Unit 42 researchers uncovered a campaign by an initial access broker (IAB) to exploit leaked Machine Keys — cryptographic keys used on ASP.NET sites — to gain access to targeted organizations.
IABs breach organizations and then sell that access to other threat actors. This report analyzes the tools used in these attacks. Palo Alto track this actor as the temporary group TGR-CRI-0045. The group seems to follow an opportunistic approach but has attacked organizations in Europe and the U.S. in the following industries: financial services, manufacturing, wholesale and retail, high technology, and transportation and logistics. The IAB used these leaked keys to sign malicious payloads that provide unauthorized access to targeted servers, in a technique called ASP.NET View State deserialization.
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Source: Palo Alto Unit 42
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