Rewterz Threat Alert – Shuckworm APT Group aka Armageddon – Active IOCs

Severity

High

Analysis Summary

Shuckworm APT – aka Actinium, Armageddon, Primitive Bear, Gamaredon, and Trident Ursa – is a Russia-backed advanced persistent threat (APT) that has been operating since at least 2013. The main goal of this APT is to use the malicious document to gain control of the target machine. The exploit document uses the template injection technique to infect the victim’s computer with further malware. When the document is opened, it connects to the hacker’s server and downloads the payload file. Gamaredon’s tools are simple and designed to collect sensitive information from hacked systems and propagate it further. Its information-gathering efforts are nearly comparable to those of a second-tier APT, whose primary purpose is to collect and disseminate information with their units. The Gamaredon APT group’s current attack leverages a decree document from the Russian Federation government as bait. In July, this APT group targets Ukrainian entities with PowerShell info-stealer malware dubbed GammaLoad.

Impact

• Template Injection
• Sensitive Data Exposure

Indicators of Compromise

URL

• https://hilr.ru/07.11/growth.rtf
• https://magnolian.site/bang.rtf

MD5

• c9b0e7bf08a61b9e4d91642788533724
• ab8600c3150ff6a5a803130438fdfae9

SHA-256

• 0d141ec2034ad934dff08183a7a334605dd11ca9075bdcd6ab176dfb014acfcf
• 53f472e9a3d3471a76f13d12417229d23efd11b047353db8b71793feacafb029

SHA-1

• 353dd5e6925c05a1cfc77f684d18f2775bfe31ec
• dc49af959b5e7a4754b96cb47a9fda95cba9846c

Remediation

• Block all threat indicators at your respective controls.
• Search for Indicators of compromise (IOCs) in your environment utilizing your respective security controls
• Maintain cyber hygiene by updating your anti-virus software and implementing a patch management lifecycle.
• Maintain Offline Backups – In a ransomware attack, the adversary will often delete or encrypt backups if they have access to them. That’s why it’s important to keep offline (preferably off-site), encrypted backups of data and test them regularly.
• Emails from unknown senders should always be treated with caution.
• Never trust or open ” links and attachments received from unknown sources/senders.