CleverSoar, a brand new malware installer, targets Chinese language and Vietnamese customers to deploy superior instruments like Winos4.0 and Nidhogg rootkit. These instruments allow keylogging, information theft, safety circumvention, and stealthy system management for potential long-term espionage.
It was initially uploaded to VirusTotal in July 2024 and commenced distribution in November 2024 as an .msi installer, extracting and executing the CleverSoar installer upon set up.
The installer is designed to focus on customers in China and Vietnam by leveraging faux software program or gaming-related .msi installers to contaminate techniques, but it surely terminates set up if the system language shouldn’t be Chinese language or Vietnamese, indicating a centered assault on these areas.
It shares similarities with the ValleyRAT marketing campaign, suggesting a possible hyperlink to the identical superior risk actor, who demonstrates a deep understanding of Home windows techniques and safety instruments.
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Deploying the Nidhogg rootkit and Winos4.0 framework disables safety measures and selectively targets Chinese language and Vietnamese techniques to determine persistent backdoor entry.
A malicious MSI bundle possible dropped payloads in “C:Program Recordsdata (x86)WindowsNT” and ran “Replace.exe” with privilege escalation (T1134.002) if not already elevated (checked by way of GetTokenInformation), after which employs unusual evasion methods.
The malware detects digital environments by querying the system firmware desk for the presence of the “QEMU” string, a standard indicator of virtualization beforehand utilized by Raspberry Robin, which helps the malware evade evaluation and detection.
It bypasses Home windows Defender’s emulator checks by utilizing the `LdrGetDllHandleEx`, `RtlImageDirectoryEntryToData`, `NtIsProcessInJob`, and `NtCompressKey` capabilities, methods documented within the UACME mission, the place profitable bypass is logged, and the installer proceeds to the subsequent verify.
The malware installer verifies the working system model utilizing the ‘GetVersionExW’ operate and checks for the presence of ‘Taskbar.dll’ to differentiate between Home windows 10 and Home windows 11 techniques.
By proscribing non-Microsoft-signed binaries from injecting into processes, it modifies the method mitigation coverage, thereby hindering the performance of sure safety options that depend on userland hooking methods.
It makes use of two anti-debug methods: timing-based checks, measuring execution delays utilizing ‘GetTickCount64’, and a easy presence verify utilizing the ‘IsDebuggerPresent’ API to detect if a debugger is connected to the method.
The malware targets Chinese language and Vietnamese techniques, creates a registry key, enumerates working processes to establish safety software program, and makes an attempt to inject malicious code into ‘lsass.exe’ to achieve unauthorized privileges, possible for persistence or lateral motion.
By creating a brief service, it establishes a persistent ‘CleverSoar’ service, which in flip masses a malicious driver to compromise system safety after which enumerates working processes to establish potential targets for additional assaults.
Based on Rapid7, the CleverSoar installer terminates competing processes, hides recordsdata, installs a rootkit, establishes persistence, disables the firewall, and deploys two malicious payloads: a Winos4.0 C2 implant and a customized backdoor, enabling communication with a C2 server.
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