Sharp Increase in Malware Attacks via USB Flash Drives

Instances of cybercriminals employing USB drives for malware attacks have seen a significant rise. According to security researchers from Mandiant, there has been a three-fold increase in malware attacks via USB drives aimed at stealing sensitive information during the first half of 2023. These researchers have disclosed details regarding two specific attack campaigns.

One of the attack campaigns, attributed to the China-linked cyberespionage group TEMP.Hex, targeted both public and private organizations in Europe, Asia, and the U.S. The attackers utilized USB flash drives to introduce the SOGU malware into compromised systems and extract valuable data. 

The flash drives contained multiple malicious software and employed a DLL hijacking technique to download the final payload into the memory of the compromised systems. Once executed, the SOGU malware carried out various actions such as capturing screenshots, recording keystrokes, establishing reverse shell connections, and enabling remote desktop connections for executing additional files. 

The stolen data was sent to the attackers’ command and control (C2) server using a custom binary protocol over TCP, UDP, or ICMP. Industries targeted by this attack campaign included construction, engineering, government, manufacturing, retail, media, and pharmaceutical sectors.

In an attack campaig

[…]
Content was cut in order to protect the source.Please visit the source for the rest of the article.