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- Security Affairs
- Nation-state actors exploited two zero-days in ASA and FTD firewalls to breach government networks
Nation-state actors exploited two zero-days in ASA and FTD firewalls to breach government networks
Nation-state actor UAT4356 has been exploiting two zero-days in ASA and FTD firewalls since November 2023 to breach government networks.
Cisco Talos warned that the nation-state actor UAT4356 (aka STORM-1849) has been exploiting two zero-day vulnerabilities in Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) and Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) firewalls since November 2023 to breach government networks worldwide.
Cisco Talos researchers tracked this cyber-espionage campaign as ArcaneDoor.
Early in 2024, a customer contacted Cisco to report a suspicious related to its Cisco Adaptive Security Appliances (ASA). PSIRT and Talos launched an investigation to support the customer.
The experts discovered that the UAT4356 group deployed two backdoors, respectively called “Line Runner” and “Line Dancer.”
Cisco reported that the sophisticated attack chain employed by the attackers impacted a small set of customers. The experts have yet to identify the initial attack vector, however, they discovered the threat actors exploited two vulnerabilities (CVE-2024-20353 (denial of service) and CVE-2024-20359 (persistent local code execution)) as zero-days in these attacks.
The Line Dancer in-memory implant that acts as a memory-resident shellcode interpreter that allows adversaries to execute arbitrary shellcode payloads. On compromised ASA devices, attackers utilize the host-scan-reply field to deliver shellcode, bypassing the need for CVE-2018-0101 exploitation. By redirecting the pointer to the Line Dancer interpreter, attackers can interact with the device through POST requests without authentication. Threat actors used Line Dancer to execute various commands, including disabling syslog, extracting configuration data, generating packet captures, and executing CLI commands. Additionally, Line Dancer hooks into the crash dump and AAA processes to evade forensic analysis and establish remote access VPN tunnels.
The Line Runner allows attackers to maintain persistence on compromised ASA devices. It exploits a legacy capability related to VPN client pre-loading, triggering at boot by searching for a specific file pattern on disk0:. Upon detection, it unzips and executes a Lua script, providing persistent HTTP-based backdoor access. This backdoor survives reboots and upgrades, allowing threat actors to maintain control. Additionally, the Line Runner was observed retrieving staged information facilitated by the Line Dancer component.
“ArcaneDoor is a campaign that is the latest example of state-sponsored actors targeting perimeter network devices from multiple vendors. Coveted by these actors, perimeter network devices are the perfect intrusion point for espionage-focused campaigns. As a critical path for data into and out of the network, these devices need to be routinely and promptly patched; using up-to-date hardware and software versions and configurations; and be closely monitored from a security perspective.” reads the alert published by Cisco, which also includes Indicators of Compromise (IOCs). “Gaining a foothold on these devices allows an actor to directly pivot into an organization, reroute or modify traffic and monitor network communications.”
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(SecurityAffairs – hacking, ASA)
Hackers hijacked the eScan Antivirus update mechanism in malware campaign
A malware campaign has been exploiting the updating mechanism of the eScan antivirus to distribute backdoors and cryptocurrency miners.
Avast researchers discovered and analyzed a malware campaign that exploited the update mechanism of the eScan antivirus to distribute backdoors and crypto miners.
Threat actors employed two different types of backdoors and targeted large corporate networks
The researchers believe the campaign could be attributed to North Korea-linked AP Kimsuky. The final payload distributed by GuptiMiner was also XMRig.
“GuptiMiner is a highly sophisticated threat that uses an interesting infection chain along with a couple of techniques that include performing DNS requests to the attacker’s DNS servers, performing sideloading, extracting payloads from innocent-looking images, signing its payloads with a custom trusted root anchor certification authority, among others.” reads the analysis published by Avast. “The main objective of GuptiMiner is to distribute backdoors within big corporate networks.”
The threat actors behind this campaign exploited a vulnerability in the update mechanism of the Indian antivirus provider eScan that allowed them to carry out a man-in-the-middle attack to distribute the malware. Avast already reported the issue to eScan and the India CERT. eScan acknowledged the flaw and addressed it on July 31, 2023. The issue in the update mechanism was present for at least five years.
The infection process begins when eScan requests an update from the update server. However, the attackers carry out a MitM attack and replace the legitimate update package with a malicious one. Subsequently, eScan unpacks and installs the package, which results in the sideloading of a DLL by eScan’s clean binaries. This DLL facilitates the continuation of the process, leading to the execution of multiple shellcodes and intermediary PE loaders.
The researchers noticed that the downloaded package file is replaced with a malware-laced one on the wire because the process doesn’t use an HTTPS connection.
Below the infection chain described by Avast:
- The eScan updater triggers the update
- The downloaded package file is replaced with a malicious one on the wire because of a missing HTTPS encryption (MitM is performed)
- A malicious package
updll62.dlz
is downloaded and unpacked by eScan updater - The contents of the package contain a malicious DLL (usually called
version.dll
) that is sideloaded by eScan. Because of the sideloading, the DLL runs with the same privileges as the source process – eScan – and it is loaded next time eScan runs, usually after a system restart - If a mutex is not present in the system (depends on the version, e.g.
Mutex_ONLY_ME_V1
), the malware searches forservices.exe
process and injects its next stage into the first one it can find - Cleanup is performed, removing the update package
GuptiMiner operates its own DNS servers to provide legitimate destination domain addresses of C2 servers through DNS TXT responses.
