Ukraine Central Bank Detects Massive Attack Preparation
Anti-Malware
,
Technology
Banks in Ukraine Alerted to Attack Spread via Malicious Word Docs
Ukraine’s central bank has warned state-owned and private banks across the country that a new malware campaign, targeting financial services firms, may be a prelude to another assault of Not-Petya proportions.
See Also: How to Scale Your Vendor Risk Management Program
“The nature of this malicious code, its mass distribution, and the fact that at the time of its distribution it was not detected by any anti-virus software, suggest that this attack is preparation for a mass cyber-attack on the corporate networks of Ukrainian businesses,” the central bank warned financial institutions earlier this month, in a letter seen by Reuters.
The National Bank of Ukraine – the country’s central bank – did not immediately reply to a request for comment on that report.
But Ukraine’s central bank told Reuters that it shared the threat intelligence with the country’s banks two weeks ago, and said that the attacks have been spreading via malicious Microsoft Word documents attached to emails.
“On August 11… the central bank promptly informed banks about the appearance of new malicious code, its features, compromise indicators and the need to implement precautionary measures to prevent infection,” the central bank told Reuters in emailed comments. The bank says the intelligence it disseminated had been gathered by Ukraine’s national computer emergency response team, CERT-UA.
Malware and ransomware have long been distributed via malicious files attached to spam emails, designed to trick recipients into executing the attachment or otherwise aid the attack (see Hello! Can You Please Enable Macros?). If such attachments do get opened, they typically function as a “dropper,” downloading additional malware from an attacker-controlled server onto the by now infected, or “zombie,” endpoint.
Ukraine Celebrates Independence
Earlier this month, CERT-UA warned that there is an elevated risk of attacks from August 20 to 25, as Ukraine celebrates its 1991 independence from the USSR.
Accordingly, CERT-UA advised organizations in Ukraine to take precautions to defend themselves against a potential reprise of the NotPetya – aka Petya-A, SortaPetya, Petna, ExPetr, GoldenEye, Nyetya, Diskcoder.C – launched on June 26. Cyber police in Ukraine, as well as such security firms as Cisco Talos, ESET, Microsoft and Symantec, have said the attacks were facilitated by a “cunning backdoor” that attackers added to widely used accounting software called M.E. Doc (see NotPetya Patient Zero: Ukrainian Accounting Software Vendor).
It’s not clear if CERT-UA’s independence-celebration alert was based on specific intelligence, or just a general warning. The government-based computer emergency response team did not immediately reply to a request for additional information.
NotPetya’s Global Impact
While Ukraine was the epicenter of the NotPetya attacks, they quickly spread to offices and business partners in other countries, including Britain’s WPP advertising agency, Russian oil giant Rosneft, French construction materials company Saint-Gobain and the Netherlands-based shipping service TNT Express, amongst others, with some repoting substantial losses as a result (see Maersk Previews NotPetya Impact: Up to $300 Million).
Ukrainian officials have blamed Russia for launching NotPetya, amongst other attacks. The Russian government has denied those accusations.
NATO, meanwhile, has said the attack “can most likely be attributed to a state actor.”
While the timing could be coincidence, the attack was launched on the eve of Ukraine’s Constitution Day, commemorating the signing of the country’s constitution in 1996, following the country’s 1991 independence.
Four Lookalike Attacks
NotPetya was just the latest in a series of attacks that have used malware designed to look like previously seen strains of malware. The four strains are called XData, PSCrypt, NotPetya, as well as a WannaCry lookalike (see Ukraine Power Supplier Hit by WannaCry Lookalike).
There’s evidence that the same group of attackers may be behind more than one of those malware campaigns. The anti-malware researchers behind MalwareHunter Team say that backdoored M.E. Doc software was used to distribute not just NotPetya, but also the XData malware, which appeared in mid-May.