I have written about the dreaded “cybersecurity skills gap” more times than I can remember in this newsletter, but I feel like it’s time to revisit this topic again.  

That’s because the White House announced a new initiative last week for the U.S. government called the “Service for America” initiative designed to train new workers in the cybersecurity field. This measure directs U.S. federal agencies to help recruit and prepare Americans for jobs in cybersecurity and AI by removing certain degree requirements and emphasizing skills-based hiring. This means, hopefully, more educational resources for people looking to break into cybersecurity. 

On its face, I’m all in favor of this. I did eventually go back to school to get my associate’s degree in cybersecurity, but much of what I’ve learned about this field has been from working at Talos and spending time around my talented and intelligent colleagues, many of whom did not go to college for cybersecurity.  

The U.S. government also has separate initiatives to support neurodivergent candidates who want to work in security, as well as those who are blind and visually impaired. 

My concern is that, even if we do train these employees and give them the proper skills, it’s on companies to eventually hire them.  

A June report from CyberSeek found that there are only enough skilled workers to fill 85 percent of cybersecurity jobs in America. Yet hiring in the industry has remained flat, according to a soon-to-be-released report from cybersecurity non-profit ISC2. This year, the global security workforce is estimated to be 5.5 million, which is only a 0.1 percent increase year over year, according to the report. 

Among the more than 15,000 cybersecurity practitioners from around the globe who responded to the study, 38 percent of respondents said their organizations had experienced a cybersecurity hiring freeze over the past year, up 8 percent from 2023. Thirty-seven percent of respondents reported budget cuts to the security program, and another 25 percent said their teams had experienced layoffs.  

That same CyberSeek report also found that, in the U.S., the amount of cybersecurity-related job postings decreased by 29 percent year-over-year. 

So as these skills gap-closing programs begin, we need to be thinking about what skills, exactly, managers want their workers to be trained in. There is obviously some sort of disconnect here between the people who want to work in security compared to the companies or managers who want to hire them. Or there just simply isn’t enough money to go around right now to handle staffing up cybersecurity teams, and that’s just the reality of the current economy in the U.S. and globally.  

I’m not saying this to discourage anyone from entering the security space or spread doom and gloom. But I do think it’s important to acknowledge that there are many already skilled and trained workers who simply cannot find work or are treading water throwing dozens of applications at the wall to see what sticks. 

I’ve seen too many people posting on LinkedIn recently looking for a cybersecurity job to think that the solution to bolstering security is getting *another* worker in with the same skillset to compete for the same job opening as someone who’s been in the industry for 10 years. 

The one big thing 

Talos recently uncovered a new threat called “DragonRank” that primarily targets countries in Asia — and a few in Europe — operating PlugX and BadIIS for search engine optimization (SEO) rank manipulation. DragonRank exploits targets’ web application services to deploy a web shell and utilizes it to collect system information and launch malware such as PlugX and BadIIS, running various credential-harvesting utilities. Their PlugX not only used familiar sideloading techniques, but the Windows Structured Exception Handling (SEH) mechanism ensures that the legitimate file can load the PlugX without raising suspicion. 

Why do I care? 

This group compromises Windows Internet Information Services (IIS) servers hosting corporate websites, with the intention of implanting the BadIIS malware. BadIIS is malware used to manipulate search engine crawlers and disrupt the SEO of the affected sites. With those compromised IIS servers, DragonRank can distribute the scam website to unsuspecting users. DragonRank engages in SEO manipulation by altering or exploiting search engine algorithms to improve a website’s ranking in search results. They conduct these attacks to drive traffic to malicious sites, increase the visibility of fraudulent content, or disrupt competitors by artificially inflating or deflating rankings. These attacks can harm a company’s online presence, lead to financial losses, and damage its reputation by associating the brand with deceptive or harmful practices. The actor then takes these compromised websites and promotes them, effectively turning these sites into platforms for scam operations. 

So now what? 

Talos released a new Snort rule set and several ClamAV signatures to detect and block the malware used in these attacks. Talos has confirmed more than 35 IIS servers had been compromised and deployed the BadIIS malware across a diverse array of geographic regions, including Thailand, India, Korea, Belgium, Netherlands and China in this campaign, so it’s clearly still active and potentially growing. 

Top security headlines of the week 

A new type of attack called “RAMBO” could allow adversaries to steal data over air-gapped networks with RAM radio signals. An Israeli academic researcher recently announced the discovery of RAMBO (Radiation of Air-gapped Memory Bus for Offense), in which an attacker could generate electromagnetic radiation from a device’s RAM to send data from air-gapped computers. Air-gapped systems are otherwise offline networks that are extremely isolated, often used in critical environments like government agencies, weapons systems and nuclear power stations. While RAMBO does not pose a threat for any hacker with access to the internet, it could open the door for insider threats with access to the network to deploy malware through physical media like USB drives or supply chain attacks. RAMBO could allow attackers to seal encoded files, encryption keys, images, keystrokes and biometric information from these systems at a rate of 1,000 bits per second. Researchers conducted tests into these types of attacks over distances of up to 23 feet. A technical paper published on the topic includes several potential mitigations, including RAM jamming, external EM jamming and Faraday enclosures around potentially targeted systems. (Bleeping Computer, SecurityWeek) 

