mrmoor/cti-corpus-raw · Datasets at Hugging Face

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While the service is actively promoted on various clearnet and dark web hacking forums, the operators vet the clients, so some prospective buyers are likely rejected.
According to Resecurity, the payment for the service is arranged individually on Telegram.
Once the deposit is made, the customer gets access to the portal hosted in the onion network (TOR).
Resecurity's test of the platform confirmed that EvilProxy also offers VM, anti-analysis, and anti-bot protection to filter out invalid or unwanted visitors on the phishing sites hosted by the platform.
Anti-VM features on EvilProxy
Anti-analysis features on EvilProxy (Resecurity)
“The bad actors are using multiple techniques and approaches to recognize victims and to protect the phishing-kit code from being detected,” explains Resecurity in the report.
“Like fraud prevention and cyber threat intelligence (CTI) solutions, they aggregate data about known VPN services, Proxies, TOR exit nodes and other hosts which may be used for IP reputation analysis (of potential victims).”
As MFA adoption continues to increase, more threat actors turn to reverse-proxy tools, and the appearance of a platform that automates everything for the crooks isn’t good news for security professionals and network admins.
For now, this problem remains addressable only by implementing client-side TLS fingerprinting to identify and filter out man-in-the-middle requests.
However, the status of this implementation in the industry isn’t in sync with the developments.
Hence, platforms like EvilProxy essentially bridge the skill gap and offer low-tier threat actors a cost-efficient way to steal valuable accounts.
Samsung discloses data breach after July hack
Electronics giant Samsung has confirmed a new data breach today after some of its U.S. systems were hacked to steal customer data.
The company said its systems were compromised in late July 2022.
Samsung later discovered on August 4 that customer personal information was accessed and exfiltrated out of its network.
While the attackers did not steal Social Security or credit card numbers during the breach, they snatched Samsung customers' names, contacts and demographic information, dates of birth, and product registration data.
"Samsung detected the incident and has taken actions to secure the affected systems.
As part of our ongoing investigation, we have engaged a leading outside cybersecurity firm and are coordinating with law enforcement," Samsung said.
"The information affected for each relevant customer may vary.
We are notifying customers to make them aware of this matter," the company added.
Samsung advises impacted individuals to:
Remain cautious of any unsolicited communications that ask for your personal information or refer you to a web page asking for personal information
Avoid clicking on links or downloading attachments from suspicious emails
Review your accounts for suspicious activity
This is the second data breach Samsung confirmed since the start of the year, with the electronics giant saying in March that the data extortion group Lapsus$ breached its network and stole confidential information, including Galaxy devices' source code.
The hackers leaked 190GB of archives containing what they claimed at the time to be documents stolen from Samsung's servers.
Samsung didn't reply to a request for more details regarding the July data breach when BleepingComputer reached out earlier today.
QNAP patches zero-day used in new Deadbolt ransomware attacks
QNAP is warning customers of ongoing DeadBolt ransomware attacks that started on Saturday by exploiting a zero-day vulnerability in Photo Station.
The company has patched the security flaw but attacks continue today.
"QNAP® Systems, Inc. today detected the security threat DEADBOLT leveraging exploitation of Photo Station vulnerability to encrypt QNAP NAS that are directly connected to the Internet," explains the security notice.
The attacks were widespread, with the ID Ransomware service seeing a surge in submissions on Saturday and Sunday.
QNAP releases patches for a zero-day flaw
QNAP released Photo Station security updates 12 hours after DeadBolt began using the zero-day vulnerability in attacks, urging NAS customers to immediately update Photo Station to the newest version.
The following security updates fix the vulnerability:
QTS 5.0.1: Photo Station 6.1.2 and later
QTS 5.0.0/4.5.x: Photo Station 6.0.22 and later
QTS 4.3.6: Photo Station 5.7.18 and later
QTS 4.3.3: Photo Station 5.4.15 and later
QTS 4.2.6: Photo Station 5.2.14 and later
Alternatively, QNAP suggests users replace Photo Station with QuMagie, a safer photo storage management tool for QNAP NAS devices.
“We strongly urge that their QNAP NAS should not be directly connected to the internet.
We recommend users to make use of the myQNAPcloud Link feature provided by QNAP, or enable the VPN service.” - QNAP.
Applying the security updates will prevent the DeadBolt ransomware and other threat actors from exploiting the vulnerability and encrypting devices.
However, NAS devices should never be publicly exposed to the Internet and instead placed behind a firewall.
QNAP customers can find detailed instructions on applying the available updates and setting up myQNAPcloud in the security advisory.
Finally, it is recommended to use strong passwords on all NAS user accounts and take regular snapshots to prevent data loss in the case of attacks.
The DeadBolt ransomware gang has been targeting NAS devices since January 2022, using an alleged zero-day vulnerability on Internet-exposed NAS devices.
The ransomware operation conducted further attacks on QNAP devices in May and June 2022.
Earlier in February, DeadBolt began targeting ASUSTOR NAS devices using a zero-day vulnerability they attempted to sell to the vendor for 7.5 Bitcoin.
In most of these attacks, DeadBolt demanded a payment of just over a thousand USD from impacted users in exchange for a working decryptor.
However, other NAS ransomware groups demand more significant amounts from their victims.
The Checkmate ransomware targeted QNAP NAS products in July, demanding victims pay $15,000.
Microsoft Exchange exploits – step one in ransomware chain
Once attackers gain a foothold on web servers, there are all manner of nasty tricks and malware they can leverage immediately or put into play later – like ransomware.
