KEY TAKEAWAYS Volexity discovered and reported a vulnerability in Fortinet’s Windows VPN client, FortiClient, where user credentials remain in process memory after a user authenticates to the VPN. This vulnerability was abused by BrazenBamboo in their DEEPDATA malware. BrazenBamboo is the threat actor behind development of the LIGHTSPY malware family. LIGHTSPY variants have been discovered for all major operating systems, including iOS, and Volexity has recently discovered a new Windows variant. In July 2024, Volexity identified exploitation of a zero-day credential disclosure vulnerability in Fortinet’s Windows VPN client that allowed credentials to be stolen from the memory of the client’s process. This vulnerability was discovered while analyzing a recent sample of the DEEPDATA malware family. DEEPDATA is a modular post-exploitation tool for the Windows operating system that is used to gather a wide range of information from target devices. Analysis of the sample revealed a plugin that was designed to […]
APT
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BrazenBamboo Weaponizes FortiClient Vulnerability to Steal VPN Credentials via DEEPDATA
November 15, 2024
by Callum Roxan, Charlie Gardner, Paul Rascagneres
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StormBamboo Compromises ISP to Abuse Insecure Software Update Mechanisms
August 2, 2024
by Ankur Saini, Paul Rascagneres, Steven Adair, Thomas Lancaster
KEY TAKEAWAYS StormBamboo successfully compromised an internet service provider (ISP) in order to poison DNS responses for target organizations. Insecure software update mechanisms were targeted to surreptitiously install malware on victim machines running macOS and Windows. Malware deployed by StormBamboo includes new variants of the MACMA malware. Analysis of the newest versions of MACMA shows converged development of the MACMA and GIMMICK malware families. Post-exploitation activity included deployment of the malicious browser extension RELOADEXT to exfiltrate victim mail data. In mid-2023, Volexity detected and responded to multiple incidents involving systems becoming infected with malware linked to StormBamboo (aka Evasive Panda, and previously tracked by Volexity under “StormCloud”). In those incidents, multiple malware families were found being deployed to macOS and Windows systems across the victim organizations’ networks. The infection vector for this malware was initially difficult to establish but later proved to be the result of a DNS poisoning attack […]
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DISGOMOJI Malware Used to Target Indian Government
June 13, 2024
by Volexity Threat Research
Note: Volexity has reported the activity described in this blog and details of the impacted systems to CERT at the National Informatics Centre (NIC) in India. In 2024, Volexity identified a cyber-espionage campaign undertaken by a suspected Pakistan-based threat actor that Volexity currently tracks under the alias UTA0137. The malware used in these recent campaigns, which Volexity tracks as DISGOMOJI, is written in Golang and compiled for Linux systems. Volexity assesses with high confidence that UTA0137 has espionage-related objectives and a remit to target government entities in India. Based on Volexity’s analysis, UTA0137’s campaigns appear to have been successful. DISGOMOJI appears to be exclusively used by UTA0137. It is a modified version of the public project discord-c2, which uses the messaging service Discord for command and control (C2), making use of emojis for its C2 communication. The use of Linux malware for initial access paired with decoy documents (suggesting a […]
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Detecting Compromise of CVE-2024-3400 on Palo Alto Networks GlobalProtect Devices
May 15, 2024
by Volexity Threat Research
Last month, Volexity reported on its discovery of zero-day, in-the-wild exploitation of CVE-2024-3400 in the GlobalProtect feature of Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS by a threat actor Volexity tracks as UTA0218. Palo Alto Networks released an advisory and threat protection signature for the vulnerability within 48 hours of Volexity’s disclosure of the issue to Palo Alto Networks, with official patches and fixes following soon after. Volexity has conducted several additional incident response investigations and proactive analyses of Palo Alto Networks firewall devices since the initial two cases described in Volexity’s blog post. These recent investigations were based primarily on data collected from customers generating a tech support file (TSF) from their devices and providing them to Volexity. From these investigations and analyses, Volexity has observed the following: Shortly after the advisory for CVE-2024-3400 was released, scanning and exploitation of the vulnerability immediately increased. The uptick in exploitation appears to have been associated […]
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Zero-Day Exploitation of Unauthenticated Remote Code Execution Vulnerability in GlobalProtect (CVE-2024-3400)
April 12, 2024
by Volexity Threat Research
Volexity would like to thank Palo Alto Networks for their partnership, cooperation, and rapid response to this critical issue. Their research can be found here. On April 10, 2024, Volexity identified zero-day exploitation of a vulnerability found within the GlobalProtect feature of Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS at one of its network security monitoring (NSM) customers. Volexity received alerts regarding suspect network traffic emanating from the customer’s firewall. A subsequent investigation determined the device had been compromised. The following day, April 11, 2024, Volexity observed further, identical exploitation at another one of its NSM customers by the same threat actor. The threat actor, which Volexity tracks under the alias UTA0218, was able to remotely exploit the firewall device, create a reverse shell, and download further tools onto the device. The attacker focused on exporting configuration data from the devices, and then leveraging it as an entry point to move laterally within […]
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CharmingCypress: Innovating Persistence
