Threat Actors Adopt Havoc Framework for Post-Exploitation in Targeted Attacks

An open resource command-and-control (C2) framework recognized as Havoc is becoming adopted by menace actors as an alternate to other well-acknowledged genuine toolkits like Cobalt Strike, Sliver, and Brute Ratel.

Cybersecurity company Zscaler stated it noticed a new marketing campaign in the starting of January 2023 targeting an unnamed federal government corporation that utilized Havoc.

“Even though C2 frameworks are prolific, the open-supply Havoc framework is an superior put up-exploitation command-and-handle framework capable of bypassing the most latest and updated model of Windows 11 defender thanks to the implementation of innovative evasion approaches these kinds of as oblique syscalls and snooze obfuscation,” researchers Niraj Shivtarkar and Niraj Shivtarkar stated.

The attack sequence documented by Zscaler starts with a ZIP archive that embeds a decoy document and a screen-saver file that’s made to download and launch the Havoc Demon agent on the contaminated host.

Demon is the implant created by way of the Havoc Framework and is analogous to the Beacon shipped via Cobalt Strike to accomplish persistent entry and distribute destructive payloads.

It also comes with a vast wide variety of capabilities that makes it challenging to detect, turning it into a profitable software in the arms of threat actors even as cybersecurity suppliers are pushing again against the abuse of these legit pink group software package.

“Immediately after the demon is deployed efficiently on the target’s device, the server is in a position to execute various instructions on the target program,” the scientists said, stating that the server logs the command and its response upon execution. The success are subsequently encrypted and transmitted back again to the C2 server.

Havoc has also been utilized in link with a fraudulent npm module dubbed aabquerys that, when put in, triggers a a few-phase system to retrieve the Demon implant. The offer has due to the fact been taken down.

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Some parts of this article are sourced from:
thehackernews.com