Since the research blogpost – Exchange servers under siege from at least 10 APT groups – ESET has been busy looking at the attack trends that have emerged post exploitation.
In this piece, we’d like to specifically provide you with a quick update on the CVE-2021-26855 exploit chain affecting Microsoft Exchange, which includes the CVE-2021-26857, CVE-2021-26858, and CVE-2021-27065 vulnerabilities.
ESET currently detects the following mechanisms used by Hafnium, LuckyMouse and other groups to compromise Microsoft Exchange servers:
In light of recent Microsoft Exchange exploits after the vulnerability disclosure and patch release, and combing through our own data, we now wonder how many organizations have already been probed and infiltrated for future attacks, such as by ransomware.
The calculus for attackers is simple: Get a foothold on a Microsoft Exchange server, which gives you very privileged access to a company – possibly admin rights – and then plan your upcoming attack.
To counter these sorts of scenarios, the recommended first step after applying patches is to perform an investigation and search for compromise remnants and malware or malware traces.
Companies sporting endpoint detection and response (EDR) tools will be able to this with measurably better effect.
ESET has pursued mitigation strategies on multiple fronts with researchers and even corporate officers getting in on the act.
ESET Netherlands CTO Donny Maasland has also contributed to the effort, creating a custom set of rules for ESET Enterprise Inspector that can be used to detect CVE-2021-26855 exploitation.
The rules fall into two classes:
A set of rules dealing with network (URL) connections.
These rules detect the actual server-side request forgery (SSRF) exploit that targets Microsoft Exchange’s code and are payload independent
A rule that checks the IIS process when writing .aspx files to disk.
The rules referenced above are configured for ESET Enterprise Inspector, however, it should be possible to adapt them for other EDR platforms.
These are certainly interesting times we live in, when CTOs join researchers and security operations center teams in demonstrating use cases for EDR.
However, the frenzy of malicious activity wrought by Exchange exploits has set a new precedent.
Attack attempts – some of what we can expect
In the graphic above we can see a snapshot of post-exploitation malware, some of which can bring ransomware along with it.
In this scenario, attackers can gain command shell access to the web server powering Microsoft Exchange and use its privileges to deploy ransomware across the company.
Additionally, since attackers have a foothold on key servers, they can directly exploit the server platform to deliver malware that can exfiltrate data, encrypt sensitive information and plant a backdoor for later use, all playing into the ransomware scenario.
If attackers are simply interested in unfettered data theft of competitive secrets, they may not leave a trace, so ransomware may not be their first objective.
But we’ve also seen attackers use ransomware as a smokescreen to divert defenders’ attention and energy elsewhere while the real attack continues.
Another tactic is to lay low, avoid detection for months or years and quietly listen for sensitive information they can exfiltrate later, after they’ve had ample time to get to know your network and its resources.
Less noisy attackers also try to find ways to disable security defenses, allowing them to traverse networks and slurp up resources as they go.
It is also possible to fake a credible ransomware attack by claiming to have infiltrated Exchange servers and demanding a ransom – some companies might just unwittingly pay although they haven’t actually had their data compromised.
Essentially, this is an updated version of the sextortion scam emails that have targeted individuals who were victims of data breaches that included an email address and password.
In all these scenarios, it’s easy to understand the level of concern, and why some recommend disconnecting Exchange servers from the internet altogether until they can be investigated and patched.
The good news is that Microsoft readied and released a patch in a very short timeframe, reducing the potential spread.
But the potential negative effects result from a combination of likelihood and impact – so even though the likelihood might be small, it will still be tough to brace for the impact.
More trouble?
Hidden in plain sight among the exploits, and the wave of ransomware that is already following post exploitation, are other threats like ASP/ReGeorg.B, which is detected by ESET as a Potentially Unsafe Application (PUsA) an otherwise legitimate piece of code that is being misused, with ill intent.
With PUSAs added to the already complex mix of risks and threats laid at our doorsteps, we can be sure of a long road ahead.
Note: Detection of potentially unsafe applications is not enabled by default in ESET software.
For information on enabling detection of PUsAs, see ESET Knowledgebase Articles [KB3204] and [KB6982].
The good news here is that Microsoft responded quickly, sharing information about the attacks as well as patches for affected versions of Microsoft Exchange.
If you are responsible for administering Microsoft Exchange within your organization, your highest priority was testing the patch and deploying it immediately.
This was a situation in which restarting a server in the middle of the workday may have been required and it has the potential to set the tone for 2021 and beyond.
Finally, it would be a good time to check and verify backups in case your organization was affected.
Follow our blog for more on the Exchange server saga and what ESET continues to learn about this precedent-setting moment.
Google launches open-source software bug bounty program
Google will now pay security researchers to find and report bugs in the latest versions of Google-released open-source software (Google OSS).
The company's newly announced Vulnerability Reward Program (VRP) focuses on Google software and repository settings (like GitHub actions, application configurations, and access control rules).
It applies to software available on public repositories of Google-owned GitHub organizations as well as some repositories from other platforms.
Security vulnerabilities in Google OSS third-party dependencies are in scope for this program, with the condition that the bug reports are first sent to the owners of the vulnerable packages, so the issues are addressed upstream before informing Google of the findings.

