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Category — Threat Intelligence
SparkCat Malware Uses OCR to Extract Crypto Wallet Recovery Phrases from Images

SparkCat Malware Uses OCR to Extract Crypto Wallet Recovery Phrases from Images

Feb 06, 2025 Financial Fraud / Cryptocurrency
A new malware campaign dubbed SparkCat has leveraged a suit of bogus apps on both Apple's and Google's respective app stores to steal victims' mnemonic phrases associated with cryptocurrency wallets.  The attacks leverage an optical character recognition (OCR) model to exfiltrate select images containing wallet recovery phrases from photo libraries to a command-and-control (C2) server, Kaspersky researchers Dmitry Kalinin and Sergey Puzan said in a technical report. The moniker is a reference to an embedded software development kit (SDK) that employs a Java component called Spark that masquerades as an analytics module. It's currently not known whether the infection was a result of a supply chain attack or if it was intentionally introduced by the developers. While this is not the first time Android malware with OCR capabilities has been detected in the wild, it's one of the first instances where such a stealer has been found in Apple's App Store. The inf...
North Korean APT Kimsuky Uses forceCopy Malware to Steal Browser-Stored Credentials

North Korean APT Kimsuky Uses forceCopy Malware to Steal Browser-Stored Credentials

Feb 06, 2025 Threat Intelligence / Malware
The North Korea-linked nation-state hacking group known as Kimsuky has been observed conducting spear-phishing attacks to deliver an information stealer malware named forceCopy, according to new findings from the AhnLab Security Intelligence Center (ASEC). The attacks commence with phishing emails containing a Windows shortcut (LNK) file that's disguised as a Microsoft Office or PDF document. Opening this attachment triggers the execution of PowerShell or mshta.exe, a legitimate Microsoft binary designed to run HTML Application (HTA) files, that are responsible for downloading and running next-stage payloads from an external source. The South Korean cybersecurity company said the attacks culminated in the deployment of a known trojan dubbed PEBBLEDASH and a custom version of an open-source Remote Desktop utility named RDP Wrapper . Also delivered as part of the attacks is a proxy malware that allows the threat actors to establish persistent communications with an external ...
SOC Analysts - Reimagining Their Role Using AI

SOC Analysts - Reimagining Their Role Using AI

Jan 30, 2025AI Security / SOC Automation
The job of a SOC analyst has never been easy. Faced with an overwhelming flood of daily alerts, analysts (and sometimes IT teams who are doubling as SecOps) must try and triage thousands of security alerts—often false positives—just to identify a handful of real threats. This relentless, 24/7 work leads to alert fatigue, desensitization, and increased risk of missing critical security incidents. Studies show that 70% of SOC analysts experience severe stress, and 65% consider leaving their jobs within a year . This makes retention a major challenge for security teams, especially in light of the existing shortage of skilled security analysts . On the operational side, analysts spend more time on repetitive, manual tasks like investigating alerts, and resolving and documenting incidents than they do on proactive security measures. Security teams struggle with configuring and maintaining SOAR playbooks as the cyber landscape rapidly changes. To top this all off, tool overload and siloed ...
Silent Lynx Using PowerShell, Golang, and C++ Loaders in Multi-Stage Cyberattacks

Silent Lynx Using PowerShell, Golang, and C++ Loaders in Multi-Stage Cyberattacks

Feb 05, 2025 Threat Intelligence / Malware
A previously undocumented threat actor known as Silent Lynx has been linked to cyber attacks targeting various entities in Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan. "This threat group has previously targeted entities around Eastern Europe and Central Asian government think tanks involved in economic decision making and banking sector," Seqrite Labs researcher Subhajeet Singha said in a technical report published late last month. Targets of the hacking group's attacks include embassies, lawyers, government-backed banks, and think tanks. The activity has been attributed to a Kazakhstan-origin threat actor with a medium level of confidence. The infections commence with a spear-phishing email containing a RAR archive attachment that ultimately acts as a delivery vehicle for malicious payloads responsible for granting remote access to the compromised hosts. The first of the two campaigns, detected by the cybersecurity company on December 27, 2024, leverages the RAR archive to launc...
cyber security

Practical, Tactical Guide to Securing AI in the Enterprise

websiteTinesEnterprise Security / AI Security
Supercharge your organization's AI adoption strategy, and go from complex challenges to secure success.
AsyncRAT Campaign Uses Python Payloads and TryCloudflare Tunnels for Stealth Attacks

AsyncRAT Campaign Uses Python Payloads and TryCloudflare Tunnels for Stealth Attacks

