Additionally the author did some small updates after publications from the security community , again this is common for actors of this sophisticated nature , once their campaigns have been exposed they will often try to change tooling to ensure better avoidance .


The use of HLS coincides with the use of ActionScript code from the f4player to make the traffic seem legitimate .


These malware families have a rich history of being used in many targeted attacks against government and private organizations . Symantec has found evidence of Starloader files being named AdobeUpdate.exe , AcrobatUpdate.exe , and INTELUPDATE.EXE among others .


Some are first uploaded with all the necessary code except the one line that actually initializes the billing process . MXI Player appears to be a version of the Bahamut agent , designed to record the phone calls and collect other information about the user ( com.mxi.videoplay ) . These include remote desktop , webcam spying , remote shell , and file management . By the end of 2022 , Cuba ransomware threat actors had compromised over 100 organizations worldwide .


For the following reasons , CTU researchers assess with moderate confidence that TG-3390 has a Chinese nexus :


Users do n't have to install any additional security services to keep their devices safe . Leafminer is a highly active group , responsible for targeting a range of organizations across the Middle East . Although the malware uses different configurations in each case , the three affected software products included the same backdoor code and were launched using the same mechanism . The malware will then create the file RECOVERFILES.txt in each scanned folder .


This particular threat was also used by hackers to compromise a Korean social network site to steal records of 35 million users . BRONZE UNION threat campaigns that illustrate the evolution of the group 's methods and espionage objectives .


In addition to stealing keystrokes , Naikon also intercepted network traffic . CNIIHM 's characteristics are consistent with what we might expect of an organization responsible for TEMP.Veles activity .


As we noted in our previous research on the Apple threat landscape , some operating systems , such as Mac OS X , are configured by default to only allow applications to run if they have been signed with a valid certificate , meaning they are trusted .


MXI Player appears to be a version of the Bahamut agent , designed to record the phone calls and collect other information about the user ( com.mxi.videoplay ) . Purportedly during one of the first attacks hackers intercepted the mailing list of the Anti-drop " club and created a specific phishing email for its members .


This adversary has been identified leveraging custom-developed plugins for versions 2 and 3 of the commodity malware Black Energy to target entities associated with energy , government , and media for espionage and destructive purposes , since at least 2011 . The titles and contents of these files suggest that the actor targeted individuals affiliated with these government agencies and the Fatah political party .


Technical analysis Most of this new attack ’ s routines are similar to those of the previous XLoader versions . Since the release of the Arbor blog post , FireEye has observed APT12 use a modified backdoor that we call HIGHTIDE . The table below describes the operational mode, record types used, and the method used to send the . According to a recent V3.co.uk article , 95 percent of companies have already fallen victim to attacks from advanced malware and suffer from an average of 643 successful infections per week .


The Evidence Collector module is responsible for the spying routines outlined above . The first successful bank robbery was committed by this group in January 2013 . , Anonymous Sudan accounted for 63 % of total identified DDoS attacks claimed by the KillNet collective in 2023 .


APT32 actors continue to deliver the malicious attachments via spear-phishing emails . Once BARIUM has established rapport , they spear-phish the victim using a variety of unsophisticated malware installation vectors , including malicious shortcut ( .lnk ) files with hidden payloads .


Uploaded files are written to the server sub directory “ clients\user_name@machine_name_ipaddress ” .


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 . They used an exploit of Internet Information Server to inject keylogger and backdoor malware onto the Exchange server .


The attackers have used three types of malware over the years and have traditionally targeted the aerospace , energy , government , high-tech , consulting services , and chemicals / manufacturing / mining sectors . Until the publication of the Palo Alto report , the developers of the Infy appeared to be actively updating and maintaining the codebase , and new releases were distributed to existing , as well as new , targets quite regularly .


] qwe-japan [ . APT28 espionage activity has primarily targeted entities in the U.S. , Europe , and the countries of the former Soviet Union , including governments , militaries , defense attaches , media entities , and dissidents and figures opposed to the current Russian Government . The send counter is initialized to 0 and read from the fourth octet of the A record returned by the . The series features interviews with security experts and journalists , Ashley Madison executives , victims of the breach and jilted spouses .


In August 2017 , a new ransomware variant identified as BitPaymer was reported to have ransomed the U.K. 's National Health Service ( NHS ) , with a high ransom demand of 53 BTC ( approximately $200,000 USD ) . The ScarCruft group uses common malware delivery techniques such as spear phishing and Strategic Web Compromises ( SWC ) .


Meanwhile , HammerDuke is a Windows only malware ( written in .NET ) and comes in two variants .


This overlap also points to a similar social engineering theme between these two campaigns , as both used content from upcoming military and defense conferences as a lure .


The function “ NvReg ” is a wrapper for the API function RegisterClassW .


In the context of the Ismdoor RAT , the DNS attack technique is used primarily by Greenbug for stealing credentials . CTU researchers have observed the TG-3390 employing legitimate Kaspersky antivirus variants in analyzed samples .


'' Debug information on logcat Another indicator is the amount of debugging information the trojan is still generating — a production-level trojan would keep its logging to a minimum . Get-LAPSP.ps1 is a PowerShell script that gathers account information from Active Directory via LDAP . Given the lapse in time between the spear-phishing and the heist activity in the above example , we suggest two separate but related groups under the North Korean regime were responsible for carrying out missions ; one associated with reconnaissance ( TEMP.Hermit or a related group ) and another for the heists ( APT38 ) .


Victims/targets chosen ( Indian Embassy and Indian MEA officals ) .


MXI Player appears to be a version of the Bahamut agent , designed to record the phone calls and collect other information about the user ( com.mxi.videoplay ) . 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 .


As a result , it may be that are looking into a compromised , parked domain that was initially used legitimately , but is now participating in malicious activities . Another intrusion approach used by Leafminer seems a lot less sophisticated than the previously described methods but can be just as effective : using specific hacktools to guess the login passwords for services exposed by a targeted system . TA459 is well-known for targeting organizations in Russia and neighboring countries .


It is worth noticing that this remote reverse shell does not employ any transport cryptography . Suckfly conducted a multistage attack between April 22 and May 4 . A screenshot from a website of the Palestinian government , showing a directory of the different ministries 9e4464d8dc8a3984561a104a93a7b8d6eb3d622d5187ae1d3fa6f6dafa2231a8 . These requests are aimed at spreading the attack laterally within the network and can be investigated using Endpoint Detection and Response EDR solutions .


Data encryption : In the initial version of EventBot , the data being exfiltrated is encrypted using Base64 and RC4 . This time , the attackers used new versions of the RoyalDNS malware and a Ketrican 2017 backdoor . FireEye asesses that APT32 actors may be aligned with the national interests of Vietnam .


In some cases these objects are completely different , for example the server commands to get the file system .


The life span of Android banking malware is limited to either the will of its author ( s ) to support it or the arrest of those actors . Machete relies on spearphishing to compromise its targets . 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 .


PICKPOCKET is a credential theft tool that dumps the user's website login credentials from Chrome , Firefox , and Internet Explorer to a file . As of the Group-IB investigation of this malware program in March 2015 , Corkow v.7.118.1.1 had not been detected by a single antivirus program .


Our researches around the malware family revealed the " Pitty Tiger " group has been active since 2011 , yet we found traces which makes us believe the group is active since 2010 . In December 2012 Mofang started a campaign against a new target , called ' seg ' for the purpose of this report .


There is the exploit code and malware used to gain access to systems , the infrastructure that provides command and control to the malware operator , and the human elements – developers who create the malware , operators who deploy it , and analysts who extract value from the stolen information . This sample , similar to other Trochilus samples , was deployed using a DLL sideloading method utilizing three files , uploaded to the same folder on the victim machine as identified in US-CERT advisory TA17-117A last revised on December 20 , 2018 .


Locate your device : Practice finding your device with Android Device Manager because you are far more likely to lose your device than install a PHA . Active since at least 2014 , the Leviathan has long-standing interest in maritime industries , naval defense contractors , and associated research institutions in the United States and Western Europe . The configuration data is simply a whitespace-separated list of strings . Other actors merged into this group : 1 UNC2529 is a well - resourced and experienced group that has targeted multiple organizations across numerous industries in a global phishing campaign .


Users who have configured their Android mobile device to receive work-related emails and allow installation of unsigned applications face the most risk of compromise . Wild Neutron 's tools include a password harvesting trojan , a reverse-shell backdoor and customized implementations of OpenSSH , WMIC and SMB . Based on our telemetry , we can reassemble ScarCruft ’s binary infection procedure . The source code is loaded from one of several domains impersonating Google ( google - analytiks[.]com ) or Adobe ( updateadobeflash[.]website ): That code contains all the web elements ( images , fonts , text ) needed to render the fake browser update page .


Figure 2 . After publishing our initial series of blogposts back in 2016 , Kaspersky have continued to track the ScarCruft threat actor . In various cases , the associated macro also scheduled tasks to make GRIFFON persistent . The software is centrally hosted on that third - party company ’s servers .


Two chunks are filled with an asynchronous procedure call ( APC ) routine code and a stub . The May 2014 ' Operation Saffron Rose ' publication identifies an Iranian hacking group formerly named ' Ajax Security ' ( code-named ' Flying Kitten ' by CrowdStrike ) engaged in active spear phishing attacks on Iranian dissidents ( those attempting to circumvent government traffic monitoring ) . The backdoor DLL and the C2 communication DLLs are heavily obfuscated using high quantities of junk code , which significantly inflates their size and makes both static analysis and debugging more difficult . Wind farms in central Europe and internet users were also affected .


