government-backed attacks - Security Ticks

44% of the zero-days exploited in 2024 were in enterprise solutions

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44% of the zero-days exploited in 2024 were in enterprise solutions 2025-04-29 at 21:18 By Zeljka Zorz In 2024, threat actors exploited 75 zero-days – i.e., vulnerabilities previously unknown to vendors, thus without a readily available patch – in a wide variety of attacks. Of these, 33 vulnerabilities (44%) affected enterprise solutions, which is up […]

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Attackers phish OAuth codes, take over Microsoft 365 accounts

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Attackers phish OAuth codes, take over Microsoft 365 accounts 2025-04-23 at 13:36 By Zeljka Zorz Suspected Russian threat actors are using OAuth-based phishing attacks to get targets to grant them access to their Microsoft 365 (M365) accounts. “The primary tactics observed involve the attacker requesting victim’s supply Microsoft Authorization codes, which grant the attacker with

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Threat actors are using legitimate Microsoft feature to compromise M365 accounts

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Threat actors are using legitimate Microsoft feature to compromise M365 accounts 2025-02-14 at 16:23 By Zeljka Zorz Suspected Russian threat actors have been taking advantage of Microsoft Device Code Authentication to trick targets into granting them access to their Microsoft 365 (M365) accounts. “While Device Code Authentication attacks are not new, they appear to have

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CISA says Treasury was the only US agency breached via BeyondTrust

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CISA says Treasury was the only US agency breached via BeyondTrust 2025-01-07 at 14:18 By Zeljka Zorz The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has shared on Monday that the Treasury Department was the only US federal agency affected by the recent cybersecurity incident involving compromised BeyondTrust Remote Support SaaS instances. On the same

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How widespread is mercenary spyware? More than you think

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How widespread is mercenary spyware? More than you think 2024-12-04 at 16:18 By Zeljka Zorz A targeted hunt on 2,500 mobile devices for indicators of compromise associated with mercenary spyware has revealed that its use is not as rare as one would hope. The results of the hunt Earlier this year, iVerify added a threat

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Faraway Russian hackers breached US organization via Wi-Fi

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Faraway Russian hackers breached US organization via Wi-Fi 2024-11-25 at 19:03 By Zeljka Zorz Forest Blizzard, a threat group associated with Russia’s GRU military intelligence service, repeatedly breached a US-based organization via compromised computer systems of nearby firms, which they leveraged to authenticate to the target’s enterprise Wi-Fi network. The repeated attacks Volexity, a company

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Private US companies targeted by Stonefly APT

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Private US companies targeted by Stonefly APT 2024-10-03 at 14:01 By Zeljka Zorz Undeterred by the indictment issued against one of its alleged members, North Korean APT group Stonefly (aka APT45) continues to target companies in the US, Symantec threat analysts warned. About Stonefly Also known as Andariel and OnyxFleet, Stonefly has been linked to

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FBI forced Flax Typhoon to abandon its botnet

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FBI forced Flax Typhoon to abandon its botnet 2024-09-19 at 14:16 By Zeljka Zorz A botnet operated by the Chinese state-sponsored threat actor known as Flax Typhoon has been disrupted by the law enforcement agency and abandoned by the group, FBI Director Chris Wray confirmed on Wednesday. “We executed court-authorized operations to take control of

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North Korean hackers’ social engineering tricks

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North Korean hackers’ social engineering tricks 2024-09-04 at 15:31 By Zeljka Zorz “North Korean malicious cyber actors conducted research on a variety of targets connected to cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds (ETFs) over the last several months,” the FBI has warned through a public service announcement. This suggests that they are likely to target companies associated with

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Midnight Blizzard delivered iOS, Chrome exploits via compromised government websites

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Midnight Blizzard delivered iOS, Chrome exploits via compromised government websites 2024-08-29 at 16:16 By Zeljka Zorz Suspected Russian hackers have been hitting iPhone and Android users visiting government websites with exploits first leveraged by commercial surveillance vendors, Google TAG researchers shared. The watering hole campaigns Between November 2023 and July 2024, threat actors have repeatedly

