APT 32

By Ashwin Venugopal -

 





Overview

APT 32 is also known as Ocean Lotus, APT-C-00, SeaLotus, and Cobalt Kitty.  It is a suspected Vietnamese hacker group, active since 2014. It generally targets the entities considered hostile to Vietnameses nationalists interests. 

Hence, APT 32 targets the foreign companies doing business with Vietnam, Vietnamese government critics, local and ex-pat Vietnamese human rights activists, and rival South East Asian foreign governments, especially the Philippines and Cambodia. Its attacks often coincide with important contract and legal negotiations between foreign companies and the Vietnamese government. 

How Does It Works?

APT32 uses less sophisticated, distinct, and fully-featured commercially available tools and malware collection. They start with a highly customized spear-phishing campaigns containing malicious files attached to it. They are also laced with custom spyware toolkits, that can easily infect and steal information from macOS, Android, and Windows-based devices. 

METALJACK, Denis (or DenisRAT), Kerrdown, Windshield, Komprogo, and Soundbite are some malware strains exclusive to or closely associated with APT 32.

Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures

  • They hack the adversaries' websites to collect their information and track their user base. 

  • They use custom macOS malware with double extension technique or malicious Office macros written in the Perl programming language.

  • Make use of Facebook social networking to spread malware through social engineering attacks.

  • Cobalt Strike, a legitimate penetration testing tool is used as Command and Control (C2) spyware.

Prevention

Vigilant awareness about social engineering attacks, that prompts the victim to open files from an untrusted source, is the most effective way to prevent an APT32 attack. Organizations engaged with Vietnamese government should be more careful about any document or links posted in public social networking forums. 

Hence, user awareness training to educate internal staff about proper procedures for assessing as well as handling documents, and a full-fledged Defense-in-Depth-based cybersecurity program is the best way to prevent a successful APT32 attack.




















































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