How APT41 revived the BlackLotus bootkit to attack diplomatic organizations in Central Asia


Back in October 2022, Kaspersky GReAT was looking into a peculiar advertisement on a hacking forum. A cybercriminal had been advertising a UEFI bootkit, dubbed BlackLotus, that could bypass Secure Boot, for $5,000. Given the low price for such powerful capabilities, the cybersecurity community initially took this advertisement with a grain of salt. As no BlackLotus samples were found in the wild, no one could at the time verify the claims made in the forum post.

However, about half a year later, in March 2023, ESET confirmed that the BlackLotus advertisement was genuine. The researchers tracked down samples of this bootkit and confirmed that it can indeed bypass Secure Boot through a vulnerability called Baton Drop (CVE-2022-21894). As this vulnerability was still exploitable in 2023, Microsoft had to release multiple security updates to address it.

Read more…
Source:  Kaspersky


Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox


Related:

  • Supply Chain Attacks in the Age of Cloud Computing: Risks, Mitigations, and the Importance of Securing Back Ends

    October 26, 2020

    Security is an aspect that every enterprise needs to consider as they use and migrate to cloud-based technologies. On top of the list of resources that enterprises need to secure are networks, endpoints, and applications. However, another critical asset that enterprises should give careful security consideration to is their back-end infrastructure which, if compromised, could ...

  • Emotet malware now wants you to upgrade Microsoft Word

    October 24, 2020

    Emotet switched to a new template this week that pretends to be a Microsoft Office message stating that Microsoft Word needs to be updated to add a new feature. Emotet is a malware infection that spreads through emails containing Word documents with malicious macros. When opening these documents, their contents will try to trick the user ...

  • WastedLocker ransomware hits Boyne Resorts ski resort operator

    October 23, 2020

    US-based ski and golf resort operator Boyne Resorts has suffered a cyberattack by the WastedLocker operation that has impacted company-wide reservation systems. Boyne Resorts owns and operates eleven properties located in the USA and Canada and has 11,000 employees. Many of these properties are situated on well-known ski mountains, including Big Sky, Montana, Sugarloaf, Maine, and ...

  • New Abaddon RAT malware gets commands via Discord, has ransomware feature

    October 23, 2020

    The new ‘Abaddon’ remote access trojan may be the first to use Discord as a full-fledged command and control server that instructs the malware on what tasks to perform on an infected PC. Even worse, a ransomware feature is being developed for the malware. Threat actors abusing Discord for malicious activity is nothing new. In the past, ...

  • COVID-19 Vaccine-Maker Hit with Cyberattack, Data Breach

    October 23, 2020

    COVID-19 vaccine manufacturer Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories has shut down its plants in Brazil, India, Russia, the U.K. and the U.S. following a cyberattack, according to reports. The Indian company is the contractor for Russia’s “Sputinik V” COVID-19 vaccine, which is about to enter Phase 2 human trials. The Drug Control General of India (DCGI) gave the ...

  • US Treasury sanctions Russian research institute behind Triton malware

    October 23, 2020

    The US Treasury Department announced sanctions today against a Russian research institute for its role in developing Triton, a malware strain designed to attack industrial equipment. Sanctions were levied today against the State Research Center of the Russian Federation FGUP Central Scientific Research Institute of Chemistry and Mechanics (also known as CNIIHM or TsNIIKhM). A FireEye report ...