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A previously unknown Linux remote access trojan called Krasue has been observed targeting telecom companies in Thailand by threat actors to main covert access to victim networks at lease since 2021. Named after a  nocturnal female spirit  of Southeast Asian folklore, the malware is "able to conceal its own presence during the initialization phase," Group-IB  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. The exact initial access vector used to deploy Krasue is currently not known, although it's suspected that it could be via vulnerability exploitation, credential brute-force attacks, or downloaded as part of a bogus software package or binary. The malware's core functionalities are realized through a rootkit that masquerades as an unsigned VMware driver and allows it to maintain persistence on the host without attracting any attention. The rootkit is derived from open-source projects such as Diamorphine, Suterusu, and Rooty. This has raised the possibility that...

A collection of 21 security flaws have been discovered in Sierra Wireless AirLink cellular routers and open-source software components like  TinyXML  and  OpenNDS . Collectively tracked as  Sierra:21 , the issues expose over 86,000 devices across critical sectors like energy, healthcare, waste management, retail, emergency services, and vehicle tracking to cyber threats, according to Forescout Vedere Labs. A majority of these devices are located in the U.S., Canada, Australia, France, and Thailand. "These vulnerabilities may allow attackers to steal credentials, take control of a router by injecting malicious code, persist on the device and use it as an initial access point into critical networks," the industrial cybersecurity company  said  in a new analysis. Of the 21 vulnerabilities, one is rated critical, nine are rated high, and 11 are rated medium in severity. This includes remote code execution (RCE), cross-site scripting (XSS), denial-of-servi...

Organizations now use an average of 112 SaaS applications —a number that keeps growing. In a 2024 study, 49% of 644 respondents who frequently used Microsoft 365 believed that they had less than 10 apps connected to the platform, despite the fact that aggregated data indicated over 1,000+ Microsoft 365 SaaS-to-SaaS connections on average per deployment. And that's just one major SaaS provider. Imagine other unforeseen critical security risks: Each SaaS app has unique security configurations —making misconfigurations a top risk. Business-critical apps (CRM, finance, and collaboration tools) store vast amounts of sensitive data, making them prime targets for attackers. Shadow IT and third-party integrations introduce hidden vulnerabilities that often go unnoticed. Large and small third-party AI service providers (e.g. audio/video transcription service) may not comply with legal and regulatory requirements, or properly test and review code. Major SaaS providers also have thous...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new variant of an emerging botnet called  P2PInfect  that's capable of targeting routers and IoT devices. The latest version, per Cado Security Labs, is compiled for Microprocessor without Interlocked Pipelined Stages ( MIPS ) architecture, broadening its capabilities and reach. "It's highly likely that by targeting MIPS, the P2PInfect developers intend to infect routers and IoT devices with the malware," security researcher Matt Muir  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. P2PInfect, a Rust-based malware, was  first   disclosed  back in July 2023, targeting unpatched Redis instances by exploiting a critical Lua sandbox escape vulnerability ( CVE-2022-0543 , CVSS score: 10.0) for initial access. A subsequent analysis from the cloud security firm in September  revealed  a surge in P2PInfect activity, coinciding with the release of iterative variants of the malware. The new artifacts, b...

A Russian national has been found guilty in connection with his role in developing and deploying a malware known as TrickBot, the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) announced. Vladimir Dunaev, 40, was  arrested  in South Korea in September 2021 and extradited to the U.S. a month later. "Dunaev developed browser modifications and malicious tools that aided in credential harvesting and data mining from infected computers, facilitated and enhanced the remote access used by TrickBot actors, and created a program code to prevent the TrickBot malware from being detected by legitimate security software," the DoJ  said . "During Dunaev's participation in the scheme, 10 victims in the Northern District of Ohio, including Avon schools and a North Canton real-estate company, were defrauded of more than $3.4 million via ransomware deployed by TrickBot." Dunaev, who pleaded guilty to committing computer fraud and identity theft and conspiracy to commit wire fraud and ban...

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI recently collaborated in a multinational operation to dismantle the notorious Qakbot malware and botnet. While the operation was successful in disrupting this long-running threat, concerns have arisen as it appears that Qakbot may still pose a danger in a reduced form. This article discusses the aftermath of the takedown, provides mitigation strategies, and offers guidance on determining past infections. The Takedown and Its Limitations During the takedown operation, law enforcement secured court orders to remove Qakbot malware from infected devices remotely. It was discovered that the malware had infected a substantial number of devices, with 700,000 machines globally, including 200,000 computers in the U.S., being compromised at the time of the takedown. However, recent reports suggest that Qakbot is still active but in a diminished state. The absence of arrests during the takedown operation indicates that only the command-and-cont...

