6-December-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: 613
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 Security Platform this past week:
Cofense characterizes Kutaki as a data stealer that uses old-school techniques to detect sandboxes and debugging. Kutaki however works quite well against unhardened virtual machines and other analysis devices. By backdooring a legitimate application, it can fool unsophisticated detection methodologies. Mapedia
Kutaki - microsoft |
A new clipboard stealer called Laplas Clipper spotted in the wild is using cryptocurrency wallet addresses that look like the address of the victim's intended recipient. Laplas is different from other malware of the same kind, which are typically just add-ons of info-stealing malware. The new clipper is a feature-rich tool that gives hackers more granular control and better insight into the efficiency of their operations. Bleepingcomputer
RatMilad, a newly discovered Android spyware, has been stealing data from mobile devices in the Middle East. The malware is spread through links on social media and pretends to be applications for services like VPN and phone number spoofing. Unwary users download these trojan applications and grant access to malware. Malpedia
RatMilad - microsoft |
In July 2022, SEKOIA.IO discovered a new Golang botnet advertised by its alleged developer as Aurora botnet since April 2022. Since we published an analysis of the malware and the profile of the threat actor advertising Aurora on underground forums for our clients, the botnet’s activity slowed down. Since September 2022, Aurora malware is advertised as an infostealer and several traffers teams announced they added it to their malware toolset. Furthermore, SEKOIA.IO observed an increase in the number of Aurora samples distributed in the wild, as well as C2 servers. As the Aurora malware is widespread, not well detected, or publicly documented either, SEKOIA.IO analysed Aurora in depth and share the results of our investigation in this article. Sekois
A Trojan horse or Trojan is a type of malware that is often disguised as legitimate software. Trojans can be employed by cyber-thieves and hackers trying to gain access to users' systems. Users are typically tricked by some form of social engineering into loading and executing Trojans on their systems. Once activated, Trojans can enable cyber-criminals to spy on you, steal your sensitive data, and gain backdoor access to your system. Kaspersky
Tracur - microsoft |
The following detections were updated this past week with changes to kill chain phase(s) or MITRE ATT&CK tactic(s)/technique(s):
VICEROY TIGER is an adversary with a nexus to India that has historically targeted entities throughout multiple sectors. Older activity targeted multiple sectors and countries; however, since 2015 this adversary appears to focus on entities in Pakistan with a particular focus on government and security organizations. This adversary consistently leverages spear phishing emails containing malicious Microsoft Office documents, malware designed to target the Android mobile platform, and phishing activity designed to harvest user credentials. In March 2017, the 360 Chasing Team found a sample of targeted attacks that confirmed the previously unknown sample of APT's attack actions, which the organization can now trace back at least in April 2016. The chasing team named the attack organization APT-C-35. In June 2017, the 360 Threat Intelligence Center discovered the organization’s new attack activity, confirmed and exposed the gang’s targeted attacks against Pakistan, and analyzed in detail. The unique EHDevel malicious code framework used by the organization. Malpedia
Magic Hound is an Iranian-sponsored threat group that conducts long term, resource-intensive cyber espionage operations, likely on behalf of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. They have targeted U.S. and Middle Eastern government and military personnel, academics, journalists, and organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO), via complex social engineering campaigns since at least 2014. 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
The U.S. Government has identified malware and indicators of compromise (IOCs) used by the North Korean government to facilitate cryptocurrency thefts; the cybersecurity community refers to this activity as “AppleJeus.” This report catalogues AppleJeus malware in detail. North Korea has used AppleJeus malware posing as cryptocurrency trading platforms since at least 2018. In most instances, the malicious application—seen on both Windows and Mac operating systems—appears to be from a legitimate cryptocurrency trading company, thus fooling individuals into downloading it as a third-party application from a website that seems legitimate. In addition to infecting victims through legitimate-looking websites, HIDDEN COBRA actors also use phishing, social networking, and social engineering techniques to lure users into downloading the malware. US-CERT
Windshift is a threat group that has been active since at least 2017, targeting specific individuals for surveillance in government departments and critical infrastructure across the Middle East. MITRE
APT17 is a China-based threat group that has conducted network intrusions against U.S. government entities, the defense industry, law firms, information technology companies, mining companies, and non-government organizations. MITRE
Cobalt Strike is a commercial, full-featured, penetration testing tool which bills itself as “adversary simulation software designed to execute targeted attacks and emulate the post-exploitation actions of advanced threat actors”. Cobalt Strike’s interactive post-exploit capabilities cover the full range of ATT&CK tactics, all executed within a single, integrated system.
