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Date: 9/26/2022
The Chinese state-sponsored threat actor group APT41 has been seen conducting spear phishing campaigns specifically targeting supply chain and healthcare organizations. (“Spear Phishing” is an email or electronic communications scam targeted towards a specific individual, organization or business.) Since 2012, APT41 has been actively targeting these two domains, however, there has been a noticeable rise in activity from 2020 to present. APT41 uses a wide array of tactics to gain access to organizations, including spear-phishing campaigns, water hole attacks, and a mix of both public and private malware. Unlike most other threat actors today who deploy additional malware such as ransomware, APT41 primarily focuses on data exfiltration and espionage.
Groups like APT41 can hide in victim networks for extended periods of time due to their slow and stealthy actions. APT41 focuses on hiding evidence of its presence and ‘blending in’ with normal traffic. Therefore, groups like APT41 can exfiltrate massive amounts of corporate data and conduct thorough espionage campaigns.
Advanced threat actor groups such as APT41 still utilize well-known tactics to breach targeted networks. As previously discussed, this includes a heavy emphasis on social engineering via specially crafted spear-phishes. Organizations can defend themselves with up-to-date security awareness training to help prevent employees from falling victim to these attacks. Additionally, organizations should focus on proactive threat hunting to search for stealthy adversary groups such as APT41. Organizations can visit the MITRE ATT&CK framework to investigate the common tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) of different adversary groups that might target them.
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According to BleepingComputer, American Airlines began investigating a potential data breach after receiving reports of suspicious emails from the company. The phishing emails were found to come from a compromised American Airlines employee.
The GreyCastle Security Incident Response team commonly sees phishing campaigns in which a compromised account is used to send credential-stealing phishing emails. Successful credential theft results in additional incidents of successful credential theft, in what can be described as self-propagating phishing campaigns.
While American Airlines reports small impact in this incident (1700 customers), the impact of these self-propagating phishing campaigns leads to all levels of cybercrime, from low-impact gift card scams to devastating ransomware attacks. Compromised email accounts are highly desired by cybercriminals, as they facilitate the abuse of trust relationships between the compromised user and all of that user’s contacts. Attackers often take the time to read email conversations, inject malicious messages into threads, and configure mailbox rules to redirect messages to seldom-used folders, (like the “RSS Subscriptions” folder in Microsoft email products), or just delete messages so victims are unaware.
Train users to never trust an email that seems suspicious, even if it’s from a trusted contact. Also train users to always stop and think before entering credentials into a website. A simple phone call or other means of verification can save a great deal of hardship.
Sources
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/american-airlines-learned-it-was-breached-from-phishing-targets/
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/american-airlines-discloses-data-breach-after-employee-email-compromise/
Sophos has released a patch after discovering that threat actors were exploiting a critical zero-day vulnerability. The vulnerability is tracked as CVE-2022-3236 (CVSS score: 9.8) and impacts Sophos Firewall version 19.0MR1 (19.0.1) and older. CVE-2022-3236 is a code injection vulnerability in the User Portal and administrative interfaces that could result in remote code execution.
CVE-2022-3236 has only been used to target a limited set of organizations in the South Asia region. However, exploitation may become more widespread as CISA has added the vulnerability to the catalog of known exploited vulnerabilities. Successful exploitation could result in the exposure of sensitive information that could aid a threat actor in more sophisticated attacks.
There is no action required for customers who have the setting “Allow automatic installation of hotfixes” enabled. Customers running unsupported versions will need to upgrade. Workarounds include removing Internet access for the User Portal and Webadmin interface. Periodic external vulnerability scanning would ensure administrators are aware of vulnerabilities and risky ports/services on Internet facing systems.
Sources
https://www.sophos.com/en-us/security-advisories/sophos-sa-20220923-sfos-rce
https://thehackernews.com/2022/09/hackers-actively-exploiting-new-sophos.html
Microsoft has released a warning to hosted Exchange customers about threat actors using rogue OAuth applications to leverage Exchange services in spam campaigns. To achieve this, threat actors are launching credential stuffing attacks against high-risk Microsoft 365 accounts that do not have multifactor authentication enabled and have administrative privileges, allowing them to register malicious OAuth applications.
