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Threat Intelligence

3 MIN READ

News



RUSSIAN APT 'CADET BLIZZARD' BEHIND UKRAINE WIPER ATTACKS

Microsoft says Cadet Blizzard wielded a custom wiper malware in the weeks
leading up to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and it remains capable of wanton
destruction.
Nate Nelson
Contributing Writer, Dark Reading
June 14, 2023
Source: MasPix via Alamy Stock Photo
PDF


A threat actor that played a key role in the leadup to the Russian invasion of
Ukraine was identified on June 14. Activity from the "Cadet Blizzard" advanced
persistent threat (APT) peaked from January to June of last year, helping to
pave the way for military invasion.



Microsoft detailed the activity in a blog post. Most notable among the APT's
actions were a campaign to deface Ukrainian government websites, and a wiper
known as "WhisperGate" that was designed to render computer systems completely
inoperable.

These attacks "prefaced multiple waves of attacks by Seashell Blizzard" —
another Russian group — "that followed when the Russian military began their
ground offensive a month later," Microsoft explained.

Microsoft connected Cadet Blizzard with Russia's military intelligence agency,
the GRU.



Identifying the APT is a step towards fighting Russian state-sponsored
cybercrime, says Timothy Morris, chief security advisor at Tanium, "however, it
is always more important to focus on the behaviors and tactics, techniques, and
procedures (TTPs) and not solely upon who is doing the attacking."




CADET BLIZZARD'S BEHAVIORS & TTPS

Generally, Cadet Blizzard gains initial access to targets through commonly known
vulnerabilities in Internet-facing Web servers like Microsoft Exchange and
Atlassian Confluence. After compromising a network, it moves laterally,
harvesting credentials and escalating privileges, and using Web shells to
establish persistence before stealing sensitive organizational data or deploying
extirpative malware.

The group doesn't discriminate in its end goals, aiming for "disruption,
destruction, and information collection, using whatever means are available and
sometimes acting in a haphazard fashion," Microsoft explained.

But rather than being a jack of all trades, Cadet is more like a master of none.
"What's perhaps most interesting about this actor," Microsoft wrote of the APT,
"is its relatively low success rate compared with other GRU-affiliated actors
like Seashell Blizzard [Iridium, Sandworm] and Forrest Blizzard (APT28, Fancy
Bear, Sofacy, Strontium]."



For example, compared to wiper attacks attributed to Seashell Blizzard, Cadet's
WhisperGate "affected an order of magnitude fewer systems and delivered
comparatively modest impact, despite being trained to destroy the networks of
their opponents in Ukraine," Microsoft explained. "The more recent Cadet
Blizzard cyber operations, although occasionally successful, similarly failed to
achieve the impact of those conducted by its GRU counterparts."

All this considered, it's no surprise that the hackers also "appear to operate
with a lower degree of operational security than that of longstanding and
advanced Russian groups," Microsoft found.


WHAT TO EXPECT FROM THE CADET BLIZZARD APT

Though centered on matters related to Ukraine, Cadet Blizzard operations aren't
particularly focused.

Besides deploying its signature wiper and defacing government websites, the
group also operates a hack-and-leak forum called "Free Civilian." Outside of
Ukraine, it has attacked targets elsewhere in Europe, Central Asia, and even
Latin America. And besides government agencies, it often targeted IT service
providers and software supply chain manufacturers, as well as NGOs, emergency
services, and law enforcement.

But while they may have a messier operation in certain ways, Sherrod DeGrippo,
director of threat intelligence strategy at Microsoft, warns that Cadet Blizzard
is still a fearsome APT.

"Their goal is destruction, so organizations absolutely need to be equally
worried about them, as they would other actors, and take proactive measures like
turning on cloud protections, reviewing authentication activity and enabling
multifactor authentication (MFA) to protect against them," she says.

For his part, Morris recommends that organizations "start with the basics:
strong authentication — MFA,

FIDO keys where necessary — implement principle of least privilege; patch,
patch, patch; ensure your security controls and tools are present and working;
and train users frequently."



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