Commercial spyware makers are still finding ways to bypass government sanctions and, in some cases, have made their tools harder to detect. A new report from the Atlantic Council found that “Most available evidence suggests that spyware sales are a present reality and likely to continue.” The report specifically highlights increased activity from Intellexa and the NSO Group, two companies known for creating and selling spyware tools that have been targeted over the past few years by international sanctions. These companies, and specifically Intellexa, have found ways to work around sanctions by restructuring their businesses with subsidiaries, partners and other relationships spread across multiple geographic areas. Intellexa is known for creating the Predator spyware, while the NSO Group is infamous for the Pegasus spyware. Both pieces of software often target high-risk individuals, sometimes by governments, such as journalists, politicians and activists. Security researchers also recently found that Intellexa has established new infrastructure in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Angola, making “it more difficult for researchers and cybersecurity defenders to track the spread of Predator.” (Dark Reading, The Register) 

Several Western intelligence agencies have formally charged the Russian GRU for carrying out cyber attacks against Ukraine designed to disrupt aid efforts. Government agencies in the U.S., U.K. and several other countries blamed Unit 29155, which has been linked to past espionage campaigns, with targeting government and civilian agencies and civil society organizations in Western Europe, the EU and NATO after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. Intelligence agencies in the Netherlands, Czech Republic, Germany, Estonia, Latvia, Canada and Australia all signed the declaration. They also formally blamed Unit 29155 for the WhisperGate campaign, a coordinated attack on Ukrainian government agencies in January 2022 that seemed to set the stage for a physical ground invasion. The announcement stated that WhisperGate has since been used to “scout and disrupt” aid deliveries to Ukraine. When Talos first reported on WhisperGate in 2022, our researchers stated that “attackers used stolen credentials in the campaign and they likely had access to the victim network for months before the attack, a typical characteristic of sophisticated advanced persistent threat (APT) operations.” (Reuters, BBC) 

Can’t get enough Talos? 

The 2024 Threat Landscape State of Play Vulnerability in Tencent WeChat custom browser could lead to remote code execution Watch our new documentary, “The Light We Keep: A Project PowerUp Story” Vulnerability in Acrobat Reader could lead to remote code execution; Microsoft patches information disclosure issue in Windows API Four zero-days included in group of 79 vulnerabilities Microsoft discloses, including one with 9.8 severity score 

Upcoming events where you can find Talos 

LABScon (Sept. 18 – 21)  

Scottsdale, Arizona 

VB2024 (Oct. 2 – 4) 

Dublin, Ireland 

MITRE ATT&CKcon 5.0 (Oct. 22 – 23) 

McLean, Virginia and Virtual

Nicole Hoffman and James Nutland will provide a brief history of Akira ransomware and an overview of the Linux ransomware landscape. Then, morph into action as they take a technical deep dive into the latest Linux variant using the ATT&CK framework to uncover its techniques, tactics and procedures.

Most prevalent malware files from Talos telemetry over the past week 

SHA 256: 47ecaab5cd6b26fe18d9759a9392bce81ba379817c53a3a468fe9060a076f8ca 
MD5: 71fea034b422e4a17ebb06022532fdde 
Typical Filename: VID001.exe 
Claimed Product: N/A 
Detection Name: RF.Talos.80 

SHA 256: 3a2ea65faefdc64d83dd4c06ef617d6ac683f781c093008c8996277732d9bd66 
MD5: 8b84d61bf3ffec822e2daf4a3665308c 
Typical Filename: RemComSvc.exe 
Claimed Product: N/A 
Detection Name: W32.3A2EA65FAE-95.SBX.TG 

SHA 256: 35dcf857f0bb2ea75bf4582b67a2a72d7e21d96562b4c8a61b5d598bd2327c2c 
MD5: fab8aabfdabe44c9a1ffa779fda207db 
Typical Filename: ACenter.exe 
Claimed Product: Aranda AGENT 
Detection Name: Win.Trojan.Generic::tg.talos  

SHA 256: 0e2263d4f239a5c39960ffa6b6b688faa7fc3075e130fe0d4599d5b95ef20647 
MD5: bbcf7a68f4164a9f5f5cb2d9f30d9790 
Typical Filename: bbcf7a68f4164a9f5f5cb2d9f30d9790.vir 
Claimed Product: N/A 
Detection Name: Win.Dropper.Scar::1201 

SHA 256: 5e537dee6d7478cba56ebbcc7a695cae2609010a897d766ff578a4260c2ac9cf 
MD5: 2cfc15cb15acc1ff2b2da65c790d7551 
Typical Filename: rcx4d83.tmp 
Claimed Product: N/A   
Detection Name: Win.Dropper.Pykspa::tpd 

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