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The resulting output of each command was redirected to a text file and compressed as zip archives before exfiltration. | [] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
The fact that Get-ADReplAccount command includes not only the current NTLM hashes but also the hash history (i.e., hashes of previous passwords used by a user account) meant that the threat actor also had the ability to discover accounts that either reused the same passwords or used similar passwords when the account p... | [] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
Credential Refresh On some investigations, the dwell time of the threat actor spanned years. | [] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
Given this extended period, it is logical to assume that some credentials obtained by the threat actor would be rotated during normal business operations. | [] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
To combat this, the threat actor periodically “refreshed” their credential set by performing credential theft activities in an already compromised environment. | [] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
At one victim, CrowdStrike identified multiple instances of domain credential theft months apart, each time with a different credential theft technique. | [] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
One of the credential theft techniques identified by CrowdStrike was the use of a PowerShell script to execute Mimikatz in-memory. | [
"T1003.001"
] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
While in-memory Mimikatz is not particularly unique, the script executed by the threat actor was heavily obfuscated and encrypted the output using AES256. | [
"T1027"
] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
CrowdStrike was able to reconstruct the PowerShell script from the PowerShell Operational event log as the script’s execution was logged automatically due to the use of specific keywords. | [] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
CrowdStrike recommends that organizations upgrade PowerShell on their systems, as this functionality is only available with PowerShell version 5 and above. | [] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
In addition to refreshing the threat actor’s credentials, the threat actor would also refresh their understanding of the victim’s AD environment. | [] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
Around the time when the threat actor executed Get-ADReplAccount, the threat actor also executed a renamed version of AdFind to output domain reconnaissance information. | [] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
In this instance, AdFind was renamed to masquerade as a legitimate Windows binary. | [
"T1036.005"
] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
The usage of renamed AdFind is consistent with other industry reporting on this campaign. | [] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
In addition to using scripted commands, operators were repeatedly observed manually executing several standard PowerShell cmdlets to enumerate network information from AD, including Get-ADUser and Get-ADGroupMember to query specific members in the directory. | [] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
This information provided the adversary with a list of accounts possessing particular privileges — in this case, the ability to make VPN connections — that would be subject to later credential stealing attempts and leveraged to access the victim at a later time. | [] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
Password Policies/Hygiene | [] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
In some cases, the threat actor was able to quickly return to the environment and essentially pick up where they left off, even though the organization had performed an enterprise-wide password reset, including a reset of all service accounts and the double-reset of the krbtgt account. | [] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
CrowdStrike determined that in these cases, administrative users had “reset” their own password to the same password they previously used, essentially nullifying the impact of the enterprise-wide reset. | [] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
This was possible even though the customer’s Active Directory was configured to require new passwords to be different from the previous five passwords for a given account. | [] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
Unfortunately, this check only applies when a user is changing their password via the “password change” method — but if a “password reset” is performed (changing the password without knowing the previous password), this check is bypassed for an administrative user or a Windows account that has the Reset Password permis... | [] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
Close Out The StellarParticle campaign, associated with the COZY BEAR adversary group, demonstrates this threat actor’s extensive knowledge of Windows and Linux operating systems, Microsoft Azure, O365, and Active Directory, and their patience and covert skill set to stay undetected for months — and in some cases, year... | [] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
A special thank you to the CrowdStrike Incident Response and CrowdStrike Intelligence teams for helping make this blog possible, especially Ryan McCombs, Ian Barton, Patrick Bennet, Alex Parsons, Christopher Romano, Jackson Roussin and Tom Goldsmith. | [] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
Endnotes https://us-cert.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/publications/CISA_Fact_Sheet-Russian_SVR_Activities_Related_to_SolarWinds_Compromise_508C.pdf https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/partner-center/permissions-overview https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/partner-center/announcements/2021-december#9 https://attack.mitre.org/... | [] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
Tactic Technique Observable Credential Access T1003.006 OS Credential Dumping: DCSync The threat actor obtained Active Directory credentials through domain replication protocols using the Get-ADReplAccount command from DSInternals Credential Access T1003.001: OS Credential Dumping: LSASS Memory The threat actor used a ... | [
"T1003.001",
"T1027",
"T1078"
] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
External Remote Services The threat actor used VPNs to gain access to systems and persist in the environment Credential Access T1555.003: Credentials from Password Stores: Credentials from Web Browsers The threat actor exported saved passwords from user’s Chrome browser installations Credential Access T1539: | [] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
Steal Web Session Cookie The threat actor stole web session cookies from end user workstations and used them to access cloud resources Lateral Movement T1021.001: | [] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
Remote Desktop Protocol The threat actor used both privileged and non-privileged accounts for RDP throughout the environment, depending on the target system Initial Access, Persistence T1078.004: Valid Accounts: Cloud Accounts The threat actor used accounts with Delegated Administrator rights to access other O365 tenan... | [
