Malicious emails purporting to be financial documents have been distributed by Scaly Wolf to spread fake PDF files and password-protected ZIP files.
Advanced persistent threat operation Scaly Wolf has sought to compromise a Russian engineering firm in a cyberespionage campaign.
Two years after an initial attack involving modular backdoors, malicious emails purporting to be financial documents have been distributed by Scaly Wolf to spread fake PDF files and password-protected ZIP files, which facilitate the delivery of the Updatar backdoor upon execution.
According to findings from Doctor Web and reported by GBHackers News, after deploying Meterpreter using more modules installed by Updatar, Scaly Wolf proceeded to exploit FileManager.exe, Tool.HandleKatz, and RDP Wrapper for data exfiltration, credential harvesting, and remote access, respectively. Meanwhile the Tool.Frp and Tool.Chisel utilities ensured the concealment of nefarious activity.
Despite Scaly Wolf's use of RemCom to deactivate Windows Defender following Doctor Web's aversion of the group's initial Metasploit payloads, anti-virus systems ultimately prevailed against the threat, according to researchers, who urged the implementation of more robust antivirus configurations and up-to-date patches to prevent such a threat.
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Dan Raywood is a B2B journalist with 25 years of experience, including covering cybersecurity for the past 17 years. He has extensively covered topics from Advanced Persistent Threats and nation-state hackers to major data breaches and regulatory changes.
He has spoken at events including 44CON, Infosecurity Europe, RANT Forum, BSides Scotland, Steelcon and the National Cyber Security Show, and served as editor of SC Media UK, Infosecurity Magazine and IT Security Guru. He was also an analyst with 451 Research and a product marketing lead at Tenable.
