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Showing posts with label Cisco Talos. Show all posts
ware
ALPHV Blackcat Ransomware BlackSuit Cisco Talos Cyberhackers CyberThreat DHS ICE Ransomware ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) Royal Ranso ware

BlackSuit Ransomware Capabilities Undermined by Targeted Server Takedown

 


With the help of U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), as well as domestic and international law enforcement agencies, U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations has dismantled the backbone of the BlackSuit ransomware group, a decisive blow taken against transnational cybercrime. 

As a result of the coordinated action taken against the gang, servers, domains, and other digital assets vital to the gang's illicit activities were seized. There is widespread evidence that BlackSuit is the successor to the notorious Royal ransomware. It has been implicated in numerous high-impact attacks on critical sectors such as healthcare and education, public safety organisations, energy infrastructure, and government agencies, which have threatened the availability of essential services and public safety. 

Currently, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is examining allegations that the BlackSuit ransomware group—the successor to the Royal gang—was responsible for compromising 450 organisations across the country and extorting $370 million in ransom payments before its federal authorities took action to take the group down. 

An official at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confirmed today that Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), in collaboration with U.S. and international law enforcement partners, had successfully dismantled the critical infrastructure supporting the organisation's operations, as part of a statement issued by the agency. 

In a coordinated action initiated by the FBI, servers, domains, and digital assets used to deliver ransomware were seized, along with the proceeds that were laundered from the extortion of victims and the deployment of ransomware on victims. This marks a significant disruption of one of the most damaging cybercriminal enterprises in recent memory. 

A multinational law enforcement effort, coordinated by U.S. and Europol officials and spanning nine countries, has struck a significant blow against the BlackSuit ransomware gang, seizing its darknet leak site and disassembling portions of its digital infrastructure, in accordance with a joint announcement on July 24, 2025. A company with roots dating back to the spring of 2023, BlackSuit stands out from the crowd due to the fact that the firm has been able to avoid the common ransomware-as-a-service model, preferring instead to keep full control of the malicious tools and infrastructure instead of licensing them out to affiliates. 

A joint advisory released in 2024 by the FBI and the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) identified this group as a continuation and evolution of the Royal ransomware, which itself was associated with Conti, a notorious Russian-speaking syndicate that disbanded in the year 2022-23. There has been a calculated campaign by the BlackSuit ransomware group against organisations that range in scope from education, government, healthcare, information technology, manufacturing, and retail. 

The group used a double extortion model for extorting victims by stealing data before it was encrypted to maximise their leverage. With respect to Windows and Linux environments, the gang exploited VMware ESXi servers, encrypting files over a wide area within accessible drives, hindering recovery efforts, and issuing ransom notes that direct victims to the Tor network for communication. As part of its operations, the group targeted small and medium-sized businesses, as well as large enterprises.

According to the US authorities, they had demanded at least $500 million in ransom payments by August 2024, ranging from $1 million to $60 million for individual demands. Approximately the same time as the leak site of the Cisco Talos network was seized, cybersecurity researchers from Cisco Talos released an analysis of Chaos ransomware - the first to be observed in early 2025. This ransomware is likely to be a successor to BlackSuit, according to Cisco Talos researchers. 

A string of high-profile ransomware attacks, including those perpetrated by BlackSuit and its predecessor, Royal, caused extensive disruptions as well as financial losses. A crippling attack on the city of Dallas led to heightened law enforcement interest in this group. The attack disrupted emergency services, court operations, and municipal systems in the city. Several U.S. schools, colleges, major corporations, and local governments were the victims of this attack, including Japan's publishing giant Kadokawa and the Tampa Bay Zoo. 

During April 2024, the gang claimed responsibility for an attack on Octapharma, a blood plasma collection company that caused the temporary closure of nearly 200 collection centres across the country, according to the American Hospital Association. In an effort led by Europol to target Royal and BlackSuit, Operation Checkmate was a key component of the effort, which Bitdefender called a milestone in the fight against organised cybercrime by marking the group's dismantling as one of the largest achievements to date. 

Even though the takedown has been described as a “critical blow” to the group’s infrastructure, U.S. Secret Service Special Agent in Charge William Mancino said that the group has re-surfaced under the Chaos ransomware name, displaying striking similarities in the encryption methods, ransom note formatting, and attack tools. However, Cisco Talos analysts reported resurfacing with elements of the gang under the Chaos ransomware name after the operation.

