Talos Takes

Every October, Cybersecurity Awareness Month brings a wave of tips: update your software, enable MFA, use strong passwords. But what good is any of that if the people behind the defenses are feeling burned out?In this episode of Talos Takes, Hazel sits down with Joe Marshall for a candid, vulnerable conversation about the human cost of cybersecurity. Joe opens up about his experience during the VPNFilter campaign — months of secrecy, long hours, immense pressure, and the trauma it left behind. Hazel shares her own journey with burnout, and together they talk about how to recognise the warning signs.They close with practical steps: building a personal “incident response playbook” that includes boundaries, peer support, and self-care. Because at the end of the day, you can’t patch a system if you’re burned out. 

Imagine downloading a PDF Editor tool from the internet that works great…until nearly two months later, when it quietly steals your credentials. That’s the reality of “Tampered Chef,” a malvertising campaign that preyed on users searching for everyday software.In this episode, Nick Biasini explains how cybercriminals are investing in “malvertising”, why enterprises are prime targets, and why there are additional challenges when it comes to defending against time-delayed attacks.

How do you build and defend a network where attacks are not just expected-they’re part of the curriculum? In this episode, Hazel talks with Jessica Oppenheimer, Director of Security Operations at Cisco, about the ten years she’s spent in the Black Hat Network Operations Center (NOC).Explore the technical challenges of segmenting and monitoring a network designed for experimentation, live hacking, and hands-on training, including how malicious and benign behaviors are distinguished in real time. Jessica shares how the NOC leverages Cisco technologies like the new machine learning-powered SnortML engine to detect zero-days, outliers, and advanced attack patterns that traditional rule sets miss.Learn how automation, contextual analysis, and collaborative response drive decision-making in this high-stakes environment, and how those lessons now influence security at global events like the Olympics and the Super Bowl.For more details, check out the Cisco blog wrap detailing all our Black Hat NOC activity https://blogs.cisco.com/security/bhusa-2025-noc

Hazel is joined by threat intelligence researcher James Nutland to discuss Cisco Talos’ latest findings on the newly emerged Chaos ransomware group. Based on real-world incident response engagements, James breaks down Chaos’ fast, multi-threaded encryption, their use of social engineering and remote access tools like Quick Assist, and the group’s likely connections to former BlackSuit operators. James also shares what defenders should be watching for and how to stay ahead of evolving ransomware tactics.Read the full research blog: https://blog.talosintelligence.com/new-chaos-ransomware

Attackers are increasingly abusing the same remote access tools that IT teams rely on every day. In this episode, Hazel sits down with Talos security researcher Pierre Cadieux to unpack why these legitimate tools have become such an effective tactic for adversaries.Pierre explains how the flexibility, legitimacy, and built-in capabilities of remote access management tools make them ideal for attackers who want to stay under the radar. They discuss trends Talos Incident Response is seeing in the field, examples of commonly abused tools, and the challenges defenders face when trying to detect misuse.You’ll also hear practical advice on what defenders and IT teams can do today to better secure their environments — and what the rise of remote access management tool abuse tells us about attacker behavior and the current state of cybercrime.Resources mentioned:Talos Incident Response Quarterly Trends ReportWhen Legitimate Tools Go Rogue (Talos Blog)

Hazel welcomes back Ryan Fetterman from the SURGe team to explore his new research on how large language models (LLMs) can assist those who work in security operations centers to identify malicious PowerShell scripts. From teaching LLMs through examples, to using retrieval-augmented generation and fine-tuning specialized models, Ryan walks us through three distinct approaches, with surprising performance gains. For the full research, head to https://www.splunk.com/en_us/blog/security/guiding-llms-with-security-context.html

Chetan Raghuprasad joins Hazel to discuss his threat hunting research into fake AI tool installers, which criminals are using to distribute ransomware, RATS, stealers and other destructive malware. He discusses the attack chain of three different campaigns, including one which even tries to justify its ransom as “humanitarian aid.”For the full research, read Chetan’s blog at https://blog.talosintelligence.com/fake-ai-tool-installers/

Edmund Brumaghin joins Hazel to discuss how threat actors (including state sponsored attackers), are increasingly compartmentalizing their attacks i.e they’re bringing in specialist skillsets from other groups to handle different aspects of the attack chain. Edmund discusses why this is happening, and the challenges this poses for defenders when it comes to attribution and reporting. He then discusses several solutions which seek to evolve traditional threat modelling, and help provide clarity to defenders.More details can be found in this blog https://blog.talosintelligence.com/compartmentalized-threat-modeling/If you’re interested in our other blog on initial access groups, that can be found at https://blog.talosintelligence.com/redefining-initial-access-brokers/

In this episode, Hazel welcomes Talos researcher Ashley Shen to discuss the evolution of initial access brokers (IABs) and the importance of distinguishing between different types of IABs. We talk about the need for a new taxonomy to categorize IABs into three types: financially motivated (FIA), state-sponsored (SIA), and opportunistic (OIA) initial access groups. This taxonomy aims to improve threat modeling and defense strategies by providing a clearer understanding of the motivations and behaviors of different IABs. For more details, check out the blog that Ashley co-authored with other Talos researchers https://blog.talosintelligence.com/redefining-initial-access-brokers/

A jam packed episode of guests means a slightly longer Talos Takes for your feed today! We welcome Amy Chang and Omar Santos from Cisco, Vitor Ventura from Talos, and Ryan Fetterman from Splunk. Together, we discuss how AI isn’t rewriting the cybercrime playbook, but it is turbo charging some of the old tricks, particularly on the social engineering side. We also touch on threat actor-built LLMs and where things may be headed. We then talk about how defensive strategies can leverage AI, particularly in the SOC, to increase visibility and make determinations a lot quicker. Resources mentioned in the episode:Talos’ 2024 Year in ReviewCisco’s State of AI Security reportDefending at machine speed, by Splunk