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Sometimes, it turns out that the answers we struggled so hard to find were sitting right in front of us for so long that we somehow overlooked them. When the Department of Homeland Security, through the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), in coordination with the FBI, issues a cybersecurity warning and prescribes specific action, it's a pretty good idea to at least read the joint advisory. In their advisory AA24-242A, DHS/CISA and the FBI told the entire cybercriminal-stopping world that to stop ransomware attacks, organizations needed to implement phishing-resistant MFA and ditch SMS-based OTP MFA.  The Best Advice I Never Followed  This year, we have experienced an astonishing surge in ransomware payments, with the average payment increasing by a staggering 500%. Per the "State of Ransomware 2024" report from cybersecurity leader Sophos, the average ransom has jumped by 5X reaching $2 million from $400,000 last year. Even more troubling, RISK &...

It may come as a surprise to learn that 34% of security practitioners are in the dark about how many SaaS applications are deployed in their organizations. And it's no wonder—the recent AppOmni 2024 State of SaaS Security Report reveals that only 15% of organizations centralize SaaS security within their cybersecurity teams. These statistics not only highlight a critical security blind spot, they also point to the fact that organizational culture is often overlooked as a driving factor behind these risks. As SaaS environments become more decentralized, the lack of clarity around roles and responsibilities is leaving companies exposed.  Most security teams focus solely on technical matters, often overlooking how their company's culture—its everyday practices, attitudes, and default policy enforcement processes—shapes their organization's security posture. Overconfidence, unclear responsibilities, and a lack of continuous monitoring can lead to SaaS security breaches. Let's exami...

IT leaders know the drill—regulators and cyber insurers demand regular network penetration testing to keep the bad guys out. But here's the thing: hackers don't wait around for compliance schedules. Most companies approach network penetration testing on a set schedule, with the most common frequency being twice a year (29%), followed by three to four times per year (23%) and once per year (20%), according to the Kaseya Cybersecurity Survey Report 2024 . Compliance-focused testing can catch vulnerabilities that exist at the exact time of testing, but it's not enough to stay ahead of attackers in a meaningful way. Why More Frequent Testing Makes Sense When companies test more often, they're not just checking a box for compliance—they're actually protecting their networks. The Kaseya survey also points out that the top drivers for network penetration testing are: Cybersecurity Control and Validation (34%) – ensuring the security controls work and vulnerabilities are minimized. Re...

Hi there! Here's your quick update on the latest in cybersecurity. Hackers are using new tricks to break into systems we thought were secure—like finding hidden doors in locked houses. But the good news? Security experts are fighting back with smarter tools to keep data safe. Some big companies were hit with attacks, while others fixed their vulnerabilities just in time. It's a constant battle. For you, staying protected means keeping your devices and apps up to date. In this newsletter, we'll break down the top stories. Whether you're protecting personal data or managing security for a business, we've got tips to help you stay safe. Let's get started! ⚡ Threat of the Week China Calls Volt Typhoon an Invention of the U.S. : China's National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center (CVERC) has claimed that the threat actor tracked Volt Typhoon is an invention of U.S. intelligence agencies and their allies. It also accused the U.S. of carrying out false flag operations in ...

North Korean information technology (IT) workers who obtain employment under false identities in Western companies are not only stealing intellectual property, but are also stepping up by demanding ransoms in order to not leak it, marking a new twist to their financially motivated attacks. "In some instances, fraudulent workers demanded ransom payments from their former employers after gaining insider access, a tactic not observed in earlier schemes," Secureworks Counter Threat Unit (CTU) said in an analysis published this week. "In one case, a contractor exfiltrated proprietary data almost immediately after starting employment in mid-2024." The activity, the cybersecurity company added, shares similarities with a threat group it tracks as Nickel Tapestry, which is also known as Famous Chollima and UNC5267 . The fraudulent IT worker scheme, orchestrated with the intent to advance North Korea's strategic and financial interests, refers to an insider threat...

A nascent threat actor known as Crypt Ghouls has been linked to a set of cyber attacks targeting Russian businesses and government agencies with ransomware with the twin goals of disrupting business operations and financial gain. "The group under review has a toolkit that includes utilities such as Mimikatz, XenAllPasswordPro, PingCastle, Localtonet, resocks, AnyDesk, PsExec, and others," Kaspersky said . "As the final payload, the group used the well-known ransomware LockBit 3.0 and Babuk." Victims of the malicious attacks span government agencies, as well as mining, energy, finance, and retail companies located in Russia. The Russian cybersecurity vendor said it was able to pinpoint the initial intrusion vector in only two instances, with the threat actors leveraging a contractor's login credentials to connect to the internal systems via VPN. The VPN connections are said to have originated from IP addresses associated with a Russian hosting provider...

