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Malicious actors are using a legitimate Rust-based injector called  Freeze[.]rs  to deploy a commodity malware called XWorm in victim environments. The novel attack chain, detected by Fortinet FortiGuard Labs on July 13, 2023, is initiated via a phishing email containing a booby-trapped PDF file. It has also been used to introduce Remcos RAT by means of a crypter called SYK Crypter, which was first documented by Morphisec in May 2022. "This file redirects to an HTML file and utilizes the 'search-ms' protocol to access an LNK file on a remote server," security researcher Cara Lin  said . "Upon clicking the LNK file, a PowerShell script executes Freeze[.]rs and SYK Crypter for further offensive actions." Freeze[.]rs, released on May 4, 2023, is an  open-source red teaming tool  from Optiv that functions as a payload creation tool used for circumventing security solutions and executing shellcode in a stealthy manner. "Freeze[.]rs utilizes multiple te...

A new information malware strain called  Statc Stealer  has been found infecting devices running Microsoft Windows to siphon sensitive personal and payment information. "Statc Stealer exhibits a broad range of stealing capabilities, making it a significant threat," Zscaler ThreatLabz researchers Shivam Sharma and Amandeep Kumar  said  in a technical report published this week. "It can steal sensitive information from various web browsers, including login data, cookies, web data, and preferences. Additionally, it targets cryptocurrency wallets, credentials, passwords, and even data from messaging apps like Telegram." Written in C++, the malicious stealer finds its way into victim systems when potential victims are tricked into clicking on seemingly innocuous ads, with the stealer imitating an MP4 video file format on web browsers like Google Chrome. The first-stage payload, while dropping and executing a decoy PDF installer, also stealthily deploys a downloader...

A widely used Chinese language input app for Windows and Android has been found vulnerable to serious security flaws that could allow a malicious interloper to decipher the text typed by users. The findings from the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab, which carried out an analysis of the encryption mechanism used in Tencent's Sogou Input Method , an app that has over 455 million monthly active users across Windows, Android, and iOS. The vulnerabilities are rooted in EncryptWall, the service's custom encryption system, allowing network eavesdroppers to extract the textual content and access sensitive data. "The Windows and Android versions of Sogou Input Method contain vulnerabilities in this encryption system, including a vulnerability to a CBC  padding oracle attack , which allow network eavesdroppers to recover the plaintext of encrypted network transmissions, revealing sensitive information including what users have typed," the researchers  said . CBC, s...

A newly released report by cybersecurity firm CTM360 reveals a large-scale scam operation utilizing fake news websites—known as Baiting News Sites (BNS)—to deceive users into online investment fraud across 50 countries. These BNS pages are made to look like real news outlets: CNN, BBC, CNBC, or regional media. They publish fake stories that feature public figures, central banks, or financial brands, all claiming to back new ways to earn passive income. The goal? Build trust quickly and steer readers toward professional-looking scam platforms like Trap10, Solara Vynex, or Eclipse Earn. Scammers use sponsored ads on Google, Meta, and blog networks to push traffic to these sites. Ads often carry clickbait headlines—"You won't believe what a prominent public figure just revealed"—paired with official photos or national flags to make them feel legit. Clicking the ad directs users to a fake article, which then redirects them to a fraudulent trading platform. Many of these scams follow a...

Attackers continue to target Microsoft identities to gain access to connected Microsoft applications and federated SaaS applications. Additionally, attackers continue to progress their attacks in these environments, not by exploiting vulnerabilities, but by abusing native Microsoft functionality to achieve their objective. The attacker group Nobelium, linked with the SolarWinds attacks, has been documented using native functionality like the creation of Federated Trusts  [1]  to enable persistent access to a Microsoft tenant. This article demonstrates an additional native functionality that when leveraged by an attacker enables persistent access to a Microsoft cloud tenant and lateral movement capabilities to another tenant. This attack vector enables an attacker operating in a compromised tenant to abuse a misconfigured Cross-Tenant Synchronization (CTS) configuration and gain access to other connected tenants or deploy a rogue CTS configuration to maintain persistence with...

