LilacSquid: The stealthy trilogy of PurpleInk, InkBox and InkLoader
Multiple TTPs utilized in this campaign bear some overlap with North Korean APT groups.
ArcaneDoor - New espionage-focused campaign found targeting perimeter network devices
ArcaneDoor is a campaign that is the latest example of state-sponsored actors targeting perimeter network devices from multiple vendors. Coveted by these actors, perimeter network devices are the perfect intrusion point for espionage-focused campaigns.
Comprehensive Threat Intelligence: Cisco Talos shares insights related to recent cyber attack on Cisco
- On May 24, 2022, Cisco became aware of a potential compromise. Since that point, Cisco Security Incident Response (CSIRT) and Cisco Talos have been working to remediate. * During the investigation, it was determined that a Cisco employee’s credentials were compromised after an attacker gained control of a personal Google account where credentials saved in the victim’s browser were being synchronized.
Attackers leveraging Dark Utilities "C2aaS" platform in malware campaigns
- Dark Utilities, released in early 2022, is a platform that provides full-featured C2 capabilities to adversaries. It is marketed as a means to enable remote access, command execution, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and cryptocurrency mining operations on infected systems. Payloads provided by the platform support Windows, Linux and Python-based implementations and are hosted within the Interplanetary File System (IPFS), making them resilient to content moderation or law enforcement intervention. Since its initial release, we've observed malware samples in the wild leveraging it to facilitate remote access and cryptocurrency mining.
Manjusaka: A Chinese sibling of Sliver and Cobalt Strike
- Cisco Talos recently discovered a new attack framework called "Manjusaka" being used in the wild that has the potential to become prevalent across the threat landscape. This framework is advertised as an imitation of the Cobalt Strike framework. The implants for the new malware family are written in the Rust language for Windows and Linux. A fully functional version of the command and control (C2), written in GoLang with a User Interface in Simplified Chinese, is freely available and can generate new implants with custom configurations with ease, increasing the likelihood of wider adoption of this framework by malicious actors. We recently discovered a campaign in the wild using lure documents themed around COVID-19 and the Haixi Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province. These maldocs ultimately led to the delivery of Cobalt Strike beacons on infected endpoints. We have observed the same threat actor using the Cobalt Strike beacon and implants from the Manjusaka framework.
Iranian linked conglomerate MuddyWater comprised of regionally focused subgroups
Cisco Talos has observed new cyber attacks targeting Turkey and other Asian countries we believe with high confidence are from groups operating under the MuddyWater umbrella of APT groups. U.S. Cyber Command recently connected MuddyWater to Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS).
Comprehensive Threat Intelligence: Cisco Talos shares insights related to recent cyber attack on Cisco
- On May 24, 2022, Cisco became aware of a potential compromise. Since that point, Cisco Security Incident Response (CSIRT) and Cisco Talos have been working to remediate. * During the investigation, it was determined that a Cisco employee’s credentials were compromised after an attacker gained control of a personal Google account where credentials saved in the victim’s browser were being synchronized.
Attackers leveraging Dark Utilities "C2aaS" platform in malware campaigns
- Dark Utilities, released in early 2022, is a platform that provides full-featured C2 capabilities to adversaries. It is marketed as a means to enable remote access, command execution, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and cryptocurrency mining operations on infected systems. Payloads provided by the platform support Windows, Linux and Python-based implementations and are hosted within the Interplanetary File System (IPFS), making them resilient to content moderation or law enforcement intervention. Since its initial release, we've observed malware samples in the wild leveraging it to facilitate remote access and cryptocurrency mining.
Manjusaka: A Chinese sibling of Sliver and Cobalt Strike
- Cisco Talos recently discovered a new attack framework called "Manjusaka" being used in the wild that has the potential to become prevalent across the threat landscape. This framework is advertised as an imitation of the Cobalt Strike framework. The implants for the new malware family are written in the Rust language for Windows and Linux. A fully functional version of the command and control (C2), written in GoLang with a User Interface in Simplified Chinese, is freely available and can generate new implants with custom configurations with ease, increasing the likelihood of wider adoption of this framework by malicious actors. We recently discovered a campaign in the wild using lure documents themed around COVID-19 and the Haixi Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province. These maldocs ultimately led to the delivery of Cobalt Strike beacons on infected endpoints. We have observed the same threat actor using the Cobalt Strike beacon and implants from the Manjusaka framework.
Iranian linked conglomerate MuddyWater comprised of regionally focused subgroups
Cisco Talos has observed new cyber attacks targeting Turkey and other Asian countries we believe with high confidence are from groups operating under the MuddyWater umbrella of APT groups. U.S. Cyber Command recently connected MuddyWater to Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS).
