Threats tagged 'malware'

It can be daunting to determine who’s responsible for showing ads on the websites we visit, or who’s harvesting data from the mobile apps we use every day. That information is already semi-public, but it is not easily parsed and traditionally much of it has remained walled away in the hands of large advertising platforms. Not anymore: A powerful and free new service called DecryptAds scrapes and correlates this adtech data and makes it simple to quickly learn a great deal about the entities that are tracking you. A Decryptads summary of the advertising partnerships declared by espn.com. The newly launched decryptads.com says it is constantly scraping the files that websites and apps make publicly available to disclose the companies that are permitted to run ads or collect user data. These files include: – ads.txt : all of the adtech companies and data brokers that may run ads or harvest data from the site; – app-ads.txt : entities that can harvest data from or display ads on mobile and smart TV apps; – buyers.json/sellers.json : the entities buying, selling or reselling ad inventory for a given site or app. Zach Edwards is chief research officer for DecryptAds and a threat researcher at the security company Infoblox . Edwards said he and two other founders decided the service was needed because the adtech data in these files is generally only useful when it can be cross-referenced to build a more complete picture of the advertising ecosystem for each website or app. “It’s an adtech tool but we’re trying to approach adtech from a security perspective,” Edwards said. “It’s really built for a lot of privacy and security use cases that have been dramatically underserved.” Those use cases, he said, include tracking down the source of malicious ads that try to foist malware on targeted users, identifying ad networks located in adversarial nations, and detecting the fast growing swarms of AI-generated slop websites and apps. And as decryptads.com demonstrates, these potential security and privacy threats are near impossible to detect just by viewing a single apps.txt or app-ads.txt file. “Supply-chain integrity issues rarely live in a single file,” the site explains . “They show up as broken cross-references between ads.txt, app-ads.txt, and sellers.json files; as cloned declaration sets across unrelated domains; as seller removals that only make sense when viewed across exchanges; and even as supply paths in bid logs that never actually appear in any given publisher’s authorized-seller list.” A search in DecryptAds for the hugely popular sports network espn.com reveals 143 ad partners and 19 registered data broker domains are listed within its ads.txt and app-ads.txt files. That data broker information is gradually becoming available because four states — California, Oregon, Texas and Vermont — have recently passed laws requiring data brokers to register if they buy or sell data on consumers from those states. DecryptAds reports that almost half of those data brokers are collecting geolocation data from espn.com visitors who aren’t blocking ads, while another three disclose that they collect device fingerprints and sensitive personal information. A visual representation of the complex ad supply chain declared by espn.com. Image: decryptads.com. HIGH-RISK AD PARTNERS DecryptAds also makes it easy to learn the beneficiaries and national origins of the advertising firms lurking in apps and websites, displaying a conspicuous warning when adtech partners of an app or website are based in “geo-risk” areas like China and Russia, or in countries with strong financial and political ties to both — such as Cyprus and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). According to DecryptAds, espn.com works with four different advertising entities that are based in either Russia, China or the UAE, including the adtech firm Between Digital , which lists a New York address. However, the dossier on Between Digital flags them as a Russian firm, showing that their pub…

The Rust-based macOS infostealer harvests users’ passwords, keychain information, Chromium-based browser data, and Safari cookies. The post AmnesiaStealer macOS Malware Steals Data, Controls Browser Sessions appeared first on SecurityWeek .

This is an open-source, categorized catalog of over 2,800 malware families mapped to frameworks such as NIST CSF, CISA advisories, and MITRE ATT&CK. It is designed to aid incident responders, SOC analysts, and threat hunters by providing a centralized dataset with actionable containment steps and response playbooks. The catalog is freely available under an Apache-2.0 license and accessible via multiple formats including web UI and JSON API. It is not a vulnerability or active threat but a resource for cybersecurity professionals.

In the past few weeks, I have been using Gemma4 as a Large Language Model (LLM) to see how useful it can be to analyze some of the malware hashes uploaded to the DShield sensor over the past 30 days and figure out how its recommendation can be considered useful about the activity my DShield sensor is collecting and tracking. The model I use for this testing is gemma4:e4b [2] using two sites to compare the data against VirusTotal and CyberGordon.

