Security News

Google's Threat Analysis Group on Thursday disclosed that it acted to mitigate threats from two distinct government-backed attacker groups based in North Korea that exploited a recently-uncovered remote code execution flaw in the Chrome web browser. The campaigns, once again "Reflective of the regime's immediate concerns and priorities," are said to have targeted U.S. based organizations spanning news media, IT, cryptocurrency, and fintech industries, with one set of the activities sharing direct infrastructure overlaps with previous attacks aimed at security researchers last year.

North Korean state hackers have exploited a zero-day, remote code execution vulnerability in Google Chrome web browser for more than a month before a patch became available, in attacks targeting news media, IT companies, cryptocurrency, and fintech organizations. Google's Threat Analysis Group attributed two campaigns exploiting the recently patched CVE-2022-0609 to two separate attacker groups backed by the North Korean government.

The notorious Lazarus Group actor has been observed mounting a new campaign that makes use of the Windows Update service to execute its malicious payload, expanding the arsenal of living-off-the-land techniques leveraged by the APT group to further its objectives. The Lazarus Group, also known as APT38, Hidden Cobra, Whois Hacking Team, and Zinc, is the moniker assigned to the North Korea-based nation-state hacking group that's been active since at least 2009.

A cyberespionage group with ties to North Korea has resurfaced with a stealthier variant of its remote access trojan called Konni to attack political institutions located in Russia and South Korea. "The authors are constantly making code improvements," Malwarebytes researcher Roberto Santos said.

Operators associated with the Lazarus sub-group BlueNoroff have been linked to a series of cyberattacks targeting small and medium-sized companies worldwide with an aim to drain their cryptocurrency funds, in what's yet another financially motivated operation mounted by the prolific North Korean state-sponsored actor. Russian cybersecurity company Kaspersky, which is tracking the intrusions under the name "SnatchCrypto," noted that the campaign has been running since at 2017, adding the attacks are aimed at startups in the FinTech sector located in China, Hong Kong, India, Poland, Russia, Singapore, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, the U.A.E., the U.S., Ukraine, and Vietnam.

From basic financial pump-and-dump schemes to straight-up nation-state cybertheft, nascent crypto markets, and their investors - often with dubious understanding of how they really work - have become prime targets for crypto scammers. North Korean-backed cybercrime groups, including APT 38/Lazarus Group, have turned their talents and resources exclusively toward ripping off crypto markets, according to a new report from Chainalysis.

A North Korean cyberespionage group named Konni has been linked to a series of targeted attacks aimed at the Russian Federation's Ministry of Foreign Affairs with New Year lures to compromise Windows systems with malware. The most recent attacks involved the actor gaining access to the target networks through stolen credentials, exploiting the foothold to load malware for intelligence gathering purposes, with early signs of the activity documented by MalwareBytes as far back as July 2021.

Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky attributed the infiltrations to a North Korean hacker group tracked as ScarCruft, also known as APT37, Reaper Group, InkySquid, and Ricochet Chollima. "The actor utilized three types of malware with similar functionalities: versions implemented in PowerShell, Windows executables and Android applications," the company's Global Research and Analysis Team said in a new report published today.

A threat actor with ties to North Korea has been linked to a prolific wave of credential theft campaigns targeting research, education, government, media and other organizations, with two of the attacks also attempting to distribute malware that could be used for intelligence gathering. Policy experts, journalists and nongovernmental organizations were targeted as part of weekly campaigns observed between from January through June 2021, Proofpoint researchers Darien Huss and Selena Larson disclosed in a technical report detailing the actor's tactics, techniques, and procedures, with the attacks spread across North America, Russia, China, and South Korea.

A state-sponsored North Korean threat actor tracked as TA406 was recently observed deploying custom info-stealing malware in espionage campaigns. The phishing emails sent by TA406 commonly use lures about nuclear safety, politics, and Korean foreign policy, while targeting high-ranking elected officials.