Security Experts:

Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Application Security

North Korea Gov Hackers Caught Sharing Chrome Zero-Day

Malware hunters at Google have spotted signs that North Korean government hackers are sharing zero-day browser exploits for use in waves of targeted attacks hitting U.S. news media, crypto-banks and IT organizations.

Malware hunters at Google have spotted signs that North Korean government hackers are sharing zero-day browser exploits for use in waves of targeted attacks hitting U.S. news media, crypto-banks and IT organizations.

According to new data published by Google’s TAG (Threat Analysis Group), two distinct North Korean hacker groups separately used a Chrome browser zero-day flaw in organized malware campaigns.

The Chrome vulnerability in question – CVE-2022-0609 – was patched by Google last month with the company issuing a barebones advisory to warn of the zero-day in-the-wild exploitation. 

CVE-2022-0609 used by North Korean HackersOn Thursday, the search giant linked those attacks to North Korea’s government-backed hacking groups, warning that the earliest evidence of attacks date back to early January of this year.

“We suspect that these groups work for the same entity with a shared supply chain, hence the use of the same exploit kit, but each operate with a different mission set and deploy different techniques. It is possible that other North Korean government-backed attackers have access to the same exploit kit,” said Google researcher Adam Weidemann.

[ READ: North Korean Gov Hackers Caught Targeting Security Researchers ]

Weidemann documented his work tracking the APT activity, noting that one campaign targeted more than 250 individuals working for 10 different news media, domain registrars, web hosting providers and software vendors.

“The targets received emails claiming to come from recruiters at Disney, Google and Oracle with fake potential job opportunities. The emails contained links spoofing legitimate job hunting websites like Indeed and ZipRecruiter,” he explained.  

Targets clicking on the embedded malicious links fell victim to drive-by browser malware downloads. 

Google’s research team found the North Korean teams using an exploit kit with hidden iframes rigged into an assortment of websites. The exploit kit is capable of fingerprinting target systems before launching a Chrome remote code execution exploit capable of escaping the vaunted Chrome sandbox.

[ READ: NSA’s Rob Joyce Explains ‘Sand and Friction’ Security Strategy ]

Google said it was unable to capture any post-exploit activity, warning that the attack teams were very careful to target specific individuals and used technical tricks to filter potential victims.

“Although we recovered a Chrome RCE, we also found evidence where the attackers specifically checked for visitors using Safari on MacOS or Firefox (on any OS), and directed them to specific links on known exploitation servers,” Weidemann added.

North Korean hackers have been caught in the past targeting security researchers and using a fake penetration testing company in social engineering campaigns. Threat hunters have also documented North Korean hacking activities targeting cryptocurrency platforms.

The U.S. government has identified North Korea’s government-backed hackers as a significant adversary and has adopted a “sand-and-friction” security strategy to add cost to their operations.

Related: North Korean .Gov Hackers Back With Fake Pen-Test Company

Related: U.S. Charges North Korean Hackers Over $1.3 Billion Bank Heists

Related: Google Discovers Attack Exploiting Chrome Zero-Day Vulnerability

Written By

Ryan Naraine is Editor-at-Large at SecurityWeek and host of the popular Security Conversations podcast series. He is a security community engagement expert who has built programs at major global brands, including Intel Corp., Bishop Fox and GReAT. Ryan is a founding-director of the Security Tinkerers non-profit, an advisor to early-stage entrepreneurs, and a regular speaker at security conferences around the world.

Click to comment

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest threats, trends, and technology, along with insightful columns from industry experts.

Join this webinar to learn best practices that organizations can use to improve both their resilience to new threats and their response times to incidents.

Register

Join this live webinar as we explore the potential security threats that can arise when third parties are granted access to a sensitive data or systems.

Register

Expert Insights

Related Content

Application Security

Cycode, a startup that provides solutions for protecting software source code, emerged from stealth mode on Tuesday with $4.6 million in seed funding.

Vulnerabilities

Less than a week after announcing that it would suspended service indefinitely due to a conflict with an (at the time) unnamed security researcher...

Data Protection

The CRYSTALS-Kyber public-key encryption and key encapsulation mechanism recommended by NIST for post-quantum cryptography has been broken using AI combined with side channel attacks.

Data Protection

The cryptopocalypse is the point at which quantum computing becomes powerful enough to use Shor’s algorithm to crack PKI encryption.

Cybercrime

The changing nature of what we still generally call ransomware will continue through 2023, driven by three primary conditions.

Data Breaches

LastPass DevOp engineer's home computer hacked and implanted with keylogging malware as part of a sustained cyberattack that exfiltrated corporate data from the cloud...

Cyberwarfare

WASHINGTON - Cyberattacks are the most serious threat facing the United States, even more so than terrorism, according to American defense experts. Almost half...

Application Security

PayPal is alerting roughly 35,000 individuals that their accounts have been targeted in a credential stuffing campaign.