Maltrail IOC for 2026-08-14

WindRelay is an Android NFC relay malware used in combination with the SpyNote remote administration tool (RAT) to steal live payment card data and commit financial fraud. Attackers socially engineer victims to install SpyNote disguised as a legitimate app, granting remote access to their device. Subsequently, WindRelay is installed to relay NFC card data in real time, enabling attackers to perform fraudulent transactions including taking out loans and making purchases using the victim's card. The attack relies heavily on social engineering and occurs rapidly, often within minutes. Targeting appears focused on Czechia, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Users are advised to avoid sideloading apps from untrusted sources and be cautious with apps requesting NFC or accessibility permissions.

Malware#android#malwareCzechia+2

LiteLLM was compromised through the Trivy hack and abused to distribute information-stealing malware to its users. The post Over 2,500 Organizations Impacted by LiteLLM Supply Chain Attack appeared first on SecurityWeek .

Maltrail IOC for 2026-08-13

Adform, a major advertising platform, remained compromised for roughly 24 hours from late on July 26 through the evening of July 27 after being breached by unknown attackers. Few people outside the industry recognize the name, but Adform serves around 1.5 billion ad impressions every day across tens of thousands of websites. That means anyone visiting any site that runs Adform ads could have been targeted. The attackers weren’t trying to install malware. Instead, they ran a script in the victim’s browser that checked the clipboard every three seconds, and if it found a cryptocurrency wallet address had been copied, swapped it for the attackers’ own wallet address. So if someone had a site with the malicious ad open in one browser tab, and was making a crypto transaction in another tab or in a dedicated app, the funds could have ended up in the attackers’ pockets instead. Adform’s owners caught the attack and fixed the problem, but there’s no guarantee a similar incident won’t happen again — which is why every user should defend themselves against malvertising . Check out our tips at the end of this post. What we know about the attack on Adform There isn’t a lot of information out there, since the company’s official statement covers only what happened and when, without getting into the root cause of the incident. Independent research has dug up technical details about how ordinary users were targeted, but none of that explains how Adform itself was breached in the first place. What’s clear is that the attackers slipped their own code into the JavaScript that loaded on every site running Adform ads. Whenever an ad was about to display, the script would load from Adform’s server, pick the right ad, and show it — but the attackers had tacked on a set of malicious functions: monitoring the clipboard, sending data about the site where the encounter happened, and the victim’s IP address back to their own server, and swapping out Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Tron wallet addresses. All it took to make it work was having any site with Adform-served ads open in one browser tab. It didn’t matter what kind of site it was, what the ad looked like, or which advertiser it belonged to. The one thing that mattered was whether the site ran over HTTP or HTTPS. According to Adform, the attack couldn’t succeed on a site loaded over HTTPS since the connection to the attackers’ server was blocked in this case. The company hasn’t shared any information on how many users were affected, or how many sites still serve their content and ads over HTTP. Malicious ads are an everyday occurrence Unfortunately, dangerous online ads have become a systemic problem. And we’re not just talking about sketchy supplement ads or gambling promos — we mean ads that spread malware or lead to sites designed to steal payment details and other valuable data. Attackers have built out industrial-scale infrastructure to pull this off, and they use several different approaches. Hacking and compromising ad servers. Adform isn’t an isolated case: attackers have previously breached Revive ad servers , for one, and spread malware through ads on PornHub . Hijacking the ad accounts of legitimate, reputable brands . All it takes is stealing a password from someone in marketing. From there, the cybercriminals run ads posing as the company they hacked, pushing fake app updates, bogus promotions, and similar scams. In the worst cases — like the account breaches at adtech.de and adxpansion.com — attackers managed to run ads that redirected victims straight into automatic malware installs ( drive-by downloads ). Buying ads directly. That’s right — attackers simply set up their own advertiser accounts and run ads for their phishing sites and malware, just like any other business online. Since ads show up practically everywhere — on websites, in apps, and on social media — these threats can turn up in pretty much any context. And you’ll find variations of this threat on both computers and mobile de…

