Microsoft

Microsoft Names Info-Stealers That Target Crypto Wallets 'Cryware' (microsoft.com) 12

Microsoft blog: The steep rise in cryptocurrency market capitalization, not surprisingly, mirrors a marked increase in threats and attacks that target or leverage cryptocurrencies. But Microsoft researchers are observing an even more interesting trend: the evolution of related malware and their techniques, and the emergence of a threat type we're referring to as cryware. Cryware are information stealers that collect and exfiltrate data directly from non-custodial cryptocurrency wallets, also known as hot wallets. Because hot wallets, unlike custodial wallets, are stored locally on a device and provide easier access to cryptographic keys needed to perform transactions, more and more threats are targeting them.
Iphone

Researchers Devise iPhone Malware That Runs Even When Device Is Turned Off (arstechnica.com) 54

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: When you turn off an iPhone, it doesn't fully power down. Chips inside the device continue to run in a low-power mode that makes it possible to locate lost or stolen devices using the Find My feature or use credit cards and car keys after the battery dies. Now researchers have devised a way to abuse this always-on mechanism to run malware that remains active even when an iPhone appears to be powered down. It turns out that the iPhone's Bluetooth chip -- which is key to making features like Find My work -- has no mechanism for digitally signing or even encrypting the firmware it runs. Academics at Germany's Technical University of Darmstadt figured out how to exploit this lack of hardening to run malicious firmware that allows the attacker to track the phone's location or run new features when the device is turned off. This video provides a high overview of some of the ways an attack can work.

The findings (PDF) have limited real-world value since infections required a jailbroken iPhone, which in itself is a difficult task, particularly in an adversarial setting. Still, targeting the always-on feature in iOS could prove handy in post-exploit scenarios by malware such as Pegasus, the sophisticated smartphone exploit tool from Israel-based NSO Group, which governments worldwide routinely employ to spy on adversaries. Besides allowing malware to run while the iPhone is turned off, exploits targeting LPM could also allow malware to operate with much more stealth since LPM allows firmware to conserve battery power. And of course, firmware infections are already extremely difficult to detect since it requires significant expertise and expensive equipment.

Security

Hackers Are Exploiting WordPress Tools to Hawk Scams (sucuri.net) 13

"If you've visited a website in recent days and been randomly redirected to the same pages with sketchy "resources" or unwanted ads, it's likely the site in question was 1) built with WordPress tools and 2) hacked," reports Gizmodo. Details come from this blog post by researchers at Sucuri (a security provider owned by GoDaddy): As outlined in our latest hacked website report, we've been tracking a long-lasting campaign responsible for injecting malicious scripts into compromised WordPress websites. This campaign leverages known vulnerabilities in WordPress themes and plugins and has impacted an enormous number of websites over the year — for example, according to PublicWWW, the April wave for this campaign was responsible for nearly 6,000 infected websites alone. Since these PublicWWW results only show detections for simple script injections, we can assume that the scope is significantly larger.

We recently investigated a number of WordPress websites complaining about unwanted redirects. Interestingly enough, they were found to be related to a new wave of this massive campaign and were sending website visitors through a series of website redirects to serve them unwanted ads. The websites all shared a common issue — malicious JavaScript had been injected within their website's files and the database, including legitimate core WordPress files... This JavaScript was appended under the current script or under the head of the page where it was fired on every page load, redirecting site visitors to the attacker's destination.... Domains at the end of the redirect chain may be used to load advertisements, phishing pages, malware, or even more redirects....

At the time of writing, PublicWWW has reported 322 websites impacted by this new wave... Considering that this count doesn't include obfuscated malware or sites that have not yet been scanned by PublicWWW, the actual number of impacted websites is likely much higher. Our team has seen an influx in complaints for this specific wave of the massive campaign targeting WordPress sites beginning May 9th, 2022, which has impacted hundreds of websites already at the time of writing....

We expect the hackers will continue registering new domains for this ongoing campaign as soon as existing ones become blacklisted.

