Cyware Weekly Cyber Threat Intelligence April 16 - 20, 2018

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Weekly Threat Briefing • April 20, 2018

The Good

Government agencies and cybersecurity companies made strides this week towards addressing cyber threats. The US Energy Department is looking to fund research towards bolstering the country’s critical infrastructure against cyberthreats. Over 30 companies pledged to not help governments launch cyberattacks. Experts have also developed an algorithm to detect fake users on social media while IBM launched an open-source library to secure AI systems.

  • The US Department of Energy announced $25 million in grants for projects that can strengthen the cyberdefenses of the nation’s critical energy infrastructure, including its power grid, oil, and natural gas industry. The announcement comes just weeks after cyberattacks crippled electronic communications systems for several US pipeline companies.

  • Facebook, Microsoft, Oracle and 31 other technology companies signed the Cybersecurity Tech Accord this week pledging to defend all customers and products from cyberattacks. They also took a “no offense” commitment to not help governments launch cyberattacks and protect their services against tampering and exploitation at every stage, from development to distribution.

  • Researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and the University of Washington have developed a new algorithm to detect fake users on social media platforms, including Facebook and Twitter, based on the assumption that fake accounts typically establish unlikely links to other users. The algorithm features two machine learning-based iterations - one to estimate the probability of a link existing between two users and the second to generate meta-features used to construct a generic classifier to detect fake profiles.

  • At the RSA Conference in San Francisco, IBM unveiled the Adversarial Robustness Toolbox - an open-source security library designed to help support developers and users fight against cyberattacks that target AI systems. Featuring a library, interfaces, and metrics, the toolbox will help developers create and deploy practical cybersecurity defense systems for the AI sector.

The Bad

This week saw another slew of data breaches. TrueMove H leaked customer data via an exposed AWS S3 bucket. Texas Health Resources said an unauthorized party accessed patient data following an email compromise. The US and UK accused Russia of ramping up cyberattacks on American and British companies and government agencies. TaskRabbit temporarily took down its website following a “cybersecurity incident”.

  • TrueMove H, one of Thailand’s biggest mobile operators, suffered a data leak compromising the data of at least 11,400 customers. Customers’ personal data, which included scanned images of ID cards, was exposed in an unprotected Amazon Web Services S3 cloud storage bucket. The company said the leak was fixed on April 12, but the incident has already triggered scrutiny and backlash from regulators and customers.

  • Texas Health Resources disclosed that an unauthorized third party may have accessed patient data back in October 2017 after compromising some of the organization’s email accounts. Compromised data included patient names, addresses, medical record numbers, dates of birth, insurance and clinical data. The firm reportedly said less than 4000 patients were impacted.

  • The US Department of Homeland Security, Federal Bureau of Investigation and the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre issued a rare joint statement accusing Russian state-sponsored hackers of penetrating network infrastructure devices such as routers within government, private companies, critical infrastructure, and ISPs. The agencies accused Russia of using compromised routers to conduct espionage, extract intellectual property and maintain persistence to possibly conduct larger offensive attacks in the future. The Kremlin has dismissed the allegations as “unsubstantiated” and of “no value.”

  • Handyman-for-hire app, TaskRabbit revealed it suffered an apparent data breach saying an “unauthorized user” managed to gain access to its systems and compromised certain personally identifiable information. The company briefly took down its website and app to safeguard its users. Users have been advised to change their passwords and monitor their accounts for any suspicious activity.

  • Localbox, a little-known data firm that builds personal profiles by scraping data from public sites and social media networks like Facebook, Twitter and Zillow without users knowledge or consent, accidentally leaked a trove of personal data. UpGuard’s Chris Vickery found the firm left a cache of profile data on an unprotected Amazon S3 storage bucket that listed 48 million individual records.

New Threats

Researchers uncovered new strains of malware including the Roaming Mantis that leverages DNS hijacking to infect Android smartphones. The ViperRat malware and Desert Scorpion spyware were found lurking on Google Play Store. A Nigerian BEC group has been targeting the shipping industry via email compromise and phishing techniques.

