[Update: Following additional analysis of shellcode used in ICONIC, in conjunction with other observations from the wider security community, Volexity now attributes the activity described in this post to the Lazarus threat actor. Specifically, in addition to other claims of similarity, the shellcode sequence {E8 00 00 00 00 59 49 89 C8 48 81 C1 58 06 00 00} appears to have been only used in the ICONIC loader and the APPLEJEUS malware, which is known to be linked to Lazarus. The original post has been left as written.] On Wednesday, March 29, 2023, Volexity became aware of a supply chain compromise by a suspected North Korean threat actor, which Volexity tracks as UTA0040*. Endpoints with the 3CX Desktop application installed received a malicious update of this software that was signed by 3CX and downloaded from their servers. This was part of the default automatic update process and would […]
Monthly Archives: March, 2023
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3CX Supply Chain Compromise Leads to ICONIC Incident
March 30, 2023
by Ankur Saini, Callum Roxan, Charlie Gardner, Paul Rascagneres, Steven Adair, Thomas Lancaster
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Using Memory Analysis to Detect EDR-Nullifying Malware
March 7, 2023
by Paul Rascagneres, Volexity Volcano Team
In the ever-changing cybersecurity landscape, threat actors are forced to evolve and continually modify the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) they employ to launch and sustain attacks successfully. They are continually modifying their malware and command-execution methods to evade detection. The attackers in these cases are attempting to get a step ahead of security software at the most basic level. However, some techniques take a different approach, aiming further up the stack and directly taking on security software. The most brazen methods involve leveraging various tools that directly terminate or shutdown security software. If successful, this method is effective at giving an attacker free reign on a system. However, it comes at the potential cost of alerting users or administrators that the software unexpectedly stopped reporting or was shut off. What about a technique that potentially flies a bit more under the radar? In November 2022, Trend Micro published a […]