Feb 05, 2025 Malware / Network Security
A malware campaign has been observed delivering a remote access trojan (RAT) named AsyncRAT by making use of Python payloads and TryCloudflare tunnels. "AsyncRAT is a remote access trojan (RAT) that exploits the async/await pattern for efficient, asynchronous communication," Forcepoint X-Labs researcher Jyotika Singh said in an analysis. "It allows attackers to control infected systems stealthily, exfiltrate data and execute commands while remaining hidden – making it a significant cyberthreat." The starting point of the multi-stage attack chain is a phishing email that contains a Dropbox URL that, upon clicking, downloads a ZIP archive. Present within the file is an internet shortcut (URL) file, which serves as a conduit for a Windows shortcut (LNK) file responsible for taking the infection further, while a seemingly benign decoy PDF document is displayed to the message recipient. Specifically, the LNK file is retrieved by means of a TryCloudflare URL embed...
CISA Adds Four Actively Exploited Vulnerabilities to KEV Catalog, Urges Fixes by Feb 25

CISA Adds Four Actively Exploited Vulnerabilities to KEV Catalog, Urges Fixes by Feb 25

Feb 05, 2025 Vulnerability / Software Security
The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Tuesday added four security flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities ( KEV ) catalog, citing evidence of active exploitation in the wild. The list of vulnerabilities is as follows - CVE-2024-45195 (CVSS score: 7.5/9.8) - A forced browsing vulnerability in Apache OFBiz that allows a remote attacker to obtain unauthorized access and execute arbitrary code on the server (Fixed in September 2024 ) CVE-2024-29059 (CVSS score: 7.5) - An information disclosure vulnerability in Microsoft .NET Framework that could expose the ObjRef URI and lead to remote code execution (Fixed in March 2024 ) CVE-2018-9276 (CVSS score: 7.2) - An operating system command injection vulnerability in Paessler PRTG Network Monitor that allows an attacker with administrative privileges to execute commands via the PRTG System Administrator web console (Fixed in April 2018 ) CVE-2018-19410 (CVSS score: 9.8) - A local file inclusion vulne...
Malicious Go Package Exploits Module Mirror Caching for Persistent Remote Access

Malicious Go Package Exploits Module Mirror Caching for Persistent Remote Access

Feb 04, 2025 Vulnerability / Threat Intelligence
Cybersecurity researchers have called attention to a software supply chain attack targeting the Go ecosystem that involves a malicious package capable of granting the adversary remote access to infected systems. The package, named github.com/boltdb-go/bolt , is a typosquat of the legitimate BoltDB database module ( github.com/boltdb/bolt ), per Socket. The malicious version (1.3.1) was published to GitHub in November 2021, following which it was cached indefinitely by the Go Module Mirror service. "Once installed, the backdoored package grants the threat actor remote access to the infected system, allowing them to execute arbitrary commands," security researcher Kirill Boychenko said in an analysis. Socket said the development marks one of the earliest instances of a malicious actor abusing the Go Module Mirror's indefinite caching of modules to trick users into downloading the package. Subsequently, the attacker is said to have modified the Git tags in the source r...
Taiwan Bans DeepSeek AI Over National Security Concerns, Citing Data Leakage Risks

Taiwan Bans DeepSeek AI Over National Security Concerns, Citing Data Leakage Risks

Feb 04, 2025 Artificial Intelligence / Data Privacy
Taiwan has become the latest country to ban government agencies from using Chinese startup DeepSeek's Artificial Intelligence (AI) platform, citing security risks. "Government agencies and critical infrastructure should not use DeepSeek, because it endangers national information security," according to a statement released by Taiwan's Ministry of Digital Affairs, per Radio Free Asia . "DeepSeek AI service is a Chinese product. Its operation involves cross-border transmission, and information leakage and other information security concerns." DeepSeek's Chinese origins have prompted authorities from various countries to look into the service's use of personal data. Last week, it was blocked in Italy, citing a lack of information regarding its data handling practices. Several companies have also prohibited access to the chatbot over similar risks. The chatbot has captured much of the mainstream attention over the past few weeks for the fact tha...
AMD SEV-SNP Vulnerability Allows Malicious Microcode Injection with Admin Access

AMD SEV-SNP Vulnerability Allows Malicious Microcode Injection with Admin Access

Feb 04, 2025 Vulnerability / Hardware Security
A security vulnerability has been disclosed in AMD's Secure Encrypted Virtualization (SEV) that could permit an attacker to load a malicious CPU microcode under specific conditions. The flaw, tracked as CVE-2024-56161 , carries a CVSS score of 7.2 out of 10.0, indicating high severity. "Improper signature verification in AMD CPU ROM microcode patch loader may allow an attacker with local administrator privilege to load malicious CPU microcode resulting in loss of confidentiality and integrity of a confidential guest running under AMD SEV-SNP," AMD said in an advisory. The chipmaker credited Google security researchers Josh Eads, Kristoffer Janke, Eduardo Vela, Tavis Ormandy, and Matteo Rizzo for discovering and reporting the flaw on September 25, 2024. SEV is a security feature that uses a unique key per virtual machine to isolate virtual machines (VMs) and the hypervisor from one another. SNP, which stands for Secure Nested Paging, incorporates memory integrity p...
768 CVEs Exploited in 2024, Reflecting a 20% Increase from 639 in 2023

