Lazarus Group Targets South Korean Finance Firm Via Zero-Day Flaw

The North Korean threat actor recognised as Lazarus Group has been noticed exploiting flaws in unnamed software to gain access to a South Korean finance agency two times last calendar year. The news arrives from security scientists at Asec, who posted an advisory about the attacks on Tuesday.

The corporation recorded the to start with of the attacks in Might 2022, when the next happened in Oct of the identical yr. Both equally functions reportedly relied on the identical zero-working day vulnerability.

“During the infiltration in Might 2022, the affected company was working with a vulnerable version of a certificate system that was normally employed by community establishments and universities,” reads the Asec advisory.

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“After the incident, they up to date all of their computer software to their most recent variations. Even so, the Lazarus group used the software’s zero-day vulnerability to carry out their infiltration this time.”

Asec reported that, after discovering the flaw, it disclosed it to the Korea Internet & Security Company (KISA).

“Since the vulnerability has not been totally verified but and a computer software patch has not been introduced, we will be omitting the manufacturer and software from this article,” Asec wrote.

From a technological standpoint, the menace actors employed a Carry Your Individual Susceptible Driver (BYOVD) technique to exploit the software’s susceptible driver kernel modules and disable security items on infected equipment.

“Additionally, they would execute anti-forensic approaches to cover their malicious behaviors by possibly transforming file names ahead of deleting them or modifying timestamps,” explained Asec.

More typically, the security scientists pointed out that whilst the certificate application in concern is typically made use of in Korea, it does not function car-updates.

“Since these kinds of application are not up-to-date quickly, they have to be manually patched to the most recent model or deleted if unused.”

Even more, as the target company was re-infiltrated by the similar hacker team making use of a similar strategy, Asec recommended precise pointers for companies to protect versus comparable attacks.

“Instead of having only write-up-attack measures, ongoing monitoring is required to reduce recurrences.”

The Asec advisory arrives weeks following Eset researchers joined a payload of the Wslink downloader named WinorDLL64 to Lazarus Team threat actors.