Security News
An updated version of a sophisticated backdoor framework called MATA has been used in attacks aimed at over a dozen Eastern European companies in the oil and gas sector and defense industry as...
Various European customers of different banks are being targeted by an Android banking trojan called SpyNote as part of an aggressive campaign detected in June and July 2023. What makes the malware strain notable is its dual functions as spyware and perform bank fraud.
The Russian nation-state actor known as BlueBravo has been observed targeting diplomatic entities throughout Eastern Europe with the goal of delivering a new backdoor called GraphicalProton, exemplifying the continuous evolution of the threat. The phishing campaign is characterized by the use of legitimate internet services for command-and-control obfuscation, Recorded Future said in a new report published Thursday.
The U.S. government has banned European commercial spyware manufacturers Intellexa and Cytrox, citing risks to U.S. national security and foreign policy interests. Google's Threat Analysis Group linked the Cytrox in May 2022 with multiple zero-day vulnerabilities used to deploy Predator spyware on Android devices.
Microsoft on Tuesday revealed that it repelled a cyber attack staged by a Chinese nation-state actor targeting two dozen organizations, some of which include government agencies, in a cyber espionage campaign designed to acquire confidential data. "They focus on espionage, data theft, and credential access," Microsoft said.
Today, the European Commission adopted its adequacy decision for the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework. The EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework introduces new binding safeguards to address all the concerns raised by the European Court of Justice, including limiting access to EU data by US intelligence services to what is necessary and proportionate, and establishing a Data Protection Review Court, to which EU individuals will have access.
A phishing campaign that security researchers named SmugX and attributed to a Chinese threat actor has been targeting embassies and foreign affairs ministries in the UK, France, Sweden, Ukraine, Czech, Hungary, and Slovakia, since December 2022. The lures used in the SmugX campaign betray the threat actor's target profile and indicates espionage as the likely objective of the campaign.
A Chinese nation-state group has been observed targeting Foreign Affairs ministries and embassies in Europe using HTML smuggling techniques to deliver the PlugX remote access trojan on compromised systems. "The campaign uses new delivery methods to deploy a new variant of PlugX, an implant commonly associated with a wide variety of Chinese threat actors," Check Point said.
European organizations experienced a greater volume and frequency of BEC attacks over the last year, as compared to organizations in the United States, according to Abnormal Security. This included an analysis of traditional BEC attacks like executive impersonation, vendor-focused invoice, and payment fraud, as well as credential phishing, malware, and extortion.
Pro-Kremlin groups Anonymous Sudan, Killnet and Clop have other motivations than just hacktivism as they widen their attack field beyond political targets. The June 19 attack against the European Investment Bank may have been a salvo aimed at thwarting financial pipelines supporting Ukraine's war effort, although the motives of the threat groups are still subject to speculation, experts say.