X-Industry

In a show of international cooperation, intelligence and cybersecurity agencies from eight countries have jointly accused China of orchestrating a series of cyberattacks on government networks.  The United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Japan, and South Korea have pointed the finger at APT40, a hacking group believed to be sponsored by China's Ministry of State Security.

See:  https://redskyalliance.org/transportation/anchor-panda-and-periscope-threat-actors-tar

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has issued an alert regarding an ongoing phone-based impersonation fraud campaign where scammers are masquerading as CISA staff. In a brief notification, the agency stated it is "aware of recent impersonation scammers claiming to represent the agency."

The CISA warning  https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/alerts/2024/06/12/phone-scammers-impersonating-cisa-employees  explicitly states that its employees "will never contact you with a

A major cyber-attack occurred just before the Fourth of July holiday in 2021, affecting at least 200 US companies.  The attack was a ransomware attack that occurred first at Kaseya, a Florida-based IT company, and then spread through the corporate networks that use its software.  The attack affected multiple managed service providers and their customers.  The REvil ransomware gang was behind the attack.  Please stay vigilant during all holiday times.

At least 200 US companies were hit by a major

US Cyber authorities are releasing this joint CSA to provide information on Black Basta, a ransomware variant whose actors have encrypted and stolen data from at least 12 out of 16 critical infrastructure  sectors, including the Healthcare and Public Health (HPH) Sector.  This joint CSA provides TTPs and IOCs obtained from FBI investigations and third-party reporting.

Black Basta is considered a ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) variant and was first identified in April 2022.  Black Basta affiliate

In a comprehensive National Security Memorandum (NSM), the current administration has outlined its strategy for strengthening the security and resilience of United States critical infrastructure against threats like cyberattacks, natural disasters, and climate change.  The memorandum designates 16 critical infrastructure sectors, such as energy, transportation, and health care, and outlines roles and responsibilities for relevant federal agencies to identify and mitigate risks within each sector

The below information from DHS/CISA is a fact sheet which provides information and mitigations associated with cyber operations conducted by pro-Russia hacktivists who seek to compromise industrial control systems (ICS) and small-scale operational technology (OT) systems in North American and European critical infrastructure sectors, including Water and Wastewater Systems, Dams, Energy, and Food and Agriculture Sectors.[1]

The pro-Russia hacktivist activity appears mostly limited to unsophistica

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the U.S. Department of State, and the National Security Agency (NSA) are jointly issuing this advisory to highlight attempts by Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, a.k.a. North Korea) Kimsuky cyber actors to exploit improperly configured DNS Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance (DMARC) record policies to conceal social engineering attempts.  Without properly configured DMARC policies, malicious cyber actors are able to

Some smart locks controlled by Chirp Systems' software can be remotely unlocked by strangers thanks to a critical security vulnerability.  This remote exploitation is possible due to passwords and private keys being hard-coded in Chirp's Android app. Anyone who knows or finds these credentials can use them with an API maintained by smart lock supplier August to remotely open someone's Chirp-powered lock and thus unlock whatever door it is supposed to be protecting.  Chirp has claimed its system

The attached US DHS CISA fact sheet provides an overview for executive leaders on the urgent risk posed by People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-sponsored cyber actors known as “Volt Typhoon.”  CISA—along with the National Security Agency (NSA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and other US government and international partners1—released a major advisory on 7 February 2024, in which the U.S. authoring agencies warned cybersecurity defenders that Volt Typhoon has been pre-positioning t

DarkReading recently provided an editorial on the recent cyber security repose to Ivanti’s VPN issues.  “Here's what's clear about the current cybersecurity state of Ivanti's VPN appliances, they have been widely vulnerable to cyberattack, and threat actors are onto the possibilities.  It's up to enterprise cyber teams to decide what comes next.”

So far, Ivanti has disclosed five VPN flaws in 2024, most exploited as zero-days — with two of them publicly announced weeks before patches became avai

Bitdefender researchers have discovered a new backdoor targeting Mac OS users.  This previously undocumented family of malware is written in Rust and includes several interesting features.  While the investigation is ongoing, we’re sending out this alert to share indicators of compromise with the community. Bitdefender products identify this threat as Trojan.MAC.RustDoor.*.

Here’s what we know so far:  Distribution - The backdoor seems to impersonate a Visual Studio update, and all identified fi

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), National Security Agency (NSA), and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) assess that People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-sponsored cyber actors are seeking to pre-position themselves on IT networks for disruptive or destructive cyberattacks against US critical infrastructure in the event of a significant crisis or conflict with the United States.[1]

CISA, NSA, FBI and the following partners are releasing this advisory to warn criti

Fortinet has disclosed a new critical security flaw in FortiOS SSL VPN that it said is likely being exploited in the wild.  The vulnerability, CVE-2024-21762 (CVSS score: 9.6), allows for the execution of arbitrary code and commands.  "An out-of-bounds write vulnerability [CWE-787] in FortiOS may allow a remote unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary code or command via specially crafted HTTP requests," the company said in a bulletin released last week.

It further acknowledged that the iss

As more than 65,000 football fans descend on Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada, for Super Bowl LVIII, attractive targets for cybercriminals and hackers.  The major sporting events like the Super Bowl face elevated cyber risks due to the proliferation of connected networks and devices used by venues, teams, vendors, media, and attendees.  This year, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is working closely with partners to assess and strengthen cyber protections.  "There are no known,

Hackers from the People's Republic of China spent up to five years in US networks as part of a cyber operation that targeted US critical infrastructure, law enforcement and international agencies said earlier this week.  "The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), National Security Agency (NSA), and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) assess that People's Republic of China (PRC) state sponsored cyber actors are seeking to preposition themselves on IT networks for disruptive o

“Vote early and often.”  In his book Capone, author John Kobler attributes the phrase to the gangster Al Capone.  In the United States, Republicans accused their opponents of inviting such corruption with their support of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, the "Motor Voter Law."

See:  https://redskyalliance.org/xindustry/election-day-concerns

Jen Easterly, Director of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), stated in an interview on 19 January 2024 that "the Ame

Several US federal agencies published a guide of cybersecurity best practices for the water and sanitation sector following criticism from a US government watchdog about the government’s work with the industry.  This past week, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) partnered with the FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to release a manual providing the water industry with more information on cyber incident response as well as the roles, resources and responsibi

The Russia-based actor Star Blizzard (formerly known as SEABORGIUM, also known as Callisto Group/TA446/COLDRIVER/TAG-53/BlueCharlie) continues to successfully use spear-phishing attacks against targeted organizations and individuals in numerous global geographical areas of interest for information-gathering activity.

The UK National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the US National Security

A known ransomware group claims to have breached the systems of Kraft Heinz, but the food company says it cannot verify the cybercriminals’ allegations.  The ransomware group named Snatch publicly named Kraft Heinz on its website on 14 December 2023, but the post appears to have been created on 16 August 2023, which indicates that the attack occurred months ago.

See:  https://redskyalliance.org/xindustry/snatch-ransomware

Snatch ransomware first appeared in 2018 and was formerly called Team Trun

CYBERSECURITY BEST PRACTICES, MALWARE, PHISHING, AND RANSOMWARE, CYBER THREATS AND ADVISORIES

The link below provides is document is a one-stop resource to help organizations reduce the risk of ransomware incidents through best practices to detect, prevent, respond, and recover, including step-by-step approaches to address potential attacks.  This publication was developed through the Joint Ransomware Task Force (JRTF), an interagency body established by Congress in the Cyber Incident Reporting