State-sponsored threat actors from North Korea, suspected to be affiliated with the Lazarus Group, have been discovered targeting blockchain engineers through Discord using a new macOS malware called KANDYKORN.
Elastic Security Labs tracked this activity back to April 2023, uncovering an attack chain that lured victims with a fake cryptocurrency arbitrage bot. The attack involves a five-stage process that ultimately delivers the KANDYKORN malware. KANDYKORN is a sophisticated memory-resident Remote Access Trojan (RAT) capable of data exfiltration, executing additional malware, and various other functions. KANDYKORN’s deployment starts with a Python script, followed by several stages of Python droppers.
The final payload is a full-featured RAT that can perform various malicious activities. The malware was used to target blockchain engineers with a focus on cryptocurrency theft, potentially to circumvent international sanctions. Researchers at Elastic Security Labs have identified connections between this campaign and North Korean state-sponsored threat actors, highlighting the ongoing threat from nation-state groups to the cryptocurrency industry.
Additionally, the S2W Threat Analysis team has uncovered an updated variant of the Android spyware FastViewer, used by a North Korean threat cluster known as Kimsuky. FastViewer initially appeared in October 2022, abusing Android’s accessibility services to covertly harvest sensitive data from compromised devices.
This updated variant integrates the functionality of FastSpy, eliminating the need for a second-stage download. While there are no reported cases of this variant being distributed in the wild, it underscores North Korea’s evolving tactics and the persistent cybersecurity threats originating from state-sponsored actors.
