Eliana Willis

The FIN7 hacking group is back with a campaign that shows off a novel backdoor and other new malicious tools. FIN7 is considered a key threat actor today and has severely impacted countless financial organizations worldwide.

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This money-motivated cyberattack group, also tracked as Carbanak, specializes in Business Email Compromise (BEC) scams and point-of-sale (PoS) system intrusions. The group attempts to steal consumer payment card data and, in recent years, has continued to innovate and refine its intrusion methods. Active since at least 2015, FIN7 has a range of custom malware in its toolset, including backdoors, information stealers, the SQLRat SQL script dropper, the Loudout downloader, and has even used mailed USB drives sent to businesses in the past to infect its victims with malware. Recently, cybersecurity researchers tied FIN7 to ransomware operators, including REvil, Darkmatter, and Alphv.Despite arrests and the sentencing of high-level FIN7 members, the attack waves continue, with the latest including the “use of novel malware, incorporation of new initial access vectors, and likely shift in monetization strategies,” according to Mandiant.In a deep dive on the threat actor’s latest activities, Mandiant said that FIN7 had continued to evolve its initial intrusion methods beyond BEC scams and phishing attempts. Now, the group is also leveraging supply chains, RDP, and stolen credentials to infiltrate enterprise networks. Mandiant researchers said that a new ‘novel’ backdoor is being favored in recent attacks. Dubbed Powerplant, the PowerShell-based backdoor — also known as KillACK — is delivered via Griffon, a lightweight Java implant, and is used to maintain persistent access to a target system and steal information, including credentials. Powerplant also facilitates the deployment of other malicious modules, including the Easylook reconnaissance tool and the Birdwatch downloader. New variants of the .NET Birdwatch downloader, tracked as Crowview and Fowlgaze by the research team, are being used to grab malicious payloads via HTTP, write them to disk, and then execute them. The malware can also package and send reconnaissance information to its command-and-control (C2) server, such as network configuration data, web browser usage, running process lists, and more. Crowview is slightly different as it also includes a self-destruct mechanism, configuration changes, and unlike the original, can house a payload embedded in its code. Another backdoor malware variant, Beacon, may be used in attacks as a backup entry mechanism. Other malicious tools include the Powertrash dropper, the Termite shellcode loader, Weirdloop, Diceloader, Pillowmint, and Boatlaunch.Boatlaunch is of particular note as it is a utility used to patch existing PowerShell processes to bypass Window’s antimalware scanning software, AntiMalware Scan Interface (AMSI), and will also act as a “helper” module during intrusions, according to the cybersecurity researchers. Mandiant has also tied several campaigns together as the work of FIN7. In total, eight separate, uncategorized (UNC) threat groups have been merged into FIN7 activities, and a further 17 are suspected of links with the cybercriminal outfit. “Throughout their evolution, FIN7 has increased the speed of their operational tempo, the scope of their targeting, and even possibly their relationships with other ransomware operations in the cybercriminal underground,” Mandiant said.See alsoHave a tip? Get in touch securely via WhatsApp | Signal at +447713 025 499, or over at Keybase: charlie0 More

A cyber attack has forced arts, crafts, toys, books and stationery retailer The Works to temporarily close several stores, and caused disruption to stock resupplies and delayed deliveries of online orders. The retailer, which has over 500 stores across the UK, says it has been subjected to a “cybersecurity incident involving unauthorised access to its computer systems”. As a result of the cyber attack, some stores have been forced to close because of issues with tills, while replenishment of stock has been temporarily suspended. Customers who order items online are experiencing longer waits for their deliveries because of the incident. SEE: A winning strategy for cybersecurity (ZDNet special report) The retailer says customer payment details haven’t been accessed by intruders because credit and debit card details are stored securely outside of store systems by third-parties.The Works has moved to assure customers that they can “continue to shop safely” both in stores and online. Store deliveries are expected to resume “imminently” and normal online services are gradually being restored. After being alerted to the incident, the company disabled all internal and external access to its systems, including email, whilst it worked to evaluate and rectify the situation. External cybersecurity experts have been appointed to aid with the investigation into the incident and aid with recovery. “To protect customers and the business, the company has made some immediate protective changes to further strengthen its security position,” The Works said in a statement about the cybersecurity incident. “The company does not currently anticipate that this incident will have a material adverse impact on its forecasts or financial position,” it added.  MORE ON CYBERSECURITY More

