Vendors of mercenary spyware tools used by nation-states to track citizens and enemies have gotten savvy about evading efforts to limit their use.

Source: Robert Brown via Alamy Stock Photo

Efforts by the US and other governments to curb the development, use, and proliferation of powerful spyware tools like NSO Group's Pegasus and Intellexa Consortium's Predator have largely been unsuccessful. Rather, they appear to have encouraged these espionage retailers to improve their ability to evade detection and do business in the shadows.

Spyware could arguably have some legitimate law enforcement or intelligence gathering use case, however, human-rights-abuse watchers have soundly established tools like Pegasus and Predator as tools employed by authoritarian governments to spy on journalists, dissidents, and citizens, and to police their activity. Western governments (including the US, the UK, and others across Europe) recognize these spyware tools as a threat to human rights and basic freedoms, and have joined to try and stop their use through sanctions and other enforcement actions.

In 2021, the US Department of Commerce sanctioned NSO Group, Candiru Ltd., and two suppliers. In 2023, it added Intellexa Consortium to the list for "trafficking in cyber exploits used to gain access to information systems, threatening the privacy and security of individuals and organizations worldwide," according to a Sept. 4 report from The Atlantic Council DFRLab.

Further in 2023, the US proposed blocking government agencies from using commercial spyware and joined with several other countries to pledge to work against the misuse and spread of commercial spyware, DFRLab's report noted. In March of 2024, the US Department of the Treasury also levied sanctions against seven spyware entities. And the following month, the US government also issued Visa restrictions to "promote the accountability for the misuse of commercial spyware," the report added.

It worked for a time. But the market for governments who want to use spyware against their citizens proved too big of a prize for these vendors to miss out on: the Atlantic Council report also highlighted the subsequent return of sanctioned spyware sellers.

"Most available evidence suggests that spyware sales are a present reality and likely to continue," the Atlantic Council admitted. "Proliferation heedless of its potential human rights harms and national security risks, however, is not a stable status quo."

**Predator Spyware Claws Back With Location Obfuscation**

Take Predator as an example. In 2024 Predator spyware use dropped sharply after the company was sanctioned, according to researchers at Insikt Group. But recently, new and improved Predator infrastructure has been detected in more countries, including the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola.

Updates to the new and improved Predator tool anonymizes customer operations, which obscures which countries are using the spyware, Insikt Group reported in a Sept. 5 report on Predator.

"This change makes it more difficult for researchers and cybersecurity defenders to track the spread of Predator," the report added.

But Predator is hardly the only spyware tool gaming its location to evade oversight. The Atlantic Council's report identifies several ways spyware vendors have adapted to take advantage of jurisdictional gaps, including simply by structuring their businesses with subsidiaries, partners, and other relationships scattered across different areas. Spyware vendors also play games with naming and re-naming their companies and legal entities in an effort to get around sanctions and other regulation.

"The most persistently shifting identity is that of the firm originally known as Candiru Ltd., which changed its name four times over the ensuing nine years, and is known at the time of this writing as Saito Tech Ltd," the Atlantic Council's report noted.

The strategy goes beyond business operations; this jurisdictional shell game also allows these vendors to court investors from a wider range of countries.

"These relocations may offer a variety of location-specific benefits, from facilitating sales to the EU market with an EU-domiciled firm to situating branches in states with more forgiving laws," the Atlantic Council report said.

The good news is, these loopholes could be closed, according to the Atlantic Council, with more controls and scrutiny on spyware investment.

"Improving corporate transparency requirements, such as the US’ recent move to compel companies to report their beneficial owners in line with policies in other countries, will support improved investor due diligence and deal review inside the United States," according to the report. "For vendors located outside the US, a recent notice of proposed rulemaking to extend US security review over some forms of outbound investment could provide the basis to catalog and potentially block investment."

**Spyware Vendors Concentrated in Three Countries**

The Atlantic Council report said the current spyware vendor landscape is heavily concentrated in three areas: Israel, India, and Italy. While there has been a lot of focus on Israeli spyware firms like NSO Group, the Atlantic Council report encourages Western governments to expand their sanctions focus to companies working out of India and Italy as well, two countries that were recently left out of the high-profile international sanctions from the UK and France against cyber intrusion tools, called the Pall Mall Process.

India is home to five prolific spyware vendors, including Aglaya Scientific Aerospace Technology Systems Private Limited and Appin Security Group, and Italy has six, including Memento Labs, Movia SPA, the report points out.

More needs to be done to bring transparency to the spyware market, the Atlantic Council report urged.

"Nascent steps by a handful of countries demonstrate that a more vigorous approach to shape the behavior of spyware vendors, their supply chain, and their investors is possible," its report said. "However, much more remains to be done."

Commercial Spyware Use Roars Back Despite Sanctions

In my opinion, mandatory enrollment is best enrollment.

Thursday, September 5, 2024 14:00

As most quality thoughts go, my most recent musing on security came about because of fantasy football. 

