Talos Threat Source is a regular intelligence update from Cisco Talos, highlighting the biggest threats each week and other security news.
Welcome to this week’s Threat Source newsletter — the perfect place to get caught up on all things Cisco Talos from the past week.
As part of our continued research into a mobile device management (MDM) campaign that’s been targeting mobile devices in India, we take a deep dive into the malware in the latest episode of Beers with Talos. The guys (once again without Nigel) go into our latest findings and talk about why mobile users are so susceptible to these kinds of attacks.
We are also sharing a whitepaper that was recently released by our friends over at the Cyber Threat Alliance. Talos contributed to this report on cryptocurrency mining. While many people have heard of the concept of cryptomining, they may not know about the numerous negative impacts an attack could have on their organization. It could also be a sign that their security system could be at risk of a more serious breach.
We also have our weekly Threat Roundup, which you can find on the blog every Friday afternoon. There, we go over the most prominent threats we’ve seen (and blocked) over the past week.
If you want to see one of our researchers out and about, be sure to check below for upcoming public engagements where they will represent Talos.
Location: CactusCon, Mesa Convention Center in Mesa, Arizona
Synopsis: The rise of ransomware has paralleled a rise in the value of cryptocurrencies. The two are not necessarily connected, but the impact has been. From an adversary's perspective, there are two primary ways of getting these currencies: ransom payouts or mining. Cryptocurrency mining has been around as long as cryptocurrency, and it's always been a trade-off. Can you earn enough currency to offset the electricity and hardware costs? Well, imagine if you didn't have to worry about either of them. This talk will provide a deep dive into pool mining, and how it is being leveraged by attackers.
Location: Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth hotel in Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Synopsis: Paul and Warren are hosting a joint talk on the Olympic Destroyer malware from earlier this year, and will cover why it is so difficult to attribute the attack. Vanja will also be hosting a workshop on manual kernel mode malware analysis.
Location: Texas Cyber Summit at Wyndham River Walk Hotel in San Antonio, Texas
Synopsis: Wiper malware has been leveraged by attackers for years to facilitate the destruction of data and systems. In many cases, this malware has caused widespread operational issues for organizations and critical infrastructure all over the globe. Attackers have increasingly been leveraging and improving upon their wiper malware over the past several years. This talk will cover several notable examples of wiper malware, how they were distributed and the impacts that resulted from these attacks.
Description: Several bugs were fixed as part of Adobe’s monthly security update. The majority of the vulnerabilities that the company disclosed were in ColdFusion — six of which are rated “critical.” There is also an information disclosure vulnerability in Flash Player. Adobe was also scheduled to release additional advisories regarding Acrobat and Reader on Sept. 19.
https://helpx.adobe.com/security/products/acrobat/apsb18-34.html https://helpx.adobe.com/security/products/flash-player/apsb18-31.html https://helpx.adobe.com/security/products/coldfusion/apsb18-33.html
Description: A vulnerability exists in the SoftNAS Cloud file storage platform in all versions leading up to 4.0.3. An unauthenticated attacker could execute arbitrary code with root permissions due to the way the snserv script sanitizes the ‘recentVersion’ parameter from the snserv endpoint.
Description: An escalation of privilege vulnerability exists in the Diagnostics Hub Standard Collector when it — or the Visual Basic Studio Standard Collector — allows files to be created in arbitrary locations. An attacker needs to log onto the system to exploit this bug, and then run a specially crafted application.
Keep up with all things Talos by following us on Twitter and Facebook. You can also subscribe to the Beers with Talos podcast, which comes out bi-weekly, here (as well as on your favorite podcast app). And, if you’re not already, you can also subscribe to the weekly Threat Source newsletter here.