"It's important to note that these hacks are related to themes and plugins built by thousands of third-party developers using the open source WordPress software, not WordPress.com, which offers hosting and tools to build websites," Gizmodo points out. But this also cite this warning from Sucuri malware analyst Krasimir Konov: "This page tricks unsuspecting users into subscribing to push notifications from the malicious site. If they click on the fake CAPTCHA, they'll be opted in to receive unwanted ads even when the site isn't open — and ads will look like they come from the operating system, not from a browser," Konov wrote.
Security

Hackers Are Using SEO To Rank Malicious PDFs On Search Engines, Research Finds 13

An anonymous reader quotes a report from VentureBeat: Today, researchers at security service edge provider, Netskope, published the Netskope Cloud and Threat Report: Global Cloud and Malware Trends, which found that phishing downloads rose 450% over the past 12 months, and highlighted that attackers are using search engine optimization (SEO) to rank malicious PDF files on search engines. The report's findings show that phishing attempts are constantly evolving, and attackers aren't just targeting employees through their email inboxes; they're also using popular search engines like Google and Bing. The increase in phishing attacks and the growing popularity of SEO techniques among cybercriminals highlights the need for enterprises to provide their employees with security awareness training so they're prepared to spot threats and not at risk of handing over sensitive information.

When it comes to defending against these SEO-driven attacks, [Ray Canzanese, director of Netskope's Threat Labs] highlights several methods that security teams can use to protect employees. One of the most effective is to use a solution that can decrypt and scan web traffic for malicious content. At the same time, security teams should encourage users to inspect all links they click on, and to exercise caution if the link takes them to an unfamiliar website. In the event an employee does click on a malicious PDF, they can expect to see a fake captcha at the top of the first page, followed by text on other pages. In these scenarios, users should close the file, delete it from the device and report it to the security team ASAP. Canzanese also notes that it's important for users to report malicious URLs that feature on popular search engines to help the provider unlist them from the site and prevent other users from falling victim to a scam.
Security

Hackers Are Now Hiding Malware In Windows Event Logs (bleepingcomputer.com) 49

Security researchers have noticed a malicious campaign that used Windows event logs to store malware, a technique that has not been previously documented publicly for attacks in the wild. BleepingComputer reports: The method enabled the threat actor behind the attack to plant fileless malware in the file system in an attack filled with techniques and modules designed to keep the activity as stealthy as possible. [...] The dropper copies the legitimate OS error handling file [...] and then drops an encrypted binary resource to the 'wer.dll' (Windows Error Reporting) in the same location, for DLL search order hijacking to load malicious code. DLL hijacking is a hacking technique that exploits legitimate programs with insufficient checks to load into memory a malicious Dynamic Link Library (DLL) from an arbitrary path.

[Denis Legezo, lead security researcher at Kaspersky] says that the dropper's purpose is to loader on the disk for the side-loading process and to look for particular records in the event logs (category 0x4142 - 'AB' in ASCII. If no such record is found, it writes 8KB chunks of encrypted shellcode, which are later combined to form the code for the next stager. "The dropped wer.dll is a loader and wouldn't do any harm without the shellcode hidden in Windows event logs," says Legezo. The new technique analyzed by Kaspersky is likely on its way to becoming more popular as Soumyadeep Basu, currently an intern for Mandiant's red team, has created and published on GitHub source code for injecting payloads into Windows event logs.

Botnet

Botnet That Hid For 18 Months (arstechnica.com) 12

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Techinca: It's not the kind of security discovery that happens often. A previously unknown hacker group used a novel backdoor, top-notch tradecraft, and software engineering to create an espionage botnet that was largely invisible in many victim networks. The group, which security firm Mandiant is calling UNC3524, has spent the past 18 months burrowing into victims' networks with unusual stealth. In cases where the group is ejected, it wastes no time reinfecting the victim environment and picking up where things left off. There are many keys to its stealth, including:

- The use of a unique backdoor Mandiant calls Quietexit, which runs on load balancers, wireless access point controllers, and other types of IoT devices that don't support antivirus or endpoint detection. This makes detection through traditional means difficult.
- Customized versions of the backdoor that use file names and creation dates that are similar to legitimate files used on a specific infected device.
- A live-off-the-land approach that favors common Windows programming interfaces and tools over custom code with the goal of leaving as light a footprint as possible.
- An unusual way a second-stage backdoor connects to attacker-controlled infrastructure by, in essence, acting as a TLS-encrypted server that proxies data through the SOCKS protocol.

