Zscaler | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Digital expansion inevitably increases the external attack surface, making you susceptible to cyberthreats. Threat actors increasingly exploit the vulnerabilities stemming from software and infrastructure exposed to the internet; this ironically includes security tools, particularly firewalls and VPNs, which give attackers direct network access to execute their attacks. In fact,  Gartner  identified attack surface expansion as a major trend to watch. So, it is not surprising that External Attack Surface Management (EASM) is a growing priority for organizations. But traditional castle-and-moat-based security architectures are ineffective at protecting enterprises against today's sophisticated attacks, which increasingly leverage AI and as-a-service models to maximize speed and damage. Zero trust security is the best way to minimize the attack surface, prevent compromise, eliminate lateral movement, and stop data loss. Register here  and join Apoorva Ravikrishnan, Senior Manager of P

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

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A new malware loader called HijackLoader is gaining traction among the cybercriminal community to deliver various payloads such as  DanaBot ,  SystemBC , and  RedLine Stealer . "Even though HijackLoader does not contain advanced features, it is capable of using a variety of modules for code injection and execution since it uses a modular architecture, a feature that most loaders do not have," Zscaler ThreatLabz researcher Nikolaos Pantazopoulos  said . First observed by the company in July 2023, the malware employs a number of techniques to fly under the radar. This involves using syscalls to evade monitoring from security solutions, monitoring processes associated with security software based on an embedded blocklist, and putting off code execution by as much as 40 seconds at different stages. The exact initial access vector used to infiltrate targets is currently not known. The anti-analysis aspects notwithstanding, the loader packs in a main instrumentation module that

Malicious actors associated with the Vietnamese cybercrime ecosystem are leveraging advertising-as-a-vector on social media platforms such as Meta-owned Facebook to distribute malware. "Threat actors have long used fraudulent ads as a vector to target victims with scams, malvertising, and more," WithSecure researcher Mohammad Kazem Hassan Nejad  said . "And with businesses now leveraging the reach of social media for advertising, attackers have a new, highly-lucrative type of attack to add to their arsenal – hijacking business accounts." Cyber attacks targeting Meta Business and Facebook accounts have gained popularity over the past year, courtesy of activity clusters such as  Ducktail  and  NodeStealer  that are known to raid businesses and individuals operating on Facebook. Among the methods employed by cybercriminals to gain unauthorized access to user accounts, social engineering plays a significant role. Victims are approached through various platforms ranging from Facebook a

Users in Latin America (LATAM) are the target of a financial malware called  JanelaRAT  that's capable of capturing sensitive information from compromised Microsoft Windows systems. "JanelaRAT mainly targets financial and cryptocurrency data from LATAM bank and financial institutions," Zscaler ThreatLabz researchers Gaetano Pellegrino and Sudeep Singh  said , adding it "abuses DLL side-loading techniques from legitimate sources (like VMWare and Microsoft) to evade endpoint detection." The exact starting point of the infection chain is unclear, but the cybersecurity company, which discovered the campaign in June 2023, said the unknown vector is used to deliver a ZIP archive file containing a Visual Basic Script. The VBScript is engineered to fetch a second ZIP archive from the attackers' server as well as drop a batch file used to establish persistence of the malware. The ZIP archive is packed with two components, the JanelaRAT payload and a legitimate

A new information malware strain called  Statc Stealer  has been found infecting devices running Microsoft Windows to siphon sensitive personal and payment information. "Statc Stealer exhibits a broad range of stealing capabilities, making it a significant threat," Zscaler ThreatLabz researchers Shivam Sharma and Amandeep Kumar  said  in a technical report published this week. "It can steal sensitive information from various web browsers, including login data, cookies, web data, and preferences. Additionally, it targets cryptocurrency wallets, credentials, passwords, and even data from messaging apps like Telegram." Written in C++, the malicious stealer finds its way into victim systems when potential victims are tricked into clicking on seemingly innocuous ads, with the stealer imitating an MP4 video file format on web browsers like Google Chrome. The first-stage payload, while dropping and executing a decoy PDF installer, also stealthily deploys a downloader

