• Home
  • Cyber Crime
  • Cyber warfare
  • APT
  • Data Breach
  • Deep Web
  • Digital ID
  • Hacking
  • Hacktivism
  • Intelligence
  • Internet of Things
  • Laws and regulations
  • Malware
  • Mobile
  • Reports
  • Security
  • Social Networks
  • Terrorism
  • ICS-SCADA
  • POLICIES
  • Contact me
MUST READ

Apple addressed the seventh actively exploited zero-day

 | 

Hackers deploy DripDropper via Apache ActiveMQ flaw, patch systems to evade detection

 | 

A Scattered Spider member gets 10 years in prison

 | 

FBI: Russia-linked group Static Tundra exploit old Cisco flaw for espionage

 | 

US CERT/CC warns of flaws in Workhorse Software accounting software used by hundreds of municipalities in Wisconsin

 | 

DOJ takes action against 22-year-old running RapperBot Botnet

 | 

Google fixed Chrome flaw found by Big Sleep AI

 | 

Pharmaceutical firm Inotiv discloses ransomware attack. Qilin group claims responsibility for the hack

 | 

A hacker tied to Yemen Cyber Army gets 20 months in prison

 | 

Exploit weaponizes SAP NetWeaver bugs for full system compromise

 | 

Allianz Life security breach impacted 1.1 million customers

 | 

U.S. CISA adds Trend Micro Apex One flaw to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

 | 

AI for Cybersecurity: Building Trust in Your Workflows

 | 

Taiwan Web Infrastructure targeted by APT UAT-7237 with custom toolset

 | 

New NFC-Driven Android Trojan PhantomCard targets Brazilian bank customers

 | 

Cisco fixed maximum-severity security flaw in Secure Firewall Management Center

 | 

'Blue Locker' Ransomware Targeting Oil & Gas Sector in Pakistan

 | 

Hackers exploit Microsoft flaw to breach Canada ’s House of Commons

 | 

Norway confirms dam intrusion by Pro-Russian hackers

 | 

Zoom patches critical Windows flaw allowing privilege escalation

 | 
  • Home
  • Cyber Crime
  • Cyber warfare
  • APT
  • Data Breach
  • Deep Web
  • Digital ID
  • Hacking
  • Hacktivism
  • Intelligence
  • Internet of Things
  • Laws and regulations
  • Malware
  • Mobile
  • Reports
  • Security
  • Social Networks
  • Terrorism
  • ICS-SCADA
  • POLICIES
  • Contact me
  • Home
  • Breaking News
  • Cyber warfare
  • Intelligence
  • Malware
  • New evidence links the NK Lazarus Group to SWIFT banking attacks

New evidence links the NK Lazarus Group to SWIFT banking attacks

Pierluigi Paganini June 02, 2016

The Analysis of SWIFT attacks revealed five additional pieces of malware containing portions of code shared by Lazarus Group.

While security experts continue to investigate the cyber heists that involved SWIFT systems, new evidence collected by a senior security researcher from Anomali Labs link the malware to the North Korean hacker crew known as Lazarus Group.

The expert discovered that five additional strains of malware suggest the involvement of the Lazarus Group in the cyber attacks that targeted the banks.

Experts at Symantec already linked the malware used in the attack with North Korea.

The researchers at Symantec discovered that the hacking tools used by the gang share many similarities with the malicious code in the arsenal of the Lazarus APT.

The activity of the Lazarus Group surged in 2014 and 2015, its members used mostly custom-tailored malware in their attacks and experts that investigated on the crew consider it highly sophisticated.

“Symantec has found evidence that a bank in the Philippines has also been attacked by the group that stole US$81 million from the Bangladesh central bank and attempted to steal over $1 million from the Tien Phong Bank in Vietnam.” reads the analysis published by Symantec.

The experts at Symantec have spotted at least three strains of malware, Backdoor.Fimlis, Backdoor.Fimlis.B, and Backdoor.Contopee, which have been used in targeted attacks against financial institutions.

