With the recent ransomware attack that impacted operation of one of the major US pipelines[1], I thought it might be a good time to revisit the old topic of internet-connected industrial systems. Since operational technologies are generally used to support/control processes that directly impact the physical world, the danger of successful attacks on them should be self-evident, as should the need to protect them.
This month we got patches for 55 vulnerabilities. Of these, 4 are critical, 3 were previously disclosed and none is being exploited according to Microsoft.
Recently, a number of libraries suffered from a very similar security flaw: IP addresses expressed in octal were not correctly interpreted. The result was that an attacker was able to bypass input validation rules that restricted IP addresses to specific subnets.
Shodan&#;x26;#;x5b;1&#;x26;#;x5d; is one of the most familiar site for research on what is on the internet. In Oct 2020 I did a diary on Censys &#;x26;#;x5b;2&#;x26;#;x5d;&#;x26;#;x5b;3&#;x26;#;x5d;, another site collecting similar information like Shodan. The next two sites are regularly scanning the internet for data which isn&#;x26;#;39;t shared with the security community at large.
More phun with Apple AirTags! Free internet, no data plan required... but it's s-l-o-o-o-w.
Vendor's site offline? Can't wait for your download? Tempted to go trawling through the underweb to find an "unofficial" version?
Latest episode - listen now!
All that glisters is not gold/Often have you heard that told/Gilded tombs do worms enfold
Ooooh, look! A shiny button-like object!
640Kbytes of RAM should be enough for anyone...
Latest episode - listen now! (And please share with your friends.)
This browser update is for everyone, but it's for Android users particularly.
These bugs date back to 2009, and they could give crooks who are already in your network access to sysadmin superpowers.
Don't delay. Get these updates today.
May Patch Tuesday Offers Relative Respite and What We Know About DarkSide Ransomware and the US Pipeline Attack
While much of the EO may not be new or bold concepts, the potential for long term impact to federal cybersecurity is high and immediate.
Compared to the previous months of 2021, this month’s Patch Tuesday cycle is a slight lull. Only 55 vulnerabilities were fixed this month, with only four of these classified as Critical.
Open source code is the gateway to quick application deployment – see how Trend Micro and Snyk have partnered up to create developer-friendly security for your open source components
There have been a lot of changes in ransomware over time. We want to help you protect your organization from this growing attack trend.
New Panda Stealer Targets Cryptocurrency Wallets and Apple Releases Urgent Security Patches for Zero-Day Bugs
Physical security may have more of an impact on cloud operations than you think
Our telemetry showed three malware families taking advantage of the ProxyLogon vulnerability beginning in March: the coinminer LemonDuck was sighted first, quickly followed by the ransomware BlackKingdom, then the Prometei botnet.
Scammers took advantage of the surge in online activity during the pandemic, targeting businesses and buyers that were settling into new ways of transacting.
The complexity of containers demands something to make sense of it all. Builders, operations teams and security teams need a single language to understand the risk associated with containers.
In early April, we observed a new information stealer called Panda Stealer being delivered via spam emails. Based on Trend Micro's telemetry, United States, Australia, Japan, and Germany were among the most affected countries during a recent spam wave.
Hacktivism’s reemergence explained and Hello ransomware uses updated China Chopper web shell
In this blog, we detail how cybercriminals exploit OpenBullet, a legitimate web-testing software, to brute-force their way into targeted accounts.
As technological innovations evolve, protecting companies from cyber threats tomorrow secures their businesses today. Read how Trend Micro protects customers from vulnerability exploits by blocking them as early as possible.
Since 2019, we have been tracking a threat campaign we dubbed as “Water Pamola.” The campaign initially compromised e-commerce online shops in Japan, Australia, and European countries via spam emails with malicious attachments.
The first malicious use of video deepfakes may have been observed, making one of Trend Micro’s long-standing predictions a looming reality.
We discuss the technical features of a Hello ransomware attack, including its exploitation of CVE-2019-0604 and the use of a modified version of the China Chopper web shell.
XCSSET Quickly Adapts to Macs and Babuk Ransomware Gang Claims Decryptor Repaired
Trend Micro released several patches last year to address known vulnerabilities. Since that time, an attempt was observed to leverage one of these vulnerabilities in a single unpatched customer system.
We found a botnet malware campaign targeting Linux systems, abusing the Tor network for proxies, and exploiting cloud infrastructure management tools for intrusion.
Read this year’s MITRE Engenuity ATT&CK Evaluations story, which simulates techniques associated with notorious threat groups Carbanak and FIN7 to test solutions' ability to detect and stop APT & Targeted Attacks.
What happens in Carbanak and FIN7 attacks? Here are some techniques used by these financially motivated threat groups that target banks, retail stores, and other establishments.
A look at the latest Microsoft zero-day exploits and how Trend Micro could help protect you.
April Patch Tuesday Sets Record High for 2021 and Fed Warns Cyber Threats Pose Danger to U.S Economy
This latest update details our new research on XCSSET, including the ways in which it has adapted itself to work on both ARM64 and x86_x64 Macs.
With so many vendors in the market, the Marsh initiative has created the Cyber Catalyst to help IT buyers find the right option for them.
Cybersecurity Tech Accords has grown significantly in the past 3 years, today having 150 signatories across 5 continents, united in the fight against cybercrime.
April’s Patch Tuesday fixes 114 vulnerabilities in various Microsoft products, a slight increase from March’s 89. This is the most vulnerabilities fixed in a month for 2021 to date, as well as a slight increase from the same month last year.
We provide the technical details of a supply chain attack on an improperly configured Azure DevOps Server 2020, specifically in the continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) Pipeline Agent communicating without TLS.
We discuss the cases of BazarCall and IcedID we observed in March. Both are known for the use of spam to deliver their payloads.
Microsoft Teams and Zoom Hacked In $1 Million Competition and Preventing Ransomware While Working from Home
This blog details how Iron Tiger threat actors have updated their toolkit with an updated SysUpdate malware variant that now uses five files in its infection routine instead of the usual three.
Alleged Members of Egregor Ransomware Cartel Arrested and Cybercriminals Home in on Manufacturers
We share some of our findings on malware, spam, phishing schemes, malicious websites, and illicit markets that use Covid-19 vaccines as a lure.
In the last article of our LoRaWAN series, we present dangerous hardware attacks that could affect organizations using this technology. These attacks are particularly worrying because many LoRaWAN devices are deployed in unsecured locations.
Trend Micro served as one of the cybersecurity partners of law enforcement authorities involved in the investigation.
Tracking Conti Ransomware and Swiss Firm Accessed SolarWinds Hacker’s Servers
We investigated pay-per-install (PPI) websites spreading multiple malware and adware, including CopperStealer and LNKR.
Joker’s Latest Ploy and NFT Digital Art Is Already Attracting Hackers
We show how the Trend Micro Vision One platform can be used to track Conti ransomware.
Trend Micro joins ROS-I Consortium to help accelerate the secure development of robotic Industry 4.0 applications.
Building in containers offers amazing benefits for development teams – speed, agility, flexibility, scalability, etc.
Verkada Hack Exposes 150,000 Security Cameras and Earth Vetala MuddyWater Continues to Target Organizations in the Middle East.
We found several new apps involving Joker, a persistent malware that subscribes unsuspecting mobile users to premium services without their consent.
We discuss how the involvement of P2P technology in IoT botnets can transform them into stronger threats that organizations and users need to watch out for.
This month’s Patch Tuesday includes fixes already released for the Microsoft Exchange Server zero-day flaws attributed to Hafnium attacks.
While investigating the team's activities, we found a binary containing a hardcoded shell script designed to steal AWS credentials, which provided us a lead on the scope of the attack.
Rarely do cyber-espionage campaigns appear on the scale of the current Microsoft Exchange Server situation. Four vulnerabilities were exploited by a state-backed threat group linked to China, according to Microsoft.
Povlsomware Ransomware Features Cobalt Strike Compatibility and High-Risk Email Security Threats Increased by 32% Last Year.
Trend Micro researchers recently detected activity suspected to be from MuddyWater. This campaign targets various organizations in the Middle East and neighboring regions.
We recently discovered two new ransomware variants, AlumniLocker and Humble, which exhibit different sophisticated behaviors and extortion techniques post-encryption.
Trend Micro Cloud App Security 2020 detection results and customer examples.
2021 got off to a fantastic start for the cybersecurity community with the news that the infamous botnet Emotet had been brought down in a coordinated global operation, "Operation Ladybird."
Povlsomware is a proof-of-concept (POC) ransomware first released in November 2020 which, according to their Github page, is used to “securely” test the ransomware protection capabilities of security vendor products.
Trend Micro 2020 Annual Cybersecurity Report and More Than 6,700 VMware Servers Exposed Online and Vulnerable to Major New Bug
Use of audio-only social media apps has been steadily capturing the interest of more users but just like any other technology, apps like these are not immune from security risks.
