Cyber Defense Advisors

Year: 2024

Cybersecurity Alert: Brace for July 4th Weekend Threats

Cybersecurity Alert: Brace for July 4th Weekend Threats Stay Secure While You Celebrate – Apple ID Users Beware of Malicious SMS Attacks As we gear up for the Fourth of July festivities, it’s crucial to ramp up our cybersecurity efforts to protect against the heightened risk of cyberattacks during this holiday weekend. A Peek At […]

Cyber Thoughts
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  • July 3, 2024

The Not-So-Secret Network Access Broker x999xx

Most accomplished cybercriminals go out of their way to separate their real names from their hacker handles. But among certain old-school Russian hackers it is not uncommon to find major players who have done little to prevent people from figuring out who they are in real life. A case study in this phenomenon is “x999xx,” […]

Cyber News
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  • July 3, 2024

New Open SSH Vulnerability

It’s a serious one: The vulnerability, which is a signal handler race condition in OpenSSH’s server (sshd), allows unauthenticated remote code execution (RCE) as root on glibc-based Linux systems; that presents a significant security risk. This race condition affects sshd in its default configuration. […] This vulnerability, if exploited, could lead to full system compromise […]

Cyber News
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  • July 3, 2024

The Emerging Role of AI in Open-Source Intelligence

Recently the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) unveiled a new strategy for open-source intelligence (OSINT) and referred to OSINT as the “INT of first resort”. Public and private sector organizations are realizing the value that the discipline can provide but are also finding that the exponential growth of digital data in recent […]

Cyber News
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  • July 3, 2024

Microsoft MSHTML Flaw Exploited to Deliver MerkSpy Spyware Tool

Unknown threat actors have been observed exploiting a now-patched security flaw in Microsoft MSHTML to deliver a surveillance tool called MerkSpy as part of a campaign primarily targeting users in Canada, India, Poland, and the U.S. “MerkSpy is designed to clandestinely monitor user activities, capture sensitive information, and establish persistence on compromised systems,” Fortinet FortiGuard […]

Cyber News
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  • July 3, 2024

FakeBat Loader Malware Spreads Widely Through Drive-by Download Attacks

The loader-as-a-service (LaaS) known as FakeBat has become one of the most widespread loader malware families distributed using the drive-by download technique this year, findings from Sekoia reveal. “FakeBat primarily aims to download and execute the next-stage payload, such as IcedID, Lumma, RedLine, SmokeLoader, SectopRAT, and Ursnif,” the company said in a Tuesday analysis. Drive-by […]

Cyber News
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  • July 3, 2024

Israeli Entities Targeted by Cyberattack Using Donut and Sliver Frameworks

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered an attack campaign that targets various Israeli entities with publicly-available frameworks like Donut and Sliver. The campaign, believed to be highly targeted in nature, “leverage target-specific infrastructure and custom WordPress websites as a payload delivery mechanism, but affect a variety of entities across unrelated verticals, and rely on well-known open-source malware,” […]

Cyber News
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  • July 3, 2024

South Korean ERP Vendor’s Server Hacked to Spread Xctdoor Malware

An unnamed South Korean enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendor’s product update server has been found to be compromised to deliver a Go-based backdoor dubbed Xctdoor. The AhnLab Security Intelligence Center (ASEC), which identified the attack in May 2024, did not attribute it to a known threat actor or group, but noted that the tactics overlap […]

Cyber News
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  • July 2, 2024

Upcoming Book on AI and Democracy

If you’ve been reading my blog, you’ve noticed that I have written a lot about AI and democracy, mostly with my co-author Nathan Sanders. I am pleased to announce that we’re writing a book on the topic. This isn’t a book about deep fakes, or misinformation. This is a book about what happens when AI […]

Cyber News