From the press release:
The Kaspersky Lab Global Research and Analysis Team has discovered a new sophisticated wiper malware, called StoneDrill. Just like another infamous wiper, Shamoon, it destroys everything on the infected computer. StoneDrill also features advanced anti-detection techniques and espionage tools in its arsenal. In addition to targets in the Middle East, one StoneDrill target has also been discovered in Europe, where wipers used in the Middle East have not previously been spotted in the wild.
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Besides the wiping module, Kaspersky Lab researchers have also found a StoneDrill backdoor, which has apparently been developed by the same code writers and used for espionage purposes. Experts discovered four command and control panels which were used by attackers to run espionage operations with help of the StoneDrill backdoor against an unknown number of targets.
Perhaps the most interesting thing about StoneDrill is that it appears to have connections to several other wipers and espionage operations observed previously. When Kaspersky Lab researchers discovered StoneDrill with the help of Yara-rules created to identify unknown samples of Shamoon, they realised they were looking at a unique piece of malicious code that seems to have been created separately from Shamoon. Even though the two families – Shamoon and StoneDrill – don’t share the exact same code base, the mind-set of the authors and their programming “style” appear to be similar. That’s why it was possible to identify StoneDrill with the Shamoon-developed Yara-rules.
Code similarities with older known malware were also observed, but this time not between Shamoon and StoneDrill. In fact StoneDrill uses some parts of the code previously spotted in the NewsBeef APT, also known as Charming Kitten – another malicious campaign which has been active in the last few years.
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For details beyond the press release, see: From Shamoon to StoneDrill: Wipers attacking Saudi organizations and beyond by Costin Raiu, Mohamad Amin Hasbini, Sergey Belov, Sergey Mineev or the full report, same title, version 1.05.
Wipers can impact corporate and governmental operations but they may be hiding crimes and misdeeds at the same time.
Of greater interest are the espionage operations enabled by StoneDrill.
If you are interested in planting false flags, pay particular attention to the use of language analysis in the full report.
Taking a clue from Lakoff on framing, would you opinion of StoneDrill change if instead of “espionage” it was described as a “corporate/government transparency” tool?
I don’t recall anyone saying that transparency is by definition voluntary.
Perhaps that’s the ticket. Malware can bring about involuntary transparency.
Yes?