The new center square on the XDR buzzword bingo card.
As we head deeper into 2021, let’s take a look back on some of the most notable security stories and trends from the past year, all of which are covered in our 2020 annual cybersecurity report.
Nefilim is known for its double extortion capabilities and notable attacks in 2020. We give an overview of its techniques and tools in this entry.
This second part of our series on LoRaWAN will discuss the security of LoRaWAN communication and possible attacks on vulnerabilities.
Cybersecurity Risks of Connected Cars and SHAREit Flaw Could Lead to Remote Code Execution
We discuss the opportunities and risks brought about by technologies that connected cars use, such as 5G connectivity and the cloud. This entry highlights the findings from our paper “Cybersecurity for Connected Cars: Exploring Risks in 5G, Cloud, and Other Connected Technologies."
We discovered vulnerabilities in the SHAREit application. These vulnerabilities can be abused to leak a user’s sensitive data, execute arbitrary code, and possibly lead to remote code execution. The app has over 1 billion downloads.
Trend Micro Launches New XDR Platform and Threat Actors Now Target Docker via Container Escape Features
Microsoft fixed 56 vulnerabilities - 11 of them rated Critical - in the February Patch Tuesday cycle.
We provide a technical analysis of a container abuse attack that features a payload that’s specifically crafted to be able to escape privileged Docker containers.
Second SolarWinds Attack Group Breaks into USDA Payroll and Understanding Cloud Misconfigurations
In this entry, we give an overview of new ransomware discoveries. This includes a new ransomware family dubbed Seth-Locker, and developments in the variants Babuk Locker, Maoloa, TeslaCrypt, and CobraLocker.
Customers first: building out our Splunk partnership for a more secure 2021
We discuss how common cloud misconfigurations can lead to cybersecurity problems – using two classic favorites – and how to mitigate them.
Our investigation of an unusual DNS query by a command-line tool leads us to the discovery of a multi-step obfuscated malware.
Guest Blog, sponsored by Trend Micro - IDC analyst, Michael Suby, explains the importance of upgrading XDR security integrations.
Our CVE Story: Learning to Embrace Recognition and Mitigations of Vulnerabilities as a Strength
We dissect a targeted attack that made use of the Chopper ASPX web shell (Backdoor.ASP.WEBSHELL.UWMANA).
Welcome to our weekly roundup, where we share what you need to know about cybersecurity news and events that happened over the past few days.
Trend Micro has been tracking a wide-spread phishing campaign since last year. The campaign distributors attempt to steal people’s credit card number by sending phishing emails related to deliveries from national postal systems.
On data privacy day, we would like to share some helpful tips in order for you to keep your data to yourself.
Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) devices have been hacking targets for quite some time. We dive into attacks that malicious actors can use against vulnerable LoRaWAN devices, and review the state of LoRaWAN security. This is the first in a three-part series.
Sodinokibi was behind several notable attacks last year. In this entry, we describe its attack process using some of the examples we encountered.
We have been following an evolving phishing campaign that targets high-ranking company executives since 2019, reusing compromised credentials and URLs to target more.
Routers Still Compromised Two Years After VPNFilter’s Discovery and Malwarebytes Says Some of its Emails Were Breached by SolarWinds Hackers
Through the Apex One with Endpoint Sensor (iES), we discovered an APT attack wherein an attacker utilized sophisticated techniques in an attempt to exfiltrate sensitive information from a company.
We look into VPNFilter, an IoT botnet discovered over two years ago, to see why there are still routers infected by the malware and what else can be done to minimize its potential risks.
Jason Cradit, Principal Cloud Architect, 1898 & Company
January Patch Tuesday Repairs Critical MS Defender RCE Bug and Authorities Take Down World's Largest Illegal Dark Web Marketplace
The cloud is an environment full of potential, providing easy access to technologies that weren’t available a decade ago. However, its not always as sunny as it seems. Continue on to read about the top worry in cloud security for the upcoming year.
Microsoft welcomed the first month of 2021 with a total of 83 security updates — which is an uptick from December’s relatively lighter list.
Investigation Launched into Role of JetBrains Product in SolarWinds Hack and TeamTNT Now Deploying DDoS-Capable IRC Bot TNTbotinger
In past cryptocurrency mining attacks, malicious shell scrips were typically used as downloaders. However, recent cases show that they now serve other purposes such as stealing sensitive data.
RansomExx is a ransomware variant responsible for several high-profile attacks in 2020. We take a look at its current techniques which include the use of trojanized software to deliver malicious payloads and an overall short and fast attack.
In early December 2020, the FBI issued a warning regarding DoppelPaymer, a ransomware family that first appeared in 2019. Its activities continued throughout 2020, including incidents that left its victims struggling to properly carry out their operations.
We discovered a new campaign we named Earth Wendigo that has been targeting several organizations in Taiwan - since May 2019, aiming to exfiltrate emails from targeted organizations via the injection of JavaScript backdoors to a webmail system that is widely used in Taiwan.
Many kids now have school-supplied computer equipment away from the school network. However, with this come privacy and security concerns. Some are easy to avoid, but others need some modifications to ensure safety.
Pawn Storm Employs Lack of Sophistication as a Strategy and SolarWinds Says Affected Enterprises Must Use Hot Patches and Isolate Compromised Gear
We discuss TeamTNT’s latest attack, which involves the use of the group’s own IRC (Internet Relay Chat) bot. The IRC bot is called TNTbotinger and is capable of distributed denial of service (DDoS).
We discovered a campaign that distributed a credential stealer, and its main code components are written in AutoHotkey (AHK).
In this entry we share Pawn Storm's recent activities, focusing on their use of some simple methods that typically won't get associated with APT groups.
Cybersecurity people have been generally outspoken that backdoors are bad.
A lot of the risk managed in companies is done by non-security products.
Various sources have recently disclosed a sophisticated attack that hit organizations via the supply chain via a compromised network monitoring program. This post discusses what the Sunburst backdoor is and what you can do now to mitigate this threat.
In this report, we take a step back from the day-to-day ransomware news cycle and follow the ripples back into the heart of the ecosystem to understand how it is organized.
In Q1 2021, we saw a spike in DDoS activity in January, peaking at over 1,800 attacks per day. The most widespread was UDP flooding (41.87%), while SYN flooding dropped to third place (26.36%).
A newly discovered rootkit that we dub 'Moriya' is used by an unknown actor to deploy passive backdoors on public facing servers, facilitating the creation of a covert C&C communication channel through which they can be silently controlled. The victims are located in Africa, South and South-East Asia.
In terms of spam and phishing, in Q1 2021, we largely saw a continuation of the 2020 trends: exploitation of COVID-19 theme, hunting corporate account credentials and spoofing of online store websites.
This report highlights significant events related to advanced persistent threat (APT) activity observed in Q1 2021. The summaries are based on our threat intelligence research and provide a representative snapshot of what we have published and discussed in greater detail in our private APT reports.
In this report, we'll take a look at the numbers behind the ransomware threat from 2019 to 2020, what they mean — and what they foretell about ransomware's future.
The Reverse Engineering webinar audience having been so active not only were we unable to address all the incoming questions online, we didn’t even manage to pack the rest of them in one blogpost. So here comes the second part of the webinar follow-up.
With so many questions collected during the Targeted Malware Reverse Engineering webinar we lacked the time to answer them all online, we promised we would come up with this blogpost.
CVE-2021-28310 is an out-of-bounds (OOB) write vulnerability in dwmcore.dll, which is part of Desktop Window Manager (dwm.exe). We believe it is exploited in the wild, potentially by several threat actors.
Malicious code was detected in version 3.17.18 of the APKPure alternative app store for Android. We recommend deleting the infected version and installing APKPure 3.17.19 asap.
The financially motivated cybercrime gang behind the Carbanak RAT is back with the Lizar malware, which can harvest all kinds of info from Windows machines.
The RaaS that crippled Colonial Pipeline lost the servers it uses to pull off ransomware attacks, while REvil’s gonads shrank in response.
A flaw that allows browsers to enumerate applications on a machine threatens cross-browser anonymity in Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Safari and even Tor.
The DBIR – Verizon’s 2021 data breach report – shows spikes in sophisticated phishing, financially motivated cyberattacks and a criminal focus on web-application servers.
Ransomware attackers are now demanding cash from the customers of victims too.
Experts from Intel, GitHub and KnowBe4 weigh in on what you need to succeed at security bug-hunting.
According to news reports, Colonial Pipeline paid the cybergang known as DarkSide the ransom it demanded in return for a decryption key.
An analysis of three popular forums used by ransomware operators reveals a complex ecosystem with many partnerships.
