The world of cybersecurity is a never-ending battle, with malicious actors constantly devising new ways to exploit vulnerabilities and infiltrate networks. One such threat, causing headaches for security teams for over a decade, is the Qakbot Trojan, also known as Qbot. Qakbot has been used in malicious campaigns since 2007, and despite many attempts to stamp it out, continues to evolve and adapt in an attempt to evade detection.

A joint advisory on LockBit 3.0 ransomware, CISA’s latest tool which detects hacking activity in Microsoft cloud services, and ScarCruft’s evolving arsenal.

Legitimate cloud storage services are increasingly being exploited for cyber espionage, so the discovery of a similar operation in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine was just a matter of time.

In recent times, the hospitality industry has experienced a surge in malicious emails aimed at their employees, particularly customer service personnel who handle customer emails. These emails were carefully crafted to elicit a sense of urgency and trick hotel staff into clicking and opening them, using social engineering tactics.

Dridex, also known as Cridex or Bugat, is a banking Trojan that has been active since 2011. The malware is primarily used to steal sensitive information, such as login credentials and financial information, from victims. Dridex is known for its ability to evade detection by using dynamic configuration files and hiding its servers behind proxy layers.

It seems that once again bad actors have found a new way to infect our devices with malware. This time, they are using a devious little trick to spread trojanized versions of popular chat apps Telegram and WhatsApp. Now, I am sure you are all familiar with these apps – they are hugely popular for communication and messaging, with millions of users around the world. And unfortunately, that is exactly what makes them such an attractive target for cybercriminals.

Ransomware is a type of malware that is designed to take your system or files on your system hostage. The basic concept behind ransomware is pretty simple. An attacker prepares a payload that infiltrates a computer’s hard drive and encrypts the files in it.

Since March 2nd, 2023, intelligence from the Egress Intelligent Email Security platform shows Emotet malware being used within Microsoft OneNote attachments, as cybercriminals evolve their attacks in attempts to avoid detection. Emotet is sophisticated malware primarily used for stealing sensitive information, such as credentials, from the machines it infects.

A report from Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42 found that data theft extortion occurred in 70% of ransomware attacks in 2022, compared to 40% in 2021. The researchers examined the four most common methods of cyber extortion (encryption, data theft, harassment, and DDoS attacks) noting that threat actors often combine these tactics within a single attack campaign.

According to the AV-TEST Institute, more than 1 billion strains of malware have been created, and more than 500,00 new pieces of malware are detected every day. One of the main reasons for this rapid growth is that malware creators frequently reuse source code. They modify existing malware to meet the specific objectives of an attack campaign or to avoid signature-based detection.

A new report from ENISA, the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity, looking at cyberattacks targeting the European transport network over a period of almost two years, has identified that ransomware has become the prominent threat. ENISA's report, its first ever analysis of the myriad of cybersecurity threats facing the transport sector in the EU, mapped and studied cyber incidents targeting aviation, maritime, railway, and road transport between January 2021 and October 2022.

AT&T Alien Labs researchers have discovered a new variant of BlackGuard stealer in the wild, infecting using spear phishing attacks. The malware evolved since its previous variant and now arrives with new capabilities.

Emotet is undoubtedly a very resilient botnet. Even though its operation was disrupted by Europol in January 2021, Emotet came back a few months later and continues to spread. In May 2022, shortly after Microsoft released new controls related to malicious macros, Netskope Threat Labs analyzed an Emotet campaign where they were testing a new delivery method, by using LNK files.

Ransomware as a Service (RaaS) has been a growing trend in recent years, enabling anyone with an internet connection to become a hacker. In the past, launching a ransomware attack required a high level of technical expertise, but RaaS has lowered the barrier to entry, making it easier for anyone to launch a ransomware attack. So, how does RaaS work, and what are the implications for businesses and individuals?

