Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

Cloud Ransomware Attack: Storm-0501's Azure Tactics and How to Defend

Cloud adoption has transformed how organizations store and secure critical data—but it has also created new opportunities for attackers. A recent campaign by Storm-0501, a financially motivated ransomware group, highlights how devastating a cloud ransomware attack can be when backups and recovery measures fail.

Cloud Ransomware: How Storm-0501 Hackers Are Redefining Data Extortion

Ransomware is no longer confined to on-premise networks. A recent report from Microsoft reveals how Storm-0501, a notorious threat group, has pivoted its focus from traditional device encryption to cloud-based ransomware attacks. By exploiting native cloud features, these attackers bypass conventional malware defenses, exfiltrate sensitive data, destroy backups, and extort organizations—all without deploying traditional ransomware encryptors.

Nx npm Malware Explained: AI Agent Hijacking

Nx npm malware (Aug 2025): attackers published malicious Nx packages that weaponized AI coding agents (Claude Code, Gemini CLI, Amazon Q) via a postinstall script to inventory sensitive files and exfiltrate sensitive data to public GitHub repos named “s1ngularity-repository-*.” We break down what happened, affected versions, and how to check + respond (rotate credentials, hunt IoCs, and more). Resources.

A Tale of Two Ransomware-as-a-Service Threat Groups

Ransomware distributors are bad enough, but there should be a special place in the dark web's basement that only offers ISDN connections and no Wi-Fi, reserved for those groups that insist their attack was a benign cybersecurity service or those who only attack entities that they say deserve to be struck. At least based on their logic.

Investigating The Nx "s1ngularity" Attack: What GitGuardian Uncovered And How You Can Stay Safe

Discover the chilling details of the Nx “s1ngularity” supply chain attack. On August 26, 2025, the massively popular Nx npm package, with millions of weekly downloads, was compromised with credential‑harvesting malware.

China's Cyber Strategy Exposed

Chinese cyber operations aren’t random hacks; they are part of a broader geopolitical competition for information, economic advantage, and strategic influence. Every operation ties back to China’s long-term national objectives. Mei Danowski, Co-Founder of Natto Thoughts Online Publication, explains how these attacks serve national objectives and why cybersecurity defenders must adapt.

8 Malicious npm Packages Deliver Multi-Layered Chrome Browser Information Stealer

Open-source software repositories have become one of the main entry points for attackers as part of supply chain attacks, with growing waves using typosquatting and masquerading, pretending to be legitimate. The JFrog Security Research team regularly monitors open-source software repositories using advanced automated tools, in order to detect malicious packages.

Malicious Screen Connect Campaign Abuses AI-Themed Lures for Xworm Delivery

During a recent Advanced Continual Threat Hunt (ACTH) investigation, the Trustwave SpiderLabs Threat Hunt team identified a deceptive campaign that abused fake AI-themed content to lure users into executing a malicious, pre-configured ScreenConnect installer.

The Business of Malware: Inside the MaaS Economy

In our 2025 State of the Underground report, we found that 384 unique varieties of malware were sold across the top three criminal forums in 2024, a 10% increase from 349 in 2023, signifying an expansion in the underground malware marketplace. These figures reflect malware explicitly offered for sale (not shared freely), and each distinct version or naming variation is counted independently.

Investigating the Oyster Backdoor Campaign and its Targeting of IT Professionals

BlueVoyant investigated the latest Oyster malware attacks, delivered in a widespread campaign targeting IT professionals by impersonating legitimate IT tools. The campaign was originally discovered by outside researchers, but when BlueVoyant’s SOC observed suspicious behavior in a client environment within the healthcare sector, the team, including the Threat Fusion Cell (TFC), decided to delve deeper.

Five-Year Plans, Forever Wars: China's Blueprint for Cyber Dominance

Chinese state-backed cyber operations are often misunderstood as a single, centrally controlled machine. In reality, they are fragmented, diverse, and strategically aligned with China’s national objectives, from economic development to critical infrastructure positioning. In this episode of Data Security Decoded, join Caleb Tolin as he sits down with Mei Danowski, Co-Founder of Natto Thoughts and expert in geopolitical intelligence, to explore how China’s cyber ecosystem operates and how it is shaped by cultural, political, and economic structures.

