The SolarStorm actors behind the supply chain attack on SolarWinds’ Orion software have demonstrated a high degree of technical sophistication and attention to operational security, as well as a novel combination of techniques in the potential compromise of approximately 18,000 SolarWinds customers. As published in the original disclosure, the attackers were observed removing their initial backdoor once a more legitimate method of persistence was obtained.
In the analysis of the trojanized Orion artifacts, the .NET .dll app_web_logoimagehandler.ashx.b6031896.dll was dubbed SUPERNOVA, but little detail of its operation has been publicly explored. In this blog, we will share an overview of its operation and function, tactics and techniques that support the hypothesis of an advanced persistent threat (APT), and what protections that Palo Alto Networks provides against trojanized SolarWinds instances:
- Attackers created a sophisticated, in-memory webshell baked into Orion’s code, which acted as an interactive .NET runtime API.
- Webshell payload was compiled on the fly and executed dynamically, further complicating endpoint and digital forensics and incident response (DFIR) analysis.
- Anti-spyware signature 83225 has been added to prevent SUPERNOVA traffic.
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Source: Palo Alto