Cyware Weekly Threat Intelligence - April 24–28

Cyware Weekly Threat Intelligence - April 24–28 - Featured Image

Weekly Threat Briefing April 28, 2023

The Good

This week, cyber defenders displayed some notable advances in the battle against malware threats. Google announced the disruption of CryptBot malware operations that infected over 670,000 computers worldwide. In another incident, eSentire’s Threat Response Unit launched a multi-pronged offensive against Gootloader, saving 12 different organizations from being targeted. The act was pulled off after researchers gained access to the malware code and infrastructure.

  • The NIST released a new post-quantum cryptography guidance draft that is open for public comments until June 8. The document is meant to help organizations understand the security architecture in their networks and implement post-quantum security measures where it is necessary. The new draft follows NIST’s ongoing effort to finalize quantum-resistant algorithms in 2024 after identifying other encryption algorithms in 2022.

  • Google disrupted the massive CryptBot info-stealing malware operation that infected over 670,000 computers last year. The development comes after Google filed litigation against several major distributors of CryptoBot infecting Chrome users to steal their data. Most of these attackers were believed to be operating in Pakistan. In another significant development, researchers at eSentire discovered a way to deal with Gootloader attacks after gaining access to the malware’s infrastructure. This enabled the researchers to thwart attacks on 12 organizations.

  • The Health 3rd Party Trust (Health3PT) council announced its first significant initiative to tackle third-party risks in the healthcare sector. As a part of this development, over 15,000 third-party vendors associated with medical firms were contacted to encourage them to follow standardized HITRUST risk assessment methods. The council has also introduced the Health3PT Vendor Directory, which includes a list of reliable vendors who have obtained HITRUST e1, i1, or r2 certifications.

The Bad

Despite all the good efforts, multiple organizations were found using misconfigured cloud assets that exposed them to a variety of cyberattacks. In one study, researchers found that several Fortune 500 companies using poorly secured repositories and registries were at risk of supply chain attacks as they leaked millions of software artifacts and container images online. Besides this, over 2000 organizations are vulnerable to massive DoS amplification attacks owing to a high-severity flaw discovered in the Service Location Protocol (SLP). In other news, a massive phishing attack impersonating 3,200 Meta support staff was also detected stealing login credentials from Facebook users.

  • Around 250 million software artifacts and over 65,000 container images were found to be exposed via thousands of internet-facing registries and repositories. Some 1400 hosts also allowed access to secret keys, passwords, and other sensitive information that could enable attackers to mount a supply chain attack or poison a software development environment. These hosts were linked to addresses of several Fortune 500 companies such as Siemens, Cisco, Alibaba, and IBM.

  • Yellow Pages Group, a Canadian directory publisher, confirmed that it was hit by a ransomware attack. Meanwhile, the Black Basta group has claimed responsibility for the attack by posting sensitive documents and data stolen from the firm on its leaked website.

  • Between February and March, Group-IB researchers detected a massive phishing campaign that impersonated over 3,200 Meta support staff to steal login credentials from Facebook users. Scammers created fake profiles of the Meta staff and posted links that redirected victims to over 220 phishing sites carrying Meta or Facebook’s brand.

  • Security researchers uncovered more than 2,000 organizations that are at risk of massive DoS amplification attacks due to a high-severity vulnerability discovered in the Service Location Protocol (SLP). This flaw impacts devices such as VMware ESXi hypervisors, Konica Minolta printers, Planex routers, Supermicro IPMI servers, and a ton of IBM gear. Over 70,000 servers were found exposing their SLP ports on the internet.

  • The Medusa ransomware gang leaked the sensitive information of children and teachers that was stolen from Minneapolis Public Schools earlier this year. The leaked data included some 200,000 files containing dates of birth, names, ethnicity, ID numbers, and behavioral issue details of students.

  • A supply chain attack campaign has been found infecting Tencent QQ users with MgBot malware. Launched by the Evasive Panda APT group, the campaign has been active since 2020 and the malware is delivered via fake Tencent QQ software updates. Other victims of the campaign are members of an NGO located in the Chinese provinces of Gansu, Guangdong, and Jiangsu.