In addition to its own capabilities, Cobalt Strike leverages the capabilities of other well-known tools such as Metasploit and Mimikatz. MITRE
Confucius is a cyber espionage group that has primarily targeted military personnel, high-profile personalities, business persons, and government organizations in South Asia since at least 2013. Security researchers have noted similarities between Confucius and Patchwork, particularly in their respective custom malware code and targets. [MITRE] (https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0142/)
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
gh0st RAT is a remote access tool (RAT). The source code is public and it has been used by multiple groups.
Source: MITRE
A Trojan horse or Trojan is a type of malware that is often disguised as legitimate software. Trojans can be employed by cyber-thieves and hackers trying to gain access to users' systems. Users are typically tricked by some form of social engineering into loading and executing Trojans on their systems. Once activated, Trojans can enable cyber-criminals to spy on you, steal your sensitive data, and gain backdoor access to your system. Kaspersky
FIN6(Magecart) is a cyber crime group that has stolen payment card data and sold it for profit on underground marketplaces. This group has aggressively targeted and compromised point of sale (PoS) systems in the hospitality and retail sectors. MITRE
Mustang Panda is a China-based cyber espionage threat actor that was first observed in 2017 but may have been conducting operations since at least 2014. Mustang Panda has targeted government entities, nonprofits, religious, and other non-governmental organizations in the U.S., Germany, Mongolia, Myanmar, Pakistan, and Vietnam, among others. MITRE
Anomali Threat Research has identified malicious activity targeting entities based in Myanmar (Burma) that appears to have begun in March 2020; this is based on file names and payload compilation times. An unidentified Advanced Persistent Threat (APT), very likely China-based, is distributing Windows Shortcut (LNK) files that are being renamed and distributed to multiple targets, likely via spearphishing. Anomali Threat Research found these LNK files located inside multiple, uniquely-named RAR, TGZ, and ZIP files. The RAR and ZIP files are hosted on Google Drive, this is very likely a tactic to avoid antivirus detection. The group uses the PowerShell-based, Red Teaming tool Octopus for Command and Control (C2) communication. Anomali
Remcos is a closed-source tool that is marketed as a remote control and surveillance software by a company called Breaking Security.
Remcos has been observed being used in malware campaigns.
