This blog post details the post-compromise tradecraft and operational
tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) of a Chinese espionage
group we track as UNC215. While UNC215’s targets are located
throughout the Middle East, Europe, Asia, and North America, this
report focuses on intrusion activity primarily observed at Israeli entities.
This report comes on the heels of the July 19, 2021, href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/07/19/the-united-states-joined-by-allies-and-partners-attributes-malicious-cyber-activity-and-irresponsible-state-behavior-to-the-peoples-republic-of-china/">announcements
by governments in North America, Europe, and Asia and
intragovernmental organizations, such as the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO), and the European Union, condemning widespread
cyber espionage conducted on behalf of the Chinese Government. These
coordinated statements attributing sustained cyber espionage
activities to the Chinese Government corroborate our long-standing
reporting on Chinese threat actor targeting of private companies,
governments, and various organizations around the world, and this blog
post shows yet another region where Chinese cyber espionage is active.
In early 2019, Mandiant began identifying and responding to
intrusions in the Middle East by Chinese espionage group UNC215. These
intrusions exploited the Microsoft SharePoint vulnerability
CVE-2019-0604 to install web shells and FOCUSFJORD payloads at targets
in the Middle East and Central Asia. There are targeting and high
level technique overlaps with between UNC215 and APT27, but we do not
have sufficient evidence to say that the same actor is responsible for
both sets of activity. APT27 has not been seen since 2015, and UNC215
is targeting many of the regions that APT27 previously focused on;
however, we have not seen direct connection or shared tools, so we are
only able to assess this link with low confidence.
In addition to data from Mandiant Incident Response and FireEye
telemetry, we worked with Israeli defense agencies to review data from
additional compromises of Israeli entities. This analysis showed
multiple, concurrent operations against Israeli government
institutions, IT providers and telecommunications entities beginning
in January 2019. During this time, UNC215 used new TTPs to hinder
attribution and detection, maintain operational security, employ false
flags, and leverage trusted relationships for lateral movement. We
believe this adversary is still active in the region.
Between 2019 and 2020, Mandiant responded to several incidents where
Microsoft SharePoint vulnerability CVE-2019-0604 was used to deliver
web shells, and then FOCUSFJORD payloads to select government and
academic targets in the Middle East and Central Asia.
After gaining initial access, the operators conduct credential
harvesting and extensive internal network reconnaissance. This
includes running native Windows commands on compromised servers,
executing ADFind on the Active Directory, and scanning the internal
network with numerous publicly available tools and a non-public
scanner we named WHEATSCAN. The operators made a consistent effort to
delete these tools and remove any residual forensic artifacts from
compromised systems.
In another incident response investigation, UNC215 pivoted to
multiple OWA servers and installed web shells. In the following days,
the operators interacted with these web shells from internal IP
addresses, attempting to harvest credentials.
After identifying key systems within the target network, such as
domain controllers and Exchange servers, UNC215 moved laterally and
deployed their signature malware FOCUSFJORD. UNC215 often uses
FOCUSFJORD for the initial stages of an intrusion, and then later
deploys HYPERBRO, which has more information collection capabilities
such as screen capture and keylogging. While UNC215 heavily relies on
the custom tools FOCUSFJORD and HYPERBRO, Chinese espionage groups
often have resource sharing relationships with other groups, and we do
not have enough information to determine if these tools are developed
and used exclusively by UNC215.
src="https://www.fireeye.com/content/dam/fireeye-www/blog/images/unc215-israel/fig1.png" alt="" />
Figure 1: Attack Lifecycle
We identified numerous examples of efforts by UNC215 to foil network
defenders by minimizing forensic evidence left on compromised hosts,
exploiting relationships with trusted third parties, continuously
improving the FOCUSFJORD backdoor, concealing command and control (C2)
infrastructure, and incorporating false flags.
Reducing Forensic Evidence on Disk
UNC215 consistently cleaned up evidence of their intrusion after
gaining access to a system. This type of action can make it more
difficult for incident responders to reconstruct what happened during
a compromise.
