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Figure 11. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
Main function of variant in 2021 Loader in the latest campaign (2022, variant 3) Compared to previous variants, changes were seen in the code structure in variant 3. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
In this variant, more anti-analysis techniques were added to strengthen their loader, including API hashing and execution flow obfuscation through exception mechanism. | [
"T1027"
] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
Threat actors intentionally raise exceptions to interrupt malware analysts and obfuscate the execution flow of the program. | [
"T1027"
] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
Windows APIs are obfuscated via a hashing function and dynamically resolved in the run-time. | [
"T1027",
"T1106"
] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
The payload will be decrypted with RC4 algorithm, and the final payload is an HTTPs Cobalt Strike beacon. | [
"T1071.001",
"T1140"
] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
Figure 12. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
A loop of intentional exception triggers to obfuscate control flow of program. | [
"T1027"
] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
Figure 13. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
Necessary APIs will be dynamically resolved during execution. | [
"T1027"
] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
Hacking Tools Besides the shellcode loader and Cobalt Strike, we also observed additional tools, including port scanner, proxy and information stealer deployed to the compromised hosts. | [
"T1090"
] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
It’s worth noting that they use various programming platforms including C language, Go-Lang and Python. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
In this section, we will mention some noteworthy hacking tools used in their operation. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
MACAMAX Although threat actors already installed the Cobalt Strike as backdoor, we also found out that they deployed another Go-Lang backdoor, which we named MACAMAX in the meantime. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
It supports proxy (Socks5), upload/download file and remote shell functions. | [
"T1059.003",
"T1090",
"T1105"
] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
Network configuration was defined in another configuration file, and it would be loaded when running the backdoor. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
Furthermore, the configuration file will be deleted once it is loaded into memory for fear of leaking network infrastructures. | [
"T1070.004"
] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
cmd> {MACAMAX}.exe {network config file} Usage of MACAMAX -rh={remote host} -rp={remote port} -ps={proxy server} -sl=5 | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
-to=0 -cg=1 Information defined in the configuration file. | [
"T1027"
] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
Themida-packed EarthWorm During our investigation, we found they also use the notorious network-penetration tool, “EarthWorm”. | [
"T1027"
] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
EarthWorm is a simple network tunnel tool with SOCKS v5 server and port transfer developed by a Chinese engineer. | [
"T1090"
] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
Although the original developer already stopped maintenance and removed the download link, it’s still getting more popular in the recent cyber-attack. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
With this tool, the attackers are able to bypass the firewall and access the machine in a restricted network. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
Since EarthWorm has become more common, security vendors also provide solutions to detect this powerful tool. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
In order to avoid being detected by security products, threat actors use Themida packer to obfuscate the signature used for detection. | [
"T1027"
] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
Information Stealer We found a python-based information stealer used to collect internal information of victims. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
This information stealer is compiled with Python 3.10 and packed by noted tools, “PyInstaller”, used to convert python script to be a standalone executable. | [
"T1027"
] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
After checking the Python assembly code of the sample, we found this tool is used to dump information from the victim’s Oracle database. | [
"T1005"
] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
Dumped data will be stored in a csv file and compressed by WinRAR with a password (“5tgb6yhn”), then all compressed data will be uploaded to Dropbox at the end. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
Figure 14. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
Oracle connection config and SQL command for information dump Figure 15. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
Embedded WinRAR command Figure 16. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
Dropbox configuration and upload RAR data Footprint Hidden and Elimination Threat actors run PowerShell scripts with previous versions of PowerShell that do not support Script Block Logging with the intent to evade being detected while running the malicious scripts (so-called “Downgrade Attack”). | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
After finishing the operation, they will clean the intrusion footprint and delete important files, including payload and network configuration files, to avoid leaking any information to analysts. | [
"T1070.004"
] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
It is worth noting that they also corrupt their shellcode loader by wiping out the header of the file, seen in Figure 15. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
