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:

  • Blackremote: Money Money Money – A Swedish Actor Peddles an Expensive New RAT

    October 15, 2019

    While researching prevalent commodity Remote Access Tools (RATs), Unit 42 researchers discovered a new, undocumented RAT in September, which had almost 50 samples observed in more than 2,200 attack sessions within the first month it was sold. In this report, we document the RAT manager/builder, client malware, and profile the Swedish actor behind this together ...

  • IoT: a malware story

    October 15, 2019

    Since 2008, cyber-criminals have been creating malware to attack IoT-devices, such as routers and other types of network equipment. You will find a lot of statistics on this on Securelist, most notably, here and here. The main problem with these IoT/embedded devices is that one simply cannot install any kind of security software. How do we deal with ...

  • Sudo Bug Opens Root Access on Linux Systems

    October 15, 2019

    A vulnerability in Sudo, a core command utility for Linux, could allow a user to execute commands as a root user even if that root access has been specifically disallowed. Sudo is a utility that allows a system administrator to give certain users (or groups of users) the ability to run commands in the context of ...

  • A glimpse into the present state of security in robotics

    October 14, 2019

    The world of today continues its progress toward higher digitalization and mobility. From developments in the Internet of Things (IoT) through augmented reality to Industry 4.0, whichrely on stronger automation and use of robots, all of these bring more efficiency to production processes and improves user experience across the globe. According to some estimates, these systems ...

  • EU Report Highlights Cybersecurity Risks in 5G Networks

    October 14, 2019

    The extent with which 5G networks use software is one of the top security issues for mobile networks as well as devices and current technologies (for example, 3G, 4G) that use or incorporate it, according to an EU report supported by the European Commission and European Union Agency for Cybersecurity. 5G networks are unique compared to ...

  • Fin7 Cybergang Retools With New Malicious Code

    October 11, 2019

    The Fin7 cybercrime group has ramped up its offensive capabilities by adding new malicious code to its malware arsenal. Researchers said that this is evidence that Fin7 is still a growing threat despite the arrest of several Fin7 members in 2018. The notorious group has adopted a new dropper sample called Boostwrite, which uses new detection evasion ...