Russia-Linked Hackers Launches Espionage Attacks on Foreign Diplomatic Entities

 The Russia-linked APT29 (aka Cozy Bear) threat actor has been attributed to an ongoing cyber espionage campaign targeting foreign ministries and diplomatic entities located in NATO member states, the European Union, and Africa.

According to Poland's Military Counterintelligence Service and the CERT Polska team, the observed activity shares tactical overlaps with a cluster tracked by Microsoft as Nobelium, which is known for its high-profile attack on SolarWinds in 2020.

Nobelium's operations have been attributed to Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), an organization that's tasked with protecting "individuals, society, and the state from foreign threats."

That said, the campaign represents an evolution of the Kremlin-backed hacking group's tactics, indicating persistent attempts at improving its cyber weaponry to infiltrate victim systems for intelligence gathering.

"New tools were used at the same time and independently of each other, or replacing those whose effectiveness had declined, allowing the actor to maintain a continuous, high operational tempo," the agencies said.

The attacks commence with spear-phishing emails impersonating European embassies that aim to entice targeted diplomats into opening malware-laced attachments under the guise of an invitation or a meeting.

Embedded within the PDF attachment is a booby-trapped URL that leads to the deployment of an HTML dropper called EnvyScout (aka ROOTSAW), which is then used as a conduit to deliver three previously unknown strains SNOWYAMBER, HALFRIG, and QUARTERRIG.

SNOWYAMBER, also referred to as GraphicalNeutrino by Recorded Future, leverages the Notion note-taking service for command-and-control (C2) and downloading additional payloads such as Brute Ratel.

QUARTERRIG also functions as a downloader capable of retrieving an executable from an actor-controlled server. HALFRIG, on the other hand, acts as a loader to launch the Cobalt Strike post-exploitation toolkit contained within it.

It's worth noting that the disclosure dovetails with recent findings from BlackBerry, which detailed a Nobelium campaign targeting European Union countries, with a specific emphasis on agencies that are "aiding Ukrainian citizens fleeing the country, and providing help to the government of Ukraine."

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Urgent: Microsoft Issues Patches for 97 Flaws, Including Active Ransomware Exploit

 It's the second Tuesday of the month, and Microsoft has released another set of security updates to fix a total of 97 flaws impacting its software, one of which has been actively exploited in ransomware attacks in the wild.

Seven of the 97 bugs are rated Critical and 90 are rated Important in severity. Interestingly, 45 of the shortcomings are remote code execution flaws, followed by 20 elevations of privilege vulnerabilities. The updates also follow fixes for 26 vulnerabilities in its Edge browser that were released over the past month.

The security flaw that's come under active exploitation is CVE-2023-28252 (CVSS score: 7.8), a privilege escalation bug in the Windows Common Log File System (CLFS) Driver.

"An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could gain SYSTEM privileges," Microsoft said in an advisory, crediting researchers Boris Larin, Genwei Jiang, and Quan Jin for reporting the issue.

CVE-2023-28252 is the fourth privilege escalation flaw in the CLFS component that has come under active abuse in the past year alone after CVE-2022-24521, CVE-2022-37969, and CVE-2023-23376 (CVSS scores: 7.8). At least 32 vulnerabilities have been identified in CLFS since 2018.

According to Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky, the vulnerability has been weaponized by a cybercrime group to deploy Nokoyawa ransomware against small and medium-sized businesses in the Middle East, North America, and Asia.

"CVE-2023-28252 is an out-of-bounds write (increment) vulnerability that can be exploited when the system attempts to extend the metadata block," Larin said. "The vulnerability gets triggered by the manipulation of the base log file."

In light of the ongoing exploitation of the flaw, CISA has added the Windows zero-day to its catalog of Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV), ordering Federal Civilian Executive Branch (FCEB) agencies to secure their systems by May 2, 2023.

Also patched are critical remote code execution flaws impacting DHCP Server Service, Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol, Raw Image Extension, Windows Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol, Windows Pragmatic General Multicast, and Microsoft Message Queuing (MSMQ).

The MSMQ bug tracked as CVE-2023-21554 (CVSS score: 9.8) and dubbed QueueJumper by Check Point, could lead to unauthorized code execution and take over a server by sending a specially crafted malicious MSMQ packet to an MSMQ server.

"The CVE-2023-21554 vulnerability allows an attacker to potentially execute code remotely and without authorization by reaching the TCP port 1801," Check Point researcher Haifei Li said. "In other words, an attacker could gain control of the process through just one packet to the 1801/tcp port with the exploit, triggering the vulnerability."

