Zero Day Initiative — CVE-2023-24941: Microsoft Network File System Remote Code Execution
In this excerpt of a Trend Micro Vulnerability Research Service vulnerability report, Quinton Crist, Guy Lederfein, and Lucas Miller of the Trend Micro Research Team detail a recently patched remote code execution vulnerability in the Microsoft Network File Service (NFS). This bug was originally dis
Mercenary mayhem: A technical analysis of Intellexa's PREDATOR spyware
We would like to thank The Citizen Lab for their cooperation, support and inputs into this research. * Commercial spyware use is on the rise, with actors leveraging these sophisticated tools to conduct surveillance operations against a growing number of targets. Cisco Talos has new details of a commercial spyware product sold by the spyware firm Intellexa (formerly known as Cytrox). * Our research specifically looks at two components of this mobile spyware suite known as “ALIEN” and “PREDATOR,” which compose the backbone of the spyware implant. Our findings include an in-depth walkthrough of the infection chain, including the implants’ various information-stealing capabilities. * A deep dive into both spyware components indicates that ALIEN is more than just a loader for PREDATOR and actively sets up the low-level capabilities needed for PREDATOR to spy on its victims. * We assess with high confidence that the spyware has two additional components — tcore (main component) and kmem (privilege escalation mechanic) — but we were unable to obtain and analyze these modules. * If readers suspect their system(s) may have been compromised by commercial spyware, please consider notifying Talos’ research team at talos-mercenary-spyware-help@external.cisco.com to assist in furthering the community’s knowledge of these threats.
A new recently observed ransomware family dubbed Akira uses a retro aesthetic on their victim site very reminiscent of the 1980s green screen consoles and possibly takes its namesake from the popular 1988 anime film of the same name.
yesterday evening an anonymous 4chan user dumped a leak on the /g/ technology board, claiming to have completely owned risk visualization company optimeyes:
New phishing-as-a-service tool “Greatness” already seen in the wild
A previously unreported phishing-as-a-service (PaaS) offering named “Greatness” has been used in several phishing campaigns since at least mid-2022. Greatness incorporates features seen in some of the most advanced PaaS offerings, such as multi-factor authentication (MFA) bypass, IP filtering and integration with Telegram bots. * Greatness, for now, is only focused on Microsoft 365 phishing pages, providing its affiliates with an attachment and link builder that creates highly convincing decoy and login pages. It contains features such as having the victim’s email address pre-filled and displaying their appropriate company logo and background image, extracted from the target organization’s real Microsoft 365 login page. This makes Greatness particularly well-suited for phishing business users. * An analysis of the domains targeted in several ongoing and past campaigns revealed the victims were almost exclusively companies in the U.S., U.K., Australia, South Africa, and Canada, and the most commonly targeted sectors were manufacturing, health care and technology. The exact distribution of victims in each country and sector varies slightly between campaigns. * To use Greatness, affiliates must deploy and configure a provided phishing kit with an API key that allows even unskilled threat actors to easily take advantage of the service’s more advanced features. The phishing kit and API work as a proxy to the Microsoft 365 authentication system, performing a “man-in-the-middle” attack and stealing the victim’s authentication credentials or cookies.
The malware threat landscape: NodeStealer, DuckTail, and more
We’re sharing our latest research and analysis into malware campaigns that are targeting online businesses — including newer malware posing as AI tools.
Magecart threat actor rolls out convincing modal forms
To ensnare new victims, criminals will often devise schemes that attempt to look as realistic as possible. Having said that, it is not every day that we see the fraudulent copy exceed the original piece. While following up on an ongoing Magecart credit card skimmer campaign, we were almost fooled by a payment form that looked so well done we thought it was real. The threat actor used original logos from the compromised store and customized a web element known as a modal to perfectly hijack the checkout page.
Analysis of Pre-Auth RCE in Sophos Web Appliance (CVE-2023-1671)
CVE-2023-1671 is a pre-authenticated command injection in Sophos Web Appliance. In this blog post, VulnCheck researchers analyze the vulnerability and develop a proof of concept (PoC) for it.
LockBit for Mac | How Real is the Risk of macOS Ransomware?
Discovery of a macOS variant of LockBit has caused alarm, but how serious a threat is it? We explore the malware and the threat of ransomware on Apple Macs.
QBot banker delivered through business correspondence
In early April, we detected a significant increase in attacks that use banking Trojans of the QBot family. The malware would be delivered through e-mails that were based on real business letters the attackers had gotten access to.