I had to log into my Yahoo Sports account, which I admittedly only ever have to log in to, at most, three times a year for the one fantasy football draft I have on that platform each year and then the handful of other times my phone logs me out during the five months that I’m adjusting my lineups on a weekly basis.  

Admittedly, I’d never thought much about the security of my Yahoo Sports account because I don’t have any sensitive information tied to it, and if someone did want to break in, they could probably do a better job of managing my team in that league than I have the past few years. It’s the old “out of sight, out of mind” compared to something like my work email account where I’m logging in every morning, or online banking which I’m using several times a week, and the knowledge that my financial wellbeing is tied to those account credentials. 

But I have to give credit to Yahoo for how they handled my account being less secure. When I logged in, probably for the first time since January, this weekend, before it would even display my homepage or enter the fantasy draft, it took me to an account management page where it warned me that I was using a “less secure” password and still hadn’t enrolled in multi-factor authentication. It took me less than a minute to update my password to something more secure, and maybe another two minutes to enroll in passcode MFA. 

The account management page also had some helpful information, such as how long it had been since my last password change, offering the ability to manage my password through a third-party app, and multiple options to set up MFA, including using the Yahoo Sports app directly (this is always more appealing to me than having to download yet another MFA app on my phone). 

This also got me thinking about the ways in which I don’t like being asked or reminded to enroll in MFA. It never made any sense to me that sites would give users the option to click away from the screen when being asked to enroll in MFA — make it mandatory or don’t. Also, one of my biggest pet peeves in using the internet is when you confirm this is a personal device or “Remember Me” for the next time I log in and the site doesn’t, in fact, remember me, and I have to go through the same approval process multiple times in the same day. 

Our friends at Cisco Duo also have a few other great recommendations for getting people to enroll in MFA, but in my opinion, mandatory enrollment is best enrollment. If I had never displayed that screen on Yahoo’s login page, I wouldn’t have even thought twice about how secure my account was. And seeing a red “!” next to my password gave off an immediate sign that my password needed to be improved, which is something I wish other sites would start doing.  

It’s not like having my fantasy football login credentials compromised would be the end of the world, but when it comes to something more high stakes, there are a few small UI steps sites could take to help nudge us in the right direction. 

**The one big thing **

Threat actors are increasingly using a traditional Red Teaming tool called MacroPack to create new malware payloads. These malicious files deliver multiple payloads, including the Havoc and Brute Ratel post-exploitation frameworks and a new variant of the PhantomCore remote access trojan (RAT). Several different actors are using this tactic based on files uploaded to VirusTotal that Talos analyzed. They are written in different languages and rely on different themes centered on different geographies, which leads us to believe these are disparate campaigns.  

**Why do I care? **

The threat of VBA macros has diminished since Microsoft prevented the execution of macros in Microsoft Office documents downloaded from the internet, but not all users are using the latest up-to-date Office versions and can still be vulnerable. MacroPack can generate several types of payloads packaged into different file types, including popular Office-supported formats, scripting files and shortcuts. The code generated by the framework has the following characteristics, making it more difficult to detect using file content signatures. 

**So now what? **

Talos released a new Snort rule set and several ClamAV signatures to detect and block the malicious files Talos analyzed as part of this research. Our blog post also has an in-depth breakdown of the four major themes used across these malicious documents, information that could be crucial to informing potential targets about these threats.  

**Top security headlines of the week **

**A new report from Google’s Threat Analysis Group found that Russia’s APT29 is exploiting some of the same vulnerabilities as two popular spyware vendors.** The analysis comes from watering hole attacks that researchers saw in the wild between November 2023 and July 2024 targeting Mongolian government websites. APT29, largely thought to be connected to Russia’s government, exploited the same vulnerabilities in Apple iOS WebKit and Google Chrome that two spyware vendors, Intellexa and NSO Group, are also known to use. The actor (also known as Cozy Bear and Midnight Blizzard) compromised the government-controlled websites to embed malicious payloads in hidden iframes on web pages. These iframes pointed users to attacker-controlled websites, where the exploits were deployed to steal user data from iOS and Android devices. Intellexa, which Cisco Talos has reported on several times, was recently blacklisted by the U.S. government for its role in creating and distributing the Predator spyware. And the Israeli NSO Group is infamous for its Pegasus spyware, commonly used to target at-risk individuals like journalists, politicians and activists. (Google TAG, The Record) 

**A North Korean state-sponsored actor known as Citrine Sleet is actively exploiting a zero-day vulnerability in the Google Chrome web browser to steal users’ cryptocurrency.** Microsoft wrote in an advisory regarding the vulnerability, identified as CVE-2024-7971, that users had been "targeted and compromised" by the zero-day attack. Google has since released a patch for the issue. CVE-2024-7971 is a type confusion vulnerability in the V8 JavaScript and WebAssembly engine that could allow an attacker to execute remote code on the targeted machine. Citrine Sleet is believed to be based in North Korea and primarily targets financial institutions, especially those that manage cryptocurrency accounts. Its social engineering techniques focus on the cryptocurrency industry and individuals believed to be associated with it. Exploitation of the vulnerability started by tricking a victim into visiting an attacker-controlled website. Then, because of a different vulnerability in the Windows kernel, Citrine Sleet could install a rootkit on the target’s computer, essentially giving them complete control of the machine. Cryptocurrency has long been a target for North Korean state-sponsored actors, who often use the stolen currency to fund the country’s military operations. (TechCrunch, Decipher) 

