Advanced Persistent Threat Kimsuky

By Ashwin Venugopal -

 







About

Kimsuky is also known as Velvet Chollima, Black Banshee, THALLIUM, or Emerald Sleet. It is a well-known North Korea backed hacker group and APT (Advanced Persistent Threat). It mainly targets South Korean think tanks, industries, nuclear power operators, and South Korean Ministry of Unification. The other targeted countries are Russia, USA, and European Nations. 

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency speculated that Kimsuky is active since 2012. Allegedly, this hacker group stole data from South Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power in March 2015, targeted retired South Korean diplomats, government as well as military officials in August 2019 (calling the attack "the first of its kind"), hacked 11 officials of the United Nations Security Council in September 2020, and intruded the internal networks of the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute in May 2021. 

Key Factors

  • Kimsuky uses common commo social engineering tactics, spearphishing, and watering hole attacks to gain desired information from their victims. 

  • Its main focus is collecting intelligence information on foreign policy and national security issues across Korean peninsula, nuclear policy, and sanctions.

  • Generally, it conducts its intelligence collection activities against individuals and organizations of South Korea, Japan, and the U.S.

How Does it Works?

Kimsuky commonly uses spearphishing tactic for initial access. Its other methods include login-security-alert-themed phishing emails, watering hole attacks, distributing malware via torrent sharing sites, and prompting the victims to download malicious browser extensions. 

After gaining initial access, Kimsuky uses BabyShark malware and PowerShell or the Windows Command Shell for Execution. It runs executables from the internet without touching the physical hard disk on a computer with the help of the target's memory. 

Now, it establish persistence via malicious browser extensions, modifying system processes, manipulating the autostart execution, using Remote Desktop Protocol, and changing the default file association for an application. These methods allow Kimsuky to gain login and password information and/or launch malware outside of some application solutions.

Conclusion

It is recommended to the individuals and organizations within the target profile of Kimsuky to tighten their defenses and employ a heightened state of awareness. Hence, the important prevention tactics include safeguards against spearphishing, use multi-factor authentication, and user awareness training. 




























































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