February 13, 2024
by Ankur Saini, Callum Roxan, Charlie Gardner, Damien Cash
Through its managed security services offerings, Volexity routinely identifies spear-phishing campaigns targeting its customers. One persistent threat actor, whose campaigns Volexity frequently observes, is the Iranian-origin threat actor CharmingCypress (aka Charming Kitten, APT42, TA453). Volexity assesses that CharmingCypress is tasked with collecting political intelligence against foreign targets, particularly focusing on think tanks, NGOs, and journalists. In their phishing campaigns, CharmingCypress often employs unusual social-engineering tactics, such as engaging targets in prolonged conversations over email before sending links to malicious content. In a particularly notable spear-phishing campaign observed by Volexity, CharmingCypress went so far as to craft an entirely fake webinar platform to use as part of the lure. CharmingCypress controlled access to this platform, requiring targets to install malware-laden VPN applications prior to granting access. Note: Some content in this blog was recently discussed in Microsoft’s report, New TTPs observed in Mint Sandstorm campaign targeting high-profile individuals at universities and […]
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How Memory Forensics Revealed Exploitation of Ivanti Connect Secure VPN Zero-Day Vulnerabilities
February 1, 2024
by Andrew Case, Michael Hale Ligh, Volexity Volcano Team
In a recent series of blog posts related to two zero-day vulnerabilities in Ivanti Connect Secure VPN, Volexity shared details of active in-the-wild exploitation; provided an update on how exploitation had gone worldwide; and reported observations of how malware and modifications to the built-in Integrity Checker Tool were used to evade detection. A critical piece of Volexity’s initial investigation involved collecting and analyzing a memory sample. As noted in the first blog post of the three-part series (emphasis added): “…Volexity analyzed one of the collected memory samples and uncovered the exploit chain used by the attacker. Volexity discovered two different zero-day exploits which were being chained together to achieve unauthenticated remote code execution (RCE). Through forensic analysis of the memory sample, Volexity was able to recreate two proof-of-concept exploits that allowed full unauthenticated command execution on the ICS VPN appliance.” Collect & Analyze Memory ASAP Volexity regularly prioritizes memory forensics […]
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Ivanti Connect Secure VPN Exploitation: New Observations
January 18, 2024
by Matthew Meltzer, Sean Koessel, Steven Adair
On January 15, 2024, Volexity detailed widespread exploitation of Ivanti Connect Secure VPN vulnerabilities CVE-2024-21887 and CVE-2023-46805. In that blog post, Volexity detailed broader scanning and exploitation by threat actors using still non-public exploits to compromise numerous devices. The following day, January 16, 2024, proof-of-concept code for the exploit was made public. Subsequently, Volexity has observed an increase in attacks from various threat actors against Ivanti Connect Secure VPN appliances beginning the same day. Additionally, Volexity has continued its investigation into activity conducted by UTA0178 and made a few notable discoveries. The first relates to the GIFTEDVISITOR webshell that Volexity scanned for, which led to the initial discovery of over 1,700 compromised Ivanti Connect Secure VPN devices. On January 16, 2024, Volexity conducted a new scan for this backdoor and found an additional 368 compromised Ivanti Connect Secure VPN appliances, bringing the total count of systems infected by GIFTEDVISITOR to […]
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Ivanti Connect Secure VPN Exploitation Goes Global
January 15, 2024
by Cem Gurkok, Paul Rascagneres, Sean Koessel, Steven Adair, Thomas Lancaster
Important: If your organization uses Ivanti Connect Secure VPN and you have not applied the mitigation, then please do that immediately! Organizations should immediately review the results of the built-in Integrity Check Tool for log entries indicating mismatched or new files. As of version 9.1R12, Ivanti started providing a built-in Integrity Checker Tool that can be run as a periodic or scheduled scan. Volexity has observed it successfully detecting the compromises described in this post across impacted organizations. Last week, Ivanti also released an updated version of the external Integrity Checker Tool that can be further used to check and verify systems. On January 10, 2024, Volexity publicly shared details of targeted attacks by UTA0178 exploiting two zero-day vulnerabilities (CVE-2024-21887 and CVE-2023-46805) in Ivanti Connect Secure (ICS) VPN appliances. On the same day, Ivanti published a mitigation that could be applied to ICS VPN appliances to prevent exploitation of these […]
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Active Exploitation of Two Zero-Day Vulnerabilities in Ivanti Connect Secure VPN
January 10, 2024
by Matthew Meltzer, Robert Jan Mora, Sean Koessel, Steven Adair, Thomas Lancaster
Volexity has uncovered active in-the-wild exploitation of two vulnerabilities allowing unauthenticated remote code execution in Ivanti Connect Secure VPN devices. An official security advisory and knowledge base article have been released by Ivanti that includes mitigation that should be applied immediately. However, a mitigation does not remedy a past or ongoing compromise. Systems should simultaneously be thoroughly analyzed per details in this post to look for signs of a breach. During the second week of December 2023, Volexity detected suspicious lateral movement on the network of one of its Network Security Monitoring service customers. Upon closer inspection, Volexity found that an attacker was placing webshells on multiple internal and external-facing web servers. These detections kicked off an incident response investigation across multiple systems that Volexity ultimately tracked back to the organization’s Internet-facing Ivanti Connect Secure (ICS) VPN appliance (formerly known as Pulse Connect Secure, or simply Pulse Secure). A closer inspection […]