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Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered a new evasive malware loader named SquidLoader that spreads via phishing campaigns targeting Chinese organizations. AT&T LevelBlue Labs, which first observed the malware in late April 2024, said it incorporates features that are designed to thwart static and dynamic analysis and ultimately evade detection. Attack chains leverage phishing emails that come with attachments that masquerade as Microsoft Word documents, but, in reality, are binaries that pave the way for the execution of the malware, which is then used to fetch second-stage shellcode payloads from a remote server, including Cobalt Strike. "These loaders feature heavy evasion and decoy mechanisms which help them remain undetected while also hindering analysis," security researcher Fernando Dominguez said . "The shellcode that is delivered is also loaded in the same loader process, likely to avoid writing the payload to disk and thus risk being detected."

A suspected China-nexus cyber espionage actor has been attributed as behind a prolonged attack against an unnamed organization located in East Asia for a period of about three years, with the adversary establishing persistence using legacy F5 BIG-IP appliances and using it as an internal command-and-control (C&C) for defense evasion purposes. Cybersecurity company Sygnia, which responded to the intrusion in late 2023, is tracking the activity under the name Velvet Ant , characterizing it as possessing robust capabilities to swiftly pivot and adapt their tactics to counter repeated eradication efforts. "Velvet Ant is a sophisticated and innovative threat actor," the Israeli company said in a technical report shared with The Hacker News. "They collected sensitive information over a long period of time, focusing on customer and financial information." The attack chains involve the use of a known backdoor called PlugX (aka Korplug), a modular remote access tr

Want to know what's the latest and greatest in SecOps for 2024? Gartner's recently released Hype Cycle for Security Operations report takes important steps to organize and mature the domain of Continuous Threat Exposure Management, aka CTEM. Three categories within this domain are included in this year's report: Threat Exposure Management, Exposure Assessment Platforms (EAP), and Adversarial Exposure Validation (AEV). These category definitions are aimed at providing some structure to the evolving landscape of exposure management technologies. Pentera, listed as a sample vendor in the newly defined AEV category, is playing a pivotal role in increasing the adoption of CTEM, with a focus on security validation. Following is our take on the CTEM related product categories and what they mean for enterprise security leaders. The Industry is Maturing CTEM, coined by Gartner in 2022, presents a structural approach for continuously assessing, prioritizing, validating, and remediating expo

Recent supply chain cyber-attacks are prompting cyber security regulations in the financial sector to tighten compliance requirements, and other industries are expected to follow. Many companies still don't have efficient methods to manage related time-sensitive SaaS security and compliance tasks. Free SaaS risk assessment tools are an easy and practical way to bring visibility and initial control to SaaS sprawl and Shadow AI. These tools now offer incremental upgrades , helping security professionals meet their company budget or maturity level.  Regulatory pressure, SaaS and AI proliferation, and increased risk of breaches or data leaks through 3rd party apps, make SaaS security one of the hottest areas for practitioners to learn and adopt. New regulations will require robust third-party SaaS risk lifecycle management that begins with SaaS service discovery and third-party risk management (TPRM) and ends with the requirement from CISOs to report incidents in their supply chain

Cybersecurity researchers have warned of an ongoing cryptojacking campaign targeting misconfigured Kubernetes clusters to mine Dero cryptocurrency. Cloud security firm Wiz, which shed light on the activity, said it's an updated variant of a financially motivated operation that was first documented by CrowdStrike in March 2023. "In this incident, the threat actor abused anonymous access to an Internet-facing cluster to launch malicious container images hosted at Docker Hub, some of which have more than 10,000 pulls," Wiz researchers Avigayil Mechtinger, Shay Berkovich, and Gili Tikochinski said . "These docker images contain a UPX-packed DERO miner named 'pause.'" Initial access is accomplished by targeting externally accessible Kubernetes API servers with anonymous authentication enabled to deliver the miner payloads. Unlike the 2023 version that deployed a Kubernetes DaemonSet named "proxy-api," the latest flavor makes use of seemingly b

Managed service providers (MSPs) are on the front lines of soaring demand for cybersecurity services as cyberattacks increase in volume and sophistication. Cynet has emerged as the security vendor of choice for MSPs to capitalize on existing relationships with SMB clients and profitably expand their client base. By unifying a full suite of cybersecurity capabilities in a simple, cost-effective solution, Cynet's All-in-One Cybersecurity Platform empowers MSPs to provide a full breach protection service with a single tool, backed by 24/7 expert support, for rapid profit. All-in-One Advantages for MSPs Traditionally, MSPs have cobbled together security solutions from variety of vendors, leading to a complex and expensive tech stack. Cynet solved this challenge with an All-in-One Platform that includes Extended Detection and Response (XDR), Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR), Managed Detection and Response (MDR), Security Information and Event Ma

Staying Sharp: Cybersecurity CPEs Explained Perhaps even more so than in other professional domains, cybersecurity professionals constantly face new threats. To ensure you stay on top of your game, many certification programs require earning Continuing Professional Education (CPE) credits. CPEs are essentially units of measurement used to quantify the time and effort professionals spend on maintaining and enhancing skills and knowledge in the field of cybersecurity, and they act as points that demonstrate a commitment to staying current. CPEs are best understood in terms of other professions: just like medical, legal and even CPA certifications require continuing education to stay up-to-date on advancements and industry changes, cybersecurity professionals need CPEs to stay informed about the latest hacking tactics and defense strategies. CPE credits are crucial for maintaining certifications issued by various cybersecurity credentialing organizations, such as (ISC)², ISACA, and C