  • The city of Lowell, Massachusetts, suffered a ransomware attack that disrupted its computer systems. Servers, networks, phones, and other systems were also inaccessible throughout the city. Upon discovering the incident, the city’s MIS department isolated the impacted networks and systems.

  • An environment file hosted on the Peugeot site leaked access to its user data in Peru. The exposed file contained Symfony application secret, Uniform Resource Identifier (URI), usernames, passwords, and locations of private and public keys. An attacker could use this data to log in or modify the dataset’s contents.

New Threats

Coming to new threats, cybercriminals were found upgrading their arsenal with new malware. While the North Korean BlueNoroff group added a new malware, dubbed RustBucket, to target macOS systems, the Russia-based Evil Corp gang enhanced its crypto-stealing ability using a malware called LOBSHOT. A new attack method was also discovered this week, enabling threat actors to launch cryptojacking attacks on Kubernetes clusters.

  • Threat actors have devised a new attack method to abuse Kubernetes role-based access control (RBAC) to deploy backdoors for persistence. Dubbed RBAC Buster, the attack method can also enable attackers to launch cryptojacking attacks on targeted Kubernetes clusters by exploiting misconfigured API servers linked to the clusters.

  • North Korea-based BlueNoroff threat actor added a new macOS malware called RustBucket to its malware arsenal. The malware masquerades as a legitimate Apple bundle identifier that helps the attackers to override Gatekeeper on Mac. Written in Rust language, it is capable of gathering system information.

  • More than 1,000 Windows and macOS systems are still vulnerable to the PaperCut installation flaw that was patched in March 2023. Attackers can exploit the flaw to bypass authentication and execute arbitrary code remotely. The vulnerability has been patched with the release of PaperCut MF and PaperCut NG versions 20.1.7, 21.2.11, and 22.0.9. In another update, Microsoft has attributed recent attacks on PaperCut servers to the Clop and LockBit ransomware groups.

  • ViperSoftX, a cryptocurrency and info-stealer malware, has been updated to include more sophisticated encryption and data-stealing methods. So far, the variant has infected a significant number of victims in consumer and enterprise sectors across Australia, Japan, the U.S., India, Taiwan, Malaysia, France, and Italy.

  • Certain attacks previously correlated with the Turla group were carried out by Tomiris APT, according to researchers. It was found that the cybercriminal group made use of KopiLuwak and TunnusSched (malicious tools that are also associated with Turla) to launch attacks between 2021 and 2023.

  • Multiple generations of Intel CPUs are vulnerable to a new side-channel attack that allows the leak of data through the EFLAGS register. The new attack relies on a flaw in transient execution that affects the timing of Jump on Condition Code (JCC) instructions.

  • LOBSHOT is a new malware that is being used by the TA505 threat actor to steal cryptocurrencies and private information from users. The malware targets 32 Chrome extensions, nine Edge wallet extensions, and 11 Firefox wallet extensions, enabling threat actors to steal cryptocurrency asssets.

  • Charming Kitten APT was observed using a previously unseen custom dropper malware, BellaCiao, to target users located in the U.S., Turkey, India, Europe, and the Middle East. The attackers possibly exploited known vulnerabilities in internet-exposed applications such as Zoho ManageEngine or Microsoft Exchange Server to drop the malware.

  • An ongoing attack campaign, tracked as OCX#HARVESTER, has been found distributing More-eggs backdoor, along with other malicious payloads. The More-eggs backdoor was observed in the wild from December 2022 through March 2023. The attack chain leveraged specially crafted phishing emails to lure victims in the financial sector, especially those organizations involved with cryptocurrencies.

  • CheckPoint researchers shared new findings on Educated Manticore which is a sub-group of the Iranian cyberespionage group known as Phosphorous. The attackers have significantly improved their toolset which uses a mixture of .NET and C++ code. The final executed payload is an updated version of the Powerless malware which is also tied to some Phosphorous ransomware operations.

