GINC-APT-0868 · State

Operation Domino, Operation Kremlin

Also Operation Domino, Operation Kremlin, Operation “Domino”, Operation “Kremlin”.

Category
State · Attributed to a state or working for one.
Origin
Russia(high confidence)
Motivation
Information theft and espionage
Seen
2019
Sources
3 sources carry it
Identifier
GINC-APT-0868 · operation-domino-operation-kremlin

What it is

(Clearsky) ClearSky researchers identified a malicious “.docx” file that was uploaded to VirusTotal from Russia in mid-December. The file contains an obfuscated URL to a remote template which contains malicious VBA, eventually leading to the execution of VBS on the infected machine. The attack’s purpose is to stealthily exfiltrate information without running any external executables on the system. Notably, the process is escalated on a certain day of the week, suggesting a possible familiarity with the intended victim or victims. We estimate with medium confidence that the same threat actor responsible for the attacks described in this paper also conducted an attack named “Operation Domino” that occurred earlier in 2020. We decided to name the operation “Kremlin” due to the use of a parameter named “kreml” in the “poslai” (meaning send in Russian) function that exfiltrates the data.

Names

The names each vendor, agency and source gives it. Naming differs by who tracks the actor, so one group carries many.

Operations
Operation Domino, Operation Kremlin, Operation “Domino”, Operation “Kremlin”

Attribution

Each attribution is a claim: who makes it, and to whom. Western and Eastern sources are kept apart, as they often disagree.

Western sources

Targets

Countries
Belarus

Sources