Details of a high severity remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability in Microsoft's proprietary browser engine 'MSHTML', also known as 'Trident', were released by Microsoft on September 7, 2021, and promptly followed by reports of active exploitation in the wild.

CVE-2021-26084, a critical vulnerability (CVSS score 9.8) in Atlassian Confluence Server and Confluence Data Center, is currently being actively and widely exploited by threat actors.

Cyberint Research observed several unsolicited malicious email (malspam) campaigns in August 2021 through which Masslogger was delivered. First noticed around April 2020, Masslogger is a popular.NET credential stealer used to gather credentials from victims for various applications, and is readily available to purchase on cybercriminal forums for around $100 (US).

First observed in 2020 and advertised on various cybercriminal forums as a 'Malware-as-a-Service' (MaaS) threat, Redline is an information stealer mainly targeting Windows' victim credentials and cryptocurrency wallets, as well as Browser information, FTP connections, game chat launchers, and OS information such as system hardware, processes names, time zone, IP, geolocation information, OS version, and default language.

Launched in September 2019 and formerly known as 'ABCD', LockBit is a ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) threat that was updated in June 2021 and improved on the group’s earlier claims of having the fastest encryption process on the ransomware scene (Figure 1). Much like other RaaS offerings, LockBit operates an affiliate profit sharing program in which up-to eighty percent of a ransom payment can be earned whilst the operators claim the remainder.

Believed active since mid-2020, Conti is a big game hunter ransomware threat operated by a threat group identified as Wizard Spider and offer to affiliates as a ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) offering. Following the lead of other big game hunter ransomware groups, Conti adopted the double extortion tactic, also known as 'steal, encrypt and leak', in order to apply additional pressure on victims to pay their ransom demands and avoid sensitive or confidential data being exposed.

Recently published by Lionel Gilles, an offensive security researcher based in France, 'PetitPotam' is a proof-of-concept (PoC) tool used for NT LAN Manager (NTLM) relay attacks that, when executed properly, grants threat actors the ability to take over a Windows Active Directory (AD) domain, including domain controllers (DC), where Active Directory Certificate Services (ADCS) are used. Similar to classic in-the-middle (ITM) or replay attacks, PetitPotam applies similar concepts to its relay attack.

Cyberint Research observed a number of unsolicited malicious email (malspam) campaigns throughout July 2021 in which Agent Tesla has been used to deliver 'Oski Stealer' to a variety of targets worldwide. First observed around November 2019, Oski Stealer is a popular threat, used to gather credentials and/or financial data from victims, and is readily available to purchase on various cybercriminal forums, typically advertised by a threat actor known as 'oski_seller', for around US$70-100.

First coming to light as a local elevation of privilege vulnerability affecting pre-release versions of Windows 11 (Figure 1), subsequent investigations into the issue, namely sensitive registry hive files being accessible to all users when 'System Protection' is enabled, confirm that it also affects Windows 10. Initially dubbed 'HiveNightmare' and 'SeriousSAM' by security researchers, CVE-2021-36934 has been assigned to this vulnerability although the CVSS score has yet to be determined.

Seemingly favored by many big game hunter ransomware threat groups, VPN and network infrastructure devices are regularly used as the initial attack vector, especially given that some organizations neglect to include 'hardware' appliances within their patch and update regimes.