input stringlengths 1 785 | output dict | schema listlengths 0 0 |
|---|---|---|
• The customized malware (BITTERBUG) used by these threat actors has only been observed hosted on and communicating with two IP addresses operated by a Pakistan-based hosting provider. | {
"entities": {
"entity": [
{
"text": "The customized malware (BITTERBUG) used by these threat actors",
"start": 2,
"end": 64
},
{
"text": "two IP addresses operated by a Pakistan-based hosting provider",
"start": 121,
"end": 183
}
],
... | [] |
• Early variants of the BITTERBUG malware had build paths containing the strings'' Tranchulas'' and'' umairaziz27''. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
Tranchulas is the name of a Pakistani security firm; Umair Aziz is the name of a Tranchulas employee. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
• Following the release of our blog post highlighting this activity and the malware's build strings, the threat actors appear to have modified their binary file paths to make them more generic. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
• Employees at both the Pakistan-based hosting provider and Tranchulas appear within each others' social networks. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
On August 2, 2013, the TCIRT published the blog'' Where There is Smoke, There is Fire: South Asian Cyber Espionage Heats Up'' in which TCIRT identified custom malware, later dubbed BITTERBUG by FireEye, suspected to be linked to Pakistani-based exploitation activity directed against Indian entities. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
We found debug path references to'' Tranchulas'', which is also the name of a Pakistani security company. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
Tranchulas claims to support'' national level cyber security programs'' and the development of offensive and defensive cyber capabilities. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
At the time, the incident seemed to be an isolated one for TCIRT, but it was only the beginning. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
Our suspicions of Tranchulas' involvement in the activity began to mount, based on a series of events that occurred both before and after the release of our blog post. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
During the past year, we communicated with Tranchulas and the Pakistan-based hosting provider. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
Suspicious responses and oddly similar replies received from both companies to our inquiries, as well as anomalies in their email headers, prompted us to research the companies further. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
Our research revealed: • The C2 hosting provider (VPSNOC) has likely been conducting business operations from within Pakistan, subleasing infrastructure from U.S. providers. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
• VPNSOC and Tranchulas employees have maintained some type of undefined relationship given connections via social media. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
• Both organizations have employed or are affiliated with personnel who have offensive cyber expertise. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
• When TCIRT was initially contacted by Tranchulas following our original blog post, they denied any involvement in the activity. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
Tranchulas maintained that they were being framed, and that they were already aware of the activity prior to both our blog post and our contact. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
However, inconsistencies in their claims and their responses made such a scenario questionable. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
TCIRT began tracking a set of activity involving a BITTERBUG variant in May 2013. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
To our knowledge this customized malware has only ever been observed hosted on and communicating with two command and control nodes: 199.91.173.43 and 199.91.173.45. | {
"entities": {
"entity": [
{
"text": "this customized malware",
"start": 17,
"end": 40
},
{
"text": "two command and control nodes: 199.91.173.43 and 199.91.173.45",
"start": 102,
"end": 164
}
],
"action": [
{
"text": "... | [] |
According to Whois records, those IP addresses were registered to a web-hosting firm in Kansas City, Missouri. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
Based on public records, this organization appears to be a legal entity chartered to conduct business in Missouri. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
On July 24, 2013, TCIRT contacted the Kansas City-based hosting provider to notify them of the malicious activities emanating from IP address 199.91.173.43. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
The hosting provider subsequently introduced TCIRT to their client VPNSOC, the customer responsible for subleasing the IP address. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
Later that day, TCIRT received a response from support @vpsnoc.com providing limited information on the server and related traffic (Figure 2). | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
When TCIRT sent follow-up communications, VPSNOC did not respond, further increasing our suspicions. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
While reviewing the metadata of VPSNOC's July 24, 2013 email response, we noticed the email was sent from a +0500 time zone. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
This time zone usage is consistent with Pakistan's time zone. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
The TCIRT published details of the initial activity in the aforementioned blog post on August 2, 2013. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
Four days later on August, 2013, the Tranchulas Chief Executive Officer, Zubair Khan, contacted us regarding the blog post and its subsequent press coverage. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
Khan submitted'' ResponseThreatConnect.docx'' as an explanation of the observed activity to both the media and the TCIRT indicating that the debug paths using'' Tranchulas'' and'' umairaziz27'' was'' done by developer of malware to portray wrong impression about Tranchulas and mislead malware analysts''. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
Notably, Khan included a screenshot of an email message. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
The message was reportedly a response from VPSNOC to an email message from Tranchulas sent on July 21, 2013, purportedly to notify VPSNOC of the same malicious activity identified by TCIRT. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
However, we noted certain anomalies in this message. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
