BlueNoroff is the name of an APT group coined by Kaspersky researchers while investigating the notorious attack on Bangladesh’s Central Bank back in 2016. A mysterious group with links to Lazarus and an unusual financial motivation for an APT. The group seems to work more like a unit within a larger formation of Lazarus attackers, with the ability to tap into its vast resources: be it malware implants, exploits, or infrastructure. See our earlier publication about BlueNoroff attacks on the banking sector.
Also, we have previously reported on cryptocurrency-focused BlueNoroff attacks. It appears that BlueNoroff shifted focus from hitting banks and SWIFT-connected servers to solely cryptocurrency businesses as the main source of the group’s illegal income. These attackers even took the long route of building fake cryptocurrency software development companies in order to trick their victims into installing legitimate-looking applications that eventually receive backdoored updates. We reported about the first variant of such software back in 2018, but there were many other samples to be found, which was later reported by the US CISA (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency) in 2021.
The group is currently active (recent activity was spotted in November 2021).
The latest BlueNoroff’s infection vector
If there’s one thing BlueNoroff has been very good at, it’s the abuse of trust. Be it an internal bank server communicating with SWIFT infrastructure to issue fraudulent transactions, cryptocurrency exchange software installing an update with a backdoor to compromise its own user, or other means. Throughout its SnatchCrypto campaign, BlueNoroff abused trust in business communications: both internal c ..
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