AI from the attacker's perspective: See how cybercriminals are leveraging AI and exploiting its vulnerabilities to compromise systems, users, and even other AI applications Cybercriminals and AI: The Reality vs. Hype "AI will not replace humans in the near future. But humans who know how to use AI are going to replace those humans who don't know how to use AI," says Etay Maor, Chief Security Strategist at Cato Networks and founding member of Cato CTRL . "Similarly, attackers are also turning to AI to augment their own capabilities." Yet, there is a lot more hype than reality around AI's role in cybercrime. Headlines often sensationalize AI threats, with terms like "Chaos-GPT" and "Black Hat AI Tools," even claiming they seek to destroy humanity. However, these articles are more fear-inducing than descriptive of serious threats. For instance, when explored in underground forums, several of these so-called "AI cyber tools" were found to be nothing...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed a new malware campaign that leverages a malware loader named PureCrypter to deliver a commodity remote access trojan (RAT) called DarkVision RAT. The activity, observed by Zscaler ThreatLabz in July 2024, involves a multi-stage process to deliver the RAT payload. "DarkVision RAT communicates with its command-and-control (C2) server using a custom network protocol via sockets," security researcher Muhammed Irfan V A said in an analysis. "DarkVision RAT supports a wide range of commands and plugins that enable additional capabilities such as keylogging, remote access, password theft, audio recording, and screen captures." PureCrypter, first publicly disclosed in 2022, is an off-the-shelf malware loader that's available for sale on a subscription basis, offering customers the ability to distribute information stealers, RATs, and ransomware. The exact initial access vector used to deliver PureCrypter and, by extensio...

In recent years, the number and sophistication of zero-day vulnerabilities have surged, posing a critical threat to organizations of all sizes. A zero-day vulnerability is a security flaw in software that is unknown to the vendor and remains unpatched at the time of discovery. Attackers exploit these flaws before any defensive measures can be implemented, making zero-days a potent weapon for cybercriminals. A recent example is, for instance, CVE-2024-0519 in Google Chrome: this high-severity vulnerability was actively exploited in the wild and involved an out-of-bounds memory access issue in the V8 JavaScript engine. It allowed remote attackers to access sensitive information or trigger a crash by exploiting heap corruption.  Also, the zero-day vulnerability at Rackspace caused massive trouble. This incident was a zero-day remote code execution vulnerability in ScienceLogic's monitoring application that led to the compromise of Rackspace's internal systems. The breach expose...

Threat actors constantly change tactics to bypass cybersecurity measures, developing innovative methods to steal user credentials. Hybrid password attacks merge multiple cracking techniques to amplify their effectiveness. These combined approaches exploit the strengths of various methods, accelerating the password-cracking process.  In this post, we'll explore hybrid attacks — what they are and the most common types. We'll also discuss how your organization can defend against them. The blended approach of hybrid attacks Threat actors are always looking for better, more successful ways to crack passwords — and hybrid attacks allow them to combine two different hacking techniques into a single attack. By integrating attack methodologies, they can take advantage of the strengths associated with each method, increasing their chances of success. And hybrid attacks aren't just limited to cracking passwords. Cybercriminals regularly combine technical cyberattacks with other tactics, ...

Cybersecurity researchers have shed light on a new digital skimmer campaign that leverages Unicode obfuscation techniques to conceal a skimmer dubbed Mongolian Skimmer. "At first glance, the thing that stood out was the script's obfuscation, which seemed a bit bizarre because of all the accented characters," Jscrambler researchers said in an analysis. "The heavy use of Unicode characters, many of them invisible, does make the code very hard to read for humans." The script, at its core, has been found to leverage JavaScript's capability to use any Unicode character in identifiers to hide the malicious functionality. The end goal of the malware is to steal sensitive data entered on e-commerce checkout or admin pages, including financial information, which are then exfiltrated to an attacker-controlled server. The skimmer, which typically manifests in the form of an inline script on compromised sites that fetches the actual payload from an external serv...