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Cybersecurity breaches can be devastating for both individuals and businesses alike. While many people tend to focus on understanding how and why they were targeted by such breaches, there's a larger, more pressing question: What is the true financial impact of a cyberattack? According to research by Cybersecurity Ventures, the global cost of cybercrime is projected to reach an astonishing 10.5 trillion USD annually by 2025, which marks a dramatic increase from the 3 trillion USD reported in 2015. This sharp rise highlights a concerning trend: cybercriminals have significantly improved their methods for conducting sophisticated and successful cyberattacks over the years. According to research firm Cybersecurity Ventures, the cost of global cybercrime will reach a staggering 10.5 trillion USD annually by 2025, up from the 3 trillion USD that it was in 2015. It's clear, then, that these threat actors have found ways to pull off sophisticated and successful cyberattacks over the yea

The Russia-linked nation-state threat actor tracked as  APT28  weaponized a security flaw in the Microsoft Windows Print Spooler component to deliver a previously unknown custom malware called GooseEgg. The post-compromise tool, which is said to have been used since at least June 2020 and possibly as early as April 2019, leveraged a now-patched flaw that allowed for privilege escalation (CVE-2022-38028, CVSS score: 7.8). It was  addressed  by Microsoft as part of updates released in October 2022, with the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) credited for reporting the flaw at the time. According to new findings from the tech giant's threat intelligence team,  APT28  – also called Fancy Bear and Forest Blizzard (formerly Strontium) – weaponized the bug in attacks targeting Ukrainian, Western European, and North American government, non-governmental, education, and transportation sector organizations. "Forest Blizzard has used the tool [...] to exploit the CVE-2022-38028 vu

Imagine a world where the software that powers your favorite apps, secures your online transactions, and keeps your digital life could be outsmarted and taken over by a cleverly disguised piece of code. This isn't a plot from the latest cyber-thriller; it's actually been a reality for years now. How this will change – in a positive or negative direction – as artificial intelligence (AI) takes on a larger role in software development is one of the big uncertainties related to this brave new world. In an era where AI promises to revolutionize how we live and work, the conversation about its security implications cannot be sidelined. As we increasingly rely on AI for tasks ranging from mundane to mission-critical, the question is no longer just, "Can AI  boost cybersecurity ?" (sure!), but also "Can AI  be hacked? " (yes!), "Can one use AI  to hack? " (of course!), and "Will AI  produce secure software ?" (well…). This thought leadership article is about the latter. Cydrill  (a

Attackers are increasingly making use of "networkless" attack techniques targeting cloud apps and identities. Here's how attackers can (and are) compromising organizations – without ever needing to touch the endpoint or conventional networked systems and services.  Before getting into the details of the attack techniques being used, let's discuss why these attacks are becoming more prevalent.  SaaS adoption is changing the make-up of company IT  The SaaS revolution and  product-led growth  have had a huge impact on the structure of company networks, and where core business systems and data reside.  Most organizations today are using tens to hundreds of SaaS applications across business functions. Some are entirely SaaS-native, with no traditional network to speak of, but most have adopted a hybrid model with a mixture of on-premise, cloud, and SaaS services forming the backbone of business applications being used.  The bulk of SaaS adoption is user-driven, as opposed to centrally

As many as 37 individuals have been arrested as part of an international crackdown on a cybercrime service called  LabHost  that has been used by criminal actors to steal personal credentials from victims around the world. Described as one of the largest Phishing-as-a-Service ( PhaaS ) providers, LabHost offered phishing pages targeting banks, high-profile organizations, and other service providers located primarily in Canada, the U.S., and the U.K. As part of the operation, codenamed PhishOFF and Nebulae (referring to the Australian arm of the probe), two LabHost users from Melbourne and Adelaide were arrested on April 17, with three others arrested and charged with drug-related offenses. "Australian offenders are allegedly among 10,000 cybercriminals globally who have used the platform, known as LabHost, to trick victims into providing their personal information, such as online banking logins, credit card details and passwords, through persistent phishing attacks sent via te

The threat actor tracked as  TA558  has been observed leveraging steganography as an obfuscation technique to deliver a wide range of malware such as Agent Tesla, FormBook, Remcos RAT, LokiBot, GuLoader, Snake Keylogger, and XWorm, among others. "The group made extensive use of steganography by sending VBSs, PowerShell code, as well as RTF documents with an embedded exploit, inside images and text files," Russian cybersecurity company Positive Technologies  said  in a Monday report. The campaign has been codenamed SteganoAmor for its reliance on steganography and the choice of file names such as greatloverstory.vbs and easytolove.vbs. A majority of the attacks have targeted industrial, services, public, electric power, and construction sectors in Latin American countries, although companies located in Russia, Romania, and Turkey have also been singled out. The development comes as TA558 has also been spotted  deploying Venom RAT  via phishing attacks aimed at enterprise

A threat actor tracked as  TA547  has targeted dozens of German organizations with an information stealer called  Rhadamanthys  as part of an invoice-themed phishing campaign. "This is the first time researchers observed TA547 use Rhadamanthys, an information stealer that is used by multiple cybercriminal threat actors," Proofpoint  said . "Additionally, the actor appeared to use a PowerShell script that researchers suspect was generated by a large language model (LLM)." TA547 is a prolific, financially motivated threat actor that's known to be active since at least November 2017, using email phishing lures to deliver a variety of Android and Windows malware such as ZLoader, Gootkit, DanaBot, Ursnif, and even Adhubllka ransomware. In recent years, the group has  evolved  into an initial access broker (IAB) for ransomware attacks. It has also been observed employing geofencing tricks to restrict payloads to specific regions. The email messages observed as p

