In the aftermath of the Itaewon Halloween crowd crush that killed a minimum of 158 individuals, North Korea’s APT37 state-sponsored hacking group took benefit of a beforehand unknown Internet Explorer vulnerability to put in malware on the gadgets of South Koreans who have been looking for out concerning the tragedy, according to Google’s Threat Analysis Group. The crew turned conscious of the current assault on October thirty first after a number of South Koreans uploaded a malicious Microsoft Office doc to the corporate’s VirusTotal instrument.
APT37 took benefit of nationwide curiosity within the Itaewon tragedy by referencing the occasion in an official-looking doc. Once somebody opened the doc on their system, it might obtain a wealthy textual content file distant template that will, in flip, render distant HTML utilizing Internet Explorer. According to Google, this can be a approach that has been extensively used to distribute exploits since 2017, because it permits hackers to reap the benefits of vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer even when somebody isn’t utilizing IE as their default internet browser.
The JavaScript vulnerability APT37 took benefit of allowed the group to execute arbitrary code. Google knowledgeable Microsoft of the zero-day on the identical day it turned conscious of it. On November eighth, Microsoft launched a software program replace to handle the exploit. “We’d be remiss if we did not acknowledge the quick response and patching of this vulnerability by the Microsoft team,” Google mentioned.
While the TAG crew didn’t get an opportunity to research the ultimate malware APT37 hackers tried to deploy in opposition to their targets, it notes the group is thought for utilizing all kinds of malicious software program, together with ROKRAT, BLUELIGHT and DOLPHIN. “TAG also identified other documents likely exploiting the same vulnerability and with similar targeting, which may be part of the same campaign,” the crew added.
This isn’t the primary time Google’s Threat Analysis Group has thwarted an assault by North Korean hackers. At the beginning of 2021, the crew detailed a marketing campaign that focused safety researchers. More lately, the crew labored with the Chrome crew to handle a vulnerability that was utilized by two North Korean hacking cadres to execute distant code.
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