BlueAlpha Attack Detection: russia-affiliated Hacking Collective Abuses Cloudflare Tunnels to Distribute GammaDrop Malware

The russian state-sponsored threat actor BlueAlpha (aka Gamaredon, Hive0051, Shuckworm, UAC-0010, or Armageddon) has been orchestrating cyber-espionage campaigns against Ukraine since 2014. Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, these operations have intensified, showcasing evolving TTPs that are often tested in Ukraine before being deployed against a wider array of targets. 

Recently, security researchers have revealed that the hacking collective operating on behalf of russian Federal Security Service (FSB) started to abuse Cloudflare service to intensify GammaDrop malware distribution.

Detect GamaDrop Malware Attacks by BlueAlpha

Infamous russia-linked hacking groups remain a major challenge for cybersecurity defenders, continuously adapting their tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) to target various organizations globally. Since the outbreak of the full-scale war in Ukraine, these APT actors have ramped up their operations, leveraging the conflict as a testing ground for cutting-edge malicious strategies. To help cyber defenders outscale the threats posed by russia-affiliated hackers, SOC Prime Platform for collective cyber defense offers a broad collection of relevant Sigma rules accompanied by a complete product suite for advanced threat detection and hunting.

Spot the latest BlueAlpha attacks leveraging Cloudflare Tunneling for GammaDrop malware distribution by hitting the Explore Detection button below and immediately accessing a curated detection stack.

Explore Detections

To analyze BlueAlpha group activity retrospectively and gain more context on TTPs used in attacks, cyber defenders might also access a dedicated collection of rules by searching Threat Detection Marketplace with “Gamaredon,” “Shuckworm,” “Hive0051,” “UNC530,” “BlueAlpha,”and “UAC-0010” tags.

Also, to proceed with the investigation, security professionals might launch instant hunts using IOCs provided in the corresponding research by Insikt Group. Rely on SOC Prime’s Uncoder AI to create custom IOC-based queries in a matter of seconds and automatically work with them in your chosen SIEM or EDR environment.

Analyzing BlueAlpha Attacks Leveraging Gamadrop Malware

BlueAlpha—also referred to as Gamaredon, Armageddon APT, Hive0051, or UAC-0010 —has been persistently targeting Ukraine with high-impact attacks. During the last three years, BlueAlpha orchestrated multiple phishing campaigns against Ukraine, leveraging different iterations of its GammaLoad malware. These included GammaLoad.PS1, delivered via malicious VBScript, and an enhanced variant identified as GammaLoad.PS1_v2.

Now, security researchers from Insikt Group discovered that hackers have transformed their malware delivery chain to abuse Cloudflare Tunneling services for GammaDrop malware dissemination. Cloudflare Tunneling is designed as secure tunneling software; however, hackers have exploited it to obscure GammaDrop staging infrastructure, effectively bypassing widely used network detection mechanisms.

Further, BlueAlpha leverages the hidden infrastructure to execute sophisticated HTML smuggling attacks, allowing malicious payloads to slip past email security filters undetected. Additionally, the group employs DNS fast-fluxing techniques, a method that dynamically rotates IP addresses associated with their domains, significantly complicating efforts to disrupt BlueAlpha’s command-and-control (C2) operations. Ultimately, this layered approach facilitates the delivery of GammaDrop malware that empowers the threat actors to exfiltrate sensitive data, steal credentials, and establish persistent backdoor access to compromised networks.

In view that APT collectives keep advancing their malicious methods to proceed with attacks while remaining under the radar, security researchers require advanced tools to outscale emerging threats. SOC Prime offers a complete product suite for AI-powered detection engineering, automated threat hunting, and advanced threat detection, helping security teams proactively thwart cyber attacks of any scale and sophistication.