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Talos Group

Talos Security Intelligence & Research Group

The Talos Security Intelligence and Research Group (Talos) is made up of leading threat researchers supported by sophisticated systems to create threat intelligence for Cisco products that detects, analyzes and protects against both known and emerging threats. Talos maintains the official rule sets of Snort.org, ClamAV, SenderBase.org and SpamCop. This blog profile is managed by multiple authors with expertise that spans software development, reverse engineering, vulnerability triage, malware investigation and intelligence gathering.

Talos is the primary team that contributes threat information to the Cisco Collective Security Intelligence (CSI) ecosystem. Cisco CSI is shared across multiple security solutions and provides industry-leading security protections and efficacy. In addition to threat researchers, CSI is driven by intelligence infrastructure, product and service telemetry, public and private feeds and the open source community.

Articles

January 9, 2019

THREAT RESEARCH

Why we want users’ feedback on Snort rule documentation

Today, Talos is launching a new community survey to solicit feedback on SNORTⓇ documentation. When Snort alerts the end user, the rule documentation is their first and possibly only avenue to find information on malicious traffic in their network. We know this can be better, and we want your help in…

January 9, 2019

THREAT RESEARCH

Microsoft Patch Tuesday — January 2019: Vulnerability disclosures and Snort coverage

Microsoft released its monthly security update today, disclosing a variety of vulnerabilities in several of its products. The latest Patch Tuesday covers 49 vulnerabilities, seven of which are rated “critical,” 40 that are considered “important” and one that is “moderate.” This release also includes…

January 2, 2019

THREAT RESEARCH

Vulnerability Spotlight: Multiple privilege escalation vulnerabilities in CleanMyMac X

Tyler Bohan of Cisco Talos discovered these vulnerabilities. Executive summary Today, Cisco Talos is disclosing several vulnerabilities in MacPaw’s CleanMyMac X software. CleanMyMac X is a cleanup application for Mac operating systems that allows users to free up extra space on their machines by sca…

December 21, 2018

THREAT RESEARCH

Threat Roundup for Dec. 14 to Dec. 21

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we’ve observed between Dec. 14 and Dec. 21. As with previous roundups, this post isn’t meant to be an in-depth analysis. Instead, this post will summarize the threats we’ve observed by highlighting key behavioral…

December 21, 2018

THREAT RESEARCH

Submissions for talks at the 2019 Talos Threat Research Summit are now open

Cisco Talos is happy to announce that the Talos Threat Research Summit is returning in 2019. This time, we are expanding the number of attendees to 500 — double what we had last year. Next year’s conference will take place on June 9 in San Diego, Calif. — the same day that Cisco Live! kicks of…

December 21, 2018

THREAT RESEARCH

Talos’ Malware Year in Review

It was easy to see a wild year coming in cybersecurity. It started with a bang, with Olympic Destroyer targeting the Winter Olympics in February in an attempt to disrupt the opening ceremonies. Things only got crazier from there, with cryptocurrency miners popping up everywhere, and VPNFilter taking…

December 18, 2018

THREAT RESEARCH

As Cryptocurrency Crash Continues, Will Mining Threat Follow?

Post authored by Nick Biasini. Executive Summary As 2018 draws to a close, one technology has definitively left its mark on the year: cryptocurrencies. Digital currencies started the year out strong after a meteoric rise toward the end of 2017. Since then, it’s safe to say that cryptocurrencies have…

December 18, 2018

THREAT RESEARCH

Connecting the dots between recently active cryptominers

Post authored by David Liebenberg and Andrew Williams. Executive Summary Through Cisco Talos’ investigation of illicit cryptocurrency mining campaigns in the past year, we began to notice that many of these campaigns shared remarkably similar TTPs, which we at first mistakenly interpreted as being a…

December 14, 2018

THREAT RESEARCH

Threat Roundup for Dec. 7 to Dec. 14

Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we’ve observed between Dec. 7 and Dec. 14. As with previous roundups, this post isn’t meant to be an in-depth analysis. Instead, this post will summarize the threats we’ve observed by highlighting key behavioral c…