Apple now must allow users to be able to sideload apps onto their phones or access third-party app stores, thanks to a law from the European Union that went into effect earlier this year. Terryn Valikodath from Cisco Talos Incident Response joins Jon this week to discuss the potential dangers that come with allowing users to sideload apps onto their devices, and how attackers may take advantage of this new opening.
Hazel Burton and Thorsten Rosendahl join Jon Munshaw on this week's episode to discuss the problem with threat actor "hydras." They recently wrote about the topic for the Talos blog, highlighting how law enforcement takedowns of these groups are closer to just disruptions or setbacks for these massive actors. They talk about what really needs to be done to stop ransomware actors and why RaaS is a breeding ground for "hydras."
Holger Unterbrink of Talos Outreach joins the show this week to discuss his recent Turla APT research. This Russian state-sponsored actor has been around for years but is regularly adding new tooling to its arsenal. Holger has new details about their latest tool, TinyTurlaNG, and insight into the types of organizations they're targeting.
Jon started noticing that Talos is finding more threat actors using Telegram nowadays for their communication and coordination, so he decided to bring Azim Khodjibaev on to ask him if he was just inventing this, or if it was a real trend. Turns out it's a real trend! Azim fills listeners in on why Telegram is becoming the app of choice for APTs to publish "news," threaten data leaks, and more.
Nick Biasini joins Jon this week to talk about passive security. He recently wrote about this topic for the Talos blog and joined Wendy Nather in discussing the merits of passive security versus active blocking. Nick defines what passive security is, exactly, and why it's not the way to go in the modern age.
Chetan Raghuprasad from the Talos Outreach team joins Talos Takes this week to talk to Jon about the GhostSec threat actor that he and a few colleagues wrote about for the Talos blog. GhostSec has teamed up with another ransomware group to carry out double extortion attacks all over the globe, with increasing frequency over the past year. They discuss what's unique about this particular RaaS model, where GhostSec came from, and the benefits of going in on a team-up.
Now more than ever, adversaries are logging in, not breaking in. They're stealing legitimate user credentials to hide undetected on a targeted network after acquiring said credentials in a variety of ways. Hazel Burton joins Jon Munshaw this week to discuss identity attacks, recommendations for avoiding them, and how QR code phishing plays into these tactics.
Gergana Karadzhova-Dangela and Thorsten Rosendahl, our resident experts on all things European Union cybersecurity law, join the show this week to talk about the impending NIS2 regulations. Don't worry, you've still got plenty of time to work on them, but this is a good place to get started even if you've never seen the phrase "NIS2" before. Find more of their writing on NIS2 here and here.
Reposted from the Cisco Security Stories feed: Meet Jeremy Maxwell, CISO of Veradigm, a healthcare IT company. Jeremy discusses how his organization proactively prepares for cybersecurity incidents within a highly regulated industry.
Chris Neal from Talos Outreach joins the show today to talk about his research into the ways adversaries are using malicious drivers on Windows to spread malware. He recently launched a new series on the Talos blog about the basics of drivers and how security researchers can reverse engineer them to learn more about attacker TTPs and develop new detection content. Chris discusses when he first spotted this type of attack, what advantages it presents for the attacker and the other aspects of the research he plans to dive into.