Russian Turla Hackers Specialise In Attacking Government Agencies

US Cyber Command has exposed eight new malware samples that were developed and deployed by Russian hackers in recent attacks. Six of the eight samples are for the ComRAT malware, which is used by the Russian Turla  hacking group, while the other two are samples for the Zebrocy malware, which is used by the APT28 hacking group.

Now the Turla has hacked into the systems of a European government organisation according to a report form  Accenture Cyber Threat Intelligence (ACTI).

The state-sponsored Turla group, also known as  Venomous Bear, are known for using unorthodox methods to perform cyber-espionage goals. They are believed to be the main suspect behind attacks targeting the Pentagon and NASA, the U.S. Central Command, the Finnish Foreign Ministry, and various other European Ministries of Foreign Affairs this year. They are famous for using unorthodox methods to perform cyber-espionage goals.

Turla continues to target government organisations using custom malware, including updated legacy tools, designed to maintain persistence through overlapping backdoor access while evading their victim’s defenses.  

The recent attack perfectly lines up with the type of Turla information theft and espionage motivation and its persistent targeting of government-related entities from a wide range of countries.

To compromise the organisation's network, the attackers used a combination of recently updated remote administration Trojans (RATs) and remote procedure call (RPC)-based backdoors including HyperStack, analysed by ACTI between June and October 2020. "Notably, Accenture researchers recently identified novel command and control (C&C) configurations for Turla’s Carbon and Kazuar backdoors on the same victim network," ACTI researchers said.

Over the course of  their espionage campaigns to date, Turla has compromised thousands of systems belonging to governments, embassies, as well as education and research facilities from over 100 countries.

Government entities are advised by ACTI to check network logs for indicators of compromise included at the end of the report and to build detections capable of blocking future Turla attacks.Turla has compromised over thousands of systems belonging to governments, embassies, education and research facilities from over 100 countries in their espionage campaigns.

Accenture said that Turla might continue to use its legacy tools with upgrades, to compromise and maintain long-term access to its victims as these tools are successful against Windows-based networks. ACTI recommends the government entities to check network logs to look for any indicators of compromise included at the end of the report and to build detections capable of blocking Turla attacks in future.

Turla will likely continue to use its legacy tools, albeit with upgrades, to compromise and maintain long term access to its victims because these tools have proven successful against windows-based networks. Government entities, in particular, should check network logs for indicators of compromise and build detections aimed at thwarting this threat actor.

NCSC:    Accenture:     Bleeping Computer:      Data Breaches:     CyberSafe:      BankInfoSecurity:    ZDNet:   RootDaemon: 

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