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://admin-dpsu.org/24.11_mo/instruct.rtf
MD5
- 21a643c6cd068e4e6c7fe761defe4ead
- 2409920929c71b8d2b3504a1fbdc14c7
SHA-256
- 346e04e4aac231d8bbf050413c7035e45d0b55abe34b689c162b4254cdcfdec2
- 2de7c6cbb107b72c67711008a704284f24a0e7294316109b87bb6ff1b06fe397
SHA-1
- 99054131303aa08b1f9402ab16015aa50ec27e46
- db2b80c352e9506fb5f3b0315ea22febbde814b2
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.