- 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
- ETDA Threat Group Card apt.etda.or.th
- Malpedia malpedia.caad.fkie.fraunhofer.de