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Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a stealthy backdoor named  Effluence  that's deployed following the successful exploitation of a recently disclosed security flaw in Atlassian Confluence Data Center and Server. "The malware acts as a persistent backdoor and is not remediated by applying patches to Confluence," Aon's Stroz Friedberg Incident Response Services  said  in an analysis published earlier this week. "The backdoor provides capability for lateral movement to other network resources in addition to exfiltration of data from Confluence. Importantly, attackers can access the backdoor remotely without authenticating to Confluence." The attack chain documented by the cybersecurity entity entailed the exploitation of  CVE-2023-22515  (CVSS score: 10.0), a critical bug in Atlassian that could be abused to create unauthorized Confluence administrator accounts and access Confluence servers. Atlassian has since disclosed a second flaw known as...

Here is what matters most when it comes to artificial intelligence (AI) in cybersecurity: Outcomes.  As the threat landscape evolves and  generative AI is added  to the toolsets available to defenders and attackers alike, evaluating the relative effectiveness of various  AI-based security  offerings is increasingly important — and difficult. Asking the right questions can help you spot solutions that deliver value and ROI, instead of just marketing hype. Questions like, "Can your predictive AI tools sufficiently block what’s new?" and, "What actually signals success in a cybersecurity platform powered by artificial intelligence?" As BlackBerry’s AI and ML (machine learning) patent portfolio attests, BlackBerry is a leader in this space and has developed an exceptionally well-informed point of view on what works and why. Let’s explore this timely topic. Evolution of AI in Cybersecurity Some of the earliest uses of ML and AI in cybersecurity date back to th...

Cybersecurity researchers are warning of suspected exploitation of a recently disclosed critical security flaw in the Apache ActiveMQ open-source message broker service that could result in remote code execution. "In both instances, the adversary attempted to deploy ransomware binaries on target systems in an effort to ransom the victim organizations," cybersecurity firm Rapid7  disclosed  in a report published Wednesday. "Based on the ransom note and available evidence, we attribute the activity to the HelloKitty ransomware family, whose source code was leaked on a forum in early October." The intrusions are said to involve the exploitation of  CVE-2023-46604 , a remote code execution vulnerability in Apache ActiveMQ that allows a threat actor to run arbitrary shell commands. It's worth noting that the  vulnerability  carries a CVSS score of 10.0, indicating maximum severity. It has been  addressed  in ActiveMQ versions 5.15.16, 5.16.7, 5.17.6, ...

A new  malvertising campaign  has been observed capitalizing on a compromised website to promote spurious versions of PyCharm on Google search results by leveraging Dynamic Search Ads. "Unbeknownst to the site owner, one of their ads was automatically created to promote a popular program for Python developers, and visible to people doing a Google search for it," Jérôme Segura, director of threat intelligence at Malwarebytes,  said  in a report. "Victims who clicked on the ad were taken to a hacked web page with a link to download the application, which turned out to install over a dozen different pieces of malware instead." The infected website in question is an unnamed online portal that specializes in wedding planning, which had been injected with malware to serve bogus links to the PyCharm software. The execution of the PyCharm installer results in the deployment of several stealer and loader families, such as Amadey, PrivateLoader, RedLine, Stealc, and Vid...

The threat actor known as  Winter Vivern  has been observed exploiting a zero-day flaw in Roundcube webmail software on October 11, 2023, to harvest email messages from victims' accounts. "Winter Vivern has stepped up its operations by using a zero-day vulnerability in Roundcube," ESET security researcher Matthieu Faou  said  in a new report published today. Previously, it was using known vulnerabilities in Roundcube and Zimbra, for which proofs-of-concept are available online." Winter Vivern, also known as TA473 and UAC-0114, is an  adversarial collective  whose objectives align with that of Belarus and Russia. Over the past few months, it has been attributed to attacks against Ukraine and Poland, as well as government entities across Europe and India. The group is also assessed to have exploited another flaw Roundcube as recently as August and September (CVE-2020-35730), making it the  second nation-state group after APT28  to target the op...

