social engineering | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Chinese-speaking users are the target of a never-before-seen threat activity cluster codenamed Void Arachne that employs malicious Windows Installer (MSI) files for virtual private networks (VPNs) to deliver a command-and-control (C&C) framework called Winos 4.0. "The campaign also promotes compromised MSI files embedded with nudifiers and deepfake pornography-generating software, as well as AI voice and facial technologies," Trend Micro researchers Peter Girnus, Aliakbar Zahravi, and Ahmed Mohamed Ibrahim said in a technical report published today. "The campaign uses [Search Engine Optimization] poisoning tactics and social media and messaging platforms to distribute malware." The security vendor, which discovered the new threat actor group in early April 2024, said the attacks entail advertising popular software such as Google Chrome, LetsVPN, QuickVPN, and a Telegram language pack for the Simplified Chinese language to distribute Winos. Alternate attack

Threat actors are luring unsuspecting users with free or pirated versions of commercial software to deliver a malware loader called Hijack Loader , which then deploys an information stealer known as Vidar Stealer . "Adversaries had managed to trick users into downloading password-protected archive files containing trojanized copies of a Cisco Webex Meetings App (ptService.exe)," Trellix security researcher Ale Houspanossian said in a Monday analysis. "When unsuspecting victims extracted and executed a 'Setup.exe' binary file, the Cisco Webex Meetings application covertly loaded a stealthy malware loader, which led to the execution of an information-stealing module." The starting point is a RAR archive file that contains an executable name "Setup.exe," but in reality is a copy of Cisco Webex Meetings's ptService module. What makes the campaign noteworthy is the use of DLL side-loading techniques to stealthily launch Hijack Loader (aka DOI

For years, securing a company's systems was synonymous with securing its "perimeter." There was what was safe "inside" and the unsafe outside world. We built sturdy firewalls and deployed sophisticated detection systems, confident that keeping the barbarians outside the walls kept our data and systems safe. The problem is that we no longer operate within the confines of physical on-prem installations and controlled networks. Data and applications now reside in distributed cloud environments and data centers, accessed by users and devices connecting from anywhere on the planet. The walls have crumbled, and the perimeter has dissolved, opening the door to a new battlefield: identity . Identity is at the center of what the industry has praised as the new gold standard of enterprise security: "zero trust." In this paradigm, explicit trust becomes mandatory for any interactions between systems, and no implicit trust shall subsist. Every access request, regardless of its origin,

Law enforcement authorities have allegedly arrested a key member of the notorious cybercrime group called Scattered Spider. The individual, a 22-year-old man from the United Kingdom, was arrested this week in the Spanish city of Palma de Mallorca as he attempted to board a flight to Italy. The move is part of a joint effort between the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Spanish National Police that began last May. News of the arrest was first reported by Murcia Today on June 14, 2024, with vx-underground subsequently revealing that the apprehended party is "associated with several other high profile ransomware attacks performed by Scattered Spider." The malware research group further said the individual was a SIM swapper who operated under the alias "Tyler." SIM swapping attacks work by calling the telecom provider to transfer a target's phone number to a SIM under their control with the goal of intercepting their messages, including one-

Cybersecurity researchers have spotted a phishing attack distributing the More_eggs malware by masquerading it as a resume, a technique originally detected more than two years ago. The attack, which was unsuccessful, targeted an unnamed company in the industrial services industry in May 2024, Canadian cybersecurity firm eSentire disclosed last week. "Specifically, the targeted individual was a recruiter that was deceived by the threat actor into thinking they were a job applicant and lured them to their website to download the loader," it said. More_eggs, believed to be the work of a threat actor known as the Golden Chickens (aka Venom Spider), is a modular backdoor that's capable of harvesting sensitive information. It's offered to other criminal actors under a Malware-as-a-Service (MaaS) model. Last year, eSentire unmasked the real-world identities of two individuals – Chuck from Montreal and Jack – who are said to be running the operation. The latest atta

