cyber espionage | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Security researchers at Kaspersky have identified a sophisticated APT hacking group that has been operating since at least 2012 without being noticed due to their complex and clever hacking techniques. The hacking group used a piece of advanced malware—dubbed Slingshot —to infect hundreds of thousands of victims in the Middle East and Africa by hacking into their routers. According to a 25-page report published [ PDF ] by Kaspersky Labs, the group exploited unknown vulnerabilities in routers from a Latvian network hardware provider Mikrotik as its first-stage infection vector in order to covertly plant its spyware into victims' computers. Although it is unclear how the group managed to compromise the routers at the first place, Kaspersky pointed towards WikiLeaks Vault 7 CIA Leaks , which revealed the ChimayRed exploit , now available on GitHub , to compromise Mikrotik routers. Once the router is compromised, the attackers replace one of its DDL (dynamic link libraries)

Security researchers have discovered a custom-built piece of malware that's wreaking havoc in Asia for past several months and is capable of performing nasty tasks, like password stealing, bitcoin mining, and providing hackers complete remote access to compromised systems. Dubbed Operation PZChao , the attack campaign discovered by the security researchers at Bitdefender have been targeting organizations in the government, technology, education, and telecommunications sectors in Asia and the United States. Researchers believe nature, infrastructure, and payloads, including variants of the Gh0stRAT trojan, used in the PZChao attacks are reminiscent of the notorious Chinese hacker group— Iron Tiger . However, this campaign has evolved its payloads to drop trojan, conduct cyber espionage and mine Bitcoin cryptocurrency. The PZChao campaign is attacking targets across Asia and the U.S. by using similar attack tactics as of Iron Tiger, which, according to the researchers, si

The introduction of Open AI's ChatGPT was a defining moment for the software industry, touching off a GenAI race with its November 2022 release. SaaS vendors are now rushing to upgrade tools with enhanced productivity capabilities that are driven by generative AI. Among a wide range of uses, GenAI tools make it easier for developers to build software, assist sales teams in mundane email writing, help marketers produce unique content at low cost, and enable teams and creatives to brainstorm new ideas.  Recent significant GenAI product launches include Microsoft 365 Copilot, GitHub Copilot, and Salesforce Einstein GPT. Notably, these GenAI tools from leading SaaS providers are paid enhancements, a clear sign that no SaaS provider will want to miss out on cashing in on the GenAI transformation. Google will soon launch its SGE "Search Generative Experience" platform for premium AI-generated summaries rather than a list of websites.  At this pace, it's just a matter of a short time befo

Moscow-based cyber security firm Kaspersky Lab has taken the United States government to a U.S. federal court for its decision to ban the use of Kaspersky products in federal agencies and departments. In September 2017, the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a Binding Operational Directive (BOD) ordering civilian government agencies to remove Kaspersky Lab software from their computers and networks within 90 days. The order came amid mounting concern among United States officials that the Kaspersky antivirus software could be helping Russian government spy on their activities, which may threaten the U.S. national security. U.S. President Donald Trump also signed into law last week legislation that bans the use of Kaspersky products within the U.S. government, capping a months-long effort to purge Kaspersky from federal agencies amid concerns it's vulnerable to Kremlin influence. The Kaspersky's appeal is part of an ongoing campaign by the c

Karim Baratov , a 22-year-old Kazakhstan-born Canadian citizen, has pleaded guilty to hacking charges over his involvement in massive 2014 Yahoo data breach that affected all three billion yahoo accounts . In March, the US Justice Department announced charges against two Russian intelligence officers (Dmitry Dokuchaev and Igor Sushchin) from Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) and two hackers (Alexsey Belan and Karim Baratov) for breaking into yahoo servers in 2014. While Karim Baratov (Kay, a.k.a Karim Taloverov, a.k.a Karim Akehmet Tokbergenov) was arrested in Toronto at his Ancaster home by the Toronto Police Department in March this year, Alexsey Belan and both FSB officers currently reside in Russia, unlikely to be extradited. In the federal district court in San Francisco on Tuesday, Baratov admitted to helping the Russian spies and pleaded guilty to a total of nine counts which includes: One count of conspiring to violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by

The United States Justice Department has charged three Chinese nationals for allegedly hacking Moody's Analytics economist, German electronics manufacturer Siemens, and GPS maker Trimble, and stealing gigabytes of sensitive data and trade secrets. According to an indictment unsealed Monday in federal court in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the three men worked for a Chinese cybersecurity company, Guangzhou Bo Yu Information Technology Company Limited ( Boyusec ), previously linked to China's Ministry of State Security. Earlier this year, security researchers also linked Boyusec to one of the active Chinese government-sponsored espionage groups, called Advanced Persistent Threat 3 (or APT3 ), which is also known as Gothic Panda, UPS Team, Buckeye, and TG-0110. In 2013, APT3 allegedly stole the blueprints for ASIO's new Canberra building using a piece of malware that was uploaded to an ASIO employee's laptop. According to the indictment, the three Chinese nationals