Hackers possibly linked to the Kremlin exploited previously patched iOS and Android flaws in an attempt to hack visitors of multiple websites, including one celebrating the 250th anniversary of the signing of the US Constitution, researchers said Wednesday.
The attackers, which the researchers assessed with “moderate to high confidence” were part of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, targeted other sites, many with links to that country’s ongoing war against Ukraine. The attacks began when iPhone or Android users visited one of potentially hundreds of different sites. JavaScript injected into the traffic then profiled the device. The final payloads, tailored to the type of platform visiting, attempted to steal browser cookies and, in some cases, Wi-Fi passwords and full mobile device data.
Wielding DarkSword
One of the impersonated sites was america250.org, belonging to a non-partisan group of lawmakers, business executives, and at least one former member of the Trump administration. The attackers registered america250[.]holiday and used it as a reverse proxy to america250.org. The imposter website delivered content from the real one that added malicious JavaScript into it.
“We assess that the intrusion set may have deliberately selected this website due to its association with a high-profile national celebration, potentially leveraging the event as a pretext for invitation-themed spear-phishing campaigns,” researchers from security firm Sekoia said.
A second website, theowo[.]club, proxied the website Raffles of London OWO, a luxury hotel physically close to some of the UK’s most sensitive government institutions, including the Ministry of Defence and 10 Downing Street, the official residence and office of the British Prime Minister. Open source reporting indicates that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stayed there during a visit on October 14.
“By doing this watering hole [impersonating] the Raffles London at The OWO, the intrusion set may have sought to target diplomatic delegations and high-profile guests through targeted spear-phishing campaigns,” the researchers said.
The attackers also delivered their attacks through compromised websites—including a top Ukrainian gas production company—and a Ukrainian web analytics service that serves thousands of websites. Sekoia said its attribution to the Kremlin is based on the targets’ profiles and similarities to a previous attack attributed to APT29, one of the names the suspected Russian group is tracked under.
The hackers relied on three infection vectors: direct JavaScript injection into traffic from legitimate websites, proxy domains such as america250[.]holiday, and the supply-chain compromise of the Ukrainian web analytics service. In each case, the injected JavaScript was the same. During the first stage, the JavaScript profiled the visitor’s browser and device. The attackers then used that information to deliver one of three zero-click exploit chains, which work without requiring any interaction from the target.
One of the chains was DarkSword, an iOS exploit kit that Google researchers said customers of PARS Defense, a commercial surveillance vendor in Turkey, and at least two other threat actors have used. Sekoia said the more recent campaign used two other exploit chains that weren’t named.
All of the vulnerabilities exploited in the campaign were “n-days,” meaning they had already been patched and attacks worked only on outdated versions of iOS or Android.
