The Good

Given the rising number of attacks against Android devices via malicious apps, Google has rolled out a new program, dubbed Data Safety. Now you can actually see who is collecting your data and why. Energy systems are part of a nation's critical infrastructure and hence, require stronger cyber defenses. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced a grant of $12 million to fund research in this direction.

• The U.S. Department of Energy declared $12 million in grants to six university teams, which will work toward securing critical controls within the country’s power grid. The teams will also develop innovative technology for energy systems to quickly recover post-incident.
• Google released a new Data Safety program for Android apps on the Play Store that will have the details of the type of data being collected and shared with third parties. The Data Safety section will include information such as if the developer is collecting data and for what purpose, whether the data is shared with third parties, and app security practices, among others.
• CERT-In rolled out a new set of rules for organizations that mandate organizations to report 20 different types of infosec incidents within six hours of detection. The rules will apply to service providers, data center operators, intermediaries, government organizations, and companies.

The Bad

Whenever there is a new trend in the digital world, cybercriminals don’t waste any time abusing it. Just as Elon Musk sealed the deal with Twitter, scammers jumped onto the opportunity to scam users with fake giveaways. NFTs are all the hype now and almost all of us have heard of the Bored Ape NFT. Well, the Bored Ape Yacht Club was hacked with millions worth of NFTs siphoned away. Emotet's resurgence is coming on strong as it fixed its flaw and heavily targeted Japanese organizations.

• Cybersecurity authorities from the Five Eyes nations—Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the U.S., and the U.K—have released a report on the top frequently exploited security vulnerabilities in 2021. These include Log4Shell, ProxyShell, ProLogon, ZeroLogon, and flaws in Zoho ManageEngine AD SelfService Plus, Atlassian Confluence, and VMware vSphere Client.
• Coca-Cola is investigating a ransomware attack after hackers claimed to steal documents from the beverage giant. The Stormous ransomware group took to underground forums to claim the attack by putting 161 GB of stolen data on sale. The group is offering the stolen data for about $64,000.
• The Instagram account and Discord server of Bored Ape Yacht Club were hacked by cybercriminals, enabling them to compromise multiple wallets of users. The attackers leveraged an upcoming feature, OthersideMeta, on the NFT project to steal 24 Bored Apes and 30 Mutant Apes (which are estimated to be $13.7 million).
• Researchers have associated SCSKAppLink.dll malware with the Lazarus group. The group exploited an executable (inisafecrosswebexsvc.exe) of INISAFE CrossWeb EXV3 to distribute the malware. So far, the malware has infected 47 companies and institutions worldwide.
• Emotet operators resumed their email spam campaign after a short break to infect more users. The operators fixed a flaw in the campaign that prevented them from spreading across the systems. In another related news, Avast found that Japanese companies suffered major Emotet spam mail attacks in March. The malicious Excel files attempted to deceive users into running a malicious macro under the pretext of unlocking the document.
• Scammers leveraged a current trend around Elon Musk to conduct fake cryptocurrency giveaway scams. They made use of bots to send messages to multiple people on Twitter. In order to look convincing, the messages had the same current profile picture of the Tesla CEO as on his official Twitter account. These messages included short URLs that redirected recipients to fake cryptocurrency giveaway sites.
• Emotet trojan has joined hands with Conti ransomware to launch a plethora of malicious schemes. Over a dozen entities targeted, between December 2021 and March 2022, by Conti ransomware were driven via Emotet malspam campaigns. It is likely that Emotet is highly relied upon by Conti operators to find victims.
• Iranian-linked threat actor group, Rocket Kitten, has been observed actively exploiting a recently patched VMware vulnerability to gain initial access and deploy the Core Impact penetration testing tool on vulnerable systems. Tracked as CVE-2022-22954, the remote code execution vulnerability affects VMware Workspace ONE Access and Identity Manager.
• The CISA has added seven new vulnerabilities to its list of actively exploited security issues, including those from Microsoft, Linux, and Jenkins. The vulnerabilities can allow threat actors to perform a variety of attacks, including stealing credentials, gaining access to networks, remotely executing commands, or stealing information from devices.
• The CERT-UA has sent out a new alert about phishing attacks targeting organizations in Ukraine. The phishing messages use the subject ‘Azovstal’ and a weaponized Microsoft Office document to unleash Cobalt Strike Beacon in the last stage of the infection chain. The encryption techniques employed in the campaign are associated with TrickBot operators.
• T-Mobile acknowledged that the security of its systems was compromised after the Lapsus$ gang gained access to its networks. The attackers accessed internal networks using stolen credentials. This enabled the hackers to obtain over 30,000 source code repositories, as well as the key to an internal customer account management application called Atlas.
• Decentralized finance platform Deus Finance confirmed reports on a hack that allowed the attackers to steal more than $13 million from the platform. A variant of a flash loan attack was used to pilfer funds from users’ wallets.
• Multiple Facebook pages claiming to be account recovery services were uncovered by researchers. The hijacked pages belonged to musicians, products, and businesses. Once the phishers took over the page, they changed the name, profile picture, and other identities to make it look like a support page.
• CERT-UA has published a warning of ongoing DDoS attacks against pro-Ukraine sites and government web portals. Threat actors are compromising WordPress sites and injecting malicious JavaScript code to perform the attacks. At least 36 websites have, so far, been targeted in the attacks.

