Researchers say the remote-access Trojan ZuoRAT is likely the work of a nation-state and has infected at least 80 different targets.

An unusually advanced hacking group has spent almost two years infecting a wide range of routers in North America and Europe with malware that takes full control of connected devices running Windows, macOS, and Linux, researchers reported on June 28.

So far, researchers from Lumen Technologies' Black Lotus Labs say they've identified at least 80 targets infected by the stealthy malware, including routers made by Cisco, Netgear, Asus, and DrayTek. Dubbed ZuoRAT, the remote access Trojan is part of a broader hacking campaign that has existed since at least the fourth quarter of 2020 and continues to operate.

A High Level of Sophistication

The discovery of custom-built malware written for the MIPS architecture and compiled for small-office and home-office routers is significant, particularly given its range of capabilities. Its ability to enumerate all devices connected to an infected router and collect the DNS lookups and network traffic they send and receive and remain undetected is the hallmark of a highly sophisticated threat actor.

"While compromising SOHO routers as an access vector to gain access to an adjacent LAN is not a novel technique, it has seldom been reported," Black Lotus Labs researchers wrote. "Similarly, reports of person-in-the-middle style attacks, such as DNS and HTTP hijacking, are even rarer and a mark of a complex and targeted operation. The use of these two techniques congruently demonstrated a high level of sophistication by a threat actor, indicating that this campaign was possibly performed by a state-sponsored organization."

The campaign comprises at least four pieces of malware, three of them written from scratch by the threat actor. The first piece is the MIPS-based ZuoRAT, which closely resembles the Mirai internet-of-things malware that achieved record-breaking distributed denial-of-service attacks that crippled some Internet services for days. ZuoRAT often gets installed by exploiting unpatched vulnerabilities in SOHO devices.

Once installed, ZuoRAT enumerates the devices connected to the infected router. The threat actor can then use DNS hijacking and HTTP hijacking to cause the connected devices to install other malware. Two of those malware pieces—dubbed CBeacon and GoBeacon—are custom-made, with the first written for Windows in C++ and the latter written in Go for cross-compiling on Linux and macOS devices. For flexibility, ZuoRAT can also infect connected devices with the widely used Cobalt Strike hacking tool.

ZuoRAT can pivot infections to connected devices using one of two methods:

*   DNS hijacking, which replaces the valid IP addresses corresponding to a domain such as Google or Facebook with a malicious one operated by the attacker.
*   HTTP hijacking, in which the malware inserts itself into the connection to generate a 302 error that redirects the user to a different IP address.

Intentionally Complex

Black Lotus Labs said the command-and-control infrastructure used in the campaign is intentionally complex in an attempt to conceal what's happening. One set of infrastructure is used to control infected routers, and another is reserved for the connected devices if they're later infected.

The researchers observed routers from 23 IP addresses with a persistent connection to a control server that they believe was performing an initial survey to determine if the targets were of interest. A subset of those 23 routers later interacted with a Taiwan-based proxy server for three months. A further subset of routers rotated to a Canada-based proxy server to obfuscate the attacker's infrastructure.

The researchers wrote:

_Black Lotus Labs visibility indicates ZuoRAT and the correlated activity represent a highly targeted campaign against US and Western European organizations that blends in with typical internet traffic through obfuscated, multistage C2 infrastructure, likely aligned with multiple phases of the malware infection. The extent to which the actors take pains to hide the C2 infrastructure cannot be overstated. First, to avoid suspicion, they handed off the initial exploit from a dedicated virtual private server (VPS) that hosted benign content. Next, they leveraged routers as proxy C2s that hid in plain sight through router-to-router communication to further avoid detection. And finally, they rotated proxy routers periodically to avoid detection._

The discovery of this ongoing campaign is the most important one affecting SOHO routers since VPNFilter, the router malware created and deployed by the Russian government that was discovered in 2018. Routers are often overlooked, particularly in the work-from-home era. While organizations often have strict requirements for what devices are allowed to connect, few mandate patching or other safeguards for the devices' routers.

Like most router malware, ZuoRAT can't survive a reboot. Simply restarting an infected device will remove the initial ZuoRAT exploit, consisting of files stored in a temporary directory. To fully recover, however, infected devices should be factory reset. Unfortunately, in the event connected devices have been infected with the other malware, they can't be disinfected so easily.

_This story originally appeared on_ _Ars Technica__._

A New, Remarkably Sophisticated Malware Is Attacking Routers

By Waqas
The new phishing scam uses malicious and fake chatbots to steal login credentials of unsuspected Facebook users through…
This is a post from HackRead.com Read the original post: Facebook Phishing Scam: Crooks Using Messenger Chatbots to Steal Login Data

****The new phishing scam uses malicious and fake chatbots to steal login credentials of unsuspected Facebook users through Facebook Messenger.****

A new phishing campaign has been discovered by Trustwave security researchers, which involves using Facebook Messenger chatbots while the campaign’s objective is to steal user credentials.

According to Trustwave’s analysis of this new phishing campaign, the chatbots impersonate customer support staff of the social network. These bots then hijack pages by compelling page managers to enter credentials for that Facebook page. The malicious chatbots and websites were quickly taken down after Trustwave’s report.

