Cyware Weekly Threat Intelligence - November 06–10

The Good

Securing critical infrastructure and sensitive data from sophisticated cyberattacks is a crucial parameter for smooth business operations. Keeping this in mind, the DHS, along with the CISA and the FEMA, launched a new project named Shields Ready, that outlines strategies for organizations to identify critical assets, assess risks, and improve incident response plans. In another development, the NIST updated its security guidelines for controlled unclassified information, to protect data stored and transmitted across federal agencies and government contractors.

• The DHS, along with the CISA and the FEMA, launched a new project named Shields Ready to bolster the security of critical infrastructure. This initiative, complementing Shields Up, addresses cyber threats, physical security risks, and natural disasters. It encourages organizations to enhance resilience by identifying critical assets, assessing risks, and improving incident response plans. The CISA provides resources, including cybersecurity guidance and operational resilience evaluations, to support preparedness efforts.
• The NIST updated its guidelines to protect controlled unclassified information across federal agencies and government contractors. The guidelines also apply to components of non-federal systems that process, store or transmit CUI or that provide protection for such components. Available as part of NIST special publication 800-171, it includes security requirements and assessment procedures for evaluating threats to controlled unclassified information.
• The Ransomed.vc gang claimed to shut down its operations after six of its affiliate members were arrested. The gang was initially found selling its operation for domain names, VPN access to 11 breached companies, and access to affiliate groups and social media channels under their control, for about $10 million. However, the post was later deleted. The gang, emerged in August, initially threatening victims with European data breach fines if the ransom payment was not made.

The Bad

The infamous Cl0p ransomware group made it back in the headlines for exploiting a zero-day flaw in the SysAid IT service management software. Microsoft reported that Lace Tempest, an affiliate associated with Cl0p, leveraged the flaw to deliver Gracewire malware. Meanwhile, a new victim confirmed being targeted by the MOVEit hack. The government of Maine revealed that the personal information of over a million state residents was stolen by the Cl0p group in the hack. In another concerning event, a threat actor named USDoD dumped a scraped LinkedIn database that contained the personal information of over 35 million users.

• In a notification, Kyocera AVX Components Corporation (KAVX) disclosed a ransomware attack that affected the personal information of about 39,111 individuals. The attackers had accessed its systems between February 16 and March 30 and stole sensitive information from the servers, which included full names and Social Security numbers of users. Meanwhile, the LockBit ransomware group had claimed responsibility for the attack on May 26 by adding the firm to its data leak site.
• Dolly.com, an on-demand moving and delivery service provider, had their stolen data leaked despite making a partial ransom payment. The attackers posted the details on a Russian-language forum and included high-level account login details, credit card information, full names, email addresses, and home addresses of customers. Besides these, 95 AWS S3 bucket names belonging to the company, including backups, were attached to the post.
• The Maine government confirmed that the personal information of over a million state residents was stolen earlier this year in the MOVEit software hack. The Russia-based Cl0p ransomware group exploited the flaw to access and download files belonging to certain state agencies between May 28 and May 29. The stolen information includes dates of birth, names, SSNs, driver’s license numbers, and taxpayer identification numbers.
• A threat actor under the alias ‘DrOne’ leaked the scraped database of Chess.com, containing the personal information of more than 800,000 registered users, on the BreachForums dark web. User full names, profile links, email addresses, UUI, and user IDs, among others, were part of the leaked data.
• A Monero Project maintainer disclosed that one of its wallets was hacked on September 01 to drain around $437,000 in Monero cryptocurrency. The funds were drained in nine separate transactions that took place in a couple of minutes. While the team is trying to determine the initial access vector of the attack, it claims that none of the project’s other wallets were affected.
• Widespread exploitation of a zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2023-47246) affecting SysAid IT service management software came to the notice of researchers. A threat actor named Lace Tempest (aka DEV-0950), an affiliate of the Cl0p ransomware group, was found exploiting the flaw to deliver the Gracewire malware. The firm released an advisory to inform organizations about the flaw, by adding that it was addressed in version 23.3.36 of the software.
• A data breach at Marina Bay Sands, Singapore, impacted the personal data of 665,000 customers. The incident was discovered on October 20 and the type of information accessed includes names, email addresses, mobile phone numbers, and country of residence of individuals. The luxury resort clarified that the Sands Rewards Club members have not been impacted by the incident.
• Multiple ransomware groups were found exploiting recently disclosed flaws in Atlassian Confluence and Apache ActiveMQ. Attackers exploited the Atlassian Confluence Data Center and Server flaw (CVE-2023-22518) after an exploit code was released last week. In one instance, the exploitation of the vulnerability led to the deployment of Cerber ransomware. Meanwhile, Arctic Wolf Labs disclosed that the flaw impacting Apache ActiveMQ was weaponized to deliver SparkRAT malware and a ransomware variant that shares similarities with TellYouThePass ransomware.
• A threat actor named USDoD leaked a scraped LinkedIn database, holding the personal information of over 35 million users. The data was dumped on the BreachForums cybercrime marketplace. The leaked data primarily includes full names, email addresses, and profile bios of users, with some screenshots showing that many of these email addresses belong to various government agencies worldwide.
• Bluewater Health, Chatham-Kent Health Alliance, Erie Shores HealthCare, Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare, and Windsor Regional Hospital confirmed that their patient and employee data was stolen in a ransomware attack. While Bluewater Health disclosed that the data of approximately 267,000 unique patients was stolen, Chatham-Kent Health Alliance revealed that information of 1,446 patients was impacted. For Windsor Regional Hospital and Hôtel-Dieu Grace Healthcare, cybercriminals accessed limited patient and employee information. Meanwhile, Erie Shores HealthCare concluded that the social insurance numbers of around 352 employees were compromised.
• OpenAI and Cloudflare confirmed IT and service outages due to DDoS attacks. While investigation and restoration are ongoing, a threat actor named Anonymous Sudan claimed responsibility for the attacks. In OpenAI’s case, the attackers further added that the Skynet botnet was used to launch attacks.
• Russian financial organization Sberbank disclosed suffering the most powerful DDoS attack two weeks ago. The attack reached one million requests per second, roughly four times the size of the most powerful DDoS attacks that Sberbank had experienced up until then. Hackers from the ‘DumpForums’ group and the Ukrainian Cyber Alliance took responsibility for the attack while claiming to have stolen 31GB of data.
• Cook County Health, a healthcare provider in Chicago, notified that the personal information of around 1.2 million patients was compromised following an attack at its third-party vendor, Perry Johnson & Associates. The data includes names, birthdates, addresses, medical information, and dates and times of service of patients.