Tony Lauro, director of security technology and strategy at Akamai, discusses hardware security dongles and using phones to act as surrogates for them.
The campaign is harvesting screenshots, keystrokes, credentials, webcam feeds, browser and clipboard data and more, with RevengeRAT or AsyncRAT payloads.
The DarkSide ransomware gang is responsible for an attack on a major U.S. pipeline company. Learn about their tactics and how to mitigate them.
The post DarkSide Ransomware Gang: An Overview appeared first on Unit42.
File transfer threats can open organizations up to data theft or data loss, but proper controls and network traffic visibility can mitigate them.
The post File Transfer Threats: Risk Factors and How Network Traffic Visibility Can Help appeared first on Unit42.
We describe a proactive detector for DNS Security that can identify malicious domains based on their registration records and other indicators.
The post Detecting and Preventing Malicious Domains Proactively with DNS Security appeared first on Unit42.
We analyze commodity malware WeSteal, detail its techniques and examine its customers, as well as sharing details of a newly observed RAT, WeControl.
The post New Shameless Commodity Cryptocurrency Stealer (WeSteal) and Commodity RAT (WeControl) appeared first on Unit42.
We discuss how malware and malicious activities can occur in unsecured Kubernetes instances and how better configuration can help.
The post Unsecured Kubernetes Instances Could Be Vulnerable to Exploitation appeared first on Unit42.
We provide an overview of and mitigations for the Codecov Bash Uploader compromise.
The post Threat Brief: Codecov Bash Uploader appeared first on Unit42.
Unit 42 researchers found an attack in the wild targeting Nagios XI 5.7.5 that exploits CVE-2021-25296 and drops a cryptocurrency miner. Read more for an analysis of the vulnerable code, the resulting command injection, and the malicious scripts.
The post Are Your Nagios XI Servers Turning Into Cryptocurrency Miners for Attackers? appeared first on Unit42.
We observed an unknown actor who exploited vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange Server to install a webshell in an attempt at credential harvesting.
The post Actor Exploits Microsoft Exchange Server Vulnerabilities, Cortex XDR Blocks Harvesting of Credentials appeared first on Unit42.
CVE-2021-20291 leads to a denial of service of the container engines CRI-O and Podman when pulling a malicious image from a registry.
The post New Vulnerability Affecting Container Engines CRI-O and Podman (CVE-2021-20291) appeared first on Unit42.
In response to an uptick in Clop ransomware activity, we provide an overview and courses of action that can be used to mitigate it.
The post Threat Assessment: Clop Ransomware appeared first on Unit42.
Network attack trends in the Winter quarter of 2020 revealed some interesting trends, such as increased attacker preference for newly released vulnerabilities and a large uptick in attacks deemed Critical. In addition to details of the newly observed exploits, in this blog, we also dive deep into the exploitation analysis, vendor analysis, attack origin, and attack category distribution.
The post Network Attack Trends: Internet of Threats (November 2020-January 2021) appeared first on Unit42.
We provide a step-by-step technical analysis of Emotet command and control, based on observations from before Emotet threat actors were disrupted.
The post Emotet Command and Control Case Study appeared first on Unit42.
Unit 42 researchers spotted cryptojacking operations targeting US educational institutions.
The post Attackers Conducting Cryptojacking Operation Against U.S. Education Organizations appeared first on Unit42.
Learn how to examine activity from Hancitor infections with Wireshark and get tips on identifying Hancitor and its followup malware.
The post Wireshark Tutorial: Examining Traffic from Hancitor Infections appeared first on Unit42.
The Unit 42 Cloud Threat Report, 1H 2021, found a spike in security incidents for COVID-19 critical industries, a decline in cryptojacking and more.
The post Highlights from the Unit 42 Cloud Threat Report, 1H 2021 appeared first on Unit42.
Over the past week we have seen a considerable body of work focusing on DarkSide, the ransomware responsible for the recent gas pipeline shutdown. Many of the excellent technical write-ups will detail how it operates an affiliate model that supports others to be involved within the ransomware business model (in addition to the developers). While […]
The post DarkSide Ransomware Victims Sold Short appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Today, Microsoft released a highly critical vulnerability (CVE-2021-31166) in its web server http.sys. This product is a Windows-only HTTP server which can be run standalone or in conjunction with IIS (Internet Information Services) and is used to broker internet traffic via HTTP network requests. The vulnerability is very similar to CVE-2015-1635, another Microsoft vulnerability in […]
The post Major HTTP Vulnerability in Windows Could Lead to Wormable Exploit appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Preface Countries all over the world are racing to achieve so-called herd immunity against COVID-19 by vaccinating their populations. From the initial lockdown to the cancellation of events and the prohibition of business travel, to the reopening of restaurants, and relaxation of COVID restrictions on outdoor gatherings, the vaccine rollout has played a critical role […]
The post “Fool’s Gold”: Questionable Vaccines, Bogus Results, and Forged Cards appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
The Roaming Mantis smishing campaign has been impersonating a logistics company to steal SMS messages and contact lists from Asian Android users since 2018. In the second half of 2020, the campaign improved its effectiveness by adopting dynamic DNS services and spreading messages with phishing URLs that infected victims with the fake Chrome application MoqHao. […]
The post Roaming Mantis Amplifies Smishing Campaign with OS-Specific Android Malware appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
McAfee is tracking an increase in the use of deceptive popups that mislead some users into taking action, while annoying many others. A significant portion is attributed to browser-based push notifications, and while there are a couple of simple steps users can take to prevent and remediate the situation, there is also some confusion about […]
The post How to Stop the Popups appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Introduction Email is one of the primary ways of communication in the modern world. We use email to receive notifications about our online shopping, financial transaction, credit card e-statements, one-time passwords to authenticate registration processes, application for jobs, auditions, school admissions and many other purposes. Since many people around the globe depend on electronic mail […]
The post Steps to Discover Hidden Threat from Phishing Email appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Executive Summary Many malware attacks designed to inflict damage on a network are armed with lateral movement capabilities. Post initial infection, such malware would usually need to perform a higher privileged task or execute a privileged command on the compromised system to be able to further enumerate the infection targets and compromise more systems on […]
The post Access Token Theft and Manipulation Attacks – A Door to Local Privilege Escalation appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
A new wave of fraudulent apps has made its way to the Google Play store, targeting Android users in Southwest Asia and the Arabian Peninsula as well—to the tune of more than 700,000 downloads before detection by McAfee Mobile Research and co-operation with Google to remove the apps. Figure 1. Infected Apps on Google Play […]
The post Clever Billing Fraud Applications on Google Play: Etinu appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
The McAfee Advanced Threat Research team today published the McAfee Labs Threats Report: April 2021. In this edition, we present new findings in our traditional threat statistical categories – as well as our usual malware, sectors, and vectors – imparted in a new, enhanced digital presentation that’s more easily consumed and interpreted. Historically, our reports […]
The post McAfee Labs Report Reveals Latest COVID-19 Threats and Malware Surges appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Recently, the McAfee Mobile Research Team uncovered several new variants of the Android malware family BRATA being distributed in Google Play, ironically posing as app security scanners. These malicious apps urge users to update Chrome, WhatsApp, or a PDF reader, yet instead of updating the app in question, they take full control of the device […]
The post BRATA Keeps Sneaking into Google Play, Now Targeting USA and Spain appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Executive Summary Cuba ransomware is an older ransomware, that has recently undergone some development. The actors have incorporated the leaking of victim data to increase its impact and revenue, much like we have seen recently with other major ransomware campaigns. In our analysis, we observed that the attackers had access to the network before the infection and were able to collect specific information […]
The post McAfee ATR Threat Report: A Quick Primer on Cuba Ransomware appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Cuba Ransomware Overview Over the past year, we have seen ransomware attackers change the way they have responded to organizations that have either chosen to not pay the ransom or have recovered their data via some other means. At the end of the day, fighting ransomware has resulted in the bad actors’ loss of revenue. […]
The post McAfee Defender’s Blog: Cuba Ransomware Campaign appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Welcome to reality Ever since I started working in IT Security more than 10 years ago, I wondered, what helps defend against malware the best? This simple question does not stand on its own, as there are several follow-up questions to that: How is malware defined? Are we focusing solely on Viruses and Trojans, or […]
The post McAfee Defenders Blog: Reality Check for your Defenses appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
The McAfee Labs Advanced Threat Research team is committed to uncovering security issues in both software and hardware to help developers provide safer products for businesses and consumers. We recently investigated software installed on computers used in K-12 school districts. The focus of this blog is on Netop Vision Pro produced by Netop. Our research […]
The post Netop Vision Pro – Distance Learning Software is 20/20 in Hindsight appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Operation Dianxun Overview In a recent report the McAfee Advanced Threat Research (ATR) Strategic Intelligence team disclosed an espionage campaign, targeting telecommunication companies, named Operation Diànxùn. The tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) used in the attack are like those observed in earlier campaigns publicly attributed to the threat actors RedDelta and Mustang Panda. Most probably […]
The post McAfee Defender’s Blog: Operation Dianxun appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
In this report the McAfee Advanced Threat Research (ATR) Strategic Intelligence team details an espionage campaign, targeting telecommunication companies, dubbed Operation Diànxùn. In this attack, we discovered malware using similar tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) to those observed in earlier campaigns publicly attributed to the threat actors RedDelta and Mustang Panda. While the initial vector […]