GuptiMiner connects directly to malicious DNS servers, bypassing the DNS network entirely. This use of the DNS protocol resembles telnet and is not considered DNS spoofing, which typically occurs within the DNS network. Although the servers requested by GuptiMiner exist, it’s likely an evasion tactic.
In the second-stage the shellcode from the PNG file extracts and executes the Gzip loader. This loader is a simple PE that decompresses another shellcode using Gzip and executes it in a separate thread that kiads the Stage 3 malware Puppeteer.
Puppeteer orchestrates the core functionality of the malware, including the cryptocurrency mining as well as the backdoor deployment.
Surprisingly, the ultimate payload disseminated by GuptiMiner can be also XMRig, which was somewhat unexpected given the level of sophistication of this campaign.
The researchers speculate that using the miner could be a diversionary tactic.
“During our research, we’ve also found an information stealer which holds a rather similar PDB path as was used across the whole GuptiMiner campaign.” concludes the report. “What is truly interesting, however, is that this information stealer might come from Kimsuky operations.”
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(SecurityAffairs – hacking, eScan antivirus)
U.S. Treasury Sanctions Iranian Firms and Individuals Tied to Cyber Attacks
Researchers Detail Multistage Attack Hijacking Systems with SSLoad, Cobalt Strike
Major Security Flaws Expose Keystrokes of Over 1 Billion Chinese Keyboard App Users
US offers a $10 million reward for information on four Iranian nationals
The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned four Iranian nationals for their role in cyberattacks against the U.S..
The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed sanctions on four Iranian nationals for their involvement in cyberattacks against the U.S. government, defense contractors, and private companies. OFAC has also sanctioned two front companies, Mehrsam Andisheh Saz Nik (MASN) and Dadeh Afzar Arman (DAA) linked to the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Cyber Electronic Command (IRGC-CEC).
The Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Cyber-Electronic Command (IRGC-CEC) is an organization within the Iranian government responsible for cybersecurity and cyber warfare. It is considered a major threat by many countries, including the United States, due to its involvement in various malicious cyber activities.
The Iranian nationals were involved in attacks against more than a dozen U.S. companies and government entities. The individuals launched spear-phishing and malware attacks. The U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation unsealed an indictment against the four individuals for their roles in these cyber operations.
“Iranian malicious cyber actors continue to target U.S. companies and government entities in a coordinated, multi-pronged campaign intended to destabilize our critical infrastructure and cause harm to our citizens,” said Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian E. Nelson. “The United States will continue to leverage our whole-of-government approach to expose and disrupt these networks’ operations.”
Iranian cyber actors persist in targeting the United States through various malicious cyber activities, including ransomware attacks on critical infrastructure and spear phishing campaigns against individuals, companies, and government entities.
The four Iranian nationals are Hossein Harooni, Reza Kazemifar, Komeil Baradaran Salmani, and Alireza Shafie Nasab — are accused of participating in a malware operation using spear-phishing and other hacking techniques to harvest hundreds of thousands of corporate employee accounts.
Alireza Shafie Nasab and Reza Kazemifar Rahman targeted the U.S. entities while employed by MASN. Kazemifar was involved in the attacks against the Department of the Treasury. Hosein Mohammad Harooni targeted the Treasury Department and other U.S. entities using spear phishing and social engineering. Komeil Baradaran Salmani operated with several IRGC-CEC front companies and was involved in spear-phishing campaigns targeting various U.S. entities, including the Department of the Treasury.
“As a result of today’s action, all property and interests in property of the designated persons described above that are in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons are blocked and must be reported to OFAC. In addition, any entities that are owned, directly or indirectly, individually or in the aggregate, 50 percent or more by one or more blocked persons are also blocked. Unless authorized by a general or specific license issued by OFAC, or exempt, OFAC’s regulations generally prohibit all transactions by U.S. persons or within (or transiting) the United States that involve any property or interests in property of designated or otherwise blocked persons.” reads the announcement. “In addition, financial institutions and other persons that engage in certain transactions or activities with the sanctioned entities and individuals may expose themselves to sanctions or be subject to an enforcement action.”
The four men are still at large.
The Department of State also announced a $10 million reward for information leading to the arrest of the four Iranian nationals.
In February, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed sanctions on six Iranian government officials associated with cyberattacks targeting critical infrastructure organizations in the US and abroad.
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(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Iran)
The street lights in Leicester City cannot be turned off due to a cyber attack
A cyber attack on Leicester City Council resulted in certain street lights remaining illuminated all day and severely impacted the council’s operations
The Leicester City Council suffered a cyber attack that severely impacted the authority’s services in March and led to the leak of confidential documents. The ransomware group behind the attack leaked multiple documents, including rent statements and applications to buy council houses. The attack occurred on March 7 and crippled the city council’s IT systems.
Some lights have been stuck in all day due to the cyber attack and the council is unable to turn them off.
“Beaumont Leys resident Roger Ewens, 65, noticed the street lights in his road were on constantly and asked the city council why. He was surprised when he received a reply blaming the cyber attack for affecting the “central management system” and leading to the streetlights “misbehaving”.” reported the website LeicesterLive.
The issue with street lighting should be fully resolved by the end of next week.
