CISA Releases Four Industrial Control Systems Advisories

CISA released four Industrial Control Systems (ICS) advisories on August 31, 2023. These advisories provide timely information about current security issues, vulnerabilities, and exploits surrounding ICS.

CISA encourages users and administrators to review the newly released ICS advisories for technical details and mitigations.

CISA and International Partners Release Malware Analysis Report on Infamous Chisel Mobile Malware

Today, the United Kingdom’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC-UK), the United States’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), National Security Agency (NSA), and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), New Zealand’s Cyber Security Centre (NCSC-NZ), Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (CCCS), and the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) published a joint Malware Analysis Report (MAR), on Infamous Chisel a new mobile malware targeting Android devices with capabilities to enable unauthorized access to compromised devices, scan files, monitor traffic, and periodically steal sensitive information. Infamous Chisel mobile malware has been used in a malware campaign targeting Android devices in use by the Ukrainian military.

Infamous Chisel is a collection of components targeting Android devices and is attributed to Sandworm, the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate’s (GRU’s) Main Centre for Special Technologies, GTsST. The malware’s capability includes network monitoring, traffic collection, network backdoor access via The Onion Router (Tor) and Secure Shell (SSH), network scanning and Secure Copy Protocol (SCP) file transfer. 

The authoring organizations urge users, network defenders, and stakeholders to review the malware analysis report for indicators of compromise (IOCs) and detection rules and signatures to determine system compromise. For more information about malware, see CISA’s Malware, Phishing, and Ransomware page. The joint MAR can also be read in full on the NCSC-UK website. Associated files relating to this report can also be accessed via the NCSC’s Malware Analysis Reports page. For more information on Russian state-sponsored cyber activity, please see CISA’s Russia Cyber Threat Overview and Advisories webpage.

CISA and FBI Publish Joint Advisory on QakBot Infrastructure

Today, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released a joint Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA), Identification and Disruption of QakBot Infrastructure, to help organizations detect and protect against newly identified QakBot-related activity and malware. QakBot—also known as Qbot, Quackbot, Pinkslipbot, and TA570—is responsible for thousands of malware infections globally. 

Originally used as a banking trojan to steal banking credentials for account compromise, QakBot—in most cases—was delivered via phishing campaigns containing malicious attachments or links to download the malware, which would reside in memory once on the victim network. QakBot has since grown to deploy multiple types of malware, trojans, and highly-destructive ransomware variants targeting the United States and other global infrastructures, including the Election Infrastructure Subsector, Financial Services, Emergency Services, and Commercial Facilities Sectors. 

CISA and FBI urge organizations to implement the recommendations contained within the joint CSA to reduce the likelihood of QakBot-related activity and promote identification of QakBot-facilitated ransomware and malware infections. To report incidents and anomalous activity, please contact one of the following organizations:  

Organizations are also encouraged to visit CISA’s Malware, Phishing, and Ransomware and StopRansomware.gov pages—StopRansomware provides a range of free U.S. government resources and services that can help bolster cyber hygiene, cybersecurity posture and reduce risk to ransomware, and contains an updated Joint #StopRansomware Guide.  

VMware Releases Security Updates for Aria Operations for Networks

VMware has released security updates to address multiple vulnerabilities in Aria Operations for Networks. A cyber threat actor can exploit one of these vulnerabilities to take control of an affected system.

CISA encourages users and administrators to review VMware Security Advisory VMSA-2023-0018 and apply the necessary updates.

Juniper Networks Releases Security Advisory for Junos OS and Junos OS Evolved

Juniper Networks has released a security advisory to address a vulnerability for Junos OS and Junos OS Evolved. A cyber threat actor could exploit this vulnerability to cause a denial-of-service condition.

CISA encourages users and administrators to review Juniper’s Support Portal and apply the necessary update.

Mozilla Releases Security Updates for Firefox and Firefox ESR

Mozilla has released security updates to address vulnerabilities for Firefox 117, Firefox ESR 115.2, and Firefox ESR 102.5. A cyber threat actor can exploit some of these vulnerabilities to take control of an affected system.

CISA encourages users and administrators to review the following advisories and apply the necessary updates:

CISA Releases IOCs Associated with Malicious Barracuda Activity

CISA has released additional indicators of compromise (IOCs) associated with exploitation of CVE-2023-2868. CVE-2023-2868 is a remote command injection vulnerability affecting Barracuda Email Security Gateway (ESG) Appliance, versions 5.1.3.001-9.2.0.006. Malicious threat actors exploited this vulnerability as a zero day as early as October 2022 to gain access to ESG appliances. 

Download the newly released IOCs associated with this activity:

Review the following advisories for more information:  

See CISA Releases Malware Analysis Reports on Barracuda Backdoors for malware analysis reports (MARs) covering previously released IOCs and YARA rules and Barracuda Networks Releases Update to Address ESG Vulnerability

CISA Releases One Industrial Control Systems Advisory

CISA released one Industrial Control Systems (ICS) advisory on August 29, 2023. This advisory provides timely information about current security issues, vulnerabilities, and exploits surrounding ICS. 

CISA encourages users and administrators to review the newly released ICS advisory for technical details and mitigations.

CISA’s VDP Platform 2022 Annual Report Showcases Success

Today, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released its inaugural Vulnerability Disclosure Policy (VDP) Platform 2022 Annual Report, highlighting the service’s progress supporting vulnerability awareness and remediation across the Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB). This report showcases how agencies have used the VDP Platform—launched in July 2021—to safeguard the FCEB and support risk reduction. The VDP platform gives federal agencies a single, user-friendly interface to intake vulnerability information and to collaborate with the public researcher community for vulnerability awareness and remediation.

CISA urges FCEB agencies to review the VDP Platform 2022 Annual Report and encourages use of the platform to promote good-faith security research if they are not already doing so. By promoting an agency’s VDP to the public security researcher community, the platform benefits users by harnessing researchers’ expertise to search for and detect vulnerabilities that traditional scanning technology might not find.

CISA is actively seeking to enhance future collaborations with the public security researcher community and welcomes participation and partnership.

CISA Adds Two Known Exploited Vulnerabilities to Catalog

CISA has added two new vulnerabilities to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog, based on evidence of active exploitation.

These types of vulnerabilities are frequent attack vectors for malicious cyber actors and pose significant risks to the federal enterprise. Note: To view other newly added vulnerabilities in the catalog, click on the arrow in the “Date Added to Catalog” column—which will sort by descending dates.

Binding Operational Directive (BOD) 22-01: Reducing the Significant Risk of Known Exploited Vulnerabilities established the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog as a living list of known Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) that carry significant risk to the federal enterprise. BOD 22-01 requires Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agencies to remediate identified vulnerabilities by the due date to protect FCEB networks against active threats. See the BOD 22-01 Fact Sheet for more information.

Although BOD 22-01 only applies to FCEB agencies, CISA strongly urges all organizations to reduce their exposure to cyberattacks by prioritizing timely remediation of Catalog vulnerabilities as part of their vulnerability management practice. CISA will continue to add vulnerabilities to the catalog that meet the specified criteria.