Frankenstein
Frankenstein was described by security researchers as a highly-targeted campaign conducted by moderately sophisticated and highly resourceful threat actors in early 2019. The unidentified actors primarily relied on open source tools, including Empire. The campaign name refers to the actors' ability to piece together several unrelated open-source tool components.[1]
Techniques Used
| Domain | ID | Name | Use | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Enterprise | T1071 | .001 | Application Layer Protocol: Web Protocols |
During Frankenstein, the threat actors used HTTP GET requests for C2.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1119 | Automated Collection |
During Frankenstein, the threat actors used Empire to automatically gather the username, domain name, machine name, and other system information.[1] |
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| Enterprise | T1020 | Automated Exfiltration |
During Frankenstein, the threat actors collected information via Empire, which was automatically sent back to the adversary's C2.[1] |
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| Enterprise | T1059 | .001 | Command and Scripting Interpreter: PowerShell |
During Frankenstein, the threat actors used PowerShell to run a series of Base64-encoded commands that acted as a stager and enumerated hosts.[1] |
| .003 | Command and Scripting Interpreter: Windows Command Shell |
During Frankenstein, the threat actors ran a command script to set up persistence as a scheduled task named "WinUpdate", as well as other encoded commands from the command-line [1] |
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| .005 | Command and Scripting Interpreter: Visual Basic |
During Frankenstein, the threat actors used Word documents that prompted the victim to enable macros and run a Visual Basic script.[1] |
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| Enterprise | T1005 | Data from Local System |
During Frankenstein, the threat actors used Empire to gather various local system information.[1] |
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| Enterprise | T1140 | Deobfuscate/Decode Files or Information |
During Frankenstein, the threat actors deobfuscated Base64-encoded commands following the execution of a malicious script, which revealed a small script designed to obtain an additional payload.[1] |
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| Enterprise | T1573 | .001 | Encrypted Channel: Symmetric Cryptography |
During Frankenstein, the threat actors communicated with C2 via an encrypted RC4 byte stream and AES-CBC.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1041 | Exfiltration Over C2 Channel |
During Frankenstein, the threat actors collected information via Empire, which sent the data back to the adversary's C2.[1] |
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| Enterprise | T1203 | Exploitation for Client Execution |
During Frankenstein, the threat actors exploited CVE-2017-11882 to execute code on the victim's machine.[1] |
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| Enterprise | T1105 | Ingress Tool Transfer |
During Frankenstein, the threat actors downloaded files and tools onto a victim machine.[1] |
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| Enterprise | T1036 | .004 | Masquerading: Masquerade Task or Service |
During Frankenstein, the threat actors named a malicious scheduled task "WinUpdate" for persistence.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1027 | .010 | Obfuscated Files or Information: Command Obfuscation |
During Frankenstein, the threat actors ran encoded commands from the command line.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1588 | .002 | Obtain Capabilities: Tool |
For Frankenstein, the threat actors obtained and used Empire.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1566 | .001 | Phishing: Spearphishing Attachment |
During Frankenstein, the threat actors likely used spearphishing emails to send malicious Microsoft Word documents.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1057 | Process Discovery |
During Frankenstein, the threat actors used Empire to obtain a list of all running processes.[1] |
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| Enterprise | T1053 | .005 | Scheduled Task/Job: Scheduled Task |
During Frankenstein, the threat actors established persistence through a scheduled task using the command: |
| Enterprise | T1518 | .001 | Software Discovery: Security Software Discovery |
During Frankenstein, the threat actors used WMI queries to determine if analysis tools were running on a compromised system.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1082 | System Information Discovery |
During Frankenstein, the threat actors used Empire to obtain the compromised machine's name.[1] |
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| Enterprise | T1016 | System Network Configuration Discovery |
During Frankenstein, the threat actors used Empire to find the public IP address of a compromised system.[1] |
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| Enterprise | T1033 | System Owner/User Discovery |
During Frankenstein, the threat actors used Empire to enumerate hosts and gather username, machine name, and administrative permissions information.[1] |
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| Enterprise | T1221 | Template Injection |
During Frankenstein, the threat actors used trojanized documents that retrieved remote templates from an adversary-controlled website.[1] |
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| Enterprise | T1127 | .001 | Trusted Developer Utilities Proxy Execution: MSBuild |
During Frankenstein, the threat actors used MSbuild to execute an actor-created file.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1204 | .002 | User Execution: Malicious File |
During Frankenstein, the threat actors relied on a victim to enable macros within a malicious Microsoft Word document likely sent via email.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1497 | .001 | Virtualization/Sandbox Evasion: System Checks |
During Frankenstein, the threat actors used a script that ran WMI queries to check if a VM or sandbox was running, including VMWare and Virtualbox. The script would also call WMI to determine the number of cores allocated to the system; if less than two the script would stop execution.[1] |
| Enterprise | T1047 | Windows Management Instrumentation |
During Frankenstein, the threat actors used WMI queries to check if various security applications were running as well as to determine the operating system version.[1] |
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Software
| ID | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| S0363 | Empire |
During Frankenstein the threat actors used Empire for discovery.[1] |