TRIAGE - Threat Reporting and Intelligence on Attacks and General Exploits #50
Events for the week of July 1st, 2024
The essential five strategic threat intelligence stories of the week. This is from TLP white/open-source websites, so please feel free to share and enjoy reading about these events. Please reach out if you have any questions!
1. China lured graduate jobseekers into digital espionage
Overview: Chinese university students have been lured to work at a secretive technology company that masked the true nature of their jobs: researching western targets for spying and translating hacked documents as part of Beijing’s industrial-scale intelligence regime.
Area of Impact: General awareness of Nation States abusing private industry and 3rd party organizations for espionage and spy craft.
TRIAGE: Nation state level threat groups have the resources to compete at a level beyond most standard criminal groups. With the full backing of their parent governments, this is the exact kind of threat they can present, over and above the general process we consider when we think of threat groups and attacks. Governmental and private industry need to stay vigilant and aware that threats do exist at this level of spy craft and espionage capabilities.
2. Uncompromised: Halting a hospital ransomware attack
Overview: Late on a weekend night in June 2024, Red Canary detected pre-ransomware activity at a busy city hospital. Working in close conjunction with hospital IT and security staff, our team and theirs managed to prevent a potential ransomware attack in a matter of minutes.
Area of Impact: Learning area for DFIR and security teams looking to protect their organizations.
TRIAGE: This is an excellent breakdown of the general process this team used to detect, respond and protect a customer organization from a ransomware attack. Perfect learning opportunity for everyone in infosec on the process of attacks and how to step in to stop them.
3. Cybersecurity Agencies Warn of China-linked APT40's Rapid Exploit Adaptation
Overview: Cybersecurity agencies from Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, the U.K., and the U.S. have released a joint advisory about a China-linked cyber espionage group called APT40, warning about its ability to co-opt exploits for newly disclosed security flaws within hours or days of public release.
Area of Impact: General awareness of the escalating threat from certain APT groups and their ability to quickly mature the process of abusing security flaws in record time.
TRIAGE: APT groups in general, as noted above, have the resources and talent above other threat groups that may just be focused on ransomware for profit or hacktivism. This is direct evidence, from current research, that certain groups can and will utilize new vulnerabilities to their advantage much quicker than many people would assume it would take to start abusing security flaws.
4. Senate leader demands answers from CISA on Ivanti-enabled hack of sensitive systems
Overview: Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) on Wednesday sent Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Director Jen Easterly a stern letter seeking documentation and answers relating to a January hack of the agency’s Chemical Security Assessment Tool (CSAT) along with the breach of a second sensitive system. Grassley noted that the cyberattack led to “malicious activity” potentially compromising some of the country’s most sensitive industrial and critical infrastructure information. The breach, which was sourced back to vulnerabilities in Ivanti products, also led to an intrusion into the CISA Gateway, potentially revealing important details about U.S. infrastructure operations.
Area of Impact: Patching announced vulnerabilities and being able to monitor and report on activity within your environments should be basic requirements at all organizations.
TRIAGE: Proof once again that anyone and everyone is at risk and a breach is just one flaw away no matter who you are or what resources you may have. CISA is tasked with protecting the U.S. from attacks, but through a 3rd party system, were exposed and breached themselves. Sadly, this led to the potential compromise of highly sensitive information on the chemical industry in the U.S., which is also obviously critical infrastructure. Hate to see them get “into trouble for it” but we also need to see more breach sharing and attack details shared so we are all aware of the issues and ways to fix.
5. HUMINT: Diving Deep into the Dark Web
Overview: Discover how cybercriminals behave in Dark Web forums- what services they buy and sell, what motivates them, and even how they scam each other.
Area of Impact: Training opportunity in OSINT and HUMINT for all security practitioners - great general overview.
TRIAGE: This is a sponsored post and leads to further training, but the general overview provided is very solid and works as a perfect introduction to the topics of OSINT, HUMINT and dark web research topics in a general way.