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RUSSIA-LINKED APT GAMAREDON STARTS STEALING DATA FROM VICTIMS BETWEEN 30 AND 50
MINUTES AFTER THE INITIAL COMPROMISE

July 15, 2023  By Pierluigi Paganini




UKRAINE’S COMPUTER EMERGENCY RESPONSE TEAM (CERT-UA) STATES THAT RUSSIA-LINKED
APT GAMAREDON STARTS STEALING DATA 30 MINUTES AFTER THE INITIAL COMPROMISE.

Ukraine’s Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-UA) is warning that the
Russia-linked APT group Gamaredon
(aka Shuckworm, Actinium, Armageddon, Primitive Bear, UAC-0010, and Trident
Ursa) use to steal data from victims’ networks in less than an hour after the
initial compromise.

Gamaredon has been active since 2014 and its activity focus on Ukraine, the
group was observed using the multistage backdoor Pteranodon/Pterodo.


00:00/00:00


The Gamaredon APT group continues to carry out attacks against entities in
Ukraine, including security services, military, and government organizations.

Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the cyber espionage
group has carried out multiple campaigns against Ukrainian targets. CERT-UA has
monitored Gamaredon operations and was able to gather intelligence on the APT’s
tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs).

The group often uses spear-phishing emails and messages (Telegram, WhatsApp,
Signal) as an initial attack vector. The cyberspies often use accounts that have
been previously compromised.

Distribution of malicious files using the Signal messenger

The messages use social engineering to trick victims into opening malicious
attachments (i.e. HTM, HTA, and LNK files) disguised as Office documents.

Once the document is opened by the target, it will take between 30 and 50
minutes to steal data from the infected system.

“In view of the conducted computer and technical studies, we can state that
after the initial damage, provided that the attackers are interested in the
computer, the theft of files with a specified list of extensions (.doc, .docx,
.xls, .xlsx, .rtf, .odt, .txt, .jpg, .jpeg, .pdf, .ps1, .rar, .zip, .7z, .mdb)
usually takes 30-50 minutes (usually with GAMMASTEEL malware).” states the alert
published by CART-UA. “A characteristic feature of the mentioned stealer working
on a computer is the creation of a log file (for example,
%LOCALAPPDATA%\_profiles_1_new_.ini), which will contain the hash sums of the
stolen files (taking into account some meta-data). The number of entries in this
log should be equated with the number of stolen files.”

The Russian threat actors were observed using malware like GammaSteel and
PowerShell scripts to conduct reconnaissance and execute additional commands on
the compromised machine.

CERT-UA also reported that the threat actors were observed planting as many as
120 malicious infected files per week on the compromised system, in some cases
to maintain persistence and to allow re-infection in case of the disinfection
process.

At the moment, the cyber spies were observed stealing documents and remotely
executing commands using PowerShell. In some cases the threat actors installed
Anydesk on the compromised computer to perform interactive remote access using
PowerShell. 

According to the advisory, Gamaredon takes specific measures to make their
network infrastructure fault-tolerant and avoid detection. The group uses
third-party services and/or resources of Telegram (Telegraph) to determine the
IP addresses of C2 and avoid using the DNS subsystem. The CERT-UA states that
during the day, the IP addresses of intermediate control nodes can change from 3
to 6 or more times, a circumstance that suggests the automation of the process
by the attackers.

The alert also includes Indicators of Compromise (IoCs) for the recent attacks.

Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Ukraine)




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PIERLUIGI PAGANINI

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and
Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he
is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer.
Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security
expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical
Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that
security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security
blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US.
Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some
major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island,
Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security
magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency
and Bitcoin”.




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