Our comprehensive, active tracking of Dudear operations, attributed to the threat actor CHIMBORAZO (aka TA505), shows that these campaigns relentlessly use multiple layers of detection evasion techniques to try and slip through defenses.
These techniques include the routine use of varying social engineering lures (recent ones include Expense report, fake Citrix ShareFile email, and fake Dropbox notification) and download websites that block traffic from automated analysis, in addition to the CAPTCHA challenge.
The email campaigns also switch between using HTML attachments that lead to a series of redirector websites before eventually leading to the download website, and using malicious URLs that download the malicious HTML, or both.
The downloaded Excel file contains a malicious macro that, per usual, drops the GraceWire payload that is embedded to the document. As another evasion tactic, the embedded file contains a PNG file that contains 2 DLL files, the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the GraceWire loader.
Even with these evasion tactics, however, Dudear campaigns are detected by Microsoft Threat Protection, driven by its visibility into emails, files, and network activities, and experts who connect the dots to deliver comprehensive protection.
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Microsoft Threat Intelligence has observed North Korean state actor Emerald Sleet (also known as Kimsuky and VELVET CHOLLIMA) using a new tactic: tricking targets into running PowerShell as an administrator and then pasting and running code provided by the threat actor.
To execute this tactic, the threat actor masquerades as a South Korean government official and over time builds rapport with a target before sending a spear-phishing email with an PDF attachment.
To read the PDF file attached to the email, the target is lured to click a URL with instructions to register their device. The registration link has instructions to open PowerShell as an administrator and paste code provided by Emerald Sleet.
In the last quarter of 2024, Microsoft Threat Intelligence observed developments in the ransomware ecosystem that researchers and defenders should watch for in 2025. 🧵
Exploitation of vulnerabilities remains a key method for initial access. In October, the threat actor Lace Tempest, known for exploiting 0-days in file-transfer software, was observed exploiting vulnerabilities in Cleo products (CVE-2024-50623, CVE-2024-55956).
This exploitation activity increased in December and, as in past campaigns, Lace Tempest performed double extortion via the Clop leak site. Among ransomware leak sites, however, RansomHub saw the most activity.
Microsoft Threat Intelligence has observed Russian threat actor Midnight Blizzard sending a series of highly targeted spear-phishing emails to individuals in government, academia, defense, non-governmental organizations, and other sectors. msft.it/6011W3CGX
Based on our investigation of previous Midnight Blizzard spear-phishing campaigns, we assess that the goal of this operation is likely intelligence collection.
The spear-phishing emails in this campaign were sent to thousands of targets in over 100 organizations and contained a signed Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) configuration file that connected to an actor-controlled server.
Microsoft observed the financially motivated threat actor tracked as Vanilla Tempest using INC ransomware for the first time to target the healthcare sector in the United States.
Vanilla Tempest receives hand-offs from Gootloader infections by the threat actor Storm-0494, before deploying tools like the Supper backdoor, the legitimate AnyDesk remote monitoring and management (RMM) tool, and the MEGA data synchronization tool.
The threat actor then performs lateral movement through Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) and uses the Windows Management Instrumentation Provider Host to deploy the INC ransomware payload.
In the second quarter of 2024, financially motivated threat actor Octo Tempest, our most closely tracked ransomware threat actor, added RansomHub and Qilin to its ransomware payloads in campaigns.
Octo Tempest, known for its sophisticated social engineering techniques, identity compromise and persistence, focus on targeting VMWare ESXi servers, and deployment of BlackCat ransomware, accounts for a significant bulk of our investigations and incident response engagements.
RansomHub is a ransomware as a service (RaaS) payload used by more and more threat actors, including ones that have historically used other (sometimes defunct) ransomware payloads (like BlackCat), making it one of the most widespread ransomware families today.
Microsoft has observed the Iranian nation-state actor Peach Sandstorm attempting to deliver a newly developed backdoor named FalseFont to individuals working for organizations in the Defense Industrial Base (DIB) sector.
FalseFont is a custom backdoor with a wide range of functionalities that allow operators to remotely access an infected system, launch additional files, and send information to its C2 servers. It was first observed being used against targets in early November 2023.
The development and use of FalseFont is consistent with Peach Sandstorm activity observed by Microsoft over the past year, suggesting that Peach Sandstorm is continuing to improve their tradecraft.