Description of Campaign
The Turla APT was identified in an espionage campaign that targeted Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defense Organizations. The campaign used typo-squatting domains to appear as The Baltic Defense College (BALTDEFCOL), which is a center for strategic research and facilitates, military education, and conferences. Also impersonated was the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber (Wirtschaftskammer Österreich, WKO), which stands as a diplomatic bridge between the occidental and Russian side. The threat group also mimicked the NATO Joint Advanced Distributed Learning, an e-learning platform used to research and provide education and training to NATO-military and governmental or NATO officials. The typo-squatted domains were used to host a PNG file that was called via the attached document contained in the phishing attempt. Further analysis deduced that no malicious code was obtained from the communication but was used for a reconnaissance objective.
Our ATR Team gathers and analyzes information from multiple open and closed sources before disseminating intelligence reports. This campaign was researched by Sekoia and
shared publicly.
How to use this article:
- Scroll down and review the Product Countermeasures section of this article. Consider implementing them if they are not already in place.
- Review the following articles:
Threat Hunting
| YARA |
rule apt_TURLA_ExternalPNGDocument_strings {
meta:
id = "51413d41-d0f4-4e1a-9f12-322921e48977"
version = "1.0"
intrusion_set = "TURLA"
description = "Detects external logo embedded in DOCX documents"
source = "SEKOIA"
creation_date = "2022-05-05"
modification_date = "2022-05-05"
classification = "TLP:GREEN"
strings:
$s1 = "/relationships/image"
$s2 = /[0-9]{3,10}\/logo\.png/
$s3 = "TargetMode=\"External\"/><"
condition:
$s1 in (filesize-400..filesize) and
$s2 in (filesize-400..filesize) and
$s3 in (filesize-400..filesize)
} |
This Knowledge Base article discusses a specific threat that's being tracked. The list of IOCs will change over time; check Trellix Insights for the latest IOCs.
Campaign IOC
| Type |
Value |
| IP-DST |
45.153.241.162 |
| IP-DST |
79.110.52.218 |
| IP-DST |
149.154.157.11 |
| HOSTNAME |
baltdefcol.webredirect.org |
| HOSTNAME |
wkoinfo.webredirect.org |
| HOSTNAME |
jadlactnato.webredirect.org |
Minimum set of Manual Rules to improve protection to block this campaign:
IMPORTANT: Always follow best practices when you enable new rules and signatures.
When you implement new rules or signatures, always set them to Report mode first and check the alerts generated. Resolve any issues that arise and then set the rules to Block. This step mitigates against triggering false positives and allows you to refine your configuration.
For more information, see KB87843 - List of and best practices for Endpoint Security Dynamic Application Containment rules.
Endpoint Security - Advanced Threat Protection:
Rule ID: 5 Use GTI URL reputation to identify trusted or malicious processes
