Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Cybercrime

‘Orangeworm’ Cyberspies Target Healthcare Sector in US, Europe, Asia

A threat group tracked by Symantec as Orangeworm has been targeting healthcare organizations in the United States, Europe and Asia, but the attacks do not appear to be the work of a nation state.

A threat group tracked by Symantec as Orangeworm has been targeting healthcare organizations in the United States, Europe and Asia, but the attacks do not appear to be the work of a nation state.

A report published on Monday by the security firm revealed that Orangeworm was first identified in January 2015. The group has focused on organizations in the healthcare sector, which accounts for nearly 40% of targets, but it has also launched attacks on other industries that are somehow related to healthcare, including IT (15%), manufacturing (15%), logistics (8%), and agriculture (8%).

Specifically, victims in other sectors include medical device manufacturers, IT firms that provide services to clinics, and logistics companies that deliver healthcare products. Researchers say companies outside the healthcare industry have been targeted in supply chain attacks with the ultimate goal of gaining access to the systems of the intended entity.

The highest percentage of victims has been spotted in the United States (17%), but Orangeworm has also targeted organizations in Saudi Arabia, India, Philippines, Hungary, United Kingdom, Turkey, Germany, Poland, Hong Kong, Sweden, Canada, France, and several other countries around the world.

“While Orangeworm has impacted only a small set of victims in 2016 and 2017 according to Symantec telemetry, we have seen infections in multiple countries due to the nature of the victims operating large international corporations,” Symantec said in its report.

Orangeworm targets

Once they gain access to the targeted organization’s systems, the hackers deploy a custom backdoor tracked by Symantec as Trojan.Kwampirs. The malware allows attackers to remotely access the compromised machine.

The malware first collects information about the computer to determine if it may be of interest or if it’s a device belonging to a researcher. If the victim is of interest, the backdoor is “aggressively” copied to other systems with open network shares.

Symantec points out that Kwampirs has been found on machines hosting software used for high-tech imaging devices, such as MRI and X-Ray machines. The malware was also spotted on devices used to assist patients in completing consent forms. However, experts say the exact motives of Orangeworm are unclear.

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

The list of commands sent by the attackers to the malware include instructions for collecting system and network data, and obtaining information on running processes, system services, network shares, account policies, and local and domain admin accounts.

Symantec says it does not have any information that could help determine the threat group’s origins, but the company believes Orangeworm is likely conducting corporate espionage and there is no evidence that the operation is backed by a nation state.

Experts noted that the actors behind Orangeworm do not appear to be concerned about their activities being detected. The method used by Kwampirs to propagate over the network has been described as “noisy” and the attackers have done few changes to the malware since it was first discovered by researchers. The trojan uses an older propagation method that mainly works on Windows XP, but the technique may still work in the healthcare sector, which has been known to use legacy systems on older platforms.

Related: The Latest Strains of Attacks on the Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Sector

Related: Healthcare’s Unique Cyber Risk Management Challenges

Related: SamSam Ransomware Attacks Hit Healthcare Firms

Written By

Eduard Kovacs (@EduardKovacs) is a managing editor at SecurityWeek. He worked as a high school IT teacher for two years before starting a career in journalism as Softpedia’s security news reporter. Eduard holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial informatics and a master’s degree in computer techniques applied in electrical engineering.

Click to comment

Trending

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.

Understand how to go beyond effectively communicating new security strategies and recommendations.

Register

Join us for an in depth exploration of the critical nature of software and vendor supply chain security issues with a focus on understanding how attacks against identity infrastructure come with major cascading effects.

Register

Expert Insights

Related Content

Cybercrime

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

Cybercrime

As it evolves, web3 will contain and increase all the security issues of web2 – and perhaps add a few more.

Cybercrime

A recently disclosed vBulletin vulnerability, which had a zero-day status for roughly two days last week, was exploited in a hacker attack targeting the...

Cybercrime

Luxury retailer Neiman Marcus Group informed some customers last week that their online accounts had been breached by hackers.

Cybercrime

Zendesk is informing customers about a data breach that started with an SMS phishing campaign targeting the company’s employees.

Artificial Intelligence

The release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022 has demonstrated the potential of AI for both good and bad.

Cybercrime

Satellite TV giant Dish Network confirmed that a recent outage was the result of a cyberattack and admitted that data was stolen.

Cybercrime

Patch Tuesday: Microsoft calls attention to a series of zero-day remote code execution attacks hitting its Office productivity suite.