The US Senate has approved a bill that will ban TikTok, unless it finds a new owner, bringing it one step closer to being signed into law.

The US Senate has approved a bill that would effectively ban TikTok from the US unless Chinese owner ByteDance gives up its share of the immensely popular app.

Social video platform TikTok has experienced explosive growth since it first appeared in 2017, and is now said to have well over 1.5 billion users, with an estimated 170 million of them in the US.

Essentially, the bill says that TikTok has to find a new owner that is not based in a foreign adversarial country within the next 180 days or face a ban until it does comply. President Biden has committed to sign it into law as soon as it reaches his desk.

Since 2020, several governments and organizations have banned, or considered banning, TikTok from their staff’s devices, but a complete ban of an internet app would be a first in the US.

For a long time now, TikTok has been battling to convince politicians that it operates independently of ByteDance, which allegedly has deep ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). For example, TikTok has repeatedly claimed the Chinese government has never demanded access to US data and that TikTok would not comply if it did.

While ByteDance denies any direct links to the Chinese Communist Party, a former executive at TikTok’s parent company claimed in court documents that the CCP had access to TikTok data, despite US storage of the data. The allegations came up in a wrongful dismissal lawsuit filed in May of 2023 in the San Francisco Superior Court.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), an international non-profit digital rights group based in the US, says it opposes this bill, mainly because it is afraid that TikTok will not be the last app to face this type of ban.

TikTok also encouraged its users and creators to express their opposition to the bill. Last week, the social media company said the bill would:

> “Trample the free speech rights of 170 million Americans, devastate seven million businesses, and shutter a platform that contributes $24 billion to the US economy, annually.”

Chinese officials reportedly said the government would “firmly oppose” any forced sale of TikTok because it would “seriously undermine the confidence of investors from various countries, including China, to invest in the United States.”

Malwarebytes has a new free tool for you to check how much of your personal data has been exposed online. Submit your email address (it’s best to give the one you most frequently use) to our free Digital Footprint scan and we’ll give you a report and recommendations.

 TikTok comes one step closer to a US ban 

A new ongoing malware campaign has been observed distributing three different stealers, such as CryptBot, LummaC2, and Rhadamanthys hosted on Content Delivery Network (CDN) cache domains since at least February 2024.
Cisco Talos has attributed the activity with moderate confidence to a threat actor tracked as CoralRaider, a suspected Vietnamese-origin

CoralRaider Malware Campaign Exploits CDN Cache to Spread Info-Stealers

The infamous Russian threat actor has created a custom tool called GooseEgg to exploit CVE-2022-38028 in cyber-espionage attacks against targets in Ukraine, Western Europe, and North America.

Source: Science Photo Library via Alamy Stock Photo

A well-known Russian advanced persistent threat (APT) group has been using a custom tool to exploit a bug that been around for several years in the Windows Print Spooler service to elevate privileges and steal credentials in numerous intelligence-gathering attacks around the globe. It also appears to be paving the way for further attacks.

Fancy Bear (aka APT28, Forest Blizzard, Pawn Storm, Sofacy Group, and Strontium) is linked to the Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate. It has been using a tool called GooseEgg since at least June 2020 and possibly as early as April 2019 to exploit the CVE-2022-38028 vulnerability in Windows Print Spooler service, Microsoft Threat Intelligence revealed in a blog post on April 22.

Microsoft patched the flaw, which allows an attacker who successfully exploits it to gain SYSTEM privileges, in October 2022. Fancy Bear is using GooseEgg to modify a JavaScript constraints file and execute it with SYSTEM-level permissions.

"While a simple launcher application, GooseEgg is capable of spawning other applications specified at the command line with elevated permissions, allowing threat actors to support any follow-on objectives such as remote code execution, installing a backdoor, and moving laterally through compromised networks," according to the post.

Microsoft discovered Fancy Bear deploying GooseEgg in attacks against various Ukrainian, Western European, and North American government, nongovernmental, education, and transportation sector organizations.

Windows Print Spooler, a printer services technology, is a popular target for attackers, who tend to pounce on numerous flaws affecting the software that manages the printing process in Windows. The most well-known of these is two security vulnerabilities collectively called PrintNightmare that were discovered in late June 2021 and spawned a series of well-documented attacks.

**GooseEgg Malware Tailored for Windows Print Spooler**

That Fancy Bear targeted the service itself is not out of the ordinary, according to Microsoft; however, its use of the newly discovered GooseEgg to elevate privileges in these attacks is a novel threat activity for the group. GooseEgg is typically deployed with a batch script that invokes a corresponding GooseEgg executable and sets up persistence as a scheduled task.

The GooseEgg binary then takes one of four commands, each with different runpaths. "While the binary appears to launch a trivial given command, in fact the binary does this in a unique and sophisticated manner, likely to help conceal the activity," according to the post.

Two of the binary's commands trigger the exploit for the Print Spooler flaw and launch either a provided dynamic link library (DLL) or executable with elevated permissions, while another command tests the exploit and checks that it has succeeded.

The name of an embedded malicious DLL file launched by GooseEgg typically includes the phrase "wayzgoose," such as wayzgoose23.dll. That DLL as well as other components of the malware are deployed to one of several installation subdirectories created under the Windows directory C:\\ProgramData, according to Microsoft Threat Intelligence.

The exploit ultimately replaces the C: drive symbolic link in the object manager to point to the newly created directory, resulting in Print Spooler being redirected to the actor-controlled directory containing the copied driver packages when it attempts to load this registry: C:\\Windows\\System32\\DriverStore\\FileRepository\\pnms009.inf\_amd64\_a7412a554c9bc1fd\\MPDW-Constraints.js.

Eventually, the auxiliary DLL wayzgoose.dll file launches in the context of the PrintSpooler service with SYSTEM permissions as "a basic launcher application capable of spawning other applications" with the same permissions, according to the post.

**Keeping Fancy Bear Cyber Espionage at Bay**

Fancy Bear has a history of attacking known vulnerabilities, particularly in Microsoft products, to compromise targets for its nefarious activities — which primarily involve, but are not limited to, intelligence gathering. Last year, it mounted a flurry of cyber-espionage attacks against government agencies in NATO countries and organizations in the Middle East that exploited CVE-2023-23397, a zero-click vulnerability in Microsoft's Outlook email client.

While the group's most high-profile attack may be its ties to hacking aimed at running interference in the 2016 US presidential elections, the group has been most notably active of late in various attacks against Ukraine since Russia's war against the country began in February 2022.

The best way that organizations can protect themselves against attacks from the Russian APT is to apply patches for the vulnerable products that it targets. Microsoft recommended that users apply the CVE-2022-38028 security update to mitigate the GooseEgg threat against Windows Print Spooler; meanwhile, the Microsoft Defender Antivirus detects the specific Forest Blizzard capability as HackTool:Win64/GooseEgg.

Another way to mitigate the issue is to disable the Windows Print Spooler service domain controller operations, since it isn't required, according to Microsoft. To help identify domain controllers that have the Print Spooler service enabled, Microsoft Defender for Identity has a built-in security assessment that tracks the availability of Print Spooler services on domain controllers.

