North Korean menace actors have leveraged a faux Home windows video conferencing utility impersonating FreeConference.com to backdoor developer techniques as a part of an ongoing financially-driven marketing campaign dubbed Contagious Interview.
The brand new assault wave, noticed by Singaporean firm Group-IB in mid-August 2024, is one more indication that the exercise can also be leveraging native installers for Home windows and Apple macOS to ship malware.
Contagious Interview, additionally tracked as DEV#POPPER, is a malicious marketing campaign orchestrated by a North Korean menace actor tracked by CrowdStrike underneath the moniker Well-known Chollima.
The assault chains start with a fictitious job interview, tricking job seekers into downloading and operating a Node.js undertaking that comprises the BeaverTail downloader malware, which in flip delivers a cross-platform Python backdoor often known as InvisibleFerret, which is supplied with distant management, keylogging, and browser stealing capabilities.
Some iterations of BeaverTail, which additionally features as an info stealer, have manifested within the type of JavaScript malware, sometimes distributed through bogus npm packages as a part of a purported technical evaluation in the course of the interview course of.
However that modified in July 2024 when the Home windows MSI installer and Apple macOS disk picture (DMG) recordsdata masquerading because the professional MiroTalk video conferencing software program had been found within the wild, appearing as a conduit to deploy an up to date model of BeaverTail.
The newest findings from Group-IB, which has attributed the marketing campaign to the notorious Lazarus Group, counsel that the menace actor is constant to lean on this particular distribution mechanism, the one distinction being that the installer (“FCCCall.msi”) mimics FreeConference.com as an alternative of MiroTalk.
It is believed that the phony installer is downloaded from an internet site named freeconference[.]io, which makes use of the identical registrar as the fictional mirotalk[.]internet web site.
“Along with Linkedin, Lazarus can also be actively trying to find potential victims on different job search platforms similar to WWR, Moonlight, Upwork, and others,” safety researcher Sharmine Low mentioned.
“After making preliminary contact, they’d usually try to maneuver the dialog onto Telegram, the place they’d then ask the potential interviewees to obtain a video conferencing utility, or a Node.js undertaking, to carry out a technical process as a part of the interview course of.”
In an indication that the marketing campaign is present process lively refinement, the menace actors have been noticed injecting the malicious JavaScript into each cryptocurrency- and gaming-related repositories. The JavaScript code, for its half, is designed to retrieve the BeaverTail Javascript code from the area ipcheck[.]cloud or regioncheck[.]internet.
It is price mentioning right here that this conduct was additionally lately highlighted by software program provide chain safety agency Phylum in reference to an npm package deal named helmet-validate, suggesting that the menace actors are concurrently making use of various propagation vectors.
One other notable change is that BeaverTail is now configured to extract information from extra cryptocurrency pockets extensions similar to Kaikas, Rabby, Argent X, and Exodus Web3, along with implementing performance to ascertain persistence utilizing AnyDesk.
That is not all. BeaverTail’s information-stealing options are actually realized by way of a set of Python scripts, collectively referred to as CivetQ, which is able to harvesting cookies, internet browser information, keystrokes, and clipboard content material, and delivering extra scripts. A complete of 74 browser extensions are focused by the malware.
“The malware is ready to steal information from Microsoft Sticky Notes by focusing on the applying’s SQLite database recordsdata positioned at `%LocalAppDatapercentPackagesMicrosoft.MicrosoftStickyNotes_8wekyb3d8bbweLocalStateplum.sqlite,` the place consumer notes are saved in an unencrypted format,” Low mentioned.
“By querying and extracting information from this database, the malware can retrieve and exfiltrate delicate info from the sufferer’s Sticky Notes utility.”
The emergence of CivetQ factors to a modularized strategy, whereas additionally underscoring that the instruments are underneath lively improvement and have been continually evolving in little increments over the previous few months.
“Lazarus has up to date their techniques, upgraded their instruments, and located higher methods to hide their actions,” Low mentioned. “They present no indicators of easing their efforts, with their marketing campaign focusing on job seekers extending into 2024 and to the current day. Their assaults have change into more and more inventive, and they’re now increasing their attain throughout extra platforms.”
The disclosure comes because the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) warned of North Korean cyber actors’ aggressive focusing on of the cryptocurrency trade utilizing “well-disguised” social engineering assaults to facilitate cryptocurrency theft.
“North Korean social engineering schemes are advanced and elaborate, usually compromising victims with refined technical acumen,” the FBI mentioned in an advisory launched Tuesday, stating the menace actors scout potential victims by reviewing their social media exercise on skilled networking or employment-related platforms.
“Groups of North Korean malicious cyber actors establish particular DeFi or cryptocurrency-related companies to focus on and try to socially engineer dozens of those firms’ staff to achieve unauthorized entry to the corporate’s community.”