Maltrail IOC for 2026-08-12

Security teams are being asked to defend a growing attack surface with fewer people and around the clock, against threat actors who never take a night off. As cyberattackers increasingly use AI to launch and scale campaigns, the volume, speed, and sophistication of threats continue to rise. Closing that gap takes more than tooling. It takes a partner that pairs a leading security platform with scaled intelligence and human experts who can act on your behalf at any hour. That’s exactly what Microsoft Defender Experts MDR is built to do. We are excited to announce that we have been named a Leader in the 2026 IDC MarketScape: Worldwide MDR/MXDR for the Enterprise Vendor Assessment (Doc #US54792426, July 2026). Read the excerpt here . Scale your SOC with Microsoft Defender Experts MDR Expert-led MDR, built on the Microsoft Defender platform Microsoft Defender Experts MDR is a round-the-clock, expert-led managed detection and response service that helps security teams triage, investigate, and respond to incidents so they can stop cyberattackers in their tracks and prevent future compromise. Rather than bolting a separate stack of tools and connectors onto your environment, the service operates natively on Microsoft Defender , with built-in protection across endpoints, identities, email, cloud apps, cloud workloads, and network security, as well as around-the-clock proactive threat hunting with Microsoft Defender Experts Hunting . Because the service is delivered on the same platform it monitors, detection and intelligence improvements reach customers continuously. The insights our experts generate also strengthen protection across the broader Defender ecosystem, so every customer benefits from what we learn defending the next environment. The IDC MarketScape vendor assessment model is designed to provide an overview of the competitive fitness of technology and service suppliers in a given market. The research uses a rigorous scoring methodology based on both qualitative and quantitative criteria that results in a single graphical illustration of each supplier’s position within a given market. The Capabilities axis measures supplier product, go-to-market, and business execution in the short term, while the Strategy axis measures how well a supplier’s strategy aligns with customer requirements over a 3-5-year timeframe. Supplier market share is represented by the size of the icons . Threat intelligence at internet scale Great detection starts with great intelligence. Defender Experts MDR draws on Microsoft’s global threat intelligence: more than 10,000 security researchers and 100 trillion signals analyzed every day across billions of users and millions of organizations. 1 That breadth lets our analysts recognize subtle patterns early, often before a campaign escalates, and respond with higher-confidence attribution than intelligence sourced from any single customer’s telemetry could provide. AI-accelerated operations, expert-led decisions Defender Experts MDR also combines advanced AI and generative AI with seasoned human experts. AI filters noise, grades and classifies incidents, and accelerates investigation at machine speed and scale, while our analysts own the outcome. According to the IDC MarketScape, “70% AI-assisted workflows are enabled through automated noise filtering, AI-based grading, and agentic operations while maintaining expert decision-making.” Furthermore, “quantified outcomes noted include 97% AI classification accuracy, 77% malware/phishing agent-investigated, 72% faster resolution combining AI and humans, and 45% autonomous investigations.” The impact shows up in the work. Over the past year, Defender Experts mitigated 27,000 high-severity incidents, and the team’s threat research now contributes a meaningful share of all Defender detections, enriching protection for customers well beyond the MDR service itself. Throughout, a dedicated security delivery expert and on-demand access to our experts keep customers i…