In addition, the Department of Justice announced that $2.4 million in cryptocurrency has been confiscated from an address allegedly linked to a Chaos member known as Hors, who has been implicated in ransomware attacks in Texas and other countries. BlackSuit's servers have been effectively disabled by the operation, effectively stopping it from functioning, according to experts confirmed by the operation. 

There were 184 victims of the group worldwide, including several Germans, whose data was published on a dark web leak site to pressure victims into paying ransoms, which the group claimed to have killed. At the time that this report was written, the site was no longer accessible, instead showing a seizure notice stating that the site had been taken down following an international law enforcement investigation coordinated by the organisation. It has been confirmed by German authorities that the effort was carried out with the support of ICE's Homeland Security Investigations unit as well as Europol, although ICE representatives declined to comment on this matter. 

The seizure of the drugs was reported earlier in the week by officials, but no arrests have yet been confirmed as a result. As of late, BlackSuit has emerged as one of the largest ransomware operations in the United States, having struck major U.S. cities like Dallas and targeting organisations from several industries, including manufacturing, communications, and healthcare. 

Cisco Talos cybersecurity researchers have discovered that after blackSuit's infrastructure was dismantled, it was found that the ransomware group likely rebranded itself as Chaos ransomware after dismantling its infrastructure. Several cases of newly emerging ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) operations have been associated with distinct double-extortion strategies, combining voice-based social engineering to gain access to targets, followed by deploying an encryptor to target both local and remote storage to create maximum impact.

In a report by the Talos security group, the current Chaos ransomware is not related to earlier Chaos variants, and there are rumours that the group adopted the name to create confusion among victims. Several researchers have analysed the operation and assessed it as either a direct rebranding of BlackSuit (formerly Royal ransomware) or as run by former members of the organisation with moderate confidence. 

According to their findings, there are similarities between tactics, techniques, and procedures, from encrypted commands and ransom notes to the use of LOLbins and remote monitoring and management tools. It is believed that BlackSuit's origins can be traced back to the Conti ransomware group, which was fractured in 2022 after its internal communications were leaked. 

After the Russian-speaking syndicate splintered into three factions, the first was Zeon, the second was Black Basta, the third was Quantum, but by 2024, they had adopted the BlackSuit name after rebranding themselves as Royal. Among the most significant developments in the Russian-language ransomware ecosystem is the rise of the INC collective, which has been dubbed the "granddaddy of ransomware" by cybersecurity researcher Boguslavskiy. There is concern that BlackSuit will increase its dependency on INC's infrastructure as a result of INC's growth. 

According to reports, the syndicate has about 40 members and is led by a person who is referred to as "Stern", who has forged extensive alliances, creating a decentralised network with operational ties to groups such as Akira, ALPHV, REvil, and Hive, among others. In terms of Russian-speaking ransomware collectives, LockBit Inc. is presently ranked as the second biggest, only being surpassed by DragonForce. 

There is no doubt that the takedown of BlackSuit marks a decisive moment in the fight against ransomware syndicates as it represents the disruption of a prolific and financially destructive cybercrime operation. Although analysts warn that the seizure of infrastructure, cryptocurrency, and dark web platforms might have been a tangible setback for these groups, they have historically shown they can reorganise, rebrand, and adapt their tactics when they are under pressure from law enforcement. 

It is evident that Chaos ransomware, which employs sophisticated extortion techniques as well as targeted exploitation of both local and remote systems, has demonstrated the persistence of this threat, as well as the adaptability of its operators. Experts point out that the operation's success is a reflection of unprecedented international coordination, which combines investigative expertise, intelligence sharing, and cyber forensics across multiple jurisdictions to achieve unprecedented success. 

In today's world, a collaborative model has become increasingly crucial for dismantling decentralised ransomware networks that span borders, rely on anonymising technologies to avoid detection, and use decentralised methods of evading detection. Cybersecurity researchers note that the BlackSuit case highlights how deeply connected Russian-speaking ransomware groups are, with many of them sharing tools, infrastructure, and operational methods, making them more resilient and also making them easier to trace when global enforcement efforts are aligned. 

