New Backdoor Targeting Taiwan Employs Stealthy Communications

Summary: A new backdoor, Backdoor.Msupedge, was discovered in an attack on a Taiwanese university, utilizing DNS tunneling for communication with its command-and-control server. This backdoor employs a unique method of command execution based on the resolved IP address, highlighting a sophisticated approach to malware deployment.

Threat Actor: Unknown | unknown
Victim: University in Taiwan | University in Taiwan

Key Point :

  • The backdoor communicates with its C&C server using DNS traffic, a technique that, while known, is infrequently observed.
  • Initial intrusion likely exploited a recently patched PHP vulnerability (CVE-2024-4577), allowing for remote code execution.
  • Msupedge’s behavior changes based on the third octet of the resolved IP address, enabling various commands such as creating processes and downloading files.
  • Indicators of compromise include specific file hashes associated with the backdoor and web shell.

Source: https://symantec-enterprise-blogs.security.com/threat-intelligence/taiwan-malware-dns