Two other flaws discovered in MSMQ, CVE-2023-21769, and CVE-2023-28302 (CVSS scores: 7.5), could be exploited to cause a denial-of-service (DoS) condition such as a service crash and Windows Blue Screen of Death (BSOD).

Microsoft has also updated its advisory for CVE-2013-3900, a 10-year-old WinVerifyTrust signature validation vulnerability, to include the following Server Core installation versions -

• Windows Server 2008 for 32-bit Systems Service Pack 2
• Windows Server 2008 for x65-based Systems Service Pack 2
• Windows Server 2008 R2 for x64-based Systems Service 1
• Windows Server 2012
• Windows Server 2012 R2
• Windows Server 2016
• Windows Server 2019, and
• Windows Server 2022

The development comes as North Korea-linked threat actors have been observed leveraging the flaw to incorporate encrypted shellcode into legitimate libraries without invalidating the Microsoft-issued signature.

Microsoft Issues Guidance for BlackLotus Bootkit Attacks#

In tandem with the update, the tech giant also issued guidance for CVE-2022-21894 (aka Baton Drop), a now-fixed Secure Boot bypass flaw that has been exploited by threat actors using a nascent Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) bootkit called BlackLotus to establish persistence on a host.

Some indicators of compromise (IoCs) include recently created and locked bootloader files in the EFI system partition (ESP), event logs associated with the stoppage of Microsoft Defender Antivirus, presence of the staging directory ESP:/system32/, and modifications to the registry key HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\DeviceGuard\Scenarios\HypervisorEnforcedCodeIntegrity.

"UEFI bootkits are particularly dangerous as they run at computer startup, prior to the operating system loading, and therefore can interfere with or deactivate various operating system (OS) security mechanisms," the Microsoft Incident Response team said.

Microsoft further recommends that compromised devices be removed from the network and examined for evidence of follow-on activity, reformat or restore the machines from a known clean backup that includes the EFI partition, maintain credential hygiene, and enforce the principle of least privilege (PoLP).

Software Patches from Other Vendors#

In addition to Microsoft, security updates have also been released by other vendors in the last few weeks to rectify several vulnerabilities, including —

• Adobe
• AMD
• Android
• Apache Projects
• Apple
• Arm
• Aruba Networks
• Cisco
• Citrix
• CODESYS
• Dell
• Drupal
• F5
• Fortinet
• GitLab
• Google Chrome
• HP
• IBM
• Jenkins
• Juniper Networks
• Lenovo
• Linux distributions Debian, Oracle Linux, Red Hat, SUSE, and Ubuntu
• MediaTek
• Mozilla Firefox, Firefox ESR, and Thunderbird
• NETGEAR
• NVIDIA
• Palo Alto Networks
• Qualcomm
• Samba
• Samsung
• SAP
• Schneider Electric
• Siemens
• SonicWall, and
• Sophos

Israel-based Spyware Firm QuaDream Targets High-Risk iPhones with Zero-Click Exploit

 Threat actors using hacking tools from an Israeli surveillance ware vendor named QuaDream targeted at least five members of civil society in North America, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.

According to findings from a group of researchers from the Citizen Lab, the spyware campaign was directed against journalists, political opposition figures, and an NGO worker in 2021. The names of the victims were not disclosed.

It's also suspected that the company abused a zero-click exploit dubbed ENDOFDAYS in iOS 14 to deploy spyware as a zero-day in version 14.4 and 14.4.2. There is no evidence that the exploit has been used after March 2021.

ENDOFDAYS "appears to make use of invisible iCloud calendar invitations sent from the spyware's operator to victims," the researchers said, adding the .ics files contain invites to two backdated and overlapping events so as to not alert the users.

The attacks are suspected to have leveraged a quirk in iOS 14 that any iCloud calendar invitation with a backdated time received by phone is automatically processed and added to the users' calendar without any notification or prompt.

The Microsoft Threat Intelligence team is tracking QuaDream as DEV-0196, describing it as a private-sector offensive actor (PSOA). While the cyber mercenary company is not directly involved in targeting, it is known to sell its "exploitation services and malware" to government customers, the tech giant assessed with high confidence.

The malware, named KingsPawn, contains a monitor agent and the primary malware agent, both of which are Mach-O files written in Objective-C and Go, respectively.

While the monitor agent is responsible for reducing the forensic footprint of the malware to evade detection, the main agent comes with capabilities to gather device information, cellular and Wi-Fi data, harvest files, access camera in the background, access location, call logs, and iOS Keychain, and even generate an iCloud time-based one-time password (TOTP).

