Gaza-Based Cyber Threat Actor ‘Storm-1133’ Strikes Israeli Energy and Defense Sectors, Microsoft Reveals

In a recent revelation, Microsoft has unveiled a series of cyberattacks targeting Israeli private-sector entities in the energy, defense, and telecommunications sectors. The source of these attacks has been traced back to a threat actor based in Gaza, identified as ‘Storm-1133.’

According to Microsoft’s fourth annual Digital Defense Report, ‘Storm-1133’ appears to operate with the aim of advancing the interests of Hamas, the Sunni militant group that holds de facto governance in the Gaza Strip. Notably, the targets of these attacks extend beyond Israeli organizations, including entities loyal to Fatah, a Palestinian political party headquartered in the West Bank.

The modus operandi of this campaign involves a combination of social engineering tactics and the creation of fraudulent LinkedIn profiles, posing as Israeli human resources managers, project coordinators, and software developers. These profiles are used to initiate contact, send phishing messages, gather reconnaissance, and deliver malware to employees within Israeli organizations.

Additionally, Microsoft has observed ‘Storm-1133’ attempting to infiltrate third-party organizations with known affiliations to Israeli targets of interest. These intrusions are orchestrated to deploy backdoors, complemented by a configuration that allows the group to dynamically update their command-and-control (C2) infrastructure, hosted on Google Drive.

This dynamic approach to C2 infrastructure affords the threat actors a tactical advantage, enabling them to stay one step ahead of certain static network-based defenses.

This disclosure comes amid an escalation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, coinciding with a surge in malicious hacktivist activities, such as ‘Ghosts of Palestine.’ These operations aim to disrupt government websites and IT systems in Israel, the United States, and India.

The landscape of cyber threats continues to evolve, with nation-state actors shifting their focus from destructive attacks to long-term espionage campaigns. Notably, the United States, Ukraine, Israel, and South Korea have emerged as prominent targets in regions including Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and the Asia-Pacific.

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Source: thehackernews.com

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