Advanced Persistent Threat


NEWS 
  • BendyBear: Novel Chinese Shellcode Linked With Cyber Espionage Group BlackTech

    February 9, 2021

    Highly malleable, highly sophisticated and over 10,000 bytes of machine code. This is what Unit 42 researchers were met with during code analysis of this “bear” of a file. The code behavior and features strongly correlate with that of the WaterBear malware family, which has been active since as early as 2009. Analysis by Trend ...

  • Hacking group also used an IE zero-day against security researchers

    February 4, 2021

    An Internet Explorer zero-day vulnerability has been discovered used in recent North Korean attacks against security and vulnerability researchers. Last month, Google disclosed that the North Korean state-sponsored hacking group known as Lazarus was conducting social engineering attacks against security researchers. To perform their attacks, the threat actors created elaborate online ‘security researcher’ personas that would then ...

  • CISA Issues Supply Chain Compromise Alert, Forms Coordination Group with Other Government Agencies

    January 21, 2021

    The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) recently issued an alert regarding an advanced persistent threat (APT) compromising government agencies, critical infrastructures, and private sector organizations. According to CISA, the APT actor is accountable for the compromise of the SolarWinds Orion supply chain. The actor is also responsible for the abuse of commonly used authentication mechanisms. ...

  • Raindrop Backdoor: New Malware Discovered in SolarWinds Investigation

    January 20, 2021

    Symantec, a division of Broadcom, has uncovered an additional piece of malware used in the SolarWinds attacks which was used against a select number of victims that were of interest to the attackers. Raindrop (Backdoor.Raindrop) is a loader which delivers a payload of Cobalt Strike. Raindrop is very similar to the already documented Teardrop tool, but ...

  • XDR investigation uncovers PlugX, unique technique in APT attack

    January 20, 2021

    Advanced persistent threats (APT) are known — and are universally dreaded — for their stealth. Actors behind such attacks actively innovate their techniques to evade detection and ensure that they maintain a foothold inside an environment as long as possible. Through the Apex One with Endpoint Sensor (iES), we discovered one such incident wherein an ...

  • Sophisticated Hacks Against Android, Windows Reveal Zero-Day Trove

    January 13, 2021

    Google researchers have detailed a major hacking campaign that was detected in early 2020, which mounted a series of sophisticated attacks, some using zero-day flaws, against Windows and Android platforms. Working together, researchers from Google Project Zero and the Google Threat Analysis Group (TAG) uncovered the attacks, which were “performed by a highly sophisticated actor,” Ryan ...

  • Sunburst backdoor – code overlaps with Kazuar

    January 11, 2021

    On December 13, 2020, FireEye published a blog post detailing a supply chain attack leveraging Orion IT, an infrastructure monitoring and management platform by SolarWinds. In parallel, Volexity published an article with their analysis of related attacks, attributed to an actor named “Dark Halo”. FireEye did not link this activity to any known actor; instead, ...

  • Adversary Infrastructure Report 2020: A Defender’s View

    January 8, 2021

    Recorded Future tracks the creation and modification of new malicious infrastructure for a multitude of post-exploitation toolkits, custom malware frameworks, and open-source remote access trojans. The effort has been ongoing since 2017, when Insikt Group created methodologies to identify the deployments of open-source remote access trojans (RATs). Recorded Future collected over 10,000 unique command and control ...

  • North Korean hackers launch RokRat Trojan in campaigns against the South

    January 7, 2021

    A North Korean hacking group is utilizing the RokRat Trojan in a fresh wave of campaigns against the South Korean government. The Remote Access Trojan (RAT) has been connected to attacks based on the exploit of a Korean language word processor commonly used in South Korea for several years; specifically, the compromise of Hangul Office documents ...

  • Major Gaming Companies Hit with Ransomware Linked to APT27

    January 5, 2021

    A recent slew of related ransomware attacks on top videogame companies has been associated with the notorious Chinese-linked APT27 threat group, suggesting that the advanced persistent threat (APT) is swapping up its historically espionage centralized tactics to adopt ransomware, a new report says. Researchers noticed the “strong links” to APT27 when they were brought in as ...