As seen in Figure 3 the'' email message'' was'' sent'' to VPSNOC from an unidentified tranchulas.com email address on'' Tue, Jul 21, 2013 at 11:36 PM. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
'' July 21, 2013 was not a Tuesday and in fact was a Sunday. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
The mismatched date suggests that this email message was potentially modified in order to support the claim that Tranchulas was aware of, and had already reported the exploitation activity. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
TCIRT speculates that'' Tuesday'' was hastily chosen because our own official notification to VPSNOC was sent on Wednesday the 24th. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
In addition, the'' response'' received by Tranchulas is nearly identical to that received by TCIRT. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
We believe that Tranchulas may have obtained information about TCIRT's notification to VPSNOC through a pre-established relationship. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
The TCIRT responded to Mr. Khan's official explanation with a follow-up inquiry, offering Khan an opportunity to explain the notable date inconsistency within the email screenshot. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
The TCIRT also requested that Mr. Khan share the actual email message with the original attached headers. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
Mr. Khan did not address the TCIRT question, but rather deferred our request to Mr. Hamza Qamar, a Penetration Testing Team Lead at Tranchulas. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
On August 15, 2013, three days later, Qamar responded to TCIRT with a brief denial of any modifications to the screenshot (other than email address anonymization) and specifically referred TCIRT back to VPSNOC support (support @vpsnoc.com) for any follow up questions. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
Astonished by this dismissal and deflection, TCIRT immediately began to explore the relationship between VPSNOC and Tranchulas. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
During our research into VPSNOC, we identified that it is actually based in, or conducts partial operations from within, Pakistan. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
The company only gives the impression of operating from Kansas City through marketing and the use of leased IP space (Figure 4). | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
The Whois records for vpsnoc.com revealed that the domain was registered by Digital Linx Hosting. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
Digital Linx is also a Pakistan-based hosting company (Figure 5). | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
As seen in Figure 6, the administrative email address is admin @digitallinx.org. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
This is the same registrant record for the digitallinx.net domain. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
The domains digitillinx.org, digitallinx.net, and digitallinx.com share current and historical similarities in their WHOIS records and sitemap.xml files that imply they are all controlled by the same individual or entity. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
The domain digitallinx.com is registered to Muhammad Naseer Bhatti (Digital Linx Founder) who uses email addresses naseer @digitallinx.com and nbhatti @gmail.com. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
The domain is also registered to the address 638-F Johar Town, Lahore Pakistan. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
The contact telephone number listed on Digital Linx' web site is 925-665-1427 (Figure 6), and is also used in the WHOIS record for defiantmarketing.com. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
The domain defiantmarketing.com is registered to Abunasar Khan. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
The registration lists VPSNOC as the registrant organization, abunasar @yahoo.com as the registration email address, and House 12, Street 21, F-8/1 Islamabad Federal 44000 as the registration address. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
Abunasar Khan has been observed using the aliases'' agnosticon'' and'' agnostic''. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
From this we were able to locate an advertisement in the Blackhatworld forum from April 2012 posted by agnosticon promoting VPSNOC and identifying it as a subdivision of Digital Linx Hosting (Figure 7). | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
Though none of this information is surprising, it further suggests that both Bhatti and Abunasar Khan work or worked for Digital Linx and VPSNOC and during that time were both located in Pakistan. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
Additional research into Abunasar Khan identified several registered domains and fragments of his online presence. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
Based on his websites and account information, he appears to have an interest or participated in the Antisec and Anonymous movements (Figure 8). | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
He also used'' anony mo us'' in the registration name field of a personal account. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
In addition, Abunasar Khan's Google+ profile revealed connections to at least one Tranchulas employee, Hamza Qamar and a Digital Linx employee, Shoaib Riaz. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
Hamza Qamar, the Team Lead for Penetration Testing at Tranchulas, with whom TCIRT last spoke. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
Visiting Hamza Qamar's Google+ page (Figure 9), the only directly connected person was Abunasar Khan. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
At this point, it shows that a probable VPNSOC employee with ties or interests in hacking has an undefined but potentially close relationship with Hamza Qamar, the Penetration Testing employee from Tranchulas. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
Qamar indicated on his public LinkedIn profile that he'' engaged in system and enterprise level network and Web application security testing for clients ranging from large federal agencies, DoD, and commercial clients'', though it is unclear which'' DoD'' is referenced (e.g., whether the Pakistani Ministry of Defense o... | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
Tranchulas identifies government (presumably Pakistan's government) as an operational sector for its work. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
Tranchulas' offensive cyber initiative services are offered to'' national-level cyber security programs'' indicating commercial demand from'' national-level'' customers. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
