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A China-linked threat actor called APT17 has been observed targeting Italian companies and government entities using a variant of a known malware referred to as 9002 RAT. The two targeted attacks took place on June 24 and July 2, 2024, Italian cybersecurity company TG Soft said in an analysis published last week. "The first campaign on June 24, 2024 used an Office document, while the second campaign contained a link," the company noted . "Both campaigns invited the victim to install a Skype for Business package from a link of an Italian government-like domain to convey a variant of 9002 RAT." APT17 was first documented by Google-owned Mandiant (then FireEye) in 2013 as part of cyber espionage operations called DeputyDog and Ephemeral Hydra that leveraged zero-day flaws in Microsoft's Internet Explorer to breach targets of interest. It's also known by the monikers Aurora Panda, Bronze Keystone, Dogfish, Elderwood, Helium, Hidden Lynx, and TEMP.Avenge...

The infamous cybercrime group known as Scattered Spider has incorporated ransomware strains such as RansomHub and Qilin into its arsenal, Microsoft has revealed. Scattered Spider is the designation given to a threat actor that's known for its sophisticated social engineering schemes to breach targets and establish persistence for follow-on exploitation and data theft. It also has a history of targeting VMWare ESXi servers and deploying BlackCat ransomware. It shares overlaps with activity clusters tracked by the broader cybersecurity community under the monikers Gold Harvest, 0ktapus, Octo Tempest, and UNC3944. Last month, it was reported that a key member of the group was arrested in Spain. RansomHub, which arrived on the scene earlier this February, has been assessed to be a rebrand of another ransomware strain called Knight, according to an analysis from Broadcom-owned Symantec last month. "RansomHub is a ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) payload used by more and mor...

Threat actors are actively exploiting a recently disclosed critical security flaw impacting Apache HugeGraph-Server that could lead to remote code execution attacks. Tracked as CVE-2024-27348 (CVSS score: 9.8), the vulnerability impacts all versions of the software before 1.3.0. It has been described as a remote command execution flaw in the Gremlin graph traversal language API. "Users are recommended to upgrade to version 1.3.0 with Java11 and enable the Auth system, which fixes the issue," the Apache Software Foundation noted in late April 2024. "Also you could enable the 'Whitelist-IP/port' function to improve the security of RESTful-API execution." Additional technical specifics about the flaw were released by penetration testing company SecureLayer7 in early June, stating it enables an attacker to bypass sandbox restrictions and achieve code execution, giving them complete control over a susceptible server. This week, the Shadowserver Foundat...

While phishing and ransomware dominate headlines, another critical risk quietly persists across most enterprises: exposed Git repositories leaking sensitive data. A risk that silently creates shadow access into core systems Git is the backbone of modern software development, hosting millions of repositories and serving thousands of organizations worldwide. Yet, amid the daily hustle of shipping code, developers may inadvertently leave behind API keys, tokens, or passwords in configuration files and code files, effectively handing attackers the keys to the kingdom. This isn't just about poor hygiene; it's a systemic and growing supply chain risk. As cyber threats become more sophisticated, so do compliance requirements. Security frameworks like NIS2, SOC2, and ISO 27001 now demand proof that software delivery pipelines are hardened and third-party risk is controlled. The message is clear: securing your Git repositories is no longer optional, it's essential. Below, we look at the ris...

Details have emerged about a "massive ad fraud operation" that leverages hundreds of apps on the Google Play Store to perform a host of nefarious activities. The campaign has been codenamed Konfety – the Russian word for Candy – owing to its abuse of a mobile advertising software development kit (SDK) associated with a Russia-based ad network called CaramelAds . "Konfety represents a new form of fraud and obfuscation, in which threat actors operate 'evil twin' versions of 'decoy twin' apps available on major marketplaces," HUMAN's Satori Threat Intelligence Team said in a technical report shared with The Hacker News. While the decoy apps, totaling more than 250 in number, are harmless and distributed via the Google Play Store, their respective "evil twins" are disseminated through a malvertising campaign designed to facilitate ad fraud, monitor web searches, install browser extensions, and sideload APK files code onto users' d...

Identity-based threats on SaaS applications are a growing concern among security professionals, although few have the capabilities to detect and respond to them.  According to the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), 90% of all cyberattacks begin with phishing, an identity-based threat. Throw in attacks that use stolen credentials, over-provisioned accounts, and insider threats, and it becomes quite clear that identity is a primary attack vector. To make matters worse, it's not just human accounts that are being targeted. Threat actors are also hijacking non-human identities, including service accounts and OAuth authorizations, and riding them deep into SaaS applications.  When threat actors get through the initial defenses, having a robust Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) system in place as an integral part of Identity Security can prevent massive breaches. Last month's Snowflake breach is a perfect example. Threat actors took advanta...

Cybersecurity researchers have identified two malicious packages on the npm package registry that concealed backdoor code to execute malicious commands sent from a remote server. The packages in question – img-aws-s3-object-multipart-copy and legacyaws-s3-object-multipart-copy – have been downloaded 190 and 48 times each. As of writing, they have been taken down by the npm security team. "They contained sophisticated command and control functionality hidden in image files that would be executed during package installation," software supply chain security firm Phylum said in an analysis. The packages are designed to impersonate a legitimate npm library called aws-s3-object-multipart-copy , but come with an altered version of the "index.js" file to execute a JavaScript file ("loadformat.js"). For its part, the JavaScript file is designed to process three images -- that feature the corporate logos for Intel, Microsoft, and AMD -- with the image corres...

The Iranian nation-state actor known as MuddyWater has been observed using a never-before-seen backdoor as part of a recent attack campaign, shifting away from its well-known tactic of deploying legitimate remote monitoring and management (RMM) software for maintaining persistent access. That's according to independent findings from cybersecurity firms Check Point and Sekoia, which have codenamed the malware strain BugSleep and MuddyRot , respectively. "Compared to previous campaigns, this time MuddyWater changed their infection chain and did not rely on the legitimate Atera remote monitoring and management tool (RMM) as a validator," Sekoia said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "Instead, we observed that they used a new and undocumented implant." Some elements of the campaign were first shared by Israeli cybersecurity company ClearSky on June 9, 2024. Targets include countries like Turkey, Azerbaijan, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Portugal. ...