Search results for powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

The update infrastructure for eScan antivirus, a security solution developed by Indian cybersecurity company MicroWorld Technologies, has been compromised by unknown attackers to deliver a persistent downloader to enterprise and consumer systems. "Malicious updates were distributed through eScan's legitimate update infrastructure, resulting in the deployment of multi-stage malware to enterprise and consumer endpoints globally," Morphisec researcher Michael Gorelik said . MicroWorld Technologies has revealed that it detected unauthorized access to its infrastructure and immediately isolated the impacted update servers, which remained offline for over eight hours. It has also released a patch that reverts the changes introduced as part of the malicious update. Impacted organizations are recommended to contact MicroWorld Technologies to obtain the fix. It also pinned the attack as resulting from unauthorized access to one of its regional update server configurations, whi...

Security experts have disclosed details of an active malware campaign that's exploiting a DLL side-loading vulnerability in a legitimate binary associated with the open-source c-ares library to bypass security controls and deliver a wide range of commodity trojans and stealers. "Attackers achieve evasion by pairing a malicious libcares-2.dll with any signed version of the legitimate ahost.exe (which they often rename) to execute their code," Trellix said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "This DLL side-loading technique allows the malware to bypass traditional signature-based security defenses." The campaign has been observed distributing a wide assortment of malware, such as Agent Tesla , CryptBot , Formbook , Lumma Stealer , Vidar Stealer , Remcos RAT , Quasar RAT , DCRat , and XWorm . Targets of the malicious activity include employees in finance, procurement, supply chain, and administration roles within commercial and industrial sectors like ...

USB drive attacks constitute a significant cybersecurity risk, taking advantage of the everyday use of USB devices to deliver malware and circumvent traditional network security measures. These attacks lead to data breaches, financial losses, and operational disruptions, with lasting impacts on an organization's reputation. An example is the Stuxnet worm discovered in 2010, a malware designed to target industrial control systems, specifically Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities. It exploited multiple zero-day vulnerabilities and spread primarily through USB drives, making it one of the first examples of a cyberattack with real-world physical effects. Stuxnet exposed the risks of removable media and raised global awareness of cybersecurity threats to critical infrastructure. How USB drive attacks propagate Attackers use various methods to deliver malicious payloads via USB drives, targeting individuals and organizations.  Drop attacks : Infected USB drives are deliberatel...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new cryptojacking campaign that employs vulnerable drivers to disable known security solutions (EDRs) and thwart detection in what's called a Bring Your Own Vulnerable Driver ( BYOVD ) attack. Elastic Security Labs is tracking the campaign under the name REF4578 and the primary payload as GHOSTENGINE. Previous research from Chinese cybersecurity firm Antiy Labs has codenamed the activity as HIDDEN SHOVEL. "GHOSTENGINE leverages vulnerable drivers to terminate and delete known EDR agents that would likely interfere with the deployed and well-known coin miner," Elastic researchers Salim Bitam, Samir Bousseaden, Terrance DeJesus, and Andrew Pease said . "This campaign involved an uncommon amount of complexity to ensure both the installation and persistence of the XMRig miner." It all starts with an executable file ("Tiworker.exe"), which is used to run a PowerShell script that retrieves an obfuscated Power...

The threat actor known as Storm-0249 is likely shifting from its role as an initial access broker to adopt a combination of more advanced tactics like domain spoofing, DLL side-loading, and fileless PowerShell execution to facilitate ransomware attacks. "These methods allow them to bypass defenses, infiltrate networks, maintain persistence, and operate undetected, raising serious concerns for security teams," ReliaQuest said in a report shared with The Hacker News. Storm-0249 is the moniker assigned by Microsoft to an initial access broker that has sold footholds into organizations to other cybercrime groups, including ransomware and extortion actors like Storm-0501 . It was first highlighted by the tech giant in September 2024. Then, earlier this year, Microsoft also revealed details of a phishing campaign mounted by the threat actor that used tax-related themes to target users in the U.S. ahead of the tax filing season and infect them with Latrodectus and the BruteR...

Cybersecurity researchers have shed light on a new malware campaign that makes use of a PowerShell-based shellcode loader to deploy a remote access trojan called Remcos RAT. "Threat actors delivered malicious LNK files embedded within ZIP archives, often disguised as Office documents," Qualys security researcher Akshay Thorve said in a technical report. "The attack chain leverages mshta.exe for proxy execution during the initial stage." The latest wave of attacks, as detailed by Qualys, employs tax-related lures to entice users into opening a malicious ZIP archive containing a Windows shortcut (LNK) file, which, in turn, makes use of mshta.exe, a legitimate Microsoft tool used to run HTML Applications (HTA). The binary is used to execute an obfuscated HTA file named "xlab22.hta" hosted on a remote server, which incorporates Visual Basic Script code to download a PowerShell script, a decoy PDF, and another HTA file similar to xlab22.hta called "3...