The SOCKS tunnel allowed the hackers to effectively connect their control servers to a victim's network where they could then execute tools without leaving traces on any of the victims' computers. A secondary backdoor provided an alternate means of access to infected networks. It was based on a version of the legitimate reGeorg webshell that had been heavily obfuscated to make detection harder. The threat actor used it in the event the primary backdoor stopped working. [...] One of the ways the hackers maintain a low profile is by favoring standard Windows protocols over malware to move laterally. To move to systems of interest, UNC3524 used a customized version of WMIEXEC, a tool that uses Windows Management Instrumentation to establish a shell on the remote system. Eventually, Quietexit executes its final objective: accessing email accounts of executives and IT personnel in hopes of obtaining documents related to things like corporate development, mergers and acquisitions, and large financial transactions.
"Unpacking this threat group is difficult," says Ars' Dan Goodin. "From outward appearances, their focus on corporate transactions suggests a financial interest. But UNC3524's high-caliber tradecraft, proficiency with sophisticated IoT botnets, and ability to remain undetected for so long suggests something more."
Security

Hackers Can Infect Over 100 Lenovo Models With Unremovable Malware (arstechnica.com) 43

Lenovo has released security updates for more than 100 laptop models to fix critical vulnerabilities that make it possible for advanced hackers to surreptitiously install malicious firmware that can be next to impossible to remove or, in some cases, to detect. Ars Technica reports: Three vulnerabilities affecting more than 1 million laptops can give hackers the ability to modify a computer's UEFI. Short for Unified Extensible Firmware Interface, the UEFI is the software that bridges a computer's device firmware with its operating system. As the first piece of software to run when virtually any modern machine is turned on, it's the initial link in the security chain. Because the UEFI resides in a flash chip on the motherboard, infections are difficult to detect and even harder to remove.

Two of the vulnerabilities -- tracked as CVE-2021-3971 and CVE-2021-3972 -- reside in UEFI firmware drivers intended for use only during the manufacturing process of Lenovo consumer notebooks. Lenovo engineers inadvertently included the drivers in the production BIOS images without being properly deactivated. Hackers can exploit these buggy drivers to disable protections, including UEFI secure boot, BIOS control register bits, and protected range register, which are baked into the serial peripheral interface (SPI) and designed to prevent unauthorized changes to the firmware it runs. After discovering and analyzing the vulnerabilities, researchers from security firm ESET found a third vulnerability, CVE-2021-3970. It allows hackers to run malicious firmware when a machine is put into system management mode, a high-privilege operating mode typically used by hardware manufacturers for low-level system management.
"All three of the Lenovo vulnerabilities discovered by ESET require local access, meaning that the attacker must already have control over the vulnerable machine with unfettered privileges," notes Ars Technica's Dan Goodin. "The bar for that kind of access is high and would likely require exploiting one or more critical other vulnerabilities elsewhere that would already put a user at considerable risk."

Still, it's worth looking to see if you have an affected model and, if so, patch your computer as soon as possible.
United States

US Warns New Sophisticated Malware Can Target ICS/SCADA Devices (securityweek.com) 15

wiredmikey writes: The U.S government is sounding a loud alarm after discovering new custom tools capable of full system compromise and disruption of ICS/SCADA devices and servers. A joint advisory from the Department of Energy, CISA, NSA and the FBI warned that unidentified APT actors have created specialized tools capable of causing major damage to PLCs from Schneider Electric and OMRON Corp. and servers from open-source OPC Foundation. Privately owned ICS security firm Dragos issued a separate notice documenting what is now the seventh known industrial control system (ICS)-specific malware. "[This] is a modular ICS attack framework that an adversary could leverage to cause disruption, degradation, and possibly even destruction depending on targets and the environment," the company said.
Security

