BlueAlpha Attack Detection: russia-affiliated Hacking Collective Abuses Cloudflare Tunnels to Distribute GammaDrop Malware

Category	Details
Threat Actors	BlueAlpha (aka Gamaredon, Hive0051, Shuckworm, UAC-0010, Armageddon); linked to Russia’s FSB.
Campaign Overview	Longstanding cyber-espionage campaigns targeting Ukraine since 2014, intensified after Russia’s 2022 invasion. Recent campaigns involve abuse of Cloudflare services.
Target Regions	Ukraine (primary focus); potential testing for wider global deployment.
Methodology	Phishing campaigns, Cloudflare tunneling abuse, HTML smuggling, DNS fast-fluxing to obscure infrastructure and evade detection.
Product Targeted	SIEM/EDR systems (bypassed for detection); Cloudflare Tunneling services exploited.
Malware Reference	GammaDrop malware (delivered via GammaLoad.PS1, GammaLoad.PS1_v2).
Tools Used	Cloudflare Tunneling, HTML smuggling, DNS fast-fluxing, SOC Prime’s detection tools.
Vulnerabilities Exploited	Email security bypass via HTML smuggling; exploitation of Cloudflare Tunneling for staging infrastructure.
TTPs	– Abuse of legitimate tunneling services. – Fast-flux DNS for domain obfuscation. – Sophisticated phishing and malware delivery chains.
Attribution	Russian FSB-backed hacking group BlueAlpha; attributed by Insikt Group and other cybersecurity researchers.
Recommendations	– Implement robust email security solutions. – Use threat detection tools like Sigma rules. – Monitor for unusual tunneling or fast-fluxing activities.
Source	SOC Prime

Disclaimer: The above summary has been generated by an AI language model

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