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US offers $10 million for information on indicted WhisperGate malware suspect

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US offers $10 million for information on indicted WhisperGate malware suspect 2024-06-27 at 10:36 By Help Net Security A federal grand jury in Maryland returned an indictment charging a Russian citizen with conspiracy to hack into and destroy computer systems and data. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison. The

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20,000 FortiGate appliances compromised by Chinese hackers

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20,000 FortiGate appliances compromised by Chinese hackers 2024-06-12 at 14:16 By Zeljka Zorz Coathanger – a piece of malware specifically built to persist on Fortinet’s FortiGate appliances – may still be lurking on too many devices deployed worldwide. How Coathanger persists on FortiGate devices In February 2024, the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD)

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MITRE breach details reveal attackers’ successes and failures

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MITRE breach details reveal attackers’ successes and failures 2024-05-08 at 14:16 By Zeljka Zorz MITRE has shared a timeline of the recent breach if fell victim to and has confirmed that it began earlier than previously thought: on December 31, 2023. On that day, the attackers deployed a web shell on an external-facing Ivanti Connect

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Hackers backdoored Cisco ASA devices via two zero-days (CVE-2024-20353, CVE-2024-20359)

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Hackers backdoored Cisco ASA devices via two zero-days (CVE-2024-20353, CVE-2024-20359) 2024-04-24 at 21:31 By Zeljka Zorz A state-sponsored threat actor has managed to compromise Cisco Adaptive Security Appliances (ASA) used on government networks across the globe and use two zero-day vulnerabilities (CVE-2024-20353, CVE-2024-20359) to install backdoors on them, Cisco Talos researchers have shared on Wednesday.

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A “cascade” of errors let Chinese hackers into US government inboxes

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A “cascade” of errors let Chinese hackers into US government inboxes 2024-04-03 at 16:46 By Zeljka Zorz Microsoft still doesn’t known how Storm-0558 attackers managed to steal the Microsoft Services Account cryptographic key they used to forge authentication tokens needed to access email accounts belonging to US government officials. “The stolen 2016 MSA key in

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Microsoft: Russian hackers accessed internal systems, code repositories

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Microsoft: Russian hackers accessed internal systems, code repositories 2024-03-11 at 14:14 By Zeljka Zorz Midnight Blizzard (aka APT29), a group of Russian hackers tied to the country’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), has leveraged information stolen from Microsoft corporate email systems to burrow into the company’s source code repositories and internal systems. “It is apparent that

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State-sponsored hackers know enterprise VPN appliances inside out

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State-sponsored hackers know enterprise VPN appliances inside out 2024-02-28 at 14:19 By Zeljka Zorz Suspected Chinese state-sponsored hackers who have been leveraging Ivanti Connect Secure VPN flaws to breach a variety of organizations have demonstrated “a nuanced understanding of the appliance”, according to Mandiant incident responders and threat hunters. They were able to perform a

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How are state-sponsored threat actors leveraging AI?

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How are state-sponsored threat actors leveraging AI? 2024-02-14 at 18:31 By Helga Labus Microsoft and OpenAI have identified attempts by various state-affiliated threat actors to use large language models (LLMs) to enhance their cyber operations. Threat actors use LLMs for various tasks Just as defenders do, threat actors are leveraging AI (more specifically: LLMs) to

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Chinese hackers breached Dutch Ministry of Defense

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Chinese hackers breached Dutch Ministry of Defense 2024-02-07 at 16:46 By Helga Labus Chinese state-sponsored hackers have breached the Dutch Ministry of Defense (MOD) last year and deployed a new remote access trojan (RAT) malware to serve as a backdoor. “The effects of the intrusion were limited because the victim network was segmented from the

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Roundcube webmail zero-day exploited to spy on government entities (CVE-2023-5631)

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Roundcube webmail zero-day exploited to spy on government entities (CVE-2023-5631) 25/10/2023 at 14:46 By Zeljka Zorz The Winter Vivern APT group has been exploiting a zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2023-5631) in Roundcube webmail servers to spy on email communications of European governmental entities and a think tank, according to ESET researchers. “Exploitation of the XSS vulnerability can

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