While the service is actively promoted on various clearnet and dark web hacking forums, the operators vet the clients, so some prospective buyers are likely rejected.

According to Resecurity, the payment for the service is arranged individually on Telegram.

Once the deposit is made, the customer gets access to the portal hosted in the onion network (TOR).

Resecurity's test of the platform confirmed that EvilProxy also offers VM, anti-analysis, and anti-bot protection to filter out invalid or unwanted visitors on the phishing sites hosted by the platform.

Anti-VM features on EvilProxy

Anti-analysis features on EvilProxy (Resecurity)

“The bad actors are using multiple techniques and approaches to recognize victims and to protect the phishing-kit code from being detected,” explains Resecurity in the report.

“Like fraud prevention and cyber threat intelligence (CTI) solutions, they aggregate data about known VPN services, Proxies, TOR exit nodes and other hosts which may be used for IP reputation analysis (of potential victims).”

As MFA adoption continues to increase, more threat actors turn to reverse-proxy tools, and the appearance of a platform that automates everything for the crooks isn’t good news for security professionals and network admins.

For now, this problem remains addressable only by implementing client-side TLS fingerprinting to identify and filter out man-in-the-middle requests.

However, the status of this implementation in the industry isn’t in sync with the developments.

Hence, platforms like EvilProxy essentially bridge the skill gap and offer low-tier threat actors a cost-efficient way to steal valuable accounts.

Samsung discloses data breach after July hack

Electronics giant Samsung has confirmed a new data breach today after some of its U.S. systems were hacked to steal customer data.

The company said its systems were compromised in late July 2022.

Samsung later discovered on August 4 that customer personal information was accessed and exfiltrated out of its network.

While the attackers did not steal Social Security or credit card numbers during the breach, they snatched Samsung customers' names, contacts and demographic information, dates of birth, and product registration data.

"Samsung detected the incident and has taken actions to secure the affected systems.

As part of our ongoing investigation, we have engaged a leading outside cybersecurity firm and are coordinating with law enforcement," Samsung said.

"The information affected for each relevant customer may vary.

We are notifying customers to make them aware of this matter," the company added.

