Plus: Google’s U-turn on creepy “fingerprint” tracking, the LockBit ransomware gang’s teased comeback, and a potential US ban on the most popular routers in America.

It’s been a busy year in cybersecurity, but it’s not over yet. This week, we revealed how hackers figured out how to “jailbreak” digital license plates—which are legally issued in at least a couple of states and are valid across the US—allowing them to change the license plate number to basically anything. That means someone with this capability can avoid tolls and tickets, or even change their plate to be the same as their enemy.

While the company that makes the plates, Reviver, makes clear that doing this would be both illegal and a terms-of-service violation, we’re guessing that the people who want to hide their car’s credentials so they can speed all over town aren’t too concerned about that.

Staff at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency are preparing for an uncertain future. Several CISA employees told WIRED that they’re afraid the incoming Trump administration will scrap key programs that they say are keeping Americans safe from cyberattacks and other threats—or that the agency itself could be dismantled.

In recent years, financial scams that involve bilking people out of their cryptocurrency holdings have come to be known by an eye-catching, catch-all name: “pig butchering.” But it’s time for a rebrand, according to officials at Interpol. The term, which is a translation from Chinese and refers to the slow process of fattening up a pig before slaughtering it, was likely created by the scammers themselves. As such, its use could further degrade victims of these scams or shame them into not reporting a crime.

Doing crimes in public is, apparently, all the rage. We took a deep dive into the world of drug dealers who are advertising their goods on open web platforms like Instagram, X, and Snapchat. The practice isn’t new, but authorities in Europe say it’s growing more popular.

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

**FAA Bans Drones Over Parts of NJ and NY but “Has Not Identified Anything Anomalous”**

The US Federal Aviation Administration said on Thursday that it was temporarily banning drone flights over dozens of critical infrastructure and utility sites in New Jersey and New York “at the request of federal security partners.” The restrictions are set to last 30 days. The announcement comes as panic over reported mysterious drone sightings in the two states has surged in recent weeks. The FAA said in a joint statement with the US Department of Homeland Security, Department of Defense, and FBI on Wednesday that the US government has not found evidence of malicious or unexplained aircraft.

"Having closely examined the technical data and tips from concerned citizens, we assess that the sightings to date include a combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones, and law enforcement drones, as well as manned fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and stars mistakenly reported as drones,” the agencies wrote. "We have not identified anything anomalous and do not assess the activity to date to present a national security or public safety risk over the civilian airspace in New Jersey or other states in the northeast.”

The agencies said that the FBI has received more than 5,000 tips about reported drone sightings in recent weeks that have generated about 100 leads investigated by local, state, and federal officials. None have proved to be problematic or concerning. The mass hysteria is itself creating dangerous conditions, though. The FAA warned on Wednesday that there has been a significant uptick in people pointing lasers at aircraft, which is illegal because it can be dangerous and distracting for pilots.

**Google U-Turn Allows Creepy “Fingerprint” Tracking Next Year**

Back in 2019, Google made its position on the online tracking method called fingerprinting pretty clear. “Unlike cookies, users cannot clear their fingerprint, and therefore cannot control how their information is collected,” the company said in a blog post. “We think this subverts user choice and is wrong.”

That viewpoint appears to have changed. This week, Google announced that, starting in February 2025, advertisers would be allowed to use fingerprinting. The method is largely hidden and allows online activity to be tracked by building up a profile using characteristics from your device—for instance, your phone type, language settings, timezone, can be combined with other information unique to your setup and identify you.

Google indicated the change in new advertising policies, which will go into force next year. The current version of the policy says fingerprinting is not allowed, while that reference has been scrubbed from the new version. The change drew instant criticism, with the UK’s data regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), saying that “fingerprinting is not a fair means of tracking users online” and it called the U-turn “irresponsible.” The ICO said it is talking to Google about the shift.

**LockBit Teases Potential Comeback as Alleged Developer Faces US Extradition**

Early this year, the notorious Lockbit ransomware group was thoroughly dismantled by a law enforcement operation, called Operation Cronos. The group’s website was taken over, details of its members and their cyberattacks extracted, decryption tools released, and its alleged Russian mastermind identified.

Now, the US government is attempting to extradite Rostislav Panev, an Israeli citizen who it suggested worked as a LockBit developer between 2019 and 2024. According to Ynet news, Panev was arrested in August and it is alleged that he received more than $230,000 in Bitcoin and developed ransomware tools from the gang. According to a complaint unsealed by US officials, Panev said he was regularly paid $10,000 per month for software development. Panev’s lawyers deny the claims.

