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Welcome to the new normal, the cybersecurity threat landscape has gotten progressively more complex and dangerous.  The online world is full of data thieves, extortionists, and even state actors looking to exploit vulnerabilities in businesses' digital defenses.  The cyber threat actors have the upper hand at the moment. Part of the reason for that is the fallout from the rapid digitization made necessary by the COVID-19 pandemic.  According to research on the subject, more than half of business

The Winter Olympics have officially come to a close. There have been heartwarming headlines of athletes overcoming adversity, upsets, dominant performances, and countless clips of the mascot Bing Dwen Dwen throughout the past two weeks.  The headline that cyber professionals are waiting for a yet to arrive.

In the weeks leading up to the opening of the Olympic Games athletes were required to install the My2022 app to track their health. The app is supposed to track Covid-19 and monitor the healt

During the Super Bowl, Coinbase ran a 60 second Advertisement.  This AD featured a color-changing QR code bouncing around the screen, imitating the iconic bouncing DVD logo.  When scanned, users were directed to their promotional website.  New users were offered $15.00 of free BTC when signing up and current users were entered into a $3 million raffle.  This advertising technique has recently been a small controversy in the industry, as some purport it teaches users that it is okay to scan unkno

Logistics and freight forwarding giant Expeditors International announced a cyber-attack on 20 February that crippled some of their operating systems and continues to slow their operations around the globe.  The Seattle-based freight company, which brought in $10.1 billion in revenue last year, said they shut down most of their operating systems globally after discovering the cyber-attack.  "The situation is evolving, and we are working with global cybersecurity experts to manage the situation.

There is an English ballad which was first published in the 1640’s titled, The World Turned Upside Down.  Many believe the current international geo-political atmosphere meets this time aged ballad.  The US has publicly accused Russia of being responsible for last week’s cyber-attacks targeting Ukraine’s defense ministry and major banks.  Now some experts believe Russia could escalate malicious cyber activity and conduct sophisticated cyber-attacks on the West too.  If this occurs, the attacks w

An unknown criminal hacking group is targeting organizations in the aviation, aerospace, defense, transportation and manufacturing industries with trojan malware, in attacks that researchers say have been going on for years.  The malware has been named TA2541 and detailed by cybersecurity researchers the persistent cyber-criminal operation has been active since 2017 and has compromised hundreds of organizations across North America, Europe, and the Middle East.

Despite operating for nearly 5 yea

Both cyberattacks and cybercrime are increasing driven by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and easy money to be made by the cyber actors, who are suspected to be Russians.  One of the most damaging of these attacks are Remote Code Execution (RCE), or an Arbitrary Code Execution.  RCE attacks can be especially detrimental to corporate and institutional sectors in both North America and the United Kingdom.  When someone takes control of another person’s device or computer, it can be dangerous for the

Activity Summary - Week Ending on 18 February 2022:

• Red Sky Alliance identified 18,841 connections from new IP’s checking in with our Sinkholes
• Ugg Boot 4 Sale
• Analysts identified 5,853 new IP addresses participating in various Botnets
• ACTINIUM/Gamaredon/DEV-0157
• Vulnerabilities in Adobe Illustrator & Photoshop
• APTs in Turkey and Colombia on the Rise
• Fake Windows 11
• 49ers Hit by BlackByte
• TA2541
• Ecommerce Sites Rigged
• Truckers and Doxxing

Link to full report: IR-22-049-001_weekly049.pdf

A new malware family is targeting Asian cloud service providers and using compromised resources to mine cryptocurrency. The malware, CoinStomp, makes use of Timestomping, Command and Control through reverse shells, removal of target system’s cryptographic policies, and references to a previous cryptojacking campaign, Xanthe.

Cryptojacking is the process of compromising machines and using their resources to mine for cryptocurrencies.  This attack method has grown popular as an alternative to buil

BlackByte ransomware has been used in recent attacks on at least three critical infrastructure sectors in the US.  Available to bad actors as a Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS), BlackByte has been used in attacks against US and foreign businesses, including in critical infrastructure sectors such as government, financial, and food and agriculture, the FBI and US Secret Service warn.

