Talos Takes

Earlier this week, we released an in-depth blog post on fingerprint scanners used as physical security gates on devices. To save you a bit of time, and to summarize it for those non-technical folks out there, Nick Biasini and Jon Munshaw dedicate this episode to breaking down Talos’ research. What was the endgame of our research? And can you rely only on your fingerprint to keep your device secure?

Now that Cisco Incident Response has been a part of the Talos family for a few months now, we figured it was time to check back in with them. On this episode of Talos Takes, Brad Garnett from CTIR joins the show to talk about his organization’s new Cyber Range offering, part of the standard CTIR retainer. Brad discusses how a Cyber Range exercise can prepare your organization for the worst and how it helps dispel some myths around what happens during a cyber intrusion.

On this week’s episode, Edmund Brumaghin joins the show again to talk about a recent blog post on Salfram. This threat actor is spreading lots and lots of spam and using it to deliver a variety of malware. Here’s why this threat specifically caught our eye and how it’s evolving over time.

In this episode of Talos Takes, content manager Jon Munshaw sits down with researcher Joe Marshall to discuss the recently discovered EKANS/SNAKE malware. This is one of the first ransomware strains to specifically target ICS systems. And Joe, who has experiencing protecting the ICS space, discusses what’s unique about this family and what it means for the future of cyber security in the infrastructure field.

It’s been a while since we re-visited our Malware 101 series. So we’re going back to class to learn about information-stealers. Aliza Johnson from the Talos Threat Intelligence & Interdiction team joins the show to talk about her recent research into and overview of infostealers. Although the name is pretty self-explanatory, this type of malware comes in many shapes and sizes for many purposes.

We go back to college this week with a Psychology 101 class. And today, we’re covering multi-factor authentication. Jon has Dave Lewis, one of Cisco Duo’s advisory CISOs, on the show to talk about the psychology behind using these apps and talking to users about implementing it across their environments. They discuss moving around the accept and reject buttons in the UI, how we communicate the benefits of MFA to administrators and the recent wave of brute-force attacks.

Paul Eubanks joins this week’s episode of Talos Takes to look at his recent blog post on de-anonymizing ransomware groups on the whispers dark web. Paul and his team recently used several tactics to unmask several threat actors and disclosure their tactics to stay hidden. Jon interviews Paul about ransomware actors’ usual operations on the dark web, the specific tools and tactics he used and the pros and cons of calling out actors for their opsec failures.

See people, this is what happens when you finally let a panda drive a sports car! This week’s episode of Talos Takes covers the basics of MustangPanda, a Chinese state-sponsored actor we wrote about recently. Asheer Maholtra joins the show to go over his research into this group. Mainly, we discuss why this actor, despite being aligned with China, is targeting Russian government entities and organizations. Though the two countries seem to be allies, all is fair in love and cyber espionage.

Continuing the “Kenna 101” series over at Talos Takes, Ed Bellis re-joins the show to talk about patching and mitigation strategies. So far, we’ve talked about how to tell when you should take a CVE seriously. But what if there’s no patch for it? Or what if you have to patch 50 vulnerabilities in the same product? We talk about how Kenna can help security teams of all sizes prioritize their patching strategies and create mitigation strategies in the worst-case scenario. For the other entries in our Kenna 101 series, listen here and here.

When most people think of the “Metaverse,” they may first think of the company Meta — the recently rebranded Facebook. After all, what other company would really want everyone taking meetings virtually using avatars while you share your cryptocurrency wallets and personal information with them? The Metaverse is actually much larger than this, though. So in this Talos Takes episode, we’re trying to demystify the Metaverse and look at what it is, exactly. Researcher Jaeson Schultz recaps his recent blog post on the matter, and then he and Jon talk about the potential security pitfalls that could arise from adopting the Metaverse.

