Node.js is an open-source, cross-platform JavaScript runtime environment that allows JavaScript code to run outside of a web browser. It’s widely used and trusted by developers because it lets them build frontend and backend applications. However, threat actors are also leveraging these Node.js characteristics to try to blend malware with legitimate applications, bypass conventional security controls, and persist in target environments.  

Among the most recent attacks we’ve observed leveraging Node.js include a malvertising campaign related to cryptocurrency trading that attempts to lure users into downloading a malicious installer disguised as legitimate software. The said campaign is still active as of April 2025. This blog provides details of its attack chain, along with an example of the emerging inline script execution technique. This blog also includes recommendations to help users and defenders reduce the impact of these attacks in their environments.

Malicious ads deliver compiled Node.js executables

Malvertising has been one of the most prevalent techniques in Node.js attacks we’ve observed in customer environments. Attackers use malvertising campaigns to lure targets to fraudulent websites, where the targets then unknowingly download a malicious installer disguised as legitimate software. These fake websites often take advantage of popular themes such as financial services, software updates, and trending applications.

In this campaign, the downloaded installer contains a malicious DLL that gathers system information and sets up a scheduled task for persistence. This sets the stage for its other techniques and activities, such as defense evasion, data collection, and payload delivery and execution.

Initial access and persistence

This campaign uses malicious ads with a cryptocurrency trading theme to lure the target user into visiting a website and downloading a malicious installer disguised as a legitimate file from cryptocurrency-trading platforms like Binance or TradingView. This installer is a Wix-built package containing a malicious CustomActions.dll. When launched, the installer loads the DLL, which then gathers basic system information through a Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) query and creates a scheduled task to ensure persistence of a PowerShell command. Simultaneously, the DLL launches a decoy by opening an msedge_proxy window that displays a legitimate cryptocurrency trading website.

Defense evasion

The created scheduled task runs PowerShell commands designed to exclude both the PowerShell process and the current directory from being scanned by Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. This action prevents subsequent PowerShell executions from being flagged, allowing the attack to continue undisturbed.

Data collection and exfiltration

With the exclusions set, an obfuscated PowerShell command is then launched through scheduled tasks to continuously fetch and run scripts from remote URLs. These scripts gather detailed system information, including:

• Windows information: Registered owner, system root, installed software, email addresses
• BIOS information: Manufacturer, name, release date, version
• System information: Name, domain, manufacturer, model, domain membership, memory, logical processors, graphics processing units (GPUs), processors, network adapters
• Operating system information: Name, version, locale, user access control (UAC) settings, country, language, time zone, install date

All this information is structured into a nested hash table, converted into JSON format, and then sent using HTTP POST to the attacker’s command-and-control (C2) server.

Payload delivery

After the data collection activity, another PowerShell script is launched to perform the following actions:

• Download an archive file from the C2 and extract its contents, which typically include:
  • node.exe (Node.js runtime)
  • A JSC file (JavaScript compiled file)
  • Several supporting library files/modules
• Turn off proxy settings in the Windows registry
• Launch the JSC that starts the attack’s next stage

Payload execution

The Node.js executable launches the downloaded JSC file, which then performs the following routines:

• Load multiple library modules
• Establish network connections
• Add certificates to the device
• Read and possibly exfiltrate sensitive browser information

These routines might indicate follow-on malicious activities such as credential theft, evasion, or secondary payload execution, which are commonly observed in other malware campaigns leveraging Node.js.

Beyond executables: Inline script execution in Node.js

Another notable technique we’ve observed emerging from campaigns leveraging Node.js involves inline JavaScript execution. In this technique, malicious scripts are run directly through Node.js to facilitate the deployment of malware.

One observed instance of this method was through a ClickFix social engineering attack, which attempts to deceive users into executing a malicious PowerShell command. This command initiates the download and installation of multiple components, including the Node.js binary (node.exe) and additional required modules. Once all the files are in place, the PowerShell script uses the Node.js environment to execute a JavaScript code directly in the command, rather than running it from a file.

The JavaScript further conducts network discovery by executing commands to map the domain structure and identify high-value assets. It also disguises the command-and-control traffic as legitimate Cloudflare activity and gains persistence by modifying registry run keys.

Recommendations

Organizations can follow these recommendations to mitigate threats associated with Node.js misuse:                   

• Educate users. Warn them about the risks of downloading software from unverified sources. 
• Monitor Node.js execution. Flag unauthorized node.exe processes. 
• Enforce PowerShell logging. Turn on script block logging to track obfuscation. 
• Turn on endpoint protection. Ensure endpoint detection and response (EDR) or extended detection and response (XDR) solutions are actively monitoring script execution. 
• Restrict outbound C2 communications. Implement firewall rules to block suspicious domains. 

Microsoft also recommends the following mitigations to reduce the impact of this threat.

• Turn on cloud-delivered protection in Microsoft Defender Antivirus or the equivalent for your antivirus product to cover rapidly evolving attacker tools and techniques. Cloud-based machine learning protections block a majority of new and unknown threats.
• Run EDR in block mode so that Microsoft Defender for Endpoint can block malicious artifacts, even when your non-Microsoft antivirus does not detect the threat or when Microsoft Defender Antivirus is running in passive mode. EDR in block mode works behind the scenes to remediate malicious artifacts that are detected post-breach.
• Allow investigation and remediation in full automated mode to allow Microsoft Defender for Endpoint to take immediate action on alerts to resolve breaches, significantly reducing alert volume.
• Understand and use PowerShell’s execution policies, which control how scripts are loaded and run. Set an appropriate execution policy based on your needs. Remember that execution policy alone is not foolproof; it can be bypassed.
• Turn on and monitor PowerShell logging.
  • Turn on script block logging, module logging, and transcription. These logs provide a trail of activity and help identify malicious behavior.
  • Dive deeper into PowerShell security features.
• Turn on tamper protection features to prevent attackers from stopping security services. Combine tamper protection with the DisableLocalAdminMerge setting to prevent attackers from using local administrator privileges to set antivirus exclusions.

Microsoft Defender XDR customers can turn on attack surface reduction rules to prevent common attack techniques: 

• Block executable files from running unless they meet a prevalence, age, or trusted list criterion
• Block execution of potentially obfuscated scripts
• Block JavaScript or VBScript from launching downloaded executable content

Microsoft Defender XDR detections

Microsoft Defender XDR customers can refer to the list of applicable detections below. Microsoft Defender XDR coordinates detection, prevention, investigation, and response across endpoints, identities, email, apps to provide integrated protection against attacks like the threat discussed in this blog.

Customers with provisioned access can also use Microsoft Security Copilot in Microsoft Defender to investigate and respond to incidents, hunt for threats, and protect their organization with relevant threat intelligence.

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint 

The following alerts might indicate threat activity associated with this threat. These alerts, however, can be triggered by unrelated threat activity.  

• Suspicious PowerShell download or encoded command execution 
• Suspicious Task Scheduler activity 
• Suspicious behavior by powershell.exe was observed 
• Node binary loading suspicious combination of libraries 
• Activity that might lead to information stealer 
• Possible theft of passwords and other sensitive web browser information 
• Suspicious DPAPI Activity 

Microsoft Security Copilot

Security Copilot customers can use the standalone experience to create their own prompts or run the following pre-built promptbooks to automate incident response or investigation tasks related to this threat:

• Incident investigation
• Microsoft User analysis
• Threat Intelligence 360 report based on MDTI article

Note that some promptbooks require access to plugins for Microsoft products such as Microsoft Defender XDR or Microsoft Sentinel.

Threat intelligence reports

Microsoft customers can use the following reports in Microsoft products to get the most up-to-date information about the threat actor, malicious activity, and techniques discussed in this blog. These reports provide the intelligence, protection information, and recommended actions to prevent, mitigate, or respond to associated threats found in customer environments.

Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence

• ClickFix and spoofed IT apps deliver RATs via Node.js over Cloudflare Quick Tunnels

Microsoft Security Copilot customers can also use the Microsoft Security Copilot integration in Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence, either in the Security Copilot standalone portal or in the embedded experience in the Microsoft Defender portal to get more information about this threat actor.

Hunting queries

Microsoft Defender XDR

Microsoft Defender XDR customers can run the following query to find related activity in their networks:

Suspicious JSC file 

DeviceProcessEvents  
| where isnotempty(DeviceId)  
| where ProcessVersionInfoOriginalFileName == 'node.exe'   
| where (ProcessCommandLine has_all (".jsc", ".js") and ProcessCommandLine matches regex @"\\\w*.jsc") 

Suspicious inline JavaScript execution 

Identify suspicious inline JavaScript 

DeviceProcessEvents  
| where isnotempty(DeviceId)  
| where ProcessVersionInfoOriginalFileName == 'node.exe'   
| where ProcessCommandLine has_all ('http', 'execSync',  'spawn', 'fs', 'path', 'zlib') 

Node.js-based infostealer activity 

Detect malicious access to sensitive credentials using Windows DPAPI 

DeviceEvents
| where isnotempty(DeviceId)
| where ActionType == "DpapiAccessed"
| where InitiatingProcessParentFileName endswith "powershell.exe"
| where InitiatingProcessFileName =~ "node.exe"
| where InitiatingProcessCommandLine  has_all ("-r", ".js") and InitiatingProcessCommandLine endswith ".jsc"
| where AdditionalFields has "SPCryptUnprotect"

Microsoft Sentinel

Microsoft Sentinel customers can use the TI Mapping analytics (a series of analytics all prefixed with ‘TI map’) to automatically match the malicious domain indicators mentioned in this blog post with data in their workspace. If the TI Map analytics are not currently deployed, customers can install the Threat Intelligence solution from the Microsoft Sentinel Content Hub to have the analytics rule deployed in their Sentinel workspace.

Below are the queries using Sentinel Advanced Security Information Model (ASIM) functions to hunt threats across both Microsoft first-party and third-party data sources. ASIM also supports deploying parsers to specific workspaces from GitHub, using an ARM template or manually.

• Scheduled Task Creation

Detect network indicators of compromise communication to C2 servers:

let selectedTimestamp = datetime(2025-04-15T00:00:00.0000000Z);
let ip = dynamic(['216.245.184.181', '212.237.217.182', '168.119.96.41']);
let url = dynamic(['sublime-forecasts-pale-scored.trycloudflare.com', 'washing-cartridges-watts-flags.trycloudflare.com', 'investigators-boxing-trademark-threatened.trycloudflare.com', 'fotos-phillips-princess-baker.trycloudflare.com', 'casting-advisors-older-invitations.trycloudflare.com', 'complement-parliamentary-chairs-hc.trycloudflare.com']);
search in (AlertEvidence,BehaviorEntities,CommonSecurityLog,DeviceInfo,DeviceNetworkEvents,DeviceNetworkInfo,DnsEvents,SecurityEvent,VMConnection,WindowsFirewall)
TimeGenerated between ((selectedTimestamp - 1m) .. (selectedTimestamp + 90d)) // from April 15th runs the search for last 90 days, change the above selectedTimestamp or 90d accordingly.
and 
(RemoteIP in (ip) or DestinationIP in (ip) or DeviceCustomIPv6Address1 in (ip) or DeviceCustomIPv6Address2 in (ip) or DeviceCustomIPv6Address3 in (ip) or DeviceCustomIPv6Address4 in (ip) or 
MaliciousIP in (ip) or SourceIP in (ip) or PublicIP in (ip) or LocalIPType in (ip) or RemoteIPType in (ip) or IPAddresses in (ip) or IPv4Dhcp in (ip) or IPv6Dhcp in (ip) or IpAddress in (ip) or 
NASIPv4Address in (ip) or NASIPv6Address in (ip) or RemoteIpAddress in (ip) or RemoteUrl in (url))

MITRE ATT&CK tactics and techniques observed 
 

Learn more

To know how Microsoft can help your team stop similar threats and prevent future compromise with human-led managed services, check out Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR.

For the latest security research from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community, check out the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Blog: https://aka.ms/threatintelblog.

To get notified about new publications and to join discussions on social media, follow us on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/microsoft-threat-intelligence, and on X (formerly Twitter) at https://x.com/MsftSecIntel.

To hear stories and insights from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community about the ever-evolving threat landscape, listen to the Microsoft Threat Intelligence podcast: https://thecyberwire.com/podcasts/microsoft-threat-intelligence.

The post Threat actors misuse Node.js to deliver malware and other malicious payloads appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.

Every year, threat actors use various social engineering techniques during tax season to steal personal and financial information, which can result in identity theft and monetary loss. These threat actors craft campaigns that mislead taxpayers into revealing sensitive information, making payments to fake services, or installing malicious payloads. Although these are well-known, longstanding techniques, they could still be highly effective if users and organizations don’t use advanced anti-phishing solutions and conduct user awareness and training. 

In this blog, we share details on the different campaigns observed by Microsoft in the past several months leveraging the tax season for social engineering. This also includes additional recommendations to help users and organizations defend against tax-centric threats. Microsoft Defender for Office 365 blocks and identifies the malicious emails and attachments used in the observed campaigns. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint also detects and blocks a variety of threats and malicious activities related but not limited to the tax threat landscape. Additionally, the United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) does not initiate contact with taxpayers by email, text messages or social media to request personal or financial information.

BruteRatel C4 and Latrodectus delivered in tax and IRS-themed phishing emails

On February 6, 2025, Microsoft observed a phishing campaign that involved several thousand emails targeting the United States. The campaign used tax-themed emails that attempted to deliver the red-teaming tool BRc4 and Latrodectus malware. Microsoft attributes this campaign to Storm-0249, an access broker active since 2021 and known for distributing, at minimum, BazaLoader, IcedID, Bumblebee, and Emotet malware. The following lists the details of the phishing emails used in the campaign:

Example email subjects:

• Notice: IRS Has Flagged Issues with Your Tax Filing
• Unusual Activity Detected in Your IRS Filing
• Important Action Required: IRS Audit

Example PDF attachment names:

• lrs_Verification_Form_1773.pdf
• lrs_Verification_Form_2182.pdf
• lrs_Verification_Form_222.pdf

The emails contained a PDF attachment with an embedded DoubleClick URL that redirected users to a Rebrandly URL shortening link. That link in turn redirected the browser to a landing site that displayed a fake DocuSign page hosted on a domain masquerading as DocuSign. When users clicked the Download button on the landing page, the outcome depended on whether their system and IP address were allowed to access the next stage based on filtering rules set up by the threat actor:

• If access was permitted, the user received a JavaScript file from Firebase, a platform sometimes misused by cybercriminals to host malware. If executed, this JavaScript file downloaded a Microsoft Software Installer (MSI) containing BRc4 malware, which then installed Latrodectus, a malicious tool used for further attacks.
• If access was restricted, the user received a benign PDF file from royalegroupnyc[.]com. This served as a decoy to evade detection by security systems.

Latrodectus is a loader primarily used for initial access and payload delivery. It features dynamic command-and-control (C2) configurations, anti-analysis features such as minimum process count and network adapter check, C2 check-in behavior that splits POST data between the Cookie header and POST data. Latrodectus 1.9, the malware’s latest evolution first observed in February 2025, reintroduced scheduled tasks for persistence and added the ability to run Windows commands via the command prompt.

BRc4 is an advanced adversary simulation and red-teaming framework designed to bypass modern security defenses, but it has also been exploited by threat actors for post-exploitation activities and C2 operations.

Phishing email with QR code in a PDF links to RaccoonO365 infrastructure

Between February 12 and 28, 2025, tax-themed phishing emails were sent to over 2,300 organizations, mostly in the United States in the engineering, IT, and consulting sectors. The emails had an empty body but contained a PDF attachment with a QR code and subjects indicating that the documents needed to be signed by the recipient. The QR code pointed to a hyperlink associated with a RaccoonO365 domain: shareddocumentso365cloudauthstorage[.]com. The URL included the recipient email as a query string parameter, so the PDF attachments were all unique. RaccoonO365 is a PhaaS platform that provides phishing kits that mimic Microsoft 365 sign-in pages to steal credentials. The URL was likely a phishing page used to collect the targeted user’s credentials.

The emails were sent with a variety of display names, which are the names that recipients see in their inboxes, to make the emails appear as if they came from an official source. The following display names were observed in these campaigns:

• EMPLOYEE TAX REFUND REPORT
• Project Funding Request Budget Allocation
• Insurance Payment Schedule Invoice Processing
• Client Contract Negotiation Service Agreement
• Adjustment Review Employee Compensation
• Tax Strategy Update Campaign Goals
• Team Bonus Distribution Performance Review
• proposal request
• HR|Employee Handbooks

AHKBot delivered in IRS-themed phishing emails

On February 13, 2025, Microsoft observed a campaign using an IRS-themed email that targeted users in the United States. The email’s subject was IRS Refund Eligibility Notification and the sender was jessicalee@eboxsystems[.]com.

The email contained a hyperlink that directed users to download a malicious Excel file. The link (hxxps://business.google[.]com/website_shared/launch_bw[.]html?f=hxxps://historyofpia[.]com/Tax_Refund_Eligibility_Document[.]xlsm) abused an open redirector on what appeared to be a legitimate Google Business page. It redirected users to historyofpia[.]com, which was likely compromised to host the malicious Excel file. If the user opened the Excel file, they were prompted to enable macros, and if the user enabled macros, a malicious MSI file was downloaded and run.

The MSI file contained two files. The first file, AutoNotify.exe, is a legitimate copy of the executable used to run AutoHotKey script files. The second file, AutoNotify.ahk, is an AHKBot Looper script which is a simple infinite loop that receives and runs additional AutoHotKey scripts. The AHKBot Looper was in turn observed downloading the Screenshotter module, which includes code to capture screenshots from the compromised device. Both Looper and Screenshotter used the C2 IP address 181.49.105[.]59 to receive commands and upload screenshots.

GuLoader and Remcos delivered in tax-themed phishing emails

On March 3, 2025, Microsoft observed a tax-themed phishing campaign targeting CPAs and accountants in the United States, attempting to deliver GuLoader and Remcos malware. The campaign, which consisted of less than 100 emails, began with a benign rapport-building email from a fake persona asking for tax filing services due to negligence by a previous CPA. If the recipient replied, they would then receive a second email with the malicious PDF. This technique increases the click rates on the malicious payloads due to the established rapport between attacker and recipient.

The malicious PDF attachment contained an embedded URL. If the attachment was opened and the URL clicked, a ZIP file was downloaded from Dropbox. The ZIP file contained various .lnk files set up to mimic tax documents. If launched by the user, the .lnk file uses PowerShell to download a PDF and a .bat file. The .bat file in turn downloaded the GuLoader executable, which then installed Remcos.

GuLoader is a highly evasive malware downloader that leverages encrypted shellcode, process injection, and cloud-based hosting services to deliver various payloads, including RATs and infostealers. It employs multiple anti-analysis techniques, such as sandbox detection and API obfuscation, to bypass security defenses and ensure successful payload execution.

Remcos is a RAT that provides attackers with full control over compromised systems through keylogging, screen capturing, and process manipulation while employing stealth techniques to evade detection.

Mitigation and protection guidance

Microsoft recommends the following mitigations to reduce the impact of this threat.

• Educate users about protecting personal and business information in social media, filtering unsolicited communication, identifying lure links in phishing emails, and reporting reconnaissance attempts and other suspicious activity.
• Turn on Zero-hour auto purge (ZAP) in Defender for Office 365 to quarantine sent mail in response to newly-acquired threat intelligence and retroactively neutralize malicious phishing, spam, or malware messages that have already been delivered to mailboxes.
• Pilot and deploy phishing-resistant authentication methods for users.
• Enforce multifactor authentication (MFA) on all accounts, remove users excluded from MFA, and strictly require MFA from all devices in all locations at all times.
• Implement Entra ID Conditional Access authentication strength to require phishing-resistant authentication for employees and external users for critical apps.
• Encourage users to use Microsoft Edge and other web browsers that support Microsoft Defender SmartScreen, which identifies and blocks malicious websites including phishing sites, scam sites, and sites that contain exploits and host malware.
• Educate users about using the browser URL navigator to validate that upon clicking a link in search results they have arrived at an expected legitimate domain.
• Enable network protection to prevent applications or users from accessing malicious domains and other malicious content on the internet.
• Configure Microsoft Defender for Office 365 to recheck links on click. Safe Links provides URL scanning and rewriting of inbound email messages in mail flow and time-of-click verification of URLs and links in email messages, other Microsoft Office applications such as Teams, and other locations such as SharePoint Online. Safe Links scanning occurs in addition to the regular anti-spam and anti-malware protection in inbound email messages in Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP). Safe Links scanning can help protect your organization from malicious links that are used in phishing and other attacks.
• Turn on cloud-delivered protection in Microsoft Defender Antivirus or the equivalent for your antivirus product to cover rapidly evolving attacker tools and techniques. Cloud-based machine learning protections block a huge majority of new and unknown variants.
• Enable investigation and remediation in full automated mode to allow Defender for Endpoint to take immediate action on alerts to resolve breaches, significantly reducing alert volume.
• Run endpoint detection and response (EDR) in block mode, so that Defender for Endpoint can block malicious artifacts, even when your non-Microsoft antivirus doesn’t detect the threat or when Microsoft Defender Antivirus is running in passive mode. EDR in block mode works behind the scenes to remediate malicious artifacts detected post-breach.

Microsoft Defender XDR detections

Microsoft Defender XDR customers can refer to the list of applicable detections below. Microsoft Defender XDR coordinates detection, prevention, investigation, and response across endpoints, identities, email, apps to provide integrated protection against attacks like the threat discussed in this blog.

Customers with provisioned access can also use Microsoft Security Copilot in Microsoft Defender to investigate and respond to incidents, hunt for threats, and protect their organization with relevant threat intelligence.

Microsoft Defender Antivirus

Microsoft Defender Antivirus detects threat components used in the campaigns shared in this blog as the following:

• Backdoor:Win64/BruteRatel
• Backdoor:Win32/BruteRatel
• Trojan:Win64/BruteRatel
• Trojan:Win32/BruteRatel
• Trojan:Win64/Latrodectus
• Trojan:Win32/Latrodectus
• TrojanDownloader:JS/Latrodectus
• Trojan:Win32/Remcos
• Backdoor:MSIL/Remcos
• Trojan:Win32/Guloader

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

The following alerts might indicate threat activity associated with this threat. These alerts, however, can be triggered by unrelated threat activity and are not monitored in the status cards provided with this report.

• Possible Latrodectus activity
• Brute Ratel toolkit related behavior
• A file or network connection related to ransomware-linked actor Storm-0249 detected
• Suspicious phishing activity detected

Microsoft Defender for Office 365

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 offers enhanced solutions for blocking and identifying malicious emails. These alerts, however, can be triggered by unrelated threat activity.

• A potentially malicious URL click was detected 
• Email messages containing malicious URL removed after delivery
• Email messages removed after delivery
• A user clicked through to a potentially malicious URL
• Suspicious email sending patterns detected
• Email reported by user as malware or phish

Defender for Office 365 also detects the malicious PDF attachments used in the phishing campaign launched by Storm-0249.

Microsoft Security Copilot

Security Copilot customers can use the standalone experience to create their own prompts or run the following pre-built promptbooks to automate incident response or investigation tasks related to this threat:

• Incident investigation
• Microsoft User analysis
• Threat actor profile
• Threat Intelligence 360 report based on MDTI article
• Vulnerability impact assessment

Note that some promptbooks require access to plugins for Microsoft products such as Microsoft Defender XDR or Microsoft Sentinel.

Threat intelligence reports

Microsoft customers can use the following reports in Microsoft products to get the most up-to-date information about the threat actor, malicious activity, and techniques discussed in this blog. These reports provide the intelligence, protection information, and recommended actions to prevent, mitigate, or respond to associated threats found in customer environments.

Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence

• Latrodectus
• PhaaS RaccoonO365 campaign
• Remcos delivery through tax document lures
• Storm-0249 distributes Latrodectus in malvertising campaign
• Storm-0249
• Brute Ratel C4
• QR code phishing with adversary-in-the-middle capability

Microsoft Security Copilot customers can also use the Microsoft Security Copilot integration in Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence, either in the Security Copilot standalone portal or in the embedded experience in the Microsoft Defender portal to get more information about this threat actor.

Hunting queries

Microsoft Sentinel

Microsoft Sentinel customers can use the TI Mapping analytics (a series of analytics all prefixed with ‘TI map’) to automatically match the malicious domain indicators mentioned in this blog post with data in their workspace. If the TI Map analytics are not currently deployed, customers can install the Threat Intelligence solution from the Microsoft Sentinel Content Hub to have the analytics rule deployed in their Sentinel workspace.

Furthermore, listed below are some sample queries utilizing Sentinel ASIM Functions for threat hunting across both Microsoft first-party and third-party data sources.

