We assess that this was an anti-forensics technique to hide the presence of the attacker code on the Triconex controller . Some of the documents exploited CVE-2017-0199 to deliver the payload .


gop.com — used by the Republican National Committee , donaldjtrump.com — used by the Donald Trump campaign , johnkasich.com — used by the John Kasich campaign .


EventBot ’ s request to use accessibility services . Bemstour is specifically designed to deliver a variant of the DoublePulsar backdoor . In addition to the malware evolution , the actors also shifted from solely spear-phishing targets with attachments to also compromising legitimate websites to host malware .


The library includes such operations as : Get address of cybercriminal C & C server Get configuration file with web injects from C & C , as well as default list of injects Scan for app package names that generated AccessibilityEvent events in the list of known banking/antivirus/other popular apps Set malware as default SMS app Get address of the phishing page that opens when the app runs , and others getStartWebUrl function – get address of phishing page The configuration file contains a list of injects for mobile banking apps – links to phishing pages matching the mobile McAfee Advanced Threat research determines with confidence that Lazarus is the threat group behind this attack for the following reasons:Contacts an IP address / domain that was used to host a malicious document from a Lazarus previous campaign in 2017 . In this version , a shortcut is created in order to launch winnit.exe in the following path %USERPROFILE%\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\Anti virus service.lnk .


These analysts were linked by their coverage of the telecommunications industry , making this targeting very similar to , and likely a continuation of , activity described in our “ In Pursuit of Optical Fibers and Troop Intel ” blog .


We have observed the Enfal malware in use since 2011 and in conjunction with Backdoor.APT.Pgift as the payload of a malicious document used in spearphishing attacks . The group 's capabilities are more than the much discussed CVE-2012-0158 exploits over the past few years .


The initial dropper has a weaponized Feng Shui Bundle as encrypted asset files . Threat actors may use the date string hardcoded into each Bookworm sample as a build identifier . A little over a year ago , in October 2018 , our polymorphic outbreak monitoring system detected a large surge in reports , indicating that a large-scale campaign was unfolding . Additional Email Delegate Permissions APT29 has used a compromised global administrator account in Azure AD to backdoor a service principal with ApplicationImpersonation rights to start collecting emails from targeted mailboxe .


In the past , the Sofacy developers modified earlier AZZY backdoors to use a C&C server encoded in the registry , instead of storing it in the malware itself , so this code modularisation follows the same line of thinking .


As we know from the FTP dump analysis , there was a firmware component from ASUS firmware , indicating the attacker ’ s interest in ASUS devices , which explains the victim file name that mentions “ ASUS ” . HIDDEN COBRA actors install the FALLCHILL malware to establish persistence . Quasar RAT was installed to CSIDL_PROFILE\appdata\roaming\microsoft\crypto\smss.exe . Sometimes this was a high profile , legitimate site such as ‘ diplomacy.pl ’ hosting a ZIP archive .


This attack , however , seems exclusive to Android users , as it does not have the code to attack iOS devices . APT17 , also known as DeputyDog , is a China-based threat group that FireEye Intelligence has observed conducting network intrusions against U.S. government entities , the defense industry , law firms , information technology companies , mining companies , and non-government organizations . After the file is written, the malware moves on to process operations . There is evidence to suggest that in 2010 Harrison was directed to harass the owner of Ashleymadisonsucks.com into closing the site or selling the domain to Ashley Madison .


Note there is a typo in the executable ’s filename ; Once the binary is executed , a password prompt dialog box opens .


ALLCONTACTS – send all contacts from phone memory to C & C . Attackers have been known to distribute malicious files masquerading as the legitimate iviewers.dll file and then use DLL load hijacking to execute the malicious code and infect the computer . This included the Fuzzbunch framework that was part of an infamous leak of exploits and tools by the Shadow Brokers in April 2017 .


The code for this characteristic and the corresponding Twitter accounts can be seen in figures 3 and 4 respectively . A China-based cyber threat group , which FireEye tracks as an uncategorized advanced persistent threat ( APT ) group and other researchers refer to as admin@338 , may have conducted the activity . Table 5: Glimpse action parameters values for the AdrGen function below contains the possible parameters, a brief description, and return values applicable to the action . Adversaries may manipulate physical process control within the industrial environment .


The c2 domain was associated with multiple IP addresses in past .


Although the campaign identifier itself doesn’t contain a date , we believe the campaign to have originated around the 7th of June 2009 , which was when the PinchDuke sample in question was compiled .


The Ham Backdoor functions primarily as a modular platform , which provides the attacker with the ability to directly download additional modules and execute them in memory from the command and control ( C2 ) server . While OceanLotus’ targets are global , their operations are mostly active within the APAC region which encompasses targeting private sectors across multiple industries , foreign governments , activists , and dissidents connected to Vietnam .


Key : HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\AudioMgr Value : %AppData%\Video\videodrv.exe .


We also found the actor ’s Telegram group on their fake website .


In this example , the requests to the server take the following form : Here , the “ operator ” query parameter is the Mobile Country Code and Mobile Network Code . Barium specializes in targeting high value organizations holding sensitive data , by gathering extensive information about their employees through publicly available information and social media , using that information to fashion phishing attacks intended to trickthose employees into compromising their computers and networks . If the type of the object that the system is trying to validate is a process , the hook code rewrites again the configuration data of the ZxShell service in the windows registry . “ s1.txt ” , which likely contains the unauthorized MicroSCADA commands


Conclusion Although not yet mature enough to provide the equivalent of a full-blown set of Android banking malware features ( such as RAT , RAT with ATS ( Automated Transaction Script ) , back-connect proxy , media streaming ) , or providing an exhaustive target list , Cerberus should not be taken lightly . In June 2019 , continuous SectorJ04's activities targeting South Korea were found again and spam emails were written with various contents , including transaction statements , receipts and remittance cards . BRONZE BUTLER has used phishing emails with Flash animation attachments to download and execute Daserf malware , and has also leveraged Flash exploits for SWC attacks .


We speculate that this is an intermediate stage in significant changes to their macOS malware .


The Shellbot disguises itself as a process named rsync , commonly the binary seen on many Unix- and Linux-based systems to automatically run for backup and synchronization .


At this stage , the analysis can only continue by manually investigating the individual code blocks and opcode handlers , which are highly obfuscated ( also using spaghetti code ) . One of the most interesting observations made during this analysis is that the amount of development effort devoted to Emissary significantly increased after we published our Operation Lotus Blossom report in June 2015 , resulting in many new versions of the Emissary Trojan . So , we put our trust in software vendors that the files they distribute don’t include malware . CrowdStrike researchers replicated the exploit method attack on Exchange systems that had not received the November 8 , 2022 patch KB5019758 , but could not replicate the attack on systems that had received that patch .


In the latest implant versions there are 48 different commands . The NewsBeef campaign is divided into two main attack vectors , spearphishing and strategic web compromise watering hole attacks . MuddyWater : Seedworm , TEMP.Zagros .


These attacks , which occurred in November 2016 and January 2017 , reportedly affected thousands of computers across multiple government and civil organizations in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in Gulf states .


The previous documents that used this user name were macro-laden delivery documents that installed SofacyCarberp S-MAL/Seduploader payloads , as discussed in Talos ’ blog .


If remote access between zones is an unavoidable business need , log and monitor these connections closely .


Even stranger , each webpage contained the same content within the body .


] today www [ . Myanmar has been the target of Mofang 's attacks for years before the campaign related to the sez . These subtle changes may be enough to circumvent existing IDS signatures designed to detect older variants of the Aumlib family . We recommend following Microsoft ’s guidance and patching Exchange Server immediately to mitigate this activity .


As a result , information related to the malicious actor is tentatively redacted in this publication . We speculate that other attacks delivering Bookworm were also targeting organizations in Thailand based on the contents of the associated decoys documents , as well as several of the dynamic DNS domain names used to host C2 servers that contain the words " Thai " or " Thailand " . A cursory review of BlackOasis ’ espionage campaign suggests there is some overlap between the group ’s actions and Saudi Arabia ’s geopolitical interests . [ 42 ] TYPEFRAME has used ports 443 , 8080 , and 8443 with a FakeTLS method .


Again , if a victim downloaded a torrent containing a wrapped executable , they would get infected with OnionDuke .


For TA505 , the payloads have shifted over the years and months of their activity , but their sending and hosting infrastructure make these changes relatively simple to implement .


Lookout researchers have been tracking this threat for the last month . Like previous Turla activity , WhiteBear leverages compromised websites and hijacked satellite connections for command and control ( C2 ) infrastructure . Svchost.exe groups are identified in the above registry key . Fortunately , an artifact of its execution was discovered in the /private / var / db / oah directory .


The Command & Control server also displays a favicon image which looks like a small orange ball . Suckfly targeted one of India 's largest e-commerce companies , a major Indian shipping company , one of India 's largest financial organizations , and an IT firm that provides support for India 's largest stock exchange . While it is unknown at this point whether the backdoor was coded by the same members of the group behind the attacks , there are indications that suggest that the malware was authored by Ukranian-speaking malware developers . The network sees a high number of data access and transfer requests by the same user , who may be authorized , but does not regularly work with the targeted data assets and network resources .


However , the apps are still available in third-party app stores . FireEye defined APT40 as the Chinese state-sponsored threat actor previously reported as TEMP.Periscope , Leviathan and TEMP.Jumper . This version of KONNI is the most advanced with better coding .


Desktop Trojans and Their Mobile Component The process by which Trojans attempt to infect mobile devices is at least a decade old . The China Chopper actor activity starts with the download and execution of two exploit files which attempt to exploit the Windows vulnerabilities CVE-2015-0062 , CVE-2015-1701 and CVE-2016-0099 to allow the attacker to modify other objects on the server . APT34 uses a mix of public and non-public tools , often conducting spear phishing operations using compromised accounts from trusted third parties , sometimes coupled with social engineering tactics .


The data that is sent in the POST is serialized with json , which is then is encrypted , and finally encoded in base64 .


