Russian Organizations in Chinese APT Crosshairs

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Overview

SentinelLabs recently reported on a new cluster of activity targeting Russian organizations that they attributed with high-confidence to a Chinese state-sponsored espionage group. This was corroborated by a recent Ukraine CERT advisory (June 22, 2022). 

The report highlights recent Chinese intelligence objectives regarding the observation of Russian organizations in the midst of the chaotic conflict in Ukraine. Scarab, Mustang Panda, and Space Pirates campaigns have all been observed and previously reported on but the researchers at SentinelLabs believe their ongoing analysis points to a new, separate campaign being conducted by an unattributed Chinese APT. 

Campaign Details

Back in June, CERT-UA asserted that the malicious RTF documents seen in phishing attempts against Russian organizations were "likely built in the Royal Road builder and dropped via the Bisonal backdoor". SentinelLabs researchers took the OSINT provided by nao_sec and Malwarebytes, regarding C2 activity, to pinpoint a related cluster of activity. Based on the understanding that Royal Road docs are often themed around relevant topics to their targets, researchers assume the target in this campaign cluster is Russian government organizations/agencies.

See translated maldoc mimicking RU-CERT:

Attribution

SentinelLabs highlights the following characteristics that lead their team to attribute this cluster to a separate Chinese state-sponsored espionage group:
  • Long history of Russian targeting; increased activity indicates possible increased prioritization
  • Documents are built with Royal Road or the 8.t builder - popular tools used by previous Chinese APT groups
  • Metadata in the maldocs indicate the creator(s) operating systems to be using simplified Chinese, previously noted in Scarab APT reporting
  • Maldocs observed delivering custom malware, like Bisonal RAT. CERT-UA has reported this unique to Chinese groups.
  • Lastly, C2 infrastructure indicates overarching Chinese APT activity

See original document here for Indicators of Compromise (IOCs):

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