Suspected cybercriminals have created a fake installer for Chinese AI model DeepSeek-R1 and loaded it with previously unknown malware called "BrowserVenom".
The malware’s name reflects its ability to redirect all traffic from browsers through an attacker-controlled server.
This enables the crooks to steal data, monitor browsing activity, and potentially expose plaintext traffic. Credentials for websites, session cookies, financial account info, plus sensitive emails and documents are therefore all at risk – just the sort of info scammers seek so they can commit digital fraud and/or sell to other miscreants.
To date, the malware has infected "multiple" computers across Brazil, Cuba, Mexico, India, Nepal, South Africa, and Egypt. Kaspersky, which spotted a phishing campaign that spreads the malware by sending victims to a fake website that resembles the real DeepSeek homepage, said it continues to "pose a global threat.”
While the malware used in this campaign is new, the tactic of using interest in AI to spread nasty payloads is increasingly common.
Such campaigns use phishing sites whose domain names differ slightly from those operated by real AI vendors, and criminals use malicious ads and other tactics, so they appear prominently in search engine results. But instead of delivering the promised chatbot or AI tool, they infect unwitting victims with everything from credential- and wallet-stealing malware to ransomware and Windows-borking code.
This campaign used the URL https[:]//deepseek-platform[.]com.
The crims promoted that address to many potential victims by buying ads from Google, so it appeared as the top result when users searched for "deepseek r1".
Imagine a container zombie outbreak where a single infected container scans the internet for an exposed Docker API, and bites exploits it by creating new malicious containers and compromising the running ones, thus transforming them into new “zombies” that will mine for Dero currency and continue “biting” new victims. No command-and-control server is required for the delivery, just an exponentially growing number of victims that are automatically infecting new ones. That’s exactly what the new Dero mining campaign does.
During a recent compromise assessment project, we detected a number of running containers with malicious activities. Some of the containers were previously recognized, while others were not. After forensically analyzing the containers, we confirmed that a threat actor was able to gain initial access to a running containerized infrastructure by exploiting an insecurely published Docker API. This led to the running containers being compromised and new ones being created not only to hijack the victim’s resources for cryptocurrency mining but also to launch external attacks to propagate to other networks. The diagram below describes the attack vector:
The entire attack vector is automated via two malware implants: the previously unknown propagation malware nginx and the Dero crypto miner. Both samples are written in Golang and packed with UPX. Kaspersky products detect these malicious implants with the following verdicts:
nginx: Trojan.Linux.Agent.gen;
Dero crypto miner: RiskTool.Linux.Miner.gen.
nginx: the propagation malware
This malware is responsible for maintaining the persistence of the crypto miner and its further propagation to external systems. This implant is designed to minimize interaction with the operator and does not require a delivery C2 server. nginx ensures that the malware spreads as long as there are users insecurely publishing their Docker APIs on the internet.
The malware is named “nginx” to masquerade as the well-known legitimate nginx web server software in an attempt to evade detection by users and security tools. In this post, we’ll refer to this malware as “nginx”.
After unpacking the nginx malware, we parsed the metadata of the Go binary and were able to determine the location of the Go source code file at compilation time: “/root/shuju/docker2375/nginx.go”.
AhnLab SEcurity intelligence Center (ASEC) recently identified a phishing malware being distributed in Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) format. SVG is an XML-based vector image file format commonly used for icons, logos, charts, and graphs, and it allows the use of CSS and JS scripts within the code. In November 2024, the ASEC Blog introduced SVG […]
Discover how to intercept data stolen by cybercriminals via Telegram bots and learn to use it to clarify related threat landscape.
While analyzing malware samples uploaded to ANY.RUN’s Interactive Sandbox, one particular case marked as “phishing” and “Telegram” drew the attention of our security analysts.
Although this analysis session wasn’t attributed to any known malware family or threat actor group, the analysis revealed that Telegram bots were being used for data exfiltration. This led us to apply a message interception technique for Telegram bots, previously described on the ANY.RUN blog.
The investigation resulted in a clear and practical case study demonstrating how intercepting Telegram bot communications can aid in profiling the threat actor behind a relatively obscure phishing campaign.
Key outcomes of this analysis include:
Examination and technical analysis of a lesser known phishing campaign
Demonstration of Telegram API-based data interception techniques
Collection of threat intelligence (TI) indicators to help identify the actor
Recommendations for detecting this type of threat
When Cameron Coward, the Youtuber behind the channel Serial Hobbyism, wanted to review a $6k UV printer and plugged in the USB flash drive with the printer software, the Antivirus software alerted him of a USB-spreading worm and a Floxif infection. Floxif is a file infector that attaches itself to Portable Executable files, so it can spread to network shares, removable drives like USB flash drives or backup storage systems.
