Over the past several years, the cryptocurrency market has considerably expanded, gaining the interest of investors and threat actors. Cryptocurrency itself has been used by cybercriminals for their operations, notably for ransom payment in ransomware attacks, but we have also ... continue reading

In recent months, Microsoft has detected active ransomware and extortion campaigns impacting the global education sector, particularly in the US, by a threat actor we track as DEV-0832, also known as Vice Society. Shifting ransomware payloads over time from BlackCat, ... continue reading

October 1, 2022 update – Added information about Exploit:Script/ExchgProxyRequest.A, Microsoft Defender AV’s robust detection for exploit behavior related to this threat. We also removed a section on MFA as a mitigation, which was included in a prior version of this ... continue reading

Microsoft threat intelligence teams have been tracking multiple ransomware campaigns and have tied these attacks to DEV-0270, also known as Nemesis Kitten, a sub-group of Iranian actor PHOSPHORUS. Microsoft assesses with moderate confidence that DEV-0270 conducts malicious network operations, including ... continue reading

The Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) and the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) found a private-sector offensive actor (PSOA) using multiple Windows and Adobe 0-day exploits, including one for the recently patched CVE-2022-22047, in limited and targeted attacks against European ... continue reading

It’s time to discuss the team investments for 2022. For some areas we’ll be completing work we’ve already started, and in others we’ll be beginning on new projects. Executive Order on Cybersecurity One of the areas we’ve already spent significant ... continue reading

Multiple Qakbot campaigns that are active at any given time prove that the decade-old malware continues to be many attackers’ tool of choice, a customizable chameleon that adapts to suit the needs of the multiple threat actor groups that utilize ... continue reading

In 2021, cybercrime has become more sophisticated, widespread, and relentless. Criminals have targeted critical infrastructure—healthcare,1 information technology,2 financial services,3 energy sectors4—with headline-grabbing attacks that crippled businesses and harmed consumers. But there are positive trends—victims are coming forward, humanizing the toll ... continue reading

In MITRE Engenuity’s recent Carbanak+FIN7 ATT&CK Evaluation, Microsoft demonstrated that we can stop advanced, real-world attacks by threat actor groups with our industry-leading security capabilities. In this year’s evaluation, we engaged our unified Microsoft 365 Defender stack, with market-leading capabilities ... continue reading

From March to December 2020, we tracked segments of a dynamically generated email infrastructure that attackers used to send more than a million emails per month, distributing at least seven distinct malware families in dozens of campaigns using a variety ... continue reading