03-May-2022
Welcome to the weekly threat detection update report from Stamus Networks. Each week, you will receive this email with a summary of the updates.
Current Stamus Threat Intelligence (STI) release version: 428
This week, in addition to daily ruleset and IOC updates, we provided Stamus Security Platform customers with the following improved defense(s):
Note: a "method" as referenced below, is a discrete detection vector for a given threat.
The following detections were added to your Stamus NDR this past week:
To compromise people’s accounts and devices, this group copied and modified a legitimate Android application — a birthday calendar app — so it could extract contact information and send it to the attacker’s remote server. They also developed remote access-capable malware for Android that disguised as a Quran, a chat app to retrieve people’s contacts list, text messages, files, location information, and activate camera and microphone. We named this previously unreported malware strain HilalRAT (remote access trojan), after seeing “hilal'' in several of the malware samples we analyzed. (Facebook)[https://about.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Meta-Quarterly-Adversarial-Threat-Report_Q1-2022.pdf]
HilalRAT - MITRE - File and Directory Discovery | HilalRAT - MITRE - System Information Discovery | HilalRAT - MITRE - System Service Discovery | HilalRAT - MITRE - System Owner/User Discovery | HilalRAT - MITRE - Capture SMS Messages | HilalRAT - MITRE - Input Capture | HilalRAT - MITRE - Screen Capture |
In the world of cybersecurity, a backdoor refers to any method by which authorized and unauthorized users are able to get around normal security measures and gain high level user access (aka root access) on a computer system, network, or software application. Once they're in, cybercriminals can use a backdoor to steal personal and financial data, install additional malware, and hijack devices. [Malwarebytes] (https://www.malwarebytes.com/backdoor/)
Basdoor - microsoft | Basdoor - MITRE - Multi-Stage Channels | Basdoor - MITRE - Abuse Elevation Control Mechanism | Basdoor - MITRE - Ingress Tool Transfer | Basdoor - MITRE - System Service Discovery | Basdoor - MITRE - Process Discovery | Basdoor - MITRE - System Information Discovery | Basdoor - MITRE - System Time Discovery |
The term info stealer is self-explanatory. This type of malware resides in an infected computer and gathers data in order to send it to the attacker. Typical targets are credentials used in online banking services, social media sites, emails, or FTP accounts.
Info stealers may use many methods of data acquisition. The most common are:
hooking browsers (and sometimes other applications) and stealing credentials that are typed by the user using web injection scripts that are adding extra fields to web forms and submitting information from them to a server owned by the attacker form grabbing (finding specific opened windows and stealing their content) keylogging stealing passwords saved in the system and cookies Modern info stealers are usually parts of botnets. Sometimes the target of attack and related events are configured remotely by the command sent from the Command and Control server (C&C). Malwarebytes
Ginzo - malpedia | Ginzo - MITRE - Net | Ginzo - MITRE - Automated Collection | Ginzo - MITRE - Data from Local System |
GoSecure describes ChromeBack as a browser hijacker, redirecting traffic and serving advertisements to users. (Malpedia)[https://malpedia.caad.fkie.fraunhofer.de/details/js.chromeback]
ChromeBack - MITRE - Phishing | ChromeBack - MITRE - Malicious Link | ChromeBack - MITRE - Browser Session Hijacking |
The oldest part of the family is a simple RAT with sivpici.php5[.]sk as the C&C server. It places all the needed files in the folder .win inside of the user folder.
