The North Korea-linked Lazarus Group has been linked to an lively marketing campaign that leverages pretend LinkedIn job gives within the cryptocurrency and journey sectors to ship malware able to infecting Home windows, macOS, and Linux working methods.
In line with cybersecurity firm Bitdefender, the rip-off begins with a message despatched on knowledgeable social media community, engaging them with the promise of distant work, part-time flexibility, and good pay.
“As soon as the goal expresses curiosity, the ‘hiring course of’ unfolds, with the scammer requesting a CV or perhaps a private GitHub repository hyperlink,” the Romanian agency mentioned in a report shared with The Hacker Information.
“Though seemingly harmless, these requests can serve nefarious functions, resembling harvesting private information or lending a veneer of legitimacy to the interplay.”
As soon as the requested particulars are obtained, the assault strikes to the following stage the place the risk actor, beneath the guise of a recruiter, shares a hyperlink to a GitHub or Bitbucket repository containing a minimal viable product (MVP) model of a supposed decentralized trade (DEX) undertaking and instructs the sufferer to test it out and supply their suggestions.
Current inside the code is an obfuscated script that is configured to retrieve a next-stage payload from api.npoint[.]io, a cross-platform JavaScript info stealer that is able to harvesting information from numerous cryptocurrency pockets extensions which may be put in on the sufferer’s browser.
The stealer additionally doubles up as a loader to retrieve a Python-based backdoor accountable for monitoring clipboard content material modifications, sustaining persistent distant entry, and dropping further malware.
At this stage, it is value noting that the ways documented by Bitdefender exhibit overlaps with a identified assault exercise cluster dubbed Contagious Interview (aka DeceptiveDevelopment and DEV#POPPER), which is designed to drop a JavaScript stealer referred to as BeaverTail and a Python implant known as InvisibleFerret.
“The analyzed malware appears to fall inside the Contagious Interview cluster,” Bitdefender Labs instructed The Hacker Information. “Nevertheless, the contaminated JavaScript pattern is totally different from different BeaverTail samples that have been seen prior to now. We now have additionally noticed different particulars within the an infection chain that leads us to imagine that the risk actors are constantly adapting and enhancing their ways.”
The malware deployed by the use of the Python malware is a .NET binary that may obtain and begin a TOR proxy server to speak with a command-and-control (C2) server, exfiltrate primary system info, and ship one other payload that, in flip, can siphon delicate information, log keystrokes, and launch a cryptocurrency miner.
“The risk actors’ an infection chain is advanced, containing malicious software program written in a number of programming languages and utilizing quite a lot of applied sciences, resembling multi-layered Python scripts that recursively decode and execute themselves, a JavaScript stealer that first harvests browser information earlier than pivoting to additional payloads, and .NET-based stagers able to disabling safety instruments, configuring a Tor proxy, and launching crypto miners,” Bitdefender mentioned.
There may be proof to counsel these efforts are fairly widespread, going by studies shared on LinkedIn and Reddit, with minor tweaks to the general assault chain. In some instances, the candidates are requested to clone a Web3 repository and run it domestically as a part of an interview course of, whereas in others they’re instructed to repair deliberately launched bugs within the code.
One of many Bitbucket repositories in query refers to a undertaking named “miketoken_v2.” It’s now not accessible on the code internet hosting platform. Bitdefender mentioned the exercise is a part of the identical marketing campaign with the repository names and recruiter profiles shuffled.
The disclosure comes a day after SentinelOne revealed that the Contagious Interview marketing campaign is getting used to ship one other malware codenamed FlexibleFerret.
