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Even as the TrickBot infrastructure closed shop, the operators of the malware are continuing to refine and retool their arsenal to carry out attacks that culminated in the deployment of Conti ransomware. IBM Security X-Force, which discovered the revamped version of the criminal gang's  AnchorDNS  backdoor, dubbed the new, upgraded variant AnchorMail. AnchorMail "uses an email-based [command-and-control] server which it communicates with using SMTP and IMAP protocols over TLS," IBM's malware reverse engineer, Charlotte Hammond,  said . "With the exception of the overhauled C2 communication mechanism, AnchorMail's behavior aligns very closely to that of its AnchorDNS predecessor." The cybercrime actor behind TrickBot, ITG23 aka Wizard Spider, is also known for its development of the Anchor malware framework, a backdoor reserved for targeting selected high value victims since at least 2018 via TrickBot and BazarBackdoor (aka BazarLoader), an additiona...

UPDATE: It's worth noting that the malware Microsoft tracks as FoxBlade is the same as the data wiper that's been denominated HermeticWiper (aka KillDisk) . Microsoft on Monday disclosed that it detected a new round of offensive and destructive cyberattacks directed against Ukraine's digital infrastructure hours before Russia launched its first missile strikes last week. The intrusions involved the use of a never-before-seen malware package dubbed FoxBlade , according to the tech giant's Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC), noting that it added new signatures to its Defender anti-malware service to detect the exploit within three hours of the discovery. "These recent and ongoing cyberattacks have been precisely targeted, and we have not seen the use of the indiscriminate malware technology that spread across Ukraine's economy and beyond its borders in the  2017 NotPetya attack ," Microsoft's President and Vice Chair, Brad Smith,  said . Additio...

A previously undocumented espionage tool has been deployed against selected governments and other critical infrastructure targets as part of a long-running espionage campaign orchestrated by China-linked threat actors since at least 2013. Broadcom's Symantec Threat Hunter team characterized the backdoor, named  Daxin , as a technologically advanced malware, allowing the attackers to carry out a variety of communications and information-gathering operations aimed at entities in the telecom, transportation, and manufacturing sectors that are of strategic interest to China. "Daxin malware is a highly sophisticated rootkit backdoor with complex, stealthy command-and-control (C2) functionality that enables remote actors to communicate with secured devices not connected directly to the internet," the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)  said  in an independent advisory. The implant takes the form of a Windows kernel driver that implements an elabor...

SaaS Adoption is Skyrocketing, Resilience Hasn't Kept Pace SaaS platforms have revolutionized how businesses operate. They simplify collaboration, accelerate deployment, and reduce the overhead of managing infrastructure. But with their rise comes a subtle, dangerous assumption: that the convenience of SaaS extends to resilience. It doesn't. These platforms weren't built with full-scale data protection in mind . Most follow a shared responsibility model — wherein the provider ensures uptime and application security, but the data inside is your responsibility. In a world of hybrid architectures, global teams, and relentless cyber threats, that responsibility is harder than ever to manage. Modern organizations are being stretched across: Hybrid and multi-cloud environments with decentralized data sprawl Complex integration layers between IaaS, SaaS, and legacy systems Expanding regulatory pressure with steeper penalties for noncompliance Escalating ransomware threats and inside...

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)  expanded  its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog to include a recently disclosed zero-day flaw in the Zimbra email platform citing evidence of active exploitation in the wild. Tracked as  CVE-2022-24682  (CVSS score: 6.1), the issue concerns a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in the Calendar feature in Zimbra Collaboration Suite that could be abused by an attacker to trick users into downloading arbitrary JavaScript code simply by clicking a link to exploit URLs in phishing messages. The Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog is a  repository  of security flaws that have been seen abused by threat actors in attacks and that are required to be patched by Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agencies. The vulnerability came to light on February 3, 2022, when cybersecurity firm Volexity  identified  a series of targeted spear-phishing campaigns aimed at European ...

A group of academics from Tel Aviv University have disclosed details of now-patched "severe" design flaws affecting about 100 million Android-based Samsung smartphones that could have resulted in the extraction of secret cryptographic keys. The shortcomings are the result of an analysis of the cryptographic design and implementation of Android's hardware-backed Keystore in Samsung's Galaxy S8, S9, S10, S20, and S21 flagship devices, researchers Alon Shakevsky, Eyal Ronen, and Avishai Wool  said . Trusted Execution Environments ( TEEs ) are a secure zone that provide an isolated environment for the execution of Trusted Applications (TAs) to carry out security critical tasks to ensure confidentiality and integrity. On Android, the hardware-backed  Keystore  is a system that facilitates the creation and storage of cryptographic keys within the TEE, making them more difficult to be extracted from the device in a manner that prevents the underlying operating system fr...

