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PLEAD also dabbled with a short-lived, fileless version of their malware when it obtained an exploit for a Flash vulnerability (CVE-2015-5119) that was leaked during the Hacking Team breach | ['T1203'] |
This technique to hijack control flow has also been used by other sophisticated attackers such as FinFisher. Lazarus has also used other novel methods to execute shellcode such as by using the function EnumSystemLocalesA as a callback to shellcode written to executable heap | ['T1027', 'T1106'] |
APT34 uses a mix of public and non-public tools, often conducting spear phishing operations using compromised accounts, sometimes coupled with social engineering tactics. In May 2016, we published a blog detailing a spear phishing campaign targeting banks in the Middle East region that used macro-enabled attachments to distribute POWBAT malware. The backdoor was delivered via a malicious .rtf file that exploited CVE-2017-0199 | ['T1059.003', 'T1059.003'] |
The Cannon Trojan is written in C# and functions primarily as a downloader that relies on emails to communicate between the Trojan and the C2 server. To communicate with the C2 server, the Trojan will send emails to specific email addresses via SMTPS over TCP port 587 | ['T1041'] |
The encryption style does not differ significantly from other prominent ransomware families. WastedLocker will attempt to encrypt files on local as well as remote (network adjacent and accessible) and removable drives. Once the eligible drives are located, the ransomware will begin the encryption process | ['T1120'] |
It implements a simple custom-built virtual machine mechanism that will execute an embedded bytecode to decode and inject the payload into memory | ['T1027.002'] |
The macro then creates a scheduled task named SecurityAssist that runs after waiting one minute. OopsIE Trojan Analysis The OopsIE Trojan delivered in these attacks is packed with SmartAssembly and further obfuscated with ConfuserEx v1.0.0. The Trojan extracts and loads this embedded assembly by concatenating the contents of two resources named S1 and S2 and decompresses the resulting data using the GZipSteam class | ['T1140'] |
Tonto Team is an APT group active since at least 2009 and targeting governments and institutions mostly based in Russia, Japan and Mongolia. For more than ten years, Tonto Team has been using the Bisonal RAT. Tonto Team is one of the APT groups that now has access to the ShadowPad backdoor | ['T1059.001', 'T1505.003', 'T1105'] |
The Bazar loader files are dual-extension executable files (such as PreviewReport.DOC.exe) signed with fake certificates such as VB CORPORATE PTY. This is consistent with the Trickbot group, which notoriously abuses the trust of certificate authorities by using signed loaders and malware to evade security product detection | ['T1036.007'] |
To operate and evade standard analysis tools, most of the functions are hashed. The hashing algorithm has a high degree of similarity to the previous ShellTea version, with a slight modification of the seeds and constants. In this version, the attacker also utilizes functions from ole32 for stream processing | ['T1027'] |
While the URI string has changed from Trickbot and Anchor variants, the phishing tactics and use of post-infection reconnaissance commands remains the same. In the Bazar backdoor, the tag (or gtag) used to identify Trickbot campaigns is removed from C2 URIs. It may have been moved to the cookie HTTP header parameter | ['T1071.001'] |
Later in the execution chain, the SeLoadDriverPrivilege is used to load the extracted driver. Then one of the four drivers is dropped, after which the Volume Shadow Copy (VSS) service – which allows backups to be performed – is stopped | ['T1490'] |
In addition to loading the communications module, the initial macro described above configures a persistence mechanism for this malware loader by setting up a Registry Run key. The non-concatenated command included in the macro that establishes persistence for Libcurl.dll and the hash for this sample are included below | ['T1547.001'] |
As part of the exploitation process, the above value will be written to the registry under the %windir% variable, and deleted after execution | ['T1112'] |
The document contains an encoded Visual Basic Script (VBScript) typical of previous Carbanak malware. Recent samples of the malware have now included the ability to use Google services for command-and-control (C&C) communication. The module is base64 encoded inside the main VBScript file along with various other VBScript modules used by the malware. When we analyzed the script we noticed that it is capable of using Google services as a C&C channel. Abusing Google for C&C communication . The "ggldr" script will send and receive commands to and from Google Apps Script, Google Sheets, and Google Forms services. It is unlikely that these hosted Google services are blocked by default in an organization, so it is more likely that the attacker will establish a C&C channel successfully. Upon the first attempt to contact the hard-coded Google Apps Script URL with the user's unique infection ID, the C&C will state that no spreadsheet currently exists for the user. The malware will then send two requests to another hard-coded Google Forms URL which will result in the creation of unique Google Sheets spreadsheet and Google Form IDs for the victim. The second time the Google Apps Script is requested, the C&C will return the unique Google Sheet and Google Form ID values: The "entry" value is also a unique ID which is sent with each subsequent Google Forms C&C request. Using Google as an independent C&C channel is likely to be more successful than using newly created domains or domains with no reputation | ['T1102.002'] |