“We are aware of a number of streetlights that are staying on during the day. This is due to a technical issue connected to the recent cyber attack, when we were forced to shut down our IT systems. It means we are currently not able to remotely identify faults in the street lighting system.” said a city council spokesperson. “The default mode for faults is that the lights stay on to ensure that roads are not left completely unlit and become a safety concern. “There are a number of steps required to resolve the problem, and we are working through these as quickly as we can.”
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(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Leicester City)
eScan Antivirus Update Mechanism Exploited to Spread Backdoors and Miners
CoralRaider Malware Campaign Exploits CDN Cache to Spread Info-Stealers
North Korea-linked APT groups target South Korean defense contractors
The National Police Agency in South Korea warns that North Korea-linked threat actors are targeting defense industry entities.
The National Police Agency in South Korea warns that North Korea-linked threat actors are targeting defense industry entities to steal defense technology information.
North Korea-linked APT groups Lazarus, Andariel, and Kimsuky hacked multiple defense companies in South Korea, reported the National Police Agency.
The state-sponsored hackers hacked into the subcontractors of defense companies by exploiting vulnerabilities in the targeted systems and deployed malware.
“North Korean hacking organizations sometimes infiltrated defense companies directly, and their security is relatively low. Hacking into vulnerable defense industry partners and stealing the defense industry company’s server account information. Afterwards, it was discovered that threat actors had infiltrated major servers without permission and distributed malware.” reads the Police’s advisory shared by BleepingComputer.
The National Police Agency and the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) conducted a series of special inspections of the environments of the targeted organizations.
The joint inspections occurred between January 15 and February 16 and impacted organizations implemented protective measures.
The Police states that the attacks are carried out in the form of an all-out war that see the contribution of multiple APT groups. The government experts warned that the attackers employed sophisticated hacking techniques.
The South Korea National Police Agency provided details of multiple attacks carried out by different APT groups.
In one case, the Lazarus APT group successfully breached an organization due poorly protected infrastructure. The group gained access to the network of a defense industry company since November 2022. The hackers deployed a malware and took control of the company’s internal network and exfiltrared important data from, including information stored on the computers of employees in the development team. The hackers breached at least 6 internal computers and stolen data were sent to overseas cloud servers
In a second case attributed to the Andariel APT group, threat actors used an account of an employee of a company that maintains the server of a defense industry company. The attackers stole the account in October 2022 and used it to deploy malware on the servers of defense subcontractors. The malware was used to exfiltrate technical data of valuable defense technology. The Police noticed that the employee was using the same password for personal and work accounts.
In a third attack linked to Kimsuky, the APT group exploited a vulnerability in the email server of a defense subcontractor between April and July 2023. Attackers exploited the flaw to download large files containing technical data without any authentication.
The National Police Agency recommends that defense companies and their subcontractors enhance their cybersecurity.
“North Korea’s hacking attempts targeting defense technology will continue.” concludes the advisory. “The National Police Agency will continue to track and investigate state-sponsored hacking organizations linked to North Korea.”
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(SecurityAffairs – hacking, North Korea)
Apache Cordova App Harness Targeted in Dependency Confusion Attack
Webinar: Learn Proactive Supply Chain Threat Hunting Techniques
Unmasking the True Cost of Cyberattacks: Beyond Ransom and Recovery
Police Chiefs Call for Solutions to Access Encrypted Data in Serious Crime Cases
German Authorities Issue Arrest Warrants for Three Suspected Chinese Spies
- Security Affairs
- U.S. Gov imposed Visa restrictions on 13 individuals linked to commercial spyware activity
U.S. Gov imposed Visa restrictions on 13 individuals linked to commercial spyware activity
The U.S. Department of State imposed visa restrictions on 13 individuals allegedly linked to the commercial spyware business.
The US Department of State is imposing visa restrictions on 13 individuals involved in the development and sale of commercial spyware or their immediate family members. The measure aims to counter the misuse of surveillance technology targeting journalists, academics, human rights defenders, dissidents, and US Government personnel, as documented in the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices.
“the Department is taking steps to impose visa restrictions on 13 individuals who have been involved in the development and sale of commercial spyware or who are immediate family members of those involved.” reads the announcement. “These individuals have facilitated or derived financial benefit from the misuse of this technology, which has targeted journalists, academics, human rights defenders, dissidents and other perceived critics, and U.S. Government personnel.”
The announcement doesn’t name the individuals targeted by the visa restrictions.
The visa restrictions are part of a broader initiative launched by the US government aimed at countering the proliferation of commercial spyware. Other measures proposed and adopted by the US authorities include restrictions on the government’s use of such spyware, export controls, and sanctions to promote accountability.
“The US government believes that the engagement of civil society and the private sector in identifying technological solutions to prevent the misuse of spyware, safeguard human rights defenders, and strengthen the resilience of victims is essential.”
In February, the U.S. State Department announced it is implementing a new policy to impose visa restrictions on individuals involved in the misuse of commercial spyware.
The policy underscores the U.S. Government’s commitment to addressing the misuse of surveillance software, which poses a significant threat to society
“The misuse of commercial spyware threatens privacy and freedoms of expression, peaceful assembly, and association. Such targeting has been linked to arbitrary detentions, forced disappearances, and extrajudicial killings in the most egregious of cases. Additionally, the misuse of these tools presents a security and counterintelligence threat to U.S. personnel.” reads the announcement. The United States stands on the side of human rights and fundamental freedoms and will continue to promote accountability for individuals involved in commercial spyware misuse.”
