7-March-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: 687
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:
Researchers identified the Dalbit (m00nlight) hacking group that has been targeting Korean companies since 2022 and is known as the “Dalbit” (Moonlight). Open Threat Exchange
Dalbit - Open Threat Exchange |
Stealc, first marketed by an actor named Plymouth on the XSS and BHF Russian-speaking underground forums on January 9, 2023, is written in C and comes with capabilities to steal data from web browsers, crypto wallets, email clients, and messaging apps.Hacker News
Stealc was developed on top of Vidar, Raccoon, Mars and RedLine.
Stealc - Malpedia | Stealc - SEKOIA.IO | Stealc - Hacker News |
Lightweight and configurable implant written in the Nim programming language. Github
NimPlant - Github |
BUGHATCH is an implant of a custom C2 deployed during the CUBA ransomware campaigns we observed in February of 2022, this tool was most likely built by the threat actor themselves as it was not used previously.
BUGHATCH is capable of downloading and executing commands and arbitrary code, it gives the operator the freedom to execute payloads with different techniques like reflection, shellcode execution, system command execution, and so on. The samples we have seen were not obfuscated and were deployed using a custom obfuscated in-memory dropper written in PowerShell and referred to as TERMITE by Mandiant. Elastic
BUGHATCH - Elastic | BUGHATCH - Mandiant | BUGHATCH - Malpedia |
WhiskerSpy is the name of backdoor malware. Malware of this type is used to gain remote access to computers. It is known that WhiskerSpy is capable of executing shell commands, injecting code into another process, exfiltrating specific files, taking screenshots, and more. pcrisk
The cyber espionage threat actor tracked as Earth Kitsune has been observed deploying a new backdoor called WhiskerSpy as part of a social engineering campaign. hackernews
WhiskerSpy - Hacker News | WhiskerSpy - pcrisk |
The newest version of OxtaRAT is a polyglot file, which combines compiled AutoIT script and an image. The tool capabilities include searching for and exfiltrating files from the infected machine, recording the video from the web camera and desktop, remotely controlling the compromised machine with TightVNC, installing a web shell, performing port scanning, and more. Check Point Research
OxtaRAT - Check Point Research |
Amid rising tensions between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Lachin corridor in late 2022, Check Point Research identified a malicious campaign against entities in Armenia. The malware distributed in this campaign is a new version of a backdoor we track as OxtaRAT, an AutoIt-based tool for remote access and desktop surveillance. Check Point Research
Operation Silent Watch - Check Point Research |
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.
White Dev 50 is PwC definition for APT group Chinese financial services, energy sector and technology companies. They rely on spoofing Alibaba CND providers and financial services. Cobalt Strike beacons are deployed via xStart dropper.
The following detections were updated this past week with changes to kill chain phase(s) or MITRE ATT&CK tactic(s)/technique(s):
8220 Gang is one of the many low-skill crimeware gangs we continually observe infecting cloud hosts and operating a botnet and cryptocurrency miners through known vulnerabilities and remote access brute forcing infection vectors. While the group has operated for years, by mid 2021, the botnet was observed operating with roughly 2000 hosts globally. Sentinelone
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
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
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
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
A type of Trojan that attempts to connect to online resources, either by sending commands to the browser or by replacing system files that specify standard site addresses (for example, the hosts file in Windows). Kaspersky
Adversaries may communicate using a custom command and control protocol instead of encapsulating commands/data in an existing Standard Application Layer Protocol. Implementations include mimicking well-known protocols or developing custom protocols (including raw sockets) on top of fundamental protocols provided by TCP/IP/another standard network stack.
Erbium is a piece of malicious software classified as a stealer. Malware within this category is designed to extract vulnerable data from infected devices. Our researchers discovered Erbium while inspecting malware-selling hotspots. Pcrisk
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 malware delivery method pioneered by the threat actors behind the REvil ransomware and the Gootkit banking Trojan has been enjoying a renaissance of late, as telemetry indicates that criminals are using the method to deploy an array of malware payloads in South Korea, Germany, France, and across North America.
