Researchers warn that a new threat actor has been targeting over a thousand organizations since October with the goal of deploying credential-stealing malware. The attack chain also involves reconnaissance components including a Trojan that takes screenshots of the desktops of infected computers.

Tracked as TA866 by researchers from security firm Proofpoint, the group’s tooling seems to have similarities to other campaigns reported in the past under different names going as far back as 2019. Even though this latest activity appears to be financially motivated, some of the possibly related attacks seen in the past suggest that espionage was also a motivation at the time.

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Managed security services provider Open Systems has announced the launch of Ontinue, a new managed detection and response (MDR) division. It has also unveiled a new managed extended detection and response (MXDR) service, Ontinue ION, along with a new add-on service called Managed Vulnerability Mitigation (MVM).

Ontinue ION offers advanced capabilities that enable faster detection and response, a deeper understanding of a customer’s environment and the ability to maximize Microsoft security investments for greater efficiency, according to the firm. MVM helps customers reduce risk by highlighting the vulnerabilities that pose the greatest threats via intelligence and understanding of users’ environments, Open Systems added.

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Security teams are comprised primarily of operations, compliance, and policy-related roles. Security engineering teams, on the other hand, are builders. They build services, automate processes, and streamline deployments to support the core security team and its stakeholders. Security engineering teams are typically made up of software and infrastructure engineers, architects, and product managers.

The collective security/security engineering team mindset is also that of a builder, quite different from that of a penetration tester or third-party risk management assessor. This presents a challenge to security leaders. As security engineering teams continue to grow in prominence, CISOs need to be intentional with their structure and development.

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The recent kerfuffle surrounding the Chinese surveillance balloon that sailed above Canada and the United States before meeting its demise off the southeastern coast of the United States has tongues wagging and heads scratching in equal measure. While some may write this off as geopolitical shenanigans by China and nothing to fret about, I submit that it is emblematic of a nation-state using all resources available to acquire pieces of information and fill in the blanks on the mosaic they are building about a potential adversarial nation.

The physical threat posed by this balloon and the collection platform that dangled below it was negligible unless the balloon fell from the sky and landed in a populated area. It did not. When it met its demise, it was shot down by a US F-22 Raptor and fell into US territorial waters off the coast of South Carolina.

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When using any security tool, it is vitally important for it to help you to find a threat quickly. For most tools, there is a learning curve before you can use the tool effectively, as well as a period during which the tool is tuned for the specific environment in which it is installed. In an ideal world, these processes would take a short period of time to complete, and the tool would then be effective in finding security issues on the installed network. In reality, this is an ongoing process, with the user continually learning how to operate the tool more effectively and tuning it to better detect threats.

NETSCOUT’s Omnis Cyber Intelligence (OCI) product helps to streamline the tuning process by providing many ways to categorize systems on your network. One of these ways is the idea of a protection group.

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Trustwave SpiderLabs researchers have cited an increased prevalence of HTML smuggling activity whereby cybercriminal groups abuse the versatility of HTML in combination with social engineering to distribute malware. The firm has detailed four recent HTML smuggling campaigns attempting to lure users into saving and opening malicious payloads, impersonating well-known brands such as Adobe Acrobat, Google Drive, and the US Postal Service to increase the chances of users falling victim.

HTML smuggling uses HTML5 attributes that can work offline by storing a binary in an immutable blob of data (or embedded payload) within JavaScript code, which is decoded into a file object when opened via a web browser. It is not a new attack method, but it has grown in popularity since Microsoft started blocking macros in documents from the internet by default, Trustwave SpiderLabs wrote. The four malware strains that have recently been detected using HTML smuggling in their infection chain are Cobalt Strike, Qakbot, IcedID, and Xworm RAT, the firm added.

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