The policy specifically addresses the abuse of commercial spyware for unlawfully surveilling, harassing, suppressing, or intimidating individuals.
Visa restrictions target individuals believed to facilitate or derive financial benefit from the misuse of commercial spyware and also surveillance companies that act on behalf of governments.
The restrictions are extended to the immediate family members of the targeted individuals, including spouses and children of any age.
In March 2023, the US Government issued an Executive Order on the prohibition on use by the United States Government of commercial spyware that poses risks to national security.
In July 2023, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) added surveillance technology vendors Intellexa and Cytrox to the Entity List for trafficking in cyber exploits used to gain access to information systems.
The Entity List maintained by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) is a trade control list created and maintained by the U.S. government. It identifies foreign individuals, organizations, companies, and government entities that are subject to specific export controls and restrictions due to their involvement in activities that threaten the U.S. national security or foreign policy interests.
The U.S. Government warns of the key role that surveillance technology plays in surveillance activities that can lead to repression and other human rights abuses.
The Commerce Department’s action targeted the above companies because their technology could contribute to the development of surveillance tools that pose a risk of misuse in violations or abuses of human rights.
The financial entities added to the Entity List include Intellexa S.A. in Greece, Cytrox Holdings Crt in Hungary, Intellexa Limited in Ireland, and Cytrox AD in North Macedonia.
In May 2023, Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) researchers discovered three campaigns, between August and October 2021, targeting Android users with five zero-day vulnerabilities.
The attacks aimed at installing the surveillance spyware Predator, developed by the North Macedonian firm Cytrox.
According to Google, the exploits were included in Cytrox’s commercial surveillance spyware that is sold to different nation-state actors, including Egypt, Armenia, Greece, Madagascar, Côte d’Ivoire, Serbia, Spain, and Indonesia.
In December 2022, a report published by CitizenLab researchers detailed the use of the Predator spyware against exiled politician Ayman Nour and the host of a popular news program.
The disconcerting aspect of these attacks is that Ayman Nour’s phone was simultaneously infected with both Cytrox’s Predator and NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware, operated by two different nation-state actors.
The exploits were used to initially deliver the ALIEN Android banking Trojan that acts as a loader for the PREDATOR implant.
In November 2021, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) sanctioned four companies for the development of spyware or the sale of hacking tools used by nation-state actors.
The surveillance firms were NSO Group and Candiru from Israel, Computer Security Initiative Consultancy PTE. LTD from Singapore, and Positive Technologies from Russia.
NSO Group and Candiru were sanctioned for the development and sale of surveillance software used to spy on journalists and activists. Positive Technologies and Computer Security Initiative Consultancy PTE. LTD. are being sanctioned because both entities traffic in cyber exploits used by threat actors to compromise computer networks of organizations worldwide. The US authorities have added the companies to the Entity List based on their engagement in activities counter to U.S. national security.
In the last couple of years, like NSO Group and Candiru, made the headlines because totalitarian regimes used their spyware to spy on journalists, dissidents, and government opposition.
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(SecurityAffairs – hacking, commercial spyware)
A cyber attack paralyzed operations at Synlab Italia
A cyber attack has been disrupting operations at Synlab Italia, a leading provider of medical diagnosis services, since April 18.
Since April 18, Synlab Italia, a major provider of medical diagnosis services, has been experiencing disruptions due to a cyber attack.
The company initially cited technical issues as the cause leading to “temporary interruption of access to computer and telephone systems and related services.” However, a concerning scenario has emerged a few hours later.
The company has released a statement informing customers of the ongoing attack and has “disabled” all company computer systems in Italy as a precautionary measure.
Patients are facing significant disruptions, with many social media users complaining about their inability to access urgently needed diagnostic test results.
The company’s statement announced the suspension of all activities at sampling points, medical centers, and laboratories in Italy until further notice.
Synlab immediately investigated the incident and is working with external experts to contain it.
Certain passages of the statement raise particular concerns:
“SYNLAB informs all Patients and Customers that it has been the victim of a hacker attack on its computer systems throughout the national territory. As a precaution, all company computer systems in Italy were immediately disabled following the identification of the attack and in accordance with the company’s computer security procedures.”
[SYNLAB] is currently unable to determine when operations can be restored.
These statements highlight the need for the company to isolate systems to prevent the spread of the threat and mitigate its impact.
Such drastic containment measures are typically associated with malware infections, while the unavailability of affected systems often suggests a ransomware infection.
Therefore, companies that suffer a ransomware attack cannot predict when they will be operational again because they need to eradicate the threat from affected systems and restore any backups.
Another concern for companies affected by ransomware is the potential exfiltration of data. If health information is stolen in the case of SYNLAB Italy, it would pose a serious risk to affected customers’ privacy and security.
The latest update provided by the company states:
“Currently, the SYNLAB task force is analyzing every single part of the IT infrastructure, including backup systems, in order to restore its systems securely as soon as possible. The company has also filed a report with the Postal Police and initiated the preliminary notification procedure to the Italian Data Protection Authority.” reads the statement. “SYNLAB has apologized to its patients for the inconveniences caused by the current situation and has made available dedicated telephone and social media channels for managing requests and providing information, referring to all facilities in the territories. The company is continuously updating patients, clients, and the public through the website www.synlab.it and social media channels.”