There is no doubt that the BlackSuit takedown serves as both a victory and a warning for governments, industries, and cybersecurity professionals alike—demonstrating how effective sustained, multinational countermeasures are, but also demonstrating the importance of maintaining vigilance against the rapid reemergence of threat actors in new identities that can happen any time. 

Despite law enforcement agencies' attempts to track the remnants of BlackSuit through the lens of Chaos ransomware and beyond, the case serves as a reminder that, when it comes to cybercrime, it is quite common for one operation to end, only for another to begin some weeks later.
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Malware Distribution
banking trojan campaign Cisco Talos Cyber Security Cyber Threats Cybersecurity Google Cloud Run Hackers Malware Distribution

Cybercriminals Exploit Google Cloud Run in Extensive Banking Trojan Scheme

 

Security experts have issued a warning about hackers exploiting Google Cloud Run to distribute significant amounts of banking trojans such as Astaroth, Mekotio, and Ousaban.

Google Cloud Run enables users to deploy various services, websites, or applications without the need to manage infrastructure or worry about scaling efforts.

Starting from September 2023, researchers from Cisco Talos observed a notable surge in the misuse of Google's service for spreading malware. Brazilian actors initiated campaigns utilizing MSI installer files to distribute malware payloads. According to the researchers' findings, cybercriminals are increasingly drawn to Google Cloud Run due to its cost efficiency and its ability to circumvent conventional security measures.

The attack methodology typically begins with phishing emails sent to potential victims, disguised to resemble authentic communications such as invoices, financial statements, or messages from local government and tax authorities. While most emails in these campaigns are in Spanish to target Latin American countries, some also use Italian. These emails contain links that redirect to malicious web services hosted on Google Cloud Run.

In certain instances, the malware payload is delivered through MSI files, while in others, the service redirects to a Google Cloud Storage location, housing a ZIP archive containing a malicious MSI file. Upon execution of these malicious files, additional components and payloads are downloaded and executed on the victim's system.

Furthermore, the malware establishes persistence on the victim's system to survive reboots by creating LNK files in the Startup folder, configured to execute a PowerShell command that triggers the infection script.

The campaigns exploiting Google Cloud Run involve three primary banking trojans: Astaroth/Guildma, Mekotio, and Ousaban. Each of these trojans is designed to infiltrate systems covertly, establish persistence, and extract sensitive financial data, which can be utilized for unauthorized access to banking accounts.

Astaroth employs advanced evasion techniques and has expanded its targets beyond Brazil to encompass over 300 financial institutions across 15 Latin American countries. It has recently begun targeting credentials for cryptocurrency exchange services.

Similarly, Mekotio, active for several years, focuses on the Latin American region, specializing in stealing banking credentials, personal information, and executing fraudulent transactions.

Ousaban, another banking trojan, conducts keylogging, captures screenshots, and engages in phishing for banking credentials using counterfeit banking portals. Cisco Talos suggests a potential collaboration between the operators of Astaroth and Ousaban due to the latter being delivered in the later stages of the former's infection chain.

In response to these findings, Google has taken action by removing the malicious links and is exploring ways to enhance its mitigation efforts to combat such malicious activities.
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Threat actors
Cisco Talos Data Stealer malware Malware Capabilties malware versions SapphireStealer Threat actors

SaphhireStealer: New Malware in Town, Possess More Capabilities


A new malware called ‘SapphireStealer’ has been observed by Cisco Talos researchers. The malware came to light in December 2022 in Cisco’s public release, where they witnessed it frequently in public malware repositories, stealing browser credential databases and files containing sensitive user information. 

Researchers observed a rise in sales (and offers for rent) of the new stealer on different underground forums and illicit marketplaces. 

Cisco Talos threat researcher Edmund Brumaghin is certain with his observation that SapphireStealer possesses numerous entities that are modifying its code base, in order to accommodate additional data exfiltration processes, leading to the formation of many variations.

According to Brumaghin, the freshly compiled versions of the malware began "being uploaded to public malware repositories beginning in mid-January 2023, with consistent upload activity being observed through the first half of 2023."

Researchers say that several malware versions are already in use by multiple threat actors, amplifying their efficiency and effectiveness in their operations over time. 

