The risk actor known as Cloud Atlas has been linked to a set of spear-phishing assaults on Russian enterprises.
Targets included a Russian agro-industrial enterprise and a state-owned analysis firm, based on a report from F.A.C.C.T., a standalone cybersecurity firm fashioned after Group-IB’s formal exit from Russia earlier this 12 months.
Cloud Atlas, energetic since a minimum of 2014, is a cyber espionage group of unknown origin. Additionally known as Clear Ursa, Inception, Oxygen, and Crimson October, the risk actor is thought for its persistent campaigns focusing on Russia, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Slovenia.
In December 2022, Examine Level and Optimistic Applied sciences detailed multi-stage assault sequences that led to the deployment of a PowerShell-based backdoor known as PowerShower in addition to DLL payloads able to speaking with an actor-controlled server.
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The place to begin is a phishing message bearing a lure doc that exploits CVE-2017-11882, a six-year-old reminiscence corruption flaw in Microsoft Workplace’s Equation Editor, to kick-start the execution of malicious payloads, a way Cloud Atlas has employed as early as October 2018.
“The actor’s large spear-phishing campaigns proceed to make use of its easy however efficient strategies to be able to compromise its targets,” Kaspersky famous in August 2019. “Not like many different intrusion units, Cloud Atlas hasn’t chosen to make use of open supply implants throughout its latest campaigns, to be able to be much less discriminating.”
F.A.C.C.T. described the most recent kill chain as just like the one described by Optimistic Applied sciences, with profitable exploitation of CVE-2017-11882 by way of RTF template injection paving the best way for shellcode that is accountable for downloading and operating an obfuscated HTA file. The mails originate from widespread Russian electronic mail companies Yandex Mail and VK’s Mail.ru.
The malicious HTML software subsequently launches Visible Fundamental Script (VBS) information which might be in the end accountable for retrieving and executing an unknown VBS code from a distant server.
“The Cloud Atlas group has been energetic for a few years, rigorously considering via each facet of their assaults,” Optimistic Applied sciences stated of the group final 12 months.
“The group’s toolkit has not modified for years—they attempt to disguise their malware from researchers through the use of one-time payload requests and validating them. The group avoids community and file assault detection instruments through the use of reliable cloud storage and well-documented software program options, particularly in Microsoft Workplace.”
The event comes as the corporate stated that a minimum of 20 organizations positioned in Russia have been compromised utilizing Decoy Canine, a modified model of Pupy RAT, attributing it to a complicated persistent risk actor it calls Hellhounds.
The actively maintained malware, moreover permitting the adversary to remotely management the contaminated host, comes with a scriptlet designed to transmit telemetry knowledge to an “automated” account on Mastodon with the title “Lamir Hasabat” (@lahat) on the Mindly.Social occasion.
“After supplies on the primary model of Decoy Canine had been printed, the malware authors went to a whole lot of effort to hamper its detection and evaluation each in site visitors and within the file system,” safety researchers Stanislav Pyzhov and Aleksandr Grigorian stated.