Greg Fitzgerald, co-founder at Sevco Security, notes that printer bugs are particularly difficult to remediate because printers are often under-inventoried.

“Security teams have become incredibly efficient at identifying and remediating CVEs, but increasingly it's these environmental vulnerabilities that create security gaps giving malicious actors access to data," Fitzgerald says. "These vulnerabilities are hiding in plain sight throughout IT environments, creating a landscape of threats that security teams can’t see, but are still accountable for. The unfortunate reality is that most organizations are unable to create an accurate IT asset inventory that reflects the entirety of their attack surface. This puts them at the mercy of attackers who know where to look for forgotten IT assets that contain exploitable vulnerabilities.”

**About the Author(s)**

Elizabeth Montalbano is a freelance writer, journalist, and therapeutic writing mentor with more than 25 years of professional experience. Her areas of expertise include technology, business, and culture. Elizabeth previously lived and worked as a full-time journalist in Phoenix, San Francisco, and New York City; she currently resides in a village on the southwest coast of Portugal. In her free time, she enjoys surfing, hiking with her dogs, traveling, playing music, yoga, and cooking.

Russia's Fancy Bear Pummels Windows Print Spooler Bug

Talos also discovered a new PowerShell command-line argument embedded in the LNK file to bypass anti-virus products and download the final payload into the victims’ host.

_By Joey Chen, Chetan Raghuprasad and Alex Karkins._ 

*   Cisco Talos discovered a new ongoing campaign since at least February 2024, operated by a threat actor distributing three famous infostealer malware, including Cryptbot, LummaC2 and Rhadamanthys.
*   Talos also discovered a new PowerShell command-line argument embedded in the LNK file to bypass anti-virus products and download the final payload into the victims’ host.
*   This campaign uses the Content Delivery Network (CDN) cache domain as a download server, hosting the malicious HTA file and payload. 
*   Talos assesses with moderate confidence that the threat actor CoralRaider operates the campaign. We observed several overlaps in tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) of CoralRaider’s Rotbot campaign, including the initial attack vector of the Windows Shortcut file, intermediate PowerShell decryptor and payload download scripts, the FoDHelper technique used to bypass User Access Controls (UAC) of the victim machine.  

**Victimology and actor infrastructure**

The campaign affects victims across multiple countries, including the U.S., Nigeria, Pakistan, Ecuador, Germany, Egypt, the U.K., Poland, the Philippines, Norway, Japan, Syria and Turkey, based on our telemetry data and OSINT information. Our telemetry also disclosed that some affected users were from Japan’s computer service call center organizations and civil defense service organizations in Syria. The affected users were downloading files masquerading as movie files through the browser, indicating the possibility of a widespread attack on users across various business verticals and geographies.

We observe that this threat actor is using a Content Delivery Network (CDN) cache to store the malicious files on their network edge host in this campaign, avoiding request delay. The actor is using the CDN cache as a download server to deceive network defenders. 

CDN edge URLs 

Information Stealer

hxxps\[://\]techsheck\[.\]b-cdn\[.\]net/Zen90

Cryptbot

hxxps\[://\]zexodown-2\[.\]b-cdn\[.\]net/Peta12

Cryptbot

hxxps\[://\]denv-2\[.\]b-cdn\[.\]net/FebL5

Cryptbot, Rhadamanthys

hxxps\[://\]download-main5\[.\]b-cdn\[.\]net/BSR\_v7IDcc

Rhadamanthys

hxxps\[://\]dashdisk-2\[.\]b-cdn\[.\]net/XFeb18

Cryptbot

hxxps\[://\]metrodown-3\[.\]b-cdn\[.\]net/MebL1

Cryptbot

hxxps\[://\]metrodown-2\[.\]b-cdn\[.\]net/MebL1

Cryptbot, LummaC2

hxxps\[://\]metrodown-2\[.\]b-cdn\[.\]net/SAq2

LummaC2

Talos discovered that the actor is using multiple C2 domains in the campaign. The DNS requests for the domains during our analysis period are shown in the graph, indicating the campaign is ongoing. 

**Tactics, techniques and procedures overlap with other campaigns **

Talos assesses with moderate confidence that threat actor CoralRaider is likely operating this campaign based on several overlaps in the TTPs used and the targeted victims’ geography of this campaign with that of the CoralRaider’s Rotbot campaign. We spotted that the PowerShell scripts used in the attack chain of this campaign to decrypt the PowerShell scripts of further stages and the downloader PowerShell script are similar to those employed in the Rotbot’s campaign.

PowerShell decryptor script of Rotbot campaign (left) and new unknown campaign (right).

String decrypt and download routine of Rotbot campaign (Left) and new unknown campaign (right).

The Powershell script did not appear in any public repository or article, indicating the threat actor likely developed these PowerShell scripts. Pivoting on the PowerShell argument embedded in the LNK file showed us that such arguments are not popular and likely specific to the actor and the campaign.  

.(gp -pa 'HKLM:\\SOF\*\\Clas\*\\Applications\\msh\*e').('PSChildName')

**Multi-stage infection chain to deliver the payload **

The infection chain starts when a victim opens the malicious shortcut file from a ZIP file downloaded using the drive-by download technique, according to our telemetry. The threat actor is likely delivering malicious links to victims through phishing emails.

The Windows shortcut file has an embedded PowerShell command running a malicious HTA file on attacker-controlled CDN domains. HTA file executes an embedded Javascript, which decodes and runs a PowerShell decrypter script. PowerShell decrypter script decrypts the embedded PowerShell Loader script and runs it in the victim’s memory. The PowerShell Loader executes multiple functions to evade the detections and bypass UAC, and finally, it downloads and runs one of the payloads, Cryptbot, LummaC2 or Rhadamanthys information stealer.

**Windows Shortcut file to execute the malicious HTA file**

Windows shortcut file runs a PowerShell command to download and run an HTML application file on the victim’s machine. The threat actor has used “gp,” a PowerShell command alias for Get-ItemProperty, to read the registry contents of the application classes registry key and gets the executable name “mshta.exe.” Using mshta.exe, the PowerShell instance executes the remotely hosted malicious HTA file on the victim’s machine. 

**Obfuscated HTA runs embedded PowerShell decrypter  **

The malicious HTML application file is heavily obfuscated and has a Javascript that decodes and executes a function using the String fromCharCode method. The decoded function then executes an embedded PowerShell decryptor script. 

The decryptor PowerShell script has a block of AES-encrypted string. Using the AES decryptor function, it generates an AES key of 256 bytes from a base64 encoded string “RVRVd2h4RUJHUWNiTEZpbkN5SXhzUWRHeFN4V053THQ=” and the IV “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.” With the key and IV, it decrypts and executes the next stage of the PowerShell Loader script. 

**PowerShell loader downloads and runs the payload**

The PowerShell loader script is modular and has multiple functions to perform a sequence of activities on the victim’s machine. Initially, it executes a function that drops a batch script in the victim machine’s temporary folder and writes its contents, which includes the PowerShell command to add the folder “ProgramData” of the victim machine to the Windows Defender exclusion list. 

