BATLOADER and Atera Agent are Being Distributed Through an SEO Poisoning Campaign

A new SEO poisoning campaign is underway, with the purpose of infecting targeted systems with the BATLOADER and Atera Agent malware. It appears to be aimed at professionals looking to download productivity applications such as TeamViewer, Zoom, or Visual Studio. SEO poisoning is a tactic used by hackers in cyberattacks to build up malicious websites loaded with certain keywords that visitors typically seek up in search engines. Then they use various SEO (Search Engine Optimization) techniques to make these appear prominently in search results. 

According to a report by Mandiant researchers, in this malicious SEO campaign, threat actors attack legitimate websites in order to plant compromised files or URLs. Users are thus routed to websites that host malware posing as well-known applications. 

“The threat actor used “free productivity apps installation” or “free software development tools installation” themes as SEO keywords to lure victims to a compromised website and to download a malicious installer. The installer contains legitimate software bundled with the BATLOADER malware. The BATLOADER malware is dropped and executed during the software installation process.” said the researchers. 

“This initial BATLOADER compromise was the beginning of a multi-stage infection chain that provides the attackers with a foothold inside the target organization. Every stage was prepared for the next phase of the attack chain. And legitimate tools such as PowerShell, Msiexec.exe, and Mshta.exe allow proxy execut

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