February 19, 2024 at 08:03AM
Recorded Future alerts about Winter Vivern, a Russian cyberespionage group, exploiting Roundcube webmail servers to target European government and military entities. The group also attacked infrastructure in Europe and Central Asia, aligned with Russian and Belarusian interests. Social engineering and XSS vulnerabilities are being used to gain access for intelligence collection.
From the provided meeting notes, key takeaways are:
– A Russian cyberespionage group, known as Winter Vivern, has been targeting vulnerable Roundcube webmail servers in attacks against European government, military, and critical infrastructure entities.
– The group has been active since at least December 2020 and has been observed exploiting a zero-day cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in the Roundcube webmail server.
– Winter Vivern has targeted at least 80 organizations, predominantly in Georgia, Poland, and Ukraine, as well as government and military webmail servers, the transport and education sectors, and chemical and biological research organizations.
– The attacks have involved social engineering and exploitation of XSS flaws to gain access to targeted mail servers and collect intelligence on political and military activities.
– The compromise of email servers in the context of the war in Ukraine could lead to the exposure of sensitive information and the manipulation of communication channels, potentially undermining European security and alliances.
– Recorded Future attributes these attacks to Winter Vivern based on the reuse of infrastructure and artifacts observed in previous campaigns, as well as code similarities with previously identified JavaScript malware.
These takeaways provide a clear understanding of the nature and impact of the cyberattacks carried out by Winter Vivern and the potential implications for European security and alliances.