A wall eight feet high with three strands of barbed wire is considered sufficient to deter a determined intruder, at least according to the advice offered by the CISSP professional certification. Although physical controls can be part of a multifaceted defense, an electronic attack affords the adversary time to develop the necessary tools to bypass any logical wall set before them. In the latest findings from the McAfee Advanced Threat Research team, we examine an adversary that was not content with a single campaign, but launched five distinct waves adapted to their separate targets. The new report “Operation Oceansalt Attacks South Korea, U.S., and Canada with Source Code from Chinese Hacker Group” analyzes these waves and their victims, primarily in South Korea but with a few in the United States and Canada.
Although one reaction is to marvel at the level of innovation displayed by the threat actor(s), we are not discussing five new, never-before-seen malware variants—rather the reuse of code from implants seen eight years prior. The Oceansalt malware uses large parts of code from the Seasalt implant, which was linked to the Chinese hacking group Comment Crew.
Originally taking the title APT1, the Comment Crew was seen as the threat actor conducting offensive cyber operations against the United States almost 10 years before. The obvious suspect is Comment Crew and, although this may seem a logical conclusion, we have not seen any activity from this group since they were initially exposed. Is it possible that this group has returned and, if so, why target South Korea?
