WarHawk: the New Backdoor in the Arsenal of the SideWinder APT Group

Category	Details
Threat Actors	SideWinder APT (aka Rattlesnake, T-APT4), suspected Indian group active since 2012.
Campaign Overview	Targeting Pakistan with the WarHawk backdoor, distributing via compromised legitimate servers, and deploying Cobalt Strike payloads.
Target Regions	Pakistan (Government and military sectors).
Methodology	ISO files containing LNK files, decoy PDFs, and malicious binaries hosted on legitimate compromised websites.
Product Targeted	Windows systems.
Malware Reference	WarHawk Backdoor (newly discovered), RtlAudioDriver.exe (older version), MsBuild.exe (newer version).
Tools Used	WarHawk Backdoor modules, Cobalt Strike, custom Cobalt Strike loader using KernelCallBackTable Injection.
Vulnerabilities Exploited	Compromised legitimate websites to host malware (e.g., “nepra.org.pk”).
TTPs	– KernelCallBackTable Injection – Time zone validation (Pakistan Standard Time) – Use of decoy PDFs to distract victims – Modular malware functionality: Download & Execute, Command Execution, File Management, and Exfiltration modules.
Attribution	Network infrastructure reuse linked to SideWinder APT.
Recommendations	– Monitor for suspicious ISO and LNK files – Implement threat intelligence to detect SideWinder APT activity – Secure web servers to prevent compromise – Strengthen endpoint detection for KernelCallBackTable Injection and Cobalt Strike.
Source	Zscaler

Read full article: https://www.zscaler.com/blogs/security-research/warhawk-new-backdoor-arsenal-sidewinder-apt-group

The above summary has been generated by an AI language model