The recently disclosed critical security flaw impacting Apache ActiveMQ is being actively exploited by threat actors to distribute a new Go-based botnet called  GoTitan  as well as a .NET program known as  PrCtrl Rat  that's capable of remotely commandeering the infected hosts. The attacks involve the exploitation of a remote code execution bug (CVE-2023-46604, CVSS score: 10.0) that has been  weaponized  by various hacking crews, including the  Lazarus Group , in recent weeks. Following a successful breach, the threat actors have been observed to drop next-stage payloads from a remote server, one of which is GoTitan, a botnet designed for orchestrating distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks via protocols such as HTTP, UDP, TCP, and TLS. "The attacker only provides binaries for x64 architectures, and the malware performs some checks before running," Fortinet Fortiguard Labs researcher Cara Lin  said  in a Tuesday analysis. "It als...

Russian threat actors have been possibly linked to what's been described as the "largest cyber attack against Danish critical infrastructure," in which 22 companies associated with the operation of the country's energy sector were targeted in May 2023.  "22 simultaneous, successful cyberattacks against Danish critical infrastructure are not commonplace," Denmark's SektorCERT  said  [PDF]. "The attackers knew in advance who they were going to target and got it right every time. Not once did a shot miss the target." The agency said it found evidence connecting one or more attacks to Russia's GRU military intelligence agency, which is also tracked under the name  Sandworm  and has a track record of orchestrating disruptive cyber assaults on industrial control systems. This assessment is based on artifacts communicating with IP addresses that have been traced to the hacking crew. The unprecedented and coordinated cyber attacks took place on...

Cybersecurity researchers have unmasked a prolific threat actor known as farnetwork, who has been linked to five different ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) programs over the past four years in various capacities. Singapore-headquartered Group-IB, which attempted to infiltrate a private RaaS program that uses the  Nokoyawa   ransomware  strain, said it underwent a "job interview" process with the threat actor, learning several valuable insights into their background and role within those RaaS programs. "Throughout the threat actor's cybercriminal career, which began in 2019, farnetwork has been involved in several connected ransomware projects, including JSWORM, Nefilim, Karma, and Nemty, as part of which they helped develop ransomware and manage the RaaS programs before launching their own RaaS program based on Nokoyawa ransomware," Nikolay Kichatov, threat intelligence analyst at Group-IB,  said . The latest disclosure comes nearly six months after the cyber...

An updated version of an information stealer malware known as  Jupyter  has resurfaced with "simple yet impactful changes" that aim to stealthily establish a persistent foothold on compromised systems. "The team has discovered new waves of Jupyter Infostealer attacks which leverage PowerShell command modifications and signatures of private keys in attempts to pass off the malware as a legitimately signed file," VMware Carbon Black researchers  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. Jupyter Infostealer , also known as Polazert , SolarMarker, and Yellow Cockatoo, has a  track record  of leveraging manipulated search engine optimization (SEO) tactics and malvertising as an initial access vector to trick users searching for popular software into downloading it from dubious websites. It comes with capabilities to harvest credentials as well as establish encrypted command-and-control (C2) communication to exfiltrate data and execute arbitrary commands...

The unexpected drop in malicious activity connected with the Mozi botnet in August 2023 was due to a kill switch that was distributed to the bots. "First, the drop manifested in India on August 8," ESET  said  in an analysis published this week. "A week later, on August 16, the same thing happened in China. While the mysterious control payload – aka kill switch – stripped Mozi bots of most functionality, they maintained persistence." Mozi is an Internet of Things (IoT) botnet that  emerged  from the source code of several known malware families, such as Gafgyt, Mirai, and IoT Reaper. First spotted in 2019, it's known to exploit weak and default remote access passwords as well as unpatched security vulnerabilities for initial access. In September 2021, researchers from cybersecurity firm Netlab  disclosed  the arrest of the botnet operators by Chinese authorities. But the  precipitous decline  in Mozi activity – from around 13,300 hosts on Au...

The  Internet of Things (IoT)  is transforming efficiency in various sectors like healthcare and logistics but has also introduced new security risks, particularly IoT-driven DDoS attacks. This article explores how these attacks work, why they're uniquely problematic, and how to mitigate them. What Is IoT? IoT (Internet of Things) refers to online, interconnected devices that collect and exchange data. This broad category of devices includes sensors, cameras, network routers, and advanced machinery, and their integration into everyday life and work processes results in an ecosystem that can automate operations, improve decision-making, and enhance user experience. IoT: A Breeding Ground for Botnets IoT's rapid adoption amplifies its vulnerability, as poorly secured devices become easy prey for attackers and may become part of a botnet. Controlled by attackers, botnets can scale and rapidly execute various attacks, including DDoS, data theft, ad fraud, cryptocurrency minin...