In the latest entry in the “Days of our Ransomware” series, Azim Khodjibaev joins Jon to talk about some recent ransomware drama. Dark web forums have been going nuts since Russia arrested and charged several alleged members of the REvil ransomware gang in January. Azim discusses how there’s been a power grab since those arrests, and we discuss what else it might take to shut down many of these wide-reaching ransomware groups. Threat actors: They get into the same petty arguments we all do in Slack.

We had to give Brad a few minutes to take an Incident Response victory lap after his team received two major accolades over the past two weeks. But aside from that, it’s also a perfect time to have him on ahead of the holidays. The shopping season is always a favorite time for attackers, so it’s as good a time as any to make sure your incident response plan is polished and practiced. We also take some time to look back on what Incident Response lessons Brad learned in 2021.

Sorry for dropping two episodes in the feed in one day, but we also needed to find time to talk about the critical zero-day vulnerability in Apache HTTP Server. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to perform path traversal and eventually remote code execution. Patch for this one as soon as possible, and use the Snort rule we have available now.

We have another special extra large-sized version of Talos Takes this week. Enjoy this recording of a live stream we hosted earlier this week with Martin Lee from our Talos Communications team and Paul Lee from Cisco Talos Incident Response. The Lees discuss how to build the perfect Incident Response Plan. First, Martin walks through the basics of creating, editing and iterating on an IR plan. Then, he’s joined by Paul to ask him a few questions, take some Q&A from the audience and learn about Paul’s experience from the field.

Asheer Malhotra joins the show to once again cover a cyber attack in South Asia. This time, it’s an attacker that looks and smells like an APT, but may just be a run-of-the-mill crimeware gang. Asheer discusses he and his colleagues’ research into Operation: Armor Piercer, a campaign targeted at government agencies and military contractors. Needless to say, these are high-profile targets. Find out what this group wants and why they’re aping so much from other groups like Transparent Tribe and SideCopy.

Allow Vitor Ventura to take you on a journey of discovery, threat actors and attribution. He recently assisted with an investigation into a series of malware and spam campaigns using aviation-themed lures. These include fake flight itineraries, invoices and more. Vitor joins us on this week’s Talos Takes episode to discuss what he learned during this process, including how he connected the campaigns, what he learned (and couldn’t learn) about the actor behind them, and what he’ll take away into his next research. This is a great episode for anyone who is wondering about what kinds of pitfalls are out there for a security researcher.

Andrew Windsor from our malware research team joins the show for the first time to talk about Solarmarker. This is a campaign Andrew’s followed for a while that recently added new modules that make it particularly dangerous. The attackers behind Solarmarker could basically use this threat to drop whatever they want. At least for now, they’re sticking to information-stealing. But could it ever get worse than that?

What’s a commodity RAT? And how does that make it different from your run-of-the-mill RAT? Is that RAT different than a trojan? In this week’s Talos Takes episode, we answer these questions and more to provide you a quick overview of remote access trojans/tools (aka RATs) and how commodity RATS specifically differ from their “normal” brethren. Asheer Malhotra from our Outreach team has been looking at several commodity RATs for months now and is here to take you to class for 10 minutes.

Jon and Nick sit down for a few minutes to talk about U.S. President Joe Biden’s recent Executive Order on more heavily regulating cryptocurrency. For a primer on this episode, you can read a quick overview here. This episode pretty much sums it up as being a good thing for anyone who uses cryptocurrency legitimately, and bad for anyone who uses crypto to do anything illegal. We discuss how greater regulation could affect ransomware operators who rely on virtual currency for ransom payments and illegitimate miners, and why no one using Bitcoin legitimately should be worried.

Continuing our “Kenna 101” series, Jon is joined this week by Jerry Gamblin, Kenna’s director of security research. Jerry is an expert at all things CVE’s, so we reflect on reading vulnerability reports and analyzing specific CVEs. We discuss if “severity” scores even really mean anything, and how to interpret a maximum 10/10 score versus an attacker vector or type of vulnerability.