The loader and the SofacyCarberp sample delivered in this attack is similar to samples we have analyzed in the past but contains marked differences .


Although Talos analyzed the unpacked version of the code , the packer analysis is beyond the scope of this post . However , FireEye researchers do not have enough insight to reliably report a definitive connection to the Moafee and DragonOK groups . Also , you may check MAC addresses online . StrifeWater is used to create a foothold in victim and environments , and it has various functions , including executing system commands , screen capturing , establishing persistence , listing system files , and downloading updates and additional modules .


” some_method ” , “ data ” :


Figure 7 lists the IP addresses of these C2 servers , the number of RuMMS apps that connect to each of them , and the example URL used as the first parameter of the HttpPost operation ( used in the code of Figure 3 ) . The attacks delivered a PowerShell backdoor called QUADAGENT , a tool attributed to the OilRig group by both ClearSky Cyber Security and FireEye . The attacker implemented filtering based on the keyboard 's layout . We 'll delve into the recent four - month spike in attacks against the UK , the unsettling uptick in attacks on France 's government sector , and how Germany retained its spot as the fourth most targeted country in the world .


The said screen is the ransom note , which contains threats and instructions to pay the ransom . Starting in mid-February . . The file path at the end of the configuration is used to store configuration data that is encrypted using AES-128 .


DEFENSOR ID was released on Feb 3 , 2020 and last updated to v1.4 on May 6 , 2020 . The SLUB malware was delivered through watering hole websites that were injected with exploits for CVE-2018-8174 or CVE-2019-0752 . Furthermore , like many other identified Lazarus Group families , these tools showcase the group 's creative solutions , such as the PapaAlfa , which makes it difficult to immediately identify potentially malicious activity on a compromised network .


This technique only works for unpatched devices running Android 4.3 or lower . Based on Kaspersky Lab 's analysis of NetTraveler 's C&C data , there were a total of 350 victims in 40 countries across including the United States , Canada , United Kingdom , Russia , Chile , Morocco , Greece , Belgium , Austria , Ukraine , Lithuania , Belarus , Australia , Hong Kong , Japan , China , Mongolia , Iran , Turkey , India , Pakistan , South Korea , Thailand , Qatar , Kazakhstan , and Jordan . One of the media organizations involved in this latest activity was targeted in June 2015 , while its Hong Kong branch was similarly targeted in August 2015 . ( Forbes , Gizmodo ) • Vulnerability Roundup : Memory corruption vulnerability in Microsoft Edge ; MilesightVPN and router could be taken over • Malicious Microsoft Drivers Could Number in the Thousands : Cisco Talos • New Threat Actor Launches Cyber - attacks on Ukraine and Poland •


Proofpoint wrote about the DroidJack RAT side-loaded with the Pokemon GO app back in July 2016 ; the difference here is that there is no game included in the malicious package . The admin@338 has targeted international media organizations in the past . Ironically , Ben-Gurion University is home to Israel ’s Cyber Security Research Center . So , if you get a bunch of messages from strangers , do n't click on the links , and do n’t click on any attachments .


As for the Ashas family , one of the associated promotional videos , “ Head Soccer World Champion 2018 – Android , ios ” was viewed almost three million times and two others reached hundreds of thousands of views , as seen in Figure 11 . Attaching with IDA Pro via WinDbg as in Figure 11 shows that the program counter points to the infinite loop written in memory allocated by flare-qdb . Filename: Anti virus service.lnk . dowhelsitjs.netau.net .


Credentials targeted by PinchDuke include ones associated with the following software or services : The Bat! , Yahoo! , Mail.ru , Passport.Net , Google Talk , Netscape Navigator , Mozilla Firefox , Mozilla Thunderbird , Internet Explorer , Microsoft Outlook , WinInet Credential Cache , Lightweight Directory Access Protocol ( LDAP ) .


This second group is an Arabic-speaking group that mainly targets the Middle East and North Africa , with a few targets in European and Asian countries as well .


The cdnver.dll payload installed by the loader executable is a variant of the SofacyCarberp payload , which is used extensively by the Sofacy threat group .


saved on the device — “ 12 ” and “ 13 ” Use the accessibility service to become the default SMS app — “ 6 ” Enable recording of other apps — “ 15 ” Kill switch — “ 4 ” The Lockdown Screen Most thieves don ’ t want to be caught red-handed as they steal — they want to buy some time to get away with the loot . However , CTU analysis indicates that GOLD LOWELL is motivated by financial gain , and there is no evidence of the threat actors using network access for espionage or data theft . ASERT has learned of an APT campaign , possibly originating from DPRK , we are calling STOLEN PENCIL that is targeting academic institutions since at least May 2018 .


This vulnerability was disclosed and patched days prior to this attack .


The malware is not really advanced and is based on a lot of copy/paste from public sources available on the Internet . In some other cases , LEAD gains access to a target by brute-forcing remote access login credentials , performing SQL injection , or exploiting unpatched web servers , and then they copy the Winnti installer directly to compromised machines . Trend Micro generally notifies customers that are believed to have been specifically targeted by APT campaigns . 2023 - 07 - 19 Update : On June 5 , @SecurityAura described an unknown campaign using .hta payloads disguised as driver updates .


Instead , we believe that they are simply expanding their activities by adding new tools and techniques .


APT33 often conducts spear-phishing operations using a built-in phishing module . We were not able to unpack the sample discovered after June 9 , 2017 .


If the returned JSON object has the “ 4 ” key , it will turn on the kill switch and initiate its own removal by sending an intent and seamlessly confirming the uninstall using the accessibility service , all without the victim ever noticing anything . We assess the targeting of multiple companies with aviation-related partnerships to Saudi Arabia indicates that APT33 may possibly be looking to gain insights on Saudi Arabia 's military aviation capabilities to enhance Iran 's domestic aviation capabilities or to support Iran 's military and strategic decision making vis a vis Saudi Arabia . In late 2015 , Symantec identified suspicious activity involving a hacking tool used in a malicious manner against one of our customers .


Learning to access video game production environments enabled APT41 to develop the tactics , techniques , and procedures (TTPs) that were later leveraged against software companies to inject malicious code into software updates . Other open source and semi-legitimate pen-testing tools like nbtscan and powercat are being used for mapping available resources and lateral movement as well .


Although the command and control domain was different from those in the report , the POST and GET requests were similar and included / dad5 / in the URL string .


The Ke3chang have used three types of malware over the years and have traditionally targeted the aerospace , energy , government , high-tech , consulting services , chemicals , manufacturing , mining sectors . Amongst a backdrop of other incidents , Infy became one of the most frequently observed agents for attempted malware attacks against Iranian civil society beginning in late 2014 , growing in use up to the February 2016 parliamentary election in Iran .


If not , the application downloads a pack of exploits from the server and runs them one-by-one up until root is achieved . Code contained inside one of the slides triggers an exploit for CVE-2017-8759 , a remote code execution vulnerability in Microsoft .NET framework . Operating since 2012 , the Molerats group 's activity has been reported by Norman , Kaspersky , FireEye , and PwC .


Overall , it has a fairly common feature list , but it is expected to expand in future updates . In all three incidents , APT10 actors used previously acquired legitimate credentials , possibly gained via a third-party supply chain compromise in order to gain initial access to the law firm and the apparel company . Therefore , Tick or their digital quartermaster is capable of deploying new and unique exploits .


Check if the computer name and user name , or external IP address , is in a provided list and if so , display a message box with a message as defined by the C2 .


The export called “ SendDataToServer_2 ” does exactly what the name means : it encrypts all collected data , encodes it using Base64 encoding and calls its additional library to send the data to the C2 server .


After iterating over the 171 samples , we ’re left with this list of hashes for the downloaded files .


Most recently , Animal Farm deployed the Casper Trojan via a watering-hole attack in Syria . We believe that the Carbanak campaign is a clear indicator of a new era in cybercrime in which criminals use APT techniques directly against the financial industry instead of through its customers .


It is plausible that Artifact #1 could be present on other servers under different names , although it is also likely that the attacker only left it on servers to which they required maintainenance of persistent access .


FinFisher loader calling native Windows API to perform anti-debugging tricks At this point , the fun in analysis is not over . M-Trends 2018 can arm security teams with the knowledge they need to defend against today 's most often used cyber attacks , as well as lesser seen and emerging threats . Thus far , BlackBerry Cylance has observed two backdoors being used in combination with the steganography loader – a version of Denes backdoor ( bearing similarities to the one described by ESET ) , and an updated version of Remy backdoor . PREDATOR is intended to work with another spyware component called “ ALIEN ” ( it ’s not “ Alien vs. Predator ” this time ; they ’re working together ) .


“ Agent Smith ” needs to be updated/installed without the user ’ s consent . Just like last time , Buhtrap is spreading through exploits embedded in news outlets . exe file in the package is usually named various things , such as z.exe or ex.exe , to avoid scrutiny . RussianPanda ( @AnFam17 ) named the URL shortcut campaign RogueRaticate .


But the apps , with their many millions of users , have captured the attention of the bad actors , too , who are exploiting the popularity of Netflix to spread malware . Like the majority of APT groups , Silence uses phishing as their infection vector . From 2013 Carbanak intensified its activity focused on banks and electronic payment systems in Russia and in the post-Soviet space .


* Actually , we are currently investigating whether this group might also be behind a large-scale web-oriented attack at the end of 2018 using code injection and exploiting SQL vulnerabilities . The targets are typical of known Indian APT activity and the infrastructure was previously used by an Indian APT group . The intercepted attack starts with a spear phishing email embedding a spreadsheet .


ViperRAT has been operational for quite some time , with what appears to be a test application that surfaced in late 2015 . In 2010 HBGary investigated an information security incident related to the Winnti group at one of HBGary 's customers – an American video game company . The watchdog thread checks the registry path of the ZxShell service every 2 seconds , to verify that it has n’t been modified . What the team uncovered was that the former MiniDuke attackers were still active , and using extremely effective social engineering techniques involving sending malicious PDF documents to compromise their victims .


We discovered Suckfly , an advanced threat group , conducting targeted attacks using multiple stolen certificates , as well as hacktools and custom malware .


