The PolySwarm Blog

PolySwarm launched in 2018 with the Nectar (NCT) token, an ERC-20 token empowering cybersecurity professionals and enterprises to actively contribute and participate in our threat detection marketplace. The distribution of NCT reflects PolySwarm’s commitment to building a decentralized, community-driven platform. This post describes PolySwarm’s token allocations at launch and the token’s role within the cybersecurity ecosystem.

PolySwarm, the decentralized threat detection marketplace, is excited to announce that we are developing an expansion of our groundbreaking NectarNet browser extension.

Executive Summary

Cyble recently reported on Luca Stealer, a Rust based stealer malware targeting Windows.

Key Takeaways

Background

Qualys Threat Research recently reported on a new Lazarus espionage campaign leveraging employment phishing emails to target the defense sector, primarily targeting those applying for a job at Lockheed Martin. The targeting is similar to previous Lazarus campaigns which targeted Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems. Qualys refers to the current campaign as LolZarus due to the threat actor group’s use of LoLbins in some of the samples, which according to Qualys is the first known use of LoLbins by a well-known threat actor group.

Background

Last week we released a report and blog post on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, past cyber altercations between the two nations, and potential cyber implications if the current conflict escalates. In our report, we mentioned historical activity perpetrated by the threat actor group Armageddon. Palo Alto’s Unit 42 recently reported ongoing activity targeting Ukraine, which they attributed to Armageddon, also known in the industry as Gameredon or Primitive Bear. While Unit 42 did not elaborate on the magnitude or implications of these attacks, they did provide a breakdown of Armageddon’s infrastructure.

Overview

• Ongoing political tensions between Russia and Ukraine are at a breaking point, with the US and other NATO nations preparing to assist Ukraine if a military conflict arises.
• Russia and Ukraine have a long history of state-sponsored cyber conflicts, including both espionage and disruptive attacks.
• Recent cyber activity targeting Ukraine includes multiple government website defacements and WhisperGate, a wiper malware disguised as ransomware. IOCs for PolySwarm’s samples of WhisperGate are provided.
• Hacktivists recently attacked Belarus Railway to protest Russian troop transport and demand the release of “political prisoners.” This incident marked the first time hacktivists have leveraged ransomware in pursuit of political objectives.
• The cyber struggle between Russia and Ukraine has the potential to spill over and have a real-world kinetic impact. Our analysts provide a list of implications.

“SecondWrite is excited to join Polyswarm’s marketplace as an engine. Our mission is to secure computers and networks using our market-leading technology to detect malware. Polyswarm enables us to reach a large community of users and provides us with additional recent samples for our threat intelligence.” stated Rajeev Barua, CEO of SecondWrite.