Research Saturday

Dick O'Brien from Symantec's threat hunter team, joins Dave to discuss their work on "Stonefly: North Korea-linked spying operation continues to hit high-value targets." Stonefly specializes in mounting highly selective targeted attacks against targets that could yield intelligence to assist strategically important sectors.

Symantec found that The attackers breached an engineering firm in February 2022, most likely by exploiting the Log4j vulnerability, Their research describes who these high value targets are and ways to prevent this malware from breaching any more companies as well as indications that you could be compromised.

The research can be found here:

• Stonefly: North Korea-linked Spying Operation Continues to Hit High-value Targets

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Yanir Tsarimi from Orca Security, joins Dave to discuss how researchers have discovered a critical Azure Automation service vulnerability called AutoWarp. The security flaw was discovered this past March causing Yanir to leap into action announcing the issue to Microsoft who helped to swiftly resolve the cross-account vulnerability.

The research shows how this serious flaw would allow attackers unauthorized access to other customer accounts and potentially full control over resources and data belonging to those accounts, as well as put multiple Fortune 500 companies and billions of dollars at risk. The research shares the crucial time line that the vulnerability was discovered as well as Microsofts response to the vulnerability.

The research can be found here:

• AutoWarp: Critical Cross-Account Vulnerability in Microsoft Azure Automation Service

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Dr. May Wang, CTO of IoT Security at Palo Alto Networks, joins Dave Bittner to discuss their findings detailed in Unit 42's "Know Your Infusion Pump Vulnerabilities and Secure Your Healthcare Organization" research. Unit 42 recently set out to better understand how well hospitals and other healthcare providers are doing in securing smart infusion pumps, which are network-connected devices that deliver medications and fluids to patients. This topic is of critical concern because security lapses in these devices have the potential to put lives at risk or expose sensitive patient data.

Unit 42's discovery of security gaps in three out of four infusion pumps that they reviewed highlights the need for the healthcare industry to redouble efforts to protect against known vulnerabilities, while diligently following best practices for infusion pumps and hospital networks. May walks us through Unit 42's work.

The research can be found here:

• Know Your Infusion Pump Vulnerabilities and Secure Your Healthcare Organization

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Tushar Richabadas from Barracuda joins Dave Bittner to discuss their findings detailed in their "Threat Spotlight: Attacks on Log4Shell vulnerabilities." Their research shows the percentage of attackers targeting the vulnerabilities, and shows where the dips and spikes are over the course of the past couple of months.

The research has also gathered where the attackers main IP addresses are located, with 83% of them located in the United States. They breakdown what this malware can do and how to protect yourself against it. They say "Due to the growing number of vulnerabilities found in web applications, it is getting progressively more complex to protect against attacks."

The research can be found here:

• Threat Spotlight: Attacks on Log4Shell vulnerabilities

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Vikram Thakur of Symantec Threat Hunter team joins Dave Bittner to discuss their work on Daxin, a new and the most advanced piece of malware researchers have seen from China-linked actors. Symantec said " There is strong evidence to suggest the malware, Backdoor.Daxin, which allows the attacker to perform various communications and data-gathering operations on the infected computer, has been used as recently as November 2021 by attackers linked to China."

They go on to explain how Daxin is used to target organizations and governments of strategic interest to China and how those agencies can protect themselves. Symantec also discusses how this is the most advanced piece of malware their researchers have seen.

The research can be found here:

• Daxin: Stealthy Backdoor Designed for Attacks Against Hardened Networks

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John Hammond from Huntress joins Dave Bittner on this episode to discuss malware known as BABYSHARK and how it is swimming out for blood once again. Huntress's research says "This activity aligns with known tradecraft attributed to North Korean threat actors targeting national security think tanks."

Huntress also adds that the activity was spotted on February 16th and immediately their ThreatOps team began following the trail of breadcrumbs. They said "This led them to uncover the malware that was set to target specifically this organization–and certain influential individuals within it."

The research can be found here:

• Targeted APT Activity: BABYSHARK Is Out for Blood

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Alan Neville from Symantec/Broadcom joins Dave Bittner on this episode to discuss Antlion, a Chinese state-backed hacker group using custom backdoors to target financial institutions in Taiwan. Symantec's blog shares the research behind the attacks and how the backdoor allowed the attackers to run WMI commands remotely.

Symantec's research showed that "The goal of this campaign appears to have been espionage, as we saw the attackers exfiltrating data and staging data for exfiltration from infected networks." They have since found that this attack has been going on over the course of the past 18 months, in which 250 days were spent on the financial organization and around 175 days were spent on the manufacturing organization.

The research can be found here:

• Antlion: Chinese APT Uses Custom Backdoor to Target Financial Institutions in Taiwan

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Alon Zahavi from CyberArk, joins Dave Bittner on this episode to discuss CyberArk's work in conjunction with Patch Tuesday. CyberArk published about how Docker inadvertently created a new vulnerability and what happens when it's exploited.

CyberArk's research concluded that an attacker may execute files with capabilities or setuid files in order to escalate its privileges up to root level. CyberArk found the new vuln in some of Microsoft’s Docker images, caused by misuse of Linux capabilities, a powerful additional layer of security that gives admins the ability to assign capabilities and privileges to processes and files in the Linux system

The research can be found here:

• How Docker Made Me More Capable and the Host Less Secure

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Guest Michael DeBolt from Intel 471 joins Dave Bittner on this episode to discuss one of the most popular commodity malware loaders on the underground – PrivateLoader. The blog provides an analysis of campaigns since May 2021, full details on a Pay-per-install (PPI) malware service, the methods operators employ to obtain “installs,” and insights on the malware families the service delivers.

On Intel 471's blog, it shows the breakdown of how the PrivateLoader download is delivered and how it works. The blog states "Visitors are lured into clicking a “Download Crack” or “Download Now” button to obtain an allegedly cracked version of the software." Michael explains more about this popular commodity malware loader.

The research can be found here:

• PrivateLoader: The first step in many malware schemes

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Guest Dick O'Brien from Symantec joins Dave Bittner on this episode to discuss how "Shuckworm Continues Cyber-Espionage Attacks Against Ukraine." The Russia-linked Shuckworm group (aka Gamaredon, Armageddon) has been active since 2013 and is known to use phishing emails to distribute either freely available remote access tools.

In July 2021, Symantec observed Shuckworm activity on an organization in Ukraine and this continued until August 2021. According to a November 2021 report from the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU), since 2014 the Shuckworm group has been responsible for over 5,000 attacks against more than 1,500 Ukrainian government systems. Dick walks us through Symantec's investigation.

The research can be found here:

• Shuckworm Continues Cyber-Espionage Attacks Against Ukraine

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