Chatbots are basically specially designed programs that provide customer support and answer user queries as live support staff before the question is forwarded to a human employee. These bots are generally used by businesses that offer live chat or customer support services.

**Attack Scenario Explained**

This phishing attack started with an email informing the recipient that Facebook would delete their page after 48 hours for violating Meta community standards. When the recipient clicked on the Appeal Now link, they were redirected to a fake Messenger support page hosted by Google Firebase, where they had to interact with chatbots. 

Fake Support chatbot (Image: Trustwave)

Researchers noticed that the phony support chatbot profile was a fan/business page that didn’t have any followers or posts. However, the attackers used the official Messenger logo on the profile page to make the bot appear legit. In the Appeal form, the user entered their name, surname, email ID, page name, and mobile number. 

They were also prompted to complete 2FA authentication, and the OTP could be of any length. As soon as the user clicked on Submit button, the attackers received the form, and the credentials were compromised while the user was redirected to Meta’s official intellectual property and copyright guidelines page.

Password stealing and Fake OTP Page (Image: Trustwave)

**How was the Scam Exposed?**

Concerns were raised when researchers identified many errors in the email, which hinted at its malicious nature. Such as, a dot was missing after the third sentence, and there was incorrect capitalization of the word Page.

The email header also contained several errors pointing to the email’s illegitimacy. For instance, Policy Issues was written in the sender’s name, and the sender domain didn’t belong to Facebook/Meta.

> “The fact that the spammers are leveraging the platform that they are mimicking makes this campaign a perfect social engineering technique.”
> 
> Trustwave

In conclusion, it is imperative that social media users be cautious when opening such warning notices and always check for red flags before giving away sensitive information. Moreover, it is always best to be cautious when engaging with someone on Facebook or social media in general. If you are unsure about the legitimacy of a user or bot, do not provide any personal information and report them to Facebook.

**More Facebook Phishing News**

*   URL Padding: Facebook Mobile Users Hit by Phishing Scam
*   Facebook ads used in spreading Facebook Messenger phishing scam
*   Facebook Last Warning Phishing Scam Stealing Login, Credit Card Data
*   “I think you appear in this video” phishing scam hijacks Facebook accounts
*   Microsoft, PayPal & Facebook most targeted brands in phishing scams: Report

I am a UK-based cybersecurity journalist with a passion for covering the latest happenings in cyber security and tech world. I am also into gaming, reading and investigative journalism

Facebook Phishing Scam: Crooks Using Messenger Chatbots to Steal Login Data

Microsoft is urging organizations that don't have automatic updates enabled to update to the latest version of Linux Server Fabric to thwart the "FabricScape" cloud bug.

Microsoft this week disclosed a serious container-escape vulnerability in its widely used Azure Service Fabric technology, which gives attackers a way to gain root privileges on the host node and take over all other nodes in the cluster.

The privilege-escalation bug is only exploitable on Linux containers, though it is present in Windows container environments as well, Microsoft said in an advisory Tuesday. Security researchers from Palo Alto Networks reported the bug — which they have dubbed FabricScape — along with a fully operational exploit, on Jan. 30, 2022. Microsoft released a fix for the issue (CVE-2022-30137) on June 14, but details on the bug were just released this week.

The fix has been applied to all customers that are subscribed to Microsoft's automatic update service, but others will need to manually patch to the latest version of Service Fabric. "Customers whose Linux clusters are automatically updated do not need to take further action," the company said in its bug disclosure announcement.

**A Privilege-Escalation Issue**

Service Fabric is a Microsoft container-orchestration technology — like Kubernetes. Numerous organizations use it as a platform-as-a-service to deploy and manage containers and microservices-based cloud applications across a cluster of machines. Palo Alto Networks used Microsoft data to estimate that Service Fabric hosts more than 1 million applications daily across millions of cores.

The bug that Palo Alto Network discovered exists in a logging function with high privileges in a Service Fabric component called Data Collection Agent (DCA). Researchers from the security vendor's Unit 42 threat intelligence team found that an attacker with access to a compromised container could exploit the vulnerability to escalate privileges and gain control of the host node and, from there, escape it and attack the entire cluster.

"The vulnerability allows attackers to take over the entire Service Fabric environment if they get a hold of a single application," says Ariel Zelivansky, director of security research at Palo Alto Networks. This allows attackers to perform lateral movement and to steal, destroy, or manipulate data. Other actions that an attacker could take by exploiting FabricScape include deploying ransomware or hijacking systems for cryptomining.

"If an organization hosts all of its applications, and possibly credentials, on Service Fabric, an attacker can gain control of all of those," Zelivansky says.

For an attack to be successful, a threat actor would first need to find a way to compromise a containerized workload on a Linux Service Fabric cluster, Microsoft said. The attacker would then need to trigger the DCA to run the vulnerable function in a manner that results in a so-called "race condition" where malicious code can be introduced into the environment.

**PoC: Exploiting the Flaw**

Researchers at Palo Alto Networks were able to exploit the vulnerability on Azure Service Fabric using a container under their control and a simulated compromised workload. They found the attack only worked if the compromised container had access to Service Fabric runtime data — something that is granted by default in single-tenant environments but less common in multitenant setups.

