Cyware Weekly Threat Intelligence, August 01 - 05, 2022

The Good

The widely used Traffic Light Protocol (TLP) gets a makeover after five years of the release of its first version. Under the new TLP 2.0, the TLP:WHITE level has been renamed TLP:CLEAR, and TLP:AMBER has an additional sub-level named TLP:AMBER+STRICT. Meanwhile, the NIST and CISA are finalizing a guideline for Identity and Access Management (IAM) that comes in the wake of the SolarWinds attacks where threat actors took advantage of poor identity management to compromise nine federal agencies.

• NIST and CISA are working on finalizing guidance for Identity and Access Management (IAM) as a part of the roadmap for improving critical infrastructure security. The development comes in the wake of the SolarWinds security incident where adversaries took advantage of poor identity management to compromise at least nine federal agencies.
• The Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST) has released the 2.0 version of Traffic Light Protocol (TLP), five years after the release of the initial version. In the new update, the TLP:WHITE level has now been renamed TLP:CLEAR. Similarly, TLP:Amber has another sub-level named TLP:AMBER+STRICT.
• Meta, Facebook's parent company, took action against two threat actor groups—Bitter and APT36—for using their platforms to launch attacks against various targets across Southeast Asia.

The Bad

Unfortunately, cryptocurrency and blockchain firms are at the mercy of threat actors as Solana and Nomad confirmed losing more than $200 million in different hacking incidents. Ransomware threat actors continued to wreak havoc across multiple organizations, with Semikron suffering a loss of 2TB worth of documents and Aetna AEC reporting the personal data of nearly 326,000 of its users being impacted.

• Microsoft disclosed a potential connection between the Raspberry Robin malware and a Russian cybercrime group - Evil Corp. The company’s researchers discovered that the Raspberry Robin Windows worm was being used to deliver the FakeUpdates malware. It is believed that the Raspberry Robin malware was deployed on the networks of hundreds of organizations from a wide range of industry sectors.
• An unknown actor drained funds from approximately 8,000 wallets on the Solana network, causing a loss of approximately $8 million. The funds were drained from internet-connected hot wallets that include Phantom, Slope, and TrustWallet.
• Cryptocurrency service Nomad suffered a major setback after hackers drained almost $200 million in digital funds from the company within a few hours. The attacker exploited a security flaw in the blockchain bridge to steal the funds.
• Spinneys, a major retailer in UAE, suffered a ransomware attack on its internal server. The hackers accessed an internal server that contained customer data, including names, contact numbers, email addresses, delivery addresses, and previous order info. The investigation into the incident is ongoing.
• Football fans have been warned to exercise caution after news emerged that fraudsters are increasingly leveraging social media to sell non-existent tickets. Some victims have lost thousands of pounds on fake tickets for big matches such as cup finals.
• Popular app JusTalk was found exposing a humongous database of private messages to the public internet for months. The database was not password-locked and the messages were unencrypted.
• Health insurer Aetna ACE reported that a ransomware incident involving OneTouchPoint had affected the personal data of nearly 326,000 of its customers. The affected information included names, addresses, dates of birth, and limited medical information.
• Germany-based semiconductor manufacturer company, Semikron, was hit by a ransomware attack, resulting in the partial encryption of IT systems and files. LV ransomware gang is behind the attack and stole 2TB worth of documents.
• At least four Taiwanese websites suffered an outage owing to DDoS attacks. The affected websites belonged to President Tsai Ing-wen’s, the National Defense Ministry, the Foreign Affairs Ministry, and Taiwan Taoyuan International airport.
• Over 35,000 software repositories on GitHub were discovered distributing malware. Threat actors created copies of legitimate projects including crypto, golang, python, docker, Js, and bash to trick unsuspecting developers into downloading the malware.
• INKY discovered many instances where malicious redirects were at the heart of a slew of recent phishing attacks. Phishers took advantage of open redirect vulnerabilities affecting American Express and Snapchat domains to harvest credentials.
• Community healthcare provider First Choice notified its customers of a data security incident that occurred due to a discrepancy in its technological environment. The incident may have exposed the personal and protected health information of individuals treated at the firm.
• The BlackCat ransomware actors took the responsibility for the attack on Luxembourg-based energy firm Creos. The attackers claim to have stolen 150GB of information, containing agreements, contracts, bills, emails, and passports.
• A cyberattack against Avamere Health Services, an IT service provider to healthcare entities, resulted in two health data breaches that impacted 100 covered entities and 381,000 individuals.
• Blockchain security firm Halborn warned about a new phishing campaign targeting crypto wallet MetaMask’s users. The scammers attempt to lure targets into giving up their passphrases.
• Healthback Holdings, a home health company based in Oklahoma, disclosed a data breach that impacted around 21,114 individuals. The firm discovered unauthorized activity within its employee email environment on June 1.
• The Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK) suffered a massive cyberattack, forcing it to shut down all of its IT systems as well as telephones, email servers, and digital services. The investigation is in progress.
• Malware installed on the computer of an employee of fintech company Wiseasy enabled attackers to steal passwords for more than 140,000 Wiseasy payment terminals around the world. The hackers gained access to two dashboards that managed these payment terminals.

