SafeUM
Home Blog Services Download Help About Recharge

Axarhöfði 14, 110 Reykjavik, Iceland

Iceland - 2015
SafeUM
Blog
Services
Download
Help
About
Recharge
Menu
Archive
TOP Security!
20 Jul 2017

WikiLeaks reveals CIA teams up with tech to collect ideas for malware development

As part of its ongoing Vault 7 leaks, the whistleblower organisation WikiLeaks today revealed about a CIA contractor responsible for analysing advanced malware and hacking techniques being used in the wild by cyber criminals.

According to the documents leaked by WikiLeaks, Raytheon Blackbird Technologies, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) contractor, submitted nearly five such reports to CIA as part of UMBRAGE Component Library (UCL) project between November 2014 and September 2015.

These reports contain brief analysis about proof-of-concept ideas and malware attack vectors — publically presented by security researchers and secretly developed by cyber espionage hacking groups. Reports submitted by Raytheon were allegedly helping CIA's Remote Development Branch (RDB) to collect ideas for developing their own advanced malware projects. It was also revealed in previous Vault 7 leaks that CIA's UMBRAGE malware development teams also borrow codes from publicly available malware samples to built its own spyware tools.

Here's the list and brief information of each report:

Report 1 — Raytheon analysts detailed a variant of the HTTPBrowser Remote Access Tool (RAT), which was probably developed in 2015. The RAT, which is designed to capture keystrokes from the targeted systems, was being used by a Chinese cyber espionage APT group called 'Emissary Panda.'

Report 2 — This document details a variant of the NfLog Remote Access Tool (RAT), also known as IsSpace, which was being used by Samurai Panda, Identified as another Chinese hacking group. Equipped with Adobe Flash zero-day exploit CVE-2015-5122 (leaked in Hacking Team dump) and UAC bypass technique, this malware was also able to sniff or enumerate proxy credentials to bypass Windows Firewall.

Report 3 — This report contains details about "Regin" -- a very sophisticated malware sample that has been spotted in operation since 2013 and majorly designed for surveillance and data collection. Regin is a cyber espionage tool, which is said to be more sophisticated than both Stuxnet and Duqu and is believed to be developed by the US intelligence agency NSA. The malware uses a modular approach that allowed an operator to enable a customised spying. Regin's design makes the malware highly suited for persistent, long-term mass surveillance operations against targets.

Report 4 — It details a suspected Russian State-sponsored malware sample called "HammerToss," which was discovered in early 2015 and suspected of being operational since late 2014. What makes HammerToss interesting is its architecture, which leverages Twitter accounts, GitHub accounts, compromised websites, and Cloud-storage to orchestrate command-and-control functions to execute the commands on the targeted systems.

Report 5 — This document details the self-code injection and API hooking methods of information stealing Trojan called "Gamker." Gamker uses simple decryption, then drops a copy of itself using a random filename and injects itself into a different process. The trojan also exhibits other typical trojan behaviours.

Previous leaks have shown the intelligence group’s ability to compromise Apple devices, Windows machines, launch malware attacks, obfuscate the origins of an attack to hide its tracks, compromise Wi-Fi routers to track a target’s activity online, attack air-gapped computer networks, and track the location of a target via Wi-Fi.


Download SafeUM — communicate privately, without advertising and spam.

Tags:
information leaks CIA WikiLeaks surveillance
Source:
The Hacker News
1478
Other NEWS
3 Jul 2020 safeum news imgage An encrypted messaging service has been infiltrated by police
4 May 2020 safeum news imgage Two-Factor Authentication ​What Is It and Why You Should Use It
12 Dec 2019 safeum news imgage Encryption is under threat - this is how it affects you
4 Nov 2019 safeum news imgage Should Big Decisions Be Based on Data or Your Intuition?
7 Jun 2018 safeum news imgage VPNFilter malware infecting 500,000 devices is worse than we thought
4 Jun 2018 safeum news imgage Hackers target Booking.com in criminal bid to steal hundreds of thousands from customers
1 Jun 2018 safeum news imgage Operator of World's Top Internet Hub Sues German Spy Agency
30 May 2018 safeum news imgage US says North Korea behind malware attacks
29 May 2018 safeum news imgage Facebook and Google targeted as first GDPR complaints filed
25 May 2018 safeum news imgage A new reason to not buy these cheap Android devices
24 May 2018 safeum news imgage Flaws in smart pet devices, apps could come back to bite owners
23 May 2018 safeum news imgage Google sued for 'clandestine tracking' of 4.4m UK iPhone users' browsing data
21 May 2018 safeum news imgage LocationSmart reportedly leaked phone location data onto the web
18 May 2018 safeum news imgage The SEC created its own scammy ICO to teach investors a lesson
17 May 2018 safeum news imgage Thieves suck millions out of Mexican banks in transfer heist
All news
SafeUM
Confidential Terms of Use Our technologies Company
Follow us
Download
SafeUM © Safe Universal Messenger

Axarhöfði 14,
110 Reykjavik, Iceland

Iceland - 2015