At the same time, the organizers of the LockBit ransomware claim that they have created a new “4.0” version of their tools and will be “launching” them in February. A post on LockBit’s reincarnated dark-web sites urged potential hackers to sign up. As with many cybercrime groups, LockBit has lied about its activities in the past, and following the humiliation of its disruption, many other cybercriminals may not trust its tattered brand.

**One of America’s Most Popular Router Manufacturers May Be Banned**

Chinese technology company and router maker TP-Link could be banned in the US, a report from The Wall Street Journal this week claimed. Officials at the Defense, Commerce, and Justice departments have launched investigations into the company over potential cybersecurity and national security concerns around its routers. The Commerce Department has reportedly subpoenaed TP-Link, which has more than 60 percent of the US retail market for routers. A ban could reportedly happen next year.

While TP-Link is a Chinese company, its products are sold in the US by a separate California-based business. In October, Microsoft said that TP-Link routers “make up most” of a network of compromised devices that it has detected being used in Chinese hacking campaigns. The news of the potential ban follows the previous bans of Huawei and ZTE equipment and comes as TikTok will challenge its ban before the US Supreme Court in early January.

Mystery Drone Sightings Lead to FAA Ban Despite No Detected Threats

During holidays and slow weeks, teams thin out and attackers move in. Here are strategies to bridge gaps, stay vigilant, and keep systems secure during those lulls.

Source: Anastasia Nelen via Unsplash

Experienced security leaders know that attackers are patient. 

Attackers can infiltrate corporate chat systems like Slack or Microsoft Teams and just ... watch. For months, they monitor conversations, learn who the experienced staff are, and take notes on upcoming vacation plans and each team member's communication style. Then when the company shifts to a skeleton crew — perhaps during a major holiday or summer break — they strike.

For one organization, this silent reconnaissance had devastating results, says Ed Skoudis, president of the SANS Institute and founder of Counter Hack. An attacker posed as a trusted colleague in a chat channel and tricked a junior employee into making critical configuration changes while many team members were on vacation. The employee, isolated and eager to help, had no reason to doubt someone who was inside the company's trusted environment. The attacker's patience, timing, and social engineering created a perfect storm — one that underscores the need for verification, vigilance, and better operational safeguards during periods of reduced staffing.

Whether it is the slow week between Christmas and New Year's Day in Western countries, the European summer break in August, or other periods during the year when large numbers of employees go on vacation, organizations with a global footprint must maintain cybersecurity continuity during regional slowdowns. Holidays like Lunar New Year in Asia and the Eid feast days in the Middle East often mean fewer workers overseeing critical operations. When part of the workforce scales down, attackers ramp up.

"This is a very hard problem," says Skoudis, noting that fewer people at the helm leaves organizations vulnerable to attack. Security leaders have the challenge of protecting their environments when half the security team is offline.

**Why Cybercriminals Like Holidays**

With remote workforces, companies have fewer touchpoints with employees. Add holidays to the mix, and security teams face a slew of potential risks during these times.

"Attackers go on crime sprees during the holidays," Skoudis says. "They know organizations are downscaling operations. Combine that with staff who may be junior, unfamiliar with procedures, or isolated, and you have an ideal time for attackers to strike."

Beyond direct threats, these slow periods also exacerbate operational gaps. Patching schedules, configuration monitoring, and incident response times can lag.

It's not just defense, says Chris Niggel, a regional CSO at Okta. It's about making sure operations continue to run smoothly when teams are short-staffed.

"The biggest challenge is making sure that your teams can maintain the service-level agreements and are able to react to threats quickly, even when the teams are smaller," Niggel says.

For example, the critical vulnerability in Log4j was discovered toward the end of December 2021, a time when many organizations were operating with minimal staff. Addressing the flaw required immediate and prompt action, and many businesses struggled to respond quickly enough. Attackers, well aware of the delays in response, seized the window of opportunity to exploit unpatched systems.

"Teams were already thin, but still had to react," Niggel says. "That's where having solid communication plans and fallback strategies is essential."

Niggel also notes that organizations that fared better during Log4j had prepared for such scenarios by implementing automated monitoring tools, preemptive patching plans, and clear escalation paths for when key personnel were unavailable. These measures ensured that vulnerabilities could be prioritized and addressed, even with a reduced workforce.

**Preparation Is Key to Bridging the Gaps**

By identifying risks, training employees, leveraging technology, and strategically distributing workloads, companies can create a safety net that protects both systems and operations. The key is not waiting until the last minute; preparations must be in place before staff members sign off.

