Cyber Security

A request to move an online conversation to a supposedly more secure platform may not be as well-meaning as it sounds Have you ever been asked to move an online conversation to another – and supposedly more secure – platform? This technique, often used by romance scammers, was recently used against a number of Indian

An astrobiologist, analog astronaut, author and speaker, Dr. Michaela Musilova shares her experience as a woman at the forefront of space exploration and from her quest for scientific and personal excellence When we talk about space adventures, our minds are likely to wander to famed astronauts. However, we often forget that there is a lot

ESET researchers analyze a cyberespionage campaign that distributes CapraRAT backdoors through trojanized and supposedly secure Android messaging apps – but also exfiltrates sensitive information ESET researchers have identified an active Transparent Tribe campaign, targeting mostly Indian and Pakistani Android users – presumably with a military or political orientation. Victims were probably targeted through a honey-trap

The first in-the-wild UEFI bootkit bypassing UEFI Secure Boot on fully updated UEFI systems is now a reality The number of UEFI vulnerabilities discovered in recent years and the failures in patching them or revoking vulnerable binaries within a reasonable time window hasn’t gone unnoticed by threat actors. As a result, the first publicly known

A bootkit that ESET researchers have discovered in the wild is the BlackLotus UEFI bootkit that is being peddled on hacking forums For a mere $5,000, you can buy a UEFI bootkit called BlackLotus that can run even on fully up-to-date Windows 11 systems with UEFI Secure Boot enabled. This week, ESET researchers published their

ESET researchers tease apart MQsTTang, a new backdoor used by Mustang Panda, which communicates via the MQTT protocol ESET researchers have analyzed MQsTTang, a new custom backdoor that we attribute to the Mustang Panda APT group. This backdoor is part of an ongoing campaign that we can trace back to early January 2023. Unlike most

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the trends that defined the cyberthreat landscape in the final four months of 2022. Data from the latest ESET Threat Report, which provides an in-depth look at the threat landscape from September to December 2022, confirmed several previously observed trends. The key of

ESET Research has compiled a timeline of cyberattacks that used wiper malware and have occurred since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 This blogpost presents a compiled overview of the disruptive wiper attacks that we have observed in Ukraine since the beginning of 2022, shortly before the Russian military invasion started. We were able to

With the conflict in Ukraine passing the one-year mark, have its cyber-war elements turned out as expected? It’s been twelve months since Russia invaded Ukraine, and it’s a good time to pause and reflect on a few pertinent issues, including: How is the war playing out in cyberspace? Have the cyber-elements turned out as expected?

The targeted region, and overlap in behavior and code, suggest the tool is used by the infamous North Korea-aligned APT group ESET researchers have discovered one of the payloads of the Wslink downloader that we uncovered back in 2021. We named this payload WinorDLL64 based on its filename WinorDLL64.dll. Wslink, which had the filename WinorLoaderDLL64.dll,

It’s never been easier to write a convincing message that can trick you into handing over your money or personal data ChatGPT has been taking the world by storm, having reached 100 million users only two months after launching. However, media stories about the tool’s uncanny ability to write human-sounding text mask a potentially darker reality.

SMBs need to not only reduce their odds of being hit by an attack, but also implement processes that they can follow if their defenses are breached The prevalence of cyberattacks continues to rise, with our telemetry showing a 13% increase in cyberthreat detections in 2022 year-on-year. While the news tends to feature breaches involving

AI-pocalypse soon? As stunning as ChatGPT’s output can be, should we also expect the chatbot to spit out sophisticated malware? ChatGPT didn’t write this article – I did. Nor did I ask it to answer the question from the title – I will. But I guess that’s just what ChatGPT might say. Luckily, there are

ESET researchers have identified a campaign using trojanized installers to deliver the FatalRAT malware, distributed via malicious websites linked in ads that appear in Google search results ESET researchers identified a malware campaign that targets Chinese-speaking people in Southeast and East Asia by buying misleading advertisements to appear in Google search results that lead to

