AcidBox

However, due to the meager infection rate and the complexity of malware, it was only discovered in June 2020. The threat appears to make use of old vulnerabilities in VirtualBox software – previously, other high-profile threat actors have made use of the same vulnerability, the most notable of which is Turla.

Cybersecurity experts believe that AcidBox is not a product of the Turla hackers, but they are confident that the perpetrator of the attack is also an experienced Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) actor. The AcidBox implant was able to stay undetected for over two years on some of the infected systems, and it would appear that its operators were regularly loading and unloading modules that serve different purposes. Due to the complexity and modular structure of the AcidBox malware, cybersecurity experts have been unable to collect enough information about its toolkit – however, they assume that this is a very extensive project that can be configured to perform a variety of post-exploitation tasks quickly.

Threats like AcidBox are a huge problem despite their low-infection rate – the fact that this implant has only been used against a handful of targets is proof that its operator is planning something big. They have taken the required measures to avoid raising red flags, making use of an outdated vulnerability in software that usually is not targeted by cybercriminals.