Other samples support recording audio from phone calls and the microphone, running queries in SQL databases, and cleaning up forensic trails, such as deleting all calendar events from two years prior to the current time. The data is exfiltrated via HTTPS POST requests.

Internet scans carried out by the Citizen Lab reveal that QuaDream's customers operated 600 servers from several countries around the world between late 2021 and early 2023, including Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Ghana, Israel, Mexico, Singapore, the U.A.E., and Uzbekistan.

Despite attempts made by the spyware to cover its tracks, the interdisciplinary laboratory said it was able to uncover unspecified traces of what it calls the "Ectoplasm Factor" that could be used to track QuaDream's toolset in the future.

This is not the first time QuaDream has attracted attention. In February 2022, Reuters reported that the company weaponized the FORCEDENTRY zero-click exploit in iMessage to deploy a spyware solution named REIGN.

Then in December 2022, Meta disclosed that it took down a network of 250 fake accounts on Facebook and Instagram controlled by QuaDream to infect Android and iOS devices and exfiltrate personal data.

If anything, the development is yet another indication that despite the notoriety attracted by NSO Group, commercial spyware firms continue to fly under the radar and develop sophisticated spyware products for use by government clients.

"Until the out-of-control proliferation of commercial spyware is successfully curtailed through systemic government regulations, the number of abuse cases is likely to continue to grow, fueled both by companies with recognizable names, as well as others still operating in the shadows," the Citizen Lab said.

Calling the growth of mercenary spyware companies a threat to democracy and human rights, Microsoft said combating such offensive actors requires a "collective effort" and a "multistakeholder collaboration."

"Moreover, it is only a matter of time before the use of the tools and technologies they sell spread even further," Amy Hogan-Burney, the company's associate general counsel for cybersecurity policy and protection, said.

"This poses a real risk to human rights online, but also to the security and stability of the broader online environment. The services they offer require cyber mercenaries to stockpile vulnerabilities and search for new ways to access networks without authorization."

Newly Discovered "By-Design" Flaw in Microsoft Azure Could Expose Storage Accounts to Hackers

 A "by-design flaw" uncovered in Microsoft Azure could be exploited by attackers to gain access to storage accounts, move laterally in the environment, and even execute remote code.

"It is possible to abuse and leverage Microsoft Storage Accounts by manipulating Azure Functions to steal access-tokens of higher privilege identities, move laterally, potentially access critical business assets, and execute remote code (RCE)," Orca said.

The exploitation path that underpins this attack is a mechanism called Shared Key authorization, which is enabled by default on storage accounts.

According to Microsoft, Azure generates two 512-bit storage account access keys when creating a storage account. These keys can be used to authorize access to data via Shared Key authorization, or via SAS tokens that are signed with the shared key.

"Storage account access keys provide full access to the configuration of a storage account, as well as the data," Microsoft notes in its documentation. "Access to the shared key grants a user full access to a storage account's configuration and its data."

The cloud security firm said these access tokens can be stolen by manipulating Azure Functions, potentially enabling a threat actor with access to an account with a Storage Account Contributor role to escalate privileges and take over systems.

Specifically, should a managed identity be used to invoke the Function app, it could be abused to execute any command. This, in turn, is made possible owing to the fact that a dedicated storage account is created when deploying an Azure Function app.

"Once an attacker locates the storage account of a Function app that is assigned with a strong managed identity, it can run code on its behalf and as a result acquire a subscription privilege escalation (PE)," Orca researcher Roi Nisimi said.

In other words, by exfiltrating the access token of the Azure Function app's assigned managed identity to a remote server, a threat actor can elevate privileges, move laterally, access new resources, and execute a reverse shell on virtual machines.

"By overriding function files in storage accounts, an attacker can steal and exfiltrate a higher-privileged identity and use it to move laterally, exploit and compromise victims' most valuable crown jewels," Nisimi explained.

As mitigations, it's recommended that organizations consider disabling Azure Shared Key authorization and using Azure Active Directory authentication instead. In a coordinated disclosure, Microsoft said it "plans to update how Functions client tools work with storage accounts."

"This includes changes to better support scenarios using the identity. After identity-based connections for AzureWebJobsStorage are generally available and the new experiences are validated, identity will become the default mode for AzureWebJobsStorage, which is intended to move away from shared key authorization," the tech giant further added.

CISA Warns of 5 Actively Exploited Security Flaws: Urgent Action Required

 The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Friday added five security flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, citing evidence of active exploitation in the wild.

This includes three high-severity flaws in the Veritas Backup Exec Agent software (CVE-2021-27876, CVE-2021-27877, and CVE-2021-27878) that could lead to the execution of privileged commands on the underlying system. The flaws were fixed in a patch released by Veritas in March 2021.