Tom works for a reputable financial institution. He has a long, complex password that would be near-impossible to guess. He's memorized it by heart, so he started using it for his social media accounts and on his personal devices too. Unbeknownst to Tom, one of these sites has had its password database compromised by hackers and put it up for sale on the dark web. Now threat actors are working hard to link these leaked credentials back to real-life individuals and their places of work. Before long, a threat actor will use Tom's legitimate email account to send a spear-phishing link to his CEO. This is a common account takeover scenario where malicious attackers gain unauthorized access to the organization's systems, putting critical information and operations at risk. It usually starts with compromised credentials. We'll run through why account takeover is so hard to stop once it starts and why strong password security is the best prevention.  Why are account takeover attacks so

Cloudflare on Thursday said it took steps to disrupt a month-long phishing campaign orchestrated by a Russia-aligned threat actor called FlyingYeti targeting Ukraine. "The FlyingYeti campaign capitalized on anxiety over the potential loss of access to housing and utilities by enticing targets to open malicious files via debt-themed lures," Cloudflare's threat intelligence team Cloudforce One said in a new report published today. "If opened, the files would result in infection with the PowerShell malware known as COOKBOX, allowing FlyingYeti to support follow-on objectives, such as installation of additional payloads and control over the victim's system." FlyingYeti is the denomination used by the web infrastructure company to track an activity cluster that the Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA) is tracking under the moniker UAC-0149. Previous attacks disclosed by the cybersecurity agency have involved the use of malicious attachme

Microsoft is calling attention to a Morocco-based cybercrime group dubbed  Storm-0539  that's behind gift card fraud and theft through highly sophisticated email and SMS phishing attacks. "Their primary motivation is to steal gift cards and profit by selling them online at a discounted rate," the company  said  in its latest Cyber Signals report. "We've seen some examples where the threat actor has stolen up to $100,000 a day at certain companies." Storm-0539 was  first spotlighted  by Microsoft in mid-December 2023, linking it to social engineering campaigns ahead of the year-end holiday season to steal victims' credentials and session tokens via adversary-in-the-middle ( AitM ) phishing pages. The gang, also called Atlas Lion and active since at least late 2021, is known to then abuse the initial access to register their own devices to bypass authentication and obtain persistent access, gain elevated privileges, and compromise gift card-related ser

The China-linked threat actor known as Sharp Panda has expanded their targeting to include governmental organizations in Africa and the Caribbean as part of an ongoing cyber espionage campaign. "The campaign adopts Cobalt Strike Beacon as the payload, enabling backdoor functionalities like C2 communication and command execution while minimizing the exposure of their custom tools," Check Point said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "This refined approach suggests a deeper understanding of their targets." The Israeli cybersecurity firm is tracking the activity under a new name  Sharp Dragon , describing the adversary as careful in its targeting, while at the same time broadening its reconnaissance efforts. The adversary  first came to light  in June 2021, when it was detected targeting a Southeast Asian government to deploy a backdoor on Windows systems dubbed VictoryDLL. Subsequent attacks mounted by Sharp Dragon have set their sights on high-profile gov

Multiple threat actors are weaponizing a design flaw in Foxit PDF Reader to deliver a variety of malware such as Agent Tesla, AsyncRAT, DCRat, NanoCore RAT, NjRAT, Pony, Remcos RAT, and XWorm. "This exploit triggers security warnings that could deceive unsuspecting users into executing harmful commands," Check Point  said  in a technical report. "This exploit has been used by multiple threat actors, from e-crime to espionage." It's worth noting that Adobe Acrobat Reader – which is more prevalent in sandboxes or antivirus solutions – is not susceptible to this specific exploit, thus contributing to the campaign's low detection rate. The issue stems from the fact that the application shows "OK" as the default selected option in a pop-up when users are asked to trust the document prior to enabling certain features to avoid potential security risks. Once a user clicks OK, they are displayed a second pop-up warning that the file is about to execute

