Hunting the Shadows:
In Depth Analysis of Escalated APT Attacks
Fyodor Yarochkin, Academia Sinica
Pei Kan PK Tsung, Academia Sinica
Ming-Chang Jeremy Chiu, Xecure Lab
Ming-Wei Benson Wu, Xecure Lab
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Agenda
• Why Taiwan?
• The “Lstudio” player… fun 
• Taking a peek at Weaponry
• APT in a Cloud
• Victimology or … chicken-logy?
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whoweare
Based in Taiwan
Interests in Computer Forensics
Access to some raw network traffic data (fun!)
Get to fish interesting things (PROFFFIIITT!)
@bensonwu [secret] @fygrave
[censored]
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Disclaimer
A few words before we move on.
- With this research we are primarily interested in
understanding the Ops and victims of discussed
targeted attacks. We DO NOT attempt to
perform any attribution of potential attackers.
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Taiwan has been a frontline of
APT battlefield for some time
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Many interesting things could be observed
(though this is not “Lstudio” group)
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Elirks: earlier campaign
 Reported by Dell/Secureworks as Elirks
http://www.secureworks.com/cyber-threat-
intelligence/threats/chasing_apt/
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Elirks evolution
http://tw.myblog.yahoo.com/jw!uzrxZwSGHxowPMGZAaj4I5
http://blog.yam.com/minzhu0906/article/54726977
http://diary.blog.yam.com/bigtree20130514/article/10173342
http://tw.myblog.yahoo.com/jw!uzrxZwSGHxowPMGZAaj4I50
-
http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/sakasesi2013/31805794.html
http://www.plurk.com/mdbmdb
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Elirks 2.0 – silly to reuse the
address-space
Managed by the same
IP addresses
(easy to cross-correlate)
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Another on-going Campaign
 On-going:
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On average, 48 APT emails a
week!
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The “Lstudio” group:
Exploring fun things in a
greater detail :)
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They start with a boring
spearphhiiissh
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Almost clean :)
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The APT Landscape in Taiwan
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We’ll examine the “LStudio”
group today
• Unique indicators of the “LStudio” group:
• Debug symbols (.pdb)
• “horse” label and generator tag
• Some curious discoveries from the “Lstudio”
backend data center … ;-)
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LStudio binaries have cute things
CSJ-Elise
f:toolscodeCSJEliseReleaseEliseDLL.pdb
http://scan.xecure-lab.com
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CSJ-Elise ..
TAABAMoGvBjTVXHUHaibnwrAWfchx2x17Rf2roRBnbD/9lu13lWnlAUbBgqw+YNld2vcV5krtXoG__FXI43BxueF4FChFrk
SRgNVP2WQ==
http://140.105.135.71:443/2995ebc9/page_12180900.html
http://118.163.60.73:443/2995ebc9/page_12180912.html
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They love fast
cars 
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Evora
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FASST CARS 
Lstudio Operations and C2
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“Lstudio” payload Generator
Generator
Owner
Horse Label
Generator-Tag
APT Exploit delivery via email
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We don’t say victim
肉雞 = G
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The typical botnet model
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Very advanced Zoo-management
skills :)
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APT advanced farming :)
 Operated by roughly 25 “farmers”
 Has controlled over 5,884 machines
 International coverage over 30 countries
 Utilizes 4 different Botnet software families
 Active since 2007
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The “Lstudio” Chicken Cloud 
APT Cloud
Backend Data Center
Farmer
Boss?
Farmer Group B
Farmer Group ACommand Channel
(Second phase backdoor)
Data Channel
(First phase backdoor)
Configurable Bounce
APT Botnet A
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APT Botnet B
.. And who are the Chicken ?! 
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International Chicken Farm Corp.
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chicken farms went international
TW 84%
US 6%
5,884
chickens
2% 30
KR 1% CN 1%
Share some Chicken 
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http://www.appledaily.com.tw/
http://www.cna.com.tw
KMT ?
KMT ?
When you travel, your chicken
travel too… 
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Lets look at some travelers 
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US
Canada
France
England
Taiwan
ANOTHER DISCOVERY!!
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.. do have 9 to 5 job ;)…
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Just like some security researchers
do 
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AND THE LAST .. SOME HANDY
TOOLS TO SHARE 
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XecScan: Free API
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Yara: a swiss-knife of static sigs ;)
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Yara use
Easy to integrate with your scripts
Integration with a proxy server is possible via
icap yara plugin:
https://github.com/fygrave/c_icap_yara
Raw network traffic monitoring project (and
http/DNS indexing):
https://github.com/fygrave/eyepkflow
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More cool tools
Moloch https://github.com/aol/moloch
Yara mail
https://github.com/kevthehermit/yaraMail
Yara pcap
https://github.com/kevthehermit/YaraPcap
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Conclusions
Complex infrastructure
Operates since 2007
Multiple software versions
Multiple back-ends
Victims – government and private sector
Mainly Taiwan but also seen world-wide
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Questions?
benson.wu@xecure-lab.com
jeremy.chiu@xecure-lab.com
pk@hitcon.org
f@plurk.com
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Hunting The Shadows: In Depth Analysis of Escalated APT Attacks

Editor's Notes

  • #20 整體設計上Elise,將摒棄現行概念底盤以鋁合金打造、車身鈑件也大量採用碳纖維材質的Elise全車重僅1095公斤,而在Lotus的規劃下,未來Elise將搭載擁有約320匹馬力輸出之2.0升四缸引擎。從近來幾部全新發表的Lotus之上,我們能夠看見新一代Lotus係採用源自"鯊魚"的設計概念,並隨著各車型與定位著不同,而各自發展屬於單一車型的獨特風格,而在Elise之上我們也能看見更多銳利的線條與充滿殺氣的勾勒樂手法,以營造出Elise特別的霸氣! http://cool3c.incar.tw/article/34399