CVE-2023-23397

Intelligence and cybersecurity agencies from 10 countries has warned in a joint advisory that a cyberespionage group operated by the Russian military intelligence service, the GRU, has been targeting logistics and IT companies for the past three years. Known in the security industry as APT28 and Fancy Bear, the threat actor has been launching attacks […]

CISA warns Russia-linked group APT28 is targeting Western logistics and tech firms aiding Ukraine, posing an elevated threat to supply chains Russia-linked cyberespionage group APT28 intensifies its operations against Western logistics and technology companies moving supplies into Ukraine, US CISA warns. The APT28 group (aka Fancy Bear, Pawn Storm, Sofacy Group, Sednit, BlueDelta, and STRONTIUM) has been active since at least 2007 and it […]

Russian military intelligence hackers intensify targeting of Western logistics and technology companies moving supplies into Ukraine.

France blames Russia-linked APT28 for cyberattacks targeting or compromising a dozen French government bodies and other entities. The Russia-linked APT28 group has targeted or compromised a dozen government organizations and other French entities, the French Government states. In 2024, it was observed attacking OT organizations and linked to cyberattacks on 60 entities in Asia and […]

A subgroup of Russia’s Sandworm APT has been working to achieve initial and persistent access to the IT networks of organizations working in economic sectors Russia is interested in. “In 2022, its primary focus was Ukraine, specifically targeting the energy, retail, education, consulting, and agriculture sectors. In 2023, it globalized the scope of its compromises, leading to persistent access within numerous sectors in the United States, Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East,” Microsoft’s researchers … More →

A subgroup of the Russia-linked Seashell Blizzard APT group (aka Sandworm) ran a global multi-year initial access operation called BadPilot. Microsoft shared findings on research on a subgroup of the Russia-linked APT group Seashell Blizzard behind the global BadPilot campaign, which compromises infrastructure to support Russian cyber operations. Seashell Blizzard (aka Sandworm, BlackEnergy and TeleBots) has been […]

A subgroup of the Russia-linked Seashell Blizzard is tasked with broad initial access operations to sustain long-term persistence.

Since making Kerberos the default Windows authentication protocol in 2000, Microsoft has been working on eventually retiring NTLM, its less secure and obsolete counterpart. Until NTLM gets disabled by default, Microsoft is working on shoring up defenses against NTLM relay attacks. How do NTLM relay attacks work? NTLM is a suite of Microsoft protocols that authenticate users and computers based on a challenge/response mechanism between the client (which seeks to be authenticated) and server (which … More →

Microsoft has rolled out new default security protections that mitigate NTLM relaying attacks across on-premises Exchange, AD CS, and LDAP services.

Most of the top frequently exploited vulnerabilities in 2023 were initially exploited as zero-days, according to data from government agencies.

Despite two patching attempts, a security issue that may allow attackers to compromise Windows user’s NTLM (authentication) credentials via a malicious Windows themes file still affects Microsoft’s operating system, 0patch researchers have discovered. The path to discovery The story starts with CVE-2024-21320, a Windows Themes spoofing vulnerability that was reported by Akamai security researcher Tomer Peled and fixed by Microsoft in January 2024. The vulnerability could be triggered by a .theme file that specified a … More →

This post walks through the vulnerabilities we disclosed affecting Gradio, and our work with Hugging Face to harden the Spaces platform after a recently reported potential breach.

CERT Polska warns of a large-scale malware campaign against Polish government institutions conducted by Russia-linked APT28. CERT Polska and CSIRT MON teams issued a warning about a large-scale malware campaign targeting Polish government institutions, allegedly orchestrated by the Russia-linked APT28 group. The attribution of the attacks to the Russian APT is based on similarities with […]

Russia was involved in a months-long cyber espionage campaign against Germany last year, which involved targeting politicians and the defense sector, German officials said, adding they have evidence the attacks were conducted by Russia-backed threat actor, Fancy Bear. Also tracked as APT28, Fancy Bear is a state-sponsored hacker group linked to the Russian GRU intelligence service […]

NATO and the European Union formally condemned cyber espionage operations carried out by the Russia-linked APT28 against European countries. NATO and the European Union condemned cyber espionage operations carried out by the Russia-linked threat actor APT28 (aka “Forest Blizzard”, “Fancybear” or “Strontium”) against European countries. This week the German Federal Government condemned in the strongest […]

CISA warns organizations of a two-year-old Windows Print Spooler vulnerability being exploited in the wild.