Threat actors are increasingly using a phishing-as-a-service (PhaaS) toolkit dubbed EvilProxy to pull off account takeover attacks aimed at high-ranking executives at prominent companies. According to Proofpoint, an ongoing hybrid campaign has leveraged the service to target thousands of Microsoft 365 user accounts, sending approximately 120,000 phishing emails to hundreds of organizations worldwide between March and June 2023. Nearly 39% of the hundreds of compromised users are said to be C-level executives, including CEOs (9%) and CFOs (17%). The attacks have also singled out personnel with access to financial assets or sensitive information. At least 35% of all compromised users had additional account protections enabled. The campaigns are seen as a response to the increased adoption of multi-factor authentication (MFA) in enterprises, prompting threat actors to evolve their tactics to bypass new security layers by incorporating adversary-in-the-middle ( AitM ) phishing kits to ...

Interpol has announced the takedown of a phishing-as-a-service (PhaaS) platform called 16Shop, in addition to the arrests of three individuals in Indonesia and Japan. 16Shop specialized in the sales of phishing kits that other cybercriminals can purchase to mount phishing attacks on a large scale, ultimately facilitating the theft of credentials and payment details from users of popular services such as Apple, PayPal, American Express, Amazon, and Cash App, among others. "Victims typically receive an email with a pdf file or link that redirects to a site requesting the victims' credit card or other personally identifiable information," Interpol  said . "This information is then stolen and used to extract money from the victims." No less than 70,000 users across 43 countries are estimated to have been compromised via services offered on 16Shop. The law enforcement operation has also led to the arrest of the site's administrator, a 21-year-old Indonesian...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a trio of side-channel attacks that could be exploited to leak sensitive data from modern CPUs. Called  Collide+Power  ( CVE-2023-20583 ),  Downfall  ( CVE-2022-40982 ), and  Inception  ( CVE-2023-20569 ), the novel methods follow the disclosure of another newly discovered security vulnerability affecting AMD's Zen 2 architecture-based processors known as  Zenbleed  (CVE-2023-20593). "Downfall attacks target a critical weakness found in billions of modern processors used in personal and cloud computers,"  Daniel Moghimi , senior research scientist at Google,  said . "This vulnerability [...] enables a user to access and steal data from other users who share the same computer." In a hypothetical attack scenario, a malicious app installed on a device could weaponize the method to steal sensitive information like passwords and encryption keys, effectively undermining Intel's Software G...

Hackers associated with China's Ministry of State Security (MSS) have been linked to attacks in 17 different countries in Asia, Europe, and North America from 2021 to 2023. Cybersecurity firm Recorded Future attributed the intrusion set to a nation-state group it tracks under the name  RedHotel  (previously Threat Activity Group-22 or TAG-22), which overlaps with a cluster of activity broadly monitored as  Aquatic Panda ,  Bronze University , Charcoal Typhoon,  Earth Lusca , and  Red Scylla  (or Red Dev 10). Active since 2019, some of the prominent sectors targeted by the prolific actor encompass academia, aerospace, government, media, telecommunications, and research. A majority of the victims during the period were government organizations. "RedHotel has a dual mission of intelligence gathering and economic espionage," the cybersecurity company  said , calling out its persistence, operational intensity, and global reach. "It targets both gov...

Validate security continuously across your full stack with Pen Testing as a Service. In today's modern security operations center (SOC), it's a battle between the defenders and the cybercriminals. Both are using tools and expertise – however, the cybercriminals have the element of surprise on their side, and a host of tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) that have evolved. These external threat actors have now been further emboldened in the era of AI with open-source tools like ChatGPT. With the potential of an attack leading to a breach within minutes, CISOs now are looking to prepare all systems and assets for cyber resilience and rapid response when needed. With tools and capabilities to validate security continuously – including penetration testing as a service – DevSecOps teams can remediate critical vulnerabilities fast due to the easy access to tactical support to the teams that need it the most. This gives the SOC and DevOps teams tools to that remove false po...