Government ministries keep falling victim to relatively standard-fare cyber-espionage attacks, like this latest campaign with hazy Chinese links.

Source: Mint Images Limited via Alamy Stock Photo

A Chinese-language advanced persistent threat (APT) has been spying on government ministries across the eastern hemisphere.

The first signs of it date back to late August of last year. Back then, the as-yet-unidentified group began to use a modified version of Gh0st RAT, nicknamed "SugarGh0st RAT," to spy on targets in South Korea, as well as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Uzbekistan. Since then, Cisco Talos revealed in a new blog post, the group now called "SneakyChef" has been cooking up new campaigns across more countries.

Based on its lure documents, likely targets for the campaign have included:

*   Ministries of foreign affairs from Angola, India, Kazakhstan, Latvia, and Turkmenistan
    
*   The ministries of agriculture and forestry, and fisheries and marine resources in Angola
    
*   The Saudi Arabian embassy in Abu Dhabi
    

Talos has not attributed SneakyChef to any particular government itself. They did note, however, the Chinese language preferences present in its code, its use of SugarGh0st RAT — particularly, though not exclusively popular among Chinese threat actors — and the similar profile of its targets.

**Sneaky Chef's Latest Servings**

Where early campaigns utilized malicious RAR files embedded in LNK files for initial infection, now SneakyChef prefers self-extracting RARs (SFX RAR). The shift offers some modest benefits.

"RAR files just got official support in Windows 11, so for anything prior to Windows 11, you need to have extra software to be able to extract the file," explains Nick Biasani, Cisco Talos' head of outreach. "A self-extracting RAR file eliminates the need for extra software, so it probably increases the likelihood of infection."

Among the goodies SFX RAR drops: a decoy document, a dynamic link library (DLL) loader, some encrypted malware — either SugarGh0st RAT or SneakyChef's newest tool, SpiceRAT — and a malicious Visual Basic (VB) script for establishing persistence.

The decoys are legitimate, scanned documents relating in some way to the targeted ministry or embassy. They'll describe some kind of government business, most often an upcoming meeting or conference. Notably, Talos was unable to find any of the documents used in recent campaigns on the open web. (This might indicate they were themselves obtained via espionage.)

When it comes to government cyberespionage, "What we commonly see is that this would be the 'first wave.' This actor is not typically highly sophisticated, they're more aiming to send a lot of lures and get a lot of people infected so they can get initial footholds and start gathering data," Biasani says. Then, when they need access to a specific, extra-secured government body. "That's when you start seeing the more sophisticated elements of these attacks play out."

**About the Author(s)**

Nate Nelson is a freelance writer based in New York City. Formerly a reporter at Threatpost, he contributes to a number of cybersecurity blogs and podcasts. He writes "Malicious Life" -- an award-winning Top 20 tech podcast on Apple and Spotify -- and hosts every other episode, featuring interviews with leading voices in security. He also co-hosts "The Industrial Security Podcast," the most popular show in its field.

'SneakyChef' APT Slices Up Foreign Affairs With SugarGh0st

A previously undocumented Chinese-speaking threat actor codenamed SneakyChef has been linked to an espionage campaign primarily targeting government entities across Asia and EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) with SugarGh0st malware since at least August 2023.
"SneakyChef uses lures that are scanned documents of government agencies, most of which are related to various countries' Ministries

Malware / Threat Intelligence

A previously undocumented Chinese-speaking threat actor codenamed **SneakyChef** has been linked to an espionage campaign primarily targeting government entities across Asia and EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) with SugarGh0st malware since at least August 2023.

"SneakyChef uses lures that are scanned documents of government agencies, most of which are related to various countries' Ministries of Foreign Affairs or embassies," Cisco Talos researchers Chetan Raghuprasad and Ashley Shen said in an analysis published today.

Activities related to the hacking crew were first highlighted by the cybersecurity company in late November 2023 in connection with an attack campaign that singled out South Korea and Uzbekistan with a custom variant of Gh0st RAT called **SugarGh0st**.

A subsequent analysis from Proofpoint last month uncovered the use of SugarGh0st RAT against U.S. organizations involved in artificial intelligence efforts, including those in academia, private industry, and government service. It's tracking the cluster under the name UNK\_SweetSpecter.

Talos said that it has since observed the same malware being used to likely focus on various government entities across Angola, India, Latvia, Saudi Arabia, and Turkmenistan based on the lure documents used in the spear-phishing campaigns, indicating a widening of the scope of the countries targeted.

In addition to leveraging attack chains that make use of Windows Shortcut (LNK) files embedded within RAR archives to deliver SugarGh0st, the new wave has been found to employ a self-extracting RAR archive (SFX) as an initial infection vector to launch a Visual Basic Script (VBS) that ultimately executes the malware by means of a loader while simultaneously displaying the decoy file.

The attacks against Angola are also notable for the fact that it utilizes a new remote access trojan codenamed SpiceRAT using lures from Neytralny Turkmenistan, a Russian-language newspaper in Turkmenistan.

SpiceRAT, for its part, employs two different infection chains for propagation, one of which uses an LNK file present inside a RAR archive that deploys the malware using DLL side-loading techniques.

"When the victim extracts the RAR file, it drops the LNK and a hidden folder on their machine," the researchers said. "After a victim opens the shortcut file, which masqueraded as a PDF document, it executes an embedded command to run the malicious launcher executable from the dropped hidden folder."

The launcher then proceeds to display the decoy document to the victim and run a legitimate binary ("dxcap.exe"), which subsequently sideloads a malicious DLL responsible for loading SpiceRAT.

The second variant entails the use of an HTML Application (HTA) that drops a Windows batch script and a Base64-encoded downloader binary, with the former launching the executable by means of a scheduled task every five minutes.

The batch script is also engineered to run another legitimate executable "ChromeDriver.exe" every 10 minutes, which then sideloads a rogue DLL that, in turn, loads SpiceRAT. Each of these components – ChromeDriver.exe, the DLL, and the RAT payload – are extracted from a ZIP archive retrieved by the downloader binary from a remote server.

SpiceRAT also takes advantage of the DLL side-loading technique to start a DLL loader, which captures the list of running processes to check if it's being debugged, followed by running the main module from memory.

"With the capability to download and run executable binaries and arbitrary commands, SpiceRAT significantly increases the attack surface on the victim's network, paving the way for further attacks," Talos said.

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Chinese Hackers Deploy SpiceRAT and SugarGh0st in Global Espionage Campaign

The new remote access trojan (RAT) dubbed SpiceRAT was used by the threat actor SneakyChef in a recent campaign targeting government agencies in EMEA and Asia.

*   Cisco Talos discovered a new remote access trojan (RAT) dubbed SpiceRAT, used by the threat actor SneakyChef in a recent campaign targeting government agencies in EMEA and Asia. 
*   We observed that SneakyChef launched a phishing campaign, sending emails delivering SugarGh0st and SpiceRAT with the same email address. 
*   We identified two infection chains used to deliver SpiceRAT utilizing LNK and HTA files as the initial attack vectors. 

_Cisco Talos would like to thank the Yahoo! Paranoids Advanced Cyber Threats Team for their collaboration in this investigation._ 

**SneakyChef delivered SpiceRAT to target Angola government with lures from Turkmenistan news agency **

Talos recently revealed SneakyChef’s continuing campaign targeting government agencies across several countries in EMEA and Asia, delivering the SugarGh0st malware (read the corresponding research here). However, we found a new malware we dubbed “SpiceRAT” was also delivered in this campaign.  

SneakyChef is using a name "ala de Emissão do Edifício B Mutamba" and the email address “dtti.edb@\[redated\]” to send several phishing emails with at least 28 different RAR file attachments to deliver either SugarGh0st or SpiceRAT. 

One of the decoy PDFs that we analysed in this campaign was dropped by a RAR archive, delivered as an attachment in the emails likely targeted Angolan government agencies. The decoy PDF contained lures from the Turkmenistan state-owned news media “ТУРКМЕНСКАЯ ГОСУДАРСТВЕННАЯ ИЗДАТЕЛЬСКАЯ СЛУЖБА” (Neytralnyy Turkmenistan), indicating that the actor has likely downloaded the PDF from their official website. We also found that a similar decoy PDF from the same news agency was dropped by the RAR archive that delivered the SugarGh0st malware in this campaign, highlighting that SneakyChef has SugarGh0st RAT and SpiceRAT payloads in their arsenal.   

__Decoy PDF samples of SugarGh0st and SpiceRAT attacks.__

**Two infection chains **

Talos discovered two infection chains employed by SneakyChef to deploy SpiceRAT. Both infection chains involved multiple stages launched by an HTA or LNK file.  

**LNK-based infection chain  **

The LNK-based infection chain begins with a malicious RAR file that contains a Windows shortcut file (LNK) and a hidden folder. This folder contains multiple components, including a malicious executable launcher, a legitimate executable, a malicious DLL loader, an encrypted SpiceRAT masquerading as a legitimate help file (.HLP) and a decoy PDF. The table below shows an example of the components of this attack chain and the description. 

