However ESET mentioned its most probably speculation is that Turla and Gamaredon had been working collectively. “Provided that each teams are a part of the Russian FSB (although in two totally different Facilities), Gamaredon supplied entry to Turla operators in order that they may situation instructions on a selected machine to restart Kazuar, and deploy Kazuar v2 on some others,” the corporate mentioned.
Friday’s put up famous that Gamaredon has been seen collaborating with different hack teams beforehand, particularly in 2020 with a gaggle ESET tracks beneath the identify InvisiMole.
In February, ESET mentioned, firm researchers noticed 4 distinct Gamaredon-Turla co-compromises in Ukraine. On the entire machines, Gamaredon deployed a variety of instruments, together with these tracked beneath the names PteroLNK, PteroStew, PteroOdd, PteroEffigy, and PteroGraphin. Turla, for its half, put in model 3 of its proprietary malware Kazuar.
ESET software program put in on one of many compromised units noticed Turla issuing instructions by the Gamaredon implants.
“PteroGraphin was used to restart Kazuar, presumably after Kazuar crashed or was not launched routinely,” ESET mentioned. “Thus, PteroGraphin was in all probability used as a restoration methodology by Turla. That is the primary time that we now have been capable of hyperlink these two teams collectively through technical indicators (see First chain: First chain: Restart of Kazuar v3).”
Then, in April and once more in June, ESET mentioned it detected Kazuar v2 installers being deployed by Gamaredon malware. In all of the circumstances, ESET software program was put in after the compromises, so it wasn’t attainable to get well the payloads. Nonetheless, the agency mentioned it believes an energetic collaboration between the teams is the most probably clarification.
“All these parts, and the truth that Gamaredon is compromising tons of if not hundreds of machines, recommend that Turla is solely in particular machines, in all probability ones containing extremely delicate intelligence,” ESET speculated.