Inside the Kimsuky APT Leak: Stolen GPKI Certificates, Rootkits, and a Personalized Cobalt Strike from North Korea's Cyber Unit

In a rare and unprecedented incident, a massive operational dump belonging to the North Korean Kimsuky APT group was leaked on a dark web forum. The leak containing virtual machine images, VPS dumps, phishing kits, rootkits, and thousands of credentials offers an unparalleled look into the inner workings of one of Pyongyang’s most prolific cyber espionage groups.

MURKY PANDA: A Trusted-Relationship Threat in the Cloud

Since 2023, CrowdStrike Services and CrowdStrike Counter Adversary Operations have investigated multiple intrusions conducted by MURKY PANDA, a sophisticated adversary leveraging advanced tradecraft to compromise high-profile targets. MURKY PANDA, active since at least 2023, is a cloud-conscious adversary with a broad targeting scope; the adversary’s operations have particularly focused on government, technology, academia, legal, and professional services entities in North America.

Can threat actors make ChatGPT malware? #ai #cybersecurity #gpt5

GPT-5 was jailbroken in under 24 hours using simple "storytelling" techniques that bypass safety guardrails. The key insight from our podcast? Individual AI requests appear legitimate but become dangerous when combined. Bad actors can request network code in one session, convincing emails in another, and credential collection forms in a third. Each task seems normal individually, but together they form a complete phishing toolkit.

Falcon Platform Prevents COOKIE SPIDER's SHAMOS Delivery on macOS

Between June and August 2025, the CrowdStrike Falcon platform successfully blocked a sophisticated malware campaign that attempted to compromise over 300 customer environments. The campaign deployed SHAMOS, a variant of Atomic macOS Stealer (AMOS) developed by the cybercriminal group COOKIE SPIDER. Operating as malware-as-a-service, COOKIE SPIDER rents this information stealer to cybercriminals who deploy it to harvest sensitive information and cryptocurrency assets from victims.

XWORM Returns to Haunt Systems with Ghost Crypt

Starting in July 2025, Kroll has observed a new delivery method coming from the XWORM malware family. Previously known to leverage a self-contained executable in order to drop the final payload, XWORM now uses Ghost Crypt which is a service publicized on HackForums and used to exploit DLL side-loading vulnerabilities in known applications. The service includes support for a range of malware families, including LUMMASTEALER, BLUELOADER, RHADAMANTHYS, XWORM, DCRAT, PURELOADER, STEALC and others.

Why CTI Must Recommend, Not Just Report

In traditional intel roles, analysts avoid making direct recommendations. But Scott Scher explains why that doesn’t work in the business world. CTI teams can’t just present options, they need to say what should happen next. Scott breaks down why effective CTI must go beyond context and offer clear, actionable guidance for defenders. Hidden Truths: Traditional intel avoids giving direct recommendations Business leaders and defenders want clear next steps CTI teams must say.

CTI as Cover: The Justification Behind Every Security Decision

CTI isn’t just about detecting threats, it’s about helping defenders justify the decisions they make. Scott Scher explains why cyber threat intelligence should be seen as cover, not an excuse. It should be seen as a way to prioritize and explain security actions with confidence. Scott lays out how CTI can give defenders clarity, accountability, and the ability to say.

Threat Actor Profile: Interlock Ransomware

A relatively new ransomware group, Interlock, has gained traction in 2025 as an opportunistic ransomware operator that leverages compromised websites and multi-stage social engineering techniques to deliver their payloads. First observed in September 2024, Interlock departs from the traditional Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) model, operating without affiliates or public advertisements.

When AI Agents Go Awry

When your AI agents go awry, rewind those changes easily with Agent Rewind from Rubrik. As AI agents gain autonomy and optimize for outcomes, unintended errors can lead to business downtime. Agent Rewind will enable organizations to undo mistakes made by agentic AI by providing visibility into agents' actions and enabling enterprises to rewind those changes to applications and data. We’ve integrated Predibase's advanced AI infrastructure with Rubrik's recovery capabilities to enable enterprises to embrace agentic AI confidently.

The "So What?" Problem in Threat Intelligence

Defense teams and many others across the organization don’t always understand what intelligence is or how to use it. Scott Scher explains why that second part, how to use it, is what CTI teams often miss. Scott shares why intelligence must go beyond reports and clearly communicate what matters and what to do next. Key Points: Most teams don’t know how to apply raw intelligence CTI must embed the “so what” and “what now” Reports alone are not enough Actionability is what makes intel valuable.