File Name 

Description 

2024-01-17.pdf.lnk 

Malicious shortcut file  

LaunchWlnApp.exe 

Windows EXE to open decoy PDF and run a legitimate EXE 

dxcap.exe 

Benign executable to side-load the malicious DLL 

ssMUIDLL.dll 

Malicious DLL loader 

CGMIMP32.HLP 

Encrypted SpiceRAT

Microsoftpdf.pdf 

Decoy PDF  

When the victim extracts the RAR file, it drops the LNK and a hidden folder on their machine. After a victim opens the shortcut file, which masqueraded as a PDF document, it executes an embedded command to run the malicious launcher executable from the dropped hidden folder.  

__Sample LNK file that starts the malicious launcher EXE.__

This malicious launcher executable is a 32-bit binary compiled on Jan. 2, 2024. When launched by the shortcut file, it reads the victim machine’s environment variable, the execution path of the legitimate executable and the path of the decoy PDF document and runs them using the API ShellExecuteW.  

__Sample function that starts the legitimate EXE and opens the decoy document.__

The legitimate file is one of the components of SpiceRAT infection, which will sideload the malicious DLL loader to decrypt and launch the SpiceRAT payload.  

**HTA-based infection chain **

The HTA-based infection chain also begins with a RAR archive delivered with the email. The RAR file contains a malicious HTA file. When the victim runs the malicious HTA file, the embedded malicious Visual Basic script executes and drops the embedded base64-encoded downloader binary into the victim’s user profile temporary folder, disguised as a text file named “Microsoft.txt.” 

After dropping the malicious downloader executable, the HTA file executes another function, which drops and executes a Windows batch file in the victim’s user profile temporary folder, named “Microsoft.bat.”  

The malicious batch file performs the following operations on the victim’s machine: 

*   The certutil command decodes the base64-encoded binary data from “Microsoft.txt” and saves it as “Microsoft.exe” in the victim’s user profile temporary folder.  

certutil -decode %temp%\\\\Microsoft.txt %temp%\\\\Microsoft.exe

*   It creates a Windows scheduled task that runs the malicious downloader every five minutes, supressing any warnings that it triggers when the same task name existed.  

schtasks /create /tn MicrosoftEdgeUpdateTaskMachineClSAN /tr %temp%\\\\Microsoft.exe /sc minute -mo 5 /F 

*   The batch script creates another Windows task named “MicrosoftDeviceSync” to run a downloaded legitimate executable “ChromeDriver.exe” every 10 minutes.  

schtasks /create /tn MicrosoftDeviceSync /tr C:\\\\ProgramData\\\\Chrome\\\\ChromeDirver.exe /sc minute -mo 10 /F 

*   After establishing persistence with the Windows scheduled task, the batch script runs three other commands to erase the infection markers. This includes deleting the Windows task named MicrosoftDefenderUpdateTaskMachineClSAN and removing the encoded downloader “Microsoft.txt,” the malicious HTA file, and any other contents unpacked from the RAR file attachment.  

schtasks /delete /f /tn MicrosoftDefenderUpdateTaskMachineClSAN 

del /f /q %temp%\\\\Microsoft.txt %temp%\\\\Microsoft.hta 

del %0 

The malicious downloader is a 32-bit executable compiled on March 5, 2024. After running on the victim’s machine through the Windows task MicrosoftEdgeUpdateTaskMachineClSAN, it downloads a malicious archive file “chromeupdate.zip” from an attacker-controlled server through a hardcoded URL and unpacks its contents into the folder at “C:\\ProgramData\\Chrome”. The unpacked files are the components of SpiceRAT.  

__A sample function of the malicious downloader.__

**Analysis of SpiceRAT **

Both infection chains eventually drop the SpiceRAT files into victim machines. The SpiceRAT files include four main components: a legitimate executable file, a malicious DLL loader, an encrypted payload and the downloaded plugins.  

**The loader components of SpiceRAT ****Legitimate executable **

The threat actor is using a legitimate executable (named “RunHelp.exe”) as a launcher to sideload the malicious DLL loader file (ssMUIDLL.dll). This legitimate executable is a Samsung RunHelp application signed with the certificate of "Samsung Electronics CO., LTD.” In some instances, it has been observed masquerading as “dxcap.exe,” a DirectX diagnostic included with Visual Studio, and “ChromeDriver.exe,” an executable that Selenium WebDriver uses to control the Google Chrome web browser. 

__File properties and digital signature details of the legitimate executable.__

The legitimate Samsung helper application typically loads a DLL called “ssMUIDLL.dll.” In this attack, the threat actor abuses the application by sideloading a malicious DLL loader that is masquerading as the legitimate DLL and executes its exported function GetFulllangFileNamew2. 

__Sample function that side-loads the malicious DLL.__

**Malicious DLL loader **

The malicious loader is a 32-bit DLL compiled on Jan. 2, 2024. When its exported function GetFullLangFileNameW2() is run, it copies the downloaded legitimate executable into the folder "C:\\Users\\<user>\\AppData\\Local\\data\\” as “dxcap.exe” along with the malicious DLL “ssMUIDLL.dll” and the encrypted SpiceRAT payload “CGMIMP32.HLP.”  

__A sample function copies the SpiceRAT components.__

It executes the schtasks command to create a Windows task named “Microsoft Update,” configured to run “dxcap.exe” every two minutes. This technique establishes persistence at multiple locations on the victim's machine to maintain resilience.    

schtasks  -CreAte -sC minute -mo 2 -tn "Microsoft Update" -tr "C:\\Users\\<User>\\AppData\\Local\\data\\dxcap.exe" 

__A sample function that creates Windows task.__

Then the loader DLL takes the snapshot of the running processes in the victim machine and checks if the legitimate executable that sideloads this malicious DLL is being debugged by querying its process information using “NtQueryInformationProcess.” 

The loader DLL executes another function that loads the encrypted file “CGMIMP32.HLP,” which is masquerading as a legitimate Windows help file into memory and decrypts it using the RC4 encryption algorithm. In one of the samples, we found that the DLL used a key phrase “{11AADC32-A303-41DC-BF82-A28332F36A2E}” for decrypting SpiceRAT in memory. After decryption, the loader DLL injects and runs the SpiceRAT from memory to its parent process “dxcap.exe.”  

__A sample function that decrypts the SpiceRAT in memory.__

**The SpiceRAT payloads **

Talos discovered that SneakyChef has employed SpiceRAT and its plugin as the payloads in this campaign. With the capability to download and run executable binaries and arbitrary commands, SpiceRAT significantly increases the attack surface on the victim’s network, paving the way for further attacks.  

SpiceRAT is a 32-bit Windows executable with three malicious export functions GetFullLangFileNameW2, WinHttpPostShare and WinHttpFreeShareFree. Initially, it executes the GetFullLangFileNameW2 function, creating a mutex as an infection marker on the victim machine. The mutex name is hardcoded in the RAT binary. We spotted two different mutex names among the SpiceRAT samples that we analyzed: 

*   {00866F68-6C46-4ABD-A8D6-2246FE482F99}  
*   {00861111-3333-4ABD-GGGG-2246FE482F99} 

After the Mutex is created, the RAT collects reconnaissance data from the victim’s machine, including the operating system’s version number, hostname, username, IP address and the system’s network card hardware address (MAC address). The reconnaissance data is then encrypted and stored in the machine’s memory. 

__A sample function that encrypts the reconnaissance data in memory.__

During runtime, the RAT loads the WININET.dll file and imports the addresses of its functions to prepare for C2 communication.  

__A sample function that loads the APIs of WININET.dll.__

Once the function addresses of WININET.dll are imported, the RAT executes the WinHttpPostShare function to communicate with the C2. It connects to the C2 server with a hardcoded URL in the binary and through the HTTP POST method.  

 

 

Then, it attempts to read and send the encrypted stream of reconnaissance data and user credentials from memory to the C2 server. The C2 server responds with an encrypted message enclosed with HTML tags in the format “<HTML><encrypted Response> </HTML>”. The RAT decrypts the response and writes them into the memory stream.  

We discovered that the C2 server sends an encrypted stream of binary to the RAT. The RAT decrypts the binary stream into a DLL file in the memory and executes its exported functions. The decrypted DLL functions as a plugin to the SpiceRAT.  

 __Sample function of SpiceRAT executing the export functions of plugin.__ 

**SpiceRAT plugin enables further attacks  **

SpiceRAT plugin is a 32-bit dynamic link library compiled on March 28, 2023. The plugin has an original filename “Moudle.dll” and has two export functions: Download and RunPE. 

The Download function of the plugin appears to access decrypted response data from the C2 server stored in the victim’s memory and writes them into a file on disk, likely as commanded by the C2.  