) VALUES ( 1 , 1 , 1 , 1 , 0 ) Finally , the malware modifies the ‘ Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run ’ registry key to enable autostart of the main module . While there is a clear underlying Qatar migrant workers theme in Operation Sheep , it is also hypothetically possible that these attacks could have been perpetrated by a malicious actor affiliated to a different government with an interest in damaging the reputation of the State of Qatar . FIN4 is unique in that they do not infect victims with typical persistent malware , but rather they focus on capturing credentials authorized to access email and other non-public correspondence .


Using these tactics Scarlet Mimic can directly target previously identified individuals ( spear phishing ) as well as unidentified individuals who are interested in a specific subject ( watering hole ) . Per the complaint , the email account watsonhenny@gmail.com was used to send LinkedIn invitations to employees of a bank later targeted by APT38 .


The Windows kernel vulnerability ( CVE-2015-2387 ) existed in the open type font manager module ( ATMFD.dll ) and can be exploited to bypass the sandbox mitigation mechanism . One of the Cobalt Group 's latest campaigns , an attack that leads to a Cobalt Strike beacon and to JavaScript backdoor , was investigated and presented by the Talos research team . Though the original implementation assumes an obfuscated function has only one control flow dispatcher , Compromise


PeddleCheap is a plugin of DanderSpritz which can be used to configure implants and connect to infected machines . It targets organizations in Japan , South Korea , and Taiwan , leveling its attacks on public sector agencies and telecommunications and other high-technology industries .


cmstp.exe system restart , cmstp.exe will be used to execute the SCT file indirectly through the INF file . In November 2017 , APT34 leveraged the Microsoft Office vulnerability CVE-2017-11882 to deploy POWRUNER and BONDUPDATER less than a week after Microsoft issued a patch .


Version 6.0 also adds a command called “ getPhoneState ” , which collects unique identifiers of mobile devices such as IMSI , ICCID , Android ID , and device serial number . The group previous activities against financial and policy organizations have largely focused on spear phishing emails written in English , destined for Western audiences . The query to set the receive mode expects an A resource record response from the . Leveraging this access , an attacker can send remote commands to affect the actuation of power line switches and circuit breakers to cause power disruption .


It uses the vulnerability to run code from userspace in the context of the kernel , which modifies the attacker ’s process token to have the same privileges as that of the System process .


List of anti-virus packages that are checked The payload goes a long way to protect itself and checks for anti-virus software installed on the mobile device . By targeting high-tech and manufacturing operations in Japan and Taiwan , DragonOK may be acquiring trade secrets for a competitive economic advantage . ShadowHammer : http://liveupdate01.asus.com/pub/ASUS/nb/Apps_for_Win8/LiveUpdate/Liveupdate_Test_VER365.zip . The size of the industry has been expanding in the US and globally , with significant revenue increases making it an appealing target for ransoms .


However , the trojan replaces the '= ' by 'AAAZZZXXX ' , the '+ ' by '| ' and the '/ ' by ' . Beyond using More_eggs as a backdoor , ITG08 in this campaign also used offensive security tools and PowerShell scripts to carry out the different stages of the attack . APT38 is believed to operate more similarly to an espionage operation , carefully conducting reconnaissance within compromised financial institutions and balancing financially motivated objectives with learning about internal systems .


] 230 [ . Based on the campaign identifiers found in PinchDuke samples discovered from 2009 , the targets of the Dukes group during that year included organizations such as the Ministry of Defense of Georgia and the ministries of foreign affairs of Turkey and Uganda . The script will utilize the hard coded DCOM object C08AFD90-F2A1-11D1-8455-00A0C91F3880 , which is the ClassID for the ShellBrowserWindow . Although we have not identified sufficient evidence to determine the origin or purpose of COSMICENERGY , we believe that the malware was possibly developed by either Rostelecom - Solar or an associated party to recreate real attack scenarios against energy grid assets .


Though Dridex is still bringing in criminal revenue for the actor after almost four years of operation , targeted wire fraud operations likely require lengthy planning . While Silence had previously targeted Russian banks , Group-IB experts also have discovered evidence of the group 's activity in more than 25 countries worldwide .


Figure 7 . Neptun is installed on Microsoft Exchange servers and is designed to passively listen for commands from the attackers . From March 18 to 26 we observed the malware operating in multiple LOCs of the world .


Screen capture and audio recording SpyNote RAT was able to take screen captures and , using the device ’ s microphone , listen to audio conversations . The exploit installs Silence’s loader , designed to download backdoors and other malicious programs . Artifacts indicated the involvement of the Cobalt that , according to Positive Technologies information , from August to October had performed similar successful attacks in Eastern Europe , and it 's likely that this group may will soon become active in the West .


Sneaking unwanted or harmful functionality into popular , benign apps is a common practice among “ bad ” developers , and we are committed to tracking down such apps . First observed in mid-2014 , this malware shared code with the Bugat ( aka Feodo ) banking Trojan . Volgmer is a backdoor Trojan designed to provide covert access to a compromised system .


These blobs contain the different parts of the configuration .


FakeSpy is an information stealer used to steal SMS messages , send SMS messages , steal financial data , read account information and contact lists , steal application data , and do much more . 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 . Gallmaker 's targets are embassies of an Eastern European country .


The main catalyst for dedicated development by PINCHY SPIDER , however , has been an ongoing battle with cybersecurity providers that are actively developing GandCrab mitigations and decryptors . However , an investigation by Symantec has found that the group has been active since at least March 2012 and its attacks have not only continued to the present day , but have also increased in number .


Targeting Palestinians : The campaigns seems to target Palestinian individuals and entities , likely related to the Palestinian government .


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 ) . According to cyber security researchers , Anchor Panda , who work directly for the Chinese PLA Navy , likely remains active .


It has an incredibly wide-ranging protocol – about 100 commands – and an ability to bypass the Doze battery saver . Beginning in 2017 , the Lazarus group heavily targeted individuals with spear phishing emails impersonating job recruiters which contained malicious documents . In this section , we describe in detail an Elfin attack on a U.S. organization . Phishing attacks are more nuanced as they hinge on human error and prey on victims who may be busy , distracted or caught in an especially wellcrafted attack .


The Dukes are a well-resourced , highly dedicated and organized cyberespionage group that we believe has been working for the Russian Federation since at least 2008 to collect intelligence in support of foreign and security policy decision-making .


This was combined with the heavy use of py2exe to compile Python scripts .


Distribution via botnets . According to the researchers , the group injected malicious JavaScript code into the official government websites associated with the data center in order to conduct watering hole attacks . Although we do not have the component that dropped and executed this launcher , the presence of these files leads us to think that the initial execution of this launcher is done through DLL side-l S-TOOLoading . Monitor MSSQL Servers with access to OT systems and networks for evidence of : • Reconnaissance and enumeration activity of MSSQL servers and credentials .


These images appear normal in image viewers .


At the time of writing we had no evidence of an exploit being used to obtain root privileges , though it is possible that the attackers used some unseen component to implement this feature . This new variant resembles parts of the Destover malware , which was used in the 2014 Sony Pictures attack . Over the past three years , the group has utilized a wide array of tools against its victims , ranging from custom built malware to off-the-shelf RATs , indicating a willingness to continually revise its tactics and find whatever tools it takes to compromise its next set of victims . Depending on the platform and on how the code is compiled , these vulnerabilities could lead to arbitrary code execution : Talos is disclosing these vulnerabilities despite no official fix from Open Babel .


Starting content observers and the main task loop to receive remote commands and exfiltrate data The app uses six techniques to collect user data : Repeated commands : use alarms to periodically repeat actions on the device to expose data , including gathering location data . The Leviathan , whose espionage activities primarily focus on targets in the US and Western Europe with military ties , has been active since at least 2014 . ESET researchers have identified five versions of the payload : At that time , Symantec observed the attackers breaching Saudi Arabian IT providers in an apparent supply chain attack designed to infect the customers with malware known as Syskit .


Through named pipes , processes are able to communicate and exchange data even over a network .


Unit 42 tracks this mobile Trojan as MobileOrder , as the authors specifically refer to commands within the app as orders . APT threat actors , most likely nation state-sponsored , targeted a diplomat in the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs with a seemingly legitimate invitation to a technology conference in Taiwan .


PAGE – contact URL received from C & C using User-Agent value that was also received from C & C or local database . In September 2015 , Kaspersky Lab 's Anti-Targeted Attack Platform discovered anomalous network traffic in a government organization network . Targeted regions included in the list of Leafminer are Saudi Arabia , United Arab Emirates , Qatar , Kuwait , Bahrain , Egypt , Israel , and Afghanistan .


By analyzing the TaskManager class we can see the new commands that are supported at this stage : As can be seen in the code snippet above , there are quite a lot of data collection tasks that are now available : Collect device info Track location Upload contacts information Upload sent and received SMS messages Upload images Upload video files Send recursive dirlist of the external storage Upload specific files Record audio using the microphone Record calls Use the camera to capture bursts of snapshots Those tasks can either run periodically , on event ( such as incoming call ) or when getting APT33 leverages popular Iranian hacker tools and DNS servers used by other suspected Iranian threat groups . So far, our telemetry hasn’t provided any concrete evidence that shows us how the Remexi malware . The result is that Vice Society is the most prolific attacker of education institutions in the two most attacked countries in the world : the USA and the UK .


The user has been active in the malware testing environment since at least 2013 , testing customized versions of multiple open-source frameworks , including Metasploit , Cobalt Strike , PowerSploit , and other projects .


ssl.microsoft-security-center.com Whoisguard Unknown July 20 , 2015 E-TIME.usv0503.iqservs-jp.com Domain@quicca.com 133.242.134.121 August 18 , 2014 .


youlabuy [ . The DeepSight MATI team authored this blog and its customers have received intelligence with additional details about these campaigns , the characteristics of the Waterbug (aka Turla) cyber espionage group , and methods of detecting and thwarting activities of this adversary . In this article , we will analyse this evolution: at the beginning the malware was only an information stealer without remote administration , it moved from a single file malware to a dual file malware (an executable and a dynamic library ) , the malware has supported more and more features over the time , the decoy documents have become more and more advanced .


