PingPull

PingPull is a remote access Trojan (RAT) written in Visual C++ that has been used by GALLIUM since at least June 2022. PingPull has been used to target telecommunications companies, financial institutions, and government entities in Afghanistan, Australia, Belgium, Cambodia, Malaysia, Mozambique, the Philippines, Russia, and Vietnam.[1]

ID: S1031
Type: MALWARE
Platforms: Windows
Contributors: Yoshihiro Kori, NEC Corporation; Pooja Natarajan, NEC Corporation India; Manikantan Srinivasan, NEC Corporation India
Version: 1.0
Created: 09 August 2022
Last Modified: 24 October 2022

Techniques Used

Domain ID Name Use
Enterprise T1071 .001 Application Layer Protocol: Web Protocols

A PingPull variant can communicate with its C2 servers by using HTTPS.[1]

Enterprise T1059 .003 Command and Scripting Interpreter: Windows Command Shell

PingPull can use cmd.exe to run various commands as a reverse shell.[1]

Enterprise T1543 .003 Create or Modify System Process: Windows Service

PingPull has the ability to install itself as a service.[1]

Enterprise T1132 .001 Data Encoding: Standard Encoding

PingPull can encode C2 traffic with Base64.[1]

Enterprise T1005 Data from Local System

PingPull can collect data from a compromised host.[1]

Enterprise T1140 Deobfuscate/Decode Files or Information

PingPull can decrypt received data from its C2 server by using AES.[1]

Enterprise T1573 .001 Encrypted Channel: Symmetric Cryptography

PingPull can use AES, in cipher block chaining (CBC) mode padded with PKCS5, to encrypt C2 server communications.[1]

Enterprise T1041 Exfiltration Over C2 Channel

PingPull has the ability to exfiltrate stolen victim data through its C2 channel.[1]

Enterprise T1083 File and Directory Discovery

PingPull can enumerate storage volumes and folder contents of a compromised host.[1]

Enterprise T1070 .006 Indicator Removal: Timestomp

PingPull has the ability to timestomp a file.[1]

Enterprise T1036 .004 Masquerading: Masquerade Task or Service

PingPull can mimic the names and descriptions of legitimate services such as iphlpsvc, IP Helper, and Onedrive to evade detection.[1]

Enterprise T1095 Non-Application Layer Protocol

PingPull variants have the ability to communicate with C2 servers using ICMP or TCP.[1]

Enterprise T1571 Non-Standard Port

PingPull can use HTTPS over port 8080 for C2.[1]

Enterprise T1082 System Information Discovery

PingPull can retrieve the hostname of a compromised host.[1]

Enterprise T1016 System Network Configuration Discovery

PingPull can retrieve the IP address of a compromised host.[1]

Groups That Use This Software

ID Name References
G0093 GALLIUM

[1]

References