Blue Mockingbird
Blue Mockingbird is a threat actor associated in the provided content with exploitation of public-facing applications, including activity tied to Telerik UI for ASP.NET AJAX/CVE-2019-18935 guidance. The actor is described using batch scripts to automate payload execution and deployment, PowerShell reverse TCP shells for interactive command execution, and Remote Desktop to log on to servers interactively and manually copy files to remote hosts. Blue Mockingbird has used Windows Scheduled Tasks for persistence on local and remote hosts and modified the Windows Registry to specify a DLL payload. The actor has obtained and used tools such as Mimikatz, collected victim hardware details including CPU and memory information, and used obfuscation and masquerading to hinder detection, including obfuscating a wallet address in a payload binary and naming an XMRIG payload wercplsupporte.dll to resemble the legitimate wercplsupport.dll. ATT&CK techniques explicitly referenced in the content include Exploit Public-Facing Application (T1190), IIS Components (T1505.004), Web Shell (T1505.003), Command and Scripting Interpreter (T1059), Proxy (T1090), Regsvr32 (T1218.010), Modify Registry (T1112), Downgrade Attack (T1689), Upload Malware (T1608.001), and Upload Tool (T1608.002). No additional aliases or sub-groups beyond "blue_mockingbird" are provided in the content.
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Tradecraft
39 distinct techniques observed across reporting, grouped by tactic. Hover any cell for the evidence excerpt; click through for MITRE's full description.
Associated malware families
11 malware families attributed to this actor across reporting.
6 additional families tracked in Mallory.
Associated vulnerabilities
9 CVEs this actor has used in observed campaigns. 9 of them exploited in the wild.
Blue Mockingbird has gained initial access by exploiting CVE-2019-18935, a vulnerability within Telerik UI for ASP.NET AJAX.
This detection identifies instances where Windows Explorer.exe spawns PowerShell or cmd.exe processes, particularly focusing on executions initiated by LNK files. This behavior is associated with the ZDI-CAN-25373 Windows shortcut zero-day vulnerability, where specially crafted LNK files are used to trigger malicious code execution through cmd.exe or powershell.exe. This technique has been actively exploited by multiple APT groups in targeted attacks through both HTTP and SMB delivery methods.
This analytic identifies potential exploitation attempts of ProxyShell (CVE-2021-34473, CVE-2021-34523, CVE-2021-31207) and ProxyNotShell (CVE-2022-41040, CVE-2022-41082) vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange Server.
This analytic identifies potential exploitation attempts of ProxyShell (CVE-2021-34473, CVE-2021-34523, CVE-2021-31207) and ProxyNotShell (CVE-2022-41040, CVE-2022-41082) vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange Server.
This analytic identifies potential exploitation attempts of ProxyShell (CVE-2021-34473, CVE-2021-34523, CVE-2021-31207) and ProxyNotShell (CVE-2022-41040, CVE-2022-41082) vulnerabilities in Microsoft Exchange Server.
4 more CVEs tied to this actor tracked in Mallory.
Observables
6 indicators attributed to this actor: domains, IPs, hashes, and other artifacts pulled from reporting. View more in app.
Recent activity
20 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
Listed as a threat actor associated with the PowerShell P/Invoke process injection API chain detection and related ATT&CK techniques.
Listed as a threat actor associated with PowerShell execution behavior relevant to this detection analytic.
Referenced as a threat actor associated with registry modification behavior (MITRE ATT&CK T1112: Modify Registry) in the context of this detection analytic.
Listed as a threat actor associated with the detection annotations for registry modification and downgrade attack techniques.
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Match sector + geo + tech-stack targeting against your real footprint.
Every observed MITRE ATT&CK technique, grouped by tactic.
Families this actor is known to deploy, with IOCs and behavior.
CVEs this actor has used in known campaigns.
YARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.
Domains, IPs, and hashes tied to this actor, refreshed continuously.