Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

In November 2021, AT&T Alien Labs™ first published research on our discovery of new malware written in the open-source programming language Golang. The team named this malware “BotenaGo.” In this article, Alien Labs is updating that research with new information.

A new destructive malware called WhisperGate was discovered in mid-January 2022 targeting Ukrainian organizations. This threat emerged during geopolitical conflicts in Ukraine, masquerading as ransomware. However, this malware has a more destructive nature: wiping files and corrupting disks to prevent the OS from loading. Ukraine has suffered other cyberattacks that seem to be connected to WhisperGate, such as the defacement of many websites connected to their governments.

In my decade working in the cybersecurity industry, I’ve developed quite a few fond memories learning from talented security professionals. In 2015, I found myself working with Andy Pendergast at ThreatConnect. (As a little background, Andy is one of the fine folks who developed the Diamond Model for Intrusion Analysis. He is considered to be a veritable cybersecurity encyclopedia among his peers.) At the time, I was new to cyber threat intelligence (CTI).

On June 23, 2021, threat actors reported that they had stolen a terabyte of data from Saudi Aramco, a state-owned oil company in Saudi Arabia. The threat actors released samples of data they had procured after redacting critical information. They also claimed to have detailed information on Aramco’s employees, such as their full names, photographs, passport scans, emails, phone numbers, residence permit (Iqama card) numbers, job titles, employee ID numbers, and family information.

Late December 2021: A company coming off a record year for revenue growth was preparing to ramp down for a week to celebrate the December holidays. However, unbeknownst to the company, just a few days prior, one of its longest-serving employees had been recruited by a ransomware group. The employee had responded to a posting on a computer hacking forum asking for access to corporate networks in return for cash payouts.

How prepared is your business to fend of bad actors seeking to infiltrate your network systems and breach your data? Imagine, if you will, the following scenario: It’s 5:30 am, and an employee has just clicked a malicious link in a phishing email. An attacker, armed with ransomware, has just gained access to your enterprise.

On Jan. 15, 2022, a set of malware dubbed WhisperGate was reported to have been deployed against Ukrainian targets. The incident is widely reported to contain three individual components deployed by the same adversary, including a malicious bootloader that corrupts detected local disks, a Discord-based downloader and a file wiper. The activity occurred at approximately the same time multiple websites belonging to the Ukrainian government were defaced.

From nation-state threat actors to typical cybercriminals, the public sector faces a multitude of cybersecurity threats. At the same time, public-sector organizations struggle to maintain a robust cyber hygiene posture because they need to balance limited budgets with complex IT environments and highly interconnected ecosystems.

Elastic Security has verified a new destructive malware targeting Ukraine: Operation Bleeding Bear. Over the weekend, Microsoft released details about this multi-stage and destructive malware campaign that the Ukrainian National Cyber Security Coordination Center has been referring to as Operation Bleeding Bear.