Organizations can mitigate holiday risks with proactive strategies:

*   Create a plan in advance. Identify staffing levels and clearly outline escalation paths. "It's like Tetris blocks," Skoudis says. "You need to fill the hours, define decision-makers, and avoid leaving critical choices to the most junior staff."
    
*   Always verify. Train employees to verify requests for urgent actions, particularly during downtime. Skoudis recommends simple measures: callback phone numbers, video chats to confirm identity, and using photos in a corporate directory. Never trust a message at face value, he says. "You're looking to get more measures of verification that this person is who they say they are," he says.
    
*   Deploy technology and automation. Automate alerts and verifications to reduce human error. Niggel says Okta's method of notifying employees about unusual log-ins includes automation that allows security to focus on important signals. "If an employee logs in from a unique location, they'll get a message in Slack," he says. "If an employee is logging in from grandma's house, they can click yes to verify."
    
*   Freeze changes for critical systems. Code and configuration freezes during slow periods reduce operational risks. "A freeze requires extra effort to make changes," Skoudis says. "It prevents attackers and limits the chance of accidental mistakes."
    
*   Adopt a "follow-the-sun" model. Multinational organizations can distribute workloads across time zones. Mark Lance, head of DFIR at GuidePoint Security, suggests using teams in regions where holidays are not being observed. "It's about balance," he says. "When one region steps back, another steps up."
    

**Culture, Collaboration, and a Healthy Dose of Paranoia**

The human element is also critical to any security plan — even when fewer employees are on the clock. Lance says fostering collaboration and reducing isolation during skeleton crew periods is key to defense.

"Better decisions happen when you're not alone," Lance says.

Having escalation paths and ensuring junior employees know where to turn when something feels off can make all the difference. Niggel agrees, emphasizing the importance of properly training staff on how to handle these types of situations.

"Policies exist for a reason," he says. "Employees need to know they can fall back on established processes and ask for help."

Vigilance must remain high, no matter the season. Attackers don't take breaks — and neither should enterprise defenses. While companies can't always predict when an attack might occur, preparedness, verification, and smart staffing strategies help bridge security gaps when part of the team is off. As holiday seasons and global events come and go, staying one step ahead requires a mix of technology, planning, and teamwork.

"Always be suspicious," Skoudis says. "If something feels wrong, verify it. You might stop a disaster."

**About the Author**

Contributing Writer, Dark Reading

Joan Goodchild is a veteran journalist, editor, and writer who has been covering security for more than a decade. She has written for several publications and previously served as editor-in-chief for CSO Online.

Managing Threats When Most of the Security Team Is Out of the Office

Criminals are luring victims looking to download software and tricking them into running a malicious command.

More and more, threat actors are leveraging the browser to deliver malware in ways that can evade detection from antivirus programs. Social engineering is a core part of these schemes and the tricks we see are sometimes very clever.

Case in point, there has been an increase in attacks that involve copying a malicious command into the clipboard, only to be later pasted and executed by the victims themselves. Who would have though that copy/paste could be so dangerous?

The new campaign we observed uses a a combination of malicious ads and decoy pages for software brands, followed by a fake Cloudflare notification that instructs users to manually run a few key combinations. Unbeknownst to them, they are actually executing PowerShell code that retrieves and installs malware.

**The discovery**

Our investigation into this campaign started from a suspicious ad for ‘notepad’ while performing a Google search. Such search queries have been a hot spot for criminals who want to lure victims that are looking to download programs onto their computer.

Based on previous evidence, criminals are tricking victims into visiting a lookalike site with the goal of downloading malware. In this case, the first part was true, but what unfolded next was new to us.

When we clicked the Download button, we were redirected to a new page that appeared to be Cloudflare asking us to “_verify you are human by completing the action below_“. This type of message is more and more common, as site owners try to prevent bots and other unwanted traffic.

But rather than having to solve a CAPTCHA, we saw another unexpected message: _“Your browser does not support correct offline display of this document. Please follow the instructions below using the “Fix it” button_“.

**Powerful technique**

This technique is actually not new in itself, and similar variants have been seen both via email spam and compromised websites before. It is sometimes referred to as ClearFake or ClickFix, and requires users to perform a manual action to execute a malicious PowerShell command.

Clicking on the ‘Fix It’ button copies that command into memory (the machine’s clipboard). Of course the user has no idea what it is, and may follow the instructions that ask to press the Windows and ‘R’ key to open the Run command dialog. CTRL+V pastes that command and Enter executes it.

