Track Common Adversary Tasks Performed Using AppleSeed

By Ashwin Venugopal -

 





To know more about it, you can go through my detailed document by clicking here









Overview

Appleseed is a type of backdoor extensively used by the North Korean threat actors Kimsuky APT (also knows as Thallium, Black Banshee, and Velvet Chollima) to mainly target South Korean government, academic, and commercial sectors since at least 2021. It make use of phishing websites, malicious documents, and scripts to target high profile people in South Korea government.

How Does It Works?

This backdoor generally uses two layer command structure in order to communicate to its command and control server i.e. the first one is the type of command that's required to be executed on the victim, and the second one is only used when the first layer is in upload data mode as well as defines the type of upload. AppleSeed mainly targets the South Korean government people like:
  • Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Korea First Secretary
  • Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Korea Second Secretary
  • Trade Minister
  • Deputy Consul General at Korean Consulate General in Hong Kong
  • International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Nuclear Security Officer
  • Ambassador of the Embassy of Sri Lanka to the State
  • Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Counselor   

It has also extracted information about various South Korean Universities and companies like Seoul National University, Daishin Financial security company, KISA, etc. After successfully launching itself into the network, AppleSeed can steal following information:

  • Basic PC information such as PC name, OS version, processor, memory, etc.
  • User account credentials
  • Network information like IP address, routing table, port usage information, ARP list, etc.
  • List of running processes as well as services
  • Folders and files within Program Files, Programs in the Start menu, and List of recent files, etc.

This backdoor receives commands from the C2 server in order to download and run extra modules or perform whatever task the attacker wish to do.


Remedy

It is highly recommended to patch your public-facing network and use Mimikatz defense guide along with the other defensive techniques in order to improve your defensive stance as well as minimize its impact to your various operations. 















To know more about it, you can go through my detailed document by clicking here




















































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