In this article Pre-encryption Encryption Post-encryption Defending against DeadLock ransomware Indicators of compromise Microsoft Threat Intelligence tracks DeadLock ransomware as an emerging financially motivated operation distinguished by its use of decentralized infrastructure to support victim communications and data leak operations. Its recovery ecosystem combines the Session messaging network with blockchain-backed services that store and deliver resources used throughout the extortion process. This architecture likely increases the resilience of portions of its communication, leak-hosting, and negotiation infrastructure, allowing DeadLock operators to recover from some disruption efforts while maintaining continuity for victims. Microsoft has observed DeadLock ransomware being deployed by multiple groups including an affiliate of the Lynx and INC ransomware ecosystems. First observed in July 2025, DeadLock operators employ double extortion tactics, encrypting victim environments while threatening to publicly release exfiltrated data. As of July 2026, the operators have published more than 80 compromised organizations on their data leak site, called the DeadLock blog, with more than half of the claimed victims in Europe. Microsoft identified DeadLock ransomware impacting organizations across information technology (IT), mining, transportation and logistics, manufacturing, hospitality, consumer goods, and other sectors in Europe, Asia, North America, South America, and Africa. The DeadLock encryptor includes a resource-aware throttling mechanism designed to maintain system responsiveness during encryption. In addition to its encryption capabilities, the ransomware also appears to implement language or country-based geofencing designed to avoid running in environments associated with former Soviet and Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)-linked countries as well as select Middle Eastern countries, a pattern commonly observed among ransomware operators believed to operate from those regions. Together, these capabilities demonstrate how DeadLock combines established ransomware tradecraft with decentralized infrastructure designed to improve operational resilience. In this blog, we present a technical analysis of the DeadLock ransomware encryptor, covering its execution flow, defense evasion techniques, encryption design, and post-encryption behaviors, including a decentralized recovery chat system. We also provide indicators of compromise (IOCs), Microsoft Defender detections, and mitigation guidance to help organizations defend against this threat and similar ransomware activity. Pre-encryption Configuration parsing Before performing any malicious activity, the DeadLock encryptor decrypts an embedded configuration blob using XOR decoding with an 8-byte key. Below are the malware’s configuration fields and their values. Field Value Victim UID Malware public key 03bf50bbf97c4e951e66ff12b689a37a3ce675b4921e254eae76da77573843e4a9 Encryption rule 1000,05052429880,025124288000,010524288000,F991114288000 Language exclude list Geofencing language IDs (see Language geofencing ) Process stop list Processes to terminate (see Process and service termination ) Service stop list Services to stop and delete (see Process and service termination ) File exclude list Extensions and file names to avoid encrypting (see Directory traversal ) Directory exclude list Pre-traversal filter with directories to avoid encrypting (see Directory traversal ) Sub-path Exclude List Sub-paths to avoid encrypting during traversal (see Directory traversal ) Text ransom note Full text ransom note content (see Ransom notes deployment ) HTML recovery chat Full HTML/JS interactive chat page (see Recovery chat: Technical architecture ) Language geofencing As an early exit check, the malware queries the system’s default and user interface (UI) languages. If either language matches the exclude list in the configuration, the malware self-deletes immediately withou…

Files built with the polyglot technique have been showing up more and more in cyberattacks in recent years. They let attackers slip malware past email filters and file scanners, deceive victims in phishing attacks, and complicate incident investigations. To pull this off, attackers deliberately construct a file that a system can interpret as different formats depending on which application opens it. A classic example is a file that can be handled as a PNG image or a ZIP archive. All it takes is changing the file’s extension, or simply using one or another application to open it. Let’s take a look at why it’s even possible to create files like this, which format combinations have turned up in real-world attacks, and how organizations can protect themselves from this threat. Why polyglot files are possible The data formats behind polyglot files are seldom exotic. It all comes down to a clever combination of common formats that happen to be structurally compatible. Polyglots exploit at least one of the following quirks in certain file formats: Most file formats need decoding from the very first byte, but some require to read them from the end. The clearest example is a ZIP archive: a corrupted or missing beginning doesn’t stop applications from reading the file, because all the needed headers actually sit at the end. This lets attackers simply glue two files together — in the example above, a PNG and a ZIP. The beginning reads as a valid PNG image, while the end reads as a valid ZIP archive. Many formats work like Russian matryoshka nesting dolls: despite outwardly having a specific extension matching its intended usage, inside the file is essentially a ZIP archive containing the necessary data. This group includes modern office documents (DOCX/XLSX/PPTX), Android installation packages (APK), Java library files (JAR), and many others. Some formats have no strict structural requirements — or their requirements are loose enough that the application that’s processing the file can locate the fragment it needs even when that fragment isn’t at the beginning. The Polydet GitHub repository describes numerous examples of possible file combinations for building a polyglot. Under the MITRE classification, this technique falls under the Masquerading category ( T1036.008 , Masquerade File Type). Examples of polyglot files in known cyberattacks Publicly available malware campaign analyses reveal all kinds of polyglots. Attackers adapt the entire attack scenario to fit a specific file type combination. The Head Mare group delivered the PhantomPyramid malware as a ZIP attachment. The file consisted of Windows executable code (EXE) with a small ZIP archive glued onto the end. When the victim opened the archive, it contained a file with the extension PDF.LNK, which would then launch that same polyglot attachment — this time as an executable file. In the attack documented by JPCERT , attackers created a file that started as a PDF and was detected as a PDF by most scanners but carried a DOC extension and opened in Office applications as a valid DOC file containing malicious macros. The attacks spreading the StrRAT and Ratty Trojans used a polyglot built from a signed Windows installer package (MSI) with malicious Java code (JAR) tacked onto the end. The StrelaStealer attacks used a polyglot with an HTML extension: a Windows library (DLL) with a decoy HTML document glued onto the end. A shortcut in the archive launched the file twice: once via the start command (the equivalent of a double-click, which opened a browser showing the HTML document), and once via rundll32 (which launched the malicious DLL). In a simulated but elegant attack, researchers joined two ordinary ZIP files together and found that different popular archive tools displayed the combined file differently: some showed only the first archive, some only the second, and some showed both at once as if it were a single archive with shared contents. If the attacker is familiar with the vic…