Once the code runs, it will download a file from a remote domain (_topsportracing\[.\]com_) within the script. We tested that payload in a sandbox and observed immediate fingerprinting:

C:\\Users\\Admin\\AppData\\Local\\Temp\\10.exe  
    C:\\Windows\\SYSTEM32\\systeminfo.exe  
        C:\\Windows\\system32\\cmd.exe  
            C:\\Windows\\system32\\cmd.exe /c "wmic computersystem get manufacturer"

The information is then sent back to a command and control server (_peter-secrets-diana-yukon\[.\]trycloudflare\[.\]com_) abusing Cloudflare tunnels:

The use of Cloudflare tunnels by criminals was previously reported by Proofpoint to deliver RATs. We weren’t able to observe a final payload but it is likely of a similar kind, perhaps an infostealer.

**Campaign targets several brands**

This was not an isolated campaign for Notepad, as we soon found additional sites with a similar lure. There was a Microsoft Teams landing page which used exactly the same trick, followed by others such as FileZilla, UltraViewer, CutePDF and Advanced IP Scanner.

Oddly, we saw a lure for a cruise booking site. We have no idea how that came to be, unless the criminals agree that everyone needs a vacation sometimes.

**Overlap with other campaigns**

As mentioned previously, this type of social engineering attack is getting more and more popular. Researchers are tracking several different families under different names such as the original SocGholish.

Interestingly, the same domain (_topsportracing\[.\]com_) we saw in the malicious PowerShell command for Notepad++ was also used recently in another campaign known as #KongTuke:

As these schemes are being increasingly used by criminals, it is important to be aware of the processes involved. The Windows key and the letter ‘R’ pressed together open the Run dialog box. This is not something that most users will ever need to do, so always think carefully whenever you are instructed to perform this.

Malwarebytes customers are protected against this attack via our web protection engine for both the malicious sites and PowerShell command.

**We don’t just report on threats—we remove them**

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep threats off your devices by downloading Malwarebytes today.

**Indicators of Compromise**

Malicious domains

notepad-plus-plus.bonuscos\[.\]com  
microsoft.team-chaats\[.\]com  
cute-pdf\[.\]com  
ultra-viewer\[.\]com  
globalnetprotect\[.\]com  
sunsetsailcruises\[.\]com  
jam-softwere\[.\]com  
advanceipscaner\[.\]com  
filezila-project\[.\]com  
vape-wholesale-usa\[.\]com

Servers used before Cloudflare proxy

185.106.94\[.\]190  
89.31.143\[.\]90  
94.156.177\[.\]6  
141.8.192\[.\]93

Malware download URLs

hxxp\[://\]topsportracing\[.\]com/wpnot21  
hxxp\[://\]topsportracing\[.\]com/wp-s2  
hxxp\[://\]topsportracing\[.\]com/wp-s3  
hxxp\[://\]topsportracing\[.\]com/wp-25  
hxxp\[://\]chessive\[.\]com/10\[.\]exe  
hxxp\[://\]212\[.\]34\[.\]130\[.\]110/1\[.\]e

Malware C2

peter-secrets-diana-yukon\[.\]trycloudflare\[.\]com

 &#8216;Fix It&#8217; social-engineering scheme impersonates several brands 

**What is the version information for this release?**

Microsoft Edge Version

Date Released

Based on Chromium Version

131.0.2903.112

12/19/2024

131.0.6778.205

CVE-2024-12695: Chromium: CVE-2024-12695 Out of bounds write in V8

CVE-2024-12694: Chromium: CVE-2024-12694 Use after free in Compositing

CVE-2024-12693: Chromium: CVE-2024-12693 Out of bounds memory access in V8

CVE-2024-12692: Chromium: CVE-2024-12692 Type Confusion in V8

In the last newsletter of the year, Thorsten recalls his tech-savvy gift to his family and how we can all incorporate cybersecurity protections this holiday season.

Thursday, December 19, 2024 14:02

Welcome to the final Threat Source newsletter of 2024. 

Watching "Die Hard" during the Christmas season has become a widely recognized tradition for many, despite ongoing debates about its classification as a Christmas movie. I know it isn't everyone's cup of tea. Whether you like the movie or not, let me share a story about what didn't quite go as planned in my family last year.  

When  some celebrities had their social media accounts compromised, I saw it as the perfect opportunity to introduce my family to the world of multi-factor authentication (MFA) for their online accounts. Our home IT setup is diverse— With Linux, Macs, Windows; Androids, iOS, we needed something cross-platform. Also, we needed a user-friendly solution as we have both standard users and IT experts (never underestimate your users). From my professional standpoint, I decided to go “all in” with hardware tokens - they work cross platform and "survive" one or the other OS installs from scratch. Providing two for each person was mandatory in case one got lost, which had happened to me already. So it wasn't a cheap exercise. In my defense, this was before the side-channel attack EUCLEAK was discovered, which has since expanded to affect more products as noted in the first release. 