Operation North Star C2 infrastructure consisted of compromised domains in Italy and other countries. Compromised domains belonged, for example, to an apparel company, an auction house and printing company. These URLs hosted malicious DOTM files, including a malicious ASP page | ['T1608.001'] |
The installer looks legitimate and has a valid digital signature from Sectigo (Obtain Capabilities: Digital Certificates [T1588.004]). The signature was signed with a code signing certificate purchased by the same user as the SSL certificate for jmttrading[.]org (Obtain Capabilities: Code Signing Certificates [T1588.003]). The MSI Installer asks the victim for administrative privileges to run (User Execution: Malicious File [T1204.002 | ['T1588.004'] |
These platforms are used to exfiltrate documents and receive instructions. Here is a list of the platforms used by this variant: Twitter, Yandex and Mediafire. The tokens for each platform are hardcoded within the sample | ['T1102.002'] |
Taken together, the VirusTotal submissions of the samples, the samples themselves, the ZIP containing the samples (observed as a dissemination mechanism via email attachment), as well as the RAR container (seen later in this report under the Analysis section) form a timeline beginning on 12 November | ['T1566.001'] |
HAWKBALL is a backdoor that attackers can use to collect information from the victim, as well as to deliver payloads. HAWKBALL is capable of surveying the host, creating a named pipe to execute native Windows commands, terminating processes, creating, deleting and uploading files, searching for files, and enumerating drives | ['T1059.003'] |
The malware proceeds to check to see if the original dropped malware file exists. In the event it does, Reaver will move this file to ‘%TEMP%\~FJIOW.tmp’ and delete this new file. This simply acts as cleanup to ensure original file artifacts no longer reside on the infected machine. Reaver will then install itself as a service in the event it is running with SeDebugPrivilege privileges. Reaver continues to collect various information from the victim machine, including the following | ['T1070.004'] |
The malware sample contains some interesting static artifacts including self-signed digital certificates used to sign the executable purporting to be software from the Foxit Software Incorporated company based in California | ['T1553.002', 'T1553.002'] |
The two-stage malware overwrites the Master Boot Record (MBR) on victim systems with a ransom note (Stage 1). The MBR is the part of a hard drive that tells the computer how to load its operating system | ['T1561.002'] |
Several files are created by Carbon to keep logs, tasks to execute and configuration that will modify the malware’s behavior | ['T1053.005'] |
The Distributed Transaction Coordinator (DTC) service coordinates transactions that update two or more transaction-protected resources, such as databases, message queues, files systems, and so on. These transaction-protected resources may be on a single computer or distributed across many networked computers | ['T1036.005', 'T1036.005', 'T1036.005'] |
Seedworm then uses open-source tools such as LaZagne and Crackmapexec to obtain Windows authorization credentials. Seedworm uses off-the-shelf, unmodified versions of these tools as well as custom-compiled variants which we have determined are only used by this group | ['T1552.001', 'T1555.003'] |
Initial access via a phishing email that linked to a google docs page that enticed the user to download a report, which was a Bazar Loader executable file instead Report-Review20-10.exe | ['T1566.002'] |
Stage2.exe is a downloader for a malicious file corrupter malware. Upon execution, stage2.exe downloads the next-stage malware hosted on a Discord channel, with the download link hardcoded in the downloader. Once executed in memory, the corrupter locates files in certain directories on the system with one of the following hardcoded file extensions | ['T1102'] |
The encrypted request includes a PC identifier and timestamp, and optionally some other data. It is worth noting that the RC2FM module uses a number of encryption methods (variations of a simple XOR encryption routine), unlike the other InvisiMole parts | ['T1140'] |
In these cases, the temporary file is written to the %TEMP% directory, and the filename is a combination of numbers generated from a call to GetTickCount and the '.dat' extension (e.g | ['T1218.011'] |
In the past, this APT has relied on Hangul Office documents (hwp files) to target victims, as it’s software that’s commonly used in South Korea. However, in this blog we describe an interesting alternative method, delivered via self-decoding VBA Office files | ['T1566.001'] |
Post-compromise, APT39 leverages custom backdoors such as SEAWEED, CACHEMONEY, and a unique variant of POWBAT to establish a foothold in a target environment. Internal reconnaissance has been performed using custom scripts and both freely available and custom tools such as the port scanner, BLUETORCH | ['T1059', 'T1046'] |
Snippets of HOLMIUM PowerShell backdoor (POWERTON) implementing two different persistence mechanisms: WMI event subscription (T1084) and Registry run keys or Startup folder (T1060 | ['T1546.003', 'T1547.001'] |