The dropped bath script is executed through a living-off-the-land binary (LoLBin) “FoDHelper.exe” and a Programmatic Identifiers (ProgIDs) registry key to bypass the User Access Controls (UAC) in the victim’s machine. Fodhelper is a Windows feature, an on-demand helper binary that runs by default with high integrity. Usually, when the FodHelper is run, it checks for the presence of the registry keys listed below. If the registry keys have commands assigned, the FodHelper will execute them in an elevated context without prompting the user. 

HKCU:\Software\Classes\ms-settings\shell\open\command

HKCU:\Software\Classes\ms-settings\shell\open\command\DelegateExecute

HKCU:\Software\Classes\ms-settings\shell\open\command\(default)

Windows Defender, by default, detects if there are attempts to write to the registry keysHKCU:\Software\Classes\ms-settings\shell\open\command and to evade this detection, the threat actor uses the programmatic identifier (ProgID). In Windows machines, a programmatic identifier (ProgID ) is a registry entry that can be associated with a Class ID (CLSID ), which is a globally unique serial number that identifies a COM (Component Object Model) class object. The Windows Shell uses a default ProgID registry key called CurVer, which is used to set the default version of a COM application. 

In this campaign, the threat actor abuses the “CurVer” registry key feature by creating a custom ProgID “ServiceHostXGRT” registry key in the software classes registry and assigns the Windows shell to execute a command to run the batch script. 

Registry Key

"HKCU\\Software\\Classes\\ServiceHostXGRT\\Shell\\Open\\command"

Value

%temp%\\r.bat 

The script configures the ProgID ServiceHostXGRT in the CurVer registry subkey of HKCU\Software\Classes\ms-settings\CurVer, which will get translated to HKCU:\Software\Classes\ms-settings\shell\open\command. After modifying the registry settings, the PowerShell script runs FoDHelper.exe, executing the command assigned to the registry key HKCU:\Software\Classes\ms-settings\shell\open\command and executing the dropped batch script. Finally, it deletes the configured registry keys to evade detection. 

The batch script adds the folder “C:\\ProgramData” to the Windows Defender exclusion list. The PowerShell loader script downloads the payload and saves it in the “C:\\ProgramData” folder as “X1xDd.exe.”

After downloading the payload to the victim’s machine, the PowerShell loader executes another function that overwrites the previously dropped batch file with the new instructions to run the downloaded payload information stealer through the Windows start command. It again uses the same FoDHelper technique to run the batch script’s second version, which we explained earlier in this section.  

**Actor’s choice of three payloads in the same campaign **

Talos discovered that the threat actor delivered three famous information stealer malware as payloads in this campaign, including CryptBot, LummaC2 and Rhadamanthys. These information stealers target victims’ information, such as system and browser data, credentials, cryptocurrency wallets and financial information. 

**CryptBot**

CryptBot is a typical infostealer targeting Windows systems discovered in the wild in 2019 by GDATA. It is designed to steal sensitive information from infected computers, such as credentials from browsers, cryptocurrency wallets, browser cookies and credit cards, and creates screenshots of the infected system. 

Talos has discovered a new CryptBot variant distributed in the wild since January 2024. The goal of the new CryptBot is the same, with some new innovative functionalities. The new CryptBot is packed with different techniques to obstruct malware analysis. A few new CryptBot variants are packed with VMProtect V2.0.3-2.13; others also have VMProtect, but with unknown versions. The new CryptBot attempts to steal sensitive information from infected machines and modifies the configuration changes of the stolen applications. The list of targeted browsers, applications and cryptocurrency wallets by the new variant of CryptBot is shown below.

We observed the new CryptBot variant also includes password manager application databases and authenticator application information in its stealing list to steal the cryptocurrency wallets that have two-factor authentication enabled. 

CryptBot is aware that the target applications in the victim’s environment will have different versions, and their database files will have different file extensions. It scans the victim’s machine for database files’ extensions of the targeted applications for harvesting credentials. 

**LummaC2 **

Talos discovered that the actor is delivering a new variant of LummaC2 malware as an alternative payload in this campaign. LummaC2 is a notorious information stealer that attempts to harvest information from victims’ machines. Based on the report posted by outpost24 and other external security reports, LummaC2 has already been confirmed to be sold on the underground market for years. 

The threat actor has modified LummaC2’s information stealer capability and obfuscated the malware with a custom algorithm. The obfuscation algorithm is saved in another section inside the malware shown below.

The new version of LummaC2 also presents the same signature of the alert message displayed to the user during its execution. 

The C2 domains are encrypted with a symmetric algorithm, and we found that the actor has nine C2 servers that the malware will attempt to connect to one by one. Analyzing various samples of the new LummaC2 variant, we spotted that each will use a different key to encrypt the C2.   

Talos has compiled the list of nine C2 domains the new LummaC2 variant attempts to connect in this campaign. 

Encrypted strings

Decrypted Strings

DjAX00pkpcffFUltlGiiaZwjEaPFx8U3sZYohNNzphB+VXagKwrRr7BjLA71GNEZ8E8/0K2otQ==

peasanthovecapspll\[.\]shop

DjAX00pkpcffFUltlGiiaZwjEaPFx8U3sZYohNNzphBpVXqwOAHAo75nPQT3Hc4I6EZ+x+u0rVjB

gemcreedarticulateod\[.\]shop

DjAX00pkpcffFUltlGiiaZwjEaPFx8U3sZYohNNzphB9VXShLxDMqLFmPATgC8Ma+U14zKy0oBnC/kf0

secretionsuitcasenioise\[.\]shop

DjAX00pkpcffFUltlGiiaZwjEaPFx8U3sZYohNNzphBtXHa6JwfKqbxwOh79B8wb+UF0jbavqkc=

claimconcessionrebe\[.\]shop

DjAX00pkpcffFUltlGiiaZwjEaPFx8U3sZYohNNzphBiWXaxIwjMs6Z0Ox/1BsUM8UZ/2qyz60TZ+Vg=

liabilityarrangemenyit\[.\]shop

DjAX00pkpcffFUltlGiiaZwjEaPFx8U3sZYohNNzphBjX3O2ORDAtKx0MAjiDcwE9U9mxq7ptl/e5g==

modestessayevenmilwek\[.\]shop

DjAX00pkpcffFUltlGiiaZwjEaPFx8U3sZYohNNzphB6Qn6yJAPJoqxwKB77BsAM8kB51K/ptl/e5g==

triangleseasonbenchwj\[.\]shop

DjAX00pkpcffFUltlGiiaZwjEaPFx8U3sZYohNNzphBtRXunPxbAtLRwPQ78DssH/U1yyqSrqRnC/kf0

culturesketchfinanciall\[.\]shop

DjAX00pkpcffFUltlGiiaZwjEaPFx8U3sZYohNNzphB9X3GyIhHLs7Z7Lh74AcYM+Ep/xuu0rVjB

sofahuntingslidedine\[.\]shop

LummaC2’s first step in its exfiltration phase is its connection to the C2 server. The malware will exit the process if it does not receive the “OK” message as a response from any of the nine C2 servers. The second step will be exfiltrating information from infected machines. The basic stealing functionality is the same as the previous version, with the addition of victims’ discord credentials to exfiltrate. 

