New Star Blizzard spear-phishing campaign targets WhatsApp accounts | Microsoft Security Blog
In mid-November 2024, Microsoft Threat Intelligence observed the Russian threat actor we track as Star Blizzard sending their typical targets spear-phishing messages, this time offering the supposed opportunity to join a WhatsApp group. This is the first time we have identified a shift in Star Blizzard’s longstanding tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) to leverage a […]
Backdooring Your Backdoors - Another $20 Domain, More Governments
After the excitement of our .MOBI research, we were left twiddling our thumbs. As you may recall, in 2024, we demonstrated the impact of an unregistered domain when we subverted the TLS/SSL CA process for verifying domain ownership to give ourselves the ability to issue valid and trusted TLS/
Information Stealer Masquerades as LDAPNightmare (CVE-2024-49113) PoC Exploit
In December 2024, two critical vulnerabilities in Microsoft's Windows Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) were addressed via Microsoft’s monthly Patch Tuesday release. Both vulnerabilities were deemed as highly significant due to the widespread use of LDAP in Windows environments: CVE-2024-49112: A remote code execution (RCE) bug that attackers can exploit by sending specially crafted LDAP requests, allowing them to execute arbitrary code on the target system. CVE-2024-49113: A denial-of-service (DoS) vulnerability that can be exploited to crash the LDAP service, leading to service disruptions. In this blog entry, we discuss a fake proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit for CVE-2024-49113 (aka LDAPNightmare) designed to lure security researchers into downloading and executing information-stealing malware.
300,000+ Prometheus Servers and Exporters Exposed to DoS Attacks
In this research, we uncovered several vulnerabilities and security flaws within the Prometheus ecosystem. These findings span across three major areas: information disclosure, denial-of-service (DoS), and code execution. We found that exposed Prometheus servers or exporters, often lacking proper authentication, allowed attackers to easily gather sensitive information, such as credentials and API keys. Additionally, we identified an alarming risk of DoS attacks stemming from the exposure of pprof debugging endpoints, which, when exploited, could overwhelm and crash Prometheus servers, Kubernetes pods and other hosts.
Oasis Security Research Team Discovers Microsoft Azure MFA Bypass
Oasis Security's research team uncovered a critical vulnerability in Microsoft's Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) implementation, allowing attackers to bypass it and gain unauthorized access to the user’s account, including Outlook emails, OneDrive files, Teams chats, Azure Cloud, and more. Microsoft has more than 400 million paid Office 365 seats, making the consequences of this vulnerability far-reaching. The bypass was simple: it took around an hour to execute, required no user interaction and did not generate any notification or provide the account holder with any indication of trouble.
Unidentified Threat Actor Utilizes Android Malware to Target High-Value Assets in South Asia
The team at CYFIRMA analyzed a malicious Android sample designed to target high-value assets in Southern Asia. This sample, attributed to an unknown threat actor, was generated using the Spynote Remote Administration Tool. While the specifics of the targeted asset remain confidential, it is likely that such a target would attract the interest of APT groups. However, we are restricted from disclosing further details about the actual target and its specific region. For a comprehensive analysis, please refer to the detailed report
Since February 2024, the World Watch Cyber Threat Intelligence team has been working on an extensive study of the private and public relationships within the Chinese cyber offensive ecosystem. This includes: An online map showcasing the links between 300+ entities; Historical context on the Chinese state entities dedicated to cyber offensive operations; An analysis of the role of universities and private companies in terms of capacity building; A focus on the ecosystem facilitating the acquisition of vulnerabilities for government use in cyber espionage campaigns.
When Guardians Become Predators: How Malware Corrupts the Protectors
We often trust our security software to stand as an unbreakable wall against malware and attacks, but what happens when that very wall is weaponized against us? Our Trellix Advanced Research Center team recently uncovered a malicious campaign that does just that. Instead of bypassing defenses, this malware takes a more sinister route: it drops a legitimate Avast Anti-Rootkit driver (aswArPot.sys) and manipulates it to carry out its destructive agenda. The malware exploits the deep access provided by the driver to terminate security processes, disable protective software, and seize control of the infected system.
Security research that presents a method to automatically validate credentials against Fortinet VPN servers by uncovering an exploit that attackers can use to compromise countless organizations.