New Threats

Moving on to other threats, researchers observed a surge in Iranian cyber activity since the onset of the Israel-Hamas war. The Agonizing Serpens APT group launched three new wiper malware against Israeli education and technology sectors. Iranian Imperial Kitten APT group leveraged compromised websites to infect Israeli entities with IMAPLoader and eventually dropped a RAT. The week also witnessed a new RedLine stealer campaign that leveraged a Windows news portal for propagation.

• Checkmarx discovered a malicious campaign on PyPI distributing a new malware strain, BlazeStealer. Controlled via a Discord bot, the malware can be used to steal credentials from infected hosts, take screenshots via webcam, and even deploy additional malware. The malware is also capable of encrypting files, potentially for ransom.
• Palo Alto Networks shared details of a new cyberattack against the Israeli education and technology sectors, which aimed at wiping data from systems. The intrusion began in January and continued through October, with the latest series of attacks being launched by an Iranian hacking group named Agonizing Serpens. The attackers were found using three new wiper malware—MultiLayer, PartialWasher, and BFG Agonizer—and a custom tool named Sqlextractor to extract information from database servers.
• Infections involving the Jupyter infostealer increased over the last two weeks, with attackers recently exploiting search engines and using legitimate signed files to distribute the malware. Researchers also observed an increase in the number of variants of the infostealer, with improvements aimed at avoiding detection, targeting various browsers, and establishing persistence.
• A new variant of the GootLoader malware called GootBot was found facilitating lateral movement on compromised systems and evading detection. It is an obfuscated PowerShell script that connects to a compromised WordPress site to receive further commands and controls. Currently, the malware has been observed in multiple malvertising campaigns that leverage SEO-poisoned searches for themes, such as contracts, and legal forms, to trick users.
• A new macOS malware, named ObjCShellz, was attributed to the North Korean BlueNoroff APT group for targeting cryptocurrency users. The malware was believed to be used as part of another BlueNoroff’s cyberespionage campaign, named RustBucket, which was discovered earlier this year. It is written in Objective-C language and is used as a remote shell to execute commands sent from C2 servers controlled by attackers.
• A newly identified malware dropper, dubbed SecuriDropper, was found using a session-based installer to bypass the ‘Restricted Settings’ feature in Android 13. It was used to install the SpyNote malware and Ermac banking trojan on compromised Android phones. According to researchers, the dropper camouflages itself as a legitimate application, spanning from social apps to productivity tools, to evade detection during the infection process.
• Threat actors were found leveraging the Windows news portal to promote a malicious installer for the popular processor tool CPU-Z. As part of the attack, the targeted victims were redirected to a download page that contained a digitally signed MSIX installer to evade detection. Clicking on the fake installer would execute a malicious PowerShell script named FakeBat on the system, which further downloaded RedLine Stealer.
• The Iran-based Imperial Kitten APT was involved in a cyber espionage campaign targeting transportation, logistics, and technology sectors in the Middle East, including Israel, in October 2023. The attack chains leveraged watering hole attacks to inject malicious JavaScript into compromised (primarily Israeli) websites. This enabled the attackers to exfiltrate the victims’ information.