The post Operation Diànxùn: Cyberespionage Campaign Targeting Telecommunication Companies appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Overview For the March 2021 Patch Tuesday, Microsoft released a set of seven DNS vulnerabilities. Five of the vulnerabilities are remote code execution (RCE) with critical CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring Standard) scores of 9.8, while the remaining two are denial of service (DoS). Microsoft shared detection guidance and proofs of concept with MAPP members for […]
The post Seven Windows Wonders – Critical Vulnerabilities in DNS Dynamic Updates appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
0. Introduction John Lambert, a distinguished researcher specializing in threat intelligence at Microsoft, once said these words that changed perspectives: “Defenders think in lists. Attackers think in graphs.” This is true and, while it remains that way, attackers will win most of the time. However, the true power of graphs does not only reside in […]
The post McAfee ATR Thinks in Graphs appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Executive Summary Babuk ransomware is a new ransomware threat discovered in 2021 that has impacted at least five big enterprises, with one already paying the criminals $85,000 after negotiations. As with other variants, this ransomware is deployed in the network of enterprises that the criminals carefully target and compromise. Using MVISION Insights, McAfee was able […]
The post Babuk Ransomware appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
On February 17th, 2021, McAfee disclosed findings based on a 10-month long disclosure process with major video conferencing vendor Agora, Inc. As we disclosed the findings to Agora in April 2020, this lengthy disclosure timeline represents a nonstandard process for McAfee but was a joint agreement with the vendor to allow sufficient time for the […]
The post Beyond Clubhouse: Vulnerable Agora SDKs Still in Widespread Use appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
The McAfee Advanced Threat Research (ATR) team is committed to uncovering security issues in both software and hardware to help developers provide safer products for businesses and consumers. We recently investigated and published several findings on a personal robot called “temi”, which can be read about in detail here. A byproduct of our robotic research was […]
The post Don’t Call Us We’ll Call You: McAfee ATR Finds Vulnerability in Agora Video SDK appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
The concept of a trail of breadcrumbs in the offensive security community is nothing new; for many years, researchers on both sides of the ethical spectrum have followed the compass based on industry-wide security findings, often leading to groundbreaking discoveries in both legacy and modern codebases alike. This happened in countless instances, from Java to […]
The post Researchers Follow the Breadcrumbs: The Latest Vulnerabilities in Windows’ Network Stack appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
McAfee’s Advanced Threat Research team just completed its second annual capture the flag (CTF) contest for internal employees. Based on tremendous internal feedback, we’ve decided to open it up to the public, starting with a set of challenges we designed in 2019. We’ve done our best to minimize guesswork and gimmicks and instead of flashy graphics and games, we’ve distilled the kind of problems […]
The post McAfee ATR Launches Education-Inspired Capture the Flag Contest! appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Depending on your life experiences, the phrase (or country song by Eric Church) “two pink lines” may bring up a wide range of powerful emotions. I suspect, like many fathers and expecting fathers, I will never forget the moment I found out my wife was pregnant. You might recall what you were doing, or where […]
The post Two Pink Lines appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
As we gratefully move forward into the year 2021, we have to recognise that 2020 was as tumultuous in the digital realm as it has in the physical world. From low level fraudsters leveraging the pandemic as a vehicle to trick victims into parting with money for non-existent PPE, to more capable actors using malware […]
The post A Year in Review: Threat Landscape for 2020 appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
The December 2020 revelations around the SUNBURST campaigns exploiting the SolarWinds Orion platform have revealed a new attack vector – the supply chain – that will continue to be exploited. The ever-increasing use of connected devices, apps and web services in our homes will also make us more susceptible to digital home break-ins. This threat […]
The post 2021 Threat Predictions Report appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
In a blog post released 13 Dec 2020, FireEye disclosed that threat actors compromised SolarWinds’s Orion IT monitoring and management software with a trojanized version of SoalrWinds.Orion.Core.BusinessLayer.dll delivered as part of a digitally-signed Windows Installer Patch. The trojanized file delivers a backdoor, dubbed SUNBURST by FireEye (and Solorigate by Microsoft), that communicates to third-party servers for […]
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Executive Summary There has been considerable focus on the recent disclosures associated with SolarWinds, and while existing analysis on the broader campaign has resulted in detection against specific IoCs associated with the Sunburst trojan, the focus within the Advanced Threat Research (ATR) team has been to determine the possibility of additional persistence measures. Our analysis […]
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Part I of II Situation In a blog post released 13 Dec 2020, FireEye disclosed that threat actors compromised SolarWinds’s Orion IT monitoring and management software with a trojanized version of SolarWinds.Orion.Core.BusinessLayer.dll. The trojanized file delivers the SUNBURST malware through a backdoor as part of a digitally-signed Windows Installer Patch. Use of a Compromised Software […]
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CVSS Score: 9.8 Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H/E:U/RL:O/RC:C Overview Microsoft released a patch today for a critical vulnerability (CVE-2020-17051) in the Windows NFSv3 (Network File System) server. NFS is typically used in heterogenous environments of Windows and Unix/Linux for file sharing. The vulnerability can be reproduced to cause an immediate BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) within the nfssvr.sys driver. Interestingly, the November patches from Microsoft also include a remote kernel data read […]
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Executive Summary It is rare to be provided an inside view on how major cyber espionage campaigns are conducted within the digital realm. The only transparency afforded is a limited view of victims, a malware sample, and perhaps the IP addresses of historical command and control (C2) infrastructure. The Operation North Star campaign we detailed […]
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McAfee’s Advanced Threat Research (ATR) today released research that uncovers previously undiscovered information on how Operation North Star evaluated its prospective victims and launched attacks on organizations in Australia, India, Israel and Russia, including defense contractors based in India and Russia. McAfee’s initial research into Operation North Star revealed a campaign that used social media […]
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The McAfee Advanced Threat Research team today published the McAfee Labs Threats Report: November 2020. In this edition, we follow our preceding McAfee Labs COVID-19 Threats Report with more research and data designed to help you better protect your enterprise’s productivity and viability during challenging times. What a year so far! The first quarter of […]
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CVE-2020-16898: “Bad Neighbor” CVSS Score: 8.8 Vector: CVSS:3.0/AV:A/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:H/A:H/E:P/RL:O/RC:C Overview Today, Microsoft announced a critical vulnerability in the Windows IPv6 stack, which allows an attacker to send maliciously crafted packets to potentially execute arbitrary code on a remote system. The proof-of-concept shared with MAPP (Microsoft Active Protection Program) members is both extremely simple and perfectly reliable. It results […]
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From June to August, part of the McAfee Advanced Threat Research (ATR) team participated in Microsoft’s Azure Sphere Research Challenge. Our research resulted in reporting multiple vulnerabilities classified by Microsoft as “important” or “critical” in the platform that, to date, have qualified for over $160,000 USD in bounty awards scheduled to be contributed to the ACLU ($100,000), St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital ($50,000) and PDX Hackerspace (approximately $20,000). With these contributions, we hope to support and give […]
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McAfee Advanced Threat Research (ATR) is collaborating with Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) and its Blackrock Castle Observatory (BCO) and the National Space Center (NSC) in Cork, Ireland The essence of Space 4.0 is the introduction of smaller, cheaper, faster-to-the-market satellites in low-earth-orbit into the value chain and the exploitation of the data they provide. […]
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McAfee Advanced Threat Research (ATR) is collaborating with Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) and its Blackrock Castle Observatory (BCO) and the National Space Center in Cork, Ireland In the first of this two-part blog series we introduced Space 4.0, its data value and how it looks set to become the next battleground in the defense […]
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Open Source projects are the building blocks of any software development process. As we indicated in our previous blog, as more and more products use open source code, the increase in the overall attack surface is inevitable, especially when open source code is not audited before use. Hence it is recommended to thoroughly test it […]
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Intro In a U.S. government cyber security advisory released today, the National Security Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation warn of a previously undisclosed piece of Linux rootkit malware called Drovorub and attribute the threat to malicious actor APT28. The report is incredibly detailed and proposes several complementary detection techniques to effectively identify Drovorub malware […]
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Executive Summary Open source has become the foundation for modern software development. Vendors use open source software to stay competitive and improve the speed, quality, and cost of the development process. At the same time, it is critical to maintain and audit open source libraries used in products as they can expose a significant volume […]
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Retired Marine fighter pilot and Top Gun instructor Dave Berke said “Every single thing you do in your life, every decision you make, is an OODA Loop.” OODA Loop? Observe–Orient–Decide–Act, the “OODA Loop” was originally developed by United States Air Force Colonel John Boyd and outlines that fundamentally all actions are first based on observations. […]
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Overview As part of our continued goal of helping developers provide safer products for businesses and consumers, we here at McAfee Advanced Threat Research (ATR) recently investigated temi, a teleconference robot produced by Robotemi Global Ltd. Our research led us to discover four separate vulnerabilities in the temi robot, which this paper will describe in […]