**Rhadamanthys**

The last payload we found in this campaign is Rhadamanthys malware, a famous infostealer appearing in the underground forum advertisement in September 2022. The Rhadamanthys malware has been evolving till now, and its authors have released a new version, V0.6.0, on Feb. 15, 2024. However, the Rhadamanthys variant we found in this campaign is still v0.5.0.

The threat actor uses a Python executable file as a loader to execute the Rhadamanthys malware into memory. After decompiling the Python executable file, Python scripts load the Rhadamanthys malware in two stages. The first stage is a simple Python script that replaces the binary code from 0 to 9 and decodes the second stage. 

In the second stage, the Python script uses the Windows API to allocate a memory block and inject Rhadamanthys malware into the process. We spotted that the threat actor is developing the Python script with the intention of including the functionality of executing a shellcode. 

Analyzing the final executable file showed us that the malware unpacks the loader module with the custom format having the magic header “XS” and performs the process injection. The custom loader module in XS format is similar to that of a Rhadamanthys sample analyzed by the researcher at Check Point. The malware selects one of the listed processes as the target process for process injection from a hardcoded list in the binary:

*   "%Systemroot%\\\\system32\\\\dialer.exe"
*   "%Systemroot%\\\\system32\\\\openwith.exe"

**Coverage**

Cisco Secure Endpoint (formerly AMP for Endpoints) is ideally suited to prevent the execution of the malware detailed in this post. Try Secure Endpoint for free here.

Cisco Secure Web Appliance web scanning prevents access to malicious websites and detects malware used in these attacks.

Cisco Secure Email (formerly Cisco Email Security) can block malicious emails sent by threat actors as part of their campaign. You can try Secure Email for free here.

Cisco Secure Firewall (formerly Next-Generation Firewall and Firepower NGFW) appliances such as Threat Defense Virtual, Adaptive Security Appliance and Meraki MX can detect malicious activity associated with this threat.

Cisco Secure Malware Analytics (Threat Grid) identifies malicious binaries and builds protection into all Cisco Secure products.

Umbrella, Cisco's secure internet gateway (SIG), blocks users from connecting to malicious domains, IPs and URLs, whether users are on or off the corporate network. Sign up for a free trial of Umbrella here.

Cisco Secure Web Appliance (formerly Web Security Appliance) automatically blocks potentially dangerous sites and tests suspicious sites before users access them.

Additional protections with context to your specific environment and threat data are available from the Firewall Management Center.

Cisco Duo provides multi-factor authentication for users to ensure only those authorized are accessing your network.

Open-source Snort Subscriber Rule Set customers can stay up to date by downloading the latest rule pack available for purchase on Snort.org. Snort SID for this threat is 63218 - 63225 and 300867 - 300870.

ClamAV detections are also available for this threat:

Lnk.Downloader.CoralRaider-10027128-0

Txt.Tool.CoralRaider-10027140-0

Html.Downloader.CoralRaider-10027220-0

Win.Infostealer.Lumma-10027222-0

Win.Infostealer.Rhadamanthys-10027293-0

Win.Infostealer.Rhadamanthys-10027294-0

Win.Infostealer.Cryptbot-10027295-0

Win.Infostealer.Cryptbot-10027296-0

Win.Infostealer.Cryptbot-10027297-0

Win.Infostealer.Cryptbot-10027298-0

Win.Infostealer.Cryptbot-10027299-0

Win.Infostealer.Cryptbot-10027300-0

Win.Infostealer.Cryptbot-10027301-0

Win.Infostealer.Cryptbot-10027302-0

Win.Infostealer.Cryptbot-10027303-0

Win.Infostealer.Cryptbot-10027305-0

**Indicators of Compromise**

Indicators of Compromise associated with this threat can be found here.

Suspected CoralRaider continues to expand victimology using three information stealers

SecOps highlights this week include the executive role in "cyber readiness;" Cisco's Hypershield promise; and Middle East cyber ops heat up.

Source: Panther Media GmbH via Alamy Stock Photo

Welcome to CISO Corner, Dark Reading's weekly digest of articles tailored specifically to security operations readers and security leaders. Every week, we'll offer articles gleaned from across our news operation, The Edge, DR Technology, DR Global, and our Commentary section. We're committed to bringing you a diverse set of perspectives to support the job of operationalizing cybersecurity strategies, for leaders at organizations of all shapes and sizes.

**In This Issue of CISO Corner:**

*   GPT-4 Can Exploit Most Vulns Just by Reading Threat Advisories
    
*   Break Security Burnout: Combining Leadership With Neuroscience
    
*   Global: Cyber Operations Intensify in Middle East, With Israel the Main Target
    
*   Cisco's Complex Road to Deliver on Its Hypershield Promise
    
*   Rebalancing NIST: Why 'Recovery' Can't Stand Alone
    
*   3 Steps Executives and Boards Should Take to Ensure Cyber Readiness
    
*   Rethinking How You Work With Detection and Response Metrics
    

**GPT-4 Can Exploit Most Vulns Just by Reading Threat Advisories**

By Nate Nelson, Contributing Writer, Dark Reading

A slicker phishing lure and some basic malware was about all threat actors have been able to squeeze out of artificial intelligence (AI) and large language model (LLM) tools so far — but that's about to change, according to a team of academics.

Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have demonstrated that by using GPT-4 they can automate the process of gathering threat advisories and exploiting vulnerabilities as soon as they are made public. In fact, GPT-4 was able to exploit 87% of vulnerabilities it was tested against, according to the research. Other models weren't as effective.

Although the AI technology is new, the report advises that in response, organizations should tighten up tried-and-true best security practices, particularly patching, to defend against automated exploits enabled by AI. Moving forward, as adversaries adopt more sophisticated AI and LLM tools, security teams might consider using the same technologies to defend their systems, the researchers added. The report pointed to automating malware analysis a promising use-case example.

Read more: GPT-4 Can Exploit Most Vulns Just by Reading Threat Advisories

Related: First Step in Securing AI/ML Tools Is Locating Them

**Break Security Burnout: Combining Leadership With Neuroscience**

By Elizabeth Montalbano, Contributing Writer, Dark Reading

Widely reported burnout among cybersecurity professionals is only getting worse. It starts at the top with pressure on CISOs mounting from all sides — regulators, boards, shareholders, and customers — to assume all the responsibility for an entire organization's security, without much control of budgeting or priorities. Wider enterprise cybersecurity teams are wearing down too under the weight of putting in long, stressful hours to prevent seemingly inevitable cyberattacks.

Certainly awareness of the stress and strain driving talent away from the cybersecurity profession is widely acknowledged, but workable solutions have been elusive.

Now two professionals looking to break what they call the "security fatigue cycle" say leaning on neuroscience can help. Peter Coroneros, founder of Cybermindz and Kayla Williams, CISO of Devo, have come together to advocate for more empathetic leadership informed by a better understanding of mental health, and will be presenting their ideas in more detail at this year's RSA Conference.

