cyber attacks | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

A suspected China-based threat actor has been linked to a series of cyber attacks targeting high-profile organizations in Southeast Asia since at least October 2023. The espionage campaign targeted organizations in various sectors spanning government ministries in two different countries, an air traffic control organization, a telecoms company, and a media outlet, the Symantec Threat Hunter Team said in a new report shared with The Hacker News. The attacks, which leveraged tools previously identified as linked to China-based advanced persistent threat (APT) groups, are characterized by the use of both open-source and living-off-the-land (LotL) techniques. This includes the use of reverse proxy programs such as Rakshasa and Stowaway , as well as asset discovery and identification tools, keyloggers, and password stealers. Also deployed during the course of the attacks is PlugX (aka Korplug), a remote access trojan put to use by several Chinese hacking groups. "The threat ac...

A little-known threat actor tracked as GoldenJackal has been linked to a series of cyber attacks targeting embassies and governmental organizations with an aim to infiltrate air-gapped systems using two disparate bespoke toolsets. Victims included a South Asian embassy in Belarus and a European Union (E.U.) government organization, Slovak cybersecurity company ESET said. "The ultimate goal of GoldenJackal seems to be stealing confidential information, especially from high-profile machines that might not be connected to the internet," security researcher Matías Porolli noted in an exhaustive analysis. GoldenJackal first came to light in May 2023, when Russian security vendor Kaspersky detailed the threat cluster's attacks on government and diplomatic entities in the Middle East and South Asia. The adversary's origins stretch back to at least 2019. An important characteristic of the intrusions is the use of a worm named JackalWorm that's capable of infectin...

Vulnerability Management (VM) has long been a cornerstone of organizational cybersecurity. Nearly as old as the discipline of cybersecurity itself, it aims to help organizations identify and address potential security issues before they become serious problems. Yet, in recent years, the limitations of this approach have become increasingly evident.  At its core, Vulnerability Management processes remain essential for identifying and addressing weaknesses. But as time marches on and attack avenues evolve, this approach is beginning to show its age. In a recent report, How to Grow Vulnerability Management into Exposure Management (Gartner, How to Grow Vulnerability Management Into Exposure Management, 8 November 2024, Mitchell Schneider Et Al.), we believe Gartner® addresses this point precisely and demonstrates how organizations can – and must – shift from a vulnerability-centric strategy to a broader Exposure Management (EM) framework. We feel it's more than a worthwhile read an...

Mobile users in the Czech Republic are the target of a novel phishing campaign that leverages a Progressive Web Application (PWA) in an attempt to sidestep security protections and steal their banking account credentials. The attacks have targeted the Czech-based Československá obchodní banka (CSOB), as well as the Hungarian OTP Bank and a Georgian Bank, according to Slovak cybersecurity company ESET. "The phishing websites targeting iOS instruct victims to add a Progressive Web Application ( PWA ) to their home-screens, while on Android the PWA is installed after confirming custom pop-ups in the browser," security researcher Jakub Osmani said . "At this point, on both operating systems, these phishing apps are largely indistinguishable from the real banking apps that they mimic." What's notable about this tactic is that users are deceived into installing a PWA, or even WebAPKs in some cases on Android, from a third-party site without having to specificall...

The ransomware strain known as BlackSuit has demanded as much as $500 million in ransoms to date, with one individual ransom demand hitting $60 million. That's according to an updated advisory from the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). "BlackSuit actors have exhibited a willingness to negotiate payment amounts," the agencies said . "Ransom amounts are not part of the initial ransom note, but require direct interaction with the threat actor via a .onion URL (reachable through the Tor browser) provided after encryption." Attacks involving ransomware have targeted several critical infrastructure sectors spanning commercial facilities, healthcare and public health, government facilities, and critical manufacturing. An evolution of the Royal ransomware , it leverages the initial access obtained via phishing emails to disarm antivirus software and exfiltrate sensitive data before ultimately...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a previously undocumented Windows backdoor that leverages a built-in feature called Background Intelligent Transfer Service ( BITS ) as a command-and-control (C2) mechanism. The newly identified malware strain has been codenamed BITSLOTH by Elastic Security Labs, which made the discovery on June 25, 2024, in connection with a cyber attack targeting an unspecified Foreign Ministry of a South American government. The activity cluster is being tracked under the moniker REF8747. "The most current iteration of the backdoor at the time of this publication has 35 handler functions including keylogging and screen capture capabilities," security researchers Seth Goodwin and Daniel Stepanic said . "In addition, BITSLOTH contains many different features for discovery, enumeration, and command-line execution." It's assessed that the tool – in development since December 2021 – is being used by the threat actors for data gatheri...

