ESET Analysis
ESET Analysis has performed a complete technical evaluation of Gamaredon’s toolset used to conduct its cyberespionage actions targeted in Ukraine
26 Sep 2024
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5 min. learn
The conflict in Ukraine, which began in February 2014 and intensified with Russia’s invasion of the nation on February 24th, 2022, exemplifies a multifaceted conflict, rife with disinformation campaigns and cyberwarfare. All through these years, ESET Analysis has revealed a number of high-profile cyberattacks performed by Russia-aligned superior persistent risk (APT) teams focusing on Ukrainian entities and Ukrainian audio system, analyzed numerous operations, and saved observe of a number of APT teams specializing in this area due to the conflict.
On this analysis, we determined to look at the operations of Gamaredon, the Russia-aligned group that has been lively since no less than 2013 and is at present probably the most engaged APT group in Ukraine. The depth of the bodily battle has noticeably elevated since 2022, however it’s value noting that the extent of exercise from Gamaredon has remained constant – the group has been methodically deploying its malicious instruments in opposition to its targets since effectively earlier than the invasion started.
Now we have analyzed 1000’s of samples whereas conducting a complete technical evaluation of Gamaredon’s toolset used to conduct its cyberespionage actions in 2022 and 2023; we reveal the outcomes of our evaluation in our white paper, which you’ll be able to learn in full right here:
Within the white paper, we share particulars about Gamaredon’s ever-changing obfuscation tips and quite a few methods used for bypassing domain-based blocking. These ways pose a major problem to monitoring efforts, as they make it tougher for methods to routinely detect and block the group’s instruments. However, throughout our analysis, we managed to establish and perceive these ways, and preserve observe of Gamaredon’s actions. We additionally describe the instruments which are most prevalent or attention-grabbing in another means with a purpose to shed extra mild on the relationships that exist among the many instruments and to assist create an even bigger image of the instruments’ ecosystem.
Victimology and group background
Gamaredon has been attributed by the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) to the 18th Middle of Data Safety of the FSB, working out of occupied Crimea. We imagine this group to be collaborating with one other risk actor that we found and named InvisiMole.
As evidenced over time by ESET telemetry, in several reports from CERT-UA, and from different official Ukrainian our bodies, the vast majority of Gamaredon’s assaults are directed in opposition to Ukrainian governmental establishments. To our shock, in April 2022 and February 2023, we noticed a couple of makes an attempt to compromise targets in a number of NATO international locations, particularly Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland, however no profitable breaches had been noticed.
Between November 1st, 2022 and December 31st 2023, we noticed greater than a thousand distinctive machines in Ukraine that had been attacked by Gamaredon. The seven-day shifting common of every day additions is visualized in Determine 1.
Noisy and reckless, however nonetheless harmful
To compromise new victims, Gamaredon conducts spearphishing campaigns after which makes use of its customized malware to weaponize Phrase paperwork and USB drives accessible to the preliminary sufferer and which are anticipated to be shared with additional potential victims.
Based on our long-term observations, Gamaredon, not like most APT teams, doesn’t attempt to be stealthy and stay hidden so long as attainable through the use of novel methods when conducting cyberespionage operations, however moderately the operators are reckless and don’t thoughts being found by defenders throughout their operations. Regardless that they don’t care a lot about being noisy, they apparently put in a number of effort to keep away from being blocked by safety merchandise and check out very laborious to take care of entry to compromised methods.
Usually, Gamaredon makes an attempt to protect its entry by deploying a number of easy downloaders or backdoors concurrently. The dearth of sophistication of Gamaredon instruments is compensated by frequent updates and use of recurrently altering obfuscation.
A shift in direction of VBScript and PowerShell
Gamaredon’s toolset has undergone a number of adjustments over time. In 2022, the group slowly began to shift towards the usage of VBScript and PowerShell in tandem, and Gamaredon virtually utterly ditched the usage of SFX archives, which had been its major tactic beforehand. Throughout 2023, Gamaredon notably improved its cyberespionage capabilities and developed a number of new instruments in PowerShell, with the deal with stealing priceless information, for instance from internet purposes working inside web browsers, e mail purchasers, and immediate messaging purposes similar to Sign and Telegram.
Nonetheless, PteroBleed, an infostealer we found in August 2023, additionally focuses on stealing information associated to a Ukrainian army system and from a webmail service utilized by a Ukrainian governmental establishment. The timeline of recent instruments launched in 2022 and 2023 is proven in Determine 2; aside from PteroScreen, all of them had been found by ESET Analysis.
Usually, we will categorize Gamaredon’s toolset into downloaders, droppers, weaponizers, stealers, backdoors, and advert hoc instruments. The group makes use of a mixture of general-purpose and devoted downloaders to ship payloads. Droppers are used to ship numerous VBScript payloads; weaponizers alter properties of present recordsdata or create new recordsdata on linked USB drives, and stealers exfiltrate particular recordsdata from the file system. Moreover, backdoors function distant shells, and advert hoc instruments carry out particular features, like a reverse SOCKS proxy or payload supply utilizing the professional command line program rclone.
Quick switching of C&C IP addresses and domains
Our evaluation additionally sheds mild on the group’s community infrastructure. Gamaredon makes use of a way referred to as fast flux DNS – often altering its command and management (C&C) servers’ IP addresses, often a number of occasions per day, to keep away from IP-based blocking. The group additionally often registers and updates many new C&C domains to keep away from domain-based blocking, primarily utilizing .ru because the top-level area (TLD).
Gamaredon has additionally demonstrated resourcefulness by using numerous methods to evade network-based detections, leveraging third-party companies similar to Telegram, Cloudflare, and ngrok.
Regardless of the relative simplicity of its instruments, Gamaredon’s aggressive method and persistence make it a major risk. Given the continued conflict within the area, we anticipate Gamaredon to proceed in its deal with Ukraine.
For a extra detailed evaluation and technical breakdown of Gamaredon’s instruments and actions, you possibly can entry the complete ESET Analysis white paper here.
A complete checklist of indicators of compromise (IoCs) might be present in our GitHub repository and the Gamaredon white paper.