__The downloader function of SpiceRAT plugin.__

The RunPE function appears to execute arbitrary commands or binaries that were likely sent from C2 using the WinExec API.  

__A sample function to run a PE file.__ 

**C2 communications **

SneakyChef’s infrastructure includes the malware’s download and command and control (C2) servers. In one attack, the threat actor hosted a malicious ZIP archive on the server 45\[.\]144\[.\]31\[.\]57 and hardcoded the following URL in a malicious downloader executable.  

http://45[.]144[.]31[.]57:80/S1VRB0HpMXR79eStog35igWKVTsdbx/chromeupdate.zipservers

We observed that the threat actor used IP addresses and domain names to connect to the C2 servers in different samples of SpiceRAT in this campaign. Our research uncovered various C2 URLs hardcoded in SpiceRAT samples.  

*   hxxp\[://\]94\[.\]198\[.\]40\[.\]4/homepage/index.aspx 
*   hxxp\[://\]stock\[.\]adobe-service\[.\]net/homepage/index.aspx 
*   hxxp\[://\]app\[.\]turkmensk\[.\]org\[/\]homepage\[/\]index.aspx 

One of the C2 servers, 94\[.\]198\[.\]40\[.\]4, was found to be running Windows Server 2016 and hosted on the M247 network, which is frequently abused by APT groups. Passive DNS resolution data indicate that the IP address 94\[.\]198\[.\]40\[.\]4 resolved to the domain app\[.\]turkmensk\[.\]org and we found another SpiceRAT sample in the wild that communicated with this domain.  

Further analysis of the C2 server 94\[.\]198\[.\]40\[.\]4 uncovered a unique C2 communication pattern of SpiceRAT. The SpiceRAT initially sends the encrypted reconnaissance data to the C2 URL through the HTTP POST method. The C2 server then responds with an encrypted message embedded in the HTML tags.   

We observed that the SpiceRAT and its C2 servers use a three-byte prefix for their first three requests and responses, as shown in the table below. 

C2 server response prefix 

Our analysis suggests that the second request that SpiceRAT sends likely contains the encrypted stream of the victim’s machine user credentials. We found that for the third request that SpiceRAT sends from the victim machine, the C2 server responds with an encrypted stream of the SpiceRAT’s plugin binary. SpiceRAT then decrypts and injects the plugin DLL reflectively.  

Once the plugin is downloaded and implanted on the victim’s machine, SpiceRAT sends another request with the prefix “wG.” The C2 server responds with an unencrypted message “<HTML>D\_OK<HTML>”, likely to get a confirmation of successful payload download.  

**TTPs overlap with other malware campaigns  **

Talos assesses with medium confidence that the actor SneakyChef, using SpiceRAT and SugarGh0st RAT is a Chinese-speaking actor based of the language observed in the artifacts and overlapping TTPs with other malware campaigns.  

In this campaign, we saw that SpiceRAT leverages the sideloading technique, utilizing a legitimate loader alongside a malicious loader and the encrypted payload. Although sideloading is a widely adopted tactic, technique and procedure (TTP), the choice to use the Samsung helper application to sideload the malicious DLL masquerading “ssMUIDLL.dll” file is particularly notable. This method has been previously observed in the PlugX and SPIVY RAT campaigns. 

**Coverage **

 Cisco Secure Endpoint (formerly AMP for Endpoints) is ideally suited to prevent the execution of the malware detailed in this post. Try Secure Endpoint for free here. 

Cisco Secure Web Appliance web scanning prevents access to malicious websites and detects malware used in these attacks. 

Cisco Secure Email (formerly Cisco Email Security) can block malicious emails sent by threat actors as part of their campaign. You can try Secure Email for free here. 

Cisco Secure Firewall (formerly Next-Generation Firewall and Firepower NGFW) appliances such as Threat Defense Virtual, Adaptive Security Appliance and Meraki MX can detect malicious activity associated with this threat. 

Cisco Secure Malware Analytics (Threat Grid) identifies malicious binaries and builds protection into all Cisco Secure products. 

Umbrella, Cisco's secure internet gateway (SIG), blocks users from connecting to malicious domains, IPs and URLs, whether users are on or off the corporate network. Sign up for a free trial of Umbrella here. 

Cisco Secure Web Appliance (formerly Web Security Appliance) automatically blocks potentially dangerous sites and tests suspicious sites before users access them. 

Additional protections with context to your specific environment and threat data are available from the Firewall Management Center. 

Cisco Duo provides multi-factor authentication for users to ensure only those authorized are accessing your network. 

Open-source Snort Subscriber Rule Set customers can stay up to date by downloading the latest rule pack available for purchase on Snort.org. Snort SID for this threat is 63538. 

ClamAV detections are also available for this threat: 

Win.Trojan.SpiceRAT-10031450-0 

Win.Trojan.SpiceRATPlugin-10031560-0 

Win.Trojan.SpiceRATLauncher-10031652-0 

Win.Trojan.SpiceRATLauncherEXE-10032013-0 

**Indicators of Compromise **

Indicators of Compromise associated with this threat can be found here.

Unveiling SpiceRAT: SneakyChef's latest tool targeting EMEA and Asia

Cisco Talos recently discovered an ongoing campaign from SneakyChef, a newly discovered threat actor using SugarGh0st malware, as early as August 2023.

Friday, June 21, 2024 08:00

*   Cisco Talos recently discovered an ongoing campaign from SneakyChef, a newly discovered threat actor using SugarGh0st malware, as early as August 2023.  
*   In the newly discovered campaign, we observed a wider scope of targets spread across countries in EMEA and Asia, compared with previous observations that mainly targeted South Korea and Uzbekistan.   
*   SneakyChef uses lures that are scanned documents of government agencies, most of which are related to various countries’ Ministries of Foreign Affairs or embassies. 
*   Beside the two infection chains disclosed by Talos in November, we discovered an additional infection chain using SFX RAR files to deliver SugarGh0st.  
*   The language used in the SFX sample in this campaign reinforces our previous assertion that the actor is Chinese speaking.   

_Cisco Talos would like to thank the Yahoo! Paranoids Advanced Cyber Threats Team for their collaboration in this investigation._ 

**SneakyChef actor profile **

In early August 2023, Talos discovered a campaign using the SugarGh0st RAT to target users in Uzbekistan and South Korea. We continued to observe new activities using the same malware to target users in a wider geographical location. Therefore, we created an actor profile for the group and dubbed them “SneakyChef.” 

Talos assesses with medium confidence that SneakyChef operators are likely Chinese-speaking based on their language preferences, the usage of the variants of Gh0st RAT — a popular malware among various Chinese-speaking actors — and the specific targets, which includes the Ministry of Foreign affairs of various countries and other government entities. Talos also discovered another RAT dubbed “SpiceRAT” used in the campaign. Read the corresponding research here.

**Targets across EMEA and Asia **

Talos assess with low confidence that the following government agencies are the potential targets in this campaign based on the contents of the decoy documents: 

*   Ministry of Foreign affairs of Angola 
*   Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources of Angola  
*   Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry of Angola 
*   Ministry of Foreign affairs of Turkmenistan 
*   Ministry of Foreign affairs of Kazakhstan 
*   Ministry of Foreign affairs of India 
*   Embassy of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in Abu Dhabi 
*   Ministry of Foreign affairs of Latvia  

Most of the decoy documents we found in this campaign are scanned documents of government agencies, which do not appear to be available on the internet. During our research, we observed and analyzed various decoy documents with government-and research conference-themed lures in this campaign. We are sharing a few samples of the decoy documents accordingly. 

**Lures targeting Southern African countries **

The threat actor has used decoy documents impersonating the Ministry of Foreign affairs of Angola. The lure content in one of the sample documents appeared to be a circular from the Angolan Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources about a debt conciliation meeting between the ministry authority and a financial advisory company.  

Another document contained information about a legal decree concerning state or public assets and their disposal. This document appealed to anyone interested in legal affairs and public heritage regimes and was addressed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – MIREX, a centralized institution in Luanda. 

 

 

**Lures targeting Central Asian countries **

The decoy documents used in the attacks likely targeting countries in Central Asia were either impersonating the Ministry of Foreign affairs of Turkmenistan or Kazakhstan. One of the lures is related to a meeting organized with the Turkmenistan embassy in Argentina and the heads of transportation and infrastructure of the Italian Republic. Another document was a report of planned events and the government-issued list of priorities to be addressed in the year 2024 that includes a formal proclamation-signing event between the Ministry of Defense of Uzbekistan and the Ministry of Defense of Kazakhstan. 

 

 

**Lures targeting Middle Eastern countries **

A decoy document we observed in the attack likely targeting Middle Eastern countries was an official circular regarding the declaration of an official holiday for the Founding Day of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.  

