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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...

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...