"Any application that is powered by a Service Fabric Linux cluster with runtime access, which is granted by default, is affected," Zelivansky said. Last year, Palo Alto Networks discovered another set of vulnerabilities in the Azure Container Instances (ACI) platform that allowed for a similar container escape.

Microsoft urged organizations using Service Fabric to review containerized workloads in both Linux and Windows environments that had access to host clusters. "By default, a \[Service Fabric\] cluster is a single-tenant environment and thus there is no isolation between applications," Microsoft said. All applications running in these single tenant environments are considered trusted and therefore have access to Service Fabric runtime, Microsoft said.

Thus, organizations that want to run untrusted application in a Service Fabric cluster should take additional measures to create isolation between applications and should remove access to Service Fabric runtime for those untrusted apps, Microsoft said.

Zelivansky says the first layer of defense against vulnerabilities such as FabricScape is focusing on the application itself, limiting the possibility of an attack by remediating known vulnerabilities in their code. They can also limit exposure to the Internet.

However, he offers a caveat: "But the reality is that even if an application is safe from any known vulnerability, zero-day vulnerabilities could be discovered and exploited in any code. And \[software\] supply-chain attacks such as typosquatted or malicious packages are becoming more common than before," he says.

Zelivansky says organizations running Linux Service Fabric clusters should check their cluster version and verify the version is at least 9.0.1035.1. "An organization should check if they have Linux-based applications on Service Fabric. If the answer is yes, we recommend giving top priority to addressing this vulnerability now that its full details are out."

**Cloud Vulnerabilities in Cyberattackers' Sights**

Vulnerabilities in cloud products and services have become a growing concern for organizations — and not just because of the security risks associated with them. In many cases, organizations also have a hard time keeping track of cloud vulnerabilities because of the absence of a common vulnerability enumeration (CVE) program for cataloging them. Because many cloud-security issues are considered the service provider's sole responsibility, there often has been little disclosure of these issues, leaving organizations in the dark about whether they might have been exposed to a specific threat.

This week researchers at Wiz launched a new community-based cloud vulnerability database aimed at addressing this lack of information. The database currently contains information on some 70 previous security issues in cloud products and services. Anyone can add to the database going forward. The goal is to make it a central repository for information on cloud threats in the absence of a formal program like MITRE's CVE program for information security flaws.

Patch Now: Linux Container-Escape Flaw in Azure Service Fabric

The malware has been in circulation since 2020, with sophisticated, advanced malicious actors taking advantage of the vulnerabilities in SOHO routers as the work-from-home population expands rapidly.

Security researchers have discovered a multi-stage remote access Trojan (RAT) currently being used against a wide range of small office-home office (SOHO) routers in Europe and North America — potentially the work of a state-sponsored actor.

Researchers believe that at least 80 victims have been infected so far during the campaign.

The malware, known as ZuoRAT, has been active since 2020, according to the Black Lotus Labs, the threat intelligence arm of Lumen Technologies.

According to the report, the malware makes its way onto the routers through exploits for known vulnerabilities. It can also infect other devices in the network and introduce additional malware via DNS and HTTP hijacking.

"ZuoRAT is a MIPS file compiled for SOHO routers that can enumerate a host and internal LAN, capture packets being transmitted over the infected device, and perform person-in-the-middle attacks (DNS and HTTPS hijacking based on predefined rules)," Lumen's threat intelligence team wrote in a blog post on the malware.

**Trojan Targets Cisco, Netgear Routers**

The malware targets routers from Cisco, Netgear, Asus, and DrayTek.

"The device types consisted of, but were not limited to: Cisco RV 320, 325 and 420; Asus RT-AC68U, RT-AC530, RT-AC68P and RT-AC1900U; DrayTek Vigor 3900 and unspecified NETGEAR devices," according to the analysis.

The research team noted that while compromising SOHO routers as an access vector to gain access to an adjacent LAN is not a novel technique, it has seldom been reported.

"Reports of person-in-the-middle style attacks, such as DNS and HTTP hijacking, are \[rare\] and a mark of a complex and targeted operation," the post continued. "The use of these two techniques congruently demonstrated a high level of sophistication by a threat actor, indicating that this campaign was possibly performed by a state-sponsored organization."

From the perspective of Danny Adamitis, principal information security engineer for Lumen Black Lotus Labs, the sophistication of this campaign cannot be overstated, especially the ability to enumerate infected devices and the LANs they are connected to, and packet-capture network traffic for additional targeting.

"Moreover, the multi-stage campaign includes multiple fully functional Trojans, as well as complex and covert C2 and proxy C2 infrastructure to obfuscate command-and-control and evade detection, which is why it went undetected for nearly two years," he adds.

**Other Trojans Found on Hacked Devices**

To Adamitis' point, the researchers found two other Trojans on the hacked devices. One was based on C++ and targeted Windows workstations. The other Trojan was based on the Go programming language and attacked Linux and macOS as well as Windows.

Among other things, they allowed the attackers to start new processes, gain permanent access to infected systems, intercept network traffic, and upload or download arbitrary files.

