Neo, a threat actor identified in the cybersecurity landscape, has been associated with several malicious activities, including exploiting vulnerabilities in Siemens SIMATIC PCS neo V4.0 and V5.0 versions. Two significant vulnerabilities (CVE-2023-32268 and CVE-2023-46282) were identified in all versions of Opcenter Quality and SIMATIC PCS neo up to V18 Update 3. The vulnerabilities had severity scores of 7.2 and 7.1 respectively, indicating their high impact on the integrity and availability of the affected systems.
In 2019, this group was involved in doxing and swatting journalists across various media outlets, as reported by KrebsOnSecurity. This action involved disseminating personal information about these individuals online (doxing) and making false police reports leading to heavily armed responses at the victims' addresses (swatting). Furthermore, in 2023, Telegram, a popular messaging app, was temporarily blocked in Brazil due to its failure to cooperate with an investigation into neo-Nazi activities linked to Neo.
Neo's activities are not limited to cyber exploits; they have also been implicated in real-world violence. A notable incident involved the shooting and stabbing of Cox by a neo-Nazi sympathiser before the Brexit referendum. Additionally, misinformation campaigns linked to Neo have spread across both mainstream and alternative social media platforms, news outlets, web forums, conferences, summits, and extremist platforms like the neo-Nazi website Stormfront. Projections for 2024 suggest that while white supremacist and neo-Nazi violent extremists like Neo are likely to conduct mass-casualty terrorist attacks, anti-government and anarchist violent extremists will also increase physical threat operations.
Description last updated: 2024-11-05T19:02:12.644Z