1) Hunting for PDF files that are created with the same “DocumentID” management metadata field result in a set of files that have been used in email delivery against banking entities. 2) All of the PDF files embed a link based on a Google redirect, leading to the download of a Microsoft Office document file. 3) The Microsoft Office document files contain macros for code execution. Those macros match the characteristics of the builder that we have characterized | ['T1204.002', 'T1204.001'] |
The ZIP archive contains a malicious portable executable (PE) file with embedded HTML application (HTA). The user has to unzip the archive and double-click the executable for the infection chain to continue. The PE file is a simple HTA script compiled into an executable. When the user double-clicks the executable, the malicious HTA file is extracted to %temp% and executed by mshta.exe | ['T1218.005', 'T1204.002'] |
The two dropped artifacts – a payload DLL and a Word document – are written to the “Users\<Log on User>\” folder (the document will replace the opened malicious document with clean stub after killing the running Word process | ['T1059.005'] |
Daserf — This backdoor has the functionality of a remote shell and can be used to execute commands, upload and download data, capture screenshots, and log keystrokes. It uses RC4 encryption and custom Base64 encoding to obfuscate HTTP traffic. CTU researchers identified two versions of Daserf written in Visual C and Delphi. Datper uses an RC4-encrypted configuration to obfuscate HTTP traffic. xxmm (also known as Minzen) — This RAT and likely successor to Daserf AES-encrypts HTTP communications using a one-time encryption key. As of this publication, BRONZE BUTLER demonstrates a preference for concurrently using Datper and xxmm in its operations. RarStar HTTP POST request. Use malware to upload the large list of enumerated files to the C2 server. When exfiltration is complete, the uploader (or Datper or xxmm) immediately uses the del command to delete the RAR archives. Search proxy log files for evidence of web server scanning using the URL patterns associated with BRONZE BUTLER activity | ['T1573.001'] |
1) Suckfly's first step was to identify a user to target so the attackers could attempt their initial breach into the e-commerce company's internal network. We don't have hard evidence of how Suckfly obtained information on the targeted user, but we did find a large open-source presence on the initial target. 2) On April 22, 2015, Suckfly exploited a vulnerability on the targeted employee's operating system (Windows) that allowed the attackers to bypass the User Account Control and install the Nidiran back door to provide access for their attack. 3) After the attackers successfully exploited the employee’s system, they gained access to the e-commerce company's internal network. With the account credentials, the attackers were able to access the victim's account and navigate the internal corporate network as though they were the employee. 4) On April 27, the attackers scanned the corporate internal network for hosts with ports 8080, 5900, and 40 open. Ports 8080 and 5900 are common ports used with legitimate protocols, but can be abused by attackers when they are not secured. It isn't clear why the attackers scanned for hosts with port 40 open because there isn't a common protocol assigned to this port. Based on Suckfly scanning for common ports, it’s clear that the group was looking to expand its foothold on the e-commerce company's internal network. 5) The attackers’ final step was to exfiltrate data off the victim’s network and onto Suckfly’s infrastructure | ['T1046'] |
Step 6: After obtaining the fully privileged handle of Taskmgr.exe, the actor uses this handle to execute cmd as high privilege process to execute install.bat | ['T1218.011', 'T1134.004'] |
The threat actors can execute remote commands by running this specialized module with predefined actions. This module attempts to execute a command. It uses the PowerShell Invoke-Expression method for the PowerShell-based module, while its C# implementation has both cmd and PowerShell options | ['T1059.003'] |
OFF ON Vision Impaired Profile Enhances website's visuals This profile adjusts the website, so that it is accessible to the majority of visual impairments such as Degrading Eyesight, Tunnel Vision, Cataract, Glaucoma, and others. This website utilizes various technologies that are meant to make it as accessible as possible at all times. We utilize an accessibility interface that allows persons with specific disabilities to adjust the website’s UI (user interface) and design it to their personal needs. This application remediates the website’s HTML, adapts its functionality and behavior for screen-readers used by blind users, and for keyboard functions used by individuals with motor impairments. In this process, we provide screen-readers with meaningful data using the ARIA set of attributes. It will also extract texts embedded within the image using an OCR (optical character recognition) technology. Vision Impaired Profile: this profile adjusts the website so that it is accessible to the majority of visual impairments such as Degrading Eyesight, Tunnel Vision, Cataract, Glaucoma, and others. Additional UI, design, and readability adjustments . 1) Font adjustments – users can increase and decrease its size, change its family (type), adjust the spacing, alignment, line height, and more. 7) Additional functions – we allow users to change cursor color and size, use a printing mode, enable a virtual keyboard, and many other functions. Still, we are continually improving our accessibility, adding, updating, improving its options and features, and developing and adopting new technologies | ['T1059.003'] |