This is a common approach to make it harder for analysts to analyze their tools in the ransomware attack, but it’s relatively rare in an APT attack. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
These show that they are sophisticated and meticulous actors. Figure 17. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
Obfuscated PowerShell script used to clean the footprint on Domain Controller Figure 18. | [
"T1027"
] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
Left is the corrupted ShellFang and the right one is the normal one. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
Attribution Summarizing the information collected from 2020 to 2022, we find that Earth Zhulong is likely to be related to a notorious hacking group, “1937CN” based on the code similarity and victimology aspects. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
In this section, we will introduce the process of attribution. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
Code similarity Although the earliest variant of ShellFang used in this campaign was observed in 2020, we found the malware was already compiled in 2017, based on the timestamp of an export function, which can be seen in Figure 19. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
In addition, we reviewed reports published around that time and found the decryption algorithm in ShellFang was once used in the campaign by 1937CN, which was revealed by Fortinet in 2017. | [
"T1140"
] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
Shown in Figure 20, the XOR keyset and algorithm are highly similar. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
Based on the prevalent time and algorithm, we believe Earth Zhulong is likely to be related to 1937CN. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
Figure 19. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
Timestamp of export function in the earliest variant Figure 20. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
The left is the algorithm revealed by Fortinet in 2017. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
The right one is found in the earliest ShellFang variant. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
Victimology Based on our long-term investigation, Southeast Asia is Earth Zhulong’s major target, focusing on telecom and media sectors. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
1937CN is a well-known hacking group in Southeast Asia and has always been their major target as well. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
In 2016, 1937CN was suspected to attack Noi Bai and Tan Son Nhat airports in Vietnam, hijacking the flight information screens to broadcast anti-Vietnamese and anti-Philippines propaganda. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
In 2017, Fortinet also revealed their campaign targeting Vietnamese organizations by using a weaponized RTF document. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
In victimology aspects, Earth Zhulong is consistent with the 1937CN group. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
Conclusion Through long-term monitoring, we found this campaign continued targeting Southeast Asia from 2020 to 2022. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
In the past 2 years, they always have used DLL sideloading as their major technique to launch their malware. | [
"T1574.002"
] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
However, they continued updating their tools and even added more anti-analysis techniques in their latest tools including multi-layer obfuscation, API obfuscation, and execution flow obfuscation by raising exceptions intentionally. | [
"T1027"
] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
We also found they compromise the domain controller in the victim’s environment and deployed Cobalt Strike on their hosts by creating immediate tasks through GPO. | [
"T1484.001"
] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
In addition, Go-lang and Python are also used as programming languages to build their tools. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
Both programming languages provide strength for cross-platform programs development. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
Furthermore, Python and Go-lang executables usually compile all necessary libraries in a single binary, making malware classification more difficult for analysts and resulting in a large binary. | [
"T1027"
] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
Some security products have limitations when handling large files. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
Which may be their approach as large binaries reduces the risk of being detected. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
In the process of tracking and analyzing the data, we have identified the hacker group behind the campaign which targets organizations in Southeast Asia, and called it Earth Zhulong. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
Based on the victimology and usage of a highly similar decryption algorithm, we believe that Earth Zhulong is related to the hacking group known as “1937CN”. | [
"T1140"
] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
We hope our findings will remind the public that the actions and motivations of 1937CN continue to resurface through groups like Earth Zhulong, and that these groups remain a big threat to cybersecurity in Southeast Asia. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
While the threat remains focused on Southeast Asia, tactics like this can be applied to various places across the world. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
It is better to stay ahead of the curve to ensure your safety against these malicious actors. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
Ensuring your systems are protected on all aspects is integral to the productivity of your enterprise. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
