Welcome to this week’s edition of the Threat Source newsletter.
“Be curious, not judgmental,” Ted Lasso says, misattributing Walt Whitman. We forgive Ted because… well, he’s Ted Lasso.
If you’ve not watched the first season of Ted Lasso, there is a defining moment where Ted confronts a nefarious bully. While putting him in his place with kindness and skill, Ted refers to this quote. It’s a defining moment not only for Ted but for the secondary and tertiary characters in the scene. One of the questions that I’m asked most when public speaking is “How do I get into Talos?” For people considering a new career, it’s “How do I get into cybersecurity?” To all those questions, my answer is “Be curious, not judgmental.”
I think there is no greater skill necessary in security than intellectual curiosity. If you have that, you can learn the rest. The hiring process to get in the door at Talos is extremely challenging and the candidates are incredible. That’s why when I interview candidates for various roles in Talos I rarely, if ever, fixate on a niche skillset, instead focusing on the prospective employee’s intellectual curiosity. I ask weird questions that don’t seem related to the specific job role, not in an effort to throw them off but simply because I am curious and hope that they are as well.
Do you like to read? Do you ever read books outside of your normal wheelhouse? What are some favorite fiction and non-fiction books? Do you have a favorite craft or hobby? How many different Linux distributions have you installed? What are your 5 favorite board games? Do you play video games, and if so, what are a few favorites from each platform and decade?
These kinds of questions help me identify what kind of innate curiosity that the prospective candidate possesses and from their answers we will invariably fall down a rabbit hole while my co-workers shake their heads at me in disdain.
Beyond that, I always listen for my favorite answer: “I don’t know, but…” There’s no better answer to a very difficult question than “I don’t know, but I’d probably try X,” or “I don’t know, but I’d love to learn…”
Barbecue sauce.
The one big thing
Cisco Talos has released a blog post on the initial access broker (IAB) we call “ToyMaker” — a financially-motivated threat actor. They deploy their custom-made backdoor we call “LAGTOY” and extract credentials from the victim enterprise. LAGTOY can be used to create reverse shells and execute commands on infected endpoints.
Why do I care?
A compromise by LAGTOY may result in access handover to a secondary threat actor. Specifically, we’ve observed ToyMaker hand over access to Cactus, a double extortion gang who employed their own tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) to carry out malicious actions across the victim’s network. Our blog details a timeline with turnaround time from ToyMaker to Cactus.
So now what?
Cisco Talos has released information to help ensure protection including techniques and related IOCs. Check out the blog post for full details.
Top security headlines of the week
Apple says zero-day bugs exploited against ‘specific targeted individuals’ using iOS. Apple has released new software updates across its product line to fix two security vulnerabilities, which the company said may have been actively used to hack customers running its mobile software, iOS. (TechCrunch)
Microsoft purges millions of cloud tenants in the wake of Storm-0558. In an effort to thwart state-sponsored activity stemming from preventable security issues, Microsoft is making significant efforts to purge inactive Azure cloud tenants and take comprehensive inventory of cloud and network assets. (DarkReading)
Researchers warn of critical flaw found in Erlang OTP SSH. The vulnerability could allow unauthenticated attackers to gain full access to a device. Many of these devices are widely used in IoT and telecom platforms. (cybersecuritydrive)
CISA flags actively exploited vulnerability in SonicWall SMA devices. The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) added a security flaw impacting SonicWall Secure Mobile Access 100 Series gateways to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, based on evidence of active exploitation. (The Hacker News)
Can’t get enough Talos?
- Talos Takes: Year in Review Special: Part 3
- TL,DR: Attacks on identity, and Multi Factor Authentication
- Unmasking the new XorDDoS controller and infrastructure
Upcoming events where you can find Talos
- RSA (Apr. 28 – May 1) San Francisco, CA
- PIVOTcon (May 7 – 9) Malaga, Spain
- CTA TIPS 2025 (May 14 – 15) Arlington, VA
- Cisco Connect UK & Ireland (May 20) London, UK
- BotConf (May 20 – 23) Angers, France
- Cisco Live U.S. (June 8 – 12) San Diego, CA
Most prevalent malware files from Talos telemetry over the past week
SHA256: 2462569cf24a5a1e313390fa3c52ed05c7f36ef759c4c8f5194348deca022277
MD5: 42c016ce22ab7360fb7bc7def3a17b04
VirusTotal: https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/2462569cf24a5a1e313390fa3c52ed05c7f36ef759c4c8f5194348deca022277
Typical Filename: Rainmeter-4.5.22.exe
Detection Name: Artemis!Trojan
SHA 256:7b3ec2365a64d9a9b2452c22e82e6d6ce2bb6dbc06c6720951c9570a5cd46fe5
MD5: ff1b6bb151cf9f671c929a4cbdb64d86
VirusTotal : https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/7b3ec2365a64d9a9b2452c22e82e6d6ce2bb6dbc06c6720951c9570a5cd46fe5
Typical Filename: endpoint.query
Detection Name: W32.File.MalParent
SHA256: 9f1f11a708d393e0a4109ae189bc64f1f3e312653dcf317a2bd406f18ffcc507
MD5: 2915b3f8b703eb744fc54c81f4a9c67f
VirusTotal: https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/9f1f11a708d393e0a4109ae189bc64f1f3e312653dcf317a2bd406f18ffcc507
Typical Filename: VID001.exe
Detection Name: Win.Worm.Bitmin-9847045-0
SHA 256: a31f222fc283227f5e7988d1ad9c0aecd66d58bb7b4d8518ae23e110308dbf91
MD5: 7bdbd180c081fa63ca94f9c22c457376
VirusTotal: https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/a31f222fc283227f5e7988d1ad9c0aecd66d58bb7b4d8518ae23e110308dbf91
Typical Filename: IMG001.exe
Detection Name: Win.Trojan.Miner-9835871-0