The North Korea-linked  Kimsuky hacking group  has been attributed to a new social engineering attack that employs fictitious Facebook accounts to targets via Messenger and ultimately delivers malware. "The threat actor created a Facebook account with a fake identity disguised as a public official working in the North Korean human rights field," South Korean cybersecurity company Genians  said  in a report published last week. The multi-stage attack campaign, which impersonates a legitimate individual, is designed to target activists in the North Korean human rights and anti-North Korea sectors, it noted. The approach is a departure from the typical email-based spear-phishing strategy in that it leverages the social media platform to approach targets through Facebook Messenger and trick them into opening seemingly private documents written by the persona. The decoy documents, hosted on OneDrive, is a Microsoft Common Console document that masquerades as an essay or cont

The Microsoft Threat Intelligence team said it has observed a threat actor it tracks under the name  Storm-1811  abusing the client management tool Quick Assist to target users in social engineering attacks. "Storm-1811 is a financially motivated cybercriminal group known to deploy  Black Basta  ransomware," the company  said  in a report published on May 15, 2024. The attack chain involves the use of impersonation through voice phishing to trick unsuspecting victims into installing remote monitoring and management (RMM) tools, followed by the delivery of  QakBot , Cobalt Strike, and ultimately Black Basta ransomware. "Threat actors misuse Quick Assist features to perform social engineering attacks by pretending, for example, to be a trusted contact like Microsoft technical support or an IT professional from the target user's company to gain initial access to a target device," the tech giant said. Quick Assist is a  legitimate application  from Microsoft t

Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered an ongoing social engineering campaign that bombards enterprises with spam emails with the goal of obtaining initial access to their environments for follow-on exploitation. "The incident involves a threat actor overwhelming a user's email with junk and calling the user, offering assistance," Rapid7 researchers Tyler McGraw, Thomas Elkins, and Evan McCann  said . "The threat actor prompts impacted users to download remote monitoring and management software like AnyDesk or utilize Microsoft's built-in Quick Assist feature in order to establish a remote connection." The novel campaign is said to be underway since late April 2024, with the emails primarily consisting of newsletter sign-up confirmation messages from legitimate organizations and done so with an aim to overwhelm email protection solutions. The impacted users are then approached over phone calls by masquerading as the company's IT team, tricking the

Malicious Android apps masquerading as Google, Instagram, Snapchat, WhatsApp, and X (formerly Twitter) have been observed to steal users' credentials from compromised devices. "This malware uses famous Android app icons to mislead users and trick victims into installing the malicious app on their devices," the SonicWall Capture Labs threat research team  said  in a recent report. The distribution vector for the campaign is currently unclear. However, once the app is installed on the users' phones, it requests them to grant it permissions to the accessibility services and the  device administrator API , a now-deprecated feature that provides device administration features at the system level. Obtaining these permissions allows the rogue app to gain control over the device, making it possible to carry out arbitrary actions ranging from data theft to malware deployment without the victims' knowledge. The malware is designed to establish connections with a comman

The Iranian state-backed hacking outfit called  APT42  is making use of enhanced social engineering schemes to infiltrate target networks and cloud environments. Targets of the attack include Western and Middle Eastern NGOs, media organizations, academia, legal services and activists, Google Cloud subsidiary Mandiant said in a report published last week. "APT42 was observed  posing as journalists  and event organizers to build trust with their victims through ongoing correspondence, and to deliver invitations to conferences or legitimate documents," the company  said . "These social engineering schemes enabled APT42 to harvest credentials and use them to gain initial access to cloud environments. Subsequently, the threat actor covertly exfiltrated data of strategic interest to Iran, while relying on built-in features and open-source tools to avoid detection." APT42 (aka Damselfly and UNC788),  first documented  by the company in September 2022, is an Iranian st