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Cloud environments continue to be at the receiving end of an ongoing advanced attack campaign dubbed SCARLETEEL, with the threat actors now setting their sights on Amazon Web Services (AWS) Fargate. "Cloud environments are still their primary target, but the tools and techniques used have adapted to bypass new security measures, along with a more resilient and stealthy command and control architecture," Sysdig security researcher Alessandro Brucato said in a new report shared with The Hacker News. SCARLETEEL was  first exposed  by the cybersecurity company in February 2023, detailing a sophisticated attack chain that culminated in the theft of proprietary data from AWS infrastructure and the deployment of cryptocurrency miners to profit off the compromised systems' resources illegally. A follow-up analysis by Cado Security  uncovered  potential links to a prolific cryptojacking group known as  TeamTNT , although Sysdig told The Hacker News that it "could be...

A developing piece of ransomware called  Big Head  is being distributed as part of a malvertising campaign that takes the form of bogus Microsoft Windows updates and Word installers. Big Head was  first documented  by Fortinet FortiGuard Labs last month, when it discovered multiple variants of the ransomware that are designed to encrypt files on victims' machines in exchange for a cryptocurrency payment. "One Big Head ransomware variant displays a fake Windows Update, potentially indicating that the ransomware was also distributed as a fake Windows Update," Fortinet researchers said at the time. "One of the variants has a Microsoft Word icon and was likely distributed as counterfeit software." A majority of the Big Head samples have been submitted so far from the U.S., Spain, France, and Turkey. In a new analysis of the .NET-based ransomware, Trend Micro detailed its inner workings, calling out its ability to deploy three encrypted binaries: 1.exe to propag...

Apple has released  Rapid Security Response  updates for iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and Safari web browser to  address  a zero-day flaw that it said has been actively exploited in the wild. The WebKit bug, cataloged as  CVE-2023-37450 , could allow threat actors to achieve arbitrary code execution when processing specially crafted web content. The iPhone maker said it addressed the issue with improved checks. Credited with discovering and reporting the flaw is an anonymous researcher. As with most cases like this, there are scant details about the nature and the scale of the attacks and the identity of the threat actor behind them. But Apple noted in a terse advisory that it's "aware of a report that this issue may have been actively exploited." The updates, iOS 16.5.1 (a), iPadOS 16.5.1 (a), macOS Ventura 13.4.1 (a), and Safari 16.5.2, are available for devices running the following operating system versions: iOS 16.5.1 and iPadOS 16.5.1 macOS Ventura 13.4.1 ...

Mozilla has announced that some add-ons may be blocked from running on certain sites as part of a new feature called  Quarantined Domains . "We have introduced a new back-end feature to only allow some extensions monitored by Mozilla to run on specific websites for various reasons, including security concerns," the company  said  in its Release Notes for Firefox 115.0 shipped last week. The company said the openness afforded by the add-on ecosystem could be exploited by malicious actors to their advantage. "This feature allows us to prevent attacks by malicious actors targeting specific domains when we have reason to believe there may be malicious add-ons we have not yet discovered," Mozilla  said  in a separate support document. Users are expected to have more control over the setting for each add-on, starting with Firefox version 116. That said, it can be disabled by loading "about:config" in the address bar and setting "extensions.quarantined...

Businesses operating in the Latin American (LATAM) region are the target of a new Windows-based banking trojan called  TOITOIN  since May 2023. "This sophisticated campaign employs a trojan that follows a multi-staged infection chain, utilizing specially crafted modules throughout each stage," Zscaler researchers Niraj Shivtarkar and Preet Kamal  said  in a report published last week. "These modules are custom designed to carry out malicious activities, such as injecting harmful code into remote processes, circumventing User Account Control via COM Elevation Moniker, and evading detection by Sandboxes through clever techniques like system reboots and parent process checks." The six-stage endeavor has all the hallmarks of a well-crafted attack sequence, beginning with a phishing email containing an embedded link that points to a ZIP archive hosted on an Amazon EC2 instance to evade domain-based detections. The email messages leverage an invoice-themed lure to t...