March 9, 2025
Proactive Defense: The Importance of Incident Response Planning in Cybersecurity
CVE-2024-22262 – VMware Tanzu Spring Framework Vulnerability
April 16, 2024LokiBot Malware – Active IOCs
April 17, 2024CVE-2024-22262 – VMware Tanzu Spring Framework Vulnerability
April 16, 2024LokiBot Malware – Active IOCs
April 17, 2024
Severity
High
Analysis Summary
A database with 27,000 records of personally identifiable information (PII) connected to Mossad, the Israeli government's Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations, is being claimed to have leaked and offered for sale by a threat actor named Ghost_rider on a well-known dark web forum.
This database, which covers the years 2017 through 2023, contains identity cards, resumes, and pictures of Mossad employees. The primary means of communication for the threat actor is via TOX. Interestingly, the hacktivist group Team 1916 also advertised the same database for sale on their Telegram channel on April 13, 2024, the same day that Iran launched a kinetic attack against Israel.
Cybercriminals might be able to use this information to carry out identity theft and social engineering operations. It is important to note that Ghost_rider's legitimacy is in doubt because the user’s account was made in February 2024 and has only made seven posts with no comments on the forum.
The same threat actor was supposedly providing access to an unnamed Microsoft SharePoint server and account that were connected to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a different post. The threat actor claims that this server has more than 300GB of material, which includes webinars, personnel data that isn't detailed, and details about Israel's cooperation with NATO and Ukraine. Microsoft SharePoint Server is a collaboration platform that gives businesses the ability to manage content and documents.
Federal entities received a warning from the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on March 26, 2024, regarding CVE-2023-24955, a Microsoft SharePoint Server vulnerability that was being actively exploited. Ghost_rider has discussed and publicized an RCE (Remote Code Execution) vulnerability on the dark forum in the past, however CVE-2023-24955 is not specifically mentioned in those conversations. Therefore, it is still unclear if the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs was the intended target of this specific vulnerability.
Impact
- Identity Theft
- Exposure of Sensitive Data
- Code Execution
Remediation
- Use strong, unique passwords for sensitive accounts. Regularly change passwords for all accounts.
- Implement multi-factor authentication (MFA) on all accounts to add an extra layer of security to login processes.
- Organizations need to stay vigilant and follow best practices for cybersecurity to protect their systems and data from potential threats. This includes regularly updating software and implementing strong access controls and monitoring tools.
- Develop a comprehensive incident response plan to respond effectively in case of a security breach or data leakage.
- Maintain regular backups of critical data and systems to ensure data recovery in case of a security incident.
- Adhere to security best practices, including the principle of least privilege, and ensure that users and applications have only the necessary permissions.
- Establish a robust patch management process to ensure that security patches are evaluated, tested, and applied promptly.
- Conduct security audits and assessments to evaluate the overall security posture of your systems and networks.
- Implement network segmentation to contain and isolate potential threats to limit their impact on critical systems.
- Never trust or open links and attachments received from unknown sources/senders
- Improve communication with customers by providing timely and transparent updates about data breaches, including what information was compromised and the steps being taken to mitigate the impact.
- Ensure that all vendors and third-party partners adhere to stringent security protocols and regularly assess their cybersecurity practices to minimize the risk of data breaches originating from external sources.
- Provide affected customers with comprehensive support, including credit monitoring services, identity theft detection, and resolution assistance, to help mitigate the potential consequences of the breach.