Hunt normalized Network Session events using the ASIM unifying parser _Im_NetworkSession for IOCs:

let lookback = 7d;
let ioc_ip_addr = dynamic(["181.49.105.59 "]); 
_Im_NetworkSession(starttime=todatetime(ago(lookback)), endtime=now())
| where DstIpAddr in (ioc_ip_addr) 
| summarize imNWS_mintime=min(TimeGenerated), imNWS_maxtime=max(TimeGenerated), EventCount=count() by SrcIpAddr, DstIpAddr, DstDomain, Dvc, EventProduct, EventVendor

Hunt normalized File events using the ASIM unifying parser imFileEvent for IOCs:

let ioc_sha_hashes=dynamic(["fe0b2e0fe7ce26ae398fe6c36dae551cb635696c927761738f040b581e4ed422","bb3b6262a288610df46f785c57d7f1fa0ebc75178c625eaabf087c7ec3fccb6a","9728b7c73ef25566cba2599cb86d87c360db7cafec003616f09ef70962f0f6fc",
"3c482415979debc041d7e4c41a8f1a35ca0850b9e392fecbdef3d3bc0ac69960","165896fb5761596c6f6d80323e4b5804e4ad448370ceaf9b525db30b2452f7f5","a31ea11c98a398f4709d52e202f3f2d1698569b7b6878572fc891b8de56e1ff7",
"a1b4db93eb72a520878ad338d66313fbaeab3634000fb7c69b1c34c9f3e17727","0b22a0d84afb8bc4426ac3882a5ecd2e93818a2ea62d4d5cbae36d942552a36a","4d5839d70f16e8f4f7980d0ae1758bb5a88b061fd723ea4bf32b4b474c222bec","9bffe9add38808b3f6021e6d07084a06300347dd5d4b7e159d97e949735cff1e"]);  
imFileEvent
  | where SrcFileSHA256 in (ioc_sha_hashes) or TargetFileSHA256 in (ioc_sha_hashes)
  | extend AccountName = tostring(split(User, @'\')[1]), AccountNTDomain = tostring(split(User, @'\')[0])
  | extend AlgorithmType = "SHA256"

 Hunt normalized Web Session events using the ASIM unifying parser _Im_WebSession for IOCs:

let lookback = 7d;
let ioc_domains = dynamic(["slgndocline.onlxtg.com ", "cronoze.com ", "muuxxu.com ", "proliforetka.com ", "porelinofigoventa.com ", "shareddocumentso365cloudauthstorage.com", "newsbloger1.duckdns.org"]);
  _Im_WebSession (starttime=ago(lookback), eventresult='Success', url_has_any=ioc_domains)
 | summarize imWS_mintime=min(TimeGenerated), imWS_maxtime=max(TimeGenerated), EventCount=count() by SrcIpAddr, DstIpAddr, Url, Dvc, EventProduct, EventVendor  

In addition to the above, Sentinel users can also leverage the following queries, which may be relevant to the content of this blog.

•  Phishing link click observed in Network Traffic
•  Email Link Execution with Alert Correlation

Indicators of compromise

BruteRatel C4 and Lactrodectus infection chain

RaccoonO365

AHKBot

Remcos

References

• https://www.morado.io/blog-posts/understanding-raccoono365-phishing-as-a-service
• https://www.irs.gov/privacy-disclosure/report-phishing

Learn more

For the latest security research from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community, check out the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Blog: https://aka.ms/threatintelblog.

To get notified about new publications and to join discussions on social media, follow us on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/microsoft-threat-intelligence, and on X (formerly Twitter) at https://x.com/MsftSecIntel.

To hear stories and insights from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community about the ever-evolving threat landscape, listen to the Microsoft Threat Intelligence podcast: https://thecyberwire.com/podcasts/microsoft-threat-intelligence.

The post Threat actors leverage tax season to deploy tax-themed phishing campaigns appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.

This phishing attack specifically targets individuals in hospitality organizations in North America, Oceania, South and Southeast Asia, and Northern, Southern, Eastern, and Western Europe, that are most likely to work with Booking.com, sending fake emails purporting to be coming from the agency.

In the ClickFix technique, a threat actor attempts to take advantage of human problem-solving tendencies by displaying fake error messages or prompts that instruct target users to fix issues by copying, pasting, and launching commands that eventually result in the download of malware. This need for user interaction could allow an attack to slip through conventional and automated security features. In the case of this phishing campaign, the user is prompted to use a keyboard shortcut to open a Windows Run window, then paste and launch a command that the phishing page adds to the clipboard.

Microsoft tracks this campaign as Storm-1865, a cluster of activity related to phishing campaigns leading to payment data theft and fraudulent charges. Organizations can reduce the impact of phishing attacks by educating users on recognizing such scams. This blog includes additional recommendations to help users and defenders defend against these threats.

Phishing campaign using the ClickFix social engineering technique

In this campaign, Storm-1865 identifies target organizations in the hospitality sector and targets individuals at those organizations likely to work with Booking.com. Storm-1865 then sends a malicious email impersonating Booking.com to the targeted individual. The content of the email varies greatly, referencing negative guest reviews, requests from prospective guests, online promotion opportunities, account verification, and more.

The email includes a link, or a PDF attachment containing one, claiming to take recipients to Booking.com. Clicking the link leads to a webpage that displays a fake CAPTCHA overlayed on a subtly visible background designed to mimic a legitimate Booking.com page. This webpage gives the illusion that Booking.com uses additional verification checks, which might give the targeted user a false sense of security and therefore increase their chances of getting compromised.

The fake CAPTCHA is where the webpage employs the ClickFix social engineering technique to download the malicious payload. This technique instructs the user to use a keyboard shortcut to open a Windows Run window, then paste and launch a command that the webpage adds to the clipboard:

The command downloads and launches malicious code through mshta.exe:

This campaign delivers multiple families of commodity malware, including XWorm, Lumma stealer, VenomRAT, AsyncRAT, Danabot, and NetSupport RAT. Depending on the specific payload, the specific code launched through mshta.exe varies. Some samples have downloaded PowerShell, JavaScript, and portable executable (PE) content.

All these payloads include capabilities to steal financial data and credentials for fraudulent use, which is a hallmark of Storm-1865 activity. In 2023, Storm-1865 targeted hotel guests using Booking.com with similar social engineering techniques and malware. In 2024, Storm-1865 targeted buyers using e-commerce platforms with phishing messages leading to fraudulent payment webpages. The addition of ClickFix to this threat actor’s tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) shows how Storm-1865 is evolving its attack chains to try to slip through conventional security measures against phishing and malware.

Attribution

The threat actor that Microsoft tracks as Storm-1865 encapsulates a cluster of activity conducting phishing campaigns, leading to payment data theft and fraudulent charges. These campaigns have been ongoing with increased volume since at least early 2023 and involve messages sent through vendor platforms, such as online travel agencies and e-commerce platforms, and email services, such as Gmail or iCloud Mail.

Recommendations

Users can follow the recommendations below to spot phishing activity. Organizations can reduce the impact of phishing attacks by educating users on recognizing these scams.

Check the sender’s email address to ensure it’s legitimate. Assess whether the sender is categorized as first-time, infrequent, or marked as “[External]” by your email provider. Hover over the address to ensure that the full address is legitimate. Keep in mind that legitimate organizations do not send unsolicited email messages or make unsolicited phone calls to request personal or financial information. Always navigate to those organizations directly to sign into your account.

Contact the service provider directly. If you receive a suspicious email or message, contact the service provider directly using official contact forms listed on the official website.

Be wary of urgent calls to action or threats. Remain cautious of email notifications that call to click, call, or open an attachment immediately. Phishing attacks and scams often create a false sense of urgency to trick targets into acting without first scrutinizing the message’s legitimacy.

Hover over links to observe the full URL. Sometimes, malicious links are embedded into an email to trick the recipient. Simply clicking the link could let a threat actor download malware onto your device. Before clicking a link, ensure the full URL is legitimate. For best practice, rather than following a link from an email, search for the company website directly in your browser and navigate from there.

Search for typos. Phishing emails often contain typos, including within the body of the email, indicating that the sender is not a legitimate, professional source, or within the email domain or URL, as mentioned previously. Companies rarely send out messages without proofreading content, so multiple spelling and grammar mistakes can signal a scam message. In addition, check for very subtle misspellings of legitimate domains, a technique known as typosquatting. For example, you might see micros0ft[.]com, where the second o has been replaced by 0, or rnicrosoft[.]com, where the m has been replaced by r and n.

Microsoft recommends the following mitigations to reduce the impact of this threat.

• Pilot and deploy phishing-resistant authentication methods for users.
• Enforce multi-factor authentication (MFA) on all accounts, remove users excluded from MFA, and strictly require MFA from all devices in all locations at all times.
• Configure Microsoft Defender for Office 365 to recheck links on click. Safe Links provides URL scanning and rewriting of inbound email messages in mail flow, and time-of-click verification of URLs and links in email messages, other Microsoft 365 applications such as Teams, and other locations such as SharePoint Online. Safe Links scanning occurs in addition to the regular anti-spam and anti-malware protection in inbound email messages in Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP). Safe Links scanning can help protect your organization from malicious links used in phishing and other attacks.
• Encourage users to use Microsoft Edge and other web browsers that support Microsoft Defender SmartScreen, which identifies and blocks malicious websites, including phishing sites, scam sites, and sites that host malware.
• Turn on cloud-delivered protection in Microsoft Defender Antivirus or the equivalent for your antivirus product to cover rapidly evolving attack tools and techniques. Cloud-based machine learning protections block a majority of new and unknown variants.
• Enable network protection to prevent applications or users from accessing malicious domains and other malicious content on the internet.
• Enable investigation and remediation in full automated mode to allow Microsoft Defender for Endpoint to take immediate action on alerts to resolve breaches, significantly reducing alert volume.
• Enable Zero-hour auto purge (ZAP) in Office 365 to quarantine sent mail in response to newly acquired threat intelligence and retroactively neutralize malicious phishing, spam, or malware messages that have already been delivered to mailboxes.

Microsoft Defender XDR customers can turn on attack surface reduction rules to prevent common attack techniques:

• Block executable files from running unless they meet a prevalence, age, or trusted list criterion
• Block execution of potentially obfuscated scripts
• Block JavaScript or VBScript from launching downloaded executable content
• Block credential stealing from the Windows local security authority subsystem

Detection details

Microsoft Defender XDR customers can refer to the list of applicable detections below. Microsoft Defender XDR coordinates detection, prevention, investigation, and response across endpoints, identities, email, apps to provide integrated protection against attacks like the threat discussed in this blog.

Customers with provisioned access can also use Microsoft Security Copilot in Microsoft Defender to investigate and respond to incidents, hunt for threats, and protect their organization with relevant threat intelligence.

Microsoft Defender Antivirus

Microsoft Defender Antivirus detects threat components as the following malware:

• TrojanDownloader:Win32/XWorm
• Trojan:Win32/XWorm
• Trojan:Win64/Xworm
• Trojan:VBS/XWorm
• Trojan:MSIL/Xworm
• Backdoor:MSIL/XWorm
• TrojanDropper:Win32/LummaStealer
• Trojan:Win64/LummaStealer
• Trojan:Win32/LummaStealer
• Trojan:MSIL/LummaStealer
• Trojan:JS/LummaStealer
• Trojan:Win32/VenomRat
• Trojan:MSIL/VenomRAT
• TrojanDropper:MSIL/AsyncRAT
• TrojanDownloader:Win64/AsyncRAT
• TrojanDownloader:VBS/AsyncRAT
• TrojanDownloader:PowerShell/AsyncRAT
• TrojanDownloader:MSIL/AsyncRAT
• Trojan:Win64/AsyncRat
• Trojan:Win32/AsyncRat
• Trojan:VBS/AsyncRAT
• Trojan:PowerShell/AsyncRAT
• Trojan:MSIL/AsyncRAT
• Trojan:JS/AsyncRat
• Trojan:BAT/AsyncRat
• RemoteAccess:MSIL/AsyncRAT
• Backdoor:MSIL/AsyncRAT
• Trojan:Win32/Danabot
• Trojan:VBS/Danabot
• Trojan:Win64/Danabot
• TrojanSpy:Win32/Danabot
• TrojanSpy:Win64/Danabot
• TrojanDownloader:VBS/Danabot
• TrojanDownloader:Win32/Danabot
• TrojanDownloader:PowerShell/NetSupport
• TrojanDownloader:JS/NetSupport
• Trojan:VBS/NetSupportRat
• TrojanDownloader:JS/NetSupportRat
• Trojan:Win32/NetSupportRat

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

The following alerts might indicate threat activity associated with this threat. These alerts, however, can be triggered by unrelated threat activity:

• Suspicious command in RunMRU registry
• Suspicious PowerShell command line
• Use of living-off-the-land binary to run malicious code
• Possible theft of passwords and other sensitive web browser information
• Suspicious DPAPI Activity
• Suspicious mshta process launched
• Suspicious phishing activity detected

Microsoft Defender for Office 365

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 detects malicious activity associated with this threat through the following alerts:

• This URL has known registrant pattern for malicious activity.
• This URL impersonates booking.com
• This PDF has generic phishing traits.
• This URL has generic phishing traits.

Microsoft Security Copilot

Security Copilot customers can use the standalone experience to create their own prompts or run the following pre-built promptbooks to automate incident response or investigation tasks related to this threat:

• Incident investigation
• Microsoft User analysis
• Threat actor profile
• Threat Intelligence 360 report based on MDTI article
• Vulnerability impact assessment

Note that some promptbooks require access to plugins for Microsoft products such as Microsoft Defender XDR or Microsoft Sentinel.

Threat intelligence reports

Microsoft customers can use the following reports in Microsoft products to get the most up-to-date information about the threat actor, malicious activity, and techniques discussed in this blog. These reports provide the intelligence, protection information, and recommended actions to prevent, mitigate, or respond to associated threats found in customer environments.

Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence

• Storm-1865 phishing campaigns over vendor platforms lead to payment data theft and fraudulent charges
• Danabot
• NetSupport RAT
• AsyncRAT
• Lumma stealer

Microsoft Security Copilot customers can also use the Microsoft Security Copilot integration in Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence, either in the Security Copilot standalone portal or in the embedded experience in the Microsoft Defender portal to get more information about this threat actor.

Hunting queries

Microsoft Defender XDR

Microsoft Defender XDR customers can run the following query to find related activity in their networks:

Network connections to known C2 infrastructure related to this activity

Look for network connections with known C2 infrastructure.

let c2Servers = dynamic(['92.255.57.155','147.45.44.131','176.113.115.170','31.177.110.99','185.7.214.54','176.113.115.225','87.121.221.124','185.149.146.164']);
DeviceNetworkEvents
| where RemoteIP has_any(c2Servers)
| project Timestamp, DeviceId, DeviceName, LocalIP, RemoteIP, InitiatingProcessFileName, InitiatingProcessCommandLine

Microsoft Sentinel

Microsoft Sentinel customers can use the TI Mapping analytics (a series of analytics all prefixed with ‘TI map’) to automatically match the malicious domain indicators mentioned in this blog post with data in their workspace. If the TI Map analytics are not currently deployed, customers can install the Threat Intelligence solution from the Microsoft Sentinel Content Hub to have the analytics rule deployed in their Sentinel workspace.

Below are the queries using Sentinel Advanced Security Information Model (ASIM) functions to hunt threats across both Microsoft first-party and third-party data sources. ASIM also supports deploying parsers to specific workspaces from GitHub, using an ARM template or manually.

Hunt normalized Network Session events using the ASIM unifying parser _Im_NetworkSession for IOCs:

let lookback = 30d;
let ioc_ip_addr = dynamic(['92.255.57.155','147.45.44.131','176.113.115.170','31.177.110.99','185.7.214.54','176.113.115.225','87.121.221.124','185.149.146.164']); 
_Im_NetworkSession(starttime=todatetime(ago(lookback)), endtime=now())
| where DstIpAddr in (ioc_ip_addr) or DstDomain has_any (ioc_domains)
| summarize imNWS_mintime=min(TimeGenerated), imNWS_maxtime=max(TimeGenerated), EventCount=count() by SrcIpAddr, DstIpAddr, DstDomain, Dvc, EventProduct, EventVendor

Hunt normalized Web Session events using the ASIM unifying parser _Im_WebSession for IOCs:

let lookback = 30d;
let ioc_ip_addr = dynamic(['92.255.57.155','147.45.44.131','176.113.115.170','31.177.110.99','185.7.214.54','176.113.115.225','87.121.221.124','185.149.146.164']); 
_Im_WebSession(starttime=todatetime(ago(lookback)), endtime=now())
| where DstIpAddr has_any (ioc_ip_addr)
 | summarize imWS_mintime=min(TimeGenerated), imWS_maxtime=max(TimeGenerated), EventCount=count() by SrcIpAddr, DstIpAddr, Url, Dvc, EventProduct, EventVendor

Hunt normalized File events using the ASIM unifying parser imFileEvent for IOCs:

let ioc_sha_hashes =dynamic(["01ec22c3394eb1661255d2cc646db70a66934c979c2c2d03df10127595dc76a6"," f87600e4df299d51337d0751bcf9f07966282be0a43bfa3fd237bf50471a981e ","0c96efbde64693bde72f18e1f87d2e2572a334e222584a1948df82e7dcfe241d"]);  imFileEvent
  | where SrcFileSHA256 in (ioc_sha_hashes) or TargetFileSHA256 in (ioc_sha_hashes)
  | extend AccountName = tostring(split(User, @'\')[1]), AccountNTDomain = tostring(split(User, @'\')[0])
  | extend AlgorithmType = "SHA256"

Indicators of compromise

References

• Booking.com Customers Hit by Phishing Campaign Delivered Via Compromised Hotels Accounts (Perception Point)
• What is XWorm Malware? (AnyRun)

Learn more

To know how Microsoft can help your team stop similar threats and prevent future compromise with human-led managed services, check out Microsoft Defender Experts for XDR.

For the latest security research from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community, check out the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Blog: https://aka.ms/threatintelblog.

To get notified about new publications and to join discussions on social media, follow us on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/microsoft-threat-intelligence, and on X (formerly Twitter) at https://x.com/MsftSecIntel.

To hear stories and insights from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community about the ever-evolving threat landscape, listen to the Microsoft Threat Intelligence podcast: https://thecyberwire.com/podcasts/microsoft-threat-intelligence.

The post Phishing campaign impersonates Booking.com, delivers a suite of credential-stealing malware appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.

GitHub was the primary platform used in the delivery of the initial access payloads and is referenced throughout this blog post; however, Microsoft Threat Intelligence also observed one payload hosted on Discord and another hosted on Dropbox.

The GitHub repositories, which were taken down, stored malware used to deploy additional malicious files and scripts. Once the initial malware from GitHub gained a foothold on the device, the additional files deployed had a modular and multi-stage approach to payload delivery, execution, and persistence. The files were used to collect system information and to set up further malware and scripts to exfiltrate documents and data from the compromised host. This activity is tracked under the umbrella name Storm-0408 that we use to track numerous threat actors associated with remote access or information-stealing malware and who use phishing, search engine optimization (SEO), or malvertising campaigns to distribute malicious payloads.

In this blog, we provide our analysis of this large-scale malvertising campaign, detailing our findings regarding the redirection chain and various payloads used across the multi-stage attack chain. We further provide recommendations for mitigating the impact of this threat, detection details, indicators of compromise (IOCs), and hunting guidance to locate related activity. By sharing this research, we aim to raise awareness about the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) used in this widespread activity so organizations can better prepare and implement effective mitigation strategies to protect their systems and data.

We would like to thank the GitHub security team for their prompt response and collaboration in taking down the malicious repositories.

GitHub activity and redirection chain

Since at least early December 2024, multiple hosts downloaded first-stage payloads from malicious GitHub repositories. The users were redirected to GitHub through a series of other redirections. Analysis of the redirector chain determined the attack likely originated from illegal streaming websites where users can watch pirated videos. The streaming websites embedded malvertising redirectors within movie frames to generate pay-per-view or pay-per-click revenue from malvertising platforms. These redirectors subsequently routed traffic through one or two additional malicious redirectors, ultimately leading to another website, such as a malware or tech support scam website, which then redirected to GitHub.

Multiple stages of malware were deployed in this campaign, as listed below, and the several different stages of activity that occurred depended on the payload dropped during the second stage.

• The first-stage payload that was hosted on GitHub served as the dropper for the next stage of payloads.
• The second-stage files were used to conduct system discovery and to exfiltrate system information that was Base64-encoded into the URL and sent over HTTP to an IP address. The information collected included data on memory size, graphic details, screen resolution, operating system (OS), and user paths.
• Various third-stage payloads were deployed depending on the second-stage payload. In general, the third-stage payload conducted additional malicious activities such as command and control (C2) to download additional files and to exfiltrate data, as well as defense evasion techniques.

The full redirect chain was composed of four to five layers. Microsoft researchers determined malvertising redirectors were contained within an iframe on illegal streaming websites.

There were several redirections that occurred before arriving at the malicious content stored on GitHub.

Attack chain

Once the redirection to GitHub occurred, the malware hosted on GitHub established the initial foothold on the user’s device and functioned as a dropper for additional payload stages and running malicious code. The additional payloads included information stealers to collect system and browser information on the compromised device, of which most were either Lumma stealer or an updated version of Doenerium. Depending on the initial payload, the deployment of NetSupport, a remote monitoring and management (RMM) software, was also often deployed alongside the infostealer. Besides the information stealers, PowerShell, JavaScript, VBScript, and AutoIT scripts were run on the host. The threat actors incorporated use of living-off-the-land binaries and scripts (LOLBAS) like PowerShell.exe, MSBuild.exe, and RegAsm.exe for C2 and data exfiltration of user data and browser credentials.

After the initial foothold was gained, the activity led to a modular and multi-stage approach to payload delivery, execution, and persistence. Each stage dropped another payload with a different function, as outlined below. Actions conducted across these stages include system discovery (memory, GPU, OS, signed-in users, and others), opening browser credential files, Data Protection API (DPAPI) crypt data calls, and other functions such as obfuscated script execution and named pipe creations to conduct data exfiltration. Persistence was achieved through modification of the registry run keys and the addition of a shortcut file to the Windows Startup folder.

Several stages of malicious activity to conduct deployment of additional malware, collections, and exfiltration of data to a C2 were observed. While not every single initial payload followed these exact steps, this is an overall view of what occurred across most incidents analyzed:

First-stage payload: Establishing a foothold on the host

During the first stage, a payload is dropped onto the user’s device from the binary hosted on GitHub, establishing a foothold on that device. As of mid-January 2025, the first-stage payloads discovered were digitally signed with a newly created certificate. A total of twelve different certificates were identified, all of which have been revoked.

Most of these initial payloads dropped the following legitimate files to leverage their functionality. These files were either leveraged by the first-stage payload or by later-stage payloads, depending on the actions being conducted.

Depending on the first-stage payload that was initially established on the compromised device, Microsoft observed different second-stage payloads and several different methods for delivering these payloads to the device.

Second-stage payload: System discovery, collection, and exfiltration

The main purpose of the second-stage payload is to conduct system discovery and collect that data for exfiltration to the C2. The system information collected includes data such as memory size, graphic card details, screen resolution, operating system, user paths, and a reference to the second-stage payload’s file name.

This was accomplished by querying the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProductName for the Windows OS version and running commands, such as the echo command, to gather the device’s name (%COMPUTERNAME%) and domain name (%USERDOMAIN%).

System data collected by the second-stage payload is Base64-encoded and exfiltrated as a query parameter to an IP address.

Third-stage payload: PowerShell and .exe binary

Depending on the second-stage payload, either one or multiple executables are dropped onto the compromised device, and sometimes an accompanying encoded PowerShell script. These files initiate a chain of events that conduct command execution, payload delivery, defensive evasion, persistence, C2 communications, and data exfiltration. The analysis of the dropped executables is first discussed below, followed by review of the PowerShell scripts observed.

Third-stage .exe analysis

The second-stage payloads run the dropped third-stage executables using the command prompt (for example, cmd.exe  /d /s /c “”C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Temp\ApproachAllan.exe””). The /c flag ensures that the command runs and exits quickly. When the third-stage .exe runs, it drops a command file (.cmd) and launches it using the command prompt (for example, “cmd.exe” /c copy Beauty Beauty.cmd && Beauty.cmd). The .cmd file performs several actions, such as running tasklist, to initiate the discovery of running programs. This is followed by the findstr to search for keywords associated with security software:

The .cmd file also concatenates multiple files into one with a single character file name: “cmd /c copy /b ..\Verzeichnis + ..\Controlling + ..\Constitute + ..\Enjoyed + ..\Confusion + ..\Min +..\Statutory J”. This single character filename is used next.

Following this, the third-stage .exe produces an AutoIT v3 interpreter file that is renamed from the typical file name of AutoIt3.exe and uses a .com file extension. The .cmd file initiates the execution of the .com file against the single character binary (such as Briefly.com J). Note, most of the second-stage payloads follow this progression chain, and as mentioned a second-stage payload can also drop multiple executables, all following the same process. For example:

First stage

• X-essentiApp.exe

Second stage

• Ionixnignx.exe

Third stage

• EverybodyViewing.exe
• ReliefOrganizational.exe
• InflationWinston.exe

Third-stage command files

• Beauty.cmd
• Possess.cmd
• Villa.cmd

Fourth-stage AutoIT .com files

• Alexandria.com
• Kills.com
• Briefly.com

We observed multiple .com files originating from different dropped executables, each performing distinct functions while occasionally overlapping in behavior. These files facilitate persistence, process injection, remote debugging, and data exfiltration through various mechanisms. One .com file, such as Alexandria.com, drops a .scr file (another renamed AutoIT interpreter), and a .js (JavaScript) file with the same name as the .scr file. The purpose of the JavaScript file is to ensure persistence by creating a .url internet shortcut that points to the JavaScript file and is placed in the Startup folder, ensuring that the .scr file executes when the .js file executes (through Wscript.exe) upon user sign-in. Alternatively, persistence can be achieved using scheduled task creation. The .scr file can initiate C2 connections, enable remote debugging on Chrome or Edge within a hidden desktop session, or create TCP listening sockets on ports 9220-9229. This functionality allows threat actors to monitor browsing activity and interact with an active browser instance. These files can also open sensitive data files, indicating their role in facilitating post-exploitation activities.

