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German and South Korean government agencies have warned about cyber attacks mounted by a threat actor tracked as  Kimsuky  using rogue browser extensions to steal users' Gmail inboxes. The  joint advisory   comes  from Germany's domestic intelligence apparatus, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), and South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS). The intrusions are designed to strike "experts on the Korean Peninsula and North Korea issues" through spear-phishing campaigns, the agencies noted. Kimsuky , also known Black Banshee, Thallium, and Velvet Chollima, refers to a  subordinate element  within North Korea's Reconnaissance General Bureau and is known to "collect strategic intelligence on geopolitical events and negotiations affecting the DPRK's interests." Primary targets of interest include entities in the U.S. and South Korea, particularly singling out individuals working within the government, military

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has released eight Industrial Control Systems (ICS)  advisories  on Tuesday, warning of critical flaws affecting equipment from Delta Electronics and Rockwell Automation. This includes 13 security vulnerabilities in Delta Electronics' InfraSuite Device Master, a real-time device monitoring software. All versions prior to 1.0.5 are affected by the issues. "Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities could allow an unauthenticated attacker to obtain access to files and credentials, escalate privileges, and remotely execute arbitrary code," CISA  said . At the top of the list is  CVE-2023-1133  (CVSS score: 9.8), a critical flaw that arises from the fact that InfraSuite Device Master accepts unverified UDP packets and  deserializes the content , thereby allowing an unauthenticated remote attacker to execute arbitrary code. Two other deserialization flaws,  CVE-2023-1139  (CVSS score: 8.8) and  CVE-20

Follow this real-life network attack simulation, covering 6 steps from Initial Access to Data Exfiltration. See how attackers remain undetected with the simplest tools and why you need multiple choke points in your defense strategy. Surprisingly, most network attacks are not exceptionally sophisticated, technologically advanced, or reliant on zero-day tools that exploit edge-case vulnerabilities. Instead, they often use commonly available tools and exploit multiple vulnerability points. By simulating a real-world network attack, security teams can test their detection systems, ensure they have multiple choke points in place, and demonstrate the value of networking security to leadership. In this article, we demonstrate a real-life attack that could easily occur in many systems. The attack simulation was developed based on the MITRE ATT&CK framework, Atomic Red Team,  Cato Networks ' experience in the field, and public threat intel. In the end, we explain why a holistic secur

The North Korean advanced persistent threat (APT) actor dubbed ScarCruft is using weaponized Microsoft Compiled HTML Help (CHM) files to download additional malware onto targeted machines. According to multiple reports from  AhnLab Security Emergency response Center  ( ASEC ),  SEKOIA.IO , and  Zscaler , the development is illustrative of the group's continuous efforts to refine and retool its tactics to sidestep detection. "The group is constantly evolving its tools, techniques, and procedures while experimenting with new file formats and methods to bypass security vendors," Zscaler researchers Sudeep Singh and Naveen Selvan said in a new analysis published Tuesday.  ScarCruft, also tracked under the names APT37, Reaper, RedEyes, and Ricochet Chollima, has exhibited an increased operational tempo since the start of the year, targeting various South Korean entities for espionage purposes. It is known to be active since at least 2012. Last month, ASEC  disclosed  a

Active Directory (AD) is a powerful authentication and directory service used by organizations worldwide. With this ubiquity and power comes the potential for abuse. Insider threats offer some of the most potentials for destruction. Many internal users have over-provisioned access and visibility into the internal network. Insiders' level of access and trust in a network leads to unique vulnerabilities. Network security often focuses on keeping a threat actor out, not on existing users' security and potential vulnerabilities. Staying on top of potential threats means protecting against inside and outside threats. Active Directory Vulnerabilities From the outside, a properly configured AD domain offers a secure authentication and authorization solution. But with complex social engineering and phishing email attacks, an existing AD user can become compromised. Once inside, threat actors have many options to attack Active Directory. Insecure Devices With "Bring Your Own