768 CVEs Exploited in 2024, Reflecting a 20% Increase from 639 in 2023

Feb 03, 2025 Vulnerability / Network Security
As many as 768 vulnerabilities with designated CVE identifiers were reported as exploited in the wild in 2024, up from 639 CVEs in 2023, registering a 20% increase year-over-year. Describing 2024 as "another banner year for threat actors targeting the exploitation of vulnerabilities," VulnCheck said 23.6% of known exploited vulnerabilities (KEV) were known to be weaponized either on or before the day their CVEs were publicly disclosed. This marks a slight decrease from 2023's 26.8%, indicating that exploitation attempts can take place at any time in a vulnerability's lifecycle. "During 2024, 1% of the CVEs published were reported publicly as exploited in the wild," VulnCheck's Patrick Garrity said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "This number is expected to grow as exploitation is often discovered long after a CVE is published." The report comes over two months after the company revealed that 15 different Chinese hacking groups o...
Coyote Malware Expands Reach: Now Targets 1,030 Sites and 73 Financial Institutions

Coyote Malware Expands Reach: Now Targets 1,030 Sites and 73 Financial Institutions

Feb 03, 2025 Financial Security / Malware
Brazilian Windows users are the target of a campaign that delivers a banking malware known as Coyote . "Once deployed, the Coyote Banking Trojan can carry out various malicious activities, including keylogging, capturing screenshots, and displaying phishing overlays to steal sensitive credentials," Fortinet FortiGuard Labs researcher Cara Lin said in an analysis published last week. The cybersecurity company said it discovered over the past month several Windows Shortcut (LNK) file artifacts that contain PowerShell commands responsible for delivering the malware. Coyote was first documented by Kaspersky in early 2024, detailing its attacks targeting users in the South American nation. It's capable of harvesting sensitive information from over 70 financial applications. In the previous attack chain documented by the Russian cybersecurity firm, a Squirrel installer executable is used to trigger a Node.js application compiled with Electron, that, for its part, runs a...
Broadcom Patches VMware Aria Flaws – Exploits May Lead to Credential Theft

Broadcom Patches VMware Aria Flaws – Exploits May Lead to Credential Theft

Jan 31, 2025 Vulnerability / Data Security
Broadcom has released security updates to patch five security flaws impacting VMware Aria Operations and Aria Operations for Logs, warning customers that attackers could exploit them to gain elevated access or obtain sensitive information. The list of identified flaws, which impact versions 8.x of the software, is below - CVE-2025-22218 (CVSS score: 8.5) - A malicious actor with View Only Admin permissions may be able to read the credentials of a VMware product integrated with VMware Aria Operations for Logs CVE-2025-22219 (CVSS score: 6.8) - A malicious actor with non-administrative privileges may be able to inject a malicious script that may lead to arbitrary operations as admin user via a stored cross-site scripting (XSS) attack CVE-2025-22220 (CVSS score: 4.3) - A malicious actor with non-administrative privileges and network access to Aria Operations for Logs API may be able to perform certain operations in the context of an admin user CVE-2025-22221 (CVSS score: 5.2) ...
Google: Over 57 Nation-State Threat Groups Using AI for Cyber Operations

Google: Over 57 Nation-State Threat Groups Using AI for Cyber Operations

Jan 30, 2025 Artificial Intelligence / Data Security
Over 57 distinct threat actors with ties to China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia have been observed using artificial intelligence (AI) technology powered by Google to further enable their malicious cyber and information operations. "Threat actors are experimenting with Gemini to enable their operations, finding productivity gains but not yet developing novel capabilities," Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) said in a new report. "At present, they primarily use AI for research, troubleshooting code, and creating and localizing content." Government-backed attackers, otherwise known as Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) groups, have sought to use its tools to bolster multiple phases of the attack cycle, including coding and scripting tasks, payload development, gathering information about potential targets, researching publicly known vulnerabilities, and enabling post-compromise activities, such as defense evasion. Describing Iranian APT actors as the "he...
Authorities Seize Domains of Popular Hacking Forums in Major Cybercrime Crackdown

Authorities Seize Domains of Popular Hacking Forums in Major Cybercrime Crackdown

