Through our managed detection and response (MDR) monitoring, we discovered the modular Emotet malware distributing the Nymaim malware, which then loads the Nozelesn ransomware. We detected this particular Emotet variant in one of our monitored endpoints in the hospitality industry in February 2019. For this threat investigation, we also sourced 580 similar Emotet file attachment samples from our telemetry and gathered data between January 9, 2019 and February 7, 2019.
Read More
Smart Protection Network (SPN) data and observations from Managed Detection and Response (MDR) for the North American region show the persistence of older threats and tactics: delivery methods such as spam emails are still going strong, while ransomware attacks have seen a renewed vigor alongside newer threats such as cryptocurrency mining malware in the third quarter of 2018.
However, the prevalence of these older threats should not be misconstrued as a sign that threat actors are resting on their laurels. In fact, it should be taken as proof that they are constantly improving proven tools and techniques to get ahead in the never-ending cat-and-mouse game between cybercriminals and security providers.
Read More A spam campaign we observed in September indicates attackers are angling towards a more sophisticated form of phishing. The campaign uses hijacked email accounts to deliver URSNIF as part of or as a response to an existing email thread.
Read More Current data on the threat landscape of North America shows the need for a comprehensive and proactive approach to security. A traditional approach would be to build a threat response team. However, to be effective against current threats, a threat response team needs to have a considerable amount of skills, time, and resources, which may not be feasible for some organizations. This is only exacerbated by the daily tasks associated with keeping the business up and running. If treated as just a part of the broader job of regular IT staff, threat management can prove overwhelming, as it includes vulnerability assessment, patching, firmware upgrades, vendor management, intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDS/IPS) and firewall monitoring, and other specialized focus areas. And even if enterprises were willing to allot people to react to security incidents, the sheer volume of events and the time-consuming tasks of prioritizing and analyzing them often prove too much to handle.
These could be handled better by security professionals especially focused on threats — an advantage that managed detection and response (MDR) can bring to organizations. MDR provides advanced threat hunting services, faster alert prioritization, root cause analysis, detailed research, and a remediation plan that empowers organizations with better ability to respond to sophisticated attacks, examples of which have been found throughout North America for the second quarter of 2018.
Read More
Blackgear (also known as Topgear and Comnie) is a cyberespionage campaign dating back to 2008, at least based on the Protux backdoor used by its operators. It targets organizations in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, leveling its attacks on public sector agencies and telecommunications and other high-technology industries. In 2016, for instance, we found their campaigns attacking Japanese organizations with various malware tools, notably the Elirks backdoor. Blackgear’s operators are well-organized, developing their own tools, which we observed to have been recently fine-tuned, based on their latest attacks.
Read More