Detailed Analysis of AlphaSeed, a new version of Kimsuky’s AppleSeed written in Golang

2023-05-17 S2W

https://medium.com/s2wblog/detailed-analysis-of-alphaseed-a-new-version-of-kimsukys-appleseed-written-in-golang-2c885cce352a

Thumbnail for Detailed Analysis of AlphaSeed, a new version of Kimsuky’s AppleSeed written in Golang

S2W TALON analyzed AlphaSeed, a suspected Kimsuky malware family found on VirusTotal in May 2023 and named from the internal path E:/Go_Project/src/alpha/naver_crawl_spy/. The sample is assessed with high confidence as a Go implementation related to AppleSeed because it shares file-encryption behavior, mail-sending threads, mailbox naming, and Kimsuky's prior use of Naver mail command channels such as NavRAT. AlphaSeed copies itself into %USERPROFILE%\.edge, persists through an HKCU Run value using regsvr32, collects keystrokes and screenshots, and exchanges commands and stolen data through Naver Mail using chromedp and cookie-based login rather than embedded credentials. The command flow uses RSA and RC4 to decrypt tasking from a Cmd mailbox and exfiltrates victim metadata and collected data through mail subjects/mailboxes, showing Kimsuky's continued migration of espionage tooling into Go and webmail-based C2.

Indicators of Compromise

Type Value First Seen Last Seen
HASH 37ea9dba7ab6465f4d82c1af38a2733… 2023-05-17 2023-05-17
HASH 5aa1cc14a82db34269de7778536c893… 2023-05-17 2023-05-17
HASH 98916e83b272f5ead73412a5765e1cf… 2023-05-17 2023-05-17
HASH f28d5ccdc79b0fcc02be021435252f4… 2023-05-17 2023-05-17
HASH 57b248d18b9ee4106a5922a25eb03f7… 2023-05-17 2023-05-17
HASH eb55211ca3b233555397cecf32ac0a8… 2023-05-17 2023-05-17
HASH f78b3c0ccaa02b4b159b36557f6b99a… 2023-05-17 2023-05-17
HASH 60308fa05380f183bf76f2acfbe8e145 2023-05-17 2023-05-17

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