Threat actors behind the Akira ransomware group have extorted approximately $42 million in illicit proceeds after breaching the networks of more than 250 victims as of January 1, 2024. “Since March 2023, Akira ransomware has impacted a wide range of businesses and critical infrastructure entities in North America, Europe, and Australia,” cybersecurity agencies from the […]
Apr 19, 2024NewsroomCyber Espionage / Threat Intelligence Government entities in the Middle East have been targeted as part of a previously undocumented campaign to deliver a new backdoor dubbed CR4T. Russian cybersecurity company Kaspersky said it discovered the activity in February 2024, with evidence suggesting that it may have been active since at least a […]
The financially motivated threat actor FIN7 targeted a large U.S. car maker with spear-phishing emails for employees in the IT department to infect systems with the Anunak backdoor.
April 16, 2024 Greg Lesnewich, Crista Giering, and the Proofpoint Threat Research Team Key takeaways TA427 regularly engages in benign conversation starter campaigns to establish contact with targets for long-term exchanges of information on topics of strategic importance to the North Korean regime. In addition to using specially crafted lure content, TA427 heavily leverages think […]
Apr 16, 2024NewsroomThreat Intelligence / Endpoint Security The threat actor tracked as TA558 has been observed leveraging steganography as an obfuscation technique to deliver a wide range of malware such as Agent Tesla, FormBook, Remcos RAT, LokiBot, GuLoader, Snake Keylogger, and XWorm, among others. “The group made extensive use of steganography by sending VBSs, PowerShell […]
A recent incident in West Africa has once again brought attention to the persistent threat posed by the LockBit ransomware. Cybercriminals, armed with stolen administrator credentials, have deployed a customized variant of the encryption malware equipped with self-propagation capabilities. Exploiting privileged access, they breached corporate infrastructure, demonstrating the ongoing risk posed by the leaked LockBit […]
Apr 15, 2024NewsroomCloud Security /SaaS Security The threat actor known as Muddled Libra has been observed actively targeting software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications and cloud service provider (CSP) environments in a bid to exfiltrate sensitive data. “Organizations often store a variety of data in SaaS applications and use services from CSPs,” Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 said […]
During the “Swords of Iron War” against Hamas terrorists, Iranian threat actors increased the intensity of their “hack and leak” fake hacktivist operations against Israeli companies in the private sector. This blog post highlights some of the recent attacks conducted and provides an analysis of “DarkBeatC2,” the latest C2 framework in MuddyWater’s arsenal. Executive Summary […]
The Iranian threat actor known as MuddyWater has been attributed to a new command-and-control (C2) infrastructure called DarkBeatC2, becoming the latest such tool in its arsenal after SimpleHarm, MuddyC3, PhonyC2, and MuddyC2Go. “While occasionally switching to a new remote administration tool or changing their C2 framework, MuddyWater’s methods remain constant,” Deep Instinct security researcher Simon […]