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Attacks/Breaches

4 MIN READ

News



BANKS IN ATTACKERS' CROSSHAIRS, VIA OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE SUPPLY CHAIN

In separate targeted incidents, threat actors tried to upload malware into the
Node Package Manager registry to gain access and steal credentials.
Jai Vijayan
Contributing Writer, Dark Reading
July 21, 2023
Source: Sasun Bughdaryan via Shutterstock
PDF


In two separate incidents, threat actors recently tried to introduce malware
into the software development environment at two different banks via poisoned
packages on the Node Package Manager (npm) registry.



Researchers at Checkmarx who observed the attacks believe them to be the first
instances of adversaries targeting banks through the open source software supply
chain. In a report this week, the vendor described the two attacks as part of
larger trend they have observed recently where banks have been the specific
targets.


ADVANCED TECHNIQUES AND TARGETING

"These attacks showcased advanced techniques, including targeting specific
components in Web assets of the victim bank by attaching malicious
functionalities to it," Checkmarx said.

The vendor highlighted an April attack its report. In the incident, a threat
actor posing as an employee of the target bank uploaded two malicious packages
to the npm registry. Checkmarx researchers discovered a LinkedIn profile that
suggested the package contributor worked at the target bank, and initially
assumed the packages were part of a penetration test the bank was conducting.



The two npm packages contained a pre-install script that executed upon
installation on a compromised system. The attack chain unfolded with the script
first identifying the operating system of the host system. Then, depending on
whether the OS is Windows, Linux, or MacOS, the script decrypted the appropriate
encrypted files in the npm package. The attack chain continued with the
decrypted files downloading a second-stage payload from an attacker-controlled
command-and-control (C2) server.



"The attacker cleverly utilized Azure's CDN subdomains to effectively deliver
the second-stage payload," Checkmarx said. "This tactic is particularly clever
because it bypasses traditional deny list methods, due to Azure's status as a
legitimate service." To make the attack even more credible and hard to detect,
the threat actor used a subdomain that incorporated the name of the target bank.

Checkmarx's research showed the second-stage payload to be Havoc Framework, a
popular open source penetration testing framework that organizations often use
for security testing and auditing. Havoc has become a popular post-exploitation
tool among threat actors because of its ability to evade Windows Defender and
other standard endpoint security controls, Checkmarx said.



"Deploying the Havoc framework would have given the attacker access to the
infected machine inside the bank's network," says Aviad Gershon, security
researcher at Checkmarx, in comments to Dark Reading. "From there, the
consequences [would have been] dependent on the bank's defenses and the
attacker's abilities and purpose — data theft, money theft, ransomware, etc."


SPECIFIC VICTIM

The other attack that Checkmarx reported on this week happened in February. Here
too, the threat actor — completely separate from the attacker in May — uploaded
their own package containing a malicious payload to npm. In this instance, the
payload was engineered specifically for the targeted bank. It was designed to
hook onto a specific login form element on the bank's website and to capture and
transmit information that users entered into the form when logging into the
site.

Characteristics in both npm packages made them specific not just to the banking
industry in general but to the specific banks as well, Gershon says. "The first
attack we describe in the blog was obviously targeting a specific bank,
falsifying a persona of a bank employee, and using crafted domains which include
the bank's name," he says. "Both of these tactics were used in order to gain
credibility and lure bank developers to download it." However, in this case, had
another user not related to the bank downloaded the malicious package, they
would have also been infected, Gershon adds.

In the second attack, the adversary's payload targeted a specific and unique
HTML element in a specific application of a specific bank, he says. "Hence in
this instance this poisoned package would probably not have hurt other users
downloading and installing it." The attacker motive in developing the package
was to steal login credentials that users would have entered into the specific
HTML element.

Attacks involving the use of poisoned packages on popular open source
repositories and package managers such as npm and PyPI have surged in recent
years. A study that ReversingLabs conducted earlier this year, in fact, found a
289% increase in attacks on open source repositories since 2018. The goal behind
many of these attacks is to sneak malicious code into enterprise software
development environments to steal sensitive data and credentials, to
surreptitiously install malware, and carry out other malicious activities.

The attacks that Checkmarx reported this week are the first known instances of
banks being specific targets in such attacks.

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