Ongoing phishing attacks have been distributing the XWorm malware through a novel attack chain involving the exploitation of the Follina vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2022-30190, and the use of a meme-filled PowerShell code, according to The Hacker News.
Such a campaign, which has been attributed to the MEME#4CHAN activity cluster, leverages Microsoft Word files using CVE-2022-30190, to facilitate the deployment of an obfuscated PowerShell script that is then exploited to evade anti-malware and Microsoft Defender scans and deploy the XWorm-containing .NET binary, a report from Securonix showed. Aside from featuring clipper, ransomware, and distributed denial-of-service attack capabilities, XWorm could also enable additional malware deployment and could be distributed through USB.
"Based on a quick check, it appears that the individual or group responsible for the attack could have a Middle Eastern/Indian background, although the final attribution has not yet been confirmed," said researchers, who also noted the attack method's similarities with TA558.
Included in the exposed dataset labeled "PDL" were individuals' full names, email addresses, phone numbers, location data, professional summaries, and skills, as well as education and employment histories.
Attackers could leverage the issue — which impacts Nexus 3000, 7000, and 9000 series switches with vulnerable NX-OS versions with DHCPv6 activated and are in standalone NX-OS mode — to facilitate continuous crashes of the dhcp_snoop process and a denial-of-service condition.
Higher rewards of up to $250,000 will be given by Google for the discovery of memory corruption flaws in the Chrome browser shown to achieve remote code execution using a non-sandboxed process as part of a more robust vulnerability reward program.