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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...

Organizations today face relentless cyber attacks, with high-profile breaches hitting the headlines almost daily. Reflecting on a long journey in the security field, it’s clear this isn’t just a human problem—it’s a math problem. There are simply too many threats and security tasks for any SOC to manually handle in a reasonable timeframe. Yet, there is a solution. Many refer to it as SOC 3.0—an AI-augmented environment that finally lets analysts do more with less and shifts security operations from a reactive posture to a proactive force. The transformative power of SOC 3.0 will be detailed later in this article, showcasing how artificial intelligence can dramatically reduce workload and risk, delivering world-class security operations that every CISO dreams of. However, to appreciate this leap forward, it’s important to understand how the SOC evolved over time and why the steps leading up to 3.0 set the stage for a new era of security operations. A brief history of the SOC For deca...

Universities and government organizations in North America and Asia have been targeted by a previously undocumented Linux malware called Auto-Color between November and December 2024, according to new findings from Palo Alto Networks Unit 42. "Once installed, Auto-color allows threat actors full remote access to compromised machines, making it very difficult to remove without specialized software," security researcher Alex Armstrong said in a technical write-up of the malware. Auto-color is so named based on the file name the initial payload renames itself post installation. It's currently not known how it reaches its targets, but what's known is that it requires the victim to explicitly run it on their Linux machine. A notable aspect of the malware is the arsenal of tricks it employs to evade detection. This includes using seemingly-innocuous file names like door or egg, concealing command-and-control (C2) connections, and leveraging proprietary encryption algo...

Passwords are rarely appreciated until a security breach occurs; suffice to say, the importance of a strong password becomes clear only when faced with the consequences of a weak one. However, most end users are unaware of just how vulnerable their passwords are to the most common password-cracking methods. The following are the three common techniques for cracking passwords and how to defend against them. Brute force attack Brute force attacks are straightforward yet highly effective techniques for cracking passwords. These attacks involve malicious actors using automated tools to systematically try every possible password combination through repeated login attempts. While such tools have existed for years, the advent of affordable computing power and storage has made them even more efficient today, especially when weak passwords are used. How it works When it comes to brute force attacks, malicious actors employ a range of tactics—from simple brute force attacks that test ev...

The Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA) on Tuesday warned of renewed activity from an organized criminal group it tracks as UAC-0173 that involves infecting computers with a remote access trojan named DCRat (aka DarkCrystal RAT). The Ukrainian cybersecurity authority said it observed the latest attack wave starting in mid-January 2025. The activity is designed to target the Notary of Ukraine. The infection chain leverages phishing emails that claim to be sent on behalf of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, urging recipients to download an executable, which, when launched, leads to the deployment of the DCRat malware. The binary is hosted in Cloudflare's R2 cloud storage service. "Having thus provided primary access to the notary's automated workplace, the attackers take measures to install additional tools, in particular, RDPWRAPPER, which implements the functionality of parallel RDP sessions, which, in combination with the use of the BORE utility...

Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a malicious Python library on the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository that facilitates unauthorized music downloads from music streaming service Deezer. The package in question is automslc, which has been downloaded over 104,000 times to date. First published in May 2019, it remains available on PyPI as of writing. "Although automslc, which has been downloaded over 100,000 times, purports to offer music automation and metadata retrieval, it covertly bypasses Deezer's access restrictions by embedding hardcoded credentials and communicating with an external command-and-control (C2) server," Socket security researcher Kirill Boychenko said in a report published today. Specifically, the package is designed to log into the French music streaming platform via user-supplied and hard-coded credentials, gather track-related metadata, and download full audio files in violation of Deezer's API terms. The package also periodicall...