Another .com file, such as affiliated.com, also focuses on remote debugging and browser monitoring. In addition to remote monitoring, affiliated.com initiates network connections to Telegram, Let’s Encrypt, and threat actor domains, potentially for C2 or exfiltration. It also accesses DPAPI to decrypt sensitive stored credentials and retrieve browser data.

The final observed .com file, such as Briefly.com, exhibits behavior similar to affiliated.com but extends its capabilities to include screenshot capture, data exfiltration, and PowerShell-based execution. This file accesses browser and user data for collection, establishes connections to Pastebin and additional C2 domains, and drops the fourth-stage PowerShell script.

The order in which these .com files run is not strictly defined, as one or multiple files can perform overlapping functions depending on the third-stage payload. In many cases, the .com files also leverage LOLBAS like RegAsm.exe by dropping a legitimate file into the %TEMP% directory or injecting malicious code into it using NtAllocateVirtualMemory and SetThreadContext API function calls. RegAsm.exe is used to establish C2 connections over TCP ports 15647 or 9000, exfiltrating data, accessing DPAPI for decryption, monitoring keystrokes using the WH_KEYBOARD_LL hook, and more. This flexibility in execution allows threat actors to tailor their approach based on environmental factors, such as security configurations and user activity.

Browser data files seen accessed:

• \AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<user profile uid>.default-release\cookies.sqlite
• \AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<user profile uid>.default-release\formhistory.sqlite
• \AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<user profile uid>.default-release\key4.db
• \AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<user profile uid>.default-release\logins.json
• \AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Web Data
• \AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Login Data
• \AppData\Local\Microsoft\Edge\User Data\Default\Login Data

User data file paths seen accessed:

• C:\\Users\<user>\\OneDrive
• C:\\Users\<user>\\Documents
• C:\\Users\<user>\\Downloads

Third-stage PowerShell analysis

If a PowerShell script is also dropped by the second-stage payload, it includes Base64-obfuscated commands to conduct actions, such as use curl to download additional files like NetSupport from the C2, create persistence for the NetSupport RAT, and exfiltrate system information to C2 servers. To ensure no errors or the progress meter is displayed on the compromised device, the curl command is often used with the –silent option when downloading files from the C2. PowerShell is often configured to run without restrictions with the -ExecutionPolicy Bypass parameter.

As an example, in some of the incidents, when the second-stage payload runs, a PowerShell script is dropped and executed. The script sends the compromised device’s name to the C2 and downloads NetSupport RAT from the same C2.

• Second-stage payload: Squarel.exe
• PowerShell script: SHA-256: d70ccae7914fc8c36c9e11b2a7f10bebd7f5696e78d8836554f4990b0f688dbb
• C2 domain: keikochio[.]com
• NetSupport RAT: SHA-256: 32a828e2060e92b799829a12e3e87730e9a88ecfa65a4fc4700bdcc57a52d995

In another case, a second-stage payload drops a PowerShell script, which connects to hxxps://ipinfo[.]io to gather the compromised device’s external-facing IP address. This information is sent to a Telegram chat, then drops presentationhost.exe (a renamed NetSupport binary) and remcmdstub.exe (NetSupport Command Manager) into the %TEMP% directory. Finally, the PowerShell script establishes persistence for presentationhost.exe by adding it to the auto-start extensibility points (ASEP) registry keys. When it runs, the NetSupport RAT connects to the C2 and captures a screenshot of the compromised device’s desktop. It also delivers a Lumma executable that drops a VBScript file with the same name. The VBScript file runs encoded PowerShell to initiate C2 connections and launches MSBuild.exe to enable Chrome remote debugging on a hidden desktop. Additionally, presentationhost.exe initiates remcmdstub.exe, which leverages iScrPaint.exe (iTop Screen Recorder) to run MSBuild.exe and access browser credential files for exfiltration. The iScrPaint.exe file also establishes persistence by placing a .lnk shortcut in the Windows Startup folder, ensuring it runs on system reboot.

• Second-stage payload: Application.exe
• PowerShell script: SHA-256: 483796a64f004a684a7bc20c1ddd5c671b41a808bc77634112e1703052666a64
• C2: hxxp://5.10.250[.]240/fakeurl.htm

The last observed third-stage PowerShell script was dropped by three second-stage payloads. The script sends the compromised device’s name to the C2 server. It then changes the working directory to $env:APPDATA, before using Start-BitsTransfer to download NetSupport from the C2. To evade detection, it modifies system security settings forcing TLS1.2 for encrypted C2 communication. These files are extracted into a newly created WinLibraryClient directory under AppData and then are launched. The script establishes persistence for the client32.exe (NetSupport RAT) by modifying the ASEP registry. Client32.exe initiates C2 connections to hxxp://79.132.128[.]77/fakeurl.htm.

• Second-stage payloads: SalmonSamurai.exe, LakerBaker.exe, and DisplayPhotoViewer.exe
• PowerShell script: SHA-256: 670218cfc5c16d06762b6bc74cda4902087d812e72c52d6b9077c4c4164856b6
• C2 domain: stocktemplates[.]net

Additionally, one observed execution included registry enumeration of HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\ to identify installed applications and security software. It also queries the system’s domain status using Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) and scans for cryptocurrency wallets, including Ledger Live, Trezor Suite, KeepKey, BCVault, OneKey, and BitBox, indicating potential financial data theft.

Fourth-stage PowerShell analysis

Depending on the .com file that ran (like Briefly.com), the renamed AutoIT file may drop a PowerShell script (SHA-256: 2a29c9904d1860ea3177da7553c8b1bf1944566e5bc1e71340d9e0ff079f0bd3). The obfuscated PowerShell code uses the Add-MpPreference cmdlet to modify Microsoft Defender to add in exclusion paths for Microsoft Defender, so the specified folders are not scanned.

The script above is sometimes followed by an instance of Base64-encoded PowerShell commands. The PowerShell commands perform the following actions:

• Sends a web request to hxxps://360[.]net and closes the response.
• Sends a web request to hxxps://baidu[.]com and closes the response.
• Downloads data from hxxps://klipcatepiu0[.]shop/int_clp_sha.txt using a web client.
• Writes the downloaded data to a memory stream and saves it as a .zip file named null.zip (SHA-256: f07b8e5622598c228bfc9bff50838a3c4fffd88c436a7ef77e6214a40b0a2bae) in the C:\Users\<Username>\AppData\Local\Temp directory.

Recommendations

Microsoft recommends the following mitigations to reduce the impact of this threat.

Strengthen Microsoft Defender for Endpoint configuration

• Ensure that tamper protection is enabled in Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. 
• Enable network protection in Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. 
• Turn on web protection.
• Run endpoint detection and response (EDR) in block mode so that Microsoft Defender for Endpoint can block malicious artifacts, even when your non-Microsoft antivirus does not detect the threat or when Microsoft Defender Antivirus is running in passive mode. EDR in block mode works behind the scenes to remediate malicious artifacts that are detected post-breach.     
• Configure investigation and remediation in full automated mode to let Microsoft Defender for Endpoint take immediate action on alerts to resolve breaches, significantly reducing alert volume.  
• Microsoft Defender XDR customers can turn on the following attack surface reduction rules to prevent common attack techniques used by threat actors. 
  • Block executable files from running unless they meet a prevalence, age, or trusted list criterion 
  • Block execution of potentially obfuscated scripts
  • Block JavaScript or VBScript from launching downloaded executable content
  • Block process creations originating from PSExec and WMI commands
  • Block credential stealing from the Windows local security authority subsystem 
  • Block use of copied or impersonated system tools

Strengthen operating environment configuration

• Require multifactor authentication (MFA). While certain attacks such as adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) phishing attempt to circumvent MFA, implementation of MFA remains an essential pillar in identity security and is highly effective at stopping a variety of threats.
  • Leverage phishing-resistant authentication methods such as FIDO Tokens, or Microsoft Authenticator with passkey. Avoid telephony-based MFA methods to avoid risks associated with SIM-jacking.
• Implement Entra ID Conditional Access authentication strength to require phishing-resistant authentication for employees and external users for critical apps.
• Encourage users to use Microsoft Edge and other web browsers that support Microsoft Defender SmartScreen, which identifies and blocks malicious websites, including phishing sites, scam sites, and sites that host malware.
• Enable Network Level Authentication for Remote Desktop Service connections.
• Enable Local Security Authority (LSA) protection to block credential stealing from the Windows local security authority subsystem. 
• AppLocker can restrict specific software tools prohibited within the organization, such as reconnaissance, fingerprinting, and RMM tools, or grant access to only specific users.

Microsoft Defender XDR detections

Microsoft Defender XDR customers can refer to the list of applicable detections below. Microsoft Defender XDR coordinates detection, prevention, investigation, and response across endpoints, identities, email, apps to provide integrated protection against attacks like the threat discussed in this blog.

Customers with provisioned access can also use Microsoft Security Copilot in Microsoft Defender to investigate and respond to incidents, hunt for threats, and protect their organization with relevant threat intelligence.

Microsoft Defender Antivirus

Microsoft Defender Antivirus detects threat components as the following malware:

• Trojan:Win64/LummaStealer
• Trojan:Win32/Malgent
• Behavior:Win32/Eldorado
• Behavior:Win32/LuammaStealer
• Trojan:PowerShell/Powdow
• Trojan:Win64/Shaolaod
• Behavior:Win64/Shaolaod

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

The following alerts might indicate threat activity associated with this threat. These alerts, however, can be triggered by unrelated threat activity.

• Possible theft of passwords and other sensitive web browser information
• Possible Lumma Stealer activity
• Renamed AutoIt tool
• Use of living-off-the-land binary to run malicious code
• Suspicious startup item creation
• Suspicious Scheduled Task Process Launched
• Suspicious DPAPI Activity
• Suspicious implant process from a known emerging threat
• Security software tampering
• Suspicious activity linked to a financially motivated threat actor detected
• Ransomware-linked threat actor detected
• A file or network connection related to a ransomware-linked emerging threat activity group detected
• Information stealing malware activity
• Possible NetSupport Manager activity
• Suspicious sequence of exploration activities
• Defender detection bypass
• Suspicious Location of Remote Management Software
• A process was injected with potentially malicious code
• Process hollowing detected
• Suspicious PowerShell download or encoded command execution
• Suspicious PowerShell command line
• Suspicious behavior by cmd.exe was observed
• Suspicious Security Software Discovery
• Suspicious discovery indicative of Virtualization/Sandbox Evasion
• A process was launched on a hidden desktop
• Monitored keystrokes
• Suspicious Process Discovery
• Suspicious Javascript process
• A suspicious file was observed
• Anomaly detected in ASEP registry

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

The following alerts might indicate threat activity associated with this threat. These alerts, however, can be triggered by unrelated threat activity.

• Detected suspicious combination of HTA and PowerShell
• Suspicious PowerShell Activity Detected
• Traffic detected from IP addresses recommended for blocking
• Attempted communication with suspicious sinkholed domain
• Communication with suspicious domain identified by threat intelligence
• Detected obfuscated command line
• Detected suspicious named pipe communications

Microsoft Security Copilot

Security Copilot customers can use the standalone experience to create their own prompts or run the following pre-built promptbooks to automate incident response or investigation tasks related to this threat:

• Incident investigation
• Microsoft User analysis
• Threat actor profile
• Threat Intelligence 360 report based on MDTI article
• Vulnerability impact assessment

Note that some promptbooks require access to plugins for Microsoft products such as Microsoft Defender XDR or Microsoft Sentinel.

Threat intelligence reports

Microsoft customers can use the following reports in Microsoft products to get the most up-to-date information about the threat actor, malicious activity, and techniques discussed in this blog. These reports provide intelligence, protection information, and recommended actions to prevent, mitigate, or respond to associated threats found in customer environments.

Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence

• Storm-0408
• Agent Tesla credential theft malware
• Information stealers
• Lumma stealer
• Abuse of remote monitoring and management tools
• Malicious use of PowerShell

Microsoft Security Copilot customers can also use the Microsoft Security Copilot integration in Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence, either in the Security Copilot standalone portal or in the embedded experience in the Microsoft Defender portal to get more information about this threat actor.

Hunting queries

Microsoft Defender XDR

Microsoft Defender XDR customers can run the following query to find related activity in their networks:

Github-hosted first-stage payload certificate serial numbers

let specificSerialNumbers = dynamic(["70093af339876742820d7941", "15042512e67e8275f3f7f36b", "5608cab7e2ce34d53abcbb73",
 "0fa27d2553f24da79d1cc6bd8773ee9a", "7a7bf2ae0cbc0f5500db2946", "30d6c83a715bddb32e7956fe52d6b352",
  "301385aa36fae635e74bb88e", "30013cbbb16a7fd3c57f82707fb99c32", "5d00264a6b804ae6b28d9b16",
   "3a9c76f8304f77bd271921d9982f1ab6", "01f2c6c363767056abd80e9c", "0b09c88c0c8d15bed51a9eb4440f4bb0"]); 
union
(
    DeviceFileCertificateInfo
    | where CertificateSerialNumber in (specificSerialNumbers)
    | project DeviceName, CertificateSerialNumber, Signer, SHA1, IsSigned, Issuer, Timestamp
),
(
    DeviceTvmCertificateInfo
    | where SerialNumber in (specificSerialNumbers)
    | project DeviceId, SerialNumber, SignatureAlgorithm, Thumbprint, Path, IssueDate, ExpirationDate
)

Dropbox-hosted first-stage payload certificate serial number

Surface devices that may contain first-stage payloads hosted on Dropbox related to this activity. This query will search for the unique serial number of the known certificate related to this activity.

let specificSerialNumbers = dynamic(["7a7bf2ae0cbc0f5500db2946"]); 
union
(
    DeviceFileCertificateInfo
    | where CertificateSerialNumber in (specificSerialNumbers)
    | project DeviceName, CertificateSerialNumber, Signer, SHA1, IsSigned, Issuer, Timestamp
),
(
    DeviceTvmCertificateInfo
    | where SerialNumber in (specificSerialNumbers)
    | project DeviceId, SerialNumber, SignatureAlgorithm, Thumbprint, Path, IssueDate, ExpirationDate
)

Second-stage C2 IP addresses

Surface devices that may have communicated with second stage C2 IP addresses related to this activity.

let ipAddressToSearch = dynamic(["159.100.18.192", "192.142.10.246", "79.133.46.35", "84.200.24.191", "84.200.24.26", "89.187.28.253", "185.92.181.1"]);
union isfuzzy=true
(
    AzureDiagnostics
    | where identity_claim_ipaddr_s == ipAddressToSearch or conditions_sourceIP_s == ipAddressToSearch or CallerIPAddress == ipAddressToSearch or clientIP_s == ipAddressToSearch or clientIp_s == ipAddressToSearch or primaryIPv4Address_s == ipAddressToSearch or conditions_destinationIP_s == ipAddressToSearch
    | project Timestamp = TimeGenerated, Table = "AzureDiagnostics", IPAddress = coalesce(identity_claim_ipaddr_s, conditions_sourceIP_s, CallerIPAddress, clientIP_s, clientIp_s, primaryIPv4Address_s, conditions_destinationIP_s), AdditionalInfo = tostring(AdditionalFields)
),
(
    IdentityQueryEvents
    | where IPAddress == ipAddressToSearch or DestinationIPAddress == ipAddressToSearch
    | project Timestamp, Table = "IdentityQueryEvents", IPAddress = coalesce(IPAddress, DestinationIPAddress), AdditionalInfo = Query
),
(
    AADSignInEventsBeta
    | where IPAddress == ipAddressToSearch
    | project Timestamp, Table = "AADSignInEventsBeta", IPAddress, AdditionalInfo = UserAgent
),
(
    Heartbeat
    | where ComputerIP == ipAddressToSearch
    | project Timestamp = TimeGenerated, Table = "Heartbeat", IPAddress = ComputerIP, AdditionalInfo = OSName
),
(
    CloudAppEvents
    | where IPAddress == ipAddressToSearch
    | project Timestamp, Table = "CloudAppEvents", IPAddress, AdditionalInfo = UserAgent
),
(
    DeviceNetworkEvents
    | where LocalIP == ipAddressToSearch or RemoteIP == ipAddressToSearch
    | project Timestamp, Table = "DeviceNetworkEvents", IPAddress = coalesce(LocalIP, RemoteIP), AdditionalInfo = InitiatingProcessCommandLine
),
(
    AADUserRiskEvents
    | where IpAddress == ipAddressToSearch
    | project Timestamp = TimeGenerated, Table = "AADUserRiskEvents", IPAddress = IpAddress, AdditionalInfo = RiskEventType
),
(
    AADNonInteractiveUserSignInLogs
    | where IPAddress == ipAddressToSearch
    | project Timestamp = TimeGenerated, Table = "AADNonInteractiveUserSignInLogs", IPAddress, AdditionalInfo = UserAgent
),
(
    MicrosoftAzureBastionAuditLogs
    | where TargetVMIPAddress == ipAddressToSearch or ClientIpAddress == ipAddressToSearch
    | project Timestamp = TimeGenerated, Table = "MicrosoftAzureBastionAuditLogs", IPAddress = coalesce(TargetVMIPAddress, ClientIpAddress), AdditionalInfo = UserAgent
)
| sort by Timestamp desc

Fourth-stage C2 IP addresses

Surface devices that may have communicated with fourth stage C2 IP addresses related to this activity.

let ipAddressToSearch = dynamic(["45.141.84.60", "91.202.233.18", "154.216.20.131", "5.10.250.240", "79.132.128.77"]);
union isfuzzy=true
(
    AzureDiagnostics
    | where identity_claim_ipaddr_s == ipAddressToSearch or conditions_sourceIP_s == ipAddressToSearch or CallerIPAddress == ipAddressToSearch or clientIP_s == ipAddressToSearch or clientIp_s == ipAddressToSearch or primaryIPv4Address_s == ipAddressToSearch or conditions_destinationIP_s == ipAddressToSearch
    | project Timestamp = TimeGenerated, Table = "AzureDiagnostics", IPAddress = coalesce(identity_claim_ipaddr_s, conditions_sourceIP_s, CallerIPAddress, clientIP_s, clientIp_s, primaryIPv4Address_s, o),
(
    IdentityQueryEvents
    | where IPAddress == ipAddressToSearch or DestinationIPAddress == ipAddressToSearch
    | project Timestamp, Table = "IdentityQueryEvents", IPAddress = coalesce(IPAddress, DestinationIPAddress), AdditionalInfo = Query
),
(
    AADSignInEventsBeta
    | where IPAddress == ipAddressToSearch
    | project Timestamp, Table = "AADSignInEventsBeta", IPAddress, AdditionalInfo = UserAgent
),
(
    Heartbeat
    | where ComputerIP == ipAddressToSearch
    | project Timestamp = TimeGenerated, Table = "Heartbeat", IPAddress = ComputerIP, AdditionalInfo = OSName
),
(
    CloudAppEvents
    | where IPAddress == ipAddressToSearch
    | project Timestamp, Table = "CloudAppEvents", IPAddress, AdditionalInfo = UserAgent
),
(
    DeviceNetworkEvents
    | where LocalIP == ipAddressToSearch or RemoteIP == ipAddressToSearch
    | project Timestamp, Table = "DeviceNetworkEvents", IPAddress = coalesce(LocalIP, RemoteIP), AdditionalInfo = InitiatingProcessCommandLine
),
(
    AADUserRiskEvents
    | where IpAddress == ipAddressToSearch
    | project Timestamp = TimeGenerated, Table = "AADUserRiskEvents", IPAddress = IpAddress, AdditionalInfo = RiskEventType
),
(
    AADNonInteractiveUserSignInLogs
    | where IPAddress == ipAddressToSearch
    | project Timestamp = TimeGenerated, Table = "AADNonInteractiveUserSignInLogs", IPAddress, AdditionalInfo = UserAgent
),
(
    MicrosoftAzureBastionAuditLogs
    | where TargetVMIPAddress == ipAddressToSearch or ClientIpAddress == ipAddressToSearch
    | project Timestamp = TimeGenerated, Table = "MicrosoftAzureBastionAuditLogs", IPAddress = coalesce(TargetVMIPAddress, ClientIpAddress), AdditionalInfo = UserAgent
)
| sort by Timestamp desc

Browser remote debugging 

Identify AutoIT scripts launching chromium-based browsers (such as chrome.exe, msedge.exe, brave.exe) in remote debugging mode.

DeviceProcessEvents 
| where InitiatingProcessVersionInfoInternalFileName == "AutoIt3.exe" // Check for "AutoIt" scripts, even if it's renamed.  
| where ProcessCommandLine has "--remote-debugging-port" // Identify Chromium based browsers (chrome.exe, msedge.exe, brave.exe etc) being launched in remote debugging mode. 
| project DeviceId, Timestamp, InitiatingProcessParentFileName, InitiatingProcessFileName, InitiatingProcessFolderPath, InitiatingProcessVersionInfoInternalFileName, InitiatingProcessCommandLine, FileName, ProcessCommandLine

DPAPI decryption via AutoIT

Identify DPAPI decryption activity originating from AutoIT scripts.

DeviceEvents
| where ActionType == "DpapiAccessed"
| where InitiatingProcessVersionInfoInternalFileName == "AutoIt3.exe"
| where (AdditionalFields has_any("Google Chrome", "Microsoft Edge") and AdditionalFields has_any("SPCryptUnprotect"))
| extend json = parse_json(AdditionalFields)
| extend dataDesp = tostring(json.DataDescription.PropertyValue)
| extend opType = tostring(json.OperationType.PropertyValue)
| where (dataDesp in~ ("Google Chrome", "Microsoft Edge") and opType =~ "SPCryptUnprotect")
| project Timestamp, ReportId, DeviceId, ActionType, InitiatingProcessParentFileName, InitiatingProcessFileName, InitiatingProcessVersionInfoInternalFileName, InitiatingProcessCommandLine, AdditionalFields, dataDesp, opType

DPAPI decryption via LOLBAS binaries

Identify DPAPI decryption activity originating from LOLBAS binaries (RegAsm.exe and MSBuild.exe).

DeviceEvents
| where ActionType == "DpapiAccessed"
| where InitiatingProcessFileName has_any ("RegAsm.exe", "MSBuild.exe")
| where (AdditionalFields has_any("Google Chrome", "Microsoft Edge") and  AdditionalFields has_any("SPCryptUnprotect"))
| extend json = parse_json(AdditionalFields)
| extend dataDesp = tostring(json.DataDescription.PropertyValue)
| extend opType = tostring(json.OperationType.PropertyValue)
| where (dataDesp in~ ("Google Chrome", "Microsoft Edge") and opType =~ "SPCryptUnprotect")
| project Timestamp, ReportId, DeviceId, ActionType, InitiatingProcessParentFileName, InitiatingProcessFileName, InitiatingProcessVersionInfoInternalFileName, InitiatingProcessCommandLine, AdditionalFields, dataDesp, opType

Sensitive browser file access via AutoIT

Identify AutoIT scripts (renamed or otherwise) accessing sensitive browser files.

let browserDirs = pack_array(@"\Google\Chrome\User Data\", @"\Microsoft\Edge\User Data\", @"\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\"); 
let browserSensitiveFiles = pack_array("Web Data", "Login Data", "key4.db", "formhistory.sqlite", "cookies.sqlite", "logins.json", "places.sqlite", "cert9.db");
DeviceEvents
| where AdditionalFields has_any ("FileOpenSource") // Filter for "File Open" events.
| where InitiatingProcessVersionInfoInternalFileName == "AutoIt3.exe"
| where (AdditionalFields has_any(browserDirs) or  AdditionalFields has_any(browserSensitiveFiles)) 
| extend json = parse_json(AdditionalFields)
| extend File_Name = tostring(json.FileName.PropertyValue)
| where (File_Name has_any (browserDirs) and File_Name has_any (browserSensitiveFiles))
| project Timestamp, ReportId, DeviceId, InitiatingProcessParentFileName, InitiatingProcessFileName, InitiatingProcessVersionInfoInternalFileName, InitiatingProcessCommandLine, File_Name

Sensitive browser file access via LOLBAS binaries

Identify LOLBAS binaries (RegAsm.exe and MSBuild.exe) accessing sensitive browser files.

let browserDirs = pack_array(@"\Google\Chrome\User Data\", @"\Microsoft\Edge\User Data\", @"\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\"); 
let browserSensitiveFiles = pack_array("Web Data", "Login Data", "key4.db", "formhistory.sqlite", "cookies.sqlite", "logins.json", "places.sqlite", "cert9.db");
DeviceEvents
| where AdditionalFields has_any ("FileOpenSource") // Filter for "File Open" events.
| where InitiatingProcessFileName has_any ("RegAsm.exe", "MSBuild.exe")
 | where (AdditionalFields has_any(browserDirs) or  AdditionalFields has_any(browserSensitiveFiles)) 
| extend json = parse_json(AdditionalFields)
| extend File_Name = tostring(json.FileName.PropertyValue)
| where (File_Name has_any (browserDirs) and File_Name has_any (browserSensitiveFiles))
| project Timestamp, ReportId, DeviceId, InitiatingProcessParentFileName, InitiatingProcessFileName, InitiatingProcessVersionInfoInternalFileName, InitiatingProcessCommandLine, File_Name

Microsoft Sentinel

Microsoft Sentinel customers can use the TI Mapping analytics (a series of analytics all prefixed with ‘TI map’) to automatically match the malicious domain indicators mentioned in this blog post with data in their workspace. If the TI Map analytics are not currently deployed, customers can install the Threat Intelligence solution from the Microsoft Sentinel Content Hub to have the analytics rule deployed in their Sentinel workspace.