Exploiting Trust Relationships
UNC215 leveraged trusted third parties in a 2019 operation targeting
an Israeli government network. As illustrated in Figure 2, the
operators were able to access their primary target via RDP connections
from a trusted third party using stolen credentials and used this
access to deploy and remotely execute FOCUSFJORD on their primary target.
src="https://www.fireeye.com/content/dam/fireeye-www/blog/images/unc215-israel/fig2.png" alt="" />
Figure 2: Two FOCUSFJORD samples
configured to proxy C2 traffic
Concealing C2 Infrastructure
UNC215 made technical modifications to their tools to limit outbound
network traffic and used other victim networks to proxy their C2
instructions, likely to minimize the risk of detection and blend in
with normal network traffic. The following are examples of HYPERBRO
and FOCUSFJORD samples capable of acting as proxies to relay
communications to their C2 servers. We do not have enough context
about the following samples to attribute all of them to UNC215, though
they are representative of activity we have seen from the group.
While hunting for FOCUSFJORD samples, we found a sample of a new
malware (MD5: 625dd9048e3289f19670896cf5bca7d8) that shares code with
FOCUSFJORD, but is distinct. However, analysis indicates that it only
contains functions to relay communications between another FOCUSFJORD
instance and a C2 server (Figure 2, Network A). We suspect this type
of malware was used in the aforementioned operation. The actors
stripped out unnecessary FOCUSFJORD capabilities, possibly to reduce
the likelihood it would be detected by security controls. Figure 3
contains the data structure as it is being sent from a FOCUSFJORD
sample configured to communicate with another FOCUSFJORD victim.
src="https://www.fireeye.com/content/dam/fireeye-www/blog/images/unc215-israel/fig3.png" alt="" />
Figure 3: Two FOCUSFJORD samples
configured to proxy C2 traffic
FOCUSFJORD Changes
We have observed numerous variants of the FOCUSFJORD malware family
since 2017. The authors have added new communications protocols, an
updated loading mechanism, and expanded the number of supported
configurations in newer versions. Version numbers indicate that the
malware undergoes frequent changes and maybe supported by a team of
developers. Many of these variants contain or remove functionality
depending on the operator’s unique requirements at the time, which may
suggest that multiple operators have access to the source code or a
builder, or that a close relationship exists between the developers
and operators.
FOCUSFJORD samples can be configured with up to 13 unique registry
values which allow operators to control and organize compromised
hosts. In addition to specifying details related to the loading and
persistence mechanisms and C2 communications, there are two keys which
allow the operator to add additional context about the victim:
It is not clear how or if UNC215 uses these configuration parameters
to organize and track large numbers of compromised hosts. We observed
different console values within the same network, identical console
values using different C2 addresses, and identical console values
targeting different countries. Some FOCUSFJORD samples from 2018 and
2020 use the same console values despite the significant gap in time
(See Table 1).
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helen | valign="top"> | width="120" valign="top"> | width="132" valign="top"> |
helen | valign="top"> | width="120" valign="top"> | width="132" valign="top"> |
helen | valign="top"> | width="120" valign="top"> | width="132" valign="top"> |
helen | valign="top"> | width="120" valign="top"> | width="132" valign="top"> |
helen | valign="top"> | width="120" valign="top"> | width="132" valign="top"> |
helen | valign="top"> | width="120" valign="top"> | width="132" valign="top"> |
iceland | valign="top"> | width="120" valign="top"> | width="132" valign="top"> |
iceland | valign="top"> | width="120" valign="top"> | width="132" valign="top"> |
iceland | valign="top"> | width="120" valign="top"> | width="132" valign="top"> |
iceland | valign="top"> | width="120" valign="top"> | width="132" valign="top"> |
iceland | valign="top"> | width="120" valign="top"> | width="132" valign="top"> |
idapro | valign="top"> | width="120" valign="top"> | width="132" valign="top"> |
galway | valign="top"> | width="120" valign="top"> | width="132" valign="top"> |
galway | valign="top"> | width="120" valign="top"> | width="132" valign="top"> |
galway | valign="top"> | width="120" valign="top"> | width="132" valign="top"> |
galway | valign="top"> | width="120" valign="top"> | width="132" valign="top"> |
Helen * | valign="top"> | valign="top"> | valign="top"> |
Helen * | valign="top"> | valign="top"> | valign="top"> |
Idapro * | valign="top"> | valign="top"> | valign="top"> |
Table 1: FOCUSFJORD comparison (note: the *
entries are from public href="https://www.kamiran.asia/documents/APT27_HackerTeam_Analyse.pdf">reporting
and have not been verified by Mandiant)
False Flags
Artifacts in UNC215 campaigns often contain foreign language strings
that do not match the country being targeted and may be intended to
mislead an analyst examining the malware. Additionally, on at least
three occasions, UNC215 employed a custom tool associated with Iranian
actors whose source code was leaked.
