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The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) formally linked the record-breaking $1.5 billion Bybit hack to North Korean threat actors, as the company's CEO Ben Zhou declared a "war against Lazarus." The agency said the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) was responsible for the theft of the virtual assets from the cryptocurrency exchange, attributing it to a specific cluster it tracks as TraderTraitor, which is also referred to as Jade Sleet, Slow Pisces, and UNC4899. "TraderTraitor actors are proceeding rapidly and have converted some of the stolen assets to Bitcoin and other virtual assets dispersed across thousands of addresses on multiple blockchains," the FBI said . "It is expected these assets will be further laundered and eventually converted to fiat currency." It's worth noting that the TraderTraitor cluster was previously implicated by Japanese and U.S. authorities in the theft of cryptocurrency worth $308 mil...

More than a year's worth of internal chat logs from a ransomware gang known as Black Basta have been published online in a leak that provides unprecedented visibility into their tactics and internal conflicts among its members. The Russian-language chats on the Matrix messaging platform between September 18, 2023, and September 28, 2024, were initially leaked on February 11, 2025, by an individual who goes by the handle ExploitWhispers , who claimed that they released the data because the group was targeting Russian banks. The identity of the leaker remains a mystery. Black Basta first came under the spotlight in April 2022, using the now-largely-defunct QakBot (aka QBot) as a delivery vehicle. According to an advisory published by the U.S. government in May 2024, the double extortion crew is estimated to have targeted more than 500 private industry and critical infrastructure entities in North America, Europe, and Australia. Per Elliptic and Corvus Insurance, the prolific r...

The first quarter of 2025 has been a battlefield in the world of cybersecurity. Cybercriminals continued launching aggressive new campaigns and refining their attack methods. Below is an overview of five notable malware families, accompanied by analyses conducted in controlled environments. NetSupport RAT Exploiting the ClickFix Technique In early 2025, threat actors began exploiting a technique known as ClickFix to distribute the NetSupport Remote Access Trojan (RAT).  This method involves injecting fake CAPTCHA pages into compromised websites, prompting users to execute malicious PowerShell commands that download and run the NetSupport RAT.  Once installed, this RAT grants attackers full control over the victim's system, allowing activities such as real-time screen monitoring, file manipulation, and execution of arbitrary commands. Main technical characteristics of NetSupport RAT Attackers can view and control the victim’s screen in real time. Uploads, downloads, m...

A large-scale malware campaign has been found leveraging a vulnerable Windows driver associated with Adlice's product suite to sidestep detection efforts and deliver the Gh0st RAT malware . "To further evade detection, the attackers deliberately generated multiple variants (with different hashes) of the 2.0.2 driver by modifying specific PE parts while keeping the signature valid," Check Point said in a new report published Monday. The cybersecurity company said the malicious activity involved thousands of first-stage malicious samples that are used to deploy a program capable of terminating endpoint detection and response (EDR) software by means of what's called a bring your own vulnerable driver ( BYOVD ) attack. As many as 2,500 distinct variants of the legacy version 2.0.2 of the vulnerable RogueKiller Antirootkit Driver, truesight.sys, have been identified on the VirusTotal platform, although the number is believed to be likely higher. The EDR-killer module...

Welcome to your weekly roundup of cyber news, where every headline gives you a peek into the world of online battles. This week, we look at a huge crypto theft, reveal some sneaky AI scam tricks, and discuss big changes in data protection. Let these stories spark your interest and help you understand the changing threats in our digital world. ⚡ Threat of the Week Lazarus Group Linked to Record-Setting $1.5 Billion Crypto Theft — The North Korean Lazarus Group has been linked to a "sophisticated" attack that led to the theft of over $1.5 billion worth of cryptocurrency from one of Bybit's cold wallets, making it the largest ever single crypto heist in history. Bybit said it detected unauthorized activity within one of our Ethereum (ETH) Cold Wallets during a planned routine transfer process on February 21, 2025, at around 12:30 p.m. UTC. The incident makes it the biggest-ever cryptocurrency heist reported to date, dwarfing that of Ronin Network ($624 million), Poly N...