In another engagement, we observed the adversary using Mimikatz (the official signed version) to access credentials for logon (T1003.001: LSASS Memory | ['T1003.001'] |
MobileOrder starts by registering itself as device administrator so that a normal user cannot uninstall it by simply clicking “uninstall” in settings | ['T1105'] |
A screen capture of Trickbot’s code that is structured to steal passwords from popular web browsers . It should be noted that this Trickbot variant is not capable of stealing passwords from third-party password manager applications. Screen capture of code showing possible SMB communication . networkDll32 Trickbot uses this encrypted module to scan the network and steal relevant network information. Emotet, according to previous research by Brad Duncan, is also responsible for delivering this password-grabbing Trickbot variant, as well as Azorult, to users. It's also used to inject code into its target processes using the Reflective DLL Injection technique. James’s Place Bank, and Royal Bank of Scotland, and will redirect users to fake phishing websites. Trickbot’s other notable tricks . Trickbot is usually sent via malicious spam campaigns. Defending against Trickbot’s tricks: Trend Micro solutions . Malware authors continue to update banking trojans like Trickbot and Emotet with new modules that make it more difficult to detect and combat. Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.Note: This profile prompts automatically for keyboard users. This application remediates the website’s HTML, adapts its functionality and behavior for screen-readers used by blind users, and for keyboard functions used by individuals with motor impairments. Assistive technology and browser compatibility . We aim to support as many browsers and assistive technologies as possible, so our users can choose the best fitting tools for them, with as few limitations as possible | ['T1185'] |
It communicates encoded system information to a single hard coded command and control (C2) server, using the system’s default User-Agent string. That malicious dll then loads encrypted shellcode from the binary, which is decrypted and runs the final BUGJUICE payload. BUGJUICE defaults to TCP using a custom binary protocol to communicate with the C2, but can also use HTTP and HTTPs if directed by the C2. SNUGRIDE is a backdoor that communicates with its C2 server through HTTP requests. Messages are encrypted using AES with a static key. The versions used by APT10 (1.3.4.0, 2.0.0.0, and 2.0.0.1) are not available via the public GitHub page, indicating that APT10 has further customized the open source version. The 2.0 versions require a dropper to decipher and launch the AES encrypted QUASARRAT payload. QUASARRAT is a fully functional .NET backdoor that has been used by multiple cyber espionage groups in the past | ['T1573.001'] |
NewBCtestDll, NewBCtestnDll Module that is a reverse proxy and is able to execute commands. Module that is a reverse proxy and is able to execute commands. vncDll Module used as a RAT on the victim machine. Module used as a RAT on the victim machine. vpnDll Module used to create VPN proxy routed to a given address. Module used to create VPN proxy routed to a given address. rdpscanDll Module used for brute forcing RDP on a certain list of targets. Module used for brute forcing RDP on a certain list of targets. bcClientDllTestTest An old module used to proxy Trickbot operator traffic through a victim machine. An old module used to proxy Trickbot operator traffic through a victim machine | ['T1219'] |
While some variations exist in functionalities, the main purpose of these modules is to enumerate all documents on a compromised system and upload them to the C&C server. These file stealers can also download and execute arbitrary code from the C&C server. As with many other tools used by the Gamaredon group, they come in four different coding languages: C/C++, C#, batch file and VBScript | ['T1005'] |
On June 21st, 2017 an attacker breached one of our monitored systems by brute-forcing SSH credentials using two IPs known to be part of the TOR network | ['T1110'] |
DHS and FBI identified the threat actors leveraging remote access services and infrastructure such as VPN, RDP, and Outlook Web Access (OWA). The threat actors used the infrastructure of staging targets to connect to several intended targets | ['T1114.002', 'T1133'] |
While investigating these files, we observed what we believe was active development on these .cmd files that helps illuminate the Gamaredon group’s processes | ['T1057'] |
Attempt to get detailed information about the operating system and hardware, such as version, patches, hotfixes, service packs, and architecture (System Information Discovery [T1082]) - Enumerate files and directories or search in specific locations of a host or network share for particular information within a file system (File and Directory Discovery [T1083]) - Get a list of security software, configurations, defensive tools, and sensors installed on the system (Software Discovery: Security Software Discovery [T1518.001]) - Procure information about running processes on a system to understand standard software running on network systems (Process Discovery [T1057]) - Identify primary users, currently logged in users, sets of users that commonly use a system, or active or inactive users (System Owner/User Discovery [T1033]) - Enumerate browser bookmarks to learn more about compromised hosts, reveal personal information about users, and expose details about internal network resources (Browser Bookmark Discovery [T1217]) - Look for information on network configuration and system settings on compromised systems, or perform remote system discovery (System Network Configuration Discovery [T1016]) - Interact with the Windows Registry to gather information about the system, configuration, and installed software (Query Registry [T1012]) - Get a list of open application windows to learn how the system is used or give context to data collected (Application Window Discovery [T1010]) - Attempt to get a listing of local system or domain accounts in the compromised system (Account Discovery [T1087]) - Obtain a list of network connections to and from the compromised system or remote system by querying for information over the network (System Network Connections Discovery [T1049 | ['T1083', 'T1518.001', 'T1033', 'T1082', 'T1217'] |
