Pierluigi Paganini
December 13, 2024
Lookout researchers linked the BoneSpy and PlainGnome Android surveillance families to the Russian APT group Gamaredon (a.k.a. Armageddon, Primitive Bear, and ACTINIUM). These are the first known mobile malware families linked to the Russian APT.
The cyberespionage group is behind a long series of spear-phishing attacks targeting Ukrainian entities, and organizations related to Ukrainian affairs, since October 2021. Gamaredon has been launching cyber-espionage campaigns on Ukraine since at least 2014.
Threat actors have used BoneSpy since at least 2021, while PlainGnome first appeared in 2024. Gamaredon is still using both families at the time of writing.
BoneSpy and PlainGnome were used in attacks against Russian-speaking victims in former Soviet states like Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Attackers target former Soviet states likely due to strained relations post-Ukraine invasion. Early 2022 evidence suggests potential enterprise targeting, but no Ukrainian victims have been confirmed.
PlainGnome acts as a dropper for a surveillance payload, stored within the dropper package, while BoneSpy was deployed as a standalone application.
Lookout linked BoneSpy and PlainGnome to Gamaredon due to shared IP infrastructure, domain naming conventions, and the use of dynamic DNS services like ddns[.]net, consistent with Gamaredon’s techniques since 2017. These findings tie the mobile surveillance families to Gamaredon’s desktop campaigns.
“These infrastructure connections, together with the evidence of Russian development and targeting of Russian speaking groups in former Soviet states, lead us to the conclusion that both BoneSpy and PlainGnome are operated by Gamaredon.” reads the report published by Lookout.
BoneSpy appears to be based on the Russian open-source surveillance app DroidWatcher, while PlainGnome is not based on open-source code, but shares similar theming and C2 server properties with BoneSpy.
PlainGnome uses a two-stage deployment. The lightweight first stage mimics a catalog app, requests the REQUEST_INSTALL_PACKAGES permission, and installs the second-stage APK. The second stage, disguised as an image gallery, handles all surveillance functions. Deployment heavily uses Russian-language lures and basic emulator checks.
The experts noticed that the second-stage payload of PlainGnome has evolved significantly in 2024, incorporating Jetpack WorkManager for efficient data exfiltration triggered in idle states. This stage, which performs all surveillance functions, uses 38 permissions but lacks robust obfuscation, relying on minimal analysis defenses.
The exact mechanism by which the malware-laced apps are distributed remains unclear, but it’s suspected to involve targeted social engineering, masquerading themselves as battery charge monitoring apps, photo gallery apps, a fake Samsung Knox app, and a fully functional-but-trojanized Telegram app.
“Both BoneSpy and PlainGnome focus on Russian-speaking victims in former Soviet states. BoneSpy has been in use since at least 2021, and is based on the open-source DroidWatcher surveillanceware.” concludes the report. “While PlainGnome, which first surfaced this year, has many overlaps in functionality with BoneSpy, it does not appear to have been developed from the same code base..
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