Within the ever-evolving cybersecurity panorama, 2023 witnessed a dramatic surge within the sophistication of cyber threats and malware. AT&T Cybersecurity Alien Labs reviewed the large occasions of 2023 and the way malware morphed this 12 months to attempt new methods to breach and wreak havoc.
This 12 months’s occasions stored cybersecurity specialists on their toes, from increasing malware variants to introducing new risk actors and assault methods. Listed here are a number of the most compelling developments, highlighting malware’s evolving capabilities and the challenges defenders face.
Highlights of the 12 months: Rising developments and notable incidents
Because the 12 months unfolded, a number of developments and incidents left an indelible mark on the cybersecurity panorama:
Exploiting OneNote for malicious payloads
Cybercriminals leveraged Microsoft OneNote to ship many malicious payloads to victims, together with Redline, AgentTesla, Quasar RAT, and others. This beforehand underutilized Workplace program turned a popular device as a result of its low suspicion and widespread utilization.
website positioning poisoning and Google Advertisements
Malicious actors resorted to website positioning poisoning ways, deploying phishing hyperlinks by Google Advertisements to deceive unsuspecting victims. These hyperlinks led to cloned, benign internet pages, avoiding Google’s detection and remaining energetic for prolonged durations. Distinguished malware households, together with Raccoon Stealer and IcedID, capitalized on this technique.
Exploiting geopolitical occasions
Cybercriminals exploited the geopolitical local weather, significantly the Center East battle, as a lure for his or her assaults. This development mirrored the earlier 12 months’s Ukraine-related phishing campaigns and crypto scams.
APTs: State-sponsored espionage continues to current challenges
Superior Persistent Threats (APTs) continued to pose a major risk in 2023:
- Snake: CISA reported on the Snake APT, a sophisticated cyber-espionage device related to the Russian Federal Safety Service (FSB). This malware had been in use for almost twenty years.
- Volt Storm: A marketing campaign focusing on important infrastructure organizations in the USA was attributed to Volt Storm, a state-sponsored actor primarily based in China. Their focus lay on espionage and knowledge gathering.
- Storm-0558: This extremely subtle intrusion marketing campaign, orchestrated by the Storm-0558 APT from China, infiltrated the e-mail accounts of roughly 25 organizations, together with authorities companies.
Ransomware’s relentless rise
Ransomware remained a prevalent and profitable risk all year long:
- Cuba and Snatch: Ransomware teams like Cuba and Snatch focused important infrastructure in the USA, inflicting concern for nationwide safety.
- ALPHV/BlackCat: Past website positioning poisoning, this group compromised the pc programs of Caesar and MGM casinos. In addition they resorted to submitting complaints with the US Securities and Alternate Fee (SEC) in opposition to their victims, making use of further stress to pay ransoms.
- Exploiting new vulnerabilities: Cybercriminals wasted no time exploiting newly found vulnerabilities, reminiscent of CVE-2023-22518 in Atlassian’s Confluence, CVE-2023-4966 (Citrix bleed), and others. These vulnerabilities turned gateways for ransomware assaults.
- Evolving ransomware households: New ransomware variants like Trash Panda emerged whereas present households tailored to focus on Linux and ESXi servers, additional increasing their attain.
Notable blogs of the 12 months
1. BlackGuard: Elevating Malware-as-a-Service
One of many 12 months’s standout tales was the evolution of BlackGuard, a formidable Malware-as-a-Service (MaaS) supplied in underground boards and Telegram channels. This insidious device underwent a major improve, amplifying its capabilities. Already recognized for its means to pilfer delicate information from browsers, video games, chats, and cryptocurrencies, the brand new BlackGuard variant upped the ante.
BlackGuard improved its Anti-Reversing and Sandboxing capabilities, making it much more elusive to safety specialists. Furthermore, it may now tamper with cryptocurrency wallets copied to the clipboard. This enhancement posed a extreme risk to cryptocurrency fans and traders. Moreover, BlackGuard integrated superior Loader capabilities, enabling it to propagate by shared or detachable units and masks its communications through private and non-private proxies or the nameless Tor community.
2. SeroXen: A RAT’s fast ascent and fall
In a accident, 2023 witnessed the meteoric rise and fall of SeroXen, a brand new variant of the Quasar Distant Entry Trojan (RAT). This modified department of the open-source RAT added vital modifications to its authentic framework, enhancing its capabilities.
SeroXen achieved fast notoriety, with a whole bunch of samples recognized throughout the first few months of the 12 months. Nonetheless, shortly after the weblog highlighting its emergence was printed, the SeroXen web site introduced its shutdown and carried out a kill-switch, rendering contaminated PCs ineffective to malicious actors. It was a uncommon occasion the place the publication of analysis inadvertently led to the downfall of a malware device.
3. AdLoad: Mac programs changed into proxy servers
AT&T Cybersecurity Alien Labs uncovered a devious malware marketing campaign involving AdLoad. This malware ingeniously reworked customers’ Mac programs into proxy servers, then offered to 3rd events, together with some with illicit functions. The risk actor behind AdLoad contaminated goal programs surreptitiously put in a proxy utility within the background.
These contaminated programs have been subsequently supplied to proxy corporations, portraying themselves as reliable entities. Patrons exploited the advantages of those residential proxy botnets, having fun with anonymity, broad geographical availability, and excessive IP rotation for conducting nefarious actions, together with SPAM campaigns.
Following the publication of the analysis weblog, an identical marketing campaign focusing on Home windows programs emerged. The modus operandi mirrored that of the Mac model however was tailor-made for Home windows OS, considerably increasing the potential goal pool and the influence of the proxy community.
4. AsyncRAT: The persistent phishing risk
All through 2023, cybersecurity specialists noticed a steady inflow of phishing emails utilizing superior methods. These emails enticed victims to obtain a malicious JavaScript file, closely obfuscated and armed with anti-sandboxing measures to evade detection. These assaults aimed to execute an AsyncRAT consumer on the compromised programs, granting attackers full distant entry.
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AT&T Alien Labs is the risk intelligence unit of AT&T Cybersecurity. We assist gas our cybersecurity consulting and managed safety providers with essentially the most up-to-date risk intelligence info. We work with the Open Risk Alternate (OTX) to supply actionable and community-powered risk information. Watch the AT&T Cybersecurity weblog for extra observations and analysis from the Alien Labs staff.
