Advanced Persistent Threat


NEWS 
  • New Sunshuttle Second-Stage Backdoor Uncovered Targeting U.S.-Based Entity; Possible Connection to UNC2452

    March 4, 2021

    Mandiant Threat Intelligence discovered a new backdoor uploaded by a U.S.-based entity to a public malware repository in August 2020 that we have named SUNSHUTTLE. SUNSHUTTLE is written in GO, and reads an embedded or local configuration file, communicates with a hard-coded command and control (C2) server over HTTPS, and supports commands including remotely uploading ...

  • Go malware is now common, having been adopted by both APTs and e-crime groups

    February 26, 2021

    The number of malware strains coded in the Go programming language has seen a sharp increase of around 2,000% over the last few years, since 2017, cybersecurity firm Intezer said in a report published this week. The company’s findings highlight and confirm a general trend in the malware ecosystem, where malware authors have slowly moved away ...

  • Lazarus targets defense industry with ThreatNeedle

    February 25, 2021

    We named Lazarus the most active group of 2020. We’ve observed numerous activities by this notorious APT group targeting various industries. The group has changed target depending on the primary objective. Google TAG has recently published a post about a campaign by Lazarus targeting security researchers. After taking a closer look, we identified the malware ...

  • APT32 state hackers target human rights defenders with spyware

    February 23, 2021

    Vietnam-backed hacking group APT32 has coordinated several spyware attacks targeting Vietnamese human rights defenders (HRDs) between February 2018 and November 2020. The state hackers also pointed their attacks at a nonprofit (NPO) human rights organization from Vietnam, as Amnesty International’s Security Lab revealed (full report here). The spyware used by the APT32 hackers allowed them to read ...

  • Accellion FTA Zero-Day Attacks Show Ties to Clop Ransomware, FIN11

    February 22, 2021

    Researchers have identified a set of threat actors (dubbed UNC2546 and UNC2582) with connections to the FIN11 and the Clop ransomware gang as the cybercriminal group behind the global zero-day attacks on users of the Accellion legacy File Transfer Appliance product. Multiple Accellion FTA customers, including the Jones Day Law Firm, Kroger and Singtel, have all ...

  • Chinese hackers cloned attack tool belonging to NSA’s Equation Group

    February 22, 2021

    Chinese threat actors “cloned” and used a Windows zero-day exploit stolen from the NSA’s Equation Group for years before the privilege escalation flaw was patched, researchers say. On Monday, Check Point Research (CPR) said the tool was a “clone” of software developed by the US National Security Agency (NSA)’s Equation Group, identified by FireEye in 2015 ...

  • IronNetInjector: Turla’s New Malware Loading Tool

    February 19, 2021

    In recent years, more and more ready-made malware is released on software development hosting sites available for everybody to use – including threat actors. This not only saves the bad guys development time, but also makes it much easier for them to find new ideas to prevent detection of their malware. Unit 42 researchers have found ...

  • U.S. Accuses North Korean Hackers of Stealing Millions

    February 17, 2021

    The U.S. Department of Justice has indicted three North Korean computer programmers for their alleged participation in widespread, destructive cyberattacks as part of the advanced persistent threat (APT) known as Lazarus Group. The indictment broadens the scope of crimes that the DoJ has linked to Lazarus Group (and by extension, to North Korea). The feds also ...

  • France links Russian Sandworm hackers to hosting provider attacks

    February 15, 2021

    The French national cyber-security agency has linked a series of attacks that resulted in the breach of multiple French IT providers over a span of four years to the Russian-backed Sandworm hacking group. ANSSI (short for Agence Nationale de la Sécurité des Systèmes d’Information) has not been able to determine how the servers were compromised. Therefore, it ...

  • Android spyware strains linked to state-sponsored Confucius threat group

    February 11, 2021

    Two variants of Android spyware connected to pro-India, state-sponsored hacking campaigns have been discovered. On Tuesday, cybersecurity firm Lookout said that two malware strains, dubbed Hornbill and SunBird, have been linked to Confucius, an advanced persistent threat (APT) group thought to be state-sponsored and to have pro-India ties. First detected in 2013, Confucius has been linked to ...