According to analysts, criminals attacking telcos in the Middle East and Asia over the last six months have been connected to Iranian state-sponsored cybercriminals. Cyberespionage tactics use a potent combination of spear phishing, recognized malware, and genuine network tools to steal sensitive information and potentially disrupt supply chains.
Analysts detailed their results in a study released on Tuesday, claiming that attacks are targeting a variety of IT services firms as well as utility companies. As per a report issued by Symantec Threat Hunter Team, a subsidiary of Broadcom, malicious actors seem to obtain access to networks via spear-phishing and then steal passwords to migrate laterally.
“Organizations in Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Thailand, and Laos were targeted in the campaign, which appears to have made no use of custom malware and instead relied on a mixture of legitimate tools, publicly available malware, and living-off-the-land tactics,” researchers wrote in the report.
However the hackers' identities are unknown, analysts believe they may be associated with the Iranian organization Seedworm, also known as MuddyWater or TEMP.Zagros. In the past, this organization has conducted significant phishing efforts targeting enterprises in Asia and the Middle East to steal passwords and gain resilience in the target's networks.
Researchers discovered two IP addresses used throughout the operation that had already been related to Seedworm activity, as well as some tool overlap, particularly SharpChisel and Password Dumper, they claimed.
Whilst there has already been threat activity from Iran against telcos in the Middle East and Asia—for instance, the Iranian Chafer APT targeted a major Middle East telco in 2018—a Symantec spokesperson termed the action detailed in the report "a step up" in its focus as well as a prospective harbinger of larger attacks to come.
According to the analysts, a conventional attack in the latest campaign started with attackers penetrating a specified network and then trying to steal passwords to move laterally so that web shells could be launched onto Exchange Servers.
Researchers dissected a particular attack launched in August on a Middle Eastern telecom provider. According to the experts, the first sign of penetration, in that case, was the development of a service to execute an unidentified Windows Script File (WSF).
Scripts were then utilized by attackers to execute different domain, user discovery, and remote service discovery commands, and PowerShell was ultimately utilized to download and execute files and scripts. According to analysts, attackers also used a remote access tool that purported to query Exchange Servers of other firms.
According to the researchers, attackers were interested in leveraging some hacked firms as stepping stones or just to target organizations other than the first one to build a supply-chain attack.
“A suspected ScreenConnect setup MSI appeared to have been delivered in a zipped file named ‘Special discount program.zip,’ suggesting that it arrived in a spear-phishing email,” they wrote.