CVE-2021-27876 (CVSS score: 8.1) - Veritas Backup Exec Agent File Access Vulnerability

CVE-2021-27877 (CVSS score: 8.2) - Veritas Backup Exec Agent Improper Authentication Vulnerability

CVE-2021-27878 (CVSS score: 8.8) - Veritas Backup Exec Agent Command Execution Vulnerability

Google-owned Mandiant, in a report published last week, revealed that an affiliate associated with the BlackCat (aka ALPHV and Noberus) ransomware operation is targeting publicly exposed Veritas Backup Exec installations to gain initial access by leveraging the aforementioned three bugs.

The threat intelligence firm, which is tracking the affiliate actor under its uncategorized moniker UNC4466, said it first observed exploitation of the flaws in the wild on October 22, 2022.

In one incident detailed by Mandiant, UNC4466 gained access to an internet-exposed Windows server, followed by carrying out a series of actions that allowed the attacker to deploy the Rust-based ransomware payload, but not before conducting reconnaissance, escalating privileges, and disabling Microsoft Defender's real-time monitoring capability.

Also added by CISA to the KEV catalog is CVE-2019-1388 (CVSS score: 7.8), a privilege escalation flaw impacting Microsoft Windows Certificate Dialog that could be exploited to run processes with elevated permissions on an already compromised host.

The fifth vulnerability included in the list is an information disclosure flaw in Arm Mali GPU Kernel Driver (CVE-2023-26083) that was revealed by Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG) last month as abused by an unnamed spyware vendor as part of an exploit chain to break into Samsung's Android smartphones.

Federal Civilian Executive Branch Agencies (FCEB) have time till April 28, 2023, to apply the patches to secure their networks against potential threats.

The advisory also comes as Apple released updates for iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and Safari web browsers to address a pair of zero-day flaws (CVE-2023-28205 and CVE-2023-28206) that it said has been exploited in real-world attacks.

Researchers Discover Critical Remote Code Execution Flaw in vm2 Sandbox Library

 The maintainers of the vm2 JavaScript sandbox module have shipped a patch to address a critical flaw that could be abused to break out of security boundaries and execute arbitrary shellcodes.

The flaw, which affects all versions, including and prior to 3.9.14, was reported by researchers from South Korea-based KAIST WSP Lab on April 6, 2023, prompting vm2 to release a fix with version 3.9.15 on Friday.

"A threat actor can bypass the sandbox protections to gain remote code execution rights on the host running the sandbox," vm2 disclosed in an advisory.

The vulnerability has been assigned the identified CVE-2023-29017 and is rated 9.8 on the CVSS scoring system. The issue stems from the fact that it does not properly handle errors that occur in asynchronous functions.

vm2 is a popular library that's used to run untrusted code in an isolated environment on Node.js. It has nearly four million weekly downloads and is used in 721 packages.

KAIST security researcher Seongil Wi has also made available two different variants of a proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit for CVE-2023-29017 that get around the sandbox protections and allow the creation of an empty file named "flag" on the host.

The disclosure comes almost six months after vm2 resolved another critical bug (CVE-2022-36067, CVSS score: 10) that could have been weaponized to perform arbitrary operations on the underlying machine.

Taiwanese PC Company MSI Falls Victim to Ransomware Attack

 Taiwanese PC company MSI (short for Micro-Star International) officially confirmed it was the victim of a cyber attack on its systems.

The company said it "promptly" initiated incident response and recovery measures after detecting "network anomalies." It also said it alerted law enforcement agencies of the matter.

That said, MSI did not disclose any specifics about when the attack took place and if it entailed the exfiltration of any proprietary information, including source code.

"Currently, the affected systems have gradually resumed normal operations, with no significant impact on financial business," the company said in a brief notice shared on Friday.

In a regulatory filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange, it said that it's setting up enhanced controls of its network and infrastructure to ensure the security of data.

MSI is further urging users to obtain firmware/BIOS updates only from its official website and refrain from downloading files from other sources.

The disclosure comes as a new ransomware gang known as Money Message added the company to its list of victims. The threat actor was spotlighted by Zscaler late last month.

"The group utilizes a double extortion technique to target its victims, which involves exfiltrating the victim's data before encrypting it," Cyble noted in an analysis published this week. "The group uploads the data on their leak site if the ransom is unpaid."

The development comes a month after Acer confirmed a breach of its own that resulted in the theft of 160 GB of confidential data. It was advertised on March 6, 2023, for sale on the now-defunct BreachForums.