In the spirit of John McClane : “Now I know what a TV dinner feels like.” 

The kids found the gift "boring" and almost a year later, the adoption rate is still only 30%. Fortunately, my wife had the foresight to prepare real presents for the family, saving Christmas Eve from being a "bad guys win" scenario. (Only John Thor can drive somebody that crazy.) 

I share this anecdote not to discourage you, but to help you avoid making the same mistake and risking your celebrations. Unless everyone gathered around the Christmas tree is an infosec professional, it might not be the time to go "Yippee-ki-yay Mr Falcon" with tech gifts.  

However, spending time with loved ones is a great opportunity to discuss the trends and importance of cybersecurity. We've been highlighting compromised credentials for a long time, as seen in our previous posts \[here\], \[here\], \[here\] and \[here\]. For the fourth consecutive time in over a year, the most observed means of gaining initial access was the use of valid accounts, making it clear identity-based attacks are becoming more prevalent, and wont be gone anytime soon. 

 Advocate for the use of a password managers—there are paid versions with family plans on one end, and excellent open-source alternatives on the other. Avoid storing credentials in browsers, as they can be extracted by info-stealers. Consider using passkeys where possible. According to the fido alliance, more than 20% of the world's top 100 websites support passkeys already. If passkeys are not yet enabled for one of your services? Any MFA is better than none. Even using "just" TOTP in a software container is a significant improvement over just a password. 

But it's not just about enabling MFA. As Martin wrote last week, we need to close the gap by communicating and understanding the the threat landscape. When it comes to stolen credentials, share resources like https://haveibeenpwned.com/ or https://sec.hpi.de/ilc/?lang=en with your loved ones so they can check if their email has been part of a breach.   

If you decide not to bother your friends & famliy (though I strongly believe Mbappe, Sweeny and Odenkirk would have preferred a more secure account) with Account/Password Hygiene, there are some more work related recommendations in Hazel’s “How are attackers trying to bypass MFA” 

Whichever is your idea of Christmas, then, like Argyle said, "I gotta be here for New Year's!"  

We look forward to seeing you in 2025!   

**The one big thing**

At the time of writing, our Vulnerability Research Team Disclosed 207 Vulnerabilities, and had another 93 reported to the respective Vendor in 2024.  Di you know  Talos has a team which investigates software and operating system vulnerabilities in order to discover them before malicious threat actors do? Every day, they try to find vulnerabilities that have not yet been discovered, and then work to provide a fix for those before a zero-day threat could ever be executed. 

**Why do I care? **

We see threat actors exploiting known vulnerabilities constantly. Sometimes those CVEs are Years old.  

**So now what? **

Maybe you want to check for some CVEs or conduct a network security assessments.   
You can our team’s reports,roundups,spotlights and deep dives on our blog. 

**Top security headlines of the week **

 Blackhat Europe 2024 took place Dec 9-12 in London, UK. Loaded with a lot of interesting Sessions, my favorites are “Vulnerabilities in the eSIM download protocol” and “Over the Air: Compromise of Modern Volkswagen Group Vehicles” both showing how far an attack surface can possibly extend.  

Germany's Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) says it blocked communication between appr. 30.000 Android IoT Devices which were sold with BadBox malware preinstalled, and their command and control (C2) infrastructure by sinkholing DNS queries (Bleeping Computer)  

Law enforcement agencies worldwide disrupted a holiday tradition for cybercriminals: launching Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks. Booter and stresser websites were taken down, administrators were arrested and over 300 users were identified for planned operational activities. (Europool) 

The Willow chip is not capable of breaking modern cryptography,” Google’s director of quantum tells The Verge.

**Can’t get enough Talos? **

*   The evolution and abuse of proxy networks 
*   Microsoft Patch Tuesday for December 2024 contains four critical vulnerabilities 

**Upcoming events where you can find Talos **

  Cisco Live EMEA (February 9-14, 2025) 

Amsterdam, Netherlands 

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

**SHA256:**873ee789a177e59e7f82d3030896b1efdebe468c2dfa02e41ef94978aadf006f   
**MD5:** d86808f6e519b5ce79b83b99dfb9294d    
**VirusTotal:**  
https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/873ee789a177e59e7f82d3030896b1efdebe468c2dfa02e41ef94978aadf006f   
**Typical Filename:** n/a   
**Claimed Product:** n/a    
**Detection Name:** Win32.Trojan-Stealer.Petef.FPSKK8  