Capabilities of SapphireStealer

Apparently, the malware is designed to steal sensitive information from targeted systems. This information may include host information, screenshots, cached browser credentials and files stored on the system that match a predefined list of file extensions. Also, it is capable of determining the presence of credential databases for browser applications including Chrome, Yandex, Edge and Opera.

On execution, the malware creates a working directory and launches a file grabber that searches the victim's Desktop folder for files with the following file extensions: .txt, .pdf, .doc,.docx, .xml, .img, .jpg, and.png.

Subsequently, the malware compiles all of the logs into a compressed package called log.zip, which it then sends to the attacker over Simple Mail Transfer Protocol "using credentials defined in the portion of code responsible for crafting and sending the message." 

After the logs are successfully exfiltrated, the malware deletes the working directory it had previously created and stops running.

Moreover, the malware operators are said to have released a malware downloader – FUD-Loader – which uses HTTP/HTTPS communications to retrieve more executables from infrastructure under the control of the attacker. It then saves the retrieved content to disk and executes it to continue the infection process.

"In most of the cases where this loader was used, it retrieved the SapphireStealer binary payloads being hosted on the infrastructure described in the next section, allowing us to attribute those samples to the same threat actor," the researchers said.

"One of the byproducts of readily available and open-source malware codebases is that the barrier to entry into financially motivated cybercrime has continued to decrease over time," the researchers added.

The researchers further explained how stealers make it possible for attackers with less operational skill to launch an attack, which may be quite harmful to corporate environments because the data obtained is frequently used for more attacks that are followed.  

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ransomware attacks
Babuk Cisco Talos Cyberattacks CyberCriminal Cyberfrauds Cybersecurity malware RA Ransomware ransomware attacks

Babuk is Customized by RA Ransomware Group


 

It has recently been discovered that an actor called the RA Group uses leaked Babuk source code in its attacks. The wrath of the same jas been faced by the companies in the United States and South Korea. Manufacturing, wealth management, insurance providers, and pharmaceuticals are among the compromised industries. 

Cybercriminal gang Babuk continues to cause havoc with the leaked source code it uses to launch cyberattacks against its targets. 

RA Group has been expanding its operations at the rate of 200 stores per month since April 22 as a result of an evaluation conducted by Cisco Talos this week. Several companies have been targeted in the US and South Korea by this threat, particularly in manufacturing, wealth management, insurance coverage, and pharmaceuticals. There have already been a few RA victims since it became prevalent in April. 

Four Companies Have Been Attacked by RA Ransomware

As per Cisco Talos’s research, “RA Group started leaking data on April 22, 2023, and we observed the first batch of victims on April 27, followed by the second batch on April 28, and we noticed more victims on April 29, 2023."

It is imperative to draw your attention to the fact that Babuk ransomware's complete source code was leaked online in September 2021. As a result of its success, several new threat actors have created ransomware by leveraging it to do business with them. Over the past year, 10 different ransomware families have gone down that route - a particular example would be a group of individuals who used it for developing lockers that were designed to work with VMware ESXi hypervisors. 

In addition, there have been others who have modified the code in other ways, using the fact that it is designed to exploit several known vulnerabilities to do so. As an example of this, there are vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange, Struts, WordPress, Atlassian Confluence, Oracle WebLogic Server, SolarWinds Orion, Liferay, and other popular web applications. 

In light of the news, it is important to remember that the report from SentinelLabs published last week revealed that there was growing evidence of ransomware groups still targeting ESXi hypervisors and that the disclosure of Babuk source code in September 2021 offered a unique insight into the development operations of a ransomware group that had previously been unavailable to threat actors. 

As part of the monitoring system, victims are also reported on a dark web blog to encourage data leakage on their behalf.

A ransom note published in the report indicates that the gang is ruthless and sells the data after three days, and in that letter, they state that "Your data is encrypted when you read this letter." In addition to copying your data onto our server, you should feel comfortable knowing that no information about you is going to be compromised or made public unless you want it to be, the note stated. Most criminals give victims weeks or months to pay up. 

The Cisco Talos team of security experts on May 15 compiled a timeline of attacks using ransomware families that were derived from the leaked Babuk source code, conducted by different actors. 