  • A new macOS info-stealing malware named Atomic (aka AMOS) is being sold on private Telegram channels for a subscription of $1,000/month. The malware steals keychain passwords, files from local filesystems, passwords, cookies, and credit card details stored in browsers. It also attempts to steal data from 50 cryptocurrency extensions.

  • China-based Alloy Taurus APT was spotted using a Linux variant of PingPull malware, along with a backdoor named Sword2033, to target organizations in South Africa and Nepal. Upon execution, the malware variant uses the OpenSSL library and HTTP POST request to interact with C2 servers handled by attackers.

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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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Apr 11, 2025

Cyware Weekly Threat Intelligence, April 07–11, 2025

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Cyware Weekly Threat Intelligence, March 24–28, 2025

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Cyware Weekly Threat Intelligence, March 17–21, 2025

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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

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Feb 21, 2025

Cyware Weekly Threat Intelligence, February 17–21, 2025

Google is stepping up its defenses against the quantum threat. The company is rolling out quantum-resistant digital signatures in Cloud KMS, following NIST’s post-quantum cryptography standards. Supply chain attacks just got harder to pull off. Apiiro has released two open-source tools to detect malicious code in software projects. With high detection rates across PyPI and npm packages, these tools add a crucial layer of security for developers. China’s Salt Typhoon is making itself at home in global telecom networks. The group has been caught using JumbledPath, a custom-built spying tool, to infiltrate ISPs in the U.S., Italy, South Africa, and Thailand. ShadowPad malware is once again causing havoc in Europe. Trend Micro flagged 21 targeted companies across 15 countries, with manufacturing firms bearing the brunt. A RAT is hiding in plain sight. SectopRAT has been spotted disguised as a fake Google Docs Chrome extension. It steals browser data, targets VPNs and cryptocurrency wallets, and injects malicious scripts into web pages. Darcula Suite is taking PhaaS to the next level. The upcoming update, currently in beta, will let users generate their own phishing kits by cloning real websites and customizing attack elements. A new payment card skimming campaign is turning Stripe’s old API into a weapon. Hackers are injecting malicious scripts into checkout pages, validating stolen card details through Stripe before exfiltration. LummaC2 is spreading through cracked software downloads again. ASEC found it disguised as a pirated Total Commander installer, hiding behind Google Collab Drive and Reddit links.

Feb 14, 2025

Cyware Weekly Threat Intelligence, February 10–14, 2025

Cyber defenders are sharpening their tools, and EARLYCROW is the latest weapon against stealthy APT operations. This method detects C2 activity over HTTP(S) using a novel traffic analysis format called PAIRFLOW. India is taking digital banking security up a notch. The RBI is launching a dedicated domain to curb financial fraud and enhance trust in online banking. Starting April 2025, financial institutions will register under this domain. China’s RedMike hackers are dialing into telecom networks - literally. Between December 2024 and January 2025, they targeted over 1,000 unpatched Cisco devices. Their primary focus? Global telecoms and university networks in Argentina, Bangladesh, and the U.S. Russia’s Sandworm hackers are using pirated software as bait. Their latest attack on Ukrainian Windows users disguises malware inside trojanized KMS activators and fake Windows updates. Love is in the air, but so are phishing scams. In late January, cybercriminals launched a Valentine’s-themed phishing campaign, offering fake gift baskets in exchange for stolen credentials. Cybercriminals are upping their game with Astaroth, a phishing kit that doesn’t just steal credentials but also hijacks entire sessions. By using a reverse proxy, Astaroth intercepts logins and 2FA tokens in real time, allowing attackers to bypass security measures undetected. South America’s foreign ministry was caught in the crosshairs of an advanced cyber-espionage campaign. In November 2024, attackers linked to REF7707 deployed the PATHLOADER and FINALDRAFT malware to infiltrate diplomatic networks. A new malware named Ratatouille is stirring up trouble by bypassing UAC and using I2P for anonymous communications. Spreading through phishing emails and fake CAPTCHA pages, it tricks victims into running an embedded PowerShell script.