BRONZE UNION uses various tools for credential theft. In one incident, the threat actor used the Wrapikatz tool (w.exe) with a usage statement that retrieves various passwords and Windows credentials from memory and compiles them in w.txt | ['T1003.001'] |
Remexi boasts features that allow it to gather keystrokes, take screenshots of windows of interest (as defined in its configuration), steal credentials, logons and the browser history, and execute remote commands. Encryption consists of XOR with a hardcoded key for its configuration and RC4 with a predefined password for encrypting the victim’s data | ['T1027', 'T1560'] |
PICKPOCKET is a credential theft tool that dumps the user's website login credentials from Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer to a file. This tool was previously observed during a Mandiant incident response in 2018 and, to date, solely utilized by APT34 | ['T1003.005', 'T1003.004', 'T1555', 'T1552.001', 'T1003.001', 'T1555.003', 'T1555.003'] |
Static analysis of this executable shows only two functions, but a regular number of imports. Upon detecting a debugger attached to it, the malware will display the message below and terminate the execution. This packer also hides the calls to API functions. This time instead of using a dispatcher function, the malware pushes the arguments into the stack as usual but will then perform a call to a jump table built during the unpacking, in the .text section memory region. Each entry finishes with a jmp instruction into the respective API function. Effectively the malware doesn't do any call to API functions, it always performs a jump. The end result is the same has in the packer from 2016, but with a simpler mechanism. One of the anti-analysis features included in this packer is the lack of calls to API functions. In the early stages of execution, the malware loads the libraries and retrieves the addresses from functions it needs. Feature-wise, there is no change when compared with the 2016 version, in fact when compared the C2 beaconing functions even share some of the offsets | ['T1497.003'] |
File hunting plugin: The most frequently used plugin, similar to one used in 2014. Often used to collect Office files from temporary internet history. Detailed survey plugin: Used to gather domain membership, processes/loaded modules, hardware enumeration, installed products, logical and mapped drive information. Evolution of earlier plugin used in 2014. Browser plugin: Used to steal browser history, stored passwords and sessions. File listing plugin: Works on local or remote drives and can map additional paths when given credentials | ['T1082', 'T1083'] |
This function aims to download the powershell code from the command and control server and execute it | ['T1105'] |
All three companies indicated that the actors wiped some systems by executing the KillDisk malware at the conclusion of the cyber-attack. The KillDisk malware erases selected files on target systems and corrupts the master boot record, rendering systems inoperable. It was further reported that in at least one instance, Windows-based human-machine interfaces (HMIs) embedded in remote terminal units were also overwritten with KillDisk. The actors also rendered Serial-to-Ethernet devices at substations inoperable by corrupting their firmware. The team assesses that these actions were done in an attempt to interfere with expected restoration efforts | ['T1561.002'] |
The ‘vsnet’ plugin was intended to spread and launch a payload (BlackEnergy2 dropper itself at the moment) in the local network by using PsExec, as well as gaining primary information on the user’s computer and network | ['T1049'] |
In one case, the attackers sent a malicious document which was nearly identical to a legitimate attachment which we observed later being sent to the same recipient | ['T1204.002'] |
The PlugX malware can be configured to use HTTP, DNS, raw TCP, or UDP to avoid network-based detection. In one sample analyzed by CTU researchers, PlugX was configured with hard-coded user credentials to bypass a proxy that required authentication. Newer HttpBrowser versions use SSL with self-signed certificates to encrypt network communications | ['T1071.001', 'T1071.004', 'T1095'] |
The macro in the XLS file uses PowerShell to download and execute gm.exe, which is the Warzone RAT - Gm.exe bypasses UAC to run at high integrity level - Gm.exe copies itself to %programdata% with the name Images.exe and then executes it | ['T1059.001'] |
Those files are then uploaded via unencrypted HTTP, one after another. Examining the network packets showed that they contained a string with two pieces of information: a file path and a random string of characters | ['T1071.001', 'T1041'] |
STOLEN INFO’ message – bot message to C2 with stolen information like passwords, accounts, emails, etc. Stolen information is RC4 encrypted and Base64 encoded. The key for the RC4 encryption is generated in a different way and based on the infected system ID (aka Bot ID) values, and not based on a static string as in the case of traffic encryption | ['T1132.001', 'T1573.001'] |