Trend Micro Vision One can help you prevent threats like this with multiple security layers across all platforms, and its intuitive threat detection, investigation and response system makes it a key factor to stop Earth Zhulong’s evolving methods of infiltrating systems. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
Indicators of compromise (IOCs) Download the full list of IOCs here. | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
MITRE Tactics Techniques Discovery T1087 - Account Discovery T1482 - Domain Trust Discovery Execution T1204.002 - User Execution: Malicious File Defense Evasion T1574.002 - Hijack Execution Flow: DLL Side-Loading T1055 - Process Injection T1070.006 - Timestomp T1140 - Deobfuscate/Decode Files or Information T1070 - Ind... | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
Task Privilege Escalation T1484 - Domain Policy Modification T1078 - Valid Account Command and Control T1071.001 - Application Layer Protocol: Web Protocols T1090.001 - Internal Proxy T1090.002 - External Proxy Authors Ted Lee Threat Researcher | [] | Earth Zhulong Familiar Patterns Target Southeast Asian Firms |
By SOCRadar Research In our article about Stealer-as-a-Service, as the SOCRadar Research team, we looked at Lumma Stealer, a relatively new and unknown malware. | [] | Malware Analysis LummaC2 Stealer |
During our research, we didn’t find much information, so we did threat hunting by monitoring hacker forums with our dark web team. | [] | Malware Analysis LummaC2 Stealer |
We added the resulting data to our platform and started our analysis. | [] | Malware Analysis LummaC2 Stealer |
LummaC2 is the name of a malicious program classified as a stealer. | [] | Malware Analysis LummaC2 Stealer |
It operates by stealing sensitive information from infected devices and installing applications. | [] | Malware Analysis LummaC2 Stealer |
After our dark web team discovered LummaC2, we found that it was being sold on underground forums. | [] | Malware Analysis LummaC2 Stealer |
Due to its distribution on the web, it can be related to multiple cybercriminals. | [] | Malware Analysis LummaC2 Stealer |
According to the promotional material, the LummaC2 is approximately 150-200 KB and can affect operating systems from Windows 7 to Windows 11. | [] | Malware Analysis LummaC2 Stealer |
Executive Summary Threat Identifiers Name LummaC2 Threat Type Stealer Detections VirusTotal Symptoms Stealers are designed to stealthily infiltrate the victim’s computer and remain silent. | [] | Malware Analysis LummaC2 Stealer |
Thus no particular symptoms are clearly visible on an infected machine. | [] | Malware Analysis LummaC2 Stealer |
Distribution Methods Infected email attachments, malicious online advertisements, social engineering, software ‘cracks.’ | [
"T1566.001"
] | Malware Analysis LummaC2 Stealer |
Damage Stolen passwords and banking information, identity theft, and the victim’s computer added to a botnet. | [] | Malware Analysis LummaC2 Stealer |
The LummaC2 stealer begins its operations by obtaining relevant device data, such as OS version and architecture, hardware ID, CPU, RAM, screen resolution, system language, etc. | [
"T1082"
] | Malware Analysis LummaC2 Stealer |
This malware can exfiltrate files and extract data from specific applications. | [
"T1005"
] | Malware Analysis LummaC2 Stealer |
Browsers targeted by LummaC2: Chrome, Chromium, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Brave, Kometa, Opera GX Stable, Opera Neon, Opera Stable, Vivaldi, and others. | [] | Malware Analysis LummaC2 Stealer |
This stealer may acquire browsing histories, Internet cookies, usernames/passwords, personally identifiable details, credit card numbers, and other highly sensitive information from browsers. | [
"T1005",
"T1078"
] | Malware Analysis LummaC2 Stealer |
LummaC2 also targets multiple cryptocurrencies (e.g., Binance, Electrum, Ethereum, etc.). | [] | Malware Analysis LummaC2 Stealer |
In summary, software like LummaC2 on devices can result in severe privacy issues, significant financial losses, and identity theft. | [] | Malware Analysis LummaC2 Stealer |
Lumma Stealer Composition With the Lumma Stealer malware hash in hand, we visited Malware Bazaar and Triage, where malware samples can be downloaded. | [] | Malware Analysis LummaC2 Stealer |
We searched for the hash value and finally downloaded the malware from the Triage site, completing the first step of our analysis. | [] | Malware Analysis LummaC2 Stealer |
Since the sample we obtained is a PE file, when we run it after the appropriate environment is prepared and watch its mobility, it continues to run under the name “tmp.exe” by unpacking itself to the “C:\Users\admin\AppData\Local\Temp\” file path. | [
"T1036.005"
] | Malware Analysis LummaC2 Stealer |
Process Name Command Line tmp.exe C:\Users\admin\AppData\Local\Temp\tmp.exe Behavior Activities: tmp.exe Infostealers often target stored browser data, which can include saved credentials etc. | [
"T1005",
"T1078",
"T1112"
] | Malware Analysis LummaC2 Stealer |
Registry Key Sets: HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\Connections HKU\S-1-5-21-575823232-3065301323-1442773979-1000\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\Connections\SavedLegacySettings HKU\S-1-5-21-575823232-3065301323-1442773979-1000\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre... | [
"T1112"
] | Malware Analysis LummaC2 Stealer |
hxxp[:]//195[.]123[.]226[.]91/c2sock | [] | Malware Analysis LummaC2 Stealer |
After the connection to the address is established, it transmits information as a zip file. | [
"T1041"
] | Malware Analysis LummaC2 Stealer |
Details are given in other stages. | [] | Malware Analysis LummaC2 Stealer |
Static Analysis Overview File Name tmp.exe File Size 158 KB File Type Win32.exe MD5 c9c0e32e00d084653db0b37a239e9a34 SHA-1 b97965e4a793ec0fa10abc86d0c6be5718716d8a SHA-256 d932ee10f02ea5bb60ed867d9687a906f1b8472f01fc5543b06f9ab22059b264 When Lumma is analyzed in various tools, the outputs of the tools are as follows: I... | [] | Malware Analysis LummaC2 Stealer |
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