Description

US car makers faced a targeted attack by the financially motivated threat actor FIN7, who employed spear-phishing tactics to infiltrate the IT department's systems with the Anunak backdoor. BlackBerry researchers revealed that the incident occurred in late 2023 and involved sophisticated techniques such as living-off-the-land binaries, scripts, and libraries (LoLBas). FIN7 enticed high-level privileged targets with fake URLs posing as legitimate tools like the Advanced IP Scanner. The attack chain orchestrated by FIN7 began with spear-phishing emails directed at privileged IT employees, leading them to a deceptive website masquerading as the genuine Advanced IP Scanner project. The malicious site then redirected victims to a Dropbox page hosting a disguised executable ('WsTaskLoad.exe'), which, upon execution, initiated a multi-stage process culminating in the deployment of the Anunak backdoor. Although FIN7 is notorious for ransomware payloads, this attack did not progress beyond the initial infection stage. To defend against such threats, BlackBerry advises organizations to bolster their security posture by implementing multi-factor authentication (MFA), conducting regular employee training on phishing awareness, and maintaining robust baseline defenses like strong passwords, updated software, network monitoring for anomalies, and advanced email filtering solutions. These measures collectively enhance resilience against diverse cyber threats targeting corporate networks.