**Lures targeting Southern Asian countries **

We found another sample that was likely used to target the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It has decoy documents, including an Indian passport application form, along with a copy of an Aadhar card, a document that serves as proof of identity in India.  

 

 

One of the decoy Word documents we observed contained lures related to India-U.S. relations, including a list of events involving interactions between India’s prime minister and the U.S. president. 

**Lures targeting European countries **

A decoy document found in a sample likely targeting the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Latvia was a circular impersonating the Embassy of Lithuania. It contained a lure document regarding an announcement of an ambassador’s absence and their replacement. 

**Other targets **

Along with the government-themed decoy document samples we analyzed, we observed a few other samples from these campaigns. These included decoys such as an application form to register for a conference run by the Universal Research Cluster (URC) and a research paper abstract of the ICCSE international conference. We also saw a few other decoys related to other conference invitations and details, including those for the Political Science and International Relations conference.   

 

 

Recently, Proofpoint researchers reported a SugarGh0st campaign targeting an organization in the U.S. involved in artificial intelligence across academia, the private technology sector, and government services, highlighting the wider adoption of SugarGh0st RAT in targeting various business verticals. 

**Threat actor continues to leverage old and new C2 domains **

After Talos’ initial disclosure of SugarGh0st campaign in November 2023, we are attributing the past attacks to the newly named threat actor SneakyChef. Despite our disclosure, SneakyChef continued to use the C2 domain we mentioned and deployed the new samples in the following months after our blog post. Most of the samples observed in this campaign communicate with the C2 domain account\[.\]drive-google-com\[.\]tk, consistent with their previous campaign. Based on Talos’ Umbrella records, resolutions to the C2 domain were still observed until mid-May.  

DNS requests for the SugarGh0st C2 domain. 

Talos also observed the new domain account\[.\]gommask\[.\]online, reported by Proofpoint as being used by SugarGh0st. The domain was created in March 2024, and queries were observed through April 21.  

**Infection chain abuse SFX RAR as the initial attack vector **

With Talos’ first reporting of the SugarGh0st campaign in November, we disclosed two infection chains that utilized a malicious RAR with an LNK file, likely delivered via phishing email. In the newly observed campaign, in addition to the old infection chains, we discovered a different technique from a few malicious RAR samples.  

The threat actor is using an SFX RAR as the initial vector in this attack. When a victim runs the executable, the SFX script executes to drop a decoy document, DLL loader, encrypted SugarGh0st, and a malicious VB script into the victim’s user profile temporary folder and executes the malicious VB script.  

The malicious VB script establishes persistence by writing the command to the registry key UserInitMprLogonScript which executes when a user belonging to either a local workgroup or domain logs into the system. 

HKCU\\Environment\\UserInitMprLogonScript 

regsvr32.exe /s %temp%\\update.dll 

When a user logs into the system, the command runs and launches the loader DLL “update.dll” using regsvr32.exe. The loader reads the encrypted SugarGg0st RAT “authz.lib”, decrypts it and injects it into a process. This technique is same as that of the SugarGh0st campaign disclosed by the Kazakhstan government in February. 

**Coverage **

Cisco Secure Endpoint (formerly AMP for Endpoints) is ideally suited to prevent the execution of the malware detailed in this post. Try Secure Endpoint for free here. 

Cisco Secure Web Appliance web scanning prevents access to malicious websites and detects malware used in these attacks. 

Cisco Secure Email (formerly Cisco Email Security) can block malicious emails sent by threat actors as part of their campaign. You can try Secure Email for free here. 

Cisco Secure Firewall (formerly Next-Generation Firewall and Firepower NGFW) appliances such as Threat Defense Virtual, Adaptive Security Appliance and Meraki MX can detect malicious activity associated with this threat. 

Cisco Secure Malware Analytics (Threat Grid) identifies malicious binaries and builds protection into all Cisco Secure products. 

Umbrella, Cisco's secure internet gateway (SIG), blocks users from connecting to malicious domains, IPs and URLs, whether users are on or off the corporate network. Sign up for a free trial of Umbrella here. 

Cisco Secure Web Appliance (formerly Web Security Appliance) automatically blocks potentially dangerous sites and tests suspicious sites before users access them. 

Additional protections with context to your specific environment and threat data are available from the Firewall Management Center. 

Cisco Duo provides multi-factor authentication for users to ensure only those authorized are accessing your network. 

Open-source Snort Subscriber Rule Set customers can stay up to date by downloading the latest rule pack available for purchase on Snort.org. Snort SID for this threat is 62647. 

ClamAV detections are also available for this threat: 

Win.Trojan.SugarGh0stRAT-10014937-0 

Win.Tool.DynamicWrapperX-10014938-0 

Txt.Loader.SugarGh0st\_Bat-10014939-0 

Win.Trojan.SugarGh0stRAT-10014940-0 

Lnk.Dropper.SugarGh0stRAT-10014941-0 

Js.Trojan.SugarGh0stRAT-10014942-1 

Win.Loader.Ramnit-10014943-1 

Win.Backdoor.SugarGh0stRAT-10014944-0 

Win.Trojan.SugarGh0st-10030525-0 

Win.Trojan.SugarGh0st-10030526-0 

**Orbital Queries **

Cisco Secure Endpoint users can use Orbital Advanced Search to run complex OSqueries to see if their endpoints are infected with this specific threat. For specific OSqueries related to this threat, please follow the links: 

*   SugarGh0st RAT file detected 
*   SugarGh0st RAT Registry key  

**Indicators of Compromise **

Indicators of Compromise associated with this threat can be found here

SneakyChef espionage group targets government agencies with SugarGh0st and more infection techniques

On March 8, 2024, KrebsOnSecurity published a deep dive on the consumer data broker Radaris, showing how the original owners are two men in Massachusetts who operated multiple Russian language dating services and affiliate programs, in addition to a dizzying array of people-search websites. The subjects of that piece are threatening to sue KrebsOnSecurity for defamation unless the story is retracted. Meanwhile, their attorney has admitted that the person Radaris named as the CEO from its inception is a fabricated identity.

On March 8, 2024, KrebsOnSecurity published a deep dive on the consumer data broker **Radaris**, showing how the original owners are two men in Massachusetts who operated multiple Russian language dating services and affiliate programs, in addition to a dizzying array of people-search websites. The subjects of that piece are threatening to sue KrebsOnSecurity for defamation unless the story is retracted. Meanwhile, their attorney has admitted that the person Radaris named as the CEO from its inception is a fabricated identity.

Radaris is just one cog in a sprawling network of people-search properties online that sell highly detailed background reports on U.S. consumers and businesses. Those reports typically include the subject’s current and previous addresses, partial Social Security numbers, any known licenses, email addresses and phone numbers, as well as the same information for any of their immediate relatives.

Radaris has a less-than-stellar reputation when it comes to responding to consumers seeking to have their reports removed from its various people-search services. That poor reputation, combined with indications that the true founders of Radaris have gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal their stewardship of the company, was what prompted KrebsOnSecurity to investigate the origins of Radaris in the first place.

On April 18, KrebsOnSecurity received a certified letter (PDF) from **Valentin “Val” Gurvits**, an attorney with the **Boston Law Group**, stating that KrebsOnSecurity would face a withering defamation lawsuit unless the Radaris story was immediately retracted and an apology issued to the two brothers named in the story as co-founders.

That March story worked backwards from the email address used to register radaris.com, and charted an impressive array of data broker companies created over the past 15 years by Massachusetts residents **Dmitry** and **Igor Lubarsky** (also sometimes spelled Lybarsky or Lubarski). Dmitry goes by “**Dan**,” and Igor uses the name “**Gary**.”

Those businesses included numerous websites marketed to Russian-speaking people who are new to the United States, such as russianamerica.com, newyork.ru, russiancleveland.com, russianla.com, russianmiami.com, etc. Other domains connected to the Lubarskys included Russian-language dating and adult websites, as well as affiliate programs for their international calling card businesses.

A mind map of various entities apparently tied to Radaris and the company’s co-founders. Click to enlarge.

The story on Radaris noted that the Lubarsky brothers registered most of their businesses using a made-up name — “**Gary Norden**,” sometimes called **Gary Nord** or **Gary Nard**.

Mr. Gurvits’ letter stated emphatically that my reporting was lazy, mean-spirited, and obviously intended to smear the reputation of his clients. By way of example, Mr. Gurvits said the Lubarskys were actually Ukrainian, and that the story painted his clients in a negative light by insinuating that they were somehow associated with Radaris and with vaguely nefarious elements in Russia.

But more to the point, Mr. Gurvits said, neither of his clients were Gary Norden, and neither had ever held _any_ leadership positions at Radaris, nor were they financial beneficiaries of the company in any way.