**SHA256:**9f1f11a708d393e0a4109ae189bc64f1f3e312653dcf317a2bd406f18ffcc507   
**MD5:** 2915b3f8b703eb744fc54c81f4a9c67f    
**VirusTotal:**  
https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/9f1f11a708d393e0a4109ae189bc64f1f3e312653dcf317a2bd406f18ffcc507    
**Typical Filename:** VID001.exe    
**Claimed Product:** n/a    
**Detection Name:** Win.Worm.Bitmin-9847045-0 

 **SHA 256:**  
7b3ec2365a64d9a9b2452c22e82e6d6ce2bb6dbc06c6720951c9570a5cd46fe5    
**MD5:** ff1b6bb151cf9f671c929a4cbdb64d86    
**VirusTotal:** https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/7b3ec2365a64d9a9b2452c22e82e6d6ce2bb6dbc06c6720951c9570a5cd46fe5   
**Typical Filename:** endpoint.query    
**Claimed Product:** Endpoint-Collector    
**Detection Name:** W32.File.MalParent  

 **SHA256:**47ecaab5cd6b26fe18d9759a9392bce81ba379817c53a3a468fe9060a076f8ca   
**MD5:** 71fea034b422e4a17ebb06022532fdde   
**VirusTotal:** https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/47ecaab5cd6b26fe18d9759a9392bce81ba379817c53a3a468fe9060a076f8ca   
**Typical Filename:** VID001.exe   
**Claimed Product:** n/a    
**Detection Name:** Coinminer:MBT.26mw.in14.Talos 

 **SHA 256:** a31f222fc283227f5e7988d1ad9c0aecd66d58bb7b4d8518ae23e110308dbf91    
**MD5:**  
7bdbd180c081fa63ca94f9c22c457376    
**VirusTotal:** https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/a31f222fc283227f5e7988d1ad9c0aecd66d58bb7b4d8518ae23e110308dbf91   
**Typical Filename:** IMG001.exe    
**Claimed Product:** N/A     
**Detection Name:** Trojan/Win32.CoinMiner.R174018

Welcome to the party, pal!

Non-human identities authenticate machine-to-machine communication. The big challenge now is to secure their elements and processes — before attackers can intercept.

Source: Poptika via Shutterstock

When industrial automation giant Schneider Electric revealed last month that ransomware gang Hellcat stole 40GB of sensitive data, the attackers acknowledged using exposed credentials to breach Schneider's Jira server. 

Once inside the company's project management system, attackers used the miniOrange REST API, a widely used authentication plug-in, to exfiltrate 400,000 rows of data, including 75,000 email addresses, employee names, and customer records. 

What this and dozens of other incidents have in common is that the attackers exploited vulnerabilities in non-human identities (NHIs). Unlike human identities used for authentication by individuals via identity and access management (IAM) credentials, NHIs, also known as machine identities or service accounts, are used by applications, services, and Internet of Things (IoT) installations for authenticating machine-to-machine communications. 

Predictably, investors are funding startups with products that govern and mitigate NHI risk, while more established companies are adding such capabilities, either internally or via acquisition. 

Astrix Security, a prominent startup that says it created the term NHI, earlier this month raised $45 million in Series B funding led by Menlo Ventures and artificial intelligence (AI) platform provider Anthropic, bringing its total funding to $85 million since its founding in 2021.

"A year ago, the term NHI did not exist, and now everyone is talking about them," says Astrix co-founder and CEO Alon Jackson.

Astrix describes its platform as a suite of identity security posture management (ISPM) tools, including non-human identity threat detection and response, NHI life cycle management, auto-remediation, and secrets scanning. 

**Where NHIs Are Vulnerable**

Typical NHIs include API keys, bots, OAuth tokens, database credentials, certificates, and secrets. As organizations have accelerated use of cloud-native applications, IoT infrastructure, and, most notably, AI-based automation during the past two years, NHIs have become a more alarming threat.

Unlike IAM and privilege access management (PAM), few organizations centrally manage NHIs, and there's greater likelihood that they have excessive permissions without expiration dates.

"There are numerous issues with NHIs, including unencrypted credentials, having a full inventory of NHI accounts, inactive accounts, and lack of account ownership," explained Omdia senior analyst Don Tait in a November report.  

Many CISOs are just learning the implications of NHIs. A recent Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) survey of over 800 security and IT professionals found that 24% plan to invest in NHI security during the next six months, and 36% will do so within a year.

More than half of those surveyed believe they may have experienced an incident related to NHIs. 

Astrix is not the only company with NHI discovery and remediation tools attracting investors. Among those that raised Series A funding in 2024 include Aembit ($25 million), Entro Security ($18 million), and Oasis Security ($35 million), which recently discovered the MFA bypass flaw Microsoft Azure. 

