The Ukrainian Computer Emergency Response Team has issued a new security warning after discovering a cyber attack campaign carried out by the APT28 threat group, also known as Fancy Bear. This group is thought, with a high degree of confidence, to be affiliated with Russian military intelligence operations. Here’s what we know so far and what you need to watch out for if you think you might be at risk of being targeted.
The APT28 Fancy Bear Cyber Attack Campaign Warning From CERT-UA
The Ukrainian CERT warning, number CERT-UA#11689, was published Oct. 25 and, courtesy of Google’s on-page language translation tools, detailed an ongoing investigation into a phishing campaign using emails that contain a database table, and a link that delivers what appears to be a Google reCAPTCHA bot-detection dialog.
The frequency of these anti-bot CAPTCHA tools has reduced considerably for most users, in no small part by the sheer number of browser extensions that help to defeat them and the likes of iOS using Apple’s server-based automatic verification system to bypass the need to complete them yourself. However, it’s still not an altogether unexpected event when one does appear and, something that the Fancy Bear threat group is relying upon, certainly not something that would arouse suspicion in the user. If anything, it’s the opposite: the use of such an anti-bot defense tends to suggest a trustworthy outcome rather than a dangerous one.
Source: Forbes