The North Korean-backed Lazarus hacking group employed a new backdoor in targeted attacks against a South African freight and logistics company. ESET researchers first discovered the malware in June 2020, but further evidence suggests Lazarus has been using it in previous attacks going back to at least December 2020.
The new backdoor malware, dubbed Vyveva is one of the latest tools discovered in the Lazarus armory. Vyveva has the capability of exfiltrating files, gathering data from an exploited machine and its drives, remotely connect to a command-and-control (C2) server and run arbitrary code. It also uses watchdogs to keep track of newly connected drives or the active user sessions to trigger new C2 connections on new sessions or drive events.
While ESET researchers have not gained much success in identifying the initial compromise vector but they have discovered three main components comprising Vyveva – its installer, loader and backdoor. Vyveva also consists a ‘timestomping’ option which allows its operators to manipulate any file’s data using metadata from other files on the system or by setting a random date between 2000 and 2004 to hide new or modified files.
“Vyveva shares multiple code similarities with older Lazarus samples that are detected by ESET technology. However, the similarities do not end there: the use of a fake TLS protocol in network communication, command-like execution chains, and the methods of using encryption and Tor services all point toward Lazarus. Hence, we can attribute Vyveva to this APT group with high confidence,” security researcher Filip Jurcacko stated.
According to the US government, Lazarus group was formed in 2007 and since then, as per the researchers, the group has been responsible for the $80 million Bangladeshi bank heist and the HaoBao Bitcoin-stealing campaign. The Lazarus Group’s activities were widely reported only after it was blamed for the 2014 cyber-attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment and the 2017 WannaCry ransomware attack on the countries including the US and Britain.