Check Point Research identified an ongoing surveillance operation targeting a Southeast Asian government. The attackers use spear-phishing to gain initial access and leverage old Microsoft Office vulnerabilities together with the chain of in-memory loaders to attempt and install a previously unknown backdoor on victim’s machines. Checkpoint
It leverages compromised websites and performs some of the most creative fingerprinting checks we’ve seen, before delivering its payload (NetSupport RAT). Malwarebytes
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
DPRK APT actor tracked by Proofpoint as TA444 Malpedia
Proofpoint researchers have identified a years-long social engineering and targeted malware campaign by the Iranian-state aligned threat actor TA456. Using the social media persona “Marcella Flores,” TA456 built a relationship across corporate and personal communication platforms with an employee of a small subsidiary of an aerospace defense contractor. In early June 2021, the threat actor attempted to capitalize on this relationship by sending the target malware via an ongoing email communication chain. Designed to conduct reconnaissance on the target’s machine, the macro-laden document contained personalized content and demonstrated the importance TA456 placed on the target. Once the malware, which is an updated version of Liderc that Proofpoint has dubbed LEMPO, establishes persistence, it can perform reconnaissance on the infected machine, save the reconnaissance details to the host, exfiltrate sensitive information to an actor-controlled email account via SMTPS, and then cover its tracks by deleting that day’s host artifacts. PFPT
Vidar (also known as Vidar Stealer) is a trojan (a malicious program) commonly used by cyber criminals. The program steals various personal information from users who have computers infected with the virus. Pcrsik
During a routine threat-hunting exercise, Cyble research labs discovered a dark web post where a malware developer was advertising a powerful Windows RAT. Cyble
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 | ||
| APT-C-35 | 6 | command and control | dns, http, tls | 162 | command and control, delivery | dns, http, tcp, tls | 2022-12-01 |
| APT35 | 8 | command and control | dns | 202 | command and control, delivery | dns, ftp, http, tcp, tls | 2022-12-01 |
| APT38 | 1 | command and control | http | 113 | command and control, delivery | dns, http, tcp, tls | 2022-12-03 |
| AppleJeus | 7 | command and control | dns, http | 27 | command and control | dns, http, tls | 2022-12-03 |
| Aurora | 1 | actions on objectives | tcp-pkt | 1 | actions on objectives | tcp-pkt | 2022-11-29 |
| Bahamut | 2 | delivery, command and control | dns | 27 | command and control, delivery | dns, http, tls | 2022-11-29 |
| Bitter | 3 | command and control | dns, http | 41 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery | dns, http, tcp, tcp-pkt | 2022-12-03 |
| Cobalt Strike | 4 | command and control | dns | 390 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery, exploitation | dns, http, smb, tcp, tls, udp | 2022-11-30 |
| Confucius | 1 | command and control | dns | 6 | command and control | dns, http | 2022-12-03 |
| Filecoder | 3 | command and control | dns | 36 | actions on objectives, command and control | dns, http | 2022-11-30 |
| Gh0st | 1 | command and control | tcp-pkt | 168 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery | dns, http, tcp, tcp-pkt | 2022-12-01 |
| Kutaki | 5 | command and control | dns, http | 5 | command and control | dns, http | 2022-11-29 |
| Laplas | 4 | command and control | dns, http | 4 | command and control | dns, http | 2022-11-29 |
| Lunar Builder | 2 | command and control | tls, http | 8 | actions on objectives, command and control | http, tls | 2022-11-29 |
| MageCart | 1 | command and control | dns | 178 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery | dns, http, tls | 2022-12-02 |
| Mustang Panda | 1 | command and control | tcp | 12 | command and control, delivery | dns, http, tcp, tls | 2022-12-02 |
| Octopus | 1 | command and control | dns | 27 | command and control | dns, http | 2022-12-01 |
| RatMilad | 2 | command and control | http, dns | 2 | command and control | http, dns | 2022-11-29 |
| Remcos | 1 | command and control | tcp | 871 | command and control, delivery | dns, http, tcp, tcp-pkt | 2022-11-29 |
| SharpPanda | 2 | delivery, command and control | http | 5 | command and control, delivery | http | 2022-12-03 |
| SocGholish | 8 | command and control, delivery | dns, http, tcp-pkt | 205 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery, exploitation, reconnaissance | dns, http, tcp, tcp-pkt, tls | 2022-11-30 |
| Stealer and Exfiltration | 1 | command and control | http | 231 | actions on objectives, command and control, exploitation, installation | dns, ftp, http, smtp, tcp, tcp-pkt, tls | 2022-11-29 |
| TA444 | 5 | command and control | dns | 111 | command and control | dns, http, tls | 2022-12-01 |
| TA456 | 3 | command and control | dns | 5 | command and control, delivery | dns, http | 2022-12-03 |
| Tracur | 1 | command and control | http | 1 | command and control | http | 2022-11-29 |
| Vidar | 1 | delivery | dns | 26 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery, installation | dns, http, tls | 2022-11-29 |
| XWorm | 2 | command and control | dns | 36 | command and control | dns, tcp, tcp-pkt | 2022-12-03 |
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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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