Cyware Weekly Threat Intelligence - October 16–20

Cyware Weekly Threat Intelligence - October 16–20 - Featured Image

Weekly Threat Briefing • October 20, 2023

The Good

Phishing attacks rank among the prevalent ways to steal credentials and deploy malware across organizations. To educate organizations and employees about the risks associated with such threats, the CISA, along with the NSA, FBI, and MS-ISAC, issued a new advisory. In a different guide release, addressed to software manufacturers, the agency brings focus on developing products that are secure for end users and, at the same time, provides customers a way to evaluate security protocols. Furthermore, an international law enforcement operation seized data leak sites belonging to the Ragnar Locker ransomware gang.

  • The CISA, along with the NSA, FBI, and MS-ISAC, released a guide to reduce the impact of phishing attacks that lead to credential theft and malware deployment. The guidance recommends small- and medium-sized organizations with limited resources prioritize the best cybersecurity practices to protect network resources from prevalent phishing threats. Some of the recommendations include implementing an anti-phishing training program, enabling MFA across all accounts, and employing DNS filters.

  • The U.S. and the UAE signed a memorandum to work closely to improve the security of critical infrastructure in the financial sector. The MoU emphasizes increased information sharing about digital threats, more staff training, and conducting cross-border cybersecurity exercises. This new partnership is part of the U.S. Treasury Department’s continued effort to improve cybersecurity outcomes across the financial service sector.

  • The CISA, along with 17 U.S. and international partners, issued new security guidance for software manufacturers to develop products that are secure by design. The new recommendations include evaluating security protocols, conducting field tests, creating secure configuration templates, and eliminating the use of default passwords. The goal of updated guidance is to equip end-users with more transparency around software companies and their cybersecurity measures.

  • The HHS Office of Civil Rights (OCR) unveiled two resource documents to educate patients about the privacy and security risks of their PHIs when using telehealth services. These resources offer tips on basic cybersecurity hygienes such as employing strong and unique passwords, enabling lock screen functions to protect stored health information, activating MFA on accounts, and avoiding public WiFi networks at public charging stations.

  • RagnarLocker ransomware group's leak site was seized as part of an international law enforcement operation. The ransomware group has been active since late 2019 and uses stolen data from enterprises in double-extortion schemes. The operation was carried out by law enforcement agencies from the US, Europe, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Spain, Netherlands, Czech Republic, and Latvia.

The Bad

Meanwhile, D-Link and Casio landed in the soup after threat actors stole troves of sensitive data from their servers; around 1.2GB of data stolen from D-Link was put up for sale on a hacking forum. Separately, the personal data of more than 820,000 DNA Micro customers was exposed online owing to a misconfiguration issue in the company’s systems. Be careful with this one - a zero-day vulnerability in Cisco IOS XE software has led to the compromise of over 40,000 devices.

  • In a new update, a threat actor going by the name ‘Golem’ leaked an additional 4.1 million stolen 23andMe genetic data profiles for people on a hacking forum. The data primarily belong to the people in Great Britain and Germany. The development comes after a threat actor leaked 1 million of stolen data belonging to Ashkenazi Jews earlier this month. The company, on its part, confirmed that the sensitive data was stolen using weak passwords or credentials exposed in other data breaches. However, there was no evidence of a security incident on their IT systems.

  • The ALPHV ransomware group claimed attacks on QSI Inc., a prominent ITM and ATM solutions provider. It stole 5TB of data, including financial and work-related information, from the firm. Moreover, the attackers listed the names of 10 banks, associated with QSI Inc., which were impacted by the attack. Meanwhile, the firm did not confirm the cyberattack.

  • A researcher revealed that around 35 vulnerabilities affecting Squid caching proxy were found unpatched despite being their disclosure in 2021, raising a security concern for more than 2.5 million Squid instances exposed on the internet. While many of these vulnerabilities could lead to a system crash, some can also be exploited for arbitrary code execution.

  • Personal information of around 8,000 global employees of Decathlon, stolen in an alleged data breach that occurred two years ago, was found dumped on the dark web. The exposed data contained a wide range of records, such as full names, usernames, phone numbers, email addresses, details of countries and cities of residence, authentication tokens, and even photographs.

  • The CERT-UA revealed that a threat actor group tracked as UAC-0165 targeted at least 11 telecommunication service providers in Ukraine between May and September. These attacks were launched via exposed RDP or SSH interfaces and used two specialized programs called POEMGATE and POSEIDON to steal credentials and gain remote control of the infected hosts.

  • Taiwanese manufacturer D-Link confirmed a data breach after a threat actor offered 1.2GB of stolen data for sale on the BreachForums platform. The threat actors claimed to have stolen three million lines of individual information and the source code for D-Link’s D-View network management software. Other data stolen included information for many Taiwanese government officials, as well as the CEOs and employees of the company.

  • Casio experienced a data breach on its ClassPad education platform, exposing the personal information of customers from 149 countries. The compromised data included customer names, email addresses, service usage details, and purchase information.

  • A high-severity zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2023-20198) in Cisco IOS XE software was exploited to infect over 40,000 devices with a backdoor. The vulnerability impacts switches, industrial routers, access points, wireless controllers, and branch routers from Cisco. Successful exploitation of the flaw was observed across the U.S., the Philippines, and Chile.

  • DNA Micro, a California-based IT company, exposed the sensitive data of more than 820,000 customers due to a misconfiguration issue in its systems. The victims affected by the data leak were those using screen warranty services from InstaProtek, Liquipel, and Otterbox. The exposed data included full names, addresses, email addresses, phone models, purchase dates, and IMEI numbers of customers.