Ransomware attacks have only increased in sophistication and capabilities over the past year. From new evasion and anti-analysis techniques to stealthier variants coded in new languages, ransomware groups have adapted their tactics to effectively bypass common defense strategies.  This article will cover just some of those new developments in Q3-2023 as well as give predictions on quarters to come. The overall aim is to establish a recap of the major targets (both sectoral and nation and region-wise), new techniques employed with an emphasis on major incidents, new developments of concern to potential targets, as well as the shape of things to come in the future of Ransomware development. The increased weaponization of Vulnerabilities to deliver Ransomware: Cyble has observed increased instances of vulnerabilities being used as a vector to deliver ransomware and other malware in recent months, with a particular emphasis on Networking devices. This marks a shift from the previo...

LUCR-3 overlaps with groups such as Scattered Spider, Oktapus, UNC3944, and STORM-0875 and is a financially motivated attacker that leverages the Identity Provider (IDP) as initial access into an environment with the goal of stealing Intellectual Property (IP) for extortion. LUCR-3 targets Fortune 2000 companies across various sectors, including but not limited to Software, Retail, Hospitality, Manufacturing, and Telecoms. LUCR-3 does not rely heavily on malware or even scripts; instead, LUCR-3 expertly uses victims' own tools, applications, and resources to achieve their goals. At a high level, Initial Access is gained through compromising existing identities in the IDP (Okta: Identity Cloud, Azure AD / Entra, Ping Identity: PingOne). LUCR-3 uses SaaS applications such as document portals, ticketing systems, and chat applications to learn how the victim organization operates and how to access sensitive information. Using the data they gained from reconnaissance within the SaaS ...

The financially motivated threat actor known as  UNC3944  is pivoting to ransomware deployment as part of an expansion to its monetization strategies, Mandiant has revealed. "UNC3944 has demonstrated a stronger focus on stealing large amounts of sensitive data for extortion purposes and they appear to understand Western business practices, possibly due to the geographical composition of the group," the threat intelligence firm  said . "UNC3944 has also consistently relied on publicly available tools and legitimate software in combination with malware available for purchase on underground forums." The group, also known by the names 0ktapus, Scatter Swine, and Scattered Spider, has been active since early 2022, adopting phone-based social engineering and SMS-based phishing to obtain employees' valid credentials using bogus sign-in pages and infiltrate victim organizations, mirroring tactics adopted by another group called  LAPSUS$ . While the group originall...

The volume of cybersecurity vulnerabilities is rising, with close to  30% more vulnerabilities found in 2022 vs. 2018 . Costs are also rising, with a data breach in 2023 costing  $4.45M on average vs. $3.62M in 2017 . In Q2 2023,  a total of 1386 victims were claimed  by ransomware attacks compared with just 831 in Q1 2023. The  MOVEit attack has claimed over 600 victims  so far and that number is still rising. To people working in cybersecurity today, the value of automated threat intelligence is probably pretty obvious. The rising numbers specified above, combined with the  lack of cybersecurity professionals availabl e, mean automation is a clear solution. When threat intelligence operations can be automated, threats can be identified and responded to, and with less effort on the part of engineers. However, a mistake that organizations sometimes make is assuming that once they've automated threat intelligence workflows, humans are out of the pic...

Microsoft on Wednesday took the lid off a "novel and distinct Russian threat actor," which it said is linked to the General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate ( GRU ) and has a "relatively low success rate." The tech giant's Threat Intelligence team, which was previously tracking the group under its emerging moniker  DEV-0586 , has graduated it to a named actor dubbed  Cadet Blizzard . "Cadet Blizzard seeks to conduct disruption, destruction, and information collection, using whatever means are available and sometimes acting in a haphazard fashion," the company  said . "While the group carries high risk due to their destructive activity, they appear to operate with a lower degree of operational security than that of longstanding and advanced Russian groups such as  Seashell Blizzard  and  Forest Blizzard ." Cadet Blizzard first came to light in January 2022 in connection with destructive cyber activity targeting Ukraine using a novel w...

Today, businesses face a variety of security challenges like cyber attacks, compliance requirements, and endpoint security administration. The threat landscape constantly evolves, and it can be overwhelming for businesses to keep up with the latest security trends. Security teams use processes and security solutions to curb these challenges. These solutions include firewalls, antiviruses, data loss prevention services, and XDRs (Extended Detection and Response). Wazuh is a free and open source security platform that unifies XDR and SIEM (System Information and Event Management) capabilities. It comprises a universal security agent for event data collection from various sources and the central components for event analysis, correlation, and alerting. The central components include the Wazuh server, dashboard, and indexer. Wazuh offers a suite of modules capable of providing extended threat detection and response for on-premises and cloud workloads.  In this article, we emphasize ...