Indicators of compromise

Streaming website domains with malicious iframe

Malicious iframe redirector domains

Malvertisement distributor

Malvertising website domains

GitHub referral URLs

GitHub URLs

DropBox URL

Discord URL

First stage GitHub-hosted payloads

First-stage Dropbox-hosted payload

First-stage Discord-hosted payload

Certificate signatures of GitHub-hosted payloads

Certificate signature of Dropbox-hosted payload

Second-stage payloads

Second-stage C2s

Third-stage payloads: .exe and PowerShell files

Fourth-stage AutoIT, NetSupport RAT, PowerShell, and Lumma

Third-stage C2s

Fourth-stage C2s

Fourth-stage testing connectivity sites

References

• https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/iframe
• https://github.com/antivirusevasion69/doenerium
• https://curl.se/docs/manpage.html#-s
• https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/2a29c9904d1860ea3177da7553c8b1bf1944566e5bc1e71340d9e0ff079f0bd3

Learn more

For the latest security research from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community, check out the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Blog: https://aka.ms/threatintelblog.

To get notified about new publications and to join discussions on social media, follow us on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/microsoft-threat-intelligence, and on X (formerly Twitter) at https://x.com/MsftSecIntel.

Hear more about this discovery and how threat actors in this campaign leverage trusted platforms and advanced techniques to achieve their malicious goals in this episode of the Microsoft Threat Intelligence podcast, hosted by Sherrod DeGrippo: https://thecyberwire.com/podcasts/microsoft-threat-intelligence/39/notes. To hear stories and insights from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community about the ever-evolving threat landscape, listen to the Microsoft Threat Intelligence podcast: https://thecyberwire.com/podcasts/microsoft-threat-intelligence.

The post Malvertising campaign leads to info stealers hosted on GitHub appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.

Between March and April 2024, Microsoft Threat Intelligence observed Secret Blizzard using the Amadey bot malware relating to cybercriminal activity that Microsoft tracks as Storm-1919 to download its backdoors to specifically selected target devices associated with the Ukrainian military. This was at least the second time since 2022 that Secret Blizzard has used a cybercrime campaign to facilitate a foothold for its own malware in Ukraine. Microsoft also assesses that in January 2024, Secret Blizzard used the backdoor of Storm-1837, a Russia-based threat actor that targets Ukrainian military drone pilots, to download the Tavdig and KazuarV2 backdoors on a target device in Ukraine.

Commandeering other threat actors’ access highlights Secret Blizzard’s approach to diversifying its attack vectors, including using strategic web compromises (watering holes) and adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) campaigns likely facilitated via legally mandated intercept systems in Russia such as the “System for Operative Investigative Activities” (SORM). More commonly, Secret Blizzard uses spear phishing as its initial attack vector, then server-side and edge device compromises to facilitate further lateral movement within a network of interest.

As previously detailed, Secret Blizzard is known for targeting a wide array of sectors, but most prominently ministries of foreign affairs, embassies, government offices, defense departments, and defense-related companies worldwide. Secret Blizzard focuses on gaining long-term access to systems for intelligence collection, often seeking out advanced research and information of political importance, using extensive resources such as multiple backdoors. The United States Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has attributed Secret Blizzard to Center 16 of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB). Secret Blizzard overlaps with the threat actor tracked by other security vendors as Turla, Waterbug, Venomous Bear, Snake, Turla Team, and Turla APT Group.

Microsoft tracks Secret Blizzard campaigns and, when we are able, directly notifies customers who have been targeted or compromised, providing them with the necessary information to help secure their environments. As part of our continuous monitoring, analysis, and reporting on the threat landscape, we are sharing our research on Secret Blizzard’s activity to raise awareness of this threat actor’s tradecraft and to educate organizations on how to harden their attack surfaces against this and similar activity. In addition, we highlight that while Secret Blizzard’s use of infrastructure and access by other threat actors is unusual, it is not unique, and therefore organizations that have been compromised by one threat actor may also find themselves compromised by another through the initial intrusion.

Amadey bot use and post-compromise activities

Between March and April 2024, Microsoft observed Secret Blizzard likely commandeering Amadey bots to ultimately deploy their custom Tavdig backdoor. Microsoft tracks some cybercriminal activity associated with Amadey bots as Storm-1919. Storm-1919’s post-infection goal is most often to deploy XMRIG cryptocurrency miners onto victim devices. Amadey bots have been deployed by Secret Blizzard and other threat actors comprising Storm-1919 to numerous devices around the world during 2024.

Microsoft assesses that Secret Blizzard either used the Amadey malware as a service (MaaS) or accessed the Amadey command-and-control (C2) panels surreptitiously to download a PowerShell dropper on target devices. The PowerShell dropper contained a Base64-encoded Amadey payload appended by code that invoked a request to Secret Blizzard C2 infrastructure.

The Amadey instance was version 4.18, but generally had the same functionality as the Amadey bot described in a Splunk blog from July 2023 analyzing version 3.83.

The Amadey sample gathered a significant amount of information about the victim system, including the administrator status and device name from the registry, and checked for installed antivirus software by seeing if it had a folder in C:\ProgramData. Numbers were recorded for each software found and likely sent back to the C2:

• Avast Software
  • Avira
  • Kaspersky Lab
  • ESET
  • Panda Security
  • Doctor Web
  • AVG
  • 360TotalSecurity
  • Bitdefender
  • Norton
  • Sophos
  • Comodo

The retrieved information was gathered from the system to be encoded into the communication sent to the C2 at http://vitantgroup[.]com/xmlrpc.php. The Amadey bot then attempted to download two plugins from the C2 server:

• hxxp://vitantgroup[.]com/Plugins/cred64.dll
• hxxp://vitantgroup[.]com/Plugins/clip64.dll

Microsoft did not observe the two DLLs on the devices accessed by Secret Blizzard, but it is likely that they performed the same role as in other similar Amadey bots—to collect clipboard data and browser credentials. The need to encode the PowerShell dropper with a separate C2 URL controlled by Secret Blizzard could indicate that Secret Blizzard was not directly in control of the C2 mechanism used by the Amadey bot.

Subsequently, Microsoft observed Secret Blizzard downloading their custom reconnaissance or survey tool. This tool was selectively deployed to devices of further interest by the threat actor—for example, devices egressing from STARLINK IP addresses, a common signature of Ukrainian front-line military devices. The survey tool consisted of an executable that decrypted a batch script or cmdlets at runtime using what appears to be a custom RC4 algorithm. One of the batch scripts invoked the following command:

The batch script collected a survey of the victim device, including the directory tree, system information, active sessions, IPv4 route table, SMB shares, enabled security groups, and time settings. This information was encrypted using the same RC4 function and transmitted to the previously referenced Secret Blizzard C2 server at hxxps://citactica[.]com/wp-content/wp-login.php.

In another use of the survey tool observed by Microsoft Threat Intelligence, the executable simply decrypted the cmdlet dir “%programdata%\Microsoft\Windows Defender\Support. The %programdata%\Microsoft\Windows Defender\Support folder contains various Microsoft Defender logs, such as entries of detected malicious files.

Microsoft assesses that this cmdlet was invoked to determine if Microsoft Defender was enabled and whether previous Amadey activity had been flagged by the engine. Since several of the targeted devices observed by Microsoft had Microsoft Defender disabled during initial infection, the Secret Blizzard implants were only observed by Microsoft weeks or months after initial malware deployment.

Microsoft assesses that Secret Blizzard generally used the survey tool to determine if a victim device was of further interest, in which case it would deploy a PowerShell dropper containing the Tavdig backdoor payload (rastls.dll) and a legitimate Symantec binary with the name (kavp.exe), which is susceptible to DLL-sideloading.  The C2 configuration for Tavdig was:

• hxxps://icw2016.coachfederation[.]cz/wp-includeshttps://www.microsoft.com/images/wp/
• hxxps://hospitalvilleroy[.]com[.]br/wp-includes/fonts/icons/

On several of the victim devices, the Tavdig loader was deployed using an executable named procmap.exe, which used the Microsoft Macro Assembler (MASM) compiler (QEditor). Microsoft assesses that procmap.exe was used to compile and run malicious ASM files on victim devices within Ukraine in March 2024, which then invoked a PowerShell script that subsequently loaded the Amadey bots and the Tavdig backdoor.

Secret Blizzard then used the Tavdig backdoor—loaded into kavp.exe—to conduct further reconnaissance on the device, including user info, netstat, and installed patches. Secret Blizzard also used Tavdig to import a registry file into the registry of the victim device, which likely installed the persistence mechanism and payload for the KazuarV2 backdoor.

Figure 3. Example of how Amadey bots were used to load the Tavdig backdoor

The KazuarV2 payload was often injected into a browser process such as explorer.exe or opera.exe to facilitate command and control with compromised web servers hosting the Secret Blizzard relay and encryption module (index.php). This module facilitated encryption and onward transmission of command output and exfiltrated data from the affected device to the next-level Secret Blizzard infrastructure. 

Storm-1837 PowerShell backdoor use

Microsoft has observed Storm-1837 (overlaps with activity tracked by other security providers as Flying Yeti and UAC-0149) targeting devices belonging to the military of Ukraine since December 2023. Storm-1837 is a Russia-based threat actor that has focused on devices used by Ukrainian drone operators. Storm-1837 uses a range of PowerShell backdoors including the backdoor that the Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA) has named Cookbox as well as an Android backdoor impersonating a legitimate system used for AI processing called “Griselda”, which according to CERT-UA is based on the Hydra Android banking malware and facilitates the collection of session data (HTTP cookies), contacts, and keylogging. In May 2024, Cloudflare detailed a Storm-1837 espionage phishing campaign against Ukrainian military devices for which Storm-1837 used both GitHub and Cloudflare for staging and C2.

In January 2024, Microsoft observed a military-related device in Ukraine compromised by a Storm-1837 backdoor configured to use the Telegram API to launch a cmdlet with credentials (supplied as parameters) for an account on the file-sharing platform Mega. The cmdlet appeared to have facilitated remote connections to the account at Mega and likely invoked the download of commands or files for launch on the target device. When the Storm-1837 PowerShell backdoor launched, Microsoft noted a PowerShell dropper deployed to the device. The dropper was very similar to the one observed during the use of Amadey bots and contained two base64 encoded files containing the previously referenced Tavdig backdoor payload (rastls.dll) and the Symantec binary (kavp.exe).

As with the Amadey bot attack chain, Secret Blizzard used the Tavdig backdoor loaded into kavp.exe to conduct initial reconnaissance on the device. Secret Blizzard then used Tavdig to import a registry file, which was used to install and provide persistence for the KazuarV2 backdoor, which was subsequently observed launching on the affected device.

Although Microsoft did not directly observe the Storm-1837 PowerShell backdoor downloading the Tavdig loader, based on the temporal proximity between the execution of the Storm-1837 backdoor and the observation of the PowerShell dropper, Microsoft assesses that it is likely that the Storm-1837 backdoor was used by Secret Blizzard to deploy the Tavdig loader.

Summary assessments

Microsoft Threat Intelligence is still investigating how Secret Blizzard gained control of the Storm-1837 backdoor or Amadey bots to download its own tools onto devices in Ukraine. It is possible, for example, that Secret Blizzard operators could have purchased the use of Amadey bots, or it may have surreptitiously commandeered a part of the Amadey attack chain.

Regardless of the means, Microsoft Threat Intelligence assesses that Secret Blizzard’s pursuit of footholds provided by or stolen from other threat actors highlights this threat actor’s prioritization of accessing military devices in Ukraine. During its operations, Secret Blizzard has used an RC4 encrypted executable to decrypt various survey cmdlets and scripts, a method Microsoft assesses Secret Blizzard is likely to use beyond the immediate campaign discussed here.

Secret Blizzard deployed tools to these (non-domain-joined) devices that are encoded for espionage against large domain-joined environments. However, this threat actor has also built new functionality into them to make them more relevant for the espionage specifically conducted against Ukrainian military devices. In addition, Microsoft assesses Secret Blizzard has likely also attempted to use these footholds to tunnel and escalate toward strategic access at the Ministry level.

When parts one and two of this blog series are taken together, it indicates that Secret Blizzard has been using footholds from third parties—either by surreptitiously stealing or purchasing access—as a specific and deliberate method to establish footholds of espionage value. Nevertheless, Microsoft assesses that while this approach has some benefits that could lead more threat adversaries to use it, it is of less use against hardened networks, where good endpoint and network defenses enable the detection of activities of multiple threat adversaries for remediation.

Mitigations

To harden networks against the Secret Blizzard activity listed above, defenders can implement the following:

Strengthen Microsoft Defender for Endpoint configuration

• Microsoft Defender XDR customers can implement attack surface reduction rules to harden an environment against techniques used by threat actors.
  • Block execution of potentially obfuscated scripts.
  • Block process creations originating from PSExec and WMI commands.
  • Block executable files from running unless they meet a prevalence, age, or trusted list criterion.
  • Block abuse of exploited vulnerable signed drivers.
  • Block Webshell creation for Servers.
• Enable network protection in Microsoft Defender for Endpoint.
• Ensure that tamper protection is enabled in Microsoft Dender for Endpoint.
• Run endpoint detection and response in block mode so that Microsoft Defender for Endpoint can block malicious artifacts, even when your non-Microsoft antivirus does not detect the threat or when Microsoft Defender Antivirus is running in passive mode.
• Configure investigation and remediation in full automated mode to let Microsoft Defender for Endpoint take immediate action on alerts to resolve breaches, significantly reducing alert volume.

Strengthen Microsoft Defender Antivirus configuration

• Turn on PUA protection in block mode in Microsoft Defender Antivirus.
• Turn on cloud-delivered protection in Microsoft Defender Antivirus or the equivalent for your antivirus product to cover rapidly evolving threat actor tools and techniques.
• Turn on Microsoft Defender Antivirus real-time protection.

Strengthen operating environment configuration

• Encourage users to use Microsoft Edge and other web browsers that support SmartScreen, which identifies and blocks malicious websites, including phishing sites, scam sites, and sites that host malware. Implement PowerShell execution policies to control conditions under which PowerShell can load configuration files and run scripts.
• Turn on and monitor PowerShell module and script block logging.
• Implement PowerShell execution policies to control conditions under which PowerShell can load configuration files and run scripts.
• Turn on and monitor PowerShell module and script block logging.

Microsoft Defender XDR detections

Microsoft Defender Antivirus

Microsoft Defender Antivirus detects this threat as the following malware:

• Trojan:Win32/Tavdig.Crypt
• Trojan:JS/Kazuar.A

Microsoft Defender Antivirus detects additional threat components that may be related as the following malware:

• Trojan:Win32/Amadey
• Trojan:MSIL/Amadey
• TrojanDownloader:Win32/Amadey

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

The following alerts might also indicate threat activity associated with this threat. These alerts, however, can be triggered by unrelated threat activity and are not monitored in the status cards provided with this report.

• Secret Blizzard Actor activity detected

Hunting queries

Microsoft Defender XDR

Surface instances of the Secret Blizzard indicators of compromise file hashes. 

let fileHashes = dynamic(["Ee8ef58f3bf0dab066eb608cb0f167b1585e166bf4730858961c192860ceffe9", 
"d26ac1a90f3b3f9e11491f789e55abe5b7d360df77c91a597e775f6db49902ea", 
"d7e528b55b2eeb6786509664a70f641f14d0c13ceec539737eef26857355536e", 
"dfdc0318f3dc5ba3f960b1f338b638cd9645856d2a2af8aa33ea0f9979a9ca4c", 
"ced8891ea8d87005de989f25f0f94634d1fc70ebb37302cf21aa0c0b0e13350f", 
"Ee8ef58f3bf0dab066eb608cb0f167b1585e166bf4730858961c192860ceffe9"]);
union
(
   DeviceFileEvents
   | where SHA256 in (fileHashes)
   | project Timestamp, FileHash = SHA256, SourceTable = "DeviceFileEvents"
),
(
   DeviceEvents
   | where SHA256 in (fileHashes)
   | project Timestamp, FileHash = SHA256, SourceTable = "DeviceEvents"
),
(
   DeviceImageLoadEvents
   | where SHA256 in (fileHashes)
   | project Timestamp, FileHash = SHA256, SourceTable = "DeviceImageLoadEvents"
),
(
   DeviceProcessEvents
   | where SHA256 in (fileHashes)
   | project Timestamp, FileHash = SHA256, SourceTable = "DeviceProcessEvents"
)
| order by Timestamp desc

Surface instances of the Secret Blizzard indicators of compromise C2s.

let domainList = dynamic(["citactica.com", "icw2016.coachfederation.cz", "hospitalvilleroy.com.br", "vitantgroup.com", "brauche-it.de", "okesense.oketheme.com", "coworkingdeamicis.com", "plagnol-charpentier.fr"]);
union
(
    DnsEvents
    | where QueryType has_any(domainList) or Name has_any(domainList)
    | project TimeGenerated, Domain = QueryType, SourceTable = "DnsEvents"
),
(
    IdentityQueryEvents
    | where QueryTarget has_any(domainList)
    | project Timestamp, Domain = QueryTarget, SourceTable = "IdentityQueryEvents"
),
(
    DeviceNetworkEvents
    | where RemoteUrl has_any(domainList)
    | project Timestamp, Domain = RemoteUrl, SourceTable = "DeviceNetworkEvents"
),
(
    DeviceNetworkInfo
    | extend DnsAddresses = parse_json(DnsAddresses), ConnectedNetworks = parse_json(ConnectedNetworks)
    | mv-expand DnsAddresses, ConnectedNetworks
    | where DnsAddresses has_any(domainList) or ConnectedNetworks.Name has_any(domainList)
    | project Timestamp, Domain = coalesce(DnsAddresses, ConnectedNetworks.Name), SourceTable = "DeviceNetworkInfo"
),
(
    VMConnection
    | extend RemoteDnsQuestions = parse_json(RemoteDnsQuestions), RemoteDnsCanonicalNames = parse_json(RemoteDnsCanonicalNames)
    | mv-expand RemoteDnsQuestions, RemoteDnsCanonicalNames
    | where RemoteDnsQuestions has_any(domainList) or RemoteDnsCanonicalNames has_any(domainList)
    | project TimeGenerated, Domain = coalesce(RemoteDnsQuestions, RemoteDnsCanonicalNames), SourceTable = "VMConnection"
),
(
    W3CIISLog
    | where csHost has_any(domainList) or csReferer has_any(domainList)
    | project TimeGenerated, Domain = coalesce(csHost, csReferer), SourceTable = "W3CIISLog"
),
(
    EmailUrlInfo
    | where UrlDomain has_any(domainList)
    | project Timestamp, Domain = UrlDomain, SourceTable = "EmailUrlInfo"
),
(
    UrlClickEvents
    | where Url has_any(domainList)
    | project Timestamp, Domain = Url, SourceTable = "UrlClickEvents"
)
| order by TimeGenerated desc

Additional hunting for likely malicious PowerShell commands queries can be found in this repository.

Look for PowerShell execution events that might involve a download. 

// Finds PowerShell execution events that could involve a download.
DeviceProcessEvents
| where Timestamp > ago(7d)
| where FileName in~ ("powershell.exe", "powershell_ise.exe")
| where ProcessCommandLine has "Net.WebClient"
or ProcessCommandLine has "DownloadFile"
or ProcessCommandLine has "Invoke-WebRequest"
or ProcessCommandLine has "Invoke-Shellcode"
or ProcessCommandLine has "http"
or ProcessCommandLine has "IEX"
or ProcessCommandLine has "Start-BitsTransfer"
or ProcessCommandLine has "mpcmdrun.exe"
| project Timestamp, DeviceName, InitiatingProcessFileName, FileName, ProcessCommandLine

Look for encoded PowerShell execution events. 

// Detect Encoded PowerShell
DeviceProcessEvents
| where ProcessCommandLine matches regex @'(\s+-((?i)encod?e?d?c?o?m?m?a?n?d?|e|en|enc|ec)\s).*([A-Za-z0-9+/]{50,}[=]{0,2})'
| extend DecodedCommand = replace(@'\x00','', base64_decode_tostring(extract("[A-Za-z0-9+/]{50,}[=]{0,2}",0 , ProcessCommandLine)))

Microsoft Sentinel

Look for encoded PowerShell. 

id: f58a7f64-acd3-4cf6-ab6d-be76130cf251
name: Detect Encoded Powershell
description: |	
This query will detect encoded Powershell based on the parameters passed during process creation. This query will also work if the PowerShell executable is renamed or tampered with since detection is based solely on a regex of the launch string.
requiredDataConnectors:
- connectorId: MicrosoftThreatProtection
dataTypes:
- DeviceProcessEvents
tactics:
- Execution
query: |
DeviceProcessEvents
| where ProcessCommandLine matches regex @'(\s+-((?i)encod?e?d?c?o?m?m?a?n?d?|e|en|enc|ec)\s).*([A-Za-z0-9+/]{50,}[=]{0,2})'
| extend DecodedCommand = replace(@'\x00','', base64_decode_tostring(extract("[A-Za-z0-9+/]{50,}[=]{0,2}",0 , ProcessCommandLine)))

Look for PowerShell downloads. 

id: c34d1d0e-1cf4-45d0-b628-a2cfde329182
name: PowerShell downloads
description: |
Finds PowerShell execution events that could involve a download.
requiredDataConnectors:
- connectorId: MicrosoftThreatProtection
dataTypes:
- DeviceProcessEvents
query: |
DeviceProcessEvents
| where Timestamp > ago(7d)
| where FileName in~ ("powershell.exe", "powershell_ise.exe")
| where ProcessCommandLine has "Net.WebClient"
or ProcessCommandLine has "DownloadFile"
or ProcessCommandLine has "Invoke-WebRequest"
or ProcessCommandLine has "Invoke-Shellcode"
or ProcessCommandLine has "http"
or ProcessCommandLine has "IEX"
or ProcessCommandLine has "Start-BitsTransfer"
or ProcessCommandLine has "mpcmdrun.exe"
| project Timestamp, DeviceName, InitiatingProcessFileName, FileName, ProcessCommandLine

Threat intelligence reports

Microsoft customers can use the following reports in Microsoft products to get the most up-to-date information about the threat actor, malicious activity, and techniques discussed in this blog. These reports provide the intelligence, protection information, and recommended actions to prevent, mitigate, or respond to associated threats found in customer environments. Microsoft Security Copilot customers can also use the Microsoft Security Copilot integration in Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence either in the Security Copilot standalone portal or in the embedded experience in the Microsoft Defender portal, to get more information about this threat actor.

Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence

• Secret Blizzard using peer and cybercriminal infrastructure to target devices in Ukraine

Indicators of compromise

References

• https://securelist.com/the-epic-turla-operation/65545/ 
• https://www.darkreading.com/endpoint-security/upgraded-kazuar-backdoor-offers-stealthy-power 
• https://cyble.com/blog/the-rise-of-amadey-bot-a-growing-concern-for-internet-security/
• https://www.welivesecurity.com/2020/03/12/tracking-turla-new-backdoor-armenian-watering-holes/
• https://www.welivesecurity.com/2018/05/22/turla-mosquito-shift-towards-generic-tools/
• https://www.welivesecurity.com/2018/01/09/turlas-backdoor-laced-flash-player-installer/
• https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/cybersecurity-advisories/aa23-129a
• https://attack.mitre.org/groups/G0010/
• https://www.splunk.com/en_us/blog/security/amadey-threat-analysis-and-detections.html
• https://blog.cloudflare.com/disrupting-flyingyeti-campaign-targeting-ukraine/
• https://socprime.com/blog/uac-0149-attack-detection-hackers-launch-a-targeted-attack-against-the-armed-forces-of-ukraine-as-cert-ua-reports/
• https://cert.gov.ua/article/6278620
• https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/31/crowdforce_flyingyeti_ukraine/
• https://www.zdnet.com/article/malware-authors-are-still-abusing-the-heavens-gate-technique/

Learn more

For the latest security research from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community, check out the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Blog: https://aka.ms/threatintelblog.

To get notified about new publications and to join discussions on social media, follow us on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/microsoft-threat-intelligence, and on X (formerly Twitter) at https://twitter.com/MsftSecIntel.

To hear stories and insights from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community about the ever-evolving threat landscape, listen to the Microsoft Threat Intelligence podcast: https://thecyberwire.com/podcasts/microsoft-threat-intelligence.

The post Frequent freeloader part II: Russian actor Secret Blizzard using tools of other groups to attack Ukraine appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.

Legitimate hosting services, such as SharePoint, OneDrive, and Dropbox, are widely used by organizations for storing, sharing, and collaborating on files. However, the widespread use of such services also makes them attractive targets for threat actors, who exploit the trust and familiarity associated with these services to deliver malicious files and links, often avoiding detection by traditional security measures.

Importantly, Microsoft takes action against malicious users violating the Microsoft Services Agreement in how they use apps like SharePoint and OneDrive. To help protect enterprise accounts from compromise, by default both Microsoft 365 and Office 365 support multi-factor authentication (MFA) and passwordless sign-in. Consumers can also go passwordless with their Microsoft account. Because security is a team sport, Microsoft also works with third parties like Dropbox to share threat intelligence and protect mutual customers and the wider community.

In this blog, we discuss the typical attack chain used in campaigns misusing file hosting services and detail the recently observed tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), including the increasing use of certain defense evasion tactics. To help defenders protect their identities and data, we also share mitigation guidance to help reduce the impact of this threat, and detection details and hunting queries to locate potential misuse of file hosting services and related threat actor activities. By understanding these evolving threats and implementing the recommended mitigations, organizations can better protect themselves against these sophisticated campaigns and safeguard digital assets.

