Cyber Threat Showdown: TikTok Malware, Exploit Scoring Wars & Real-World Attacks

Forecast = Stormy with a chance of TikTok malware showers—exploit scoring systems hot, but patch management outlook remains partly cloudy.

Welcome to Storm⚡️Watch! In this episode, we're diving into the current state of cyber weather with a mix of news, analysis, and practical insights.

This week, we tackle a fundamental question: are all exploit scoring systems bad, or are some actually useful? We break down the major frameworks:

• **CVSS (Common Vulnerability Scoring System):** The industry standard for assessing vulnerability severity, CVSS uses base, temporal, and environmental metrics to give a comprehensive score. It's widely used but has limitations—especially since it doesn't always reflect real-world exploitability.
• **Coalition Exploit Scoring System (ESS):** This system uses AI and large language models to predict the likelihood that a CVE will be exploited in the wild. ESS goes beyond technical severity, focusing on exploit availability and usage probabilities, helping organizations prioritize patching with better accuracy than CVSS alone.
• **EPSS (Exploit Prediction Scoring System):** EPSS is a data-driven approach that estimates the probability of a vulnerability being exploited, using real-world data from honeypots, IDS/IPS, and more. It updates daily and helps teams focus on the most urgent risks.
• **VEDAS (Vulnerability & Exploit Data Aggregation System):** VEDAS aggregates data from over 50 sources and clusters vulnerabilities, providing a score based on exploit prevalence and maturity. It's designed to help teams understand which vulnerabilities are most likely to be actively exploited.
• **LEV/LEV2 (Likely Exploited Vulnerabilities):** Proposed by NIST, this metric uses historical EPSS data to probabilistically assess exploitation, helping organizations identify high-risk vulnerabilities that might otherwise be missed.
• **CVSS BT:** This project enriches CVSS scores with real-world threat intelligence, including data from CISA KEV, ExploitDB, and more. It's designed to help organizations make better patching decisions by adding context about exploitability.

Next, we turn our attention to a troubling trend: malware distribution via TikTok. Attackers are using AI-generated videos, disguised as helpful software activation tutorials, to trick users into running malicious PowerShell commands. This "ClickFix" technique has already reached nearly half a million views. The malware, including Vidar and StealC, runs entirely in memory, bypassing traditional security tools and targeting credentials, wallets, and financial data. State-sponsored groups from Iran, North Korea, and Russia have adopted these tactics, making it a global concern. For employees, the takeaway is clear: never run PowerShell commands from video tutorials, and always report suspicious requests to IT. For IT teams, consider disabling the Windows+R shortcut for standard users, restrict PowerShell execution, and update security awareness training to include social media threats.

We also highlight the latest from Censys, VulnCheck, runZero, and GreyNoise—industry leaders providing cutting-edge research and tools for vulnerability management and threat intelligence. Don't miss GreyNoise's upcoming webinar on resurgent vulnerabilities and their impact on organizational security.

And that's a wrap for this episode! We will be taking a short break from Storm Watch for the summer. We look forward to bringing more episodes to you in the fall!

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