Businesses operating in the Latin American (LATAM) region are the target of a new Windows-based banking trojan called  TOITOIN  since May 2023. "This sophisticated campaign employs a trojan that follows a multi-staged infection chain, utilizing specially crafted modules throughout each stage," Zscaler researchers Niraj Shivtarkar and Preet Kamal  said  in a report published last week. "These modules are custom designed to carry out malicious activities, such as injecting harmful code into remote processes, circumventing User Account Control via COM Elevation Moniker, and evading detection by Sandboxes through clever techniques like system reboots and parent process checks." The six-stage endeavor has all the hallmarks of a well-crafted attack sequence, beginning with a phishing email containing an embedded link that points to a ZIP archive hosted on an Amazon EC2 instance to evade domain-based detections. The email messages leverage an invoice-themed lure to t

A new information-stealing malware called  Mystic Stealer  has been found to steal data from about 40 different web browsers and over 70 web browser extensions. First advertised on April 25, 2023, for $150 per month, the malware also targets cryptocurrency wallets, Steam, and Telegram, and employs extensive mechanisms to resist analysis. "The code is heavily obfuscated making use of polymorphic string obfuscation, hash-based import resolution, and runtime calculation of constants,"  InQuest  and  Zscaler  researchers said in an analysis published last week. Mystic Stealer, like many other crimeware solutions that are offered for sale, focuses on pilfering data and is implemented in the C programming language. The control panel has been developed using Python. Updates to the malware in May 2023 incorporate a loader component that allows it to retrieve and execute next-stage payloads fetched from a command-and-control (C2) server, making it a more formidable threat. C2 co

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Stopping new and evasive threats is one of the greatest challenges in cybersecurity. This is among the biggest reasons why  attacks increased dramatically in the past year  yet again, despite the estimated $172 billion spent on global cybersecurity in 2022. Armed with cloud-based tools and backed by sophisticated affiliate networks, threat actors can develop new and evasive malware more quickly than organizations can update their protections.  Relying on malware signatures and blocklists against these rapidly changing attacks has become futile. As a result, the SOC toolkit now largely revolves around threat detection and investigation. If an attacker can bypass your initial blocks, you expect your tools to pick them up at some point in the attack chain. Every organization's digital architecture is now seeded with security controls that log anything potentially malicious. Security analysts pore through these logs and determine what to investigate further. Does this work? Let'

The North Korean advanced persistent threat (APT) actor dubbed ScarCruft is using weaponized Microsoft Compiled HTML Help (CHM) files to download additional malware onto targeted machines. According to multiple reports from  AhnLab Security Emergency response Center  ( ASEC ),  SEKOIA.IO , and  Zscaler , the development is illustrative of the group's continuous efforts to refine and retool its tactics to sidestep detection. "The group is constantly evolving its tools, techniques, and procedures while experimenting with new file formats and methods to bypass security vendors," Zscaler researchers Sudeep Singh and Naveen Selvan said in a new analysis published Tuesday.  ScarCruft, also tracked under the names APT37, Reaper, RedEyes, and Ricochet Chollima, has exhibited an increased operational tempo since the start of the year, targeting various South Korean entities for espionage purposes. It is known to be active since at least 2012. Last month, ASEC  disclosed  a

An open source command-and-control (C2) framework known as Havoc is being adopted by threat actors as an alternative to other well-known legitimate toolkits like  Cobalt Strike ,  Sliver , and  Brute Ratel . Cybersecurity firm Zscaler said it observed a new campaign in the beginning of January 2023 targeting an unnamed government organization that utilized  Havoc . "While C2 frameworks are prolific, the open-source Havoc framework is an advanced post-exploitation command-and-control framework capable of bypassing the most current and updated version of Windows 11 defender due to the implementation of advanced evasion techniques such as indirect syscalls and sleep obfuscation," researchers Niraj Shivtarkar and Shatak Jain  said . The attack sequence documented by Zscaler begins with a ZIP archive that embeds a decoy document and a screen-saver file that's designed to download and launch the Havoc Demon agent on the infected host. Demon is the implant generated via th