Threat actors used search engine ads to impersonate makers of popular software and direct internet users to malicious websites This week, the ESET research team has published a report describing a malware campaign that took aim at Chinese-speaking people in Southeast and East Asia. The campaign involved malicious advertisements that appeared in Google search and

No longer relegated to a side-show, tech is embedded into virtually every new piece of gear entering the battlefield As military and tech gather to address the frosty world defense conditions and what the intersection of technology’s role is with attendees at AFCEA West, it’s clear that the global warfighting world has changed. No longer

Don’t be their next victim – here’s a handy round-up of some the most common signs that should set your alarm bells ringing We all spend so much of our time online these days. It’s estimated that the average adult spends the best part of seven hours per day glued to their screens. When we’re

Spoiler alert: it turned me down. But that’s far from the only thing I learned while playing around with the bot that the world has fallen in love with so badly. When it was unleashed into an astonished world on November 30th 2022, ChatGPT became the fastest-growing web app ever, reaching a million users in the

Small and medium-sized businesses have good reason to be concerned about the loss of data and financial impacts While tech advancements have enabled small and medium businesses (SMBs) to grow their business and allowed them to evolve their operational models, cybersecurity risks and threats can cancel any progress that has been made so far. Underlying

What is behind the drop in ransomware and what should still be done for containing the ransomware scourge? Ransomware detections fell by 20% between 2021 and 2022, according to ESET’s latest Threat Report. What is behind the drop, why is ransomware still a huge problem, and what has yet to be done before the ransomware

Your smart speaker is designed to listen, but could it be eavesdropping too? Ever since Amazon came under fire for being able to potentially listen in on people through its Echo smart speakers, and even transcribe what they were saying, I have been intrigued by the idea of how IoT could be used to snoop

A view of the T3 2022 threat landscape as seen by ESET telemetry and from the perspective of ESET threat detection and research experts In 2022, an unprovoked and unjustified attack on Ukraine shocked the world, bringing devastating effects on the country and its population. The war continues to impact everything from energy prices and

No internet, perfect security? Two ESET researchers perform a thought experiment where they consider the implications of being plunged into digital darkness. Not every computer problem is due to a war in Ukraine, or the failure of the power grid in Texas. But let’s say your network access gets shut off from the rest of

As children’s safety and privacy online becomes a matter of increasing urgency, lawmakers around the world push ahead on new regulations in the digital realm Tomorrow is Safer Internet Day (SID), an annual awareness campaign that started in Europe in 2004 and that aims to highlight the need for people to enjoy the benefits of

As our latest APT Activity Report makes abundantly clear, the threat of cyberespionage and stealthy attacks remains very real The threat of cyberespionage and stealthy cyberattacks remains very real, and the data from ESET’s T3 2022 APT Activity Report released this week backs this up. In this video, Tony shares some of the key takeaways

“Can I tell a legitimate survey apart from a fake one?” is the single most important question you need to answer for yourself before taking any surveys online Online surveys and quizzes are all over the internet. They’re quick and cheap to set up, easy for recipients to fill out, and simple for researchers to

Lose what you don’t use and other easy ways to limit your digital footprint and strengthen your online privacy and security In case you missed it, last week was Data Privacy Week, an awareness campaign to remind everybody that any of our online activities creates a trail of data and that, therefore, we need to

An overview of the activities of selected APT groups investigated and analyzed by ESET Research in T3 2022 ESET APT Activity Report T3 2022 summarizes the activities of selected advanced persistent threat (APT) groups that were observed, investigated, and analyzed by ESET researchers from September until the end of December 2022. In the monitored timespan,

Sandworm continues to conduct attacks against carefully chosen targets in the war-torn country ESET researchers have uncovered a new wiper attack in Ukraine that they attribute to the Sandworm APT group. Dubbed SwiftSlicer, the destructive malware was spotted on the network of a targeted organization on January 25th. It was deployed through Group Policy, which suggests

Data Privacy Week is a reminder to protect your data – all year round. Here are three privacy-boosting habits you can start today. Every action we  take on the internet generates data that is shared with online services and other parties. It stands to reason, then, that we need to assert control over how much