Security News > 2021 > June > Poisoned Installers Found in SolarWinds Hackers Toolkit
The ongoing multi-vendor investigations into the SolarWinds mega-hack took another twist this week with the discovery of new malware artifacts that could be used in future supply chain attacks.
According to a new report from anti-malware firm SentinelOne, the latest wave of attacks being attributed to APT29/Nobelium threat actor includes a custom downloader that is part of a "Poisoned update installer" for electronic keys used by the Ukrainian government.
Guerrero-Saade's analysis of the campaign found the Cobalt Strike Beacon payload serving as an "Early scout" that enables selective distribution of unique payloads directly into memory.
"We stop short of referring to this as a supply chain attack since we lack visibility into its means of distribution. The poisoned installer may be delivered directly to relevant victims that rely on this regional solution. Alternatively, the attackers may have found a way of abusing an internal resource to distribute their malicious 'update'," Guerrero-Saade said.
Ryan has built security engagement programs at major global brands, including Intel Corp., Bishop Fox and Kaspersky GReAT. He is a co-founder of Threatpost and the global SAS conference series.
Ryan's career as a journalist includes bylines at major technology publications including Ziff Davis eWEEK, CBS Interactive's ZDNet, PCMag and PC World.