Category Archives: IBM X-Force Research

X-Force Research Update: Top 10 Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities of 2021

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From 2020 to 2021, there was a 33% increase in the number of reported incidents caused by vulnerability exploitation, according to the 2022 X-Force Threat Intelligence Index. A large percentage of these exploited vulnerabilities were newly discovered; in fact, four out of the top five vulnerabilities in 2021 were newer vulnerabilities. Vulnerability exploitation was the […]

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X-Force Research Update: Top 10 Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities of 2021

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From 2020 to 2021, there was a 33% increase in the number of reported incidents caused by vulnerability exploitation, according to the 2022 X-Force Threat Intelligence Index. A large percentage of these exploited vulnerabilities were newly discovered; in fact, four out of the top five vulnerabilities in 2021 were newer vulnerabilities. Vulnerability exploitation was the […]

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One Small Error by DevOps, One Giant Opening for Attackers

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When you look at breach statistics in today’s cloud-dominated IT world, you can see several examples where a small error made by the DevOps or CloudOps team has led to a tremendous impact on businesses’ reputations or, in some cases, their existence. Misconfigured AWS S3 buckets, poor password management on publicly exposed databases and secrets […]

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One Small Error by DevOps, One Giant Opening for Attackers

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When you look at breach statistics in today’s cloud-dominated IT world, you can see several examples where a small error made by the DevOps or CloudOps team has led to a tremendous impact on businesses’ reputations or, in some cases, their existence. Misconfigured AWS S3 buckets, poor password management on publicly exposed databases and secrets […]

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What Are the Biggest Phishing Trends Today?

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According to the 2022 X-Force Threat Intelligence Index, phishing was the most common way that cyber criminals got inside an organization. Typically, they do so to launch a much larger attack such as ransomware. The Index also found that phishing was used in 41% of the attacks that X-Force remediated in 2021. That’s a 33% […]

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Hive0117 Continues Fileless Malware Delivery in Eastern Europe

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Through continued research into the ongoing cyber activity throughout Eastern Europe, IBM Security X-Force identified a phishing email campaign by Hive0117, likely a financially motivated cybercriminal group, from February 2022, designed to deliver the fileless malware variant dubbed DarkWatchman. The campaign masquerades as official communications from the Russian Government’s Federal Bailiffs Service, the Russian-language emails […]

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Where Everything Old is New Again: Operational Technology and Ghost of Malware Past

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This post was written with contributions from IBM Security’s Sameer Koranne and Elias Andre Carabaguiaz Gonzalez. Operational technology (OT) — the networks that control industrial control system processes — face a more complex challenge than their IT counterparts when it comes to updating operating systems and software to avoid known vulnerabilities. In some cases, implementation […]

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CaddyWiper: Third Wiper Malware Targeting Ukrainian Organizations

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On March 1, 2022, ESET reported a third destructive data wiper variant used in attacks against Ukrainian organizations dubbed as CaddyWiper. CaddyWiper’s method of destruction is by overwriting file data with “NULL” values. This is the fourth sample of malware IBM Security X-Force has released public content for which has been reportedly targeted systems belonging […]

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Trickbot Group’s AnchorDNS Backdoor Upgrades to AnchorMail

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IBM Security X-Force researchers have discovered a revamped version of the Trickbot Group’s AnchorDNS backdoor being used in recent attacks ending with the deployment of Conti ransomware. The Trickbot Group, which X-Force tracks as ITG23, is a cybercriminal gang known primarily for developing the Trickbot banking Trojan, which was first identified in 2016 and initially […]

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IBM Security X-Force Research Advisory: New Destructive Malware Used In Cyber Attacks on Ukraine

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This post was written with contributions from IBM Security X-Force’s Anne Jobmann, Claire Zaboeva and Richard Emerson. On February 23, 2022, open-source intelligence sources began reporting detections of a wiper malware — a destructive family of malware designed to permanently destroy data from the target — executing on systems belonging to Ukrainian organizations. IBM Security […]

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