A cyber-espionage group has been stealing files from the Venezuelan military

guest · Aug 5, 2019

A cyber-espionage group has been stealing files from the Venezuelan military
It is unclear if the Machete group is state-sponsored, or a freelancer selling data to the highest bidder
August 5, 2019
https://www.zdnet.com/article/a-cyb...-stealing-files-from-the-venezuelan-military/

A cyber-espionage group known as "Machete" has been observed stealing sensitive files from the Venezuelan military, according to an ESET report published today.

The group, known to have been active since 2010, has historically gone after a wide range of targets from all over the world. However, ESET said that starting with this year, Machete has primarily been focusing its hacking efforts on Venezuela.
Around 75% of these infections were located in Venezuela, and more than half of the infected computers belonged to the Venezuelan military.

ESET researchers said Machete's recent campaign is still active to this day, and the hackers have been very successful, exfiltrating gigabytes of confidential files each week.
But while the group has left a trail of hacks all over the world since 2010, researchers are no closer now to identifying who is behind the Machete group.
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ESET: Sharpening the Machete

guest · Dec 10, 2019

VB2019 paper: A study of Machete cyber espionage operations in Latin America
December 10, 2019
https://www.virusbulletin.com/blog/...ete-cyber-espionage-operations-latin-america/

Latin America has long been a hotbed for cybercrime, but the region has also seen the activity of various APT groups. One of these groups makes use of 'Machete', a Python-based toolset.
Machete dates back at least nine years and was first written about by Kaspersky in 2014. In August of this year, ESET published a paper on the group's recent targeting of Venezuelan government institutions.

The paper contains a very in-depth analysis of the tool, looking at the full timespan during which it was developed.
The researchers noted the ability to exfiltrate data through USB devices, suggesting some of the actors using it may have had physical access to the targeted systems. They also looked at decoy documents used by the actors, which gives some insight into the targets.
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Today, we have published the researchers' paper in both HTML and PDF format. We have also uploaded the video of the presentation, delivered by Veronica and Maria in London, to our YouTube channel.
Click to expand...

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