Malicious actors have backdoored the installer associated with courtroom video recording software developed by Justice AV Solutions (JAVS) to deliver malware that's associated with a known implant called RustDoor. The software supply chain attack, tracked as CVE-2024-4978 (CVSS score: 8.7), impacts JAVS Viewer v8.3.7, a component of the  JAVS Suite 8  that allows users to create, manage, publish, and view digital recordings of courtroom proceedings, business meetings, and city council sessions. Cybersecurity firm Rapid7  said  it commenced an investigation earlier this month after discovering a malicious executable called "fffmpeg.exe" (note the three Fs) in the Windows installation folder of the software, tracing it to a binary named "JAVS Viewer Setup 8.3.7.250-1.exe" that was downloaded from the official JAVS site on March 5, 2024. "Analysis of the installer JAVS Viewer Setup 8.3.7.250-1.exe showed that it was signed with an unexpected Authenticode ...

Threat hunters have disclosed details of a new, stealthy malware campaign dubbed DEAD#VAX that employs a mix of "disciplined tradecraft and clever abuse of legitimate system features" to bypass traditional detection mechanisms and deploy a remote access trojan (RAT) known as AsyncRAT . "The attack leverages IPFS-hosted VHD files, extreme script obfuscation, runtime decryption, and in-memory shellcode injection into trusted Windows processes, never dropping a decrypted binary to disk," Securonix researchers Akshay Gaikwad, Shikha Sangwan, and Aaron Beardslee said in a report shared with The Hacker News. AsyncRAT is an open-source malware that provides attackers with extensive control over compromised endpoints, enabling surveillance and data collection through keylogging, screen and webcam capture, clipboard monitoring, file system access, remote command execution, and persistence across reboots. The starting point of the infection sequence is a phishing email...

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed details of a new campaign that combines ClickFix -style fake CAPTCHAs with a signed Microsoft Application Virtualization ( App-V ) script to distribute an information stealer called Amatera . "Instead of launching PowerShell directly, the attacker uses this script to control how execution begins and to avoid more common, easily recognized execution paths," Blackpoint researchers Jack Patrick and Sam Decker said in a report published last week. In doing so, the idea is to transform the App-V script into a living-off-the-land (LotL) binary that proxies the execution of PowerShell through a trusted Microsoft component to conceal the malicious activity. The starting point of the attack is a fake CAPTCHA verification prompt that seeks to trick users into pasting and executing a malicious command on the Windows Run dialog. But here is where the attack diverges from traditional ClickFix attacks. The supplied command, rather than invokin...

Tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) form the foundation of modern defense strategies. Unlike indicators of compromise (IOCs), TTPs are more stable, making them a reliable way to identify specific cyber threats. Here are some of the most commonly used techniques, according to ANY.RUN's Q3 2024 report on malware trends, complete with real-world examples. Disabling of Windows Event Logging (T1562.002) Disrupting Windows Event Logging helps attackers prevent the system from recording crucial information about their malicious actions. Without event logs, important details such as login attempts, file modifications, and system changes go unrecorded, leaving security solutions and analysts with incomplete or missing data. Windows Event Logging can be manipulated in different ways, including by changing registry keys or using commands like “net stop eventlog”. Altering group policies is another common method. Since many detection mechanisms rely on log analysis to identify s...

Cyber threats are evolving faster than ever. Attackers now combine social engineering, AI-driven manipulation, and cloud exploitation to breach targets once considered secure. From communication platforms to connected devices, every system that enhances convenience also expands the attack surface. This edition of ThreatsDay Bulletin explores these converging risks and the safeguards that help preserve trust in an increasingly intelligent threat landscape. How Threat Actors Abuse Microsoft Teams Attackers Abuse Microsoft Teams for Extortion, Social Engineering, and Financial Theft Microsoft detailed the various ways threat actors can abuse its Teams chat software at various stages of the attack chain, even using it to support financial theft through extortion, social engineering, or technical means. " Octo Tempest has used communication apps, including Teams, to send taunting and threatening messages to organizations, defenders, and incident response teams as p...