The malware installer comes disguised as one of the following:
Cracked software, such as FixmyPC, Fraud apps, like SteamCDKeys that share Steam keys, Music CD unpackers with names like Extractor.exe or Heslo.exe (Heslo means password in Czech/Slovak) that come with a password protected archive with music files. The malicious executable downloads an executable named UnRAR.exe and a malicious archive that contains a simple RAT written in C++, AutoIT or Go. (Avast)[https://decoded.avast.io/danielbenes/warez-users-fell-for-certishell/]
Certishell - Command and Scripting Interpreter: Visual Basic | Certishell - MITRE - Ingress Tool Transfer | Certishell - MITRE - System Information Discovery | Certishell - MITRE - Process Discovery | Certishell - MITRE - System Service Discovery | Certishell - MITRE - Data from Local System | Certishell - MITRE - Input Capture | Certishell - MITRE - Screen Capture | Certishell - MITRE - System Owner/User Discovery |
ALPHV, also known as BlackCat or Noberus, is a ransomware family that is deployed as part of Ransomware as a Service (RaaS) operations. ALPHV is written in the Rust programming language and supports execution on Windows, Linux-based operating systems (Debian, Ubuntu, ReadyNAS, Synology), and VMWare ESXi. ALPHV is marketed as ALPHV on cybercrime forums, but is commonly called BlackCat by security researchers due to an icon of a black cat appearing on its leak site. ALPHV has been observed being deployed in ransomware attacks since November 18, 2021.
ALPHV can be configured to encrypt files using either the AES or ChaCha20 algorithms. In order to maximize the amount of ransomed data, ALPHV can delete volume shadow copies, stop processes and services, and stop virtual machines on ESXi servers. ALPHV can self-propagate by using PsExec to remote execute itself on other hosts on the local network. (Malpedia)[https://malpedia.caad.fkie.fraunhofer.de/details/win.blackcat]
BlackCat - pcrisk | BlackCat - kaspersky | BlackCat - unit42 | BlackCat - microsoft | BlackCat - MITRE - Data Encrypted for Impact | BlackCat - MITRE - Phishing | BlackCat - MITRE - Inhibit System Recovery | BlackCat - MITRE - Service Stop |
The 000 Stealer can download files, obtain system and user data, and extract information from browsers and other installed applications.
This program collects the following device data - GPU, CPU, OS (Operating System), RAM, IP address/ geolocation, and active processes. According to 000 Stealer's promotional material, it is a customizable program - in addition to managing its operations, cyber criminals can geoblock the stealer (i.e., set regions of interest or those where it should not operate). This malware can take screenshots and download files from the desktop and documents folders. (Pcrisk)[https://www.pcrisk.com/removal-guides/23636-000-stealer-malware]
000Stealer - abuse.ch | 000Stealer - cyclonis | 000Stealer - MITRE - Data from Local System | 000Stealer - MITRE - System Information Discovery | 000Stealer - MITRE - System Owner/User Discovery | 000Stealer - MITRE - File and Directory Discovery | 000Stealer - MITRE - Account Discovery | 000Stealer - MITRE - Browser Bookmark Discovery |
The following detections were updated this past week with changes to kill chain phase(s) or MITRE ATT&CK tactic(s)/technique(s):
APT29 is threat group that has been attributed to the Russian government and has operated since at least 2008. This group reportedly compromised the Democratic National Committee starting in the summer of 2015. MITRE
APT38 is a financially-motivated threat group that is backed by the North Korean regime. The group mainly targets banks and financial institutions and has targeted more than 16 organizations in at least 13 countries since at least 2014.
North Korean group definitions are known to have significant overlap, and the name Lazarus Group is known to encompass a broad range of activity. Some organizations use the name Lazarus Group to refer to any activity attributed to North Korea. Some organizations track North Korean clusters or groups such as Bluenoroff, APT37, and APT38 separately, while other organizations may track some activity associated with those group names by the name Lazarus Group. MITRE
Ave Maria is high-risk trojan designed to steal various information and to cause "chain infections" (spread other infections). It is typically proliferated using various spam email campaigns. Criminals send thousands of deceptive emails that contain infectious attachments, most of which are Microsoft Office (typically Excel) files. Emails are delivered with messages encouraging users to open the attached document, however, this results in infiltration of Ave Maria Pcrisk
The term info stealer is self-explanatory. This type of malware resides in an infected computer and gathers data in order to send it to the attacker. Typical targets are credentials used in online banking services, social media sites, emails, or FTP accounts.
