Suspected Chinese cyber espionage group targeting U.S. engineering and maritime industries

Suspected Chinese cyber espionage group targeting U.S. engineering and maritime industries
Mar 16 2018

Intrusions Focus on the Engineering and Maritime Sector

Since early 2018, FireEye (including our FireEye as a Service (FaaS), Mandiant Consulting, and iSIGHT Intelligence teams) has been tracking an ongoing wave of intrusions targeting engineering and maritime entities, especially those connected to South China Sea issues. The campaign is linked to a group of suspected Chinese cyber espionage actors we have tracked since 2013, dubbed TEMP.Periscope. The group has also been reported as “Leviathan” by other security firms.

The current campaign is a sharp escalation of detected activity since summer 2017. Like multiple other Chinese cyber espionage actors, TEMP.Periscope has recently re-emerged and has been observed conducting operations with a revised toolkit. Known targets of this group have been involved in the maritime industry, as well as engineering-focused entities, and include research institutes, academic organizations, and private firms in the United States. FireEye products have robust detection for the malware used in this campaign.

TEMP.Periscope Background

Active since at least 2013, TEMP.Periscope has primarily focused on maritime-related targets across multiple verticals, including engineering firms, shipping and transportation, manufacturing, defense, government offices, and research universities. However, the group has also targeted professional/consulting services, high-tech industry, healthcare, and media/publishing. Identified victims were mostly found in the United States, although organizations in Europe and at least one in Hong Kong have also been affected. TEMP.Periscope overlaps in targeting, as well as tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), with TEMP.Jumper, a group that also overlaps significantly with public reporting on “NanHaiShu.”

TTPs and Malware Used

In their recent spike in activity, TEMP.Periscope has leveraged a relatively large library of malware shared with multiple other suspected Chinese groups. These tools include:

AIRBREAK: a JavaScript-based backdoor also reported as “Orz” that retrieves commands from hidden strings in compromised webpages and actor controlled profiles on legitimate services.

BADFLICK: a backdoor that is capable of modifying the file system, generating a reverse shell, and modifying its command and control (C2) configuration.

PHOTO: a DLL backdoor also reported publicly as “Derusbi”, capable of obtaining directory, file, and drive listing; creating a reverse shell; performing screen captures; recording video and audio; listing, terminating, and creating processes; enumerating, starting, and deleting registry keys and values; logging keystrokes, returning usernames and passwords from protected storage; and renaming, deleting, copying, moving, reading, and writing to files.

HOMEFRY: a 64-bit Windows password dumper/cracker that has previously been used in conjunction with AIRBREAK and BADFLICK backdoors. Some strings are obfuscated with XOR x56. The malware accepts up to two arguments at the command line: one to display cleartext credentials for each login session, and a second to display cleartext credentials, NTLM hashes, and malware version for each login session.

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