Though Tranchulas brands itself as a multi-national company, with respective addresses within the United Kingdom, the United States, and New Zealand. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
We found evidence that these addresses are all associated with either virtual office spaces or address forwarding services. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
For further background information on these personas, please see Appendix F: Personas. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
The following is a summary of the relationships between the hosting organizations and Tranchulas: • VPNSOC IP space was used as command and control nodes for attackers using variants of the BITTERBUG malware that contained build strings that referenced'' Tranchulas'' and a Tranchulas employee. | {
"entities": {
"entity": [
{
"text": "VPNSOC IP space",
"start": 100,
"end": 115
},
{
"text": "command and control nodes",
"start": 128,
"end": 153
},
{
"text": "attackers using variants of the BITTERBUG malware that contained ... | [] |
• Tranchulas and VPNSOC were in direct communication at some point in July-August 2013. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
• VPNSOC is a subsidiary of Digital Linx. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
• Tranchulas, VPNSOC, Digital Linx were all physically located in Pakistan but maintained virtual presence within the U.S. • Hamza Qamar was an employee of Tranchulas. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
• Muhammad Naseer Bhatti was the self-proclaimed founder of Digital Linx. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
• Abunasar Khan was affiliated with AntiSec and VPNSOC. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
• Digital Linx founder Muhammad Naseer Bhatti had at least a working relationship with VPNSOC employee Abunasar Khan–connected through domain registrations and a common Google+ profile for Shoaib Riaz (another Digital Linx employee). | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
• VPNSOC employee Abunasar Khan had a direct connection to Tranchulas employee Hamza Qamar through Google+. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
Note: A walkthrough of our research is available in Appendices C, D and E. Metadata Analysis: As mentioned earlier, during the email exchanged with Zubair Khan, he sent TCIRT a Microsoft Word document (.docx | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
). | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
In reviewing the document metadata for'' ResponseThreatConnect.docx'', TCIRT identified that it contained the creator properties of'' hp. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
'' TCIRT compared the metadata of two benign BITTERBUG-associated decoy documents from July 2013 and found that both also had the author of'' hp'' (Figure 10). | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
While the author field of'' hp'' doesn't conclusively prove a relationship, it contributes to the body of circumstantial evidence which links properties of the official Tranchulas response to the properties of decoy documents that were used in conjunction with BITTERBUG targeting campaigns. | {
"entities": {
"entity": [
{
"text": "decoy documents",
"start": 210,
"end": 225
},
{
"text": "BITTERBUG targeting campaigns",
"start": 261,
"end": 290
}
],
"action": [
{
"text": "were used",
"start": 231,
... | [] |
CyberSquared Inc. partnered with FireEye for a second technical review of the malware associated with this activity. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
FireEye analyzed the malware, which they call BITTERBUG, and determined it to be a custom backdoor. | {
"entities": {
"entity": [
{
"text": "FireEye",
"start": 0,
"end": 7
},
{
"text": "it",
"start": 72,
"end": 74
},
{
"text": "be a custom backdoor",
"start": 78,
"end": 98
}
],
"action": [
{
... | [] |
The backdoor relies on various support components, including the non-malicious, publically available Libcurl for installation, launch, and communications. | {
"entities": {
"entity": [
{
"text": "The backdoor",
"start": 0,
"end": 12
},
{
"text": "various support components, including the non-malicious, publically available Libcurl",
"start": 23,
"end": 108
},
{
"text": "installation... | [] |
In some variants, BITTERBUG has the ability to automatically target and exfiltrate files with extensions such as .doc, .xls, .pdf, .ppt, .egm, and .xml | {
"entities": {
"entity": [
{
"text": "BITTERBUG",
"start": 18,
"end": 27
},
{
"text": "files with extensions such as .doc, .xls, .pdf, .ppt, .egm, and .xml",
"start": 83,
"end": 151
}
],
"action": [
{
"text": "target an... | [] |
. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
The full malware report is included in Appendix A: Malware Details. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
The earliest evidence of the malware family dates to April 2013, based on the Portable Executable (PE) compile times, with more than 10 BITTERBUG variants observed to date. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
The earliest samples of BITTERBUG contain the'' Tranchulas'' debug path (below), as mentioned in the August 2013 TCIRT blog post. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
These BITTERBUG variants were probably used in attacks around summer 2013, using possible lures related to the then-recent death of'' Sarabjit Singh'' (an Indian national imprisoned in Pakistan) and an Indian Government pension memorandum. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
As stated in the original blog (and raised in the formal Tranchulas response), several binaries contain references to'' Cath'' in the debug path. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
It is important to note that the'' Cath'' files are support components and not BITTERBUG variants, so it is probable that these were developed by another party but are a required component of the family. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
Additional BITTERBUG variants were compiled in June and July 2013 that contained different identifiers in the debug paths:'' Cert-India'' (3 samples) and'' umairaziz27'' (1 sample). | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
The presence of'' umairaziz27'' in a debug path from one sample makes us wonder if this represents an operational security mistake. | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
The debug path of'' umairaziz27'' led us to Twitter and LinkedIn accounts (on which a matching alias is used) that belong to a Tranchulas employee named Umair Aziz, who identified himself as an Information Security Analyst and graduate of National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST). | {
"entities": {}
} | [] |
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