How to detect and prevent attackers from using these various techniques Obfuscation is an important technique for protecting software that also carries risks, especially when used by malware authors. In this article, we examine obfuscation, its effects, and responses to it. What Is Obfuscation? Obfuscation is the technique of intentionally making information difficult to read, especially in computer coding. An important use case is data obfuscation, in which sensitive data is made unrecognizable to protect it from unauthorized access. Various methods are used for this.  For example, only the last four digits of a credit card number are often displayed, while the remaining digits are replaced by Xs or asterisks. In contrast, encryption involves converting data into an unreadable form that can only be decrypted using a special key. Obfuscation In Code When computer code is obfuscated, complex language and redundant logic are used to make the code difficult to understand. The a...

Multiple content management system (CMS) platforms like WordPress, Magento, and OpenCart have been targeted by a new credit card web skimmer called Caesar Cipher Skimmer. A web skimmer refers to malware that is injected into e-commerce sites with the goal of stealing financial and payment information .  According to Sucuri, the latest campaign entails making malicious modifications to the checkout PHP file associated with the WooCommerce plugin for WordPress ("form-checkout.php") to steal credit card details. "For the past few months, the injections have been changed to look less suspicious than a long obfuscated script," security researcher Ben Martin said , noting the malware's attempt to masquerade as Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager. Specifically, it utilizes the same substitution mechanism employed in Caesar cipher to encode the malicious piece of code into a garbled string and conceal the external domain that's used to host the payload. ...

Threat actors are exploiting a novel attack technique in the wild that leverages specially crafted management saved console (MSC) files to gain full code execution using Microsoft Management Console ( MMC ) and evade security defenses. Elastic Security Labs has codenamed the approach GrimResource after identifying an artifact (" sccm-updater.msc ") that was uploaded to the VirusTotal malware scanning platform on June 6, 2024. "When a maliciously crafted console file is imported, a vulnerability in one of the MMC libraries can lead to running adversary code, including malware," the company said in a statement shared with The Hacker News. "Attackers can combine this technique with DotNetToJScript to gain arbitrary code execution, which can lead to unauthorized access, system takeover and more." The use of uncommon file types as a malware distribution vector is seen as an alternative attempt by adversaries to get around security guardrails erected ...

Cybersecurity researchers have shed light on a new phishing campaign that has been identified as targeting people in Pakistan using a custom backdoor. Dubbed PHANTOM#SPIKE by Securonix, the unknown threat actors behind the activity have leveraged military-related phishing documents to activate the infection sequence. "While there are many methods used today to deploy malware, the threat actors made use of ZIP files with a password-protected payload archive contained within," researchers Den Iuzvyk, Tim Peck, and Oleg Kolesnikov said in a report shared with The Hacker News. The campaign is notable for its lack of sophistication and the use of simple payloads to achieve remote access to target machines. The email messages come bearing a ZIP archive that purports to be meeting minutes related to the International Military-Technical Forum Army 2024, a legitimate event organized by the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. It's set to be held in Moscow in mid...

A suspected Pakistan-based threat actor has been linked to a cyber espionage campaign targeting Indian government entities in 2024. Cybersecurity company Volexity is tracking the activity under the moniker UTA0137, noting the adversary's exclusive use of a malware called DISGOMOJI that's written in Golang and is designed to infect Linux systems. "It is a modified version of the public project Discord-C2, which uses the messaging service Discord for command and control (C2), making use of emojis for its C2 communication," it said . It's worth noting that DISGOMOJI is the same "all-in-one" espionage tool that BlackBerry said it discovered as part of an infrastructure analysis in connection with an attack campaign mounted by the Transparent Tribe actor, a Pakistan-nexus hacking crew The attack chains commence with spear-phishing emails bearing a Golang ELF binary delivered within a ZIP archive file. The binary then downloads a benign lure document wh...

