The Hacker News

"Google Express exposes GLASSBRIDGE: a pro-China influence network of fake news sites."

Views expressed in this cybersecurity, cyber espionage, and cyber crime update are those of the reporters and correspondents.  Accessed on 24 November 2024, 0001 UTC.

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Russ Roberts (https://www.hawaiicybersecurityjournal.net).

 

Google Exposes GLASSBRIDGE: A Pro-China Influence Network of Fake News Sites

Nov 23, 2024 Cloud Security / Threat Intelligence

Government agencies and non-governmental organizations in the United States have become the target of a nascent China state threat actor known as Storm-2077. The adversary, believed to be active since at least January 2024, has also conducted cyber attacks against the Defense Industrial Base (DIB), aviation, telecommunications, and financial and legal services across the world, Microsoft said . The activity cluster, the company added, overlaps with a threat group that Recorded Future's Insikt Group is tracking as TAG-100 . Attack chains have involved targeting various internet-facing edge devices using publicly available exploits to gain initial access and drop Cobalt Strike as well as open-source malware such as Pantegana and Spark RAT, the cybersecurity company noted back in July. "Over the past decade, following numerous government indictments and the public disclosure of threat actors' activities, tracking and attributing cyber operations originating from China has b

North Korean Hackers Steal $10M with AI-Driven Scams and Malware on LinkedIn

Nov 23, 2024 Artificial Intelligence / Cryptocurrency

The North Korea-linked threat actor known as Sapphire Sleet is estimated to have stolen more than $10 million worth of cryptocurrency as part of social engineering campaigns orchestrated over a six-month period. These findings come from Microsoft, which said that multiple threat activity clusters with ties to the country have been observed creating fake profiles on LinkedIn, posing as both recruiters and job seekers to generate illicit revenue for the sanction-hit nation. Sapphire Sleet, which is known to be active since at least 2020, overlaps with hacking groups tracked as APT38 and BlueNoroff. In November 2023, the tech giant revealed that the threat actor had established infrastructure that impersonated skills assessment portals to carry out its social engineering campaigns. One of the main methods adopted by the group for over a year is to pose as a venture capitalist, deceptively claiming an interest in a target user's company in order to set up an online meeting. Targ

2024 State of Threat Detection and Response

VectraSoC Operations / Threat Detection

See where vendors and tools aren't owning accountability and how SOCs are shifting strategies.

APT-K-47 Uses Hajj-Themed Lures to Deliver Advanced Asyncshell Malware

Nov 22, 2024 Cyber Attack / Malware

The threat actor known as Mysterious Elephant has been observed using an advanced version of malware called Asyncshell. The attack campaign is said to have used Hajj -themed lures to trick victims into executing a malicious payload under the guise of a Microsoft Compiled HTML Help (CHM) file, the Knownsec 404 team said in an analysis published today. Mysterious Elephant, which is also known as APT-K-47, is a threat actor of South Asian origin that has been active since at least 2022, primarily targeting Pakistani entities. The group's tactics and tooling have been found to share similarities with those of other threat actors operating in the regions, such as SideWinder, Confucius, and Bitter. In October 2023, the group was linked to a spear-phishing campaign that delivered a backdoor called ORPCBackdoor as part of attacks directed against Pakistan and other countries. The exact initial access vector employed by Mysterious Elephant in the latest campaign is not known, but

Russian Hackers Deploy HATVIBE and CHERRYSPY Malware Across Europe and Asia

Nov 22, 2024 Cyber Espionage / Malware

Threat actors with ties to Russia have been linked to a cyber espionage campaign aimed at organizations in Central Asia, East Asia, and Europe. Recorded Future's Insikt Group, which has assigned the activity cluster the name TAG-110, said it overlaps with a threat group tracked by the Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA) as UAC-0063, which, in turn, overlaps with APT28 . The hacking crew has been active since at least 2021. "Using custom malware tools HATVIBE and CHERRYSPY, TAG-110 primarily attacks government entities, human rights groups, and educational institutions," the cybersecurity company said in a Thursday report. "HATVIBE functions as a loader to deploy CHERRYSPY, a Python backdoor used for data exfiltration and espionage." TAG-110's use of HATVIBE and CHERRYSPY was first documented by CERT-UA back in late May 2023 in connection with a cyber attack targeting state agencies in Ukraine. Both the malware families were again spo

China-Linked TAG-112 Targets Tibetan Media with Cobalt Strike Espionage Campaign

Nov 22, 2024 Cyber Espionage / Malware

A China-linked nation-state group called TAG-112 compromised Tibetan media and university websites in a new cyber espionage campaign designed to facilitate the delivery of the Cobalt Strike post-exploitation toolkit for follow-on information collection. "The attackers embedded malicious JavaScript in these sites, which spoofed a TLS certificate error to trick visitors into downloading a disguised security certificate," Recorded Future's Insikt Group said . "This malware, often used by threat actors for remote access and post-exploitation, highlights a continued cyber-espionage focus on Tibetan entities." The compromises have been pinned on a state-sponsored threat group called TAG-112, which has been described as a possible sub-group of another cluster tracked as Evasive Panda (aka Bronze Highland, Daggerfly, StormBamboo, and TAG-102) owing to tactical overlaps and their historical targeting of Tibetan entities. The two Tibetan community websites that wer

Unlocking Google Workspace Security: Are You Doing Enough to Protect Your Data?