**Shift to Secure the Home Office**

According to a recent survey, nearly a quarter of the respondents (23%) named securing the remote workforce as their top priority for 2022. Routers are an important part of that, as they act as central waypoints for the rest of the home IT footprint.

"Once you are on the router you have a full trusted connection to poke and prod at whatever device is connected to it," Dahvid Schloss, offensive security team lead at Echelon, said via email. "From there, you could attempt to use proxychains to throw exploits into the network or just monitor all the traffic going in, out, and around the network."

So, as part of the work-from-home shift, some major vendors are moving their security focus, such as HP, which helps admins secure work-from-home endpoints by extending cloud security management that can remotely track, detect, and self-heal remote company devices.

"The consumer router space is ripe for targeting because these devices reside outside of the traditional security perimeter, and they are rarely monitored or patched," Adamitis adds. "This is only exacerbated by the rapid shift to remote work at the start of the pandemic."

Alex Ondrick, director of security operations at incident-response specialist BreachQuest, says a general lack of security controls for consumer-grade routers, and difficulties in "force" patching/update for them, makes SOHO routers particularly vulnerable.

"If a SOHO router is unpatched or vulnerable to known security flaws, ZuoRAT poses a dangerous combination of reconnaissance and authentication-bypass exploit script and lateral-movement capabilities," he explains.

**Bolstering the Human Firewall**

Ondrick adds that the SOHO router threat is an opportunity for organizations to expand their security awareness programs and spread valuable improved security measures among their users.

"Educating users on how to protect their home networks, their passwords, their financial information, and their families increases their engagement and builds cybersecurity hygiene and acumen they take back to the office, and reduces the organization's attack surface and builds the better human firewall," he says.

He says SOHO users should regularly update their router's firmware and ensure their devices are behind multiple layers of security (defense-in-depth) wherever possible.

For home routers, he says it's important to leverage the vendor's built-in security capabilities alongside host-based network security wherever possible.

"Think of your home router as 'yet another' device which should be regularly updated and think of it as the 'first line of defense' between you and the public-facing Internet," he says. "Pending any leaps forward in SOHO router security, consider adding a recurring biannual reminder on your phone or calendar to check for updates on your router's firmware."

ZuoRAT Hijacks SOHO Routers From Cisco, Netgear

In the always-changing world of cyberattacks, preparedness is key.

What do militaries and hackers have in common? They both use structured techniques to achieve their goals. Just as generals draw up battle plans, cyberattackers follow steps to home in on their targets. In the industry, this is known as the cyber kill chain (CKC), and it has become a blueprint both for digital intruders and those trying to stop them.

Military contractor Lockheed Martin developed the CKC in 2011, basing it on a long-standing concept that the military applies to kinetic warfare.

The CKC applies this model to cyberattacks across several steps:

*   **Reconnaissance:** Attackers look for information that could help them launch an attack. This includes the technology a company uses, its employees' email address scheme and addresses, its leadership, and its suppliers. Mitigating measures include locking down unneeded network ports and webpages, warning employees about posting sensitive company information online, and protecting the personal information of employees and leadership.
*   **Weaponization:** An attacker uses a digital weapon to exploit weak spots. This typically includes an exploit targeting a vulnerability along with a digital payload.
*   **Delivery:** The attacker deploys the weapon. Delivery channels can include email, removable storage, an open RDP port, or a Web application vulnerability. Phishing is popular in this phase.
*   **Exploitation:** The digital weapon detonates. This usually involves the user clicking on an attachment. In some cases, malware may detonate without user interaction once it finds a "landing spot" during the delivery phase.
*   **Installation:** Initial exploits usually involve a dropper that gains access through techniques such as privilege escalation to install malware. This can include ransomware and/or software that lets an attacker control the victim's machine remotely, such as a remote access Trojan (RAT) or a weaponized legitimate tool like Cobalt Strike.
*   **Command and control (C2):** This is where the C2 phase comes in. The tool "phones home" to an attacker's server, sending back network information and executing instructions. The attacker uses the tool to move laterally through the network, gaining access to more assets until they find what they're looking for. The attacker might stay silent for months during this phase.
*   **Action taken:** At some point, the criminal executes their payload. The headlines are littered with the aftermath: encrypted data, stolen customer records and stalled control systems. After the kill chain is complete, the effects on the victim are often dire, including reputation damage, regulatory scrutiny, legal challenges, business disruption, and financial loss. Sometimes the victim doesn't survive.

**Complexity and Costs Increase Along the Kill Chain**

The difficulty and cost of disrupting the kill chain increases as the attack evolves through these steps. It's easier to stop a cyber weapon as it enters your infrastructure than it is to contain and remove it after it detonates.

Defenders face a perfect storm as they struggle to quash attacks in the early stages. Inadequate tools combined with a skills shortage have left many unprepared to stop these attacks.

Plenty of companies employ security information and event management (SIEM) as their main defense during the early and middle phases of the kill chain. This tool captures and correlates network events and might flag emerging incidents as potential attacks. However, these tools still require security analysts to stop attacks manually.