A similar scenario occurred previously at the French branch of the group, Synlab.fr, when it was targeted in an attack by the Clop group, specializing in extortion activities. While the attacks appear unrelated, they serve as a warning for the entire sector.
The increasing number of attacks against healthcare companies exposes the medical information of millions of citizens, which remains easily accessible to criminals.
In February, 2024, a cybersecurity alert published by the FBI, CISA, and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) warned U.S. healthcare organizations of targeted attacks conducted by ALPHV/Blackcat ransomware attacks.
The US agencies released a report containing IOCs and TTPs associated with the ALPHV Blackcat RaaS operation identified through law enforcement investigations conducted as recently as February 2024.
As for the SynLab case, further information on the incident is awaited as the company works to restore operations and secure user information.
Italian readers can give a look at my Post on the Italian Newspaper La Repubblica:
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(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Synlab Italia)
U.S. Imposes Visa Restrictions on 13 Linked to Commercial Spyware Misuse
Russia's APT28 Exploited Windows Print Spooler Flaw to Deploy 'GooseEgg' Malware
Last Week in Security (LWiS) - 2024-04-22
Last Week in Security is a summary of the interesting cybersecurity news, techniques, tools and exploits from the past week. This post covers 2024-04-16 to 2024-04-22.
News
- VASA-1: Lifelike Audio-Driven Talking Faces Generated in Real Time - Just when you thought you could trust the CFO ordering you to transfer all that money via Zoom...
- Build the future of AI with Meta Llama 3 - The best "open source" (sort of) model yet. Local AI just got a big boost.
- How we built the new Find My Device network with user security and privacy in mind - Google enters the "Find My" crowdsourced device-locating network game with the similarly named "Find My Device" network. It support the standard which allows trackers to be detected by iOS devices (and vice-versa) so unwanted trackers will alert users.
- GitHub comments abused to push malware via Microsoft repo URLs - The fact that GitHub will upload a file to a publically accessable URL during comment editing, actors don't need to publish comments to get files hosted under trusted projects URLs. If you're ok with giving your payload to Microsoft (GitHub), this is a pretty sneaky way to host it.
- Open Source Security (OpenSSF) and OpenJS Foundations Issue Alert for Social Engineering Takeovers of Open Source Projects - Echos of the XZ backdoor are still being felt.
- SSO tax, cut - Tailscale is the best VPN solution there is (unsponsored opinion). Between this change and Tailnet lock, they have eliminated all issues I had with their service. If you're a self-hosting true purist, there is still headscale.
- MITRE Response to Cyber Attack in One of Its R&D Networks - MITRE was hit with the Ivanti 0day. Good transparency on what took place. Additional details here.
- An Introduction to the Canadian Program for Cyber Security Certification (CPCSC) - Starting at the end of 2024, Canadian defense industry suppliers will need to be certified under the Canadian Program for Cyber Security Certification (CPCSC) to bid on certain government contracts, an initiative designed to enhance security measures within the nation's federal contracting processes.
- What We Learned Inside a North Korean Internet Server: How Well Do You Know Your Partners? - A misconfigured North Korean internet server exposes the nation's outsourcing of animation work. Is your "IT partner" North Korea?
Techniques and Write-ups
- ouned.py: Exploiting Hidden Organizational Units Acl Attack Vectors in Active Directory - You know "GenericAll" but what other OU permissions can be abused in Active Directory? Read this post to learn about gPLink poisoning. OUned is the tool.
- CVE-2023-6345: Integer overflow in Skia MeshOp::onCombineIfPossible - An intiger overflow in the Skia graphics library has been used to exploit Chrome. The fact that it would not appear in debug builds due to assert calls that are not compiled with release builds is interesting. Make sure you are fuzzing release binaries!
- Element Android CVE-2024-26131, CVE-2024-26132 - Never Take Intents From Strangers - A very in-depth post on Android app Intents and how they can be exploited, especially in "high security" apps like chat or cyptocurrency apps.
- CVE-2024-20356: Jailbreaking a Cisco appliance to run DOOM - The out-of-band management chips on enterprise servers are nutorious for being vulnerable. Cisco's is no exception.
- LSA Whisperer - Some seriously indepth research into the local security authority (LSA) of Windows which leads to all kinds of functionality. My favorite is the possible use of CacheLogon to cache a specific NT hash into an active logon session which will allow for stable Pass-the-hash without having to patch LSASS memory (but will require injection into LSASS). I can only imagine the amount of reverse-engineering it took to get to the lsa-whisperer.
- A Crash Course in Hardware Hacking Methodology: The Ones and Zeros - A good primer on IoT hacking.
- Passbolt: a bold use of HaveIBeenPwned - Passbolt is a password manager that uses the HaveIBeenPwned API to check if a password has been compromised. This post goes into the details of how they implemented it.
- Patch Diffing CVE-2024-3400 from a Palo Alto NGFW Marketplace AMI - Saving some of the commands here for future use. Those AWS AMIs can certainly come in handy.
- ROPGadget: Writing a ROPDecoder - This post discusses creating a ROPDecoder from scratch, detailing the selection and use of ROP gadgets to encode and decode shellcode, and automating the process to handle bad characters effectively in exploit dev.
- The Windows Registry Adventure #1: Introduction and research results - Wild. Mateusz Jurczyk of Google Project Zero audited the Windows Registry for local privilege escalation bugs over 20 months, identifying multiple vulnerabilities now fixed as 44 CVEs by Microsoft, utilizing methods from fuzzing to manual review in an extensive security research effort.