The threat actor behind ProjectSauron commands a top-of-the-top modular cyber-espionage platform in terms of technical sophistication , designed to enable long-term campaigns through stealthy survival mechanisms coupled with multiple exfiltration methods . Dragos' data indicates XENOTIME remains active .


Opening the attached “ Defence & Security 2018 Conference Agenda.docx ” file does not immediately run malicious code to exploit the system .


To run its code in kernel mode in the most recent versions of operating systems , that have Driver Signature Enforcement , Slingshot loads signed vulnerable drivers and runs its own code through their vulnerabilities . A previous , removed , report from another vendor claimed non-specific information about the groups' interest in Chinese universities , but that report has been removed – most likely detections were related to students’ and researchers’ scanning known collected samples and any incidents” remain unconfirmed and unknown .


After successfully accessing the machine , the attacker deployed tools on the machine , spread laterally through the victim's network , and accessed the victim's OWA account .


Paying attention to the details of past attacks is also an important means of preparing for future attacks .


At different times , we have seen three or more active variants using different approaches or targeting different carriers . It targets organizations in Japan , South Korea , and Taiwan , leveling its attacks on public sector agencies and telecommunications and other high-technology industries . This configuration info can be changed with a tool included in the ZxShell package . TANKTRAP is a utility written in PowerShell that utilizes Windows group policy to spread and launch a wiper .


In late October and early November 2018 , Unit 42 intercepted a series of weaponized documents that use a technique to load remote templates containing a malicious macro .


Of note , the callbacks were to PHP scripts that included / dad5 / in the URLs .


The ‘ Register ’ and ‘ Sign Up ’ links are broken and ‘ redirects ’ the user back to the login page . Bankshot is designed to persist on a victim 's network for further exploitation ; thus the Advanced Threat Research team believes this operation is intended to gain access to specific financial organizations . This time , however , attackers opportunistically used spear-phishing emails with a Microsoft Word attachment exploiting the recently patched CVE-2017-0199 to deploy the ZeroT Trojan , which in turn downloaded the PlugX Remote Access Trojan ( RAT ) .


During this time they were able to steal digital certificates from South Korean companies and launch attacks against Indian and Saudi Arabian government organizations . Furthermore , Dragos' analysis of the TRISIS event continues as we recover additional data surrounding the incident .


What ’ s more , the numbering of Asacub versions is a continuation of the Smaps system . CTU researchers have observed the Threat Group-3390 obtaining information about specific U.S. defense projects that would be desirable to those operating within a country with a manufacturing base , an interest in U.S. military capability , or both . The zombie host initiates the scan — another routine from previous campaigns — but updated with a larger set of parameters and programmed to run in the background . Following a three - month lull of activity , Cl0p returned with a vengeance in June and beat out LockBit as the month ’s most active ransomware gang .


For example , this is how opcode 0x1A is implemented : The opcode should represent a JB ( Jump if below ) function , but it ’ s implemented through set carry ( STC ) instruction followed by a JMP into the dispatcher code that will verify the carry flag condition set by STC . We were ultimately able to identify multiple organizations in the government , energy , and technology sectors targeted by Magic Hound . Winnti : 44260a1dfd92922a621124640015160e621f32d5 https://dump.gxxservice.com/common/up/up_base.php . Another wave of suspected Dukes attacks was identified in November 2018 by FireEye , this time again relying on Windows LNK files and deploying Cobalt Strike .


org : 173.252.207.71 , 173.252.205.36 , 173.252.205.37 , 173.252.205.64 . antivirus-groups.com : 74.82.166.205 , 204.74.215.58 . domain.rm6.org : 216.131.95.22 , 222.255.28.27 . anti-virus.sytes.net : 173.252.205.36 , 173.252.205.37 , 173.252.205.64 .


APT41 has targeted payment services specializing in handling in-game transactions and real money transfer (RMT) purchases . Some time ago , a Kaspersky Lab customer in Latin America contacted us to say he had visited China and suspected his machine was infected with an unknown , undetected malware .


Stolen data is stored in external storage under the /DCIM/ directory with a hidden sub-directory named " .dat '' . One hour later , Bemstour was used against an educational institution in Belgium . Sandworm Team targets mainly Ukrainian entities associated with energy , industrial control systems , SCADA , government , and media .


We also uncovered ViperRAT in a billiards game , an Israeli Love Songs player , and a Move To iOS app . We identified several European governments and defense companies compromised with this group . There are minor differences between the ZxShell implementation of this command and the original Windows one . Figure 6 : “ lun.vbs ” contents


Like FakeDefender and DataLust , Charger could be an indicator of a wider effort by mobile malware developers to catch up with their PC ransomware cousins . In the same year , Silence conducted DDoS attacks using the Perl IRC bot and public IRC chats to control Trojans . What is interesting , in some emails , they ask targets to phone them if they have any questions , like the FIN7 guys do . Designed to guard against XSS attacks , CSP helps control which domains can be accessed as part of a page and therefore restricts which domains to share data with .


It detects and blocks this threat at the initial level of the attack cycle when the malicious macro attempts to invoke the first stage PowerShell payload .


These attacks are only becoming more common , with one third of all malware now targeting mobile endpoints . In early May , the phishing lures leveraged RTF attachments that exploited the Microsoft Windows vulnerability described in CVE-2017-0199 . APT10 ceased its use of the Poison Ivy malware family after a 2013 FireEye report , which comprehensively detailed the malware 's functionality and features , and its use by several China-based threat actors , including APT10 .


As described in the infection flow , one of the first uses of the AutoHotKey scripts is to upload a screenshot from the compromised PC . Rapid7 reviewed malware discovered in the victim’s environment and found implants that used Dropbox as the C2 .


The vast majority of these target Windows machines through Word documents exploiting known vulnerabilities such as CVE-2012-0158 , CVE-2010-3333 and CVE-2009-3129 . The decoy documents used by the InPage exploits suggest that the targets are likely to be politically or militarily motivated . Night Dragon 's attacks have involved social engineering , spearphishing attacks , exploitation of Microsoft Windows operating systems vulnerabilities , Microsoft Active Directory compromises , and the use of remote administration tools ( RATs ) in targeting and harvesting sensitive competitive proprietary operations and project-financing information with regard to oil and gas field bids and operations .


So , what can you do to protect yourself from this stealthy beast ? One vulnerability is a Windows zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2019-0703) discovered by Symantec . APT34 uses a mix of public and non-public tools , often conducting spear phishing operations using compromised accounts , sometimes coupled with social engineering tactics .


Further assets are decrypted and deployed , including another Dalvik DEX code file , which has various capabilities including registering itself as the incoming SMS handler for the device to intercept SMS messages , loading another ELF library that includes a version of BusyBox - a package containing various stripped-down Unix tools useful for administering such systems – and , interestingly , is capable of turning off the sound played when the device ’ s cameras take pictures . Supply chain compromises are most likely an extension of APT41's tactics used in gaining access to gaming development environments and to other gaming organizations via third-party service providers . Upon gaining access to the machines connected to corporate and guest Wi-Fi networks , APT28 deployed Responder .


The tweet stated that TrickBot , a well-known banking Trojan owned by an organized cybercrime gang , uses man-in-the-browser ( MITB ) web injects in online banking sessions to ask infected users for their mobile phone number and device type . Dubbed ‘Operation Sheep’ , this massive data stealing campaign is the first known campaign seen in the wild to exploit the Man-in-the-Disk vulnerability revealed by Check Point Research earlier last year . APT34 are involved in long-term cyber espionage operations largely focused on the Middle East .


] website updatemobapp [ . On May 16 , 2019 FireEye 's Advanced Practices team attributed the remaining " suspected APT33 activity " ( referred to as GroupB in this blog post ) to APT33 , operating at the behest of the Iranian government . Send exfiltrated data, taskkill.exe Ends working cycle of . Dubbing the threat actor TunnelVision , whose TTPs overlap with those of Charming Kitten and Phosphorus , the researchers observed that the group is characterized by the wide exploitation of oneday vulnerabilities in specific regions .


The code snippet below shows part of the screen parsing process . This particular threat was also used by hackers to compromise a Korean social network site to steal records of 35 million users . Today , FireEye released Indicators of Compromise ( IOCs ) for BLACKCOFFEE and Microsoft released signatures for its anti-malware products . The MiniDuke attackers are still active at this time and have created malware as recently as February 20 , 2013 .


Dragos ’ data indicates XENOTIME remains active .


However , the director created a new organization in Cyprus named LokD . In most cases , the attackers only had to infect the computer on which the RBS software was installed in order to start stealing the cash . emails from spoofed senders were usually sent via mail servers in the United States and China . Malwarebytes 's EDR shows the full attack chain ( please click to enlarge ): The NetSupport RAT files are hosted on the same compromised WordPress site used earlier to download the Internet shortcut .


Kaspersky believes both Shamoon and StoneDrill groups are aligned in their interests , but are two separate actors , which might also indicate two different groups working together . The delivery of KopiLuwak in this instance is currently unknown as the MSIL dropper has only been observed by Proofpoint researchers on a public malware repository .


However , Talos has identified that was used at least since November 2018 . MSPs therefore represent a high-payoff target for espionagefocused threat actors such as APT10 . OceanLotus : enum.arkoorr.com:8888 11b4 . The leaked Biderman emails show that Harrison made good on his threats , and that in the months that followed Harrison began targeting Biderman and other Ashley Madison executives with menacing anonymous emails and spoofed phone calls laced with profanity and anti - Semitic language .