New Threats

New attack frameworks and platforms are the rage on underground forums. This week, Cisco Talos spotted Manjusaka, a new attack framework that is being used in the wild. Likewise, a new C2 platform named Dark Utilities has become popular for facilitating attackers to launch DDoS attacks and perform cryptocurrency mining.

• A fake website masquerading as the official Atomic Wallet website was found spreading copies of Mars infostealer. The website was promoted on social media, with direct messages on various platforms, SEO poisoning, and spam emails. The fake site even featured a contact form, email address, and FAQ section.
• Projector Libra is a newly spotted threat actor group distributing Bumblebee malware loader. Threat actors use phishing emails and file-sharing services to disperse the malware that eventually deploys Cobalt Strike on victims’ systems.
• A rapidly evolving IoT botnet known as RapperBot has been found in the wild. First appearing in June, the botnet borrows heavily from the original Mirai source code. The botnet targets ARM, MIPS, SPARC, and x86 architectures.
• Zscaler identified a large-scale phishing campaign that used the adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) technique to evade security protections and infect enterprise email accounts. The AiTM technique can enable attackers to bypass multi-factor authentication.
• A new malware called Woody Rat has been in the wild for at least one year. This advanced custom trojan is used to target Russian entities by using lures in archive file format and more recently Office documents leveraging the Follina vulnerability.
• A new variant of SolidBit ransomware has been found targeting users of popular video games and social media platforms. The malware disguises as different applications, including a League of Legends account checker tool and an Instagram follower bot, to lure in victims. The malware is also being promoted on underground forums as Ransomware-as-a-Service.
• Cisco Talos spotted Manjusaka, a new attack framework that is being used in the wild. The implants are coded in Rust and the framework is promoted as a spitting image of the Cobalt Strike framework.
• Security researchers discovered a new vulnerability called ParseThru affecting Golang-based applications. The issue stems from changes introduced to Golang's URL parsing logic that's implemented in the "net/url" library. It could be abused to gain unauthorized access to cloud-based applications.
• A newly found Gwisin ransomware is actively targeting Korean companies. It is similar to Magniber ransomware and leverages an MSI installer form to execute payloads.
• Attackers are leveraging a new C2 platform named Dark Utilities to perform malware campaigns. The platform offers a variety of services such as remote system access, command execution, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, and cryptocurrency mining operations.
• Mandiant has issued technical details of a new ransomware family dubbed ROADSWEEP that targets the Albanian government. A previously unknown backdoor CHIMNEYSWEEP and a new variant of the ZEROCLEAR wiper may have been involved to propagate the ransomware.