State-Sponsored Hackers Exploit Two Cisco Zero-Day Vulnerabilities for Espionage

A new malware campaign leveraged two zero-day flaws in Cisco networking gear to deliver custom malware and facilitate covert data collection on target environments. Cisco Talos, which dubbed the activity ArcaneDoor, attributed it as the handiwork of a previously undocumented sophisticated state-sponsored actor it tracks under the name UAT4356 (aka Storm-1849 by Microsoft). "UAT4356

Cisco Warns of Global Surge in Brute-Force Attacks Targeting VPN and SSH Services

Cisco is warning about a global surge in brute-force attacks targeting various devices, including Virtual Private Network (VPN) services, web application authentication interfaces, and SSH services, since at least March 18, 2024. "These attacks all appear to be originating from TOR exit nodes and a range of other anonymizing tunnels and proxies," Cisco Talos said. Successful attacks could

Russia Hackers Using TinyTurla-NG to Breach European NGO's Systems

The Russia-linked threat actor known as Turla infected several systems belonging to an unnamed European non-governmental organization (NGO) in order to deploy a backdoor called TinyTurla-NG (TTNG). "The attackers compromised the first system, established persistence and added exclusions to antivirus products running on these endpoints as part of their preliminary post-compromise actions," Cisco

Hackers Exploiting Popular Document Publishing Sites for Phishing Attacks

Threat actors are leveraging digital document publishing (DDP) sites hosted on platforms like FlipSnack, Issuu, Marq, Publuu, RelayTo, and Simplebooklet for carrying out phishing, credential harvesting, and session token theft, once again underscoring how threat actors are repurposing legitimate services for malicious ends. "Hosting phishing lures on DDP sites increases the likelihood

TimbreStealer Malware Spreading via Tax-themed Phishing Scam Targets IT Users

Mexican users have been targeted with tax-themed phishing lures at least since November 2023 to distribute a previously undocumented Windows malware called TimbreStealer. Cisco Talos, which discovered the activity, described the authors as skilled and that the "threat actor has previously used similar tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) to distribute a banking trojan known

CISA Warning: Akira Ransomware Exploiting Cisco ASA/FTD Vulnerability

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Thursday added a now-patched security flaw impacting Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) and Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) software to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, following reports that it's being likely exploited in Akira ransomware attacks. The vulnerability in question is CVE-2020-

Stealthy Zardoor Backdoor Targets Saudi Islamic Charity Organization

An unnamed Islamic non-profit organization in Saudi Arabia has been targeted as part of a stealthy cyber espionage campaign designed to drop a previously undocumented backdoor called Zardoor. Cisco Talos, which discovered the activity in May 2023, said the campaign has likely persisted since at least March 2021, adding it has identified only one compromised target to date, although it's

Critical Cisco Flaw Lets Hackers Remotely Take Over Unified Comms Systems

Cisco has released patches to address a critical security flaw impacting Unified Communications and Contact Center Solutions products that could permit an unauthenticated, remote attacker to execute arbitrary code on an affected device. Tracked as CVE-2024-20253 (CVSS score: 9.9), the issue stems from improper processing of user-provided data that a threat actor could abuse to send a

Cisco Fixes High-Risk Vulnerability Impacting Unity Connection Software

Cisco has released software updates to address a critical security flaw impacting Unity Connection that could permit an adversary to execute arbitrary commands on the underlying system. Tracked as CVE-2024-20272 (CVSS score: 7.3), the vulnerability is an arbitrary file upload bug residing in the web-based management interface and is the result of a lack of authentication in a specific

8Base Group Deploying New Phobos Ransomware Variant via SmokeLoader

The threat actors behind the 8Base ransomware are leveraging a variant of the Phobos ransomware to conduct their financially motivated attacks. The findings come from Cisco Talos, which has recorded an increase in activity carried out by the cybercriminals. “Most of the group’s Phobos variants are distributed by SmokeLoader, a backdoor trojan," security researcher Guilherme Venere said in an

Backdoor Implanted on Hacked Cisco Devices Modified to Evade Detection

The backdoor implanted on Cisco devices by exploiting a pair of zero-day flaws in IOS XE software has been modified by the threat actor so as to escape visibility via previous fingerprinting methods. "Investigated network traffic to a compromised device has shown that the threat actor has upgraded the implant to do an extra header check," NCC Group's Fox-IT team said. "Thus, for a lot of devices