All news with #trend micro tag

🛡️ Trend Micro reports that the Agenda (Qilin) ransomware group is running a Linux-based encryptor on Windows hosts to evade Windows-only detections. The actors abused legitimate RMM and file-transfer tools — including ScreenConnect, Splashtop, Veeam, and ATERA — to maintain persistence, move laterally, and execute payloads. They combined social engineering, credential theft, SOCKS proxy injection, and BYOVD driver tampering to disable EDR and compromise backups, impacting more than 700 victims since January 2025.

🔒 Trend Micro reports that the Vidar infostealer has been upgraded to Vidar 2.0, featuring a complete rewrite in C, multithreaded exfiltration, custom browser credential extraction and an AppBound bypass targeting Chrome's app-bound encryption. The release, announced by an actor calling themselves "Loadbaks" on October 6, follows a decline in Lumma Stealer activity after law enforcement disruption and doxxing of its developers. Researchers warn security teams to anticipate increased Vidar activity through Q4 2025 and to adapt detection and mitigation strategies accordingly.

🔍 Trend Micro warns that RondoDox botnet campaigns have significantly expanded their targeting, exploiting more than 50 vulnerabilities across over 30 vendors to compromise routers, DVR/NVR systems, CCTV devices, web servers and other networked infrastructure. First observed by Trend Micro on June 15, 2025 via exploitation of CVE-2023-1389, and first documented by Fortinet FortiGuard Labs in July 2025, the threat now leverages a loader-as-a-service model that co-packages RondoDox with Mirai/Morte payloads, accelerating automated, multivector intrusions. The campaign includes 56 tracked flaws—18 without CVEs—spanning major vendors and underscores urgent detection and remediation needs.

⚠️ Trend Micro has uncovered a self-propagating malware campaign named SORVEPOTEL that primarily targets Brazilian Windows users via WhatsApp. The attack is delivered through convincing phishing messages with malicious ZIP attachments that contain LNK shortcuts which trigger PowerShell to download a batch payload. The payload establishes persistence by copying itself to the Windows Startup folder and contacts a command-and-control server, and if WhatsApp Web is active the malware automatically forwards the infected ZIP to contacts and groups, causing rapid spread and frequent account bans. Researchers report no evidence of data exfiltration or file encryption so far.

🛡️ Security researchers at Trend Micro detail a global campaign called EvilAI that distributes malware disguised as AI-enhanced productivity tools and legitimate applications. Attackers employ professional-looking interfaces, valid code-signing certificates issued to short-lived companies, and covert encoding techniques such as Unicode homoglyphs to hide malicious payloads and evade detection. The stager-focused malware — linked to families tracked as BaoLoader and TamperedChef — performs reconnaissance, exfiltrates browser data, maintains AES-encrypted C2 channels, and stages systems for follow-on payloads. Targets span manufacturing, government, healthcare, technology, and retail across Europe, the Americas and AMEA.

🛡️ Interpol-led Operation Contender 3.0 swept through 14 African countries between 28 July and 11 August 2025, targeting romance scams and sextortion networks and resulting in 260 arrests. Law enforcement, aided by private firms Group-IB and Trend Micro, seized 1,235 electronic devices and took down 81 cybercrime infrastructures. Investigations in Ghana, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire and Angola identified 1,463 victims and estimated losses near $2.8 million.

⚠️ Trend Micro disclosed two critical authentication-bypass vulnerabilities in Wondershare RepairIt that exposed private user files, AI models, and build artifacts due to embedded overly permissive cloud tokens and unencrypted storage. The flaws, tracked as CVE-2025-10643 (CVSS 9.1) and CVE-2025-10644 (CVSS 9.4), allow attackers to circumvent authentication and potentially execute arbitrary code via supply-chain tampering. Trend Micro reported the issues through ZDI in April 2025 and warns users to restrict interaction with the product until a vendor fix is issued.

🤖 AI-driven phishing campaigns are increasingly using convincing fake CAPTCHA pages to bypass security filters and trick users into revealing credentials. Trend Micro found these AI-generated pages hosted on developer platforms such as Lovable, Netlify, and Vercel, with activity observed since January and a renewed spike in August. Attackers exploit low-friction hosting, platform credibility, and AI coding assistants to rapidly clone brand-like pages that first present a CAPTCHA, then redirect victims to credential-harvesting forms. Organizations should combine behavioural detection, hosting-provider safeguards, and phishing-resistant authentication to reduce risk.

🔐 Trend Micro researchers report cybercriminals are using AI-powered site builders like Lovable, Vercel and Netlify to rapidly create convincing fake CAPTCHA pages. Seen since January 2025 with a sharp escalation from February to April, these pages make phishing links appear legitimate and can help evade automated scanners by presenting a CAPTCHA before redirecting users to credential-stealing sites. Recommended mitigations include employee education, redirect-chain analysis and monitoring trusted domains for abuse.

🔒 A newly observed ransomware group, The Gentlemen, has rapidly expanded operations across Asia Pacific, South America, the US and the Middle East since first being identified in August. Trend Micro reports the group leverages legitimate drivers, GPO abuse and custom tooling to disable endpoint security and move laterally. Victims span manufacturing, construction, healthcare and insurance, and defenders are urged to adopt zero-trust, behavioral EDR/XDR and rigorous segmentation.

🛡️ Attackers are exploiting exposed Docker APIs (port 2375) by launching containers that install Tor and retrieve secondary payloads from hidden services. Researchers at Trend Micro and Akamai observed the activity evolve from opportunistic cryptomining into a more capable dropper that establishes persistent SSH access, creates cron jobs to block API access, and executes a Go-based agent that scans and propagates to additional hosts. The agent also removes competitor containers and contains dormant logic for Telnet and Chrome remote debugging exploitation.

📡 Trend Micro reports that threat actors leveraged an abandoned Sogou Zhuyin update server to distribute multiple malware families, including C6DOOR, GTELAM, DESFY, and TOSHIS. The campaign, tracked as TAOTH and identified in June 2025, used hijacked automatic updates, spear-phishing, and fake cloud/login pages to target dissidents, journalists, researchers, and business figures across East Asia. The adversary registered the lapsed domain sogouzhuyin[.]com in October 2024 and exploited third-party cloud services like Google Drive to conceal callbacks and exfiltrate data.

🛡️ CISA has added CVE-2025-54948, an OS command injection vulnerability in Trend Micro Apex One, to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) Catalog after observing active exploitation. The entry underscores the significant risk these flaws pose to federal and nonfederal networks and reiterates that BOD 22-01 requires Federal Civilian Executive Branch agencies to remediate KEV entries by specified deadlines. CISA strongly urges all organizations to prioritize timely remediation and integrate KEV fixes into standard vulnerability management practices.