All of us at Tripwire’s Vulnerability Exposure and Research Team (VERT) are constantly looking out for interesting stories and developments in the infosec world. Here’s what cybersecurity news stood out to us during the week of April 18, 2022. I’ve also included some comments on these stories. CISA Alert on ICS, SCADA Devices Highlights Growing Enterprise IoT Security Risks On April 13, the...

Sometimes referred to as Sodinokibi, the notorious REvil ransomware-as-a-service (RAAS) enterprise was responsible for a series of high profile attacks against the likes of the world's biggest meat supplier JBS Foods and IT service firm Kaseya . However, it looked like its activities had come to a halt after law enforcement agencies pushed REvil offline in October 2021, and Russia reportedly...

Agencies of the US Government have issued a joint warning that hackers have revealed their capability to gain full system access to industrial control systems that might help enemy states sabotage critical infrastructure. In a joint cybersecurity advisory issued by the Department of Energy, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the NSA, and the FBI, a warning is given that...

A new report, which surveyed 1200 IT security professionals in 17 countries around the world, has shone a light on a dramatic rise in the number of organisations willing to pay ransoms to extortionists. The ninth annual Cyberthreat Defense Report (CDR), produced by CyberEdge Group, shows that not only has there been a substantial increase in the percentage of companies that pay ransoms, but the...

What is this AvosLocker thing I’ve heard about? AvosLocker is a ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) gang that first appeared in mid-2021. It has since become notorious for its attacks targeting critical infrastructure in the United States, including the sectors of financial services, critical manufacturing, and government facilities. In March 2022, the FBI and US Treasury Department issued a warning...

All of us at Tripwire’s Vulnerability Exposure and Research Team (VERT) are constantly looking out for interesting stories and developments in the infosec world. Here’s what cybersecurity news stood out to us during the week of March 14, 2022. I’ve also included some comments on these stories. Most Orgs Would Take Security Bugs Over Ethical Hacking Help It turns out most organizations would rather...

With just a few weeks until the April 15 deadline for US individuals and businesses to file their tax returns, scammers are as busy as ever. Security researchers at Cofsense have warned that they have seen a number of malicious email campaigns which pose as communications from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The emails which purport to come from "IRS.gov", claim to contain tax forms (such as a...

What is this Ragnar Locker thing I’ve heard about? Ragnar Locker is a family of ransomware, which first came to prominence in early 2020 when it became notorious for hitting large organisations, attempting to extort large amounts of cryptocurrency from its victims. So just your bunch of cybercriminals then? Yes, although on their underground website, where they leak files stolen from their...

The US Senate has passed legislation designed to improve the cybersecurity of the Federal Government. The legislation, which consists of three bills, was unanimously passed by the Senate on Tuesday evening, and would - amongst other things - require organisations working in critical industry sectors to alert the US Government about hacks and ransomware attacks . The passing of the "Strengthening...

Global supply chains are bearing the brunt of ransomware attacks, according to a new report that finds manufacturing was the most targeted industry during 2021. Knocking financial services and insurance off the top of the heap after a long reign, the manufacturing industry was found by IBM to be the most attacked sector - accounting for 23% of reports of ransomware. That's one of the headlines...

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Department of Homeland Security Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and National Security Agency (NSA) have joined forces to publish a joint warning that Russian hackers have targeted defence contractors to steal sensitive data. According to an advisory issued by the US authorities, Russian state-sponsored hackers have been regularly...

A surge in "sophisticated, high impact" ransomware attacks has prompted the United States's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), and the Australian Cyber Security Center to issue a joint advisory about the techniques being used by cybercriminals to attack businesses and organisations. Reacting to ransomware attacks against a broad...

What is this BlackCat thing I've heard about? BlackCat (also known as ALPHV) is a relatively new ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) operation, which has been aggressively recruiting affiliates from other ransomware groups and targeting organisations worldwide. What makes BlackCat different from other ransomware-as-a-service providers? Like other ransomware groups, BlackCat extorts money from targeted...

A Canadian man has been handed a three year prison sentence after being found guilty of buying and selling over 1700 stolen identities on a dark web marketplace. 29-year-old Slava Dmitriev, who went by the online handle of "GoldenAce", bought and sold individuals' personal private information, including social security numbers, on the AlphaBay dark web marketplace in 2016 and 2017. Between May...

To his victims, he was "Tony Eden," a middle-aged white man looking for romance online while working overseas for a drilling company. In reality, he was a school caretaker named Osagie Aigbonohan. Originally from Lagos, Nigeria, he was part of a criminal gang with links to the notorious "Black Axe" group . Southwark Crown Court in London sentenced 41-year-old Aigbonohan to 28 months in jail after...

A notorious cybercrime gang, involved in a series of high profile ransomware attacks, has in recent months been sending out poisoned USB devices to US organisations. As The Record reports , the FBI has warned that FIN7 – the well-organised cybercrime group believed to behind the Darkside and BlackMatter ransomware operations - has been mailing out malicious USB sticks in the hope that workers will...

Security researchers say they have seen a "massive wave" of malicious hackers exploiting the comment feature in Google Docs to spread malicious content into the inboxes of unsuspecting targeted users. According to a blog post published by Avanan, the comments functionality of Google Docs, as well as its fellow Google Workplace web-based applications Google Sheets and Google Slides, is being...

The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is inviting security researchers to uncover vulnerabilities and hack into its systems, in an attempt to better protect itself from malicious attacks. The DHS says that it is launching the "Hack DHS" bug bounty program to "identify potential cybersecurity vulnerabilities within certain DHS systems and increase the Department’s cybersecurity...

Finland's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC-FI) has issued a warning about malicious SMS messages that have been spammed out to mobile users, directing iPhone owners to phishing sites and Android users to download malware. The messages are written in Finnish but without the customary accented characters. In some instances, the messages pose as a notification that the user has received a...

Security researchers are warning biomanufacturing facilities around the world that they are being targeted by a sophisticated new strain of malware, known as Tardigrade. The warning comes from the non-profit Bioeconomy Information Sharing and Analysis Center (BIO-ISAC) which revealed that at least two large facilities working on manufacturing bio-drugs and vaccines have been hit by the same...