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ALPHV Ransomware Affiliate Targets Vulnerable Backup Installations to Gain Initial Access

April 3, 2023
Mandiant

Written by: Jason Deyalsingh, Nick Smith, Eduardo Mattos, Tyler McLellan


Mandiant has observed a new ALPHV (aka BlackCat ransomware) ransomware affiliate, tracked as UNC4466, target publicly exposed Veritas Backup Exec installations, vulnerable to CVE-2021-27876, CVE-2021-27877 and CVE-2021-27878, for initial access to victim environments. A commercial Internet scanning service identified over 8,500 installations of Veritas Backup Exec instances that are currently exposed to the internet, some of which may still be unpatched and vulnerable. Previous ALPHV intrusions investigated by Mandiant primarily originated from stolen credentials suggesting a shift to opportunistic targeting of known vulnerabilities. This blog post covers the UNC4466 attack lifecycle, indicators, and detection opportunities.

ALPHV emerged in November 2021 as a ransomware-as-a-service that some researchers have claimed is the successor to BLACKMATTER and DARKSIDE ransomware. While some ransomware operators enacted rules to avoid impacting critical infrastructure and health entities, ALPHV has continued to target these sensitive industries.

Timeline

  • In March 2021, Veritas published an advisory reporting three critical vulnerabilities in Veritas Backup Exec 16.x, 20.x and 21.x.
  • On September 23, 2022, a METASPLOIT module was released which exploits these vulnerabilities and creates a session which the threat actor can use to interact with the victim system.
  • On October 22, 2022, Mandiant first observed exploitation of the Veritas vulnerabilities in the wild.

Attack Phases

Initial Compromise and Establish Foothold

In late 2022, UNC4466 gained access to an internet-exposed Windows server, running Veritas Backup Exec version 21.0 using the Metasploit module `exploit/multi/veritas/beagent_sha_auth_rce`. Shortly after, the Metasploit persistence module was invoked to maintain persistent access to the system for the remainder of this intrusion.

Internal Reconnaissance

After gaining access to the Veritas Backup Exec server, UNC4466 used Internet Explorer, the browser installed by default on older Windows systems, to download Famatech’s Advanced IP Scanner from its website, hxxps://download.advanced-ip-scanner[.]com. This tool is capable of scanning individual IP addresses or IP address ranges for open ports, and returns hostnames, operating system and hardware manufacturer information.

UNC4466 also made use of ADRecon to gather network, account, and host information in the victim’s environment. When executed by a privileged domain account, ADRecon generates several reports about the Active Directory environment, including the Trusts, Sites, Subnets, password policies, user and computer account listings. These reports can be generated in a variety of formats, including CSV, XML, JSON, and HTML.

Ingress Tool Transfer

UNC4466 made heavy use of the Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) to download additional tools such as LAZAGNE, LIGOLO, WINSW, RCLONE, and finally the ALPHV ransomware encryptor.

Command and Control

UNC4466 leveraged SOCKS5 tunneling to communicate with compromised systems in the victim network. This technique is typically used to evade network defenses or other preventative network controls. Two separate tools were deployed to execute this technique, LIGOLO and REVSOCKS.

Escalate Privileges

The threat actor utilized multiple credential access tools, including Mimikatz, LaZagne and Nanodump to gather clear-text credentials and credential material.

In November 2022, UNC4466 utilized the MIMIKATZ Security Support Provider injection module (`MISC::MemSSP`). This module collects credentials in clear text as they are used, by manipulating the Local Security Authority Server Service (LSASS) on victim systems. This module creates a file named `C:\Windows\System32\mimilsa.log`.

 

https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-cloudblog-publish/images/alphv-image1-mimikatz_jwhj.max-1000x1000.png
https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-cloudblog-publish/images/alphv-image2-mimilsa.max-800x800.png

[Nanodump] was also used to dump LSASS memory. Like the examples shown on Helpsystems' GitHub page, the output file specified was a file in the `C:\Windows\Temp` directory.

