March 29, 2024

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Multifaceted MATA Malware Framework Linked to North Korea

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“Used to aggressively infiltrate corporate entities close to the world”

Russian security company Kaspersky says it has learned a novel new multi-platform malware framework featuring a rich array of loaders, orchestrators and plugins that is equipped to concentrate on Home windows, Linux and macOS running techniques.

Dubbing it “MATA”, Kasperky joined it (arguably somewhat tenuously) to the North Korean Lazarus APT. (MATA “uses two one of a kind filenames, c_2910.cls and k_3872.cls” talked about in the US-CERT publication on North Korean danger actors).

Worryingly, Kaspersky mentioned the Linux model (“containing distinctive MATA information collectively with a established of hacking tools”) was discovered on a legit distribution web-site.

Kaspersky did not identify the web-site or the distro. (Laptop or computer Enterprise Overview has contacted the company for a lot more particulars and will update when we get them).

The bundle provided a Linux device for listing folders, scripts for exploiting Atlassian Confluence Server (CVE-2019-3396), a legit socat device and a Linux model of the MATA orchestrator bundled collectively with a established of plugins. (China-primarily based security vendor Netlab has also released a in-depth web site on this malware.)

The orchestrator malware loads encrypted configuration info from a registry crucial and decrypts it with the AES algorithm, Kaspersky mentioned. It can then go on to load 15 plugins at the similar time. There are three methods to load them:

  • Down load the plugin from the specified HTTP or HTTPS server
  • Load the AES-encrypted plugin file from a specified disk path
  • Down load the plugin file from the latest MataNet relationship

“For covert communication, they make use of TLS1.2 connections with the assist of the “openssl-1.1.0f” open up source library, which is statically joined within this module”, Kaspersky’s scientists mentioned. “Additionally, the site visitors between MataNet nodes is encrypted with a random RC4 session crucial. MataNet implements equally shopper and server mode. In server mode the certificate file “c_2910.cls” and the private crucial file “k_3872.cls” are loaded for TLS encryption.”

The first history of the framework getting utilized goes as much back again as April 2018 and since then it has been utilized to “aggressively to infiltrate corporate entities close to the world”, which include to steal shopper lists and distribute ransomware.

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Kacey Clark, danger researcher at cyber security company Electronic Shadows, advised Laptop or computer Enterprise Overview: “To day, reporting suggests that MATA has actively been utilized to concentrate on victims in several sectors, this kind of as e-commerce and technology, throughout Germany, India, Japan, Korea, Turkey, and Poland.”

 

Multi-Platform Malware Framework
Pic @ Kaspersky Labs

 

“Researchers have prompt that the links to Lazarus are thanks to the discovery of two one of a kind filenames in MATA that have only beforehand been noticed in malware connected with Lazarus. The links between Lazarus and MATA are tentative at this phase.”

VHD Ransomware

Kaspersky mentioned it also discovered proof in some MATA attacks of a notably horrible ransomware named VHD ransomware.

Not only does this encrypt all info on the Computer system with the strongest encryption method, it eliminates all shadow copies of information and program restore factors, to stop the consumer from recovering anything at all on their own, and improvements the file extension to .vhd, which can make the information permanently inoperative.

Indicators of Compromise can be discovered in this article.