**New Threats **

A new ransomware operation, named Black Basta, came, saw, and conquered at least a dozen companies in a single month. The nail in the coffin comes with the double extortion tactic followed by the gang. Internet Explorer is under target once again by attackers propagating RedLine Stealer in a new campaign. Patch your devices ASAP! A new malware—Prynt Stealer—is for sale on underground forums. For a few bucks, the malware is capable of extraordinary feats.

• A newly found Black Basta ransomware group has breached at least 12 companies in just a few weeks of April. The gang has demanded over $2 million in ransomware from one victim to decrypt files and not leak data. The gang makes use of the double extortion method as part of its attack process.
• A new Onyx ransomware has targeted six organizations, so far, by destroying large files instead of encrypting them. The group also leverages the double-extortion scheme to threaten victims if a ransom is not paid. The ransomware only encrypts files that are smaller than 200MB in size and overwrites the remaining files.
• Cybercriminals actors, observed delivering BazarLoader and IceID, have transitioned to a new loader called Bumblebee that’s under active development. Researchers identified the first campaign in March 2022, with the loader delivering Cobalt Strike Beacon, Silver and Meterpreter, and Silver onto the victims’ systems.
• In a new finding, researchers discovered that threat actors behind the Quantum ransomware are leveraging IcedID malware as one of their initial access vectors to accelerate the attack process that lasted for only 3 hours and 44 minutes.
• A new campaign has surfaced recently that distributes the notorious RedLine Stealer malware. The campaign leverages the RIG exploit tool to exploit a vulnerability (CVE-2021-26411) in Internet Explorer. Once executed, RedLine Stealer exfiltrates passwords, saved credit cards, crypto wallets, and VPN logins from infected systems and sends them to a remote C2 server.
• Microsoft discovered two new security vulnerabilities that can be used to gain root privileges on Linux systems. Collectively called Nimbuspwn, the flaws are tracked as CVE-2022-29799 and CVE-2022-29800 and reside in a system component named networkd-dispatcher.
• A vulnerability discovered in the web version of the Ever Surf cryptocurrency wallet can be exploited to decrypt PINs, recover decryption keys, and take over web wallets. Ever Surf has confirmed the issue and released patches.
• A newly-found Prynt Stealer malware is being offered for sale on underground forums for a small price. The malware is capable of harvesting data from a wide range of applications, such as cryptocurrency wallets, messaging platforms, and gaming apps. Additionally, it can also perform direct financial compromise.
• New findings by ESET revealed that the threat group TA410—known for targeting attacks against U.S. utilities—actually comprised three independent subgroups that have been operating globally since 2018.