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A large-scale extortion campaign has compromised various organizations by taking advantage of publicly accessible environment variable files (.env) that contain credentials associated with cloud and social media applications. "Multiple security missteps were present in the course of this campaign, including the following: Exposing environment variables, using long-lived credentials, and absence of least privilege architecture," Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 said in a Thursday report. The campaign is notable for setting up its attack infrastructure within the infected organizations' Amazon Web Services (AWS) environments and using them as a launchpad for scanning more than 230 million unique targets for sensitive data. With 110,000 domains targeted, the malicious activity is said to have netted over 90,000 unique variables in the .env files, out of which 7,000 belonged to organizations' cloud services and 1,500 variables are linked to social media accounts. "T...

A 27-year-old Russian national has been sentenced to over three years in prison in the U.S. for peddling financial information, login credentials, and other personally identifying information (PII) on a now-defunct dark web marketplace called Slilpp . Georgy Kavzharadze, 27, of Moscow, Russia, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and wire fraud earlier this February. In addition to a 40-month jail term, Kavzharadze has been ordered to pay $1,233,521.47 in restitution. The defendant, who went by the online monikers TeRorPP, Torqovec, and PlutuSS, is believed to have listed over 626,100 stolen login credentials for sale on Slilpp and sold more than 297,300 of them on the illicit marketplace between July 2016 and May 2021. "Those credentials were subsequently linked to $1.2 million in fraudulent transactions," the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) said . "On May 27, 2021, Kavzharadze's account on Slilpp listed 240,495 login credentials fo...

Cybersecurity researchers have shed light on a sophisticated information stealer campaign that impersonates legitimate brands to distribute malware like DanaBot and StealC . The activity cluster, orchestrated by Russian-speaking cybercriminals and collectively codenamed Tusk, is said to encompass several sub-campaigns, leveraging the reputation of the platforms to trick users into downloading the malware using bogus sites and social media accounts. "All the active sub-campaigns host the initial downloader on Dropbox," Kaspersky researchers Elsayed Elrefaei and AbdulRhman Alfaifi said . "This downloader is responsible for delivering additional malware samples to the victim’s machine, which are mostly info-stealers (DanaBot and StealC) and clippers." Of the 19 sub-campaigns identified to date, three are said to be currently active. The name "Tusk" is a reference to the word "Mammoth" used by the threat actors in log messages associated with t...

Chinese-speaking users are the target of an ongoing campaign that distributes a malware known as ValleyRAT. "ValleyRAT is a multi-stage malware that utilizes diverse techniques to monitor and control its victims and deploy arbitrary plugins to cause further damage," Fortinet FortiGuard Labs researchers Eduardo Altares and Joie Salvio said . "Another noteworthy characteristic of this malware is its heavy usage of shellcode to execute its many components directly in memory, significantly reducing its file footprint in the victim's system." Details about the campaign first emerged in June 2024, when Zscaler ThreatLabz detailed attacks involving an updated version of the malware. Exactly how the latest iteration of ValleyRAT is distributed is currently not known, although previous campaigns have leveraged email messages containing URLs pointing to compressed executables. "Based on the filenames of the executables we found, they're likely using phis...

SaaS applications have become indispensable for organizations aiming to enhance productivity and streamline operations. However, the convenience and efficiency these applications offer come with inherent security risks, often leaving hidden gaps that can be exploited. Conducting thorough due diligence on SaaS apps is essential to identify and mitigate these risks, ensuring the protection of your organization's sensitive data. Understanding the Importance of Due Diligence Due diligence is a critical step in evaluating the security capabilities of SaaS applications. It involves a comprehensive assessment of the app's audit log events, system and activity audits, and integration capabilities to ensure proper logging and monitoring, helping to prevent costly incidents. Here are a few reasons why due diligence is non-negotiable: Identifying Critical Audit Log Gaps: A thorough review helps ensure that essential events, such as logins, MFA verifications, and user changes, are lo...