{"id":76100,"date":"2015-11-16T14:02:11","date_gmt":"2015-11-16T22:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cloudblogs.microsoft.com\/microsoftsecure\/?p=76100"},"modified":"2023-05-15T23:06:06","modified_gmt":"2023-05-16T06:06:06","slug":"microsoft-security-intelligence-report-strontium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/security\/blog\/2015\/11\/16\/microsoft-security-intelligence-report-strontium\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft Security Intelligence Report: Strontium"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"ExternalClass0BC742007D3C4FDCAFA8CA5E64981A9F\">\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/security\/sir\/default.aspx\">Microsoft Security Intelligence Report<\/a> (SIR) provides a regular snapshot of the current threat landscape, using data from more than 600 million computers worldwide.<\/p>\n<p>The latest report (SIRv19) was released this week and includes a detailed analysis of the actor group STRONTIUM \u2013 a group that uses zero-day exploits to collect the sensitive information of high-value targets in government and political organizations.<\/p>\n<p>Since 2007, the group has targeted:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Government bodies<\/li>\n<li>Diplomatic institutions<\/li>\n<li>Military forces and installations<\/li>\n<li>Journalists<\/li>\n<li>Political advisors and organizations<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Attack vectors: How they manage to get in<\/h3>\n<p>A STRONTIUM actor attack usually has two components:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>A spear phishing attempt that targets specific individuals within an organization. This phishing attempt is used to gather information about potential high-value targets and steal their login credentials.<\/li>\n<li>A second phase that attempts to download malware using software <a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/security\/portal\/mmpc\/shared\/glossary.aspx#vulnerability\">vulnerabilities <\/a>to further infect the target computers and spread through networks.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><strong>Spear phishing<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We estimate the STRONTIUM actor targeted several thousand people with spear phishing attacks during the first half of 2015. The goal of the spam email attack is to get a list of high-value individuals with access to sensitive information.<\/p>\n<p>The phishing email usually attempts to trick the target into believing there has been an unauthorized user accessing their account.<\/p>\n<p>The email includes a link to a website under the attacker\u2019s control that prompts the victim to change their password. If the attack is successful, the stolen credentials can be used to access the victim\u2019s email account.<\/p>\n<p>Visiting the malicious website can also send sensitive information to the attacker, even when no credentials are entered. The sensitive information can include details of the victim\u2019s PC -including its IP address, browser and operating system versions, and any browser add-ons installed. This information can be used to target the individual with software exploits.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Malware downloads<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The second phase of a STRONTIUM actor attack is to install malware on the compromised machine in an attempt to gain access to other machines on the network.<\/p>\n<p>Usually, the malware is installed through a malicious link in an email. However, we have also seen social networks used to spread malicious links. The highly-targeted emails use current events, such as an upcoming conference, to entice the victim to click a link for \u201cadditional information\u201d. The email is sent from well-known email providers and sender names that are designed to look credible.<\/p>\n<p>When the link is clicked, a drive-by-download attack is launched using software vulnerabilities. The attacks often use <a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/security\/portal\/mmpc\/shared\/glossary.aspx#exploit\">zero-day exploits<\/a> that target vulnerabilities for which the affected software vendor has not yet released a security update.<\/p>\n<p>If the attack is successful the attacker tries to compromise other machines within the targeted organization to gather more sensitive information.<\/p>\n<p>See the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/security\/sir\/default.aspx\">Microsoft Security Intelligence Report (SIRv19)<\/a> for more technical details on the methods used by STRONTIUM.<\/p>\n<h3>Preventing attacks<\/h3>\n<p>You can reduce the likelihood of a successful compromise in a number of ways. Use an up-to-date real-time security product, such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/security\/pc-security\/windows-defender.aspx\">Windows Defender for Windows 10<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In an enterprise environment you should also:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Keep all your software up-to-date and deploy security updates as soon as possible<\/li>\n<li>Enforce segregation of privileges on user accounts and apply all possible safety measures to protect administrator accounts from compromise<\/li>\n<li>Conduct enterprise software security awareness training, and build <a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/security\/portal\/mmpc\/shared\/prevention.aspx\">awareness about malware infection prevention<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Institute multi-factor authentication<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The<a href=\"http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/security\/sir\/default.aspx\">Microsoft Security Intelligence Report (SIRv19)<\/a> has more advice and detailed analysis of STRONTIUM, as well as other information about malware and unwanted software.<\/p>\n<p>The Microsoft Malware Protection Center\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/security\/portal\/enterprise\/threatreports.aspx\">November Threat Intelligence Report<\/a> also includes detailed information, resources, and advice to mitigate the risk of advanced persistent threats (APTs).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<hr \/>\n<h4><strong>Talk to us<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>Questions, concerns, or insights on this story? Join discussions at the <a href=\"https:\/\/answers.microsoft.com\/en-us\/protect\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Microsoft community<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/wdsi\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Windows Defender Security Intelligence<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Follow us on Twitter <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WDSecurity\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@WDSecurity.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Microsoft Security Intelligence Report (SIR) provides a regular snapshot of the current threat landscape, using data from more than 600 million computers worldwide. The latest report (SIRv19) was released this week and includes a detailed analysis of the actor group STRONTIUM \u2013 a group that uses zero-day exploits to collect the sensitive information of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_classifai_error":"","footnotes":""},"content-type":[3663],"topic":[3687],"products":[],"threat-intelligence":[3728,3738],"tags":[3829],"coauthors":[1968],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Microsoft Security Intelligence Report: Strontium | Microsoft Security Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/security\/blog\/2015\/11\/16\/microsoft-security-intelligence-report-strontium\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Microsoft Security Intelligence Report: Strontium | Microsoft Security Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Microsoft Security Intelligence Report (SIR) provides a regular snapshot of the current threat landscape, using data from more than 600 million computers worldwide. 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