Uncovering Apple Vulnerabilities: The diskarbitrationd and storagekitd Audit Story Part 1
Kandji's Threat Research team performed an audit on the macOS diskarbitrationd & storagekitd system daemons, uncovering several (now fixed) vulnerabilities
See how threat actors have abused Remcos to collect sensitive information from victims and remotely control their computers to perform further malicious acts.
A New Era of macOS Sandbox Escapes: Diving into an Overlooked Attack Surface and Uncovering 10+ New Vulnerabilities – Mickey's Blogs – Exploring the world with my sword of debugger :)
A New Era of macOS Sandbox Escapes: Diving into an Overlooked Attack Surface and Uncovering 10+ New Vulnerabilities This is a blog post for my presentation at the conference POC2024. The slides are uploaded here. In the macOS system, most processes are running in a restricted sandbox environment, whether they are Apple’s own services or third-party applications. Consequently, once an attacker gains Remote Code Execution (RCE) from these processes, their capabilities are constrained. The next step for the attacker is to circumvent the sandbox to gain enhanced execution capabilities and broader file access permissions. But how to discover sandbox escape vulnerabilities? Upon reviewing the existing issues, I unearthed a significant overlooked attack surface and a novel attack technique. This led to the discovery of multiple new sandbox escape vulnerabilities: CVE-2023-27944, CVE-2023-32414, CVE-2023-32404, CVE-2023-41077, CVE-2023-42961, CVE-2024-27864, CVE-2023-42977, and more.
File hosting services misused for identity phishing
Since mid-April 2024, Microsoft has observed an increase in defense evasion tactics used in campaigns abusing file hosting services like SharePoint, OneDrive, and Dropbox. These campaigns use sophisticated techniques to perform social engineering, evade detection, and compromise identities, and include business email compromise (BEC) attacks.
CVE-2024-36435 Deep-Dive: The Year’s Most Critical BMC Security Flaw
The Binarly REsearch team has consistently uncovered security vulnerabilities in the Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) firmware -- a critical component of modern data center infrastructure. These vulnerabilities can be exploited remotely by threat actors, posing significant risk to enterprises. In a previous report, “Old But Gold: The Underestimated Potency of Decades-Old Attacks on BMC Security,” we documented the BMC architecture in detail and showed that it is still possible to find classes of vulnerabilities known from the early 2000s.
Scam Sites at Scale: LLMs Fueling a GenAI Criminal Revolution
This article explores Netcraft’s research into the use of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) to create text for fraudulent websites in 2024. Insight ...
Since late 2022, Earth Baku has broadened its scope from the Indo-Pacific region to Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Their latest operations demonstrate sophisticated techniques, such as exploiting public-facing applications like IIS servers for initial access and deploying the Godzilla webshell for command and control.
In this post we will explore some of the anti-phishing measures employed by Microsoft 365 (formally Office 365) as well as their weaknesses. Certitude was able to identify an issue in that allows malicious actors to bypass anti-phishing measures.
To attract users across the Global Majority, many technology companies have introduced “lite” versions of their products: Applications that are designed for lower-bandwidth contexts. TikTok is no exception, with TikTok Lite estimated to have more than 1 billion users. Mozilla and AI Forensics research reveals that TikTok Lite doesn’t just reduce required bandwidth, however. In our opinion, it also reduces trust and safety. In comparing TikTok Lite with the classic TikTok app, we found several discrepancies between trust and safety features that could have potentially dangerous consequences in the context of elections and public health. Our research revealed TikTok Lite lacks basic protections that are afforded to other TikTok users, including content labels for graphic, AI-generated, misinformation, and dangerous acts videos. TikTok Lite users also encounter arbitrarily shortened video descriptions that can easily eliminate crucial context. Further, TikTok Lite users have fewer proactive controls at their disposal. Unlike traditional TikTok users, they cannot filter offensive keywords or implement screen management practices. Our findings are concerning, and reinforce patterns of double-standard. Technology platforms have a history of neglecting users outside of the US and EU, where there is markedly less potential for constraining regulation and enforcement. As part of our research, we discuss the implications of this pattern and also offer concrete recommendations for TikTok Lite to improve.
Quartet of Trouble: XWorm, AsyncRAT, VenomRAT, and…
Learn more about how four malware, XWorm, AsyncRAT, VenomRAT, and PureLogs Stealer, are leveraging TryCloudflare and get security recommendations from our…
Social Media Malvertising Campaign Promotes Fake AI Editor Website for Credential Theft
We uncovered a malvertising campaign where the threat actor hijacks social media pages, renames them to mimic popular AI photo editors, then posts malicious links to fake websites.
