Cyber Threat Report: 'Earth Lusca Uses Geopolitical Lure to Target Taiwan Before Elections'

Blog post from researchers at Trend Micro discussing Earth Lusca and potential links to Chinese contractor I-Soon. Earth Lusca is a China-linked threat actor active since at least 2020 with a history of changing its modus operandi. Recently, they launched a campaign leveraging Chinese-Taiwanese relations as a social engineering tactic to infect specific targets. This campaign, observed between December 2023 and January 2024, utilized a lure document discussing geopolitical issues. Recently leaked private documents connect Earth Lusca to a Chinese company called I-Soon, indicating a likely relationship between these groups.

Behavior Prevention on Endpoint

Use capabilities to prevent suspicious behavior patterns from occurring on endpoint systems. This could include suspicious process, file, API call, etc. behavior.

Antivirus/Antimalware

Use signatures or heuristics to detect malicious software.

Network Intrusion Prevention

Use intrusion detection signatures to block traffic at network boundaries.

Execution Prevention

Block execution of code on a system through application control, and/or script blocking.

User Training

Train users to be aware of access or manipulation attempts by an adversary to reduce the risk of successful spearphishing, social engineering, and other techniques that involve user interaction.

Restrict Web-Based Content

Restrict use of certain websites, block downloads/attachments, block Javascript, restrict browser extensions, etc.

Data Loss Prevention

Use a data loss prevention (DLP) strategy to categorize sensitive data, identify data formats indicative of personal identifiable information (PII), and restrict exfiltration of sensitive data.(Citation: PurpleSec Data Loss Prevention)

Disable or Remove Feature or Program

Remove or deny access to unnecessary and potentially vulnerable software to prevent abuse by adversaries.

Operating System Configuration

Make configuration changes related to the operating system or a common feature of the operating system that result in system hardening against techniques.

SSL/TLS Inspection

Break and inspect SSL/TLS sessions to look at encrypted web traffic for adversary activity.

Restrict Library Loading

Prevent abuse of library loading mechanisms in the operating system and software to load untrusted code by configuring appropriate library loading mechanisms and investigating potential vulnerable software.

Audit

Perform audits or scans of systems, permissions, insecure software, insecure configurations, etc. to identify potential weaknesses.

User Account Management

Manage the creation, modification, use, and permissions associated to user accounts.

Software Configuration

Implement configuration changes to software (other than the operating system) to mitigate security risks associated to how the software operates.