Emotet has been one of the top cybersecurity threats of late. It has affected many users around the world and always ends up coming back with novel techniques to bypass security measures and achieve attack. Now it has come up with a new method to be able to spread more quickly. For this, it uses Cobalt Strike, as we will explain. This allows them to have an advantage.
Emotet updates to be faster
Historically, after infecting a device, Emotet steals the victim’s email and thus spreads. You can use it for future campaigns and be able to deliver malware like TrickBot and Qbot. But now the strategy has changed and a few weeks ago it has started testing Cobalt Strike on infected devices.
When we talk about Cobalt Strike we refer to a pentesting tool, which is legitimate, used by many hackers to spread within an organization and sneak ransomware into a network to later request a financial ransom.
Now Emotet is using this tool to gain speed when it comes to spreading and not using the usual payloads. According to security researchers, the attackers are downloading the Cobalt Strike modules directly from their command and control server and subsequently running it on the infected device.
This is what allows attackers to deploy over a network in a more agile way. This will speed up the delivery of malicious packages. In addition, we must take into account the dates in which we are, since many organizations are at the doors of the holidays, so they could have an extra opportunity to attack there as there are fewer personnel.
Tips to avoid being victims of these attacks
But, what can we do to avoid being victims of this type of attack and other similar ones? We must always keep in mind some essential recommendations that we must put into practice. The first one is common sense . It is essential not to make mistakes that could affect us. For example, do not download files that may be dangerous or avoid installing from unofficial sources.
It will also be essential to have everything updated. It is a fact that hackers, when sending attacks like Emotet or any other, on many occasions are going to take advantage of existing vulnerabilities. These uncorrected security flaws are exploited to launch these threats. Thanks to the updates we can correct the problem.
On the other hand, having security programs always helps to be protected. A good antivirus, such as Windows Defender, Avast or Bitdefender, will be essential to detect malware and be able to eliminate it in case our computer is infected. It is something that we must apply regardless of the type of operating system we are using.
In short, Emotet is updated once again to find the fastest attack method that has the best guarantees of success. However, the security and protection measures that we must take are the same as always. You can test Emocheck to detect Emotet on the system.
