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Chinese Hackers Carried Out Country-Level Watering Hole Attack

Chinese Hackers Carried Out Country-Level Watering Hole Attack

Jun 14, 2018
Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered an espionage campaign that has targeted a national data center of an unnamed central Asian country in order to conduct watering hole attacks. The campaign is believed to be active covertly since fall 2017 but was spotted in March by security researchers from Kaspersky Labs, who have attributed these attacks to a Chinese-speaking threat actor group called LuckyMouse . LuckyMouse, also known as Iron Tiger, EmissaryPanda, APT 27 and Threat Group-3390, is the same group of Chinese hackers who was found targeting Asian countries with Bitcoin mining malware early this year. The group has been active since at least 2010 and was behind many previous attack campaigns resulting in the theft of massive amounts of data from the directors and managers of US-based defense contractors. This time the group chose a national data center as its target from an unnamed country in Central Asia in an attempt to gain "access to a wide range of government
Watering Hole Attack Was Used to Target Florida Water Utilities

Watering Hole Attack Was Used to Target Florida Water Utilities

May 20, 2021
An investigation undertaken in the aftermath of the  Oldsmar water plant hack  earlier this year has revealed that an infrastructure contractor in the U.S. state of Florida hosted malicious code on its website in what's known as a watering hole attack. "This malicious code seemingly targeted water utilities, particularly in Florida, and more importantly, was visited by a browser from the city of Oldsmar on the same day of the poisoning event," Dragos researcher Kent Backman  said  in a write-up published on Tuesday. The site, which belongs to a Florida-based general contractor involved in building water and wastewater treatment facilities, had no bearing on the intrusion, the American industrial cybersecurity firm said. Watering hole attacks typically allow an adversary to compromise a specific group of end-users by compromising a carefully selected website, which members of that group are known to visit, with an intention to gain access to the victim's system an
5 Actionable Steps to Prevent GenAI Data Leaks Without Fully Blocking AI Usage

5 Actionable Steps to Prevent GenAI Data Leaks Without Fully Blocking AI Usage

Oct 01, 2024Generative AI / Data Protection
Since its emergence, Generative AI has revolutionized enterprise productivity. GenAI tools enable faster and more effective software development, financial analysis, business planning, and customer engagement. However, this business agility comes with significant risks, particularly the potential for sensitive data leakage. As organizations attempt to balance productivity gains with security concerns, many have been forced to choose between unrestricted GenAI usage to banning it altogether. A new e-guide by LayerX titled 5 Actionable Measures to Prevent Data Leakage Through Generative AI Tools is designed to help organizations navigate the challenges of GenAI usage in the workplace. The guide offers practical steps for security managers to protect sensitive corporate data while still reaping the productivity benefits of GenAI tools like ChatGPT. This approach is intended to allow companies to strike the right balance between innovation and security. Why Worry About ChatGPT? The e
Chinese State Hackers Target Tibetans with Supply Chain, Watering Hole Attacks

Chinese State Hackers Target Tibetans with Supply Chain, Watering Hole Attacks

Mar 07, 2024 Cyber Espionage / Software Security
The China-linked threat actor known as  Evasive Panda  orchestrated both watering hole and supply chain attacks targeting Tibetan users at least since September 2023. The end goal of the attacks is to deliver malicious downloaders for Windows and macOS that deploy a known backdoor called MgBot and a previously undocumented Windows implant known as Nightdoor. The findings come from ESET, which said the attackers compromised at least three websites to carry out watering-hole attacks as well as a supply-chain compromise of a Tibetan software company. The operation was discovered in January 2024. Evasive Panda, active since 2012 and also known as Bronze Highland and Daggerfly, was  previously disclosed  by the Slovak cybersecurity firm in April 2023 as having targeted an international non-governmental organization (NGO) in Mainland China with MgBot. Another report from Broadcom-owned Symantec around the same time  implicated  the adversary to a cyber espionage campaign aimed at infil
cyber security

2024 State of SaaS Security Report eBook

websiteWing SecuritySaaS Security / Insider Threat
A research report featuring astonishing statistics on the security risks of third-party SaaS applications.
Watering Hole Attack on Kurdish Sites Distributing Malicious APKs and Spyware

