North Korean Hackers Exploiting Zero-day Vulnerabilities & Supply Chains

The DPRK has been a great threat to organizations in recent times. Their attack methods have been discovered with several novel techniques involving different scenarios.

Their recent attack method was associated with fake candidates and employers for supply chain attacks.

A recent joint security advisory from the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) – a part of GCHQ – and the National Intelligence Service (NIS) provided insight into how DPRK threat actors use complicated techniques to control victims’ systems.

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Software Supply Chain Attacks & Zero Days Leveraged

In addition to this, the DPRK threat actors have been found to be using zero-day vulnerabilities and exploits that exist in third-party software to gain access to specific targets through their supply chains.

These supply chain attacks were suspected to be associated with broader DPRK-state intentions, which could be generating revenue, engaging in cyber espionage, or stealing advanced technology.

The joint advisory also provided technical details about the malicious activities, recent attack case studies of attacks emerging from the DPRK, and how these attacks can be mitigated.

Software supply chain attacks could prove disastrous as there is a high possibility of massive device compromise involving multiple organizations that use the same software or library.

Moreover, there is also a high chance that these supply chains can be used for ransomware attacks.

The complete joint security advisory has been published, providing detailed information on the vulnerabilities used by the DPRK for exploitation, supply chain, and other information.

Indicators of Compromise

Supply chain attacks with zero-day vulnerabilities

Section	IoC	Note
C2	[C2 URL]/search/sch-result3.asp	HTTPS communication
Decryption Key	0x0c2a351837454a2661026f162530361a394e1d143334	ChaCha20 Key1
	0x0102350423062f085c000e02	ChaCha20 Key2
MD5 hashes	316c088874a5dfb8b8c1c4b259329257	Downloader (SamsungDeviceControl.exe)
	33ca34605e8077047e30e764f5182df0	Downloader (SamsungDevicePanel.exe)
Rogue certificate	Samsung SDS Co., Ltd	Entity
	0139981ad983bf73e9514d2d4237929e	Serial no.
	2022.12.13 ~ 2023.07.20	Start date to expiration date

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