Article
Ransomware and Cloud Security
Arete Analysis
Cyber Threats
Threat Actors
While cloud-based infrastructure is largely viewed as less susceptible to cybercrime than on premise servers, use of the cloud comes with its own security concerns. Serverless architectures can fall victim to cryptominers, lateral movement attempts, denial of service attacks, and even extortion attacks. The most prevalent initial access method into cloud environments is credential-based attacks, but misconfiguration also represents many compromises and data exposures. As these misconfigurations and exploitation of weak credentials allow relatively low-skilled threat actors to easily access cloud environments, some extortion groups specifically target these environments. One notable threat actor observed by Arete focuses solely on the exfiltration and extortion of cloud-based environments and self-identifies as Mr. Anazon.
Who is Mr. Anazon?
Mr. Anazon is an extortionist presumed to be operating alone and is likely a native English speaker. Although Mr. Anazon claims to have over 15 years of experience, the Arete Cyber Threat Intelligence team found no evidence of a threat actor with that name on underground or Dark Web forums. Mr. Anazon communicates via email using a Titan email hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure as their mail server. The webpage for the domain from the email address provided in the ransom note typically displays an image with the message: “Do As You Are Told! You And Your Clients Will Be Safe And Your Business Reputation Will Be Intact.”
Mr. Anazon exploits vulnerabilities in software applications and operates multiple domains, pre-staging them for up to two months prior to using them to communicate with victims. In one engagement, a lack of session validation allowed the threat actor to gain access to the victim’s Amazon S3 bucket and use automated scanning tools and crawlers to index sensitive data.
Analyst Comments
Threat actors abusing cloud infrastructure will likely continue to be a challenge moving forward. They will likely abuse cloud infrastructure for nefarious purposes, including the distribution of malware, hosting phishing pages, and exfiltrating data to extort ransom payments from victims.
Sources
Arete CTI Team
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CMS Vulnerability Leads to ClickFix Campaign
Threat actors compromised at least 700 education and technology websites in a recent ClickFix campaign by exploiting a critical SQL injection flaw (CVE-2026-26980) in the Ghost content management system (CMS). Adversaries combined the vulnerability with the ClickFix social engineering tactic to steal admin keys and inject a malicious JavaScript that delivers a fake Cloudflare or CAPTCHA verification pop-up, tricking victims into copying and pasting a malicious command into their systems.
What’s Notable and Unique
Rather than targeting the end user first, this campaign is unique in its initial exploitation of the system, followed by social engineering attempts. This hybrid attack style is likely being leveraged to bypass traditional defenses.
This recent campaign also highlights how trusted web properties can be weaponized at scale and coupled with unpatched CMS vulnerabilities. Rather than using the CMS compromise to perpetrate a single attack, threat actors turned it into a supply-chain attack that ultimately affected over 700 trusted websites.
Analyst Comments
As network defenders and their tools enhance threat detection capabilities, adversaries increasingly seek methods to bypass these defenses. By combining vulnerability exploitation, social engineering techniques, and staging for ancillary attacks, this campaign successfully bypassed traditional defenses and inflicted significant impact. Defending against hybrid cyberattacks requires comprehensive security controls beyond simply patching vulnerabilities. Organizations should focus on limiting movement within the environment, detecting abuse of trusted applications, and preventing end-user manipulation.
Sources
700+ education and tech websites hijacked in huge ClickFix malware campaign
Under the engineering hood: Why Malwarebytes chose WordPress as its CMS
Think before you Click(Fix): Analyzing the ClickFix social engineering technique
Ghost CMS Vulnerability Exploited to Infect 700 Sites With ClickFix Malware
Article
Threat Actors Leverage Fake JPEG Files for Initial Access
In a recent campaign, researchers observed threat actors using fake JPEG image files as a delivery mechanism to initiate the deployment of additional malicious components. The false JPEG files are typically distributed via phishing emails or other social engineering-based lures, and are actually PowerShell-based malware that deploys a trojanized version of ConnectWise ScreenConnect to establish and maintain persistence in the compromised environment.
What’s Notable and Unique
This campaign leverages JPEG images as the initial lure, where the images are not merely decoys but part of the infection workflow. Victims are typically led to download or open an image that triggers hidden execution logic or redirects them to a payload-delivery sequence that initiates later stages of the intrusion chain.
The attack chain is designed to blend into legitimate environments, making detection more difficult. Execution typically relies on scripted or native Windows components, often including PowerShell or other living-off-the-land binaries, enabling fileless or near-fileless execution and reducing forensic artifacts on disk.
The multistage design ensures that the initial JPEG does not directly contain the full payload but instead triggers retrieval or decryption steps that progressively assemble the final malicious components in memory.
Analyst Comments
This campaign illustrates how threat actors continue to blur the line between legitimate file handling and malicious execution chains, indicating potential overlap with remote management or administrative tooling. The use of JPEG-based staging combined with script-based execution reflects a broader evolution toward a stealth-first intrusion design, in which file formats serve as triggers rather than payload containers.
Sources
OPERATION SILENTCANVAS : JPEG BASED MULTISTAGE POWERSHELL INTRUSION
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