  • Kaspersky Labs researchers found a new strain of malware dubbed the Roaming Mantis. Hackers distribute the malware by hijacking DNS settings on vulnerable routers to redirect users to malicious websites. While it is still not clear how hackers managed to gain access to exposed home routers, the crooks were able to hijack traffic from 150 unique IP addresses and redirect users to malicious sites about 6,000 times between February 9 and April 9.
  • Security firm Lookout found new samples of the ViperRAT malware lurking on the Google Play Store again.Two ViperRAT-infected apps - VokaChat and Chattak - had been downloaded over 1000 times before they were detected by Lookout and removed by Google. The new malware samples appeared to be updated with chat functionality enabled within the apps to evade detection and suspicion.
  • Lookout researchers also uncovered the Desert Scorpion spyware packaged in mobile messaging apps on the Google Play Store. Believed to have been developed by surveillance actor APT-C-23, it targeted individuals of interest in the Middle East, particularly in Palestine. A chat app called Dardesh was used to download the first stage of the malware before tricking users into downloading the more sophisticated surveillance-focused second stage.
  • Dell SecureWorks Counter Threat Unit detailed a new Nigeria-linked BEC group called Gold Galleon that has been plundering the global maritime shipping industry. Using publicly available business email addresses, low-tier RAT tools and spear-phishing techniques, the group has attempted to steal at least $3.9 million between June 2017 and January 2018.
  • Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42 identified a new malware called SquirtDanger that appears to have been developed by veteran Russian malware author “TheBottle”. Written in C#, the malware comes with various capabilities including the ability to take screenshots, list and kill processes, access and delete files, and even steal wallets or swap existing ones with one belonging to the attackers.

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May 2, 2025

Cyware Weekly Threat Intelligence, April 28–May 02, 2025

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Cyware Weekly Threat Intelligence, April 21–25, 2025

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Cyware Weekly Threat Intelligence, April 14–18, 2025

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Cyware Weekly Threat Intelligence, April 07–11, 2025

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Apr 4, 2025

Cyware Weekly Threat Intelligence, March 31–April 04, 2025

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Mar 28, 2025

Cyware Weekly Threat Intelligence, March 24–28, 2025

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Mar 21, 2025

Cyware Weekly Threat Intelligence, March 17–21, 2025

The race to outpace quantum threats is officially on. The NCSC has issued guidance to help organizations transition to post-quantum cryptography by 2035, with a focus on NIST-approved algorithms and planned support for critical sectors. A nationwide fraud crackdown ends with hundreds behind bars. Operation Henhouse led to 422 arrests and the seizure of millions in assets, as U.K. police target the country’s most widespread and costly crime - fraud. A threat actor briefly exposed their entire playbook. Researchers found a public server hosting tools tied to a campaign targeting South Korea, including a Rust-compiled payload delivering Cobalt Strike Cat and a list of over 1,000 potential targets. Phishing messages on Signal are leading to full system compromise. CERT-UA warns of DarkCrystal RAT attacks targeting Ukraine’s defense sector, using fake contacts and malicious files to trick victims into executing spyware. Ransomware slipped into VSCode under the radar. Two malicious extensions were discovered on the VSCode Marketplace, bypassing checks to deliver test-stage ransomware demanding ShibaCoin for decryption. Fake ads are being weaponized to steal Google credentials. A campaign targeting Semrush users is redirecting victims to spoofed login pages, where attackers harvest Google account logins through a fake “Log in with Google” prompt. A fake browser update could cost you more than a few clicks. A new ClearFake campaign is using fake reCAPTCHA and Turnstile pages to deliver malware like Lumma and Vidar Stealer, with payloads fetched through Binance’s Smart Chain. Hackers are quietly poisoning AI-generated code. A new supply chain attack targets AI editors like Copilot and Cursor, exploiting rules files to inject malicious prompts that trick the tools into writing compromised code.