The recently disclosed vulnerability in F5 BIG-IP took security Twitter by storm two weeks ago, and continues to make headlines now. It immediately prompted warnings from CISA and security researchers everywhere warning users to patch as soon as possible. Of course, it’s important to patch. But maybe we started panicking a little too early that this was going to be the next PrintNightmare. On this week’s episode of Talos Takes, Jon is joined by Jerry Gamblin from Kenna Security to talk about the ins and outs of this vulnerability and while it is serious, it’s incredibly unlikely that an attacker can or would exploit it in the wild.

People across the world are working from home now, and employers are increasingly turning to VPN services and Windows Remote Desktop Protocol to make sure their workers have access to their files. In this Talos Takes episode, we run down some common security concerns with these services and discuss what employees should do to stay safe while accessing their files online.

Threat actors all over the place are trying to capitalize on COVID-19. We recently discovered a campaign we’re calling “PoetRAT” using lure documents themed around the pandemic attempting to trick victims into downloading malware. In this week’s Talos Takes episode, Nick Biasini chats with one of the researchers on the project, Warren Mercer, about this threat.

The quick and dirty beginner’s guide to what Snort is and how to use. This the podcast accompaniment to the rest of our Snort 101 materials, which can be found on Snort.org/Resources.

This week’s Talos Takes episode is another malware deep dive. Edmund Brumaghin joins the show to talk about WastedLocker, a recent ransomware family he and some other Talos researchers reverse-engineered. Here’s everything you need to know about what makes this threat unique and how it uses LoLBins to survive.

Jon doesn’t have any children. So he found someone who does — Beers with Talos’ own Craig Williams — to talk about remote learning. Children are back to school, and many of them are doing so online. Craig and Jon talk about DNS filters, parental controls, meeting passwords and more that are sure to help parents and teachers adjust to this new normal.

We’ve got another special XL episode this week, this time about Snort 3. This roundtable covers everything you could know about Snort 3’s life, going back as far as its inception in the early 2010s. We even went out of our way to get Marty Roesch, the creator of Snort.Marty, along with our other panelists, discusses the origins of Snort 3, what benefits you can gain by upgrading and what other features you can expect to see in the future.

We know we just talked about supply chain attacks and SolarWinds last week, but it’s still all anyone in security is talking about. Joe Marshall joins the show this time to approach the SolarWinds breach from an internet-of-things and operational security perspective. He recently co-wrote a blog for Cisco detailing how outsourcing OT over the past few years has made the SolarWinds compromise worse. Joe, a lifelong researcher and security practitioner in the OT and infrastructure space, discusses what we still don’t know about this attack, what you should do if you think you may be affected, and how we can learn from this going forward. For more on Talos’ coverage and defense against the SolarWinds campaign, check out our blog post here.

Welcome to the unofficial incident response week at Talos! As part of the RSA Conference, we’ve released two new case studies detailing some malware cases Cisco Talos Incident Response helped resolve. Brad Garnett, this week’s guest, also released a new blog post where he wrote about why incident response is “the ultimate team sport.” Brad joins host Jon Munshaw this week to take a deeper dive into one of these engagements, in which an attacker tried to use Cobalt Strike to infect a target with ransomware (hint: this would have been really bad!) Brad talks about how the strong personal relationships CTIR built with the customer in question set everyone up for success.

How much is ransomware-as-a-service like a McDonald’s franchise? More similar than you’d think! The RaaS model has entered the mainstream over the past few months with groups such as DarkSide attacking the Colonial Pipeline.In these transactions, what’s in it for the original ransomware creator? And what do the operators themselves get out of it? Nick Biasini joins Jon Munshaw this week to talk about this business model, what it means for the rise in ransomware attacks, and how you can stay protected.

We started out the COVID-19 pandemic by thinking we’d be away from the office for a month — maybe two. More than 12 months later, we’re still here, working from home (at least part-time).But some businesses are starting to reopen now and welcoming workers back into the office. After so much time working out of the office, what should security professionals do once they get back? In this week’s episode, Beers with Talos’ own Craig Williams joins the show to talk about triple-checking for patches, changing passwords and more. Plus, how should you handle the new hybrid worker?