Russia's Sandworm Hackers Attempted a Third Blackout In Ukraine (wired.com) 40

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: More than half a decade has passed since the notorious Russian hackers known as Sandworm targeted an electrical transmission station north of Kyiv a week before Christmas in 2016, using a unique, automated piece of code to interact directly with the station's circuit breakers and turn off the lights to a fraction of Ukraine's capital. That unprecedented specimen of industrial control system malware has never been seen again -- until now: In the midst of Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine, Sandworm appears to be pulling out its old tricks.

On Tuesday, the Ukrainian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-UA) and the Slovakian cybersecurity firm ESET issued advisories that the Sandworm hacker group, confirmed to be Unit 74455 of Russia's GRU military intelligence agency, had targeted high-voltage electrical substations in Ukraine using a variation on a piece of malware known as Industroyer or Crash Override. The new malware, dubbed Industroyer2, can interact directly with equipment in electrical utilities to send commands to substation devices that control the flow of power, just like that earlier sample. It signals that Russia's most aggressive cyberattack team attempted a third blackout in Ukraine, years after its historic cyberattacks on the Ukrainian power grid in 2015 and 2016, still the only confirmed blackouts known to have been caused by hackers.

ESET and CERT-UA say the malware was planted on target systems within a regional Ukrainian energy firm on Friday. CERT-UA says that the attack was successfully detected in progress and stopped before any actual blackout could be triggered. But an earlier, private advisory from CERT-UA last week, first reported by MIT Technology Review today, stated that power had been temporarily switched off to nine electrical substations. Both CERT-UA and ESET declined to name the affected utility. But more than 2 million people live in the area it serves, according to Farid Safarov, Ukraine's deputy minister of energy. [...] The revelation of Sandworm's attempted blackout attack provides more evidence that Russia's invasion of Ukraine has been accompanied by a new wave of cyberattacks on the country's networks and critical infrastructure, though with only mixed success.

Security

Chinese Hackers Abuse VLC Media Player To Launch Malware Loader (bleepingcomputer.com) 58

Security researchers have uncovered a long-running malicious campaign from hackers associated with the Chinese government who are using VLC Media Player to launch a custom malware loader. BleepingComputer reports: The campaign appears to serve espionage purposes and has targeted various entities involved in government, legal, and religious activities, as well as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) on at least three continents. This activity has been attributed to a threat actor tracked as Cicada (a.k.a. menuPass, Stone Panda, Potassium, APT10, Red Apollo) that has been active for more than 15 years, since at least 2006.

Brigid O Gorman of Symantec Threat Hunter Team told BleepingComputer that the attacker uses a clean version of VLC with a malicious DLL file in the same path as the media player's export functions. The technique is known as DLL side-loading and it is widely used by threat actors to load malware into legitimate processes to hide the malicious activity. Apart from the custom loader, which O Gorman said Symantec does not have a name but has been seen in previous attacks attributed to Cicada/APT10, the adversary also deployed a WinVNC server to gain remote control over victim systems. The attacker also executed the Sodamaster backdoor on compromised networks, a tool believed to be used exclusively by the Cicada threat group since at least 2020.

Sodamaster runs in the system memory (fileless) and is equipped to evade detection by looking in the registry for clues of a sandbox environment or by delaying its execution. The malware can also collect details about the system, search for running processes, and download and execute various payloads from the command and control server. [...] The attackers' dwell time on the networks of some of the discovered victims lasted for as long as nine months, the researchers note in a report today.

Botnet

FBI Operation Aims To Take Down Massive Russian GRU Botnet (techcrunch.com) 12

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has disclosed it carried out an operation in March to mass-remove malware from thousands of compromised routers that formed a massive botnet controlled by Russian intelligence. From a report: The operation was authorized by courts in California and Pennsylvania, allowing the FBI to copy and remove the so-called Cyclops Blink malware from infected Asus and WatchGuard routers across the U.S., severing the devices from the servers that remotely control and send instructions to the wider botnet. The Justice Department announced the March operation on Wednesday, describing it as "successful," but warned that device owners should still take immediate action to prevent reinfection.

