Experts monitoring the dark web have come across a new Trojan designed to help threat actors recruit insiders within the organizations they want to target.
According to Avivah Litan, VP and distinguished analyst at Gartner Research, Israel-based threat intelligence firm Diskin Advanced Technologies has discovered what it believes to be the first insider threat Trojan.
Dubbed “Delilah,” the malware uses social engineering and extortion, including ransomware techniques, to recruit insiders. The Trojan, often delivered through adult and gaming websites, collects personal information that could allow the attackers to manipulate or blackmail the targeted individual.
In addition to personal information on the victim’s workplace and family, Delilah is capable of capturing video from the targeted user’s webcam. Victims are instructed to use VPNs and the Tor anonymity network, and delete their browsing history, most likely in an effort to avoid leaving any evidence that could turn up during an audit.
Litan said the Trojan is currently only shared in closed groups. The malware appears to be under development as it has several bugs, including error messages when the webcam plugin is used and long system freezes.
Researchers noted that use of Delilah still involves a high level of manual work to identify and prioritize potential victims. However, the Trojan’s developers offer managed social engineering and fraud services for customers who need help with these tasks.
“Surely, to combat Delilah and similar bots, it is especially important to collect and analyze endpoint data and information on VPN usage and TOR connections,” Litan noted in a blog post. “Often times, the optimal way to do this is to feed EDR output into UEBA systems for correlations and advanced analysis of various events. Organizations should also seek to prevent endpoints from getting infected in the first place by preventing employees from visiting high risk adult and gaming sites using organizational systems.”
Malicious insiders are increasingly problematic and, as Verizon’s 2016 Data Breach Investigations Report showed, in most cases it takes months and even years to discover such threats. Researchers also warned recently that malicious insiders could abuse their access for attacks leveraging ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS).
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