- State of DevSecOps - Datadog's State of DevSecOps report is out. TLDR - Java/JS account for tons of issues, automated security scanners are just noise, the industry sucks at prioritizing what to fix, manual cloud deployments (no IaC) is still very common, and more.
Tools and Exploits
- CVE-2024-21111 - Oracle VirtualBox Elevation of Privilege (Local Privilege Escalation) Vulnerability.
- lsa-whisperer - Tools for interacting with authentication packages using their individual message protocols.
- KExecDD - Admin to Kernel code execution using the KSecDD driver.
- CloudConsoleCartographer - Released at Black Hat Asia on April 18, 2024, Cloud Console Cartographer is a framework for condensing groupings of cloud events (e.g. CloudTrail logs) and mapping them to the original user input actions in the management console UI for simplified analysis and explainability.
- PasteBomb - PasteBomb C2-less RAT. The creator of this project is only 13 years old. Impressive! Great work.
- poutine - poutine is a security scanner that detects misconfigurations and vulnerabilities in the build pipelines of a repository. It supports parsing CI workflows from GitHub Actions and Gitlab CI/CD.
- panos-scanner - Determine the Palo Alto PAN-OS software version of a remote GlobalProtect portal or management interface.
- LetMeowIn - A sophisticated, covert Windows-based credential dumper using C++ and MASM x64.
- MagicDot - A set of rootkit-like abilities for unprivileged users, and vulnerabilities based on the DOT-to-NT path conversion known issue.
New to Me and Miscellaneous
This section is for news, techniques, write-ups, tools, and off-topic items that weren't released last week but are new to me. Perhaps you missed them too!
- smugglefuzz - A rapid HTTP downgrade smuggling scanner written in Go.
- netz - Discover internet-wide misconfigurations while drinking coffee.
- cognito-scanner - A simple script which implements different Cognito attacks such as Account Oracle or Privilege Escalation.
- Amplified exposure: How AWS flaws made Amplify IAM roles vulnerable to takeover - A deep dive into AWS Amplify and how it can be abused.
- Elastic Universal Profiling agent, a continuous profiling solution, is now open source - Elastic has open sourced their profiling agent.
- Active Directory Hardening Series - Part 4 - Enforcing AES for Kerberos - Part 4 of the Active Directory Hardening Series.
- The Ultimate Guide for BloodHound Community Edition (BHCE) - A guide to BloodHound Community Edition. Also gives the background of the project for those that are new to Bloodhound in general.
- Living Off the Pipeline - "....to inventory how development tools (typically CLIs), commonly used in CI/CD pipelines, have lesser-known RCE-By-Design features ("foot guns"), or more generally, can be used to achieve arbitrary code execution by running on untrusted code changes or following a workflow injection. "
- BAADTokenBroker post-exploitation tool designed to leverage device-stored keys (Device key, Transport key etc..) to authenticate to Microsoft Entra ID.
Techniques, tools, and exploits linked in this post are not reviewed for quality or safety. Do your own research and testing.
- Security Affairs
- Russia-linked APT28 used post-compromise tool GooseEgg to exploit CVE-2022-38028 Windows flaw
Russia-linked APT28 used post-compromise tool GooseEgg to exploit CVE-2022-38028 Windows flaw
Russia-linked APT28 group used a previously unknown tool, dubbed GooseEgg, to exploit Windows Print Spooler service flaw.
Microsoft reported that the Russia-linked APT28 group (aka “Forest Blizzard”, “Fancybear” or “Strontium” used a previously unknown tool, dubbed GooseEgg, to exploit the Windows Print Spooler flaw CVE-2022-38028.
Since at least June 2020, and possibly earlier, the cyberespionage group has used the tool GooseEgg to exploit the CVE-2022-38028 vulnerability. This tool modifies a JavaScript constraints file and executes it with SYSTEM-level permissions. Microsoft has observed APT28 using GooseEgg in post-compromise activities against various targets, including government, non-governmental, education, and transportation sector organizations in Ukraine, Western Europe, and North America.
While GooseEgg is a simple launcher application, threat actors can use it to execute other applications specified at the command line with elevated permissions. In a post-exploitation scenario, attackers can use the tool to carry out a broad range of malicious activities such as remote code execution, installing backdoors, and moving laterally through compromised networks.
The vulnerability CVE-2022-38028 was reported by the U.S. National Security Agency and Microsoft addressed it with the release of Microsoft October 2022 Patch Tuesday security updates.
APT28 deployed GooseEgg to gain elevated access to target systems and steal credentials and sensitive information.
GooseEgg is usually deployed with a batch script, commonly named execute.bat or doit.bat. This script creates a file named servtask.bat, which includes commands for saving or compressing registry hives. The batch script then executes the GooseEgg executable and establishes persistence by scheduling a tack that runs the servtask.bat.
The GooseEgg binary supports four commands, each with different run paths.
Microsoft researchers noted that an embedded malicious DLL file often contains the phrase “wayzgoose” in its name, such as wayzgoose23.dll.
“wayzgoose.dll is a basic launcher application capable of spawning other applications specified at the command line with SYSTEM-level permissions, enabling threat actors to perform other malicious activities such as installing a backdoor, moving laterally through compromised networks, and remotely executing code.” reads the report published by Microsoft.
