Lyceum is back! Targeting ISPs and other strategic targets 😡

Reports this week indicate that the notorious Iranian hacker group Lyceum has returned to chaos and this time mainly attacking Internet service providers and telecom companies in Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Israel and other companies in the wider Middle East including the African Ministry of foreign Affairs

The Lyceum group which was first discovered in 2017 and also known as Hexene has been identified as responsible for a number of cyberattacks in July and October 2021 according to information from Accenture Cyber ​​Threat (ACTI) and Prevailion's Adversarial counterintelligence groups (PACT). The main focus of the Lyceum Group is the implementation of computer network penetration events on a number of strategic target that are appropriate for the Iranian regime. It also now appears that they are expanding their reach to other targets even including places that are friendly to the Iran such as Tunisia.

                        Lyceum: Puppets of Regime!   

The hacker group appears to have stop used its famous Danbot .NET scripts and Powershell scripts to gain unauthorized access to the systems, and is now using a number of new technical techniques to do its evil work. Like the Base64-encoded Powershell scripts and new backdoors written in C++ which are new types of malware called James and Kevin. The group also relies on DNS tunneling which is an intrusion method for using DNS as a secret communication channel which is allowing the group to execute HTTP (S) commands using malicious C2 functionality. More scrutiny of source code also shows that Lyceum is also upgrading its backdoors to stay ahead of defense systems.

Lyceum is evil and guilty perpetrators of Iranian regime and seems to have continue committing ugly acts against other countries in the region regardless of whether they are friends or not. Please friends protect yourself against these types of attacks 🙏 by monitoring DNS traffic and being aware of suspicious domains and report them to threat information platforms.

Will this regime ever stop committing ugly acts in the region?? 😡😡

#cybercrime #cybersecurity #cybercrime #NET #Powershell #cyber #attack #C++ #HTTP #HTTPS #Morocco #SaudiArabia #Tunisa #Israel #Iran #IranianRegime #corrupt #evil   

A cyber-attack on ideas: Mabna behind latest frightening global phising campaign that targets intellectual property, with allegations of state-sponsorship.

An indictment for nine Iranians was unsealed on March 23 2018. They each stand accused of a variety of crimes relating to cyber-attacks conducted on universities, government agencies, and private organisations around the globe. 31 terabytes of data was stolen - that is a lot of data! The nine suspects are all affiliated with Mabna, the group responsible for the HBO hacking (in which Game of Thrones episodes were leaked), which led to the indictment of Mesri for his involvement in the hacking and attempts to extort US$6 million. It has been revealed that the cyber-assault used customized phishing emails that were sent under the disguise of academics at other institutions. The emails contained links to academic papers that directed the victim to a malicious domain masquerading as a university web page, prompting the victim to give away his log-in details.

Among the victims were government agencies and private companies, but the primary target was universities, with around 8000 professors falling victims. So, unlike the targets identified in previous indictments, we now appear to be seeing a diversification of the type and location of the target. Furthermore, the attack was indiscriminate with regards to academic discipline. Whilst the economic value of the data should not be given disregarded (the indictment makes the cost of the stolen research to USE institutions as US$3.4 billion), the financial loss is only one implication. The concept of targeting innovation, ideas and information, acquired through years of research effort, is new and frightening. The attacks demonstrate the need for academic institutions, to improve their cyber-security, both in terms of the awareness and implementation. It is worrying that the attacks reached beyond the usual suspects of the US and Israel; universities in 22 different counties, including many in Europe, and also China, were victims. Among the non-academic targets was the Unite Nations Children's Fund, demonstrating the callous and indiscriminate way in which the Iranian cyber machine selects victims.

Whilst considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, presumably investigators must be pretty convinced of guilt to name these individuals in the indictment. These men will join those previously indicted by the FBI for cyber-criminals, in not being able to leave Iran without fear of arrest. This limitation of freedom will surely deter some of those considering a 'career' in hacking, and slow recruitment to the Iranian cyber-army.

Who is backing Mabna? The indictment reveals that spear-phising email attacks were then conducted on behalf of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of Iran. But were there other governmental bodies involved? This is a persistent question which resurfaces with each attack. Given their close association, it seems likely that there is some level of co-ordination between the IRGC and other government offices, like those within the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, when planning the cyber-attacks. Will this public condemnation deter Iran form undertaking further attacks on university, or will the stat simply distance themselves form cyber criminals?

Are large scale human casualties inevitable in state sponsored cyber war?

The attack on the Saudi Petrochemical Company in August represents a terrifying escalation in cyber wars. The machinery was the primary target, but human casualties would have been almost certain. Whether human death was the intention or just an accepted consequence is not known, but doesn't really matter - the attackers would have been aware that large scale casualties were likely and still went ahead with the attack.

