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The advanced persistent threat (APT) actor known as SideWinder has been accused of deploying a backdoor in attacks directed against Pakistan government organizations as part of a campaign that commenced in late November 2022. "In this campaign, the SideWinder advanced persistent threat (APT) group used a server-based polymorphism technique to deliver the next stage payload," the BlackBerry Research and Intelligence Team  said  in a technical report published Monday. Another campaign discovered by the Canadian cybersecurity company in early March 2023 shows that Turkey has also landed in the crosshairs of the threat actor's collection priorities. SideWinder  has been on the radar since at least 2012 and it's primarily known to target various Southeast Asian entities located across Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bhutan, China, Myanmar, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. Suspected to be an Indian state-sponsored group, SideWinder is also tracked under the monikers APT-C-17, APT-Q-39, Ha

Iranian nation-state groups have now joined financially motivated actors in actively exploiting a critical flaw in PaperCut print management software, Microsoft disclosed over the weekend. The tech giant's threat intelligence team said it observed both Mango Sandstorm (Mercury) and Mint Sandstorm (Phosphorus) weaponizing CVE-2023-27350 in their operations to achieve initial access. "This activity shows Mint Sandstorm's continued ability to  rapidly incorporate [proof-of-concept] exploits  into their operations," Microsoft  said  in a series of tweets. On the other hand, CVE-2023-27350 exploitation activity associated with Mango Sandstorm is said to be on the lower end of the spectrum, with the state-sponsored group "using tools from prior intrusions to connect to their C2 infrastructure." It's worth noting that  Mango Sandstorm  is linked to Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) and  Mint Sandstorm  is associated with the Islamic

It comes as no surprise that today's cyber threats are orders of magnitude more complex than those of the past. And the ever-evolving tactics that attackers use demand the adoption of better, more holistic and consolidated ways to meet this non-stop challenge. Security teams constantly look for ways to reduce risk while improving security posture, but many approaches offer piecemeal solutions – zeroing in on one particular element of the evolving threat landscape challenge – missing the forest for the trees.  In the last few years, Exposure Management has become known as a comprehensive way of reigning in the chaos, giving organizations a true fighting chance to reduce risk and improve posture. In this article I'll cover what Exposure Management is, how it stacks up against some alternative approaches and why building an Exposure Management program should be on  your 2024 to-do list. What is Exposure Management?  Exposure Management is the systematic identification, evaluation,

Cybersecurity researchers have shed light on a new ransomware strain called CACTUS that has been found to leverage known flaws in VPN appliances to obtain initial access to targeted networks. "Once inside the network, CACTUS actors attempt to enumerate local and network user accounts in addition to reachable endpoints before creating new user accounts and leveraging custom scripts to automate the deployment and detonation of the ransomware encryptor via scheduled tasks," Kroll said in a report shared with The Hacker News. The ransomware has been observed targeting large commercial entities since March 2023, with attacks employing double extortion tactics to steal sensitive data prior to encryption. No data leak site has been identified to date. Following a successful exploitation of vulnerable VPN devices, an SSH backdoor is set up to maintain persistent access and a series of PowerShell commands are executed to conduct network scanning and identify a list of machines fo

Are you concerned about ransomware attacks? You're not alone. In recent years, these attacks have become increasingly common and can cause significant damage to organizations of all sizes. But there's good news - with the right security measures in place, such as real-time MFA and service account protection, you can effectively protect yourself against these types of attacks. That's why we're excited to invite you to our upcoming webinar with Yiftach Keshet, cybersecurity expert and Chief Marketing Officer at Silverfort. During this webinar, Yiftach will share his insights on how real-time MFA and service account protection can defeat ransomware attacks, and why identity-focused protection is the only way to stop lateral movement and ransomware spread. Some of the key topics that will be covered in this webinar include: The increasing risk of lateral movement and how it's become one of the most critical risks facing organizations today. The blind spots in MFA