The relevance of this macOS specimen is well articulated in their tweet: “Lockbit ransomware group has created their first MacOS-based payload. We believe this is the first time a large ransomware threat group has developed a payload for Apple products.” vx-underground Ok, so even though it’s the weekend, we have what appears to be a new macOS malware specimen from one of the more notorious ransomware gangs! Coupled with the fact that this may be, (as noted by @VXUnderground), “the first time a large ransomware threat group has developed a payload for Apple products” …I was intrigued to decided to dig right in!
in February 2023, Kaspersky technologies detected a number of attempts to execute similar elevation-of-privilege exploits on Microsoft Windows servers belonging to small and medium-sized businesses in the Middle East, in North America, and previously in Asia regions. These exploits were very similar to already known Common Log File System (CLFS) driver exploits that we analyzed previously, but we decided to double check and it was worth it – one of the exploits turned out to be a zero-day, supporting different versions and builds of Windows, including Windows 11. The exploit was highly obfuscated with more than 80% of the its code being “junk” elegantly compiled into the binary, but we quickly fully reverse-engineered it and reported our findings to Microsoft. Microsoft assigned CVE-2023-28252 to the Common Log File System elevation-of-privilege vulnerability, and a patch was released on April 11, 2023, as part of April Patch Tuesday.
Queuejumper: Critical Unauthorized RCE Vulnerability In MSMQ Service
Check Point Research recently discovered three vulnerabilities in the “Microsoft Message Queuing” service, commonly known as MSMQ. These vulnerabilities were disclosed to Microsoft and patched in the April Patch Tuesday update. The most severe of these, dubbed QueueJumper by CPR (CVE-2023-21554), is a critical vulnerability that could allow unauthorized attackers to remotely execute arbitrary code in the context of the Windows service process mqsvc.exe.
Balada Injector: Synopsis of a Massive Ongoing WordPress Malware Campaign
A synopsis of the massive ongoing WordPress malware campaign: Balada Injector, including common techniques, functionalities, and vulnerability exploits used in attacks.
FortiGuard Labs highlights how a digitally signed 3CX desktop app was reportedly used in a supply chain attack against 3CX Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) customers. Check back for analysis and coverage updates.
Analysis of In-the-wild Attack Samples Exploiting Outlook Privilege Escalation Vulnerability
QiAnXin Threat Intelligence Center's RedDrip team tracked the relevant events and discovered a batch of attack samples exploiting the CVE-2023-23397 vulnerability. After analyzing these samples and C2 servers, we believe that the exploitation of this vulnerability in the wild has been ongoing since March 2022. In the later stages of the attack, the attackers used Ubiquiti-EdgeRouter routers as C2 servers, and the victims of the attack activity were from multiple countries.
Exfiltrated Russian-written documents provide insights into cyber offensive tool projects contracted by Vulkan private firm for the Russian Ministry of Defense. * Scan-AS is a database used to map adversary networks in parallel or prior to cyber operations. Scan-AS is a subsystem of a wider management system used to conduct, manage and capitalize results of cyber operations. * Amezit is an information system aimed at managing the information flow on a limited geographical area. It allows communications interception, analysis and modification, and can create wide information campaigns through social media, email, altered websites or phone networks.
3CX VoIP Software Compromise & Supply Chain Threats
The 3CX VoIP Desktop Application has been compromised to deliver malware via legitimate 3CX updates. Huntress has been investigating this incident and working to validate and assess the current supply chain threat to the security community.
QakBot is a banking trojan that has been evolving since its first version was discovered in 2008. According to the 2022 report published by CISA, it was one of the most active variants in 2021, and during 2022 and so far in 2023 it has remained quite active. Taking a brief look at the latests news of QakBot it has been updating its tactics constantly, for example, using a Windows zero-day to avoid displaying the MoTW or the most recent one, using OneNote files to drop QakBot. In this case we are particularly interested in the anti-analysis techniques used by QakBot during the early stages of its execution. These techniques can make malware analysis harder if they are not known, so learning to identify and bypass them is essential to get to see the malware’s operation at its full potential. Furthermore, there are techniques that can replicate / adopt different types of malware, so knowking them opens the door to the study of different samples.
Patch Tuesday - Exploit Wednesday: Pwning Windows Ancillary Function Driver for WinSock (afd.sys) in 24 Hours
Dive into the analysis and exploitation of a vulnerability in the Windows Ancillary Function Driver for Winsock for Local Privilege Escalation on Windows 11. More from X-Force Red experts.
A Noteworthy Threat: How Cybercriminals are Abusing OneNote
Threat actors are taking advantage of Microsoft OneNote's ability to embed files and use social engineering techniques, such as phishing emails and lures inside the OneNote document, to get unsuspecting users to download and open malicious files.