For example, they found tools like iRest (Integrative Restoration) attention training techniques, which have been used for 40 years by US and Australian militaries help people under chronic stress get out of the "flight-or-flight" state and relax. iRest could also be a useful tool for frazzled cybersecurity teams, they said.

Read more: Break Security Burnout: Combining Leadership With Neuroscience

**Global: Cyber Operations Intensify in Middle East, With Israel the Main Target**

By Robert Lemos, Contributing Writer, Dark Reading

The unraveling crisis in the Middle East continues to produce historic volumes of cyberattacks to support military operations.

There are two categories of adversary groups at work, according to experts — nation-state threat actors working as an arm of a military operation and hacktivist groups attacking willy-nilly based on opportunity and a victim's perceived proximity to the group's enemies.

Israel's National Cyber Directive boss said Iranian- and Hezbollah-affiliated groups have been trying to take down the country's networks "around the clock."

Cybersecurity experts warns Israel should prepare for destructive cyberattacks to continue as the Iran-Israel cyber conflict escalates.

Read more: Cyber Operations Intensify in Middle East, With Israel the Main Target

Related: Iran-Backed Hackers Blast Out Threatening Texts to Israelis

**Cisco's Complex Road to Deliver on Its Hypershield Promise**

By Robert Lemos, Contributing Writer

Cisco's big reveal of its AI-powered cloud security platform Hypershield was big on buzzwords and left industry watchers with questions about how the tool is going to deliver on its pitch.

Automated patching, anomalous behavior detection and blocking, AI-agents maintaining real-time security controls around every workload, and a new "digital twin" approach are all touted as Hypershield features.

The modern approach would be a major step forward "If they pull it off," David Holmes, a principal analyst with Forrester Research said.

Jon Oltisk, analyst emeritus at Enterprise Strategy Group, compared Hypershield's ambitions to the development of driver-assist features in cars, "The trick is how it comes together."

Cisco Hypershield is scheduled for release in August.

Read more: Cisco's Complex Road to Deliver on Its Hypershield Promise

Related: First Wave of Vulnerability-Fixing AIs Available for Developers

**Rebalancing NIST: Why 'Recovery' Can't Stand Alone**

Commentary By Alex Janas, Field Chief Technology Officer, Commvault

Although NIST's new guidance on data security is an important basic overview, but falls short on offering best practices for how to recover from a cyberattack once it's already happened.

Today, organizations need to assume they have been, or will be, breached and plan accordingly. That advice is perhaps even more important than the other elements of the new NIST framework, this commentary argues.

Companies should immediately work to address any gaps in cybersecurity preparedness and response playbooks.

Read more: Rebalancing NIST: Why 'Recovery' Can't Stand Alone

Related: NIST Cybersecurity Framework 2.0: 4 Steps to Get Started

**3 Steps Executives and Boards Should Take to Ensure Cyber Readiness**

Commentary By Chris Crummey, Director, Executive & Board Cyber Services, Sygnia

Working to develop an effective and tested incident response plan is the best thing executives can do to prepare their organization for a cyber incident. Most major mistakes happen in the first "golden hour" of a cyber incident response, the commentary explains. That means ensuring every member of the team has a well-defined role and can get to work quickly on finding the best path forward, and crucially, not making remediation errors that can upend recovery timelines.

Read more: 3 Steps Executives and Boards Should Take to Ensure Cyber Readiness

Related: 7 Things Your Ransomware Response Playbook Is Likely Missing

**Rethinking How You Work With Detection and Response Metrics**

By Jeffrey Schwartz, Contributing Writer, Dark Reading

During the recent Black Hat Asia conference Allyn Stott, senior staff engineer with Airbnb challenged every security professional to rethink the role metrics play in their organization's threat detection and response.

Metrics drive better performance and help cybersecurity managers demonstrate how detection and response program investment translates into less business risk to leadership.

The single most important security operations center metric: alert volume, Stott explained. He added looking back over his past work, he regrets how much he leaned on the MITRE ATT&CK framework. He recommends incorporating others including SANS SABRE framework and Hunting Maturity Model.

Read more: Rethinking How You Work With Detection and Response Metrics

Related: SANS Institute Research Shows What Frameworks, Benchmarks, and Techniques Organizations Use on their Path to Security Maturity

CISO Corner: Breaking Staff Burnout, GPT-4 Exploits, Rebalancing NIST

Given the state of the NVD and vulnerability management, we felt it was worth looking at the current state of the NVD, how we got to this point, what it means for security teams, and where we go from here.

Friday, April 19, 2024 08:00

The National Vulnerability Database is usually the single source of truth for all things related to security vulnerabilities.  

But now, they’re facing an uphill battle against a massive backlog of vulnerabilities, some of which are still waiting to be analyzed, and others that still have an inaccurate or altogether missing severity score.  

As of April 9, 5,799 CVEs that have been published since Feb. 15, 2024, remain unanalyzed. 

As the backlog piles up, it’s unclear how, or when, the NVD is going to get back to its regular cadence of processing, scoring and analyzing vulnerabilities that are submitted to the U.S. government repository. At its current pace, the NVD is analyzing about 2.9 percent of all published CVEs it's been sent, well behind its pace in previous years. If there were no new CVEs submitted today, it could take the NVD more than 91 days to empty that backlog and get caught up. 

Given the state of the NVD and vulnerability management, we felt it was worth looking at the current state of the NVD, how we got to this point, what it means for security teams, and where we go from here. 

**What is the NVD? **

The U.S.’s National Vulnerability Database provides the most comprehensive list of CVEs anywhere. This tracks security vulnerabilities in hardware and software and distributes that list to the public for anyone to use.  

This data enables organizations and large networks to automate vulnerability management, take appropriate security steps when a new vulnerability is discovered, important references and metrics that indicate how serious a particular vulnerability is.  

The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has managed the NVD since 2000, when it was started as the Internet Category of Attack toolkit. It eventually morphed into the NVD, which passed the 150,000-vulnerability mark in 2021.  

In addition to simply listing the CVEs that are regularly disclosed, the NVD scores vulnerabilities using the CVSS system, which often differ from the initial severity score that’s assigned by the researcher that discovers the vulnerability, or the company or organization behind the affected product or software. 

Since the creation of I-CAT, no other organization or private company has as comprehensive of a list of vulnerabilities as the NVD, nor do they offer it for free like NIST does.  

**Why is the backlog a problem? **

On the surface, it may seem like the fact that the NVD has been slow to analyze CVEs isn’t all that bad, considering security issues are still being disclosed and patched every day (think: Microsoft Patch Tuesday). 

However, the lack of a single source of CVEs augmented information is detrimental to administrators, security researchers and users, and security experts are warning that the issue needs to be addressed quickly, or an alternative needs to be adopted.  

With the NVD being a collection of all this information, it’s up to the individual vendors to responsibly disclose and release vulnerabilities discovered in their products, which puts the onus on administrators to track that information down. If someone who handles patch management for a network was relying on the NVD for their information, that list is likely outdated at this point, and instead, they need to visit each individual vendor to find out what vulnerabilities were recently disclosed in their products, and how large of a risk they present.  