For nearly four years and perhaps even longer, Forest Blizzard (aka Fancy Bear, aka APT28) has been using a custom tool that exploits a specific vulnerability in Windows Print Spooler service (CVE-2022-38028). Dubbed GooseEgg, the tool is a launcher application that can spawn other applications with SYSTEM-level permissions, thus helping the hackers to perform remote code execution, install backdoors, steal credentials, and more. “Microsoft has observed Forest Blizzard using GooseEgg as part of post-compromise activities … More →

Russia-linked APT28 deploys the GooseEgg post-exploitation tool against numerous US and European organizations.

The US government says Russia’s APT28 group compromised Ubiquiti EdgeRouters to run cyberespionage operations worldwide.

Russian cyberspies are compromising Ubiquiti EdgeRouters to evade detection, warns a joint advisory published by authorities. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), National Security Agency (NSA), US Cyber Command, and international partners released a joint Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA) to warn that Russia-linked threat actors are using compromised Ubiquiti EdgeRouters (EdgeRouters) to evade detection in cyber […]

On February 2024 Patch Tuesday, Microsoft has delivered fixes for 72 CVE-numbered vulnerabilities, including two zero-days (CVE-2024-21412, CVE-2024-21351) that are being leveraged by attackers in the wild. About CVE-2024-21412 and CVE-2024-21351 CVE-2024-21412 allows attackers to bypass the Microsoft Defender SmartScreen security feature with booby-trapped Internet Shortcut files. In late December 2023, Trend Micro researcher Peter Girnus and his colleagues in the ZDI Threat Hunting team discovered the Water Hydra APT leveraging the flaw to infect … More →

Akamai researchers document more vulnerabilities and patch bypasses leading to zero-click remote code execution in Microsoft Outlook.

Microsoft’s December 2023 Patch Tuesday is a light one: 33 patches, only four of which are deemed critical. “This month, Microsoft did not patch any zero-day vulnerabilities, marking only the second time in 2023 that no zero-days were fixed (June was the other month),” noted Satnam Narang, senior staff research engineer at Tenable. “Of the 33 vulnerabilities patched this month, 11 vulnerabilities are rated as Exploitation More Likely according to Microsoft. Nearly three-quarters of these … More →

Here’s an overview of some of last week’s most interesting news, articles, interviews and videos: Advanced ransomware campaigns expose need for AI-powered cyber defense In this Help Net Security interview, Carl Froggett, CIO at Deep Instinct, discusses emerging trends in ransomware attacks, emphasizing the need for businesses to use advanced AI technologies, such as deep learning (DL), for prevention rather than just detection and response. SessionProbe: Open-source multi-threaded pentesting tool SessionProbe is a multi-threaded pentesting … More →

Russian threat actor APT28 has been exploiting a no-interaction Outlook vulnerability in attacks against 14 countries.

Russia-linked group APT28 exploited Microsoft Outlook zero-day to target European NATO members, including a NATO Rapid Deployable Corps. Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42 reported that the Russia-linked APT28 (aka “Forest Blizzard”, “Fancybear” or “Strontium”) group exploited the CVE-2023-23397 vulnerability in attacks aimed at European NATO members. Over the past 20 months, the group targeted at […]

In three campaigns over the past 20 months, Russian APT Fighting Ursa has targeted over 30 organizations of likely strategic intelligence value using CVE-2023-23397.

A threat group associated with the Russian military intelligence service was behind several mass attack campaigns that exploited known flaws in Outlook and WinRAR to collect Windows NTLM credential hashes from organizations in Europe and North America. The high volume of emails is unusual for cyberespionage groups, which are typically highly targeted in their victim […]

Russian state-backed hacking group Forest Blizzard (aka Fancy Bear, aka APT28) has been using a known Microsoft Outlook vulnerability (CVE-2023-23397) to target public and private entities in Poland, Polish Cyber Command has warned. Compromising email accounts and maintaining access to them APT28 is known for targeting government, non-governmental, energy and transportation organizations in the US, Europe, and the Middle East. The most recent attacks were detected and reported by the computer security incident response team … More →

