Earth Koshchei Coopts Red Team Tools in Complex RDP Attacks


Red teaming provides essential tools and testing methodologies for organizations to strengthen their security defenses. Cybercriminals and advanced persistent threat (APT) actors pay close attention to new methods and tools red teams develop, and they may repurpose them with a malicious intent.

In October 2024, an APT group that Trend Micro tracks as Earth Koshchei (also known as APT29 and Midnight Blizzard), likely used a rogue remote desktop protocol (RDP) attack methodology against numerous targets. This methodology was described earlier in 2022 by Black Hills Information Security in detail. The attack technique is called “rogue RDP”, which involves an RDP relay, a rogue RDP server, and a malicious RDP configuration file. A victim of this technique would give partial control of their machine to the attacker, potentially leading to data leakage and malware installation.

Read more…
Source: Trend Micro


Sign up for our Newsletter


Related:

  • Technology developed to track spread of coronavirus could be abused, privacy campaigner warns

    January 16, 2022

    A medical privacy campaigner says technology developed to track the spread of COVID-19 is a new form of surveillance that could be abused. Phil Booth, coordinator at MedConfidential, warned that increased monitoring of wastewater from sinks, drains and toilets, which can reveal infections and drug use, needs to be properly regulated. “The concerns will be raised more ...

  • Cybersecurity for Industrial Control Systems: Part 1

    January 15, 2022

    The ever-changing technological landscape has made it possible for the business process on the IT side of an enterprise to be interconnected with the physical process on the OT side. While this advancement has improved visibility, speed, and efficiency, it has exposed industrial control systems (ICSs) to threats affecting IT networks for years. Our expert team ...

  • Destructive malware targeting Ukrainian organizations

    January 15, 2022

    Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) has identified evidence of a destructive malware operation targeting multiple organizations in Ukraine. This malware first appeared on victim systems in Ukraine on January 13, 2022. Microsoft is aware of the ongoing geopolitical events in Ukraine and surrounding region and encourages organizations to use the information in this post to ...

  • Critical Cisco Contact Center Bug Threatens Customer-Service Havoc

    January 14, 2022

    Cisco UCCE is an on-premises customer-service platform capable of supporting up to 24,000 customer-service agents using channels that include inbound voice, outbound voice, outbound interactive voice response (IVR) and digital channels. It also offers a feedback loop via post-call IVR, email and web intercept surveys; and various reporting options to gather information on agent performance ...

  • Former DHS official charged with stealing govt employees’ PII

    January 14, 2022

    A former Department of Homeland Security acting inspector general pleaded guilty today to stealing confidential and proprietary software and sensitive databases from the US government containing employees’ personal identifying information (PII). 61-year-old Charles Kumar Edwards coordinated the scheme while working for DHS-OIG (Department of Homeland Security, Office of Inspector General) as an employee and acting IG ...

  • Analyzing an Old Bug and Discovering CVE-2021-30995

    January 14, 2022

    On April 26, 2021 Apple patched CVE-2021-1740, which was a vulnerable function inside the system daemon process cfprefsd (these types of processes usually run in the background and handle system tasks). The bug could have been exploited to read arbitrary files, write arbitrary files, and get root privilege escalation. It was addressed in Apple’s Security ...