| Category:
Adversary Intelligence |
Threat Type:
Latest Attack |
Motivation:
Hacktivist |
Region:
India |
Source*:
D4 |
Executive Summary
| THREAT |
IMPACT |
MITIGATION |
- DragonForce Malaysia, the hacktivist group actively involved in targeting Indian entities, announced and shared the exploit for critical Windows servers’ Local Privilege Escalation (LPE) and Local Distribution Router (LDR) vulnerabilities.
- The group has also announced its plans of converting into a ransomware group.
|
- Actors can scan the internet for vulnerable instances of Windows LPE and leverage this vulnerability to launch attacks against significant Indian entities owned by both the government and private sectors.
- Further, they might plan to leverage this issue to execute sophisticated ransomware attacks.
|
- Look for patches and workarounds for the vulnerabilities targeting Windows.
- Audit and monitor anomalies in networks that could be indicators of possible compromise.
|
CloudSEK’s contextual AI digital risk monitoring platform
XVigil identified a post on a Telegram channel where the hacktivist group, DragonForce Malaysia has shared an exploit to bypass the Windows Server LPE LDR for targeting and exploiting Indian servers. The group has also shared a working PoC (Proof of Concept) video to substantiate their claims.
[caption id="attachment_19823" align="aligncenter" width="431"]
DragonForce posting updates on their Telegram channel[/caption]
Analysis and Attribution
Information from Cybercrime Forums
- On 23 June 2022, DragonForce Malaysia published a post on their Telegram channel, sharing a PoC for the exploit for Windows Server LPE and LDR vulnerabilities. The group has attributed a threat actor named “impossible1337” for the same.
- The group also mentioned their plans of converting to a ransomware group and shared a sample ransom note as proof.
[caption id="attachment_19824" align="aligncenter" width="799"]
Sample ransom note shared by DragonForce to substantiate their plans of converting to a ransomware group[/caption]
- On the same day, the group published a blog on their official website, thereby announcing their plans to conduct mass spreading and ransomware attacks. Following their blog post, a significant amount of chatter was observed on Twitter, which received a lot of criticism.
- Previously, DragonForce was seen discussing an exploit for a critical unauthenticated remote code execution vulnerability present in Confluence Server and Data Center, CVE-2022-26134, in order to actively target and exploit Indian entities. (For more information refer to the Appendix section)
About DragonForce
- On 10 June 2022, CloudSEK’s contextual AI digital risk platform XVigil discovered a Tweet posted by a Malaysian hacktivist group going by the name DragonForce, calling for attacks on Indian Government websites by Muslim hackers all around the world.
- The group’s primary objective of the attack, as claimed by them, was to get back at the Indian Government for controversial comments on Prophet Muhammad by some Indian politicians.
- The group behind this cyber call to arms, DragonForce Malaysia, is a pro-Palestinian hacktivist group based in Malaysia.
- This group owns and operates a forum where they post announcements and discuss their latest activities.
- The group also has Instagram and Facebook pages along with multiple Telegram channels. However, most content is replicated across their website and social media handles.
- The group has been conducting regular recruitment and promotion campaigns using Tiktok and Instagram reels.
DragonForce’s Official Communication Channels
| Forum |
: |
https[:]//dragonforce[.]io |
| Radio |
: |
https[:]//radio[.]dragonforce[.]io |
| Facebook |
: |
https[:]//fb[.]me/dragonforcedotio |
| Telegram |
: |
https[:]//t[.]me/dragonforceio |
| Twitter |
: |
https[:]//twitter[.]com/dragonforceio |
| Instagram |
: |
https[:]//instagram[.]com/dragonforceio |
| YouTube |
: |
https[:]//www.youtube[.]com/channel/UC9GycRXuy7-WMULPBkBp4Bw |
Impact & Mitigation
| Impact |
Mitigation |
- DragonForce is associated with multiple hacktivist groups for their campaign against Indian entities. This exploit gives them more opportunities to deface and dump the database of Indian entities.
- Attackers can use this vulnerability to execute commands remotely.
- Threat actors can leverage this opportunity to target victims and deploy ransomware.
- Potential loss of revenue, reputation, and intellectual property.
|
- Patch the Windows servers mitigating the currently found vulnerabilities, or resort to the latest workarounds provided by the vendor.
- Audit and monitor anomalies in networks that could be indicators of possible compromise.
|
References
Appendix
[caption id="attachment_19825" align="aligncenter" width="998"]
Proof of Concept shared for the exploit of Windows LPE LDR vulnerability[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_19826" align="aligncenter" width="585"]
Criticism received by DragonForce on their Twitter announcement[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_19827" align="aligncenter" width="565"]
Cybercrime forum post discussing CVE-2022-26134[/caption]