In addition to the aforementioned post-exploitation tools , the actors used these webshells to upload legitimate executables that they would use DLL sideloading to run a malicious DLL that has code overlaps with known Emissary Panda attacks . We can observe that the sample is very recent , created on Thursday , July 4


the file specified by the C & C server Deldatall8 Delete all files stored in the /sdcard/DCIM/.dat/ directory We do n't have the space to cover all of the commands , but let 's take a look at some of the major ones . Bemstour was used again in June 2017 in an attack against an organization in Luxembourg . Silence is a financially motivated threat actor targeting financial institutions in different countries .


In all emails sent to these government officials , the actor used the same attachment : a malicious Microsoft Word document that exploited the CVE-2012-0158 vulnerability to drop a malicious payload . the backdoor is packaged together with the CVE-2013-5065 EoP exploit and heavily obfuscated .


We are continuing to watch it closely . Kessem . Once installed , APT1 intruders have the option to tell victim systems to download and execute additional malicious software of their choice . The cryptographic certificates have also been exploited in attacks that have hit companies in the aerospace industry .


TA505 primarily distributed GlobeImposter in zipped script attachments through the beginning of September 2017 .


Some detection mechanisms and sandboxes may whitelist such package names , in an effort to prevent wasting resources . APT19 leveraged Rich Text Format (RTF) and macro-enabled Microsoft Excel files to deliver their initial exploits . AMP Threat Grid helps identify malicious binaries and build protection into all Cisco Security products .


" I tried reaching out to Adups and never heard back , '' Strazzere tells Information Security Media Group . Anomali Researchers were able to identify multiple samples of malicious RTF documents ITW using the same exploit for CVE-2018-0798 . Datper : 7d70d659c421b50604ce3e0a1bf423ab7e54b9df361360933bac3bb852a31849 .


While the Dumpert tool is meant to help red teams emulate an adversary , we had not seen this tool used by threat actors until it was uploaded to this related webshell on September 23 , 2019 .


After thorough analysis , ESET researchers are highly confident that this campaign is run by the OceanLotus group , also known as APT32 and APT-C-00 . The malware may inject itself into browser processes and explorer.exe .


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 . Turla all uses an encrypted container to store the malware 's components and configuration and they also log their actions in a file .


Tensions Between Hamas and the Egyptian Government : Egypt plays a major role as a mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian confict and has brokered several ceasefire deals and other negotiations in the past .


In a previous execution ( published in June 2019 ) , we observed that dota2 had its own folder but it was hardly executed .


This version of the module does not rely on an external transport DLL for communicating with its C2 servers ; instead it directly uses Wininet API functions .


The data that Domestic Kitten steals follows a similar format with Bouncing Golf ’ s , with each type of data having a unique identifying character . Thursday 's Flash Player update patched 36 vulnerabilities in total including the zero day CVE-2016-4171 . Given FIN7 ’s previous use of false security companies , we decided to look deeper into this one . Adversaries may attempt to hide artifacts associated with their behaviors to evade detection .


Some BRONZE PRESIDENT C2 domains analyzed by CTU researchers were hosted on infrastructure owned by Dutch VPS provider Host Sailor , Hong Kong-based New World Telecoms , and Malaysia-based Shinjiru Technology ( see Figure 7 ) .


The detection evasion techniques we observed in the Okrum malware include embedding the malicious payload within a legitimate PNG image , employing several anti-emulation and anti-sandbox tricks , as well as making frequent changes in implementation . The earliest use of the exploit ITW we were able to identify and confirm is a sample (e228045ef57fb8cc1226b62ada7eee9b) dating back to October 2018 (VirusTotal submission of 2018-10-29) with the RTF creation time 2018-10-23 .


For these CozyDuke campaigns however , the Dukes appear to have employed two particular later-stage toolsets , SeaDuke and HammerDuke , that were purposely designed to leave a persistent backdoor on the compromised network .


Zebrocy C2 URLs :


In this case , we had observed the Sofacy group registering new domains , then placing a default landing page which they then used repeatedly over the course of the year .


The version we found was built at the beginning of 2017 , and at the moment we are not sure whether this implant has been used in the wild . Trend Micro™ Deep Discovery™ provides detection , in-depth analysis , and proactive response to today’s stealthy malware , and targeted attacks in real time . One of the alleged leaders was arrested in Spain in early 2018 , but the group still appears to be active .


Despite the shared history of the name itself however , it is important to note that there is no reason to believe that the Duke toolsets themselves are in any way related to the ItaDuke malware , or to Duqu for that matter .


PLATINUM '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 . It's unclear how Cadelle infects its targets with Backdoor.Cadelspy .


It was during operator X 's network monitoring that the attackers placed Naikon proxies within the countries ' borders , to cloak and support real-time outbound connections and data exfiltration from high-profile victim organizations . XENOTIME is easily the most dangerous threat activity publicly known .


Ensure error messages are generic and do not expose too much information .


Use of malware that is capable of spying on infected systems .


Previous versions were described by Kaspersky in 2014 and Cylance in 2017 . In May 2018 , Trend Micro found a new sample ( Detected as W2KM_DLOADR.UHAOEEN ) that may be related to this campaign .


The stolen data includes : Contacts ( stored both on the phone and the SIM card ) . During the past few months , APT34 has been able to quickly incorporate exploits for at least two publicly vulnerabilities ( CVE-2017-0199 and CVE-2017-11882 ) to target organizations in the Middle East . NEODYMIUM is an activity group that is known to use a backdoor malware detected by Microsoft as Wingbird .


'' As was the case with HummingBad , the purpose of HummingWhale is to generate revenue by displaying fraudulent ads and automatically installing apps . These tools often lay the groundwork for further malicious activity , such as the targeting of antivirus capabilities and the disabling of firewalls , both of which are very fundamental defensive measures . Custom malware used by the group include : Two threat clusters used Mimikatz for dumping process memory .


On September 19 , 2019 , we observed the same exact Mimikatz variant uploaded to a webshell hosted at another government organization in a second country in the Middle East .


We also provide an update on shifts in the group ’s tool development and use , and summarize the tactics APT28 employs to compromise its victims .


FireEye has moderate confidence that a campaign targeting the hospitality sector is attributed to Russian actor APT28 .


We believe the creator of this delivery document chose to run the payload from the dropped file as an evasion technique .


Hide Icon Figure 3 : Code showing the hiding icon and starting service . The Buckeye attack group was using Equation Group tools to gain persistent access to target organizations at least a year prior to the Shadow Brokers leak . The threat actors utilizing this toolset have repeatedly demonstrated their expertise in compromising Windows based environments .


PIVY also played a key role in the 2011 campaign known as Nitro that targeted chemical makers , government agencies , defense contractors , and human rights groups.10,11 Still active a year later , the Nitro attackers used a zero-day vulnerability in Java to deploy PIVY in 2012 . Moreover , they used the same exploit kit Niteris as that in the Corkow case .


When enabled , it makes a screenshot every 25 seconds nggstart_key nggstop_key Enable/disable keylogging module nggstart_rec nggstop_rec Enable/disable surrounding sounds recording module ngg_status Send components status to the C & C socket * any other * Execute received command via Python ’ s subprocess.Popen ( ) , output result will be sent to the C & C socket . After app installation , whenever SWAnalytics senses victims opening up infected applications or rebooting their phones , it silently uploads their entire contacts list to Hangzhou Shun Wang Technologies controlled servers . The group is made up of actors who likely speak Russian .


In our Revoke-Obfuscation white paper , first presented at Black Hat USA 2017 , we provide background on obfuscated PowerShell attacks seen in the wild , as well as defensive mitigation and logging best practices . The group has its origin in more common financial fraud including theft from consumer and corporate bank accounts in Europe and Russia , using standard banking malware , mainly Carberp .


The attackers stole organizations' SSL certificates associated with security appliances such as ASA to obtain VPN credentials , allowing the actors to gain access to the targeted network . This was the case in two known intrusions in 2015 , where attackers named the implant DLL " ASPNET_FILTER.DLL " to disguise it as the DLL for the ASP.NET ISAPI Filter .


Trojan.Zekapab is a downloader component that is capable of carrying out basic reconnaissance functions and downloading additional malware to the infected computer .


Figure 8 – Android requirements Android malware has been around for many years and will be with us for the foreseeable future . While the group used watering hole attacks in 2013 , it's still unclear how victims get redirected to the exploitation kits in the new 2014-2015 attacks . This shows that the actor is still very active and constantly trying to elaborate its attack tools . Compromised websites ( WordPress appears to be the top target ) are injected with a code snippet that replaces the current webpage with the aforementioned fake updates templates .


This may imply the “ Concipit1248 ” app is still incubating . The GCMAN group used an MS SQL injection in commercial software running on one of bank 's public web services , and about a year and a half later , they came back to cash out . In this case , When the marital infidelity website AshleyMadison.com learned in July 2015 that hackers were threatening to publish data stolen from 37 million users , the company ’s then - CEO Noel Biderman was quick to point the finger at an unnamed former contractor .


This is a form of anti-analysis as Word will not fully execute the malicious code until the user closes the document .


We warned our clients of new features suggesting an increased focus on European targets - though verification of targets was not possible at the time . We have reasons to believe that the operators of the APT28 network are either Russian citizens or citizens of a neighboring country that speak Russian .


The command then uses the certutil application to convert the base64 encoded data ( T1132 ) in the cmd.txt file to c.aspx in three different SharePoint related folders .


Traces of its previous uses in the wild were found inside the configuration file : It was configured to use a Command-and-control ( C & C ) server in the United States ; however , the server was bought from a host service provider and is now unavailable . Carbanak is a backdoor used by the attackers to compromise the victim . The original code is separated into the orange-colored “ first block ” An internal data defense strategy requires prevention , detection and response capabilities .


Following we can see an example of a connection to port 6209 which is used to extract data from the Telegram app . Blackfly began with a campaign to steal certificates , which were later used to sign malware used in targeted attacks . Contains the above mentioned document , as well as photos of the assemblies and political cartoons criticizing Hamas 50a597aa557084e938e2a987ec5db99187428091e8141e616cced72e6a39de1b . Cisco Duo provides multi - factor authentication for users to ensure only those authorized are accessing your network .