Attack overview

Phishing campaigns exploiting legitimate file hosting services have been trending throughout the last few years, especially due to the relative ease of the technique. The files are delivered through different approaches, including email and email attachments like PDFs, OneNote, and Word files, with the intent of compromising identities or devices. These campaigns are different from traditional phishing attacks because of the sophisticated defense evasion techniques used.

Since mid-April 2024, we observed threat actors increasingly use these tactics aimed at circumventing defense mechanisms:

• Files with restricted access: The files sent through the phishing emails are configured to be accessible solely to the designated recipient. This requires the recipient to be signed in to the file-sharing service—be it Dropbox, OneDrive, or SharePoint—or to re-authenticate by entering their email address along with a one-time password (OTP) received through a notification service.
• Files with view-only restrictions: To bypass analysis by email detonation systems, the files shared in these phishing attacks are set to ‘view-only’ mode, disabling the ability to download and consequently, the detection of embedded URLs within the file.

An example attack chain is provided below, depicting the updated defense evasion techniques being used across stages 4, 5, and 6:

Initial access

The attack typically begins with the compromise of a user within a trusted vendor. After compromising the trusted vendor, the threat actor hosts a file on the vendor’s file hosting service, which is then shared with a target organization. This misuse of legitimate file hosting services is particularly effective because recipients are more likely to trust emails from known vendors, allowing threat actors to bypass security measures and compromise identities. Often, users from trusted vendors are added to allow lists through policies set by the organization on Exchange Online products, enabling phishing emails to be successfully delivered.

While file names observed in these campaigns also included the recipients, the hosted files typically follow these patterns:

• Familiar topics based on existing conversations
  • For example, if the two organizations have prior interactions related to an audit, the shared files could be named “Audit Report 2024”.
• Familiar topics based on current context
  • If the attack has not originated from a trusted vendor, the threat actor often impersonates administrators or help desk or IT support personnel in the sender display name and uses a file name such as “IT Filing Support 2024”, “Forms related to Tax submission”, or “Troubleshooting guidelines”.
• Topics based on urgency
  • Another common technique observed by the threat actors creating these files is that they create a sense of urgency with the file names like “Urgent:Attention Required” and “Compromised Password Reset”.

Defense evasion techniques

Once the threat actor shares the files on the file hosting service with the intended users, the file hosting service sends the target user an automated email notification with a link to access the file securely. This email is not a phishing email but a notification for the user about the sharing action. In scenarios involving SharePoint or OneDrive, the file is shared from the user’s context, with the compromised user’s email address as the sender. However, in the Dropbox scenario, the file is shared from no-reply@dropbox[.]com. The files are shared through automated notification emails with the subject: “<User> shared <document> with you”. To evade detections, the threat actor deploys the following additional techniques:

• Only the intended recipient can access the file
  • The intended recipient needs to re-authenticate before accessing the file
  • The file is accessible only for a limited time window
• The PDF shared in the file cannot be downloaded

These techniques make detonation and analysis of the sample with the malicious link almost impossible since they are restricted.

Identity compromise

When the targeted user accesses the shared file, the user is prompted to verify their identity by providing their email address:

Next, an OTP is sent from no-reply@notify.microsoft[.]com. Once the OTP is submitted, the user is successfully authorized and can view a document, often masquerading as a preview, with a malicious link, which is another lure to make the targeted user click the “View my message” access link.

This link redirects the user to an adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) phishing page, where the user is prompted to provide the password and complete multifactor authentication (MFA). The compromised token can then be leveraged by the threat actor to perform the second stage BEC attack and continue the campaign.

Recommended actions

Microsoft recommends the following mitigations to reduce the impact of this threat:

• Enable Conditional Access policies in Microsoft Entra, especially risk-based access policies. Conditional access policies evaluate sign-in requests using additional identity-driven signals like user or group membership, IP address location information, and device status, among others, are enforced for suspicious sign-ins. Organizations can protect themselves from attacks that leverage stolen credentials by enabling policies such as compliant devices, Azure trusted IP address requirements, or risk-based policies with proper access control. If you are still evaluating Conditional Access, use security defaults as an initial baseline set of policies to improve identity security posture.
• Implement continuous access evaluation.
• Implement Microsoft Entra passwordless sign-in with FIDO2 security keys.
• Turn on network protection in Microsoft Defender for Endpoint to block connections to malicious domains and IP addresses.
• Implement Microsoft Defender for Endpoint – Mobile Threat Defense on mobile devices used to access enterprise assets.
• Leverage Microsoft Edge to automatically identify and block malicious websites, including those used in this phishing campaign, and Microsoft Defender for Office 365 to detect and block malicious emails, links, and files. Monitor suspicious or anomalous activities in Microsoft Entra ID Protection. Investigate sign-in attempts with suspicious characteristics (such as the location, ISP, user agent, and use of anonymizer services). Educate users about the risks of secure file sharing and emails from trusted vendors.

Appendix

Microsoft Defender XDR detections

Microsoft Defender XDR raises the following alerts by combining Microsoft Defender for Office 365 URL click and Microsoft Entra ID Protection risky sign-ins signal.

• Risky sign-in after clicking a possible AiTM phishing URL
• User compromised through session cookie hijack
• User compromised in a known AiTM phishing kit

Hunting queries

Microsoft Defender XDR 

The file sharing events related to the activity in this blog post can be audited through the CloudAppEvents telemetry. Microsoft Defender XDR customers can run the following query to find related activity in their networks: 

Automated email notifications and suspicious sign-in activity

By correlating the email from the Microsoft notification service or Dropbox automated notification service with a suspicious sign-in activity, we can identify compromises, especially from securely shared SharePoint or Dropbox files.

let usersWithSuspiciousEmails = EmailEvents
    | where SenderFromAddress in ("no-reply@notify.microsoft.com", "no-reply@dropbox.com") or InternetMessageId startswith "<OneTimePasscode"
    | where isnotempty(RecipientObjectId)
    | distinct RecipientObjectId;
AADSignInEventsBeta
| where AccountObjectId in (usersWithSuspiciousEmails)
| where RiskLevelDuringSignIn == 100

Files share contents and suspicious sign-in activity

In the majority of the campaigns, the file name involves a sense of urgency or content related to finance or credential updates. By correlating the file share emails with suspicious sign-ins, compromises can be detected. (For example: Alex shared “Password Reset Mandatory.pdf” with you). Since these are observed as campaigns, validating that the same file has been shared with multiple users in the organization can support the detection.

let usersWithSuspiciousEmails = EmailEvents
    | where Subject has_all ("shared", "with you")
    | where Subject has_any ("payment", "invoice", "urgent", "mandatory", "Payoff", "Wire", "Confirmation", "password")
    | where isnotempty(RecipientObjectId)
    | summarize RecipientCount = dcount(RecipientObjectId), RecipientList = make_set(RecipientObjectId) by Subject
    | where RecipientCount >= 10
    | mv-expand RecipientList to typeof(string)
    | distinct RecipientList;
AADSignInEventsBeta
| where AccountObjectId in (usersWithSuspiciousEmails)
| where RiskLevelDuringSignIn == 100

BEC: File sharing tactics based on the file hosting service used

To initiate the file sharing activity, these campaigns commonly use certain action types depending on the file hosting service being leveraged. Below are the action types from the audit logs recorded for the file sharing events. These action types can be used to hunt for activities related to these campaigns by replacing the action type for its respective application in the queries below this table.

OneDrive or SharePoint: The following query highlights that a specific file has been shared by a user with multiple participants. Correlating this activity with suspicious sign-in attempts preceding this can help identify lateral movements and BEC attacks.

let securelinkCreated = CloudAppEvents
    | where ActionType == "SecureLinkCreated"
    | project FileCreatedTime = Timestamp, AccountObjectId, ObjectName;
let filesCreated = securelinkCreated
    | where isnotempty(ObjectName)
    | distinct tostring(ObjectName);
CloudAppEvents
| where ActionType == "AddedToSecureLink"
| where Application in ("Microsoft SharePoint Online", "Microsoft OneDrive for Business")
| extend FileShared = tostring(RawEventData.ObjectId)
| where FileShared in (filesCreated)
| extend UserSharedWith = tostring(RawEventData.TargetUserOrGroupName)
| extend TypeofUserSharedWith = RawEventData.TargetUserOrGroupType
| where TypeofUserSharedWith == "Guest"
| where isnotempty(FileShared) and isnotempty(UserSharedWith)
| join kind=inner securelinkCreated on $left.FileShared==$right.ObjectName
// Secure file created recently (in the last 1day)
| where (Timestamp - FileCreatedTime) between (1d .. 0h)
| summarize NumofUsersSharedWith = dcount(UserSharedWith) by FileShared
| where NumofUsersSharedWith >= 20

Dropbox: The following query highlights that a file hosted on Dropbox has been shared with multiple participants.

CloudAppEvents
| where ActionType in ("Added users and/or groups to shared file/folder", "Invited user to Dropbox and added them to shared file/folder")
| where Application == "Dropbox"
| where ObjectType == "File"
| extend FileShared = tostring(ObjectName)
| where isnotempty(FileShared)
| mv-expand ActivityObjects
| where ActivityObjects.Type == "Account" and ActivityObjects.Role == "To"
| extend SharedBy = AccountId
| extend UserSharedWith = tostring(ActivityObjects.Name)
| summarize dcount(UserSharedWith) by FileShared, AccountObjectId
| where dcount_UserSharedWith >= 20

Microsoft Sentinel

Microsoft Sentinel customers can use the resources below to find related activities similar to those described in this post:

The following query identifies files with specific keywords that attackers might use in this campaign that have been shared through OneDrive or SharePoint using a Secure Link and accessed by over 10 unique users. It captures crucial details like target users, client IP addresses, timestamps, and file URLs to aid in detecting potential attacks:

let OperationName = dynamic(['SecureLinkCreated', 'AddedToSecureLink']);
OfficeActivity
| where Operation in (OperationName)
| where OfficeWorkload in ('OneDrive', 'SharePoint')
| where SourceFileName has_any ("payment", "invoice", "urgent", "mandatory", "Payoff", "Wire", "Confirmation", "password", "paycheck", "bank statement", "bank details", "closing", "funds", "bank account", "account details", "remittance", "deposit", "Reset")
| summarize CountOfShares = dcount(TargetUserOrGroupName), 
            make_list(TargetUserOrGroupName), 
            make_list(ClientIP), 
            make_list(TimeGenerated), 
            make_list(SourceRelativeUrl) by SourceFileName, OfficeWorkload
| where CountOfShares > 10

Considering that the attacker compromises users through AiTM,  possible AiTM phishing attempts can be detected through the below rule:

• Possible AiTM Phishing Attempt

In addition, customers can also use the following identity-focused queries to detect and investigate anomalous sign-in events that may be indicative of a compromised user identity being accessed by a threat actor:

• Signins From VPS Providers
• Signins from Nord VPN Providers
• Successful Signin From Non-Compliant Device

Learn more

For the latest security research from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community, check out the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Blog: https://aka.ms/threatintelblog.

To get notified about new publications and to join discussions on social media, follow us on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/microsoft-threat-intelligence, and on X (formerly Twitter) at https://twitter.com/MsftSecIntel.

To hear stories and insights from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community about the ever-evolving threat landscape, listen to the Microsoft Threat Intelligence podcast: https://thecyberwire.com/podcasts/microsoft-threat-intelligence.

The post File hosting services misused for identity phishing appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.

Storm-0501 has been active as early as 2021, initially observed deploying the Sabbath(54bb47h) ransomware in attacks targeting US school districts, publicly leaking data for extortion, and even directly messaging school staff and parents. Since then, most of the threat actor’s attacks have been opportunistic, as the group began operating as a ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) affiliate deploying multiple ransomware payloads developed and maintained by other threat actors over the years, including Hive, BlackCat (ALPHV), Hunters International, LockBit, and most recently, Embargo ransomware. The threat actor was also recently observed targeting hospitals in the US.

Storm-0501 is the latest threat actor observed to exploit weak credentials and over-privileged accounts to move from organizations’ on-premises environment to cloud environments. They stole credentials and used them to gain control of the network, eventually creating persistent backdoor access to the cloud environment and deploying ransomware to the on-premises. Microsoft previously observed threat actors such as Octo Tempest and Manatee Tempest targeting both on-premises and cloud environments and exploiting the interfaces between the environments to achieve their goals.

As hybrid cloud environments become more prevalent, the challenge of securing resources across multiple platforms grows ever more critical for organizations. Microsoft is committed to helping customers understand these attacks and build effective defenses against them.

In this blog post, we will go over Storm-0501’s tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), typical attack methods, and expansion to the cloud. We will also provide information on how Microsoft detects activities related to this kind of attack, as well as provide mitigation guidance to help defenders protect their environment.

Analysis of the recent Storm-0501 campaign

On-premises compromise

Initial access and reconnaissance

Storm-0501 previously achieved initial access through intrusions facilitated by access brokers like Storm-0249 and Storm-0900, leveraging possibly stolen compromised credentials to sign in to the target system, or exploiting various known remote code execution vulnerabilities in unpatched public-facing servers. In a recent campaign, Storm-0501 exploited known vulnerabilities in Zoho ManageEngine (CVE-2022-47966), Citrix NetScaler (CVE-2023-4966), and ColdFusion 2016 application (possibly CVE-2023-29300 or CVE-2023-38203). In cases observed by Microsoft, these initial access techniques, combined with insufficient operational security practices by the targets, provided the threat actor with administrative privileges on the target device.

After gaining initial access and code execution capabilities on the affected device in the network, the threat actor performed extensive discovery to find potential desirable targets such as high-value assets and general domain information like Domain Administrator users and domain forest trust. Common native Windows tools and commands, such as systeminfo.exe, net.exe, nltest.exe, tasklist.exe, were leveraged in this phase. The threat actor also utilized open-source tools like ossec-win32 and OSQuery to query additional endpoint information. Additionally, in some of the attacks, we observed the threat actor running an obfuscated version of ADRecon.ps1 called obfs.ps1 or recon.ps1 for Active Directory reconnaissance.

Following initial access and reconnaissance, the threat actor deployed several remote monitoring and management tools (RMMs), such as Level.io, AnyDesk, and NinjaOne to interact with the compromised device and maintain persistence.

Credential access and lateral movement

The threat actor took advantage of admin privileges on the local devices it compromised during initial access and attempted to gain access to more accounts within the network through several methods. The threat actor primarily utilized Impacket’s SecretsDump module, which extracts credentials over the network, and leveraged it across an extensive number of devices to obtain credentials. The threat actor used the compromised credentials to access more devices in the network and then leveraged Impacket again to collect additional credentials. The threat actor then repeated this process until they compromised a large set of credentials that potentially included multiple Domain Admin credentials.

In addition, the threat actor was observed attempting to gather secrets by reading sensitive files and in some cases gathering KeePass secrets from the compromised devices. The threat actor used EncryptedStore’s Find-KeePassConfig.ps1 PowerShell script to output the database location and keyfile/user master key information and launch the KeePass executable to gather the credentials. We assess with medium confidence that the threat actor also performed extensive brute force activity on a few occasions to gain additional credentials for specific accounts.

The threat actor was observed leveraging Cobalt Strike to move laterally across the network using the compromised credentials and using the tool’s command-and-control (C2) capabilities to directly communicate with the endpoints and send further commands. The common Cobalt Strike Beacon file types used in these campaigns were .dll files and .ocx files that were launched by rundll32.exe and regsvr32.exe respectively. Moreover, the “license_id” associated with this Cobalt Strike Beacon is “666”.  The “license_id” definition is commonly referred to as Watermark and is a nine-digit value that is unique per legitimate license provided by Cobalt Strike. In this case, the “license_id” was modified with 3-digit unique value in all the beacon configurations.

In cases we observed, the threat actor’s lateral movement across the campaign ended with a Domain Admin compromise and access to a Domain Controller that eventually enabled them to deploy ransomware across the devices in the network.

Data collection and exfiltration

The threat actor was observed exfiltrating sensitive data from compromised devices. To exfiltrate data, the threat actor used the open-source tool Rclone and renamed it to known Windows binary names or variations of them, such as svhost.exe or scvhost.exe as masquerading means. The threat actor employed the renamed Rclone binaries to transfer data to the cloud, using a dedicated configuration that synchronized files to public cloud storage services such as MegaSync across multiple threads. The following are command line examples used by the threat actor in demonstrating this behavior:

• Svhost.exe copy –filter-from [REDACTED] [REDACTED] config:[REDACTED] -q –ignore-existing –auto-confirm –multi-thread-streams 11 –transfers 11
• scvhost.exe –config C:\Windows\Debug\a.conf copy [REDACTED UNC PATH] [REDACTED]

Defense evasion

The threat actor attempted to evade detection by tampering with security products in some of the devices they got hands-on-keyboard access to. They employed an open-source tool, resorted to PowerShell cmdlets and existing binaries to evade detection, and in some cases, distributed Group Policy Object (GPO) policies to tamper with security products.

On-premises to cloud pivot

In their recent campaign, we noticed a shift in Storm-0501’s methods. The threat actor used the credentials, specifically Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure AD), that were stolen from earlier in the attack to move laterally from the on-premises to the cloud environment and establish persistent access to the target network through a backdoor.

Storm-0501 was observed using the following attack vectors and pivot points on the on-premises side to gain subsequent control in Microsoft Entra ID:

Microsoft Entra Connect Sync account compromise

Microsoft Entra Connect, previously known as Azure AD Connect, is an on-premises Microsoft application that plays a critical role in synchronizing passwords and sensitive data between Active Directory (AD) objects and Microsoft Entra ID objects. Microsoft Entra Connect synchronizes the on-premises identity and Microsoft Entra identity of a user account to allow the user to sign in to both realms with the same password. To deploy Microsoft Entra Connect, the application must be installed on an on-premises server or an Azure VM. To decrease the attack surface, Microsoft recommends that organizations deploy Microsoft Entra Connect on a domain-joined server and restrict administrative access to domain administrators or other tightly controlled security groups. Microsoft Incident Response also published recommendations on preventing cloud identity compromise.

Microsoft Entra Connect Sync is a component of Microsoft Entra Connect that synchronizes identity data between on-premises environments and Microsoft Entra ID. During the Microsoft Entra Connect installation process, at least two new accounts (more accounts are created if there are multiple forests) responsible for the synchronization are created, one in the on-premises AD realm and the other in the Microsoft Entra ID tenant. These service accounts are responsible for the synchronization process.

The on-premises account name is prefixed with “MSOL_” and has permissions to replicate directory changes, modify passwords, modify users, modify groups, and more (see full permissions here).

The cloud Microsoft Entra ID account is prefixed with “sync_<Entra Connect server name>_” and has the account display name set to “On-Premises Directory Synchronization Service Account”. This user account is assigned with the Directory Synchronization Accounts role (see detailed permissions of this role here). Microsoft recently implemented a change in Microsoft Entra ID that restricts permissions on the Directory Synchronization Accounts (DSA) role in Microsoft Entra Connect Sync and Microsoft Entra Cloud Sync and helps prevent abuse.

The on-premises and cloud service accounts conduct the syncing operation every few minutes, similar to Password Hash Synchronization (PHS), to uphold real time user experience. Both user accounts mentioned above are crucial for the Microsoft Entra Connect Sync service operations and their credentials are saved encrypted via DPAPI (Data Protection API) on the server’s disk or a remote SQL server.

We can assess with high confidence that in the recent Storm-0501 campaign, the threat actor specifically located Microsoft Entra Connect Sync servers and managed to extract the plain text credentials of the Microsoft Entra Connect cloud and on-premises sync accounts. We assess that the threat actor was able to achieve this because of the previous malicious activities described in this blog post, such as using Impacket to steal credentials and DPAPI encryption keys, and tampering with security products.

Following the compromise of the cloud Directory Synchronization Account, the threat actor can authenticate using the clear text credentials and get an access token to Microsoft Graph. The compromise of the Microsoft Entra Connect Sync account presents a high risk to the target, as it can allow the threat actor to set or change Microsoft Entra ID passwords of any hybrid account (on-premises account that is synced to Microsoft Entra ID).

Cloud session hijacking of on-premises user account

Another way to pivot from on-premises to Microsoft Entra ID is to gain control of an on-premises user account that has a respective user account in the cloud. In some of the Storm-0501 cases we investigated, at least one of the Domain Admin accounts that was compromised had a respective account in Microsoft Entra ID, with multifactor authentication (MFA) disabled, and assigned with a Global Administrator role. It is important to mention that the sync service is unavailable for administrative accounts in Microsoft Entra, hence the passwords and other data are not synced from the on-premises account to the Microsoft Entra account in this case. However, if the passwords for both accounts are the same, or obtainable by on-premises credential theft techniques (i.e. web browsers passwords store), then the pivot is possible.

If a compromised on-premises user account is not assigned with an administrative role in Microsoft Entra ID and is synced to the cloud and no security boundaries such as MFA or Conditional Access are set, then the threat actor could escalate to the cloud through the following:

1. If the password is known, then logging in to Microsoft Entra is possible from any device.
2. If the password is unknown, the threat actor can reset the on-premises user password, and after a few minutes the new password will be synced to the cloud.
3. If they hold credentials of a compromised Microsoft Entra Directory Synchronization Account, they can set the cloud password using AADInternals’ Set-AADIntUserPassword cmdlet.

If MFA for that user account is enabled, then authentication with the user will require the threat actor to tamper with the MFA or gain control of a device owned by the user and subsequently hijack its cloud session or extract its Microsoft Entra access tokens along with their MFA claims.

MFA is a security practice that requires users to provide two or more verification factors to gain access to a resource and is a recommended security practice for all users, especially for privileged administrators. A lack of MFA or Conditional Access policies limiting the sign-in options opens a wide door of possibilities for the attacker to pivot to the cloud environment, especially if the user has administrative privileges. To increase the security of admin accounts, Microsoft is rolling out additional tenant-level security measures to require MFA for all Azure users.

Impact

Cloud compromise leading to backdoor

Following a successful pivot from the on-premises environment to the cloud through the compromised Microsoft Entra Connect Sync user account or the cloud admin account compromised through cloud session hijacking, the threat actor was able to connect to Microsoft Entra (portal/MS Graph) from any device, using a privileged Microsoft Entra ID account, such as a Global Administrator, and was no longer limited to the compromised devices.

Once Global Administrator access is available for Storm-0501, we observed them creating a persistent backdoor access for later use by creating a new federated domain in the tenant. This backdoor enables an attacker to sign in as any user of the Microsoft Entra ID tenant in hand if the Microsoft Entra ID user property ImmutableId is known or set by the attackers. For users that are configured to be synced by the Microsoft Entra Connect service, the ImmutableId property is automatically populated, while for users that are not synced the default value is null. However, users with administrative privileges can add an ImmutableId value, regardless.

The threat actor used the open-source tool AADInternals, and its Microsoft Entra ID capabilities to create the backdoor. AADInternals is a PowerShell module designed for security researchers and penetration testers that provides various methods for interacting and testing Microsoft Entra ID and is commonly used by Storm-0501. To create the backdoor, the threat actor first needed to have a domain of their own that is registered to Microsoft Entra ID. The attacker’s next step is to determine whether the target domain is managed or federated. A federated domain in Microsoft Entra ID is a domain that is configured to use federation technologies, such as Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS), to authenticate users. If the target domain is managed, then the attackers need to convert it to a federated one and provide a root certificate to sign future tokens upon user authentication and authorization processes. If the target domain is already federated, then the attackers need to add the root certificate as “NextSigningCertificate”.

Once a backdoor domain is available for use, the threat actor creates a federation trust between the compromised tenant, and their own tenant. The threat actor uses the AADInternals commands that enable the creation of Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML or SAML2) tokens, which can be used to impersonate any user in the organization and bypass MFA to sign in to any application. Microsoft observed the actor using the SAML token sign in to Office 365.

On-premises compromise leading to ransomware

Once the threat actor achieved sufficient control over the network, successfully extracted sensitive files, and managed to move laterally to the cloud environment, the threat actor then deployed the Embargo ransomware across the organization. We observed that the threat actor did not always resort to ransomware distribution, and in some cases only maintained backdoor access to the network.

Embargo ransomware is a new strain developed in Rust, known to use advanced encryption methods. Operating under the RaaS model, the ransomware group behind Embargo allows affiliates like Storm-0501 to use its platform to launch attacks in exchange for a share of the ransom. Embargo affiliates employ double extortion tactics, where they first encrypt a victim’s files and threaten to leak stolen sensitive data unless a ransom is paid.

In the cases observed by Microsoft, the threat actor leveraged compromised Domain Admin accounts to distribute the Embargo ransomware via a scheduled task named “SysUpdate” that was registered via GPO on the devices in the network. The ransomware binaries names that were used were PostalScanImporter.exe and win.exe. Once the files on the target devices were encrypted, the encrypted files extension changed to .partial, .564ba1, and .embargo.

Mitigation and protection guidance

Microsoft recently implemented a change in Microsoft Entra ID that restricts permissions on the Directory Synchronization Accounts (DSA) role in Microsoft Entra Connect Sync and Microsoft Entra Cloud Sync as part of ongoing security hardening. This change helps prevent threat actors from abusing Directory Synchronization Accounts in attacks.

Customers may also refer to Microsoft’s human-operated ransomware overview for general hardening recommendations against ransomware attacks.