A worsening cybersecurity skills shortage makes that manual work difficult, with 57% of organizations reporting a direct impact on their cybersecurity operations. An increasing workload was the biggest ramification, affecting 62% of those who reported an impact, followed by unfilled open job requisitions and burnout. With risks like these, security operation centers (SOCs) need to stretch their people as far as possible.

As defenders struggle to cope, adversaries are becoming more sophisticated. Attack volume and velocity are increasing as intruders automate various kill chain steps. Focusing purely on monitoring leaves security professionals one step behind. It's time to meet this challenge in kind by automating incident response.

Appropriate tools and services, including managed detection and response (MDR), can automatically spot and neutralize well-known attacks early in the kill chain. Similarly, email defense today is largely an exercise in machine learning-based techniques that have increased detection accuracy.

This automation saves time and money by neutralizing attacks early. It also frees analysts to handle the more complex attacks, making maximum use of your team.

MDR and 24/7 expert services help with these attacks too. They use a mixture of automated detection and response with manual brain power to spot and mitigate both early and advanced attacks. \[Editor's note: The author's company is one of many that offers such services.\]

It's crucial to operate these defenses at all times, because cyberattackers don't stop working when you do. Full defense involves a combination of attack awareness, automation, and always-on response. It also requires cyber hygiene to close as many attack vectors as possible along the kill chain. Every measure, from employee security awareness through to software patching and strict identity and access control, will help you to get ahead and block intrusions early. In the evolving world of cyberattacks, preparedness is key.

How to Master the Kill Chain Before Your Attackers Do

It's time to decide which role to play to best serve your organization's security needs: an auditor, a lawyer, or a developer.

Your business relies on software, and attackers know that. To prevent your applications from being used against you, you need an application security (AppSec) program that delivers three crucial things:

*   **Secure code**: Your code has to be vulnerability-free and well-defended.
*   **Secure software supply chain**: Ditto for your libraries, products, and dev tools.
*   **Secure operations:** You must detect attacks and prevent exploits in production.

You can choose a number of paths to get to that level of protection. Which path you choose depends on your teams, processes, technology, and culture. How do they all work together? Keep in mind that an AppSec program isn't about eliminating risk. Business involves taking risks, and there's no way to completely eradicate it. But there's a big difference between taking blind risks while not knowing what could go wrong vs. being aware of how likely it is that an issue will be found and exploited, as well as how catastrophic (or not) the outcomes might be.

When it comes to risk decisions, choosing a strategy for your AppSec program is the most important one you'll face. Setting up an AppSec program is nuanced and varied, but consider which of the following three general types best fits your company. The wrong path could leave you with a massive weight of security debt, or even possibly breached, because time was wasted chasing vulnerabilities that weren't all that relevant and real risks got buried in the "never got to it" pile.

**1\. The Auditor: Checkbox AppSec**

In "minimal" AppSec programs, small teams do only what's required of them by either external standards or their customers. The goal is to simply check off the boxes for application security standards like OWASP, PCI, and NIST, all of which are, essentially, checklists. Many types of companies adopt this strategy — most commonly, small and midsize businesses — but the checklists don't bring them actual security.

It's not that minimal AppSec programs never succeed. They can by relying on free or very inexpensive tools, such as OWASP ZAP and DependencyCheck, to assess code. An inexpensive cloud web application firewall (WAF) for production might also be in the mix. But these tools can show false-negatives that miss real vulnerabilities, giving organizations a false sense of security. Such tools also tend to throw false-positives that lead to squandered resources and huge backlogs instead of actual remediation.

An upside to having a minimal AppSec program is that the budget for people and tools tend to be small. But because minimal AppSec programs don't offer a clear understanding of business risk, organizations are underinvesting in enterprise security based on incomplete information.

**2\. The Lawyer: Adversarial AppSec**

In adversarial AppSec programs, the development team tries to deliver code as fast as possible while the siloed security team wrestles for control. Development focuses on delivering features, while the security team tries to add more security activities. Large companies tend to adopt this approach, as do critical industries such as finance, banking, e-commerce, and insurance.

This approach requires a large security team to execute all of the activities. Most have various subteams focused on architecture, policy, threat modeling, policy, static scanning, dynamic scanning, WAFs, training, and more. Adversarial programs always have more analysis to do, but security teams don't actually fix code in this type of program. Organizations often adopt "champion" programs to help get all of the work done. But without a clear line of sight from activities desired outcomes, much of the busy work has little to no measurable effect.

Given a big enough team and a big budget, adversarial AppSec programs can be effective. But most programs struggle to handle the volume of tool output, particularly as development teams speed up their software releases. Most vulnerabilities wind up in an ever-growing pile of issues that are neither triaged nor remediated. Development teams are confronted with significant delays and bottlenecks due to these backlogs, which are coupled with security testing and gates. Innovation suffers because of these delays, which cause frustration and force development teams to seek exceptions and bypass security.

**3\. The Developer: Developer-Centric AppSec**

Developer-centric AppSec programs strive to put application security directly into the hands of software development teams as part of their regular work. The goal: for the teams to eventually establish an automated pipeline that ensures strong security across the software development life cycle, starting with the developer and on into production. This type of program is often called "DevSecOps," or "shift left."