mshlpweb.dll is a loader that uses a known token impersonation technique to elevate permissions and execute install.bat with high privileges. To gain higher privileges mshlpweb.dll execute the Windows Update Standalone Installer, wusa.exe. This process runs as a high-integrity process by default, since its set to auto-elevate within its manifest | ['T1218.011'] |
Once the VBScript has been decoded it reveals a rather complex set of functions. These implants are known as Torisma and Doris, both of which are base64 encoded. They are loaded directly into memory via a binary stream once conditions have been satisfied based on the logic contained within the script | ['T1027'] |
First, the malware checks for the existence of a Mutex value, “EKANS”, on the victim. Otherwise, the Mutex value is set and encryption moves forward using standard encryption library functions. Primary functionality on victim systems is achieved via Windows Management Interface (WMI) calls, which begins executing encryption operations and removes Volume Shadow Copy backups on the victim | ['T1047'] |
Before evidence of BlackEnergy2 use in targeted attacks was uncovered, we tracked strange activity on one of the BlackEnergy CnC servers in 2013. This strangeness was related to values listed in newer BlackEnergy configuration files. As described in Dmitry’s 2010 Black DDoS’ analysis, a configuration file is downloaded from the server by main.dll on an infected system. The config file provides download instructions for the loader. In this particular case in 2013, the config file included an unknown plugin set, aside from the usual ‘ddos’ plugin listing. Displayed below are these new, xml formatted plugin names “weap_hwi”, “ps”, and “vsnet” in a BlackEnergy configuration file download from a c2 server. This new module push must have been among the first for this group, because all of the module versions were listed as “version 1”, including the ddos plugin | ['T1552.001'] |
In mid-2018, OceanLotus carried out a campaign using documents abusing the weakness exposed by the CVE-2017-11882 vulnerability. One of the malicious documents used by OceanLotus was analysed by 360 Threat Intelligence Center (in Chinese) and includes details about the exploit. Let’s take a look at a similar document | ['T1203'] |
NOBELIUM has been observed modifying Azure AD to enable long-term persistence and access to sensitive information. This can include the creation of users, consent of Azure AD applications, granting of roles to users and applications, creation of additional service principal credentials, and more. In one incident, MSTIC observed the use of Azure RunCommand, paired with Azure admin-on-behalf-of (AOBO), as a technique to gain access to virtual machines and shift access from cloud to on-premise. NOBELIUM has demonstrated an ongoing interest in targeting privileged users, including Global Administrators. NOBELIUM is frequently observed conducting activities consistent with intelligence collection | ['T1087.004'] |
Account 4: In the latter stage of the compromise, the threat actor used Account 1 to create Account 4, a local administrator account. Account 4 was then used to delete logs and cover tracks | ['T1136.001'] |
Next, REvil checks the configuration field dbg to see if it’s running in debug mode. If that is not the case, geolocation checks based on the system’s language and the keyboard layout are conducted so the ransomware does not attempt to encrypt files on whitelisted systems. The following are whitelisted system language IDs for the analyzed sample | ['T1082'] |
The group has the capability to set up phishing infrastructure to mimic well known websites and trick victims to enter their credentials. This is one of the main methods used by this actor to collect email addresses that later will be used to send spearphishing emails. The group is still using similar phishing models previously mentioned in the KISA report with some small changes | ['T1566.001', 'T1589.002'] |
The export called “SendDataToServer_2” does exactly what the name means: it encrypts all collected data, encodes it using Base64 encoding and calls its additional library to send the data to the C2 server. The names of the C2 servers are hardcoded | ['T1132.001'] |
The user receives a phishing email with a ZIP attachment containing an Office document with embedded macros, the document itself or a link to download malicious document. The user opens the malicious attachment/link and is tricked into clicking “Enable content”. - A malicious macro is executed. One of the encrypted resources has the DLL binary (loader) which is decrypted later during runtime | ['T1204.001', 'T1204.002'] |
Helminth relies on the following shortcut for persistence, as it runs the Trojan each time the system starts using the following command line | ['T1547.001'] |
In at least one engagement, we observed Blue Mockingbird seemingly experimenting with different tools to create SOCKS proxies (T1090: Proxy) for pivoting. These tools included a fast reverse proxy (frp), Secure Socket Funneling (SSF), and Venom | ['T1090'] |
Our initial discovery of GravityRAT was through a malicious Word document. We were able to discover four distinct versions of GravityRAT, developed over two years | ['T1559.002'] |
