Raspberry Robin worm part of larger ecosystem facilitating pre-ransomware activity
Microsoft has discovered recent activity indicating that the Raspberry Robin worm is part of a complex and interconnected malware ecosystem, with links to other malware families and alternate infection methods beyond its original USB drive spread. These infections lead to ... continue reading
How to prevent lateral movement attacks using Microsoft 365 Defender
It’s been 10 years since the first version of the Mitigating Pass-the-Hash Attacks and Other Credential Theft whitepaper was made available, but the techniques are still relevant today, because they help prevent attackers from gaining a network foothold and using credential-dumping tools ... continue reading
DEV-0832 (Vice Society) opportunistic ransomware campaigns impacting US education sector
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
New “Prestige” ransomware impacts organizations in Ukraine and Poland
The Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) has identified evidence of a novel ransomware campaign targeting organizations in the transportation and related logistics industries in Ukraine and Poland utilizing a previously unidentified ransomware payload. We observed this new ransomware, which labels ... continue reading
Analyzing attacks using the Exchange vulnerabilities CVE-2022-41040 and CVE-2022-41082
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
SMB compression behavior & settings changes
Heya folks, Ned here again. As you know from a previous post, we released an end-to-end SMB compression capability with Windows 11 and Windows Server 2022. You can learn all about it at SMB Compression | Microsoft Docs. There was ... continue reading
Modernizing Endpoint Management – Encryption – Part 2
Introduction: In part 1, we saw how to use MEM portal to view and recover Bitlocker recovery keys for ConfigMgr clients that are tenant attached. In part 2 of this blog, we will see how to migrate Bitlocker keys to ... continue reading
Untangling KNOTWEED: European private-sector offensive actor using 0-day exploits
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
The many lives of BlackCat ransomware
The BlackCat ransomware, also known as ALPHV, is a prevalent threat and a prime example of the growing ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) gig economy. It’s noteworthy due to its unconventional programming language (Rust), multiple target devices and possible entry points, and affiliation ... continue reading
To AAD Join or Not … That is the Question
As we all know, the cloud paradigm shifts in IT continue. When I worked in corporate IT - heck, when I started blogging out here - on-prem was really all there was. Active Directory, GPOs and WINS were all the ... continue reading