**The FBI released a new warning this week that North Korean actors could soon launch a wave of cyber attacks targeting "organizations with access to large quantities of cryptocurrency-related assets or products.”** A public service announcement released Tuesday said that actors had been carrying out reconnaissance-related social engineering campaigns for months targeting individuals believed to be involved in the cryptocurrency industry, or employees of financial institutions who handle virtual currency. Most of the potential targets are found by the actors by monitoring their social media activity, particularly on professional networking or employment-related platforms. These actors also are impersonating legitimate employees, looking to gain remote employment at these companies using fake names, identities and profiles. “Given the scale and persistence of this malicious activity, even those well versed in cybersecurity practices can be vulnerable to North Korea's determination to compromise networks connected to cryptocurrency assets,” the PSA reads. (Dark Reading, FBI) 

**Can’t get enough Talos? **

*   Vulnerabilities in Microsoft apps for macOS allow stealing permissions 
*   BlackByte ransomware group targets VMware ESXi bug 
*   Cisco: BlackByte ransomware gang only posting 20% to 30% of successful attacks 
*   Bug Leaves Microsoft Apps for MacOS Open to Silent Takeovers 

**Upcoming events where you can find Talos **

**LABScon** **(Sept. 18 - 21)**  

_Scottsdale, Arizona_ 

**VB2024** **(Oct. 2 - 4)** 

_Dublin, Ireland_ 

**Most prevalent malware files from Talos telemetry over the past week **

**SHA 256:** 0e2263d4f239a5c39960ffa6b6b688faa7fc3075e130fe0d4599d5b95ef20647   
**MD5:** bbcf7a68f4164a9f5f5cb2d9f30d9790   
**Typical Filename:** bbcf7a68f4164a9f5f5cb2d9f30d9790.vir   
**Claimed Product:** N/A   
**Detection Name:** Win.Dropper.Scar::1201 

**SHA 256:** 5e537dee6d7478cba56ebbcc7a695cae2609010a897d766ff578a4260c2ac9cf   
**MD5:** 2cfc15cb15acc1ff2b2da65c790d7551   
**Typical Filename:** rcx4d83.tmp   
**Claimed Product:** N/A     
**Detection Name:** Win.Dropper.Pykspa::tpd 

**SHA 256:** a31f222fc283227f5e7988d1ad9c0aecd66d58bb7b4d8518ae23e110308dbf91    
**MD5:** 7bdbd180c081fa63ca94f9c22c457376   
**Typical Filename:** c0dwjdi6a.dll   
**Claimed Product:** N/A    
**Detection Name:** Trojan.GenericKD.33515991 

**SHA 256**: c67b03c0a91eaefffd2f2c79b5c26a2648b8d3c19a22cadf35453455ff08ead0    
**MD5:** 8c69830a50fb85d8a794fa46643493b2    
**Typical Filename:** AAct.exe    
**Claimed Product:** N/A     
**Detection Name:** PUA.Win.Dropper.Generic::1201 

**SHA 256:** 161937ed1502c491748d055287898dd37af96405aeff48c2500b834f6739e72d   
**MD5:** fd743b55d530e0468805de0e83758fe9   
**Typical Filename:** KMSAuto Net.exe   
**Claimed Product:** KMSAuto Net   
**Detection Name:** W32.File.MalParent

The best and worst ways to get users to improve their account security

Proof of concept exploit demonstrating a remote command injection vulnerability in ASUS RT-AC3200 version 3.0.0.4.382.50010.

ASUS RT-AC3200 3.0.0.4.382.50010 Command Injection

" Hello pervert"  sextortion mails keep adding new features to their email to increase credibility and urge victims to pay

After using passwords obtained from one of the countless breaches as a lure to trick victims into paying, the “Hello pervert” sextortion scammers have recently introduced two new pressure tactics: Name-dropping the infamous Pegasus spyware and adding pictures of your home environment.

They do this to add credibility to the false claims that the scammers have been watching your online behavior and caught you red-handed during activities that you would like to keep private amongst your friends and family.

The email usually starts with “Hello pervert” and then goes on to claim that the target has been watching pornographic content. The scammers often claim to have footage of what you were watching and what you were doing while watching.

To stop the sender from spreading the incriminating footage, the target will have to pay the scammer, or else they will send it to everyone in their email contacts list.

