Loading malware…
BLUELIGHT is a Windows espionage backdoor developed by the North Korea-linked threat group APT37, also known as InkySquid, ScarCruft, Reaper, and Vedalia. It has been deployed as a second-stage payload in watering-hole attacks involving the South Korean news outlet Daily NK. Associated infection chains exploited Internet Explorer vulnerabilities CVE-2020-1380 and CVE-2021-26411 and used Cobalt Strike during the initial stages of compromise.
BLUELIGHT supports command-and-control through multiple cloud providers. An analyzed variant used OAuth2 authentication with hard-coded parameters and the Microsoft Graph API to communicate through an attacker-controlled OneDrive account. It uploads host reconnaissance data before entering a command-and-control loop running approximately every 30 seconds. Collected information includes usernames, IP addresses, operating-system versions, running processes, virtual-machine tools, installed antivirus products, local time, and security identifier authority levels. It can steal passwords stored in Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, and Naver Whale. BLUELIGHT also captures and uploads screenshots every 30 seconds during the first five minutes of its command-and-control loop, then every five minutes thereafter. It exfiltrates collected data through its command-and-control channel and can uninstall itself.
Mallory pivots from this family to the IOCs, detections, and named campaigns that touch your stack, and pages you when something new lands.
2 CVEs Mallory has correlated with this family across public research and vendor advisories. Each row links to the full Mallory page for that vulnerability.
These malicious documents exploited an Internet Explorer 0-day vulnerability in the JScript engine, CVE-2022-41128. The vulnerability resides within “jscript9.dll”, the JavaScript engine of Internet Explorer, and can be exploited to execute arbitrary code when rendering an attacker-controlled website.
The backdoor was used as the final payload of a multistage attack in early 2021, involving a watering-hole attack on a South Korean online newspaper, an Internet Explorer exploit, and another ScarCruft backdoor, named BLUELIGHT. | ScarCruft exploits CVE-2020-1380 to compromise victims.
4 distinct threat actors attributed by public researchers. Open in Mallory to see the full evidence chain and overlapping campaigns.
“Bluelight appears to be delivered as a secondary payload.” The report states that the analyzed sample leveraged the Microsoft Graph API for command-and-control operations.
The first known usage was by the North Korea-linked Vedalia espionage group (aka APT37), which developed Bluelight, a second-stage payload that could communicate with several different cloud services for C&C purposes.
BLUELIGHT can harvest cookies from Internet Explorer, Edge, Chrome, and Naver Whale browsers.
...and finally to BLUELIGHT and FOOTWINE for full surveillance.
20 distinct techniques documented for this family, organized by ATT&CK tactic.
Agent Tesla can gather credentials from a number of browsers... APT3 has used tools to dump passwords from browsers... APT41 used BrowserGhost, a tool designed to obtain credentials from browsers, to retrieve information from password stores... TrickBot can obtain passwords stored in files from web browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Microsoft Edge
Tasklist can be used to discover processes running on a system. Numerous malware families and threat groups are described as listing running processes, collecting PIDs, checking for specific process names, or enumerating loaded modules.
The content repeatedly describes malware and threat actors collecting OS version, computer name, architecture, CPU, memory, disk, language, and other host details; examples include use of commands such as ver, systeminfo, hostname, uname -m, sw_vers -productVersion, and fsutil.
The content is a long ATT&CK-style listing showing numerous malware families and threat groups that 'use HTTP,' 'use HTTPS,' 'HTTP POST requests,' 'HTTP GET requests,' or 'HTTP/S' for command and control communications. | Specific implementations mentioned include 'HTTP POST requests,' 'HTTP GET requests,' 'custom HTTP cookies,' 'Cookie HTTP header,' 'HTTP Upgrade request' for WebSocket initiation, and use of APIs such as 'Microsoft Graph API' or 'Dropbox HTTP API' for C2.
1 indicator attributed across vendor reports, sandbox runs, and researcher write-ups. Full values are available in Mallory.
File hashes (MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256) from samples and reports.
57 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
Named malware/tool or campaign component associated with InkySquid/APT37 activity and browser-exploit-driven infections.
Previously attributed backdoor that uses legitimate cloud services (Google Drive, OneDrive) as part of its operations (e.g., for C2 or data exchange).
Cloud-C2 backdoor that abuses legitimate cloud storage providers (e.g., Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, pCloud, BackBlaze) to execute commands, enumerate files, transfer payloads/files, and self-remove.
A late-stage surveillance component used alongside FOOTWINE to enable monitoring of compromised systems (details not further described in the content).
Match every observed IP, domain, and hash against your live telemetry.
Named campaigns wielding this family, with evidence pinned to each claim.
CVEs this family uses for access and lateral movement.
YARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.
Every documented technique, ranked by evidence weight.
Reddit, Mastodon, and CTI community discussion around this family.