Notification handling method The class is only implemented in debug mode , pushing all captured information into the log . To do this , it employs a number of specific commands via DNSMessenger . Attached to this email was another malicious document that was designed to exploit CVE-2012-0158 . Scheduled Task / Job : Scheduled Task APT29 has used named and hijacked scheduled tasks to establish persistence .


We started with most frequently used C & C domains “ a * * * d.com ” , “ a * * * d.net ” , and “ a * * * d.org ” . The scanner was identified as the Acunetix Web Vulnerability Scanner which is a commercial penetration testing tool that is readily available as a 14-day trial . If any of the processes are terminated , the monitors immediately identify the situation , terminate all remaining malicious processes , and re-infect the device . In subsequent investigations , we observed malicious files created by w3wp.exe , the process responsible for the Exchange Server web front - end .


The description is based on analysis of the sample described in Table 3 below , which was of interest given its C2 domain mefound [ . In a 2014 compromise , APT41 targeted a European conglomerate and specifically focused on systems physically located in China . The targets of TG-4127 include military , government and defense sectors .


Figure 4 : Alert prompting the victim to download an Android banking app ( English translation below ) , with stolen branding and fraudulent copy * * * Translation * * * Dear Customer , The system has detected that the Bank Austria Security App is not installed on your smartphone . Using this access , the threat actors were able to manipulate the DNS records for sa1[.]dnsnode[.]net . The group has focused on targets associated with governments and related organizations in South and Southeast Asia .


Patchwork targets were chosen worldwide with a focus on personnel working on military and political assignments , and specifically those working on issues relating to Southeast Asia and the South China Sea . These instances of Gh0st RAT are consistently controlled from commercial Internet access accounts located on the island of Hainan , People's Republic of China .


EventBot screen lock with support for Samsung devices A new method to handle screen lock with support for Samsung devices . The malware basically provides a remote CMD/PowerShell terminal for the attackers , enabling them to execute scripts/commands and receive the results via HTTP requests . CTU researchers determined that the COBALT GYPSY threat group orchestrated this activity due to the tools , techniques , and procedures ( TTPs ) used in both campaigns .


To support the rapid growth and pace of malware distribution efforts , SilverTerrier actors are in constant need of domains to serve as C2 nodes . All of these early WhiteBear targets were related to embassies and diplomatic/foreign affair organizations .


The information is written into a file on the device . ScarCruft is a Korean-speaking and allegedly state-sponsored threat actor that usually targets organizations and companies with links to the Korean peninsula . The GRIFFON implant is a lightweight JScript validator-style implant without any persistence mechanism . It can range from asking “ customers ” to pay a monthly fee for access to this set of tools to use in cyber attacks , or users can even pay the original creators to distribute the malware on their behalf and manage the infection .


A separate app from Check Point competitor Lookout also detects the threat as a variant of the Shedun malware family . The Lazarus Group employs a variety of RATs that operate in both client mode and server mode . NanoCore ( Trojan.Nancrat ) : Commodity RAT used to open a backdoor on an infected computer and steal information . Modules may be downloaded from a remote server or loaded from disk .


Hot patching is an operating system-supported feature for installing updates without having to reboot or restart a process . The BlackTech group is primarily focused on cyberespionage in Asia .


To spread the Corkow malware criminals use a drive-by downloads method , when victims are infected while visiting compromised legitimate websites . TG-3390 uses older exploits to compromise targets , and CTU researchers have not observed the threat actors using zero-day exploits as of this publication .


The observed timezones correspond to the pre-2011 definition of Moscow Standard Time ( MSK ) , which was UTC+3 during the winter and UTC+4 during the summer .


Based on our culprit ’ s email address , we were able to find his GitHub repository . The malware then builds two DLLs in memory – they are 32 and 64-bit DLLs that have identical functionality . Filename: How can North Korean hydrogen bomb wipe out Manhattan.scr .


Similarly , there are many crucial commands that further allow this spyware to perform additional functionality , such as executing commands sent by the C & C , clicking photos , capturing screenshots , stealing location information , and more . FuzzBunch is a framework designed to manage DoublePulsar and other Equation Group tools and was leaked by the Shadow Brokers in 2017 . NEODYMIUM is an activity group that conducted a campaign in May 2016 and has heavily targeted Turkish victims .


arrive ; at least that was how it used to be before the age of cyber wars . While in most cases the infection vector remains unknown , the high profile attack from 2014 used a very complex Windows TTF zero-day exploit ( CVE-2014-4148 ) . In addition to making changes to the Excel worksheets that contain the decoy content , the actor also made changes to the worksheet that is initially displayed to the user .


TG-3390 can quickly leverage compromised network infrastructure during an operation and can conduct simultaneous intrusions into multiple environments .


The China Chopper actor activity starts with the download and execution of two exploit files which attempt to exploit the Windows vulnerabilities CVE-2015-0062 , CVE-2015-1701 and CVE-2016-0099 to allow the attacker to modify other objects on the server . Tropic Trooper is also still exploiting CVE-2012-0158 , as are many threat actors .


HTML/JS launcher page serves Flash exploit .


While we do not have complete targeting , information associated with these Poison Ivy samples , several of the decoy files were in Chinese and appear to be part of a 2016 campaign targeting organizations in Taiwan with political-themed lures . In some of the latest samples of BalkanDoor detected in 2019 , the malware is distributed as an ACE archive , disguised as a RAR archive (i.e , not an executable file) , specially crafted to exploit the WinRAR ACE vulnerability CVE-2018-20250 . APT33 has shown particular interest in organizations in the aviation sector , as well as organizations in the energy sector with ties to petrochemical production .


Further analysis revealed a well-established collection of fake social media profiles that appear intended to build trust and rapport with potential victims . Unit 42 analyzed the systems communicating with the Bookworm C2 domains and found that a majority of the IP addresses existed within autonomous systems located in Thailand .


Upon opening the file , the user is asked to enable “ Google Play Protect ” as shown in Figure 2 . Butterfly has attacked multi-billion dollar companies operating in the internet , IT software , pharmaceutical , and commodities sectors . The second one is CobaltGoblin S-APT/Carbanak S-APT/EmpireMonkey , which uses the same toolkit , techniques and similar infrastructure but targets only financial institutions and associated software/services providers . In addition to the complexity of managing CSP rules , this vulnerability shows how widely used services such as Google Analytics can be subverted to bypass this protection .


These stores are an attractive alternative to Google Play because many of their apps are free , or offer free versions of paid apps . Based on details published in the DOJ complaint against North Korean programmer Park Jin Hyok , we know that APT38 and other cyber operators linked to TEMP.Hermit are associated with Lab 110 , an organization subordinate to or synonymous with the 6th Technical Bureau in North Korea . so dword_745BB58C * ( dword_745BB58C – 1 ) The leaked tooling included a Python script , , that when executed led CrowdStrike researchers to replicate the logs generated in recent Play ransomware attacks .


Delimiters Another technique to obfuscate unencrypted strings uses repeated delimiters . The FBI said the " group of malicious cyber actors " ( known as APT6 or 1.php ) used dedicated top-level domains in conjunction with the command and control servers to deliver " customized malicious software " to government computer systems . ZXSockProxy Run a Sock 4 & 5 Proxy server . Learn How ThreatConnect Can Help Protect Email From Phishing and BEC Attacks


The “ SendData ” export sends a HTTP POST request using a hardcoded URI “ /store/ “ .


When the document was opened in Word , PLATINUM exploited a previously unknown vulnerability in the Microsoft Office PostScript interpreter ( designated CVE-2015-2545 ) that enabled it to execute the attacker 's code and drop an attacker-generated malicious DLL onto the computer . Callisto Group via credential phishingThese spear phishing emails were crafted to appear highly convincing , including being sent from legitimate email accounts suspected to have been previously compromised by the Callisto Group via credential phishing .


Once the payload is prepared , “ Agent Smith ” uses it to build another APK file , exploiting the Janus vulnerability : Figure 8 : The new infected APK file structure Solely injecting the code of the loader is not enough . With the recent arrests of actors using the Lurk banking trojan , Buhtrap appears to be a likely alternative for actors wishing to target Russian banks and software . Dexphot halts the infection process immediately if an antivirus product is found running . We first heard of this new campaign thanks to a Mastodon post by Randy McEoin .


We also found similarities in two older samples disguised as a Google service and , subsequently , as a music app after further investigation . The scripts would also use wget to send POST requests to command and control ( C2 ) servers that would contain information about the compromised system . . Limited forensic evidence existed to determine exactly how TIEDYE was deployed to systems in the victim environment ; however , like STRATOFEAR , TIEDYE was likely deployed as a second - stage backdoor by FULLHOUSE.DOORED .


For example , the default configuration file with injects is non-operational , and the malware contains no fake built-in windows requesting bank card details . Symantec researchers have uncovered evidence that the Waterbug APT group has conducted a hostile takeover of an attack platform . This version includes the stealer features mentioned in the previous version and additionally Remote Administration Tool features such as file uploading/download and arbitrary command execution .


It seems Eset has discovered and published on a new malware module created by Turla . As explained in further detail below , the JS dropper ultimately installs a JS decryptor onto an infected machine that will then finally decrypt and execute the actual KopiLuwak backdoor in memory only .


According to Kaspersky , the Equation Group has more than 60 members and has been operating since at least 2001 . Although Silence 's phishing emails were also sent to bank employees in Central and Western Europe , Africa , and Asia ) .


We have not been able to ascertain how the DroidVPN app on the uyghurapps [ . The PowerShell version of the Trojan also has the ability to get screenshots . From October 2012 to May 2014 , FireEye observed APT12 utilizing RIPTIDE , that communicates via HTTP to a hard-coded command and control ( C2 ) server .


The newly dropped executable is a loader Trojan responsible for installing and running the payload of this attack .


We are however only aware of one instance - the exploitation of CVE-2013-0640 to deploy MiniDuke - where we believe the exploited vulnerability was a zero-day at the time that the group acquired the exploit . Turla APT group makes an extra effort to avoid detection by wiping files securely , changing the strings and randomizing what could be simple markers through the different backdoor versions .