More recently, scammers have started increasing their threats by mentioning a powerful spyware called “Pegasus.” Several versions of these scam emails have included the following text:

> Have you heard of Pegasus? This is a spyware program that installs on computers and smartphones and allows hackers to monitor the activity of device owners. It provides access to your webcam, messengers, emails, call records, etc. It works well on Android, iOS, and Windows.

Though Pegasus is indeed a powerfully invasive spyware tool, the threat of its use, as included in these scam emails, is entirely empty. This is because Pegasus has never been observed outside of a surveillance campaign carried out, specifically, by governments. Time and time again, Pegasus has been used by oppressive government regimes to spy on political dissidents, human rights activists, and watchdog journalists. There is essentially no proof that such a closely-guarded spyware has ended up in the hands of everyday scammers.

But the pressure tactics don’t end with Pegasus, as many of these emails include an old (or active) password that a scam target has used in the past. Here, this isn’t some act of advanced hacking. Instead, it is likely that the scammers bought your password from other cybercriminals that obtained them during one of the countless data breaches that hit company after company every week.

When scammers have access to such data, it may also include your physical address. With that knowledge, scammers have increased their threats by simply adding a photograph of your personal neighborhood by looking it up online. For most places in inhabited areas, you can grab such pictures from Google Maps or similar apps.

A Reddit user demonstrated this by finding that such a scammer used an old PO box address. But it’s true that this adds a convincing argument to the claim that the sender has been spying on you.  

As an extra threat the email may include something like:

> “Or is visiting \[your physical address\] a more convenient way to contact if you don’t take action. Nice location btw.”

Implying that they know where you live and threatening to stop by and create a scene.

**How to recognize “Hello pervert” emails**

Once you know what’s going on it’s easy to recognize these emails. Remember that not all of the below characteristics have to be included in these emails, but all of them are red flags in their own right.

*   They often look as if they came from one of your own email addresses.
*   The scammer accuses you of inappropriate behavior and claims to have footage of that behavior.
*   In the email the scammer claims to have used Pegasus or some Trojan to spy on you through your own computer.
*   The scammer says they know “your password.”
*   You are urged to pay up quickly or the so-called footage will be spread to all your contacts. Often you’re only allowed one day to pay.
*   The actual message often arrives as an image or a pdf attachment. Scammers do this to bypass phishing filters.

**How to react to “Hello pervert” emails**

First and foremost, never reply to emails of this kind. It may tell the sender that someone is reading the emails sent to that address and they will repeatedly try new and other methods to defraud you.

*   If the email included a password, make sure you are not using it any more and if you are, change it as soon as possible.
*   If you are having trouble organizing your password, have a look at a password manager.
*   Don’t let yourself get rushed into action or decisions. Scammers rely on the fact that you will not take the time to think this through and subsequently make mistakes.
*   Do not open unsolicited attachments. Especially when the sender address is suspicious or even your own.
*   For your ease of mind, turn of your webcam or buy a webcam cover so you can cover it when you’re not using the webcam.

If you want to find out what personal data of yours has been exposed online, you can use our free Digital Footprint scan. Fill in the email address you’re curious about (it’s best to submit the one you most frequently use) and we’ll send you a free report.

**We don’t just report on threats – we help safeguard your entire digital identit**y

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Protect your—and your family’s—personal information by using identity protection.

 “Hello pervert” sextortion scam includes new threat of Pegasus—and a picture of your home 

An old but persistent email scam known as "sextortion" has a new personalized touch: The missives, which claim that malware has captured webcam footage of recipients pleasuring themselves, now include a photo of the target's home in a bid to make threats about publishing the videos more frightening and convincing.

An old but persistent email scam known as “**sextortion**” has a new personalized touch: The missives, which claim that malware has captured webcam footage of recipients pleasuring themselves, now include a photo of the target’s home in a bid to make threats about publishing the videos more frightening and convincing.

This week, several readers reported receiving sextortion emails that addressed them by name and included images of their street or front yard that were apparently lifted from an online mapping application such as **Google Maps**.

The message purports to have been sent from a hacker who’s compromised your computer and used your webcam to record a video of you while you were watching porn. The missive threatens to release the video to all of your contacts unless you pay a Bitcoin ransom. In this case, the demand is just shy of $2,000, payable by scanning a QR code embedded in the email.

Following a salutation that includes the recipient’s full name, the start of the message reads, “Is visiting \[recipient’s street address\] a more convenient way to contact if you don’t take action. Nice location btw.” Below that is the photo of the recipient’s street address.

A semi-redacted screenshot of a newish sextortion scam that includes a photo of the target’s front yard.

The message tells people they have 24 hours to pay up, or else their embarrassing videos will be released to all of their contacts, friends and family members.

“Don’t even think about replying to this, it’s pointless,” the message concludes. “I don’t make mistakes, \[recipient’s name\]. If I notice that you’ve shared or discussed this email with someone else, your shitty video will instantly start getting sent to your contacts.”

