Axiom: A Highly Sophisticated Cyber Espionage Group

By Ashwin Venugopal -

 





Introduction

Axiom is a highly sophisticated suspected Chinese cyber espionage group. It has targeted aerospace, defense, and the other government as well as media and manufacturing industries since 2008. It seems identical to the Winnti group and distinct according to their TTPs and targeting. It had attacked countries like North America, Europe, and East and Southeast Asia. 

Characteristics

Some of the main characteristics of the Axiom hacker group are as follows:

  • They use sphere phishing to attack, along with Adobe Ghost, Poison Ivy, and Torn RAT malwares. 

  • This group has been active at least since 2008 and is estimated to have been backed by the Chinese government. It uses many malwares identical to the ones used in Chinese government operations, indicating some form of collaboration. 

  • It has the ability to leverage publicly available tools. It initially starts by tricking the victims via phishing emails before deploying the malwares like Ghost RAT trojan to maintain its persistence on a compromised network. 

  • It extensively make use of a compromised website and web-server for its attack. It leverages a large amount of cache of tools in its campaign and also includes the exploits to take advantage of the known CVE software vulnerabilities. 

  • Once inside, it gains usernames and passwords via its credential-harvesting tools. After that, it can easily reach anything across the network and move laterally within the environment to ultimately steal the confidential data. 

Prevention

In order to overcome such attacks a highly advanced cybersecurity program must be utilized. It should also contain some of the most advanced security solutions, email as well as web content filtering, antiviruses, and threat hunting measures. Application of Zero Trust Model, Multifactor Authentication, in-depth defense, etc., are a must to prevent and mitigate the potential damage done by Axiom.

Takeaway!

Axiom poses a great threat to various government organizations of different countries. However, it is not impossible to stop and/or mitigate its attacks. Making use of all the advanced anti-threat technologies can surely help in identifying and hunting its malware or spyware. Regular trainings of employees regarding various threat actors and regular network checkups can be of great help in fighting with it.







To know more, read- Axiom




































Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Deployment (Part 3)

By Ashwin Venugopal -
Image
  To read part 1, please click  here To read part 2, please click  here Microsoft Monitoring Agent (MMA) MMA is used across multiple Microsoft solutions and has undergone a few name changes as its features and functionality have evolved. If it is being considered to be used, then following areas should be covered during a Microsoft Sentinel deployment project: Consider the timelines and the strategy for a migration to AMA (Azure Monitor Agent) before the MMA end-of-life.  Consider the central deployment and management methodology for MMA. Determine which endpoints are in scope for deployment as these affect the log ingestion volume significantly.  Azure Monitor Agent (AMA) Organizations with MMA as the main Microsoft Sentinel agent should start planning the migration to AMA as soon as possible to avoid a rushed migration. One of the main advantages of AMA is the ability to control the log collection policy centrally and apply different policies against different...
Read more

Deployment (Part 1)

By Ashwin Venugopal -
Image
  To read part 2, please click  here To read part 3, please click  here Azure Resources Microsoft Sentinel needs following resources to be created: Subscription (if a dedicated subscription(s) will be used) Resource group(s) Log Analytics workspace(s) Automation rules/playbook Alert rules Workbooks Microsoft Sentinel offers hundreds of alert rules, workbooks, and automation playbook templates along with hunting scripts. The templates can be used to activate/deploy schedule alerts, create customized dashboards, create automation playbooks and perform threat-hunting activities. Generally, once deployed, the resources created have to be adjusted to match the existing environment, configure local credentials, etc. Methods of deployment: Manual- Administrator can manually configures the Microsoft Sentinel resources with the help of Azure portal. Any manual process has the inherent risks of human operator error, lack of compliance with potential change control procedures, and u...
Read more

Project Resourcing (Part 2)

By Ashwin Venugopal -
Image
  To read part 1, please click  here Engineering - SIEM The SIEM engineers configures Microsoft Sentinel, including Log Analytics, Logic Apps, workbooks, and playbooks. They are also responsible for the following high-level tasks: Initial configuration of Azure tenant, including provisioning required resources, assigning access roles, and configuring workspace parameters like log retention, resource tagging, and blueprints.  Deployment and configuration of syslog/CEF log collection agents in appropriate locations to collect logs from on-premises devices. Generally, it will be joint effort of both system engineer and SIEM engineer, involving configuration and potential troubleshooting.  Working with system owners to enable log forwarding and configuring any required parsing of log data in Log Analytics.  Working with security operations to create and deploy KQL analytic rules to offer detections for SOC/Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSRIT) use. Tuning...
Read more