Electricity, oil and gas and other critical infrastructure vital to our everyday lives is increasingly at risk from cyber attackers who know that successfully compromising industrial control systems (ICS) and operational technology (OT) can enable them to disrupt or tamper with vital services. A report from cybersecurity company Dragos details ten different hacking operations which are known to have actively targeted industrial systems in North America and Europe – and it’s warned that this activity is likely to grow in the next 12 months. The list includes several state-backed hacking operations, such as Electrum – also known as Sandworm – which is linked to the Russian military, Covellite, which is linked to North Korea’s Lazarus Group, and Vanadinite, which is lined to APT 41, a hacking operation working on behalf of China. As more critical infrastructure is connected to the internet or accessible to staff by remote desktop protocols and VPNs, it’s increasingly becoming a target for nation-state backed hackers and cyber criminal gangs interested in breaching and examining OT networks to lay the groundwork for future campaigns. “A lot of this is increasing appetite to be in those places – typically from state-sponsored operations – where they want capability where they could have an impact in future,” Magpie Graham, principal adversary hunter and technical director at Dragos told ZDNet. After hackers enter industrial networks, it’s unlikely to have an immediate impact on the systems controlling operational processes because it could take years for attackers to understand everything – but it’s about laying the foundations for this for the future.  SEE: A winning strategy for cybersecurity (ZDNet special report) The campaigns being tracked by Dragos have a variety of aims – some are around stealing information, or there could potentially be plans to cause disruption – for example, cyber criminals looking to launch ransomware attacks. The nature of operational technology and a reliance on older software and protocols means any evidence of compromise can be missed, proving hackers with ample time to move around, understand and gain control of networks. It’s this what researchers describe as “the biggest cybersecurity weakness” facing industrial networks, because without having a full picture of what needs to be protected from cyber attacks, it’s not possible to fully defend networks from hackers. Cybersecurity weaknesses in industrial networks aren’t necessarily new, but as more threat groups become interested in infiltrating them, it could lead to significant problems. The also paper warns that activity related to cyber attacks targeting industrial infrastructure has been observed since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and western cybersecurity agencies have issued warnings on the need to protect networks from attacks.In addition to having a good understanding of what’s on the network, many standard cybersecurity practices can help secure OT networks. These include applying security updates to patch known vulnerabilities in software, and applying multi-factor authentication whenever possible.  It’s hoped that by drawing attention to the hacking groups, campaigns and the risk to the industrial sector, that organisations involved will heed the warnings and apply the necessary protections to protect themselves from cyber espionage, disruptive attacks and other potential cybersecurity threats. “It can work in a more positive light, where we have seen these attacks, it can work just a reminder for organisations to protect themselves,” said Graham. According to Dragos, the most active threat groups targeting critical infrastructure are:Parasite: a group which targets utilities, aerospace and oil and gas in Europe, the Middle East and North America. Thee group uses open source tools and known vulnerabilities for initial access. Parasite is suspected to be linked to Iran.Xenotime: a group which targets oil & gas companies in Europe, the United States and Australia. It’s believed the group is linked to Russia.Magnallium: a group which initially targeted oil and gas and aircract companies in Saudi Arabia, which has expanded targeted to Europe and North America. It’s thought to be related to APT 33, a state-sponsored Iranian hacking group.Dymalloy: a group which targets electric utilities, oil and gas and other advanced industrial entities across Europe, Turkey and North America. Described as “highly aggressive”, Dymalloy looks for long-term persistence in networks and is thought to be linked to Russia.Electrum: this group is capable of developing malware that can modify and control OT procedures and Dragos researchers say this operation was responsible for Crash Override – also known as Industroyer – a malware attack on Ukraine’s power grid in December 2016. Electrum is associated with Sandworm, an offensive hacking operation that’s part of Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency. Allanite: a group which targets enterprise and OT networks in the UK and US elecricity sectors, as well as German industrial infrastructure and uses access to conduct reconnaissance on networks to potentially stage future disruptive events. It’s believed Allanite is linked to Russia.Chrysene: Active since at least 2017, this group has targeted industrial organisations in Europe and the Middle East, and mainly conducts intelligence gathering operations to potentially facilitate further attacks. Chrysense is suspected to be linked to Iran.Kamacite: a group which has been active since at least 2014 and believed to be responsible for cyber attacks against Ukrainian power facilities in 2015 and 2016. The group is linked to Sandworm.Covellite: a group which has targeted electric utilities in Europe, the US and East Asia using malicious attachments in phishing emails. The group is thought to be linked to the Lazarus Group, a state-backed hacking group working out of North Korea.Vanadinite: A hacking group which targets external-facing, vulnerable software in industrial organisations around the world. It’s thought to be linked to APT 41, a state-sponsored Chinese hacking operation.  MORE ON CYBERSECURITY More