"T1021.001",
"T1078"
] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
The Threat actor also used valid accounts to create persistence within the environment. | [
"T1078"
] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
Persistence T1546.003: Event Triggered Execution: Windows Management Instrumentation Event Subscription TrailBlazer was configured to execute after a reboot via a command-line event consumer Defense Evasion T1036.005: | [] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
Masquerading: Match Legitimate Name or Location The threat actor renamed their utilities to masquerade as legitimate system binaries (AdFind as svchost.exe), match the system’s role (GoldMax), or appear legitimate (TrailBlazer as an apparent Adobe utility). | [
"T1036.005"
] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
Additionally, the threat actor renamed their systems prior to connecting to victim’s VPNs to match the victim’s system naming convention Discovery T1087.002: Account Discovery: Domain Account T1482: Domain Trust Discovery T1069.002: Permission Groups Discovery: Domain Groups The threat actor used AdFind, standard Power... | [
"T1036.005"
] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
Use Alternate Authentication Material: Application Access Token The threat actor used compromised service principals to make changes to the Office 365 environment. | [] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
Collection T1213.: | [] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
Data from Information Repositories: The threat actor accessed data from Information Repositories Persistence T1098.001: | [] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
Account Manipulation: | [] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
Additional Cloud Credentials The threat actor added credentials to O365 Service Principals Persistence T1078.004: Valid Accounts: Cloud Accounts The threat actor created new O365 Service Principals to maintain access to victim’s environments Discovery T1057: Process Discovery The threat actor regularly interrogated oth... | [
"T1057",
"T1078"
] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
Active Scanning: Scanning IP Blocks The threat actor probed external services in an attempt to regain access to the environment Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) Indicator Details http://satkas.waw[.]pl/rainloop/forecast TrailBlazer C2 1326932d63485e299ba8e03bfcd23057f7897c3ae0d26ed1235c4fb108adb105 TrailBlazer SHA256 vm... | [] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
Watch this video to see how Falcon OverWatch proactively hunts for threats in your environment. | [] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
Learn more about the CrowdStrike Falcon:registered: platform by visiting the product webpage. | [] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
Test CrowdStrike next-gen AV for yourself. | [] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
Start your free trial of Falcon Prevent today. | [] | Early Bird Catches the Wormhole Observations from the StellarParticle Campaign |
Introduction The attack involved a compromised version of the 3CX VoIP desktop client, which was used to target 3CX’s customers. | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
The compromised 3CX application is a private automatic branch exchange (PABX) software and is available for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, IOS and Chrome. | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
Currently, there are reports of attacks for both Windows and macOS. | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
The Qualys Threat Research Unit (TRU) is tracking a supply chain compromise in a popular VOIP desktop client by 3CX that is attributed to DPRK nation-state adversaries. | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
The attack was reported in late March 2023 and is an ongoing investigation. | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
Executive Summary The North Korean state-sponsored group Labyrinth Chollima have been identified as the perpetrators behind the supply chain compromise of 3CXDesktopApp beta 18.12.407 and final 18.12.416 applications. | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
The affected applications are signed and have valid signatures. | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
The adversary infrastructure on GitHub used for staging the attack has now been taken down. | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
This means that newer infections will not occur. | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
However, the attack’s potential impact was significant, as the software is widely used by businesses around the world. | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
To mitigate the risk, affected users are recommended to immediately uninstall the application and perform a full system scan to detect and remove any associated malware. | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
This threat is being tracked as by MITRE as CVE-2023-29059 Fig.1 Campaign flow Technical Summary Once the affected version of 3CX is installed or updated, it drops a compromised ffmpeg.dll as well as d3dcompiler_47.dll, which contains embedded shellcode. | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
When 3CXDesktopApp starts, it sideloads the compromised ffmpeg.dll, which in turn decodes the embedded shellcode from d3dcompiler_47.dll and loads it. | [
"T1140"
] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
The shellcode accesses a GitHub repository and brings down icon files which contain encrypted C2 strings that the shellcode then decrypts and communicates to. | [
"T1027",
"T1140"
] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
The adversary has also deployed a previously unseen info stealer in the later stages of the attack and we have provided an analysis for it in later sections. | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
This info stealer gathers system information and browser data from Chrome, Edge, Brave, and Firefox. | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
This info stealer was likely meant to identify interesting targets for the operators. | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
Existing customers of Qualys can follow the steps in the Detection and Protection sections to identify potential impacts. | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
We also recommended that customers implement robust security measures, such as regular vulnerability assessments, patch management regular auditing of vendors. | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
Overall, this supply chain attack highlights the importance of ensuring the security and integrity of the supply chain, as well as the need for businesses to remain vigilant and proactive in their security measures. | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
