FISA

In January, the cybersecurity landscape has been particularly troubled by the sophistication of malware such as the Phemedrone Stealer, Androxgh0st, and the NSPX30 backdoor, all of which have demonstrated advanced techniques for evasion, data harvesting, and exploiting network vulnerabilities. These threats underline the critical need for up-to-date defenses against sophisticated malware campaigns that can bypass standard security protocols and compromise sensitive information. CVE-2023-36025: Phemedrone Malware Campaign Targets Microsoft Defender SmartScreen Vulnerability The Phemedrone Stealer campaign has been leveraging CVE-2023-36025, a vulnerability that allows bypassing Windows Defender SmartScreen, to conduct defense evasion and payload delivery since its discovery. This vulnerability enables attackers to execute malicious scripts without triggering SmartScreen's warning mechanisms, a critical security feature in Windows environments designed to block unrecognized applicati...

An updated version of a sophisticated backdoor framework called  MATA  has been used in attacks aimed at over a dozen Eastern European companies in the oil and gas sector and defense industry as part of a cyber espionage operation that took place between August 2022 and May 2023. "The actors behind the attack used spear-phishing mails to target several victims, some were infected with Windows executable malware by downloading files through an internet browser," Kaspersky said in a new exhaustive report published this week. "Each phishing document contains an external link to fetch a remote page containing a  CVE-2021-26411  exploit." CVE-2021-26411 (CVSS score: 8.8) refers to a memory corruption vulnerability in Internet Explorer that could be triggered to execute arbitrary code by tricking a victim into visiting a specially crafted site. It was previously exploited by the Lazarus Group in early 2021 to target security researchers. The cross-platf...

A new threat actor known as  AtlasCross  has been observed leveraging Red Cross-themed phishing lures to deliver two previously undocumented backdoors named DangerAds and AtlasAgent. NSFOCUS Security Labs described the adversary as having a "high technical level and cautious attack attitude," adding that "the phishing attack activity captured this time is part of the attacker's targeted strike on specific targets and is its main means to achieve in-domain penetration." The attack chains start with a macro-laced Microsoft document that purports to be about a blood donation drive from the American Red Cross that, when launched, runs the malicious macro to set up persistence, exfiltrate system metadata to a remote server (data.vectorse[.]com) that's a sub-domain of a legitimate website belonging to a structural and engineering firm based in the U.S. It also extracts a file named KB4495667.pkg (codenamed DangerAds), which, subsequently acts as a loader to launch...

The Iranian threat actor tracked as APT34 has been linked to a new phishing attack that leads to the deployment of a variant of a backdoor called  SideTwist . "APT34 has a high level of attack technology, can design different intrusion methods for different types of targets, and has supply chain attack capability," NSFOCUS Security Labs said in a report published last week. APT34, also known by the names Cobalt Gypsy, Hazel Sandstorm (formerly Europium), Helix Kitten, and OilRig, has a track record of targeting telecommunications, government, defense, oil and financial services verticals in the Middle East since at least 2014 via spear-phishing lures that culminate in the deployment of various backdoors. One of the key traits of the hacking outfit is its ability to create new and updated tools to minimize the odds of detection and gain a foothold on compromised hosts for extended periods of time. SideTwist was first documented as used by APT34 in April...

Nearly 2,000 Citrix NetScaler instances have been compromised with a backdoor by weaponizing a recently disclosed critical security vulnerability as part of a large-scale attack. "An adversary appears to have exploited CVE-2023-3519 in an automated fashion, placing web shells on vulnerable NetScalers to gain persistent access," NCC Group said in an advisory released Tuesday. "The adversary can execute arbitrary commands with this webshell, even when a NetScaler is patched and/or rebooted." CVE-2023-3519 refers to a critical code injection vulnerability impacting NetScaler ADC and Gateway servers that could lead to unauthenticated remote code execution. It was patched by Citrix last month. The development comes a week after the Shadowserver Foundation said it identified close to 7,000 vulnerable, unpatched NetScaler ADC and Gateway instances online and the flaw is being abused to drop PHP web shells on vulnerable servers for remote access. A follow-up analysis by NCC...