Always apply critical thinking and consider whether you should give a certain app the permissions it requests . This was the case in two known intrusions in 2015 , where attackers named the implant DLL " ASPNET_FILTER.DLL " to disguise it as the DLL for the ASP.NET ISAPI Filter . 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 .


Due to new EU money laundering guidelines , the new Bank Austria security app is mandatory for all customers who have a mobile phone number in our system . This redirection allowed the attackers to harvest credentials of administrators who manage domains with the TLD of Saudi Arabia (.sa) . Poseidon Group is a Portuguese-speaking threat group that has been active since at least 2005 .


Once inside the network of a hospitality company , APT28 sought out machines that controlled both guest and internal Wi-Fi networks .


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 . Some examples of the files used in the email attachment include the following :


This infamous RAT has been associated with many different Chinese threat actors , including APT10 , APT1 , and DragonOK . For example , the actors behind FrozenCell used a spoofed app called Tawjihi 2016 , which Jordanian or Palestinian students would ordinarily use during their general secondary examination .


One might argue that since this took place after the exploits were publicly mentioned , the Dukes simply copied them .


de.postbank.finanzassistent pl.bph de.comdirect.android com.starfinanz.smob.android.sfinanzstatus de.sdvrz.ihb.mobile.app pl.ing.mojeing com.ing.mobile pl.ing.ingksiegowosc com.comarch.security.mobilebanking com.comarch.mobile.investment.ing com.ingcb.mobile.cbportal de.buhl.finanzblick pl.pkobp.iko pl.ipko.mobile pl.inteligo.mobile de.number26.android PROMETHIUM and NEODYMIUM both used an exploit for CVE-2016-4117 , a vulnerability in Adobe Flash Player that , at the time , was both unknown and unpatched . The complex infection chain begins with a weaponized Ofﬁce document named “ f.doc ” . Schools , colleges , and universities must somehow reconcile tight budgets with the need to deploy a sophisticated enough detection and response capability to find and evict stealthy adversaries like Vice Society .


Upon creation the class will start to take screenshots that will be stopped and uploaded to the C2 once the service ca n't find the targeted applications running . they have been last known to employ malware in February 2016 . Research into this HIGHTIDE campaign revealed APT12 targeted multiple Taiwanese Government organizations between August 22 and 28 . APT29 has also used legitimate web services such as Dropbox and Constant Contact in their operations .


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 ) . Perhaps the most worrying discovery we made was that Thrip had targeted a satellite communications operator .


TG-3390 actors keep track of and leverage existing ASPXTool web shells in their operations , preferring to issue commands via an internally accessible web shell rather than HttpBrowser or PlugX .


Later , they were also associated with botnet IDs 7200 and 7500 .


Dropping Cluster Bombs RCSAndroid is a threat that works like a cluster bomb in that it deploys multiple dangerous exploits and uses various techniques to easily infect Android devices . Existing telemetry indicates that the Carbanak attackers are trying to expand operations to other Baltic and Central Europe countries , the Middle East , Asia and Africa . The value of the variable is assigned to a specific register in each block then compared in a control flow dispatcher and other condition blocks . The initial payloads and second stage backdoors were removed from the system .


That finally started to change in 2013 .


HammerDuke is a set of backdoors that was first seen in the wild in February 2015 , while SeaDuke is a crossplatform backdoor that was , according to Symantec , first spotted in the wild in October 2014 .


For now , that is the only way how cybercriminals can profit from Triada , but don ’ t forget that it ’ s a modular Trojan , so it can be turned into literally everything on one command from the C & C server . Instead of Flash exploits , older Wild Neutron exploitation and watering holes used what was a Java zero-day at the end of 2012 and the beginning of 2013 , detected by Kaspersky Lab products as Exploit.Java.CVE-2012-3213.b . Less than a week after Microsoft issued a patch for CVE-2017-11882 on Nov. 14 , 2017 , FireEye observed an attacker using an exploit for the Microsoft Office vulnerability to target a government organization in the Middle East .


They have taken interest in subject matter of direct importance to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) such as Korean unification efforts and North Korean defectors . First observed in mid-2014 , this malware shared code with the Bugat ( aka Feodo ) banking Trojan .


After successful execution , Downeks returns the results to the C2 S-TOOL server .


Moreover , there is a special handler for the accelerometer that is able to calculate and log the device ’ s speed : This feature is used in particular by the command “ tk0 ” that mutes the device , disables keyguard , turns off the brightness , uses wakelock and listens to device sensors . In this analysis , we observed the return of HIDDEN COBRA 's Bankshot malware implant surfacing in the Turkish financial system . APT33 : ae1d75a5f87421953372e79c081e4b0a929f65841ed5ea0d380b6289e4a6b565 S-SHA2 Remcos . Neither France or Germany have been spared by the growing menace of ransomware , either .


A cybersecurity company focusing on protecting industrial control systems .


Correlating these bytes to the standard configuration of Poison Ivy , we can observe the following :


Active since at least 2013 , TEMP.Periscope has primarily focused on maritime-related targets across multiple verticals , including engineering firms , shipping and transportation , manufacturing , defense , government offices , and research universities . As in the past , these messages have been sent accounts believed to be fake and accounts compromised by Infy , including Kurdish activists that had previously been compromised by the Flying Kitten actor group .


We were able to identify that 8,929 files had been exfiltrated from compromised devices and that the overwhelming majority of these , 97 percent , were highly likely encrypted images taken using the device camera . We suspect the Kazuar tool may be linked to the Turla threat actor group ( also known as Uroburos and Snake ) , who have been reported to have compromised embassies , defense contractors , educational institutions , and research organizations across the globe . It sets the service status to RUNNING and finally calls the ShellMain function of ZxShell . This campaign has a multi - stage attack chain that begins with a phishing email delivered to victims impersonating CoinPayments , a legitimate global cryptocurrency payment gateway .


Some of the apps we discovered resided on Google Play for several years , but all were recently updated . We assess with high confidence that the Winnti umbrella is associated with the Chinese state intelligence apparatus , with at least some elements located in the Xicheng District of Beijing . The thread KeyloggerThread is spawned and is responsible for doing keylogging on the target workstation . None Use of Python for malware development and/or packaging : We expect to continue to observe attackers compiling or packaging their OT malware via methods such as PyInstaller ( IRONGATE ) or Py2Exe ( TRITON ) given the proliferation of OT malware developed or packaged using Python in recent years .


They most commonly target Brazilian merchants , though others use the same tactics to exploit entities outside Brazil . Targeted sectors of Molerats include governmental and diplomatic institutions , including embassies ; companies from the aerospace and defence Industries ; financial institutions ; journalists ; software developers .


And finally , as every elephant , Babar has big ears and the malware is able to listen to conversations and log them by using the dsound and winmm libraries . It is possible that CVE-2017-8759 was being used by additional actors .


We identified file creation times for numerous files that TEMP.Veles created during lateral movement on a target ’s network .


From their high volume 0day deployment to their innovative and broad malware set , Sofacy is one of the top groups that we monitor , report , and protect against . 2017 was not any different in this regard .


Our investigation revealed an attack where the GCMAN group then planted a cron script into bank 's server , sending financial transactions at the rate of $200 per minute . Whenever users reboot their device or open up Network Speed Master , SWAnalytics will fetch the latest configuration file from http[:]//mbl[.]shunwang[.]com/cfg/config[.]json” .


For instance , Russian operators , such as Sandworm Team , have compromised Western ICS over a multi-year period without causing a disruption . Volgmer payloads have been observed in 32-bit form as either executables or dynamic-link library ( .dll )


A short , constant string of characters is inserted at strategic points to break up keywords : At runtime , the delimiter is removed before using the string : API OBFUSCATION SMS and toll fraud generally requires a few basic behaviors ( for example , disabling WiFi or accessing SMS ) , which are accessible by a handful of APIs . Deepen told Threatpost the group has been operating since at least since 2008 and has targeted China and US relations experts , Defense Department entities , and geospatial groups within the federal government . ZXHttpServer Run a custom HTTP server . In the case of the exploit method described here as OWASSRF , the endpoint is not used , in lieu , and the request will not be dropped .


] comakashipro [ . In order to initially compromise the designated targets , the attackers typically distributed specifically-crafted malicious documents containing Infy through spearphishing attacks . About half of APT1 ’s known zones were named according to three themes : news , technology and business . It even can restrict forms to be sent only to specific hosts , using the form - action directive .


After compromising an initial victim's system ( patient 0 ) , the threat actors use the Baidu search engine to search for the victim's organization name .


The addition of mobile threat defense into these capabilities means that Microsoft Defender for Endpoint ( previously Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection ) now delivers protection on all major platforms . Unit 42 researchers have been tracking Gorgon Group for criminal and targeted attacks . The modified tool was tested with an ANEL 5.4.1 payload dropped from a malicious document with the following hash ( previously reported by FireEye ) : The malware is designed to steal browser cookies and take advantage of authenticated Facebook sessions to steal information from the victim 's Facebook account and ultimately hijack any Facebook Business account that the victim has sufficient access to .


It is possible that CVE-2017-8759 was being used by additional actors . March by security researchers from Kaspersky Labs .


VOODOO BEAR appears to be integrated into an organization that also operates or tasks multiple pro-Russian hacktivist entities . The admin@338 used the popular Poison Ivy RAT and WinHTTPHelper malware to compromise the computers of government officials .


The Democratic National Committee ’s ( DNC ) June 2016 announcement attributing its network breach to the Russian Government triggered an international debate over Russia ’s sponsorship of information operations against the U.S.