“Symantec has identified three pieces of malware which were being used in limited targeted attacks against the financial industry in South-East Asia: Backdoor.Fimlis, Backdoor.Fimlis.B, and Backdoor.Contopee.” states Symantec”At first, it was unclear what the motivation behind these attacks were, however code sharing between Trojan.Banswift (used in the Bangladesh attack used to manipulate SWIFT transactions) and early variants of Backdoor.Contopee provided a connection.”

Now Aaron Shelmire from Anomali Labs supports this thesis with his investigation.

“Five new additional pieces of malware code discovered that contain unique portions of code related to the SWIFT attacks. ” wrote Shelmire.

The Anomali Labs team conducted deeper research into a very large malware data repository using a set of Yara signature below to search for the shared subroutines.

Lazarus group investigation Anomali Labs

The experts discovered five additional pieces of malware containing portions of code shared by Lazarus Group’s strains of malware, including the one used in the several SWIFT attacks, according to Shelmire.

“At first, we believed it would produce a lot of false positives. Instead, this search not only failed to result in any false positives, but also turned up five other pieces of malware which share this code. We see this as a possible attribution of the Lazarus group attacks to other attacks that involved these same five pieces of malware code.” states Shelmire.

These portions of code discovered by Shelmire are also present in other malware used in past attacks conducted by North Korean entities against organizations worldwide, including Sony Pictures.

 

The researchers from the Anomali Labs started by taking a look at the two subroutines that are reported to be unique by Symantec. They get the API names and used it in the Yara signature, then they analyzed the code used in the attacks and discovered a small portion of code where a file name consisting of randomly generated lowercase letters is created, so they used also this string as part of the Yara search criteria.

“Using this criteria, we began a search of a large malware database starting on Thursday night. On Friday morning, we thought we’d be faced with a sea of false positives. But it only returned 10 matches! Four of those were known samples of the SWIFT malware, and one sample was a zip file that includes a known SWIFT sample. The other five samples are detailed above.”

Summarizing, SWIFT hackers have recycled malware code used in past attacks, including the Sony Hack, and evidence suggest the involvement of the Lazarus group

If you appreciate my effort in spreading cyber security awareness, please vote for Security Affairs as best European Security Blog. Vote SecurityAffairs in every section it is reported. I’m one of the finalists and I want to demonstrate that the Security Affairs community a great reality.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/secbloggerwards2016

Thank you

Pierluigi

[adrotate banner=”9″]

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – SWIFT malware, Lazarus group)

 


facebook linkedin twitter

APT bank heist Lazarus Group malware North Korea SWIFT

you might also like

Pierluigi Paganini August 21, 2025
Apple addressed the seventh actively exploited zero-day
Read more
Pierluigi Paganini August 21, 2025
Hackers deploy DripDropper via Apache ActiveMQ flaw, patch systems to evade detection
Read more

leave a comment

newsletter

Subscribe to my email list and stay
up-to-date!

    recent articles

    Apple addressed the seventh actively exploited zero-day

    Security / August 21, 2025

    Hackers deploy DripDropper via Apache ActiveMQ flaw, patch systems to evade detection

    Malware / August 21, 2025

    A Scattered Spider member gets 10 years in prison

    Cyber Crime / August 21, 2025

    FBI: Russia-linked group Static Tundra exploit old Cisco flaw for espionage

    Intelligence / August 21, 2025

    US CERT/CC warns of flaws in Workhorse Software accounting software used by hundreds of municipalities in Wisconsin

    Security / August 21, 2025

    To contact me write an email to:

    Pierluigi Paganini :
    pierluigi.paganini@securityaffairs.co

    LEARN MORE

    QUICK LINKS

    • Home
    • Cyber Crime
    • Cyber warfare
    • APT
    • Data Breach
    • Deep Web
    • Digital ID
    • Hacking
    • Hacktivism
    • Intelligence
    • Internet of Things
    • Laws and regulations
    • Malware
    • Mobile
    • Reports
    • Security
    • Social Networks
    • Terrorism
    • ICS-SCADA
    • POLICIES
    • Contact me

    Copyright@securityaffairs 2024

    We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept All”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent.
    Cookie SettingsAccept All
    Manage consent

    Privacy Overview

    This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities...
    Necessary
    Always Enabled
    Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
    Non-necessary
    Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
    SAVE & ACCEPT