Defense Evasion

During operations, UNC4466 takes steps to evade detection. Apart from clearing event logs, UNC4466 also used the built in Set-MpPrefernce cmdlet to disable Microsoft Defender’s real-time monitoring capability.

powershell.exe Set-MpPreference -DisableRealtimeMonitoring 1 -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

Command and Control

UNC4466 made use of BITS transfers (using the Start-BitsTransfer PowerShell cmdlet) to download various resources to the staging directory `c:\ProgramData`. Using this technique, SOCKS5 tunneling tools, REVSOCKS and LIGOLO were downloaded from their official GitHub repositories.

Complete Mission

UNC4466 deploys the Rust-based ALPHV ransomware. In Late 2022, UNC4466 added immediate tasks to the default domain policy. These tasks were configured to perform actions which disabled security software, downloaded the ALPHV encryptor, then execute it.

Exposure

As of this blog post's date, one commercial Internet scanning service reported over 8500 IP addresses which advertise the "Symantec/Veritas Backup Exec ndmp" service on the default port 10000, as well as port 9000 and port 10001. While this search result does not directly identify vulnerable systems, as the application versions were not identifiable, it demonstrates the prevalence of Internet exposed instances that could potentially be probed by attackers.

Detection Opportunities

Defenders should place priority on monitoring internet-exposed Veritas Backup Exec Windows installations, for versions before 21.2. Mandiant observed the exploitation of Veritas Backup Exec can leave a noticeable imprint on the Backup Exec log files. Where feasible, these log files should be forwarded to a SIEM or similar technology which enables detection and alerting when certain events are recorded.

In addition to any available network connection logging, Veritas Backup Exec logs will record evidence of connections to remote systems.

[nnnn] YYYY-mm-ddTHH:MM:SS.sss [ndmp\ndmpsrvr]      + ndmpd.cpp (nnn):
[nnnn] YYYY-mm-ddTHH:MM:SS.sss [ndmp\ndmpsrvr]      | Session 1 started
[nnnn] YYYY-mm-ddTHH:MM:SS.sss [ndmp\ndmpsrvr]      - sslOpen() : Opening SSL for: 0x00000
[nnnn] YYYY-mm-ddTHH:MM:SS.sss [ndmp\ndmpsrvr]      - sslOpen(): certinfo = 0x00000; sslConn = 0x00000
[nnnn] YYYY-mm-ddTHH:MM:SS.sss [ndmp\ndmpcomm]      - ndmpRun: Control connection accepted : connection established between end-points [Server IP]:10000 and [Remote IP]:[remote port]
 

These connections should be triaged for any unknown IP addresses. Additionally, these logs can also record the execution of suspicious pre and post backup job commands.

[nnnn] YYYY-mm-ddTHH:MM:SS.sss [ndmp\ndmpsrvr]      - SetPreCommandEnvironment: Could not obtain the BE Job ID to pass to the command C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c "C:\Windows\Temp\[random chars].exe"
[nnnn] YYYY-mm-ddTHH:MM:SS.sss [ndmp\ndmpsrvr]      - Could not obtain the BE Job Name to pass to the command C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c "C:\Windows\Temp\[random chars].exe"
[nnnn] YYYY-mm-ddTHH:MM:SS.sss [ndmp\ndmpsrvr]      - At least one of the Pre / Post Command environment variables could not be set
[nnnn] YYYY-mm-ddTHH:MM:SS.sss [ndmp\ndmpcomm]      - ndmp_readit: Caught message on closed connection. Socket 0x8e0 len 0x0
 

UNC4466

  • DS0015 - Application log
    • Backup Exec logs
      • Connections to unknown IP addresses
      • Suspicious pre or post job commands being set (SetPreCommandEnvironment/ SetPostCommandEnvironment). E.g: C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c "C:\Windows\Temp\UNKNOWN_EXEC.exe”
    • Windows Event Logs
      • Suspicious BITS transfers with the source argument targeting unknown hosts and GitHub repositories.
      • Pre-ransomware activity: deletion of volume shadow copies
  • DS0017 – Command
    • Disabling AMSI: use of Set-MpPreference PowerShell cmdlet
    • Ingress tool transfer: Use of Start-BitsTransfer PowerShell cmdlet
  • DS0022 – File
    • New Executables created in staging directories: C:\ProgramData, C:\Windows\Temp, C:\Windows\Tasks
  • DS0024 – Windows Registry
    • Modification of Registry run keys

Outlook

Mandiant recommends implementing secure access controls, segmenting networks, enabling multi-factor authentication, and regularly testing and evaluating backup strategies to limit the impact of a ransomware attack. Additionally, organizations should inventory externally facing services and reduce the attack surface available to attackers.