SHA256 f19bc664558177b7269f52edcec74ecdb38ed2ab9e706b68d9cbb3a53c243dec .


Finally , since publishing the 9002 blog , Unit 42 has also seen the aforementioned 9002 C2 used as a Poison Ivy C2 with a Myanmar political-themed lure . With the contents of the emails , included links and decoy PDFs all involving taxes , the attackers are apparently targeting the financial departments of organizations in the Balkans region . While Volexity does not typically engage in attempting attribution of any threat actor , Volexity does agree with previously reported assessments that OceanLotus is likely operating out of Vietnam .


The head of Germany ’s domestic intelligence agency , Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz ( BfV ) , also attributed the June 2015 compromise of the Bundestag ’s networks to APT28 .


The pattern of infrastructure hosting suggests that the group parks its domains when not in use , an operational security technique that limits exposure of the group's overall hosting infrastructure .


If you follow the military analogy — those are the scouts . In this report , we'll review how the actors attempted to exploit CVE-2012-0158 to install the NetTraveler Trojan . In December 2015 , Symantec published a post about " two Iran-based attack groups that appear to be connected , Cadelle and Chafer " that " have been using Backdoor.Cadelspy and Backdoor.Remexi to spy on Iranian individuals and Middle Eastern organizations " .


As mentioned above , the threat used to compromise the targeted networks is Poison Ivy , a Remote Access Tool ( RAT ) .


com/raw .


FireEye 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 attackers behind Epic Turla have infected several hundred computers in more than 45 countries , including government institutions .


Recently , FireEye released a great report on one of the more active groups , now known as APT30 . The second Windows vulnerability ( CVE-2017-0143 ) was patched in March 2017 after it was discovered to have been used by two exploit tools EternalRomance and EternalSynergy that were also released as part of the Shadow Brokers leak .


They are mostly Western names , but there were some Arabic names in a few of the samples .


The compromised information was later leaked online .


In particular , DHS recommends that more research should be conducted on the North Korean cyber activity that has been reported by cybersecurity and threat research firms .


With the move to targeting select victims for high-value payouts , the INDRIK SPIDER adversary group is no longer forced to scale its operations , and now has the capacity to tailor its tooling to the victim 's environment and play a more active role in the compromise with " hands on keyboard " activity . ScarCruft also attacked a diplomatic agency in Hong Kong , and another diplomatic agency in North Korea .


On April 27 , the attackers scanned the corporate internal network for hosts with ports 8080 , 5900 , and 40 open .


Gaza Cybergang Group 2 with the Micropsia backdoor :


Just an hour and a half later they had compiled and delivered another AZZY x64 backdoor ( md5: 9D2F9E19DB8C20DC0D20D50869C7A373 , compiled August 4th , 2015 ) .


The nativesend method uses the Java Native Interface ( JNI ) to fetch and call the Android SMS API . However , to increase success rates APT20 can use zero-day exploits , so even a properly patched system would be compromised . CloseFW Switch off Windows Firewall . The group appears to commonly deploy double extortion of the victims that have been listed on the leak site , several of them have had some portion of their exfiltrated data exposed .


In the following weeks , FireEye released threat intelligence products and updated malware profiles to customers while developing new detection techniques for APT32’s tools and phishing lures . The threat actor’s emails usually contain a picture or a link without a malicious payload and are sent out to a huge recipient database of up to 85 , 000 users .


His group configured the DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 blogs and social media accounts that would later be used to spread data stolen from the DNC , DCCC , and Clinton campaigns .


The group also creates and maintains scheduled tasks to achieve this purpose .


] infomavis-dracula [ . Until late December 2015 , in nearly every Infy message documented since our tracking began in May 2013 , no attempt included strong tailoring of the approach , often not even including an email body , instead relying on cryptic filenames and email subjects to attract interest . For example , “ shanghai ” is not a street name . Monitor for newly constructed services / daemons that may attempt to hide artifacts associated with their behaviors to evade detection .


Flash exploit triggers CVE-2015-3043 , executes shellcode .


PwC UK and BAE Systems , working closely with industry and government , have uncovered a new , unparallelled campaign which we refer to as Operation Cloud Hopper . While investigating KerrDown we found multiple RAR files containing a variant of the malware .


It steals credentials from various FTP clients , Outlook , and Internet Explorer .


Many of these samples appear to be designed specifically to attempt to slip into the Play Store undetected and are not seen elsewhere . APT Anchor Panda is a Chinese threat actor group who target maritime operations . S-TOOLwill recognize the outgoing connection as originated by the browser instead of the ZxShell service host process . Attackers send these emails to multiple accounts , hoping that someone will believe the story , and pay up .


The new Android ransomware variant overcomes these barriers by evolving further than any Android malware we ’ ve seen before . Several additional documents surfaced between January 17 and February 3 . This allows an analyst to quickly check if there are any lost blocks by control flow unflattening . one base64 encoded string but multiple , separated by a character .


To facilitate lateral movement , the adversaries deploy ASPXTool web shells to internally accessible systems running IIS .


All of the victims are located in Italy . When we first discovered the OilRig attack campaign in May 2016 , we believed at the time it was a unique attack campaign likely operated by a known , existing threat group . In fact , this is one of the first checks it performs when it is executed . Cisco Talos is aware of the recent advisory published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services ( HHS ) warning the healthcare industry about Rhysida ransomware activity .


In addition , admin.nslookupdns [ . APT41 has also deployed rootkits and Master Boot Record (MBR) bootkits on a limited basis to hide their malware and maintain persistence on select victim systems . In 2017 , social engineering content in lures used by the actor provided evidence that they were likely used to target members of the Vietnam diaspora in Australia as well as government employees in the Philippines .


Dragos instead focuses on threat behaviors and appropriate detection and response .


Sets file creation timestamp to that of “ %SYSTEM%\sfc.dll ” .


In other words , TrickMo ’ s service will start either after the device becomes interactive or after a new SMS message is received . Once downloaded and executed , it drops an intermediate payload that further downloads a Pony DLL and Vawtrak executable , which perform data theft and connect to a command and control (C2) server . During this testing , we saw document filenames that contain the C2 we witnessed in the targeted attack above , specifically the filenames XLS-withyourface.xls and XLS-withyourface – test.xls .


For the initial infection , PLATINUM typically sends malicious documents that contain exploits for vulnerabilities in various software programs , with links or remotely loaded components ( images or scripts or templates ) that are delivered to targets only once . The exploit document carrying this alternate KeyBoy configuration also used a decoy document which was displayed to the user after the exploit launched .


The source code for the malware powering this botnet was eventually leaked online .


Summary PHA authors go to great lengths to come up with increasingly clever ways to monetize their apps . The PassCV group typically utilized publicly available RATs in addition to some custom code , which ultimately provided backdoor functionality to affected systems via phony resumes and curriculum vitae ( CVs ) . APT18 . The web page “ JavaApplet.html ” loads “ JavaApplet.class ” that implements a Java exploit for the recently discovered vulnerability CVE-2013 - 0422 .


APT40 engages in broader regional targeting against traditional intelligence targets , especially organizations with operations in Southeast Asia . The Taidoor attackers have been actively engaging in targeted attacks since at least March 4 , 2009 .


The first function is used for contact information stealing : the function upCon steals all contacts in the contact list and their information . The other overlapping files are tools used by the adversary to locate other systems on the network etool.exe , check to see if they are vulnerable to CVE-2017-0144 (EternalBlue) patched in MS07-010 checker1.exe and pivot to them using remote execution functionality offered by a tool similar to PsExec offered by Impacket psexec.exe . Honeybee appears to target humanitarian aid and inter-Korean affairs .


This time , however , attackers opportunistically used spear-phishing emails with a Microsoft Word attachment exploiting the recently patched CVE-2017-0199 to deploy the ZeroT Trojan , which in turn downloaded the PlugX Remote Access Trojan ( RAT ) . this library includes two drivers compiled on August 22 and September 4 , 2014 .


Analysis of the emails has shown that the attachment contains an exploit for the CVE-2017-11882 vulnerability . That said , the " fingerprints " left on the samples by the attackers – including techniques used to achieve unauthorized code execution – suggest that the BARIUM APT is behind the effort , according to the researchers .


They pack the malware with a powerful commercial tool called Enigma Packer and implement language checks to ensure the victims are Arabic speaking .


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 . Taking that into account , we classify the Lamberts as the same level of complexity as Regin , ProjectSauron , Equation and Duqu2 , which makes them one of the most sophisticated Cyber Espionage toolkits we have ever analysed .


Because the rootkit resides within a computer ’s flash memory , it allows the attackers to maintain a persistent presence on a compromised machine even if the hard drive is replaced or the operating system is reinstalled .


Gustuff advertising screenshot The companies advertised in the image above were from Australia , which matches up with the campaign we researched . The tactical malware , historically EvilGrab , and now ChChes ( and likely also RedLeaves ) , is designed to be lightweight and disposable , often being delivered through spear phishing . We are not able to calculate the total count of affected users based only on our data ; however , we estimate that the real scale of the problem is much bigger and is possibly affecting over a million users worldwide . Network traffic and process related telemetry to / from host(s ) operating the MicroSCADA software .


Stealing SMS Figure 10 : Stealing SMS messages . It is noteworthy that the attackers never used the FuzzBunch framework in its attacks . The group uses custom malware as well as “ living off the land ” techniques .


Confucius' operations include deploying bespoke backdoors and stealing files from their victim 's systems with tailored file stealers , some of which bore resemblances to Patchwork 's . CTU researchers have observed the threat group obtaining information about specific U.S. defense projects that would be desirable to those operating within a country with a manufacturing base , an interest in U.S. military capability , or both .


The Dukes actively targeted Ukraine before the crisis , at a time when Russia was still weighing her options , but once Russia moved from diplomacy to direct action , Ukraine was no longer relevant to the Dukes in the same way .


