The Attribution, Arrest, and Sentencing of Spyeye Malware Developers Alexander Panin and Hamza Bendellaj
Release Date: 02/17/2021
Democratizing Ransomware as a Service with Nisos Intelligence Advisory Paul Malcomb
Know Your Adversary™
In Episode 91 of TheCyber5, we are joined by Paul Malcomb, Intelligence Advisory for Nisos. Paul brings over 15 years of experience from Fortune 500 security teams and the public sector including incident response, threat intelligence, and third-party risk management. In this episode, Paul explains how the ransomware-related ecosystem is evolving and provides insights to some of the newer threats organizations face. Below are the three major takeaways: Ransomware actors no longer need to be end-to-end capable and are now very decentralized: Gone...
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Insider Threat Extortion Attempt of $300,000 Leads to Arrest
Know Your Adversary™
In Episode 11 of Know Your Adversary®, we chat with an undisclosed security team that prevented an insider threat actor from extorting $300,000 from a global company. The result of the six months long investigation resulted in the arrest of the suspect who, as it turns out, was motivated by pride and money. One morning, the security team received an email asking for $300,000 as an extortion payment or the data would be released. Upon showing “proof of life” that the attacker possessed the data, it became clear they maintained elevated access beyond that of someone living abroad in...
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Compare and Contrast Saudi Aramco and Colonial Pipeline Cyber Attacks
Know Your Adversary™
In Episode 10 of Know Your Adversary™, ICE Miller Managing Partner discusses the difference between the 2012 Saudi Aramco destructive cyber attacks and the 2021 Colonial Pipeline ransomware attacks. In 2012, Iran attacked Saudi Arabia-based Aramco’s information technology (IT) infrastructure, denying service to the entire company to the point that Aramco gave gas away for free. Fast forward to 2021, a Russia-based ransomware gang Darkside attacked the IT infrastructure of Colonial Pipeline, particularly the billing system. When Colonial Pipeline couldn’t determine how to charge...
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OneSight Backstage Management System: Attributing a Chinese Marketing Firm’s Tools to Disinformation Campaigns
Know Your Adversary™
In Episode 9 of Know Your Adversary™, Nisos researcher Zeshan Aziz revealed that Chinese commercial marketing firm OneSight, developed a sophisticated social media management and monitoring system called OneSight Backstage Management System to propagate political disinformation against the Uyghur community. The research indicates the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) likely conducted the campaign. Previous research into a breach of OneSight identified sophisticated social media surveillance tooling was used for widespread disinformation campaigns across many prominent Chinese and U.S. social...
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Human Intelligence Recruitment of an Employee to Deploy Ransomware
Know Your Adversary™
In Episode 8 of Know Your Adversary™, we detail an August 2020 investigation when a Russian gang member named Egor Igorevich Kriuchkov traveled to the United States to recruit an employee of a US-based manufacturing company and to install ransomware on the network via USB thumb drive. He offered the employee $500,000, and if the operation was successful, the Russian gang was going to extort the company for $5,000,000. Fortunately, the company prepared the employee for this type of scenario and reported Egor. A subsequent FBI investigation arrested Egor and deported him back to Moscow,...
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Investigating the T-Mobile Hack: Direct Threat Actor Engagement with John Binns
Know Your Adversary™
In Episode 7 of Know Your Adversary™, we detail the August 2021 compromise disclosure of T-Mobile. In August 2021, John Binns, a US Citizen living in Turkey, disclosed that he compromised T-Mobile customer data. While he initially stated his motivations were in response to physical abuse, further investigation indicated that Binns was driven primarily by financial gain. Our guest is ShadowByte Head of Research, Vinny Troia, a security researcher who directly interacted with John Binns.
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Supply Chain Attacks Escalation and Evolution by Foreign Nation States
Know Your Adversary™
In Episode 6 of Know Your Adversary™, we detail a previous supply chain attack from 2007 and then again in 2015 against a security software company. Our guest is Lucidum CEO, Joel Fulton. Foreign nation states conducted detailed recon and knew when a router was going to be rebooted for maintenance updates. Upon rebooting the router, the attackers “slipped through the crack” and into the software provider’s network by exploiting a vulnerability of the router model.
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Nisos Attributes and Unmasks Insider Threat Saboteurs Who Caused $1M in Business Loss
Know Your Adversary™
In Episode 5 of Know Your Adversary™, we discuss a 2018 Nisos insider threat investigation of network sabotage that caused almost $1M in business operations loss. Following a recent M&A transaction, IT engineers of the nearly acquired subsidiary were upset with their new roles. The results of the sabotage were a complete subsidiary network outage for over a week and a subsequent Nisos, partner, and FBI investigation that led to the arrest and detention of one co-conspirator.
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Attribution to Russian GRU for 2015 and 2016 Cyber Attacks on Ukraine Energy Power Stations
Know Your Adversary™
In Episode 4 of Know Your Adversary, we are joined by Gigamon Senior Manager Joe Slowik. Our discussion takes a look into the world of Russian nation-state hacking units, particularly the GRU and the SVR. We take a deep dive into the 2015 and 2016 cyber attacks against the Ukrainian power grid and review how Russia’s capabilities are increasing in sophistication, mainly through lateral hand-offs between the teams of hackers operating in IT and OT environments.
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Identifying and Disrupting Malicious Bot Programmers and Security Researchers
Know Your Adversary™
In Episode 3 of Know Your Adversary™ we are joined by Shawn Valle, former Chief Information Security Officer at Rapid 7. Our discussion takes a look into the world of online platform abuse and fraud. We explore threat actors’ use of bots to make bulk purchases online. We also tell the story of a security researcher on the wrong side of the law. Learn about the path he took from disclosing a breach to demanding a ransom payment.
info_outlineIn episode 1 of the Know Your Adversary™ Podcast, we are joined by Mark Ray, former FBI Special Agent, Kamal Ghali former Assistant US Attorney and current partner at Bondurant, Mixon & Elmore, and former FBI Forensics Expert and current Technical Principal at Nisos Willis McDonald. We discuss one of the most famous cyber criminal cases of the 21st century, the attribution and takedown of Spyeye malware developer Alexander Panin and his primary facilitator Hamza Bendallaj. Spyeye was commodity malware that was sold on dark web marketplaces beginning in 2009. The malware was a program that ran on numerous browsers and operating systems allowing hackers to steal money from online bank accounts and initiate transactions even while valid users were logged into the bank account. Over seven years, the losses to consumers and enterprises exceeded $500 million worldwide. The investigation and takedown of Panin and Bendallaj culminated in 2016 when they were sentenced to a combined 24 years and 6 months in prison.
Here are some of the key takeaways from the episode.
- The Real and Fake Lives of Personas Used By Cyber Criminals Online Often Intersect. Just like an enterprise, cyber criminals consider their return on investment when engaging in malicious activity. Just like Alexander Panin and Hamza Bendellaj did when they were establishing their complex web of bots and proxy servers, current criminals want to monetize crime as quickly as possible. They want to scale their activities so it can be replicated between numerous victims and maximize their profits. When they do this, they often make operational security mistakes. Identifying these mistakes are key to remediation.
- Criminals and Nation States Purchase Malicious Command and Control Servers Near Victim’s Locations to Reduce Malicious Signature. Attackers will not typically link their activity directly to their destination command and control servers in Russia or Eastern Europe. Typically, they establish C2 nodes near server farms, virtual physical locations, or individual machines physically located near their victims. In this case, Bendallaj and Panin used servers in Atlanta. Gaining access to the local infrastructure can provide critical information about the commands and signatures the attackers used in their attacks.