• 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

FBI seizes 20 BTC from Chaos Ransomware affiliate targeting Texas firms

 | 

Critical SAP flaw exploited to launch Auto-Color Malware attack on U.S. company

 | 

Orange reports major cyberattack, warns of service disruptions

 | 

Hackers leak images and comments from women dating safety app Tea

 | 

Pro-Ukraine hacktivists claim cyberattack on Russian Airline Aeroflot that caused the cancellation of +100 flights

 | 

Seychelles Commercial Bank Reported Cybersecurity Incident

 | 

Microsoft uncovers macOS flaw allowing bypass TCC protections and exposing sensitive data

 | 

U.S. CISA adds Cisco ISE and PaperCut NG/MF flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

 | 

Critical WordPress Post SMTP plugin flaw exposes 200K+ sites to full takeover

 | 

Scattered Spider targets VMware ESXi in using social engineering

 | 

China-linked group Fire Ant exploits VMware and F5 flaws since early 2025

 | 

Allianz Life data breach exposed the data of most of its 1.4M customers

 | 

SECURITY AFFAIRS MALWARE NEWSLETTER ROUND 55

 | 

Security Affairs newsletter Round 534 by Pierluigi Paganini – INTERNATIONAL EDITION

 | 

Law enforcement operations seized BlackSuit ransomware gang’s darknet sites

 | 

Arizona woman sentenced for aiding North Korea in U.S. IT job fraud scheme

 | 

Operation CargoTalon targets Russia’s aerospace with EAGLET malware,

 | 

Unpatched flaw in EoL LG LNV5110R cameras lets hackers gain Admin access

 | 

Koske, a new AI-Generated Linux malware appears in the threat landscape

 | 

Mitel patches critical MiVoice MX-ONE Auth bypass flaw

 | 
  • 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
  • APT
  • Cyber Crime
  • Hacking
  • Intelligence
  • Operation BugDrop – Hackers siphoned 600GB taking control of PC microphones

Operation BugDrop – Hackers siphoned 600GB taking control of PC microphones

Pierluigi Paganini February 21, 2017

Security firm CyberX uncovered the Operation Bugdrop, a cyber espionage campaign that mostly targeted Ukrainian organizations.

Researchers at Security firm CyberX have discovered a cyber espionage campaign that siphoned more than 600 gigabytes from about 70 targets in several industries, including critical infrastructure and news media.

The list of targets includes:

  • A company that designs remote monitoring systems for oil and gas pipelines
  • An international organization that monitors human rights, counter-terrorism, and computer attacks on Ukrainian critical infrastructure
  • An engineering company that designs electrical substations, gas distribution pipelines, and water supply plants
  • A scientific research institute
  • Editors of Ukrainian newspapers

The experts have dubbed this espionage campaign Operation BugDrop because attackers use the PC microphones to bug targets and capture the audio and other sensitive data.

The threat actors used a sophisticated malware to exfiltrate sensitive data, capture screenshots. The attack chain starts with phishing emails using malicious Microsoft Word documents, once the target machine is infected, the malware uploads the stolen audio and data to Dropbox.

To make the phishing email more effective the Word document included a graphic that looked like an official Microsoft notification, it displays the following message:

“Attention! The file was created in a newer version of Microsoft Office programs. You must enable macros to correctly display the contents of a document.”

Operation BugDrop

“Operation BugDrop is a well-organized operation that employs sophisticated malware and appears to be backed by an organization with substantial resources. In particular, the operation requires a massive back-end infrastructure to store, decrypt and analyze several GB per day of unstructured data that is being captured from its targets.” reads the analysis published by CyberX “A large team of human analysts is also required to manually sort through captured data and process it manually and/or with Big Data-like analytics.”

The vast majority of the targets are located in Ukraine, other countries affected included Saudi Arabia and Austria.

The researchers haven’t found any evidence that links the Operation BugDrop to the string of attacks against the Ukrainian infrastructure that caused the massive power outage in the country.

The attackers behind the BlackEnergy threat also targeted a broad range of industries in Ukraine leveraging on spear-phishing messages with weaponized Microsoft Word documents.

The experts at CyberX also found similarities between the Operation BugDrop and the cyber espionage campaign tracked as Operation Groundbait that was discovered in May 2016.

“Initially, CyberX saw similarities between Operation BugDrop and a previous cyber-surveillance operation discovered by ESET in May 2016 called Operation Groundbait. However, despite some similarities in the Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) used by the hackers in both operations, Operation BugDrop’s TTPs are significantly more sophisticated than those used in the earlier operation.” reads the analysis that also include the following example.

  • Dropbox for data exfiltration, a clever approach because Dropbox traffic is typically not blocked or monitored by corporate firewalls.
  • Reflective DLL Injection, an advanced technique for injecting malware that was also used by BlackEnergy in the Ukrainian grid attacks and by Duqu in the Stuxnet attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities. Reflective DLL Injection loads malicious code without calling the normal Windows API calls, thereby bypassing security verification of the code before its gets loaded into memory.
  • Encrypted DLLs, thereby avoiding detection by common anti-virus and sandboxing systems because they’re unable to analyze encrypted files.
  • Using legitimate free web hosting sites for command-and-control infrastructure. C&C servers are a potential pitfall for attackers as investigators can often identify attackers using registration details for the C&C server obtained via freely-available tools such as whois and PassiveTotal. Free web hosting sites, on the other hand, require little or no registration information. Operation BugDrop uses a free web hosting site to store the core malware module that gets downloaded to infected victims. In comparison, the Groundbait attackers registered and paid for their own malicious domains and IP addressees.

The CyberX researchers speculate the involvement of a nation-state actor behind the Operation BugDrop.

“Skilled hackers with substantial financial resources carried out Operation BugDrop,” reads the analysis. “Given the amount of data analysis that needed to be done on [a] daily basis, we believe BugDrop was heavily staffed. Given the sophistication of the code and how well the operation was executed, we have concluded that those carrying it out have previous field experience.”

[adrotate banner=”9″]

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – Operation BugDrop, Cyber Espionage)


facebook linkedin twitter

cyber espionage Hacking malware Operation BugDrop phishing Ukraine

you might also like

Pierluigi Paganini July 30, 2025
FBI seizes 20 BTC from Chaos Ransomware affiliate targeting Texas firms
Read more
Pierluigi Paganini July 30, 2025
Critical SAP flaw exploited to launch Auto-Color Malware attack on U.S. company
Read more

leave a comment

newsletter

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

    recent articles

    FBI seizes 20 BTC from Chaos Ransomware affiliate targeting Texas firms

    Cyber Crime / July 30, 2025

    Critical SAP flaw exploited to launch Auto-Color Malware attack on U.S. company

    Malware / July 30, 2025

    Orange reports major cyberattack, warns of service disruptions

    Security / July 29, 2025

    Hackers leak images and comments from women dating safety app Tea

    Data Breach / July 29, 2025

    Pro-Ukraine hacktivists claim cyberattack on Russian Airline Aeroflot that caused the cancellation of +100 flights

    Hacktivism / July 29, 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