Cyware Weekly Threat Intelligence - August 22–26

The Good

The security of autonomous vehicles and accessories is all set to be revamped as plans to streamline the security standards are in progress. The standards will be applicable to manufacturers of drones, airplanes, boats, and cars. A new healthcare cybersecurity bill is also in the introductory process. If approved, the bill would require the CISA and the HHS to work together to enhance the security of healthcare assets.

• A trade group representing producers of unmanned drones, airplanes, boats, cars, and other vehicles has teamed up with a cybersecurity company to develop security standards for the autonomous vehicles market. These include applying effective encryption and authentication tools around remote operations and connectivity, looking at third- and fourth-party suppliers in the supply chain, and evaluating the security of products.
• A new cybersecurity bill to protect the healthcare sector against data breaches and cyberattacks is going through the introductory process. If approved, the bill would require the CISA and the HHS to work together to enhance the security of healthcare assets.
• The New York Department of Financial Services will soon publish the new Part 500 Cybersecurity Rules that include new requirements and proposals. The new requirements include conducting systematic scans or reviews of system information, conducting risk assessments at least once every three years, and implementing endpoint detection and response solutions to monitor anomalous activities.

The Bad

The FBI has sounded an alarm about the rising trend of using residential proxies in credential-stuffing attacks. The agency cites that the attackers are hiding their malicious IP addresses behind the proxy addresses that are not present in blocklists. Deepfake phishing attacks are also becoming a common phenomenon and the latest victim of this attack was the CCO of Binance.

• U.S. healthcare provider Novant Health has notified that over 1 million individuals were impacted in a data breach incident after their sensitive information was mistakenly collected by the Meta Pixel ad tracking script. The exposed information included email addresses, phone numbers, IP addresses, emergency contact information, and physician details of users.
• A set of hackers used deepfake videos to impersonate Binance’s Chief Communications Officer in a series of video calls to perform a listing scam operation. They managed to fool some representatives of cryptocurrency projects and made them believe that they were being considered for losing on Binance.
• A massive phishing campaign codenamed 0ktapus leveraged compromised Okta identity credentials and two-factor authentication to gain initial access to victims’ computers. Over 130 organizations, including Twilio, MailChimp, and Klaviyo, located in the U.S. and Canada are affected by the campaign.
• Ransomware actors were found abusing a vulnerable anti-cheat driver for the popular role-playing game Genshin Impact to kill antivirus processes and services. Researchers discovered the latest attack in the last week of July.
• The Dominican Republic’s Instituto Agrario Dominicana suffered a Quantum ransomware attack that encrypted multiple services and workstations throughout the government agency. The attack occurred on August 18.
• The RansomEXX ransomware gang has claimed responsibility for the cyberattack against Bombardier Recreational Products (BRP). The attack had temporarily impacted the operations for manufacturing Ski-Doo snowmobiles, Sea-Doo jet skis, ATVs, motorcycles, watercrafts, and Rotax engines.
• In a newly found BEC campaign, hackers used Adversary-in-the-Middle (AiTM) attack and an evilginx2 phishing tool to hack corporate executives’ Microsoft 365 accounts, even those protected by MFA. By accessing these accounts, threat actors could monitor communications and respond to emails to divert funds to their bank accounts.
• There is a rising trend of cybercriminals using residential proxies to conduct large-scale credential stuffing attacks, according to a new alert from the FBI. This enables the attackers to stay under the radar during the infection process.
• PyPI warned Python project managers about a phishing campaign that stole credentials from developers and injected malicious code into legitimate packages. This is the first known phishing attack against PyPI.
• Accelya—a technology firm providing services to Delta, British Airways, JetBlue, United, Virgin Atlantic, and American Airlines—confirmed that it was targeted by the BlackCat ransomware group. The group has reportedly stolen emails, and worker contracts from the firm, a part of which was also published on the data leak site.
• Food delivery giant DoorDash confirmed a data breach that exposed the personal information of its customers. The breach is linked to the attack on the third-party vendor Twilio.

New Threats

Evolving trends in Iranian threat actor activity have been observed this week. While the infamous Charming Kitten APT was found using a new data extraction tool to steal information from Gmail, Yahoo, and Microsoft accounts. MuddyWater exploited the well-known Log4j vulnerabilities in SysAid applications to target organizations in Israel. In another major update, hackers are turning to the Sliver toolkit as an alternative for Cobalt Strike beacon to launch a variety of attacks including ransomware operations.

• Researchers showcased two new attack techniques that can allow attackers to leak data from air-gapped network devices. One of them is named ETHERLED and can be launched against PCs, printers, network cameras, embedded controllers, and servers. The other is called GAIROSCOPE and uses ultrasonic tones and smartphone gyroscopes to plant malware on air-gapped computers.
• A new RAT called Escanor is being advertised on the dark web and Telegram by attackers who go by the same name. The malware is delivered via weaponized Microsoft Office documents. The malware can target Android phones and computers.
• A new malware dubbed MagicWeb is being used by Cozy Bear, aka APT29, to hide its presence on the networks of government and critical organizations across Europe, the U.S., and Asia. The malware is an evolution of FoggyWeb.
• Hackers are adopting the Sliver toolkit as an alternative for Cobalt Strike to launch a variety of attacks, including ransomware operations. One group that adopted Sliver is tracked as DEV-0237.
• The Iran-backed Charming Kitten threat actor group has added a new tool, named Hyperscrape, to steal user data from Gmail, Yahoo, and Microsoft Outlook accounts. The tool is written in .NET for Windows PCs and is designed to run on the attacker's machine.
• Another Iranian threat actor group named MERCURY is exploiting Log4j vulnerabilities in SysAid applications to target organizations located in Israel. Other tactics used by attackers are phishing emails, file-sharing services, and remote access applications.
• A dodgy Chrome extension ‘Internet Download Manager’ installed by more than 200,000 users was found to be adware in disguise. Once installed, it exhibited unwanted behavior such as opening links to spammy sites, changing the default search engine browser, and showing pop-ups about patches and unwanted programs.
• Multiple ongoing infostealer distribution campaigns are targeting internet users who seek to download copies of pirated software. The campaign uses SEO poisoning to push malicious shareware through sites promoting fake software along with cracks and product activation key generators.
• A malicious campaign distributing AgentTesla infostealer is also making rounds since mid-August. Phishing emails sent from spoofed email addresses are being sent to organizations across South America and Europe.
• A new data extortion group named Donut Leaks is linked to recent cyberattacks on various organizations including DEFSA, Sheppard Robson, and Sando. The hacker group is likely a pen tester or an affiliate for Hive, Ragnar, and possibly other ransomware groups.
• The North Korean nation-state group Kimsuky has been linked to a new set of espionage activities directed against political and diplomatic entities in South Korea. The infection chains lead to the deployment of Windows malware designed to pilfer file lists, user keystrokes, and login credentials stored on web browsers.
• A new ransomware written in the Go language has been targeting healthcare and education enterprises in Asia and Africa. Dubbed Agenda, the ransomware can be customized and shares similarities with the BlackBast, BlackMatter, and REvil ransomware.
• In another instance, a new cross-platform ransomware called Monster has been discovered this week. The ransomware is written in Delphi, comes with a UI, and supports multiple OS platforms.