On any given network, that could be dozens to even hundreds of vendors, and while massive companies like Apple and Microsoft have easy-to-access security and vulnerability information, smaller open-source projects may not have the same resources that administrators need.  

The NVD is also the most trusted source for severity scores. Their calculations are generally what most users see when they read a security advisory. But without their input, it’s on the researcher or vendor to assign a score, instead. Under that system, there is no guarantee that a company may not want to score their vulnerability higher so it does not seem as serious, while researchers may want to bump up the severity of the issue they find so they are credited with discovering a higher-severity issue.  

As Talos has discussed before, a CVSS score is not the only metric worth relying on when patching, but it does play a major role in how the public views vulnerabilities and whether they’re likely to be exploited in the wild. According to Talos’ 2023 Year in Review report, eight of the 10 most-exploited CVEs last year received a severity score of 9.3 or higher. Any sense of uncertainty around CVSS scores can leave administrators scratching their heads and without a “north star” for patch management. 

The recent xz Utility vulnerability that was luckily prevented before any attackers could exploit it still does not have a Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) assigned to it as of April 10 because of the backlog. Had an exploit for this been used, defenders would be missing crucial context and information for defending against this backdoor. 

**How did this backlog develop? **

NIST has been relatively vague about why the agency has been slow to process new vulnerabilities. The first sign of trouble came in February, when NIST released a statement that a “growing backlog of vulnerabilities” had developed because of “an increase in software and, therefore, vulnerabilities, as well as a change in interagency support.” 

NIST’s budget was cut by about 12 percent after the recent package of funding bills passed by U.S. Congress, as well. 

The agency also said in February that additional NIST staff were being shifted around to address the backlog, and at the recent VulnCon and Annual CNA Summit, the NVD program director promised that NIST was developing a consortium to help address the issues with the NVD.  

The total number of vulnerabilities disclosed continues to increase every year, driven by larger amounts of software on the market and increased visibility into security concerns and research. Last year, there were 28,961 CVEs disclosed, according to the CVE Program, an increase of 15 percent from 2022. The last time there were fewer CVEs assigned in a year compared to the year prior was in 2016. 

**What are some potential solutions? **

NIST has continued to publicly support the NVD and says it's preparing to revitalize the database. But it’s unclear what short- or long-term solutions or alternatives exist. 

Jerry Gamblin, a principal threat detection and response engineer for Cisco Vulnerability Management, said there has yet to be a company or organization willing to take on the monstrous task of tracking and scoring \*every\* CVE, especially for free.  

Other vulnerability catalogs exist like the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, but the KEV only lists vulnerabilities that have actively been exploited in the wild. 

In short — all the potential alternatives are imperfect. 

“We can get the data from anywhere, and AI data could even help, but people just need to decide,” Gamblin said. “Is there going to be just one source of data? And who is the source of truth for this data? Who owns this data?” 

A private company like MITRE could step up to create its own solution, but it’d likely want to charge for access to that database. Any non-profit organization who also wants to step up would also likely need a massive influx of money and manpower to address the sheer volume of CVEs that come in every day. 

And while NIST says the consortium is in the works, there’s no timetable for how long it could take for that to be established, and which private companies would be involved.  

For now, it’s best to stick to tried-and-true patching strategies that have worked for years. Software, like Cisco Vulnerability Management, which has not been affected by the NVD backlog, can also assist in automating the patching process and prioritizing which vulnerabilities to patch first.

What’s the deal with the massive backlog of vulnerabilities at the NVD?

The tech giant tosses together a word salad of today's business drivers — AI, cloud-native, digital twins — and describes a comprehensive security strategy for the future, but can the company build the promised platform?

Source: Peach Shutterstock via Shutterstock

The cybersecurity industry has no shortage of problems: Attackers are using automation to shorten their time to exploit, patching software is burdensome, establishing defenses such as segmentation remains difficult, and a shortage of cybersecurity-skilled workers holds back efforts in all of these areas.

No wonder, then, that Cisco has decided to launch an AI-powered, distributed security platform for protecting cloud workloads and artificial intelligence (AI) systems from cybersecurity threats. Dubbed Hypershield, the platform will push security out to the edge, using AI-augmented agents to maintain security controls around every workload in the data center and even distributed, connected devices. Cisco says the platform will be able to patch environments automatically, test software updates within the environment using simulated systems known as digital twins, and block attacks by detecting anomalous behavior.

Hyperbole was not in short supply, and "reimagined" seemed to be the word of the day.

Jeetu Patel, executive vice president and general manager of Cisco's security and collaboration division, called it "one of the largest platform shifts that we've experienced during our lifetimes."

"For the past gazillion years, when we've looked at security, the advantage has always been on the side of the adversary," Patel said during a press conference announcing Hypershield. "We are now approaching an era ... where ... because \[of this platform\], you might have a world where you might have an advantage as a defender, and wouldn't that be a wonderful world to live in."

Cybersecurity is certainly a field that could benefit from using AI for augmentation or as an assistant, and pushing security to the distributed edge — closer to the devices to be secured — can help simplify some aspects of vast networks that need to be secured.

The company's choice of technologies makes sense, says David Holmes, a principal analyst with Forrester Research. By using eBPF, a technology that allows sandboxed programs to run in a privileged context, pieces of the workload can be instrumented, and data processing units (DPUs) allow efficient processing of data using high-bandwidth network interfaces.

"They are describing a more modern approach to building a private cloud data center architecture, and that’s good," Holmes says. "eBPF for automation \[and\] security, container-like workloads — their DPUs — overall, this is good for the industry if they pull it off."

**Digital Twins Allow Automated Patching**

Craig Connors, chief technology officer of Cisco's security business group, demonstrated how a workload or application could be automatically patched and run in parallel using digital-twin technology to test the stability and correctness of the updated software. Digital twins are simulations — originally used in product development and manufacturing — that allow software engineers to test and observe a version of a device or application.

If patched code passes all tests and satisfies policies, then it can be promoted to production, Connors said during the demonstration.

"What we've done is we've essentially introduced the digital twin into every enforcement point that we deploy," Connors stated. "So we're actually bringing CI/CD \[continuous integration and continuous delivery\] to the embedded world by running the end-of-the-promotion pipeline as a digital twin on every single enforcement point for every single customer in the world in a transparent way. That allows us to test every possible combination that could happen in your real environment everywhere."

While the company will start with Linux environments, Cisco hinted at future plans to support other operating systems.

The same digital-twin approach can be applied to developing segmentation policies for networks of devices and workloads, according to Connors. The AI assistant built into the Hypershield platform could recommend microsegmentation policies and give a confidence score that each policy would behave well inside a given environment.

"Imagine if AI wasn't just recommending microsegmentation policies, but it was modeling them in a digital twin of your environment, and telling you exactly how it tested those policies to make sure they were correct before it recommended them to you," Connors said. "So we're really trying to bring that trust aspect in and not just 'AI bomb' you with recommendations."

**Distributed Exploit Protection**

Cisco says the platform will also protect against exploits in real time by using threat intelligence to inform anomaly detection and response. Because companies never know which vulnerabilities will be picked up by an attacker, the system allows all high-impact vulnerabilities to be treated the same.

