sentence stringlengths 1 13.5k | labels listlengths 0 15 | doc_title stringclasses 84
values |
|---|---|---|
What were the attackers trying to achieve? | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
We traced some of the commands executed by the attackers after gaining a foothold in the network, which point to lateral movement and exfiltration of information from particular machines. | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
This aligns in profile with some of the previous operations by APT41, wherein intrusions were typically made to intervene in the targeted companies’ supply chain, or to heist sensitive intellectual property and personally identifiable information. | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
The usage of the UEFI implant in particular indicates the actor’s aim to establish a longstanding foothold within the network, as would be expected in an ongoing espionage activity. | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
The following are examples of command lines that portray some of the methods and actions taken by the operators of this threat activity to achieve their goals: Attempts to enumerate hosts and gather network information: cmd /C | [
"T1033",
"T1059.003"
] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
"C: & cd \ & whoami" cmd /C | [
"T1033",
"T1059.003"
] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
"C: & cd \ & net view" cmd /C | [
"T1059.003"
] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
"C: & cd \ & -setcp 866" cmd /C | [
"T1059.003"
] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
"C: & cd \ & netstat -ano" cmd /C | [
"T1083"
] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
"C: & cd \ & dir $temp\ /od" cmd /C | [
"T1059.003"
] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
"C: & cd \ & arp -a" cmd /C | [
"T1016",
"T1057"
] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
"C: & cd \ & tasklist" cmd /C | [
"T1057",
"T1059.003"
] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
"C: & cd \ & tracert <redacted_internal_ip>" cmd /C | [
"T1059.003"
] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
"C: & cd \ & net use \\<redacted_internal_ip> /u:<redacted_username> <redacted_password>" cmd /C | [
"T1059.003"
] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
"C: & cd \ & net view \\<redacted_internal_ip>" cmd /C | [
"T1059.003"
] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
"C: & cd \ & ping -n 1 -a <redacted_internal_ip>" cmd /C | [
"T1059.003"
] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
"C: & cd \ & net use * /d /y" cmd /C | [
"T1082"
] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
"C: & cd \ & systeminfo" Copying of files across SMB shares, followed by an attempt to dump the Active Directory domain database (tid): cmd /C | [
"T1059.003",
"T1082",
"T1570"
] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
"C: & cd \ & echo ntdsutil \"ac | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
i ntds\" \"ifm\" \"create full $temp\1\\\" q q >$temp\a.bat cmd /C | [
"T1059.003"
] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
"C: & cd \ & type $temp\a.bat cmd /C | [
"T1059.003"
] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
"C: & cd \ & move $temp\a.bat \\<redacted_internal_ip>\c$\windows\temp\\ Usage of the Sysinternals Psexec tool for remote command execution in the network (as the renamed version tmp): $temp\TS_P61S.tmp -accepteula -d -s \\<redacted_internal_ip1>\ cmd /c | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
"arp -a >$temp\TS_P34H.tmp" $temp\TS_P61S.tmp -accepteula -d -s \\<redacted_internal_ip2>\ cmd /c "ping <redacted_internal_ip2> -a -n | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
2>$temp\TS_P34H.tmp" $temp\TS_P61S.tmp -accepteula -d -s \\<redacted_internal_ip3>\ cmd /c "ping -n 2 -a <redacted_internal_ip2>>$temp\TS_P34H.tmp" Usage of WMI for remote command execution: wmic /node:<redacted_internal_ip1> /user:<redacted_group>\<redacted_user> | [
"T1047"
] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
/password:<readcted_password> process call create "cmd /c ping -n 1 -a <redacted_internal_ip4> >$temp\a.tmp wmic /node:<redacted_internal_ip2> /user:<redacted_group>\<redacted_user> | [
"T1070.004"
] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
/password:<readcted_password> process call create "cmd /c netstat -ano >$temp\a.tmp wmic /node:<redacted_internal_ip2> /user:<redacted_group>\<redacted_user> | [
"T1070.004"
] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
/password:<readcted_password> process call create "cmd /c tracert <redacted_internal_ip4>>$temp\a.tmp wmic /node:<redacted_internal_ip3> /user:<redacted_group>\<redacted_user> | [
"T1070.004"
] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
/password:<readcted_password> process call create "cmd /c ipconfig /all | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
>$temp\a.tmp wmic /node:<redacted_internal_ip3> /user:<redacted_group>\<redacted_user | [
"T1070.004"
] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
> /password:<readcted_password> process call create "cmd /c qwinsta >$temp\a.tmp wmic /node:<redacted_internal_ip3> /user:<redacted_group>\<redacted_user> | [
"T1070.004"
] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
/password:<readcted_password> process call create "cmd /c net user administrator >$temp\a.tmp wmic /node:<redacted_internal_ip3> /user:<redacted_group>\<redacted_user> | [
"T1070.004"
] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
/password:<readcted_password> process call create "cmd /c net user admin >$temp\a.tmp Removal of artefacts from the system: cmd /C | [
"T1059.003",
"T1070.004"
] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
"C: & cd \ & dir $temp\*.hive" cmd /C | [
"T1059.003"
] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
"C: & cd \ & del $temp\*.hive" cmd /C | [
"T1059.003"
] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
"C: & cd \ & dir $temp\*.log" cmd /C | [
"T1059.003"
] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
"C: & cd \ & type $temp\silconfig.log" File archiving of remotely collected files, some of which contain *.hive files, possibly for LSA secrets dumping, with the exe command line utility: cmd /C | [
"T1059.003"
] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
"C: & cd \ & $temp\rar.exe a -r wef.rar \\<redacted_internal_ip1>\c$\windows\temp\1 -hp2wsxcde34rfv7788. | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
" c:\windows\temp\rar.exe a -r c:\windows\temp\873.rar \\<redacted_internal_ip2>\c$\windows\temp\*.hive -hp5tgbnhy67ujm3256 Network infrastructure The main cluster of infrastructure serving the activity of the UEFI implant and ScrambleCross implants is outlined in the table below. | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
Note that the attackers maintained the infrastructure from at least March 2020, with some servers seemingly still active at the end of 2021 . | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
During the time the actor switched between multiple hosting providers, resulting in a scattered infrastructure across several ASNs. | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
Domain IP ASN mb.glbaitech[.]com 188.166.61[.]146 AS14061 – DIGITALOCEAN-ASN ns.glbaitech[.]com 188.166.61[.]146 AS14061 – DIGITALOCEAN-ASN 172.107.231[.]236 AS40676 dev.kinopoisksu[.]com 172.107.231[.]236 AS40676 193.29.57[.]161 AS48314 – IP-PROJECTS st.kinopoisksu[.]com 136.244.100[.]127 AS20473 – AS-CHOOPA – 217.69.... | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
GHOST A careful inspection of the infrastructure shows multiple connections between the servers. | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
It is evident that MoonBounce’s user-mode stager and a few ScrambleCross instances reached out to a single domain, which resolved to the same IP at one point. | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
In addition, there were several overlaps in IPs to which the domains resolved as outlined in the figure below, including one IP that was used to park two domains at different points in time. | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
Connections between infrastructure elements of MoonBounce and ScrambleCross implants found on the same network Another important commonality is a unique self-signed SSL certificate, exhibited by multiple servers in this campaign (and only a few dozen others in the wild), which represents a noteworthy fingerprint of the... | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
In addition to the above cluster, we detected two servers related to Microcin’s activity on the same network: Domain IP ASN m.necemarket[.]com 172.105.94[.]67 AS63949 – LINODE holdmem.dbhubspi[.]com 5.188.93[.]132 AS202422 – G-Core Labs Who is behind the MoonBounce attack? | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
To the best of our knowledge, the activity described in this report can be attributed to a group widely known as APT41, or an actor closely affiliated to it, with medium to high confidence. | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
In part, our findings align with multiple public accounts from the previous year of either APT41 or other threat actors, namely Earth Baku and SparklingGoblin, which are believed to be alternative names for APT41 or share significant resources and TTPs with it. | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
Our conclusion, in particular, is done based on the following factors: The loading schemes for ScrambleCross, including the usage of StealthVector and StealthMutant in the infection chain, are identical to those observed leveraged by Earth Baku and SparklingGoblin. | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
Apart from the loaders themselves, their launchers seem identical. | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
The attackers used the unique TTP of initiating the loader execution through exe in all cases observed by us. | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
Particularly Install.bat, as used by Earth Baku and described in the public report by Trend Micro mentioned earlier, is highly similar to the sequence of commands used to execute the InstallUtil launcher in our case. | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
The ScrambleCross malware itself, which has been reported in use with both Earth Baku and SparklingGoblin, is considered a variant of CROSSWALK, a piece of malware that was described originally by Mandiant as an APT41 tool and remains distinct to the group, to the best of our knowledge. | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
A unique certificate retrieved from multiple ScrambleCross C2 servers in the campaign described in this report was sent as a response in a few other dozen servers in the wild, a few of them have been previously reported by the FBI as being part of an APT41-owned infrastructure. | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
