Operation Sharpshooter targets nuclear, defense, and energy installations including banking & financial institutions
In a new development, McAfee Advanced Threat Research team and McAfee Labs Malware Operations Group have discovered a new global campaign targeting nuclear, defense, energy, and financial companies, based on McAfee Global Threat Intelligence. This campaign, Operation Sharpshooter, leverages an in-memory implant to download and retrieve a second-stage implant—which we call Rising Sun—for further exploitation. According to McAfee’s analysis, the Rising Sun implant uses source code from the Lazarus Group’s 2015 backdoor Trojan Duuzer in a new framework to infiltrate these key industries.
Operation Sharpshooter’s numerous technical links to the Lazarus Group seem too obvious to immediately draw the conclusion that they are responsible for the attacks, and instead indicate a potential for false flags. Our research focuses on how this actor operates, the global impact, and how to detect the attack. We shall leave attribution to the broader security community.
This campaign, while masquerading as legitimate industry job recruitment activity, gathers information to monitor for potential exploitation. Our analysis also indicates similar techniques associated with other job recruitment campaigns.
Dassault Systèmes acquires manufacturing ERP firm, IQMS
In a new development, McAfee Advanced Threat Research team and McAfee Labs Malware Operations Group have discovered a new global campaign targeting nuclear, defense, energy, and financial companies, based on McAfee Global Threat Intelligence. This campaign, Operation Sharpshooter, leverages an in-memory implant to download and retrieve a second-stage implant—which we call Rising Sun—for further exploitation. According to McAfee’s analysis, the Rising Sun implant uses source code from the Lazarus Group’s 2015 backdoor Trojan Duuzer in a new framework to infiltrate these key industries.
Operation Sharpshooter’s numerous technical links to the Lazarus Group seem too obvious to immediately draw the conclusion that they are responsible for the attacks, and instead indicate a potential for false flags. Our research focuses on how this actor operates, the global impact, and how to detect the attack. We shall leave attribution to the broader security community.
This campaign, while masquerading as legitimate industry job recruitment activity, gathers information to monitor for potential exploitation. Our analysis also indicates similar techniques associated with other job recruitment campaigns.
Qaisar