Operating SystemHashFilename Windows aa124a4b4df12b34e74ee7f6c683b2ebec4ce9a8edcf9be345823b4fdcf5d868 3cxdesktopapp-18.12.407.msi Windows 59e1edf4d82fae4978e97512b0331b7eb21dd4b838b850ba46794d9c7a2c0983 3cxdesktopapp-18.12.416.msi macOS 5407cda7d3a75e7b1e030b1f33337a56f293578ffa8b3ae19c671051ed314290 3CXDesktopApp-18.1... | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
The original MSI file which initiated the infection drops three files “3CXDesktopApp.exe”, “ffmpeg.dll”, and “d3dcompiler_47.dll”. | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
3CXDesktopApp.exe is the legitimate VOIP desktop application and is abused for side loading “ffmpeg.dll”. | [
"T1574.002"
] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
File Type MD5 SHA256 DLL PE 64bits ffmpeg.dll 27B134AF30F4A86F177DB2F2555FE01D C485674EE63EC8D4E8FDE9800788175A8B02D3F9416D0E763360FFF7F8EB4E02 DLL PE 64bits D3dcompiler_47.dll 82187AD3F0C6C225E2FBA0C867280CC9 11BE1803E2E307B647A8A7E02D128335C448FF741BF06BF52B332E0BBF423B03 Table.2 Initial dropped samples Once “ffmpeg.... | [
"T1083"
] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
Once found, the “ffmpeg.dll” loads the second DLL into memory. | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
Fig.2 ffmpeg enumerating current directory | [
"T1083"
] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
The “d3dcompiler_47.dll” DLL has an encrypted payload embedded in it. | [
"T1027"
] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
ffmpeg.dll tries to identify this payload using the signature “0xCEFAEDFE”. | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
Fig.3 Embedded encrypted payload | [
"T1027"
] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
After the identification of the encrypted payload. | [
"T1027"
] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
“ffmpeg.dll” will try to decrypt it using the RC4 encryption scheme with the key “3jB(2bsG#@c7”. | [
"T1140"
] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
Fig.4 RC4 decryption The decrypted payload is shown below. | [
"T1140"
] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
Also, a call to VirtualProtect() is made to give the PAGE_EXECUTE_READWRITE permissions for the payload to be executed. | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
Fig.5 Decrypted payload The decrypted payload that is going to be executed contains another embedded DLL as shown below. | [
"T1140"
] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
The DLL is dumped from memory to perform more investigations on it. | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
Fig.6 Dll loading by encrypted payload Second Stage Analysis The embedded DLL will mainly try to fetch malicious “ico” files from the GitHub Repository “https://raw[.]githubusercontent[.]com/IconStorages/images/main/icon%d[.]ico”. | [
"T1027"
] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
The repository contains multiple icon files that have Base64 and AES encrypted C2’s appended to them. | [
"T1573.001"
] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
The full list of decoded C2’s is listed in the IOC section. | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
This repository has already been taken down. | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
Qualys TRU detected an info stealer involved in the infection chain and considers it as a later-stage payload. | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
7 GitHub repository Info Stealer Analysis File Type MD5 SHA256 SignatureCompilation TimeDLL PE 64bits 7FAEA2B01796B80D180399040BB69835 8AB3A5EAAF8C296080FADF56B265194681D7DA5DA7C02562953A4CB60E147423 N/A Fri Mar 17 00:32:58 2023 Table.4 Info stealer details The info stealer was deployed in the later stages of the infec... | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
Its capabilities are mainly gathering system and browser information, including Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Brave Browsers. | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
Fig.8 Browser DB location The info stealer uses queries to fetch browsers history and data for Edge, SQLite database history for chrome and “Places” Table for Firefox. | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
Fig.9 SQL queries for collection The info stealer also collects information on infected hosts, such as domain name, Hostname and OS Version, using NetWkstaGetInfo() API. | [
"T1005",
"T1082",
"T1106"
] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
Following locations are accessed by the information stealer: Google Chrome – AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data Microsoft Edge – AppData\Local\Microsoft\Edge\User Data Brave Browser – AppData\Local\BraveSoftware\Brave-Browser\User Data Mozilla Firefox – AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles Fig.10 System data col... | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
The first step in assessing the risk of this attack to an organization is understanding if this software is in use. | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
Users of the Qualys Cyber Security Asset Management can quickly identify all installed software across their organization. | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
For example, within seconds, you can use the below query to identify assets with instances of the 3CX Desktop Application. software:(name:”3CX Desktop App 18.12″) | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
Fig.12 CSAM Software Search Qualys VMDR also has QID 378327 ready to detect assets which have the vulnerable version of the 3CXDesktopApp.exe file present on their machines. | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
Qualys Vulnerability Management Detection and Response (VMDR) users can scan their environment with this QID to quickly detect impacted systems. | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
Example output: Fig.13 | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
VMDR QID 378327 details Alternatively, another option is to gather data from endpoints to hunt for the existence of the impacted software. | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
Two such open-source scripts are available on GitHub. | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
The 3cxIngectionHunter script will simply crawl the filesystem looking for instances of the infected ffmpeg.dll file and report back if there is a match to the malicious hash. | [
"T1083"
] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
The 3CXLocalDNSCacheHunter script will collect the local DNS cache and look for a match against some of the known URLs associated with this campaign. | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
Using Qualys Custom Asset and Remediation, you can utilize the following PowerShell community scripts to identify potential infected assets by either copying the contents of the script manually or pointing the tool to the GitHub script directly to download. | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
Fig.14 CAR Scripts Users of Custom Assessment and Remediation and Qualys Patch Management can also push scripts to uninstall the impacted software automatically. | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
These scripts will be published to GitHub in the coming days. | [] | 3CXDesktopApp Backdoored in a Suspected Lazarus Campaign |
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