Ongoing Social Engineering Campaign Refreshes Payloads

Ongoing Social Engineering Campaign Refreshes Payloads

Executive Summary


On June 20, 2024, Rapid7 identified multiple intrusion attempts by threat actors utilizing techniques, tactics, and procedures (TTPs) that are consistent with an ongoing social engineering campaign being tracked by Rapid7. Rapid7 observed a meaningful shift in the tools used by the threat actors during the investigations of these recent incidents. For more information about the social engineering strategies and tools that have been used, please refer to the previous blog.


Overview


The initial lure being utilized by the threat actors remains the same: an email bomb followed by an attempt to call impacted users and offer a fake solution. In the recent cases handled by Rapid7, external calls were typically made to the impacted users via Microsoft Teams. Once on the phone, the threat actor would convince the user to download and install AnyDesk, a popular remote access tool that allows the threat actor to take control of the user’s computer. Threat actors typically use this connection to upload and execute payloads on the user’s system as well as to exfiltrate stolen data, during the initial stages of the attack. Rapid7 did not observe attempts to use Microsoft’s Quick Assist in recent cases, a feature that previously facilitated numerous intrusions in cases handled by Rapid7.


Where threat actors previously ran a credential harvesting batch script, which typically utilized several native Windows binaries, Rapid7 has now observed the usage of the 32-bit .NET executable AntiSpam.exe.


[Figure 1. Fake update console window spawned by `AntiSpam.exe`.*

During execution, AntiSpam.exe will pretend to download email spam filters and then prompt the user to enter their credentials into a pop-up window.


*[Figure 2. Credential harvester prompt spawned by `AntiSp ..

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