Breaking the Intelligence-Defense Divide with Scott Scher

Cyber threat intelligence is often misunderstood, seen as a niche reporting function instead of the connective tissue that links defenders, leaders, and strategy. In this episode of Data Security Decoded, join Caleb Tolin as he sits down with Scott Scher, a cyber threat intelligence (CTI) expert with an unconventional backstory, to explore how his off‑grid years shaped his view on resilience, why CTI should be seen as “counter‑threat intelligence,” and how intelligence defenders, and policy teams can work as one to turn raw data into actionable security decisions.

Defending Against SCATTERED SPIDER with Falcon Next-Gen SIEM

SCATTERED SPIDER is a prolific eCrime adversary that has conducted a range of financially motivated activities beginning in early 2022. Since surfacing, this adversary continues to compromise organizations around the world, deploying ransomware and exfiltrating sensitive files.

Scattered Spider's New Telegram Channel: A Rapid Fire of Leaks, Claims and the Return of Cloud-era Data Thefts

In early August 2025 a new Telegram channel emerged presenting itself as an amalgam of three well-known cybercriminal labels Scattered Spider, ShinyHunters and LAPSUS$. Within 24 hours the channel published a steady stream of claims, partial data dumps and screenshots tied to a wide range of incidents, including retail and luxury brands, government entities, and cloud-platform related breaches. The channel’s activity revived public attention on several overlapping trends.

Cato CTRL Threat Research: Oyster Malware Loader Targets Tech-Savvy Users with Smarter Techniques During Summer Malvertising Campaign

Summertime in the U.S., Europe, and many other regions typically falls between June and September. Tech teams, admins, and even their bosses take vacations. Inboxes slow down, and production systems finally get a breather. But for the threat actors behind Oyster, while others were reaching for sunscreen or enjoying real sea fishing, they launched their own phishing campaign using something far more effective than email and sharpened their hook.

The New Guy (a.k.a. Agentic AI)

AI agents have already caused unintended record updates, broken workflows, and pushed flawed logic into production systems. These misfires often go unnoticed until forecasts stall, pipelines break, or sensitive data is affected. These aren’t hallucinations. They’re executed actions with real consequences. At Rubrik, we’ve spent years helping enterprises recover from ransomware, insider threats, and operational errors. The pattern is always the same: Damage happens fast. The root cause is murky. And visibility is fragmented.

Pixels, Polygons, and Payloads:Malware delivery in 3D software pipelines

This research explores an unconventional malware delivery vector, demonstrating how trusted creative software tools can be repurposed to deliver payloads in ways that bypass common defences, user expectations, and AI-based analysis. The work concludes with the creation of a successful Proof-of-Concept (PoC) for code execution and AV/EDR evasion using the open-source 3D software suite Blender.

Detecting Suspicious ESXi Activity Before Ransomware Happens

Cybersecurity teams worldwide have been fighting against ransomware attacks on ESXi infrastructure for years. ESXi is a lightweight, bare-metal hypervisor developed by VMware that allows multiple virtual machines to run on a single physical server. ESXi is widely used in enterprise environments, often hosting virtual machines that support essential services for an entire organization.

Picture Paints a Thousand Codes: Dissecting Image-Based Steganography in a .NET (Quasar) RAT Loader

Steganography is the art of hiding information inside a seemingly ordinary, legitimate object so that no one suspects anything is hidden. The technique T1027.003 has been around for a long time and is increasingly used by malware authors and threat actors to avoid detection. This involves hiding malicious payloads inside innocent-looking files such as images, audio, or documents. By embedding malware in these files, attackers can bypass traditional security tools that scan for obvious threats.

Ransomware Evolution: The Changing Landscape of Cyber Extortion

Cybercriminals are shifting tactics. Rather than relying solely on ransomware’s tried-and-true method of using encryption to lock files and demand payment to decrypt, many are now instead embracing exfiltration and extortion, with encryption as a secondary tactic. This marks a significant evolution in ransom-based attack methods, one where encryption is optional, but leverage is mandatory.

