• 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

U.S. CISA adds AMI MegaRAC SPx, D-Link DIR-859 routers, and Fortinet FortiOS flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

 | 

CitrixBleed 2: The nightmare that echoes the 'CitrixBleed' flaw in Citrix NetScaler devices

 | 

Hackers deploy fake SonicWall VPN App to steal corporate credentials

 | 

Mainline Health Systems data breach impacted over 100,000 individuals

 | 

Disrupting the operations of cryptocurrency mining botnets

 | 

Prometei botnet activity has surged since March 2025

 | 

The U.S. House banned WhatsApp on government devices due to security concerns

 | 

Russia-linked APT28 use Signal chats to target Ukraine official with malware

 | 

China-linked APT Salt Typhoon targets Canadian Telecom companies

 | 

U.S. warns of incoming cyber threats following Iran airstrikes

 | 

McLaren Health Care data breach impacted over 743,000 people

 | 

American steel giant Nucor confirms data breach in May attack

 | 

The financial impact of Marks & Spencer and Co-op cyberattacks could reach £440M

 | 

Iran-Linked Threat Actors Cyber Fattah Leak Visitors and Athletes' Data from Saudi Games

 | 

SECURITY AFFAIRS MALWARE NEWSLETTER ROUND 50

 | 

Security Affairs newsletter Round 529 by Pierluigi Paganini – INTERNATIONAL EDITION

 | 

Iran confirmed it shut down internet to protect the country against cyberattacks

 | 

Godfather Android trojan uses virtualization to hijack banking and crypto apps

 | 

Cloudflare blocked record-breaking 7.3 Tbps DDoS attack against a hosting provider

 | 

Linux flaws chain allows Root access across major distributions

 | 
  • 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 Crime
  • Hacking
  • Malware
  • GALLIUM Threat Group targets global telcos, Microsoft warns

GALLIUM Threat Group targets global telcos, Microsoft warns

Pierluigi Paganini December 12, 2019

The Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) warns of GALLIUM threat group targeting global telecommunication providers worldwide.

The Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) warns of GALLIUM threat group targeting global telecommunication providers worldwide.

Microsoft experts reported that the GALLIUM hacking group exploits unpatched vulnerabilities to compromise systems running /JBoss application servers.

“Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) is raising awareness of the ongoing activity by a group we call GALLIUM, targeting telecommunication providers.” reads the warning published by Microsoft. “To compromise targeted networks, GALLIUM target unpatched internet-facing services using publicly available exploits and have been known to target vulnerabilities in WildFly/JBoss.”

The GALLIUM threat actor is active, but its activity was more intense between 2018 and mid-2019.

GALLIUM is one of many ActivityGroups we see targeting telcos through SE Asia + Europe + Africa.https://t.co/ooQJOqH9NC

— bk (Ben Koehl) (@bkMSFT) December 12, 2019

Once the attackers have compromised the target network, they used common techniques and tools like Mimikatz to steal credentials that could be used for lateral movement.

Below the list of tools that were used by the GALLIUM threat actor:

ToolPurpose
HTRANConnection bouncer to proxy connections.
MimikatzCredential dumper.
NBTScanScanner for open NETBIOS nameservers on a local or remote TCP/IP network.
NetcatReads from and writes to network connections using TCP or UDP protocols.
PsExecExecutes a command line process on a remote machine.
Windows Credential Editor (WCE)Credential dumper.
WinRARArchiving utility.

GALLIUM attackers have signed several tools using stolen code signing certificates.

Experts pointed out that GALLIUM threat actors were using common versions of malware and publicly available tools with a few changes to evade detection. The operators leverage on low cost and easy to replace infrastructure using dynamic-DNS domains and regularly reused hop points.

“MSTIC analysis indicates the use of dynamic DNS providers as opposed to registered domains is in line with GALLIUM’s trend towards low cost and low effort operations.” continues the analysis.

“GALLIUM domains have been observed hosted on infrastructure in mainland China, Hong Kong SAR, and Taiwan.”

The threat actor relies heavily on web shells as a first stage of the attack chain to gain persistence in the target network, then it delivers malware through the existing web shell access.

GALLIUM relies on web shells to gain persistence within a target’s network and to drop their second stage malware payloads instead of first stage installers Microsoft adds.

In addition to standard China Chopper, the group is also using a native web shell for servers running Microsoft IIS dubbed BlackMould.

BlackMould is able to enumerate local drives, employ basic file operations (i.e. find, read, write, delete, and copy), set file attributes, infiltrate files, and run cmd.exe with parameters.

The group delivers customized versions of Gh0st RAT and Poison Ivy, in both cases, the attackers have modified the communication method used by both malware.

GALLIUM targets-telecomm-5

Attackers also used QuarkBandit as a second-stage malware, experts described it as a Gh0st RAT variant with modified configuration options and encryption.

The researchers also observed the GALLIUM threat actors employing SoftEther VPN software to access the target network and maintain persistence.

Microsoft also published a list of indicators of compromise (IOCs) in its report.

The same attack group was previously reported earlier this year by researchers at Cybereason who tracked the campaign as “Operation Softcell“.  The analysis published by Cybereason details the nature of the attacks that were discovered by Cybereason in 2018, including the hacking of the telco companies to carry out state-sponsored espionage.  Cybereason found evidence that the attacks date back to 2012.

[adrotate banner=”9″] [adrotate banner=”12″]

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – GALLIUM, hacking)

[adrotate banner=”5″]

[adrotate banner=”13″]


facebook linkedin twitter

GALLIUM Hacking hacking news information security news Pierluigi Paganini Security Affairs Security News

you might also like

Pierluigi Paganini June 26, 2025
U.S. CISA adds AMI MegaRAC SPx, D-Link DIR-859 routers, and Fortinet FortiOS flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog
Read more
Pierluigi Paganini June 26, 2025
CitrixBleed 2: The nightmare that echoes the 'CitrixBleed' flaw in Citrix NetScaler devices
Read more

leave a comment

newsletter

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

    recent articles

    U.S. CISA adds AMI MegaRAC SPx, D-Link DIR-859 routers, and Fortinet FortiOS flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

    Security / June 26, 2025

    CitrixBleed 2: The nightmare that echoes the 'CitrixBleed' flaw in Citrix NetScaler devices

    Hacking / June 26, 2025

    Hackers deploy fake SonicWall VPN App to steal corporate credentials

    Hacking / June 25, 2025

    Mainline Health Systems data breach impacted over 100,000 individuals

    Data Breach / June 25, 2025

    Disrupting the operations of cryptocurrency mining botnets

    Malware / June 25, 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