Rewterz Threat Alert – 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 malwar dubbed GammaLoad.

Impact

• Template Injection 
• Sensitive Data Exposure

Indicators of Compromise

MD5

• a8484b0d0171f2fd759ce4a8e024a81e
• 341879622d76cdb6a8fc2c73e4313783

SHA-256

• f119cc4cb5a7972bdc80548982b2b63fac5b48d5fce1517270db67c858e9e8b0
• 50733868622234239cedcaaf56a6a980d4caf95e0122ffdfbef1c8f4e0ed0006

SHA-1

• 7045ae0346675a4930cd00358946b3621296ccf2
• c69b06e9d62bd142884b384626cec599656edf8a

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.