Supply chain attacks are one of the top concerns for any organization as they exploit (no pun intended) the inherited trust between organizations. Recent examples of similar attacks include SolarWinds and Kaseya. On March 29th, a new supply chain attack was identified targeting 3CX, a VoIP IPXS developer, with North Korean nation-state actors as the likely perpetrators.

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 new critical vulnerability impacting Microsoft Outlook (CVE-2023-23397) was recently published by Microsoft. The CVE is particularly concerning as no user involvement is required by the exploit. Once a user receives a malicious calendar invite, the attacker can gain a user’s Active Directory credentials. Microsoft has released a security update that can be found here. Cato Research strongly encourages updating all relevant systems as proof-of-concept exploits have already appeared online.