As if the internet needed something else bad floating around it seems that groups that engage in extortion schemes involving the threat of releasing images of a sexual nature are now getting help from AI image creation tools. Sextortion emails are nothing new, in many cases the blackmail is little more than an effort to get a target to click on a malicious file (disguised as an image or video file) in order to get ransomware on a system if the original blackmail is not good enough.

It is Wednesday, so it is about time to talk about a new strain of malware. In this case one that leverages Microsoft’s PowerShell to do its dirty work. Primarily a post-exploitation tool, PowerDrop is leveraged after access is obtained by other means. According to researchers at Adlumin, the tool also seems to focus on information gathering/theft. The attack also used WMI (Windows Management instrumentation) to execute the PowerShell commands which could be a move to living off the land.

Anyone that does not think that cybercrime is now a bug business has been living under a rock. The news related to different cybercrime-as-a-service groups, especially ransomware, has never been more frequent. We have seen groups offer larger profit sharing, special tools, access to customization tools and now we hear that the Cyclops group is even offering an information stealer as something of a value add if you use their services.

Since Executive Order 14028 came out on May 12th from the Biden Administration there has been a lot of talk about what it means and what are the legal and regulatory ramifications of this order. While the larger conversation is one for a later (and much longer) article the overall tone of the EO is one that highlights a desire to centralize control over cybersecurity at the federal level, but not a lot of direct regulatory changes. Everything is recommendations, or guidelines. There is nothing in EO14038 that makes any real changes. Now that is both a good thing and a bad thing. On the one hand it means that organizations have time to adapt to the tone and general message of the EO and new cybersecurity requirements, and on the other hand, as we are already in an election cycle, many companies are likely to adopt a wait and see attitude towards any changes. One area is around SBOM, or Software Build of Materials.