Microsoft has weighed in on Spring4Shell, a recently discovered flaw in the Spring Framework for Java.Microsoft is telling customers of its Azure cloud service to patch the recently disclosed bug, a critical-rated remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability that’s been tagged as CVE-2022-22965 and dubbed SpringShell or Spring4Shell — a twist on the dire Log4Shell bug affecting another Java-based application logging utility.  

While there was initial debate about how serious the bug is, sleuthing by security researchers in the days afterwards after the flaw was discovered revealed that Spring4Shell was indeed a serious bug that warranted attention. The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on April 1 urged all US organizations, including federal agencies, to patch it immediately. On April 4, CISA added the bug to its catalog of known exploited vulnerabilities, which requires federal agencies to patch it within a deadline. The Spring Framework is “the most widely used lightweight open-source framework for Java,” Microsoft notes. The bug resides in the Java Development Kit (JDK) from version 9.0 and upwards if the system is also using Spring Framework versions 5.3.0 to 5.3.17, 5.2.0 to 5.2.19, and earlier versions.”In Java Development Kit (JDK) version 9.0 or later, a remote attacker can obtain an AccessLogValve object through the framework’s parameter binding feature and use malicious field values to trigger the pipeline mechanism and write to a file in an arbitrary path, if certain conditions are met,” Microsoft’s Defender threat intelligence team reports. Other conditions required for exploitation include that Apache Tomcat serves as the Servlet container, that the app is packaged as a traditional Java web archive (WAR) and deployed in a standalone Tomcat instance. However, Spring Boot is most commonly deployed as an embedded Servlet container or reactive web server, which are are not impacted. “Any system using JDK 9.0 or later and using the Spring Framework or derivative frameworks should be considered vulnerable,” Microsoft notes. Microsoft notes that the only working exploit, a proof of concept, can only be used remotely on a Tomcat server via its logging module using certain commands. An attacker can change default access logs to whatever file they want by issuing requests to it over the web. An attacker can then change the contents of a web server or application. Just like Log4Shell, Spring4Shell’s impact is felt through its inclusion in other products. Hypervisor firm VMware, for example, warned it affected its Tanzu services for virtual machines and container software. “The current exploit leverages the same mechanism as in CVE-2010-1622, bypassing the previous bug fix. Java 9 added a new technology called Java Modules,” Microsoft assesses. “An accessor was added to the Class object, called getModule(). The Module object contains a getClassLoader() accessor. Since the CVE-2010-1622 fix only prevented mapping the getClassLoader() accessor of Class objects, Spring mapped the getClassLoader() accessor of the Module object. Once again, one could reference the class loader from Spring via the class.module.classLoader parameter name prefix.”Security teams interested in researching the subject can refer to this user post on GitHub. The team behind Spring has also explained the patch and vulnerability here.  More

GitHub has introduced a new scanning feature for protecting developers from accidental secret leaks.

