Research Saturday

Today we are joined by Selena Larson, Threat Researcher from Proofpoint research team and co-host of Only Malware in the Building, talking about their work on "(Don't) TrustConnect: It's a RAT in an RMM hat." Proofpoint uncovered TrustConnect, a malware-as-a-service platform posing as a legitimate remote monitoring and management (RMM) tool, but actually functioning as a remote access trojan (RAT)...

This week, we are joined by Santiago Pontiroli, Threat Intelligence Research Lead from Acronis TRU team, discussing their work on "New year, new sector: Transparent Tribe targets India’s startup ecosystem." The Acronis Threat Research Unit uncovered a new campaign by Transparent Tribe showing the group has expanded beyond traditional government and defense targets to India’s startup ecosystem, esp...

Omer Ninburg, CTO of Novee Security, joins us on this episode of Research Saturday to discuss their work on "From PDF to Pwn: Scalable 0day Discovery in PDF Engines and Services Using Multi-Agent LLMs." Historically, Portable Document Formats – the immutable, localized PDF – was once considered a “safe” component inside enterprise environments. That is no longer the case. To demonstrate how PDF se...

Yuval Avrahami from Wiz joins to share their work on "CodeBreach: Infiltrating the AWS Console Supply Chain and Hijacking AWS GitHub Repositories via CodeBuild." Wiz Research uncovered “CodeBreach,” a critical supply chain vulnerability caused by a subtle misconfiguration in AWS CodeBuild pipelines that allowed attackers to take over key GitHub repositories, including the widely used AWS JavaScrip...

This week, we are joined by Or Eshed, Co-Founder and CEO from LayerX Security, discussing their work on "How We Discovered A Campaign of 16 Malicious Extensions Built to Steal ChatGPT Accounts." Researchers uncovered a coordinated campaign of 16 malicious browser extensions posing as ChatGPT productivity tools while secretly stealing user accounts. The extensions intercept ChatGPT session authenti...

This week we are joined by Marcelle Lee, cybersecurity consultant and researcher, discussing "CTI tradecraft: Investigating a mobile scareware campaign." She details how a routine click on a Google News story led to a mobile scareware pop-up—and a deeper investigation into a broader campaign. Using free tools like Censys, URLScan, VirusTotal, and CyberChef, she pivoted from two domains to uncover...

This week we are joined by Dr. Renée Burton, Vice President of Infoblox Threat Intel, discussing "Parked Domains and Direct Search: An Underreported Security Risk." Parked domains are no longer harmless ad pages — new research finds that in today’s “direct search” or zero-click parking ecosystem, more than 90% of visits to certain parked lookalike domains lead to scams, malware, or deceptive conte...

Today we have Tomer Bar, VP of Security Research at SafeBreach Labs, discussing their work on "Prince of Persia: A Decade of Iranian Nation-State APT Campaign Activity under the Microscope". In this first installment of SafeBreach’s deep dive into the Iranian-linked APT known as “Prince of Persia,” originally exposed by Palo Alto Networks Unit 42, researchers reveal that the group never truly went...

Today we have Ziv Mador, VP of Security Research from LevelBlue SpiderLabs discussing their work on "SpiderLabs IDs New Banking Trojan Distributed Through WhatsApp." Researchers at LevelBlue SpiderLabs have identified a new Brazilian banking Trojan dubbed Eternidade Stealer, spread through WhatsApp hijacking and social engineering campaigns that use a Python-based worm to steal contacts and distri...

Piotr Wojtyla, Head of Threat Intel and Platform at Abnormal AI, is discussing their work on "InboxPrime AI: New Phishing Kit Fueling Scalable, AI-Powered Cybercrime." A new AI-powered phishing kit called InboxPrime AI is rapidly gaining traction in underground forums, automating the creation and delivery of highly believable phishing emails that mimic legitimate business communications and levera...

Muhammad Danish, University of New Mexico lead author and cybersecurity researcher, discussing his team's work on "Private Links, Public Leaks: Consequences of Frictionless User Experience on the Security and Privacy Posture of SMS-Delivered URLs". This paper examines how the push for frictionless user experiences has led many services to rely on SMS-delivered, single-click URLs—an inherently inse...

Today we have Andrew Northern, Principal Security Researcher at Censys, discussing "From Evasion to Evidence: Exploiting the Funneling Behavior of Injects". This research explains how modern web malware campaigns use multi-stage JavaScript injections, redirects, and fake CAPTCHAs to selectively deliver payloads and evade detection. It shows that these attack chains rely on stable redirect and traf...

Today we are joined by Ben Folland, Security Operations Analyst from Huntress, discussing their work on "ClickFix Gets Creative: Malware Buried in Images." This analysis covers a ClickFix campaign that uses fake human verification checks and a realistic Windows Update screen to trick users into manually running malicious commands. The multi-stage attack chain leverages mshta.exe, PowerShell, and ....