GhostSec’s joint ransomware operation and evolution of their arsenal
Cisco Talos observed a surge in GhostSec, a hacking group’s malicious activities since this past year. GhostSec has evolved with a new GhostLocker 2.0 ransomware, a Golang variant of the GhostLocker ransomware.
Threat actors leverage document publishing sites for ongoing credential and session token theft
Talos IR has responded to several recent incidents in which threat actors used legitimate digital document publishing sites such as Publuu and Marq to host phishing documents as part of ongoing credential and session harvesting attacks.
Comprehensive Threat Intelligence: Cisco Talos shares insights related to recent cyber attack on Cisco
- On May 24, 2022, Cisco became aware of a potential compromise. Since that point, Cisco Security Incident Response (CSIRT) and Cisco Talos have been working to remediate. * During the investigation, it was determined that a Cisco employee’s credentials were compromised after an attacker gained control of a personal Google account where credentials saved in the victim’s browser were being synchronized.
Attackers leveraging Dark Utilities "C2aaS" platform in malware campaigns
- Dark Utilities, released in early 2022, is a platform that provides full-featured C2 capabilities to adversaries. It is marketed as a means to enable remote access, command execution, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and cryptocurrency mining operations on infected systems. Payloads provided by the platform support Windows, Linux and Python-based implementations and are hosted within the Interplanetary File System (IPFS), making them resilient to content moderation or law enforcement intervention. Since its initial release, we've observed malware samples in the wild leveraging it to facilitate remote access and cryptocurrency mining.
Manjusaka: A Chinese sibling of Sliver and Cobalt Strike
- Cisco Talos recently discovered a new attack framework called "Manjusaka" being used in the wild that has the potential to become prevalent across the threat landscape. This framework is advertised as an imitation of the Cobalt Strike framework. The implants for the new malware family are written in the Rust language for Windows and Linux. A fully functional version of the command and control (C2), written in GoLang with a User Interface in Simplified Chinese, is freely available and can generate new implants with custom configurations with ease, increasing the likelihood of wider adoption of this framework by malicious actors. We recently discovered a campaign in the wild using lure documents themed around COVID-19 and the Haixi Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province. These maldocs ultimately led to the delivery of Cobalt Strike beacons on infected endpoints. We have observed the same threat actor using the Cobalt Strike beacon and implants from the Manjusaka framework.
Iranian linked conglomerate MuddyWater comprised of regionally focused subgroups
Cisco Talos has observed new cyber attacks targeting Turkey and other Asian countries we believe with high confidence are from groups operating under the MuddyWater umbrella of APT groups. U.S. Cyber Command recently connected MuddyWater to Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS).
Comprehensive Threat Intelligence: Cisco Talos shares insights related to recent cyber attack on Cisco
- On May 24, 2022, Cisco became aware of a potential compromise. Since that point, Cisco Security Incident Response (CSIRT) and Cisco Talos have been working to remediate. * During the investigation, it was determined that a Cisco employee’s credentials were compromised after an attacker gained control of a personal Google account where credentials saved in the victim’s browser were being synchronized.
Attackers leveraging Dark Utilities "C2aaS" platform in malware campaigns
- Dark Utilities, released in early 2022, is a platform that provides full-featured C2 capabilities to adversaries. It is marketed as a means to enable remote access, command execution, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and cryptocurrency mining operations on infected systems. Payloads provided by the platform support Windows, Linux and Python-based implementations and are hosted within the Interplanetary File System (IPFS), making them resilient to content moderation or law enforcement intervention. Since its initial release, we've observed malware samples in the wild leveraging it to facilitate remote access and cryptocurrency mining.
Manjusaka: A Chinese sibling of Sliver and Cobalt Strike
- Cisco Talos recently discovered a new attack framework called "Manjusaka" being used in the wild that has the potential to become prevalent across the threat landscape. This framework is advertised as an imitation of the Cobalt Strike framework. The implants for the new malware family are written in the Rust language for Windows and Linux. A fully functional version of the command and control (C2), written in GoLang with a User Interface in Simplified Chinese, is freely available and can generate new implants with custom configurations with ease, increasing the likelihood of wider adoption of this framework by malicious actors. We recently discovered a campaign in the wild using lure documents themed around COVID-19 and the Haixi Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province. These maldocs ultimately led to the delivery of Cobalt Strike beacons on infected endpoints. We have observed the same threat actor using the Cobalt Strike beacon and implants from the Manjusaka framework.