Samsung advises impacted individuals to:

Remain cautious of any unsolicited communications that ask for your personal information or refer you to a web page asking for personal information

Avoid clicking on links or downloading attachments from suspicious emails

Review your accounts for suspicious activity

This is the second data breach Samsung confirmed since the start of the year, with the electronics giant saying in March that the data extortion group Lapsus$ breached its network and stole confidential information, including Galaxy devices' source code.

The hackers leaked 190GB of archives containing what they claimed at the time to be documents stolen from Samsung's servers.

Samsung didn't reply to a request for more details regarding the July data breach when BleepingComputer reached out earlier today.

QNAP patches zero-day used in new Deadbolt ransomware attacks

QNAP is warning customers of ongoing DeadBolt ransomware attacks that started on Saturday by exploiting a zero-day vulnerability in Photo Station.

The company has patched the security flaw but attacks continue today.

"QNAP® Systems, Inc. today detected the security threat DEADBOLT leveraging exploitation of Photo Station vulnerability to encrypt QNAP NAS that are directly connected to the Internet," explains the security notice.

The attacks were widespread, with the ID Ransomware service seeing a surge in submissions on Saturday and Sunday.

QNAP releases patches for a zero-day flaw

QNAP released Photo Station security updates 12 hours after DeadBolt began using the zero-day vulnerability in attacks, urging NAS customers to immediately update Photo Station to the newest version.

The following security updates fix the vulnerability:

QTS 5.0.1: Photo Station 6.1.2 and later

QTS 5.0.0/4.5.x: Photo Station 6.0.22 and later

QTS 4.3.6: Photo Station 5.7.18 and later

QTS 4.3.3: Photo Station 5.4.15 and later

QTS 4.2.6: Photo Station 5.2.14 and later

Alternatively, QNAP suggests users replace Photo Station with QuMagie, a safer photo storage management tool for QNAP NAS devices.

“We strongly urge that their QNAP NAS should not be directly connected to the internet.

We recommend users to make use of the myQNAPcloud Link feature provided by QNAP, or enable the VPN service.” - QNAP.

Applying the security updates will prevent the DeadBolt ransomware and other threat actors from exploiting the vulnerability and encrypting devices.

However, NAS devices should never be publicly exposed to the Internet and instead placed behind a firewall.

QNAP customers can find detailed instructions on applying the available updates and setting up myQNAPcloud in the security advisory.

Finally, it is recommended to use strong passwords on all NAS user accounts and take regular snapshots to prevent data loss in the case of attacks.

The DeadBolt ransomware gang has been targeting NAS devices since January 2022, using an alleged zero-day vulnerability on Internet-exposed NAS devices.

The ransomware operation conducted further attacks on QNAP devices in May and June 2022.

Earlier in February, DeadBolt began targeting ASUSTOR NAS devices using a zero-day vulnerability they attempted to sell to the vendor for 7.5 Bitcoin.

In most of these attacks, DeadBolt demanded a payment of just over a thousand USD from impacted users in exchange for a working decryptor.

However, other NAS ransomware groups demand more significant amounts from their victims.

The Checkmate ransomware targeted QNAP NAS products in July, demanding victims pay $15,000.

Microsoft Exchange exploits – step one in ransomware chain

Once attackers gain a foothold on web servers, there are all manner of nasty tricks and malware they can leverage immediately or put into play later – like ransomware.

Since the research blogpost – Exchange servers under siege from at least 10 APT groups – ESET has been busy looking at the attack trends that have emerged post exploitation.

In this piece, we’d like to specifically provide you with a quick update on the CVE-2021-26855 exploit chain affecting Microsoft Exchange, which includes the CVE-2021-26857, CVE-2021-26858, and CVE-2021-27065 vulnerabilities.

ESET currently detects the following mechanisms used by Hafnium, LuckyMouse and other groups to compromise Microsoft Exchange servers:

In light of recent Microsoft Exchange exploits after the vulnerability disclosure and patch release, and combing through our own data, we now wonder how many organizations have already been probed and infiltrated for future attacks, such as by ransomware.

The calculus for attackers is simple: Get a foothold on a Microsoft Exchange server, which gives you very privileged access to a company – possibly admin rights – and then plan your upcoming attack.

To counter these sorts of scenarios, the recommended first step after applying patches is to perform an investigation and search for compromise remnants and malware or malware traces.