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Co-authored with Jesse Chick, OSU Senior and Former McAfee Intern, Primary Researcher. Special thanks to Dr. Catherine Huang, McAfee Advanced Analytics Team Special thanks to Kyle Baldes, Former McAfee Intern “Face” the Facts There are 7.6 Billion people in the world. That’s a huge number! In fact, if we all stood shoulder to shoulder on […]
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This document has been prepared by McAfee Advanced Threat Research in collaboration with JSOF who discovered and responsibly disclosed the vulnerabilities. It is intended to serve as a joint research effort to produce valuable insights for network administrators and security personnel, looking to further understand these vulnerabilities to defend against exploitation. The signatures produced here […]
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Building Adaptable Security Architecture Against NetWalker NetWalker Overview The NetWalker ransomware, initially known as Mailto, was first detected in August 2019. Since then, new variants were discovered throughout 2019 and the beginning of 2020, with a strong uptick noticed in March of this year. NetWalker has noticeably evolved to a more stable and robust ransomware-as-a-service […]
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Executive Summary The NetWalker ransomware, initially known as Mailto, was first detected in August 2019. Since then, new variants were discovered throughout 2019 and the beginning of 2020, with a strong uptick noticed in March of this year. NetWalker has noticeably evolved to a more stable and robust ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) model, and our research suggests […]
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Executive Summary We are in the midst of an economic slump [1], with more candidates than there are jobs, something that has been leveraged by malicious actors to lure unwitting victims into opening documents laden with malware. While the prevalence of attacks during this unprecedented time has been largely carried out by low-level fraudsters, the […]
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Building Adaptable Security Architecture Against the Operation North Star Campaign Operation North Star Overview Over the last few months, we have seen attackers take advantage of the pandemic as a cover to launch cyberattacks. One such example is a campaign that McAfee Advanced Threat Research (ATR) observed as an increase in malicious cyber activity targeting […]
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Happy Birthday! Today we mark the fourth anniversary of the NoMoreRansom initiative with over 4.2 million visitors, from 188 countries, stopping an estimated $632 million in ransom demands from ending up in criminals’ pockets. It would be fair to say that the initiative, which started in a small meeting room in the Hague, has been […]
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Windows Subsystem for Linux Plan 9 Protocol Research Overview This is the final blog in the McAfee research series trilogy on the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) implementation – see The Twin Journey (part 1) and Knock, Knock–Who’s There (part 2). The previous research discussed file evasion attacks when the Microsoft P9 server can be […]
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The McAfee Advanced Threat Research team today published the McAfee® Labs COVID-19 Threats Report, July 2020. In this “Special Edition” threat report, we delve deep into the COVID-19 related attacks observed by our McAfee Advanced Threats Research and McAfee Labs teams in the first quarter of 2020 and the early months of the pandemic. What […]
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On June 16th, the Department of Homeland Security and CISA ICS-CERT issued a critical security advisory warning covering multiple newly discovered vulnerabilities affecting Internet-connected devices manufactured by multiple vendors. This set of 19 vulnerabilities in a low-level TCP/IP software library developed by Treck has been dubbed “Ripple20” by researchers from JSOF. A networking stack is a software component […]
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In 2019, McAfee Advanced Threat Research (ATR) disclosed a vulnerability in a product called BoxLock. Sometime after this, the CEO of iParcelBox, a U.K. company, reached out to us and offered to send a few of their products to test. While this isn’t the typical M.O. for our research we applaud the company for being […]
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Package delivery is just one of those things we take for granted these days. This is especially true in the age of Coronavirus, where e-commerce and at-home deliveries make up a growing portion of consumer buying habits. In 2019, McAfee Advanced Threat Research (ATR) conducted a vulnerability research project on a secure home package delivery […]
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The RagnarLocker ransomware first appeared in the wild at the end of December 2019 as part of a campaign against compromised networks targeted by its operators. The ransomware code is small (only 48kb after the protection in its custom packer is removed) and coded in a high programming language (C/C++). Like all ransomware, […]
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There are number of ways scammers use to target personal information and, currently, one example is, they are taking advantage of the fear around the virus pandemic, sending phishing and scam emails to Microsoft OneDrive users, trying to profit from Coronavirus/COVID-19. They will pretend to be emailing from government, consulting, or charitable organizations to steal […]
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Introduction This blog describes how McAfee ATP (Adaptive Threat Protection) rules are used within McAfee Endpoint Security products. It will help you understand how ATP Rules work and how you can utilize them to prevent infections from prevalent malware families such as Emotet, LemonDuck and PowerMiner. Please read through the recommendation section to effectively utilize […]
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Ransomware protection and incident response is a constant battle for IT, security engineers and analysts under normal circumstances, but with the number of people working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic that challenge reaches new heights. How do you ensure an equivalent level of adaptable malware protection on or off the corporate network? How do […]
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The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted many companies to enable their employees to work remotely and, in a large number of cases, on a global scale. A key component of enabling remote work and allowing employees to access internal corporate resources remotely is Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), which allows communication with a remote system. In order […]
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Special thanks to Prajwala Rao, Oliver Devane, Shannon Cole, Ankit Goel and members of Malware Research for their contribution and monitoring of related threats As COVID-19 continues to spread across the world, it is no surprise that malware authors are exploiting the pandemic. McAfee recently released blogs around Covid-19 related threats – Staying safe while […]
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Co-authored by Marc RiveroLopez. In collaboration with Northwave As we highlighted previously across two blogs, targeted ransomware attacks have increased massively over the past months. In our first article, we discussed the growing pattern of targeted ransomware attacks where the primary infection stage is often an info-stealer kind of malware used to gain credentials/access to determine […]
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McAfee Mobile Research team has found another variant of MalBus on an education application, developed by a South Korean developer. In the previous Malbus case, the author distributed the malware through Google Play, but new variants are distributed via the ONE Store in much the same way. ONE Store is a joint venture by the […]
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While not a new practice, the sheer volume of people required to adhere to social distancing best practices means we now have a mass workforce working remotely. Most enterprises and SMBs can support working remotely today but many IT departments are not equipped to scale to the numbers currently required. In this blog we discuss […]
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Although the use of global events as a vehicle to drive digital crime is hardly surprising, the current outbreak of COVID-19 has revealed a multitude of vectors, including one in particular that is somewhat out of the ordinary. In a sea of offers for face masks, a recent posting on a dark web forum reveals […]
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Executive Summary The McAfee Advanced Threat Research Team (ATR) observed a new ransomware family named ‘Nemty’ on 20 August 2019. We are in an era where ransomware developers face multiple struggles, from the great work done by the security community to protect against their malware, to initiatives such as the No More Ransom project that […]
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Maze ransomware, previously known in the community as “ChaCha ransomware”, was discovered on May the 29th 2019 by Jerome Segura[1]. The main goal of the ransomware is to crypt all files that it can in an infected system and then demand a ransom to recover the files. However, the most important characteristic […]
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Special thanks to Tim Hux and Sorcha Healy for their assistance. The demand for remote working as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic will invariably place pressures on organizations to ensure the availability of corporate resources in geographic locations outside of corporate control. Such demands go beyond the provision of additional capacity, with potentially remote […]
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The Vulnerability The latest vulnerability in SMBv3 is a “wormable” vulnerability given its potential ability to replicate or spread over network shares using the latest version of the protocol (SMB 3.1.1). As of this writing, Microsoft have just released a patch for CVE-2020-0796 on the morning of March 12th. The bug was introduced very recently, […]
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The McAfee Mobile Research team has identified an Android malware family dubbed Android/LeifAccess.A that has been active since May 2019. This trojan was discovered globally with localized versions but has a much higher prevalence in the USA and Brazil. As part of the payload, this trojan can abuse OAuth leveraging accessibility services to automatically create […]
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Thousands of HiddenAds Trojan Apps Masquerade as Google Play Apps The McAfee mobile research team has recently discovered a new variant of the HiddenAds Trojan. HiddenAds Trojan is an adware app used to display advertising and collect user data for marketing. The goal of such apps is to generate revenue by redirecting users to advertisements. […]
