New Report Details Wiper Malware Aimed at Ukraine and Upsurge in Cyber Threats
from Likely Russian-backed Actor in the Fourth Quarter of 2021
News Highlights
SAN JOSE, Calif. – April 27, 2022 – Trellix, the cybersecurity company delivering the future of extended detection and response (XDR), today released its Threat Labs Report: April 2022, examining cybercriminal behavior over the last six months. Key findings from the report include individual consumers being the No. 1 target of cybercriminals, closely followed by the healthcare vertical. Additionally, the transportation, shipping, manufacturing and information technology industries showed a sharp increase in threats.
“We’re at a critical juncture in cybersecurity and observing increasingly hostile behavior across an ever-expanding attack surface,” said Christiaan Beek, Lead Scientist and Principal Engineer, Trellix Threat Labs. “Our world has fundamentally changed. The fourth quarter signaled the shift out of a two-year pandemic which cybercriminals used for profit and saw the Log4Shell vulnerability impact hundreds of millions of devices, only to continue cyber momentum in the new year where we’ve seen an escalation of international cyber activity.”
Threats to Critical Infrastructure
Q4 2021 saw increased cyberactivity targeting sectors essential to the function of society:
Earlier this month, Trellix released a global Cyber Readiness Report investigating how critical infrastructure providers are preparing for cyberattacks. It found many critical infrastructure providers have not implemented cybersecurity best practices despite high-profile breaches.
Threats to Ukraine
Trellix Threat Labs has been investigating wiper malware and other cyberthreats targeting Ukraine. Wipers render devices within targeted organizations useless by destroying the memory critical to how the devices operate. Trellix analysis of the Whispergate and HermeticWiper malware used before and during the invasion of Ukraine details the similarities and differences of the two strains used to destabilize Ukrainian IT systems by destroying the communications within the country.
Today’s report lists threat actors targeting Ukraine, including Actinium APT, Gamaredon APT, Nobelium APT (also known as APT29), UAC-0056 and Shuckworm APT. Of all APT activity Trellix observed in Q4 2021, APT29 accounted for 30% of the detections.
The report details recommendations for organizations seeking to proactively protect their environment from tactics these actors use. For more background on cyber activity targeting Ukraine, visit the Trellix Threat Center and Threat Labs Blog.
Tactics, Techniques & Procedures
Trellix observed the continued use of Living off the Land (LotL) methods, where criminals use existing software and controls native to a device to execute an attack. Windows Command Shell (CMD) (53%) and PowerShell (44%) were the most-frequently used NativeOS Binaries, and Remote Services (36%) was the most-used Administrative Tool in Q4 2021.
Trellix Threat Labs recently found LotL techniques deployed by DarkHotel, a suspected South Korean APT group, using Excel files to successfully infiltrate luxury hotels and glean information on prominent guests traveling for work and conferences.
Earlier this year, Trellix Threat Labs also identified a multi-stage espionage attack on a prime minister’s office to surveille high-ranking government officials and defense sector business executives. This campaign featured the use of Microsoft’s OneDrive as a Command and Control (C2) server and Excel to gain access to victim environments.
Other methods and techniques gaining traction among cyber adversaries in recent months:
Threats to Individuals
Notably, the report found a significant — 73% — increase in cyber incidents targeting individuals and positioned people as the top attack sector in Q4 2021. This includes threats executed through social media, mobile devices and other services where consumers store data and credentials. For example, in Q4 2021 Facebook discovered spyware campaigns targeting users around the world and another criminal group leveraged Joker malware to target Android users globally. These attacks are typically politically motivated to follow a person’s interactions and contacts.
This follows the release of In the Crosshairs: Organizations and Nation-State Cyber Threats, a report from Trellix and the Center for Strategic and International Studies which found access to consumer data was and likely will continue to be the motive for nearly half of state-backed cyberattacks.
Q4 2021 Threat Activity
Methodology
Threat Labs Report: April 2022 leverages proprietary data from Trellix’s network of over 1 billion sensors along with open-source intelligence and Trellix Threat Labs investigations into prevalent threats like ransomware and nation-state activity. Telemetry related to detection of threats is used for the purposes of this report. A detection is when a file, URL, IP-address or other indicator is detected and reported via the Trellix XDR ecosystem.
Additional Resources
Source: Trellix
About Trellix
Trellix is a global company redefining the future of cybersecurity. The company’s open and native extended detection and response (XDR) platform helps organizations confronted by today’s most advanced threats gain confidence in the protection and resilience of their operations. Trellix’s security experts, along with an extensive partner ecosystem, accelerate technology innovation through machine learning and automation to empower over 40,000 business and government customers. More at trellix.com.
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