Several custom malicious code families have evolved out of the ransomware, discovered in the Babuk data breach. This is according to Timothy Morris, Chief Security Advisor at Tanium. Several software vulnerabilities are exploited by the attacker, including Exchange, Struts, WordPress, Atlassian Confluence, Oracle WebLogic Server, SolarWinds Orion, and Liferay, as well as interfering with backups and deleting volume shadow copies. Morris claims this exploit was discovered last year. 

According to RA Group’s ransom note, victims have only three days left to settle the debt; accordingly, it is using a standard double-extortion model that threatens to leak exfiltrated data if they do not pay up; however, according to the ransom note, victims have just three days remaining to settle their debt. 

Several details in the leak site divulge the identity of the victim, the name of the organization from which the data was obtained, the total size of the data downloaded, and even the official URL of the victim. As Cisco Talos has explained in its analysis of the ransomware group, this is a typical leak site among other ransomware groups of the same type. Nevertheless, RA Group is actively selling the victims' exfiltrated data through their leak site which is hosted on a secured Tor site used for selling the victims' leaked data.   

Several details are disclosed at the leak site, such as the identity of the victim, the name of the organization that provided the data, the size of the data downloaded, and even the official URL of the victim, all of which reveal the identity of the victim. Cisco Talos has explained in its analysis of this ransomware group that this is essentially a typical leak site. This is similar to those used by other ransomware groups. Despite this, the RA Group is currently selling the exfiltrated data of the victims through a leak site. This is hosted on a secure Tor site and has been used to sell the exfiltrated data of the victims.
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Malware dropper
Cisco Cisco Talos Job Scam Malicious actor malware Malware dropper

Cobalt Strike Beacon Using Job Lures to Deploy Malware

Cisco Talos researchers have detected a new malware campaign that is using job lures to deploy malware. The threat actors are weaponizing a year-old remote code execution flaw in Microsoft Office, infecting victims with leaked versions of Cobalt Strike beacons. 

According to the researchers, the attacks were discovered in August 2022. It begins with phishing emails regarding the U.S. Government's job details or a New Zealand trade union. The emails comprise of a multistage and modular infection chain with fileless, malicious scripts. 

On opening the attached malicious Word file, the victim was infected with an exploit for CVE-2017-0199, a remote code execution vulnerability in MS Office, that allows the threat actor to control the infected systems. As a result, the attacker deploys a chain of attack scripts that leads up to the Cobalt Strike beacon installation. 

"The payload discovered is a leaked version of a Cobalt Strike beacon[...]The beacon configuration contains commands to perform targeted process injection of arbitrary binaries and has a high reputation domain configured, exhibiting the redirection technique to masquerade the beacon's traffic" states Cisco Talos researchers Chetan Raghuprasad and Vanja Svajcer in a new analysis published on Wednesday. 

In addition to discovering the Cobalt Strike beacon as the payload in this campaign, the researchers have also observed the usage of the Redline information-stealer and Amadey botnet executables as the payloads. 

The Modus Operandi has been called “highly modularized” by the experts, the attack stands out for it leverages Bitbucket repositories to deploy malicious content that serves as a kickoff for downloading a Window executable, responsible for the installation of Cobalt Strike DLL beacon, says the Cybersecurity researchers. 

"This campaign is a typical example of a threat actor using the technique of generating and executing malicious scripts in the victim's system memory[...]Organizations should be constantly vigilant on the Cobalt Strike beacons and implement layered defense capabilities to thwart the attacker's attempts in the earlier stage of the attack's infection chain." states the researchers. 

Considering the growing phishing and malware attacks, the Cisco Talos team suggested users protect themselves with measures, such as updating their software and not opening any attachments in unsolicited messages. Besides, the team also suggests that administrators monitor their network security. 
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Trend Micro
Alibaba Amazon Web Services AWS Cisco Talos Crypto Mining Cyber Security Kubernetes Linux TeamTNT Trend Micro

AWS, and Alibaba Cloud was Attacked by Crypto Miners

 

An intel source recently provided Cisco Talos with modified versions of the TeamTNT cybercrime team's infected shell scripts, an earlier version of which was documented by Trend Micro. The malware creator modified these tools after learning that security experts had disclosed the prior version of its scripts. These scripts are intended primarily for Amazon Web Services (AWS), but they might also be used on-premise, in containers, or in other Linux instances. 

