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The United States government has released a rare alert about an ongoing, eight-year-long North Korean state-sponsored hacking operation. The joint report from the FBI and U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) provided details on " DeltaCharlie ," a malware variant used by " Hidden Cobra " hacking group to infect hundreds of thousands of computers globally as part of its DDoS botnet network. According to the report, the Hidden Cobra group of hackers are believed to be backed by the North Korean government and are known to launch cyber attacks against global institutions, including media organizations, aerospace and financial sectors, and critical infrastructure. While the US government has labeled the North Korean hacking group Hidden Cobra, it is often known as Lazarus Group and Guardians of Peace – the one allegedly linked to the devastating WannaCry ransomware menace that shut down hospitals and businesses worldwide. DeltaCharlie – DDoS Botnet M

Since the Shadow Brokers released the zero-day software vulnerabilities and hacking tools – allegedly belonged to the NSA's elite hacking team Equation Group – several hacking groups and individual hackers have started using them in their own way. The April's data dump was believed to be the most damaging release by the Shadow Brokers till the date, as it publicly leaked lots of Windows hacking tools , including dangerous Windows SMB exploit. After the outbreak of WannaCry last week, security researchers have identified multiple different campaigns exploiting Windows SMB vulnerability (CVE-2017-0143), called Eternalblue , which has already compromised hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide. I have been even confirmed by multiple sources in hacking and intelligence community that there are lots of groups and individuals who are actively exploiting Eternalblue for different motives. Moreover, the Eternalblue SMB exploit ( MS17-010 ) has now been ported to  Met

It comes as no surprise that today's cyber threats are orders of magnitude more complex than those of the past. And the ever-evolving tactics that attackers use demand the adoption of better, more holistic and consolidated ways to meet this non-stop challenge. Security teams constantly look for ways to reduce risk while improving security posture, but many approaches offer piecemeal solutions – zeroing in on one particular element of the evolving threat landscape challenge – missing the forest for the trees.  In the last few years, Exposure Management has become known as a comprehensive way of reigning in the chaos, giving organizations a true fighting chance to reduce risk and improve posture. In this article I'll cover what Exposure Management is, how it stacks up against some alternative approaches and why building an Exposure Management program should be on  your 2024 to-do list. What is Exposure Management?  Exposure Management is the systematic identification, evaluation,

A security researcher has just discovered a stealthy cryptocurrency-mining malware that was also using Windows SMB vulnerability at least two weeks before the outbreak of WannaCry ransomware attacks. According to Kafeine, a security researcher at Proofpoint , another group of cyber criminals was using the same EternalBlue exploit , created by the NSA and dumped last month by the Shadow Brokers, to infect hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide with a cryptocurrency mining malware called ' Adylkuzz .' This malicious campaign went unnoticed for weeks because unlike WannaCry , this malware does not install ransomware or notify victims, but instead, it quietly infects unpatched computers with malware that only mine ' Monero ,' a Bitcoin-like cryptocurrency. This Malware Saves Computers From Getting Hacked By WannaCry The Researcher believes Adylkuzz malware attack could be larger in scale than WannaCry ransomware attack because it has been designed to blo

A massive malicious email campaign that stems from the Necurs botnet is spreading a new ransomware at the rate of 5 million emails per hour and hitting computers across the globe. Dubbed "Jaff," the new file-encrypting ransomware is very similar to the infamous Locky ransomware in many ways, but it is demanding 1.79 Bitcoins (approx $3,150), which much higher than Locky, to unlock the encrypted files on an infected computer. According to security researchers at Forcepoint Security Lab, Jaff ransomware, written in C programming language, is being distributed with the help of Necurs botnet that currently controls over 6 million infected computers worldwide. Necurs botnet is sending emails to millions of users with an attached PDF document, which if clicked, opens up an embedded Word document with a malicious macro script to downloads and execute the Jaff ransomware, Malwarebytes says . Jaff is Spreading at the Rate of 5 Million per Hour The malicious email camp

A new botnet consisting of more than 15,000 compromised servers has been used to mine various cryptocurrencies, earning its master around $25,000 per month. Mining cryptocurrencies can be a costly investment, as it requires an enormous amount of computing power, but cybercriminals have found an easy money-making solution. Dubbed BondNet, the botnet was first spotted in December 2016 by GuardiCore researchers, who traced back the botnet malware developer, using online handle Bond007.01, to China. According to the GuardiCore researchers, Bond007.01 is currently using BondNet for mining cryptocurrencies — primarily Monero, but also ByteCoin, RieCoin, and ZCash — but they warn that the hacker could easily take full control of compromised servers for malicious purposes, like mounting Mirai-style DDoS attacks. BondNet Attacks only Windows Server Machines Since mining cryptocurrencies require large amounts of CPU/GPU power, the botnet master goes after Windows Server machin