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In our first article we discussed the growing pattern of targeted ransomware attacks where the first infection stage is often an info-stealer kind of malware used to gain credentials/access to determine if the target would be valuable for a ransomware attack. In this second part we will pick up where we left off: the attacker […]
The post CSI: Evidence Indicators for Targeted Ransomware Attacks – Part II appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
The last several years have been fascinating for those of us who have been eagerly observing the steady move towards autonomous driving. While semi-autonomous vehicles have existed for many years, the vision of fleets of fully autonomous vehicles operating as a single connected entity is very much still a thing of the future. However, the […]
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Catherine Huang, Ph.D., and Shivangee Trivedi contributed to this blog. The term “Adversarial Machine Learning” (AML) is a mouthful! The term describes a research field regarding the study and design of adversarial attacks targeting Artificial Intelligence (AI) models and features. Even this simple definition can send the most knowledgeable security practitioner running! We’ve coined the […]
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For many years now I have been working and teaching in the field of digital forensics, malware analysis and threat intelligence. During one of the classes we always talk about Lockard’s exchange principle: “with contact between two items, there will be an exchange”. If we translate that to the digital world: “when an adversary breaches […]
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A Windows Linux Subsystem Interop Analysis Following our research from Evil Twins and Windows Linux Subsystem, interoperability between different WSL versions was something that caught our attention. The protocol and mechanism to do file management from/to WSL is a must for Blue and Red Teams whose research will provide new ways to execute known techniques […]
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Preface Because of its longevity and technical sophistication, the Russian cybercriminal underground has long been the benchmark for threat researchers focused on studying cybercrime tactics and techniques; there is a plethora of publications dedicated to analyzing its economy and hacking forums. However, only a handful of studies have centered on the emerging threats and trends […]
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Intelligence became an integral military discipline centuries ago. More recently, this practice evolved into what is called Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield, or IPB. In both military and civilian agencies, the discipline uses information collection followed by analysis to provide guidance and direction to operators making tactical or organizational decisions. Used strategically, this type of intelligence puts an organization in […]
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Today McAfee released the results of a survey of county websites and county election administration websites in the 13 states projected as battleground states in the 2020 U.S. presidential elections. We found that significant majorities of these websites lacked the official government .GOV website validation and HTTPS website security measures to prevent malicious actors from […]
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There has been a dramatic shift in the platforms targeted by attackers over the past few years. Up until 2016, browsers tended to be the most common attack vector to exploit and infect machines but now Microsoft Office applications are preferred, according to a report published here during March 2019. Increasing use of Microsoft Office […]
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Enterprise customers looking for information on defending against Curveball can find information here. 2020 came in with a bang this year, and it wasn’t from the record-setting number of fireworks on display around the world to celebrate the new year. Instead, just over two weeks into the decade, the security world was rocked by a […]
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By: Jan Schnellbächer and Martin Stecher, McAfee Germany GmbH This week security researches around the world were very busy working on Microsoft’s major crypto-spoofing vulnerability (CVE-2020-0601) otherwise known as Curveball. The majority of research went into attacks with malicious binaries that are signed with a spoofed Certificate Authority (CA) which unpatched Win10 systems would in […]
The post What CVE-2020-0601 Teaches Us About Microsoft’s TLS Certificate Verification Process appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Recent political tensions in the Middle East region have led to significant speculation of increased cyber-related activities. McAfee is on a heightened state of alert to monitor the evolving threats and rapidly implement coverage across all McAfee products as intelligence becomes available. Known campaigns associated with the threat actors from this region were integrated into […]
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The idea of controlling your garage door remotely and verifying that everything is secure at home, or having packages delivered directly into your garage is enticing for many people. The convenience that many of these IOT devices provide often persuades consumers away from thinking about the possible security concerns. McAfee Advanced Threat Research recently investigated […]
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Steve Povolny contributed to this report. McAfee’s Advanced Threat Research team performs security analysis of products and technologies across nearly every industry vertical. Special interest in the consumer space and Internet of Things (IoT) led to the discovery of an insecure design with the McLear NFC Ring a household access control device. The NFC Ring […]
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This week McAfee Advanced Threat Research (ATR) published new findings, uncovering security flaws in two popular IoT devices: a connected garage door opener and a “smart” ring, which, amongst many uses, utilizes near field communication (NFC) to open door locks. I’d like to use these cases as examples of a growing concern in the area […]
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There are number of ways scammers use to target your money or personal details. These scams include support sites for services such as Office365, iCloud, Gmail, etc. They will charge you for the service and steal your credit card details. Software activation scam sites will steal your activation code and they may resell it at a […]
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Co-authored by Marc RiveroLopez. Initial Discovery This year seems to again be the year for ransomware. Notorious attacks were made using ransomware and new families are being detected almost on a weekly basis. The McAfee ATR team has now analyzed a new ransomware family with some special features we would like to showcase. LooCipher represents […]
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With 2019’s headlines of ransomware, malware, and RDP attacks almost behind us, we shift our focus to the cybercrime threats ahead. Cybercriminals are increasing the complexity and volume of their attacks and campaigns, always looking for ways to stay one step ahead of cybersecurity practices – and more often using the world’s evolving technology against […]
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Co-authored by Marc RiveroLopez Initial Discovery This week the news hit that several companies in Spain were hit by a ransomware attack. Ransomware attacks themselves are not new but, by interacting with one of the cases in Spain, we want to highlight in this blog how well prepared and targeted an attack can be and […]
The post Spanish MSSP Targeted by BitPaymer Ransomware appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
McAfee’s Advanced Threat Research Team observed how a new ransomware family named ‘Buran’ appeared in May 2019. Buran works as a RaaS model like other ransomware families such as REVil, GandCrab (now defunct), Phobos, etc. The author(s) take 25% of the income earned by affiliates, instead of the 30% – 40%, numbers from notorious malware […]
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Over the past few weeks McAfee Labs has been observing a new phishing campaign using a fake voicemail message to lure victims into entering their Office 365 email credentials. At first, we believed that only one phishing kit was being used to harvest the user’s credentials. However, during our investigation, we found three different malicious […]
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A cost-effective way to detect targeted attacks in your enterprise While it is easy to get caught up in the many waves of new and exciting protection strategies, we have recently discovered an interesting approach to detect a targeted attack and the related actor(s). Quite surprisingly, a big part of the solution already exists in […]
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Expert Rules are text-based custom rules that can be created in the Exploit Prevention policy in ENS Threat Prevention 10.5.3+. Expert Rules provide additional parameters and allow much more flexibility than the custom rules that can be created in the Access Protection policy. It also allows system administration to control / monitor an endpoint system […]
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Episode 4: Crescendo This is the final installment of the McAfee Advanced Threat Research (ATR) analysis of Sodinokibi and its connections to GandGrab, the most prolific Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) Campaign of 2018 and mid 2019. In this final episode of our series we will zoom in on the operations, techniques and tools used by different affiliate […]
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Episode 3: Follow the Money This is the third installment of the McAfee Advanced Threat Research (ATR) analysis of Sodinokibi and its connections to GandCrab, the most prolific Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) Campaign of 2018 and mid 2019. The Talking Heads once sang “We’re on a road to nowhere.” This expresses how challenging it can be when […]
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Episode 2: The All-Stars Analyzing Affiliate Structures in Ransomware-as-a-Service Campaigns This is the second installment of the McAfee Advanced Threat Research (ATR) analysis of Sodinokibi and its connections to GandGrab, the most prolific Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) Campaign of 2018 and mid-2019. GandCrab announced its retirement at the end of May. Since then, a new RaaS family […]
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Episode 1: What the Code Tells Us McAfee’s Advanced Threat Research team (ATR) observed a new ransomware family in the wild, dubbed Sodinokibi (or REvil), at the end of April 2019. Around this same time, the GandCrab ransomware crew announced they would shut down their operations. Coincidence? Or is there more to the story? In […]
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The Artful and Dangerous Dynamics of Watering Hole Attacks A group of researchers recently published findings of an exploitation of multiple iPhone vulnerabilities using websites to infect final targets. The key concept behind this type of attack is the use of trusted websites as an intermediate platform to attack others, and it’s defined as a watering hole […]
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Executive Summary Malware evasion techniques are widely used to circumvent detection as well as analysis and understanding. One of the dominant categories of evasion is anti-sandbox detection, simply because today’s sandboxes are becoming the fastest and easiest way to have an overview of the threat. Many companies use these kinds of systems to detonate malicious […]