FrozenCell is the mobile component of a multi-platform attack we 've seen a threat actor known as " Two-tailed Scorpion/APT-C-23 , '' use to spy on victims through compromised mobile devices and desktops . Fresh from targeting banks in Poland , the banking Trojan GozNym has begun taking aim at banks in Germany . From direct observation , we can confirm that APT1 was using WEBC2 backdoors as early as July 2006 . " So far we do n't have data that the attackers stole from common users but we do have at least two incidents when Winnti malware had been planted on an online game update server and


The INI file contains the Base64 encoded PowerShell command , which will be decoded and executed by PowerShell using the command line generated by the VBS file on execution using WScript.exe . Ploutus-D also allows the attackers to enter the amount to withdraw (billUnits – 4 digits) and the number of cycles (billCount – 2 digits) to repeat the dispensing operation (see Figure 10) .


The malware , packaged within an Android game app called BrainTest , had been published to Google Play twice . Sometimes Patchwork send an MS PowerPoint document instead , which exploits CVE-2014-6352 . The command and control ( C2 ) infrastructure chosen by APT10 for Operation Cloud Hopper is predominantly referenced using dynamic-DNS domains .


It is our hope that by providing additional indicators , end-point investigators and network defenders will be able to discover and mitigate more Shamoon2 related compromises .


We have labeled the undetected Linux.Antd variants , Linux.GreedyAntd and classified the threat actor as Pacha Group . Based on file modification dates and timestamps of samples , it appears that the observed campaign was initiated in the middle of February 2016 , with the infrastructure taken offline at the start of March .


26 of the targeted applications are from Italy , 25 are from the UK , 6 are from Germany , 5 are from France , and 3 are from Spain . Buckeye's exploit tool , EternalRomance , as well as EternalSynergy , can exploit the CVE-2017-0143 message type confusion vulnerability to perform memory corruption on unpatched victim computers . We have also seen Magic Hound using DropIt as a binder , specifically dropping a legitimate decoy executable along with the malicious executable onto the target host .


In this case , the Dukes first attempted to infect large numbers of potential targets with CozyDuke ( and in a more obvious manner than previously seen ) .


That version flags messages " containing certain language associated with junk texts and flags numbers associated with junk calls and not in a user 's contacts , '' the company says . Upon opening of the MS Word document , our embedded file exploits CVE-2017-11882 to drop a malicious fake Norton Security Shell Extension module , 'NavShExt.dll' , which is then injected into iexplore.exe to install the backdoor , begin collection , and activate command and control . C2 : www.gokickes.com .


] today test [ . KeyBoy provides basic backdoor functionality , allowing the operators to select from various capabilities used to surveil and steal information from the victim machine . This output reveals the following changes when compared with earlier variants : Microsoft also issued emergency Exchange Server updates for the following vulnerabilities : The activity reported by Microsoft aligns with our observations .


After receiving the command , the Trojan attempts to execute it , before informing C & C of the execution status and any data received . CTU researchers have discovered numerous details about TG-3390 operations , including how the adversaries explore a network , move laterally , and exfiltrate data . Furthermore , based on the group ’s use of dated exploits as vectors that companies would have likely addressed with monitoring and regular patching schedules , it appears that they ’re going after enterprises who have yet to patch their systems , as well as companies with internet-facing systems with weak to no monitoring of traffic and activities . Last month , NoEscape posted 7 victims on their leak site .


We go through the Winnti implant installation process and explore how Windows Defender ATP can capture such attacker methods and tools and provide visualized contextual information that can aid in actual attack investigation and response .


Check Point has worked closely with Google and at the time of publishing , no malicious apps remain on the Play Store . We believe that it is likely threat actors will continue development Bookworm , and will continue to use it for the foreseeable future . For example , the targeting of Angolan organizations in mid-2016 coincidences directly with the rise of Angola ’s oil business with China , which displaced Saudi Arabia as the number one exporter of crude oil to China at the time . WellMail has been observed using TCP port 25 , without using SMTP , to leverage an open port for secure command and control communications .


The GeminiDuke infostealer has occasionally been wrapped with a loader that appears to be unique to GeminiDuke and has never been observed being used with any of the other Duke toolsets .


The Bart ransom screen was visually similar to Locky ’s but Bart had one important distinction : it could encrypt files without contacting a command and control server .


Victim host must have a vulnerable version of Flash installed .


We observed DDKONG in use between February 2017 and the present , while PLAINTEE is a newer addition with the earliest known sample being observed in October 2017 . Other groups , such as Buhtrap , Corkow and Carbanak , were already known to target and successfully steal money from financial institutions and their customers in Russia .


Aside from the competitive vendor naming landscape ( which I am not a fan of in cases on direct overlap , but which has more to say for itself when different methodologies are employed around similar observations ) , the distinction between FireEye and Dragos ’ approaches with respect to the “ TRITON actor ” comes down to fundamental philosophical differences in methodology .


The malware authors seem to be putting a lot of effort into improving this malware , bundling it with numerous new upgrades that make it more sophisticated , evasive , and well-equipped . In a recent report , the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) reported that more than 20 , 000 businesses lost nearly $1.3 billion to BEC attacks in 2018 . Variants of malware and tools used by HIDDEN COBRA actors include Destover and Hangman .


A separate malicious executable – 2DE25306A58D8A5B6CBE8D5E2FC5F3C5 ( vlc.exe ) – runs when the photograph is displayed , using the YouTube icon and calling out to several URLs on windowsnewupdates.com .


aux.robertstockdill.com kumar.pari@yandex.com Unknown April 1 , 2014 . ssl.2upgrades.com kumar.pari@yandex.com 176.58.96.234 July 5 , 2014 . bss.pvtcdn.com registrar@mail.zgsj.com 106.184.1.38 May 19 , 2015 .


In other cases , CozyDuke has been observed downloading and executing tools from other toolsets used by the Dukes such as OnionDuke , SeaDuke , and HammerDuke .


cmstp.exe system restart , cmstp.exe will be used to execute the SCT file indirectly through the INF file . Ploutus-D will load KXCashDispenserLib” library implemented by Kalignite Platform (K3A.Platform.dll) to interact with the XFS Manager and control the Dispenser (see Figure 13) .


The concurrent use of so many tools during a single intrusion suggests that the group could include threat actors with distinct tactics , roles , and tool preferences .


As an example , we might see extraneous data in their SSL / TLS certificates that give away information about their provider or resources .


In previous cases , the group used their malware toolsets interchangeably , as either the initial or a later-stage toolset in a campaign .


( deprecated in API level 21 ) SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW - Allows the application to create windows shown on top of all other apps . Banks in countries such as Russia , the United Kingdom , the Netherlands , Spain , Romania , Belarus , Poland , Estonia , Bulgaria , Georgia , Moldova , Kyrgyzstan , Armenia , Taiwan and Malaysia have allegedly been targeted with spearphishing emails , luring victims into clicking malicious URLs and executing booby-trapped documents . Beginning in early March 2018 , Unit 42 started observing targeted attacks against Russian , Spanish and United States government agencies operating in Pakistan .


NATO and EU member countries , as well as the United States , are of particular interest to the group .


SMS Billing Carriers may partner with vendors to allow users to pay for services by SMS . Their targets are marine companies that operate in and around the South China Sea , an area of much Chinese interest . Help / ? Get help . Mandiant identified novel operational technology ( OT ) / industrial control system ( ICS)-oriented malware , which we track as COSMICENERGY , uploaded to a public malware scanning utility in December 2021 by a submitter in Russia .


From early 2018 prior to May , “ Agent Smith ” hackers started to experiment with Bundle Feng Shui , the key tool which gives “ Agent Smith ” malware family capabilities to infect innocent apps on the device . Patchwork uses email as an entry point , which is why securing the email gateway is important . As mentioned , given the complexity of the attack chain and of Dexphot ’s persistence methods , we released a remediation solution that prevents re-infection by removing artifacts . Furthermore , as system and web server logs may have time or size limits enforced , we recommend preserving the following artifacts for forensic analysis : • At least 14 days of HTTP web logs from the directories ( include logs from all subdirectories ) •


Versions overview The DenDroid code base was kept to such an extent that even the original base64-encoded password was kept . From September 2016 through late November 2016 , a threat actor group used both the Trochilus RAT and a newly idenfied RAT we've named MoonWind to target organizations in Thailand , including a utility organization . Similar to RIPTIDE and HIGHTIDE , the WATERSPOUT backdoor is an HTTP based backdoor that communicates with its C2 server . Enterprise T1199 Trusted Relationship APT29 has compromised IT , cloud services , and managed services providers to gain broad access to multiple customers for subsequent operations .


Then , in early May ( two days after the last malware sample was submitted ) the Palestinian Authority held local elections in the West Bank which were reportedly seen as a test for the Fatah party .


This has the same functionality as mcpef.apk . However , around a month ago , Rocke started targeting systems that run Jenkins by attempting to exploit CVE-2018-1000861 and CVE-2019-1003000 . Primarily focused on governments and military operations of countries with interests in the South China Sea , Moafee likely chooses its targets based on region 's rich natural resources .


“ Twitoor serves as another example of how cybercriminals keep on innovating their business , ” Stefanko continues . If Scattered Canary can be seen as a microcosm for the rapidly evolving organizations behind today’s most pernicious email scams , this report demonstrates that a much more holistic approach—one based on threat actor identity rather than type of fraudulent activity—is required to detect email fraud and protect organizations . We believe they started this watering hole campaign at the end of 2016 after their other operation was interrupted in South East Asia .


Click fraud apps The authors ' tactics evolved from advertisement spam to real PHA ( Click Fraud ) . This file requires the target to attempt to open the .lnk file , which redirects the user to a Windows Scripting Component ( .wsc ) file , hosted on an adversary-controlled microblogging page . According to recent opinion polls , the Democratic Progressive Party ( DPP ) candidate Tsai Ing-wen is leading her opponents and is widely expected to win the election . Other Snort rules and detection content can prevent the execution of the malware used as the final payload .