Maltrail IOC for 2026-08-11

Maltrail IOC for 2026-08-10

Maltrail IOC for 2026-08-09

Gen's H1 2026 Threat Report examines two separate attack chains. One used compromised business inboxes and browser manipulation in a banking-malware campaign, while the other used clipboard hijacking to redirect cryptocurrency payments. [...]

Have you ever tried to open an “encrypted” email or an urgent document, only to realize with horror that your usual DOCX attachment is actually a file with the extension .docx.exe? Or maybe you received an email supposedly with an invoice, contract, or internal memo attached — only for the file to prove something entirely different from what it claimed to be? If so, you were likely targeted in a malware infection attempt. Cybercriminals routinely disguise malicious files as harmless documents and archives, banking on recipients blindly clicking without checking the extension. Kaspersky experts analyzed the file formats most frequently deployed in malicious email blasts to reveal what really lurks behind these extensions — and how attackers weaponize them in their campaigns. Important note: the extensions we’ll be discussing here are routinely used for completely legitimate files. For example, Windows executables normally end in .exe. However, we’re focusing specifically on scenarios where attackers disguise or spoof a file’s extension to pass it off as a totally different type of file. What extensions are most commonly found in malware? Our experts analyzed malicious email blasts from the beginning of 2026 to pinpoint the 15 most common dangerous file extensions. .exe .js .html .dll .bat .vbs .xls .pdf .jse .au3 .docx .htm .wsf .scr .lnk The top 15 file extensions used in malicious email blasts Let’s take a look at what files with these extensions actually do under the hood. Executable files An executable file is a compiled computer program that’s ready to run. Once launched, a malicious executable can download additional payloads, alter system settings, steal user data, connect your device to external attacker-controlled servers, and much more. These are the most common executable extensions found in malicious email campaigns: .exe .dll .com .scr .exe The classic Windows executable extension. It powers every program you use daily, from web browsers and games to office suites and software installers. By the way, attackers often wrap EXE malware in double extensions: invoice.docx.exe, report.pdf.exe, or even photo.jpg.exe. They take advantage of a default Windows setting: hiding extensions for known file types. Because this setting is turned on by default, users only see the first part of the file name — invoice.docx, report.pdf, or photo.jpg — and assume it’s just a normal document or image. But the second you open this trap file, the malware fires up. .dll Another common extension abused in malicious campaigns is .dll (dynamic-link library). These libraries hold functions that Windows programs frequently require while running, such as printing a document. This modular architecture prevents redundant code by letting multiple applications call on the exact same library for specific tasks. However, if an attacker replaces a legitimate library with an infected one, running any normal program that calls on it can trigger malicious code. .com While files with the .com extension have absolutely nothing to do with the web domain of the same name, cybercriminals likely count on victims mistaking these files for links in an unusual format. In reality, it’s a legacy Windows executable format. While modern versions of Windows no longer rely on this file type, the operating system can still run and execute it, which makes opening one a very bad idea. .scr SCR files are screensavers — those idle Windows screen animations featuring abstract patterns, the iconic bouncing logo, or whatever else. Despite their harmless reputation, screensavers are essentially executables just like EXE files: once opened, they can install extra components or alter system settings all the same. In malicious campaigns, these files routinely masquerade as images, screenshots, or documents. Scripts Scripts are text files containing a sequence of commands that a computer runs automatically in order. They can download files, install and launch programs, modify securi…

Maltrail IOC for 2026-08-08

A Go-based malware delivered in ClickFix attacks targeting macOS users is stealing cryptocurrency assets, browser-stored passwords, Apple Keychain data, and cached credentials. [...]