Anvilogic Forge Threat Research Reports
Here you can find an accumulation of trending threats published weekly by the Anvilogic team.
We curate threat intelligence to provide situational awareness and actionable insights
Atomic detections that serve as the foundation of our detection framework.
Risk, pattern, and sequence-based detections utilizing the outputs of Threat Identifiers as a means of identifying actual threats.
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Espionage Campaign 'Operation Jacana' Targets Guyana Government Agency
ESET researcher Fernando Tavella reports an espionage campaign named "Operation Jacana" targeting a Guyana government agency. Originating from a spearphishing email, this operation, likely backed by a China-aligned threat actor, lured targets using contemporary geopolitical events. The emails directed users to a ZIP file, which, when accessed, launched the "DinodasRAT" backdoor malware into the user's system.
Senate Briefing Reveals 60,000 Emails Stolen from Storm-0558 Key Theft
In May 2023, the U.S. State Department experienced a significant data breach, with hacker group Storm-0558 forging Microsoft authentication tokens to access and steal 60,000 emails from 25 department accounts, as reported by Reuters. A majority of the compromised accounts were predominantly involved in Indo-Pacific diplomatic efforts. An earlier revelation from Microsoft pinpointed the origin of the incident to a compromised engineer’s corporate account and an accessible Windows crash dump that inadvertently exposed a signing key due to a race condition. With the email theft impacting sensitive diplomatic communications and revealing a list of departmental email accounts, this breach underscores the criticality of stringent cybersecurity practices and protocols in protecting sensitive government communications from sophisticated threat actors.
Compromised Credentials Facilitated the Breach Against the City of Dallas
In a revealing After-Action Report, the City of Dallas has detailed the timeline and impact of a crippling ransomware attack executed by the Royal gang, beginning covertly on April 7th, 2023, and erupting into a full-blown attack on May 3rd. Utilizing compromised credentials to breach the city's network, the threat actors deployed Cobalt Strike beacons and meticulously exfiltrated around 1.169 TB of data, culminating in a widespread encryption of prioritized servers using legitimate administrative tools.
Chinese Hacker Group Budworm Deploys An Updated Custom Malware - 'SysUpdate'
Budworm, a Chinese APT group also recognized as LuckyMouse and APT27, has sharpened its cyber-espionage arsenal with an upgraded variant of its custom malware, 'SysUpdate,' as revealed by Symantec's Threat Hunter Team. In a recent campaign against a Middle Eastern telecommunications organization and an Asian government agency, Budworm utilized this enhanced SysUpdate backdoor, employing DLL sideloading via a legitimate application (INISafeWebSSO) to skillfully avoid detection while ensuring the execution of its malicious code.
Persistent Threats from the East: Stately Taurus's Ongoing Campaigns Revealed
Unit42 identifies a meticulous cyberespionage campaign orchestrated by Stately Taurus (also known as Mustang Panda and Earth Preta) against Southeast Asian governments from Q2 2021 to Q3 2023. Employing a suite of sophisticated tools, such as LadonGo and Cobalt Strike, and tactics like intelligent data gathering with wevtutil, the Chinese APT group successfully infiltrates networks, targeting notable governmental figures and exfiltrating sensitive information.
The Siege of Southeast Asia's Government Sector with Alloy Taurus
Unit42 pinpoints Alloy Taurus, a Chinese cyberespionage faction, directing an aggressive and persistent cyber campaign at Southeast Asian government entities from early 2022. Specializing in exploiting Exchange Server vulnerabilities and deploying various web shells and backdoors, such as China Chopper, Reshell, and Zapoa, the group seeks to pave secretive pathways into protected networks. Their utilization of several cyber tools, including Cobalt Strike and Gh0stCringe RAT, and tactics like credential theft and brute force attacks indicates a motive geared towards stealthy, extended espionage within the region.
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