Check Point Research identified a network of GitHub accounts (Stargazers Ghost Network) that distribute malware or malicious links via phishing repositories. The network consists of multiple accounts that distribute malicious links and malware and perform other actions such as starring, forking, and subscribing to malicious repositories to make them appear legitimate. This network is a highly sophisticated operation that acts as a Distribution as a Service (DaaS). It allows threat actors to share malicious links or malware for distribution through highly victim-oriented phishing repositories. Check Point Research is tracking the threat group behind this service as Stargazer Goblin. The group provides, operates, and maintains the Stargazers Ghost Network and distributes malware and links via their GitHub Ghost accounts. The network distributed all sorts of malware families, including Atlantida Stealer, Rhadamanthys, RisePro, Lumma Stealer, and RedLine. Our latest calculations suggest that more than 3,000 active Ghost accounts are part of the network. Based on core GitHub Ghost accounts, we believe that the network began development or testing on a smaller scale for the first time around August 2022. Check Point Research discovered an advertiser in Dark-Web forums that provides the exact GitHub operation. The first advertisement was published on July 8, 2023, from an account created the previous day. Based on the monitored campaigns from mid-May to mid-June 2024, we estimate that Stargazer Goblin earned approximately $8,000. However, we believe that this amount is only a small fraction of what the actor made during that period. The total amount during the operations’ lifespan is estimated to be approximately $100,000. * Stargazers Ghost Network appears to be only one part of the grand picture, with other Ghost accounts operating on different platforms, constructing an even bigger Distribution as a Service universe.
Solving the 7777 Botnet enigma: A cybersecurity quest
Sekoia.io investigated the mysterious 7777 botnet (aka. Quad7 botnet), published by the independent researcher Gi7w0rm inside the “The curious case of the 7777 botnet” blogpost. This investigation allowed us to intercept network communications and malware deployed on a TP-Link router compromised by the Quad7 botnet in France. To our understanding, the Quad7 botnet operators leverage compromised TP-Link routers to relay password spraying attacks against Microsoft 365 accounts without any specific targeting. Therefore, we link the Quad7 botnet activity to possible long term business email compromise (BEC) cybercriminal activity rather than an APT threat actor. However, certain mysteries remain regarding the exploits used to compromise the routers, the geographical distribution of the botnet and the attribution of this activity cluster to a specific threat actor. * The insecure architecture of this botnet led us to think that it can be hijacked by other threat actors to install their own implants on the compromised TP-Link routers by using the Quad7 botnet accesses.
Private Cloud Compute: A new frontier for AI privacy in the cloud
Secure and private AI processing in the cloud poses a formidable new challenge. To support advanced features of Apple Intelligence with larger foundation models, we created Private Cloud Compute (PCC), a groundbreaking cloud intelligence system designed specifically for private AI processing. Built with custom Apple silicon and a hardened operating system, Private Cloud Compute extends the industry-leading security and privacy of Apple devices into the cloud, making sure that personal user data sent to PCC isn’t accessible to anyone other than the user — not even to Apple. We believe Private Cloud Compute is the most advanced security architecture ever deployed for cloud AI compute at scale.
Flubot: the evolution of a notorious Android Banking Malware
Flubot is an Android based malware that has been distributed in the past 1.5 years in Europe, Asia and Oceania affecting thousands of devices of mostly unsuspecting victims. Like the majority of Android banking malware, Flubot abuses Accessibility Permissions and Services in order to steal the victim’s credentials, by detecting when the official banking application is open to show a fake web injection, a phishing website similar to the login form of the banking application. An important part of the popularity of Flubot is due to the distribution strategy used in its campaigns, since it has been using the infected devices to send text messages, luring new victims into installing the malware from a fake website. In this article we detail its development over time and recent developments regarding its disappearance, including new features and distribution campaigns.
With the "Follina" / CVE-2022-30190 0day still hot, i.e., still waiting for an official fix while apparently already getting exploited by nation-backed attackers, another related unfixed vulnerability in Microsoft's Diagnostic Tool (MSDT) bubbled to the surface. In January 2020, security researcher Imre Rad published an article titled "The trouble with Microsoft’s Troubleshooters," describing a method for having a malicious executable file being saved to user's Startup folder, where it would subsequently get executed upon user's next login. What the user has to do for this to happen is open a "diagcab" file...
