Rewterz Threat Advisory – Shuckworm APT Group aka Armageddon – Active IOCs

Severity

High

Analysis Summary

Shuckworm APT – aka Actinium, Armageddon, Primitive Bear, Gamaredon, and Trident Ursa – is a Russia-backed advanced persistent threat (APT) that has been operating since at least 2013. The main goal of this APT is to use the malicious document to gain control of the target machine. The exploit document uses the template injection technique to infect the victim’s computer with further malware. When the document is opened, it connects to the hacker’s server and downloads the payload file. Gamaredon’s tools are simple and designed to collect sensitive information from hacked systems and propagate it further. Its information-gathering efforts are nearly comparable to those of a second-tier APT, whose primary purpose is to collect and disseminate information with their units. The Gamaredon APT group’s current attack leverages a decree document from the Russian Federation government as bait. In July, this APT group targets Ukrainian entities with PowerShell info-stealer malware dubbed GammaLoad.

Impact

• Template Injection 
• Exposure of Sensitive Data

Indicators of Compromise

Domain Name

• hilr.ru

MD5

• 731d0d62bbf5cde9fadf0ebcff7a9d91

SHA-256

• 3bdc2d69d7e1625913cf7a9802396b693004ad84a43ee9e57230d22679b46839

SHA-1

• cf7a985db0e7c8c6f837f56efbfd0ed5ba0417e9

Remediation

• Block all threat indicators at your respective controls.
• Search for Indicators of compromise (IOCs) in your environment utilizing your respective security controls
• Maintain cyber hygiene by updating your anti-virus software and implementing a patch management lifecycle.
• Maintain Offline Backups – In a ransomware attack, the adversary will often delete or encrypt backups if they have access to them. That’s why it’s important to keep offline (preferably off-site), encrypted backups of data and test them regularly.
• Emails from unknown senders should always be treated with caution.
• Never trust or open ” links and attachments received from unknown sources/senders.