23-January-2024
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: 953
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 (SSP) this past week:
Void Rabisu is an intrusion set associated with both financially motivated ransomware attacks and targeted campaigns on Ukraine and countries supporting Ukraine. Among the threat actor’s previous targets were the Ukrainian government and military, their energy and water utility sectors, EU politicians, spokespersons of a certain EU government, and security conference participants. In campaigns conducted in late June and early August 2023, Void Rabisu targeted EU military personnel and political leaders working on gender equality initiatives. Among the notable tools used by Void Rabisu is the ROMCOM backdoor, of which it seems to be the exclusive user. ROMCOM itself has gone through various developments over time, including the implementation of more effective detection evasion techniques. TrendMicro
Void Rabisu - Malpedia |
Security experts believe Chinese nation-state attackers are actively exploiting two zero-day vulnerabilities in security products made by Ivanti.
Very little is known about UTA0178. Researchers believe it is a nation-state operation running out of China.
Neither Ivanti nor Volexity have suggested the apparent motives of the attackers. Aside from stealing credentials to hop between victims' systems, the primary goal of this activity appeared to be reconnaissance and exploration, Volexity said. Attackers were mainly observed sifting through user and configuration files, and testing access to systems. The Register
UTA0178 - Volexity | UTA0178 - CISA |
Ackantta does not limit itself to spreading to new computers. The purpose of the worm is to drop and run a copy of Trojan.Mozipowp, a Trojan that specializes in advertising. Mozipowp will hijack major Web browsers (Firefox, Opera, Chrome, Internet Explorer) in order to display targeted advertisements on the compromised computer.
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.
Xeno Rat stands out from the crowd for several reasons:
HVNC (Hidden Virtual Network Computing): Xeno Rat offers HVNC, which is typically a paid feature in other RATs, but here, it's freely available to enhance your remote access experience. Live Microphone: Enjoy real-time audio surveillance with Xeno Rat, which provides a live microphone feature. Socks5 Reverse Proxy: Xeno Rat includes a Socks5 reverse proxy, allowing you to bypass network restrictions and access remote systems with ease. Regular Updates and Much More: We are committed to keeping Xeno Rat up to date and continually improving its features and functionality to better meet your needs. Built Completely from Scratch: Xeno Rat is developed entirely from scratch, ensuring a unique and tailored approach to remote access tools. Github
Neptune is an innovative HTTP loader project that provides robust and efficient control over computer systems through commands administered via user-friendly web panel. Tufan
The following detections were updated this past week with changes to kill chain phase(s) or MITRE ATT&CK tactic(s)/technique(s):
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
Remote Access Trojans are programs that provide the capability to allow covert surveillance or the ability to gain unauthorized access to a victim PC. Remote Access Trojans often mimic similar behaviors of keylogger applications by allowing the automated collection of keystrokes, usernames, passwords, screenshots, browser history, emails, chat lots, etc. Remote Access Trojans differ from keyloggers in that they provide the capability for an attacker to gain unauthorized remote access to the victim machine via specially configured communication protocols which are set up upon initial infection of the victim computer. This backdoor into the victim machine can allow an attacker unfettered access, including the ability to monitor user behavior, change computer settings, browse and copy files, utilize the bandwidth (Internet connection) for possible criminal activity, access connected systems, and more. Malwarebytes
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
An estimated one million WordPress websites have been compromised during a long-lasting campaign that exploits "all known and recently discovered theme and plugin vulnerabilities" to inject a Linux backdoor that researchers named Balad Injector.
The campaign has been running since 2017 and aims mostly to redirect to fake tech support pages, fraudulent lottery wins, and push notification scams. Bleepingcomputer
Obfuscation is the most commonly used technique to conceal the original code written by the programmer, rendering the executable code difficult to read and hard to understand while maintaining the functionality of the written code.
Base64 is a simple malware obfuscation technique. The very reason why Base64 encoding is used is because using Base64 it is possible to encode binary data to ASCII string format. Thus, attackers encode data in base64 format and send it over HTTP Protocol. Base64 allows only 64 characters for encoding, hence the name.Infosec Institute
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
Attackers are utilizing hacked web sites that promote fake browser updates to infect targets with banking trojans. In some cases, post exploitation toolkits are later executed to encrypt the compromised network with ransomware.
Between May and September 2019, FireEye has conducted multiple incident response cases where enterprise customers were infected with malware through fake browser updates.
Hacked sites would display these "fakeupdates" through JavaScript alerts that state the user is using an old version of a web browser and that they should download an offered "update" to keep the browser running "smoothly and securely".
Cyber criminals violated the law TDS (Traffic Direction System) platform Keitaro and used it to redirect them users in exploit kits RIG and Fallout in order to infect them with malicious software.
TDS platforms are designed for redirection of users in particular sites. Legitimate TDS platforms, such as Keitaro, are mainly used by individuals and companies that want to advertise services or their products. Platforms drive users to the pages that companies want, targeting specific customers and promoting an ad campaign. techbizweb
Lumma is an information stealer written in C, sold as a Malware-as-a-Service by LummaC on Russian-speaking underground forums and Telegram since at least August 2022. Lumma's capabilities are those of a classic stealer, with a focus on cryptocurrency wallets, and file grabber capabilities. Malpedia
Adversaries may abuse PowerShell commands and scripts for execution. PowerShell is a powerful interactive command-line interface and scripting environment included in the Windows operating system. [1] Adversaries can use PowerShell to perform a number of actions, including discovery of information and execution of code. Examples include the Start-Process cmdlet which can be used to run an executable and the Invoke-Command cmdlet which runs a command locally or on a remote computer (though administrator permissions are required to use PowerShell to connect to remote systems). MITRE
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.