On the technical side , since mid-January Kaspersky researchers have been tracking an active Turla campaign targeting government bodies in Turkmenistan and Tajikistan . We have not yet identified FIN7’s ultimate goal in this campaign , as we have either blocked the delivery of the malicious emails or our FaaS team detected and contained the attack early enough in the lifecycle before we observed any data targeting or theft .


It downloads one more archive and dynamically loads code from it . APT28 is using novel techniques involving the EternalBlue exploit and the open source tool Responder to spread laterally through networks and likely target travelers . Targeted sectors of Molerats include governmental and diplomatic institutions , including embassies ; companies from the aerospace and defence Industries ; financial institutions ; journalists ; software developers .


These files have the capability to download and install malware , install proxy and Remote Access Trojans ( RATs ) , connect to command and control ( C2 ) servers to receive additional instructions , and modify the victim 's firewall to allow incoming connections . Threat actors have delivered Bookworm as a payload in attacks on targets in Thailand .


Since 2011 , the robbers had allegedly been stealing money directly from bank accounts in Russia and other countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States ( CIS ) by using a Trojan called Lurk . TG-3390 sends spearphishing emails with ZIP archive attachments .


It also appears the apps may still be in development or incubation , maybe waiting for a “ right time ” to inject the malicious codes . Recently Subaat drew our attention due to renewed targeted attack activity . but not least , Rhysida appears to have first popped up back in May , with several high - profile compromises posted on their leak site .


The organization appears to be shut down , but the threat actors are still very active . In the case of this malware , the activity groups strongly associated with Winnti are BARIUM and LEAD . The IXESHE attackers almost always make use of compromised servers as command-and-control ( C&C ) servers . Over 5 years ago , we began tracking a new campaign that we called FakeUpdates ( also known as SocGholish ) that used compromised websites to trick users into running a fake browser update .


This is done in the function initComponents . DLL hijacking techniques have been seen in the past with the APT15 group . The central directory it pertained to is the one in the second ZIP . But then , following an upsurge in attacks in the second half of 2014 , GReAT characterized MiniDuke , CosmicDuke and the actor ’s Nemesis Gemina project - targeting government , diplomatic , energy , military and telecom operators - as ‘ one of the world ’s most unusual APT operations ’ due to : • Its use of a customized backdoor written in Assembler using ‘ old school ’ virus writing techniques and habits • Stealthy transfer of updates as executables hidden inside GIF files ( a form of steganography )


Regardless of the agency or unit tasked with this collection , the upcoming US election , and the associated candidates and parties are of critical interest to both hostile and friendly nation states .


It also provides secure storage of passwords and other sensitive information .


More recently , we have also seen an increase in activity targeting Ukraine .


This indicates that multiple C2 servers were used in this campaign , but one ( 37.1.207.31 ) was the most heavily used . A closer examination revealed the obfuscation used by the OilRig group in these QUADAGENT samples were likely the result of using an open-source toolkit called Invoke-Obfuscation . The malware is executed only for the following layout , the country is based on the Microsoft website : Cyberattacks can leave companies wondering how could this happen to us so , when these situations arise , it can help to know what might be motivating these attackers .


EventBot has the ability to update its library or potentially even download a second library when given a command from the C2 . Upon opening of the MS Word document , our embedded file exploits CVE-2017-11882 to drop a malicious fake Norton Security Shell Extension module , 'NavShExt.dll' , which is then injected into iexplore.exe to install the backdoor , begin collection , and activate command and control . Since at least 2013 , the Iranian threat group that FireEye tracks as APT33 has carried out a Cyber Espionage operation to collect information from defense , aerospace and petrochemical organizations .


The stolen data fields are : Mobile - The infected device phone number and contact ’ s phone number Contacts - A headline used for the attacker to distinguish between the type of stolen information he gets Name - Contact ’ s full name ( Display name ) upCon ( upload contact ) function used for stealing contact list information . We will provide an analysis of the HyperBro tool in an upcoming section . Large-scale cyber espionage campaigns such as " GhostNet " .


Early in Q2 , Kaspersky identified an interesting Lazarus attack targeting a mobile gaming company in South Korea that we believe was aimed at stealing application source code . The files exploit the well-known Microsoft Office vulnerability , CVE-2012-0158 , to execute malicious code in order to take control of the targeted systems .


At a high level , hot patching can transparently apply patches to executables and DLLs in actively running processes , which does not happen with traditional methods of code injection such as CreateRemoteThread or WriteProcessMemory . Despite the fact that the Changing Information Technology Inc. certificate was revoked on July 4 , 2017 , the BlackTech group is still using it to sign their malicious tools .


The second division , overseen by Lieutenant Colonel Sergey Aleksandrovich Morgachev , managed the development and maintenance of malware and hacking tools used by Unit 26165 , including the X-Agent " implant " .


Those who already have read our previous articles about Zebrocy will notice that more or less the same kind of information is sent , over and over again by previous stages .


Both the client and the server use the same code to serialize and encrypt the communications .


Running successful big game hunting operations results in a higher average profit per victim , allowing adversaries like PINCHY SPIDER and their partners to increase their criminal revenue quickly . Based on the profile of the victims and the type of information targeted by the attackers , Symantec believes that Butterfly is financially motivated , stealing information it can potentially profit from .


The documents that exploit CVE2017-11882 download another payload — an HTML Application ( HTA ) file toting a malicious Visual Basic ( VBS ) script — from the server , which is executed accordingly by the command-line tool mshta.exe . However , full details on ALLANITE and other group tools , techniques , procedures , and infrastructure is available to network defenders via Dragos WorldView .


Among multiple sub-domains , “ ad.a * * * d.org ” and “ gd.a * * * d.org ” both historically resolved to the same suspicious IP address . Once an exploitable page is identified , Clever Kitten will attempt to upload a PHP backdoor to gain remote access to the system . The monitoring components also detect freshly launched cmd.exe processes and terminate them promptly . In response to this activity , we built threat hunting campaigns designed to identify additional Exchange Server abuse .


The Sofacy group remains a persistent global threat .


PlugX is a modular structured malware that has many different operational plugins such as communication compression and encryption , network enumeration , files interaction , remote shell operations and more . Hackers target primarily companies in Russia and CIS countries , though it is noticed that the amount of attacks targeting the USA has increased 5 times since 2011 .


] com , 31.214.157 [ . China Chopper contains a remote shell (Virtual Terminal) function that has a first suggested command of netstat an|find ESTABLISHED . First released in 2005 , the tool has gone unchanged since 2008 with v ersion 2.3.2 .


More information on this threat actor is found in our report , APT37 (Reaper): The Overlooked North Korean Actor . The usefulness of flare-qdb can be seen in cases such as loops dealing with strings .


Figure 2 . To mitigate the threat of the described campaign , security teams can consider blocking access to the C2 server 103.236.150.14 and , where applicable , ensure that the Microsoft Security Update KB2553204 is installed in order to patch the CVE-2017-11882 vulnerability . The samples we have analyzed were actually quite large , each of them about 60 MB . In terms of detection , organizations should look to align their detection strategy with the MITRE ATTCK Framework to help detect a ransomware attack before its too late .


Like many threat groups , TG-3390 conducts strategic web compromises ( SWCs ) , also known as watering hole attacks , on websites associated with the target organization 's vertical or demographic to increase the likelihood of finding victims with relevant information . Intelligence suggests the group has been active since at least 2014 and is presently operating in multiple facilities targeting safety systems beyond Triconex .


Google Cloud Messaging is designed to send short message ( up to 4 KB ) to mobile devices via Google services . Thrip seemed to be mainly interested in the operational side of the company . Using this module by default indicates that the attackers are interested in stealing information from the victims ’ machines . Who is The Chaos Creator , and what else transpired between Harrison and Ashley Madison prior to his death ?


For each mounted drive , Ryuk calls GetDriveTypeW to determine the drive 's type . ScarCruft is a relatively new APT group ; victims have been observed in Russia , Nepal , South Korea , China , India , Kuwait and Romania .


Data collected by Secureworks incident response ( IR ) analysts and analyzed by CTU researchers indicates that GOLD LOWELL extorts money from victims using the custom SamSam ransomware . SPEAR identified recent PassCV samples which implemented another commercial off-the-shelf ( COTS ) RAT called Netwire .


A shared supplier of malware would explain the overlap in tools , but it would not explain the significant overlap we have also observed in operational techniques related to command and control infrastructure .


ChinaChopper web shell — A web-based executable script that allows a threat actor to execute commands on the compromised system .


Paladin RAT is another remote administration tool used by the Pitty Tiger group . The first attack in the US that Group-IB attributes to this group was conducted in the spring of 2016 : money was stolen from the bank by gaining access to First Data 's " STAR " network operator portal .


It uses a variety of new techniques , but the most interesting thing is that it injects malicious code into the system libraries – libdmv.so or libandroid_runtime.so . Metel is a banking Trojan ( also known as Corkow ) discovered in 2011 when it was used to attack users of online banking services . In the initial versions , back in 2016 , the downloaded files from RevengeHotels campaigns were divided into two modules : a backdoor and a module to capture screenshots . Local investigators later confirmed that the energy outage was caused by a cyberattack .


PROMETHIUM and NEODYMIUM both used a zero-day exploit that executed code to download a malicious payload . We used a combination of tools such as NoFuserEx , ConfuserEx Fixer , ConfuserEx Switch Killer , and de4d0t in order to deobfuscate the code for in depth analysis .


One plausible reason for developing such a flexible malware might be that the group were increasingly encountering victim environments where users were using Linux as their desktop operating system .


The domain was active on the IP 213.251.187.145 from July 2014 up until March 2015 .


It is deployed to internally accessible servers running Internet Information Services ( IIS ) .


SHA256 : e5b643cb6ec30d0d0b458e3f2800609f260a5f15c4ac66faf4ebf384f7976df6 .


