• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Block Examples
  • Landing Page

iHash

News and How to's

  • News
    • Rumor
    • Design
    • Concept
    • WWDC
    • Security
    • BigData
  • Apps
    • Free Apps
    • OS X
    • iOS
    • iTunes
      • Music
      • Movie
      • Books
  • How to
    • OS X
      • OS X Mavericks
      • OS X Yosemite
      • Where Download OS X 10.9 Mavericks
    • iOS
      • iOS 7
      • iOS 8
      • iPhone Firmware
      • iPad Firmware
      • iPod touch
      • AppleTV Firmware
      • Where Download iOS 7 Beta
      • Jailbreak News
      • iOS 8 Beta/GM Download Links (mega links) and How to Upgrade
      • iPhone Recovery Mode
      • iPhone DFU Mode
      • How to Upgrade iOS 6 to iOS 7
      • How To Downgrade From iOS 7 Beta to iOS 6
    • Other
      • Disable Apple Remote Control
      • Pair Apple Remote Control
      • Unpair Apple Remote Control
  • Special Offers
  • Contact us

Experts Uncover Malware Attacks Against Colombian Government and Companies

Jan 14, 2021 by iHash Leave a Comment

hacker malware

Cybersecurity researchers took the wraps off an ongoing surveillance campaign directed against Colombian government institutions and private companies in the energy and metallurgical industries.

In a report published by ESET on Tuesday, the Slovak internet security company said the attacks — dubbed “Operation Spalax” — began in 2020, with the modus operandi sharing some similarities to an APT group targeting the country since at least April 2018, but also different in other ways.

The overlaps come in the form of phishing emails, which have similar topics and pretend to come from some of the same entities that were used in a February 2019 operation disclosed by QiAnXin researchers, and subdomain names used for command-and-control (C2) servers.

However, the two campaigns diverge in the attachments used for phishing emails, the remote access trojans (RATs) deployed, and the C2 infrastructure employed to fetch the malware dropped.

The attack chain begins with the targets receiving phishing emails that lead to the download of malicious files, which are RAR archives hosted on OneDrive or MediaFire containing various droppers responsible for decrypting and running RATs such as Remcos, njRAT, and AsyncRAT on a victimized computer.

malware attacks

The phishing emails cover a wide range of topics, including those about driving infractions, attend court hearings, and take mandatory COVID-19 tests, thus increasing the likelihood that unsuspecting users will open the messages.

In an alternate scenario observed by ESET, the attackers were also found to use heavily obfuscated AutoIt droppers that used shellcode to decrypt the payload and another to inject it into an already running process.

The RATs not only come with capabilities for remote control but also to spy on targets by capturing keystrokes, recording screenshots, stealing clipboard data, exfiltrating sensitive documents, and even downloading and executing other malware.

ESET’s analysis also revealed a scalable C2 architecture operated using a Dynamic DNS service that allowed them to dynamically assign a domain name to an IP address from a pool of 70 different domain names and 24 IP addresses in the second half of 2020 alone.

“Targeted malware attacks against Colombian entities have been scaled up since the campaigns that were described last year,” the researchers concluded. “The landscape has changed from a campaign that had a handful of C2 servers and domain names to a campaign with very large and fast-changing infrastructure with hundreds of domain names used since 2019.”

Source link

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn

Filed Under: Security Tagged With: attacks, Colombian, Companies, computer security, cyber attacks, cyber news, cyber security news, cyber security news today, cyber security updates, cyber updates, data breach, Experts, Government, hacker news, hacking news, how to hack, information security, Malware, network security, ransomware malware, software vulnerability, the hacker news, Uncover

Special Offers

  • Swarovski Vintage Swan Gold Tone Dark Multi-Colored Crystal Necklace (Store-Display Model) for $52

    Swarovski Vintage Swan Gold Tone Dark Multi-Colored Crystal Necklace (Store-Display Model) for $52
  • Accordina Ambient LED Collapsible Wireless Phone Charger for $29

    Accordina Ambient LED Collapsible Wireless Phone Charger for $29
  • Swarovski "Bee A Queen" Rhodium-Plated Crystal Necklace & Earring Set (Store-Display Model) for $84

    Swarovski "Bee A Queen" Rhodium-Plated Crystal Necklace & Earring Set (Store-Display Model) for $84
  • Swarovski New Love Gold Tone Dark Multi-Colored Crystal Necklace (Store-Display Model) for $65

    Swarovski New Love Gold Tone Dark Multi-Colored Crystal Necklace (Store-Display Model) for $65
  • TiVo Bolt OTA for Antenna Allin-One Live TV DVR and Streaming Apps Device 1000GB (Used, Damaged Retail Box) for $279

    TiVo Bolt OTA for Antenna Allin-One Live TV DVR and Streaming Apps Device 1000GB (Used, Damaged Retail Box) for $279

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

E-mail Newsletter

  • Facebook
  • GitHub
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

More to See

Accordina Ambient LED Collapsible Wireless Phone Charger for $29

Apr 14, 2021 By iHash

Desktop Window Manager vulnerability CVE-2021-28310 exploited ITW

Desktop Window Manager vulnerability CVE-2021-28310 exploited ITW

Apr 14, 2021 By iHash

Tags

* Apple computer security cyber attacks cyber crime cyber news cybersecurity Cyber Security cyber security news cyber security news today cyber security updates cyber threats cyber updates data breach data breaches google hacker hacker news Hackers hacking hacking news how to hack incident response information security iOS iOS 7 iOS 8 iPad iPhone iPhone 6 Malware microsoft network security OS X Yosemite Privacy ransomware malware risk management security security breaches security vulnerabilities software vulnerability the hacker news update video web applications
Copyright iHash.eu © 2021
We use cookies on this website. By using this site, you agree that we may store and access cookies on your device. Accept Read More
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled

Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.

Non-necessary

Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.