In Asia there are numerous companies producing Android-based devices and Android apps , and many of them offer users their own app stores containing programs that can not be found in Google Play . This time the group chose a national data center as its target from an unnamed country in Central Asia in an attempt to gain " access to a wide range of government resources at one fell swoop " . This executable is from HP and is usually installed with their printing and scanning software called “ HP Digital Imaging ” . So , instead of wasting time trying to figure out what is going on , I debugged the script using the browser .


In other words , the C2 server can specify the message contents to be sent , the time period in which to forward the voice call , and the recipients of outgoing messages . Victims of BlackOasis have been observed in the following countries : Russia , Iraq , Afghanistan , Nigeria , Libya , Jordan , Tunisia , Saudi Arabia , Iran , Netherlands , Bahrain , United Kingdom and Angola . At the end , “ templates.vbs ” script will force the machine to reboot . PBI Research Services also reported a data breach that exposed information for 4.75 million people .


Coinminer.Linux.MALXMR.SMDSL64 : 649280bd4c5168009c1cff30e5e1628bcf300122b49d339e3ea3f3b6ff8f9a79 .


We have been monitoring the activities of this group and believe they are operating from China . Group-IB reports that MoneyTaker uses both borrowed and their own self-written tools .


During 2016 , Symantec observed some overlap between the command and control ( C&C ) infrastructure used by Earworm and the C&C infrastructure used by Grizzly Steppe ( the U.S. government code name for APT28 and related actors ) , implying a potential connection between Earworm and APT28 .


Of note , the macro contained a DownloadFile() function that would use URLDownloadToFileA , but this was never actually used .


Indeed , due to its ability to hide it ’ s icon from the launcher and impersonates any popular existing apps on a device , there are endless possibilities for this sort of malware to harm a user ’ s device . The developers of Bookworm use these modules in a rather unique way , as the other embedded DLLs provide API functions for Leader to carry out its tasks . These activity groups are also unusual in that they use the same zero-day exploit to launch attacks at around the same time in the same region . Some TrickBot samples have used HTTP over ports 447 and 8082 for C2 .


In order to carry out this operation , it uses publicly available tools , including Mimikatz ( Hacktool.Mimikatz ) and an open-source tool that exploits a known Windows privilege escalation vulnerability ( CVE-2016-0051 ) on unpatched computers . Dell SecureWorks researchers unveiled a report on Threat Group-3390 that has targeted companies around the world while stealing massive amounts of industrial data .


U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered ByteDance , the parent company of TikTok , to sell its U.S. TikTok assets and also issued executive orders that would ban the social media apps TikTok and WeChat from operating in the U.S. if the sale doesn ’ t happen in the next few weeks . The attack , which starts with a malicious attachment disguised as a top secret US document , weaponizes TeamViewer , the popular remote access and desktop sharing software , to gain full control of the infected computer . While reviewing a 2015 report of a Winnti intrusion at a Vietnamese gaming company , we identified a small cluster of Winnti samples designed specifically for Linux .


Nitro 's campaign focused on the chemical sector with the goal of obtaining sensitive documents such as proprietary designs , formulas , and manufacturing processes . this SWC was used to specifically target Turkish .


POWRUNER was delivered using a malicious RTF file that exploited CVE-2017-0199 . In this case , the file used the software name " Cyberlink " , and a description of " CLMediaLibrary Dynamic Link Library " and listing version 4.19.9.98 .


There are two more reasons why Triada is so hard to detect and why it had impressed our researchers so much . Nevertheless , resourceful threat actors such as ScarCruft will probably continue to deploy zero-day exploits against their high profile targets . It appears that the group values hardcoded into the malware is associated with the targeted organization , as several are Saudi Arabian organizations within the telecommunications and defense industries .


The name Spark is derived from the PDB path left in a few of the backdoor binaries :


This allows the application to appear legitimate , especially given these applications icons and user interface . Additionally , with the assistance of our FireEye Labs Advanced Reverse Engineering (FLARE) , Intelligence , and Advanced Practices teams , we identified three new malware families and a reappearance of PICKPOCKET , malware exclusively observed in use by APT34 . The GCMAN group has moved beyond banks and is now targeting the budgeting and accounting departments in any organization of interest to them , using the same APT-style tools and techniques .


Or thirdly , the Dukes may have invested so much into these campaigns that by the time FireEye published their alert , the Dukes felt they could not afford to halt the campaigns .


Smishing : The Major Way To Distribute RuMMS We have not observed any instances of RuMMS on Google Play or other online app stores . These attacks have involved social engineering , spearphishing attacks , exploitation of Microsoft Windows operating systems vulnerabilities , Microsoft Active Directory compromises , and the use of remote administration tools ( RATs ) in targeting and harvesting sensitive competitive proprietary operations and project-financing information with regard to oil and gas field bids and operations . By simply opening the SFX archive , it is possible to notice two different ﬁles that are shown below and named respectively “ 8957.cmd ” and “ 28847 ” . In one particular forum post , Hack520 mentions that he was previously jailed for a period of 10 months in a blog post dated May 31 , 2009 .


But before we go into the details of what the latest version of Rotexy can do and why it ’ s distinctive , we would like to give a summary of the path the Trojan has taken since 2014 up to the present day . The Korean-language Word document manual.doc appeared in Vietnam on January 17 , with the original author name of Honeybee . Lazarus group could have been active since late 2016 , was used in a recent campaign targeting financial institutions using watering hole attacks .


The extent of information that these kinds of threats can steal is also significant , as it lets attackers virtually take over a compromised device . While Silence had previously targeted Russian banks , Group-IB experts also have discovered evidence of the group 's activity in more than 25 countries worldwide . While tracking numerous threat actors on a daily basis during the final days of 2018 and at the beginning of 2019 , we discovered various activity clusters sharing certain TTPs associated with the FIN7 intrusion set . and % HiddenKey% as part of its persistence via the Windows registry.[6 ] OSX / Shlayer has used the mktemp utility to make random and unique filenames for payloads , such as export tmpDir="$(mktemp -d /tmp / XXXXXXXXXXXX ) " or mktemp -t Installer .


5ac6901b232c629bc246227b783867a0122f62f9e087ceb86d83d991e92dba2f Adobe Flash Player solution.rail.forward 7eb239cc86e80e6e1866e2b3a132b5af94a13d0d24f92068a6d2e66cfe5c2cea Adobe Flash Player com.pubhny.hekzhgjty 14a1b1dce69b742f7e258805594f07e0c5148b6963c12a8429d6e15ace3a503c APT10 actors gained initial access to the Visma network around August 17 , 2018 . HomamDownloader was discovered to be delivered by Tick via a spearphishing email .


Overall , Cerberus has a pretty common feature list and although the malware seems to have been written from scratch there does not seem to be any innovative functionality at this time . Backdoor installed in the infected system distributed additional botnet malware , ransomware and email stealers . In fact , REDBALDKNIGHT has been targeting Japan as early as 2008 , based on the file properties of the decoy documents they've been sending to their targets .


] today PHA Family Highlights : Zen and its cousins January 11 , 2019 Google Play Protect detects Potentially Harmful Applications ( PHAs ) which Google Play Protect defines as any mobile app that poses a potential security risk to users or to user data—commonly referred to as " malware . Since that time , the group attacked companies in California , Utah , Oklahoma , Colorado , Illinois , Missouri , South Carolina , North Carolina , Virginia and Florida . Between November 26, 2015, and December 1, 2015, known and suspected China based APT groups launched several spear phishing attacks targeting Japanese and Taiwanese organizations in the high-tech , government services , media and financial services industries . This activity suggested exploitation of CVE-2021 - 26858 .


For this purpose , these actors often use tools such as Technitium MAC Address Changer . APT35 typically targets U.S. and the Middle Eastern military , diplomatic and government personnel , organizations in the media , energy and defense industrial base ( DIB ) , and engineering , business services and telecommunications sectors .


Both groups can set permissions on specific files to Everyone , and work in tandem with the PLATINUM backdoors . WildFire correctly classifies NetTraveler as malicious .


The CIA's Mobile Devices Branch (MDB) developed numerous attacks to remotely hack and control popular smart phones . This document , written in Vietnamese , appears to be reviewing and discussing best practices for teaching and researching scientific topics .


The main DLL is called " Reznov.DLL . 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 . We expect APT33 activity will continue to cover a broad scope of targeted entities , and may spread into other regions and sectors as Iranian interests dictate .


Here ’ s another example of such an attack hitting Windows users : Going back to the Android Package ( APK ) file was attached to the e-mail , this is pushing an Android application named “ WUC ’ s Conference.apk ” . PROMETHIUM and NEODYMIUM both used an exploit for CVE-2016-4117 , a vulnerability in Adobe Flash Player that , at the time , was both unknown and unpatched . It was during operator X 's network monitoring that the attackers placed Naikon proxies within the countries ' borders , to cloak and support real-time outbound connections and data Exfiltration from high-profile victim organizations .


According to the security firm , this campaign targeted Indian military officials via spear-phishing emails , distributing spyware to its victims via an Adobe Reader vulnerability . The DLL exploited another previously unknown vulnerability ( designated CVE-2015-2546 ) in the Windows kernel , which enabled it to elevate privileges for the Word executable and subsequently install a backdoor through the application .


China Chopper contains a remote shell (Virtual Terminal) function that has a first suggested command of netstat an|find ESTABLISHED . The CONFUCIUS_B executable is disguised as a PowerPoint presentation , using a Right-To-Left-Override ( RTLO ) trick and a false icon .


Upon successful exploitation , the attachment will install the trojan known as NetTraveler using a DLL side-loading attack technique . We revealed a Chinese-based adversary we crypt as Anchor Panda , a group with very specific tactics , techniques , and procedures ( TTPs ) and a keen interest in maritime operations and naval and aerospace technology .