Iranian linked conglomerate MuddyWater comprised of regionally focused subgroups
Cisco Talos has observed new cyber attacks targeting Turkey and other Asian countries we believe with high confidence are from groups operating under the MuddyWater umbrella of APT groups. U.S. Cyber Command recently connected MuddyWater to Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS).
Understanding the Phobos affiliate structure and activity
Cisco Talos identified the most prolific Phobos variants, TTPs and affiliate structure, based on their activity and analysis of over 1,000 samples from VirusTotal dating back to 2019. We assess with moderate confidence Eking, Eight, Elbie, Devos and Faust are the most common variants
Comprehensive Threat Intelligence: Cisco Talos shares insights related to recent cyber attack on Cisco
- On May 24, 2022, Cisco became aware of a potential compromise. Since that point, Cisco Security Incident Response (CSIRT) and Cisco Talos have been working to remediate. * During the investigation, it was determined that a Cisco employee’s credentials were compromised after an attacker gained control of a personal Google account where credentials saved in the victim’s browser were being synchronized.
Attackers leveraging Dark Utilities "C2aaS" platform in malware campaigns
- Dark Utilities, released in early 2022, is a platform that provides full-featured C2 capabilities to adversaries. It is marketed as a means to enable remote access, command execution, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and cryptocurrency mining operations on infected systems. Payloads provided by the platform support Windows, Linux and Python-based implementations and are hosted within the Interplanetary File System (IPFS), making them resilient to content moderation or law enforcement intervention. Since its initial release, we've observed malware samples in the wild leveraging it to facilitate remote access and cryptocurrency mining.
Manjusaka: A Chinese sibling of Sliver and Cobalt Strike
- Cisco Talos recently discovered a new attack framework called "Manjusaka" being used in the wild that has the potential to become prevalent across the threat landscape. This framework is advertised as an imitation of the Cobalt Strike framework. The implants for the new malware family are written in the Rust language for Windows and Linux. A fully functional version of the command and control (C2), written in GoLang with a User Interface in Simplified Chinese, is freely available and can generate new implants with custom configurations with ease, increasing the likelihood of wider adoption of this framework by malicious actors. We recently discovered a campaign in the wild using lure documents themed around COVID-19 and the Haixi Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province. These maldocs ultimately led to the delivery of Cobalt Strike beacons on infected endpoints. We have observed the same threat actor using the Cobalt Strike beacon and implants from the Manjusaka framework.
Iranian linked conglomerate MuddyWater comprised of regionally focused subgroups
Cisco Talos has observed new cyber attacks targeting Turkey and other Asian countries we believe with high confidence are from groups operating under the MuddyWater umbrella of APT groups. U.S. Cyber Command recently connected MuddyWater to Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS).
Active exploitation of Cisco IOS XE Software Web Management User Interface vulnerability
Cisco has identified active exploitation of a previously unknown vulnerability in the Web User Interface (Web UI) feature of Cisco IOS XE software (CVE-2023-20198) when exposed to the internet or untrusted networks.
Lazarus Group exploits ManageEngine vulnerability to deploy QuiteRAT
This is the third documented campaign attributed to this actor in less than a year, with the actor reusing the same infrastructure throughout these operations.
Uncovering weaknesses in Apple macOS and VMWare vCenter: 12 vulnerabilities in RPC implementation
Cisco Talos discovered 12 memory corruption vulnerabilities in MSRPC implementations on Apple macOS and VMWare vCenter. - Seven vulnerabilities affect Apple macOS only. - Two vulnerabilities affect VMWare vCenter. - Three vulnerabilities affect both.
Comprehensive Threat Intelligence: Cisco Talos shares insights related to recent cyber attack on Cisco
- On May 24, 2022, Cisco became aware of a potential compromise. Since that point, Cisco Security Incident Response (CSIRT) and Cisco Talos have been working to remediate. * During the investigation, it was determined that a Cisco employee’s credentials were compromised after an attacker gained control of a personal Google account where credentials saved in the victim’s browser were being synchronized.
Attackers leveraging Dark Utilities "C2aaS" platform in malware campaigns
- Dark Utilities, released in early 2022, is a platform that provides full-featured C2 capabilities to adversaries. It is marketed as a means to enable remote access, command execution, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and cryptocurrency mining operations on infected systems. Payloads provided by the platform support Windows, Linux and Python-based implementations and are hosted within the Interplanetary File System (IPFS), making them resilient to content moderation or law enforcement intervention. Since its initial release, we've observed malware samples in the wild leveraging it to facilitate remote access and cryptocurrency mining.