Additionally, the following observations are worth mentioning: The user-mode malware stager deployed by the UEFI implant contains a scheduling logic that is somewhat similar to one seen in Microcin samples (some of which were also found on infected hosts in this campaign). | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
This suggests that these groups may be related through shared resources or a prime contractor. | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
The said scheduling algorithm found in the stager can take a 672-bit bitmask to determine when the malware should start beaconing the C2 server in an attempt to retrieve the payload, whereby the scheduled working time can be decided in a granularity of 15-minute slots (i.e. the stager checks if it is supposed to run in... | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
A similar scheduling methodology occurs in the case of Microcin, but with a bitmask that simply represents the days of the week on which the malware ought to be active. | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
Scheduling code used in MoonBounce’s user-mode stager | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
The Mimikat_ssp tool found on a few machines in the targeted network has been seen in use by multiple Chinese-speaking threat actors in the past. | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
One recent example is its use in the campaigns of GhostEmperor, as described in a previous report. | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
Some elements of shellcode leveraged in MoonBounce were spotted in an old rootkit that was part of a malicious framework dubbed xTalker, which has been seen in the wild since at least 2013, alongside several malware families affiliated to known actors, e.g. NetTraveler, Enfal and Microcin. | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
It was prominently used against Russian-speaking targets including military, governmental entities and think-tanks. | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
Both components shared a similar name-hashing algorithm, which is outlined below, along with unique corresponding function name hashes (e.g. 0x311B83F, the name hash of ExAllocatePool) that were not seen in use elsewhere in the wild. | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
Name-hashing algorithm used identically in both MoonBounce and xTalker’s rootkit In addition, both pieces of code used a technique of replacing magic marker values within shellcode buffers with pointer addresses during runtime. | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
MoonBounce’s code used the marker 0x1122334455667788, while the xTalker rootkit’s code used 0x1234567812345678. | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
Magic marker values replaced during execution within shellcodes in xTalker’s rootkit and MoonBounce In the case of xTalker, the above code elements were found within shellcode intended to be staged through an MBR bootkit. | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
However, it is not clear to what extent it was actually used. | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
This may suggest that the MoonBounce and xTalker codes were authored by the same, or a closely affiliated, developer. | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
Conclusion In September 2020, the US Department of Justice released a series of indictments against members of the APT41 group, charging them with a high number of computer intrusions against a variety of targets, both in the private and public sectors, some of which included high-profile supply chain attacks. | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
The intrusion set described in this report, and in other public accounts we referred to, shows that the group did not cease to be active despite these legal proceedings. | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
Moreover, it is evident that the group maintains a high level of proficiency and sophistication in the development of its toolset, gaining a foothold in new areas like UEFI firmware. | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
In this sense, the group has introduced its own innovation to this landscape – patching an existing benign core component in the firmware (rather than adding a new driver to it), thereby turning the UEFI firmware into a highly stealthy and persistent storage for malware in the system. | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
Following previous predictions, we can now say that UEFI threats are gradually becoming a norm. | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
With this in mind, vendors are taking more precautions to mitigate attacks like MoonBounce, for example by enabling Secure Boot by default. | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
We assess that, in this ongoing arms race, attacks against UEFI will continue to proliferate, with attackers evolving and finding ways to exploit and bypass current security measures. | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
As a safety measure against this attack and similar ones, it is recommended to update the UEFI firmware regularly and verify that BootGuard, where applicable, is enabled. | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
Likewise, enabling Trust Platform Modules, in case a corresponding hardware is supported on the machine, is also advisable. | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