This lead us to estimate there to be over 2.8 billion infections in total , on around 25 Million unique devices , meaning that on average , each victim would have suffered roughly 112 swaps of innocent applications . Some of the exploit server paths contain modules that appear to have been designed to infect Linux computers , but we have not yet located the Linux backdoor . This makes the system process running malicious code a literal moving target . For our Managed Defense Customers , we have launched a Community Protection Event that will provide frequent updates on this threat actor and activity .


Through their recent investigations , our forensics analysts pinpointed the initial compromise vector and post-compromise operations that led to the deployment of the destructive Shamoon malware on targeted infrastructures .


On September 15 and 19 , 2017 , Proofpoint detected and blocked spearphishing emails from this group targeting a US shipbuilding company and a US university research center with military ties . We analyzed the webpage and found attackers injecting a script into the webpage .


Moreover , as we dived deeper into the investigation , we discovered several spyware tools for Windows that form an implant for exfiltrating sensitive data on a targeted machine . The main delivery method of this type of backdoor is spear phishing emails or spam that uses social engineering to manipulate targets into enabling malicious documents . Cobalt Group has mainly targeted banks in Eastern Europe , Central Asia , and Southeast Asia .


Of course , I had to investigate further .


] pw/6 * * * * * 5 ” ( It . FireEye assess that the actors employing this latest Flash zero-day are a suspected North Korean group we track as TEMP.Reaper . The first task of the malware is to generate an ID to identify the infected system .


The source process checks the mapping between a process id and a process name . Using the Kaspersky Security Network ( KSN ) and artifacts from malware files and attack sites , we were able to trace the attacks back to March 2015 . They used legitimate infrastructure—the ability to post or create comments on forums and profile pages—to embed a string that the malware would decode to find and communicate with the true C2 IP address . These URLs provide access to the C2s , which then provide potential commands and encrypted transfers of additional backdoors onto the system via GIF files .


China Chopper is a tool that allows attackers to remotely control the target system that needs to be running a web server application before it can be targeted by the tool . At first glance CONFUCIUS_B looks very similar to CONFUCIUS_A , and they are also packaged in plain SFX binary files .


EventBot uses this permission in order to achieve persistence and run in the background as a service . We can observe that the sample is very recent , created on Thursday , July 4 While this may be coincidental , the out-of-sequence version 3.0 sample was created ten days after we published the Operation Lotus Blossom paper that exposed the Elise Trojan that is closely related to Emissary .


More importantly , the IP address this certificate was shared with 213.251.187.145 was previously identified as used by Sofacy Group for phishing attacks against Albanian government institutions by registering the domain qov.al and creating realistic subdomains to lure victims into visiting .


As on the desktop , mobile users need to be wary of installing applications from outside of legitimate app stores and sources and be on the lookout for bogus banking sites that ask for more information than users would normally provide on legitimate sites . As an example , specific CIA malware revealed in Year Zero is able to penetrate , infest and control both the Android phone and iPhone software that runs or has run presidential Twitter accounts . Dragonfly is a cyber espionage group that has been active since at least 2011 .


] plus/Updates/tt/parser.apk The payload can be a .dex or .apk file which is a Java-compiled Android executable . The malware basically provides a remote CMD/PowerShell terminal for the attackers , enabling them to execute scripts/commands and receive the results via HTTP requests . Stolen Pencil is a threat group likely originating from DPRK that has been active since at least May 2018 .


REQUEST_COMPANION_RUN_IN_BACKGROUND - let the app run in the background . As described in the infection flow , one of the first uses of the AutoHotKey scripts is to upload a screenshot from the compromised PC . The timeline in Figure 2 shows that the Emissary Trojan was first created ( version 1.0 ) in May 2009 and quickly received an update that resulted in version 1.1 in June 2009 .


This strongly suggested that the banking Trojans , despite differing in terms of capability , belong to the same family . TG-3390 operates a broad and long-running campaign of SWCs and has compromised approximately 100 websites as of this publication . Based on the samples we collected and traced to 456 distinct IPs , we expect the group to be more active in the coming months as we observed changes on the versions we acquired . PIEHOP utilizes LIGHTWORK to issue the IEC-104 commands " ON " or " OFF " to the remote system and then immediately deletes the executable after issuing the command .


Mimikatz is a post-exploitation tool that allows attackers to extract credentials from volatile memory . After monitoring and correlating the APT attack , 360 Threat Intelligence Center discovered multiple related emails to attack Colombian government agencies , financial institutions and large enterprises .


Parsing of instructions by EventBot Parsing of instructions by the bot from the C2 . 'Improvise' is a toolset for configuration , post-processing , payload setup and execution vector selection for survey/exfiltration tools supporting all major operating systems like Windows (Bartender) , MacOS (JukeBox) and Linux (DanceFloor) . Since at least 2014 , an Iranian threat group tracked by FireEye as APT34 has conducted reconnaissance aligned with the strategic interests of Iran .


sahro.bella7@post.cz trala.cosh2@post.cz bishtr.cam47@post.cz lobrek.chizh@post.cz cervot.woprov@post.cz .


In early 2017 , APT10 began conducting attacks against global managed IT service providers (MSPs) that granted them unprecedented access to MSPs and their customers’ networks . Kaspersky Lab 's products detect the Microsoft Office exploits used in the spear-phishing attacks , including Exploit.MSWord.CVE-2010-333 , Exploit.Win32.CVE-2012-0158 .


Malware Features Android According to the observed samples and their signatures , early versions of this Android malware were developed by the end of 2014 and the campaign has remained active ever since . First stage infections and graphical decoys have been described by multiple sources , including in our previous research MuddyWater expands operations . Reporting indicates there may be links between Cobalt Group and both the malware Carbanak and the group Carbanak .


SHA256 : c885f09b10feb88d7d176fe1a01ed8b480deb42324d2bb825e96fe1408e2a35f .


Operation RussianDoll : Adobe & Windows Zero-Day Exploits Likely Leveraged by Russia ’s APT28 in Highly-Targeted Attack .


Adware commonly found on Play collects profits from ad networks , but mobile ransomware inflicts direct harm to users . In the same year , they conducted DDoS attacks using the Perl IRC bot and public IRC chats to control Trojans . They also use AutoIT droppers , password-protected EXE files and even ISO images . CSP can define a list of domains that the browser should be allowed to interact with for the visited URL .


By pivoting off of one sample we were able to zoom out and identify a sizable infrastructure of what appears to be 707 IP ’s and 2,611 domains being utilized for malicious activity .


Apps not selected as protected apps stop working once the screen is off and await re-activation , so the implant is able to determine that it is running on a Huawei device and add itself to this list . However , as this recent campaign indicates , the NewsBeef APT appears to have shifted its intrusion toolset away from BeEF and towards macro-enabled malicious Office documents , PowerSploit , and Pupy . The group has been observed targeting healthcare , telecom , technology , and video game industries in 14 countries .


The Trojan waits for incoming SMS messages ( the “ alarmReceiver.class ” ) and checks whether these messages contain one of the following commands : “ sms ” , “ contact ” , “ location ” , “ other ” . Data from the early part of this year shows that the Taidoor attackers rampantly used malicious.DOC files to exploit a Microsoft Common Controls vulnerability , CVE-2012-0158 . Wingbird , the advanced malware used by NEODYMIUM , has several behaviors that trigger alerts in Windows Defender ATP .


Check Point researchers discovered another widespread malware campaign on Google Play , Google ’ s official app store . Based on multiple active compromises by the Axiom threat group , Novetta was able to capture and analyze new Winnti malware samples . The target file is loaded using the LoadLibrary API function , and the address of the exported function zxMain is obtained with GetProcAddress . Ransomware gangs are consistently rebranding or merging with other groups , as highlighted in our 2022 Year in Review , or these actors work for multiple ransomware - as - a - service ( RaaS ) outfits at a time , and new groups are always emerging .


CTU researchers have observed TG-3390 actors staging RAR archives , renamed with a .zip file extension , on externally accessible web servers .


) Upload and purge collected evidence Destroy device by resetting locking password Execute shell commands Send SMS with defined content or location Disable network Disable root Uninstall bot To avoid detection and removal of the agent app in the device memory , the RCSAndroid suite also detects emulators or sandboxes , obfuscates code using DexGuard , uses ELF string obfuscator , and adjusts the OOM ( out-of-memory ) value . Flying Kitten was one of the first groups to be described as a coherent threat actor conducting operations against political opponents of government and foreign espionage targets . Unflattening the code in later maturity levels like MMAT_GLBOPT1 and MMAT_GLBOPT2 ( first and second pass of global optimization ) s determines offsets within files for encryption to control encryption speed .


Our researchers examined the domain that hosted the first malicious file , mol.com-ho.me .


Analysis indicates there are currently two distinct variants of ViperRAT . Continued WhiteBear activity later shifted to include defense-related organizations into June 2017 . On a Windows machine , the netsvc group contains names of both existing and non-existing services . $ HOME / Library / LaunchAgents / com.studentd.agent.plist


] XXXX [ . While investigating the domains and infrastructure used by the phishing components of Gorgon Group , Unit 42 researchers witnessed several common operational security flaws with Gorgon Group 's actors throughout their many campaigns . And the last change that was introduced in regards to ConfuserEx obfuscator , an obfuscator that is very commonly used by malicious actors to obfuscate .NET code , is used with various levels of obfuscation , anti - tampering and anti - debugging , which makes the unpacking more difficult for malware researchers .


Unit 74455 's members would be responsible for the distribution of some of the stolen data from the breaches through the " DCLeaks " and " Guccifer 2.0 " websites .


To show how this breach and similar breaches can be mitigated , we look at how Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection ( Windows Defender ATP ) flags activities associated with BARIUM , LEAD , and other known activity groups and how it provides extensive threat intelligence about these groups .


This malware has used the IP S-PROT addresses identified in the accompanying .csv and .stix files as both source and destination IPs .


] com hxxp : //www [ . FireEye has moderate confidence that a campaign targeting the hospitality sector is attributed to Russian actor APT28 . It should be noted that out of the roughly 180 Word variants that were located by Carbon Black , the biggest difference in the documents was the metadata and junk data located in the malicious macros . However , we note that the wiper deployment was limited to the victim ’s IT environment and did not impact the hypervisor or the SCADA virtual machine .


