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Hello,
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<div class="ContentPasted0">I hope everyone is doing well!</div>
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<div class="ContentPasted0">Below is the entry for today.</div>
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<div class="ContentPasted0">09/27/2022 - Diary entry #603:</div>
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<div class="ContentPasted0 ContentPasted1">Metador is a previously unknown hacking group, active since at least December 2020, that has been attacking organizations in the Middle East and Africa to make long-term persistence for espionage. Among their victims,
there are telecommunication providers, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), and universities.
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<div class="ContentPasted1">The group uses two Windows-based malicious programs named “metaMain” and “Mafalda”, both decrypted and executed directly in memory via "cdb.exe", a Microsoft Windows debugging tool – used as a LoLBin (Living Off the Land binary),
to avoid raising suspicious behavior on the compromised host. The metaMain malware is a full-featured backdoor used for taking screenshots, performing file manipulation, logging keyboard events, executing arbitrary shellcode, and ultimately decrypting and
loading Mafalda.</div>
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<div class="ContentPasted1">Mafalda is a versatile implant that supports more than 60 commands for file operations, reading directory contents, registry manipulation, network and system reconnaissance, and data exfiltration to the command and control (C2) server.
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<div class="ContentPasted1">Moreover, there is also evidence of additional implants that act as an indirect connection between Mafalda and the C2 server. On Windows, one of these implants is a custom malware named CryShell and on Linux, an unnamed one that
Mafalda authenticates itself via a different port-knocking and handshake procedure.</div>
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Based on the documentation for Mafalda's commands, it suggests that the malware is operated by a different team besides the one that develops it. Therefore, we believe that Metador is a group formed by skilled threat actors due to the complexity of their malware
toolkit and modus operandi.<br>
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Kind Regards,<br>
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Malware Analysis and Research Team<br>
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