Travel agencies have emerged as the target of a hack-for-hire group dubbed  Evilnum  as part of a broader campaign aimed at legal and financial investment institutions in the Middle East and Europe. The attacks, which took place during 2020 and 2021 and likely went as far back as 2015, involved a revamped variant of a malware called Janicab that leverages a number of public services like WordPress and YouTube as  dead drop resolvers , Kaspersky  said  in a technical report published this week. Janicab infections comprise a diverse set of victims located in Egypt, Georgia, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and the U.K. The development marks the first time legal organizations in Saudi Arabia have been targeted by this group. Also tracked as DeathStalker, the threat actor is known to deploy  backdoors  like Janicab, Evilnum, Powersing, and PowerPepper to exfiltrate confidential corporate information. "Their interest in gathering sensitive business information leads us to believe that Deat

The operators of the Ducktail information stealer have demonstrated a "relentless willingness to persist" and continued to update their malware as part of an ongoing financially driven campaign. "The malware is designed to steal browser cookies and take advantage of authenticated Facebook sessions to steal information from the victim's Facebook account," WithSecure researcher Mohammad Kazem Hassan Nejad  said  in a new analysis. "The operation ultimately hijacks Facebook Business accounts to which the victim has sufficient access. The threat actor uses their gained access to run ads for monetary gain." Attributed to a Vietnamese threat actor, the Ducktail campaign is designed to target businesses in the digital marketing and advertising sectors which are active on the Facebook Ads and Business platform. Also targeted are individuals within prospective companies that are likely to have high-level access to Facebook Business accounts. This includes

Google has removed two new malicious dropper apps that have been detected on the Play Store for Android, one of which posed as a lifestyle app and was caught distributing the Xenomorph banking malware. "Xenomorph is a trojan that steals credentials from banking applications on users' devices," Zscaler ThreatLabz researchers Himanshu Sharma and Viral Gandhi  said  in an analysis published Thursday. "It is also capable of intercepting users' SMS messages and notifications, enabling it to steal one-time passwords and multi-factor authentication requests." The cybersecurity firm said it also found an expense tracker app that exhibited similar behavior, but noted that it couldn't extract the URL used to fetch the malware artifact. The two malicious apps are as follows - Todo: Day manager (com.todo.daymanager) 経費キーパー (com.setprice.expenses) Both the apps function as a dropper, meaning the apps themselves are harmless and are a conduit to retrieve t

The Transparent Tribe threat actor has been linked to a new campaign aimed at Indian government organizations with trojanized versions of a two-factor authentication solution called Kavach . "This group abuses Google advertisements for the purpose of malvertising to distribute backdoored versions of Kavach multi-authentication (MFA) applications," Zscaler ThreatLabz researcher Sudeep Singh  said  in a Thursday analysis. The cybersecurity company said the advanced persistent threat group has also conducted low-volume credential harvesting attacks in which rogue websites masquerading as official Indian government portals were set up to lure unwitting users into entering their passwords. Transparent Tribe, also known by the monikers APT36, Operation C-Major, and Mythic Leopard, is a suspected Pakistan  adversarial collective  that has a  history  of striking Indian and Afghanistan entities. The latest attack chain is not the first time the threat actor has set its sights o

A PHP version of an information-stealing malware called  Ducktail  has been discovered in the wild being distributed in the form of cracked installers for legitimate apps and games, according to the latest findings from Zscaler. "Like older versions (.NetCore), the latest version (PHP) also aims to exfiltrate sensitive information related to saved browser credentials, Facebook account information, etc.," Zscaler ThreatLabz researchers Tarun Dewan and Stuti Chaturvedi  said . Ducktail, which emerged on the threat landscape in late 2021, is attributed to an unnamed Vietnamese threat actor, with the malware primarily designed to hijack Facebook business and advertising accounts. The financially motivated cybercriminal operation was  first documented  by Finnish cybersecurity company WithSecure (formerly F-Secure) in late July 2022. While previous versions of the malware were found to use Telegram as a command-and-control (C2) channel to exfiltrate information, the PHP var