Microsoft warns that the Russia-linked APT28 group is actively exploiting the CVE-2023-23397 Outlook flaw to hijack Microsoft Exchange accounts. Microsoft’s Threat Intelligence is warning of Russia-linked cyber-espionage group APT28 (aka “Forest Blizzard”, “Fancybear” or “Strontium”) actively exploiting the CVE-2023-23397 Outlook flaw to hijack Microsoft Exchange accounts and steal sensitive information. The APT28 group (aka Fancy Bear, Pawn Storm, Sofacy Group, Sednit, BlueDelta, […]

Research by: Haifei Li, Check Point Research Introduction Outlook, the desktop app in the Microsoft Office suite, has become one of the world’s most popular apps for organizations worldwide for sending and receiving emails, scheduling conferences, and more. From the security perspective, the app is one of the critical “gateways” responsible for introducing various cyber […]

What is NTLM? What common attacks exist against it? NTLM is an extremely deprecated authentication protocol introduced by Microsoft in 1993. It is a challenge-response protocol: the server keeps a secret called an “NTLM hash” derived from the user’s password, then every time that user wants to log in, the server issues a randomized “challenge” […]

France National Agency for the Security of Information Systems warns that the Russia-linked APT28 group has breached several critical networks. The French National Agency for the Security of Information Systems ANSSI (Agence Nationale de la sécurité des systèmes d’information) warns that the Russia-linked APT28 group has been targeting multiple French organizations, including government entities, businesses, universities, […]

Russia-linked APT28 group hacked into Roundcube email servers belonging to multiple Ukrainian organizations. A joint investigation conducted by Ukraine’s Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-UA) and Recorded Future revealed that the Russia-linked APT28 group hacked into Roundcube email servers belonging to multiple Ukrainian organizations. The APT28 group (aka Fancy Bear, Pawn Storm, Sofacy Group, Sednit, BlueDelta, and STRONTIUM) has been active since at least 2007 […]

Microsoft has rolled out patches for a vulnerability allowing attackers to bypass mitigations for a critical Outlook zero-day leading to credentials theft.

Researchers shared technical details about a flaw in Windows MSHTML platform, tracked as CVE-2023-29324, that could be abused to bypass security protections. Cybersecurity researchers have shared details about a now-patched security flaw, tracked as CVE-2023-29324 (CVSS score: 6.5), in Windows MSHTML platform. An attacker can exploit the vulnerability by crafting a malicious URL that would evade zone checks. “An attacker can […]

Microsoft fixed a new vulnerability this week that could be used to bypass defenses the company put in place in March for a critical vulnerability in Outlook that Russian cyberspies exploited in the wild. That vulnerability allowed attackers to steal NTLM hashes by simply sending specifically crafted emails to Outlook users. The exploit requires no […]

Among the vulnerabilities fixed by Microsoft on May 2023 Patch Tuesday is CVE-2023-29324, a bug in the Windows MSHTML platform that Microsoft rates as “important.” Akamai’s research team and Ben Barnea, the researcher who’s credited with finding the flaw, disagree with that assessment, because “the new vulnerability [CVE-2023-29324] re-enables the exploitation of a critical vulnerability [CVE-2023-23397] that was seen in the wild and used by APT operators.” About CVE-2023-23397 CVE-2023-23397 is an EoP bug in … More →

For May 2023 Patch Tuesday, Microsoft has delivered fixes for 38 CVE-numbered vulnerabilities, including a patch for a Windows bug (CVE-2023-29336) and a Secure Boot bypass flaw (CVE-2023-24932) exploited by attackers in the wild. The two exploited bugs (CVE-2023-29336, CVE-2023-24932) CVE-2023-29336 is a vulnerability that allows attackers to gain SYSTEM privileges. Flagged by researchers with AV maker Avast, it seems probable that it’s being exploited to deliver malware. Microsoft has offered no details about the … More →

It seems that everyone is rushing to embed artificial intelligence into their solutions, and security offerings are among the latest to obtain this shiny new thing. Like many, I see the potential for AI to help bring about positive change, but also its potential as a threat vector. To some, recent AI developments are a […]

A new round of the weekly SecurityAffairs newsletter arrived! Every week the best security articles from Security Affairs are free for you in your email box. If you want to also receive for free the newsletter with the international press subscribe here. LockBit leaks data stolen from the South Korean National Tax Service Italy’s Data Protection Authority […]

CVE-2023-23397 is a vulnerability in the Windows Microsoft Outlook client exploited by sending a specially crafted email. Microsoft has released a patch.