The other techniques used by threat actors and described in this blog can be mitigated by adopting the following security measures:

• Secure accounts with credential hygiene: practice the principle of least privilege and audit privileged account activity in your Microsoft Entra ID environments to slow and stop attackers.
• Enable Conditional Access policies – Conditional Access policies are evaluated and enforced every time the user attempts to sign in. Organizations can protect themselves from attacks that leverage stolen credentials by enabling policies such as device compliance or trusted IP address requirements.
  • Set a Conditional Access policy to limit the access of Microsoft Entra ID sync accounts from untrusted IP addresses to all cloud apps. The Microsoft Entra ID sync account is identified by having the role ‘Directory Synchronization Accounts’. Please refer to the Advanced Hunting section and check the relevant query to get those IP addresses.
• Implement Conditional Access authentication strength to require phishing-resistant authentication for employees and external users for critical apps.
• Follow Microsoft’s best practices for securing Active Directory Federation Services.  
• Refer to Azure Identity Management and access control security best practices for further steps and recommendations to manage, design, and secure your Azure AD environment can be found by referring.
• Ensure Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps connectors are turned on for your organization to receive alerts on the Microsoft Entra ID sync account and all other users.
• Enable protection to prevent by-passing of cloud Microsoft Entra MFA when federated with Microsoft Entra ID.
• Set the validatingDomains property of federatedTokenValidationPolicy to “all” to block attempts to sign-in to any non-federated domain (like .onmicrosoft.com) with SAML tokens.
• Turn on Microsoft Entra ID protection to monitor identity-based risks and create risk-based conditional access policies to remediate risky sign-ins.
• Turn on tamper protection features to prevent attackers from stopping security services such as Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, which can help prevent hybrid cloud environment attacks such as Microsoft Entra Connect abuse.
• Refer to the recommendations in our attacker technique profile, including use of Windows Defender Application Control or AppLocker to create policies to block unapproved information technology (IT) management tools to protect against the abuse of legitimate remote management tools like AnyDesk or Level.io.
• Run endpoint detection and response (EDR) in block mode so that Defender for Endpoint can block malicious artifacts, even when your non-Microsoft antivirus does not detect the threat or when Microsoft Defender Antivirus is running in passive mode. EDR in block mode works behind the scenes to remediate malicious artifacts detected post-breach.
• Turn on investigation and remediation in full automated mode to allow Defender for Endpoint to take immediate action on alerts to help remediate alerts, significantly reducing alert volume.

Detection details

Alerts with the following names can be in use when investigating the current campaign of Storm-0501.

Microsoft Defender XDR detections

Microsoft Defender Antivirus 

Microsoft Defender Antivirus detects the Cobalt Strike Beacon as the following:

• Behavior:Win32/CobaltStrike
• Backdoor:Win64/CobaltStrike
• HackTool:Win64/CobaltStrike

Additional Cobalt Strike components are detected as the following:

• TrojanDropper:PowerShell/Cobacis
• Trojan:Win64/TurtleLoader.CS
• Exploit:Win32/ShellCode.BN

Microsoft Defender Antivirus detects tools that enable Microsoft Entra ID enumeration as the following malware: 

• Backdoor:Win32/SuspAadInternalsUsage

Embargo Ransomware threat components are detected as the following:

• Ransom:Win32/Embargo

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint 

Alerts with the following titles in the security center can indicate threat activity related to Storm-0501 on your network:

• Ransomware-linked Storm-0501 threat actor detected

The following alerts might also indicate threat activity associated with this threat. These alerts, however, can be triggered by unrelated threat activity and are not monitored in the status cards provided with this report. 

• Possible Adobe ColdFusion vulnerability exploitation
• Compromised account conducting hands-on-keyboard attack
• Ongoing hands-on-keyboard attacker activity detected (Cobalt Strike)
• Ongoing hands-on-keyboard attack via Impacket toolkit
• Suspicious Microsoft Defender Antivirus exclusion
• Attempt to turn off Microsoft Defender Antivirus protection
• Renaming of legitimate tools for possible data exfiltration
• BlackCat ransomware
• ‘Embargo’ ransomware was detected and was active
• Suspicious Group Policy action detected
• An active ‘Embargo’ ransomware was detected

The following alerts might indicate on-premises to cloud pivot through Microsoft Entra Connect:

• Entra Connect Sync credentials extraction attempt
• Suspicious cmdlets launch using AADInternals
• Potential Entra Connect Tampering
• Indication of local security authority secrets theft

Microsoft Defender for Identity

The following Microsoft Defender for Identity alerts can indicate activity related to this threat:

• Data exfiltration over SMB
• Suspected DCSync attack

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps can detect abuse of permissions in Microsoft Entra ID and other cloud apps. Activities related to the Storm-0501 campaign described in this blog are detected as the following:

• Backdoor creation using AADInternals tool
• Compromised Microsoft Entra ID Cloud Sync account
• Suspicious sign-in to Microsoft Entra Connect Sync account
• Entra Connect Sync account suspicious activity following a suspicious login
• AADInternals tool used by a Microsoft Entra Sync account
• Suspicious login from AADInternals tool

Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management

Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management surfaces devices that may be affected by the following vulnerabilities used in this threat:

• CVE-2022-47966

Threat intelligence reports 

Microsoft customers can use the following reports in Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence to get the most up-to-date information about the threat actor, malicious activity, and techniques discussed in this blog. These reports provide the intelligence, protection information, and recommended actions to prevent, mitigate, or respond to associated threats found in customer environments: 

• Storm-0501

Advanced hunting 

Microsoft Defender XDR

Microsoft Defender XDR customers can run the following query to find related activity in their networks:

Microsoft Entra Connect Sync account exploration

Explore sign-in activity from IdentityLogonEvents, look for uncommon behavior, such as sign-ins from newly seen IP addresses or sign-ins to new applications that are non-sync related.

IdentityLogonEvents
| where Timestamp > ago(30d)
| where AccountDisplayName contains "On-Premises Directory Synchronization Service Account"
| extend ApplicationName = tostring(RawEventData.ApplicationName)
| project-reorder Timestamp, AccountDisplayName, AccountObjectId, IPAddress, ActionType, ApplicationName, OSPlatform, DeviceType

Usually, the activity of the sync account is repetitive, coming from the same IP address to the same application, any deviation from the natural flow is worth investigating. Cloud applications that normally accessed by the Microsoft Entra ID sync account are “Microsoft Azure Active Directory Connect”, “Windows Azure Active Directory”, “Microsoft Online Syndication Partner Portal”

Explore the cloud activity (a.k.a ActionType) of the sync account, same as above, this account by nature performs a certain set of actions including ‘update User.’, ‘update Device.’ and so on. New and uncommon activity from this user might indicate an interactive use of the account, even though it could have been from someone inside the organization it could also be the threat actor.

CloudAppEvents
| where Timestamp > ago(30d)
| where AccountDisplayName has "On-Premises Directory Synchronization Service Account"
| extend Workload = RawEventData.Workload
| project-reorder Timestamp, IPAddress, AccountObjectId, ActionType, Application, Workload, DeviceType, OSPlatform, UserAgent, ISP

Pay close attention to action from different DeviceTypes or OSPlatforms, this account automated service is performed from one specific machine, so there shouldn’t be any variety in these fields.

Check which IP addresses Microsoft Entra Connect Sync account uses

This query reveals all IP addresses that the default Microsoft Entra Connect Sync account uses so those could be added as trusted IP addresses for the Entra ID sync account (make sure the account is not compromised before relying on this list)

IdentityLogonEvents
| where AccountDisplayName has "On-Premises Directory Synchronization Service Account"
| where ActionType == "LogonSuccess"
| distinct IPAddress
| union (CloudAppEvents
| where AccountDisplayName has "On-Premises Directory Synchronization Service Account"
| distinct IPAddress)
| distinct IPAddress

Federation and authentication domain changes

Explore the addition of a new authentication or federation domain, validate that the new domain is valid one and was purposefully added

CloudAppEvents
| where Timestamp > ago(30d)
| where ActionType in ("Set domain authentication.", "Set federation settings on domain.")

Microsoft Sentinel

Microsoft Sentinel customers can use the TI Mapping analytics (a series of analytics all prefixed with ‘TI map’) to automatically match the malicious domain indicators mentioned in this blog post with data in their workspace. If the TI Map analytics are not currently deployed, customers can install the Threat Intelligence solution from the Microsoft Sentinel Content Hub to have the analytics rule deployed in their Sentinel workspace.

Assess your environment for Manage Engine, Netscaler, and ColdFusion vulnerabilities.

DeviceTvmSoftwareVulnerabilities  
| where CveId in ("CVE-2022-47966","CVE-2023-4966","CVE-2023-29300","CVE-2023-38203")   
| project DeviceId,DeviceName,OSPlatform,OSVersion,SoftwareVendor,SoftwareName,SoftwareVersion,  
CveId,VulnerabilitySeverityLevel  
| join kind=inner ( DeviceTvmSoftwareVulnerabilitiesKB | project CveId, CvssScore,IsExploitAvailable,VulnerabilitySeverityLevel,PublishedDate,VulnerabilityDescription,AffectedSoftware ) on CveId  
| project DeviceId,DeviceName,OSPlatform,OSVersion,SoftwareVendor,SoftwareName,SoftwareVersion,  
CveId,VulnerabilitySeverityLevel,CvssScore,IsExploitAvailable,PublishedDate,VulnerabilityDescription,AffectedSoftware

Search for file IOC

let selectedTimestamp = datetime(2024-09-17T00:00:00.0000000Z);
let fileName = dynamic(["PostalScanImporter.exe","win.exe","name.dll","248.dll","cs240.dll","fel.ocx","theme.ocx","hana.ocx","obfs.ps1","recon.ps1"]); 
let FileSHA256 = dynamic(["efb2f6452d7b0a63f6f2f4d8db49433259249df598391dd79f64df1ee3880a8d","a9aeb861817f3e4e74134622cbe298909e28d0fcc1e72f179a32adc637293a40","caa21a8f13a0b77ff5808ad7725ff3af9b74ce5b67426c84538b8fa43820a031","53e2dec3e16a0ff000a8c8c279eeeca8b4437edb8ec8462bfbd9f64ded8072d9","827f7178802b2e92988d7cff349648f334bc86317b0b628f4bb9264285fccf5f","ee80f3e3ad43a283cbc83992e235e4c1b03ff3437c880be02ab1d15d92a8348a","de09ec092b11a1396613846f6b082e1e1ee16ea270c895ec6e4f553a13716304","d065623a7d943c6e5a20ca9667aa3c41e639e153600e26ca0af5d7c643384670","c08dd490860b54ae20fa9090274da9ffa1ba163f00d1e462e913cf8c68c11ac1"]); 
search in (AlertEvidence,BehaviorEntities,CommonSecurityLog,DeviceBaselineComplianceProfiles,DeviceEvents,DeviceFileEvents,DeviceImageLoadEvents, DeviceLogonEvents,DeviceNetworkEvents,DeviceProcessEvents,DeviceRegistryEvents,DeviceFileCertificateInfo,DynamicEventCollection,EmailAttachmentInfo,OfficeActivity,SecurityEvent,ThreatIntelligenceIndicator) TimeGenerated between ((selectedTimestamp - 1m) .. (selectedTimestamp + 90d)) // from September 17th runs the search for 90 days, change the selectedTimestamp accordingly. and  (FileName in (fileName) or OldFileName in (fileName)  or ProfileName in (fileName)  or InitiatingProcessFileName in (fileName)  or InitiatingProcessParentFileName in (fileName)  or InitiatingProcessVersionInfoInternalFileName in (fileName)  or InitiatingProcessVersionInfoOriginalFileName in (fileName)  or PreviousFileName in (fileName)  or ProcessVersionInfoInternalFileName in (fileName) or ProcessVersionInfoOriginalFileName in (fileName) or DestinationFileName in (fileName) or SourceFileName in (fileName)or ServiceFileName in (fileName) or SHA256 in (FileSHA256)  or InitiatingProcessSHA256 in (FileSHA256))

Microsoft Sentinel also has a range of detection and threat hunting content that customers can use to detect the post exploitation activity detailed in this blog, in addition to Microsoft Defender XDR detections list above.

• Remote Management Monitoring Network Connections
• Level.io RMM File Signature
• AnyDesk RMM File Signature
• NinjaOne RMM File Signature
• Potential Impacket Execution
• Potential ransomware activity related to Cobalt Strike
• Cobalt DNS Beacon
• C2-NamedPipe
• Renamed Rclone Exfiltration
• Disable Or Modify Windows Defender
• Clearing of forensic evidence from event logs using wevtutil
• Suspicious Signin By AAD Connect Account

Indicators of compromise (IOCs)

The following list provides indicators of compromise (IOCs) observed during our investigation. We encourage our customers to investigate these indicators within their environments and implement detections and protections to identify any past related activity and prevent future attacks against their systems.

References

• The Rust Revolution: New Embargo Ransomware Steps In – Cyble
• Embargo Ransomware Group: The Interview (suspectfile.com)
• https://aadinternals.com/post/aadbackdoor/
• https://aadinternals.com/post/aad-deepdive/

Omri Refaeli, Tafat Gaspar, Vaibhav Deshmukh, Naya Hashem, Charles-Edouard Bettan

Microsoft Threat Intelligence Community

Learn more

For the latest security research from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community, check out the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Blog: https://aka.ms/threatintelblog.

To get notified about new publications and to join discussions on social media, follow us on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/microsoft-threat-intelligence, and on X (formerly Twitter) at https://twitter.com/MsftSecIntel.

To hear stories and insights from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community about the ever-evolving threat landscape, listen to the Microsoft Threat Intelligence podcast: https://thecyberwire.com/podcasts/microsoft-threat-intelligence.

The post Storm-0501: Ransomware attacks expanding to hybrid cloud environments appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.

We identified several vulnerable applications in the Google Play Store that represented over four billion installations. We anticipate that the vulnerability pattern could be found in other applications. We’re sharing this research so developers and publishers can check their apps for similar issues, fix as appropriate, and prevent introducing such vulnerabilities into new apps or releases.  As threats across all platforms continue to evolve, industry collaboration among security researchers, security vendors, and the broader security community is essential in improving security for all. Microsoft remains committed to working with the security community to share vulnerability discoveries and threat intelligence to protect users across platforms.

After discovering this issue, we identified several vulnerable applications. As part of our responsible disclosure policy, we notified application developers through Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure (CVD) via Microsoft Security Vulnerability Research (MSVR) and worked with them to address the issue. We would like to thank the Xiaomi, Inc. and WPS Office security teams for investigating and fixing the issue. As of February 2024, fixes have been deployed for the aforementioned apps, and users are advised to keep their device and installed applications up to date.

Recognizing that more applications could be affected, we acted to increase developer awareness of the issue by collaborating with Google to publish an article on the Android Developers website, providing guidance in a high-visibility location to help developers avoid introducing this vulnerability pattern into their applications. We also wish to thank Google’s Android Application Security Research team for their partnership in resolving this issue.

In this blog post, we continue to raise developer and user awareness by giving a general overview of the vulnerability pattern, and then focusing on Android share targets, as they are the most prone to these types of attacks. We go through an actual code execution case study where we demonstrate impact that extends beyond the mobile device’s scope and could even affect a local network. Finally, we provide guidance to users and application developers and illustrate the importance of collaboration to improve security for all.

Overview: Data and file sharing on Android

The Android operating system enforces isolation by assigning each application its own dedicated data and memory space. To facilitate data and file sharing, Android provides a component called a content provider, which acts as an interface for managing and exposing data to the rest of the installed applications in a secure manner. When used correctly, a content provider provides a reliable solution. However, improper implementation can introduce vulnerabilities that could enable bypassing of read/write restrictions within an application’s home directory.

The Android software development kit (SDK) includes the FileProvider class, a subclass of ContentProvider that enables file sharing between installed applications. An application that needs to share its files with other applications can declare a FileProvider in its app manifest and declare the specific paths to share.

Every file provider has a property called authority, which identifies it system-wide, and can be used by the consumer (the app that wants to access the shared files) as a form of address. This content-based model bears a strong resemblance to the web model, but instead of the http scheme, consumers utilize the content scheme along with the authority, followed by a pseudo-path to the file that they want to access.

For example, assuming that the application com.example.server shares some files under the file:///data/data/com.example.server/fileshttps://www.microsoft.com/images directory that it has previously declared as shared using the name shared_images, a consumer can use the content://[authority]/shared_images/[sub-path]/[filename] URI to index these files.

Access is given by the data sharing application most commonly using the grantUriPermissions attribute of the Android manifest, in combination with special flags that are used to define a read or write mode of operation. The data sharing application creates and sends an intent to the consumer that provides temporary fine-grained access to a file.  Finally, when a provider receives a file access request, it resolves the actual file path that corresponds to the incoming URI and returns a file descriptor to it.  

Implementation pitfalls

This content provider-based model provides a well-defined file-sharing mechanism, enabling a serving application to share its files with other applications in a secure manner with fine-grained control. However, we have frequently encountered cases where the consuming application doesn’t validate the content of the file that it receives and, most concerning, it uses the filename provided by the serving application to cache the received file within the consuming application’s internal data directory. If the serving application implements its own malicious version of FileProvider, it may be able to cause the consuming application to overwrite critical files.

Share targets

In simple terms, a share target is an Android app that declares itself to handle data and files sent by other apps. Common application categories that can be share targets include mail clients, social networking apps, messaging apps, file editors, browsers, and so on. In a common scenario, when a user clicks on a file, the Android operating system triggers the share-sheet dialog asking the user to select the component that the file should be sent to:

While this type of guided file-sharing interaction itself may not trigger a successful attack against a share target, a malicious Android application can create a custom, explicit intent and send a file directly to a share target with a malicious filename and without the user’s knowledge or approval. Essentially, the malicious application is substituting its own malicious FileProvider implementation and provides a filename that is improperly trusted by the consuming application.

In Figure 2, the malicious app, on the left, creates an explicit intent that targets the file processing component of the share target, on the right, and attaches a content URI as an intent’s extra. It then sends this intent to the share target using the startActivity API call.

After this point, most of the share targets that we have reviewed seem to follow a specific code pattern that includes the following steps:

1. Request the actual filename from the remote file provider
2. Use this filename to initialize a file that is subsequently used to initialize a file output stream
3. Create an input stream using the incoming content URI
4. Copy the input stream to the output stream

Since the rogue app controls the name as well as the content of the file, by blindly trusting this input, a share target may overwrite critical files in its private data space, which may lead to serious consequences.

Impact

We identified this vulnerability pattern in the then-current versions of several Android applications published on the Google Play Store, including at least four with more than 500 million installations each. In each case, we responsibly disclosed to the vendor. Two example vulnerable applications that we identified are Xiaomi Inc.’s File Manager (1B+ installs) and WPS Office (500M+ installs).

In Xiaomi Inc.’s File Manager, we were able to obtain arbitrary code execution in version V1-210567. After our disclosure, Xiaomi published version V1-210593, and we verified that the vulnerability has been addressed. In WPS Office, we were able to obtain arbitrary code execution in version 16.8.1. After our disclosure, WPS published and informed us that the vulnerability has been addressed as of version 17.0.0.

The potential impact varies depending on implementation specifics. For example, it’s very common for Android applications to read their server settings from the shared_prefs directory. In such cases, the malicious app can overwrite these settings, causing the vulnerable app to communicate with an attacker-controlled server and send the user’s authentication tokens or other sensitive information.

In a worst-case (and not so uncommon) scenario, the vulnerable application might load native libraries from its data directory (as opposed to the more secure /data/app-lib directory, where the libraries are protected from modification). In this case, the malicious application can overwrite a native library with malicious code that gets executed when the library is loaded. In the following section, we use Xiaomi Inc.’s File Manager to illustrate this case. We demonstrated the ability for a malicious application to overwrite the application’s shared preferences, write a native library to the application’s internal storage, and cause the application to load the library. These actions provided arbitrary code execution with the file manager’s user ID and permissions.

In the following sections, we focus on this case and delve into the technical details of this vulnerability pattern.

Case study: Xiaomi Inc.’s File Manager

Xiaomi Inc.’s File Manager is the default file manager application for Xiaomi devices and is published under the package name com.mi.android.globalFileexplorer on the Google Play Store, where it has been installed over one billion times.

Besides having full access to the device’s external storage, the application requests many permissions, including the ability to install other applications:

Further, it offers a junk files cleaner plugin as well as the ability to connect to remote FTP and SMB shares:

Vulnerability assessment findings

During our investigation, we identified that the application exports the CopyFileActivity, an activity alias of the com.android.fileexplorer.activity.FileActivity, which is used to handle copy-from-to file operations:

Since this activity is exported, it can be triggered by any application installed on the same device by using an explicit intent of action SEND or SEND_MULTIPLE and attaching a content URI corresponding to a file stream.

Upon receiving such an intent, the browser performs a validity check, which we found to be insufficient:

As depicted above, the initCopyOrMoveIntent method calls the checkValid method passing as an argument a content URI (steps 1 and 2). However, the checkValid method is designed to handle a file path, not a content URI. It always returns true for a content URI. Instead, a safer practice is to parse the string as a URI, including ensuring the scheme is the expected value (in this case, file, not content).The checkValid method verifies that the copy or move operation doesn’t affect the private directory of the app, by initializing a file object using the incoming string as an argument to the File class constructor and comparing its canonical path with the path that corresponds to the home directory of the application (steps 3 and 4). Given a content URI as a path, the File constructor normalizes it (following a Unix file system normalization), thus the getCanonicalPath method returns a string starting with “/content:/“, which will always pass the validity check. More specifically, the app performs a query to the remote content provider for the _size, _display_name and _data columns (see line 48 below). Then it uses the values returned by these rows to initialize the fields of an object of the com.android.fileexplorer.mode.c class:

Given the case that the _display_name and _data values, returned from the external file provider, are relative paths to the destination directory, after exiting from the method above, these class fields will contain values like the ones depicted below:

As shown above, the paths (variables d and e) of this file-model point to files within the home directory of the application, thus the file streams attached to the incoming intent are going to be written under the specific locations.

Getting code execution

As previously mentioned, the application uses a plugin to clean the device’s junk files:

When the application loads this plugin, it makes use of two native libraries: libixiaomifileu.so, which fetches from the /data/app directory, and libixiaomifileuext.so from the home directory:

As apps don’t have write access to the /data/app folder, the libixiaomifileu.so file stored there cannot be replaced. The easiest way to get code execution is to replace the libixiaomifileuext.so with a malicious one. However, an attempt to do so would fail since in this particular case, the vulnerability that we described can only be used to write new files within the home directory, not overwrite existing files. Our next inquiry was to determine how the application loads the libixiaomifileu.so.

Our assessment showed that before the application loads this library, it follows the following steps:

1. Calculate the hash of the file libixiaomifileu.so, located in the /data/app directory

2. Compare this hash with the value assigned to the “libixiaomifileu.so_hm5” string, fetched from the com.mi.android.globalFileexprorer_preferences.xml file

3. If the values don’t match, search for the libixiaomifileu.so file in the /files/lib path in the home directory

4. If the file is found there, calculate its hash and compare it again with the value from the shared_preferences folder

5. If the hashes match, load the file under the /files/lib using the System.load method

Given this behavior, in order to get code execution with the file manager’s user ID, an attacker must take the following steps:

1. Use the path traversal vulnerability to save a malicious library as /files/lib/libixiaomifileu.so (the file does not already exist in that directory, so overwriting is not an issue)

2. Calculate the hash of this library to replace the value of the libixiaomifileu.so_hm5 string

3. Trigger the junk cleaner plugin with an explicit intent, since the activity that loads the native libraries is exported

An acute reader might have noticed that the second step requires the attacker to force the browser to overwrite the com.mi.android.globalFileexprorer_preferences.xml, which, as we already mentioned, was not possible.

To overcome this restriction, we referred to the actual implementation of the SharedPreferences class, where we found that when an Android application uses the getSharedPreferences API method to retrieve an instance of the SharedPreferences class, giving the name of the shared preferences file as an argument, then the constructor of the SharedPreferencesImpl class performs the following steps:

1. Create a new file object using the name provided to the getSharedPreferences method, followed by the .xml extension, followed by the .bak extension

2. Check if this file exists, and in case it does, delete the original xml file and replace it with the one created in the first step

Through this behavior, we were able to save the com.mi.android.globalFileexprorer_preferences.xml.bak under the shared preferences folder (as during the application’s runtime it is unlikely to exist), so when the app tried to verify the hash, the original xml file was already replaced by our own copy. After this point, by using a single intent to start the junk cleaner plugin, we were able to trick the application to load the malicious library instead of the one under the /data/app folder and get code execution with the browser’s user ID.

Impact

One reason we chose to use this app as a showcase is because the impact extends beyond the user’s mobile device. The application gives the option to connect to remote file shares using the FTP and SMB protocols and the user credentials are saved in clear text in the /data/data/com.mi.android.globalFileexplorer/files/rmt_i.properties file:

If a third party app was able to exploit this vulnerability and obtain code execution, an attacker could retrieve these credentials. The impact would then extend even further, since by the time that a user requests to open a remote share, the browser creates the directory /sdcard/Android/data/com.mi.android.globalFileexplorer/files/usbTemp/ where it saves the files that the user retrieves:

This means that a remote attacker would be able to read or write files to SMB shares of a local network, assuming that the device was connected to it. The same stands for FTP shares as they are handled exactly in the same way:

In summary, the exploitation flow is depicted in the figure below:

In step 1, the user opens a malicious app that may pose as a file editor, messaging app, mail client, or any app in general and request the user to save a file. By the time that the user attempts to save such a file, no matter what destination path they choose to save it, the malicious app forces the file browser app to write it under its internal /files/lib folder. Then, the malicious app can start the junk cleaner using an explicit intent (no user interaction is required) and this will lead to code execution with the browser’s ID (step 2).

