ComRAT Trojan
ComRAT is a trojan created by the Turla advanced persistent threat group for use in attacks against American and European government organisations.
Summary
ComRAT is a trojan created by the Turla advanced persistent threat group for use in attacks against American and European government organisations.
Affected platforms
The following platforms are known to be affected:
Threat details
Introduction
ComRAT is a trojan created by the Turla advanced persistent threat group for use in attacks against American and European government organisations. Believed to have been created in 2007 or earlier, it appeared to have fallen out of use by Turla until 2017 when a number of significant functionality changes were made.
Delivery
At the time of publication, ComRAT is delivered by a number of Turla-developed tools such as LightNeuron and PowerStallion, or common open-source tools like PowerShell Empire. As with most Turla campaigns, they perform extensive network reconnaissance and target profiling before delivering any tools.
Activities
Once installed, ComRAT will attempt to extract sensitive documents from local and network drives. It will also collect information on Active Directory groups and Windows configurations. Data is exfiltrated to a cloud storage solution, typically 4shared or OneDrive. Interestingly, ComRAT will also exfiltrate security-related files such as SIEM logs, seemingly so that Turla may review them and determine how ComRAT is being detected.
Threat updates
| Date | Update |
|---|---|
| 22 Feb 2021 |
Turla APT's new tool IronNetInjector used to deliver ComRAT
ComRAT has recently been observed being delivered using Turla’s new malware loading tool IronNetInjector, which takes advantage of an open-source implementation of Python named IronPython and the .Net Framework. The payload is then injected into a process via process hollowing after the IronPython script executes and the .NET injector has been loaded. |
Remediation advice
To prevent and detect an infection, NHS Digital advises that:
- Secure configurations are applied to all devices.
- Security updates are applied at the earliest opportunity.
- Tamper protection settings in security products are enabled where available.
- Obsolete platforms are segregated from the rest of the network.
- IT usage policies are reinforced by regular training to ensure all users know not to open unsolicited links or attachments.
- Multi-factor authentication (MFA) and lockout policies are used where practicable, especially for administrative accounts.
- Administrative accounts are only used for necessary purposes.
- Remote administration services use strongly encrypted protocols and only accept connections from authorised users or locations.
- Systems are continuously monitored, and unusual activity is investigated, so that a compromise of the network can be detected as early as possible.
Please note that NCSC maintains guidance for securely configuring a wide range of end user device (EUD) platforms. For further details refer to their end user device security guidance pages.
Last edited: 26 February 2021 10:55 am