Microsoft reports include instructions for detecting, hunting, and responding to GooseEgg.
The APT28 group (aka Forest Blizzard, Fancy Bear, Pawn Storm, Sofacy Group, Sednit, BlueDelta, and STRONTIUM) has been active since at least 2007 and it has targeted governments, militaries, and security organizations worldwide. The group was involved also in the string of attacks that targeted 2016 Presidential election.
The group operates out of military unity 26165 of the Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) 85th Main Special Service Center (GTsSS).
Most of the APT28s’ campaigns leveraged spear-phishing and malware-based attacks.
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Russian FSB Counterintelligence Chief Gets 9 Years in Cybercrime Bribery Scheme
The head of counterintelligence for a division of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) was sentenced last week to nine years in a penal colony for accepting a USD $1.7 million bribe to ignore the activities of a prolific Russian cybercrime group that hacked thousands of e-commerce websites. The protection scheme was exposed in 2022 when Russian authorities arrested six members of the group, which sold millions of stolen payment cards at flashy online shops like Trump’s Dumps.
A now-defunct carding shop that sold stolen credit cards and invoked 45’s likeness and name.
As reported by The Record, a Russian court last week sentenced former FSB officer Grigory Tsaregorodtsev for taking a $1.7 million bribe from a cybercriminal group that was seeking a “roof,” a well-placed, corrupt law enforcement official who could be counted on to both disregard their illegal hacking activities and run interference with authorities in the event of their arrest.
Tsaregorodtsev was head of the counterintelligence department for a division of the FSB based in Perm, Russia. In February 2022, Russian authorities arrested six men in the Perm region accused of selling stolen payment card data. They also seized multiple carding shops run by the gang, including Ferum Shop, Sky-Fraud, and Trump’s Dumps, a popular fraud store that invoked the 45th president’s likeness and promised to “make credit card fraud great again.”
All of the domains seized in that raid were registered by an IT consulting company in Perm called Get-net LLC, which was owned in part by Artem Zaitsev — one of the six men arrested. Zaitsev reportedly was a well-known programmer whose company supplied services and leasing to the local FSB field office.
The message for Trump’s Dumps users left behind by Russian authorities that seized the domain in 2022.
Russian news sites report that Internal Affairs officials with the FSB grew suspicious when Tsaregorodtsev became a little too interested in the case following the hacking group’s arrests. The former FSB agent had reportedly assured the hackers he could have their case transferred and that they would soon be free.
But when that promised freedom didn’t materialize, four the of the defendants pulled the walls down on the scheme and brought down their own roof. The FSB arrested Tsaregorodtsev, and seized $154,000 in cash, 100 gold bars, real estate and expensive cars.
At Tsaregorodtsev’s trial, his lawyers argued that their client wasn’t guilty of bribery per se, but that he did admit to fraud because he was ultimately unable to fully perform the services for which he’d been hired.
The Russian news outlet Kommersant reports that all four of those who cooperated were released with probation or correctional labor. Zaitsev received a sentence of 3.5 years in prison, and defendant Alexander Kovalev got four years.
In 2017, KrebsOnSecurity profiled Trump’s Dumps, and found the contact address listed on the site was tied to an email address used to register more than a dozen domains that were made to look like legitimate Javascript calls many e-commerce sites routinely make to process transactions — such as “js-link[dot]su,” “js-stat[dot]su,” and “js-mod[dot]su.”
Searching on those malicious domains revealed a 2016 report from RiskIQ, which shows the domains featured prominently in a series of hacking campaigns against e-commerce websites. According to RiskIQ, the attacks targeted online stores running outdated and unpatched versions of shopping cart software from Magento, Powerfront and OpenCart.
Those shopping cart flaws allowed the crooks to install “web skimmers,” malicious Javascript used to steal credit card details and other information from payment forms on the checkout pages of vulnerable e-commerce sites. The stolen customer payment card details were then sold on sites like Trump’s Dumps and Sky-Fraud.
ToddyCat Hacker Group Uses Advanced Tools for Industrial-Scale Data Theft
- Security Affairs
- Hackers threaten to leak a copy of the World-Check database used to assess potential risks associated with entities
Hackers threaten to leak a copy of the World-Check database used to assess potential risks associated with entities
A financially motivated group named GhostR claims the theft of a sensitive database from World-Check and threatens to publish it.
World-Check is a global database utilized by various organizations, including financial institutions, regulatory bodies, and law enforcement agencies, for assessing potential risks associated with individuals and entities. It compiles information from diverse sources like public records, regulatory filings, and proprietary databases to create profiles of entities susceptible to financial crime, terrorism, or corruption. World-Check aids organizations in conducting due diligence and adhering to regulatory standards concerning anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing (CTF).
World-Check is currently owned by LSEG (London Stock Exchange Group).
A financially motivated threat actor, called GhostR, announced the theft of a confidential database containing 5.3 million records from the World-Check.
The threat actor said that he stole the database in March and threatened to publish the data online.
The hackers told TechCrunch that they stole the database from a Singapore-based company that has access to the sensitive database, however, they did not name the victim organization.
The threat actors shared a portion of the stolen data with TechCrunch as proof of the hack, it includes records on current and former government officials, diplomats, and politically exposed people. The list also includes criminals, suspected terrorists, intelligence operatives and a European spyware firm.
