As security practitioners, Palo Alto Unit 42 researchers spend a lot of time focusing on the threat actors and malware families that leverage the most impactful exploits or affect the highest number of victims. But what happens when a threat actor goes “low and slow” to fly under the radar? One could argue that, in that situation, the threat actor may end up having more impact than some of the more prolific threat groups.
We first noticed that there may be a relationship between the Vatet loader, PyXie Remote Access Tool (RAT) and Defray777 ransomware when there were remnants and/or detections of all three in various Incident Response and Managed Threat Hunting engagements. After digging deep into each malware family, it became apparent that Vatet, PyXie and Defray777 are all associated with the same financially motivated threat group that has been operating since as early as 2018.
That threat group, sometimes referred to as PyXie by BlackBerry Cylance and GOLD DUPONT by SecureWorks, has been actively conducting successful ransomware operations that have impacted organizations in a number of sectors including healthcare, education, government and technology while remaining under the radar.
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Source: Palo Alto