Watering Hole Attack on Kurdish Sites Distributing Malicious APKs and Spyware

Sep 26, 2024 Cyber Espionage / Mobile Security
As many as 25 websites linked to the Kurdish minority have been compromised as part of a watering hole attack designed to harvest sensitive information for over a year and a half. French cybersecurity firm Sekoia, which disclosed details of the campaign dubbed SilentSelfie, described the intrusion set as long-running, with first signs of infection detected as far back as December 2022. The strategic web compromises are designed to deliver four different variants of an information-stealing framework, it added. "These ranged from the simplest, which merely stole the user's location, to more complex ones that recorded images from the selfie camera and led selected users to install a malicious APK, i.e an application used on Android," security researchers Felix Aimé and Maxime A said in a Wednesday report. Targeted websites include Kurdish press and media, Rojava administration and its armed forces, those related to revolutionary far-left political parties, and organizatio
Russian Hackers Exploit Safari and Chrome Flaws in High-Profile Cyberattack

Russian Hackers Exploit Safari and Chrome Flaws in High-Profile Cyberattack

Aug 29, 2024 Browser Security / Vulnerability
Cybersecurity researchers have flagged multiple in-the-wild exploit campaigns that leveraged now-patched flaws in Apple Safari and Google Chrome browsers to infect mobile users with information-stealing malware. "These campaigns delivered n-day exploits for which patches were available, but would still be effective against unpatched devices," Google Threat Analysis Group (TAG) researcher Clement Lecigne said in a report shared with The Hacker News. The activity, observed between November 2023 and July 2024, is notable for delivering the exploits by means of a watering hole attack on Mongolian government websites, cabinet.gov[.]mn and mfa.gov[.]mn. A watering hole attack, also called a strategic website compromise attack, is a form of cyber attack that targets groups of users or those within a particular industry by compromising websites that they commonly visit in order to serve them with malware and gain access to their systems. The intrusion set has been attributed wi
Critical Print Spooler Bug allows Attackers to Hack any version of Microsoft Windows

Critical Print Spooler Bug allows Attackers to Hack any version of Microsoft Windows

Jul 13, 2016
Microsoft's July Patch Tuesday offers 11 security bulletins with six rated critical resolving almost 50 security holes in its software. The company has patched a security flaw in the Windows Print Spooler service that affects all supported versions of Windows ever released, which if exploited could allow an attacker to take over a device via a simple mechanism. The "critical" flaw ( CVE-2016-3238 ) actually resides in the way Windows handles printer driver installations as well as the way end users connect to printers. The flaw could allow an attacker to install malware remotely on victim machine that can be used to view, modify or delete data, or create new accounts with full user rights; Microsoft said in MS16-087 bulletin posted Tuesday. Users who are logged in with fewer user rights on the system are less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights, such as some home accounts and server users. Microsoft said the critical flaw could
Israel's Candiru Spyware Found Linked to Watering Hole Attacks in U.K and Middle East

Israel's Candiru Spyware Found Linked to Watering Hole Attacks in U.K and Middle East

Nov 17, 2021
Israeli spyware vendor Candiru, which was  added  to an economic blocklist by the U.S. government this month, is said to have reportedly waged "watering hole" attacks against high-profile entities in the U.K. and the Middle East, new findings reveal. "The victimized websites belong to media outlets in the U.K., Yemen, and Saudi Arabia, as well as to Hezbollah; to government institutions in Iran (Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Syria (including the Ministry of Electricity), and Yemen (including the Ministries of Interior and Finance); to internet service providers in Yemen and Syria; and to aerospace/military technology companies in Italy and South Africa," ESET  said  in a new report. "The attackers also created a website mimicking a medical trade fair in Germany." The strategic web compromises are believed to have occurred in two waves, the first commencing as early as March 2020 before ending in August 2020, and the second string of attacks beginning in
Advanced StrongPity Hackers Target Syria and Turkey with Retooled Spyware

Advanced StrongPity Hackers Target Syria and Turkey with Retooled Spyware

Jun 30, 2020
Cybersecurity researchers today uncovered new details of watering hole attacks against the Kurdish community in Syria and Turkey for surveillance and intelligence exfiltration purposes. The advanced persistent threat behind the operation, called StrongPity , has retooled with new tactics to control compromised machines, cybersecurity firm Bitdefender said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "Using watering hole tactics to selectively infect victims and deploying a three-tier C&C infrastructure to thwart forensic investigations, the APT group leveraged Trojanized popular tools, such as archivers, file recovery applications, remote connections applications, utilities, and even security software, to cover a wide range of options that targeted victims might be seeking," the researchers said. With the timestamps of the analyzed malware samples used in the campaign coinciding with the Turkish offensive into north-eastern Syria (codenamed Operation Peace Spring )
Iranian Tortoiseshell Hackers Targeting Israeli Logistics Industry