Acknowledgements

With special thanks to Nick Richard for technical review.

MITRE ATT&CK

Mandiant has observed UNC4466 use the following techniques:

 

ATT&CK Tactic Category Techniques
Impact
  T1486: Data Encrypted for Impact
  T1489: Service Stop
  T1490: Inhibit System Recovery
  T1529: System Shutdown/Reboot
Execution
  T1047: Windows Management Instrumentation
  T1053: Scheduled Task/Job
  T1053.005: Scheduled Task
  T1059.001: PowerShell
  T1059.006: Python
  T1569.002: Service Execution
Defense Evasion
  T1027: Obfuscated Files or Information
  T1027.002: Software Packing
  T1027.009: Embedded Payloads
  T1055: Process Injection
  T1070.001: Clear Windows Event Logs
  T1070.004: File Deletion
  T1112: Modify Registry
  T1134: Access Token Manipulation
  T1134.001: Token Impersonation/Theft
  T1222: File and Directory Permissions Modification
  T1497: Virtualization/Sandbox Evasion
  T1497.001: System Checks
  T1548.002: Bypass User Account Control
  T1562.001: Disable or Modify Tools
  T1564.010: Process Argument Spoofing
  T1574.011: Services Registry Permissions Weakness
  T1620: Reflective Code Loading
  T1622: Debugger Evasion
  T1484.001 Domain Policy Modification: Group Policy Modification
Discovery
  T1007: System Service Discovery
  T1012: Query Registry
  T1016: System Network Configuration Discovery
  T1033: System Owner/User Discovery
  T1057: Process Discovery
  T1082: System Information Discovery
  T1083: File and Directory Discovery
  T1087: Account Discovery
  T1135: Network Share Discovery
Persistence
  T1543: Create or Modify System Process
  T1543.003: Windows Service
  T1547.001 Boot or Logon Autostart Execution: Registry Run Keys / Startup Folder
Command and Control
  T1095: Non-Application Layer Protocol
  T1105: Ingress Tool Transfer
Lateral Movement
  T1021.001: Remote Desktop Protocol
Collection
  T1213: Data from Information Repositories
Resource Development
  T1583.003: Virtual Private Server

Indicators of Compromise

da202cc4b3679fdb47003d603a93c90d

MIMIKATZ

5fe66b2835511f9d4d3703b6c639b866

NANODUMP

1f437347917f0a4ced71fb7df53b1a05

LIGOLO

b41dc7bef82ef384bc884973f3d0e8ca

REVSOCKS

c590a84b8c72cf18f35ae166f815c9df

Sysinternals PSEXEC

24b0f58f014bd259b57f346fb5aed2ea

WINSW

e31270e4a6f215f45abad65916da9db4

REVSOCKS

4fdabe571b66ceec3448939bfb3ffcd1

Advanced Port Scanner

68d3bf2c363144ec6874ab360fdda00a

LAZAGNE

ee6e0cb1b3b7601696e9a05ce66e7f37

ALPHV

f66e1d717b54b95cf32154b770e10ba4

METASPLOIT

17424a22f01b7b996810ba1274f7b8e9

METASPLOIT

45[.]61[.]138[.]109

 

185[.]141[.]62[.]123

 

5[.]199[.]169[.]209

 

45[.]61[.]138[.]109:45815

 

45[.]61[.]138[.]109:43937

 

45[.]61[.]138[.]109:36931

 

5[.]199[.]169[.]209:31600

 

45[.]61[.]138[.]109:41703

 

185[.]99[.]135[.]115:39839

 

185[.]99[.]135[.]115:41773

 

45[.]61[.]138[.]109:33971

 

185[.]141[.]62[.]123:50810

 

185[.]99[.]135[.]115:49196

 

hxxp://185[.]141[.]62[.]123:10228/update[.]exe

 
 
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