During the trojan registration stage , the trojan exfiltrates private information such as the phone 's model , IMEI , phone number and country . The following archive caught our attention for exploiting a WinRAR unacev2 module vulnerability and for having interesting content . Similarly , APT37 targeting of a company located in Middle East in 2017 is also consistent with North Korean objectives given the entity 's extensive relationships inside North Korea .


The method is a well-known trick used by penetration testers that was automated and generalized by FinFisher The procedure starts by enumerating the KnownDlls object directory and then scanning for section objects of the cached system DLLs . COBALT GYPSY has used spearphishing to target telecommunications , government , defense , oil , and financial services organizations based in or affiliated with the MENA region , identifying individual victims through social media sites . We came across multiple variations of this DLL containing different parent process names , possibly targeted specifically to the victim’s environment . then the data decoded with Base64 and sent to C2 server IP using POST request to the subdirectory .


89eecd91dff4bf42bebbf3aa85aa512ddf661d3e9de4c91196c98f4fc325a018 9edee3f3d539e3ade61ac2956a6900d93ba3b535b6a76b3a9ee81e2251e25c61 0e48e5dbc3a60910c1460b382d28e087a580f38f57d3f82d4564309346069bd1 c113cdd2a5e164dcba157fc4e6026495a1cfbcb0b1a8bf3e38e7eddbb316e01f This Naikon report will be complemented by a follow-on report that will examine the Naikon TTP and the incredible volume of attack activity around the South China Sea that has been going on since at least 2010 . Rancor : CC081FFEA6F4769733AF9D0BAE0308CA0AE63667FA225E7965DF0884E96E2D2A . These observations leave open the possibility that COSMICENERGY was developed with malicious intent , and at a minimum that it can be used to support targeted threat activity in the wild .


Although it 's not pretty simple to hack Android devices and gadgets , sometimes you just get lucky to find a backdoor access . BRONZE UNION has consistently demonstrated the capability to conduct successful large-scale intrusions against high-profile networks and systems . Outlaw : fc57bd66c27066104cd6f8962cd463a5dfc05fa59b76b6958cddd3542dfe6a9a Cryptocurrency miner Coinminer.Linux.MALXMR.SMDSL32 . What prompted the data scientist Bullock to reach out were gobs of anti - Semitic diatribes from Harrison , who had taken to labeling Biderman and others “ greedy Jew bastards . ”


Wild Neutron 's attack took advantage of a Java zero-day exploit and used hacked forums as watering holes . The attacks discussed in this blog are related to an APT campaign commonly referred to as " th3bug " , named for the password the actors often use with their Poison Ivy malware .


Distribution Cybercriminals made use of some exceptionally sophisticated methods to infect mobile devices . March by security researchers from Kaspersky Labs . Unlike previous ShadowPad variants documented in our white paper on the arsenal of the Winnti Group , this launcher is not obfuscated using VMProtect . Victims of the campaign , which researchers named Out to Sea PDF , include diplomatic organizations , technology companies , and medical organizations in Israel , Tunisia , and the UAE .


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 . Taking that into account , we classify the Lamberts as the same level of complexity as Regin , ProjectSauron , Equation and Duqu2 , which makes them one of the most sophisticated Cyber Espionage toolkits we have ever analysed .


After inspecting the njRAT builder kit it was determined that this individual customized the existing njRAT builder kit to bypass security products .


That post included download links for a slew of NSA hacking tools and exploits , many of which could be used to break into hardware firewall appliances , and in turn , corporate or government networks . Barium has targeted Microsoft customers both in Virginia , the United States , and around the world .


The group is reported to have previously attacked government institutions , parliaments , senates , diplomatic functions , and even Olympic and other sports bodies .


405655be03df45881aa88b55603bef1d .


These emails were designed to trick recipients into supposedly changing their email passwords on a fake webmail domain .


SHA256 : 8ab1712ce9ca2d7952ab763d8a4872aa6a278c3f60dc13e0aebe59f50e6e30f6 The TrickMo Factor The TrickBot Trojan was one of the most active banking malware strains in the cybercrime arena in 2019 . Since 2015 , APT38 has attempted to steal hundreds of millions of dollars from financial institutions . Since then we have identified a number of attacks over a two-year period , beginning in April 2014 , which we attribute to Suckfly .


When malicious attachments are used , they may either be designed to exploit a vulnerability in a popular software assumed to be installed on the victim ’s machine , such as Microsoft Word or Adobe Reader , or the attachment itself may have its icon and filename obfuscated in such a way that the file does not appear to be an executable .


The Awen webshell deployed in the exploitation of this SharePoint vulnerability had a SHA256 hash of 5d4628d4dd89f31236f8c56686925cbb1a9b4832f81c95a4300e64948afede21 .


It is also much harder for network defenders or researchers to track a campaign where the infrastructure is a moving target . We collected two sets of Clayslide samples that appear to be created during the OilRig actor 's development phase of their attack lifecycle . Exploring it , it is possible to see several ﬁles inside of it , as well as the 6323 ﬁle . However , if the adversary exploits a ZeroDay vulnerability and develops a new virus to infiltrate the system , traditional signaturebased network security tools will fail to defend against the attack .


Further research uncovered attempts by the actor to compromise popular IoT devices ( a VOIP phone , an office printer , and a video decoder ) across multiple customer locations .


This way , the malware can have its configuration , malicious binaries and file listings updated , but can also download and execute other binaries . One of the top targets is the Japan Pension Service , but the list of targeted industries includes government and government agencies , local governments , public interest groups , universities , banks , financial services , energy and so on .


Quasar version 1.3.0.0 changed the encryption key generation , and stopped saving the password in the sample .


In some instances , the malware may have been present on victims' networks for a significant period .


In our case , the administrator phone number belongs to a mobile network in Australia . Over the past year , we've seen the group extensively targeting a wide gamut of entities in various sectors , including Governments , Academy , Crypto-Currency , Telecommunications and the Oil sectors . The data transmitted are XOR encoded . The first 6 Variables numbered lines were nt used anywhere in the code .


Their software , once surreptitiously installed on a target 's cell phone or computer , can be used to monitor the target 's communications , such as phone calls , text messages , Skype calls , or emails . The first sample being captured was in April 2018 and since that we observed a lot more related ones .


July 21 Analysis of the RCSAndroid spying tool revealed that Hacking Team can listen to calls and roots devices to get in . CopyKittens often uses the trial version of Cobalt Strike , a publicly available commercial software for " Adversary Simulations and Red Team Operations " . Hex-Rays kernel doesn’t optimize some functions in MMAT_GLBOPT2 if it judges the optimization within the level is not required . To get in , the attacker used spear phishing emails with a self - extracting archive attachment pretending to be a voicemail .


Of the four , KeyBase stands out due to its rapid rise in popularity , with a peak deployment of 160 samples per month and usage by 46 separate SilverTerrier actors , followed by a fairly rapid decline . The group , believed to be based in China , has also targeted defense contractors , colleges and universities , law firms , and political organizations — including organizations related to Chinese minority ethnic groups .


After the VM code has checked again the user environment , it proceeds to extract and execute the final un-obfuscated payload sample directly into winlogon.exe ( alternatively , into explorer.exe ) process . FireEye 's publication of " Operation Saffron Rose " report , which described Flying Kitten 's operations against aviation firms , led to the dismantling of Flying Kitten 's infrastructure and the apparent end of its activities . If successful , every time the system loads wininet.dll , the entry point of the subsequently dropped backdoor DLL will be executed before the original wininet entry point . They have employed many unique capabilities , including gaining initial access through a software supply chain vulnerability .


CTU researchers conclude that COBALT GYPSY created the persona to gain unauthorized access to targeted computer networks via social engineering . However , Kaspersky Security Network (KSN) records also contain links that victims clicked from the Outlook web client outlook.live.com” as well as attachments arriving through the Outlook desktop application .


Iterating once again over the 171 samples and scraping out the HTTP POST requests , I ended up with the below set of domains :


First off , the Trojan registers in the administration panel and receives the information it needs to operate from the C & C ( the SMS interception templates and the text that will be displayed on HTML pages ) : Rotexy intercepts all incoming SMSs and processes them according to the templates it received from the C & C . This bait document , or email attachment , appears to be a standard Word document , but is in fact an CVE-2012-0158 exploit , an executable with a double extension , or an executable with an RTLO filename , so it can execute code without the user 's knowledge or consent . We concluded that Lazarus Group was responsible for WannaCry , a destructive attack in May that targeted Microsoft customers .


fields [ ] . Bookworm has little malicious functionality built-in , with its only core ability involving stealing keystrokes and clipboard contents . In the past , BlackOasis messages were designed to appear like news articles from 2016 about political relations between Angola and China . During C0018 , the threat actors opened a variety of ports , including ports 28035 , 32467 , 41578 , and 46892 , to establish RDP connections.[9 ]


In addition to built-in functionalities , the operators of Careto can upload additional modules which can perform any malicious task . Create a link file in the startup folder for AutoHotkeyU32.exe , allowing the attack to persist even after a system restart .


Once downloaded and executed , it drops an intermediate payload that further downloads a Pony DLL and Vawtrak executable , which perform data theft and connect to a command and control (C2) server . Turla is a notorious group that has been targeting diplomats .


The Trojan gets the list of bank phone numbers from its C & C server . One big unknown was the infection vector for Turla ( aka Snake or Uroburos ) . Command line shell for remote administration . These groups can steal information and argue that they are practicing free speech , but more often than not , these groups will employ a DDoS Distributed Denial of Service attack to overload a website with too much traffic and cause it to crash .


Even such targets however appear to be consistent with the overarching theme , given the drug trade ’s relevance to security policy .


Thus , it is not surprising to see them engage in intrusions against the same victim , even when it may be a waste of resources and lead to the discovery and potential compromise of mutual operations .