This approach benefits companies with legacy hardware and software that has reached end of life and is no longer receiving updates, according to Connors.

"There are cases where we can never patch. ... Let's say the software's end of life, but my business still relies on it and a critical vulnerability exists," Connors said. "So while these are intended to be short-lived patches to bridge that gap between that availability and patch deployment and then we'll automatically pull back these distributed shields, it is potentially feasible that you may want to run this for the life of the application to continue protecting you against \[exploitation\]."

Having the vision and individual technologies is a good first step, but like the platform managing driver-assist features in cars, the trick is how it all comes together, says Jon Oltsik, analyst emeritus at Enterprise Strategy Group. Coordinating the pieces across multiple systems, rather than looking at each one in isolation — as well as figuring out "normal" activity — and then responding will be tricky.

"It's a good goal, but a lot of things need to come together to make it happen, including user buy-in," he says. "AI-based security must go through rigorous testing and be proven in the field before security professionals will trust it."

Cisco has promised the platform will be generally available by August.

**About the Author(s)**

Veteran technology journalist of more than 20 years. Former research engineer. Written for more than two dozen publications, including CNET News.com, Dark Reading, MIT's Technology Review, Popular Science, and Wired News. Five awards for journalism, including Best Deadline Journalism (Online) in 2003 for coverage of the Blaster worm. Crunches numbers on various trends using Python and R. Recent reports include analyses of the shortage in cybersecurity workers and annual vulnerability trends.

Cisco's Complex Road to Deliver on Its Hypershield Promise

Attackers are indiscriminately targeting VPNs from Cisco and several other vendors in what may be a reconnaissance effort, the vendor says.

Source: Wright Studio via Shutterstock

Cisco Talos this week warned of a massive increase in brute-force attacks targeting VPN services, SSH services, and Web application authentication interfaces.

In its advisory, the company described the attacks as involving the use of generic and valid usernames to try and gain initial access to victim environments. The targets of these attacks appear to be random and indiscriminate and not restricted to any industry sector or geography, Cisco said.

The company identified the attacks as impacting organizations using Cisco Secure Firewall VPN devices and technologies from several other vendors, including Checkpoint VPN, Fortinet VPN, SonicWall VPN, Mikrotik, and Draytek.

**Attack Volumes Might Increase**

"Depending on the target environment, successful attacks of this type may lead to unauthorized network access, account lockouts, or denial-of-service conditions," a Cisco Talos statement explained. The vendor noted the surge in attacks began around March 28 and warned of a likely increase in attack volumes in the coming days.

Cisco did not immediately respond to a Dark Reading inquiry regarding the sudden explosion in attack volumes and whether they're the work of a single threat actor or multiple threat actors. Its advisory identified the source IP addresses for the attack traffic as proxy services associated with Tor, Nexus Proxy, Space Proxies, and BigMama Proxy.

Cisco's advisory linked to indicators of compromise — including IP addresses and credentials associated with the attacks — while also noting the potential for these IP addresses to change over time.

The new wave of attacks is consistent with the surging interest among threat actors in the VPNs and other technologies that organizations have deployed in recent years to support remote access requirements for employees. Attackers — including nation-state actors — have ferociously targeted vulnerabilities in these products to try and break into enterprise networks, prompting multiple advisories from the likes of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the FBI, the National Security Agency (NSA), and others.

**VPN Vulnerabilities Explode in Number**

A study by Securin showed the number of vulnerabilities that researchers, threat actors, and vendors themselves have discovered in VPN products increased 875% between 2020 and 2024. They noted how 147 flaws across eight different vendors' products grew to nearly 1,800 flaws across 78 products. Securin also found that attackers weaponized 204 of the total disclosed vulnerabilities so far. Of this, advanced persistent threat (APT) groups such as Sandworm, APT32, APT33, and Fox Kitten had exploited 26 flaws, while ransomware groups like REvil and Sodinokibi had exploits for another 16.

Cisco's latest advisory appears to have stemmed from multiple reports the company received about password-spraying attacks targeting remote access VPN services involving Cisco's products and those from multiple other vendors. In a password-spraying attack, an adversary basically attempts to gain brute-force access to multiple accounts by trying default and common passwords across all of them.

**Reconnaissance Effort?**

"This activity appears to be related to reconnaissance efforts," Cisco said in a separate April 15 advisory that offered recommendations for organizations against password-spraying attacks. The advisory highlighted three symptoms of an attack that users of Cisco VPNs might observe: VPN connection failures, HostScan token failures, and an unusual number of authentication requests.

The company recommended that organizations enable logging on their devices, secure default remote access VPN profiles, and block connection attempts from malicious sources via access control lists and other mechanisms.

"What is important here is that this attack is not against a software or hardware vulnerability, which usually requires patches," Jason Soroko, senior vice president of product at Sectigo, said in an emailed statement. The attackers in this instance are attempting to take advantage of weak password management practices, he said, so the focus should be on implementing strong passwords or implementing passwordless mechanisms to protect access.

**About the Author(s)**

Jai Vijayan is a seasoned technology reporter with over 20 years of experience in IT trade journalism. He was most recently a Senior Editor at Computerworld, where he covered information security and data privacy issues for the publication. Over the course of his 20-year career at Computerworld, Jai also covered a variety of other technology topics, including big data, Hadoop, Internet of Things, e-voting, and data analytics. Prior to Computerworld, Jai covered technology issues for The Economic Times in Bangalore, India. Jai has a Master's degree in Statistics and lives in Naperville, Ill.

Cisco Warns of Massive Surge in Password-Spraying Attacks on VPNs

At most, someone who intentionally or repeatedly shares information on their social platform that’s misleading or downright false may have their account blocked, suspended or deleted.

Thursday, April 18, 2024 14:00

If you’re a regular reader of this newsletter, you already know about how strongly I feel about the dangers of spreading fake news, disinformation and misinformation. 

And honestly, if you’re reading this newsletter, I probably shouldn’t have to tell you about that either. But one of the things that always frustrates me about this seemingly never-ending battle against disinformation on the internet, is that there aren’t any real consequences for the worst offenders. 

At most, someone who intentionally or repeatedly shares information on their social platform that’s misleading or downright false may have their account blocked, suspended or deleted, or just that one individual post might be removed.  

Twitter, which has become one of the worst offenders for spreading disinformation, has gotten even worse about this over the past few years and at this point doesn’t do anything to these accounts, and in fact, even promotes them in many ways and gives them a larger platform. 

Meta, for its part, is now hiding more political posts on its platforms in some countries, but at most, an account that shares fake news is only going to be restricted if enough people report it to Meta’s team and they choose to take action.  

Now, I’m hoping that Brazil’s Supreme Court may start imposing some real-world consequences on individuals and companies that support, endorse or sit idly by while disinformation spreads. Specifically, I’m talking about a newly launched investigation by the court into Twitter/X and its owner, Elon Musk.  

Brazil’s Supreme Court says users on the platform are part of a massive misinformation campaign against the court’s justices, sharing intentionally false or harmful information about them. Musk is also facing a related investigation into alleged obstruction.  