Nov 22, 2024 Google Workspace / SaaS Backup

Google Workspace has quickly become the productivity backbone for businesses worldwide, offering an all-in-one suite with email, cloud storage and collaboration tools. This single-platform approach makes it easy for teams to connect and work efficiently, no matter where they are, enabling seamless digital transformation that's both scalable and adaptable. As companies shift from traditional, on-premises setups focused on device security, to more user-centered, hybrid models, Google Workspace is perfectly positioned to support this evolution. Now, the user account itself is the central hub, allowing access from any device or location — a game changer in today's remote and distributed work environments. However, with all this connectivity and flexibility comes a challenge. Google Workspace connects to countless apps and touches every user in the organization, making it an appealing target for cybercriminals. The platform's internet accessibility opens up additional entry points, raisi

5 BCDR Oversights That Leave You Exposed to Ransomware

Nov 14, 2024Ransomware / Disaster Recovery

Ransomware isn't just a buzzword; it's one of the most dreaded challenges businesses face in this increasingly digitized world. Ransomware attacks are not only increasing in frequency but also in sophistication, with new ransomware groups constantly emerging. Their attack methods are evolving rapidly, becoming more dangerous and damaging than ever. Almost all respondents (99.8%) in a recent survey said they are concerned about the risk of identity information, session cookies and other data being extracted from devices infected with malware, activities highly correlated to a future ransomware attack. [1] The harsh reality is that ransomware threats aren't going away anytime soon. Despite organizations' best efforts to prevent these attacks, breaches still happen. As such, backup and disaster recovery become your critical last line of defense against these growing threats. However, many organizations overlook essential disaster recovery (DR) practices, leaving them vulnerable to cybe

Microsoft, Meta, and DOJ Disrupt Global Cybercrime and Fraudulent Networks

Nov 22, 2024 Financial Fraud / Cybercrime

Meta Platforms, Microsoft, and the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) have announced independent actions to tackle cybercrime and disrupt services that enable scams, fraud, and phishing attacks. To that end, Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit (DCU) said it seized 240 fraudulent websites associated with an Egypt-based cybercrime facilitator named Abanoub Nady (aka MRxC0DER and mrxc0derii), who advertised for sale a phishing kit called ONNX. Nady's criminal operation is said to date as far back as 2017. "Numerous cybercriminal and online threat actors purchased these kits and used them in widespread phishing campaigns to bypass additional security measures and break into Microsoft customer accounts," Microsoft DCU's Steven Masada said . "While all sectors are at risk, the financial services industry has been heavily targeted given the sensitive data and transactions they handle. In these instances, a successful phish can have devastating real-world consequences

PyPI Attack: ChatGPT, Claude Impersonators Deliver JarkaStealer via Python Libraries

Nov 22, 2024 Artificial Intelligence / Malware

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered two malicious packages uploaded to the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository that impersonated popular artificial intelligence (AI) models like OpenAI ChatGPT and Anthropic Claude to deliver an information stealer called JarkaStealer. The packages, named gptplus and claudeai-eng , were uploaded by a user named " Xeroline " in November 2023, attracting 1,748 and 1,826 downloads, respectively. Both libraries are no longer available for download from PyPI. "The malicious packages were uploaded to the repository by one author and, in fact, differed from each other only in name and description," Kaspersky said in a post. The packages purported to offer a way to access GPT-4 Turbo API and Claude AI API, but harbored malicious code that initiated the deployment of the malware upon installation. Specifically, the "__init__.py" file in these packages contained Base64-encoded data that incorporated code to download

Warning: Over 2,000 Palo Alto Networks Devices Hacked in Ongoing Attack Campaign

Nov 21, 2024 Vulnerability / Cyber Attack

As many as 2,000 Palo Alto Networks devices are estimated to have been compromised as part of a campaign abusing the newly disclosed security flaws that have come under active exploitation in the wild. According to statistics shared by the Shadowserver Foundation, a majority of the infections have been reported in the U.S. (554) and India (461), followed by Thailand (80), Mexico (48), Indonesia (43), Turkey (41), the U.K. (39), Peru (36), and South Africa (35). Earlier this week, Censys revealed that it had identified 13,324 publicly exposed next-generation firewall (NGFW) management interfaces, with 34% of these exposures located in the U.S. However, it's important to note that not all of these exposed hosts are necessarily vulnerable. The flaws in question , CVE-2024-0012 (CVSS score: 9.3) and CVE-2024-9474 (CVSS score: 6.9), are a combination of authentication bypass and privilege escalation that could allow a bad actor to perform malicious actions, including modifying c

Chinese APT Gelsemium Targets Linux Systems with New WolfsBane Backdoor

Nov 21, 2024 Cyber Espionage / Malware

The China-aligned advanced persistent threat (APT) actor known as Gelsemium has been observed using a new Linux backdoor dubbed WolfsBane as part of cyber attacks likely targeting East and Southeast Asia. That's according to findings from cybersecurity firm ESET based on multiple Linux samples uploaded to the VirusTotal platform from Taiwan, the Philippines, and Singapore in March 2023. WolfsBane has been assessed to be a Linux version of the threat actor's Gelsevirine backdoor, a Windows malware put to use as far back as 2014. Also discovered by the company is another previously undocumented implant named FireWood that's connected to a different malware toolset known as Project Wood . FireWood has been attributed to Gelsemium with low confidence, given the possibility that it could be shared by multiple China-linked hacking crews. "The goal of the backdoors and tools discovered is cyber espionage targeting sensitive data such as system information, user crede