Home Malware Programs Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) Promethium APT

Promethium APT

Posted: July 1, 2020

The Promethium APT or (Advanced Persistent Threat) is a threat actor that collects information, such as Word documents, from compromised systems. Its long-term campaigns imply state sponsorship and use sophisticated features such as digital certificates and layered Command & Control networks for guaranteeing access. Users should scan their software downloads for possible threats from this group and let anti-malware products remove the Promethium APT's Trojans on detection.

The World's Computers are Going Nuclear

The threat landscape is home to virus pranksters, Ransomware-as-a-Service intermediaries, and government-funded spies alike, even though the differences between these types of threat actors are vast. In the third case, espionage cyber-warfare also evolves over the years, with well-known entities like the Promethium APT switching up their tools or tactics. Although previously limiting its geographic scope sharply, the Promethium APT's spies show a newfound interest in the world outside of the Middle East.

The Promethium APT is well-known for speculated interest in the conflict between the Kurds and the Turkish government, particularly. It also focuses on collecting files from targets thematically related to that topic. This geopolitical self-segregation might be why it's less well-known than some similar threat actors, even though malware experts track attacks from the Promethium APT back to 2002. In most attacks, the Promethium APT uses a general-purpose spyware tool, such as Finspy or a variant of StrongPity (which includes editions StrongPity2 and StrongPity3), for collecting intelligence.

New reports confirm that the Promethium APT's lists of targets are expanding, and the Trojan tools are getting updates for anti-analysis and anti-detection goals. Infections are including victims in North American's Canada, South America's Colombia, and Asia's India and Vietnam. Currently, malware experts suspect that the Promethium APT is hijacking legitimate downloads of software such as the Firefox Web browser, media players, and driver update managers, albeit not through breaching supply-chains (like ShadowPad, for instance).

Reducing the Hazard of Radioactive Spyware

The Promethium APT's standard operating procedure weaponizes 'trusted' software installers, instead of keygens, game cracks, torrents, or other, typical infection vectors for Trojans. As such, the onus falls on Windows users not to take the integrity of any download for granted and use threat detection and file-scanning technology to the fullest. In keeping with previous campaigns from this threat actor, malware experts expect that new attacks will install any official programs as per the user's expectations while leaving the Trojan installation 'behind the scenes' invisible.

Since the Promethium APT is a group of (professionally-scheduled nine-to-five) programmer-spies, data security is essential to countering infections. Users should disable network connectivity entirely, separate infected devices from uninfected ones, and change passwords. Word Office content, such as spreadsheets, documents, etc., is noteworthy as a priority target for the Promethium APT's file exfiltration activities.

Professional anti-malware services are reliable protection against ordinary spyware, backdoor Trojans, and other parts of the Promethium APT's toolkit. Removing Trojans associated with the Promethium APT group doesn't, unfortunately, reverse the theft of any data.

This threat actor, bearing the name of a radioactive element, is a self-contradicting one. Both narrow and wide, niche and global, the Promethium APT is, above all else, professional in its attacks – and therefore threatening to anyone it targets.

Loading...