APT (Targeted attacks)

A couple of days after the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, we received information from several partners, on the condition of non-disclosure (TLP:Red), about a devastating malware attack on the Olympic infrastructure.

Sofacy, also known as APT28, Fancy Bear, and Tsar Team, is a highly active and prolific APT. From their high volume 0day deployment to their innovative and broad malware set, Sofacy is one of the top groups that we monitor, report, and protect against. 2017 was not any different in this regard.

At the beginning of October 2017, we discovered new Android spyware with several features previously unseen in the wild. In the course of further research, we found a number of related samples that point to a long-term development process. We believe the initial versions of this malware were created at least three years ago.

In IR cases we use a very simple script that is uploaded to every Windows computer in the corporate network to collect logs, NTFS data, entries from the Windows registry and strings from the binary files to find out how exactly the attackers were moving through the network. It’s holiday season and it is our pleasure to share this script with you.

We have been detecting attacks that have employed the use of PYLOT malware since at least 2015 and refer to it as Travle. Coincidentally, KL was recently involved in an investigation of a successful attack where Travle was detected, during which we conducted a deep analysis of this malware.

The end of the year is a good time to take stock of the main cyberthreat incidents that took place over the preceding 12 months or so. To reflect on the impact these events had on organizations and individuals, and consider what they could mean for the overall evolution of the threat landscape.

In early October, a story was published by the Wall Street Journal alleging Kaspersky Lab software was used to siphon classified data from an NSA employee’s home computer system. To assist any independent investigators and all the people who have been asking us questions whether those allegations were true, we decided to conduct an internal investigation to attempt to answer a few questions we had related to the article and some others

Beginning in the second quarter of 2017, Kaspersky’s Global Research and Analysis Team (GReAT) began publishing summaries of the quarter’s private threat intelligence reports in an effort to make the public aware of what research we have been conducting.  This report serves as the next installment, focusing on important reports produced during Q3 of 2017.

Gaza cybergang is an Arabic politically motivated cyber criminal group, operating since 2012 and is actively targeting the MENA (Middle East North Africa) region. Gaza cybergang attacks have never slowed down, recent targets by the group does seem to be varied in nature, attackers do not seem to be selectively choosing targets, but rather seeking different kinds of MENA intelligence.

On October 10, 2017, we identified a new Adobe Flash zero day exploit used in the wild against our customers. The exploit was delivered through a Microsoft Office document and the final payload was the latest version of FinSpy malware.

The 2017 VirusBulletin conference is upon us and, as in previous years, we’re taking the opportunity to dive into an exciting subject, guided by our experience from doing hands-on APT research.

We’re already used to the fact that complex cyberattacks use 0-day vulnerabilities, bypassing digital signature checks, virtual file systems, non-standard encryption algorithms and other tricks. Sometimes, however, all of this may be done in much simpler ways, as was the case in the Microcin malicious campaign.

A little while back we were investigating the malicious activities of the Freakyshelly targeted attack and came across spear phishing emails that had some interesting documents attached to them. They were in OLE2 format and contained no macros, exploits or any other active content.

WhiteBear is a parallel project or second stage of the Skipper Turla cluster of activity documented in another private intelligence report “Skipper Turla – the White Atlas framework” from mid-2016.

In July 2017, during an investigation, suspicious DNS requests were identified in a partner’s network. The source of the queries was a software package produced by NetSarang. Our analysis showed that recent versions of the software had been surreptitiously modified to include an encrypted payload that could be remotely activated by a knowledgeable attacker.