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) last week published an industrial control system ( ICS ) advisory related to multiple vulnerabilities impacting Schneider Electric's  Easergy  medium voltage protection relays. "Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities may disclose device credentials, cause a denial-of-service condition, device reboot, or allow an attacker to gain full control of the relay," the agency  said  in a bulletin on February 24, 2022. "This could result in loss of protection to your electrical network." The two high-severity weaknesses impact Easergy P3 versions prior to v30.205 and Easergy P5 versions before v01.401.101. Details of the flaws are as follows – CVE-2022-22722  (CVSS score: 7.5) – Use of hardcoded credentials that could be abused to observe and manipulate traffic associated with the device. CVE-2022-22723  and  CVE-2022-22725  (CVSS score: 8.8) – A buffer overflow vulnerability ...

One of the most dangerous and infamous threats is back again. In January 2021, global officials took down the botnet. Law enforcement sent a destructive update to the Emotet's executables. And it looked like the end of the trojan's story.  But the malware never ceased to surprise.  November 2021, it was reported that TrickBot no longer works alone and delivers Emotet. And ANY.RUN with colleagues in the industry were among the first to notice the emergence of Emotet's malicious documents. First Emotet malicious documents And this February, we can see a very active wave with crooks running numerous attacks, hitting the top in the rankings. If you are interested in this topic or researching malware, you can make use of the special help of  ANY.RUN , the interactive sandbox for the detection and analysis of cyber threats. Let's look at the new version's changes that this disruptive malware brought this time.  Emotet history Emotet is a sophisticated, constantly ...

Cybersecurity researchers have managed to build a clone of Apple Airtag that circumvents the anti-stalking protection technology built into its Find My Bluetooth-based tracking protocol. The result is a stealth AirTag that can successfully track an iPhone user for over five days without triggering a tracking notification, Positive Security's co-founder Fabian Bräunlein  said  in a deep-dive published last week. Find My is Apple's asset tracking app that allows users to track the GPS location of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS devices, AirPods, AirTags as well as other supported third-party accessories through a connected iCloud account. It also enables users to view the location of others who have opted to share their location. This is far from the first time weaknesses have been uncovered in Apple's Find My system. In March 2021, the Secure Mobile Networking Lab at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany (SEEMO)  disclosed  design and implementation flaws in...

An Iranian geopolitical nexus threat actor has been uncovered deploying two new targeted malware that come with "simple" backdoor functionalities as part of an intrusion against an unnamed Middle East government entity in November 2021. Cybersecurity company Mandiant attributed the attack to an uncategorized cluster it's tracking under the moniker  UNC3313 , which it assesses with "moderate confidence" as associated with the MuddyWater state-sponsored group. "UNC3313 conducts surveillance and collects strategic information to support Iranian interests and decision-making," researchers Ryan Tomcik, Emiel Haeghebaert, and Tufail Ahmed  said . "Targeting patterns and related lures demonstrate a strong focus on targets with a geopolitical nexus." In mid-January 2022, U.S. intelligence agencies  characterized  MuddyWater (aka Static Kitten, Seedworm, TEMP.Zagros, or Mercury) as a subordinate element of the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and...

A new malware capable of controlling social media accounts is being distributed through Microsoft's official app store in the form of trojanized gaming apps, infecting more than 5,000 Windows machines in Sweden, Bulgaria, Russia, Bermuda, and Spain. Israeli cybersecurity company Check Point dubbed the malware "Electron Bot," in reference to a command-and-control (C2) domain used in recent campaigns. The identity of the attackers is not known, but evidence suggests that they could be based out of Bulgaria. "Electron Bot is a modular SEO poisoning malware, which is used for social media promotion and click fraud," Check Point's Moshe Marelus  said  in a report published this week. "It is mainly distributed via the Microsoft store platform and dropped from dozens of infected applications, mostly games, which are constantly uploaded by the attackers." The first sign of malicious activity commenced as an ad clicker campaign that was discovered in O...

Ukraine's Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-UA) has warned of Belarusian state-sponsored hackers targeting its military personnel and related individuals as part of a phishing campaign mounted amidst Russia's military invasion of the country. "Mass  phishing emails  have recently been observed targeting private 'i.ua' and 'meta.ua' accounts of Ukrainian military personnel and related individuals," the CERT-UA  said . "After the account is compromised, the attackers, by the IMAP protocol, get access to all the messages." Subsequently, the attacks leverage the contact information stored in the victim's address book to propagate the phishing messages to other targets. The Ukrainian government attributed the activities to a threat actor tracked as UNC1151, a Minsk-based group whose "members are officers of the Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Belarus." In a follow-up  update , the agency said the nation-state group a...

