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International operation takes down Russian RSOCKS botnet

$200 a day buys you 90,000 victims

Dan Robinson Fri 17 Jun 2022 // 19:38 UTC

A Russian operated botnet known as RSOCKS has been shut down by the US Department of Justice acting with law enforcement partners in Germany, the Netherlands and the UK. It is believed to have compromised millions of computers and other devices around the globe.
The RSOCKS botnet functioned as an IP proxy service, but instead of offering legitimate IP addresses leased from internet service providers, it was providing criminals with access to the IP addresses of devices that had been compromised by malware, according to a statement from the US Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of California.
It seems that RSOCKS initially targeted a variety of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, such as industrial control systems, routers, audio/video streaming devices and various internet connected appliances, before expanding into other endpoints such as Android devices and computer systems.

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EnemyBot malware adds enterprise flaws to exploit arsenal

Fast-evolving botnet targets critical VMware, F5 BIG-IP bugs, we're told

Jeff Burt Wed 1 Jun 2022 // 03:47 UTC

The botnet malware EnemyBot has added exploits to its arsenal, allowing it to infect and spread from enterprise-grade gear.
What's worse, EnemyBot's core source code, minus its exploits, can be found on GitHub, so any miscreant can use the malware to start crafting their own outbreaks of this software nasty.
The group behind EnemyBot is Keksec, a collection of experienced developers, also known as Nero and Freakout, that have been around since 2016 and have launched a number of Linux- and Windows-based bots capable of launching distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks and possibly mining cryptocurrency. Securonix first wrote about EnemyBot in March.

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Zero-day vuln in Microsoft Office: 'Follina' will work even when macros are disabled

Researchers comb through code execution flaw found in malicious document

Richard Speed Mon 30 May 2022 // 18:01 UTC

Updated Infosec researchers have idenitied a zero-day code execution vulnerability in Microsoft's ubiquitous Office software.
Dubbed "Follina", the vulnerability has been floating around for a while (cybersecurity researcher Kevin Beaumont traced it back to a report made to Microsoft on April 12) and uses Office functionality to retrieve a HTML file which in turn makes use of the Microsoft Support Diagnostic Tool (MSDT) to run some code.

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Microsoft sounds the alarm on – wait for it – a Linux botnet

Redmond claims the numbers are scary, but won't release them

Jessica Lyons Hardcastle Mon 23 May 2022 // 06:57 UTC

Microsoft has sounded the alarm on DDoS malware called XorDdos that targets Linux endpoints and servers.
The trojan, first discovered in 2014 by security research group MalwareMustDie, was named after its use of XOR-based encryption and the fact that is amasses botnets to carry out distributed denial-of-service attacks. Over the last six months, Microsoft threat researchers say they've witnessed a 254 percent spike in the malware's activity.
"XorDdos depicts the trend of malware increasingly targeting Linux-based operating systems, which are commonly deployed on cloud infrastructures and Internet of Things (IoT) devices," Redmond warned.

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Vehicle owner data exposed in GM credential-stuffing attack

Car maker says miscreants used stolen logins to break into folks' accounts

Jeff Burt Wed 25 May 2022 // 15:41 UTC

Automaker General Motors has confirmed the credential stuffing attack it suffered last month exposed customers' names, personal email addresses, and destination data, as well as usernames and phone numbers for family members tied to customer accounts.

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Enemybot botnet uses Gafgyt source code with a sprinkling of Mirai

Keksec malware used for DDoS attacks, may spread to cryptomining, Fortinet says

Jeff Burt Wed 13 Apr 2022 // 14:00 UTC

A prolific threat group known for deploying distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) and cryptomining attacks is running a new botnet that is built using the Linux-based Gafgyt source code along with some code from the Mirai botnet malware.
The group Keksec (also known as Nero and Freakout) is using the fast-evolving Enemybot to target routers from vendors like Seowon Intech and D-Link and is exploiting a remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability (CVE-2022-27226) discovered last month in iRZ mobile routers, according to a report this week by Fortinet's FortiGuard Labs team.
Keksec is using the Enemybot malware as a classic botnet, rolling up compromised Internet of Things (IoT) devices into a larger botnet that can be used to launch DDoS attacks.

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Emotet reestablishes itself at the top of the malware world

Botnet infrastructure shut down last year, now central to a fast-spreading email scam, researchers say

Jeff Burt Thu 21 Apr 2022 // 10:02 UTC

More than a year after essentially being shut down, the notorious Emotet malware operation is showing a strong resurgence.
In a March threat index, Check Point researchers put the Windows software nasty at the top of its list as the most widely deployed malware, menacing or infecting as much as 10 percent of organizations around the globe during the month – a seemingly unbelievable estimate, and apparently double that of February.
Now Kaspersky Labs says a rapidly accelerating and complex spam email campaign is enticing marks with fraudulent messages designed to trick one into unpacking and installing Emotet or Qbot malware that can steal information, collect data on a compromised corporate network, and move laterally through the network and install ransomware or other trojans on networked devices.

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Microsoft-led move takes down ZLoader botnet domains

That should keep the criminals offline for, well, weeks probably

Jessica Lyons Hardcastle Thu 14 Apr 2022 // 19:45 UTC

Microsoft has announced a months-long effort to take control of 65 domains that the ZLoader criminal botnet gang has been using to spread the remote-control malware and orchestrate infected machines.
The tech giant's Digital Crimes Unit obtained a court order from a US federal judge in Georgia to take down the domains, which are now directed to a Microsoft-controlled sinkhole so they can't be used by the malware's masterminds to communicate with their botnet of commandeered Windows computers.
From what we can tell from the filings submitted by Microsoft to the courts, its justification for the seizure is that ZLoader used the domains to injure the Windows giant as well as residents of the US state and commit computer fraud, infringement of Microsoft trademarks, and other illegal activity. The trademark infringement being that at least one of the domains was used for a website that featured Microsoft trademarks in an attempt to masquerade as a legit Redmond site, and also references in phishing emails to Microsoft-trademarked programs, such as Excel.

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Attackers exploit Spring4Shell flaw to let loose the Mirai botnet

Trend Micro says vulnerable systems in Singapore have been compromised

Jeff Burt Mon 11 Apr 2022 // 17:00 UTC

There has been a land rush of sorts among threat groups trying to use the vulnerability discovered in the open-source Spring Framework last month, and now researchers at Trend Micro are saying it's being actively exploited to run the Mirai botnet.
Mirai is a long-running threat that has been around since 2016 and is used to pull smaller networked and Internet of Things (IoT) devices, such as IP cameras and routers, into a botnet that can then be used in such campaigns as distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) and phishing attacks.
The Trend Micro researchers wrote in a post that they observed the bad actors weaponizing and run Mirai malware on vulnerable servers in the Singapore region via the Spring4Shell vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2022-22965.

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Feds take down Kremlin-backed Cyclops Blink botnet

Control systems scrubbed, hijacked network devices need to be patched and cleaned

Jessica Lyons Hardcastle Wed 6 Apr 2022 // 19:24 UTC

The US Justice Department today revealed details of a court-authorized take-down of command-and-control systems the Sandworm cyber-crime ring used to direct network devices infected by its Cyclops Blink malware.
The move follows a joint security alert in February from US and UK law enforcement that warned of WatchGuard firewalls and ASUS routers being compromised to run Cyclops Blink. This botnet malware – technical breakdown here [PDF] – allows the equipment to be remote controlled to carry out attacks on behalf of its masterminds.
Previously, Uncle Sam said the Sandworm crew worked for the Russian Federation's GRU espionage nerve-center, which handles foreign intel operations.

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