Google discovers 'Initial Access Broker' working with Russian cyber crime gang
By MYBRANDBOOK
Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG) exposes a new initial access broker dubbed Exotic Lily, which it said to be closely affiliated to a Russian cyber crime gang ill-famed for its Conti and Diavol ransomware operations.
Exotic Lily is said to have been involved in data exfiltration and deployment of the human-operated Conti and Diavol ransomware strains, both of which share overlaps with the Russian cybercriminal syndicate called Wizard Spider that's also known for operating TrickBot, BazarBackdoor, and Anchor.
In the Conti leaks, Conti members mention 'spammers' as someone who they work with (e.g., provide custom-built 'crypted' malware samples, etc.) through outsourcing. However, most of the 'spammers' don't seem to be present (or actively communicate) in the chat, hence leading to a conclusion they're operating as a separate entity.
Besides using fictitious companies and identities as a means to build trust with the targeted entities, Exotic Lily has leveraged legitimate file-sharing services like WeTransfer, TransferNow and OneDrive to deliver BazarBackdoor payloads in a bid to evade detection mechanisms.
The researchers said, “At the final stage, the attacker would upload the payload to a public file-sharing service (TransferNow, TransferXL, WeTransfer or OneDrive) and then use a built-in email notification feature to share the file with the target, allowing the final email to originate from the email address of a legitimate file-sharing service and not the attacker's email, which presents additional detection challenges.”
An analysis of the Exotic Lily's communication activity indicates that the threat actors have a "typical 9-to-5 job" on weekdays and may be possibly working from a Central or an Eastern Europe time zone.
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