Welcome to this week’s Cybersecurity News Recap. Discover how cyber attackers are using clever tricks like fake codes and sneaky emails to gain access to sensitive data. We cover everything from device code phishing to cloud exploits, breaking down the technical details into simple, easy-to-follow insights. ⚡ Threat of the Week Russian Threat Actors Leverage Device Code Phishing to Hack Microsoft Accounts — Microsoft and Volexity have revealed that threat actors with ties to Russia are leveraging a technique known as device code phishing to gain unauthorized access to victim accounts, and use that access to get hold of sensitive data and enable persistent access to the victim environment. At least three different Russia-linked clusters have been identified abusing the technique to date. The attacks entail sending phishing emails that masquerade as Microsoft Teams meeting invitations, which, when clicked, urge the message recipients to authenticate using a threat actor-generated dev...

The threat actors behind the RansomHub ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) scheme have been observed leveraging now-patched security flaws in Microsoft Active Directory and the Netlogon protocol to escalate privileges and gain unauthorized access to a victim network's domain controller as part of their post-compromise strategy. "RansomHub has targeted over 600 organizations globally, spanning sectors such as healthcare, finance, government, and critical infrastructure, firmly establishing it as the most active ransomware group in 2024," Group-IB analysts said in an exhaustive report published this week. The ransomware group first emerged in February 2024, acquiring the source code associated with the now-defunct Knight (formerly Cyclops) RaaS gang from the RAMP cybercrime forum to speed up its operations. About five months later, an updated version of the locker was advertised on the illicit marketplace with capabilities to remotely encrypt data via SFTP protocol. It co...

A widespread phishing campaign has been observed leveraging bogus PDF documents hosted on the Webflow content delivery network (CDN) with an aim to steal credit card information and commit financial fraud. "The attacker targets victims searching for documents on search engines, resulting in access to malicious PDF that contains a CAPTCHA image embedded with a phishing link, leading them to provide sensitive information," Netskope Threat Labs researcher Jan Michael Alcantara said . The activity, ongoing since the second half of 2024, entails users looking for book titles, documents, and charts on search engines like Google to redirect users to PDF files hosted on Webflow CDN. These PDF files come embedded with an image that mimics a CAPTCHA challenge, causing users who click on it to be taken to a phishing page that, this time, hosts a real Cloudflare Turnstile CAPTCHA. In doing so, the attackers aim to lend the process a veneer of legitimacy, fooling victims into think...

Apple on Monday released out-of-band security updates to address a security flaw in iOS and iPadOS that it said has been exploited in the wild. Assigned the CVE identifier CVE-2025-24200 (CVSS score: 4.6), the vulnerability has been described as an authorization issue that could make it possible for a malicious actor to disable USB Restricted Mode on a locked device as part of a cyber physical attack. This suggests that the attackers require physical access to the device in order to exploit the flaw. Introduced in iOS 11.4.1, USB Restricted Mode prevents an Apple iOS and iPadOS device from communicating with a connected accessory if it has not been unlocked and connected to an accessory within the past hour. The feature is seen as an attempt to prevent digital forensics tools like Cellebrite or GrayKey , which are mainly used by law enforcement agencies, from gaining unauthorized entry to a confiscated device and extracting sensitive data. In line with advisories of this k...

In cybersecurity, the smallest crack can lead to the biggest breaches. A leaked encryption key, an unpatched software bug, or an abandoned cloud storage bucket—each one seems minor until it becomes the entry point for an attack. This week, we’ve seen cybercriminals turn overlooked weaknesses into major security threats, proving once again that no system is too small to be targeted. The question isn’t whether attackers will find a way in—it’s whether you’ll be prepared when they do. Let’s break down what you need to know. ⚡ Threat of the Week Microsoft Warns of Attacks Exploiting ASP.NET Machine Keys — Threat actors are exploiting publicly disclosed ASP.NET machine keys to inject and execute malicious code responsible for launching the Godzilla post-exploitation framework. Microsoft said it has identified over 3,000 publicly disclosed keys that could be used for these types of attacks dubbed ViewState code injection. The company also said it removed key-related artifacts from ...

A new audit of DeepSeek's mobile app for the Apple iOS operating system has found glaring security issues, the foremost being that it sends sensitive data over the internet sans any encryption, exposing it to interception and manipulation attacks. The assessment comes from NowSecure, which also found that the app fails to adhere to best security practices and that it collects extensive user and device data. "The DeepSeek iOS app sends some mobile app registration and device data over the Internet without encryption," the company said . "This exposes any data in the internet traffic to both passive and active attacks." The teardown also revealed several implementation weaknesses when it comes to applying encryption on user data. This includes the use of an insecure symmetric encryption algorithm ( 3DES ), a hard-coded encryption key, and the reuse of initialization vectors . What's more, the data is sent to servers that are managed by a cloud compute a...