Article Content Introduction The attackers referred to as APT12 (also known as IXESHE, DynCalc, and DNSCALC) recently started a new campaign targeting organizations in Japan and Taiwan APT12 is believed to be a cyber espionage group thought to have links to the Chinese People's Liberation Army APT12's targets are consistent with larger People's Republic of China (PRC) goals Additionally, the new campaigns we uncovered further highlight the correlation between APT groups ceasing and retooling operations after media exposure, as APT12 used the same strategy after compromising the New York Times in Oct 2012 Much like Darwin’s theory of biological evolution, APT12 been forced to evolve and adapt in order to maintain its mission The new campaign marks the first APT12 activity publicly reported since Arbor Networks released their blog “Illuminating The Etumbot APT Backdoor.” FireEye refers to the Etumbot backdoor as RIPTIDE Since the release of the Arbor blog post, FireEye has observed APT12 use a modified RIPTIDE backdoor that we call HIGHTIDE This is the second time FireEye has discovered APT12 retooling after a public disclosure As such, FireEye believes this to be a common theme for this APT group, as APT12 will continue to evolve in an effort to avoid detection and continue its cyber operations FireEye researchers also discovered two possibly related campaigns utilizing two other backdoors known as THREEBYTE and WATERSPOUT Both backdoors were dropped from malicious documents built utilizing the “Tran Duy Linh” exploit kit, which exploited CVE-2012-0158 These documents were also emailed to organizations in Japan and Taiwan While APT12 has previously used THREEBYTE, it is unclear if APT12 was responsible for the recently discovered campaign utilizing THREEBYTE Similarly, WATERSPOUT is a newly discovered backdoor and the threat actors behind the campaign have not been positively identified However, the WATERSPOUT campaign shared several traits with the RIPTIDE and HIGHTIDE campaign that we have attributed to APT12 Figure 1: RIPTIDE HTTP GET Request Example In June 2014, Arbor Networks published an article describing the RIPTIDE backdoor and its C2 infrastructure in great depth The blog highlighted that the backdoor was utilized in campaigns from March 2011 till May 2014 Following the release of the article, FireEye observed a distinct change in RIPTIDE’s protocols and strings We suspect this change was a direct result of the Arbor blog post in order to decrease detection of RIPTIDE by security vendors The changes to RIPTIDE were significant enough to circumvent existing RIPTIDE detection rules FireEye dubbed this new malware family HIGHTIDE HIGHTIDE Malware Family On Sunday August 24, 2014 we observed a spear phish email sent to a Taiwanese government ministry It is worth noting that this email appeared to have been sent from another Taiwanese Government employee, implying that the email was sent from a valid but compromised account Figure 2:  APT12 Spearphishing Email The exploit document dropped the HIGHTIDE backdoor with the following properties:   MD5 6e59861931fa2796ee107dc27bfdd480 Size 75264 bytes Complie Time 2014-08-23 08:22:49 Import Hash ead55ef2b18a80c00786c25211981570   The HIGHTIDE backdoor connected directly to 141.108.2.157 FireEye observed APT12 deliver these exploit documents via phishing emails in multiple cases Based on past APT12 activity, we expect the threat group to continue to utilize phishing as a malware delivery method RIPTIDE and HIGHTIDE differ on several points: executable file location, image base address, the User-Agent within the GET requests, and the format of the URI All but one sample that we identified were written to this folder as word.exe The one outlier was written as winword.exe Research into this HIGHTIDE campaign revealed APT12 targeted multiple Taiwanese Government organizations between August 22 and 28 THREEBYTE Malware Family On Monday August 25, 2014 we observed a different spear phish email sent from lilywang823@gmail.com to a technology company located in Taiwan This spear phish contained a malicious Word document that exploited CVE-2012-0158 The MD5 of the exploit document was e009b95ff7b69cbbebc538b2c5728b11 Similar to the newly discovered HIGHTIDE samples documented above, this malicious document dropped a backdoor to C:\DOCUMENTS and SETTINGS\{user}\LOCAL SETTINGS\Temp\word.exe This backdoor had the following properties:   MD5 16e627dbe730488b1c3d448bfc9096e2 Size 75776 bytes Complie Time 2014-08-25 01:22:20 Import Hash dcfaa2650d29ec1bd88e262d11d3236f   This backdoor sent the following callback traffic to video[.]csmcpr[.]com:  Figure 5:  THREEBYTE GET Request Beacon The THREEBYTE spear phishing incident (while not yet attributed) shared the following characteristics with the above HIGHTIDE campaign attributed to APT12:  The THREEBYTE backdoor was compiled two days after the HIGHTIDE backdoors Both the THREEBYTE and HIGHTIDE backdoors were used in attacks targeting organizations in Taiwan Both the THREEBYTE and HIGHTIDE backdoors were written to the same filepath of C:\DOCUMENTS and SETTINGS\{user}\LOCAL SETTINGS\Temp\word.exe APT12 has previously used the THREEBYTE backdoor WATERSPOUT Malware Family On August 25, 2014, we observed another round of spear phishing emails targeting a high-technology company