28-February-2023
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: 681
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:
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
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
Disabler - microsoft |
A previously unknown threat actor is targeting organizations in Pakistan using a complex payload delivery mechanism. The threat actor abuses the upcoming Pakistan International Maritime Expo & Conference (PIMEC-2023) as a lure to trick their victims.
The attacker sent out targeted phishing emails with a weaponized document attached that purports to be an exhibitor manual for PIMEC-23. The document utilizes a remote template injection technique and embedded malicious Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) macro code to deliver the next stage of the attack, which leads to the final payload execution. Blackberry
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
Comrerop |
The following detections were updated this past week with changes to kill chain phase(s) or MITRE ATT&CK tactic(s)/technique(s):
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
Backdoors are designed to give malicious users remote control over an infected computer. In terms of functionality, Backdoors are similar to many administration systems designed and distributed by software developers.
These types of malicious programs make it possible to do anything the author wants on the infected computer: send and receive files, launch files or delete them, display messages, delete data, reboot the computer, etc.
The programs in this category are often used in order to unite a group of victim computers and form a botnet or zombie network. This gives malicious users centralized control over an army of infected computers which can then be used for criminal purposes.
There is also a group of Backdoors which are capable of spreading via networks and infecting other computers as Net-Worms do. The difference is that such Backdoors do not spread automatically (as Net-Worms do), but only upon a special “command” from the malicious user that controls them. Kaspersky
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
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
The IcedID banking Trojan was discovered by IBM X-Force researchers in 2017. At that time, it targeted banks, payment card providers, mobile services providers, payroll, webmail and e-commerce sites, mainly in the U.S. IcedID has since continued to evolve, and while one of its more recent versions became active in late-2019, X-Force researchers have identified a new major version release that emerged in 2020 with some substantial changes. securityintelligence.com
PlugX is a remote access tool (RAT) that uses modular plugins. It has been used by multiple threat groups. MITRE
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
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
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
Villain is a Windows & Linux backdoor generator and multi-session handler that allows users to connect with sibling servers (other machines running Villain) and share their backdoor sessions, handy for working as a team. The main idea behind the payloads generated by this tool is inherited from HoaxShell. One could say that Villain is an evolved, steroid-induced version of it. Github
While parsing Microsoft Excel documents using XLM 4.0 macros, the DomainTools Research team came across a Lithuanian-language document title innocuously named “contacts”. The simple macro in this document dropped a slightly more complex PowerShell script that performed C2 communications with a domain that has been active since December 2020 and appeared on no industry-standard blocklists. The most recent domain serving documents was registered in April 2021 and DomainTools Research believes other domains used as short term distribution may lead to other documents. The macro and domain mentioned, when hunted on, revealed documents targeting Azerbaijan, Cyprus, India, Italy, Lithuania, Ukraine, and the Vatican. The DomainTools Research team colloquially refers to this as “Winter Vivern” due to the path used in C2 communication over the last several months. Domaintools
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 | ||
| Aurora | 1 | command and control | http | 7 | actions on objectives, command and control | http, tcp-pkt | 2023-02-24 |
| Backdoor | 4 | delivery, command and control | dns, http | 381 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery, installation | dns, ftp, http, icmp, smtp, tcp, tls, udp | 2023-02-24 |
| Boldflank | 6 | command and control, actions on objectives | dns, http | 6 | command and control, actions on objectives | dns, http | 2023-02-21 |
| Cobalt Strike | 3 | command and control | dns | 405 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery, exploitation | dns, http, smb, tcp, tls, udp | 2023-02-24 |
| Comrerop | 2 | command and control | ftp, http | 2 | command and control | ftp, http | 2023-02-21 |
| Disabler | 1 | command and control | http | 1 | command and control | http | 2023-02-21 |
| Gamaredon | 2 | command and control | dns | 144 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery | dns, http, tcp-pkt, tls | 2023-02-22 |
| IcedID | 2 | command and control | dns | 418 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery | dns, http, tcp, tls | 2023-02-23 |
| NewsPenguin | 4 | command and control | dns, http | 4 | command and control | dns, http | 2023-02-21 |
| PlugX | 1 | command and control | http | 60 | command and control, delivery | dns, http, tcp, tcp-pkt, tls, udp | 2023-02-24 |
| Snojan | 2 | command and control | http | 10 | actions on objectives, command and control | http | 2023-02-22 |
| SocGholish | 3 | command and control, delivery | dns, http | 244 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery, exploitation, reconnaissance | dns, http, tcp, tcp-pkt, tls | 2023-02-24 |
| Stealer and Exfiltration | 1 | actions on objectives | http | 291 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery, exploitation, installation | dns, ftp, http, smtp, tcp, tcp-pkt, tls | 2023-02-23 |
| Trojan Agent | 1 | command and control | tcp | 379 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery, installation | dns, http, ip, smtp, tcp, tcp-pkt, tcp-stream, tls, udp | 2023-02-25 |
| Villain | 1 | actions on objectives | http | 3 | actions on objectives, command and control | http | 2023-02-22 |
| Wintervivern | 1 | exploitation | http | 17 | actions on objectives, command and control, exploitation | dns, http | 2023-02-21 |
| XWorm | 1 | command and control | dns | 209 | command and control | dns, tcp, tcp-pkt | 2023-02-23 |
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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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