Severity

High

Analysis Summary

Confucius APT group, an Indian state-sponsored APT group, first started operations in 2013. The group’s main target is Pakistani and other South Asian countries. The group started using mobile malware to infiltrate its victims before it used desktop malware. Android surveillanceware tools like SubBird, ChatSpy, and Hornbill have been used by the group to spy on the victims. Pakistan’s military officials, nuclear authorities, and Indian officials located in Kashmir have also been the chief targets of the threat group. Data that can be exfiltrated by the group is:

• Geolocation
• Call logs
• Device metadata including phone number, IMEI/Android ID, Model and Manufacturer and Android version
• Contacts
• And even WhatsApp voice notes.

The malware used by Confucius is able to take screenshots, scrape WhatsApp messages and contacts, take photos with the device camera, record the environment and call audio.

Confucius has been observed targeting Pakistani officials using a maldoc:

Impact

• Information Theft and Espionage

Indicators of Compromise

MD5

• f8e785b34fdaa77ab672d0c31897903c

SHA-256

• 93047c2f51f76aae091fd70beba152c31f0f6d413e1158b862be680f7bc9a8f3

SHA1

• 99bcbdaa45f7a5e2d3b9a77e87883c46d1464537

Remediation

• Block the threat indicators at their respective controls.
• Search for IOCs in your environment.