The Gootkit malware family has been around more than half a decade – a mature Trojan with functionality centered around banking credential theft. In recent years, almost as much effort has gone into improvement of its delivery method as has gone into the NodeJS-based malware itself. Sophos
Grandoreiro is a banking trojan written in Delphi that was first observed in 2016 and uses a Malware-as-a-Service (MaaS) business model. Grandoreiro has confirmed victims in Brazil, Mexico, Portugal, and Spain. 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
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
Malware of this family consists of Trojans that use anti-emulation, anti-debugging, and code obfuscation to prevent their analysis. 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
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
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
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
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
Malicious programs of this family secretly send information to the criminal from the user’s infected Android mobile device. Kaspersky
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 | ||
| 8220 Gang | 3 | command and control | dns | 6 | command and control | dns | 2023-03-01 |
| APT-C-35 | 4 | command and control | dns, tls | 188 | command and control, delivery | dns, http, tcp, tls | 2023-03-01 |
| BUGHATCH | 2 | delivery | http | 2 | delivery | http | 2023-03-02 |
| Backdoor | 1 | command and control | dns | 382 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery, installation | dns, ftp, http, icmp, smtp, tcp, tls, udp | 2023-03-01 |
| Banker Stealer | 2 | command and control | dns | 235 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery | dns, http, smtp, tcp, tls | 2023-03-02 |
| Bitter | 1 | command and control | http | 42 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery | dns, http, tcp, tcp-pkt | 2023-03-02 |
| Clicker | 1 | command and control | http | 99 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery, exploitation, installation | dns, http, tls | 2023-03-03 |
| Command and Control | 7 | command and control | tls, dns | 301 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery, installation | dns, tls | 2023-03-02 |
| Dalbit | 2 | command and control | dns | 2 | command and control | dns | 2023-03-02 |
| Erbium | 1 | actions on objectives | http | 12 | actions on objectives, command and control | dns, http, tls | 2023-03-02 |
| Gamaredon | 2 | command and control | http | 146 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery | dns, http, tcp-pkt, tls | 2023-03-01 |
| GootLoader | 7 | command and control | dns | 9 | actions on objectives, command and control | dns, http | 2023-03-03 |
| Grandoreiro | 1 | command and control | tcp-pkt | 9 | command and control, delivery | dns, http, tcp-pkt | 2023-02-28 |
| Hqwar | 4 | command and control | dns | 78 | actions on objectives, command and control | dns, http, tls | 2023-03-02 |
| IcedID | 4 | command and control | dns | 422 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery | dns, http, tcp, tls | 2023-03-01 |
| Kryptik | 1 | actions on objectives | http | 89 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery | http, smtp, tcp, tcp-pkt, tls | 2023-03-03 |
| Kumquat | 3 | command and control | tcp | 3 | command and control | tcp | 2023-03-02 |
| MageCart | 7 | command and control | dns | 192 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery | dns, http, tls | 2023-03-01 |
| NimPlant | 8 | command and control | http | 8 | command and control | http | 2023-03-02 |
| Operation Silent Watch | 5 | command and control | dns | 5 | command and control | dns | 2023-03-02 |
| OxtaRAT | 2 | command and control | http | 2 | command and control | http | 2023-03-02 |
| PS1Loader | 1 | delivery | http | 2 | actions on objectives, delivery | http | 2023-03-02 |
| Piom | 5 | command and control | dns | 39 | command and control | dns, http, tls | 2023-03-02 |
| QakBot | 2 | command and control | http | 36 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery | ftp, http, tcp, tls | 2023-02-28 |
| Reverse RAT | 3 | command and control | http | 10 | command and control | http | 2023-03-01 |
| SocGholish | 4 | command and control | dns | 248 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery, exploitation, reconnaissance | dns, http, tcp, tcp-pkt, tls | 2023-03-01 |
| Stealc | 7 | command and control | http | 7 | command and control | http | 2023-03-02 |
| Stealer and Exfiltration | 13 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery | http, dns | 304 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery, exploitation, installation | dns, ftp, http, smtp, tcp, tcp-pkt, tls | 2023-03-02 |
| Trojan Agent | 2 | command and control, actions on objectives | http | 381 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery, installation | dns, http, ip, smtp, tcp, tcp-pkt, tcp-stream, tls, udp | 2023-03-03 |
| TrojanSpy-Android | 1 | command and control | dns | 465 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery, installation | dns, http, tcp, tls | 2023-03-02 |
| WhiskerSpy | 7 | installation, actions on objectives, command and control | http, ftp | 7 | installation, actions on objectives, command and control | http, ftp | 2023-03-02 |
| White Dev 50 | 3 | command and control | http | 3 | command and control | http | 2023-03-02 |
| XWorm | 13 | command and control | tcp-pkt | 222 | command and control | dns, tcp, tcp-pkt | 2023-03-03 |
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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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