Latest cybersecurity reporting from selected sources.

Kazuar, a sophisticated malware family attributed to the Russian state actor Secret Blizzard, has been under constant development for years and continues to evolve in support of espionage-focused operations. Over time, Kazuar has expanded from a relatively traditional backdoor into a highly modular peer-to-peer (P2P) botnet ecosystem designed to enable persistent, covert access to target environments. The post Kazuar: Anatomy of a nation-state botnet appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.

Also, More ClickFix Attacks and Teen Booters Arrested in PolandThis week, Russian hackers targeted Signal and WhatsApp users, permit-fee phishing hit U.S. applicants, ClickFix on WordPress sites, Microsoft patched 80 bugs, a 14K-router botnet, Polish teens held over DDoS tools and Finland warned of Russian, Chinese espionage. North Korean IT workers for hire.

Also: Fortinet Flaws, Aisuru Botnet and Dutch Police Seize Bulletproof Host ServersThis week, the root cause of the Cloudflare outage, active exploitation of Fortinet flaws, Logitech disclosed a data breach, Microsoft headed off a record-breaking botnet attack, Dutch police seized bulletproof hosting servers and Princeton University disclosed a data breach after a phishing attack.

Cybersecurity researchers have warned of an actively expanding botnet dubbed Tsundere that's targeting Windows users

Microsoft on Monday disclosed that it automatically detected and neutralized a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack targeting a single endpoint in Australia that measured 5.72 terabits per second (Tbps) and nearly 3.64 billion packets per second (pps)

Aisuru botnet strikes again, bigger and badder Azure was hit by the "largest-ever" cloud-based distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, originating from the Aisuru botnet and measuring 15.72 terabits per second (Tbps), according to Microsoft.…

Microsoft said today that the Aisuru botnet hit its Azure network with a 15.72 terabits per second (Tbps) DDoS attack, launched from over 500,000 IP addresses. [...]

For the past week, domains associated with the massive Aisuru botnet have repeatedly usurped Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft in Cloudflare's public ranking of the most frequently requested websites. Cloudflare responded by redacting Aisuru domain names from their top websites list. The chief executive at Cloudflare says Aisuru's overlords are using the botnet to boost their malicious domain rankings, while simultaneously attacking the company's domain name system (DNS) service.

Also, AI Video Mocking Trump and Musk Disrupts HUD OfficesThis week, a U.S. Army soldier pleaded guilty, an AI video displayed to federal workers mocked Donald Trump and Elon Musk, a Saudi firm hit by ransomware, a new North Korean scam, hackers targeted Ukrainian notaries, CISA flagged two flaws, a botnet targeted Microsoft 365 and unpatched Ivanti VPNs.

The threat actors are exploiting non-interactive sign-ins, an authentication feature that security teams don't typically monitor.

SecurityScorecard revealed that the large-scale password spraying campaign can bypass MFA and security access policies by utilizing Non-interactive sign-ins

A massive botnet of over 130,000 compromised devices is conducting password-spray attacks against Microsoft 365 (M365) accounts worldwide, attempting to confirm credentials. [...]

Hackers Using Password Spraying to Steal User Microsoft Account CredentialsMultiple Chinese hacking groups are using a botnet named for a TCP routing port number to conduct password spraying attacks, warned Microsoft Thursday. The Quad7 operators are almost certainly located in China. Botnet activity can be difficult to monitor.

Microsoft has revealed that a Chinese threat actor it tracks as Storm-0940 is leveraging a botnet called Quad7 to orchestrate highly evasive password spray attacks

Microsoft warns that Chinese threat actors use the Quad7 botnet, compromised of hacked SOHO routers, to steal credentials in password-spray attacks. [...]

Federal prosecutors in the U.S. have charged two Sudanese brothers with running a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) botnet for hire that conducted a record 35,000 DDoS attacks in a single year, including those that targeted Microsoft's services in June 2023

Threat actors have been observed deploying a malware called NiceRAT to co-opt infected devices into a botnet

DoJ says 911 S5 crew earned $100M from 19 million PCs pwned by fake VPNs US authorities have arrested the alleged administrator of what FBI director Christopher Wray has described as "likely the world's largest botnet ever," comprising 19 million compromised Windows machines used by its operators to reap millions of dollars over the last decade.…

Kaspersky Says It Spotted QakBot Operators Exploiting the Flaw in AprilMicrosoft issued a patch Tuesday for a Windows zero-day vulnerability that security researchers say operators of the QakBot botnet and other hackers actively exploited. The elevation of privilege vulnerability flaw is rated "important" on the CVSS scale.

APT28 Used Hacked Ubiquiti Routers for Hashed Password Relay AttacksA campaign by Russian military intelligence to convert Ubiquiti routers into a platform for a global cyberespionage operation began as early as 2022, U.S. and foreign intelligence agencies said. The U.S. disrupted a botnet built by a hacking unit of Russian military's Main Intelligence Directorate.