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Kaspersky Lab announces the Chronicles of Hellsing: a Spy vs Spy StoryKaspersky Lab has recorded a rare and unusual example of one cybercriminal attacking another. In 2014, Hellsing, a small and technically unremarkable cyberespionage group targeting mostly government and diplomatic organizations in Asia, was subjected to a spear-phishing attack by another threat actor and decided to strike back. Kaspersky Lab (News - Alert) believes that this could mark the emergence of a new trend in cybercriminal activity: the APT wars. The discovery was made by Kaspersky Lab experts during research into the activity of Naikon, a cyberespionage group also targeting organizations in the Asia-Pacific region. The experts noticed that one of Naikon's targets had spotted the attempt to infect its systems with a spear-phishing email carrying a malicious attachment. The target questioned the authenticity of the email with the sender and, apparently dissatisfied with the reply, did not open the attachment. Shortly thereafter the target forwarded to the sender an email containing the target's own malware. This move triggered Kaspersky Lab's investigation and led to the discovery of the Hellsing APT (News - Alert) group. The method of counter-attack indicates that Hellsing wanted to identify the Naikon group and gather intelligence on it. Deeper analysis of the Hellsing threat actor by Kaspersky Lab reveals a trail of spear-phishing emails with malicious attachments designed to propagate espionage malware among different organizations. If a victim opens the malicious attachment, their system becomes infected with a custom backdoor capable of downloading and uploading files, updating and uninstalling itself. According to Kaspersky Lab's observations, the number of organizations targeted by Hellsing is close to 20. Hellsing Targets The company has detected and blocked Hellsing malware in Malaysia, the Philippines, India, Indonesia and the US, with most of the victims located in Malaysia and the Pilippines. The attackers are also very selective in terms of the type of organizations targeted, attempting to infect mostly government and diplomatic entities. "The targeting of the Naikon group by Hellsing, in some sort of a vengeful vampire-hunting-"Empire Strikes Back" style, is fascinating. In the past, we've seen APT groups accidentally hitting each other while stealing address books from victims and then mass-mailing everyone on each of these lists. However, considering the targeting and origin of the attack, it seems more likely that this is an example of a deliberate APT-on-APT attack," said Costin Raiu, Director of Global Research and Analyst Team at Kaspersky Lab. According to Kaspersky Lab analysis the Hellsing threat actor has been active since at least 2012 and remains active. Protection To protect against Hellsing attacks, Kaspersky Lab recommends the following basic security best practices:
Kaspersky Lab products successfully detect and block the malware used by both the Hellsing and Naikon actors. To learn more about the Hellsing threat actor and the Empire Strikes Back espionage campaign go to Securelist.com About Kaspersky Lab Kaspersky Lab is the world's largest privately held vendor of endpoint protection solutions. The company is ranked among the world's top four vendors of security solutions for endpoint users*. Throughout its more than 17-year history Kaspersky Lab has remained an innovator in IT security and provides effective digital security solutions for large enterprises, SMBs and consumers. Kaspersky Lab, with its holding company registered in the United Kingdom, currently operates in almost 200 countries and territories across the globe, providing protection for over 400 million users worldwide. Learn more at www.kaspersky.com. For the latest in-depth information on security threat issues and trends, please visit: Securelist | Information about Viruses, Hackers and Spam Follow @Securelist on Twitter (News - Alert) Threatpost | The First Stop for Security News Follow @Threatpost on Twitter * The company was rated fourth in the IDC (News - Alert) rating Worldwide Endpoint Security Revenue by Vendor, 2013. The rating was published in the IDC report "Worldwide Endpoint Security 2014-2018 Forecast and 2013 Vendor Shares (IDC #250210, August 2014). The report ranked software vendors according to earnings from sales of endpoint security solutions in 2013. Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/multimedia/home/20150415005241/en/ |