For this week’s episode of Talos Takes, we’re switching back to Snort talk. For anyone who hasn’t been on security Twitter over the past month, you may not know that we released the Snort 3 GA last month — formally known as Snort 3.1.0. To celebrate, Nick Mavis joins the show again to discuss Snort 3’s new features and upgrades over 2.9.X. Nick, who regularly writes Snort rules for Cisco Talos and has been working hands-on with both versions of Snort for years, talks about how the rules improve with Snort 3, why detection and protection are better and everything else he loves about Snort 3. For more, check out the Snort 3 page on Snort.org.

We’ve been covering several different generic types of malware over the past few weeks. Next up, we’ve got our overview of remote access trojans (or tools), also known as RATs. What goes into a RAT, and how is it different than other types of malware? What are some of their inherent capabiliites? We/ve got the rundown here.

With the RSA conference just days away, notable vendors such as IBM and AT&T have withdrawn from the annual event over coronavirus concerns. The fast-spreading disease has captured headlines across the globe, and adversaries are trying to strike quickly. Continuing our look at attackers’ use of current events to spread malware, Nick Biasini and Earl Carter sit down to discuss malware campaigns that are hoping to scare victims into opening malicious emails and documents on coronavirus.

We’ve all seen the supposed stories online that promise to give you “The one secret to weight loss doctors WON’T tell you about.” Or “You won’t believe who Kim Kardashian is talking about now.” So how harmful are these malicious ads? Why do some of them deliver malware, and others don’t? In this episode of Talos Takes, Nick Biasini and Earl Carter dive into the basics of malvertising.

Snort researcher and rule-writer Nick Mavis takes time out of his busy schedule to join us again this week. Nick recently published a research paper on the bevy of detection he wrote for Cobalt Strike, a tool attackers are increasingly using. Nick talks about his process of working on the paper, why Cobalt Strike has become so popular and what he learned during the research process.

Yes, this is the third time we’ve talked about Transparent Tribe on Talos Takes, you’re not going crazy. But they keep giving us reasons to bring them up! This time, Nick Biasini joins the show to discuss the latest evolution of this threat actor: The targeting of higher education institutions in India. Jon and Nick discuss why colleges are always a high-priority target and what this could mean for the evolution of the actor.

BlackCat, BlackMatter, DarkSide, BlackByte…it’s too hard to keep up with all these ransomware group names these days. So we’re here to break down one of these groups, BlackCat, for you so you can figure out what makes them actually memorable. Aliza Berk from our Talos Threat Intelligence & Interdiction team joins Jon Munshaw this week to talk about BlackCat and their ransomware that’s recently become a major player on the malware landscape. Aliza recently compiled our latest Threat Assessment Report on this group and assisted in our research around the group. Jon and Aliza discuss how the use of the Rust programming language and using triple extortion tactics make this group a threat.

We’re kicking off a new series of episodes called “Kenna 101” highlighting Cisco’s newest partner, Kenna Security. Kenna is a risk management platform for vulnerabilities that allows users to view what vulnerabilities exist in their environment and helps them create a plan for patching and mitigation. We’re starting things off with the CTO of Kenna, Ed Bellis, to talk about the basics of Kenna and its risk scores.

As the Ukraine situation evolves, we figured it was an important time to check in with the specific threats government agencies across the globe have started to warn us about. Joe Marshall, Talos’ resident industrial control systems expert, joins this week’s episode of Talos Takes to talk about potential threats to Ukraine’s power grid should kinetic warfare break out in the area. We also touch on what potential threats America’s infrastructure faces if our government leaders were to oppose any Russian actions in the region. It’s admittedly a tangled web currently — but for the most current information on this, check out the Talos blog on the topic.

We are from the first (or last) people to say this, but 2021 is the year of ransomware. It’s by far the biggest story on the security landscape right now. And everything from oil pipelines, to grain co-ops, to hospitals and schools have been targeted by ransomware this year. Azim Khodjibaev joins the show for National Cybersecurity Awareness Month to wrap up everything we’ve seen on the ransomware landscape this year. Azim reflects on his interview with a LockBit operator, the research he’s done into “double extortion campaigns,” and discusses the lessons defenders can learn from the past 10 months.