The court had previously asked Twitter to block certain far-right accounts that were spreading fake news on Twitter, seemingly one of the only true permanent bans on a social media platform targeting the worst misinformation offenders. Recently, Twitter has declined to block those accounts. 

This isn’t some new initiative, though. Brazil’s government has long looked for concrete ways to implement real-world punishments for spreading disinformation. In 2022, the Supreme Court signed an agreement with the equivalent of Brazil’s national election commission “to combat fake news involving the judiciary and to disseminate information about the 2022 general elections.” 

Brazil’s president (much like the U.S.) has been battling fake news and disinformation for years now, making any political conversation there incredibly divisive, and in many ways, physically dangerous. I’m certainly not an authority enough on the subject to comment on that and the ways in which the term “fake news” has been weaponized to literally challenge what is “fact” in our modern society.  

And I could certainly see a world in which a high court uses the term “fake news” to charge and prosecute people who are, in fact, spreading \*correct\* and verifiable information.  

But, even just forcing Musk or anyone at Twitter to answer questions about their blocking policies could bring an additional layer of transparency to this process. Suppose we want to really get people to stop sharing misleading information on social media. In that case, it needs to eventually come with real consequences, not just a simple block when they can launch a new account two seconds later using a different email address. 

**The one big thing **

Talos recently discovered a new threat actor we're calling “Starry Addax” targeting mostly human rights activists associated with the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) cause. Starry Addax primarily uses a new mobile malware that it infects users with via phishing attack, tricking their targets into installing malicious Android applications we’re calling “FlexStarling.” The malicious mobile application (APK), “FlexStarling,” analyzed by Talos recently masquerades as a variant of the Sahara Press Service (SPSRASD) App. 

**Why do I care? **

The targets in this campaign's case are considered high-risk individuals, advocating for human rights in the Western Sahara. While that is a highly focused particular demographic, FlexStarling is still a highly capable implant that could be dangerous if used in other campaigns. Once infected, Starry Addax can use their malware to steal important login credentials, execute remote code or infect the device with other malware.  

**So now what? **

This campaign's infection chain begins with a spear-phishing email sent to targets, consisting of individuals of interest to the attackers, especially human rights activists in Morocco and the Western Sahara region. If you are a user who feels you could be targeted by these emails, please pay close attention to any URLs or attachments used in emails with these themes and ensure you’re only visiting trusted sites. The timelines connected to various artifacts used in the attacks indicate that this campaign is just starting and may be in its nascent stages with more infrastructure and Starry Addax working on additional malware variants. 

**Top security headlines of the week **

**A threat actor with ties to Russia is suspected of infecting the network belonging to a rural water facility in Texas earlier this year.** The hack in the small town of Muleshoe, Texas in January caused a water tower to overflow. The suspect attack coincided with network intrusions against networks belonging to two other nearby towns. While the attack did not disrupt drinking water in the town, it would mark an escalation in Russian APTs’ efforts to spy on and disrupt American critical infrastructure. Security researchers this week linked a Telegram channel that took credit for the activity with a group connected to Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency. The adversaries broke into a remote login system used in ICS, which allowed the actors to interact with the water tank. It overflowed for about 30 to 45 minutes before officials took the machine offline and switched to manual operations. According to reporting from CNN, a nearby town called Lockney detected “suspicious activity” on the town’s SCADA system. And in Hale Center, adversaries also tried to breach the town network’s firewall, which prompted them to disable remote access to its SCADA system. (CNN, Wired) 

**Meanwhile, Russia’s Sandworm APT is also accused of being the primary threat actor carrying out Russia’s goals in Ukraine.** New research indicates that the group is responsible for nearly all disruptive and destructive cyberattacks in Ukraine since Russia's invasion in February 2022. One attack involved Sandworm, aka APT44, disrupting a Ukrainian power facility during Russia’s winter offensive and a series of drone strikes targeting Ukraine’s energy grid. Recently, the group’s attacks have increasingly focused on espionage activity to gather information for Russia’s military to use to its advantage on the battlefield. The U.S. indicated several individuals for their roles with Sandworm in 2020, but the group has been active for more than 10 years. Researchers also unmasked a Telegram channel the group appears to be using, called “CyberArmyofRussia\_Reborn.” They typically use the channel to post evidence from their sabotage activities. (Dark Reading, Recorded Future) 

**Security experts and government officials are bracing for an uptick in offensive cyber attacks between Israel and Iran** after Iran launched a barrage of drones and missiles at Israel. Both countries have dealt with increased tensions recently, eventually leading to the attack Saturday night. Israel’s leaders have already been considering various responses to the attack, among which could be cyber attacks targeting Iran in addition to any new kinetic warfare. Israel and Iran have long had a tense relationship that included covert operations and destructive cyberattacks. Experts say both countries have the ability to launch wiper malware, ransomware and cyber attacks against each other, some of which could interrupt critical infrastructure or military operations. The increased tensions have also opened the door to many threat actors taking claims for various cyber attacks or intrusions that didn’t happen. (Axios, Foreign Policy) 

**Can’t get enough Talos? **

*   Cisco Warns of Global Surge in Brute-Force Attacks Targeting VPN and SSH Services 
*   Decade-old malware haunts Ukrainian police 
*   Attackers are pummeling networks around the world with millions of login attempts 
*   OfflRouter virus causes Ukrainian users to upload confidential documents to VirusTotal 
*   Large-scale brute-force activity targeting VPNs, SSH services with commonly used login credentials 
*   Talos Takes Ep. #179: Why we need to stop calling as-a-service group takedowns "takedowns" 

**Upcoming events where you can find Talos **

 **Botconf** **(April 23 - 26)** 

_Nice, Côte d'Azur, France_

> _This presentation from Chetan Raghuprasad details the Supershell C2 framework. Threat actors are using this framework massively and creating botnets with the Supershell implants._

**CARO Workshop 2024** **(May 1 - 3)** 

_Arlington, Virginia_

> Over the past year, we’ve observed a substantial uptick in attacks by YoroTrooper, a relatively nascent espionage-oriented threat actor operating against the Commonwealth of Independent Countries (CIS) since at least 2022. Asheer Malhotra's presentation at CARO 2024 will provide an overview of their various campaigns detailing the commodity and custom-built malware employed by the actor, their discovery and evolution in tactics. He will present a timeline of successful intrusions carried out by YoroTrooper targeting high-value individuals associated with CIS government agencies over the last two years.

**RSA** **(May 6 - 9)** 

_San Francisco, California_    

**Most prevalent malware files from Talos telemetry over the past week **

_This section will be on a brief hiatus while we work through some technical difficulties._

Could the Brazilian Supreme Court finally hold people accountable for sharing disinformation?

Select Ukrainian government networks have remained infected with a malware called OfflRouter since 2015.
Cisco Talos said its findings are based on an analysis of over 100 confidential documents that were infected with the VBA macro virus and uploaded to the VirusTotal malware scanning platform.
"The documents contained VBA code to drop and run an executable with the name 'ctrlpanel.exe,'"

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