Microsoft says it has evidence that Russian APT actors were exploiting a nasty Outlook zero-day as far back as April 2022, upping the stakes on organizations to start hunting for signs of compromise.

Microsoft is warning of cyber attacks exploiting a recently patched Outlook vulnerability tracked as CVE-2023-23397 (CVSS score: 9.8). Microsoft published guidance for investigating attacks exploiting recently patched Outlook vulnerability tracked as CVE-2023-23397. The flaw is a Microsoft Outlook spoofing vulnerability that can lead to an authentication bypass. A remote, unauthenticated attacker can exploit the flaw to […]

Deploying security patches as quickly as possible remains one of the best ways to prevent most security breaches, as attackers usually rely on exploits for publicly known vulnerabilities that have a patch available — the so-called n-day exploits. But mitigating the risk from vulnerabilities unknown to the affected software developers and don’t have a patch […]

Experts warn that 55 zero-day vulnerabilities were exploited in attacks carried out by ransomware and cyberespionage groups in 2022. Cybersecurity firm Mandiant reported that ransomware and cyberespionage groups exploited 55 zero-day flaws in attacks in the wild. Most of the zero-day vulnerabilities were in software from Microsoft, Google, and Apple. The figures show a decrease […]

For the latest discoveries in cyber research for the week of 20th March, please download our Threat_Intelligence Bulletin TOP ATTACKS AND BREACHES Hitachi Energy reported a data breach caused by the Clop ransomware group which exploited a zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2023-0669) in the Fortra GoAnywhere MFT system, which was used by Hitachi. Check Point IPS, Threat […]

Here’s an overview of some of last week’s most interesting news, articles, interviews and videos: Samsung, Vivo, Google phones open to remote compromise without user interaction Several vulnerabilities in Samsung’s Exynos chipsets may allow attackers to remotely compromise specific Samsung Galaxy, Vivo and Google Pixel mobile phones with no user interaction. Top 50 most impersonated brands by phishing URLs Finance, technology, and telecom brands were the most commonly impersonated industries, notably for the unprecedented access … More →

Microsoft released its monthly security bulletin this week, covering patches for over 80 vulnerabilities across its products. However, two of them had already been used by attackers before patches were released. One vulnerability affects all supported versions of Outlook for Windows and allows attackers to steal Net-NTLMv2 hashes and then use them in NTLM (New […]

US CISA added an actively exploited vulnerability in Adobe ColdFusion to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog. U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has added a critical vulnerability in Adobe ColdFusion, tracked as CVE-2023-26360 (CVSS score: 8.6), to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog. This week Adobe released security updates for ColdFusion versions 2021 and 2018 to resolve the critical flaw […]

Microsoft blames a “Russian-based threat actor” for in-the-wild attacks hitting its flagship Microsoft Outlook and has released a detection script to help defenders.

Microsoft Patch Tuesday updates for March 2023 addressed 74 vulnerabilities, including a Windows zero-day exploited in ransomware attacks. Microsoft Patch Tuesday security updates for March 2023 addressed 74 new vulnerabilities in Microsoft Windows and Windows Components; Office and Office Components; Edge (Chromium-based); Microsoft Dynamics; Visual Studio; and Azure. Six of the fixed issues are rated […]

It’s March 2023 Patch Tuesday, and Microsoft has delivered fixes for 76 CVE-numbered vulnerabilities, including two actively exploited in the wild (CVE-2023-23397, CVE-2023-24880) by different threat actors. About CVE-2023-23397 “CVE-2023-23397 is a critical EoP vulnerability in Microsoft Outlook that is triggered when an attacker sends a message with an extended MAPI property with a UNC path to an SMB (TCP 445) share on a threat actor-controlled server. No user interaction is required,” Microsoft explained. “The … More →

Patch Tuesday: Microsoft warns vulnerability (CVE-2023-23397) could lead to exploitation before an email is viewed in the Preview Pane.