GINC-APT-0156 · State

Slingshot

Category
State · Attributed to a state or working for one.
Origin
Unknown
Motivation
Information theft and espionage
Seen
2012
Sources
8 sources carry it
Identifier
GINC-APT-0156 · slingshot

What it is

While analysing an incident which involved a suspected keylogger, we identified a malicious library able to interact with a virtual file system, which is usually the sign of an advanced APT actor. This turned out to be a malicious loader internally named ‘Slingshot’, part of a new, and highly sophisticated attack platform that rivals Project Sauron and Regin in complexity. While for most victims the infection vector for Slingshot remains unknown, we were able to find several cases where the attackers got access to MikroTik routers and placed a component downloaded by Winbox Loader, a management suite for MikroTik routers. In turn, this infected the administrator of the router. We believe this cluster of activity started in at least 2012 and was still active at the time of this analysis (February 2018).

Attribution

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

Chinese and Russian sources

  • Kaspersky · 2018-03Kaspersky described a router-based implant active 2012–2018 in MENA; CyberScoop reported it was a US military counter-terrorism operation.United States (per CyberScoop reporting) · low–medium

Targets

Countries
Afghanistan, Congo, Iraq, Jordan, Kenya, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Türkiye, Yemen

Tools

The tools and malware families the sources tie to it.

  • Cahnadr
  • GollumApp
  • Minisling
  • NeedleWatch
  • Regin
  • Sfc2
  • Slingshot
  • Spork downloader
  • SsCB
  • TURNEDUP
  • Unknown Logger
  • WinBox (a utility used for MikroTik router configuration)
  • ffproxy

Sources