Compromised data vary by individuals and organizations, it includes names, passport numbers, Social Security numbers, online crypto account identifiers and bank account numbers, and more.
World-Check had different owners across the years, it was originally founded as an independent company. Curiously, in 2011, Thomson Reuters acquired World-Check, then in October 2018, Thomson Reuters closed a deal with The Blackstone Group. As a result of this merger, World-Check became part of the new company, Refinitiv. LSEG acquired Refinitiv is 2021.
The disclosure of data in the archive poses a threat to the individuals whose data it contains. This is sensitive information that could lead to discrimination, persecution, or otherwise cause harm to individuals by violating their privacy and exposing them to various types of cyberattacks.
The database was criticized because it includes names of people and organizations that are mistakenly considered terrorists.
In June 2016, security researcher Chris Vickery found a copy of the World-Check database dated 2014 that was accidentally exposed online.
In August 2015, journalists from BBC’s Radio 4 gained 30 minutes of access thanks to the support of a disgruntled customer and demonstrated that the designations in the archive were inaccurate.
The Vice News also gained access to the World-Check archive in February 2016 arriving at the same conclusion after it analyzed some profiles in the database
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- The Hacker News
- Pentera's 2024 Report Reveals Hundreds of Security Events per Week, Highlighting the Criticality of Continuous Validation
Pentera's 2024 Report Reveals Hundreds of Security Events per Week, Highlighting the Criticality of Continuous Validation
MITRE Corporation Breached by Nation-State Hackers Exploiting Ivanti Flaws
Ransomware Double-Dip: Re-Victimization in Cyber Extortion
- Security Affairs
- Windows DOS-to-NT flaws exploited to achieve unprivileged rootkit-like capabilities
Windows DOS-to-NT flaws exploited to achieve unprivileged rootkit-like capabilities
Researcher demonstrated how to exploit vulnerabilities in the Windows DOS-to-NT path conversion process to achieve rootkit-like capabilities.
SafeBreach researcher Or Yair devised a technique, exploiting vulnerabilities in the DOS-to-NT path conversion process, to achieve rootkit-like capabilities on Windows.
When a user executes a function with a path argument in Windows, the DOS path of the file or folder is converted to an NT path. However, a known issue arises during this conversion process where the function removes trailing dots from any path element and trailing spaces from the last path element. This behavior is consistent across most user-space APIs in Windows.
The expert exploiting this known issue discovered the following vulnerabilities:
- CVE-2023-36396 Windows Compressed Folder Remote Code Execution Vulnerability – The RCE issue resides in Windows’s new extraction logic for all newly supported archive types. The expert craft a malicious archive that would write anywhere he chose on a remote computer once extracted, leading to code execution.
- CVE-2023-32054 Volume Shadow Copy Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability – An can exploit this issue to gain the rights of the user that is running the affected application. The researchers discovered two elevation of privilege (EoP) vulnerabilities. The CVE-2023-32054 allowed him to write into files without the required privileges by manipulating the restoration process of a previous version from a shadow copy and another that allowed him to delete files without the required privileges.
“In addition to leading me to these vulnerabilities, the MagicDot paths also granted me rootkit-like abilities that were accessible to any unprivileged user.” wrote Or Yair. “I discovered how a malicious actor—without admin privileges—could hide files and processes, hide files in archives, affect prefetch file analysis, make Task Manager and Process Explorer users think a malware file was a verified executable published by Microsoft, disable Process Explorer with a denial of service (DoS) vulnerability, and more.”
A user-space rootkit aims to intercept user-space API calls, execute the original function, filter out malicious data, and return altered information to the caller. An attacker needs Admin privileges to run such rootkits, as they need to conceal their presence from users, including administrators, by operating within processes with elevated privileges.
A kernel rootkit operates within the kernel and attempts to intercept system calls, altering the information returned to user-space processes that request it.
Running a kernel rootkit requires access to the kernel, typically requiring administrative privileges and overcoming various security measures such as Patch Guard, Driver Signature Enforcement, Driver Blocklist, and HVCI. Consequently, the prevalence of kernel rootkits has decreased significantly.
The expert reported to the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) in 2023. The IT giant acknowledged these issues and took the following action:
- Remote Code Execution (CVE-2023-36396, CVSS: 7.8): fixed by Microsoft.
- Elevation of Privilege (Write) (CVE-2023-32054, CVSS: 7.3): fixed by Microsoft.
- Elevation of Privilege (Deletion): The vulnerability was reproduced and confirmed by Microsoft. However, the company did not issue a CVE or a fix. Below is the response provided by Microsoft. “Thank you again for submitting this issue to Microsoft. We determined that this issue does not require immediate security service but did reveal unexpected behavior. A fix for this issue will be considered in a future version of this product or service.”
- Process Explorer Unprivileged DOS for Anti-Analysis (CVE-2023-42757): fixed by the engineering team of Process Explorer in version 17.04. CVE-2023-42757 was reserved for this vulnerability by MITRE. MITRE confirmed the vulnerability with Microsoft and will publish the CVE once online publication of the details is available.
“This research is the first of its kind to explore how known issues that appear to be harmless can be exploited to develop vulnerabilities and, ultimately, pose a significant security risk. We believe the implications are relevant not only to Microsoft Windows, which is the world’s most widely used desktop OS, but also to all software vendors, most of whom also allow known issues to persist from version to version of their software.” Yair concluded.
The report includes video PoCs for these vulnerabilities-
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