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Hello,
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<div>I hope everyone is doing well!</div>
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<div>Below is the entry for today.</div>
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<div>07/25/2022 - Diary entry #559:</div>
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<div>A rootkit is a sophisticated malware type (explained in our Daily Diary #367) designed to enable access to a privileged computer area, masking itself in the system, trying to evade detection by analysts and security software. When it is deployed into low-level
components such as the machine’s firmware, it becomes a perilous threat that can remain on a system after an OS re-installation or hard drive formatting.
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<div>That’s the case of CosmicStrand, a new UEFI firmware rootkit linked to an unknown Chinese-speaking threat actor. This rootkit is located in the firmware images of Gigabyte or ASUS motherboards designed to use the H81 chipset.</div>
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<div>After infection, the firmware images are changed to trigger a malicious code during the Windows machine’s startup process. Next, it deploys a shellcode in memory and contacts the C2 server to get the actual malicious payload to run by using a tricky approach
to not rely on high-level API functions and avoid detection.</div>
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The final payload used during an attack was an executable that runs command lines to create a user on the machine and add it to the local administrators' group. However, since this threat is very advanced, is likely that many other payloads exist.<br>
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Kind Regards,
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<p style="color:rgb(12,12,12); font-size:13px; font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px">
<strong>Felipe Tarijon de Almeida</strong><br>
Malware Analyst<br>
<strong>Appgate</strong></p>
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E:<span style="margin:0px"> <a href="mailto:felipe.tarijon@appgate.com" title="mailto:felipe.tarijon@appgate.com">
felipe.tarijon@appgate.com</a></span><br>
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