Iranian Tortoiseshell Hackers Targeting Israeli Logistics Industry

May 24, 2023 Cyber Threat / Web Security
At least eight websites associated with shipping, logistics, and financial services companies in Israel were targeted as part of a watering hole attack. Tel Aviv-based cybersecurity company ClearSky attributed the attacks with low confidence to an Iranian threat actor tracked as  Tortoiseshell , which is also called Crimson Sandstorm (previously Curium), Imperial Kitten, and TA456. "The infected sites collect preliminary user information through a script," ClearSky  said  in a technical report published Tuesday. Most of the impacted websites have been stripped of the rogue code. Tortoiseshell  is known to be active since at least July 2018, with  early attacks  targeting IT providers in Saudi Arabia. It has also been observed  setting up fake hiring websites  for U.S. military veterans in a bid to trick them into downloading remote access trojans. That said, this is not the first time Iranian activity clusters have set their sights on the Israeli shipping sector with wa
Internet Explorer 8 zero-day attack spreads on 9 other sites

Internet Explorer 8 zero-day attack spreads on 9 other sites

May 08, 2013
Watering hole Internet Explorer 8 zero-day attack on the US Department of Labor website last week has spread to 9 more global websites over the weekend, including those run by a big European company operating in the aerospace, defense , and security industries as well as non-profit groups and institutes Attacks exploiting a previously unknown and currently unpatched vulnerability in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser have spread to at least. Researchers analyzing the attacks say that the attack tie it to a China-based hacking group known as " DeepPanda ". Security firm CrowdStrike said its researchers unearthed evidence suggesting that the campaign began in mid-March. Their analysis of logs from the malicious infrastructure used in the attacks revealed the IP addresses of visitors to the compromised sites. The logs showed addresses from 37 different countries, with 71 percent of them in the US, 11 percent in South/Southeast Asia, and 10 percent in Europe. Micros
Iranian Hackers Pose as Journalists to Trick Victims Into Installing Malware

Iranian Hackers Pose as Journalists to Trick Victims Into Installing Malware

Aug 28, 2020
An Iranian cyberespionage group known for targeting government, defense technology, military, and diplomacy sectors is now impersonating journalists to approach targets via LinkedIn and WhatsApp and infect their devices with malware. Detailing the new tactics of the "Charming Kitten" APT group, Israeli firm Clearsky said, "starting July 2020, we have identified a new TTP of the group, impersonating 'Deutsche Welle' and the 'Jewish Journal' using emails alongside WhatsApp messages as their main platform to approach the target and convince them to open a malicious link." This development is the first time the threat actor is said to have carried out a watering hole attack through WhatsApp and LinkedIn, which also includes making phone calls to victims, Clearsky noted in a Thursday analysis. After the company alerted Deutsche Welle about the impersonation and the watering hole in their website, the German broadcaster confirmed, "the repor
Adobe releases another Emergency Security Patch for Flash Player

Adobe releases another Emergency Security Patch for Flash Player

Feb 22, 2014
Security Firm FireEye has uncovered yet another critical zero-day vulnerability in widely used Adobe Flash Software and Adobe has been forced to issue a second emergency patch update  in less than a month. All versions of Adobe Flash Player released before today's patch are vulnerable to the zero-day exploit and the patch addresses a critical vulnerability  CVE-2014-0502 , being used in a watering hole attack -dubbed " Operation Greedywonk",  that allows attackers to remotely take control of infected systems. The vulnerability affects the latest versions of Flash, is reported to be targeting the websites of three non-profit institutions, being redirected to an malicious server hosting the zero-day exploit. " Visitors to the Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics (www.piie[.]com) were redirected to an exploit server hosting this Flash zero-day through a hidden iframe ." FireEye said. Security updates tackle a number of flaws includi
Internet Explorer zero-day exploit targets U.S. nuke researchers