There are multiple TeamTNT payloads focusing on bitcoin mining, persistence, and lateral movement employing tactics like identifying and installing on with all Kubernetes pods in a local network, in addition to the primary credential stealer scripts. A script containing user credentials for the distribution system server and another with an API key which may allow remote access to a tmate shared login session is also included. Defense evasion functions aimed at defeating Alibaba cloud security technologies are included in some TeamTNT scripts.

When it comes to decision making obtaining credentials, the script looks for them in the following places and APIs: 

  • It attempts to obtain the string 'AWS' from /proc/*/environ from the Linux system environment variables. 
  • Obtaining the string 'AWS' from Docker environment variables with the command $(docker inspect $) (docker ps -q).
  • /home/.aws/credentials and /root/.aws/credentials are the default AWS CLI credential file locations.
While the query itself will not be caught by Cisco Secure Cloud Analytics, the alert "AWS Temporary Token Persistence" will detect later use of these credentials to generate further temporary credentials. Finally, the virus saves any credentials acquired by the preceding functions to the file "/var/tmp/TeamTNT AWS STEALER.txt" and uses cURL to transfer it to the URL http://chimaera[.]cc/in/AWS.php before deleting it. 

No CloudTrail, GuardDuty, or SCA events were generated when the script ran on the target EC2 instance for all network traffic was restricted by the VPC Security Group such as the script could not access TeamTNT's servers. 

The core of the defense impairment functions is directed against Alibaba Cloud Security's numerous agents, how, they also target Tencent Cloud Monitor and third-party BMC Helix Cloud Security, agents. While the bulk of malicious scripts targets AWS Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) virtual machines, these bots are most typically detected running inside Alibaba Cloud Elastic Compute Service (ECS) or a Tencent Cloud VM. They could theoretically be put on a VM operating on AWS or any other service, but it would be unusual. TeamTNT makes no attempt to disable AWS CloudWatch, Microsoft Defender, Google Cloud Monitor, Cisco Secure Cloud Analytics, CrowdStrike Falcon, Palo Alto Prisma Cloud, or other popular cloud security tools in the United States. 

The Alibaba defense damage routines have been retrieved and saved here from the script Kubernetes root payload 2.sh. Since static analysis of the defense impairment functions is problematic due to the presence of multiple Base64 encoded strings, those functions have been decrypted and placed back into the file ali-defense-impairment-base64-decoded.sh.txt. 

"Cybercriminals who have been exposed by security researchers should update those tools to keep functioning successfully," stated Darin Smith of Talos. 

The serious remote code execution problem in Spring Framework (CVE-2022-22965) has been leveraged to deploy cryptocurrency miners, in yet another example of how threat actors quickly co-opt recently revealed flaws into existing attacks. To deploy the cryptocurrency miners, the exploitation efforts employ a unique web shell, but not before switching off the firewall and disabling other virtual currency miner processes.
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PowerShell
APT attacks Cisco Talos Cyber Attacks DLL load hijacking Iranian hackers MuddyWater PowerShell

 Iran's MuddyWater Hacker Group is Exploiting New Malware

 

According to a notice issued by US security and law enforcement authorities, Iran-linked cyber activities are targeting a variety of government and private organizations in several areas across Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America.

"MuddyWater actors are poised to deliver stolen data and access to the Iranian government, as well as to share them with other cybercriminal actors," the agencies stated. The FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the U.S. Cyber Command Cyber National Mission Force (CNMF), and the National Cyber Security Centre of the United Kingdom have issued a combined advisory (NCSC) in the regard.

This year, the cyber-espionage actor was revealed to be working for Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), conducting malicious operations against a wide range of state and private organisations in Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America, including telecommunications, defence, local government, and the oil and natural gas sectors. 

MuddyWater is also known by the aliases Earth Vetala, MERCURY, Static Kitten, Seedworm, and TEMP. Aside from publicly disclosed vulnerabilities, the hacker group has already been seen using open-source tools to get access to sensitive information, deliver ransomware, and maintain resilience on victim networks. 

Late last month, Cisco Talos conducted a follow-up analysis and discovered a previously unknown malware campaign focused on Turkish private and governmental entities with the purpose of delivering a PowerShell-based backdoor. In harmful operations, MuddyWater actors use new variations of PowGoop malware as its main loader, which consists of a DLL loader and an Operating system downloader. The malicious programme poses as a valid Google Update executable file and is signed as such. 