DevSecOps programs use the "big machinery" of software development to do security work, as opposed to smaller, siloed AppSec teams. Given that developers won't tolerate slowing down pipelines or wasting time on false-positives, developer teams automate security testing in pipelines, using fast and highly accurate tools that enable fast security feedback loops and reduce cost.

Developer-centric programs employ interactive application security testing (IAST) tools to simultaneously perform fully automated security and quality tests. Doing so aligns development and security interests, as the teams work together on expanding test coverage and strengthening the pipeline. Visibility into attacks with runtime application self-protection (RASP) also provides teams with threat intelligence that informs security priorities. RASP technology prevents vulnerabilities from being exploited, allowing teams to respond to new vulnerabilities without having to run a fire drill.

The developer-centric approach is ideal for projects regardless of their stage in DevOps transformation. That said, this approach may not be able to take advantage of automated pipelines, quality testing infrastructure, and DevOps culture if applied to completely traditional projects. Then again, adopting a developer-centric approach to security may be the perfect catalyst to spark or to speed a DevOps transformation.

**Software Security Has Changed**

Inspired by incidents like SolarWinds, Log4Shell, and Spring4Shell, the world's governments have been pushed into doing something about application security. New regulations and standards from NIST, PCI, and OWASP all require a more sophisticated approach to AppSec and real evidence that what you're doing is actually effective.

Those employing a "minimal" or "adversarial" AppSec program will likely have to respond by making some changes, including:

*   **Threat modeling:** The days of checklists are over. You're going to need to threat-model your applications and then demonstrate that you've implemented decent controls for each.
*   **AST****:** You're also going to be expected to do a much more thorough job of testing the security of your applications and APIs. You'll have to provide evidence that you're testing the effectiveness of your defenses and remediating any problems found.
*   **SBOMs****:** To really get a handle on your open source use, you're probably going to need sensors that report library data to an always-up-to-date database. But in the meantime, you'll also need to generate software bills of materials (SBOMs) for your customers.

Bear in mind that if you decide to change up your approach, transforming one team at a time is probably preferable to trying to change everything all at once.

The trend toward more transparent application security that goes beyond simply checking off boxes likely won't stop here. The US government, for one, is evaluating a software security labeling scheme to create visibility and drive better security from producers. Whether this becomes reality remains to be seen, but one thing's safe to say: Now is a fine time to make sure you've chosen the right strategy for application security.

What's Your AppSec Personality?

Incorrect permissions for the folder C:\ProgramData\NoMachine\var\uninstall of Nomachine v7.9.2 allows attackers to perform a DLL hijacking attack and execute arbitrary code.

Vuln/**Nomachine-Incorrect-Folder-Permission**/

Vuln/**Nomachine-Incorrect-Folder-Permission**/

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Cybersecurity researchers have documented a new information-stealing malware that targets YouTube content creators by plundering their authentication cookies.
Dubbed "YTStealer" by Intezer, the malicious tool is likely believed to be sold as a service on the dark web, with it distributed using fake installers that also drop RedLine Stealer and Vidar.
"What sets YTStealer aside from other

Cybersecurity researchers have documented a new information-stealing malware that targets YouTube content creators by plundering their authentication cookies.

Dubbed "YTStealer" by Intezer, the malicious tool is likely believed to be sold as a service on the dark web, with it distributed using fake installers that also drop RedLine Stealer and Vidar.

"What sets YTStealer aside from other stealers sold on the dark web market is that it is solely focused on harvesting credentials for one single service instead of grabbing everything it can get ahold of," security researcher Joakim Kenndy said in a report shared with The Hacker News.

The malware's modus operandi, however, mirrors its counterparts in that it extracts the cookie information from the web browser's database files in the user's profile folder. The reasoning given behind targeting content creators is that it uses one of the installed browsers on the infected machine to gather YouTube channel information.

It achieves this by launching the browser in headless mode and adding the cookie to the data store, followed by using a web automation tool called Rod to navigate to the user's YouTube Studio page, which enables content creators to "manage your presence, grow your channel, interact with your audience, and make money all in one place."

From there, the malware captures information about the user's channels, including the name, the number of subscribers, and its creation date, alongside checking if it's monetized, an official artist channel, and if the name has been verified, all of which is exfiltrated to a remote server carrying the domain name "youbot\[.\]solutions."

Another notable aspect of YTStealer is its use of the open-source Chacal "anti-VM framework" in an attempt to thwart debugging and memory analysis.

Further analysis of the domain has revealed that it was registered on December 12, 2021, and that it's possibly connected to a software company of the same name that's located in the U.S. state of New Mexico and claims to provide "unique solutions for getting and monetizing targeted traffic."

That said, open-source intelligence gathered by Intezer has also linked the logo of the supposed company to a user account on an Iranian video-sharing service called Aparat.

A majority of the dropper payloads delivering YTStealer together with RedLine Stealer are packaged under the guise of installers for legitimate video editing software such as Adobe Premiere Pro, Filmora, and HitFilm Express; audio tools like Ableton Live 11 and FL Studio; game mods for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Call of Duty; and cracked versions of security products.