An analysis of a hybrid biometric access system from Chinese manufacturer ZKTeco has uncovered two dozen security flaws that could be used by attackers to defeat authentication, steal biometric data, and even deploy malicious backdoors. "By adding random user data to the database or using a fake QR code, a nefarious actor can easily bypass the verification process and gain unauthorized access," Kaspersky said . "Attackers can also steal and leak biometric data, remotely manipulate devices, and deploy backdoors." The 24 flaws span six SQL injections, seven stack-based buffer overflows, five command injections, four arbitrary file writes, and two arbitrary file reads. A brief description of each vulnerability type is below - CVE-2023-3938 (CVSS score: 4.6) - An SQL injection flaw when displaying a QR code into the device's camera by passing a specially crafted request containing a quotation mark, thereby allowing an attacker to authenticate as any user in th...

The nascent malware known as SSLoad is being delivered by means of a previously undocumented loader called PhantomLoader, according to findings from cybersecurity firm Intezer. "The loader is added to a legitimate DLL, usually EDR or AV products, by binary patching the file and employing self-modifying techniques to evade detection," security researchers Nicole Fishbein and Ryan Robinson said in a report published this week. SSLoad, likely offered to other threat actors under a Malware-as-a-Service (MaaS) model owing to its different delivery methods, infiltrates systems through phishing emails, conducts reconnaissance, and pushes additional types of malware down to victims. Prior reporting from Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 and Securonix has revealed the use of SSLoad to deploy Cobalt Strike, a legitimate adversary simulation software often used for post-exploitation purposes. The malware has been detected since April 2024. The attack chains typically involve the use o...

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...

A new Python-based hacking tool called  FBot  has been uncovered targeting web servers, cloud services, content management systems (CMS), and SaaS platforms such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft 365, PayPal, Sendgrid, and Twilio. "Key features include credential harvesting for spamming attacks, AWS account hijacking tools, and functions to enable attacks against PayPal and various SaaS accounts," SentinelOne security researcher Alex Delamotte  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. FBot is the latest addition to the list of cloud hacking tools like  AlienFox, GreenBot  (aka Maintance),  Legion , and  Predator , the latter four of which share code-level overlaps with AndroxGh0st. SentinelOne described FBot as "related but distinct from these families," owing to the fact that it does not reference any source code from AndroxGh0st, although it exhibits similarities with Legion, which first came to light last year. The end goal of...

The threat actors behind the  Rhysida ransomware  engage in opportunistic attacks targeting organizations spanning various industry sectors. The advisory comes courtesy of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC). "Observed as a ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) model, Rhysida actors have compromised organizations in education, manufacturing, information technology, and government sectors and any ransom paid is split between the group and affiliates," the agencies  said . " Rhysida actors leverage external-facing remote services, such as virtual private networks (VPNs), Zerologon vulnerability (CVE-2020-1472), and phishing campaigns to gain initial access and persistence within a network." First detected in May 2023,  Rhysida  makes use of the time-tested tactic of double extortion, demanding a ransom payment to decrypt vic...

A malicious campaign targeting the Middle East is likely linked to  BackdoorDiplomacy , an advanced persistent threat (APT) group with ties to China. The espionage activity, directed against a telecom company in the region, is said to have commenced on August 19, 2021 through the successful exploitation of  ProxyShell flaws  in the Microsoft Exchange Server. Initial compromise leveraged binaries vulnerable to side-loading techniques, followed by using a mix of legitimate and bespoke tools to conduct reconnaissance, harvest data, move laterally across the environment, and evade detection. "File attributes of the malicious tools showed that the first tools deployed by the threat actors were the NPS proxy tool and IRAFAU backdoor," Bitdefender researchers Victor Vrabie and Adrian Schipor said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "Starting in February 2022, the threat actors used another tool – [the] Quarian backdoor, along with many other scanners and proxy/tunnel...