We have been able to tie the malware to a long-running Facebook profile that we observed promoting the first stage of this family , a malicious chat application called Dardesh via links to Google Play . We are confident this KillDisk malware was deployed by Lazarus , rather than by another , unrelated attacker . Despite what the gateway does, this attack would only succeed if the message got through the gateway and a particular archive utility is used by the end-user, such as certain versions of PowerArchiver , WinRar , and older 7Zip as described . The new exploit method bypasses URL rewrite mitigations for the endpoint provided by Microsoft in response to •


Another interesting ZeroT sample ( SHA256 bc2246813d7267608e1a80a04dac32da9115a15b1550b0c4842b9d6e2e7de374 ) contained the executable 0228.exe and a decoy document 0228.doc in the RAR SFX archive .


Such data includes contact and location information , phone and message activity , the ability to record from the microphone , camera , and other sensors as well as the capability to access data from many popular messaging and social media apps . APT41 has targeted payment services specializing in handling in-game transactions and real money transfer (RMT) purchases . This neatly ties together many of the tools used by the Dukes group , as versions of this one loader have been used to load malware from three different Dukes-related toolsets CosmicDuke , PinchDuke , and MiniDuke – over the course of five years .


] nampriknum [ . The malware samples deployed in both of these operations are updated versions of the KeyBoy backdoor first discussed in 2013 by Rapid7 . As the old saying goes : If it ain’t broke , don’t fix it . Fake browser updates are a very common decoy used by malware authors .


Infection During installation , depending on the version of the Trojan , Asacub prompts the user either for Device Administrator rights or for permission to use AccessibilityService . One archive sample analyzed by CTU researchers contained a legitimate PDF file , a benign image of interest to targets ( see Figure 8 ) , and an HTTPBrowser installer disguised as an image file . We also found the init0 script running ; the script cleans out all miners regardless of its origin . Additionally , Mandiant was able to uncover additional infrastructure due to the fact that a PTR record was never changed from a previous operation .


The Center for Experimental Mechanical Engineering develops weapons as well as military and special equipment .


Investigators found that John Podesta , Hillary Clinton ’s presidential campaign chairman , was one of thousands of individuals targeted in a mass phishing scheme using shortened URLs that security researchers attributed to APT28 .


By late 2015 , the malware ’ s creators had gone mostly silent until the summer of 2016 when the malware reappeared with a more complex architecture that injects malicious code into Android system processes . We have moderate confidence APT39 operations are conducted in support of Iranian national interests based on regional targeting patterns focused in the Middle East . will always produce the value -1 . Days later , KillNet claimed to target the European Investment Bank ( EIB ) .


Through our investigation , we identified less than 3 dozen devices affected by Chrysaor , we have disabled Chrysaor on those devices , and we have notified users of all known affected devices . Analysis of RASPITE tactics , techniques , and procedures ( TTPs ) indicate the group has been active in some form since early - to mid-2017 . The payload code is started very early during the execution of the backdoored executable file . The gang attacked 10 victims last month , the majority of them being from the Information and Communications Technology ( ICT ) sectors .


BootComplete starts the AutoStartup service and the AutoStartup service makes sure that MainActivity is always running . To control ATMs , the group uses the Atmosphere Trojan , which is unique to Silence , or a program called xfs-disp.exe . However , even though the TTPs of the Cleaver team have some overlap to techniques used by Iranian Cyber Army , Ashiyane ( SQL injection ) and Syrian Electronic Army ( phishing ) , we believe this is largely the work of a new team .


In the months leading up to August , the Sofacy group launched several waves of attacks relying on zero-day exploits in Microsoft Office , Oracle Sun Java , Adobe Flash Player and Windows itself .


We will also provide detailed analysis of the latest variants of the malware they deploy ( known as FakeM ) as well as other associated tools that allow Scarlet Mimic to target Android and OS X devices . We believe that the Carbanak campaign is a clear indicator of a new era in cybercrime in which criminals use APT techniques directly against the financial industry instead of through its customers .


We believe that the Carbanak campaign is a clear indicator of a new era in cybercrime in which criminals use APT techniques directly against the financial industry instead of through its customers . attacks using this tool were still active as of April 2016 .


Moreover , BusyGasper boasts some keylogging tools – the malware processes every user tap , gathering its coordinates and calculating characters by matching given values with hardcoded ones . The campaign lasted from April to October and used job descriptions relevant to target organizations , in both English and Korean language . The email contained a malicious link to http://mynetwork.ddns.net:880 . UNC1878 has used various offensive security tools , most commonly Cobalt Strike BEACON , along with legitimate tools and built - in commands such as PSEXEC , WMI , and BITSadmin .


With relevant visualized information , analysts are able to study malware behavior on impacted machines , so they can investigate further and plan out their response .


Next , the module enters an infinite loop .


In order to increase the likelihood of their malware successfully communicating home , cyber espionage threat actors are increasingly abusing legitimate web services , in lieu of DNS lookups to retrieve a command and control address . Malware used by the threat group can be configured to bypass network-based detection ; however , the threat actors rarely modify host-based configuration settings when deploying payloads .


On September 12 , 2016 , the “ Fancy Bears ’ Hack Team ” persona claimed to have compromised WADA and released athletes ’ medical records as “ proof of American athletes taking doping. ”


Kill switches are used by many malware authors to remove traces from a device after a successful operation . APT28 is using novel techniques involving the EternalBlue exploit and the open source tool Responder to spread laterally through networks and likely target travelers . In a number of the cases we analyzed , ProjectSauron deployed malicious modules inside the custom network encryption 's software directory , disguised under similar filenames and accessing the data placed beside its own executable .


The messages looked as follows : “ % USERNAME % , ti ho inviato il soldi sul subito subito-a [ . Trend Micro attributes this activity to MuddyWater , an Iran-nexus actor that has been active since at least May 2017 . The fake svchost binary is the KONNI malware .


[27089,28618,9833,4170,25722,19977,2369,21426,3435,7442,30146,21719,16140,16280,16688,22550,19867,194,3298] .


One of the samples ( e19823a1ba4a0e40cf459f4a0489fc257720cc0d71ecfb7ad94b3ca86fbd85d1 ) uses the C2 server svcws [ . In April 2013 , a year after we found the " bodiless " Lurk module , the Russian cybercriminal underground exploited several families of malicious software that specialized in attacks on banking software . The value name of this entry varies from sample to sample . Initial access brokers use tools like NetSupport RAT to gather information and perform additional actions on victims of interest .


Because CVE-2015-3043 is already patched , this remote exploit will not succeed on a fully patched system .


In their current campaign , APT32 has leveraged ActiveMime files that employ social engineering methods to entice the victim into enabling macros . Initial intrusion stages feature the Win32/Barlaiy implant—notable for its use of social network profiles , collaborative document editing sites , and blogs for C&C .


The " porn kr sex '' APK connects to a malicious website that runs XLoader in the background . The suspected APT16 targeting of the Taiwanese government agency – in addition to the Taiwanese media organizations – further supports this possibility . The TXT record returned contained data: E0000>0 . Ransomware source code is a malicious program that contains the instructions and algorithms that define the ransomware ’s behavior .


setFullScreenIntent ( ) – This API wires the notification to a GUI so that it pops up when the user taps on it . Honeybee appears to target humanitarian aid and inter-Korean affairs . “ HexRaysDeob ” However , over time , it becomes tedious for fraudsters to constantly change information when registering new domains .


C2 Communication The C2 communication includes two parts : sending information to the remote HTTP server and parsing the server ’ s response to execute any commands as instructed by the remote attackers . The Helminth executable variant is very similar in functionality to its script-based counterpart , as it also communicates with its C2 server using both HTTP and DNS queries . This technical analysis reveals that the modus operandi of the Group has remained almost identical over the years . As for who was hit the hardest , around 16 percent of ransomware incidents affecting State , Local , Tribal , and Tribunal ( SLTT ) governments were from LockBit , says the MS - ISAC .


Based on the functionality of the various tools uploaded to the webshells , we believe the threat actors breach the SharePoint servers to use as a beachhead , then attempt to move laterally across the network via stolen credentials and exploiting vulnerabilities . Unit 42 's analysis shows that NetTraveler attempted to exploit CVE-2012-0158 to install NetTraveler Trojan .


Since then , we have seen Poison Ivy samples using third-levels of querlyurl [ . Our findings show that the mentioned attacks have been orchestrated and we consider them a single long-term campaign that spans Croatia , Serbia , Montenegro , and Bosnia and Herzegovina . Our analysis reveals that APT33 is a capable group that has carried out cyber espionage operations since at least 2013 .


Dragos threat intelligence leverages the Dragos Platform , our threat operations center , and other sources to provide comprehensive insight into threats affecting industrial control security and safety worldwide .


( Have a look here and here . Hackers are charged with spying on a manufacturer of gas turbines . Should a user enable this content , the attackers are then able to use the DDE protocol to remotely execute commands in memory on the victim 's system .


Unusual domains , the use of URL shorteners , and solicitations that do not come from verifiable sources are also red flags for potential phishing and malware . For example , the CIA attack system Fine Dining , provides 24 decoy applications for CIA spies to use . They initially targeted defense and aviation companies but shifted to focus on the energy sector in early 2013 .


The module contains the following hardcoded C2 server names :


When in doubt , check the APK signature and hash in sources like VirusTotal before installing it on your device . In early 2016 the Callisto Group began sending highly targeted spear phishing emails with malicious attachments that contained , as their final payload , the " Scout " malware tool from the HackingTeam RCS Galileo platform . The well-known threat group called DRAGONFISH or Lotus Blossom are distributing a new form of Elise malware targeting organizations for espionage purposes .


