Olympic Destroyer False Flags

Summary: The Olympic Destroyer malware deployed during the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics was designed with layers of obfuscation, including deeply planted false clues meant to mislead investigators towards North Korea. One such clue, a forged rich header, was discovered by Kaspersky researcher Egor Sumanko, who noticed inconsistencies between the header and the malware's content. This discovery marked a turning point in the investigation, shifting suspicion away from North Korea and highlighting the attacker's sophistication.

Insights:

• The attackers employed "psychological warfare" against reverse engineers, planting false clues deep within the malware.
• The forged rich header, designed to implicate North Korea, was a crucial clue that ultimately pointed towards a different culprit.
• The attackers' ability to forge a rich header demonstrates a high level of technical sophistication and understanding of forensic techniques.

Proper Nouns:

• Silas Cutler: Researcher who described the malware as psychological warfare on reverse engineers.
• Kaspersky: Russian cybersecurity firm that initially linked the malware to North Korea based on the rich header.
• Egor Sumanko: Kaspersky researcher who identified the forged rich header.
• North Korea: Country initially suspected of being behind the attack, based on planted clues.
• Lazarus hackers: North Korean hacking group.
• Pyeongchang: Location of the 2018 Winter Olympics, where the attack occurred.

Research

• What other false flags were present in the Olympic Destroyer malware?
• What techniques are commonly used to forge rich headers and other metadata in malware?
• What are the motivations behind such sophisticated cyberattacks during international events like the Olympics?