“Neither of my clients is a founder of Radaris, and neither of my clients is the CEOs of Radaris,” Gurvits wrote. “Additionally, presently and going back at least the past 10 years, neither of my clients are (or were) officers or employees of Radaris. Indeed, neither of them even owns (or ever owned) any equity in Radaris. In intentional disregard of these facts, the Article implies that my clients are personally responsible for Radaris’ actions. Therefore, you intentionally caused all negative allegations in the Article made with respect to Radaris to be imputed against my clients personally.”

Dan Lubarsky’s Facebook page, just prior to the March 8 story about Radaris, said he was from Moscow.

We took Mr. Gurvits’ word on the ethnicity of his clients, and adjusted the story to remove a single mention that they were Russian. We did so even though Dan Lubarsky’s own Facebook page said (until recently) that he was from Moscow, Russia.

KrebsOnSecurity asked Mr. Gurvits to explain precisely which other details in the story were incorrect, and replied that we would be happy to update the story with a correction if they could demonstrate any errors of fact or omission.

We also requested specifics about several aspects of the story, such as the identity of the current Radaris CEO — listed on the Radaris website as “Victor K.” Mr. Gurvits replied that Radaris is and always has been based in Ukraine, and that the company’s true founder “Eugene L” is based there.

While Radaris has claimed to have offices in Massachusetts, Cyprus and Latvia, its website has never mentioned Ukraine. Mr. Gurvits has not responded to requests for more information about the identities of “Eugene L” or “Victor K.”

Gurvits said he had no intention of doing anyone’s reporting for them, and that the Lubarskys were going to sue KrebsOnSecurity for defamation unless the story was retracted in full. KrebsOnSecurity replied that journalists often face challenges to things that they report, but it is more than rare for one who makes a challenge to take umbrage at being asked for supporting information.

On June 13, Mr. Gurvits sent another letter (PDF) that continued to claim KrebsOnSecurity was defaming his clients, only this time Gurvits said his clients would be satisfied if KrebsOnSecurity just removed their names from the story.

“Ultimately, my clients don’t care what you say about any of the websites or corporate entities in your Article, as long as you completely remove my clients’ names from the Article and cooperate with my clients to have copies of the Article where my clients’ names appear removed from the Internet,” Mr. Gurvits wrote.

**MEET THE FAKE RADARIS CEO**

The June 13 letter explained that the name Gary Norden was a pseudonym invented by the Radaris marketing division, but that neither of the Lubarsky brothers were Norden.

This was a startling admission, given that Radaris has quoted the fictitious Gary Norden in press releases published and paid for by Radaris, and in news media stories where the company is explicitly seeking money from investors. In other words, Radaris has been misrepresenting itself to investors from the beginning. Here’s a press release from Radaris that was published on PR Newswire in April 2011:

A press release published by Radaris in 2011 names the CEO of Radaris as Gary Norden, which was a fake name made up by Radaris’ marketing department.

In April 2014, the _Boston Business Journal_ published a story (PDF) about Radaris that extolled the company’s rapid growth and considerable customer base. The story noted that, “to date, the company has raised less than $1 million from Cyprus-based investment company **Difive**.”

“We live in a world where information becomes much more broad and much more available every single day,” the Boston Business Journal quoted Radaris’ fake CEO Gary Norden, who by then had somehow been demoted from CEO to vice president of business development.

A Boston Business Journal story from April 2014 quotes the fictitious Radaris CEO Gary Norden.

“We decided there needs to be a service that allows for ease of monitoring of information about people,” the fake CEO said. The story went on to say Radaris was seeking to raise between $5 million and $7 million from investors in the ensuing months.

**THE BIG LUBARSKY**

In his most recent demand letter, Mr. Gurvits helpfully included resumes for both of the Lubarsky brothers.

Gary/Dmitry Lubarsky’s resume states he is the owner of **Difive.com**, a startup incubator for IT companies. Recall that Difive is the same company mentioned by the fake Radaris CEO in the 2014 Boston Business Journal story, which said Difive was the company’s initial and sole investor.

Difive’s website in 2016 said it had offices in Boston, New York, San Francisco, Riga (Latvia) and Moscow (nothing in Ukraine). Meanwhile, DomainTools.com reports difive.com was originally registered in 2007 to the fictitious Gary Norden from Massachusetts.

Archived copies of the Difive website from 2017 include a “Portfolio” page indexing all of the companies in which Difive has invested. That list, available here, includes virtually every “Gary Norden” domain name mentioned in my original report, plus a few that escaped notice earlier.

Dan Lubarsky’s resume says he was CEO of a people search company called **HumanBook**. The Wayback machine at archive.org shows the Humanbook domain (**humanbook.com**) came online around April 2008, when the company was still in “beta” mode.

By August 2008, however, humanbook.com had changed the name advertised on its homepage to **Radaris Beta**. Eventually, Humanbook simply redirected to radaris.com.

Archive.org’s record of humanbook.com from 2008, just after its homepage changed to Radaris Beta.

Astute readers may notice that the domain radaris.com is not among the companies listed as Difive investments. However, passive domain name system (DNS) records from DomainTools show that between October 2023 and March 2024 radaris.com was hosted alongside all of the other Gary Norden domains at the Internet address range **38.111.228.x**.

That address range simultaneously hosted every domain mentioned in this story and in the original March 2024 report as connected to email addresses used by Gary Norden, including radaris.com, radaris.ru, radaris.de, difive.com, privet.ru, blog.ru, comfi.com, phoneowner.com, russianamerica.com, eprofit.com, rehold.com, homeflock.com, humanbook.com and dozens more. A spreadsheet of those historical DNS entries for radaris.com is available here (.csv).

Image: DomainTools.com

The breach tracking service Constella Intelligence finds just two email addresses ending in difive.com have been exposed in data breaches over the years: dan@difive.com, and **gn@difive.com**. Presumably, “gn” stands for Gary Norden.

A search on the email address gn@difive.com via the breach tracking service **osint.industries** reveals this address was used to create an account at **Airbnb** under the name Gary, with the last four digits of the account’s phone number ending in “**0001**.”

Constella Intelligence finds gn@difive.com was associated with the Massachusetts number **617-794-0001**, which was used to register accounts for “Igor Lybarsky” from Wellesley or Sherborn, Ma. at multiple online businesses, including **audiusa.com** and the designer eyewear store **luxottica.com**.

The phone number 617-794-0001 also appears for a “Gary Nard” user at russianamerica.com. Igor Lubarsky’s resume says he was the manager of russianamerica.com.

DomainTools finds 617-794-0001 is connected to registration records for three domains, including **paytone.com**, a domain that Dan Lubarsky’s resume says he managed. DomainTools also found that number on the registration records for trustoria.com, another major consumer data broker that has an atrocious reputation, according to the **Better Business Bureau**.

Dan Lubarsky’s resume says he was responsible for several international telecommunications services, including the website **comfi.com**. DomainTools says the phone number connected to that domain — 617-952-4234 — was also used on the registration records for **humanbook.net/biz/info/mobi/us**, as well as for **radaris.me**, **radaris.in**, and **radaris.tel**.

Two other key domains are connected to that phone number. The first is **b****arsky.com**, which is the website for Barsky Estate Realty Trust (PDF), a real estate holding company controlled by the Lubarskys. Naturally, DomainTools finds barsky.com also was registered to a Gary Norden from Massachusetts. But the organization listed in the barsky.com registration records is **Comfi Inc.**, a VOIP communications firm that Igor Lubarsky’s resume says he managed.

The other domain of note is unipointtechnologies.com. Dan Lubarsky’s resume says he was the CEO of Wellesley Hills, Mass-based **Unipoint Technology Inc.** In 2012, Unipoint was fined $179,000 by the **U.S. Federal Communications Commission**, which said the company had failed to apply for a license to provide international telecommunications services.

**PATENTLY REMARKABLE**

The 2011 Radaris press release quoting their fake CEO Gary Norden said the company had four patents pending from a team of computer science PhDs. According to the resume shared by Mr. Gurvits, Dan Lubarsky has a PhD in computer science.

The **U.S. Patent and Trademark Office** (PTO) says Dan Lubarsky/Lubarski has at least nine technology patents to his name. The fake CEO press release from Radaris mentioning its four patents was published in April 2011. By that time, the PTO says Dan Lubarsky had applied for exactly four patents, including, “System and Method for a Web-Based People Directory.” The first of those patents, published in 2009, is tied to Humanbook.com, the company Dan Lubarsky founded that later changed its name to Radaris.

If the Lubarskys were never involved in Radaris, how do they or their attorney know the inside information that Gary Norden is a fiction of Radaris’ marketing department? KrebsOnSecurity has learned that Mr. Gurvits is the same attorney responding on behalf of Radaris in a lawsuit against the data broker filed earlier this year by **Atlas Data Privacy**.

Mr. Gurvits also stepped forward as Radaris’ attorney in a class action lawsuit the company lost in 2017 because it never contested the claim in court. When the plaintiffs told the judge they couldn’t collect on the $7.5 million default judgment, the judge ordered the domain registry Verisign to transfer the radaris.com domain name to the plaintiffs.

