Cyber News

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) email servers were hacked to distribute spam email, impersonating FBI warnings that the recipients' network was breached and data was stolen. The emails pretended to warn about a "sophisticated chain attack" from an advanced threat actor known, who they identify as Vinny Troia. Troia is the head of security research of the dark web intelligence companies NightLion and Shadowbyte. Read more >>>

A new phishing campaign targets employees in financial services using links that download a 'weaponized' Excel document. The phishing campaign, dubbed MirrorBlast, was detected by security firm ET Labs in early September. The Excel files could bypass malware-detection systems because they contain "extremely lightweight" embedded macros, making them "particularly dangerous" for organizations dependent on detection-based security and sandboxing. Read more >>>

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and National Security Agency (NSA) published a joint advisory providing details about the BlackMatter ransomware operations and defense recommendations. The advisory includes tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) the group uses and detailed analysis on the variant. Read more >>>

The FBI warned the US public that threat actors actively use fake and spoofed unemployment benefit websites to harvest sensitive financial and personal information from unsuspecting victims. Sites used in these attacks are designed to closely resemble official government platforms to trick the targets into giving away their info, infecting them with malware, and claiming unemployment benefits on their behalf. Read more >>>

While previously reported phishing campaigns have often involved threat actors impersonating high-ranking employees, such as CEOs and CFOs, a new study by Avanan researchers found that half of all phishing emails they analyzed impersonated non-executives. 77% of those emails targeted employees on the same level as the impersonated employee. Read more >>>

Cloudstar still has no “definitive restoration timeline” for its cloud-hosting systems that were taken out by a ransomware attack on July 16. It also said “it is too early to speculate about what data may have been impacted” or information breached, according to a July 19 post on its website. The company hired third-party forensics experts Tetra Defense to help in recovery efforts and contacted law enforcement. “Negotiations with the threat actor are ongoing,” the company posted. Read more >>>