Jan 30, 2025 Online Fraud / Cybercrime
An international law enforcement operation has dismantled the domains associated with various online platforms linked to cybercrime such as Cracked, Nulled, Sellix, and StarkRDP. The effort, which took place between January 28 and 30, 2025, targeted the following domains - www.cracked.io www.nulled.to www.mysellix.io www.sellix.io www.starkrdp.io Visitors to these websites are now greeted by a seizure banner that says they were confiscated as part of Operation Talent that involved authorities from Australia, France, Greece, Italy, Romania, Spain, and the United States, along with Europol. "This website, as well as the information on the customers and victims of the website, has been seized by international law enforcement partners," the message reads. Operational since at 2015 and 2018, both Nulled and Cracked have been used to peddle various hack tools, such as ScrubCrypt, a malware obfuscation engine that has been observed delivering stealer malware in the pas...
Lightning AI Studio Vulnerability Could've Allowed RCE via Hidden URL Parameter

Lightning AI Studio Vulnerability Could've Allowed RCE via Hidden URL Parameter

Jan 30, 2025 Vulnerability / Cloud Security
Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed a critical security flaw in the Lightning AI Studio development platform that, if successfully exploited, could have allowed for remote code execution. The vulnerability, rated a CVSS score of 9.4, enables "attackers to potentially execute arbitrary commands with root privileges" by exploiting a hidden URL parameter, application security firm Noma said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "This level of access could hypothetically be leveraged for a range of malicious activities, including the extraction of sensitive keys from targeted accounts," researchers Sasi Levi, Alon Tron, and Gal Moyal said. The issue is embedded in a piece of JavaScript code that could facilitate unfettered access to a victim's development environment, as well as run arbitrary commands on an authenticated target in a privileged context. Noma said it found a hidden parameter called "command" in user-specific URLs – e.g., ...
SOC Analysts - Reimagining Their Role Using AI

SOC Analysts - Reimagining Their Role Using AI

Jan 30, 2025 AI Security / SOC Automation
The job of a SOC analyst has never been easy. Faced with an overwhelming flood of daily alerts, analysts (and sometimes IT teams who are doubling as SecOps) must try and triage thousands of security alerts—often false positives—just to identify a handful of real threats. This relentless, 24/7 work leads to alert fatigue, desensitization, and increased risk of missing critical security incidents. Studies show that 70% of SOC analysts experience severe stress, and 65% consider leaving their jobs within a year . This makes retention a major challenge for security teams, especially in light of the existing shortage of skilled security analysts . On the operational side, analysts spend more time on repetitive, manual tasks like investigating alerts, and resolving and documenting incidents than they do on proactive security measures. Security teams struggle with configuring and maintaining SOAR playbooks as the cyber landscape rapidly changes. To top this all off, tool overload and siloed ...
New Aquabot Botnet Exploits CVE-2024-41710 in Mitel Phones for DDoS Attacks

New Aquabot Botnet Exploits CVE-2024-41710 in Mitel Phones for DDoS Attacks

Jan 30, 2025 Vulnerability / IoT Security
A Mirai botnet variant dubbed Aquabot has been observed actively attempting to exploit a medium-severity security flaw impacting Mitel phones in order to ensnare them into a network capable of mounting distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. The vulnerability in question is CVE-2024-41710 (CVSS score: 6.8), a case of command injection in the boot process that could allow a malicious actor to execute arbitrary commands within the context of the phone. It affects Mitel 6800 Series, 6900 Series, 6900w Series SIP Phones, and Mitel 6970 Conference Unit. It was addressed by Mitel in mid-July 2024. A proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit for the flaw became publicly available in August. Outside of CVE-2024-41710, some of the other vulnerabilities targeted by the botnet include CVE-2018-10561, CVE-2018-10562, CVE-2018-17532, CVE-2022-31137, CVE-2023-26801, and a remote code execution flaw targeting Linksys E-series devices.  "Aquabot is a botnet that was built off the Mirai fram...
Lazarus Group Uses React-Based Admin Panel to Control Global Cyber Attacks

Lazarus Group Uses React-Based Admin Panel to Control Global Cyber Attacks

Jan 29, 2025 Threat Intelligence / Malware
The North Korean threat actor known as the Lazarus Group has been observed leveraging a "web-based administrative platform" to oversee its command-and-control (C2) infrastructure, giving the adversary the ability to centrally supervise all aspects of their campaigns. "Each C2 server hosted a web-based administrative platform, built with a React application and a Node.js API," SecurityScorecard's STRIKE team said in a new report shared with The Hacker News. "This administrative layer was consistent across all the C2 servers analyzed, even as the attackers varied their payloads and obfuscation techniques to evade detection." The hidden framework has been described as a comprehensive system and a hub that allows attackers to organize and manage exfiltrated data, maintain oversight of their compromised hosts, and handle payload delivery. The web-based admin panel has been identified in connection with a supply chain attack campaign dubbed Operation ...
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