Tenacious Pungsan: A DPRK threat actor linked to Contagious Interview
2024-10-24 • Datadog •
Datadog Security Research found three malicious npm packages, passports-js, bcrypts-js, and blockscan-api, carrying obfuscated BeaverTail malware and totaling 323 downloads. The packages used namesquatting or backdoored copies of legitimate JavaScript libraries to target developers, including blockchain-related Node.js users. Deobfuscated samples matched BeaverTail behavior associated with DPRK-linked Contagious Interview activity, including theft from cryptocurrency wallets, browser caches, and login keychains, exfiltration to C2, and logic to retrieve the InvisibleFerret Python backdoor. The samples contacted 95.164.17[.]24 on port 1224 and reused Contagious Interview-style paths such as /uploads, /pdown, and /client/<integer>/<campaign ID>, with campaign IDs including 726 and another previously reported blockchain-focused identifier. Datadog links the activity to a single threat actor it calls Tenacious Pungsan, while noting the second-stage InvisibleFerret payloads were not recovered before the infrastructure was taken down.
Indicators of Compromise
| Type | Value | First Seen | Last Seen |
|---|---|---|---|
| DOMAIN | outlook.com | 2018-09-06 | 2026-04-17 |
| IPv4 | 95.164.17.24 | 2024-07-15 | 2026-04-01 |
| [email protected] | 2024-10-24 | 2024-10-24 | |
| [email protected] | 2024-10-24 | 2024-10-24 |