#cloudduke

Discovered in June 2015, CloudDuke is the most recent Duke campaign. The campaign may be a tactical shift in response to the widespread disclosure of the other Duke campaigns by security firms such as Kaspersky, Symantec, and F-Secure. CloudDuke relies on spear phishing emails that closely resemble those deployed in the CozyDuke campaign. The CloudDuke emails contain a self-extracting archive attachment that appears as an empty voicemail file (.wav) or a PDF file (often containing the word “terrorism”). If opened, then the second stage dropper executes. So far, the campaign has targeted European diplomatic organizations. The CloudDuke malware is comprised of a downloader, a loader, and two backdoors, which download and execute from either web address or from a Microsoft OneDrive account. The malware maps a OneDrive cloud storage drive as a network drive using hardcoded credentials and then it downloads its backdoors to the local system. The downloader may also download and execute additional malware, likely another Duke malware, from a preconfigured location. CloudDuke’s backdoor functionality resembles that of SeaDuke. One backdoor will contact a preconfigured C&C server while the other relies on a Microsoft OneDrive account. As per its name, CloudDuke uses cloud storage services for its command and control infrastructure as well as its data exfiltration method.

Discovered in June 2015, CloudDuke is the most recent Duke campaign. The campaign may be a tactical shift in response to the widespread disclosure of the other Duke campaigns by security firms such as Kaspersky, Symantec, and F-Secure. CloudDuke relies on spear phishing emails that closely resemble those deployed in the CozyDuke campaign. The CloudDuke emails contain a self-extracting archive attachment that appears as an empty voicemail file (.wav) or a PDF file (often containing the word “terrorism”). If opened, then the second stage dropper executes. So far, the campaign has targeted European diplomatic organizations.