Rewterz Threat Alert – Donot APT Group – Active IOCs

Severity

High

Analysis Summary

Donot APT group has been actively dropping malicious samples and targeting Government users to exfiltrate data. The hackers’ targets include countries in South Asia, in particular, the state sector of Pakistan. The group has a history of attacking Pakistani government officials and military personnel and has been linked to India. 

They previously targeted Pakistani users with android malware named (StealJob) which was used to target Pakistani android mobile users by Phishing on the name of “Kashmiri Voice” The attackers hunt for confidential information and intellectual property. The hackers’ targets include countries in South Asia, in particular, the state sector of Pakistan.

Also, in the previous month (July, 2022), the threat actor of this APT group used Comodo’s certificate to sign its spyware.

Most recently, this APT gang has incorporated new modules to its Windows spyware framework known as YTY, Jaca. These most recent samples appear to be in use in the wild. The newly added modules include a browser stealer component and a shellcode loader component that examines a fresh reverse shell DLL variation, according to researchers.

The browser stealer component has the ability to steal data from Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, including login passwords and browsing history.

In the most recent spear-phishing email attack, the group was discovered employing RTF documents and targeting government departments. When these RTF documents are opened, they send an HTTP GET call to the C2 server, which retrieves a malicious remote template.

The victim is tricked into enabling malicious macros that are then exploited to inject a reverse shell module when a remote template is inserted.

It is recommended to use technologies like network firewalls, EDR, and XDR to detect abnormalities at the entry stage since the group focuses on crucial security gaps that only a few firms may have plugged in.

Impact

• Information Theft and Espionage

Indicators of Compromise

MD5

• 9714b4cb42dc51f7a8080f2ff224e436

SHA-256

• 26cdb167e972ffd83173f5937bf66cf4685220fd87f0de642d3418fb0e550c1e

SHA-1

• 9608a1a4552bce19b8e7bec37c24da4a59f5851b

Remediation

• Block all threat indicators at your respective controls.
• Search for IOCs in your environment.
• Enable antivirus and anti-malware software and update signature definitions in a timely manner. Using a multi-layered protection is necessary to secure vulnerable assets
• Use technologies like network firewalls, EDR, and XDR to detect abnormalities at the entry stage