The threat actors behind the ransomware attack on Taiwanese PC maker MSI last month have leaked the company's private code signing keys on their dark website. "Confirmed, Intel OEM private key leaked, causing an impact on the entire ecosystem," Alex Matrosov, founder and CEO of firmware security firm Binarly,  said  in a tweet over the weekend. "It appears that Intel Boot Guard may not be effective on certain devices based on the 11th Tiger Lake, 12th Adler Lake, and 13th Raptor Lake." Present in the leaked data are firmware image signing keys associated with 57 PCs and private signing keys for Intel Boot Guard used on 116 MSI products. The Boot Guard keys from MSI are believed to impact several device vendors, including Intel, Lenovo and Supermicro. Intel Boot Guard is a  hardware-based security technology  that's designed to protect computers against executing tampered UEFI firmware. The development comes a month after MSI  fell victim  to a double

Digital storage giant Western Digital confirmed that an "unauthorized third party" gained access to its systems and stole personal information belonging to the company's online store customers. "This information included customer names, billing and shipping addresses, email addresses and telephone numbers," the San Jose-based company  said  in a disclosure last week. "In addition, the database contained, in encrypted format, hashed and salted passwords and partial credit card numbers. We will communicate directly with impacted customers." The development comes a little over a month after Western Digital  divulged  a "network security incident" on March 26, 2023, prompting the company to take its cloud services offline. A subsequent report from TechCrunch last month  revealed  that the threat actors behind the attack were allegedly in possession of "around 10 terabytes of data" and were negotiating with Western Digital for a ra

The suspected Pakistan-aligned threat actor known as  SideCopy  has been observed leveraging themes related to the Indian military research organization as part of an ongoing phishing campaign. This involves using a ZIP archive lure pertaining to India's Defence Research and Development Organization ( DRDO ) to deliver a malicious payload capable of harvesting sensitive information, Fortinet FortiGuard Labs  said  in a new report. The cyber espionage group, with  activity  dating back to at least 2019, targets entities that align with Pakistan government interests. It's believed to share overlaps with another Pakistani hacking crew called  Transparent Tribe . SideCopy's use of DRDO-related decoys for malware distribution was previously flagged by  Cyble  and Chinese cybersecurity firm  QiAnXin  in March 2023, and again by  Team Cymru  last month. Interestingly, the same attack chains have been observed to load and execute Action RAT as well as an open source remote ac

Threat hunting is an essential component of your cybersecurity strategy. Whether you're getting started or in an advanced state, this article will help you ramp up your threat intelligence program. What is Threat Hunting? The cybersecurity industry is shifting from a reactive to a proactive approach. Instead of waiting for cybersecurity alerts and then addressing them, security organizations are now deploying red teams to actively seek out breaches, threats and risks, so they can be isolated. This is also known as "threat hunting."  Why is Threat Hunting Required? Threat hunting complements existing prevention and detection security controls. These controls are essential for mitigating threats. However, they are optimized for low false positive alerting. Hunt solutions, on the other hand, are optimized for low false negatives. This means that the anomalies and outliers that are considered false positives for detection solutions, are hunting solutions' leads, to b

An ongoing phishing campaign with invoice-themed lures is being used to distribute the SmokeLoader malware in the form of a polyglot file, according to the Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA). The emails, per the  agency , are sent using compromised accounts and come with a ZIP archive that, in reality, is a  polyglot file  containing a decoy document and a JavaScript file. The JavaScript code is then used to launch an executable that paves for the execution of the  SmokeLoader malware . SmokeLoader, first detected in 2011, is a  loader  whose main objective is to download or load a stealthier or more effective malware onto infected systems. CERT-UA attributed the activity to a threat actor it calls UAC-0006 and characterized it as a financially motivated operation carried out with the goal of stealing credentials and making unauthorized fund transfers. In a related advisory, Ukraine's cybersecurity authority also revealed details of destructive attacks orch