The San Francisco 49ers, confirmed a ransomware attack, Cisco was attacked by the Yanluowang ransomware gang, and Entrust was attacked by Lockbit. And that’s just a handful of ransomware accounts noted in 2022.

On March 2nd, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued a joint Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA) – #StopRansomware: Royal Ransomware. We highly encourage everyone in a security role to read the Advisory, as it contains recent and historically observed tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) and indicators of compromise (IOCs) associated with Royal ransomware.

News broke in early February that the ACN, Italy’s National Cybersecurity Agency, issued a warning regarding a VMware vulnerability discovered two years ago. Many organizations hadn’t yet patched the issue and became the victims of a new ransomware called ZCryptor. The malicious software wreaked havoc on Italian and European businesses by encrypting users’ files and demanding payment for the data to be unencrypted.

The name Chaos is being used for a ransomware strain, a remote access trojan (RAT), and now a DDoS malware variant too. Talk about chaos! In this case, Sysdig’s Threat Research Team captured attacks using the Chaos variant of the Kaiji botnet malware. There is very little reported information on this malware since September 2022, perhaps because of the unfortunately chaotic naming, or simply because it is relatively new. Kaiji malware was of Chinese origin in 2020 and is written in Golang.

In November 20211 and February 2022,2 Microsoft announced that by default it would block Excel 4 and VBA macros in files that were downloaded from the internet. Following these changes, CrowdStrike Intelligence and the CrowdStrike Falcon® Complete managed detection and response team observed eCrime adversaries that had previously relied on macro execution for malware delivery adapt their tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs).

Security researchers have released a new decryption tool that should come to the rescue of some victims of a modified version of the Conti ransomware, helping them to recover their encrypted data for free. Conti was one of the most notorious ransomware groups, responsible for hundreds of attacks against organisations, which netted criminals over $150 million.

The Minneapolis public school district includes approximately 100 primary and secondary public schools. Between the many different schools, approximately 36,000 students are served by about 1,500 teachers. The district is currently suffering from a ransomware attack supposedly and is being extorted for a $1 Million payment by a ransomware gang.

BlackSnake is a ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) group that first appeared in a hacking forum in August 2022, where the operators were seeking affiliates and stating that they would take 15% of the profit, which is below the typical average of 20-30%. On February 28, 2023, a new variant of BlackSnake was spotted, and is notable for having a clipper module that targets cryptocurrency users.

A major logistics company was hit by a ransomware attack at a time when it was reviewing and upgrading its cybersecurity defense. Kroll provided seamless incident response to enable the company to act quickly to mitigate and minimize the damage caused by the attack. The company also deployed Kroll Responder, Kroll’s award-winning Managed Detection and Response (MDR) solution, giving it comprehensive 24/7 visibility and management of threats and enhancing its long-term cyber resilience.

A Rootkit is a malicious program composed of malware that is created to provide prolonged root-level or privileged-level access to a computer. It remains hidden in the computer system while maintaining control of the system remotely. Rootkits have the ability to steal data, eavesdrop, change system configurations, create permanent backdoors, deactivate other security defensive programs, and conceal other types of malware.

A joint FBI and CISA advisory on Royal ransomware, Sharp Panda’s new malware variant, and an update on IceFire ransomware.

Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer (ChatGPT) is now available on the official Google Chrome store as a browser extension, giving you easy access to this sophisticated chatbot. How exciting does that sound? Read the full story here.

Another day, another cyber espionage campaign exploiting two legitimate and well-known cloud services to deliver the malicious payload. Once again, this campaign was unearthed by researchers at Sentinel One, and it is aimed to distribute the Remcos Remote Access Tool (yet another example of a remote control tool used for malicious purposes) through the DBatLoader to target predominantly organizations in Eastern Europe.

In early March, the SANS Institute, whose mission is to empower cybersecurity professionals with the practical skills and knowledge to make the world a safer place, shared some insightful findings based on their survey on ransomware and malware intrusions in 2022. The survey included participants in various roles and industries from organizations worldwide of all sizes. “In this survey, we wanted to understand what the past year looked like for our respondents.

