), a security flaw that can be weaponized to launch malicious payloads. In August 2023, Group-IB disclosed real-world attacks weaponizing the vulnerability and aimed at online trading forums at least since April 2023 to deli

The  three zero-day flaws  addressed by Apple on September 21, 2023, were leveraged as part of an iPhone exploit chain in an attempt to deliver a spyware strain called  Predator  targeting former Egyptian member of parliament Ahmed Eltantawy between May and September 2023. "The targeting took place after Eltantawy publicly  stated his plans  to run for President in the 2024 Egyptian elections," the Citizen Lab  said , attributing the attack with high confidence to the Egyptian government owing to it being a known customer of the commercial spying tool. According to a joint investigation conducted by the Canadian interdisciplinary laboratory and Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG), the mercenary surveillance tool is said to have been delivered via links sent on SMS and WhatsApp. "In August and September 2023, Eltantawy's Vodafone Egypt mobile connection was persistently selected for targeting via network injection; when Eltantawy visited certain websites not

Google on Thursday disclosed it took steps to dismantle over 50,000 instances of activity orchestrated by a pro-Chinese influence operation known as DRAGONBRIDGE in 2022. "Most DRAGONBRIDGE activity is low quality content without a political message, populated across many channels and blogs," the company's Threat Analysis Group (TAG)  said  in a  report  shared with The Hacker News. "However, a small fraction of DRAGONBRIDGE accounts also post about current events with messaging that pushes pro-China talking points." DRAGONBRIDGE  was first exposed by Google-owned Mandiant in July 2022, calling out its unsuccessful efforts in targeting rare earth mining companies in Australia, Canada, and the U.S. with the goal of triggering environmental protests against the firms. Also known by the name Spamouflage Dragon, the spammy influence network is known to have a presence across multiple platforms, including YouTube, Blogger, Facebook, and Twitter, primarily dissem