In step 3, the attacker uses the arbitrary code execution capability to retrieve the SMB and FTP credentials from the rmt_i.properties file. Subsequently, the attacker can now jump to step 5 and access the shares directly using the stolen credentials. Alternatively, after retrieving the share credentials, the mobile device can connect to a local network (step 4) and access an SMB or FTP share, allowing the attacker to access the shared files through the /sdcard/Android/data/com.mi.android.globalFileexplorer/files/usbTemp/ folder (step 5).

Recommendations

Recognizing that this vulnerability pattern may be widespread, we shared our findings with Google’s Android Application Security Research team. We collaborated with Google to author guidance for Android application developers to help them recognize and avoid this pattern. We recommend developers and security analysts familiarize themselves with the excellent Android application security guidance provided by Google as well as make use of the Android Lint tool included with the Android SDK and integrated with Android Studio (supplemented with Google’s additional security-focused checks) to identify and avoid potential vulnerabilities. GitHub’s CodeQL also provides capabilities to identify vulnerabilities.

To prevent these issues, when handling file streams sent by other applications, the safest solution is to completely ignore the name returned by the remote file provider when caching the received content. Some of the most robust approaches we encountered use randomly generated names, so even in the case that the content of an incoming stream is malformed, it won’t tamper with the application.

In cases where such an approach is not feasible, developers need to take extra steps to ascertain that the cached file is written to a dedicated directory. As an incoming file stream is usually identified by a content URI, the first step is to reliably identify and sanitize the corresponding filename. Besides filtering characters that may lead to a path traversal and before performing any write operation, developers must verify that the cached file is within the dedicated directory by performing a call to the File.getCanonicalPath and validating the prefix of the returned value.

Another area to safeguard is in the way developers try to extract a filename from a content URI. Developers often use Uri.getLastPathSegment(), which returns the (URL) decoded value of the last path URI segment. An attacker can craft a URI with URL encoded characters within this segment, including characters used for path traversal. Using the returned value to cache a file can again render the application vulnerable to this type of attack.

For end users, we recommend keeping mobile applications up to date through the Google Play Store (or other appropriate trusted source) to ensure that updates addressing known vulnerabilities are installed. Users should only install applications from trusted sources to avoid potentially malicious applications. We recommend users who accessed SMB or FTP shares through the Xiaomi app before updates to reset credentials and to investigate for any anomalous behavior. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint on Android can alert users and enterprises to malicious applications, and Microsoft Defender Vulnerability Management can identify installed applications with known vulnerabilities.

Dimitrios Valsamaras

Microsoft Threat Intelligence

References

• https://www.blackhat.com/asia-23/briefings/schedule/index.html#dirty-stream-attack-turning-android-share-targets-into-attack-vectors-30234
• https://developer.android.com/privacy-and-security/risks/untrustworthy-contentprovider-provided-filename
• https://developer.android.com/reference/androidx/core/content/FileProvider
• https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/manifest/provider-element#gprmsn
• https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mi.android.globalFileexplorer
• https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=cn.wps.moffice_eng
• https://googlesamples.github.io/android-custom-lint-rules/checks/UnsafeDynamicallyLoadedCode.md.html
• https://androidrank.org/application/file_manager/com.mi.android.globalFileexplorer
• https://cs.android.com/android/platform/superproject/+/master:frameworks/base/core/java/android/app/SharedPreferencesImpl.java;l=150
• https://developer.android.com/privacy-and-security/risks
• https://developer.android.com/studio/write/lint#gradle
• https://github.com/google/android-security-lints/
• https://codeql.github.com/codeql-query-help/java/

Learn more

For the latest security research from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community, check out the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Blog: https://aka.ms/threatintelblog.

To get notified about new publications and to join discussions on social media, follow us on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/microsoft-threat-intelligence, and on X (formerly Twitter) at https://twitter.com/MsftSecIntel.

To hear stories and insights from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community about the ever-evolving threat landscape, listen to the Microsoft Threat Intelligence podcast: https://thecyberwire.com/podcasts/microsoft-threat-intelligence.

The post “Dirty stream” attack: Discovering and mitigating a common vulnerability pattern in Android apps appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.

In attacks observed by Microsoft Threat Intelligence, threat actors launched phishing or password spraying attacks to compromise user accounts that did not have strong authentication mechanisms and had permissions to create or modify OAuth applications. The threat actors misused the OAuth applications with high privilege permissions to deploy virtual machines (VMs) for cryptocurrency mining, establish persistence following business email compromise (BEC), and launch spamming activity using the targeted organization’s resources and domain name.

Microsoft continuously tracks attacks that misuse of OAuth applications for a wide range of malicious activity. This visibility enhances the detection of malicious OAuth applications via Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps and prevents compromised user accounts from accessing resources via Microsoft Defender XDR and Microsoft Entra Identity Protection. In this blog post, we present cases where threat actors compromised user accounts and misused OAuth applications for their financially driven attacks, outline recommendations for organizations to mitigate such attacks, and provide detailed information on how Microsoft detects related activity:

• OAuth applications to deploy VMs for cryptomining
• OAuth applications for BEC and phishing
• OAuth applications for spamming activity
• Mitigation steps
• Detections for related techniques
• Hunting guidance

OAuth applications to deploy VMs for cryptomining

Microsoft observed the threat actor tracked as Storm-1283 using a compromised user account to create an OAuth application and deploy VMs for cryptomining. The compromised account allowed Storm-1283 to sign in via virtual private network (VPN), create a new single-tenant OAuth application in Microsoft Entra ID named similarly as the Microsoft Entra ID tenant domain name, and add a set of secrets to the application. As the compromised account had an ownership role on an Azure subscription, the actor also granted ‘Contributor’ role permission for the application to one of the active subscriptions using the compromised account.

The actor also leveraged existing line-of-business (LOB) OAuth applications that the compromised user account had access to in the tenant by adding an additional set of credentials to those applications. The actor initially deployed a small set of VMs in the same compromised subscriptions using one of the existing applications and initiated the cryptomining activity. The actor then later returned to deploy more VMs using the new application. Targeted organizations incurred compute fees ranging from 10,000 to 1.5 million USD from the attacks, depending on the actor’s activity and duration of the attack.

Storm-1283 looked to maintain the setup as long as possible to increase the chance of successful cryptomining activity. We assess that, for this reason, the actor used the naming convention [DOMAINNAME]_[ZONENAME]_[1-9] (the tenant name followed by the region name) for the VMs to avoid suspicion.  

One of the ways to recognize the behavior of this actor is to monitor VM creation in Azure Resource Manager audit logs and look for the activity “Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/write” performed by an OAuth application. While the naming convention used by the actor may change in time, it may still include the domain name or region names like “east|west|south|north|central|japan|france|australia|canada|korea|uk|poland|brazil”

Microsoft Threat Intelligence analysts were able to detect the threat actor’s actions and worked with the Microsoft Entra team to block the OAuth applications that were part of this attack. Affected organizations were also informed of the activity and recommended further actions.

OAuth applications for BEC and phishing

In another attack observed by Microsoft, a threat actor compromised user accounts and created OAuth applications to maintain persistence and to launch email phishing activity. The threat actor used an adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) phishing kit to send a significant number of emails with varying subject lines and URLs to target user accounts in multiple organizations. In AiTM attacks, threat actors attempt to steal session tokens from their targets by sending phishing emails with a malicious URL that leads to a proxy server that facilitates a genuine authentication process.

We observed the following email subjects used in the phishing emails:

• <Username> shared “<Username> contracts” with you.
• <Username> shared “<User domain>” with you.
• OneDrive: You have received a new document today
• <Username> Mailbox password expiry
• Mailbox password expiry
• <Username> You have Encrypted message
• Encrypted message received

After the targets clicked the malicious URL in the email, they were redirected to the Microsoft sign-in page that was proxied by the threat actor’s proxy server. The proxy server set up by the threat actor allowed them to steal the token from the user’s session cookie. Later, the stolen token was leveraged to perform session cookie replay activity. Microsoft was able to confirm during further investigation that the compromised user account was flagged for risky sign-ins when the account was used to sign in from an unfamiliar location and from an uncommon user agent.

For persistence following business email compromise

In some cases, following the stolen session cookie replay activity, the actor leveraged the compromised user account to perform BEC financial fraud reconnaissance by opening email attachments in Microsoft Outlook Web Application (OWA) that contain specific keywords such as “payment” and “invoice”. This action typically precedes financial fraud attacks where the threat actor seeks out financial conversations and attempts to socially engineer one party to modify payment information to an account under attacker control.

Later, to maintain persistence and carry out malicious actions, the threat actor created an OAuth application using the compromised user account. The actor then operated under the compromised user account session to add new credentials to the OAuth application.  

For email phishing activity

In other cases, instead of performing BEC reconnaissance, the threat actor created multitenant OAuth applications following the stolen session cookie replay activity. The threat actor used the OAuth applications to maintain persistence, add new credentials, and then access Microsoft Graph API resource to read emails or send phishing emails.

At the time of analysis, we observed that threat actor created around 17,000 multitenant OAuth applications across different tenants using multiple compromised user accounts. The created applications mostly had two different sets of application metadata properties, such as display name and scope:

• Malicious multitenant OAuth applications with the display name set as “oauth” were granted permissions “user.read; mail.readwrite; email; profile; openid; mail.read; people.read” and access to Microsoft Graph API and read emails.
• Malicious multitenant OAuth applications with the display name set as “App” were granted permissions “user.read; mail.readwrite; email; profile; openid; mail.send” and access to Microsoft Graph API to send high volumes of phishing emails to both intra-organizational and external organizations.

In addition, we observed that the threat actor, before using the OAuth applications to send phishing emails, leveraged the compromised user accounts to create inbox rules with suspicious rule names like “…” to move emails to the junk folder and mark them as read. This is to evade detection by the compromised user that the account was used to send phishing emails.

Based on the email telemetry, we observed that the malicious OAuth applications created by the threat actor sent more than 927,000 phishing emails. Microsoft has taken down all the malicious OAuth applications found related to this campaign, which ran from July to November 2023.

OAuth applications for spamming activity

Microsoft also observed large-scale spamming activity through OAuth applications by a threat actor tracked as Storm-1286. The actor launched password spraying attacks to compromise user accounts, the majority of which did not have multifactor authentication (MFA) enabled. We also observed the user agent BAV2ROPC in the sign-in activities related to the compromised accounts, which indicated the use of legacy authentication protocols such as IMAP and SMTP that do not support MFA.

We observed the actor using the compromised user accounts to create anywhere from one to three new OAuth applications in the targeted organization using Azure PowerShell or a Swagger Codegen-based client. The threat actor then granted consent to the applications using the compromised accounts. These applications were set with permissions like email, profile, openid, Mail.Send, User.Read and Mail.Read, which allowed the actor to control the mailbox and send thousands of emails a day using the compromised user account and the organization domain. In some cases, the actor waited for months after the initial access and setting up of OAuth applications before starting the spam activity using the applications. The actor also used legitimate domains to avoid phishing and spamming detectors.

In previous large-scale spam activities, we observed threat actors attempting to compromise admin accounts without MFA and create new LOB applications with high administrative permissions to abuse Microsoft Exchange Online and spread spam. While the activity of the actor then was limited due to actions taken by Microsoft Threat Intelligence such as blocking clusters of the OAuth applications in the past, Storm-1286 continues to try new ways to set a similar high-scale spamming platform in victim organizations by using non-privileged users.

Mitigation steps

Microsoft recommends the following mitigations to reduce the impact of these types of threats.

Mitigate credential guessing attacks risks

A key step in reducing the attack surface is securing the identity infrastructure. The most common initial access vector observed in this attack was account compromise through credential stuffing, phishing, and reverse proxy (AiTM) phishing. In most cases the compromised accounts did not have MFA enabled. Implementing security practices that strengthen account credentials such as enabling MFA reduced the chance of attack dramatically.

Enable conditional access policies

Conditional access policies are evaluated and enforced every time the user attempts to sign in. Organizations can protect themselves from attacks that leverage stolen credentials by enabling policies for User and Sign-in Risk, device compliance and trusted IP address requirements. If your organization has a Microsoft-Managed Conditional Access policy, make sure it is enforced.

Ensure continuous access evaluation is enabled

Continuous access evaluation (CAE) revokes access in real time when changes in user conditions trigger risks, such as when a user is terminated or moves to an untrusted location.

Enable security defaults

While some of the features mentioned above require paid subscriptions, the security defaults in Azure AD, which is mainly for organizations using the free tier of Azure Active Directory licensing, are sufficient to better protect the organizational identity platform, as they provide preconfigured security settings such as MFA, protection for privileged activities, and others.

Enable Microsoft Defender automatic attack disruption

Microsoft Defender automatic attack disruption capabilities minimize lateral movement and curbs the overall impact of an attack in its initial stages.

Audit apps and consented permissions

Audit apps and consented permissions in your organization ensure applications are only accessing necessary data and adhering to the principles of least privilege. Use Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps and its app governance add-on for expanded visibility into cloud activity in your organization and control over applications that access your Microsoft 365 data. 

Educate your organization on application permissions and data accessible by applications with respective permissions to identify malicious apps. 

Enhance suspicious OAuth application investigation with the recommended approach to investigate and remediate risky OAuth apps.

Enable “Review admin consent requests” for forcing new applications review in the tenant.

In addition to the recommendations above, Microsoft has published incident response playbooks for App consent grant investigation and compromised and malicious applications investigation that defenders can use to respond quickly to related threats.

Secure Azure Cloud resources

Deploy MFA to all users, especially for tenant administrators and accounts with Azure VM Contributor privileges. Limit unused quota and monitor for unusual quota increases in your Azure subscriptions, with an emphasis on the resource’s originating creation or modification. Monitor for unexpected sign-in activity from IP addresses associated with free VPN services on high privilege accounts. Connect Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps connector to ARM or use Microsoft Defender for ARM

With the rise of hybrid work, employees might use their personal or unmanaged devices to access corporate resources, leading to an increased possibility of token theft. To mitigate this risk, organizations can enhance their security measures by obtaining complete visibility into their users’ authentication methods and locations. Refer to the comprehensive blog post Token tactics: How to prevent, detect, and respond to cloud token theft. 

Check your Office 365 email filtering settings to ensure you block spoofed emails, spam, and emails with malware. Use for enhanced phishing protection and coverage against new threats and polymorphic variants. Configure Defender for Office 365 to recheck links upon time of click and delete sent mail in response to newly acquired threat intelligence. Turn on Safe Attachments policies to check attachments in inbound emails. 

Detections for related techniques

Leveraging its cross-signal capabilities, Microsoft Defender XDR alerts customers using Microsoft Defender for Office 365, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps, Application governance add-on, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, and Microsoft Entra ID Protection to detect the techniques covered in the attack through the attack chain. Each product can provide a different aspect for protection to cover the techniques observed in this attack:

Microsoft Defender XDR

Microsoft Defender XDR detects threat components associated with the following activities:

• User compromised in AiTM phishing attack
• User compromised via a known AiTM phishing kit
• BEC financial fraud-related reconnaissance
• BEC financial fraud

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

Using Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps connectors for Microsoft 365 and Azure, Microsoft Defender XDR raises the following alerts:

• Stolen session cookie was used
• Activity from anonymous IP address
• Activity from a password-spray associated IP address
• User added or updated a suspicious OAuth app
• Risky user created or updated an app that was observed creating a bulk of Azure virtual machines in a short interval
• Risky user updated an app that accessed email and performed email activity through Graph API
• Suspicious creation of OAuth app by compromised user
• Suspicious secret addition to OAuth app followed by creation of Azure virtual machines
• Suspicious OAuth app creation
• Suspicious OAuth app email activity through Graph API
• Suspicious OAuth app-related activity by compromised user
• Suspicious user signed into a newly created OAuth app
• Suspicious addition of OAuth app permissions
• Suspicious inbox manipulation rule
• Impossible travel activity
• Multiple failed login attempts

App governance

App governance is an add-on to Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps, which can detect malicious OAuth applications that make sensitive Exchange Online administrative activities along with other threat detection alerts. Activity related to this campaign triggers the following alerts:

• Entra Line-of-Business app initiating an anomalous spike in virtual machine creation
• OAuth app with high scope privileges in Microsoft Graph was observed initiating virtual machine creation
• Suspicious OAuth app used to send numerous emails

To receive this alert, turn on app governance for Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps.

Microsoft Defender for Office 365

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 detects threat activity associated with this spamming campaign through the following email security alerts. Note, however, that these alerts may also be triggered by unrelated threat activity. We’re listing them here because we recommend that these alerts be investigated and remediated immediately.

• A potentially malicious URL click was detected
• A user clicked through to a potentially malicious URL
• Suspicious email sending patterns detected
• User restricted from sending email
• Email sending limit exceeded

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Microsoft Defender for Cloud detects threat components associated with the activities outlined in this article with the following alerts:

• Azure Resource Manager operation from suspicious proxy IP address
• Crypto-mining activity
• Digital currency mining activity
• Suspicious Azure role assignment detected
• Suspicious creation of compute resources detected
• Suspicious invocation of a high-risk ‘Execution’ operation by a service principal detected
• Suspicious invocation of a high-risk ‘Execution’ operation detected
• Suspicious invocation of a high-risk ‘Impact’ operation by a service principal detected

Microsoft Entra Identity Protection

Microsoft Entra Identity Protection detects the threats described with the following alerts:

• Anomalous Token
• Unfamiliar sign-in properties
• Anonymous IP address
• Verified threat actor IP
• Atypical travel

Hunting guidance

Microsoft 365 Defender

Microsoft 365 Defender customers can run the following query to find related activity in their networks:

OAuth application interacting with Azure workloads

let OAuthAppId = <OAuth app ID in question>;
CloudAppEvents
| where Timestamp >ago (7d)  
| where AccountId == OAuthAppId 
| where AccountType== "Application"
| extend Azure_Workloads = RawEventData["operationName"]
| distinct Azure_Workloads by AccountId

Password spray attempts

This query identifies failed sign-in attempts to Microsoft Exchange Online from multiple IP addresses and locations.

IdentityLogonEvents
| where Timestamp > ago(3d)
| where ActionType == "LogonFailed" and LogonType == "OAuth2:Token" and Application == "Microsoft Exchange Online"
| summarize count(), dcount(IPAddress), dcount(CountryCode) by AccountObjectId, AccountDisplayName, bin(Timestamp, 1h)

Suspicious application creation

This query finds new applications added in your tenant.

CloudAppEvents
| where ActionType in ("Add application.", "Add service principal.")
| mvexpand modifiedProperties = RawEventData.ModifiedProperties
| where modifiedProperties.Name == "AppAddress"
| extend AppAddress = tolower(extract('\"Address\": \"(.*)\",',1,tostring(modifiedProperties.NewValue)))
| mvexpand ExtendedProperties = RawEventData.ExtendedProperties
| where ExtendedProperties.Name == "additionalDetails"
| extend OAuthApplicationId = tolower(extract('\"AppId\":\"(.*)\"',1,tostring(ExtendedProperties.Value)))
| project Timestamp, ReportId, AccountObjectId, Application, ApplicationId, OAuthApplicationId, AppAddress

Suspicious email events

NOTE: These queries need to be updated with timestamps related to application creation time before running.

//Identify High Outbound Email Sender
EmailEvents 
| where Timestamp between (<start> .. <end>) //Timestamp from the app creation time to few hours upto 24 hours or more 
| where EmailDirection in ("Outbound") 
| project
    RecipientEmailAddress,
    SenderFromAddress,
    SenderMailFromAddress,
    SenderObjectId,
    NetworkMessageId 
| summarize
    RecipientCount = dcount(RecipientEmailAddress),
    UniqueEmailSentCount = dcount(NetworkMessageId)
    by SenderFromAddress, SenderMailFromAddress, SenderObjectId
| sort by UniqueEmailSentCount desc 
//| where UniqueEmailSentCount > <threshold> //Optional, return only if the sender sent more than the threshold
//| take 100 //Optional, return only top 100
 
//Identify Suspicious Outbound Email Sender
EmailEvents 
//| where Timestamp between (<start> .. <end>) //Timestamp from the app creation time to few hours upto 24 hours or more 
| where EmailDirection in ("Outbound") 
| project
    RecipientEmailAddress,
    SenderFromAddress,
    SenderMailFromAddress,
    SenderObjectId, 
    DetectionMethods,
    NetworkMessageId 
| summarize
    RecipientCount = dcount(RecipientEmailAddress),
    UniqueEmailSentCount = dcount(NetworkMessageId),
    SuspiciousEmailCount = dcountif(NetworkMessageId,isnotempty(DetectionMethods))
    by SenderFromAddress, SenderMailFromAddress, SenderObjectId
| extend SuspiciousEmailPercentage = SuspiciousEmailCount/UniqueEmailSentCount * 100 //Calculate the percentage of suspicious email compared to all email sent
| sort by SuspiciousEmailPercentage desc 
//| where UniqueEmailSentCount > <threshold> //Optional, return only if the sender suspicious email percentage is more than the threshold
//| take 100 //Optional, return only top 100

//Identify Recent Emails Sent by Restricted Email Sender
AlertEvidence
| where Title has "User restricted from sending email"
| project AccountObjectId //Identify the user who are restricted to send email
| join EmailEvents on $left.AccountObjectId == $right.SenderObjectId //Join information from Alert Evidence and Email Events
| project
    Timestamp,
    RecipientEmailAddress,
    SenderFromAddress,
    SenderMailFromAddress,
    SenderObjectId,
    SenderIPv4,
    Subject,
    UrlCount,
    AttachmentCount,
    DetectionMethods,
    AuthenticationDetails, 
    NetworkMessageId
| sort by Timestamp desc 
//| take 100 //Optional, return only first 100

BEC recon and OAuth application activity

//High and Medium risk SignIn activity
AADSignInEventsBeta
| where Timestamp >ago (7d)
| where ErrorCode==0
| where RiskLevelDuringSignIn >= 50
| project
    AccountUpn,
    AccountObjectId,
    SessionId,
    RiskLevelDuringSignIn,
    ApplicationId,
    Application

//Oauth Application creation or modification by user who has suspicious sign in activities
AADSignInEventsBeta
| where Timestamp >ago (7d)
| where ErrorCode == 0
| where RiskLevelDuringSignIn >= 50
| project SignInTime=AccountUpn, AccountObjectId, SessionId, RiskLevelDuringSignIn, ApplicationId, Application
| join kind=leftouter (CloudAppEvents | where Timestamp > ago(7d)
| where ActionType in ("Add application.", "Update application.", "Update application – Certificates and secrets management ")
| extend appId = tostring(parse_json(RawEventData.Target[4].ID))
| project
    Timestamp,
    ActionType,
    Application,
    ApplicationId,
    UserAgent,
    ISP,
    AccountObjectId,
    AppName=ObjectName,
    OauthApplicationId=appId,
    RawEventData ) on AccountObjectId
| where isnotempty(ActionType)

 
//Suspicious BEC reconnaisance activity 
let bec_keywords = pack_array("payment", "receipt", "invoice", "inventory"); 
let reconEvents = 
    CloudAppEvents
    | where Timestamp >ago (7d)
    | where ActionType in ("MailItemsAccessed", "Update")
    | where AccountObjectId in ("<Impacted AccountObjectId>")
    | extend SessionId = tostring(parse_json(RawEventData.SessionId))
    | project
        Timestamp,
        ActionType,
        AccountObjectId,
        UserAgent,
        ISP,
        IPAddress,
        SessionId,
        RawEventData;
reconEvents;
let updateActions = reconEvents
    | where ActionType == "Update" 
    | extend Subject=tostring(RawEventData["Item"].Subject)
    | where isnotempty(Subject)
    | where Subject has_any (bec_keywords)
    | summarize UpdateCount=count() by bin (Timestamp, 15m), Subject, AccountObjectId, SessionId, IPAddress;
updateActions;
let mailItemsAccessedActions = reconEvents 
    | where ActionType == "MailItemsAccessed" 
    | extend OperationCount = toint(RawEventData["OperationCount"])
    | summarize TotalCount = sum(OperationCount) by bin (Timestamp, 15m), AccountObjectId, SessionId, IPAddress;
mailItemsAccessedActions;
 
//SignIn to newly created app within Risky Session
AADSignInEventsBeta
| where Timestamp >ago (7d) 
| where AccountObjectId in ("<Impacted AccountObjectId>") and 
SessionId in ("<Risky Session Id>")
| where ApplicationId in ("<Oauth appId>") // Recently added or modified App Id
| project
    AccountUpn,
    AccountObjectId,
    ApplicationId,
    Application,
    SessionId,
    RiskLevelDuringSignIn,
    RiskLevelAggregated,
    Country

// To check suspicious Mailbox rules
CloudAppEvents
| where Timestamp between (start .. end) //Timestamp from the app creation time to few hours, usually before spam emails sent
| where AccountObjectId in ("<Impacted AccountObjectId>")
| where Application == "Microsoft Exchange Online"
| where ActionType in ("New-InboxRule", "Set-InboxRule", "Set-Mailbox", "Set-TransportRule", "New-TransportRule", "Enable-InboxRule", "UpdateInboxRules")
| where isnotempty(IPAddress)
| mvexpand ActivityObjects
| extend name = parse_json(ActivityObjects).Name
| extend value = parse_json(ActivityObjects).Value
| where name == "Name"
| extend RuleName = value 
| project Timestamp, ReportId, ActionType, AccountObjectId, IPAddress, ISP, RuleName

// To check any suspicious Url clicks from emails before risky signin by the user
UrlClickEvents
| where Timestamp between (start .. end) //Timestamp around time proximity of Risky signin by user
| where AccountUpn has "<Impacted User’s UPN or Email address>" and ActionType has "ClickAllowed"
| project Timestamp,Url,NetworkMessageId

// To fetch the suspicious email details
EmailEvents
| where Timestamp between (start .. end) //Timestamp lookback to be increased gradually to find the email received
| where EmailDirection has "Inbound"
| where RecipientEmailAddress has "<Impacted User’s UPN or Email address>" and NetworkMessageId == "<NetworkMessageId from UrlClickEvents>"
| project SenderFromAddress,SenderMailFromAddress,SenderIPv4,SenderFromDomain, Subject,UrlCount,AttachmentCount
    
    
// To check if suspicious emails sent for spamming (with similar email subjects, urls etc.)
EmailEvents
| where Timestamp between (start .. end) //Timestamp from the app creation time to few hours upto 24 hours or more
| where EmailDirection in ("Outbound","Intra-org")
| where SenderFromAddress has "<Impacted User’s UPN or Email address>"  or SenderMailFromAddress has "<Impacted User’s UPN or Email address>"
| project RecipientEmailAddress,RecipientObjectId,SenderIPv4,SenderFromDomain, Subject,UrlCount,AttachmentCount,NetworkMessageId

Microsoft Sentinel

Microsoft Sentinel customers can use the TI Mapping analytics (a series of analytics all prefixed with ‘TI map’) to automatically match the malicious domain indicators mentioned in this blog post with data in their workspace. If the TI Map analytics are not currently deployed, customers can install the Threat Intelligence solution from the Microsoft Sentinel Content Hub to have the analytics rule deployed in their Sentinel workspace.