The remaining sections of the two-page sextortion message (which arrives as a PDF attachment) are fairly formulaic and include thematic elements seen in most previous sextortion waves. Those include claims that the extortionist has installed malware on your computer (in this case the scammer claims the spyware is called “Pegasus,” and that they are watching everything you do on your machine).

Previous innovations in sextortion customization involved sending emails that included at least one password they had previously used at an account online that was tied to their email address.

Sextortion — even semi-automated scams like this one with no actual physical leverage to backstop the extortion demand — is a serious crime that can lead to devastating consequences for victims. Sextortion occurs when someone threatens to distribute your private and sensitive material if you don’t provide them with images of a sexual nature, sexual favors, or money.

According to the FBI, here are some things you can do to avoid becoming a victim:

\-Never send compromising images of yourself to anyone, no matter who they are — or who they say they are.  
\-Don’t open attachments from people you don’t know, and be wary of opening attachments even from those you do know.  
\-Turn off \[and/or cover\] any web cameras when you are not using them.

The FBI says in many sextortion cases, the perpetrator is an adult pretending to be a teenager, and you are just one of the many victims being targeted by the same person. If you believe you’re a victim of sextortion, or know someone else who is, the FBI wants to hear from you: Contact your local FBI office (or toll-free at 1-800-CALL-FBI).

Sextortion Scams Now Include Photos of Your Home

Mobile users in Brazil are the target of a new malware campaign that delivers a new Android banking trojan named Rocinante.

"This malware family is capable of performing keylogging using the Accessibility Service, and is also able to steal PII from its victims using phishing screens posing as different banks," Dutch security company ThreatFabric said.

"Finally, it can use all this exfiltrated

Mobile users in Brazil are the target of a new malware campaign that delivers a new Android banking trojan named Rocinante.

"This malware family is capable of performing keylogging using the Accessibility Service, and is also able to steal PII from its victims using phishing screens posing as different banks," Dutch security company ThreatFabric said.

"Finally, it can use all this exfiltrated information to perform device takeover (DTO) of the device, by leveraging the accessibility service privileges to achieve full remote access on the infected device."

Some of the prominent targets of the malware include financial institutions such as Itaú Shop, Santander, with the phony apps masquerading as Bradesco Prime and Correios Celular, among others -

*   Livelo Pontos (com.resgatelivelo.cash)
*   Correios Recarga (com.correiosrecarga.android)
*   Bratesco Prine (com.resgatelivelo.cash)
*   Módulo de Segurança (com.viberotion1414.app)

Source code analysis of the malware has revealed that Rocinante is being internally called by the operators as Pegasus (or PegasusSpy). It's worth noting that the name Pegasus has no connections to a cross-platform spyware developed by commercial surveillance vendor NSO Group.

That said, Pegasus is assessed to be the work of a threat actor dubbed DukeEugene, who is also known for similar malware strains such as ERMAC, BlackRock, Hook, and Loot, per a recent analysis by Silent Push.

ThreatFabric said it identified parts of the Rocinante malware that are directly influenced by early iterations of ERMAC, although it's believed that the leak of ERMAC's source code in 2023 may have played a role.

"This is the first case in which an original malware family took the code from the leak and implemented just some part of it in their code," it pointed out. "It is also possible that these two versions are separate forks of the same initial project."

Rocinante is mainly distributed via phishing sites that aim to trick unsuspecting users into installing the counterfeit dropper apps that, once installed, requests for accessibility service privileges to record all activities on the infected device, intercept SMS messages, and serve phishing login pages.

It also establishes contact with a command-and-control (C2) server to await further instructions – simulating touch and swipe events – to be executed remotely. The harvested personal information is exfiltrated to a Telegram bot.

"The bot extracts the useful PII obtained using the bogus login pages posing as the target banks. It then publishes this information, formatted, into a chat that criminals have access to," ThreatFabric noted.

"The information slightly changes based on which fake login page was used to obtain it, and includes device information such as model and telephone number, CPF number, password, or account number."

The development comes as Symantec highlighted another banking trojan malware campaign that exploits the secureserver\[.\]net domain to target Spanish and Portuguese-speaking regions.

"The multistage attack begins with malicious URLs leading to an archive containing an obfuscated .hta file," the Broadcom-owned company said.

"This file leads to a JavaScript payload that performs multiple AntiVM and AntiAV checks before downloading the final AutoIT payload. This payload is loaded using process injection with the goal of stealing banking information and credentials from the victim's system and exfiltrating them to a C2 server."

It also follows the emergence of a new "extensionware-as-a-service" that's advertised for sale through a new version of the Genesis Market, which was shuttered by law enforcement in early 2023, and designed to steal sensitive information from users in the Latin American (LATAM) region using malicious web browser extensions propagated on the Chrome Web Store.

The activity, active since mid-2023 and targeting Mexico and other LATAM nations, has been attributed to an e-crime group named Cybercartel, which offers these types of services to other cybercriminal crews. The extensions are no longer available for download.