The Justice Department said that since the news first emerged about the rising threat of Cyclops Blink in February, thousands of compromised devices have been secured, but justified the court-ordered operation because the "majority" of infected devices were still compromised just weeks later in mid-March. Cyclops Blink is believed to be the successor to VPNFilter, a botnet largely neglected after it was exposed by security researchers in 2018 and later targeted by a U.S. government operation to disrupt its command and control servers. Both Cyclops Blink and VPNFilter are attributed to Sandworm, a group of hackers working for Russia's GRU, the country's military intelligence unit.

Communications

Modem-Wiping Malware Caused Viasat Satellite Broadband Outage In Europe (theregister.com) 17

Tens of thousands of Viasat satellite broadband modems that were disabled in a cyber-attack some weeks ago were wiped by malware with possible links to Russia's destructive VPNFilter, according to SentinelOne. The Register reports: On February 24, as Russian troops invaded Ukraine, Viasat terminals in Europe and Ukraine were suddenly and unexpectedly knocked offline and rendered inoperable. This caused, among other things, thousands of wind turbines in Germany to lose satellite internet connectivity needed for remote monitoring and control. Earlier this week, Viasat provided some details about the outage: it blamed a poorly configured VPN appliance, which allowed a miscreant to access a trusted management segment of Viasat's KA-SAT satellite network.

The broadband provider said this intruder then explored its internal network until they were able to instruct subscribers' modems to overwrite their flash storage, requiring a factory reset to restore the equipment. We were told: "The attacker moved laterally through this trusted management network to a specific network segment used to manage and operate the network, and then used this network access to execute legitimate, targeted management commands on a large number of residential modems simultaneously. Specifically, these destructive commands overwrote key data in flash memory on the modems, rendering the modems unable to access the network, but not permanently unusable."

How exactly these modems had their memory overwritten wasn't said. According to the research arm of SentinelOne, though, it may have been wiper malware deployed to the devices as a malicious firmware update from Viasat's compromised backend. This conclusion was based on a suspicious-looking MIPS ELF binary named "ukrop" that was uploaded to VirusTotal on March 15. "Only the incident responders in the Viasat case could say definitively whether this was in fact the malware used in this particular incident," SentinelOne's Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade and Max van Amerongen wrote on Thursday.

United States

US Charges Four Russian Spies for Hacking Saudi Oil Facility and US Nuclear Power Plant (techcrunch.com) 11

The U.S. Department of Justice has announced charges against four Russian government employees for a years-long hacking campaign targeting critical infrastructure, including a U.S. nuclear power operator and a Saudi petrochemical facility. From a report: The first indictment, from June 2021, charges Evgeny Viktorovich Gladkikh, 36, a computer programmer at the Russian Ministry of Defense, and two co-conspirators, of planning to hack industrial control systems -- the critical devices that keep industrial facilities operational -- at global energy facilities. Gladkikh is believed to be behind the infamous Triton malware, which was used to target a petrochemical plant in Saudi Arabia in 2017. Hackers used the malware in an attempt to disable safety systems in the plant designed to prevent dangerous conditions that could lead to leaks or explosions. Triton was first linked to Russia in October 2018. Following their failed plot to blow up the Saudi plant, the hackers attempted to hack the computers of a company that managed similar critical infrastructure entities in the U.S, according to the DOJ.
Operating Systems

'Open Source Protestware Harms Open Source' (opensource.org) 101

An anonymous reader shares an opinion piece: Protest is an important element of free speech that should be protected. Openness and inclusivity are cornerstones of the culture of open source, and the tools of open source communities are designed for global access and participation. Collectively, the very culture and tooling of open source -- issue tracking, messaging systems, repositories -- offer a unique signaling channel that may route around censorship imposed by tyrants to hold their power.

