WildNeutron

Also known as: Butterfly, Deceptikons, Jripbot, Morpho, Sphinx Moth, The Postal Group, Wild Neutron, WildNeutron

A corporate espionage group has compromised a string of major corporations over the past three years in order to steal confidential information and intellectual property. The gang, which Symantec calls Butterfly, is not-state sponsored, rather financially motivated. It has attacked multi-billion dollar companies operating in the internet, IT software, pharmaceutical, and commodities sectors. Twitter, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft are among the companies who have publicly acknowledged attacks. Butterfly is technically proficient and well resourced. The group has developed a suite of custom malware tools capable of attacking both Windows and Apple computers, and appears to have used at least one zero-day vulnerability in its attacks. It keeps a low profile and maintains good operational security. After successfully compromising a target organization, it cleans up after itself before moving on to its next target. This group operates at a much higher level than the average cybercrime gang. It is not interested in stealing credit card details or customer databases and is instead focused on high-level corporate information. Butterfly may be selling this information to the highest bidder or may be operating as hackers for hire. Stolen information could also be used for insider-trading purposes.

🌍 Country ["[Unknown]"]
📅 Activity 2015 — 2015
2015
2015

Associated Operations

2013-01 2013-02 Attack on Apple Attack on Facebook Attack on Microsoft Attack on Twitter Sphinx Moth https://blog.twitter.com/official/en_us/a/2013/keeping-our-users-secure.html https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/msrc/2013/02/22/recent-cyberattacks/ https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-security/protecting-people-on-facebook/10151249208250766 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-hackers/exclusive-apple-macs-hit-by-hackers-who-targeted-facebook-idUSBRE91I10920130219

Introduction

A corporate espionage group has compromised a string of major corporations over the past three years in order to steal confidential information and intellectual property. The gang, which Symantec calls Butterfly, is not-state sponsored, rather financially motivated. It has attacked multi-billion dollar companies operating in the internet, IT software, pharmaceutical, and commodities sectors. Twitter, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft are among the companies who have publicly acknowledged attacks. Butterfly is technically proficient and well resourced. The group has developed a suite of custom malware tools capable of attacking both Windows and Apple computers, and appears to have used at least one zero-day vulnerability in its attacks. It keeps a low profile and maintains good operational security. After successfully compromising a target organization, it cleans up after itself before moving on to its next target. This group operates at a much higher level than the average cybercrime gang. It is not interested in stealing credit card details or customer databases and is instead focused on high-level corporate information. Butterfly may be selling this information to the highest bidder or may be operating as hackers for hire. Stolen information could also be used for insider-trading purposes.

Activities and Tactics

Country of Origin: 🏳️ [“[Unknown]”]

First Seen: 2015

Last Activity: 2015

Notable Campaigns

  • 2013-01
  • 2013-02
  • Attack on Apple
  • Attack on Facebook
  • Attack on Microsoft
  • Attack on Twitter
  • Sphinx Moth
  • https://blog.twitter.com/official/en_us/a/2013/keeping-our-users-secure.html
  • https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/msrc/2013/02/22/recent-cyberattacks/
  • https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-security/protecting-people-on-facebook/10151249208250766
  • https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-hackers/exclusive-apple-macs-hit-by-hackers-who-targeted-facebook-idUSBRE91I10920130219

Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs)

Information pending cataloguing.

Notable Indicators of Compromise (IOCs)

No atomic indicators are listed in this profile. The APTnotes snapshot indexes 2 public reports that may contain IOCs; see Source Attribution for dataset links.

Malware and Tools

  • CyberGate
  • Cyber Eye RAT
  • Windows Remote Desktop
  • HesperBot:
  • JripBot:
  • many 0-days vulnerabilities:

Attribution and Evidence

Country of Origin: [“[Unknown]”] Additional attribution information pending cataloguing.

References

References pending cataloguing.