A surveying script to identify and send data about target PCs back to the remote C2 server rounds out MuddyWater's arsenal of weapons. A newly discovered PowerShell backdoor was also installed, which is used to perform actions obtained from the attacker. 

The agencies advise enterprises to utilise multi-factor authentication whenever possible, limit the usage of administrator credentials, deploy phishing defences, and prioritise correcting known exploited vulnerabilities to provide barriers against potential attacks.
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Yahoo
Amazon BEC frauds Cisco Talos Cyber Attacks Yahoo

BEC Attacks have Stolen $1.8 Billion from Businesses

 

Business email compromise (BEC) attacks increased drastically in 2020, with more than $1.8 billion stolen from businesses in just one year. BEC attacks are carried out by hackers who impersonate someone inside a company or pose as a partner or vendor in order to defraud the company. 

The tactics of some of the most dangerous BEC attacks observed in the wild in 2020 were examined in a new report from Cisco's Talos Intelligence, which reminded the security community that smart users armed with a healthy skepticism of outside communications and the right questions to ask are the best line of defense, in addition to technology. 

According to the FBI, BEC assaults are getting more dangerous. They discovered a 136 % increase in the number of successful BEC attacks (reported) around the world between December 2016 and May 2018. Between October 2013 and May 2018, it is estimated that Business Email Compromise cost businesses over $12 billion. Analysts predict that these attacks will grow more regular and that the financial costs connected with them will continue to rise. 

The report stated, “The reality is, these types of emails and requests happen legitimately all over the world every day, which is what makes this such a challenge to stop.” It's tempting to get hooked up on huge global corporations' high-profile data breaches. The genuine revenue, however, is made via smaller BEC attacks, according to the report. 

“Although a lot of attention gets paid to more destructive and aggressive threats like big-game hunting, it’s BEC that generates astronomical revenue without much of the law-enforcement attention these other groups have to contend with,” the report explained. “If anything, the likelihood of this has only increased in the pandemic, with people relying more and more on digital communication." 

According to Cisco Talos, gift card lures are by far the most popular in BEC assaults. Most of the time, these emails will appear to be from someone prominent within the organization and will come from a free provider like Gmail, Yahoo, or Outlook. The solicitations will frequently include a sad narrative of hardship and will attempt to persuade the victim to purchase an Amazon, Google Play, iTunes, PlayStation, or other common types of gift card. 

“The amount of and types of businesses that get targeted with these attacks is truly staggering, ranging from huge multinational corporations down to small mom-and-pop restaurants in U.S. cities,” Talos said. “We found examples of small restaurants that are being targeted by impersonating the owners since the information was available on their website.”
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malware
Cisco Talos Discord Hackers malware

Slack and Discord are Being Hijacked by Hackers to Distribute Malware

 

A few famous online collaboration tools, including the likes of Slack and Discord, are being hijacked by hackers to disperse malware, experts have cautioned.

Cisco's security division, Talos, published new research on Wednesday featuring how, throughout the span of the Covid-19 pandemic, collaboration tools like Slack and, considerably more generally, Discord have become convenient mechanisms for cybercriminals. With developing frequency, they're being utilized to serve up malware to victims in the form of a link that looks reliable. In different cases, hackers have integrated Discord into their malware to remotely control their code running on tainted machines, and even to steal information from victims. 

Cisco's researchers caution that none of the methods they found really exploits a clear hackable vulnerability in Slack or Discord, or even requires Slack or Discord to be installed on the victims' machine. All things considered, they essentially exploit some little-analyzed features of those collaboration platforms, alongside their ubiquity and the trust that both clients and systems administrators have come to place in them. 

"People are way more likely to do things like click a Discord link than they would have been in the past, because they’re used to seeing their friends and colleagues posting files to Discord and sending them a link," says Cisco Talos security researcher Nick Biasini. "Everybody’s using collaboration apps, everybody has some familiarity with them, and bad guys have noticed that they can abuse them." 

With regards to information exfiltration, the Discord API, for instance, has demonstrated to be quite an effective tool. As the webhook functionality (originally intended to send automated alerts) was intended to have the option to convey any kind of information, and malware oftentimes uses it to ensure stolen information arrives at its intended destination. 