A proxy botnet called 'Socks5Systemz' has been infecting computers worldwide via the 'PrivateLoader' and 'Amadey' malware loaders, currently counting 10,000 infected devices.
The malware infects computers and turns them into traffic-forwarding proxies for malicious, illegal, or anonymous traffic. It sells this service to subscribers who pay between $1 and $140 per day in crypto to access it. Bleeping Computer
We took action against a previously unreported hacking group from Iran that targeted or spoofed companies in multiple industries around the world. This included energy companies in Saudi Arabia, Canada, Italy, and Russia; the information technology industry in India and United Arab Emirates; the maritime logistics industry in UAE, Iceland, Norway, Saudi Arabia, US, Israel, and India; telecommunications companies in Saudi Arabia and UAE; and the semiconductor industry in Israel, US, and Germany. This activity had the hallmarks of a well-resourced and persistent operation while obfuscating who’s behind it. This group used similar TTPs to another threat actor dubbed Tortoiseshell that we reported on last year, but in this case we saw different targeting, technical infrastructure, and distinct malware. Meta
An advanced persistent threat (APT) is a stealthy computer network threat actor, typically a nation state or state-sponsored group, which gains unauthorized access to a computer network and remains undetected for an extended period. In recent times, the term may also refer to non-state sponsored groups conducting large-scale targeted intrusions for specific goals.
Such threat actors' motivations are typically political or economic. To date, every major business sector has recorded instances of attacks by advanced actors with specific goals seeking to steal, spy or disrupt. These include government, defense, financial services, legal services, industrial, telecoms, consumer goods, and many more. Some groups utilize traditional espionage vectors, including social engineering, human intelligence and infiltration to gain access to a physical location to enable network attacks. The purpose of these attacks is to place custom malicious code on one or multiple computers for specific tasks.
Source: Wikipedia
An advanced persistent threat (APT) is a stealthy computer network threat actor, typically a nation state or state-sponsored group, which gains unauthorized access to a computer network and remains undetected for an extended period. In recent times, the term may also refer to non-state sponsored groups conducting large-scale targeted intrusions for specific goals.
Such threat actors' motivations are typically political or economic. To date, every major business sector has recorded instances of attacks by advanced actors with specific goals seeking to steal, spy or disrupt. These include government, defense, financial services, legal services, industrial, telecoms, consumer goods, and many more. Some groups utilize traditional espionage vectors, including social engineering, human intelligence and infiltration to gain access to a physical location to enable network attacks. The purpose of these attacks is to place custom malicious code on one or multiple computers for specific tasks.
Source: Wikipedia
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 | ||
| APT35 | 18 | command and control | dns, tls, http | 547 | command and control, delivery | dns, ftp, http, tcp, tls, udp | 2024-01-18 |
| Ackantta | 5 | actions on objectives | tcp | 5 | actions on objectives | tcp | 2024-01-18 |
| Backconnet | 17 | command and control | tcp-pkt | 23 | command and control | tcp, tcp-pkt | 2024-01-17 |
| Backdoor | 3 | actions on objectives, command and control | http | 455 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery, installation | dns, ftp, http, icmp, smtp, tcp, tcp-pkt, tls, udp | 2024-01-18 |
| Balada | 79 | command and control | dns, tls, http | 81 | command and control, exploitation | dns, http, tls | 2024-01-20 |
| Base64 Encoded Executable | 6 | delivery | http | 8 | delivery | http | 2024-01-16 |
| Cobalt Strike | 3 | command and control | dns, tls, http | 570 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery, exploitation | dns, http, smb, tcp, tls, udp | 2024-01-17 |
| Fake Browser | 6 | exploitation | dns, tls, http | 248 | delivery, exploitation | dns, http, tls | 2024-01-17 |
| Keitaro | 9 | exploitation | dns, tls, http | 286 | command and control, delivery, exploitation | dns, http, tls | 2024-01-20 |
| Lumma | 39 | command and control | dns, tls, http | 143 | actions on objectives, command and control, installation | dns, http, tls | 2024-01-19 |
| Neptune Loader | 1 | command and control | http | 1 | command and control | http | 2024-01-18 |
| Powershell | 9 | delivery, command and control | http | 47 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery | dns, http, tcp, tcp-pkt, tls | 2024-01-16 |
| Remcos | 1 | delivery | http | 898 | command and control, delivery | dns, http, tcp, tcp-pkt, tls | 2024-01-19 |
| Socks5Systemz | 1 | command and control | http | 7 | command and control | http | 2024-01-18 |
| T34 Loader | 4 | installation, delivery, actions on objectives | http | 4 | installation, delivery, actions on objectives | http | 2024-01-20 |
| TA455 | 1 | command and control | http | 277 | command and control | dns, http, tls | 2024-01-19 |
| TA4903 | 27 | delivery | dns, tls, http | 635 | delivery | dns, http, tls | 2024-01-19 |
| TA582 | 3 | command and control | dns, http, tls | 32 | command and control | dns, http, tls | 2024-01-17 |
| UTA0178 | 4 | command and control | http, dns, tls | 4 | command and control | http, dns, tls | 2024-01-18 |
| Void Rabisu | 1 | command and control | http | 1 | command and control | http | 2024-01-18 |
| XWorm | 13 | command and control | tcp-pkt | 1014 | command and control, delivery | dns, http, tcp, tcp-pkt, tls | 2024-01-20 |
| Xeno-RAT | 2 | command and control | tcp, tcp-pkt | 2 | command and control | tcp, tcp-pkt | 2024-01-18 |
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