The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is cautioning cybersecurity researchers to keep their guard up amid a wave of attacks targeting this particular group.
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The attacks, first disclosed in January, target security researchers working on vulnerability research and development in various organizations. The researchers were contacted on several platforms including Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram, Discord, Keybase, and email.
The attackers created fraudulent social media profiles to interact with researchers, share videos of claimed exploits, retweet other attacker-controlled accounts, and link to their blog. Their goal was to trick victims into running malicious code, by downloading a file or clicking a link, after gaining their trust.
In a notice on the attacks, CISA recommends cybersecurity practitioners review reports and updates from Google, Microsoft, and CISA on the attack campaign.
The notification also encourages researchers to use sandbox environments that are isolated from trusted systems or networks when examining untrusted code or websites.
The statement from CISA can be found here.