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Unknown malware presents a significant cybersecurity threat and can cause serious damage to organizations and individuals alike. When left undetected, malicious code can gain access to confidential information, corrupt data, and allow attackers to gain control of systems. Find out how to avoid these circumstances and detect unknown malicious behavior efficiently.  Challenges of new threats' detection While known malware families are more predictable and can be detected more easily, unknown threats can take on a variety of forms, causing a bunch of challenges for their detection: Malware developers use polymorphism, which enables them to modify the malicious code to generate unique variants of the same malware.  There is malware that is still not identified and doesn't have any rulesets for detection. Some threats can be Fully UnDetectable (FUD) for some time and challenge perimeter security.  The code is often encrypted, making it difficult to detect by signature-...

Russia's cyber attacks against Ukraine surged by 250% in 2022 when compared to two years ago, Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG) and Mandiant disclosed in a new joint report. The targeting, which  coincided  and has  since persisted  following the country's military invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, focused heavily on the Ukrainian government and military entities, alongside critical infrastructure, utilities, public services, and media sectors. Mandiant  said  it observed, "more destructive cyber attacks in Ukraine during the first four months of 2022 than in the previous eight years with attacks peaking around the start of the invasion." As many as six unique wiper strains – including WhisperGate, HermeticWiper, IsaacWiper, CaddyWiper, Industroyer2, and SDelete – have been deployed against Ukrainian networks, suggesting a willingness on the part of Russian threat actors to forgo persistent access. Phishing attacks aimed at NATO countries witnes...

The cyber espionage threat actor tracked as  Earth Kitsune  has been observed deploying a new backdoor called WhiskerSpy as part of a social engineering campaign. Earth Kitsune, active since at least 2019, is  known  to primarily target individuals interested in North Korea with self-developed malware such as dneSpy and agfSpy. Previously documented intrusions have entailed the use of watering holes that leverage browser exploits in Google Chrome and Internet Explorer to activate the infection chain. The differentiating factor in the latest attacks is a shift toward social engineering to trick users into visiting compromised websites related to North Korea, according to a new report from Trend Micro released last week. The cybersecurity company said the website of an unnamed pro-North Korean organization was hacked and modified to distribute the WhiskerSpy implant. The compromise was discovered at the end of last year. "When a targeted visitor tries to watch vi...

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...

Samsung has announced a new feature called Message Guard that comes with safeguards to protect users from malware and spyware via what's referred to as zero-click attacks . The South Korean chaebol said the solution "preemptively" secures users' devices by "limiting exposure to invisible threats disguised as image attachments." The security feature, available on Samsung Messages and Google Messages, is currently limited to the Samsung Galaxy S23 series, with plans to expand it to other Galaxy smartphones and tablets later this year that are running on One UI 5.1 or higher. It's also the latest security guardrail erected by Samsung, which also includes the Knox security platform that the company said already offers protection from attacks using video and audio formats. Zero-click attacks are highly-targeted and sophisticated attacks that exploit previously unknown flaws (i.e., zero-days) in software to trigger execution of malicious code without re...

Fortinet has released security updates to  address 40 vulnerabilities  in its software lineup, including FortiWeb, FortiOS, FortiNAC, and FortiProxy, among others. Two of the 40 flaws are rated Critical, 15 are rated High, 22 are rated Medium, and one is rated Low in severity. Top of the list is a severe bug residing in the FortiNAC network access control solution (CVE-2022-39952, CVSS score: 9.8) that could lead to arbitrary code execution. "An external control of file name or path vulnerability [CWE-73] in FortiNAC web server may allow an unauthenticated attacker to perform arbitrary write on the system," Fortinet  said  in an advisory earlier this week. The products impacted by the vulnerability are as follows - FortiNAC version 9.4.0 FortiNAC version 9.2.0 through 9.2.5 FortiNAC version 9.1.0 through 9.1.7 FortiNAC 8.8 all versions FortiNAC 8.7 all versions FortiNAC 8.6 all versions FortiNAC 8.5 all versions, and FortiNAC 8.3 all versions Patches...

Twitter has announced that it's limiting the use of SMS-based two-factor authentication (2FA) to its Blue subscribers. "While historically a popular form of 2FA, unfortunately we have seen phone-number based 2FA be used – and abused – by bad actors," the company  said . "We will no longer allow accounts to enroll in the text message/SMS method of 2FA unless they are Twitter Blue subscribers." Twitter users who have not subscribed to Blue that have enrolled for SMS-based 2FA have time till March 20, 2023, to switch to an alternative method such as an authenticator app or a hardware security key. After this cutoff date, non-Twitter Blue subscribers will have their option disabled. The alternative methods "require you to have physical possession of the authentication method and are a great way to ensure your account is secure," Twitter noted. Given that SMS has been the  least secure form of 2FA , the latest enforcement is likely to force people ...

Web hosting services provider GoDaddy on Friday disclosed a multi-year security breach that enabled unknown threat actors to install malware and siphon source code related to some of its services. The company attributed the campaign to a "sophisticated and organized group targeting hosting services." GoDaddy said in December 2022, it received an unspecified number of customer complaints about their websites getting sporadically redirected to malicious sites, which it later found was due to the unauthorized third party gaining access to servers hosted in its  cPanel environment . The threat actor "installed malware causing the intermittent redirection of customer websites," the company  said . The ultimate objective of the intrusions, GoDaddy said, is to "infect websites and servers with malware for phishing campaigns, malware distribution, and other malicious activities." In a related 10-K filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC...

Suspected North Korean nation-state actors targeted a journalist in South Korea with a malware-laced Android app as part of a social engineering campaign. The findings come from South Korea-based non-profit Interlab, which coined the new malware  RambleOn . The malicious functionalities include the "ability to read and leak target's contact list, SMS, voice call content, location and others from the time of compromise on the target," Interlab threat researcher Ovi Liber  said  in a report published this week. The spyware camouflages as a secure chat app called Fizzle ( ch.seme ), but in reality, acts as a conduit to deliver a next-stage payload hosted on pCloud and Yandex. The chat app is said to have been sent as an Android Package (APK) file over WeChat to the targeted journalist on December 7, 2022, under the pretext of wanting to discuss a sensitive topic. The primary purpose of RambleOn is to function as a loader for another APK file ( com.data.WeCoin ) while ...

Hey 👋 there, cyber friends! Welcome to  this week's cybersecurity newsletter , where we aim to keep you informed and empowered in the ever-changing world of cyber threats. In today's edition, we will cover some interesting developments in the cybersecurity landscape and share some insightful analysis of each to help you protect yourself against potential attacks. 1. Apple 📱 Devices Hacked with New Zero-Day Bug - Update ASAP! Have you updated your Apple devices lately? If not, it's time to do so, as the tech giant just released security updates for iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and Safari. The update is to fix a zero-day vulnerability that hackers have been exploiting. This vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2023-23529, is related to a type confusion bug in the WebKit browser engine. What does this mean? Well, it means that if you visit a website with malicious code, the bug can be activated, leading to arbitrary code execution. In other words, hackers can take control of your devi...