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Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered a novel malware campaign that leverages Google Sheets as a command-and-control (C2) mechanism. The activity, detected by Proofpoint starting August 5, 2024, impersonates tax authorities from governments in Europe, Asia, and the U.S., with the goal of targeting over 70 organizations worldwide by means of a bespoke tool called Voldemort that's equipped to gather information and deliver additional payloads. Targeted sectors include insurance, aerospace, transportation, academia, finance, technology, industrial, healthcare, automotive, hospitality, energy, government, media, manufacturing, telecom, and social benefit organizations.  The suspected cyber espionage campaign has not been attributed to a specific named threat actor. As many as 20,000 email messages have been sent as part of the attacks. These emails claim to be from tax authorities in the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, India, and Japan, alerting recipients about chan...

Cybersecurity researchers have unearthed new network infrastructure set up by Iranian threat actors to support activities linked to the recent targeting of U.S. political campaigns. Recorded Future's Insikt Group has linked the infrastructure to a hacking group it tracks as GreenCharlie, an Iran-nexus cyber threat group that overlaps with APT42, Charming Kitten, Damselfly, Mint Sandstorm (formerly Phosphorus), TA453, and Yellow Garuda. "The group's infrastructure is meticulously crafted, utilizing dynamic DNS (DDNS) providers like Dynu, DNSEXIT, and Vitalwerks to register domains used in phishing attacks," the cybersecurity company said . "These domains often employ deceptive themes related to cloud services, file sharing, and document visualization to lure targets into revealing sensitive information or downloading malicious files." Examples include terms like "cloud," "uptimezone," "doceditor," "joincloud," ...

The most dangerous vulnerability you've never heard of. In the world of cybersecurity, vulnerabilities are discovered so often, and at such a high rate, that it can be very difficult to keep up with. Some vulnerabilities will start ringing alarm bells within your security tooling, while others are far more nuanced, but still pose an equally dangerous threat. Today, we want to discuss one of these more nuanced vulnerabilities as it is likely lurking in your environment waiting to be exploited: Active Directory Certificate Services vulnerabilities.  vPenTest by Vonahi Security recently implemented an attack vector specifically designed to identify and mitigate these hidden AD CS threats. But first, let's explore why AD CS vulnerabilities are so dangerous and how they work. What is Active Directory Certificate Services? Active Directory Certificate Services ("AD CS"), as defined by Microsoft is, "a Windows Server role for issuing and managing public key infrastructure (PKI) cert...

SaaS Adoption is Skyrocketing, Resilience Hasn't Kept Pace SaaS platforms have revolutionized how businesses operate. They simplify collaboration, accelerate deployment, and reduce the overhead of managing infrastructure. But with their rise comes a subtle, dangerous assumption: that the convenience of SaaS extends to resilience. It doesn't. These platforms weren't built with full-scale data protection in mind . Most follow a shared responsibility model — wherein the provider ensures uptime and application security, but the data inside is your responsibility. In a world of hybrid architectures, global teams, and relentless cyber threats, that responsibility is harder than ever to manage. Modern organizations are being stretched across: Hybrid and multi-cloud environments with decentralized data sprawl Complex integration layers between IaaS, SaaS, and legacy systems Expanding regulatory pressure with steeper penalties for noncompliance Escalating ransomware threats and inside...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed a new campaign that potentially targets users in the Middle East through malware that disguises itself as Palo Alto Networks GlobalProtect virtual private network (VPN) tool. "The malware can execute remote PowerShell commands, download and exfiltrate files, encrypt communications, and bypass sandbox solutions, representing a significant threat to targeted organizations," Trend Micro researcher Mohamed Fahmy said in a technical report. The sophisticated malware sample has been observed employing a two-stage process and involves setting up connections to command-and-control (C2) infrastructure that purports to be a company VPN portal, allowing the threat actors to operate freely without tripping any alarms. The initial intrusion vector for the campaign is currently unknown, although it's suspected to involve the use of phishing techniques to deceive users into thinking that they are installing the GlobalProtect agent. The ...