Are you still relying on legacy backup systems to protect your business from cyber attacks? If so, you might want to think twice. Cyber attacks have become so common that 98% of security and IT leaders reported that they dealt with at least one in the last year. Relying on legacy backups as a defense against cyber attacks is not only ineffective but also obsolete in today's rapidly evolving threat landscape.

In our new threat briefing report, Forescout’s Vedere Labs provides details on the recent ransomware campaign targeting VMware ESXi virtualization servers, or hypervisors, and analyzes two payloads used in these attacks: variants of the Royal and Clop ransomware. We also present the tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) used by attackers in this campaign, discuss mitigation recommendations and list indicators of compromise (IOCs) that can be used for detection or threat hunting.

Trustwave SpiderLabs “noted” in Part 1 and Part 2 of our OneNote research that OneNote has been used as a malware delivery mechanism now we will shift gears and focus on several OneNote decoy notes SpiderLabs has discovered that deliver malware families like Qakbot, XWorm, Icedid, and AsyncRAT. While the malware payload can change, the techniques have generally been the same.

In part one, we examined how threat actors abuse a OneNote document to install an infostealer. Part 2 of this series discusses an AsyncRAT infection chain while detailing important parts of the code. We’ll also quickly analyze other notable malware strains such as Qakbot and RemcosRAT.

Threat actors are taking advantage of Microsoft OneNote's ability to embed files and use social engineering techniques, such as phishing emails and lures inside the OneNote document, to get unsuspecting users to download and open malicious files. Once clicked, an attacker can use the embedded code for various malicious purposes, such as stealing data or installing ransomware on victims' systems.

Ransomware is a form of malicious software (malware) that restricts access to computer files, systems, or networks until a ransom is paid. In essence, an offender creates or purchases ransomware, then uses it to infect the target system. Ransomware is distributed in several ways including, but not limited to, malicious website links, infected USB drives, and phishing emails. Once infected, the offender encrypts the device and demands payment for the decryption key.

The purpose of the Netskope Threat Labs News Roundup series is to provide enterprise security teams an actionable brief on the top cybersecurity news from around the world. The brief includes summaries and links to the top news items spanning cloud-enabled threats, malware, and ransomware.

Dole PLC is a massive agricultural company headquartered in Dublin, Ireland. Dole has several offices and production facilities in the United States and supplies food products in 75 separate countries. The company maintains a staff of over 38,000 employees and offers more than 300 different products throughout the world.

Malware as a Service is the unlawful lease of software and hardware from the Dark Web to carry out cyber attacks. The threat actors who use this service are provided with botnet services and technical support by the MaaS owners. This service opens doors to anyone with minimal computer skills to use and distribute pre-made malware. The data that is stolen is often sold to the highest bidder or left for the service subscribers. MaaS is an illegal version of Software as a Service (SaaS).

Dish Network is one of the largest American television providers in the country today, offering television service through a direct-broadcast satellite network. The company serves more than 7.4 million customers and maintains over 16,000 employees to keep everything running properly. This huge broadcast network recently suffered from a ransomware attack that interrupted its broadcast service and may have exposed its customers as well.

More and more, people are completing the entire real estate transaction process online. From searching for properties to signing documents, online convenience can make the process easier and more efficient. However, with all of this activity taking place on the internet, it is important to be aware of the potential security risks that come along with it.

Read also: Two suspects in recent $9M Platipus DeFi hack arrested in France, CISA shares advice on how to improve security posture, and more.

High-profile ransomware attacks against large businesses and governments have become increasingly popular. They typically occupy news headlines on a monthly basis. As of writing, the most recent, high-profile attack was launched against Porsche, South Africa, where IT systems and some backups were impacted by ransomware from an unknown attacker. The gangs that perpetrate these attacks typically have carefully-crafted, large public personas and engage in significant posturing.