UAC-0142 APT targets Ukraine’s Delta military intelligence program

Ukraine’s CERT-UA revealed the national Delta military intelligence program has been targeted with a malware-based attack.

On December 17, 2022, the Center for Innovations and Development of Defense Technologies of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine informed the Government Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA) of being targeted by a malware-based attack.

The spear phishing messages were sent from a compromised e-mail address belonging to an employee of the Ministry of Defense, as well as messengers. The message urges the recipient to update certificates in the “DELTA” system, it also uses an attached PDF document that imitates legitimate digests of the ISTAR unit of the Zaporizhzhia Police Department.

“The Delta is a system for collecting, processing and displaying information about enemy forces, coordinating of defense forces, as well as providing situational awareness according to NATO standards, developed by the Center for Innovation and Development of Defense Technologies of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.” states the Ukrainian military.

According to CERT-UA, the document contains a link to a malicious ZIP archive (“certificates_rootca.zip”) that is hosted on a bogus Delta domain.

Upon executing an executable “certificates_rootCA.exe” included in the archive, it will install two malware onto the compromised systems; the info-stealing malware FateGrab used to steal sensitive data (emails, databases, scripts and documents) and the StealDeal malware which steals Internet browser data.

These files are designed to deploy two pieces of malware onto compromised systems, including one named FateGrab, which harvests emails, databases, scripts and documents, and one called StealDeal, which collects internet browser data and more.

“If you follow the link, the “certificates_rootca.zip” archive containing the “certificates_rootCA.exe” executable file protected by VMProtect will be downloaded to your computer (the file was compiled and digitally signed on 12/15/2022).” reads the advisory published by the CERT-UA.

“After running the EXE file, several DLL files, also protected by VMProtect, and an “ais.exe” file simulating the certificate installation process will be created on the PC. Later, two malicious programs will be launched on the victim’s computer:” reads the alert published by CERT-UA. “FateGrab (“FileInfo.dll”; “ftp_file_graber.dll”), the functionality of which involves stealing files with extensions: ‘.txt’, ‘.rtf’, ‘. xls’, ‘.xlsx’, ‘.ods’, ‘.cmd’, ‘.pdf’, ‘.vbs’, ‘.ps1’, ‘.one’, ‘.kdb’, ‘.kdbx’, ‘. doc’, ‘.docx’, ‘.odt’, ‘.eml’, ‘.msg’, ‘.email’ with their subsequent exfiltration via FTP, and StealDeal (“procsys.dll”; “StealDll.dll”) , designed, among other things, to steal Internet browser data.”

The Ukrainian authorities attribute the attack to the threat actor tracked as UAC-0142.

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Delta military intelligence)

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Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.