"The malicious Google Chrome extension disguises itself as a legitimate application, tricking users into installing it from compromised websites or phishing campaigns," security researchers Ramses Vazquez of Karla Gomez of the Metabase Q Ocelot Threat Intelligence Team said.

"Once the extension is installed, it injects JavaScript code into the web pages that the user visits. This code can intercept and manipulate the content of the pages, as well as capture sensitive data such as login credentials, credit card information, and other user input, depending on the specific campaign and the type of information being targeted."

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Rocinante Trojan Poses as Banking Apps to Steal Sensitive Data from Brazilian Android Users

A years-old high-severity flaw impacting AVTECH IP cameras has been weaponized by malicious actors as a zero-day to rope them into a botnet.
CVE-2024-7029 (CVSS score: 8.7), the vulnerability in question, is a "command injection vulnerability found in the brightness function of AVTECH closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras that allows for remote code execution (RCE)," Akamai researchers Kyle

IoT Security / Vulnerability

A years-old high-severity flaw impacting AVTECH IP cameras has been weaponized by malicious actors as a zero-day to rope them into a botnet.

CVE-2024-7029 (CVSS score: 8.7), the vulnerability in question, is a "command injection vulnerability found in the brightness function of AVTECH closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras that allows for remote code execution (RCE)," Akamai researchers Kyle Lefton, Larry Cashdollar, and Aline Eliovich said.

Details of the security shortcoming were first made public earlier this month by the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), highlighting its low attack complexity and the ability to exploit it remotely.

"Successful exploitation of this vulnerability could allow an attacker to inject and execute commands as the owner of the running process," the agency noted in an alert published August 1, 2024.

It's worth noting that the issue remains unpatched. It impacts AVM1203 camera devices using firmware versions up to and including FullImg-1023-1007-1011-1009. The devices, although discontinued, are still used in commercial facilities, financial services, healthcare and public health, transportation systems sectors, per CISA.

Akamai said the attack campaign has been underway since March 2024, although the vulnerability has had a public proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit as far back as February 2019. However, a CVE identifier wasn't issued until this month.

"Malicious actors who operate these botnets have been using new or under-the-radar vulnerabilities to proliferate malware," the web infrastructure company said. "There are many vulnerabilities with public exploits or available PoCs that lack formal CVE assignment, and, in some cases, the devices remain unpatched."

The attack chains are fairly straightforward in that they leverage the AVTECH IP camera, alongside other known vulnerabilities (CVE-2014-8361 and CVE-2017-17215), to spread a Mirai botnet variant on target systems.

"In this instance, the botnet is likely using the Corona Mirai variant, which has been referenced by other vendors as early as 2020 in relation to the COVID-19 virus," the researchers said. "Upon execution, the malware connects to a large number of hosts through Telnet on ports 23, 2323, and 37215. It also prints the string 'Corona' to the console on an infected host."

The development comes weeks after cybersecurity firms Sekoia and Team Cymru detailed a "mysterious" botnet named 7777 (or Quad7) that has leveraged compromised TP-Link and ASUS routers to stage password-spraying attacks against Microsoft 365 accounts. As many as 12,783 active bots have been identified as of August 5, 2024.

"This botnet is known in open source for deploying SOCKS5 proxies on compromised devices to relay extremely slow 'brute-force' attacks against Microsoft 365 accounts of many entities around the world," Sekoia researchers said, noting that a majority of the infected routers are located in Bulgaria, Russia, the U.S., and Ukraine.

While the botnet gets its name from the fact it opens TCP port 7777 on compromised devices, a follow-up investigation from Team Cymru has since revealed a possible expansion to include a second set of bots that are composed mainly of ASUS routers and characterized by the open port 63256.

"The Quad7 botnet continues to pose a significant threat, demonstrating both resilience and adaptability, even if its potential is currently unknown or unreached," Team Cymru said. "The linkage between the 7777 and 63256 botnets, while maintaining what appears to be a distinct operational silo, further underscores the evolving tactics of the threat operators behind Quad7."

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Unpatched AVTECH IP Camera Flaw Exploited by Hackers for Botnet Attacks

Mobile users in the Czech Republic are the target of a novel phishing campaign that leverages a Progressive Web Application (PWA) in an attempt to steal their banking account credentials.
The attacks have targeted the Czech-based Československá obchodní banka (CSOB), as well as the Hungarian OTP Bank and the Georgian TBC Bank, according to Slovak cybersecurity company ESET.
"The phishing

Mobile Security / Banking Fraud

Mobile users in the Czech Republic are the target of a novel phishing campaign that leverages a Progressive Web Application (PWA) in an attempt to steal their banking account credentials.

The attacks have targeted the Czech-based Československá obchodní banka (CSOB), as well as the Hungarian OTP Bank and the Georgian TBC Bank, according to Slovak cybersecurity company ESET.

"The phishing websites targeting iOS instruct victims to add a Progressive Web Application (PWA) to their home-screens, while on Android the PWA is installed after confirming custom pop-ups in the browser," security researcher Jakub Osmani said.

