Displaying items by tag: mandiant

The recent attack that leveraged a 0-Day vulnerability to compromise a number of Barracuda Email Security Gateway appliances (physical and virtual, but not cloud) was a very sophisticated one. Even in the beginning when news of this first broke it was fairly clear that this was not just another breach. It was targeted and very specific. In looking over the two reports Mandiant has released on the incident we can identify a few things about this attack that could be helpful in identifying and preventing future attacks.

Spring, the time of renewal, the time when nature wakes up. It is also a time when Zero-Day flaws hit the web. This year has been no different with many Zero-Day flaws identified in April and May 2023. The reasons for this are varied, but commonly we see Zero-Day flaws identified after everyone comes back from their Holiday vacations and after budgets are done, the money is available and initiatives for thew new year start. One of the more interesting zero-days for 2023 was a flaw found in MOVEit Transfer software.

Google owned Mandiant has released findings on a group known as Roasted 0ktapus, Scattered Spider and UNC3944 (sort of rolls off the tongue there). This group has been seen to abuse the Microsoft Azure Serial Console to push out their own remote management tools in previously compromised environments. The fact that this new technique is not available from outside of an existing environment is a good thing, but it does mean organizations should monitor access and improve controls to avoid account compromise.

In early February, rumors about a potential acquisition of Mandiant by Microsoft started to circle the internet. The response was not positive with many feeling that it was allowing the fox to run the chicken coop. Although unpopular the rumor did make sense on a few levels. However, regardless of whether the rumors were true or not, Microsoft is not buying Mandiant; Google is. Yes, Google is scooping up Mandiant for a cool $5.4 Billion.

The news has been abuzz about the $65+ Billion-dollar purchase of Activision/Blizzard by Microsoft. It has been seen as an opening shot in a new stage in the console wars and is, even now, under review by the FTC. However, there are rumors that Mandiant and Microsoft are in talks about a potential acquisition of the Incident Response company. These rumors come on the heels of an announcement by Mandiant that they are partnering with NextGen XDR developer SentinelOne. Where to start on this one…