On April 4, the Microsoft-owned code repository said the GitHub Advanced Security suite has now been upgraded with a new push protection feature to prevent the leak of secrets that could compromise organization-owned projects.GitHub Advanced Security is a licensed business product including code scanning, supply chain attack protection, and Dependabot alerts. The new feature is an optional check for developers to use during their workflows before a git push is accepted. As of now, the scan will only check for “highly identifiable patterns” of potential leaks based on the collaborative efforts of GitHub and partner organizations, including token issuers. There are 69 patterns in total that the tool will check for as potential indicators of secret leaks. In addition, over 100 different token types are checked. These include those issued by Alibaba Cloud, Amazon, AWS, Azure, npm, Slack, and Stripe.GitHub says that over 700,000 secrets across thousands of private repositories have been detected to date. If push protection is enabled, a scan will check for high-confidence leak patterns. If a pattern flags up, the push is blocked. According to the company, there has been a low false-positive rate during testing. “If a secret is identified, developers can review and remove the secrets from their code before pushing again,” GitHub explained. “In rare cases where immediate remediation doesn’t make sense, developers can move forward by resolving the secret as a false positive, test case, or real instance to fix later.” Open security alert cases are automatically generated if instances are selected as issues to be resolved after a push. The new feature can be enabled in the suite’s user interface or via the API. “By scanning for highly identifiable secrets before they are committed, we can, together, shift security to being proactive instead of reactive and prevent secrets from leaking altogether,” GitHub commented.  Previous and related coverage Have a tip? Get in touch securely via WhatsApp | Signal at +447713 025 499, or over at Keybase: charlie0 More

Cyber criminals are copying legitimate smartphone applications and injecting them with malicious code to spy on users and steal personal data including bank information, passwords, photos and more.  According to cybersecurity company Pradeo’s Mobile Security Report 2022, there are more than 700 websites which operate as third-party download stores outside of the official app marketplaces. Third-party app stores mostly cater for Android smartphone users, because the open nature of Google’s ecosystem means that it’s easier to download apps from outside of Google’s Play Store. But some of these third-party sites don’t check the content of apps, and some are specifically designed to for illicit purposes, providing cyber criminals with an avenue for tricking users into downloading malicious apps containing malware. In many cases, researchers warn, crooks are making direct copies of original applications, but tamper with the code to add malicious features. Often the copied apps claim to be offering users additional features or a premium subscription, but in reality they’re just knock-offs designed to steal data from victims. Some of the popular apps being faked to help spread spyware include streaming services, VPN providers and anti-virus software. SEE: Cybersecurity: Let’s get tactical (ZDNet special report) Cyber criminals often use phishing emails to direct their victims towards malicious downloads, but many can also be found using search engines, particularly if users are specifically looking for free or cracked versions of apps. Information the crooks are after includes passwords, messages, photos, contact lists, digital wallets and more. The very nature of how people use smartphones makes them a prime target for stealing personal data which can be exploited by cyber criminals and cause ongoing problems for the victim. Downloading applications claiming to be well-known services from third-party sites can be potentially risky, particularly if the app promises to be free even though the service is usually accessed via a paid subscription. Users should always be cautious about offers like this which appear to be too good to be true, because the offer is potentially just a gimmick designed to attract downloads in order to install malware on as many phones as possible. For example the security researchers said they found hundreds of fake version of Netflix app online of varying sophistication, and which actually contained adware, spyware or malware. Another warning sign that an app might be fake: one version claimed to allow the user to watch shows which are exclusive to rival streaming service. One of the best ways to stay safe from malicious apps is to only download apps from the official app stores. Users who suspect they may have downloaded a malicious app are recommended to reset their device and to monitor their accounts for signs of suspicious activity which could be attempting to exploit stolen data. MORE ON CYBERSECURITY More