Mr. Gurvits appealed the verdict, arguing that the lawsuit hadn’t named the actual owners of the Radaris domain name — a Cyprus company called **Bitseller Expert Limited** — and thus taking the domain away would be a violation of their due process rights.

The judge ruled in Radaris’ favor — halting the domain transfer — and told the plaintiffs they could refile their complaint. Soon after, the operator of Radaris changed from Bitseller to **Andtop Company**, an entity formed (PDF) in the Marshall Islands in Oct. 2020. Andtop also operates the aforementioned people-search service Trustoria.

Mr. Gurvits’ most-publicized defamation case was a client named **Aleksej Gubarev**, a Russian technology executive whose name appeared in the Steele Dossier. That document included a collection of salacious, unverified information gathered by the former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign at the direction of former president Donald Trump’s political rivals.

Gubarev, the head of the IT services company **XBT Holding** and the Florida web hosting firm **Webzilla**, sued **BuzzFeed** for publishing the Steele dossier. One of the items in the dossier alleged that XBT/Webzilla and affiliated companies played a key role in the hack of Democratic Party computers in the spring of 2016. The memo alleged Gubarev had been coerced into providing services to Russia’s main domestic security agency, known as the FSB.

In December 2018, a federal judge in Miami ruled in favor of BuzzFeed, saying the publication was protected by the fair report privilege, which gives news organizations latitude in reporting on official government proceedings.

Radaris was originally operated by Bitseller Expert Limited. Who owns Bitseller Expert Limited? A report (PDF) obtained from the Cyprus business registry shows this company lists its director as **Pavel Kaydash** from Moscow. Mr. Kaydash could not be reached for comment.

KrebsOnSecurity Threatened with Defamation Lawsuit Over Fake Radaris CEO

More on the recent Snowflake breach, MFA bypass techniques and more.

Thursday, June 20, 2024 14:00

I think we can all agree that tabletop exercises are a good thing. They allow organizations of all sizes to test their incident response plans without the potentially devastating effects of a real-world cyber attack or intrusion. 

As part of my role at Talos, I’ve read hundreds of tabletop exercises for Cisco Talos Incident Response customers, and the knowledge and recommendations contained in each of them are invaluable. No matter how strong your incident response plan seems on paper, there is always something that can be improved, and a tabletop exercise can help your organization identify potential holes or areas of improvement.  

But as I was catching up on the news of the past week, I saw that these exercises may be flying too close to the sun — literally.  

The U.S. National Science Foundation recently released a study on possible outer space cyberattacks with the help of researchers at the California Polytechnic State University.  

The report outlines several possible cyber attack scenarios that could take place in outer space or affect our society’s activities outside of Earth’s atmosphere. One such hypothetical involved adversaries carrying out a distributed denial-of-service attack, disabling electronic door controls on a lunar settlement, trapping the residents inside of a physical structure and locking others out on the unforgiving surface of Earth’s moon.  

Researchers behind the report wrote that the hope is these types of scenarios help encourage private companies and the U.S. government to consider the security needs of any activities in space, including “running tabletop simulation or wargaming exercises.” 

I guess it never hurts to be overly prepared for anything, and we can never be too careful with these scenarios, but I also feel like we may be getting too far over our skis with this one. Recent tabletop exercises from the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) testing possible AI-powered cyber attacks are at least a more prescient issue, even though I have my own reservations about how much of a boost adversaries are getting from AI tools currently.  

Some of the space-based scenarios Cal Poly outlined were admittedly stated as not likely to happen in at least 20 or more years, while others could occur in the next five years. But I also can’t help but ask “why?” when we still can’t even get users on Earth to patch to the most recent version of Microsoft Office, let alone keep their space network protected in a lunar colony (and if we’ve advanced that far, I hope we’re able to develop a better alternative to PowerPoint while we’re at it).  

I recommend at least skimming the entire 95-page report, maybe not necessarily to fuel your next tabletop exercise, but at least to help you feel like a poor password policy on some of your machines isn’t going to deprive anyone of oxygen.  

**The one big thing **

Explore trends on when (and how) attackers will try their 'push-spray' MFA attacks, as well as how adversaries are using social engineering to try and bypass MFA altogether in the latest blog post on multi-factor authentication from Talos. The issues we’re seeing now are mostly down to attacker creativity to try and bypass MFA, and overall poor implementation of the solution (for example, not installing it on public-facing applications or EOL software). Our report highlights what types of MFA bypass techniques are most popular, the timing around these attacks, users who are targeted, and much more.  

**Why do I care? **

In the latest Cisco Talos Incident Response Quarterly Trends report, instances related to multi-factor authentication (MFA) were involved in nearly half of all security incidents that our team responded to in the first quarter of 2024. In 25% of engagements, the underlying cause was users accepting fraudulent MFA push notifications that originated from an attacker. In 21% of engagements, the underlying cause for the incident was a lack of proper implementation of MFA. MFA is used in all sorts of web applications, login credentials and even access to services that are critical to day-to-day work. The fact that adversaries continue to target MFA should be monitored and stay top-of-mind for defenders.  

**So now what? **

Consider implementing number-matching in MFA applications such as Cisco Duo to provide an additional layer of security to prevent users from accepting malicious MFA push notifications.  Implement MFA on all critical services including all remote access and identity access management (IAM) services. MFA will be the most effective method for the prevention of remote-based compromises. It also prevents lateral movement by requiring all administrative users to provide a second form of authentication. There are more recommendations in Talos’ blog.  

**Top security headlines of the week **

**The threat actor behind the wide-reaching Snowflake breach is putting pressure on victims and requesting increasing ransom payments to avoid leaking their data.** According to a new report, as many as 10 companies are still under pressure to hand over monetary payments, with requests from adversaries ranging between $300,000 and $5 million. The hacking scheme, which affects more than 160 companies, now seems to be entering a new phase where the attackers are trying to figure out how to profit from the breach. The perpetrators also publicly speak about how the breach came about, telling Wired that they stole terabytes of data by first breaching a third-party contractor that works with Snowflake. They could then access data companies have stored on their Snowflake instances, such as Ticketmaster. The attackers are also expected to list the stolen data for sale on dark web forums where it may be sold to the highest bidder. (Wired, Bloomberg) 

**Dutch military officials warned this week that a cyber espionage campaign from Chinese state-sponsored actors was more wide-reaching than previously known.** Officials disclosed the campaign in February, warning that adversaries exploited a critical FortiOS/FortiProxy remote code execution vulnerability (CVE-2022-42475) in 2022 and 2023 to deploy malware on vulnerable Fortigate network security appliances. Now, they’ve expanded the number of affected devices to more than 20,000 after the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) first estimated that around 14,000 devices were hit. These targets reportedly include dozens of government agencies, international organizations and defense contractors. The MIVD released a renewed warning about the vulnerability because it believes the Chinese actors still have access to many victims’ networks. The Coathanger malware used in this attack is difficult to detect, as it intercepts system calls to avoid alerting users of its presence. It also survives operating system firmware upgrades. “The NCSC and the Dutch intelligence services have been seeing a trend for some time that vulnerabilities in publicly accessible edge devices such as firewalls, VPN servers, routers and email servers are being exploited,” the MIVD said in its updated statement. (Bleeping Computer, Decipher) 

**U.S. federal agents have shut down and charged two individuals with running a popular dark web marketplace called “Empire Market.”** The site helped generate and organize more than $430 million worth of sales, including illegal drug trades, counterfeit money and stolen credit card data. Federal prosecutors charged Thomas Pavey, also known as "Dopenugget” and Raheim Hamilton, also known as "Sydney" and "Zero Angel," for running Empire Market between 2018 and 2020. The indictment, announced earlier this week, reveals that the two individuals used to advertise these services and stolen data on a site known as AlphaBay before that was shut down in 2017, at which point they launched Empire Market. The site only accepted cryptocurrency for payments to conceal the nature of the transactions, as well as the identities of Empire Market administrators, moderators, buyers and sellers. At the time of the arrest, federal officials seized more than $75 million worth of cryptocurrency and other valuable items. (CBS News, Bloomberg) 

**Can’t get enough Talos? **

*   Android malware used in six-year Pakistan-linked campaign against Indian government 
*   Pakistani Threat Actors Caught Targeting Indian Gov Entities 
*   CyberScoop Safe Mode podcast: Keeping Ukraine’s grid up and running amid war; Snowflake customers under attack 
*   Exploring malicious Windows drivers (Part 2): the I/O system, IRPs, stack locations, IOCTLs and more 
*   Only one critical issue disclosed as part of Microsoft Patch Tuesday 
*   Talos Takes Ep. #187: The many shades of LilacSquid 

**Upcoming events where you can find Talos **

**_Cisco Connect U.K._** **_(June 25)_**

_London, England_

> _In a fireside chat, Cisco Talos experts Martin Lee and Hazel Burton discuss the most prominent cybersecurity threat trends of the near future, how these are likely to impact UK organizations in the coming years, and what steps we need to take to keep safe._