Attackers have been observed using these malicious OAuth applications to modify Exchange Server settings as a means of routing emails from specific sources through Exchange. As of now, attackers have only been observed leveraging this tactic to send phishing emails, but unauthorized administrative access to cloud tenants could result in more severe attacks, such as stealing credentials or deploying malware.
To reduce the risk of this threat actor tactic, ensure all accounts are secured with multifactor authentication and that users are aware to never approve an MFA request that was not initiated by them. Furthermore, periodic configuration review of Microsoft 365 instances would ensure malicious or unwanted changes do not go unnoticed for long periods. Lastly, administrators should ensure that only a very limited number of accounts have administrative privileges in Microsoft 365.
Sources
https://thehackernews.com/2022/09/hackers-using-malicious-oauth-apps-to.html
https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2022/09/22/malicious-oauth-applications-used-to-compromise-email-servers-and-spread-spam/
The active ransomware gang BlackCat have been deploying a recently upgraded version of their post-exploitation exfiltration tool, codenamed Exmatter. Security researchers from Symantec published a report detailing the new capabilities of the malware, including updated targeted files, automated reporting of exfiltrated files, and the ability to corrupt or delete files if the malware detects it is being ran in a non-valid environment.
This new variant of Exmatter is significantly stealthier and more efficient with its ability to exfiltrate large amounts of data and deploy anti-analysis tactics. BlackCat has also heavily refactored the existing code of Exmatter to bypass current antivirus/antimalware detections for this specific strain of malware.
As organized crime units like BlackCat get more sophisticated, organizations must keep their security posture up to date. This includes verifying the security of internet-facing access systems and conducting routine security awareness training of employees in an effort to prevent social engineering attacks. Organizations must also practice defense-in-depth layering to continue to detect and respond to threats at all levels of the environment.
Sources
https://cyware.com/news/blackcats-exmatter-upgraded-with-new-info-stealing-stealth-capabilities-811a6e88
https://stairwell.com/news/threat-research-report-exmatter-future-of-data-extortion/
Security researchers from ASEC have been tracking malware related to Microsoft SQL Servers (MSSQL). On September 23, 2022, ASEC researchers reported the “distribution of FARGO ransomware” on MSSQL Servers. Their research suggests that threat actors employ password-guessing attacks against exposed MSSQL services to gain initial access. In February 2022, ASEC reported on attackers scanning for MSSQL services exposed to the internet on TCP port 1433. They suspect that the actors behind Fargo ransomware are employing the same tactic.
If your company exposes MSSQL directly to the internet, determine whether it’s necessary. If it is, restrict inbound traffic as much as possible. Ensure that MSSQL servers are patched. Configure MSSQL server passwords with complex passwords greater than 15 characters in length. Conduct regular vulnerability scans and mitigate vulnerabilities as soon as possible after discovery. Note: for most vulnerability scans, TCP Port 1433 will show as “informational” and not garner immediate attention; this is among the many reasons that vulnerability scan information should be interpreted only by trained professionals.
Sources
https://asec.ahnlab.com/en/39152/
https://asec.ahnlab.com/en/31811/
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Over the course of the last 22 years, Dan has been committed to advancing the state of cybersecurity and has played an instrumental role in the identification and development of critical, next-generation cyber capabilities. He has held positions in almost every facet of cybersecurity, beginning as a computer forensic examiner and progressing through the management and executive leadership ranks. In addition to co-founding AIS, Dan has facilitated multiple cybersecurity startups, raised investment capital and has served in various lead and support roles toward the acquisition of five companies in the last eight years.
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Jamie holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York, a master’s degree in Business Administration from Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, North Carolina and a master’s degree in Computer Information Systems from University of Phoenix in Phoenix, Arizona.