in Japan Attached to this email was another malicious document that was designed to exploit CVE-2012-0158 This malicious Word document had an MD5 of 499bec15ac83f2c8998f03917b63652e and dropped a backdoor to C:\DOCUMENTS and SETTINGS\{user}\LOCAL SETTINGS\Temp\word.exe The backdoor had the following properties:   MD5 f9cfda6062a8ac9e332186a7ec0e706a Size 49152 bytes Complie Time 2014-08-25 02:10:11 Import Hash 864cd776c24a3c653fd89899ca32fe0b   The backdoor connects to a command and control server at icc[.]ignorelist[.]com The same “Tran Duy Linh” Microsoft Word Exploit Kit was used in delivery of this backdoor Similar Targets were observed where the threat actors utilized this backdoor APT12 has the ability to adapt quickly to public exposures with new tools, tactics, and procedures (TTPs) Public disclosures may result in an immediate change in APT12’s tools These changes may be temporary and FireEye believes they are aimed at decreasing detection of their tools until a more permanent and effective TTP change can be implemented (e.g., WATERSPOUT) Although these points do not definitively tie WATERSPOUT to APT12, they do indicate a possible connection between the WATERSPOUT campaign, the THREEBYTE campaign, and the HIGHTIDE campaign attributed to APT12 Conclusion FireEye believes the change from RIPTIDE to HIGHTIDE represents a temporary tool shift to decrease malware detection while APT12 developed a completely new malware toolset These development efforts may have resulted in the emergence of the WATERSPOUT backdoor Figure 7: Compile dates for all three malware families  APT12’s adaptations to public disclosures lead FireEye to make several conclusions about this threat group: Though public disclosures resulted in APT12 adaptations, FireEye observed only a brief pause in APT12 activity before the threat actors returned to normal activity levels Similarly, the public disclosure of APT12’s intrusion at the New York Times also led to only a brief pause in the threat group’s activity and immediate changes in TTPs The pause and retooling by APT12 was covered in the Mandiant 2014 M-Trends report Currently, APT12 continues to target organizations and conduct cyber operations using its new tools Most recently, FireEye observed HIGHTIDE at multiple Taiwan-based organizations and the suspected APT12 WATERSPOUT backdoor at a Japan-based electronics company We expect that APT12 will continue their trend and evolve and change its tactics to stay ahead of network defenders Note: IOCs for this campaign can be found here 
Below is an instruction that describes a task, paired with an input that provides further context. Write a response that appropriately completes the request. ### Instruction: List the MITRE techniques contained in the text. ### Input: Article Content Introduction The attackers referred to as APT12 (also known as IXESHE, DynCalc, and DNSCALC) recently started a new campaign targeting organizations in Japan and Taiwan APT12 is believed to be a cyber espionage group thought to have links to the Chinese People's Liberation Army APT12's targets are consistent with larger People's Republic of China (PRC) goals Additionally, the new campaigns we uncovered further highlight the correlation between APT groups ceasing and retooling operations after media exposure, as APT12 used the same strategy after compromising the New York Times in Oct 2012 Much like Darwin’s theory of biological evolution, APT12 been forced to evolve and adapt in order to maintain its mission The new campaign marks the first APT12 activity publicly reported since Arbor Networks released their blog “Illuminating The Etumbot APT Backdoor.” FireEye refers to the Etumbot backdoor as RIPTIDE Since the release of the Arbor blog post, FireEye has observed APT12 use a modified RIPTIDE backdoor that we call HIGHTIDE This is the second time FireEye has discovered APT12 retooling after a public disclosure As such, FireEye believes this to be a common theme for this APT group, as APT12 will continue to evolve in an effort to avoid detection and continue its cyber operations FireEye researchers also discovered two possibly related campaigns utilizing two other backdoors known as THREEBYTE and WATERSPOUT Both backdoors were dropped from malicious documents built utilizing the “Tran Duy Linh” exploit kit, which exploited CVE-2012-0158 These documents were also emailed to organizations in Japan and Taiwan While APT12 has previously used THREEBYTE, it is unclear if APT12 was responsible for the recently discovered campaign utilizing THREEBYTE Similarly, WATERSPOUT is a newly discovered backdoor and the threat actors behind the campaign have not been positively identified However, the WATERSPOUT campaign shared several traits with the RIPTIDE and HIGHTIDE campaign that we have attributed to APT12 Figure 1: RIPTIDE HTTP GET Request Example In June 2014, Arbor Networks published an article describing the RIPTIDE backdoor and its C2 infrastructure in great depth The blog highlighted that the backdoor was utilized in campaigns from March 2011 till May 2014 Following the release of the article, FireEye observed a distinct change in RIPTIDE’s protocols and strings We suspect this change was a direct result of the Arbor blog post in order to decrease detection of RIPTIDE by security vendors The changes to RIPTIDE were