Security News
The SmokeLoader malware is being used to deliver a new Wi-Fi scanning malware strain called Whiffy Recon on compromised Windows machines. "The new malware strain has only one operation. Every 60 seconds it triangulates the infected systems' positions by scanning nearby Wi-Fi access points as a data point for Google's geolocation API," Secureworks Counter Threat Unit said in a statement shared with The Hacker News.
A Syrian threat actor named EVLF has been outed as the creator of malware families CypherRAT and CraxsRAT. "These RATs are designed to allow an attacker to remotely perform real-time actions and control the victim device's camera, location, and microphone," Cybersecurity firm Cyfirma said in a report published last week. EVLF is said to be operating a web shop to advertise their warez since at least September 2022.
A new macOS-specific variant of the well known XLoader malware is being delivered disguised as the "OfficeNote" app. XLoader is a malware-as-a-service infostealer and botnet that has been active since 2015, but first appeared as a macOS variant in 2021, written in Java.
In a new HiatusRAT malware campaign, threat actors have targeted a server belonging to the U.S. Department of Defense in what researchers described as a reconnaissance attack. The website's affiliation with contract proposals suggests that the attackers might be seeking publicly accessible information about military requisites or trying to find information on Defense Industrial Base-affiliated organizations.
A new variant of an Apple macOS malware called XLoader has surfaced in the wild, masquerading its malicious features under the guise of an office productivity app called "OfficeNote." "The new version of XLoader is bundled inside a standard Apple disk image with the name OfficeNote.dmg," SentinelOne security researchers Dinesh Devadoss and Phil Stokes said in a Monday analysis.
Threat actors are leveraging access to malware-infected Windows and macOS machines to deliver a proxy server application and use them as exit nodes to reroute proxy requests. According to AT&T Alien Labs, the unnamed company that offers the proxy service operates more than 400,000 proxy exit nodes, although it's not immediately clear how many of them were co-opted by malware installed on infected machines without user knowledge and interaction.
The threat actors behind the HiatusRAT malware have returned from their hiatus with a new wave of reconnaissance and targeting activity aimed at Taiwan-based organizations and a U.S. military procurement system. Besides recompiling malware samples for different architectures, the artifacts are said to have been hosted on new virtual private servers, Lumen Black Lotus Labs said in a report published last week.
Google is testing a new feature in the Chrome browser that will warn users when an installed extension has been removed from the Chrome Web Store, usually indicative of it being malware. The problem is that these extensions are churned out quickly, with the developers releasing new ones just as Google removes old ones from the Chrome Web Store.
The China-aligned APT group known as 'Bronze Starlight' was seen targeting the Southeast Asian gambling industry with malware signed using a valid certificate used by the Ivacy VPN provider. According to SentinelLabs, which analyzed the campaign, the certificate belongs to PMG PTE LTD, a Singaporean vendor of the VPN product 'Ivacy VPN.'.
Threat actors are using Android Package files with unknown or unsupported compression methods to elude malware analysis. "In order to do that, the APK, is using an unsupported decompression method."