The use of the choice command, as seen below, did not appear in previous versions of OopsIE and appears to have been added in the most recent version used in this attack. cmd.exe /C choice /C Y /N /D Y /T 2 & Del After sleeping, the Trojan will create a GUID and write it to %APPDATA%\Windows\GDI.bin. With the Trojan moved its final location, it will then create a scheduled task to run a VBScript to make sure it runs persistently. The Trojan accesses two resources, named Sch and VBS that contains obfuscated strings that contain the command to create the scheduled task and the VBScript to run. This differs from the previous OopsIE variant that used a hardcoded task name for the scheduled task. This process ultimately attempts to run the Trojan every three minutes, which is important as OopsIE relies on this scheduled task as it does not include a main loop to continue its execution. After creating this scheduled task for persistence, the Trojan will begin communicating with its C2 server. The process in which the Trojan communicates with its C2 server is very similar to the previous OopsIE Trojan that we discussed in our previous blog. Also, the oops string used to signify and erroneous transmission from the C2, which gave OopsIE its name is reversed to spoo. The command handler in this OopsIE variant is very similar to the previous version, as it contains the same three (1, 2 and 3) commands seen in Table 2 | ['T1059.005'] |
Waterbear employs a modular approach to its malware. It utilizes a DLL loader to decrypt and execute an RC4-encrypted payload. Sometimes, the hardcoded file paths of the encrypted payloads are not under Windows native directories (e.g. It is also possible that the attackers use Waterbear as a secondary payload to help maintain presence after gaining some levels of access to the targets’ systems. The evidence is that Waterbear frequently uses internal IPs as its own C&C servers (for instance, b9f3a3b9452a396c3ba0ce4a644dd2b7f494905e820e7b1c6dca2fdcce069361 uses an internal IP address of 10[.]0[.]0[.]211 as its C&C server | ['T1027'] |
Throughout the spear-phishing campaign, the threat actors used email attachments to leverage legitimate Microsoft Office functions for retrieving a document from a remote server using the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol. After obtaining a credential hash, the threat actors can use password-cracking techniques to obtain the plaintext password. With valid credentials, the threat actors are able to masquerade as authorized users in environments that use single-factor authentication | ['T1598.002'] |
Sodinokibi gathers some basic system information and saves it to the registry together with the generated encryption parameters. If the dbg option is not set in the config, the UI language and keyboard layout values are checked, and the malware will simply exit on systems which use one of the following language codes | ['T1112', 'T1082'] |
The backdoor installation sequence shows that it’s meant for persistence via /LaunchAgents/com.aex-loop.agent.plist and /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.aex-loop.agent.plist. It initiates the configuration file /Library/Caches/com.applestore.db to set the C&C server IP and for remote session information. Loading the bot plugins, this enables connection to the server to open and wait for commands, update the configuration file based on the commands received, and encrypt the file via AES CBC. If the configuration file already exists, it will decrypt once a new session starts | ['T1027'] |
Cisco Talos has discovered a new malware campaign based on a previously unknown family we're calling "PoetRAT. The droppers are Microsoft Word documents that deploy a Python-based remote access trojan (RAT). We named this malware PoetRAT due to the various references to William Shakespeare, an English poet and playwright. The RAT has all the standard features of this kind of malware, providing full control of the compromised system to the operation. For exfiltration, it uses FTP, which denotes an intention to transfer large amounts of data. The campaign shows us that the operators manually pushed additional tools when they needed them on the compromised systems. We will describe a couple of these tools. The most interesting is a tool used to monitor the hard disk and exfiltrate data automatically. Besides these, there are keyloggers, browser-focused password stealers, camera control applications, and other generic password stealers | ['T1555.003'] |
The final payload is a ZIP archive that is usually encrypted by the algorithm shown in Figure 8 and, in a significant number of cases, we saw it being password-protected as well | ['T1027', 'T1027'] |
In order to pull down the backdoor, a payload stager, either HTTP or reverse-DNS, is executed with the use of a scheduled task | ['T1053.005'] |
PDB Path: C:\Users\803\Desktop\ytyboth\yty 2.0\Release\vstservice.pdb The vstservice.exe plugin is .NET file responsible for sending a list of the file system to the C2. The malware retrieves the C2 from a Google Docs file like the previous binaries. The file was located at the following location | ['T1005'] |
In one sample we analyzed, the zip file contains a VBS file named NUM_56960.vbs. The size of the file is around 30MB. The large file size helps it evade detection, as file scanners usually skip scanning huge files for performance reasons. This VBS file then downloads the malicious executable file PaintHelper.exe | ['T1027.001'] |