significant enough to circumvent existing RIPTIDE detection rules FireEye dubbed this new malware family HIGHTIDE HIGHTIDE Malware Family On Sunday August 24, 2014 we observed a spear phish email sent to a Taiwanese government ministry It is worth noting that this email appeared to have been sent from another Taiwanese Government employee, implying that the email was sent from a valid but compromised account Figure 2:  APT12 Spearphishing Email The exploit document dropped the HIGHTIDE backdoor with the following properties:   MD5 6e59861931fa2796ee107dc27bfdd480 Size 75264 bytes Complie Time 2014-08-23 08:22:49 Import Hash ead55ef2b18a80c00786c25211981570   The HIGHTIDE backdoor connected directly to 141.108.2.157 FireEye observed APT12 deliver these exploit documents via phishing emails in multiple cases Based on past APT12 activity, we expect the threat group to continue to utilize phishing as a malware delivery method RIPTIDE and HIGHTIDE differ on several points: executable file location, image base address, the User-Agent within the GET requests, and the format of the URI All but one sample that we identified were written to this folder as word.exe The one outlier was written as winword.exe Research into this HIGHTIDE campaign revealed APT12 targeted multiple Taiwanese Government organizations between August 22 and 28 THREEBYTE Malware Family On Monday August 25, 2014 we observed a different spear phish email sent from lilywang823@gmail.com to a technology company located in Taiwan This spear phish contained a malicious Word document that exploited CVE-2012-0158 The MD5 of the exploit document was e009b95ff7b69cbbebc538b2c5728b11 Similar to the newly discovered HIGHTIDE samples documented above, this malicious document dropped a backdoor to C:\DOCUMENTS and SETTINGS\{user}\LOCAL SETTINGS\Temp\word.exe This backdoor had the following properties:   MD5 16e627dbe730488b1c3d448bfc9096e2 Size 75776 bytes Complie Time 2014-08-25 01:22:20 Import Hash dcfaa2650d29ec1bd88e262d11d3236f   This backdoor sent the following callback traffic to video[.]csmcpr[.]com:  Figure 5:  THREEBYTE GET Request Beacon The THREEBYTE spear phishing incident (while not yet attributed) shared the following characteristics with the above HIGHTIDE campaign attributed to APT12:  The THREEBYTE backdoor was compiled two days after the HIGHTIDE backdoors Both the THREEBYTE and HIGHTIDE backdoors were used in attacks targeting organizations in Taiwan Both the THREEBYTE and HIGHTIDE backdoors were written to the same filepath of C:\DOCUMENTS and SETTINGS\{user}\LOCAL SETTINGS\Temp\word.exe APT12 has previously used the THREEBYTE backdoor WATERSPOUT Malware Family On August 25, 2014, we observed another round of spear phishing emails targeting a high-technology company in Japan Attached to this email was another malicious document that was designed to exploit CVE-2012-0158 This malicious Word document had an MD5 of 499bec15ac83f2c8998f03917b63652e and dropped a backdoor to C:\DOCUMENTS and SETTINGS\{user}\LOCAL SETTINGS\Temp\word.exe The backdoor had the following properties:   MD5 f9cfda6062a8ac9e332186a7ec0e706a Size 49152 bytes Complie Time 2014-08-25 02:10:11 Import Hash 864cd776c24a3c653fd89899ca32fe0b   The backdoor connects to a command and control server at icc[.]ignorelist[.]com The same “Tran Duy Linh” Microsoft Word Exploit Kit was used in delivery of this backdoor Similar Targets were observed where the threat actors utilized this backdoor APT12 has the ability to adapt quickly to public exposures with new tools, tactics, and procedures (TTPs) Public disclosures may result in an immediate change in APT12’s tools These changes may be temporary and FireEye believes they are aimed at decreasing detection of their tools until a more permanent and effective TTP change can be implemented (e.g., WATERSPOUT) Although these points do not definitively tie WATERSPOUT to APT12, they do indicate a possible connection between the WATERSPOUT campaign, the THREEBYTE campaign, and the HIGHTIDE campaign attributed to APT12 Conclusion FireEye believes the change from RIPTIDE to HIGHTIDE represents a temporary tool shift to decrease malware detection while APT12 developed a completely new malware toolset These development efforts may have resulted in the emergence of the WATERSPOUT backdoor Figure 7: Compile dates for all three malware families  APT12’s adaptations to public disclosures lead FireEye to make several conclusions about this threat group: Though public disclosures resulted in APT12 adaptations, FireEye observed only a brief pause in APT12 activity before the threat actors returned to normal activity levels Similarly, the public disclosure of APT12’s intrusion at the New York Times also led to only a brief pause in the threat group’s activity and immediate changes in TTPs The pause and retooling by APT12 was covered in the Mandiant 2014 M-Trends report Currently, APT12 continues to target organizations and conduct cyber operations using its new tools Most recently, FireEye observed HIGHTIDE at multiple Taiwan-based organizations and the suspected APT12 WATERSPOUT backdoor at a Japan-based electronics company We expect that APT12 will continue their trend and evolve and change its tactics to stay ahead of network defenders Note: IOCs for this campaign can be found here  ### Response: .