"YTStealer doesn't discriminate about what credentials it steals," Kenndy said. "On the dark web, the 'quality' of stolen account credentials influences the asking

price, so access to more influential Youtube channels would command higher prices."

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New YTStealer Malware Aims to Hijack Accounts of YouTube Content Creators

See how these novel, sophisticated, or creative threats used techniques such as living off the land to evade detection from traditional defensive measures — but were busted by AI.

We're now halfway through 2022, and already we have seen a range of cyberattacks, familiar and unfamiliar, disrupting organizations. However, we have also seen uplifting stories of successful threat detection efforts, as well.

In this article, we will look at five novel, sophisticated, or creative threats that used techniques such as "living off the land" to evade detection by traditional defensive measures. These threats were all discovered by artificial intelligence (AI) technology, which can spot subtle deviations in device and user behavior and autonomously enforce "normal," stopping a threat in its tracks.

**1\. Leading Laboratory Interrupts Dark Web Insider Threat With AI**

Cyberattacks against the healthcare sector hit record highs last year, and for these organizations cyber threats can have severe real-world consequences. One of Darktrace's healthcare clients is a company specializing in the research, development, and manufacturing of innovative in vitro diagnostic tests for disease, conditions, and infections.

In March, this company was targeted by a malicious insider threat. An employee was looking to exploit their access within the organization to sell proprietary intellectual property, perhaps even medical supplies, on the Dark Web. The employee was detected using Tor on a company device to connect to a Dark Web pharmaceutical market forum.

Malicious or compromised insiders can be difficult to identify because their privileged access and knowledge of company workings allow them to evade detection by traditional security tools. In order to protect intellectual property from insider threat, organizations need to augment security teams with AI-powered technology to stop malicious activity in real time.

In this case, given that no other company device had visited the Tor network in the past, Darktrace's AI flagged the activity to the security team, who were then able to investigate the employee and discover their malicious intentions.

**2\. Babuk Double-Extortion Ransomware Neutralized at a Technology Manufacturer**

Babuk is a double-extortion ransomware strain that has successfully attacked high-value organizations around the world since 2021. In February 2022, however, it targeted a multinational technology manufacturer that had deployed AI cybersecurity. The targeted company facilitates the adoption of smart medical devices as well as electric and autonomous vehicles. This means uptime is important, and ransomware poses a significant risk.

The first sign of a threat came in the early hours of the morning, when the AI detected a company device performing network scanning and making unusual connections to other internal devices. Based on its understanding of the device's usual "pattern of life," the AI identified this out-of-the-ordinary behavior as malicious and calculated a response.

The AI was able to stop this attack without interfering with normal business operations in the company's office or on the manufacturing floor. It blocked only the malicious connections, while allowing the rest of the compromised device's operations to continue.

Once the attack had been stopped, a post-compromise analysis conducted by the AI revealed that the compromised device had indeed been attempting to distribute files with "babyk" extensions. These attacks often strike out of hours, so defenders of critical infrastructure should consider using artificial intelligence to allow their organizations to self-defend against advanced threats.

**3\. HR-Spoofing Attack Targets Employees at Private Equity Firm**

Phishing and spoofing emails continue to be the favorite initial entry point for cyberattackers. Earlier this year, a private equity firm looking to bolster its email security efforts trialed an AI email security solution and detected a targeted spoofing attack almost immediately.

The attackers had tailored their email to imitate the company's internal HR communications, titling it "Q3 Commission 2021 and Agenda" and designing it to look like a SharePoint Microsoft document. To a company employee, this email would not have looked at all out of place in their inbox.

Further investigation showed the email to be part of a wider trend of targeted phishing campaigns that use fake Microsoft branding to trick employees. The exact motivations of this attack are unknown because it was stopped in its earliest stages, but attacks like it are often launched with the aim of causing operational disruption or conducting IP and financial theft.

**4\. Ransomware Attack Against a Financial Services Provider Halted**

In March 2022, a South African financial services firm decided to try out Darktrace's technology and immediately uncovered an in-progress ransomware attack attempting to encrypt its most valuable data.

The first sign of compromise was a company mail server making unusual HTTP connections to an external endpoint and communicating with a malicious server via the Internet. Its understanding of the business and this particular mail server's normal behavior allowed the AI to identify the threatening activity.

The compromised server was then seen attempting to perform network reconnaissance and lateral movement to increase its presence within the organization. Further investigation revealed that attackers had obtained the credentials of 11 employees, including several C-level executives. With the attack spreading fast, more and more company devices began attempting to communicate with the malicious external server.

The AI quickly interrupted further attempts at communication with the malicious server but allowed normal business operations to continue. With the attack safely contained, Darktrace helped the company's security team to conduct a full investigation and ensure that the attack had been completely neutralized.

**5\. AI Stops Log4j Exploit at a Global Financial Services Provider**

The Log4Shell vulnerability that went public at the end of 2021 is one of the most serious and widespread exploits on record. It is thought by some to have affected hundreds of millions of devices and, as a zero-day, it has evaded lots of traditional security tools.

Fortunately, AI security has been able to mitigate the effects of Log4Shell for many of the organizations it protects. One of these, a global financial services provider with assets of over $5 billion, was targeted in March 2022.