The post Evolution of Malware Sandbox Evasion Tactics – A Retrospective Study appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
The recent discovery of exploit chains targeting Apple iOS is the latest example of how cybercriminals can successfully operate malicious campaigns, undetected, through the use of zero-day vulnerabilities. In this scenario, a threat actor or actors operated multiple compromised websites, using at least one or more zero-day vulnerabilities and numerous unique exploit chains and known vulnerabilities to […]
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Introduction As of July 2019, Microsoft has fixed around 43 bugs in the Jet Database Engine. McAfee has reported a couple of bugs and, so far, we have received 10 CVE’s from Microsoft. In our previous post, we discussed the root cause of CVE-2018-8423. While analyzing this CVE and patch from Microsoft, we found that […]
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In this series of 3 blogs (you can find part 1 here, and part 2 here), so far we have understood the implications of promoting files to “Evil Twins” where they can be created and remain in the system as different entities once case sensitiveness is enabled, and some issues that could be raised by […]
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Following on from the McAfee Protects against suspicious email attachments blog, this blog describes how the AMSI (Antimalware Scan Interface) is used within the various McAfee Endpoint products. The AMSI scanner within McAfee ENS 10.6 has already detected over 650,000 pieces of Malware since the start of 2019. This blog will help show you how […]
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Management. Control. It seems that you can’t stick five people in a room together without one of them trying to order the others around. This tendency towards centralized authority is not without reason, however – it is often more efficient to have one person, or thing, calling the shots. For an example of the latter, […]
The post From Building Control to Damage Control: A Case Study in Industrial Security Featuring Delta’s enteliBUS Manager appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
The McAfee Labs Advanced Threat Research team is committed to uncovering security issues in both software and hardware to help developers provide safer products for businesses and consumers. We recently investigated an industrial control system (ICS) produced by Delta Controls. The product, called “enteliBUS Manager”, is used for several applications, including building management. Our research […]
The post HVACking: Understanding the Delta Between Security and Reality appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Avaya is the second largest VOIP solution provider (source) with an install base covering 90% of the Fortune 100 companies (source), with products targeting a wide spectrum of customers, from small business and midmarket, to large corporations. As part of the ongoing McAfee Advanced Threat Research effort into researching critical vulnerabilities in widely deployed software […]
The post Avaya Deskphone: Decade-Old Vulnerability Found in Phone’s Firmware appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
The McAfee mobile research team has found a new type of Android malware for the MoqHao phishing campaign (a.k.a. XLoader and Roaming Mantis) targeting Korean and Japanese users. A series of attack campaigns are still active, mainly targeting Japanese users. The new spyware has very different payloads from the existing MoqHao samples. However, we found […]
The post MoqHao Related Android Spyware Targeting Japan and Korea Found on Google Play appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
In the first of this 3-part blog series, we covered the implications of promoting files to “Evil Twins” where they can be created and remain in the system as different entities once case sensitiveness is enabled. In this 2nd post we try to abuse applications that do not work well with CS changes, abusing years […]
The post The Twin Journey, Part 2: Evil Twins in a Case In-sensitive Land appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
CVE-2019-0547 CVE-2019-0547 was the first vulnerability patched by Microsoft this year. The dynamic link library, dhcpcore.dll, which is responsible for DHCP client services in a system, is vulnerable to malicious DHCP reply packets. This vulnerability allows remote code execution if the user tries to connect to a network with a rogue DHCP Server, hence making […]
The post DHCP Client Remote Code Execution Vulnerability Demystified appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
This new ransomware was discovered by Michael Gillespie on 8 February 2019 and it is still improving over time. This blog will explain the technical details and share information about how this new ransomware family is working. There are some variants of the Clop ransomware but in this report, we will focus on the main […]
The post Clop Ransomware appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Summary and Introduction: The recent changes in Windows 10, aiming to add case sensitivity (CS) at directory level, have prompted our curiosity to investigate the potential to use CS as a mean of obfuscation or WYSINWYG (What You See is NOT What you Get). While CS was our entry point, we then ventured into other […]
The post The Twin Journey, Part 1 appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
In September 2018, the Zero Day Initiative published a proof of concept for a vulnerability in Microsoft’s Jet Database Engine. Microsoft released a patch in October 2018. We investigated this flaw at that time to protect our customers. We were able to find some issues with the patch and reported that to Microsoft, which resulted […]
The post Jet Database Engine Flaw May Lead to Exploitation: Analyzing CVE-2018-8423 appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
The not-so Usual Suspects There is a growing trend for attackers to more heavily utilize tools that already exist on a system rather than relying totally on their own custom malware. Using .hta files or its partner in crime, mshta.exe, is an alternative to using macro enabled document for attacks and has been around a […]
The post What Is Mshta, How Can It Be Used and How to Protect Against It appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
This blog was written by Charlie Feng. Briefing Over the years, McAfee researchers have observed that certain new top-level Domains (TLDs) are more likely to be abused by cyber criminals for malicious activities than others. Our investigations reveal a negative relationship between the likelihood for abuse and registration price of some TLDs, as reported by […]
The post Examining the Link Between TLD Prices and Abuse appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Collaborative Initiative Celebrates Helping More Than 200,000 Victims and Preventing More Than 100 million USD From Falling into Criminal Hands Three years ago, on this exact day, the public and private sectors drew a line in the sand against ransomware. At that time, ransomware was becoming one of the most prevalent cyber threats globally. We […]
The post No More Ransom Blows Out Three Birthday Candles Today appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
You have likely heard that blockchain will disrupt everything from banking to retail to identity management and more. You may have seen commercials for IBM touting the supply chain tracking benefits of blockchain.[i] It appears nearly every industry is investing in, adopting, or implementing blockchain. Someone has probably told you that blockchain can completely transform […]
The post Demystifying Blockchain: Sifting Through Benefits, Examples and Choices appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Everyday thousands of people receive emails with malicious attachments in their email inbox. Disguised as a missed payment or an invoice, a cybercriminal sender tries to entice a victim to open the document and enable the embedded macro. This macro then proceeds to pull in a whole array of nastiness and infect a victim’s machine. […]
The post McAfee ATR Aids Police in Arrest of Rubella & Dryad Office Macro Builder appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Since early November 2018 McAfee Labs have observed a phishing kit, dubbed 16Shop, being used by malicious actors to target Apple account holders in the United States and Japan. Typically, the victims receive an email with a pdf file attached. An example of the message within the email is shown below, with an accompanying translation: […]
The post 16Shop Now Targets Amazon appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
RDP on the Radar Recently, McAfee released a blog related to the wormable RDP vulnerability referred to as CVE-2019-0708 or “Bluekeep.” The blog highlights a particular vulnerability in RDP which was deemed critical by Microsoft due to the fact that it exploitable over a network connection without authentication. These attributes make it particularly ‘wormable’ – […]
The post RDP Security Explained appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
As this blog goes live, Eoin Carroll will be stepping off the stage at Hack in Paris having detailed the latest McAfee Advanced Threat Research (ATR) findings on Process Reimaging. Admittedly, this technique probably lacks a catchy name, but be under no illusion the technique is significant and is worth paying very close attention to. […]
The post Why Process Reimaging Matters appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Process Reimaging Overview The Windows Operating System has inconsistencies in how it determines process image FILE_OBJECT locations, which impacts non-EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response) Endpoint Security Solution’s (such as Microsoft Defender Realtime Protection), ability to detect the correct binaries loaded in malicious processes. This inconsistency has led McAfee’s Advanced Threat Research to develop a new […]
The post In NTDLL I Trust – Process Reimaging and Endpoint Security Solution Bypass appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
McAfee Advanced Threat Research recently released a blog detailing a vulnerability in the Mr. Coffee Coffee Maker with WeMo. Please refer to the earlier blog to catch up with the processes and techniques I used to investigate and ultimately compromise this smart coffee maker. While researching the device, there was always one attack vector that […]
The post Mr. Coffee with WeMo: Double Roast appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
A much overlooked but essential part in financially motivated (cyber)crime is making sure that the origins of criminal funds are obfuscated or made to appear legitimate, a process known as money laundering. ’Cleaning’ money in this way allows the criminal to spend their loot with less chance of being caught. In the physical world, for […]
The post Cryptocurrency Laundering Service, BestMixer.io, Taken Down by Law Enforcement appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
During Microsoft’s May Patch Tuesday cycle, a security advisory was released for a vulnerability in the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). What was unique in this particular patch cycle was that Microsoft produced a fix for Windows XP and several other operating systems, which have not been supported for security updates in years. So why the […]