Analytic rules:

• Phishing Link Execution Observed
• Possible AiTM Phishing Attempt Against AAD
• Successful Signins from a Phishing Link
• Signin Password Spray
• Malicious Inbox Rule
• BEC Mailbox Rule

Hunting queries:

• Open Email Link
• Creation of an anomalous number of resources
• Creation of expensive computes in Azure

Learn more

For the latest security research from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community, check out the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Blog: https://aka.ms/threatintelblog.

To get notified about new publications and to join discussions on social media, follow us on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/microsoft-threat-intelligence, and on X (formerly Twitter) at https://twitter.com/MsftSecIntel.

To hear stories and insights from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community about the ever-evolving threat landscape, listen to the Microsoft Threat Intelligence podcast: https://thecyberwire.com/podcasts/microsoft-threat-intelligence.

The post Threat actors misuse OAuth applications to automate financially driven attacks appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.

January 2025 update – In mid-November 2024, Star Blizzard was observed shifting their tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), likely in response to the exposure of their TTPs by Microsoft Threat Intelligence and other organizations. Learn more about our observations and findings in this Microsoft Threat Intelligence blog post: New Star Blizzard spear-phishing campaign targets WhatsApp accounts.

October 2024 update – Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit (DCU) is disrupting the technical infrastructure used by Star Blizzard. We have updated this blog with the latest observed Star Blizzard tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs).

Microsoft Threat Intelligence continues to track and disrupt malicious activity attributed to a Russian nation-state actor we call Star Blizzard. Star Blizzard has continuously improved their detection evasion capabilities while remaining focused on email credential theft against the same targets. Star Blizzard, whose activities we assess to have historically supported both espionage and cyber influence objectives, continues to prolifically target individuals and organizations involved in international affairs, defense, and logistics support to Ukraine, as well as academia, information security companies, and other entities aligning with Russian state interests. Microsoft continues to refine and deploy protections against Star Blizzard’s evolving spear-phishing tactics.

Microsoft is grateful for the collaboration on investigating Star Blizzard compromises with the international cybersecurity community, including our partners at the UK National Cyber Security Centre, the US National Security Agency Cybersecurity Collaboration Center, and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.

This blog provides updated technical information about Star Blizzard tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), building on our 2022 blog as the threat actor continues to refine their tradecraft to evade detection. As with any observed nation-state actor activity, Microsoft directly notifies customers that have been targeted or compromised, providing them with the necessary information to secure their accounts.

Star Blizzard TTPs observed in 2024

Star Blizzard persistently introduces new techniques to avoid detection. These TTPs are employed for brief periods and are either modified or abandoned once they become publicly known.

Microsoft has identified the following evasive techniques used by Star Blizzard in campaigns in 2024:

• Use of multiple registrars to register domain infrastructure
• Use of multiple link-shortening services and legitimate websites with open redirects, to hide actor-registered domains
• Use of altered legitimate email templates as spear-phishing lures

Using multiple registrars to register domain infrastructure

In December 2023, we highlighted that Star Blizzard was using the registrar NameCheap to register their domain infrastructure. As CitizenLab reported (August 2024), the threat actor has also used Hostinger to register domains used in the infrastructure for email credential theft.

Microsoft can confirm that in 2024 Star Blizzard transitioned from their long-standing practice of primarily using a single domain name registrar. Among the registrars seen used by Star Blizzard in 2024 are the following:

• Hostinger
• RealTime Register
• GMO Internet

A list of recent domain names registered by Star Blizzard can be found at the end of this report.

Use of multiple link-shortening services and legitimate websites to hide actor-registered domains

Since August 2024, Star Blizzard has made substantial changes in the methods they employ to redirect targets to their virtual private server (VPS) infrastructure, on which Evilginx is installed and then used to facilitate credential theft.

In December 2023, we detailed the threat actor’s use of email marketing platforms to prevent the need to embed the actor-registered domains in their spear-phishing emails. This technique was abandoned in early 2024, with the threat actor transitioning first to hosting the initial redirector website on shared infrastructure. Since August 2024, Star Blizzard has added multiple layers of redirection to their VPS infrastructure, utilizing various link-shortening services and legitimate websites that can be used as open redirectors.

For example, in a recent spear-phishing email that was sent from an actor-controlled Outlook account, we found that the threat actor had embedded an initial link, which was created using the Microsoft 365 Safe Links into the attached PDF lure. The Safe Links URL could only be generated by sending an email between actor-controlled accounts with the link in the body. The actor then copied that generated Safe Links URL to use in their attack.   

This link redirected to a shortened URL created using the Bitly link-shortening service, which resolved to another shortened URL created using the Cuttly link-shortening service. The second shortened URL redirected to a legitimate website, used as an open redirector, which ultimately redirected to the first actor-controlled domain.

The website mechengsys[.]net was hosted on shared infrastructure at Hostinger and performed various filtering actions until ultimately redirecting to an actor-controlled VPS installed with Evilginx, resolving the domain vidmemax[.]com.

Use of altered legitimate email templates as spear-phishing lures

For a brief period between July and August 2024, the threat actor utilized spear-phishing lures that did not contain or redirect to PDF lures embedded with links that redirected to actor-controlled infrastructure. Instead, Star Blizzard sent targets an altered OneDrive file share notification that included a clickable link to a malicious URL. When clicked, the link would initiate redirection to actor-controlled infrastructure. We observed Star Blizzard using this approach in spear-phishing attacks against its traditional espionage targets, including individuals associated with politics and diplomacy, NGOs, and think tanks.

In this approach, the threat actor began by creating a new email account, usually a Proton account, intended to impersonate a trusted sender so the recipient would be more likely to open the phishing email. The actor then stored a benign PDF or Word file in a cloud file-hosting service (for example, when targeting Microsoft customers, OneDrive) and shared the file with the newly created email account. The threat actor edited the HTML of the email, changing the displayed sender name and the URL behind the “Open” button that would otherwise lead back to the OneDrive-hosted file so that it directed to the Evilginx redirector domain instead.  

Star Blizzard then sent the spear-phishing email to the target. When the “Open” button was clicked, it directed the user to the redirector domain, which, after performing filtering based on browser fingerprinting and additional methods, directed the target to an actor-controlled Virtual Private Server (VPS) with the Evilginx installation. The Evilginx server allowed Star Blizzard to perform an adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) attack on an authentication session to an email provider, enabling the actor to receive the necessary information to perform subsequent sign-ins to the target’s email account, including the username, password, and MFA token, if MFA is used by the target.

TTPs used in past Star Blizzard campaigns

Microsoft observed Star Blizzard using the following TTPs in campaigns before 2024, highlighting continuously evolving techniques used by the threat actor to evade detection:

• Use of server-side scripts to prevent automated scanning of actor-controlled infrastructure
• Use of email marketing platform services to hide true email sender addresses and obviate the need for including actor-controlled domain infrastructure in email messages
• Use of a DNS provider to obscure the IP addresses of actor-controlled virtual private server (VPS) infrastructure. Once notified, the DNS provider took action to mitigate actor-controlled domains abusing their service.
• Password-protected PDF lures or links to cloud-based file-sharing platforms where PDF lures are hosted
• Shift to a more randomized domain generation algorithm (DGA) for actor-registered domains

Use of server-side scripts to prevent automated scanning

Between April 2023 and December 2023, we observed Star Blizzard gradually moving away from using hCaptcha servers as the sole initial filter to prevent automatic scanning of their Evilginx server infrastructure. Redirection was still performed by an actor-controlled server, first executing JavaScript code (titled “Collect and Send User Data”) before redirecting the browsing session to the Evilginx server.

Shortly after, in May 2023, the threat actor was observed refining the JavaScript code, resulting in an updated version (titled “Docs”), which is still in use today.

This capability collects various information from the browser performing the browsing session to the redirector server. The code contains three main functions:

• pluginsEmpty(): This function checks if the browser has any plugins installed.

• isAutomationTool(): This function checks for various indicators that the page is being accessed by an automation tool (such as Selenium, PhantomJS, or Nightmare) and returns an object with information about the detected tools.

• sendToBackend(data): This function sends the data collected by isAutomationTool() to the server using a POST request. If the server returns a response, the message in the response is executed using eval().

Following the POST request, the redirector server assessed the data collected from the browser and decided whether to allow continued browser redirection.

When a good verdict is reached, the browser received a response from the redirection server, redirecting to the next stage of the chain, which is either an hCaptcha for the user to solve, or direct to the Evilginx server.

A bad verdict resulted in the receipt of an HTTP error response and no further redirection.

Use of email marketing platform services

We previously observed Star Blizzard using two different services, HubSpot and MailerLite. The actor used these services to create an email campaign, which provided them with a dedicated subdomain on the service that is then used to create URLs. These URLs acted as the entry point to a redirection chain ending at actor-controlled Evilginx server infrastructure. The services also provided the user with a dedicated email address per configured email campaign, which the threat actor has been seen to use as the “From” address in their campaigns.

Most Star Blizzard HubSpot email campaigns have targeted multiple academic institutions, think tanks, and other research organizations using a common theme, aimed at obtaining their credentials for a US grants management portal. We assess that this use-case of the HubSpot mailing platform was to allow the threat actor to track large numbers of identical messages sent to multiple recipients. Note should be taken to the “Reply-to” address in these emails, which is required by the HubSpot platform to be an actual in-use account. All the sender accounts in the following examples were dedicated threat actor-controlled accounts.

Other HubSpot campaigns have been observed using the campaign URL embedded in an attached PDF lure or directly in the email body to perform redirection to actor-controlled Evilginx server infrastructure configured for email account credential theft. We assess that in these cases, the HubSpot platform was used to remove the need for including actor-controlled domain infrastructure in the spear-phishing emails and better evade detection based on indicators of compromise (IOC).

Star Blizzard’s use of the MailerLite platform is similar to the second HubSpot tactic described above, with the observed campaign URL redirecting to actor-controlled infrastructure purposed for email credential theft.

Use of a DNS provider to resolve actor-controlled domain infrastructure

In December 2022, we began to observe Star Blizzard using a domain name service (DNS) provider that also acts as a reverse proxy server to resolve actor-registered domain infrastructure. As of May 2023, most Star Blizzard registered domains associated with their redirector servers use a DNS provider to obscure the resolving IP addresses allocated to their dedicated VPS infrastructure.

We have yet to observe Star Blizzard utilizing a DNS provider to resolve domains used on Evilginx servers.

Password-protected PDF lures or links to cloud-based file-sharing platforms

Star Blizzard has been observed sending password-protected PDF lures in an attempt to evade email security processes implemented by defenders. The threat actor usually sends the password to open the file to the targeted user in the same or a subsequent email message.

In addition to password-protecting the PDF lures themselves, the actor has been observed hosting PDF lures at a cloud storage service and sharing a password-protected link to the file in a message sent to the intended victim. While Star Blizzard frequently uses cloud storage services from all major providers (including Microsoft OneDrive), Proton Drive is predominantly chosen for this purpose.

Microsoft suspends Star Blizzard operational accounts discovered using our platform for their spear-phishing activities.

Randomizing DGA for actor registered domains

Following the detailed public reporting by Recorded Future (August 2023) on detection opportunities for Star Blizzard domain registrations, we have observed the threat actor making significant changes in their chosen domain naming syntax.

Prior to the public reporting, Star Blizzard utilized a limited wordlist for their DGA. Subsequently, Microsoft has observed that the threat actor has upgraded their domain-generating mechanism to include a more randomized list of words.

Despite the increased randomization, Microsoft has identified detection opportunities based on the following constant patterns in Star Blizzard domain registration behavior:

• Namecheap remains the registrar of choice
• Domains are usually registered in groups, many times with similar naming conventions
• X.509 TLS certificates are provided by Let’s Encrypt, created in the same timeframe of domain registration

A list of recent domain names registered by Star Blizzard can be found at the end of this report.

Consistent TTPs since 2022

Star Blizzard activities remain focused on email credential theft, predominantly targeting cloud-based email providers that host organizational and/or personal email accounts.

Star Blizzard continues to utilize the publicly available Evilginx framework to achieve their objective, with the initial access vector remaining to be spear-phishing via email. Target redirection to the threat actor’s Evilginx server infrastructure is still usually achieved using custom-built PDF lures that open a browser session. This session follows a redirection chain ending at actor-controlled Evilginx infrastructure that is configured with a “phishlet” for the intended targets’ email provider.

Star Blizzard remains constant in their use of pairs of dedicated VPSs to host actor-controlled infrastructure (redirector + Evilginx servers) used for spear-phishing activities, where each server usually hosts a separate actor registered domain.

Protecting yourself against Star Blizzard

As with all threat actors that focus on phishing or spear-phishing to gain initial access to victim mailboxes, individual email users should be aware of who these attacks target and what they look like to improve their ability to identify and avoid further attacks.

The following are a list of answers to questions that enterprise and consumer email users should be asking about the threat from Star Blizzard:

Am I at risk of being a Star Blizzard target?

Users and organizations are more likely to be a potential Star Blizzard target if connected to the following areas:

1. Government or diplomacy (both incumbent and former position holders).
2. Research into defense policy or international relations when related to Russia.
3. Assistance to Ukraine related to the ongoing conflict with Russia.

Remember that Star Blizzard targets both consumer and enterprise accounts, so there is an equal threat to both organization and personal accounts.

What will a Star Blizzard spear-phishing email look like?

Star Blizzard emails appear to be from a known contact that users or organizations expect to receive email from. The sender address could be from any free email provider, but special attention should be paid to emails received from Proton account senders  (@proton[.]me, @protonmail[.]com) as they are frequently used by the threat actor.

An initial email is usually sent to the target, asking them to review a document, but without any attachment or link to the document.

The threat actor will wait for a response, and following that, will send an additional message with either an attached PDF file or an embedded link, as detailed above in “Star Blizzard TTPs observed in 2024.”

If the targeted user has not completed authentication by entering their password in the offered sign-in page and/or supplied all the required factors for multifactor authentication (MFA), the threat actor does not have the capability to successfully compromise the targeted account.

Our recommendation to all email users that belong to Star Blizzard targeted sectors is to always remain vigilant when dealing with email, especially emails containing links to external resources. When in doubt, contact the person you think is sending the email using a known and previously used email address, to verify that the email was indeed sent by them.

What happens if I interact with a Star Blizzard PDF lure?

Pressing the button in a PDF lure causes the default browser to open a link embedded in the PDF file code—this is the beginning of the redirection chain. Targets will likely see a web page titled “Docs” in the initial page opened and may be presented with a CAPTCHA to solve before continuing the redirection. The browsing session will end showing a sign-in screen to the account where the spear-phishing email was received, with the targeted email already appearing in the username field.

The host domain in the web address is an actor-controlled domain (see appendix for full list), and not the expected domain of the email server or cloud service.

If multifactor authentication is configured for a targeted email account, entering a password in the displayed sign-in screen will trigger an authentication approval request. If passwordless access is configured for the targeted account, an authentication approval request is immediately received on the device chosen for receiving authentication approvals.

As long as the authentication process is not completed (a valid password is not entered and/or an authentication request is not approved), the threat actor has not compromised the account.

If the authentication process is completed, the credentials have been successfully compromised by Star Blizzard, and the threat actor has all the required details needed to immediately access the mailbox, even if multifactor authentication is enabled.

Recommendations

As with any observed nation-state actor activity, Microsoft directly notifies customers that have been targeted or compromised, providing them with the necessary information to secure their accounts.

Microsoft emphasizes that the following two mitigations will strengthen customers’ environments against Star Blizzard attack activity:

• Using phishing resistant authentication methods.
• Lockdown account access using Conditional Access policies

Microsoft is sharing indicators of compromise related to this attack at the end of this report to encourage the security community to further investigate for potential signs of Star Blizzard activity using their security solution of choice. All these indicators have been incorporated into the threat intelligence feed that powers Microsoft Defender products to aid in protecting customers and mitigating this threat. If your organization is a Microsoft Defender for Office customer or a Microsoft Defender for Endpoint customer with network protection turned on, no further action is required to mitigate this threat presently. A thorough investigation should be performed to understand potential historical impact if Star Blizzard activity has been previously alerted on in the environment.

Additionally, Microsoft recommends the following mitigations to reduce the impact of this threat:

• Use advanced anti-phishing solutions like Microsoft Defender for Office 365 that monitor and scan incoming emails and visited websites. For example, organizations can leverage web browsers that automatically identify and block malicious websites and provide solutions that detect and block malicious emails, links, and files.
• Run endpoint detection and response (EDR) in block mode so that Microsoft Defender for Endpoint can block malicious artifacts, even when your non-Microsoft antivirus does not detect the threat, or when Microsoft Defender Antivirus is running in passive mode. EDR in block mode works behind the scenes to remediate malicious artifacts that are detected post-compromise.
• Configure investigation and remediation in full automated mode to allow Microsoft Defender for Endpoint to take immediate action on alerts to resolve breaches, significantly reducing alert volume.
• Turn on cloud-delivered protection and automatic sample submission in Microsoft Defender Antivirus to cover rapidly evolving attacker tools, techniques, and behaviors. These capabilities use artificial intelligence and machine learning to quickly identify and stop new and unknown threats.
• Use  security defaults as a baseline set of policies to improve identity security posture. For more granular control, enable conditional access policies.  Conditional access policies evaluate sign-in requests using additional identity driven signals like user or group membership, IP location information, and device status, among others, and are enforced for suspicious sign-ins. Organizations can protect themselves from attacks that leverage stolen credentials by enabling policies such as compliant devices or trusted IP address requirements.
• Implement continuous access evaluation.
• Continuously monitor suspicious or anomalous activities. Investigate sign-in attempts with suspicious characteristics (for example, location, ISP, user agent, and use of anonymizer services).
• Configure Microsoft Defender for Office 365 to recheck links on click. Safe Links provides URL scanning and rewriting of inbound email messages in mail flow, and time-of-click verification of URLs and links in email messages, other Office 365 applications such as Teams, and other locations such as SharePoint Online. Safe Links scanning occurs in addition to the regular anti-spam and anti-malware protection in inbound email messages in Exchange Online Protection (EOP). Safe Links scanning can help protect your organization from malicious links that are used in phishing and other attacks.
• Use the Attack Simulator in Microsoft Defender for Office 365 to organize realistic, yet safe, simulated phishing and password attack campaigns in your organization by training end users against clicking URLs in unsolicited messages and disclosing their credentials. Training should include checking for poor spelling and grammar in phishing emails or the application’s consent screen as well as spoofed app names, logos, and domain URLs appearing to originate from legitimate applications or companies. Note that Attack Simulator testing only supports phishing emails containing links at this time.
• Encourage users to use Microsoft Edge and other web browsers that support Microsoft Defender SmartScreen, which identifies and blocks malicious websites, including phishing sites, scam sites, and sites that contain exploits and host malware. In all web protection scenarios, SmartScreen and Network Protection can be used together to ensure protection across both Microsoft and non-Microsoft browsers and processes.
• Microsoft Defender customers can turn on attack surface reduction rules to prevent common attack techniques:
  • Block executable files from running unless they meet a prevalence, age, or trusted list criterion.
  • Block execution of potentially obfuscated scripts.

Appendix

Microsoft Defender XDR detections

Microsoft Defender for Office 365

Microsoft Defender for Office 365 offers enhanced solutions for blocking and identifying malicious emails. Signals from Microsoft Defender for Office 365 inform Microsoft 365 Defender, which correlate cross-domain threat intelligence to deliver coordinated defense, when this threat has been detected. These alerts, however, can be triggered by unrelated threat activity. Example alerts:

• A potentially malicious URL click was detected
• Email messages containing malicious URL removed after delivery
• Email messages removed after delivery
• Email reported by user as malware or phish

Microsoft Defender SmartScreen

Microsoft Defender SmartScreen has implemented detections against the phishing domains represented in the IOC section below. By enabling Network protection, organizations can block attempts to connect to these malicious domains.

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

Aside from the Microsoft Defender for Office 365 alerts above, customers can also monitor for the following Microsoft Defender for Endpoint alerts for this attack. Note that these alerts can also be triggered by unrelated threat activity. Example alerts:

• Star Blizzard activity group
• Suspicious URL clicked
• Suspicious URL opened in web browser
• User accessed link in ZAP-quarantined email
• Suspicious activity linked to a Russian state-sponsored threat actor has been detected
• Connection to adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) phishing site
• User compromised in AiTM phishing attack
• Possible AiTM phishing attempt

Threat intelligence reports

Microsoft customers can use the following reports in Microsoft products to get the most up-to-date information about the threat actor, malicious activity, and techniques discussed in this blog. These reports provide the intelligence, protection information, and recommended actions to prevent, mitigate, and respond to associated threats found in customer environments.

Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence

• Star Blizzard
• Disrupting Star Blizzard’s ongoing phishing operations
• Star Blizzard adopting PDF-less approach to spearphishing
• Star Blizzard spearphishing campaign targets US think tanks

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Threat analytics 

• Threat Insights: Disrupting Star Blizzard’s ongoing phishing operations

Hunting queries  

Microsoft Sentinel 

Microsoft Sentinel customers can use the TI Mapping analytics (a series of analytics all prefixed with ‘TI map’) to automatically match the malicious domain indicators mentioned in this blog post with data in their workspace. If the TI Map analytics are not currently deployed, customers can install the Threat Intelligence solution from the Microsoft Sentinel Content Hub to have the analytics rule deployed in their Sentinel workspace.  

• Open Email Link 
• Suspicious Url Clicked 
• Doc attachment with link to download
• Possible Phishing with CSL & NetworkSession
• Potential DGA detected
• Possible DGA Contacts 
• Potential DGA Detected via Repetitive Failures AnomalyBased
• MultiVendor-Possible DGA Contacts
• Successful Signin From Non-CompliantDevice
• Risky User In 3P network activity

Indicators of compromise

Domain infrastructure observed in 2024

Past Star Blizzard domain infrastructure

Star Blizzard HubSpot campaign domains:

• djs53104[.]eu1[.]hubspotlinksfree[.]com – used in August 2023
• djr6t104[.]eu1[.]hubspotlinksfree[.]com – used in August 2023
• djrzf704[.]eu1[.]hubspotlinksfree[.]com – used in August 2023
• djskzh04[.]eu1[.]hubspotlinksfree[.]com – used in August 2023
• djslws04[.]eu1[.]hubspotlinksfree[.]com – used in August 2023
• djs36c04[.]eu1[.]hubspotlinksfree[.]com – used in August 2023
• djt47x04[.]eu1[.]hubspotlinksfree[.]com – used in September 2023
• djvcl404[.]eu1[.]hubspotlinksfree[.]com – used in October 2023
• d5b74r04[.]na1[.]hubspotlinksfree[.]com – used in October 2023
• djvxqp04[.]eu1[.]hubspotlinksfree[.]com – used in October 2023

Star Blizzard MailerLite campaign domain:

• ydjjja[.]clicks[.]mlsend[.]com – used in September 2023

References

• https://citizenlab.ca/2024/08/sophisticated-phishing-targets-russias-perceived-enemies-around-the-globe/
• https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/news/spear-phishing-campaigns-targets-of-interest
• https://www.recordedfuture.com/bluecharlie-previously-tracked-as-tag-53-continues-to-deploy-new-infrastructure-in-2023

Further reading

For the latest security research from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community, check out the Microsoft Threat Intelligence Blog: https://aka.ms/threatintelblog.

To get notified about new publications and to join discussions on social media, follow us on X (formerly Twitter) at https://twitter.com/MsftSecIntel.

To hear stories and insights from the Microsoft Threat Intelligence community about the ever-evolving threat landscape, listen to the Microsoft Threat Intelligence podcast: https://thecyberwire.com/podcasts/microsoft-threat-intelligence.

The post Star Blizzard increases sophistication and evasion in ongoing attacks appeared first on Microsoft Security Blog.