**_BlackHat USA_** **_(Aug. 3 – 8)_** 

_Las Vegas, Nevada_ 

**_Defcon_** **_(Aug. 8 – 11)_** 

_Las Vegas, Nevada_ 

**_BSides Krakow_** **_(Sept. 14)_**  

_Krakow, Poland_ 

**Most prevalent malware files from Talos telemetry over the past week **

**SHA 256:** a31f222fc283227f5e7988d1ad9c0aecd66d58bb7b4d8518ae23e110308dbf91  
**MD5:** 7bdbd180c081fa63ca94f9c22c457376  
**Typical Filename:** c0dwjdi6a.dll  
**Claimed Product:** N/A  
**Detection Name:** Trojan.GenericKD.33515991

**SHA 256:** 9be2103d3418d266de57143c2164b31c27dfa73c22e42137f3fe63a21f793202   
**MD5:** e4acf0e303e9f1371f029e013f902262   
**Typical Filename:** FileZilla\_3.67.0\_win64\_sponsored2-setup.exe   
**Claimed Product:** FileZilla   
**Detection Name:** W32.Application.27hg.1201 

**SHA 256:** a024a18e27707738adcd7b5a740c5a93534b4b8c9d3b947f6d85740af19d17d0   
**MD5:** b4440eea7367c3fb04a89225df4022a6   
**Typical Filename:** Pdfixers.exe   
**Claimed Product:** Pdfixers   
**Detection Name:** W32.Superfluss:PUPgenPUP.27gq.1201 

**SHA 256:** 2d1a07754e76c65d324ab8e538fa74e5d5eb587acb260f9e56afbcf4f4848be5   
**MD5:** d3ee270a07df8e87246305187d471f68   
**Typical Filename:** iptray.exe   
**Claimed Product:** Cisco AMP   
**Detection Name:** Generic.XMRIGMiner.A.A13F9FCC

**SHA 256:** 9b2ebc5d554b33cb661f979db5b9f99d4a2f967639d73653f667370800ee105e   
**MD5:** ecbfdbb42cb98a597ef81abea193ac8f   
**Typical Filename:** N/A   
**Claimed Product:** MAPIToolkitConsole.exe   
**Detection Name:** Gen:Variant.Barys.460270

Tabletop exercises are headed to the next frontier: Space

The "Markopolo" threat actors built a convincing brand and Web presence for fake software to deliver the dangerous Atomic macOS stealer, among other malware, to carry out cryptocurrency heists.

Source: Klaus Ohlenschlaeger via Alamy Stock Photo

A widespread campaign aimed at stealing cryptocurrency is spreading a wave of infostealers through fake virtual meeting software for both macOS and Windows platforms, particularly targeting the former with the dangerous Atomic stealer.

Discovered by Recorded Future's Insikt Group, the campaign attributed to a threat actor dubbed "Markopolo" is responsible for an elaborate Web and social media presence for a fake app called Vortax, according to a report (PDF) published this week.

Vortax is purported to be virtual meeting software for various platforms but actually is a delivery mechanism for three infostealers: Rhadamanthys, Stealc, and Atomic, the researchers found. Attackers target cryptocurrency users in the campaign through social media and Telegram channels for the purpose of stealing credentials, so they can in turn steal crypto from them, according to Insikt.

The campaign is connected to a previously reported attack by Markopolo, identified then only as a Russian-speaking threat group, that previously targeted the Web3 gaming community. The group is known for using shared hosting and command-and-control (C2) infrastructure in order to be able to pivot agilely to new scams when detected, according to Insikt.

"The campaign indicates a widespread credential-harvesting operation, potentially positioning Markopolo as an initial access broker or 'log vendor' on Dark Web shops like Russian Market or 2easy Shop," Insikt Group wrote in a blog post associated with the report.

The activity also demonstrates an uptick in infostealers that target macOS, which traditionally have been less prevalent than their Windows counterparts, Insikt Group noted in its report. Reports of Atomic stealer in particular have been on the rise based on recent research.

"The high volume of \[Atomic\] activity observed in this campaign builds on previous Insikt Group reporting, which found that mentions of macOS malware and exploit kits increased by 79% year-on-year from 2022 to 2023," according to the report. This "may indicate" a link between the overall number of references to macOS malware and the increased frequency of Atomic stealer campaigns observed in the wild, the researchers noted.

**Vortax: Threats Hiding Behind a Convincing Brand**

The foundation of the campaign is in Vortax, a fake "self-proclaimed" virtual meeting software marketed as cross-platform and AI-enhanced for which attackers built a convincing online brand. All major search engines index Vortax, which has a presence (@VortaxSpace) on social media platforms and even maintains a Medium blog using what are likely AI-generated articles.

The company behind the software claims to operate out of an address in Toronto that is actually an apartment building, and even boasts online about bogus awards from respected publications such as Forbes. However, closer inspection revealed that Vortax is a fraud, particularly shown by related website domains, vortax.io and vortax.space — the latter of which has since been suspended — that are rife with spelling and grammatical errors, according to Insikt.

Vortax advertises applications for Windows, Linux, macOS, iOS, and Android on its sites, though users cannot actually download the applications without a “Room ID," which functions as a meeting invitation.

Accounts associated with Vortax have four primary methods for sharing Room IDs — the most common of which are R12307012, R39264552, R87103129, and R71231209. These methods include: replies to the Vortax account on social media; direct messages on social media; posting in cryptocurrency-related Telegram channels; and posting in cryptocurrency-themed Discord channels.

These IDs ultimately lead to an installer for downloading Vortax, which as described just a front for delivering infostealing malware. On Windows platforms, the fake software delivers Rhadamanthys and Stealc, while it loads the Atomic stealer on macOS platforms.

To the user, it appears that Vortax is never actually installed, with the installation process "claiming that it encounters critical errors that impede it from running," while the software is actually "running many malicious processes" in the background, according to the report.

**Mitigation Against Malware-Hiding Software**

Insikt made a number of suggestions for mitigating the campaign, particularly across the macOS platform — which increasingly is being targeted and thus demands new vigilance and "robust defense strategies," according to the report.

Indeed, the distribution of Atomic stealer, previously distributed via fake software updates, demonstrates a pivot by by infostealing threat actors to macOS. One mitigation for the campaign, then, is to ensure that detection systems for Atomic infostealer are regularly updated to prevent infections, according to Insikt.

Organizations also should educate users on the risks of downloading unapproved software, especially from social media or search engines, and implement strict security controls to prevent employees from doing so. They also should encourage corporate network users to report suspicious activities encountered on social media and other platforms.

According to Insikt Group, using intelligence and monitoring platforms that scan for malicious domains and IP addresses associated with Atomic stealer and other macOS malware also can help prevent infection.

**About the Author(s)**

Elizabeth Montalbano is a freelance writer, journalist, and therapeutic writing mentor with more than 25 years of professional experience. Her areas of expertise include technology, business, and culture. Elizabeth previously lived and worked as a full-time journalist in Phoenix, San Francisco, and New York City; she currently resides in a village on the southwest coast of Portugal. In her free time, she enjoys surfing, hiking with her dogs, traveling, playing music, yoga, and cooking.

'Vortax' Meeting Software Builds Elaborate Branding, Spreads Infostealers

The service, likely a rebrand of a previous operation called "Caffeine," mainly targets financial institutions in the Americas and EMEA and uses malicious QR codes and other advanced evasion tactics.

Source: ronstik via Alamy Stock Photo

A highly organized phishing-as-a-service operation (PhaaS) is targeting Microsoft 365 accounts across financial firms with business email compromise (BEC) attacks that leverage a two-factor authentication (2FA) bypass, QR codes, and other advanced evasion tactics to maximize success, researchers have found.

Security analysts from EclecticIQ in February discovered a broad phishing campaign targeting financial institutions, in which threat actors used embedded QR codes in PDF attachments to redirect victims to phishing URLs, according to a blog post published June 18. Specific organizations targeted included banks, private funding firms, and credit union service providers across the Americas and Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) regions.

EclecticIQ eventually tracked the origin of the campaign to a PhaaS platform called ONNX Store, "which operates through a user-friendly interface accessible via Telegram bots," Eclectic IQ threat intelligence analyst Arda Büyükkaya wrote in the post.

A key part of the ONNX service is a 2FA bypass mechanism that intercepts 2FA requests from victims using encrypted JavaScript code, to decrease the likelihood of detection and bolster the success rate of attacks, Büyükkaya noted. Moreover, the phishing pages delivered in the attacks use typosquatting to closely resemble Microsoft 365 login interfaces, making them more likely to trick targets into entering their authentication details.

