Threat Intelligence | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

A previously undocumented cross-platform malware codenamed Noodle RAT has been put to use by Chinese-speaking threat actors either for espionage or cybercrime for years. While this backdoor was previously categorized as a variant of Gh0st RAT and Rekoobe , Trend Micro security researcher Hara Hiroaki said "this backdoor is not merely a variant of existing malware, but is a new type altogether." Noodle RAT, which also goes by the monikers ANGRYREBEL and Nood RAT , comes in both Windows and Linux flavors, and is believed to have been put to use since at least July 2016. The remote access trojan Gh0st RAT first surfaced in 2008 when a China threat group called the C. Rufus Security Team made its source code publicly available. Over the years, the malware – alongside other tools like PlugX and ShadowPad – has become a hallmark of Chinese government hackers, who have used it in numerous campaigns and attacks. The Windows version of Noodle RAT, an in-memory modular backd...

Threat actors linked to the Black Basta ransomware may have exploited a recently disclosed privilege escalation flaw in the Microsoft Windows Error Reporting Service as a zero-day, according to new findings from Symantec. The security flaw in question is CVE-2024-26169 (CVSS score: 7.8), an elevation of privilege bug in the Windows Error Reporting Service that could be exploited to achieve SYSTEM privileges. It was patched by Microsoft in March 2024. "Analysis of an exploit tool deployed in recent attacks revealed evidence that it could have been compiled prior to patching, meaning at least one group may have been exploiting the vulnerability as a zero-day," the Symantec Threat Hunter Team, part of Broadcom, said in a report shared with The Hacker News. The financially motivated threat cluster is being tracked by the company under the name Cardinal. It's also monitored by the cybersecurity community under the names Storm-1811 and UNC4393 . It's known to mon...

Are you tired of dealing with outdated security tools that never seem to give you the full picture? You're not alone. Many organizations struggle with piecing together scattered information, leaving your apps vulnerable to modern threats. That's why we're excited to introduce a smarter, unified approach: Application Security Posture Management (ASPM). ASPM brings together the best of both worlds by connecting your code insights with real-time runtime data. This means you get a clear, holistic view of your application's security. Instead of reacting to threats, ASPM helps you prevent them. Imagine reducing costly retrofits and emergency patches with a proactive, shift-left strategy—saving you time, money, and stress. Join Amir Kaushansky, Director of Product Management at Palo Alto Networks, as he walks you through how ASPM is changing the game. In this free webinar , you'll learn to: Close the Security Gaps: Understand why traditional AppSec tools fall short and how ASPM fills ...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of an ongoing phishing campaign that leverages recruiting- and job-themed lures to deliver a Windows-based backdoor named WARMCOOKIE. "WARMCOOKIE appears to be an initial backdoor tool used to scout out victim networks and deploy additional payloads," Elastic Security Labs researcher Daniel Stepanic said in a new analysis. "Each sample is compiled with a hard-coded [command-and-control] IP address and RC4 key." The backdoor comes with capabilities to fingerprint infected machines, capture screenshots, and drop more malicious programs. The company is tracking the activity under the name REF6127. The attack chains observed since late April involve the use of email messages purporting to be from recruitment firms like Hays, Michael Page, and PageGroup, urging recipients to click on an embedded link to view details about a job opportunity. Users who end up clicking on the link are then prompted to download a docume...

Cybersecurity researchers have shed more light on a Chinese actor codenamed SecShow that has been observed conducting Domain Name System (DNS) on a global scale since at least June 2023. The adversary, according to Infoblox security researchers Dr. Renée Burton and Dave Mitchell, operates from the China Education and Research Network ( CERNET ), a project funded by the Chinese government. "These probes seek to find and measure DNS responses at open resolvers," they said in a report published last week. "The end goal of the SecShow operations is unknown, but the information that is gathered can be used for malicious activities and is only for the benefit of the actor." That said, there is some evidence to suggest that it may have been linked to some kind of academic research related to "performing measurements using IP Address Spoofing Techniques on domains within secshow.net" modeled on the same approach as the Closed Resolver Project . This, howeve...

One of the most effective ways for information technology (IT) professionals to uncover a company's weaknesses before the bad guys do is penetration testing. By simulating real-world cyberattacks, penetration testing, sometimes called pentests, provides invaluable insights into an organization's security posture, revealing weaknesses that could potentially lead to data breaches or other security incidents.  Vonahi Security , the creators of vPenTest, an automated network penetration testing platform, just released their annual report, " The Top 10 Critical Pentest Findings 2024 ." In this report, Vonahi Security conducted over 10,000 automated network pentests, uncovering the top 10 internal network pentest findings at over 1,200 organizations. Let's dive into each of these critical findings to better understand the common exploitable vulnerabilities organizations face and how to address them effectively. Top 10 Pentest Findings & Recommendations 1. Multicast DNS (MDNS) S...