Info stealers may use many methods of data acquisition. The most common are:
hooking browsers (and sometimes other applications) and stealing credentials that are typed by the user using web injection scripts that are adding extra fields to web forms and submitting information from them to a server owned by the attacker form grabbing (finding specific opened windows and stealing their content) keylogging stealing passwords saved in the system and cookies Modern info stealers are usually parts of botnets. Sometimes the target of attack and related events are configured remotely by the command sent from the Command and Control server (C&C). Malwarebytes
The main goal of these malicious apps is to steal users’ funds and until now we have seen this scheme mainly targeting Chinese users. As cryptocurrencies are gaining popularity, we expect these techniques to spread into other markets. This is further supported by the public sharing, in November 2021, of the source code of the front-end and back-end distribution website, including the recompiled APK and IPA files. We found this code on at least five websites, where it was shared for free, and thus expect to see more copycat attackers. From the posts we found, it is difficult to determine whether it was shared intentionally or if it leaked. Welivesecurity
Filecoders/Ransomware are infections that encrypt personal and data files. Typically a workstation is infected, and then the filecoder/ransomware will attempt to encrypt any mapped shared drives. This can make this infection seem as though it is spreading through your network when it is not. Eset
Gamaredon Group is a threat group that has been active since at least 2013 and has targeted individuals likely involved in the Ukrainian government. The name Gamaredon Group comes from a misspelling of the word "Armageddon", which was detected in the adversary's early campaigns. MITRE
Trojan-Banker programs are designed to steal user account data relating to online banking systems, e-payment systems and plastic card systems. The data is then transmitted to the malicious user controlling the Trojan. Email, FTP, the web (including data in a request), or other methods may be used to transit the stolen data. Kaspersky
An adversary may rely upon a user opening a malicious file in order to gain execution. Users may be subjected to social engineering to get them to open a file that will lead to code execution. This user action will typically be observed as follow-on behavior from Spearphishing Attachment. Adversaries may use several types of files that require a user to execute them, including .doc, .pdf, .xls, .rtf, .scr, .exe, .lnk, .pif, and .cpl.
Adversaries may employ various forms of Masquerading on the file to increase the likelihood that a user will open it.
While Malicious File frequently occurs shortly after Initial Access it may occur at other phases of an intrusion, such as when an adversary places a file in a shared directory or on a user's desktop hoping that a user will click on it. This activity may also be seen shortly after Internal Spearphishing. MITRE
DDoS:Win32/Nitol are a family of trojans that perform DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks, allow backdoor access and control, download and run files and perform a number of other malicious activities on your computer. Microsoft
QAKBOT or QBOT is a malware that is capable of monitoring the browsing activities of the infected computer and logs all information related to finance-related websites.
Trendmicro
Again, the generic nature of this detection means that the Payloads performed by this group of trojans may be highly variable, and therefore difficult to describe specifically. This group of trojans has been observed to perform any, or all, of the following actions:
redirect Web traffic
- manipulate certain Windows or third-party applications including settings or configurations
- drop or install additional malicious programs
- download and run additional malicious programs
Please note that this list is not exhaustive.
Microsoft
A Trojan downloader is a type of Trojan horse that downloads and installs files, often malicious programs. A Trojan horse is a type of software that looks legitimate but can be malicious in nature. Sometimes these programs can be downloaded onto a device without the user’s knowledge or consent. A Trojan’s purpose is to damage, disrupt, steal, or generally inflict some other harm on your computer and devices. Norton
A dropper is a kind of Trojan that has been designed to "install" some sort of malware (virus, backdoor, etc.) to a target system. The malware code can be contained within the dropper (single-stage) in such a way as to avoid detection by virus scanners or the dropper may download the malware to the target machine once activated (two stage). Wikipedia
Malicious programs of this family secretly send information to the criminal from the user’s infected Android mobile device. Kaspersky
Ursnif is a banking trojan and variant of the Gozi malware observed being spread through various automated exploit kits, Spearphishing Attachments, and malicious links.[1][2] Ursnif is associated primarily with data theft, but variants also include components (backdoors, spyware, file injectors, etc.) capable of a wide variety of behaviors. MITRE
Loader: Loaders, for the most part, have one job: grab malicious executables or payloads from an attacker-controlled server. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t more happening under the hood of some, such as a user-friendly UI, self-healing capabilities, or the equivalent of a retail shop where a botmaster can sell his bots to potential clients.