"At this point, on both operating systems, these phishing apps are largely indistinguishable from the real banking apps that they mimic."

What's notable about this tactic is that users are deceived into installing a PWA, or even WebAPKs in some cases on Android, from a third-party site without having to specifically allow side loading.

An analysis of the command-and-control (C2) servers used and the backend infrastructure reveals that two different threat actors are behind the campaigns.

These websites are distributed via automated voice calls, SMS messages, and social media malvertising via Facebook and Instagram. The voice calls warn users about an out-of-date banking app and ask them to select a numerical option, following which the phishing URL is sent.

Users who end up clicking on the link are displayed a lookalike page that mimics the Google Play Store listing for the targeted banking app, or a copycat site for the application, ultimately leading to the "installation" of the PWA or WebAPK app under the guise of an app update.

"This crucial installation step bypasses traditional browser warnings of 'installing unknown apps': this is the default behavior of Chrome's WebAPK technology, which is abused by the attackers," Osmani explained. "Furthermore, installing a WebAPK does not produce any of the 'installation from an untrusted source' warnings."

For those who are on Apple iOS devices, instructions are provided to add the bogus PWA app to the Home Screen. The end goal of the campaign is to capture the banking credentials entered on the app and exfiltrate them to an attacker-controlled C2 server or a Telegram group chat.

ESET said it recorded the first phishing-via-PWA instance in early November 2023, with subsequent waves detected in March and May 2024.

The disclosure comes as cybersecurity researchers have uncovered a new variant of the Gigabud Android trojan that's spread via phishing websites mimicking the Google Play Store or sites impersonating various banks or governmental entities.

"The malware has various capabilities such as the collection of data about the infected device, exfiltration of banking credentials, collection of screen recordings, etc.," Broadcom-owned Symantec said.

It also follows Silent Push's discovery of 24 different control panels for a variety of Android banking trojans such as ERMAC, BlackRock, Hook, Loot, and Pegasus (not to be confused with NSO Group's spyware of the same name) that are operated by a threat actor named DukeEugene.

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Czech Mobile Users Targeted in New Banking Credential Theft Scheme

Researchers say "LianSpy" malware has been in use in a covert data gathering operation that's gone undetected for at least three years.

Source: Tero Vesalainen via Shutterstock

An unknown — and likely state-sponsored — threat actor has been using a previously unseen mobile spyware tool to spy on an unknown number of Android smartphone users. This activity has been ongoing for at least three years, according to researchers.

Until now, the campaign has focused mainly on targeted individuals in Russia, according to researchers at Kaspersky, who are tracking the threat as LianSpy. But the tactics that the spyware operators used in deploying the malware could be easily applied in other regions as well, Kaspersky says.

**Post-Exploit Malware**

"LianSpy is a post-exploitation Trojan, meaning that the attackers either exploited vulnerabilities to root Android devices, or modified the firmware by gaining physical access to victims' devices," Kaspersky researcher Dmitry Kalinin wrote in a blog post this week. "It remains unclear which vulnerability the attackers might have exploited in the former scenario."

LianSpy is the latest in a fast-growing list of spyware tools. The list includes widely deployed products such as the NSO Group's Pegasus Software and the Intellexa alliance's Predator. Researchers have discovered these malware instances targeting iPhone and Android smartphone users in recent years. The main purchasers — and users — of these tools are typically governments and intelligence agencies that want to spy on dissidents, political opponents and other persons of interest to them.

In many instances — as was the case with last year's Operation Triangulation iOS spyware campaign — the purveyors of mobile spyware tools have exploited zero-day flaws in Android and iOS to deliver and/or run their malware on target devices. In other instances, including one involving an Android spyware tool dubbed BadBazaar last year and another espionage tool dubbed SandStrike in 2022, threat actors have distributed spyware via fake versions of popular applications on official mobile app stores.

**A Three Year Campaign**

Kaspersky researchers first stumbled on LianSpy in March 2024 and quickly determined that the entity behind it has been using the spyware tool since July 2021. Their analysis reveals that the attackers are likely distributing the malware disguised as systems applications and financial applications.

Unlike some so-called zero-click spyware tools, LianSpy's ability to function depends, to a certain extent, on user interaction.  When launched, the malware first checks to see if it has the required permissions to execute its mission on the victim's device. If it does not have the required permissions, the malware prompts the user to provide them. When LianSpy obtains permission, it registers what is known as an Android Broadcast Receiver to receive and respond to system events such as booting, low battery, and network changes. Kaspersky researchers found LianSpy is using super user binary with a modified name ("mu" instead of "su") to try and gain root access on a victim device. Kaspersky officials say this as an indication that the threat actor delivered the malware after first gaining access to the device another way.

"Upon launch, the malware hides its icon on the home screen and operates in the background using root privileges," Kalinin wrote. "This allows it to bypass Android status bar notifications, which would typically alert the victim that the smartphone is actively using the camera or microphone."