“Webhooks are essentially a URL that a client can send a message to, which in turn posts that message to the specified channel — all without using the actual Discord application,” the researchers say. “The Discord domain helps attackers disguise the exfiltration of data by making it look like any other traffic coming across the network.”

As texting applications grow in popularity, the threats will develop with them. Organizations should know about the dangers, and cautiously pick which platform to utilize, the researchers concluded.
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Trojan
Cisco Talos Credential stealing Cyber Crime Masslogger Trojan

Masslogger Campaigns Exfiltrates Clients Credentials

 

Assailants are continually reinventing approaches to monetize their tools. Cisco Talos as of late found an intriguing campaign affecting Windows systems and focusing on clients in Turkey, Latvia, and Italy, albeit similar campaigns by the same actor have likewise been focusing on clients in Bulgaria, Lithuania, Hungary, Estonia, Romania, and Spain in September, October and November 2020. The threat actor utilizes a multi-modular approach that begins with the underlying phishing email and carries through to the final payload. The adversaries behind this campaign likely do this to evade detection. However, it can likewise be a shortcoming, as there are a lot of chances for defenders to break the kill chain. 

Conveyed through phishing emails, the Masslogger trojan's most recent variation is contained inside a multi-volume RAR archive using the .chm file format and .r00 extensions, said Switchzilla's security research arm. Cisco Talos added: “Masslogger is a credential stealer and keylogger with the ability to exfiltrate data through SMTP, FTP or HTTP protocols. For the first two, no additional server-side components are required, while the exfiltration over HTTP is done through the Masslogger control panel web application.” 

CHM is an arranged HTML file that contains an embedded HTML file with JavaScript code to start the active infection process. Each phase of the infection is obfuscated to avoid detection using simple signatures. The subsequent stage is a PowerShell script that eventually deobfuscates into a downloader and downloads and loads the main PowerShell loader. The Masslogger loaders appear to be facilitated on undermined authentic hosts with a filename containing one letter and one number linked with the filename extension .jpg. For instance, "D9.jpg". 

Masslogger is not an entirely new creation of the malware industry: Talos highlighted research by infosec chap Fred HK. He ascribed it to a malware underground persona who goes by the handle of NYANxCAT. Costs for Masslogger were apparently $30 for three months or $50 for a lifetime license. Cisco's analysis showed that Masslogger “is almost entirely executed and present only in memory” with just the email attachment and the HTML help file.
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SoftMaker Office
Application Vulnerability Cisco Talos malware SoftMaker Office

Cisco Talos Researchers Discovered Multiple Susceptibilities in SoftMaker Office TextMaker

 

Cisco Talos researchers exposed multiple vulnerabilities in SoftMaker Office TextMaker that can be exploited by cyber attackers. These vulnerabilities in SoftMaker office can be exploited for arbitrary code execution by generating malicious documents and deceiving victims into opening them. 

SoftMaker Office TextMaker is a German-based software developer; it has various suites like a spreadsheet, word processing, presentation, and database software components, and all these well-liked software suites are presented to individuals and enterprises. The common and internal document file formats also acquire the support of the SoftMaker office suite. 

The foremost issue is a sign extension bug, CVE-2020-13544 which influences the document-analyzing functionality of SoftMaker Office TextMaker 2021 and the subsequent vulnerability has been traced as CVE-2020-13545 which is a sign altering flaw in the same document-analyzing of the application. 

Cisco Talos researchers illustrated that “a specially crafted document can cause the document parser to sign-extend a length used to terminate a loop, which can later result in the loop’s index being used to write outside the bounds of a heap buffer during the reading of file data”. A heap-based memory can be corrupted by an attacker who can adeptly design a document which can lead to the document analyzer. 

The document analyzer can misjudge the length while assigning a buffer which will lead the application to be written outside the bounds of the buffer. Traced as CVE-2020-13546, the flaw is detected to affect the SoftMaker Office 2021 by integer overflow susceptibility. 

SoftMaker office 2021 was evaluated with a Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) of 8.8 and now all three vulnerabilities are secured. The most threatening issue was that the attacker can exploit the loophole in the SoftMaker office in 2021 from any remote location.
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