  • Courts across Kansas faced IT system disruptions following an alleged ransomware attack. While municipal court and probation and prosecution divisions remained closed to the public on Monday, the Kansas Supreme Court was forced to use pen and paper to record cases. The investigations are ongoing and officials are working with experts to understand the scope and impact of the attack.

  • Major shipping companies across Europe were hit by a possible DDoS attack that impacted their websites. One of the confirmed victims was Viking Line. While more information about the attack is awaited, security teams are working to restore the impacted systems.

New Threats

In new threats this week, researchers noted a surge in cyberattacks leveraging the Discord messaging platform. In one instance, cybercriminals used compromised Discord accounts to distribute Lumma Stealer malware. Threat actors behind Qubitstrike malware abused Discord’s bot functionality to deliver malicious commands for cryptojacking attacks. Lest we forget, the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict has given rise to new cyber threats. Researchers uncovered a spyware campaign that mimicked a rocket alerting app.

  • Trend Micro revealed that threat actors abused Discord’s CDN to distribute Lumma Stealer onto victims’ systems. The attackers used compromised Discord accounts and tricked victims by seeking help for a project and offering $10 or a Discord Nitro boost in exchange for their assistance. If a victim agreed to the attacker’s offer, the victim would be prompted to download a file that causes the download of the info-stealer.
  • Researchers shared details of a new fake browser update threat that used a new malware called ClearFake to deliver malicious payloads onto victims’ devices. The malware is similar to SocGholish and FakeSG campaigns that use social engineering tactics to trick users into installing a bogus web browser update. As part of the attack campaign, the attackers also use the watering hole technique to inject malicious JavaScript code into compromised WordPress sites.
  • The BlackCat ransomware operators recently added a new utility tool, named Munchkin, to circumvent VM security solutions while deploying their malware payloads. The utility tool is delivered as an ISO file that is loaded in a newly installed instance of Alpine OS. Upon execution, the ransomware changes the root password of the VM and subsequently downloads the malware binary named controller to pilfer sensitive data from victims’ systems.
  • A threat actor, presumably from Tunisia, was found targeting exposed Jupyter Notebooks to host Qubitstrike malware in a cryptojacking campaign. The malware uses Discord’s bot functionality as a controller to issue commands on compromised nodes and monitor the campaign’s progress. As part of the campaign, Qubitstrike searches for a number of hardcoded credential files for popular cloud services, such as AWS and Google Cloud, and exfiltrates these via the Telegram bot API.
  • Threat actors were observed using a malicious version of the RedAlert – Rocket Alerts app to target Israelis with spyware. The malicious version of the app was distributed via a website, with separate options for iOS and Android. Once the victims clicked on the Android button, it downloaded a malicious APK that abused the granted permissions and harvested sensitive data from victims’ phones.
  • Researchers shared details of a new XorDDoS campaign that infected Linux devices to build an army of botnets. The campaign was first discovered on July 28, with a surge in activities between July 31 and August 5. The initial access was gained by exploiting vulnerabilities in the devices.
  • Less-skilled threat actors were observed using a leaked toolkit to create do-it-yourself versions of the popular LockBit ransomware to target common vulnerabilities. These attacks were launched between September and early October, wherein attackers exploited legacy Adobe ColdFusion servers and the recent vulnerabilities in WS_FTP Servers. One of these attacks was launched using the BlackDogs2023 ransomware.
  • The Iran-linked Crambus espionage group targeted multiple computers and servers over the course of eight months of attacks against a government in the Middle East. Atackers leveraged the living-off-the-land tactic and a number of legitimate tools to steal files and passwords. The attackers also deployed three previously undiscovered pieces of malware, along with a PowerExchange backdoor as part of the attack.
  • Researchers discovered a new ExelaStealer malware that can steal sensitive data, such as passwords, credit card details, cookies, session data, and key logs, from Windows systems. Written in Python language, the malware is being advertised on hacker forums and Telegram channels.

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Feb 21, 2025

Cyware Weekly Threat Intelligence, February 17–21, 2025

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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.

Feb 7, 2025

Cyware Weekly Threat Intelligence, February 03–07, 2025

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Jan 10, 2025

Cyware Weekly Threat Intelligence, January 06–10, 2025

The U.K is fortifying its digital defenses with the launch of Cyber Local, a £1.9 million initiative to bridge cyber skills gaps and secure the digital economy. Spanning 30 projects across England and Northern Ireland, the scheme emphasizes local business resilience, neurodiverse talent, and cybersecurity careers for youth. Across the Atlantic, the White House introduced the U.S. Cyber Trust Mark, a consumer-friendly cybersecurity labeling program for smart devices. Overseen by the FCC, the initiative tests products like baby monitors and security systems for compliance with rigorous cybersecurity standards, ensuring Americans can make safer choices for their connected homes. China-linked threat actor RedDelta has ramped up its cyber-espionage activities across Asia, targeting nations such as Mongolia, Taiwan, Myanmar, and Vietnam with a modified PlugX backdoor. Cybercriminals have weaponized trust by deploying a fake PoC exploit tied to a patched Microsoft Windows LDAP vulnerability. CrowdStrike reported a phishing operation impersonating the company, using fake job offers to lure victims into downloading a fraudulent CRM application. Once installed, the malware deploys a Monero cryptocurrency miner. A new Mirai-based botnet, dubbed Gayfemboy, has emerged as a formidable threat, leveraging zero-day exploits in industrial routers and smart home devices. With 15,000 active bot nodes daily across China, the U.S., and Russia, the botnet executes high-intensity DDoS attacks exceeding 100 Gbps. In the Middle East, fraudsters are posing as government officials in a social engineering scheme targeting disgruntled customers. Cybercriminals have weaponized WordPress with a malicious plugin named PhishWP to create realistic fake payment pages mimicking services like Stripe. The plugin not only captures payment details in real time but also sends fake confirmation emails to delay detection.