**Snapshot of an ONNX Attack**

A typical email used in the attack shows a threat actor purporting to send the employee a human resources-related PDF document, such as an employee handbook or a salary remittance slip. The document impersonates Adobe or Microsoft 365 to try to trick a recipient into opening the attachment via a QR code that, once scanned, directs victims to a phishing landing page.

The use of QR codes is an increasingly common tactic for evading endpoint detection, Büyükkaya noted: "Since QR codes are typically scanned by mobile phones, many organizations lack detection or prevention capabilities on employees' mobile devices, making it challenging to monitor these threats."

The attacker-controlled landing page is designed to steal login credentials and 2FA authentication codes using the adversary-in-the-middle (AitM) method, analysts found.

"When victims enter their credentials, the phishing server collects the stolen information via WebSockets protocol, which allows real-time, two-way communication between the user's browser and the server," Büyükkaya wrote. In this way, attackers can quickly capture and transmit stolen data without the need for frequent HTTP requests, making the phishing operation more efficient and harder to detect, he noted.

Another PhaaS operator, Tycoon, also has used a similar AitM technique and a multifactor authentication (MFA) bypass involving a Cloudflare CAPTCHA, demonstrating how malicious actors are learning from each other and adapting strategies accordingly, Büyükkaya said.

ONNX also shares overlap in both Telegram infrastructure and advertising methods with a phishing kit called Caffeine (first discovered by researchers at Mandiant in 2022), the researchers found — so it could be a rebranding of that operation, according to ElecticIQ.

Another scenario is that the Arabic-speaking threat actor MRxC0DER, who is believed to have developed and maintained Caffeine, is providing client support to the ONNX Store, while the broader operation "is likely managed independently by a new entity without central management," Büyükkaya wrote.

**JavaScript Encryption Adds Level of Evasion**

Another anti-detection measure in the ONNX phishing kit is the use of encrypted JavaScript code that decrypts itself during page load, and includes a basic anti-JavaScript debugging feature. "This adds a layer of protection against anti-phishing scanners and complicates analysis," according to the analysis.

EclecticIQ researchers observed a functionality in the decrypted JavaScript code that's specifically designed to steal 2FA tokens entered by the victims and relay them to the attacker, who then uses the stolen credentials and tokens in real time to log in to Microsoft 365.

"This real-time relay of credentials allows the attacker to gain unauthorized access to the victim's account before the 2FA token expires, circumventing multifactor authentication," Büyükkaya wrote.

**Mitigating and Preventing ONNX Phishing Attacks**

ElecticIQ provided countermeasures for combatting specific tactics used by ONNX Store. To mitigate threats from embedded QR codes in PDF documents, organizations should block PDF or HTML attachments from unverified external sources in email server settings. They also can educate employees on the risks associated with scanning QR codes from unknown sources.

To combat the typosquatted domains used by the threat actor to impersonate Microsoft, organizations can implement domain name system security extensions (DNSSEC), which protects domains from multiple cyber threats, including typosquatting.

There are also measures that defenders can take to combat the theft of 2FA tokens, such as implementing FIDO2 hardware security keys for 2FA; setting a short expiration time for login tokens that limits a cyberattacker's window of opportunity to use them; and using security monitoring tools to detect and alert for any unusual behavior, such as multiple failed login attempts or logins from unusual locations.

**About the Author(s)**

Elizabeth Montalbano is a freelance writer, journalist, and therapeutic writing mentor with more than 25 years of professional experience. Her areas of expertise include technology, business, and culture. Elizabeth previously lived and worked as a full-time journalist in Phoenix, San Francisco, and New York City; she currently resides in a village on the southwest coast of Portugal. In her free time, she enjoys surfing, hiking with her dogs, traveling, playing music, yoga, and cooking.

'ONNX' MFA Bypass Targets Microsoft 365 Accounts

"ClearFake" and "ClickFix" attackers are tricking people into cutting and pasting malicious PowerShell scripts to infect their own machines with RATs and infostealers.

Source: Nico El Nino via Shutterstock

Threat actors are using fake browser updates and software fixes to trick users into cutting/copying and pasting PowerShell scripts loaded with various malware strains — including remote access Trojans (RATs) and infostealers — to infect their computers.

Researchers from Proofpoint observed the socially engineered technique employed by initial access broker tracked as TA571, as well as an unidentified actor in the last three months, starting as early as March 1, they revealed in a blog post published June 17.

There appear to be two methods of social engineering used in the activity — one that offers fake browser updates in yet another ClearFake campaign, and the other that delivers error messages related to Word, Google Chrome, and OneDrive dubbed "ClickFix" by the researchers. Malware delivered in the campaign includes the DarkGate and NetSupport RATs, the malware loader Matanbuchus, and various information stealers, including Lumma and Vidar.

"Whether the initial campaign begins via malspam or delivered via web browser injects, the technique is similar," Proofpoint researchers Tommy Madjar, Dusty Miller, Selena Larson, and the Proofpoint Threat Research Team explained in the post.

The campaigns show users are a pop-up textbox that suggests an error occurred when trying to open the document or webpage, and further instructions to copy and paste a malicious script into either the PowerShell terminal or the Windows Run dialog box to eventually execute the script via PowerShell, they said.

Attackers use "clever" and "authoritative" social engineering in the fake error messages delivered to users in the campaign, and also "provides both the problem and a solution so that a viewer may take prompt action without pausing to consider the risk," the researchers noted.

The activity reflects a trend among cybercriminals to adopt "increasingly creative attack chains" that ensure the success of campaigns that employ nested PowerShell and other technical tactics that are not easily detected by users, they said.

**ClearFake for Malware Delivery**

Proofpoint first observed the cut-and-paste technique with a ClearFake campaign in early April as well as "every other ClearFake campaign since then," the researchers noted. ClearFake is a previously identified fake browser update activity cluster that compromises legitimate websites with malicious HTML and JavaScript.  

In the latest campaigns, when a user visited a compromised website, the injection caused the website to load a malicious script hosted on the blockchain via Binance’s Smart Chain contracts, using a technique known as EtherHiding. The initial script then loaded a second script from a domain to eventually present a fake warning warning instructing them to install a "root certificate" to view the website correctly.

The message included instructions to click a button to copy a PowerShell script and then provided steps on how to manually run this script on the victim's computer. If this is done, the user effectively executes the PowerShell by pasting it into the PowerShell command line interface window. Proofpoint observed at least five types of malware being delivered in this way, including the Lumma stealer, Amadey Loader, and JaskaGo.

**ClickFix Baits With Error Messages**

Proofpoint first began to observe what it calls the ClickFix campaign in mid-April when its researchers found compromised sites containing an inject leading to an iframe on pley\[.\]es displayed as an overlay error message. The messaged claimed that a faulty browser update needed to be fixed and asked the victim to open “Windows PowerShell (Admin)”–which will open an User Account Control (UAC) prompt–and then right-click to paste the code.

If users take the bait, PowerShell runs another remote PowerShell script that downloads and runs an executable, eventually leading to Vidar stealer. While the payload domain used in the PowerShell was taken offline just a few days after the researchers discovered the activity, the custom content of the iframe was replaced with the ClearFake injection that was still active earlier this month. The researchers remain unclear if the same actor is behind ClearFake and ClickFix, however.

**TA571 Attribution**

Proofpoint observed TA571 using cut-and-paste PowerShell against victims as early as March 1 in a campaign that included more than 100,000 messages and targeted thousands of organizations globally. The threat actor employed emails containing an HTML attachment that displayed a page resembling Microsoft Word as well as error message claiming that "the Word Online" extension is not installed.

The message presented users with two options to continue, either "how to fix" or "auto-fix," both of which led them down to malicious paths to install malware, including Matanbuchus or DarkGate, using PowerShell or DLL files.

TA571's use of similar attack chains throughout the spring using "various visual lures and varying between instructing the victim to either open the PowerShell terminal or using the Run dialog box" demonstrates a link between the actor and the ClickFix campaign, the researchers noted.

**Mitigating Malware Compromise**

Proofpoint included a list of indicators of compromise (IoCs) in recent campaigns, acknowledging that it is not an "exhaustive list" but merely a snapshot of websites, email addresses, and other processes related to the malicious activity that its researchers have observed.

Overall the attack chain requires "significant user interaction" to be successful, which means the most practical way for organizations to help avoid compromise on their network is employee awareness and training, the researchers noted.

"Organizations should train users to identify the activity and report suspicious activity to their security teams," the researchers wrote. "This is very specific training but can easily be integrated into an existing user training program." 

**About the Author(s)**

Elizabeth Montalbano is a freelance writer, journalist, and therapeutic writing mentor with more than 25 years of professional experience. Her areas of expertise include technology, business, and culture. Elizabeth previously lived and worked as a full-time journalist in Phoenix, San Francisco, and New York City; she currently resides in a village on the southwest coast of Portugal. In her free time, she enjoys surfing, hiking with her dogs, traveling, playing music, yoga, and cooking.

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