The use of Farsi strings, filepaths containing /Iran/, and web
shells publicly associated with Iranian APT groups may have been
intended to mislead analysts and suggest an attribution to Iran.
Notably, in 2019 the government of Iran href="https://twitter.com/azarijahromi/status/1206071513222467585">accused
APT27 of attacking its government networks and released a detection
and removal tool for HYPERBRO malware.
Tradecraft Mistakes
While UNC215 prioritizes evading detection within a compromised
network, Mandiant identified several examples of code, C2
infrastructure, and certificate reuse indicating that UNC215 operators
are less concerned about defenders’ ability to track and detect UNC215 activity.
Mandiant attributes this campaign to Chinese espionage operators
which we track as UNC215 a Chinese espionage operation that has been
suspected of targeting organizations around the world since at least
2014. We have low confidence that UNC215 is associated with APT27.
UNC215 has compromised organizations in the government, technology,
telecommunications, defense, finance, entertainment, and health care
sectors. The group targets data and organizations which are of great
interest to Beijing's financial, diplomatic, and strategic objectives.
The activity detailed in this post demonstrates China’s consistent
strategic interest in the Middle East. This cyber espionage activity
is happening against the backdrop of China’s multi-billion-dollar
investments related to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and its
interest in Israeli’s robust technology sector.
China has conducted numerous intrusion campaigns along the BRI route
to monitor potential obstructions—political, economic, and
security—and we anticipate that UNC215 will continue targeting
governments and organizations involved in these critical
infrastructure projects in Israel and the broader Middle East in the
near- and mid-term.
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T1003.001 | valign="top"> |
T1007 | valign="top"> |
T1010 | valign="top"> |
T1012 | valign="top"> |
T1016 | valign="top"> |
T1021.001 | valign="top"> |
T1027 | valign="top"> |
T1033 | valign="top"> |
T1055 | valign="top"> |
T1055.003 | valign="top"> |
T1055.012 | valign="top"> |
T1056.001 | valign="top"> |
T1057 | valign="top"> |
T1059.001 | valign="top"> |
T1059.003 | valign="top"> |
T1070.004 | valign="top"> |
T1070.006 | valign="top"> |
T1071.001 | valign="top"> |
T1078 | valign="top"> |
T1082 | valign="top"> |
T1083 | valign="top"> |
T1087 | valign="top"> |
T1090 | valign="top"> |
T1095 | valign="top"> |
T1098 | valign="top"> |
T1105 | valign="top"> |
T1112 | valign="top"> |
T1113 | valign="top"> |
T1115 | valign="top"> |
T1133 | valign="top"> |
T1134 | valign="top"> |
T1140 | valign="top"> |
T1190 | valign="top"> |
T1199 | valign="top"> |
T1202 | valign="top"> |
T1213 | valign="top"> |
T1482 | valign="top"> |
T1489 | valign="top"> |
T1497 | valign="top"> |
T1497.001 | valign="top"> |
T1505.003 | valign="top"> |
T1518 | valign="top"> |
T1543.003 | valign="top"> |
T1547.001 | valign="top"> |
T1553.002 | valign="top"> |
T1559.002 | valign="top"> |
T1560 | valign="top"> |
T1564.003 | valign="top"> |
T1569.002 | valign="top"> |
T1573.002 | valign="top"> |
T1574.002 | valign="top"> |
T1583.003 | valign="top"> |
T1588.003 | valign="top"> |
T1608.003 | valign="top"> |
The following indicators have been seen in use with the noted
malware families, but not all have been confirmed to be used by UNC215.
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FireEye detects this activity across our platforms.
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