The gang emerged in July 2021 when it began exploiting software vulnerabilities to target corporate victims worldwid

In recent years, our digital selves are now an established part of our identity. The emails we send, the conversations we have over social media both private and public as well as the photos we share, the videos we watch, the apps we download, and the websites we visit all contribute to our digital personas.  There are ways to prevent a government agency, country, or cybercriminal from peeking into our digital lives. Virtual private networks (VPNs), end-to-end encryption, and using browsers that

It has been alleged that the CIA has a secret, undisclosed data repository that includes information collected about Americans, two Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee said.  While neither the agency nor lawmakers would disclose specifics about the data, the senators alleged the CIA had long hidden details about the program from the public and Congress.  Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico sent a letter to top intelligence officials calling for more details

There is a dubious quote that has been allegedly attributed to Joseph Stalin, saying “It doesn’t matter how many people vote, only who counts them.”  Voting integrity is a solemn guarantee in many countries.  The US 2020 Presidential alleged election irregularities, using the Dominion voting machines, has caused serious doubts challenging voting integrity.  A US federal cybersecurity agency is currently reviewing a report that alleges security vulnerabilities in voting machines used by Georgia a

Online banking and online shopping are useful and convenient, but using them insecurely can put you at risk from hackers. Here are some suggestions to keep your money and cryptocurrency more secure against online threats.  In the 21st Century, we are all much more reliant on the internet and online services than ever before.  The Internet age has brought benefits, it is easy and convenient to buy from a website compared with having to visit a store and there are also additional risks that need t

If you or your company was unfortunate enough to be caught in the web of a ransomware attack, the consequences may have been devastating.  Hopefully you got rid of the infection, but the all-important files affected by such an attack could still be under lock and key.  Without backups, which is more common than you may think, the files may be gone forever.

A tiny slice of good fortune: Occasionally, we all catch break.  Files can sometimes be recovered in the following ways[1]:

• A ransomware aut

Cyber threat actors are introducing new services to expand their “Client” base.  The Pay-per-Install (PPI) distribution model is based on revenue sharing and commissions.  The PPI model was initially used to distribute advertisements but is has transitioned to install malware.  Malware authors do not have the resources or bandwidth to spread their malware on a large scale. Instead they can rely on a network of affiliates, who distribute the malware, and in return get paid a commission for every

The Microsoft Security Intelligence team is warning that Office 365 customers are receiving phishing emails that aim to trick them into giving OAuth permissions to a bogus app that then lets attackers read and write emails.   The team reported that attackers are sending the OAuth phishing emails to "hundreds" of Office 365 customers.

OAuth is an open standard for access delegation, commonly used as a way for Internet users to grant websites or applications access to their information on other we

Activity Summary - Week Ending on 11 February 2022:
✓ Red Sky Alliance identified 14,657 connections from new IP’s checking in with our Sinkholes
✓ Amazon IP hit – this time in France
✓ Analysts identified 6,580 new IP addresses participating in various Botnets
✓ Emotet still being Used
✓ ShuckWorm
✓ Dark Herring
✓ LockBit 2.0
✓ VodaFone Attack
✓ $94,000 Bitcoins Seized
✓ Drones used to Attack Networks
✓ CapraRAT and Earth Karkaddan

Link to full report: IR-22-042-001_weekly042.pdf

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), along with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), National Security Agency (NSA), Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC), and the United Kingdom’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) issued a joint Cybersecurity Advisory outlining the growing international threat posed by ransomware over the past year.

The advisory titled “2021 Trends Show Increased Globalized Threat of Ransomware”[1] outlines top trends seen across three nation

The operators of the GootLoader campaign are targeting employees of accounting and law firms as part of a renewed effort of cyberattacks to deploy malware on infected systems.  This is an unfortunate sign that the adversary is expanding its focus to other high-value targets.  The Gootkit malware family has been around for five years or more, and is used to distribute code such as ransomware, which can encrypt the files on a Windows computer and only release them once a ransom is paid.

Gootloader