UK Ransomware Payment Ban Implications

The UK will ban public bodies from paying ransoms and introduce new reporting rules for ransomware incidents. Public sector organisations must prepare to recover without paying. Private firms must notify the government if they plan to pay. Attackers may shift focus to private targets and use data leaks over encryption. Organisations need better visibility, response readiness, and tested recovery plans. Payment is no longer a fallback.

Rubrik Preemptive Recovery: Explained!

In the fight against ransomware, every second counts—if you're manually responding only after an attack, you could already be too late. In this video, we'll explore Rubrik's Preemptive Recovery Engine, a groundbreaking capability designed to proactively detect threats and speed up your recovery response. Unlike traditional, reactive solutions, Rubrik automatically identifies clean snapshots, pinpoints the optimal recovery points, and prepares your critical data ahead of threats—dramatically shrinking your recovery window and minimizing disruption.

'Plague' malware exploits Pluggable Authentication Module to breach Linux systems

‘Plague’ represents a newly identified Linux backdoor that has quietly evaded detection by traditional antivirus solutions for over a year. Its primary mechanism involves operating as a malicious PAM, allowing attackers to silently bypass system authentication and establish persistent SSH access to compromised Linux systems.

What Akira Ransomware Gang Taught This Company

What is ransomware? Ransomware is a form of malicious software that encrypts an organization’s files or systems, effectively locking users out until a ransom is paid, usually in cryptocurrency. But in 2025, ransomware is more than just malware. It’s a multi-billion-dollar criminal business. So far this year, 4,441 organizations have been publicly listed as ransomware victims.

Inside Silver Fox's Den: Trustwave SpiderLabs Unmasks a Global Threat Actor

This blog is the latest in a series that delves into the deep research conducted daily by the Trustwave SpiderLabs Threat Operations team on major threat actor groups currently operating globally. The Silver Fox threat actor group, also associated with attacks attributed to Void Arachne and Great Thief of the Valley, is a relatively new, most likely China-based threat group that has emerged as a significant player in advanced persistent threat (APT) campaigns.

Akira Ransomware Exploits SonicWall SMA100 Vulnerabilities: What You Need to Know

A newly surfaced set of vulnerabilities in the SonicWall SMA100 series appliances has captured the attention of cybersecurity professionals. While SonicWall has released patches for CVE-2025-40596 through CVE-2025-40599, and media reports point to a surge in Akira ransomware attacks targeting SonicWall SSL VPN infrastructure, CISA has not formally confirmed exploitation of these specific vulnerabilities by Akira at this time.

Turning Data Disaster into Strategy: Lessons to Learn from Malware Attacks

Malware, as one of many cyber threats, is not some random annoyance. Yet, there is nothing polite about it. It bypasses your firewall and establishes itself in your system. Then, escalated privileges are granted, and processes are killed. If you are particularly unlucky, malware encrypts your core and sticks around like a parasite in the CI/CD. So, it’s not about chaos but orchestration. That means you’re forgetting about something.

Inside the Mind of a Stealer Log Aggregator: An Interview with MoonCloud

In today’s threat landscape, the market for stealer logs—collections of credentials, browser data, and session cookies harvested through infostealers—continues to evolve. While many threat actors have come and gone, others have adapted and built significant operations around data resale, log aggregation, and credential-based exploitation. We spoke directly with MoonCloud, one of the more active stealer log aggregators operating in 2025.

The Geopolitical Security Playbook: When Nations Clash in Cyberspace

In this episode of Data Security Decoded, host Caleb Tolin sits down with Dustin Droullard, a cyber threat intelligence expert and former Army intelligence analyst, to discuss how global conflict is increasingly playing out in cyberspace, from digital espionage to civilian-targeted cyber operations. This episode highlights why organizations must rethink their cyber risk strategies in light of modern geopolitical threats and growing digital exposure.

Arctic Wolf Observes July 2025 Uptick in Akira Ransomware Activity Targeting SonicWall SSL VPN

In late July 2025, Arctic Wolf observed an increase in ransomware activity targeting SonicWall firewall devices for initial access. In the intrusions reviewed, multiple pre-ransomware intrusions were observed within a short period of time, each involving VPN access through SonicWall SSL VPNs. While credential access through brute force, dictionary attacks, and credential stuffing have not yet been definitively ruled out in all cases, available evidence points to the existence of a zero-day vulnerability.