The post RDP Stands for “Really DO Patch!” – Understanding the Wormable RDP Vulnerability CVE-2019-0708 appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Co-authored by Marc RiveroLopez. Initial discovery Once again, we have seen a significant new ransomware family in the news. LockerGoga, which adds new features to the tried and true formula of encrypting victims’ files and asking for payment to decrypt them, has gained notoriety for the targets it has affected. In this blog, we will […]
The post LockerGoga Ransomware Family Used in Targeted Attacks appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Effective malware is typically developed with intention, targeting specific victims using either known or unknown vulnerabilities to achieve its primary functions. In this blog, we will explore a vulnerability submitted by McAfee Advanced Threat Research (ATR) and investigate a piece of malware that recently incorporated similar vulnerabilities. The takeaway from this blog is the increasing […]
The post IoT Zero-Days – Is Belkin WeMo Smart Plug the Next Malware Target? appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
1. Introduction On March 1st, Google published an advisory [1] for a use-after-free in the Chrome implementation of the FileReader API (CVE 2019-5786). Clement Lecigne from Google Threat Analysis Group reported the bug as being exploited in the wild and targeting Windows 7, 32-bit platforms. The exploit leads to code execution in the Renderer process, […]
The post Analysis of a Chrome Zero Day: CVE-2019-5786 appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Earlier this month Check Point Research reported discovery of a 19 year old code execution vulnerability in the wildly popular WinRAR compression tool. Rarlab reports that that are over 500 million users of this program. While a patched version, 5.70, was released on February 26, attackers are releasing exploits in an effort to reach vulnerable […]
The post Attackers Exploiting WinRAR UNACEV2.DLL Vulnerability (CVE-2018-20250) appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Email remains a top vector for attackers. Over the years, defenses have evolved, and policy-based protections have become standard for email clients such as Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Mail. Such policies are highly effective, but only if they are maintained as attacker’s keep changing their tactics to evade defenses. For this reason, McAfee endpoint products […]
The post McAfee Protects Against Suspicious Email Attachments appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
The Adwind remote administration tool (RAT) is a Java-based backdoor Trojan that targets various platforms supporting Java files. For an infection to occur, the user must typically execute the malware by double-clicking on the .jar file that usually arrives as an email attachment. Generally, infection begins if the user has the Java Runtime Environment installed. […]
The post JAVA-VBS Joint Exercise Delivers RAT appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
IOT devices are notoriously insecure and this claim can be backed up with a laundry list of examples. With more devices “needing” to connect to the internet, the possibility of your WiFi enabled toaster getting hacked and tweeting out your credit card number is, amazingly, no longer a joke. With that in mind, I began […]
The post Your Smart Coffee Maker is Brewing Up Trouble appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
2018 was another record-setting year in the continuing trend for consumer online shopping. With an increase in technology and efficiency, and a decrease in cost and shipping time, consumers have clearly made a statement that shopping online is their preferred method. Chart depicting growth of online, web-influenced and offline sales by year.1 In direct correlation […]
The post What’s in the Box? appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
In collaboration with Bill Siegel and Alex Holdtman from Coveware. At the beginning of 2019, McAfee ATR published an article describing how the hasty attribution of Ryuk ransomware to North Korea was missing the point. Since then, collective industry peers discovered additional technical details on Ryuk’s inner workings, the overlap between Ryuk and Hermes2.1, […]
The post Ryuk, Exploring the Human Connection appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
McAfee’s Mobile Research team recently learned of a new malicious Android application masquerading as a plugin for a transportation application series developed by a South Korean developer. The series provides a range of information for each region of South Korea, such as bus stop locations, bus arrival times and so on. There are a total […]
The post MalBus: Popular South Korean Bus App Series in Google Play Found Dropping Malware After 5 Years of Development appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
During our continuous hunt for new threats, we discovered a new ransomware family we call Anatova (based on the name of the ransom note). Anatova was discovered in a private peer-to-peer (p2p) network. After initial analysis, and making sure that our customers are protected, we decided to make this discovery public. Our telemetry showed that […]
The post Happy New Year 2019! Anatova is here! appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Microsoft recently patched a critical flaw in Internet Explorer’s scripting engine that could lead to remote code execution. The vulnerability is being exploited in the wild and was originally reported by a researcher from Google’s Threat Analysis Group. Microsoft released an out-of-band patch to fix the vulnerability before the normal patch cycle. McAfee products received […]
The post IE Scripting Flaw Still a Threat to Unpatched Systems: Analyzing CVE-2018-8653 appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Senior analyst Ryan Sherstobitoff contributed to this report. During the past week, an outbreak of Ryuk ransomware that impeded newspaper printing services in the United States has garnered a lot of attention. To determine who was behind the attack many have cited past research that compares code from Ryuk with the older ransomware Hermes to […]
The post Ryuk Ransomware Attack: Rush to Attribution Misses the Point appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Last week the McAfee Advanced Threat Research team posted an analysis of a new wave of Shamoon “wiper” malware attacks that struck several companies in the Middle East and Europe. In that analysis we discussed one difference to previous Shamoon campaigns. The latest version has a modular approach that allows the wiper to be used […]
The post Shamoon Attackers Employ New Tool Kit to Wipe Infected Systems appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
The McAfee Advanced Threat Research team today published the McAfee® Labs Threats Report, December 2018. In this edition, we highlight the notable investigative research and trends in threats statistics and observations gathered by the McAfee Advanced Threat Research and McAfee Labs teams in Q3 of 2018. We are very excited to present to you new […]
The post McAfee Labs Threats Report Examines Cybercriminal Underground, IoT Malware, Other Threats appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Destructive malware has been employed by adversaries for years. Usually such attacks are carefully targeted and can be motivated by ideology, politics, or even financial aims. Destructive attacks have a critical impact on businesses, causing the loss of data or crippling business operations. When a company is impacted, the damage can be significant. Restoration can […]
The post Shamoon Returns to Wipe Systems in Middle East, Europe appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
This post was written with contributions from the McAfee Advanced Threat Research team. The McAfee Advanced Threat Research team and McAfee Labs Malware Operations Group have discovered a new global campaign targeting nuclear, defense, energy, and financial companies, based on McAfee® Global Threat Intelligence. This campaign, Operation Sharpshooter, leverages an in-memory implant to download […]
The post ‘Operation Sharpshooter’ Targets Global Defense, Critical Infrastructure appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
For the past 18 months, McAfee Labs has been investigating a pay-per-install developer, WakeNet AB, responsible for spreading prevalent adware such as Adware-Wajam and Linkury. This developer has been active for almost 20 years and recently has used increasingly deceptive techniques to convince users to execute its installers. Our report is now available online. During […]
The post Pay-Per-Install Company Deceptively Floods Market with Unwanted Programs appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Our predictions for 2019 move away from simply providing an assessment on the rise or fall of a particular threat, and instead focus on current rumblings we see in the cybercriminal underground that we expect to grow into trends and subsequently threats in the wild.
The post McAfee Labs 2019 Threats Predictions Report appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
McAfee Labs researchers have discovered new Russian malware, dubbed WebCobra, which harnesses victims’ computing power to mine for cryptocurrencies.
The post WebCobra Malware Uses Victims’ Computers to Mine Cryptocurrency appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Malware that attacks industrial control systems (ICS), such as the Stuxnet campaign in 2010, is a serious threat. This class of cyber sabotage can spy on, disrupt, or destroy systems that manage large-scale industrial processes. An essential danger in this threat is that it moves from mere digital damage to risking human lives.
The post Triton Malware Spearheads Latest Attacks on Industrial Systems appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Alexandr Solad and Daniel Hatheway of Recorded Future are coauthors of this post. Read Recorded Future’s version of this analysis. Rising from the deep, Kraken Cryptor ransomware has had a notable development path in recent months. The first signs of Kraken came in mid-August on a popular underground forum. In mid-September it was reported that […]
The post Fallout Exploit Kit Releases the Kraken Ransomware on Its Victims appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
The McAfee Mobile Research team recently found an active phishing campaign using text messages (SMS) that tricks users into downloading and installing a fake voice-message app which allows cybercriminals to use infected devices as network proxies without users’ knowledge. If the fake application is installed, a background service starts a Socks proxy that redirects all […]
The post Android/TimpDoor Turns Mobile Devices Into Hidden Proxies appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
In the latest findings from the McAfee Advanced Threat Research team, we examine an adversary that was not content with a single campaign, but launched five distinct waves adapted to their separate targets.
The post ‘Operation Oceansalt’ Delivers Wave After Wave appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
The GandCrab ransomware, which first appeared in January, has been updated rapidly during its short life, with Version 5.0.2 appearing this month. In this post we will examine the latest version and how the authors have improved the code (and in some cases have made mistakes). McAfee gateway and endpoint products are able to protect […]
The post Ransomware GandCrab Version 5 Partners With Crypter Service for Obfuscation appeared first on McAfee Blogs.
Cyberattacks have always been, well, cyber. Their immediate effects were on our data, our digital information, and our devices…until they weren’t. The interconnected nature of the world and the way it’s built in 2018 has brought us exciting and revolutionary innovations, but it has also been leveraged by hackers to extend the impact of a […]
The post When the Digital Impacts the Physical appeared first on McAfee Blogs.