As more people around the world start to get vaccinated against COVID-19, travel is becoming easier, especially during these summer months. But as much as you may be excited to travel, so are threat actors. Asheer Malhotra was part of a team that looked into a series of campaigns targeting users in Latin America, specifically using social engineering tactics centered around travel. Some of the lure documents, in this case, include fake travel itineraries, coupons for flights and hotel reservation confirmations. Asheer joins the show this week to discuss the throughline between all these attacks and their potential connections to the Aggah crimeware group.

Students are starting to go back to school across the U.S. There are plenty of things to worry about with the “new normal” while the world still combats COVID-19, and while we can’t help students, teachers and admins with everything, we can at least provide a little security advice. Nick Biasini joins the show once again to discuss the best cybersecurity practices as schools spin back up. What should parents tell their kids about electronic devices they bring home? What will IT admins have learned over the past year and a half plus? And how should we deal with the new norm of hybrid learning?

Everyone is meeting virtually now. Whether it be important business or the average happy hour with friends and family, there’s no shortage of invites to chat rooms, presentations and software you’ve never heard of before you started working from home. And, of course, this software comes with its own set of security concerns and vulnerabilities. So Matt Valites joins Jon Munshaw this week to talk about the basics of securing your next friendly meetup or presentation to the board.

We’ve spent many minutes (that’s the point of the podcast, after all) discussing internet-of-things devices on this podcast. As consumers start having more “smart” devices connected to their home network, they may want an easy solution to keeping those devices safe. But what if that device gets owned?Carl Hurd of our vulnerability research team recently discovered several vulnerabilities in Trend Micro’s Home Network Security Station. He joins the show for the first time to talk about his research, the pros and cons of these all-in-one home network security devices, and how an attacker could exploit these issues to spy on your devices.

With major cyber attacks in recent years against major U.S. critical infrastructure suppliers like Norsk Hydro and Colonial Pipeline, we’re in a new world of CI cybersecurity. New threats require new approaches to defense. And in the U.S., this is likely going to include partnerships between those who manage critical infrastructure, government and the private cybersecurity sector.Talos recently outlined what this may look like in America. One of the authors of that post, Joe Marshall, joins Jon Munshaw this week on Talos Takes to talk about public-private partnerships to defend critical infrastructure.

Asheer Malhotra from Talos Outreach has followed Transparent Tribe for years now. This APT has been all over the place using all sorts of trojans. So where my they go next? Asheer joins Talos Takes this week to discuss the malware this group deploys and how they use typo-squatted domains to lure victims in.

In this special “XL edition” of Talos Takes, we’re bringing you the audio version of our live stream this week discussing the Kaseya supply chain attack. Nick Biasini from Talos Outreach went live with Hazel Burton, a Cisco product marketing manager, to discuss what transpired over the long Fourth of July weekend. Nick discussed the Kaseya exploit leveraged in this campaign, plus the follow-on ransomware attacks. This is the best place to get the tl;dr on what happened, what you need to be doing now, and what Cisco Secure solutions can keep you protected.

To celebrate World Password Day this week, we’re talking about getting rid of passwords! Dave Lewis, a global advisory CISO for Cisco Secure, joins Jon to talk about all things passwordless. This is a new initiative Cisco Secure and Duo have undertaken to get network administrators to move away from using passwords in favor of other forms of authentication. Jon and Dave discuss why passwords can be dangerous, the benefits of going passwordless and how to convince longtime users to ditch traditional login credentials.

Cisco Talos recently discovered a wave of attackers spreading malware via collaboration apps like Discord and Slack. On this week’s episode of Talos Takes, Nick Biasini joins the show to bring us inside his research process for this post and discuss why these attacks have been so successful. Jon brings up his Dungeons & Dragons group, too, if you’re interested in that sort of thing.