Written by: Josh Murchie, Ashley Pearson, Joseph Pisano, Jake Nicastro, Joshua Shilko, Raymond Leong Overview In mid-2022, Mandiant’s Managed Defense detected multiple intrusions involving QAKBOT, leading to the deployment of BEACON coupled with other pre-ransomware indicators. This marked Mandiant’s…
Tag: Threat Intelligence
APT45: North Korea’s Digital Military Machine
Written by: Taylor Long, Jeff Johnson, Alice Revelli, Fred Plan, Michael Barnhart Executive Summary APT45 is a long-running, moderately sophisticated North Korean cyber operator that has carried out espionage campaigns as early as 2009. APT45 has gradually expanded into…
Whose Voice Is It Anyway? AI-Powered Voice Spoofing for Next-Gen Vishing Attacks
Written by: Emily Astranova, Pascal Issa < div class=”block-paragraph_advanced”> Executive Summary AI-powered voice cloning can now mimic human speech with uncanny precision, creating for more realistic phishing schemes. According to news reports, scammers have leveraged voice cloning and deepfakes…
APT41 Has Arisen From the DUST
Written by: Mike Stokkel, Pierre Gerlings, Renato Fontana, Luis Rocha, Jared Wilson, Stephen Eckels, Jonathan Lepore < div class=”block-paragraph_advanced”> Executive Summary In collaboration with Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG), Mandiant has observed a sustained campaign by the advanced persistent…
Scaling Up Malware Analysis with Gemini 1.5 Flash
Written by:Bernardo Quintero, Founder of VirusTotal and Security Director, Google Cloud SecurityAlex Berry, Security Manager of the Mandiant FLARE Team, Google Cloud SecurityIlfak Guilfanov, author of IDA Pro and CTO, Hex-RaysVijay Bolina, Chief Information Security Officer & Head of Cybersecurity Research,…
AI-Powered Learning: Your NIST NICE Prompt Library (Built with Google Gemini)
Written by: Jake Liefer < div class=”block-paragraph_advanced”> In the ever-evolving landscape of cybersecurity, staying ahead of threats demands continuous learning and skill development. The NIST NICE framework provides a roadmap, but mastering its extensive tasks, knowledge, and skills (TKSs)…
Scaling Up Malware Analysis with Gemini 1.5 Flash
Written by:Bernardo Quintero, Founder of VirusTotal and Security Director, Google Cloud SecurityAlex Berry, Security Manager of the Mandiant FLARE Team, Google Cloud SecurityIlfak Guilfanov, author of IDA Pro and CTO, Hex-RaysVijay Bolina, Chief Information Security Officer & Head of Cybersecurity Research,…
Emboldened and Evolving: A Snapshot of Cyber Threats Facing NATO
Written by: John Hultquist < div class=”block-paragraph_advanced”> As North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members and partners gather for a historic summit, it is important to take stock of one of its most pressing challenges—the cyber threat. The Alliance faces…
Emboldened and Evolving: A Snapshot of Cyber Threats Facing NATO
Written by: John Hultquist < div class=”block-paragraph_advanced”> As North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members and partners gather for a historic summit, it is important to take stock of one of its most pressing challenges—the cyber threat. The Alliance faces…
Global Revival of Hacktivism Requires Increased Vigilance from Defenders
Written by: Daniel Kapellmann Zafra, Alden Wahlstrom, James Sadowski, Josh Palatucci, Davyn Baumann, Jose Nazario Since early 2022, Mandiant has observed the revival and intensification of threat activity from actors leveraging hacktivist tactics and techniques. This comes decades after…
Cloaked and Covert: Uncovering UNC3886 Espionage Operations
Written by: Punsaen Boonyakarn, Shawn Chew, Logeswaran Nadarajan, Mathew Potaczek, Jakub Jozwiak, Alex Marvi < div class=”block-paragraph_advanced”> Following the discovery of malware residing within ESXi hypervisors in September 2022, Mandiant began investigating numerous intrusions conducted by UNC3886, a suspected…
UNC3944 Targets SaaS Applications
< div class=”block-paragraph_advanced”> Introduction UNC3944 is a financially motivated threat group that carries significant overlap with public reporting of “0ktapus,” “Octo Tempest,” “Scatter Swine,” and “Scattered Spider,” and has been observed adapting its tactics to include data theft from software-as-a-service…
Insights on Cyber Threats Targeting Users and Enterprises in Brazil
Written by: Kristen Dennesen, Luke McNamara, Dmitrij Lenz, Adam Weidemann, Aline Bueno Individuals and organizations in Brazil face a unique cyber threat landscape because it is a complex interplay of global and local threats, posing significant risks to individuals,…
UNC5537 Targets Snowflake Customer Instances for Data Theft and Extortion
Introduction Through the course of our incident response engagements and threat intelligence collections, Mandiant has identified a threat campaign targeting Snowflake customer database instances with the intent of data theft and extortion. Snowflake is a multi-cloud data warehousing platform used…
Phishing for Gold: Cyber Threats Facing the 2024 Paris Olympics
Written by: Michelle Cantos, Jamie Collier < div class=”block-paragraph_advanced”> Executive Summary Mandiant assesses with high confidence that the Paris Olympics faces an elevated risk of cyber threat activity, including cyber espionage, disruptive and destructive operations, financially-motivated activity, hacktivism, and…
Ransomware Rebounds: Extortion Threat Surges in 2023, Attackers Rely on Publicly Available and Legitimate Tools
Written by: Bavi Sadayappan, Zach Riddle, Jordan Nuce, Joshua Shilko, Jeremy Kennelly < div class=”block-paragraph_advanced”> A version of this blog post was published to the Mandiant Advantage portal on April 18, 2024. Executive Summary In 2023, Mandiant observed an…
IOC Extinction? China-Nexus Cyber Espionage Actors Use ORB Networks to Raise Cost on Defenders
Written by: Michael Raggi Mandiant Intelligence is tracking a growing trend among China-nexus cyber espionage operations where advanced persistent threat (APT) actors utilize proxy networks known as “ORB networks” (operational relay box networks) to gain an advantage when conducting…
Holes in Your Bitbucket: Why Your CI/CD Pipeline Is Leaking Secrets
Written by: Mark Swindle < div class=”block-paragraph_advanced”> While investigating recent exposures of Amazon Web Services (AWS) secrets, Mandiant identified a scenario in which client-specific secrets have been leaked from Atlassian’s code repository tool, Bitbucket, and leveraged by threat actors…