Mar 14, 2025

Cyware Weekly Threat Intelligence, March 10–14, 2025

A Russian hosting provider is feeling the heat from global sanctions. Australia, the U.K., and the U.S. have sanctioned Zservers, a bulletproof hosting provider linked to ransomware and fraud, freezing its assets and restricting operations. Switzerland is tightening its grip on cyber incident reporting. Starting April 1, critical infrastructure operatorsmust report cyberattacks to the NCSC within 24 hours, reinforcing national cybersecurity defenses. Cybercriminals are upgrading their toolkit for long-term access. Ragnar Loader is being leveraged by ransomware groups like FIN7, FIN8, and Ragnar Locker, evolving into a stealthier and more modular malware for persistent system compromise. Chinese hackers are slipping past defenses in Juniper routers. The UNC3886 threat group is backdooring older Juniper MX routers, bypassing security protections and embedding custom TinyShell malware to maintain access. North Korean hackers are adding ransomware to their arsenal. Moonstone Sleet (Storm-1789) is deploying Qilin ransomware, using fake companies and trojanized tools to infiltrate targets through LinkedIn and freelance platforms. A botnet is turning home routers into attack platforms. The Ballista botnet is exploiting an unpatched TP-Link Archer router flaw (CVE-2023-1389) to spread stealthily, using Tor domains and remote command execution to launch DDoS attacks worldwide. Copy, paste, and lose your crypto. MassJacker hijacks clipboard transactions, swapping wallet addresses with attacker-controlled ones, stealing funds from victims who unknowingly send money to the wrong destination. A fake CAPTCHA is all it takes to get root access. The OBSCURE#BAT campaign is using social engineering tactics to install the r77 rootkit, bypassing defenses and targeting English-speaking users with stealthy, persistent malware.

Mar 7, 2025

Cyware Weekly Threat Intelligence, March 03–07, 2025

The code caves of GitHub just got a cleanup crew courtesy of Microsoft. A sprawling malvertising campaign that snagged nearly a million devices worldwide has been knocked down a peg. Cheap Android gadgets are getting a breather from a relentless digital pest. The BadBox 2.0 botnet, a souped-up sequel backed by multiple threat crews, saw 24 shady apps booted from Google Play and half a million infected devices cut off from their puppet masters, thanks to some crafty sinkholing and Google’s cleanup sweep. A sneaky gatecrasher has turned WordPress into a redirect rollercoaster. A malicious JavaScript injection lurking in a theme file has snagged at least 31 sites, pulling visitors through a two-step detour to shady third-party domains. Japan’s digital defenses are under siege from a shadowy crew with a taste for chaos. Since January, unknown threat actors have been prying open organizations in tech, telecom, entertainment, and more, exploiting CVE-2024-4577 in PHP-CGI on Windows. Crooks posing as the Electronic Frontier Foundation are targeting Albion Online players with phishing emails and fake PDFs, claiming account trouble. It’s a ruse to drop Stealc malware and Pyramid C2. A fresh face in the cybercrime underworld is juggling a bag of nasty surprises. EncryptHub is hitting users of QQ Talk, WeChat, Google Meet, and more with trojanized apps and slick multi-stage attacks. The Eleven11bot botnet, loosely tied to Iran, has taken over 86,000 IoT devices to slam telecoms and gaming servers with relentless DDoS barrages. Social media’s sunny side has a dark shadow creeping across the Middle East and North Africa. Since September 2024, Desert Dexter has been slinging a tweaked AsyncRAT via legit file-sharing sites and Telegram. For detailed Cyber Threat Intel, click ‘Read More’.

Feb 28, 2025

Cyware Weekly Threat Intelligence, February 24–28, 2025

Stay ahead of cyber threats with the latest on the Vo1d botnet infecting Android TVs, GitVenom malware on GitHub, Redox Stealer, LCRYX ransomware, and a critical WordPress XSS vulnerability. Plus, insights on Lotus Blossom cyber espionage, PolarEdge malware targeting routers, Chrome extension hijacks, and PayPal phishing scams. Get the full security briefing now!