Worryingly, the complexity of the malware indicates a level of resourcing that suggests the attacks were state sponsored. Although the culprit has not yet been confirmed by investigators, the open hostility between Iran and Saudi Arabia and the step change in the intensity of hostile cyber activity, make the Iranians an obvious candidate.

The malware (which has been named Trisis) compromised machinery that is common in other nuclear and oil companies throughout the world - this demonstrates the potentially global destruction that can be rapidly released by a single well planned cyber attack.

Where do we go from here? For now we can be thankful that the attacked failed and was detected. But if the bug that caused the malware to fail has been fixed, are all industrial systems sitting on a ticking time bomb with human casualties inevitable collateral damage? Attribution will be difficult, but if a government such as Iran are behind these attacks, then their consideration towards human life is very worrying. These are scary times.

Massive Power Cut Brings Turkey To Stop : Iran Cyber Attack

Turkey is in process of recovering from a major power cut that brought the country almost to a stop. According to some media reports from Turkey almost the entire country was affected by the massive power cut. Officials are considering the possibility that they were hit by a major cyber attack that was directed at its critical infrastructure.
 

The Turkish government is currently presenting the power cut as technical issue but some suspect that a state sponsor could have authorized this massive cyber attack against Ankaras electric grid and other features of its critical infrastructure.

Turkish officials said that the issue stems from technical problem with the computer system of the Turkish Electricity Conduction Company which is responsible for controlling power lines.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu stated that every possibility including a terrorist attack is being investigated.

Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz added that officials were investigating whether the power outage was result of a cyber attack. The energy minister said: «I also cannot say whether or not there was a cyber attack. The most important thing for us is to bring the system back to life. This is not something we frequently experience. »

If officials do determine that Turkey was hit by major cyber attack, Iran will likely be seen as primary suspect.

The power cut happened as tensions increasingly rise between Iran and Turkey over past few weeks. Although it takes time to determine attribution from a cyber attack some news outlets report that authorities are highly suspicious that Iran has supported the attack.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently said condemning the Shiite regime: «Iran is trying to chase [the Islamic State] from the region only to take its place». Turkish president also condemned Iran for aiding «terrorist groups» in taking over Yemen. The remarks that reportedly angered Iranian government officials who demanded an apology from Turkey. 

The two countries have also had major falling out in diplomatic relations due to the Syrian civil war. While Iran is strong supporter of the Assad regime Turkey fiercely opposes Assads grip on Syria. The countries also find themselves on opposite sides about the current conflict in Yemen.

Iran dedicated major resources towards expanding its cyber warfare capabilities over past few years.

Some speculated that Iran became one of the number one cyber threats such as China and Russia. Iran was once considered a D-grade cyber threat. Now its almost on the same level as Russia or China.

Iran also showed that it has the ability to breach the United States critical infrastructure network where Iran infiltrated U.S. water, gas, and transit systems while also successfully breaching airport security networks.

In February Irans Ayatollah Khamenei said in an address to his military cyber units: «You are the cyber war agents… get yourselves ready for such war wholeheartedly. »

Iran Cyber Attack Feared Soon

Fears are growing that Iran will release cyber warfare on US companies if negotiators fail to reach a nuclear deal by Monday that would require Iran limits its nuclear program.

Cyber-attacks from Tehran dropped after the US, Iran and other countries agreed an interim nuclear deal in 2013, but if discussions in Vienna failed before a November. 24 deadline, observers expect a new series of attacks.

American financial companies, oil and gas companies and water filtration systems could be among the targeted companies. 

 

The US has not yet faced the full force of Iran’s rapidly developing cyber capabilities. Iran initially increased its cyber efforts in 2010 and launched a barrage of simplistic attacks on the US financial sector in 2012. Detecting such relatively harmless attacks was easy.  

Over the last two years, Iran has formed a Supreme Council of Cyberspace that meets once a month and includes President Hassan Rouhani.

Iranian officials also strengthened cybersecurity research partnerships with Russia and Iran has gone from a nascent to a burgeoning cyber power.

Security company FireEye described that one popular Iranian hacking group went from website defacements in 2010 to “malware-based espionage” in just four years.

It is reported that Iranian hackers attacked oil giant Saudi Aramco, the world’s most valuable company, and deleted the contents of 30,000 computers. The same virus also hit Qatar-based liquid petroleum gas firm RasGas.

While the US is bombarded with cyber attacks, it has never been the subject of a large-scale destructive attack. So far Tehran’s hackers are mostly suspected of probing around US infrastructure networks to understand their designs.

But if the nuclear talks fell apart that could change. And this time an Iranian attack could be more advanced.