Instead of malware, a better approach to free expression would be to use messages in commit logs to send anti-propaganda messages and to issue trackers to share accurate news inside Russia of what is really happening in Ukraine at the hands of the Russian military, to cite two obvious possibilities. There are so many outlets for open source communities to be creative without harming everyone who happens to load the update.

We encourage community members to use both the freedoms and tools of open source innovatively and wisely to inform Russian citizens about the reality of the harm imposed on Ukrainian citizens and to support humanitarian and relief efforts in and supportive of Ukraine. Longer term, it's likely these weaponizations are like spitting into the wind: The downsides of vandalizing open source projects far outweigh any possible benefit, and the blowback will ultimately damage the projects and contributors responsible. By extension, all of open source is harmed. Use your power, yes -- but use it wisely.

Microsoft

Microsoft Says Digital Extortion Gang Lapsus$ Targets Cryptocurrency, Too (bloomberg.com) 9

An anonymous reader shares a report: A digital extortion gang with a murky background and unconventional methods -- one researcher called them "laughably bad" at times -- has claimed responsibility for a string of compromises against some of the world's largest technology companies. The group, known as Lapsus$, said in a series of public posts on the messaging app Telegram this week that it had accessed Okta, the San Francisco-based identity-management firm that provides authentication tools for an array of business clients. Okta said Tuesday that attackers may have viewed data from approximately 2.5% of its customers after breaching the laptop of an engineer at a third-party vendor.

Lapsus$ previously claimed to breach organizations including Nvidia, Samsung Electronics, and the gaming company Ubisoft Entertainment. The group said it also accessed data from Microsoft, saying it had gathered source code from the company's Bing search engine, Bing Maps and the Cortana digital assistant. Microsoft said attackers gained "limited access" to its systems, and that attackers had compromised a single account to gather data. In recent years, most hacking groups have used malware to encrypt a victim's files, then demanded payment to unlock them, so-called ransomware. Sometimes the groups steal sensitive data and threaten to make it public unless they are paid. Lapsus$ functions as a "large-scale social engineering and extortion campaign," though it does not deploy ransomware, Microsoft said. The group uses phone-based tactics to target personal email accounts at victim organizations and pays individual employees or business partners of an organization for illicit access, according to Microsoft. Lapsus$ also is known for hijacking individual accounts at cryptocurrency exchanges to drain user holdings.

Security

Russian Cyber Attacks Are Struggling To Impact Ukraine's Networks (bloomberg.com) 75

Russian cyber attacks have so far struggled to successfully target Ukraine's critical national infrastructure, according to government officials. From a report: While they are aware of Russian intent to disrupt or infiltrate Ukrainian systems, according to the officials, they have continued to function and Ukraine has mounted a strong defense. Many denial-of-service attacks targeting Ukraine are of low sophistication and impact, the people said, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. The country's experience fending off major cyber attacks since 2015 may have helped prepare it for recent attempts, they added. The destructive "wiper" malware seen in Ukraine is more insidious and the officials said they are on alert for it appearing outside of the country. In the hours prior to Russia's invasion, some Ukrainian government agencies were targeted with the software, which deleted data held on infected computers. More aggressive network take-downs or attacks may not fit with Russian objectives, they added, and Russia could even be leaving the broadband network active for its own means to gather intelligence.
Security

Hundreds of GoDaddy-Hosted Sites Backdoored In a Single Day (bleepingcomputer.com) 19

Internet security analysts have spotted a spike in backdoor infections on WordPress websites hosted on GoDaddy's Managed WordPress service, all featuring an identical backdoor payload. The case affects internet service resellers such as MediaTemple, tsoHost, 123Reg, Domain Factory, Heart Internet, and Host Europe Managed WordPress. BleepingComputer reports: The discovery comes from Wordfence, whose team first observed the malicious activity on March 11, 2022, with 298 websites infected by the backdoor within 24 hours, 281 of which were hosted on GoDaddy. The backdoor infecting all sites is a 2015 Google search SEO-poisoning tool implanted on the wp-config.php to fetch spam link templates from the C2 that are used to inject malicious pages into search results. The campaign uses predominately pharmaceutical spam templates, served to visitors of the compromised websites instead of the actual content.

