MuddyWater Resurfaces, Uses Multi-Stage Backdoor POWERSTATS V3 and New Post-Exploitation Tools
By Daniel Lunghi and Jaromir Horejsi We found new campaigns that appear to wear the badge of MuddyWater. Analysis of these campaigns revealed the use of new tools and payloads, which indicates that the well-known threat actor group is continuously developing their schemes. We also unearthed and detailed our other findings on MuddyWater, such as […] more…Spam and phishing in Q1 2017
Spam: quarterly highlights Spam from the Necurs botnet We wrote earlier about a sharp increase in the amount of spam with malicious attachments, mainly Trojan encryptors. Most of that spam was coming from the Necurs botnet, which is currently considered the world’s largest spam botnet. However, in late December 2016, the network’s activity almost ceased […] more…Inside of the WASP’s nest: deep dive into PyPI-hosted malware
Photo by Matheus Queiroz on Unsplash In late 2022 we decided to start monitoring PyPI, arguably the most important Python repository, as there were a number of reports on it hosting malware. PyPI took exceptional relevance amongst all repositories as, historically, it was trusted by default by many software developers. Any security breach or abuse […] more…Demystifying Blockchain: Sifting Through Benefits, Examples and Choices
You have likely heard that blockchain will disrupt everything from banking to retail to identity management and more. You may have seen commercials for IBM touting the supply chain tracking benefits of blockchain.[i] It appears nearly every industry is investing in, adopting, or implementing blockchain. Someone has probably told you that blockchain can completely transform […] more…Confucius Update: New Tools and Techniques, Further Connections with Patchwork
by Daniel Lunghi and Jaromir Horejsi Back in February, we noted the similarities between the Patchwork and Confucius groups and found that, in addition to the similarities in their malware code, both groups primarily went after targets in South Asia. During the months that followed in which we tracked Confucius’ activities, we found that they […] more…OPC UA security analysis
This paper discusses our project that involved searching for vulnerabilities in implementations of the OPC UA protocol. In publishing this material, we hope to draw the attention of vendors that develop software for industrial automation systems and the industrial internet of things to problems associated with using such widely available technologies, which turned out to […] more…Deciphering Confucius’ Cyberespionage Operations
by Daniel Lunghi and Jaromir Horejsi In today’s online chat and dating scene, romance scams are not uncommon, what with catfishers and West African cybercriminals potently toying with their victims’ emotions to cash in on their bank accounts. It’s quite odd (and probably underreported), however, to see it used as a vector for cyberespionage. We stumbled upon the Confucius hacking group while delving […] more…SYSCON Backdoor Uses FTP as a C&C Channel
By Jaromir Horejsi (Threat Researcher) Bots can use various methods to establish a line of communication between themselves and their command-and-control (C&C) server. Usually, these are done via HTTP or other TCP/IP connections. However, we recently encountered a botnet that uses a more unusual method: an FTP server that, in effect, acts as a C&C […] more…Spam and phishing in 2016
The year in figures According to Kaspersky Lab, in 2016: The proportion of spam in email flows was 58.31%, which is 3.03 percentage points more than in 2015. 62.16% of spam emails were no more than 2 KB in size. 12.08% of spam was sent from the US. Trojan.Win32.Bayrob was the most popular malware family […] more…More information
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