GINC-APT-0245 · Targeted, sponsor unknown

SWEED

Also Sweed.

Category
Targeted, sponsor unknown · Targeted intrusions with no sponsor attributed.
Origin
Unknown
Motivation
Information theft and espionage
Seen
2017
Sources
7 sources carry it
Identifier
GINC-APT-0245 · sweed

What it is

Cisco Talos recently identified a large number of ongoing malware distribution campaigns linked to a threat actor we're calling "SWEED," including such notable malware as Formbook, Lokibot and Agent Tesla. Based on our research, SWEED — which has been operating since at least 2017 — primarily targets their victims with stealers and remote access trojans. SWEED remains consistent across most of their campaigns in their use of spear-phishing emails with malicious attachments. While these campaigns have featured a myriad of different types of malicious documents, the actor primarily tries to infect its victims with a packed version of Agent Tesla — an information stealer that's been around since at least 2014. The version of Agent Tesla that SWEED is using differs slightly from what we've seen in the past in the way that it is packed, as well as how it infects the system. In this post, we'll run down each campaign we're able to connect to SWEED, and talk about some of the actor's tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs).

Names

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

Other names
Sweed

Targets

Countries
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, China, Djibouti, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Monaco, Qatar, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, Türkiye, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States
Sectors
Defense, Energy, Financial, Manufacturing, Shipping and Logistics

Tools

The tools and malware families the sources tie to it.

  • Agent Tesla
  • Agent.btz
  • CrossRat
  • Formbook
  • LokiBot
  • RDP
  • Remote Utilities
  • RemoteCMD
  • RemotePC
  • Trojan.Karagany
  • Trojan.Mebromi

Sources