Singapore has unveiled plans to drive innovation and beef up cybersecurity resilience in its maritime industry. These new initiatives will include a roadmap to guide organisations in the sector to trial additive manufacturing practices.  Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) said Tuesday it would continue to boost research and development (R&D) efforts as well as pilots in maritime technologies. It also would look to develop maritime cybersecurity capabilities, so the industry had the resilience and infrastructure to manage disruptions. Specifically, it introduced a report that aimed to provide a roadmap to help organisations trial new practices in additive manufacturing. The new report outlined maritime additive manufacturing capabilities in Singapore as well as learning points from previous trials and adoption processes. 

The document was jointly developed by MPA, National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Cluster, and Singapore Shipping Association (SSA).To further drive digital transformation in the sector, MPA said the Sea Transport Industry Digital Plan had been expanded to allow some 3,000 small and midsize businesses (SMBs) in all sea transport market segments to apply for co-funding assistance. This would include SMBs in subsectors such as ship brokers, marine surveyors, and ship operators, which can now apply to receive funding support for the adoption of pre-approved digital tools. SSA also inked an agreement with seven industry players, including Eastport Maritime, Ocean Network Express, and Orient Maritime Agencies, to boost the local sector’s cybersecurity capabilities. The collaboration would see the establishment of a maritime cybersecurity roundtable, during which participants would recommend initiatives aimed at improving maritime cybersecurity partnership. These would include data sharing, boosting local maritime cyber skillsets, and driving greater awareness as well as access to digital maritime tools and skills. This roundtable was slated to kick off its first meeting later this year, according to MPA.”As we digitalise more of our processes, we open up more nodes that could be exploited, including those with capabilities to mount sophisticated attacks on critical infrastructure,” said Singapore’s Senior Minister of State for Transport Chee Hong Tat, at the opening of the MarineTech Conference held Tuesday. “Cybersecurity is part of our overall security.”Noting that the city-state had been stepping up efforts to drive maritime cybersecurity, Chee said: “It is a requirement for maritime cyber risk management to be incorporated into the safety management systems of companies operating Singapore-flagged vessels. The Maritime Cluster Fund also provides co-funding support for cybersecurity training courses to ensure our workers are aware of such risks and have the knowledge and skills to protect themselves from these attacks.”He noted that MPA had been working with its peers through the Port Authorities Chief Information Officer Cybersecurity Network to share data and best practices. The minister added that the new maritime cybersecurity roundtable would look at initiatives over the next three years to boost Singapore’s cybersecurity defence and maritime cybersecurity skills.New agreements also were inked between Skyports, Wilhelmsen Ships Service, and Thome Group, to further push the commercialisation of maritime ship-to-shore delivery services in Singapore. In addition, the initiatives would look to develop the necessary infrastructure to support these services for all industry stakeholders.These would include trials of proof-of-concept operations that could lead to the operationalisation of drone delivery services in maritime. For example, Skyports would deploy Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) deliveries from the Maritime Drone Estate to vessels at pre-identified anchorages. In addition, a three-year agreement has been inked between the Singapore Maritime Institute and Research Institutes of Sweden in maritime R&D. This research collaboration will cover maritime informatics, supply chain innovation, decarbonisation and sustainability, and safety and security. Chee said: “The pandemic has accelerated the adoption of new technologies by businesses and individuals, and opened up new collaborations across geographies and sectors. This provides opportunities for maritime technology companies to ‘start-up’ and ‘scale-up’.”He said the country aspired to be the Silicon Valley for maritime technology, focusing on digitalisation, innovation, and partnerships. RELATED COVERAGE More