This week, we are joined by Martin Zugec, Technical Solutions Director from Bitdefender, sharing their work and findings on "EggStreme Malware: Unpacking a New APT Framework Targeting a Philippine Military Company." Built for long-term espionage, the campaign uses DLL sideloading, in-memory execution, and abused Windows services to stay stealthy and persistent. We walk through how the multi-stage...

While our team is out on winter break, please enjoy this episode of Research Saturday. Today we are joined by ⁠⁠Selena Larson⁠⁠, co-host of ⁠⁠Only Malware in the Building⁠⁠ and Staff Threat Researcher and Lead Intelligence Analysis and Strategy at ⁠⁠Proofpoint⁠⁠, sharing their work on "Microsoft OAuth App Impersonation Campaign Leads to MFA Phishing." Proofpoint researchers have identified campaig...

While our team is out on winter break, please enjoy this episode of Research Saturday. This week, we are joined by ⁠Tom Hegel⁠, Principal Threat Researcher from ⁠SentinelLabs⁠ research team, to discuss their work on "Ghostwriter | New Campaign Targets Ukrainian Government and Belarusian Opposition." The latest Ghostwriter campaign, linked to Belarusian government espionage, is actively targeting U...

Darren Meyer, Security Research Advocate at Checkmarx, is sharing their work on "Bypassing AI Agent Defenses with Lies-in-the-Loop." Checkmarx Zero researchers introduce “lies-in-the-loop,” a new attack technique that bypasses human‑in‑the‑loop AI safety controls by deceiving users into approving dangerous actions that appear benign. Using examples with AI code assistants like Claude Code, the res...

Daniel Schwalbe, DomainTools Head of Investigations and CISO, is sharing their work on "Inside the Great Firewall." This two-part research project analyzes an extraordinary 500–600GB leak that exposes the internal architecture, tooling, and human ecosystem behind China’s Great Firewall. Across both parts, you break down thousands of leaked documents, source code repositories, diagrams, packet capt...

Jaron Bradley, Director of Jamf Threat Labs, is sharing their work on "ChillyHell: A Deep Dive into a Modular macOS Backdoor." Jamf Threat Labs uncovers a newly notarized macOS backdoor called ChillyHell, tied to past UNC4487 activity and disguised as a legitimate applet. The malware showcases robust host profiling, multiple persistence mechanisms, timestomping, and flexible C2 communications over...

Please enjoy this encore of Research Saturday. This week, we are joined by ⁠Michael Gorelik⁠, Chief Technology Officer from ⁠Morphisec⁠, discussing their work on "New Noodlophile Stealer Distributes Via Fake AI Video Generation Platforms." A new threat dubbed Noodlophile Stealer is exploiting the popularity of AI-powered content tools by posing as fake AI video generation platforms, luring users i...

Alex Berninger, Senior Manager of Intelligence at Red Canary, and Mike Wylie, Director, Threat Hunting at Zscaler, join to discuss four phishing lures in campaigns dropping RMM tools. Red Canary and Zscaler uncovered phishing campaigns delivering legitimate remote monitoring and management (RMM) tools—like ITarian, PDQ, SimpleHelp, and Atera—to gain stealthy access to victim systems. Attackers use...

Dr. Renée Burton, Vice President of Threat Intelligence from Infoblox, is sharing the team's work on "Deniability by Design: DNS-Driven Insights into a Malicious Ad Network." Infoblox returns with new threat actor research uncovering Vane Viper, a Cyprus-based holding company behind PropellerAds—one of the world’s largest advertising networks. The report reveals that Vane Viper isn’t just being ex...

Tal Peleg, Senior Product Manager, and Coby Abrams, Cyber Security Researcher of Varonis, discussing their work and findings on Rusty Pearl - Remote Code Execution in Postgres Instances. The flaw could allow attackers to execute arbitrary commands on a database server’s operating system, leading to potential data theft, destruction, or lateral movement across networks. While the vulnerability exis...

Today we are joined by Dario Pasquini, Principal Researcher at RSAC, sharing the team's work on WhenAIOpsBecome “AI Oops”: Subverting LLM-driven IT Operations via Telemetry Manipulation. A first-of-its-kind security analysis showing that LLM-driven AIOps agents can be tricked by manipulated telemetry, turning automation itself into a new attack vector. The researchers introduce AIOpsDoom, an autom...

Noam Moshe, Claroty’s Vulnerability Research Team Lead, joins Dave to discuss Team 82's work on "Turning Camera Surveillance on its Axis." Team82 disclosed four vulnerabilities in Axis. Remoting—deserialization, a MiTM “pass-the-challenge” NTLMSSP flaw, and an unauthenticated fallback HTTP endpoint—that enable pre-auth remote code execution against Axis Device Manager and Axis Camera Station. They...