@BushidoToken Threat Intel

  Introduction The BBC World Service has recently produced The Lazarus Heist podcast (available here ), researched and presented by Geoff White and  Jean H. Lee . This thrilling podcast dives into the intracacies of the elaborate Bangladesh Bank heist attempt to steal $1 billion. As a security researcher that actively tracks the Lazarus group and any mentions of North Korean cyber activity, I found this podcast series was extremely detailed and well researched. There are so many additional info gems that anyone who has researched North Korea will enjoy. I also highly recommend it for any threat intelligence analysts investigating North Korean cyber activity.  The Lazarus Heist podcast also made me want to revisit what I have learned about North Korean advanced persistent threat (APT) groups. In February 2020, I blogged about who the Lazarus group is and what campaigns they are known for (see here ). This was one of my first blogs and I was eager to learn more while resea...

  Malicious Word doucments titled “Pyongyang stores low on foreign goods amid North Korean COVID-19 paranoia.doc” were recently uploaded to malware submission sites such as ANY.RUN, VMRay, and VirusTotal: Analysis of the Word documents revealed that a VBA macro is used to drop a secondary payload and connects the infected device to the adversary’s command and control (C&C) server. The malware used in this attack is detected as the Amadey Trojan, a commodity tool used for credential harvesting and remote control by threat actors of all skill levels. The payload is hosted on a compromised website and is retrieved by the Amadey Trojan once the malicious macros are enabled. VirusTotal campaign graph: Analysis: Commodity malware, such as the Amadey Trojan, is a concern because it does not require its operator to have any development capability, only the capacity to deploy it. This increases the number of potential attackers in the ecosystem. Furthermore, commodit...

UPDATE - 29.06.2022: On 28 June 2022, NKNews.org cited this blog in their research on DarkHotel. In November 2021, I decided to revisit this blog and rethink some of the things I said. Parts of this blog are not what I would currently consider analytically sound. This was written over 2 years ago and my skills and my perspective on this group have changed a lot since then. 📝 I decided to review and rethink some of the things I wrote in one of my more popular blogs, which was received well(ish) but was not what I would currently consider analytically sound. This was written nearly 1.5 yrs ago and my perspective has changed 1/7 https://t.co/Nk3amxHHiQ — Will (@BushidoToken) November 29, 2021 Originally published on 14.06.2020 PART 1: DARKHOTEL DarkHotel is a sophisticated and active advanced persistent threat (APT) group. It’s highly capable and is known for finding and taking advantage of previously unknown vulnerabilities in common software also known as a 0day. It is a well-est...

“The North Korean-based Lazarus Group is a state-sponsored hacking organization responsible for some of the costliest computer intrusions in history, including the cyber attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment, a series of attacks targeting banks across the world that collectively attempted to steal more than one billion dollars, and the WannaCry ransomware attack that affected tens of thousands of computer systems across the globe. ” - Federal Bureau of Investigation, US Department of Justice. Although it may seem unusual to those outside of the security industry, North Korea presents one of the greatest cyber threats on the global stage, to the financial sector, to critical infrastructure, to multinational conglomerates, and it will employ cyber-espionage and cyber-warfare against the regime's opposition. The main way security researchers and vendors track North Korean activity is through attributing attacks to the Lazarus advanced persistent threat (APT). However, this gr...