The most prominent bet on protecting NHIs was placed in May when CyberArk paid $1.54 billion to acquire machine identity management provider Venafi.

"As NHI continues to evolve, so are the notable vendors in this space," says Christopher Steffen, VP of research at Enterprise Management Associates (EMA). 

Meanwhile, AppSec providers are adding NHI protection capabilities to their offerings. GitGuardian, known for detecting and remediating leaked secrets in GitHub and other source code repositories, recently launched GitGuardian NHI Governance. GitGuardian officials describe it as an addition to its existing platform that will provide visibility and control of NHI life cycles and their associated secrets. 

GitGuardian's initial release will integrate with five key secrets management platforms: HashiCorp Vault, CyberArk Conjur, AWS Secrets Manager, Google Cloud Secrets Manager, and Azure Key Vault.

**Role of NHI Security **

Failure to adequately rotate credentials, overprivileged accounts or identities, and insufficient monitoring and logging are among the common causes of incidents involving compromised NHIs, the CSA report indicates.

"To claim their identity, machines authenticate via secrets like API keys, OAuth tokens, database credentials, usernames and passwords, and certificates," noted GitGuardian product manager Soudanya Ain in a blog post. "They've become the number one vector for a successful attack, frequently overlooked."

Besides the Schneider incident, the NHI Management Group counts over 40 breaches tied to compromised non-human identity credentials during the past two years, including:

*   Microsoft's Midnight Blizzard, which enabled the attackers to access and breach a legacy test OAuth application with elevated privileges.
    
*   The Snowflake breach, which compromised its various customers, including Santander Bank and Ticketmaster.
    
*   Last summer's GitHub extortion attacks by threat actors who used malicious OAuth apps to breach trusted third-party integrations.
    
*   A breach by an attacker who stole secrets, including authentication tokens from the popular Hugging Face open source repository of APIs and other resources for developers who build AI models. 
    

Next year, the risk from compromised NHIs is expected to grow, as is their proportion to human identities, as AI automates more business processes. Omdia's Tait noted industry estimates of the current ratio of NHIs to human identities is 50:1.

"That figure is only likely to increase going forward," he wrote. 

"We do expect NHI growth is going to accelerate further," added Maxine Holt, senior director of Omdia's cybersecurity practice, speaking during a December webinar presented by Dark Reading.

Holt warned that ungoverned NHIs will further raise the threat landscape.

"These identities do require management to ensure secure communication between different services and to prevent unauthorized access and facilitate accountability," she said. "Of course, we need the audit trail there as well. We believe that it's really important to recognize non-human identities as a vital link in the cyber threat chain."

According to the CSA survey, 69% said they are concerned about NHIs as a threat vector, while 38% reported that their organizations have low or no visibility to third parties connected by OAuth apps. Only 20% have a formal process for revoking API keys, and even fewer have procedures for rotating them. 

"There's definitely that trend toward understanding NHI security better and addressing them," said John Yeoh, CSA's global VP of research, at a public meeting in September. "We only expect the NHI field to explode and get out further."

**Blending NHIs and Human Identities **

The current crop of NHI platforms is designed for machine identities, not human credentials, managed by IAM and PAM systems from Microsoft, Okta, Ping Identity, JumpCloud, CyberArk, BeyondTrust, and OneLogin.

Astrix's Jackson says its new round of funding will, in part, go toward expanding integration with human identities.

"Our customers are asking for a 360-degree view of the human and the non-human identities," Jackson says. "But we will be keeping our edge on the NHI space. This is not just posture management and not just anomaly detection, but it's creating the connections in a secure manner."

GitGuardian, which deals with application security and platform engineering teams, has a similar ambition of providing links from its secrets vaults to IAM platforms.

"That's the plan," says Pierre Le Clézio, the company's lead product manager. "But not yet. We are starting with the secret managers and that ecosystem, and then we will have the IAM systems."

**Anticipate M&A Activity **

As NHI security continues to evolve, so will the notable providers, EMA's Steffen says.

"It seems very likely that larger technology players are going to jump into this space," he says. "Many already have complementary offerings, like Wiz and Palo Alto Networks, and are jumping into NHI — either through acquisition or developing their own solution."

Steffen also anticipates that identity providers like Ping and Okta will delve into NHI.

"They already have the infrastructure and the means to enhance NHI for most enterprises, as well as they already lead the market in identity solutions."

Omdia's Holt also anticipates M&A activity.

