As we’ve learned, there is a genuine product called Cobalt Strike.
We also know that it has been used for bad.
Friday’s program of The Cyberwire also talks about this. Could it be a cooincident that I also read an article titled Microsoft leads effort to disrupt illicit use of Cobalt Strike, a dangerous hacking tool in the wrong hands written by Cyberscoop?
It was an interesting find, because we’ve heard that this was put in to all kinds of bad, but i assume this can happen to any kind of software.
As written by Cyberscoop:
Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit, cybersecurity firm Fortra and the Health Information Sharing & Analysis Center announced legal action Thursday to seize domains related to criminal activity involving cracked copies of the security testing application Cobalt Strike, which has become a favorite tool for cybercriminals to carry out attacks around the world.
Colbalt Strike is an emulation tool that people can use to enable better defenses on their networks, says the article.
According to another paragraph of this article, that states: that Fortra does its best to make sure that it doesn’t get in to the wrong hands.
Fortra, the maker of Cobalt Strike, works to prevent Cobalt Strike getting into the hands malicious hackers, but manipulated versions of the software have inevitably proliferated online. Thursday’s action attempts to disrupt the use of these cracked, older versions of Cobalt Strike that cybercriminals widely use to carry out attacks, especially to deploy ransomware.
There’s plenty more including linked material that we just think you aught to read about if this topic interests you.
Stay safe out there!
Discover more from Jared's Technology podcast network
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.