The attackers used a Log4j vulnerability to gain access to one of the company's virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) servers, from which they attempted to scan the surrounding network and spread throughout the enterprise. The server began downloading a shell script from a suspicious external endpoint, prompting an immediate alert from the company's AI-driven security measures.

Convinced of the severity of the threat by the alert, the company's security team promptly deployed AI technology to take precise action against the threat and maintain the regular business activities on the VDI server.

Fast action from this AI-driven response technology blocked the malicious connections and prevented the threat from progressing further, very likely saving the company from a ransomware attack.

5 Surprising Cyberattacks AI Stopped This Year

Malwarebytes found a family of forced Chrome extensions that can't be removed because of a policy change that tells users "Your browser is managed".
The post Forced Chrome extensions get removed, keep reappearing appeared first on Malwarebytes Labs.

In the continued saga of annoying search extensions we have a new end-of-level boss.

Victims have been reporting browser extensions that were removed by Malwarebytes, but “magically” came back later. Since the victims also complained about the message saying their browser was “managed”, we had a pretty good idea where to look.

_custom search bar_ is _one of the forced extensions_

**Search extensions**

The culprits turned out to be search extensions. Which is often the case when we spot potentially unwanted programs (PUPs) that use malware tactics to get installed and gain persistence.

The search hijackers “active search bar” and “custom search bar” were both available in the Chrome web store at the time of writing even though we reported them days ago.

_active search bar is also available in the webstore_

**PowerShell**

It took some digging to find the origin, since all we had were the extensions. And when the extensions were installed directly from the webstore, nothing happened out of the ordinary. However, some hunting on VirusTotal soon led me to a few recently uploaded PowerShell scripts that included the string “ExtensionInstallForcelist.” I looked for that string because we know from the past that these registry policies account for the “Your browser is managed” warnings.

$CPath = "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\\Policies\\Google\\Chrome\ExtensionInstallForcelist";

$EPath = "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Edge\ExtensionInstallForcelist";

The description in the Chromium documentation about the ExtensionInstallForcelist states:

> “Specifies a list of apps and extensions that are installed silently, without user interaction, and which cannot be uninstalled nor disabled by the user.”

And to confirm this finding, the victims that provided logs all had one of these PowerShell script listed in their Scheduled Tasks.

_The Scheduled Task triggers the PowerShell script_

The Scheduled Task was set to run every four hours, which explained why the extensions kept coming back.

**Installer**

But Scheduled Tasks don’t install themselves either and dropping PowerShell scripts in the System32 folder requires Administrator privileges, so we needed to dig a little further to find an installer.

The domain wincloudservice.com was used as a download location in all the PowerShell scripts so we used that domain as a search parameter in our next stage of VirusTotal hunting. This search eventually returned three installers. What they had in common at first glance was that the filenames all ended with “\_x64LTS.exe” and that they were all signed by “Tommy Tech LTD.”

Upon further inspection we noticed that the installers all asked for Administrator privileges twice. The first part installs something that is called “Setup” and the second part installs an application that aligns with the name of the installer. So, it appears that the original installer files were “patched” to add the installer for our browser hijacker. It stands to reason that these installers are offered for download somewhere by the threat actors.

The EULA points to tommytechil.com which is unreachable. I was unable to find an installer that actually dropped an extension in Edge, but the “Your browser is managed by your organization” setting does get enforced.

_Edge managed by your organization_

**Javascripts**

Malwarebytes customers were protected against these extensions as Malwarebytes’ web protection module blocked the domain wincloudservice\[.\]com. On inspection, this domain hosted several javascripts including heavily obfuscated files called crypto.js and crypto-js.min.js.

**Detection and removal**

Malwarebytes detects these browser hijackers as PUP.Optional.ActiveSearchBar and PUP.Optional.CustomSearchBar. Included in the removal procedure are the extension, and the Scheduled Task, which is enough to permanently get rid of the extension.

Some Windows registry changes have been made that will take a system administrator to decide what they want to keep or not.

The registry keys to remove the “Your browser is managed” are:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome\ExtensionInstallForceList

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Edge\ExtensionInstallForceList

And another change made by the installer was the registry value:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PowerShell\1\ShellIds\Microsoft.PowerShell\\\\ExecutionPolicy

The installer set that to “Unrestricted” which may not be your favorite setting. If you are not sure or you have never actively set that policy, the default is “Restricted”. Please note that in some organizations PowerShell is required to run.

**IOCs**

**Domains:**

activesearchbar\[.\]me

customsearchbar\[.\]me

optimizerupdate\[.\]com

securedatacorner\[.\]com

wincloudservice\[.\]com

**Installers:**

4kvideodownloader\_5.22.371\_x64LTS.exe

AutoClicker\_x64LTS.exe

FPSUnlocker\_4.1\_x64LTS.exe

**PowerShell scripts:**

PrintWorkflowService.ps1

WindowsUpdater1.ps1

OptimizerWindows.ps1

**Extensions:**

custom search bar nniikbbaboifhfjjkjekiamnfpkdieng

active search bar pkofdnfadkamabkgjdjcddeopopbdjhg

Tag

#mac