Adware can cause performance issues and unwanted ads on your computer. Some types of adware can even collect your personal information. To protect your personal information, you need to remove as much adware from your computer as possible. To remove adware from your computer, you should back up your files, download adware removal software and remove any unnecessary programs.

Malware often hides communications with its command and control (C2) server over HTTPS. The encryption in HTTPS usually conceals the compromise long enough for the malware to accomplish its goal. This makes detecting malware that uses HTTPS challenging, but once in a while, you will catch a break, as in the case here with AsyncRAT, a Windows remote access tool that has been deployed over the past year to target organizations that manage critical infrastructure in the United States.

The 2023 ransomware attack at the University of Manchester didn’t stop once the threat actors had successfully exfiltrated the personal identifiable information (PII) for faculty and staff, plus 250 GB of other data. When the university showed hesitation toward paying the ransom, they turned to a tactic that is becoming increasingly popular among cybercriminals — triple extortion.

Detecting malware in container environments can be a major challenge due to the rapid development of malicious code, the proliferation of insecure container images, and the multilayered complexity of container stacks. Staying ahead of attackers means tracking the constant evolution of malware and rooting out threats in your codebase at the expense of considerable compute.

A joint cybersecurity advisory published last week discusses ransomware attack impacts on healthcare, along with ALPHV’s attack techniques, indicators of compromise (IoCs) and proper response actions. ALPHV is a big enough problem that Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the FBI and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) all are getting together to put healthcare organizations on notice.

Netskope Threat Labs has observed an evasive Azorult campaign in the wild that employs multiple defense evasion techniques from delivery through execution to fly under the defender’s radar as it steals sensitive data. Azorult is an information stealer first discovered in 2016 that steals sensitive information including user credentials, browser information, and crypto wallet data.

An affiliate of the LockBit ransomware gang has been sentenced to almost four years in jail after earlier pleading guilty to charges of cyber extortion and weapons charges. 34-year-old Mikhail Vasiliev, who has dual Russian and Canadian nationality, was arrested in 2022 as part of a multinational law enforcement investigation into LockBit that started in March 2020.

Kroll observed the use of SPARKRAT in conjunction with a previously undocumented loader written in Golang. The loader assists in the initial infection and deployment of the malicious payload, enabling SPARKRAT to execute on a system. This process allows the payload to reach the target system undetected and unquarantined. The loader achieves its goal by decoding and decrypting a secondary payload binary, then injecting it into a notepad.exe instance.

We’re back again with a monthly-ish blog reflecting on major goings on in the security world. I am writing the first draft on the rarest of holidays, leap day1! February gets extended by a day every four years, and if we had to guess Ivanti wishes this month would end.

New Linux malware campaign targets misconfigured servers, ransomware actors diversify their exfiltration tools, and Cado reveals its top cloud threat findings report for 2H23.