FISA

On Feb. 13, 2024, Microsoft issued a  patch  for CVE-2024-21412, a  Microsoft Defender SmartScreen  vulnerability revolving around internet shortcuts. Previously, we discovered that an advanced persistent threat (APT) group we track under the name Water Hydra has been exploiting CVE-2024-21412 in a sophisticated campaign targeting financial market traders, allowing the group to bypass Microsoft Defender SmartScreen and infect its victims with the DarkMe remote access trojan (RAT). Threat actors are constantly finding new ways of identifying and exploiting gaps to bypass security measures. We found that the bypass of CVE-2023-36025 (a previously patched SmartScreen vulnerability) led to the discovery and exploitation of CVE-2024-21412. This highlights how threat actors can circumvent patches by identifying new vectors of attack around a patched software component. It is important that organizations are able to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities, especiall...

  The China-linked threat actor known as Mustang Panda has targeted various Asian countries using a variant of the PlugX (aka Korplug) backdoor dubbed DOPLUGS. "The piece of customized PlugX malware is dissimilar to the general type of the PlugX malware that contains a completed backdoor command module, and that the former is only used for downloading the latter," Trend Micro researchers Sunny Lu and Pierre Lee  said  in a new technical write-up. Targets of DOPLUGS have been primarily located in Taiwan, and Vietnam, and to a lesser extent in Hong Kong, India, Japan, Malaysia, Mongolia, and even China. PlugX is a staple tool of  Mustang Panda , which is also tracked as BASIN, Bronze President, Camaro Dragon, Earth Preta, HoneyMyte, RedDelta, Red Lich, Stately Taurus, TA416, and TEMP.Hex. It's known to be active since at least 2012, although it first came to light in 2017. The threat actor's tradecraft entails carrying out well-forged spear-phishing campaigns that are ...

The U.K. National Crime Agency (NCA) on Tuesday confirmed that it obtained LockBit's source code as well as intelligence pertaining to its activities and their affiliates as part of a dedicated task force called  Operation Cronos . "Some of the data on LockBit's systems belonged to victims who had paid a ransom to the threat actors, evidencing that even when a ransom is paid, it does not guarantee that data will be deleted, despite what the criminals have promised," the agency  said . It also announced the arrest of two LockBit actors in Poland and Ukraine. Over 200 cryptocurrency accounts linked to the group have been frozen. Indictments have also been unsealed in the U.S. against two other Russian nationals who are alleged to have carried out LockBit attacks. Artur Sungatov and Ivan Gennadievich Kondratiev (aka Bassterlord) have been accused of deploying LockBit against numerous victims throughout the U.S., including businesses nationwide in the manufacturing and ot...

  A novel malware campaign has been observed targeting Redis servers for initial access with the ultimate goal of mining cryptocurrency on compromised Linux hosts. "This particular campaign involves the use of a number of novel system weakening techniques against the data store itself," Cado security researcher Matt Muir  said  in a technical report. The cryptojacking attack is facilitated by a malware codenamed Migo, a Golang ELF binary that comes fitted with compile-time obfuscation and the ability to persist on Linux machines. The cloud security company said it detected the campaign after it identified an "unusual series of commands" targeting its Redis honeypots that are engineered to lower security defenses by disabling the following configuration options - protected-mode replica-read-only aof-rewrite-incremental-fsync , and rdb-save-incremental-fsync It's suspected that these options are turned off in order to send additional commands to the Redis server f...

  Efficient communication is a cornerstone of business success. Internally, making sure your team communicates seamlessly helps you avoid friction losses, misunderstandings, delays, and overlaps. Externally, frustration-free customer communication is directly correlated to a positive customer experience and higher satisfaction. However, business communication channels are also a major target for cybercriminals. In recent years, especially since the pandemic, the number of cyberattacks has skyrocketed. Statistics show that last year alone, the number of hacks shot up by 38%. Worse, it still takes a business 277 days on average to identify a breach, causing a loss of $4.35 on average. So, how can businesses safeguard their communication channels against hackers, while still providing the best possible experience for customers and maintaining team productivity? Here's everything you need to know – and which  mistakes you need to avoid . Use Secure Platforms  # To b...