ZLoader | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Threat hunters have identified a new campaign that delivers the  ZLoader  malware, resurfacing nearly two years after the botnet's infrastructure was dismantled in April 2022. A new variant of the malware is said to have been in development since September 2023, Zscaler ThreatLabz said in an analysis published this month. "The new version of ZLoader made significant changes to the loader module, which added RSA encryption, updated the domain generation algorithm, and is now compiled for 64-bit Windows operating systems for the first time," researchers Santiago Vicente and Ismael Garcia Perez  said . ZLoader, also known by the names Terdot, DELoader, or Silent Night, is an offshoot of the Zeus banking trojan that first surfaced in 2015, before pivoting to functioning as a loader for next-stage payloads, including ransomware. Typically distributed via phishing emails and malicious search engine ads, ZLoader suffered a huge blow after a group of companies led by Micros

A developing threat activity cluster has been found using Google Ads in one of its campaigns to distribute various post-compromise payloads, including the recently discovered  Royal ransomware . Microsoft, which spotted the updated malware delivery method in late October 2022, is tracking the group under the name  DEV-0569 . "Observed DEV-0569 attacks show a pattern of continuous innovation, with regular incorporation of new discovery techniques, defense evasion, and various post-compromise payloads, alongside increasing ransomware facilitation," the Microsoft Security Threat Intelligence team  said  in an analysis. The threat actor is known to rely on malvertising to point unsuspecting victims to malware downloader links that pose as software installers for legitimate apps like Adobe Flash Player, AnyDesk, LogMeIn, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom. The malware downloader, a strain referred to as  BATLOADER , is a dropper that functions as a conduit to distribute next-stage pa

Identities now transcend human boundaries. Within each line of code and every API call lies a non-human identity. These entities act as programmatic access keys, enabling authentication and facilitating interactions among systems and services, which are essential for every API call, database query, or storage account access. As we depend on multi-factor authentication and passwords to safeguard human identities, a pressing question arises: How do we guarantee the security and integrity of these non-human counterparts? How do we authenticate, authorize, and regulate access for entities devoid of life but crucial for the functioning of critical systems? Let's break it down. The challenge Imagine a cloud-native application as a bustling metropolis of tiny neighborhoods known as microservices, all neatly packed into containers. These microservices function akin to diligent worker bees, each diligently performing its designated task, be it processing data, verifying credentials, or

Microsoft and a consortium of cybersecurity companies took legal and technical steps to disrupt the ZLoader botnet , seizing control of 65 domains that were used to control and communicate with the infected hosts. "ZLoader is made up of computing devices in businesses, hospitals, schools, and homes around the world and is run by a global internet-based organized crime gang operating malware as a service that is designed to steal and extort money," Amy Hogan-Burney, general manager of Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit (DCU),  said . The operation, Microsoft said, was undertaken in collaboration with ESET, Lumen's Black Lotus Labs, Palo Alto Networks Unit 42, Avast, Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC), and Health Information Sharing and Analysis Center (H-ISAC). As a result of the disruption, the domains are now redirected to a sinkhole, effectively preventing the botnet's criminal operators from contacting the compromised devices.

Users searching for TeamViewer remote desktop software on search engines like Google are being redirected to malicious links that drop  ZLoader  malware onto their systems while simultaneously embracing a stealthier infection chain that allows it to linger on infected devices and evade detection by security solutions. "The malware is downloaded from a Google advertisement published through Google Adwords," researchers from SentinelOne  said  in a report published on Monday. "In this campaign, the attackers use an indirect way to compromise victims instead of using the classic approach of compromising the victims directly, such as by phishing." First discovered in 2016, ZLoader (aka Silent Night and ZBot) is a  fully-featured banking trojan  and a fork of another banking malware called ZeuS, with newer versions implementing a VNC module that grants adversaries remote access to victim systems. The malware is in active development, with criminal actors spawning an