North Korean Hacker Group Andariel Strikes with New EarlyRat Malware

The North Korea-aligned threat actor known as Andariel leveraged a previously undocumented malware called EarlyRat in phishing attacks, adding another piece to the group’s wide-ranging toolset.

“Andariel infects machines by executing a Log4j exploit, which, in turn, downloads further malware from the command-and-control (C2) server,” Kaspersky said in a new report.

Also called Silent Chollima and Stonefly, Andariel is associated with North Korea’s Lab 110, a primary hacking unit that also houses APT38 (aka BlueNoroff) and other subordinate elements collectively tracked under the umbrella name Lazarus Group.

The threat actor, besides conducting espionage attacks against foreign government and military entities that are of strategic interest, is known to carry out cyber crime as an extra source of income to the sanctions-hit nation.

images from Hacker News