**Data Harvesting and Exfiltration**

LianSpy's primary function is to quietly monitor user activity by intercepting call logs, recording the device screen especially when the user is sending or receiving messages and enumerating all installed apps on the victim device. The threat actor behind the malware has not used private infrastructure for communicating with the malware or storing harvested data. Instead, the attacker has been using public cloud platforms and pastebin services for these functions.

"The threat actor leverages Yandex Disk for both exfiltrating stolen data and storing configuration commands. Victim data is uploaded into a separate Yandex Disk folder," Kaspersky said in a technical writeup on the malware.

One interesting aspect about LianSpy, according to Kaspersky, is how the malware uses its root privileges on a compromised device. Instead of using its superuser status to take complete control of a device, LianSpy uses just enough of the functionality available to carry out its mission in a quiet fashion. "Interestingly, root privileges are used so as to prevent their detection by security solutions," the security vendor says. Kaspersky researchers also found LianSpy to be using both symmetric and asymmetric keys for encrypting the data it exfiltrates, which makes victim identification impossible.

"Beyond standard espionage tactics like harvesting call logs and app lists, it leverages root privileges for covert screen recording and evasion," Kalinin said. "Unlike financially motivated spyware, LianSpy's focus on capturing instant message content indicates a targeted data-gathering operation."

**About the Author**

Jai Vijayan is a seasoned technology reporter with over 20 years of experience in IT trade journalism. He was most recently a Senior Editor at Computerworld, where he covered information security and data privacy issues for the publication. Over the course of his 20-year career at Computerworld, Jai also covered a variety of other technology topics, including big data, Hadoop, Internet of Things, e-voting, and data analytics. Prior to Computerworld, Jai covered technology issues for The Economic Times in Bangalore, India. Jai has a Master's degree in Statistics and lives in Naperville, Ill.

Sophisticated Android Spyware Targets Users in Russia

Plus: More Pegasus spyware controversy, a major BIOS controversy, and more of the week’s top security news.

The fallout from CrowdStrike’s deleterious software update came into full view this week as system administrators and IT staffers scrambled to get digital systems back online and return operations to normal. Elsewhere, the Olympics began this week, and Paris is ready with a controversial new surveillance system that hints at a future of ubiquitous CCTV camera coverage. And researchers revealed new findings this week about the innovative malware Russia used in January to sabotage a heating utility in Lviv and cut heat to 600 Ukrainian buildings at the coldest point in the year.

The US Department of Defense has a $141 billion idea to modernize US intercontinental ballistic missiles and their silos around the country. Meanwhile, the European Commission is allocating €7.3 billion for defense research—from drones and tanks to battleships and space intelligence—over the next seven years. And hackers have established a “ghost” network to quietly spread malware on the Microsoft-owned developer platform GitHub.

In more encouraging news, a former Google engineer has built a prototype search engine, dubbed webXray, meant to allow users to find specific privacy violations online, determine which sites are tracking you, and see where all that data goes.

And there’s more. Each week, we round up the security news we didn’t cover in depth ourselves. Click the headlines to read the full stories, and stay safe out there.

**Israel Reportedly Worked to Keep Info on Pegasus Spyware Out of US Courts**

Leaked files obtained by The Guardian reveal that the Israeli government took extraordinary measures to prevent information about the Pegasus spyware system from falling into the hands of US courts, including seizing files directly from the company to prevent legal disclosure. The spyware is the product of the Israel-based NSO Group. It allows users to infect smartphones, extract messages and photos, record calls, and secretly activate microphones. NSO Group faces legal action in the US brought by WhatsApp, which claims the company engineered Pegasus to target users of its messaging software. According to WhatsApp, more than 1,400 of its users were targeted. NSO, whose software has been allegedly tied to the harassment and murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, has denied any wrongdoing.

**Massive Screwup Leaves BIOS on 200+ Computer Models Vulnerable**

In an effort to thwart BIOS-based threats, prompted in part by the rollout of a powerful rootkit designed by a Chinese researcher in 2007, Secure Boot became a widely adopted tool. Unfortunately, researchers at the security firm Binarly have revealed that Secure Boot is now “completely compromised” on more than 200 device models, affecting major hardware manufacturers like Dell, Acer, and Intel. The incident was the result of a weak cryptographic key used to establish trust between hardware and firmware systems. AMI, the key's owner, says it was meant to be used for testing and should never have made its way into production.

**Musk’s AI system, Grok, Is Now Feeding on All Your Tweets**

Following in Meta's footsteps, Elon Musk's X quietly adjusted its settings this week to give the company's AI system—known as Grok—access to all of its users' posts. There is a way to prevent Grok from ingesting your posts; however, you cannot perform this action from the mobile app. You'll need to access X's **Settings** using a desktop computer; select **Privacy and Safety**, then select **Grok**, and then uncheck the box. Or just head straight here to go directly to the right settings page. (You can also delete your conversation history with Grok, if you have one, by clicking **Delete conversation history**.)

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