Device admin policies Looking at the policy 's definition , we can see that it lists all the available policies even if most of them are deprecated on Android 10.0 and their usage results in a security exception . According to the security experts , this collection of malware was discovered after their first initial report was published , meaning that Group 27 ignored the fact they were unmasked and continued to infect their targets regardless , through the same entry point , the Myanmar Union Election Commission ( UEC ) website . f9cfda6062a8ac9e332186a7ec0e706a . Enterprise T1649 Steal or Forge Authentication Certificates APT29 has abused misconfigured AD CS certificate templates to impersonate admin users and create additional authentication certificates .


One of the favorite methods used by the Pitty Tiger group to infect users is to use a Microsoft Office Word document which exploits a specific vulnerability ( CVE-2012-0158 ) . Given the wide usage of STAR in LATAM , financial institutions in LATAM could have particular exposure to a potential interest from the MoneyTaker group .


Extensive targeting of defense ministries and other military victims has been observed , the profile of which closely mirrors the strategic interests of the Russian government , and may indicate affiliation with GRU , Russia ’s premier military intelligence service .


Unfortunately , we have had no chance to obtain this file , but we speculate that Device.exe is responsible for opening port 6378 , and the CenterUpdater.exe tool was used for creating tunneling to a remote host .


Shamoon2 : 104.238.184.252 .


Connexxa was a company also from Catanzaro . During this time , the attacker must ensure continued access to the target environment or risk losing years of effort and potentially expensive custom ICS malware . The backdoor queries Windows for installed antivirus software using WMI : SELECT * FROM AntiVirusProduct It looks for specific antivirus and security products installed on the infected machine , such as Kaspersky , eScan , F-secure and Bitdefender . Who is The Chaos Creator , and what else transpired between Harrison and Ashley Madison prior to his death ?


Analysis of evasion techniques Along with the standard payload and string obfuscation , Cerberus uses a rather interesting technique to prevent analysis of the Trojan . By introducing small changes to their code and infrastructure , the group has bypassed several security products . APT39 's focus on the telecommunications and travel industries suggests intent to perform monitoring , tracking , or surveillance operations against specific individuals , collect proprietary or customer data for commercial or operational purposes that serve strategic requirements related to national priorities , or create additional accesses and vectors to facilitate future campaigns .


In addition , the same attackers appear to have a lengthy operation history including attacks on other industries and organizations .


This payload will then attempt to instantiate a remote reverse /system/bin/sh shell to the Command & Control ws.my-local-weather [ . Similar to its other attacks , Suckfly used the Nidiran back door along with a number of hacktools to infect the victim 's internal hosts . Daily summary of news concerning different Palestinian govenment related issues d3771d58051cb0f4435232769ed11c0c0e6457505962ddb6eeb46d900de55428 . Attackers could exploit these vulnerabilities to carry out a variety of attacks , in some cases gaining the ability to execute remote code on the targeted machine .


Using email as a C2 channel may also decrease the chance of detection , as sending email via non-sanctioned email providers may not necessarily construe suspicious or even malicious activity in many enterprises .


The malware then uses WebDAV to upload the RAR archive to a Box account . In one remarkable case , the Carbanak 2.0 gang used its access to a financial institution that stores information about shareholders to change the ownership details of a large company .


) “ % USERNAME % , j ’ ai fait l ’ avance ( suivi d ’ un lien ) : leboncoin-le [ . The cyber espionage group APT32 heavily obfuscates their backdoors and scripts , and Mandiant consultants observed APT32 implement additional command argument obfuscation in April 2017 . Surprisingly , this isn't the easiest or the most efficient technical choice for HTTP connection .


Receiver Intent Name Description BootReceiver android.intent.action.BOOT_COMPLETED System notification that the device has finished booting . In October 2012 , APT41 used captured credentials to compromise a jump server and access a production environment where they deployed a Linux version of PHOTO . In our 2014 report , we identified APT28 as a suspected Russian government-sponsored espionage actor .


All three shared the same IPs and URLs , also provided below .


In most cases however , the customers ’ IT operation center don’t know they exist on the network .


In the previous campaign where adversaries used Office document exploits as an infection vector , the payload was executed in the Office word process .


It seems that the people who filled these roles are key to “ Agent Smith ’ s success , yet not quite necessary for actor ’ s legitimate side of business . Starting in December 2014 , the criminal group began running keyloggers in the infected system . With a high degree of confidence , we can confirm that at least two distinct groups are focused on attacking this sector ; there is also a third group , though it is unclear if its focus is solely on this sector or if carries out other types of attacks . ( CISA , CNN )


The response can either be a simple " OK , '' or can be a request to perform some action on the device . In one article published in the Kharkiv Observer – an independent Ukranian online publication – an unnamed source stated that even the Ukrainian Presidential Administration has been attacked by malware developed by the Gamaredon Group . We assess with high confidence that APT37 acts in support of the North Korean government and is primarily based in North Korea .


In a root broken device , security is a fairy tale . Some of the teams publicly known today include Iranian Cyber Army , Ashiyane , Islamic Cyber Resistance Group , Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters , Parastoo , Shabgard , Iran Black Hats and many others 9 . In later maturity levels , Initial access was gained by compromising JumpCloud and inserting malicious code into their commands framework .


The Tor node would intercept any unencrypted executable files being downloaded and modify those executables by adding a malicious wrapper contained an embedded OnionDuke .


CTU researchers assess with high confidence that TG-3390 uses information gathered from prior reconnaissance activities to selectively compromise users who visit websites under its control .


The app connects to the MQTT broker with hardcoded username and password and a unique device identifier generated for each device . Cybereason also attributes the recently reported Backdoor.Win32.Denis to the OceanLotus Group , which at the time of this report 's writing , had not been officially linked to this threat actor . Its C2 is based on IIS using .asp technology to handle the victims’ HTTP . This “ est ” reference could refer to a hacking group with its own message board on which hack520 also posts regularly .


Once a valid card with a malicious EMV chip is detected , RIPPER will instantiate a timer to allow a thief to control the machine . Government officials said they knew the initial attack occurred in 2011 , but are unaware of who specifically is behind the attacks .


We saw the following hardcoded C & C server location in the RAT package : Conclusion : The DroidJack RAT is another example of a growing trend in which malware authors seek to exploit public interest as a way to spread malware . The admin@338 , active since 2008 , has been seen targeting organizations in the financial services , telecoms , government , and defense sectors . 1.doc : 832cc791aad6462687e42e40fd9b261f3d2fbe91c5256241264309a5d437e4d8 . Mandiant is not aware of any configuration change that can be made to force request logging for these endpoints .


At a high level , hot patching can transparently apply patches to executables and DLLs in actively running processes , which does not happen with traditional methods of code injection such as CreateRemoteThread or WriteProcessMemory . While this particular actor effectively used their almost worn out CVE-2012-0158 exploits in the past , Spring Dragon employs more involved and creative intrusive activity as well .


In a sample I recently analyzed , something stood out as extremely suspicious which led me down a rabbit hole , uncovering malicious infrastructure supporting Chthonic , Nymaim , and other malware and malicious websites .


The Mimikatz variant uploaded to these two organizations is unique , as it involves a seemingly custom loader application written in .NET .


Android bots have also already been found being controlled via other non-traditional means – blogs or some of the many cloud messaging systems like Google ’ s or Baidu ’ s – but Twitoor is the first Twitter-based bot malware , according to Štefanko . In total , 35 actors have been tied to Scattered Canary’s operations since the group emerged in 2008 . Lazarus regrouped and rushed into new countries , selecting mostly poorer and less developed locations , hitting smaller banks because they are , apparently , easy prey .


] 132:28833 61 [ . Firstly , as with the MiniDuke campaigns of February 2013 and CosmicDuke campaigns in the summer of 2014 , again the group clearly prioritized the continuation of their operations over maintaining stealth . This PowerShell script is a version of the Empire Invoke-PSInject module , with very few modifications . Figure 1 : URL vulnerable to CVE-2023 - 4966 https://<Gateway or ADC IP address>/oauth / idp/.well - known / openid - configuration


Trojan details Upon boot , the trojan will start by populating a shared preferences file with the configuration it has on its internal structures . During its recent campaigns , Cloud Atlas used a new polymorphic” infection chain relying no more on PowerShower directly after infection , but executing a polymorphic HTA hosted on a remote server , which is used to drop three different files on the local system . FireEye iSIGHT Intelligence confirmed that since at least November 2017 , APT37 exploited a zero-day Adobe Flash vulnerability , CVE-2018-4878 , to distribute DOGCALL malware to South Korean victims .


The group 's persistent use of spear phishing tactics ( phishing attempts aimed at specific individuals ) and access to previously undiscovered zero-day exploits have made it a highly resilient threat . The affected organizations we were able to identify are mostly based in the Middle East .


Desert Scorpion 's second stage is capable of installing another non-malicious application ( included in the second stage ) which is highly specific to the Fatah political party and supports the targeting theory . We believe that Lazarus Group is very large and works mainly on infiltration and espionage operations , while a substantially smaller units within the group , which we have dubbed Bluenoroff , is responsible for financial profit . Some of these U.S. organizations may have been targeted by Elfin for the purpose of mounting supply chain attacks . In April 2023 , media reports suggested that the U.S. government determined that Zarya breached a Canadian oil pipeline .


2014 : OnionDuke gets caught using a malicious Tor node .


DeltaCharlie is a DDoS tool used by HIDDEN COBRA actors , and is referenced and detailed in Novetta 's Operation Blockbuster Destructive Malware report .


This app carries a number of the capabilities : Upload GSM , WhatsApp , Telegram , Facebook , and Threema messages Upload voice notes , contacts stored , accounts , call logs , location information , and images Upload the expanded list of collected device information ( e.g. , IMEI , product , board , manufacturer , tag , host , Android version , application version , name , model brand , user , serial , hardware , bootloader , and device ID ) Upload SIM information ( e.g. While the most recent samples observed still use batch scripts and SFX files , the Gamaredon Group has moved away from applications like wget , Remote Manipulator Tool , VNC and ChkFlsh.exe . If the next block is resolved , The overlaps in targeting and sharing of infrastructure amongst DPRK groups highlights the continued targeting and coordinated interest in the cryptocurrency field .