Praying Mantis: An advanced and persistent threat actor attacked prominent targets in the United States

Description

FortiGuard Labs is aware of a report that an advanced and persistent threat actor "Praying Mantis" targeted several high-profiled organizations in the United States. According to Sygia, a security company who investigated the attack, "the initial foothold within the network was obtained by leveraging a variety of deserialization exploits targeting Windows IIS servers and vulnerabilities targeting web applications." Upon successful entry, Praying Mantis deployed a backdoor malware for credential harvesting and reconnaissance. Based on similarities in the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), Praying Mantis and a threat actor responsible for attacking Australian private and public sectors in Copy-Paste compromises are thought to be the same actor.

When Did the Attack Occur?

Sygia stated that the attack occurred in the past year.

Who were the Targets of Praying Mantis?

The report indicated that high profiled organizations in the Untied States were targeted by Praying Mantis.

Is Another Name Assigned to Praying Mantis?

Yes, Praying Mantis is also called TG1021.

What was the Purpose of the Attack?

The purpose of the attack appeared to be potential reconnaissance for further attacks.

Which vulnerabilities were exploited by Praying Mantis to gain access to the targeted organizations?

The threat actor exploited the following vulnerabilities:

• Checkbox Survey insecurely deserializes ASP.NET View State data (CVE-2021-27852)
• Telerik UI Remote Code Execution (CVE-2019-18935)
• Telerik UI ASP.NET AJAX RadAsyncUpload Deserialization (CVE-2017-11317)

Have the vendors released the patch for the vulnerabilities?

Yes, the vendors have released respective patches.

For the patch details, please refer to the articles referenced in the Appendix.

Is this the Praying Mantis' First Act?

Based on similarities in the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), Praying Mantis and a threat actor responsible for attacking Australian private and public sectors in Copy-Paste compromises are thought to be the same actor.

For details on Copy-paste compromises, please refer to the advisory from Australian Cyber Security Center (ACSC) in the Appendix.

What is the Status of Coverage?

FortiGuard Labs has IPS coverage in place for the vulnerabilities:

• Telerik.Web.UI.RadAsyncUpload.Handling.Arbitrary.File.Upload

The potential for damage to daily operations, reputation, and unwanted release of data, the disruption of business operations, etc. is apparent, and because of this it is important to keep all AV and IPS signatures up to date. It is also important to ensure that all known vendor vulnerabilities within an organization are addressed once available, and updated on a regular basis to protect against attackers establishing a foothold within a network.

Appendix

CVE-2021-27852 (MITRE)

CVE-2019-18935 (MITRE)

CVE-2017-11317 (MITRE)

Praying Mantis: An Advanced Memory-Resident Attack (Sygia)

Advisory 2020-008: Copy-Paste Compromises – tactics, techniques and procedures used to target multiple Australian networks (Australian Cyber Security Centre)