Loaders are essentially basic remote access Trojans that give an attacker the ability to remotely interact with and control a compromised computer, or bot. While traditionally lightweight (smaller than 50 KB in size) in order to bypass detection by antivirus and other security monitoring technology, loaders evolve, and their viability to cybercriminals remains. Flashpoint
The following threat detection(s) were improved this past week with new or updated threat methods.
| Name of threat | New coverage | Total coverage | Last updated | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New Detection methods | Kill chain phases | Protocols involved | Detection methods | Kill chain phases | Protocols involved | ||
| 000Stealer | 3 | command and control, actions on objectives | http | 3 | command and control, actions on objectives | http | 2022-04-28 |
| APT 29 | 1 | command and control | http | 93 | actions on objectives, command and control | dns, ftp, http, tls | 2022-04-30 |
| APT38 | 7 | command and control, delivery | dns, http | 88 | command and control, delivery | dns, http, tcp, tls | 2022-04-28 |
| AveMaria RAT | 2 | actions on objectives | http | 14 | actions on objectives, command and control | dns, http, tcp | 2022-04-30 |
| Banker Stealer | 2 | command and control | tls | 175 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery | dns, http, smtp, tcp, tls | 2022-04-28 |
| Basdoor | 1 | command and control | tls | 7 | command and control | tls | 2022-04-27 |
| BlackCat | 3 | command and control | tls, dns | 3 | command and control | tls, dns | 2022-04-28 |
| Certishell | 11 | command and control | dns | 11 | command and control | dns | 2022-04-28 |
| ChromeBack | 6 | delivery, command and control, actions on objectives | http | 6 | delivery, command and control, actions on objectives | http | 2022-04-28 |
| FakeWallet | 1 | command and control | http | 26 | command and control | http, tls | 2022-04-30 |
| Filecoder | 2 | actions on objectives | http | 30 | actions on objectives, command and control | dns, http | 2022-04-26 |
| Gamaredon | 2 | actions on objectives | http | 89 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery | dns, http | 2022-04-28 |
| Ginzo | 5 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery | http, tls | 5 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery | http, tls | 2022-04-28 |
| HilalRAT | 5 | command and control | dns | 5 | command and control | dns | 2022-04-28 |
| Hqwar | 1 | command and control | tls | 25 | actions on objectives, command and control | dns, http, tls | 2022-04-27 |
| MalDoc | 1 | delivery | http | 460 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery | dns, http, tcp, tls | 2022-04-27 |
| Nitol | 1 | command and control | tcp | 24 | command and control | http, tcp | 2022-04-30 |
| QakBot | 1 | delivery | http | 21 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery | ftp, http, tcp, tls | 2022-04-27 |
| Trojan Agent | 4 | command and control | http | 331 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery, installation | dns, http, ip, smtp, tcp, tcp-pkt, tcp-stream, udp | 2022-04-26 |
| Trojan Downloader | 1 | command and control | http | 192 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery | dns, http, tcp, tls, udp | 2022-04-30 |
| Trojan Dropper | 1 | delivery | tls | 233 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery, installation | dns, http, tcp, tls, udp | 2022-04-27 |
| TrojanSpy-Android | 2 | command and control | tls | 341 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery | dns, http, tcp, tls | 2022-04-27 |
| Ursnif | 1 | delivery | http | 385 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery, weaponization | dns, http, tcp, tls, udp | 2022-04-29 |
| Vodkagats | 1 | delivery | http | 2 | delivery | http | 2022-04-26 |
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Stamus Networks believes in a world where defenders are heroes, and a future where those they protect remain safe. As organizations face threats from well-funded adversaries, we relentlessly pursue solutions that make the defender’s job easier and more impactful. The global leader in Suricata-based network security solutions, Stamus Networks helps enterprise security teams know more, respond sooner and mitigate their risk with insights gathered from cloud and on-premise network activity. Our Stamus Security Platform combines the best of intrusion detection (IDS), network security monitoring (NSM), and network detection and response (NDR) systems into a single solution that exposes serious and imminent threats to critical assets and empowers rapid response.
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