The goal of these templates is likely to entice the victims to make purchases of fake products, losing money and payment details to the threat actors. Additionally, the actors can harm a website's reputation by altering its content and making the breach evident, but this doesn't seem to be the actors' aim at this time. The intrusion vector hasn't been determined, so while this looks suspiciously close to a supply chain attack, it hasn't been confirmed. [...] In any case, if your website is hosted on GoDaddy's Managed WordPress platform, make sure to scan your wp-config.php file to locate potential backdoor injections. Wordfence also reminds admins that while removing the backdoor should be the first step, removing spam search engine results should also be a priority.

Security

New CaddyWiper Data Wiping Malware Hits Ukrainian Networks (bleepingcomputer.com) 13

Newly discovered data-destroying malware was observed earlier today in attacks targeting Ukrainian organizations and deleting data across systems on compromised networks. BleepingComputer reports: "This new malware erases user data and partition information from attached drives," ESET Research Labs explained. "ESET telemetry shows that it was seen on a few dozen systems in a limited number of organizations." While designed to wipe data across Windows domains it's deployed on, CaddyWiper will use the DsRoleGetPrimaryDomainInformation() function to check if a device is a domain controller. If so, the data on the domain controller will not be deleted. This is likely a tactic used by the attackers to maintain access inside the compromised networks of organizations they hit while still heavily disturbing operations by wiping other critical devices.

While analyzing the PE header of a malware sample discovered on the network of an undisclosed Ukrainian organization, it was also discovered that the malware was deployed in attacks the same day it was compiled. "CaddyWiper does not share any significant code similarity with HermeticWiper, IsaacWiper, or any other malware known to us. The sample we analyzed was not digitally signed," ESET added. "Similarly to HermeticWiper deployments, we observed CaddyWiper being deployed via GPO, indicating the attackers had prior control of the target's network beforehand."

Security

Stolen Nvidia Certificates Used To Hide Malware in Driver Downloads (pcworld.com) 32

Last week Nvidia confirmed that it had been the victim of an internal hack, though it claimed no customer information was compromised. Now we're seeing one of the first effects of the hack on end-users: Nvidia GPU driver packages with malware hidden inside. PCWorld: While it was always possible for malefactors to host links pretending to be drivers in the hopes of installing viruses, trojans, and other nasty stuff on a user's PC, this situation is more concerning. The hackers appear to have leaked Nvidia's official code signing certificates, a means by which users (and Microsoft) can verify that a downloaded program comes from the publisher it says it's from. That's allowing files containing a host of popular malware suites to be posted and downloaded, bypassing Windows Defender's built-in executable verification and slipping past anti-virus software. BleepingComputer reports that two now-expired (but still usable) verification codes have been compromised and used to deliver remote access trojans. Another example, using the Nvidia verification to sign a fake Windows driver, was also spotted.
Network

New NSA Report: This is How You Should Be Securing Your Network (zdnet.com) 62

America's National Security Agency (NSA) released a new report "that gives all organizations the most current advice on how to protect their IT network infrastructures from cyberattacks," writes ZDNet: NSA's report 'Cybersecurity Technical Report (CTR): Network Infrastructure Security Guidance' is available freely for all network admins and CIOs to bolster their networks from state-sponsored and criminal cyberattacks. The report covers network design, device passwords and password management, remote logging and administration, security updates, key exchange algorithms, and important protocols such as Network Time Protocol, SSH, HTTP, and Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP).

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is encouraging tech leaders to view the NSA document as part of its new push for all organizations in the US and elsewhere to raise defenses after the recent disk wiper malware targeting Ukrainian organizations. The document, from NSA's cybersecurity directorate, encourages the adoption of 'zero trust' networks....

The new report follows NSA's guidance to help people and organizations choose virtual private networks (VPN). VPN hardware for securing connections between remote workers to corporate networks became a prime target during the pandemic.

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader Klaxton for sharing the link!

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