Cybersecurity researchers have taken the wraps off a previously undocumented and stealthy custom malware called SockDetour that targeted U.S.-based defense contractors with the goal of being used as a secondary implant on compromised Windows hosts. "SockDetour is a backdoor that is designed to remain stealthily on compromised Windows servers so that it can serve as a backup backdoor in case the primary one fails," Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 threat intelligence  said  in a report published Thursday. "It is difficult to detect, since it operates filelessly and socketlessly on compromised Windows servers." Even more concerningly, SockDetour is believed to have been used in attacks since at least July 2019, based on a compilation timestamp on the sample, implying that the backdoor successfully managed to slip past detection for over two-and-a-half years. The attacks have been attributed to a threat cluster it tracks as  TiltedTemple  (aka DEV-0322 by Microsof...

Cybersecurity agencies from the U.K. and the U.S. have laid bare a new malware used by the Iranian government-sponsored advanced persistent threat (APT) group in attacks targeting government and commercial networks worldwide. "MuddyWater actors are positioned both to provide stolen data and accesses to the Iranian government and to share these with other malicious cyber actors," the agencies  said . The joint advisory comes courtesy of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the U.S. Cyber Command Cyber National Mission Force (CNMF), and the U.K.'s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC). The cyberespionage actor was  outed this year  as conducting malicious operations as part of Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) targeting a wide range of government and private-sector organizations, including telecommunications, defense, local government, and oil and natural gas sectors, in Asia, Afric...

The Russian government on Thursday warned of cyber attacks aimed at domestic critical infrastructure operators, as the country's full-blown invasion of Ukraine enters the second day. In addition to cautioning of the "threat of an increase in the intensity of computer attacks," Russia's National Computer Incident Response and Coordination Center  said  that the "attacks can be aimed at disrupting the functioning of important information resources and services, causing reputational damage, including for political purposes." "Any failure in the operation of [critical information infrastructure] objects due to a reason that is not reliably established, first of all, should be considered as the result of a computer attack," the agency added. Furthermore, it notified of possible influence operations undertaken to "form a negative image of the Russian Federation in the eyes of the world community," echoing a  similar alert  released by the U...

The modular Windows crimeware platform known as TrickBot formally shuttered its infrastructure on Thursday after reports emerged of its  imminent retirement  amid a lull in its activity for almost two months, marking an end to one of the most persistent malware campaigns in recent years. "TrickBot is gone... It is official now as of Thursday, February 24, 2022. See you soon... or not," AdvIntel's CEO Vitali Kremez  tweeted . "TrickBot is gone as it has become inefficient for targeted intrusions." Attributed to a Russia-based criminal enterprise called  Wizard Spider , TrickBot started out as a financial trojan in late 2016 and is a derivative of another banking malware called  Dyre  that was dismantled in November 2015. Over the years, it morphed into a veritable Swiss Army knife of malicious capabilities, enabling threat actors to steal information via  web injects  and drop additional payloads. TrickBot's activities took a noticeable h...

Cisco has released software updates to address four security vulnerabilities in its software that could be weaponized by malicious actors to take control of affected systems. The most critical of the flaws is  CVE-2022-20650  (CVSS score: 8.8), which relates to a command injection flaw in the NX-API feature of Cisco NX-OS Software that stems from a lack of sufficient input validation of user-supplied data. "An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending a crafted HTTP POST request to the NX-API of an affected device," Cisco said. "A successful exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary commands with root privileges on the underlying operating system." The flaw impacts Nexus 3000 Series Switches, Nexus 5500 Platform Switches, Nexus 5600 Platform Switches, Nexus 6000 Series Switches, and Nexus 9000 Series Switches in standalone NX-OS mode running Cisco NX-OS Software that have the NX-API feature enabled. Also patched are two high-severity den...

TrickBot, the infamous Windows crimeware-as-a-service (CaaS) solution that's used by a variety of threat actors to deliver next-stage payloads like ransomware, appears to be undergoing a transition of sorts, with no new activity recorded since the start of the year. The lull in the malware campaigns is "partially due to a big shift from Trickbot's operators, including working with the operators of Emotet," researchers from Intel 471  said  in a report shared with The Hacker News. The last set of attacks involving TrickBot were registered on December 28, 2021, even as command-and-control (C2) infrastructure associated with the malware has continued to serve additional plugins and  web injects  to infected nodes in the botnet. Interestingly, the decrease in the volume of the campaigns has also been accompanied by the TrickBot gang working closely with the  operators of Emotet , which witnessed a resurgence late last year after a 10-month-long break following ...