Cybersecurity Brief – 2025-05-31

Sat, 31 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Major Incidents or Breaches

ConnectWise experienced a breach attributed to a “sophisticated nation state actor,” with subsequent targeting of ScreenConnect customers. Details remain limited.
Law enforcement took down AVCheck, an online service used by cybercriminals to test malware against commercial antivirus solutions prior to deployment.

Two critical vulnerabilities were identified in vBulletin forum software, with one confirmed as being actively exploited in the wild.
The Q1 2025 vulnerability and exploit report highlights ongoing high rates of published exploits, with notable vulnerabilities in SAP NetWeaver and Microsoft SQL Server among those actively targeted.
A PNG image was discovered containing concatenated payloads, demonstrating the continued use of file format manipulation for payload delivery.

A China-linked threat actor has been exploiting critical flaws in SAP NetWeaver and Microsoft SQL Server in attacks across Asia and Brazil. The group, also referred to as “Earth Lamia,” is actively targeting exposed servers in sensitive sectors to steal data.
The German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) publicly identified “Stern,” the alleged leader of the Trickbot and Conti ransomware groups, as Vitaly Nikolaevich Kovalev, a 36-year-old Russian national.
A new malware campaign is distributing EDDIESTEALER, a Rust-based information stealer that bypasses Chrome’s app-bound encryption to exfiltrate browser data. The campaign leverages fake CAPTCHA verification pages (ClickFix) for social engineering.
The U.S. Department of Treasury and FBI sanctioned Funnull Technology Inc., a Philippines-based company, for orchestrating $200 million in romance and cryptocurrency fraud scams, reportedly costing Americans billions annually.

Threat actors continue to exploit known vulnerabilities in widely used enterprise software (e.g., SAP, SQL Server, vBulletin) soon after disclosure.
Social engineering tactics, such as fake CAPTCHA pages, remain prominent in malware delivery campaigns.
Cybercriminals leverage online AV scanning services like AVCheck to refine malware evasion techniques.
There is increasing use of Rust for new malware families, as seen with EDDIESTEALER.
Pentera’s 2025 State of Pentesting report indicates attackers are focusing on specific high-value assets, with security teams facing challenges in prioritising remediation.
AI coding agents and tools are being rapidly adopted despite 96% of IT professionals acknowledging associated security risks, raising concerns about their potential to introduce vulnerabilities into software development and open source projects.

The U.S. Treasury’s OFAC sanctions against Funnull Technology Inc. represent a continued policy focus on disrupting large-scale cyber-enabled financial fraud operations.
Law enforcement’s takedown of AVCheck demonstrates increased international collaboration targeting cybercrime-enabling infrastructure.

Fri, 30 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

ConnectWise, the developer of ScreenConnect remote access software, disclosed a cyberattack attributed to a suspected nation-state threat actor. The breach impacted a limited number of ScreenConnect customers.
Victoria’s Secret took its website and some store services offline following a security incident. The company has engaged third-party experts to investigate.
LexisNexis Risk Solutions reported a data breach affecting over 364,000 individuals, resulting from a December 2024 incident. The breach involved third-party access to customer data, but LexisNexis systems were not directly compromised.
A Managed Service Provider’s SimpleHelp RMM tool was compromised by the DragonForce ransomware group, who exfiltrated data and deployed ransomware across customer endpoints.
SentinelOne experienced a global outage affecting 10 commercial customer consoles, including Singularity Endpoint, XDR, Cloud Security, and related services. Services have since been restored.

A new Windows Remote Access Trojan (RAT) was identified using corrupted DOS and PE headers to evade detection for weeks.
A vulnerability in Apple Safari enables fullscreen browser-in-the-middle attacks, allowing threat actors to steal account credentials.
Thousands of ASUS routers have been infected and backdoored as part of a large-scale botnet campaign, with the ORB network also affecting Linksys, D-Link, QNAP, and Araknis Network devices.
Microsoft confirmed that some Windows 11 systems may fail to start after installing the KB5058405 security update.
Mozilla released an emergency update (Firefox 139.0.1) to address graphical artifacts on NVIDIA GPUs caused by the previous release.

Meta disrupted three coordinated influence operations originating from Iran, China, and Romania, which used fake personas to target Romania, Azerbaijan, and Taiwan.
The DragonForce ransomware group exploited flaws in SimpleHelp RMM to deploy ransomware and exfiltrate data from an MSP’s customers.
APT41 (Double Dragon), a Chinese state-sponsored group, used Google Calendar events as command-and-control infrastructure in a recent campaign.
The ‘Everest Group’ is conducting extortion attacks against global organisations by stealing data from SAP SuccessFactors HR tools, targeting entities in multiple countries.
Cybercriminals are distributing malware and ransomware, including CyberLock and Lucky_Gh0$t, via fake installers for popular AI tools such as ChatGPT and InVideo AI.
Threat actors are abusing Google Apps Script to host phishing pages, leveraging the platform’s legitimacy to evade detection.
The ‘Haozi’ gang is selling turnkey phishing-as-a-service kits via Telegram, providing infrastructure and support for low-skilled actors.
PumaBot is targeting Linux devices in a new botnet campaign, employing semi-automated tactics.

Scammers are exploiting uncertainty around US tariff policy to launch phishing and social engineering attacks.
Active credential harvesting phishing campaigns are targeting Capital One customers.
Attackers are increasingly mapping organisational attack surfaces using automated reconnaissance tools, mirroring defender efforts.
Cybercriminals are capitalising on AI tool popularity, using fake installers as lures to spread malware and ransomware.
Usage of the “passwd” command is being tracked in honeypots, indicating ongoing brute-force and credential access attempts.
The deprecation of Microsoft Authenticator’s password autofill feature is prompting migration to Microsoft Edge.
Zscaler’s acquisition of Red Canary highlights the growing importance of telemetry and managed detection and response (MDR) in security operations.

The US Treasury Department sanctioned Funnull Technology, a Philippines-based cloud provider, for supporting hundreds of thousands of scam websites involved in “pig butchering” and other cyber fraud schemes linked to over $200 million in losses.
US Customs and Border Protection is storing the DNA of migrant children in a criminal database managed by the FBI, raising privacy and data protection concerns.