21-November-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: 901
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:
Remote Access Trojan (RAT) is a type of malware that allows covert surveillance, a backdoor for administrative control and unfettered and unauthorized remote access to a victim's machine. The RAT is very dangerous because it enables intruders to get remote control of the compromised computer.
Seetrol RAT - anyrun - 1 | Seetrol RAT - anyrun - 2 |
MACE is a simple C2 Framework written in Python that is publicly available in Github. Github
In computing, a Trojan horse (or simply trojan) is any malware which misleads users of its true intent. The term is derived from the Ancient Greek story of the deceptive Trojan Horse that led to the fall of the city of Troy.
Trojans are generally spread by some form of social engineering, for example where a user is duped into executing an email attachment disguised to appear not suspicious, (e.g., a routine form to be filled in), or by clicking on some fake advertisement on social media or anywhere else. Although their payload can be anything, many modern forms act as a backdoor, contacting a controller which can then have unauthorized access to the affected computer. Trojans may allow an attacker to access users' personal information such as banking information, passwords, or personal identity. It can also delete a user's files or infect other devices connected to the network. Ransomware attacks are often carried out using a trojan.
Pinger - Microsoft |
The following detections were updated this past week with changes to kill chain phase(s) or MITRE ATT&CK tactic(s)/technique(s):
APT28 (also known as - Fancy Bear/Sofacy/Strontum) is a threat group that has been attributed to Russia's Main Intelligence Directorate of the Russian General Staff by a July 2018 U.S. Department of Justice indictment.
This group reportedly compromised the Hillary Clinton campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2016 in an attempt to interfere with the U.S. presidential election. APT28 has been active since at least 2004.
There are several malicious fake updates campaigns being run across thousands of compromised websites. This campaign appears to have started around July 19th, 2023. Based on a search on PublicWWW of the injection base64 there are at least 434 infected sites. The name is a reference to the majority of the Javascript being used without obfuscation. One noticeable difference from SocGholish is that there appears to be no tracking of visits by IP or cookies. As an analyst you can you go back to the compromised site over and over coming from the same IP and not clearing your browser cache. This also means the site owner is more likely to see the infection as well. When a user visits a compromised website with ClearFake, the page initially loads as normal before the whole page is taken over by a call to action to update Chrome.
On the index page of the compromised site there is a Javascript injection. The Javascript is base64 encoded. Presumably this is a dynamic injection and will change over time to reflect the new host for the initial payload. On the index page of the compromised site there is a Javascript injection. The Javascript is base64 encoded. Presumably this is a dynamic injection and will change over time to reflect the new host for the initial payload. The second web call returns a Javascript that creates an iframe to house the fake update UI. The iframe src is set to a Keitaro endpoint. The response from the Keitaro endpoint is the foundation for the HTML to be rendered within the iframe.
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.
Ransom malware, or ransomware, is a type of malware that prevents users from accessing their system or personal files and demands ransom payment in order to regain access. The earliest variants of ransomware were developed in the late 1980s, and payment was to be sent via snail mail. Today, ransomware authors order that payment be sent via cryptocurrency or credit card. Malwarebytes
Delf is a large family of malicious programs, many of which are associated with data theft. F-secure
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
Molerats is a politically-motivated threat group that has been operating since 2012. The group's victims have primarily been in the Middle East, Europe, and the United States. 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.
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
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
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 | ||
| APT28 | 15 | command and control | dns, tls, http | 798 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery | dns, http, tcp, tcp-pkt, tls | 2023-11-17 |
| ClearFake | 3 | command and control | dns, tls, http | 53 | command and control, exploitation | dns, http, tls | 2023-11-17 |
| Command and Control | 5 | command and control | dns, tls, tcp, http | 306 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery, installation | dns, http, tcp, tls | 2023-11-17 |
| DarkGate | 1 | delivery | http | 23 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery | dns, http, tls | 2023-11-15 |
| Delf | 1 | command and control | http | 130 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery, installation | dns, http, smtp, tcp, tcp-pkt, tls | 2023-11-15 |
| Fake Browser | 6 | exploitation | dns, tls, http | 159 | delivery, exploitation | dns, http, tls | 2023-11-15 |
| Keitaro | 3 | exploitation | dns, tls, http | 241 | command and control, delivery, exploitation | dns, http, tls | 2023-11-16 |
| MACE | 3 | command and control | http | 3 | command and control | http | 2023-11-17 |
| Molerats | 13 | command and control | http, dns, tls | 144 | command and control, delivery | dns, http, tls | 2023-11-14 |
| Pinger | 1 | delivery | http | 1 | delivery | http | 2023-11-17 |
| Remcos | 12 | command and control | dns, tls, http | 897 | command and control, delivery | dns, http, tcp, tcp-pkt, tls | 2023-11-15 |
| Seetrol RAT | 9 | command and control | dns, tls, http | 9 | command and control | dns, tls, http | 2023-11-17 |
| Stealer and Exfiltration | 2 | actions on objectives | http | 378 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery, exploitation, installation | dns, ftp, http, smtp, tcp, tcp-pkt, tls | 2023-11-16 |
| TA444 | 135 | command and control | dns, tls, http | 1462 | command and control | dns, http, tls | 2023-11-15 |
| TA4903 | 213 | delivery | dns, tls, http | 429 | delivery | dns, http, tls | 2023-11-18 |
| TA582 | 3 | command and control | dns, http, tls | 17 | command and control | dns, http, tls | 2023-11-14 |
| Vidar | 2 | delivery, actions on objectives | http, tls | 38 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery, installation | dns, http, tls | 2023-11-18 |
| XWorm | 26 | command and control | tcp-pkt | 921 | command and control, delivery | dns, http, tcp, tcp-pkt, tls | 2023-11-16 |
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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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