Sticky Werewolf Uses Undocumented Implant to Deploy Lumma Stealer in Russia and Belarus

Sticky Werewolf Uses Undocumented Implant to Deploy Lumma Stealer in Russia and Belarus

Feb 28, 2025Ravie LakshmananMonetary Fraud / Cyber Espionage

The risk actor often known as Sticky Werewolf has been linked to focused assaults primarily in Russia and Belarus with the intention of delivering the Lumma Stealer malware by the use of a beforehand undocumented implant.

Cybersecurity firm Kaspersky is monitoring the exercise beneath the identify Indignant Likho, which it mentioned bears a “robust resemblance” to Awaken Likho (aka Core Werewolf, GamaCopy, and PseudoGamaredon).

“Nonetheless, Indignant Likho’s assaults are usually focused, with a extra compact infrastructure, a restricted vary of implants, and a give attention to staff of enormous organizations, together with authorities companies and their contractors,” the Russian firm said.

Cybersecurity

It is suspected that the risk actors are probably native Russian audio system given using fluent Russian within the bait information used to set off the an infection chain. Final month, cybersecurity firm F6 (previously F.A.C.C.T.) described it as a “pro-Ukrainian cyberspy group.”

The attackers have been discovered to primarily single out organizations in Russia and Belarus, with a whole lot of victims recognized within the former.

Previous intrusion activities related to the group have leveraged phishing emails as a conduit to distribute numerous malware households similar to NetWire, Rhadamanthys, Ozone RAT, and a backdoor often known as DarkTrack, the final of which is launched through a loader referred to as Ande Loader.

The assault sequence includes using spear-phishing emails bearing a booby-trapped attachment (e.g., archive information), inside that are two Home windows shortcut (LNK) information and a authentic lure doc.

The archive information are answerable for advancing the malicious exercise to the next-stage, unleashing a fancy multi-stage course of to deploy the Lumma data stealer.

“This implant was created utilizing the authentic open-source installer, Nullsoft Scriptable Set up System, and features as a self-extracting archive (SFX),” Kaspersky mentioned.

The assaults have been noticed incorporating steps to evade detection by safety distributors by the use of a examine for emulators and sandboxed environments, inflicting the malware to both terminate or resume after a ten,000 ms delay, a method additionally noticed in Awaken Likho implants.

This overlap has raised the likelihood that the attackers behind the 2 campaigns share the identical expertise or probably the identical group utilizing a special set of instruments for various targets and duties.

Cybersecurity

Lumma Stealer is designed to assemble system and put in software program data from compromised gadgets, in addition to delicate knowledge similar to cookies, usernames, passwords, banking card numbers, and connection logs. It is also able to stealing knowledge from numerous internet browsers, cryptocurrency wallets, cryptowallet browser extensions (MetaMask), authenticators, and from apps AnyDesk and KeePass.

“The group’s newest assaults use the Lumma stealer, which collects an enormous quantity of knowledge from contaminated gadgets, together with browser-stored banking particulars and cryptowallet information,” Kaspersky mentioned.

“The group depends on available malicious utilities obtained from darknet boards, slightly than creating its personal instruments. The one work they do themselves is writing mechanisms of malware supply to the sufferer’s machine and crafting focused phishing emails.”

Discovered this text fascinating? Comply with us on Twitter and LinkedIn to learn extra unique content material we put up.

Leave a Reply