Arm is warning of a security vulnerability impacting Mali GPU Kernel Driver that it said has been actively exploited in the wild. Tracked as CVE-2024-4610 , the use-after-free issue impacts the following products - Bifrost GPU Kernel Driver (all versions from r34p0 to r40p0) Valhall GPU Kernel Driver (all versions from r34p0 to r40p0) "A local non-privileged user can make improper GPU memory processing operations to gain access to already freed memory," the company said in an advisory last week. The vulnerability has been addressed in Bifrost and Valhall GPU Kernel Driver r41p0. It's worth noting that this version was released on November 24, 2022. The current version of the drivers is r49p0, which was shipped in April 2024. When reached for comment, Arm told The Hacker News that while it was addressed in 2022, it was provided additional information that reclassified the problem as a security vulnerability. "In 2022 Arm fixed a weakness in the r41p0 re...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a threat actor known as Sticky Werewolf that has been linked to cyber attacks targeting entities in Russia and Belarus. The phishing attacks were aimed at a pharmaceutical company, a Russian research institute dealing with microbiology and vaccine development, and the aviation sector, expanding beyond their initial focus of government organizations, Morphisec said in a report last week. "In previous campaigns, the infection chain began with phishing emails containing a link to download a malicious file from platforms like gofile.io," security researcher Arnold Osipov said. "This latest campaign used archive files containing LNK files pointing to a payload stored on WebDAV servers." Sticky Werewolf, one of the many threat actors targeting Russia and Belarus such as Cloud Werewolf (aka Inception and Cloud Atlas ), Quartz Wolf , Red Wolf (aka RedCurl ), and Scaly Wolf , was first documented by BI.ZONE in Octo...

Traditional SCAs Are Broken: Did You Know You Are Missing Critical Pieces? Application Security professionals face enormous challenges securing their software supply chains, racing against time to beat the attacker to the mark.  Software Composition Analysis (SCA) tools have become a basic instrument in the application security arsenal in the last 7 years. Although essential, many platforms end up creating more mess and driving the key pain in the industry - alert fatigue, leaving your supply chain exposed to critical vulnerabilities and malicious code attacks. Fortunately, alongside the black hat hackers making their best efforts to find new attack vectors and surfaces, innovative security tools are breaking new ground, helping organizations stay secure despite emerging threats. Myrror Security 's latest resource, "Your SCA is Broken Guide - The Missing Pieces In Your Software Composition Analysis Platform," offers application security professionals a view into the tra...

Learn about critical threats that can impact your organization and the bad actors behind them from Cybersixgill's threat experts. Each story shines a light on underground activities, the threat actors involved, and why you should care, along with what you can do to mitigate risk.  In an increasingly interconnected world, supply chain attacks have emerged as a formidable threat, compromising not just individual organizations but the broader digital ecosystem. The web of interdependencies among businesses, especially for software and IT vendors, provides fertile ground for cybercriminals to exploit vulnerabilities. By targeting one weak link in the supply chain, threat actors can gain unauthorized access to sensitive information and can conduct malicious activities with severe consequences on multiple organizations, from data breaches and financial losses to widespread disruption and reputational damage. Understanding the nature, impact, and mitigation strategies of supply chain...

An unnamed high-profile government organization in Southeast Asia emerged as the target of a "complex, long-running" Chinese state-sponsored cyber espionage operation codenamed Crimson Palace . "The overall goal behind the campaign was to maintain access to the target network for cyberespionage in support of Chinese state interests," Sophos researchers Paul Jaramillo, Morgan Demboski, Sean Gallagher, and Mark Parsons said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "This includes accessing critical IT systems, performing reconnaissance of specific users, collecting sensitive military and technical information, and deploying various malware implants for command-and-control (C2) communications." The name of the government organization was not disclosed, but the company said the country is known to have repeated conflict with China over territory in the South China Sea , raising the possibility that it may be the Philippines, which has been targeted by Chi...

Cyber attacks involving the DarkGate malware-as-a-service (MaaS) operation have shifted away from AutoIt scripts to an AutoHotkey mechanism to deliver the last stages, underscoring continued efforts on the part of the threat actors to continuously stay ahead of the detection curve. The updates have been observed in version 6 of DarkGate released in March 2024 by its developer RastaFarEye, who has been selling the program on a subscription basis to as many as 30 customers. The malware has been active since at least 2018. A fully-featured remote access trojan (RAT), DarkGate is equipped with command-and-control (C2) and rootkit capabilities, and incorporates various modules for credential theft, keylogging, screen capturing, and remote desktop. "DarkGate campaigns tend to adapt really fast, modifying different components to try to stay off security solutions," Trellix security researcher Ernesto Fernández Provecho said in a Monday analysis. "This is the first time...

Microsoft has emphasized the need for securing internet-exposed operational technology (OT) devices following a spate of cyber attacks targeting such environments since late 2023. "These repeated attacks against OT devices emphasize the crucial need to improve the security posture of OT devices and prevent critical systems from becoming easy targets," the Microsoft Threat Intelligence team said . The company noted that a cyber attack on an OT system could allow malicious actors to tamper with critical parameters used in industrial processes, either programmatically via the programmable logic controller (PLC) or using the graphical controls of the human-machine interface (HMI), resulting in malfunctions and system outages. It further said that OT systems often lack adequate security mechanisms, making them ripe for exploitation by adversaries and carry out attacks that are "relatively easy to execute," a fact compounded by the additional risks introduced by direc...

A previously undocumented cyber espionage-focused threat actor named LilacSquid has been linked to targeted attacks spanning various sectors in the United States (U.S.), Europe, and Asia as part of a data theft campaign since at least 2021. "The campaign is geared toward establishing long-term access to compromised victim organizations to enable LilacSquid to siphon data of interest to attacker-controlled servers," Cisco Talos researcher Asheer Malhotra said in a new technical report published today. Targets include information technology organizations building software for the research and industrial sectors in the U.S, energy companies in Europe, and the pharmaceutical sector in Asia, indicating a broad victimology footprint. Attack chains are known to exploit either publicly known vulnerabilities to breach internet-facing application servers or make use of compromised remote desktop protocol (RDP) credentials to deliver a mix of open-source tools and custom malware. ...