The  NuGet  repository is the target of a new "sophisticated and highly-malicious attack" aiming to infect .NET developer systems with cryptocurrency stealer malware. The 13 rogue packages, which were downloaded more than 160,000 times over the past month, have since been taken down. "The packages contained a PowerShell script that would execute upon installation and trigger a download of a 'second stage' payload, which could be remotely executed," JFrog researchers Natan Nehorai and Brian Moussalli  said . While NuGet packages have been in the past found to  contain vulnerabilities  and be abused to  propagate phishing links , the development marks the first-ever discovery of packages with malicious code. Three of the most downloaded packages – Coinbase.Core, Anarchy.Wrapper.Net, and DiscordRichPresence.API – alone accounted for 166,000 downloads, although it's also possible that the threat actors artificially inflated the download counts using bo

The threat group tracked as  REF2924  has been observed deploying previously unseen malware in its attacks aimed at entities in South and Southeast Asia. The malware, dubbed  NAPLISTENER  by Elastic Security Labs, is an HTTP listener programmed in C# and is designed to evade "network-based forms of detection." REF2924  is the moniker assigned to an activity cluster linked to attacks against an entity in Afghanistan as well as the Foreign Affairs Office of an ASEAN member in 2022. The threat actor's modus operandi suggests overlaps with another hacking group dubbed  ChamelGang , which was documented by Russian cybersecurity company Positive Technologies in October 2021. Attacks orchestrated by the group are said to have exploited internet-exposed Microsoft Exchange servers to  deploy backdoors  such as DOORME, SIESTAGRAPH, and ShadowPad. DOORME, an Internet Information Services ( IIS ) backdoor module, provides remote access to a contested network and executes addit

In a sudden turn of events, Baphomet, the current administrator of BreachForums, said in an update on March 21, 2023, that the hacking forum has been officially taken down but emphasized that "it's not the end." "You are allowed to hate me, and disagree with my decision but I promise what is to come will be better for us all," Baphomet noted in a message posted on the BreachForums Telegram channel. The  shutdown  is suspected to have been prompted by suspicions that law enforcement may have obtained access to the site's configurations, source code, and information about the forum's users. The development follows the  arrest of its administrator  Conor Brian Fitzpatrick (aka "pompompurin"), who has been charged with a single count of conspiracy to commit access device fraud. Over the past few months, BreachForums filled the void left by RaidForums last year, becoming a lucrative destination to purchase and sell stolen databases from variou

Amid the  ongoing war  between Russia and Ukraine, government, agriculture, and transportation organizations located in Donetsk, Lugansk, and Crimea have been attacked as part of an active campaign that drops a previously unseen, modular framework dubbed  CommonMagic . "Although the initial vector of compromise is unclear, the details of the next stage imply the use of spear phishing or similar methods," Kaspersky  said  in a new report. The Russian cybersecurity company, which detected the attacks in October 2022, is tracking the activity cluster under the name "Bad Magic." Attack chains entail the use of booby-trapped URLS pointing to a ZIP archive hosted on a malicious web server. The file, when opened, contains a decoy document and a malicious LNK file that culminates in the deployment of a backdoor named PowerMagic. Written in PowerShell, PowerMagic establishes contact with a remote server and executes arbitrary commands, the results of which are exfiltra

Poorly managed Linux SSH servers are being targeted as part of a new campaign that deploys different variants of a malware called ShellBot. "ShellBot, also known as  PerlBot , is a DDoS Bot malware developed in Perl and characteristically uses IRC protocol to communicate with the C&C server," AhnLab Security Emergency response Center (ASEC)  said  in a report. ShellBot is installed on servers that have weak credentials, but only after threat actors make use of scanner malware to identify systems that have SSH port 22 open. A list of known SSH credentials is used to initiate a dictionary attack to breach the server and deploy the payload, after which it leverages the Internet Relay Chat ( IRC ) protocol to communicate with a remote server. This encompasses the ability to receive commands that allows ShellBot to carry out DDoS attacks and exfiltrate harvested information. ASEC said it identified three different ShellBot versions – LiGhT's Modded perlbot v2, DDoS