A threat group named ‘ResumeLooters’ has executed a large-scale data breach, compromising 65 legitimate job listing and retail websites to pilfer the personal information of over two million job seekers. Primarily targeting the APAC region, particularly sites in Australia, Taiwan, China, Thailand, India, and Vietnam, the attackers focus on extracting valuable data such as names, email addresses, phone numbers, employment history, and education details. Group-IB, a cybersecurity firm monitoring the threat group, reveals that ‘ResumeLooters’ attempted to monetize the stolen data by selling it through Telegram channels in November 2023.
Employing sophisticated techniques like SQL injection and cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks, ‘ResumeLooters’ meticulously targets vulnerabilities in web applications, mainly job-seeking and retail platforms. They utilize a variety of open-source tools such as SQLmap, Acunetix, and Metasploit during their pen-testing phase to identify and exploit security weaknesses on the targeted websites. Upon successful exploitation, malicious scripts are injected into various locations within the website’s HTML, allowing the attackers to execute phishing forms and extract sensitive information from unsuspecting visitors.
Despite the attackers’ attempt to cover their tracks, Group-IB managed to infiltrate the database hosting the stolen data, uncovering evidence that ‘ResumeLooters’ had gained administrator access on several compromised sites. Moreover, the threat group operates with the intention of financial gain, as evidenced by their attempts to sell the stolen data to other cybercriminals through Telegram accounts. While Group-IB refrains from explicitly confirming the origin of the attackers, the use of Chinese names and versions of tools, along with the sale of data in Chinese-speaking groups, strongly suggests their ties to China.
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