A threat group of suspected Romanian origin called  RUBYCARP  has been observed maintaining a long-running botnet for carrying out crypto mining, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS), and phishing attacks. The group, believed to be active for at least 10 years, employs the botnet for financial gain, Sysdig said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "Its primary method of operation leverages a botnet deployed using a variety of public exploits and brute-force attacks," the cloud security firm said . "This group communicates via public and private IRC networks." Evidence  gathered  so far suggests that RUBYCARP may have crossover with another threat cluster tracked by Albanian cybersecurity firm Alphatechs under the moniker Outlaw , which has a history of conducting crypto mining and brute-force attacks and has since pivoted to phishing and spear-phishing campaigns to cast a wide net. "These phishing emails often lure victims into revealing sensitive i

Human rights activists in Morocco and the Western Sahara region are the targets of a new threat actor that leverages phishing attacks to trick victims into installing bogus Android apps and serve credential harvesting pages for Windows users. Cisco Talos is  tracking  the activity cluster under the name  Starry Addax , describing it as primarily singling out activists associated with the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR). Starry Addax's infrastructure – ondroid[.]site and ondroid[.]store – is designed to target both Android and Windows users, with the latter involving fake websites masquerading as login pages for popular social media websites. In light of active investigation into the campaign, Talos said it cannot publicly disclose which websites are being targeted with credential harvesting attacks. "However, the threat actors are establishing their own infrastructure and hosting credential harvesting pages such as fake login pages for media and email services po

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered an intricate multi-stage attack that leverages invoice-themed phishing decoys to deliver a wide range of malware such as  Venom RAT , Remcos RAT, XWorm, NanoCore RAT, and a stealer that targets crypto wallets. The email messages come with Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file attachments that, when clicked, activate the infection sequence, Fortinet FortiGuard Labs  said  in a technical report. The modus operandi is notable for the use of the BatCloak malware obfuscation engine and ScrubCrypt to deliver the malware in the form of obfuscated batch scripts. BatCloak , offered for sale to other threat actors since late 2022, has its foundations in another tool called Jlaive. Its primary function is to load a next-stage payload in a manner that circumvents traditional detection mechanisms. ScrubCrypt, a crypter that was  first documented  by Fortinet in March 2023 in connection with a cryptojacking campaign orchestrated by the 8220 Gang, is asse

Threat hunters have discovered a new malware called  Latrodectus  that has been distributed as part of email phishing campaigns since at least late November 2023. "Latrodectus is an up-and-coming downloader with various sandbox evasion functionality," researchers from Proofpoint and Team Cymru  said  in a joint analysis published last week, adding it's designed to retrieve payloads and execute arbitrary commands. There is evidence to suggest that the downloader is likely written by the same threat actors behind the  IcedID malware , with the downloader put to use by initial access brokers (IABs) to facilitate the deployment of other malware. Latrodectus has been primarily linked to two different IABs tracked by Proofpoint under the names  TA577  (aka Water Curupira) and TA578, the former of which has also been linked to the distribution of QakBot and PikaBot. As of mid-January 2024, it's been employed almost exclusively by TA578 in email threat campaigns, in some

A new phishing campaign has set its eyes on the Latin American region to deliver malicious payloads to Windows systems. "The phishing email contained a ZIP file attachment that when extracted reveals an HTML file that leads to a malicious file download posing as an invoice," Trustwave SpiderLabs researcher Karla Agregado  said . The email message, the company said, originates from an email address format that uses the domain "temporary[.]link" and has Roundcube Webmail listed as the User-Agent string. The HTML file points containing a link ("facturasmex[.]cloud") that displays an error message saying "this account has been suspended," but when visited from an IP address geolocated to Mexico, loads a CAPTCHA verification page that uses Cloudflare Turnstile. This step paves the way for a redirect to another domain from where a malicious RAR file is downloaded. The RAR archive comes with a PowerShell script that gathers system metadata as well

Bogus installers for Adobe Acrobat Reader are being used to  distribute  a new multi-functional malware dubbed  Byakugan . The starting point of the attack is a PDF file written in Portuguese that, when opened, shows a blurred image and asks the victim to click on a link to download the Reader application to view the content. According to Fortinet FortiGuard Labs, clicking the URL leads to the delivery of an installer ("Reader_Install_Setup.exe") that activates the infection sequence. Details of the campaign were  first disclosed  by the AhnLab Security Intelligence Center (ASEC) last month. The attack chain leverages techniques like DLL hijacking and Windows User Access Control (UAC) bypass to load a malicious dynamic-link library (DLL) file named "BluetoothDiagnosticUtil.dll," which, in turn, loads unleashes the final payload. It also deploys a legitimate installer for a PDF reader like Wondershare PDFelement. The binary is equipped to gather and exfiltrate s

An updated version of an information-stealing malware called Rhadamanthys is being used in phishing campaigns targeting the oil and gas sector. "The phishing emails use a unique vehicle incident lure and, in later stages of the infection chain, spoof the Federal Bureau of Transportation in a PDF that mentions a significant fine for the incident," Cofense researcher Dylan Duncan  said . The email message comes with a malicious link that leverages an open redirect flaw to take the recipients to a link hosting a supposed PDF document, but, in reality, is an image that, upon clicking, downloads a ZIP archive with the stealer payload. Written in C++,  Rhadamanthys  is designed to establish connections with a command-and-control (C2) server in order to harvest sensitive data from the compromised hosts. "This campaign appeared within days of the law enforcement takedown of the LockBit ransomware group," Duncan said. "While this could be a coincidence, Trend Micr