The threat actor known as Commando Cat has been linked to an ongoing cryptojacking attack campaign that leverages poorly secured Docker instances to deploy cryptocurrency miners for financial gain. "The attackers used the cmd.cat/chattr docker image container that retrieves the payload from their own command-and-control (C&C) infrastructure," Trend Micro researchers Sunil Bharti and Shubham Singh said in a Thursday analysis. Commando Cat, so named for its use of the open-source Commando project to generate a benign container, was first documented earlier this year by Cado Security. The attacks are characterized by the targeting of misconfigured Docker remote API servers to deploy a Docker image named cmd.cat/chattr, which is then used as a basis to instantiate a container and break out of its confines using the chroot command, and gain access to the host operating system. The final step entails retrieving the malicious miner binary using a curl or wget command fr

Learn about critical threats that can impact your organization and the bad actors behind them from Cybersixgill's threat experts. Each story shines a light on underground activities, the threat actors involved, and why you should care, along with what you can do to mitigate risk.  In an increasingly interconnected world, supply chain attacks have emerged as a formidable threat, compromising not just individual organizations but the broader digital ecosystem. The web of interdependencies among businesses, especially for software and IT vendors, provides fertile ground for cybercriminals to exploit vulnerabilities. By targeting one weak link in the supply chain, threat actors can gain unauthorized access to sensitive information and can conduct malicious activities with severe consequences on multiple organizations, from data breaches and financial losses to widespread disruption and reputational damage. Understanding the nature, impact, and mitigation strategies of supply chain att

An analysis of a nascent ransomware strain called RansomHub has revealed it to be an updated and rebranded version of Knight ransomware, itself an evolution of another ransomware known as Cyclops. Knight (aka Cyclops 2.0) ransomware first arrived in May 2023, employing double extortion tactics to steal and encrypt victims' data for financial gain. It's operational across multiple platforms, including Windows, Linux, macOS, ESXi, and Android. Advertised and sold on the RAMP cybercrime forum, attacks involving the ransomware have been found to leverage phishing and spear-phishing campaigns as a distribution vector in the form of malicious attachments. The ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) operation has since shut down as of late February 2024, when its source code was put up for sale , raising the possibility that it may have changed hands to a different actor, who subsequently decided to update and relaunch it under the RansomHub brand. RansomHub, which posted its first v

More than 600,000 small office/home office (SOHO) routers are estimated to have been bricked and taken offline following a destructive cyber attack staged by unidentified cyber actors, disrupting users' access to the internet. The mysterious event, which took place between October 25 and 27, 2023, and impacted a single internet service provider (ISP) in the U.S., has been codenamed Pumpkin Eclipse by the Lumen Technologies Black Lotus Labs team. It specifically affected three router models issued by the ISP: ActionTec T3200, ActionTec T3260, and Sagemcom. "The incident took place over a 72-hour period between October 25-27, rendered the infected devices permanently inoperable, and required a hardware-based replacement," the company said in a technical report. The blackout is significant, not least because it led to the abrupt removal of 49% of all modems from the impacted ISP's autonomous system number (ASN) during the time-frame. While the name of the ISP was

Okta is warning that a cross-origin authentication feature in Customer Identity Cloud (CIC) is susceptible to credential stuffing attacks orchestrated by threat actors. "We observed that the endpoints used to support the cross-origin authentication feature being attacked via credential stuffing for a number of our customers," the Identity and access management (IAM) services provider said . The suspicious activity commenced on April 15, 2024, with the company noting that it "proactively" informed customers that had the feature enabled. It did not disclose how many customers were impacted by the attacks. Credential stuffing is a type of cyber attack in which adversaries attempt to sign in to online services using an already available list of usernames and passwords obtained either from previous data breaches, or from phishing and malware campaigns. As recommended actions, users are being asked to review tenant logs for any signs of unexpected login events –

You're probably familiar with the term "critical assets". These are the technology assets within your company's IT infrastructure that are essential to the functioning of your organization. If anything happens to these assets, such as application servers, databases, or privileged identities, the ramifications to your security posture can be severe.  But is every technology asset considered a critical asset? Moreover, is every technology asset considered a  business -critical asset? How much do we really know about the risks to our  business -critical assets?  Business-critical assets are the underlying technology assets of your business in general – and we all know that technology is just one of the 3 essential pillars needed for a successful business operation. In order to have complete cybersecurity governance, organizations should consider: 1) Technology, 2) Business processes, and 3) Key People. When these 3 pillars come together, organizations can begin to understand the

Introduction The Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack (2021) and SolarWinds supply chain attack (2020) were pivotal moments in cybersecurity, starting a new challenge for Chief Information Security Officers ( CISOs ). These attacks highlighted the importance of collaboration between CISOs and DevOps teams to ensure proper cloud security configurations. In this article, we will outline the 6-step approach to fostering strong partnerships between CISOs, DevOps teams, IT management, and organizations that can help to drive innovation while maintaining a robust security posture. You will learn how a CISO can effectively communicate with IT leadership and what methods to try. Our narrative will emphasize the most crucial aspect of an organization's security - growing your strong security team and moving to a proactive approach.  Understanding such breaches, such as the Capital One data breach (2019), Epsilon data breach (2019), Magecart compromises (ongoing), and MongoDB breaches (2