Recently, Mandiant became aware of an APT41 intrusion where the malicious actor deployed a combination of ANTSWORD and BLUEBEAM web shells for persistence.
These web shells were identified on a Tomcat Apache Manager server and active since at least 2023. APT41 utilized these web shells to execute certutil.exe to download the DUSTPAN dropper to stealthily load BEACON. As the APT41 intrusion progressed, the group escalated its tactics by deploying the DUSTTRAP dropper. Upon execution, DUSTTRAP would decrypt a malicious payload and execute it in memory, leaving minimal forensic traces.
Read more…
Source: Mandiant
Related:
- Tracking the recent activities of the APT-Q-27
November 12, 2024
Overview In May 2022, Qi’anxin Threat Intelligence Center published an article titled “Operation Dragon Breath (APT-Q-27): A Dimensionality Reduction Attack on the Gambling Industry”, disclosing the attack activities of GoldenEyeDog (Qi’anxin internal tracking number APT-Q-27) against the gambling industry, and at the end of the article introduced the Miuuti Group —— an attack group targeting ...
- Earth Simnavaz (aka APT34) Levies Advanced Cyberattacks Against Middle East
November 11, 2024
Recently, Trend Micro has been tracking Earth Simnavaz (also known as APT34 and OilRig), a cyber espionage group. This group primarily targets organizations in the energy sector, particularly those involved in oil and gas, as well as other infrastructure. It is known for using sophisticated tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) to gain unauthorized access to networks ...
- QSC: A multi-plugin framework used by CloudComputating group in cyberespionage campaigns
November 8, 2024
In 2021, Kaspersky researchers began to investigate an attack on the telecom industry in South Asia. During the investigation, they discovered QSC: a multi-plugin malware framework that loads and runs plugins (modules) in memory. The framework includes a Loader, a Core module, a Network module, a Command Shell module and a File Manager module. It ...
- New Trend in MSI File Abuse: New OceanLotus Group First to Use MST Files to Deliver Tromas
November 4, 2024
During recent daily operations, the QiAnXin Threat Intelligence Center discovered that the new OceanLotus group, which we have been continuously tracking since mid-2022, has begun to re-activate and is using a new tactic of MSI file misuse. Even though the MSI TRANSFORMS technique was theoretically disclosed in 2022, this is the first time that QiAnXin researchers have ...
- Chinese threat actor Storm-0940 uses credentials from password spray attacks from a covert network
October 31, 2024
Since August 2023, Microsoft has observed intrusion activity targeting and successfully stealing credentials from multiple Microsoft customers that is enabled by highly evasive password spray attacks. Microsoft has linked the source of these password spray attacks to a network of compromised devices we track as CovertNetwork-1658, also known as xlogin and Quad7 (7777). Microsoft is publishing ...
- New Tradecraft of Iranian Cyber Group Aria Sepehr Ayandehsazan aka Emennet Pasargad
October 30, 2024
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), U.S. Department of Treasury, and Israel National Cyber Directorate are releasing this Cybersecurity Advisory (CSA) to warn network defenders of new cyber tradecraft of the Iranian cyber group Emennet Pasargad, which has been operating under the company name Aria Sepehr Ayandehsazan (ASA) and is known by the private sector ...