The printer company Procolored assured him at first that these were false positives. Nevertheless, Cameron turned to Reddit in the hopes of finding a professional malware analyst who can figure out the truth.
All these software downloads are available on mega.nz with a different mega folder link for each product. Overall, there are 8 GB of files and archives for all six products. Most files were last updated in October 2024, which is six months ago at the time of writing.
Malware Analysis Report - LockBit Ransomware v4.0
In this blog post, I’m going over my analysis for the latest variant of LockBit ransomware - version 4.0. Throughout this blog, I’ll walk through all the malicious functionalities discovered, complete with explanations and IDA screenshots to show my reverse engineering process step by step. This new version of LockBit 4.0 implements a hybrid-cryptography approach, combining Curve25519 with XChaCha20 for its file encryption scheme.
This version shares similarities with the older LockBit Green variant that is derived from Conti ransomware. While the multi-threading architecture seems more streamlined than previous versions, it still delivers an encryption speed that outpaces most other ransomware families.
As always, LockBit is still my most favorite malware to look at, and I certainly enjoyed doing a deep dive to understand how this version works.
Despite their hacktivist front, CyberAv3ngers is a rare state-sponsored hacker group bent on putting industrial infrastructure at risk—and has already caused global disruption.
The intermittent cyberwar between Israel and Iran, stretching back to Israel's role in the creation and deployment of the Stuxnet malware that sabotaged Iran's nuclear weapons program, has been perhaps the longest-running conflict in the era of state-sponsored hacking. But since Hamas' October 7 attack and Israel's retaliatory invasion of Gaza, a new player in that conflict threatens not just digital infrastructure in Israel but also critical systems in the US and around the world.
The group known as CyberAv3ngers has, in the last year and a half, proven to be the Iranian government's most active hackers focused on industrial control systems. Its targets include water, wastewater, oil and gas, and many other types of critical infrastructure. Despite being operated by members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to US officials who have offered a $10 million bounty for information leading to their arrest, the group initially took on the mantle of a “hacktivist” campaign.
FortiGuard Labs recently discovered a new botnet propagating through TOTOLINK devices. Learn more about this malware targeting these devices.
This report details a newly identified and active fraud campaign, highlighting the emergence of sophisticated mobile malware leveraging innovative techniques:
Since October 2024, Microsoft Defender Experts has observed and helped multiple customers address campaigns leveraging Node.js to deliver malware and other payloads that ultimately lead to information theft and data exfiltration.
In the past months Microsoft has seen multiple campaigns involving Node.js to deliver malware and other malicious payloads.
Microsoft on Tuesday issued a warning over the increasing use of Node.js for the delivery of malware and other malicious payloads.
The tech giant has been seeing such attacks aimed at its customers since October 2024 and some of the observed campaigns are still active in April 2025.
Malicious actors are using SourceForge to distribute a miner and the ClipBanker Trojan while utilizing unconventional persistence techniques.
OUTLAW is a persistent yet unsophisticated auto-propagating coinminer package observed across multiple versions over the past few years [1], [2], [3], [4]. Despite lacking stealth and advanced evasion techniques, it remains active and effective by leveraging simple but impactful tactics such as SSH brute-forcing, SSH key and cron-based persistence, and manually modified commodity miners and IRC channels. This persistence highlights how botnet operators can achieve widespread impact without relying on sophisticated techniques.
New malware targets Apache Tomcat servers, hijacking resources through stealthy payloads & lateral movement. What to watch for to protect your workloads
Hidden malware strikes WordPress mu-plugins. Our latest findings reveal how to safeguard your site against these threats.
Starting in December 2024, leading up to some of the busiest travel days, Microsoft Threat Intelligence identified a phishing campaign that impersonates online travel agency Booking.com and targets organizations in the hospitality industry. The campaign uses a social engineering technique called ClickFix to deliver multiple credential-stealing malware in order to conduct financial fraud and theft. […]
Learn about the fake Google reCAPTCHA campaign infecting machines by tricking unsuspecting users into running malicious Powershell commands.
A new variant of the XCSSET macOS modular malware has emerged in attacks that target users' sensitive information, including digital wallets and data from the legitimate Notes app.
Dive into our investigation of WordPress malware and find out how mu-plugins are used to hide backdoor threats.
A free-to-play game named PirateFi in the Steam store has been distributing the Vidar infostealing malware to unsuspecting users.