The Maze-delivered virtual machine was running Windows 7, as opposed to the Windows XP VM distributed in the Ragnar Locker incident. In this case, Cryptoguard was preventing the malware from encrypting files by intercepting and neutralizing the Windows APIs that the ransomware was attempting to use to encrypt the hard drive. Weaponized virtual machine . The Maze attackers delivered the attack components for the third attack in the form of an .msi installer file. The root of that virtual disk contained three files associated with the Maze ransomware: preload.bat, vrun.exe, and a file just named payload (with no file extension), which is the actual Maze DLL payload. The Maze attackers took a slightly different approach, using a virtual Windows 7 machine instead of XP. The virtual machine (VM) that Sophos extracted from the Maze attack shows that this (newer) VM is configured in such a way that it allows easy insertion of another ransomware on the attacker’s ‘builder’ machine. But the cost in terms of size is signficant: The Ragnar Locker virtual disk was only a quarter the size of the nearly 2GB virtual disk used in the Maze attack—all just to conceal one 494 KB ransomware executable from detection. The attackers also executed the following commands on the host computer during the Maze attack: This ran the Microsoft Installer that installs VirtualBox and the virtual hard drive. They stop the Volume Shadow Copy service; the ransomware itself includes a command to delete existing shadow copies. The Maze threat actors have proven to be adept at adopting the techniques demonstrated to be successful by other ransomware gangs, including the use of extortion as a means to extract payment from victims | ['T1047'] |
Using job opportunities as template is the known method used by Lazarus to target its victims. The documents created by this actor are well designed and contain a large icon for a known company such as LockHeed Martin, BAE Systems, Boeing and Northrop Grumman in the template. In this campaign the actor has targeted people that are looking for job opportunities at Lockheed Martin. The document’s metadata used in this campaign links them to several other documents used by this actor in the past | ['T1027'] |
Windows Defender ATP displays these activities as process trees in a machine timeline for the infected computer. Analysts can easily extract detailed information from these trees, such as the implant DLL dropped by the installer, the command used to call rundll32.exe and load the DLL, and the registry modifications that set the DLL as a service | ['T1543.003'] |
The function of this tool is to set up a TCP listener on a localhost, receive encoded data via requests from the SodomNormal localhost module, and to forward this data to the command and control IP via HTTP. The GUP Proxy Tool has a hardcoded configuration which is included as both strings and integers | ['T1036.005'] |
Downloaded payload is a variant of a cloud-based RAT known as RokRat which has been used by this group since 2017. This RAT is known to steal data from a victim’s machine and send them to cloud services (Pcloud, Dropbox, Box, Yandex | ['T1567.002'] |
Sandbox check and anti-virus product enumeration - Dropping payload ‘netmgr.exe’ - Creating a registry key for persistence - Creating a registry key for deletion of the dropper | ['T1547.001'] |
Several files were downloaded to our Struts2 honeypot from the Chinese repository site gitee.com for a user named "c-999. Around the same time, we observed similar activity pulling down files from a gitlab.com repository page for a user named "c-18. All the repositories had a folder called "ss" that contained 16 files. The files were a collection of ELF executables, shell scripts, and text files that execute a variety of actions, including achieving persistence and the execution of an illicit cryptocurrency miner. Once the threat actor had compromised a system, they achieved persistence on the device by installing a cron job that downloads and executes a file "logo.jpg" from "3389[.]space. This file is a shell script which, in turn, downloads mining executables from the threat actor's Git repositories and saves them under the filename "java. The exact file downloaded depends on the victim's system architecture | ['T1053.003'] |
Note that regardless of whether Nyetya is successful in overwriting the boot sector or not, it will proceed to create a scheduled task via schtasks to reboot the system one hour after infection | ['T1529', 'T1053.005'] |
Upon execution, Pay2Key is reading the Server and Port keys from the configuration file. If a configuration file was not found in the current working directory and wasn’t supplied in the command line arguments, the ransomware will write “no config file found” to a file at .\Cobalt-Client-log.txt. This log file will be used extensively by the ransomware during its execution. Newer versions of the ransomware are making sure to remove this log file from the disk. The full list of supported log messages can be found in the appendix section of this article | ['T1070.004'] |
This script simply checks the operating system of the victim and downloads the respective payload again using the certutil executable. In this particular instance, the payload is encoded via base64, which certutil decodes. The payload in question is a CAB file that is then unpacked. Finally, the malware executes the extracted install.bat script before deleting the original files and exiting | ['T1027'] |
Path – location of the root “stash” directory - Ext – search for files with one of these extensions only - Date – search for files not earlier than this date | ['T1083'] |
TA505 continued distributing Dridex through early June 2017 using a range of email attachments. Most recently these included PDF attachments with embedded Microsoft Word documents bearing malicious macros that call PowerShell commands that install Dridex | ['T1566.001'] |