On top of all, a security product that has visibility into the firmware images should add an extra layer of security, alerting the user on a potential compromise if such occurs. | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
MoonBounce’ indicators of compromise EFI Rootkit – Malicious CORE_DXE D94962550B90DDB3F80F62BD96BD9858 Modified WMI DLL Launcher C3B153347AED27435A18E789D8B67E0A StealthVector 4D5EB9F6F501B4F6EDF981A3C6C4D6FA E7155C355C90DC113476DDCF765B187D 899608DE6B59C63B4AE219C3C13502F5 4EF90CEEF2CC9FF3121B34A9891BB28D CFF2772C44F6... | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
ScrambleCross encrypted shellcode System.Mail.Service.dll – InstallUtil launcher for StealthMutant schtask.bat – Batch launcher for StealthMutant CmluaApi.dll – Microcin ScrambleCross Mutexes Global\GouZUAkmtdpUmves Global\PtUojBxCOZGVmQQn Global\EGuUCpyYIJRTQJAV Global\YCtiqMgRrpLGbfDo | [] | MoonBounce the dark side of UEFI firmware |
Authored by: Tara Gould and Gage Mele Key Findings Anomali Threat Research identified a campaign in which threat actors used Microsoft Build Engine (MSBuild) to filelessly deliver Remcos remote access tool (RAT) and password-stealing malware commonly known as RedLine Stealer This campaign, which has low or zero detecti... | [] | Threat Actors Use MSBuild to Deliver RATs Filelessly |
We were unable to determine how the .proj files were distributed, and are unable to make a confident assessment on attribution because both RemcosRAT and RedLine Stealer are commodity malware. | [] | Threat Actors Use MSBuild to Deliver RATs Filelessly |
Overview Anomali Threat Research discovered a campaign in which threat actors used MSBuild - a tool used for building apps and gives users an XML schema “that controls how the build platform processes and builds software” - to filelessly deliver RemcosRAT, and RedLine stealer using callbacks.[1] | [] | Threat Actors Use MSBuild to Deliver RATs Filelessly |
The malicious MSBuild files we observed in this campaign contained encoded executables and shellcode, with some, hosted on Russian image-hosting site, “joxi[.]net.” | [
"T1027"
] | Threat Actors Use MSBuild to Deliver RATs Filelessly |
While we were unable to determine the distribution method of the .proj files, the objective of these files was to execute either Remcos or RedLine Stealer. | [] | Threat Actors Use MSBuild to Deliver RATs Filelessly |
The majority of the samples we analyzed deliver Remcos as the final payload. | [] | Threat Actors Use MSBuild to Deliver RATs Filelessly |
Figure 1 - Infection chain Technical Analysis MSBuild MSBuild is a development tool used for building applications, especially where Visual Studio is not installed.[2] MSBuild uses XML project files that contain the specifications to compile the project and, within the configuration file, the “UsingTask” element define... | [
"T1053.005"
] | Threat Actors Use MSBuild to Deliver RATs Filelessly |
In addition, MSBuild has an inline task feature that enables code to be specified and compiled by MSBuild and executed in memory. | [
"T1053.005"
] | Threat Actors Use MSBuild to Deliver RATs Filelessly |
This ability for code to be executed in memory is what enables threat actors to use MSBuild in fileless attacks. | [] | Threat Actors Use MSBuild to Deliver RATs Filelessly |
A fileless attack is a technique used by threat actors to compromise a machine while limiting the chances of being detected.[3] | [] | Threat Actors Use MSBuild to Deliver RATs Filelessly |
Fileless malware typically uses a legitimate application to load the malware into memory, therefore leaving no traces of infection on the machine and making it difficult to detect. | [] | Threat Actors Use MSBuild to Deliver RATs Filelessly |
An analysis by network security vendor WatchGuard released in 2021 showed a 888% increase in fileless attacks from 2019 to 2020, illustrating the massive growth in the use of this attack technique, which is likely related to threat actor confidence that such attacks will be successful.[4] MSBuild Project File (.proj) A... | [] | Threat Actors Use MSBuild to Deliver RATs Filelessly |
For persistence, mshta is used to execute a vbscript that runs the project file, with a shortcut file (.lnk) added to the startup folder (Figure 3). | [
"T1547.001"
] | Threat Actors Use MSBuild to Deliver RATs Filelessly |
Figure 2 - MSBuild Project Schema for immadp32.proj Figure 3 - .lnk | [] | Threat Actors Use MSBuild to Deliver RATs Filelessly |
File Created in Startup Folder Following the creation of persistence, two large arrays of decimal bytes were decoded by the function shown in Figure 4. Figure 4 - Decoding Function Porting the decoding function to Python, we created a script (Figure 5 below). | [
"T1140"
] | Threat Actors Use MSBuild to Deliver RATs Filelessly |
By using the variable “dec_list” to contain the decimal to be converted, and the variable “key” representing the string found at the end of decimal, we decoded the function. | [] | Threat Actors Use MSBuild to Deliver RATs Filelessly |
def decode_array(dec_list, key): key_array = | [] | Threat Actors Use MSBuild to Deliver RATs Filelessly |
[] position_array = | [] | Threat Actors Use MSBuild to Deliver RATs Filelessly |
[] for position in list(range(256)): key_array.append(key[position % len(key)]) position_array.append(position) | [] | Threat Actors Use MSBuild to Deliver RATs Filelessly |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.