Companies sporting endpoint detection and response (EDR) tools will be able to this with measurably better effect.

ESET has pursued mitigation strategies on multiple fronts with researchers and even corporate officers getting in on the act.

ESET Netherlands CTO Donny Maasland has also contributed to the effort, creating a custom set of rules for ESET Enterprise Inspector that can be used to detect CVE-2021-26855 exploitation.

The rules fall into two classes:

A set of rules dealing with network (URL) connections.

These rules detect the actual server-side request forgery (SSRF) exploit that targets Microsoft Exchange’s code and are payload independent

A rule that checks the IIS process when writing .aspx files to disk.

The rules referenced above are configured for ESET Enterprise Inspector, however, it should be possible to adapt them for other EDR platforms.

These are certainly interesting times we live in, when CTOs join researchers and security operations center teams in demonstrating use cases for EDR.

However, the frenzy of malicious activity wrought by Exchange exploits has set a new precedent.

Attack attempts – some of what we can expect

In the graphic above we can see a snapshot of post-exploitation malware, some of which can bring ransomware along with it.

In this scenario, attackers can gain command shell access to the web server powering Microsoft Exchange and use its privileges to deploy ransomware across the company.

Additionally, since attackers have a foothold on key servers, they can directly exploit the server platform to deliver malware that can exfiltrate data, encrypt sensitive information and plant a backdoor for later use, all playing into the ransomware scenario.

If attackers are simply interested in unfettered data theft of competitive secrets, they may not leave a trace, so ransomware may not be their first objective.

But we’ve also seen attackers use ransomware as a smokescreen to divert defenders’ attention and energy elsewhere while the real attack continues.

Another tactic is to lay low, avoid detection for months or years and quietly listen for sensitive information they can exfiltrate later, after they’ve had ample time to get to know your network and its resources.

Less noisy attackers also try to find ways to disable security defenses, allowing them to traverse networks and slurp up resources as they go.

It is also possible to fake a credible ransomware attack by claiming to have infiltrated Exchange servers and demanding a ransom – some companies might just unwittingly pay although they haven’t actually had their data compromised.

Essentially, this is an updated version of the sextortion scam emails that have targeted individuals who were victims of data breaches that included an email address and password.

In all these scenarios, it’s easy to understand the level of concern, and why some recommend disconnecting Exchange servers from the internet altogether until they can be investigated and patched.

The good news is that Microsoft readied and released a patch in a very short timeframe, reducing the potential spread.

But the potential negative effects result from a combination of likelihood and impact – so even though the likelihood might be small, it will still be tough to brace for the impact.

More trouble?

Hidden in plain sight among the exploits, and the wave of ransomware that is already following post exploitation, are other threats like ASP/ReGeorg.B, which is detected by ESET as a Potentially Unsafe Application (PUsA) an otherwise legitimate piece of code that is being misused, with ill intent.

With PUSAs added to the already complex mix of risks and threats laid at our doorsteps, we can be sure of a long road ahead.

Note: Detection of potentially unsafe applications is not enabled by default in ESET software.

For information on enabling detection of PUsAs, see ESET Knowledgebase Articles [KB3204] and [KB6982].

The good news here is that Microsoft responded quickly, sharing information about the attacks as well as patches for affected versions of Microsoft Exchange.

If you are responsible for administering Microsoft Exchange within your organization, your highest priority was testing the patch and deploying it immediately.

This was a situation in which restarting a server in the middle of the workday may have been required and it has the potential to set the tone for 2021 and beyond.

Finally, it would be a good time to check and verify backups in case your organization was affected.

Follow our blog for more on the Exchange server saga and what ESET continues to learn about this precedent-setting moment.

Google launches open-source software bug bounty program

Google will now pay security researchers to find and report bugs in the latest versions of Google-released open-source software (Google OSS).

The company's newly announced Vulnerability Reward Program (VRP) focuses on Google software and repository settings (like GitHub actions, application configurations, and access control rules).

It applies to software available on public repositories of Google-owned GitHub organizations as well as some repositories from other platforms.

Security vulnerabilities in Google OSS third-party dependencies are in scope for this program, with the condition that the bug reports are first sent to the owners of the vulnerable packages, so the issues are addressed upstream before informing Google of the findings.