A sophisticated phishing campaign is using a Microsoft Word document lure to distribute a trifecta of threats, namely Agent Tesla, OriginBotnet, and RedLine Clipper, to gather a wide range of information from compromised Windows machines. "A phishing email delivers the Word document as an attachment, presenting a deliberately blurred image and a counterfeit reCAPTCHA to lure the recipient into clicking on it," Fortinet FortiGuard Labs researcher Cara Lin  said . Clicking on the image leads to the delivery of a loader from a remote server that, in turn, is designed to distribute OriginBotnet for keylogging and password recovery, RedLine Clipper for cryptocurrency theft, and Agent Tesla for harvesting sensitive information. The loader, written in .NET, employs a technique called binary padding by adding null bytes to increase the file's size to 400 MB in an attempt to evade detection by security software. The activation of the loader triggers a multi-stage process to ...

A coordinated law enforcement effort codenamed  Operation Duck Hunt  has felled  QakBot , a notorious Windows malware family that's estimated to have compromised over 700,000 computers globally and facilitated financial fraud as well as ransomware. To that end, the U.S. Justice Department (DoJ)  said  the malware is "being deleted from victim computers, preventing it from doing any more harm," adding it seized more than $8.6 million in cryptocurrency in illicit profits. The cross-border exercise involved the participation of France, Germany, Latvia, Romania, the Netherlands, the U.K., and the U.S., alongside technical assistance from cybersecurity company Zscaler. The dismantling has been hailed as "the largest U.S.-led financial and technical disruption of a botnet infrastructure leveraged by cybercriminals." No arrests were announced. QakBot, also known as QBot and Pinkslipbot, started its life as a banking trojan in 2007 before morphing into a general-pu...

Thousands of  Openfire XMPP servers  are unpatched against a recently disclosed high-severity flaw and are susceptible to a new exploit, according to a  new report  from VulnCheck. Tracked as  CVE-2023-32315  (CVSS score: 7.5), the vulnerability relates to a path traversal vulnerability in Openfire's administrative console that could permit an unauthenticated attacker to access otherwise restricted pages reserved for privileged users. It affects all versions of the software released since April 2015, starting with version 3.10.0. It was remediated by its developer, Ignite Realtime, earlier this May with the release of versions 4.6.8, 4.7.5, and 4.8.0. "Path traversal protections were already in place to protect against exactly this kind of attack, but didn't defend against certain non-standard URL encoding for UTF-16 characters that were not supported by the embedded web server that was in use at the time," the maintainers  said  in a detailed...

Vulnerable  Redis services  have been targeted by a "new, improved, dangerous" variant of a malware called SkidMap that's engineered to target a wide range of Linux distributions. "The malicious nature of this malware is to adapt to the system on which it is executed," Trustwave security researcher Radoslaw Zdonczyk  said  in an analysis published last week. Some of the Linux distribution SkidMap sets its eyes on include Alibaba, Anolis, openEuler, EulerOS, Stream, CentOS, RedHat, and Rocky. SkidMap was  first disclosed  by Trend Micro in September 2019 as a cryptocurrency mining botnet with capabilities to load malicious kernel modules that can obfuscate its activities as well as monitor the miner process. The operators of the malware have also been found camouflaging their backup command-and-control (C2) IP address on the Bitcoin blockchain, evocative of another botnet malware known as  Glupteba . "The technique of fetching real-time data from...

The P2PInfect peer-to-peer (P2) worm has been observed employing previously undocumented initial access methods to breach susceptible Redis servers and rope them into a botnet. "The malware compromises exposed instances of the Redis data store by exploiting the replication feature," Cado Security researchers Nate Bill and Matt Muir  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. "A common attack pattern against Redis in cloud environments is to exploit this feature using a malicious instance to enable replication. This is achieved via connecting to an exposed Redis instance and issuing the SLAVEOF command." The Rust-based malware was  first documented  by Palo Alto Networks Unit 42, calling out the malware's ability to exploit a critical Lua sandbox escape vulnerability ( CVE-2022-0543 , CVSS score: 10.0) to obtain a foothold into Redis instances. The campaign is believed to have commenced on or after June 29, 2023. However, the latest discovery suggests th...