Internet Explorer zero-day exploit targets U.S. nuke researchers

May 06, 2013
Security researchers revealed that series of " Watering Hole " has been conducted exploiting a IE8 zero-day vulnerability to target U.S. Government experts working on nuclear weapons research. The news is not surprising but it is very concerning, the principal targets of the attacks are various groups of research such as the components of U.S. Department of Labor and the U.S. Department of Energy, the news has been confirmed by principal security firms and by Microsoft corporate. The flaw has been used in a series of "watering hole" attacks, let's remind that "Watering Hole" is a technique of attack realized compromising legitimate websites using a " drive-by " exploit. The attackers restrict their audience to a individuals interested to specific content proposed by targeted website, in this way when the victim visits the page a backdoor Trojan is installed on his computer. The website compromised to exploit the IE8 zero-day is the Dep
Experts Unveil Cyber Espionage Attacks by CopyKittens Hackers

Experts Unveil Cyber Espionage Attacks by CopyKittens Hackers

Jul 25, 2017
Security researchers have discovered a new, massive cyber espionage campaign that mainly targets people working in government, defence and academic organisations in various countries. The campaign is being conducted by an Iran-linked threat group, whose activities, attack methods, and targets have been released in a joint, detailed report published by researchers at Trend Micro and Israeli firm ClearSky. Dubbed by researchers CopyKittens (aka Rocket Kittens) , the cyber espionage group has been active since at least 2013 and has targeted organisations and individuals, including diplomats and researchers, in Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United States, Jordan and Germany. The targeted organisations include government institutions like Ministry of Foreign Affairs, defence companies, large IT companies, academic institutions, subcontractors of the Ministry of Defense, and municipal authorities, along with employees of the United Nations. The latest report [ PDF ], dubbed &q
Chinese Hackers Using New iPhone Hack to Spy On Uyghur Muslims

Chinese Hackers Using New iPhone Hack to Spy On Uyghur Muslims

Apr 22, 2020
A Chinese hacking group has been found leveraging a new exploit chain in iOS devices to install a spyware implant targeting the Uyghur Muslim minority in China's autonomous region of Xinjiang. The findings, published by digital forensics firm Volexity , reveal that the exploit — named "Insomnia" — works against iOS versions 12.3, 12.3.1, and 12.3.2 using a flaw in WebKit that was patched by Apple with the release of iOS 12.4 in July 2019. Volexity said the attacks were carried out by a state-sponsored hacking group it calls Evil Eye , the same threat actor that it said was behind a series of attacks against the Uyghurs last September following a bombshell disclosure by Google's Project Zero team . China has long considered Xinjiang a breeding ground for " separatists, terrorists and religious extremists ," with the residents of the region — ethnically Turkic Muslims — thrown into concentration camps , and subjected to persecution and high-tech surv
Suspected Iranian Hackers Targeted Several Israeli Organizations for Espionage

Suspected Iranian Hackers Targeted Several Israeli Organizations for Espionage

Aug 23, 2022
A suspected Iranian threat activity cluster has been linked to attacks aimed at Israeli shipping, government, energy, and healthcare organizations as part of an espionage-focused campaign that commenced in late 2020. Cybersecurity firm Mandiant is tracking the group under its uncategorized moniker  UNC3890 , which is believed to conduct operations that align with Iranian interests. "The collected data may be leveraged to support various activities, from hack-and-leak, to enabling kinetic warfare attacks like those that have plagued the shipping industry in recent years," the company's Israel Research Team  noted . Intrusions mounted by the group lead to the deployment of two proprietary pieces of malware: a "small but efficient" backdoor named SUGARUSH and a browser credential stealer called SUGARDUMP that exfiltrates password information to an email address associated with Gmail, ProtonMail, Yahoo, and Yandex. Also employed is a network of command-and-con
Searching for Best Encryption Tools? Hackers are Spreading Malware Through Fake Software

Searching for Best Encryption Tools? Hackers are Spreading Malware Through Fake Software

Oct 11, 2016
Over the past few years, Internet users globally have grown increasingly aware of online privacy and security issues due to mass monitoring and surveillance by government agencies, making them adopt encryption software and services. But it turns out that hackers are taking advantage of this opportunity by creating and distributing fake versions of encryption tools in order to infect as many victims as possible. Kaspersky Lab has revealed an advanced persistent threat (APT) group, nicknamed StrongPity , which has put a lot of efforts in targeting users of software designed for encrypting data and communications. The StrongPity APT group has been using watering-hole attacks, infected installers, and malware for many years to target users of encryption software by compromising legitimate sites or setting up their own malicious copycat sites. Watering hole attacks are designed to lure specific groups of users to their interest-based sites that typically house malicious files or
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