Threat actors with ties to North Korea have been observed publishing a set of malicious packages to the npm registry, indicating "coordinated and relentless" efforts to target developers with malware and steal cryptocurrency assets. The latest wave, which was observed between August 12 and 27, 2024, involved packages named temp-etherscan-api, ethersscan-api, telegram-con, helmet-validate, and qq-console. "Behaviors in this campaign lead us to believe that qq-console is attributable to the North Korean campaign known as 'Contagious Interview,'" software supply chain security firm Phylum said . Contagious Interview refers to an ongoing campaign that seeks to compromise software developers with information stealing malware as part of a purported job interview process that involves tricking them into downloading bogus npm packages or fake installers for video conferencing software such as MiroTalk hosted on decoy websites. The end goal of the attacks is to...

A comprehensive guide authored by Dean Parsons, SANS Certified Instructor and CEO / Principal Consultant of ICS Defense Force, emphasizes the growing need for specialized ICS security measures in the face of rising cyber threats. With a staggering 50% increase in ransomware attacks targeting industrial control systems (ICS) in 2023, the SANS Institute is taking decisive action by announcing the release of its essential new strategy guide, " ICS Is the Business: Why Securing ICS/OT Environments Is Business-Critical in 2024 ." Authored by Dean Parsons, CEO of ICS Defense Force and a SANS Certified Instructor, this guide offers a comprehensive analysis of the rapidly evolving threat landscape and provides critical steps that organizations must take to safeguard their operations and ensure public safety. As cyber threats grow in both frequency and sophistication, this guide is an indispensable resource for securing the vital systems that underpin our world. Key Insights from t...

Chinese-speaking users are the target of a "highly organized and sophisticated attack" campaign that is likely leveraging phishing emails to infect Windows systems with Cobalt Strike payloads. "The attackers managed to move laterally, establish persistence and remain undetected within the systems for more than two weeks," Securonix researchers Den Iuzvyk and Tim Peck said in a new report. The covert campaign, codenamed SLOW#TEMPEST and not attributed to any known threat actor, commences with malicious ZIP files that, when unpacked, activates the infection chain, leading to the deployment of the post-exploitation toolkit on compromised systems. Present with the ZIP archive is a Windows shortcut (LNK) file that disguises itself as a Microsoft Word file, "违规远程控制软件人员名单.docx.lnk," which roughly translates to "List of people who violated the remote control software regulations." "Given the language used in the lure files, it's likely th...

Threat actors are actively exploiting a now-patched, critical security flaw impacting the Atlassian Confluence Data Center and Confluence Server to conduct illicit cryptocurrency mining on susceptible instances. "The attacks involve threat actors that employ methods such as the deployment of shell scripts and XMRig miners, targeting of SSH endpoints, killing competing crypto mining processes, and maintaining persistence via cron jobs," Trend Micro researcher Abdelrahman Esmail said . The security vulnerability exploited is CVE-2023-22527 , a maximum severity bug in older versions of Atlassian Confluence Data Center and Confluence Server that could allow unauthenticated attackers to achieve remote code execution. It was addressed by the Australian software company in mid-January 2024. Trend Micro said it observed a high number of exploitation attempts against the flaw between mid-June and end of July 2024 that leveraged it to drop the XMRig miner on unpatched hosts. At l...

A non-profit supporting Vietnamese human rights has been the target of a multi-year campaign designed to deliver a variety of malware on compromised hosts. Cybersecurity company Huntress attributed the activity to a threat cluster tracked as APT32, a Vietnamese-aligned hacking crew that's also known as APT-C-00, Canvas Cyclone (formerly Bismuth), Cobalt Kitty, and OceanLotus. The intrusion is believed to have been ongoing for at least four years. "This intrusion has a number of overlaps with known techniques used by the threat actor APT32/OceanLotus, and a known target demographic which aligns with APT32/OceanLotus targets," security researchers Jai Minton and Craig Sweeney said . OceanLotus , active since at least 2012, has a history of targeting company and government networks in East-Asian countries, particularly Vietnam, the Philippines, Laos, and Cambodia with the end goal of cyber espionage and intellectual property theft. Attack chains typically make use of...