"The evolving threat landscape really does necessitate a shift toward comprehensive products and solutions that take on both human and non-human identities," she said. "But the market is still developing. A lot of the players are startups. We expect to see more of a move towards platform support and more acquisitions during 2025 for managing non-human identities."

**About the Author**

Contributing Writer

Jeffrey Schwartz is a journalist who has covered information security and all forms of business and enterprise IT, including client computing, data center and cloud infrastructure, and application development for more than 30 years. Jeff is a regular contributor to Channel Futures. Previously, he was editor-in-chief of Redmond magazine and contributed to its sister titles Redmond Channel Partner, Application Development Trends, and Virtualization Review. Earlier, he held editorial roles with CommunicationsWeek, InternetWeek, and VARBusiness. Jeff is based in the New York City suburb of Long Island.

Vendors Chase Potential of Non-Human Identity Management

Seemingly innocent "white pages," including an elaborate Star Wars-themed site, are bypassing Google's malvertising filters, showing up high in search results to lure users to second-stage phishing sites.

Source: Bits And Splits via Shtterstock

Threat actors appear to have found yet another innovative use case for artificial intelligence in malicious campaigns: to create decoy ads for fooling malvertising-detection engines on the Google Ads platform.

The scam involves attackers buying Google Search ads and using AI to create ad pages with unique content and absolutely nothing malicious about them. The goal is to use these decoy ads to then lure visitors to phishing sites for stealing credentials and other sensitive data.

With malvertising, threat actors create malicious ads that are rigged to surface high up in search engine results when people search for a particular product or service. The ads often spoof popular and trusted brands and involve webpages and content that are replicas of the originals but serve instead to redirect users to phishing pages or download an attacker's malware of choice on systems of users who interact with the malicious ads.

While many malvertisement campaigns are targeted at consumers, there have been several recently focused on corporate users as well. One example is a campaign that sought to distribute the Lobshot backdoor on corporate systems, and another that phished employees at Lowe's.

**A Steady, Post-Macro Increase in Malvertising**

"We are seeing more and more cases of fake content produced for deception purposes," researchers at Malwarebytes said in a report on the campaign this week. These so called "white pages," as they are being referred to in the criminal underground, serve as legitimate-looking decoys, or front-end webpages that hide malicious content and activities behind them, according to Malwarebytes.

Related:Manufacturers Lose Azure Creds to HubSpot Phishing Attack

"The content is unique and sometimes funny if you are a real human, but unfortunately a computer analyzing the code would likely give it a green check," Malwarebytes security researcher Jerome Segura wrote. White pages, incidentally, are in contrast to "black pages," which are the actual malicious landing pages containing harmful content or malware.

The use of AI to plant decoy content on Google Ads adds a new wrinkle to malvertising scams, which have seen a remarkable surge in volume recently. Malwarebytes has pinned the increase to Microsoft's decision in 2022 to block macros in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files downloaded from the Internet — a top malware vector for threat actors. That decision forced attackers to look for other malware distribution vectors, one of which happens to be malvertising, according to Malwarebytes.

Though Google and operators of other major online ad distribution networks have been battling against the scourge — and have gotten better at quickly identifying and removing malvertising content — bad actors have consistently managed to remain a step ahead. A Malwarebytes study found Amazon to be the most spoofed brand in malvertising campaigns, followed by Rufus, Weebly, NotePad++, and TradingView.

Related:CISA Directs Federal Agencies to Secure Cloud Environments

**Spoofing Brands With AI-Generated Content**

In its report, Malwarebytes provided two examples of AI-generated decoy ads it spotted recently on Google Ads. One of the decoy ads targeted users searching the Internet for the Securitas OneID mobile app, and the other targeted users of the Parsec remote desktop app, which is popular among gamers.

The Securitas OneID scam involved an entirely AI-generated website, complete with AI-generated images of supposed executives of the company.

"When Google tries to validate the ad, they will see this cloaked page with pretty unique content and there is absolutely nothing malicious within it," Segura wrote.

With the Parsec ad, the threat actors used some creative license of their own to generate a heavily Star Wars\-influenced website, replete with references to the parsec astronomical measurement unit. The artwork for the website even included several AI-generated Star Wars-themed posters, which while impressive, would likely have suggested to users that the site had nothing to do with the legitimate Parsec app.

Related:Azure Data Factory Bugs Expose Cloud Infrastructure

"Ironically, it is quite straightforward for a real human to identify much of the cloaked content as just fake fluff. Sometimes, things just don’t add up and are simply comical," Segura wrote. Even so, as a cloaking mechanism for a malvertising campaign," he added, "the website would have passed Google's validation checks.

**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.

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