Alert - Hunting Russian intelligence “Snake” malware - Joint cybersecurity advisory

Audience

This Alert is intended for IT professionals and managers of notified organizations.

Purpose

An Alert is used to raise awareness of a recently identified cyber threat Cyber threatA threat actor, using the internet, who takes advantage of a known vulnerability in a product for the purposes of exploiting a network and the information the network carries. that may impact cyber information assets, and to provide additional detection DetectionThe monitoring and analyzing of system events in order to identify unauthorized attempts to access system resources. and mitigation advice to recipients. The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security Cyber securityThe protection of digital information, as well as the integrity of the infrastructure housing and transmitting digital information. More specifically, cyber security includes the body of technologies, processes, practices and response and mitigation measures designed to protect networks, computers, programs and data from attack, damage or unauthorized access so as to ensure confidentiality, integrity and availability. ("Cyber Centre") is also available to provide additional assistance regarding the content of this Alert to recipients as requested.

Details

On May 9, 2023, the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security joined cyber security partners from US agencies, the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC), New Zealand’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC-NZ) and the United Kingdom’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC-UK) to publish a joint Cybersecurity advisory (CSA) on a cyber espionage tool named Snake. The advisory was published to raise awareness that Snake has been used globally by a malicious cyber actor with infrastructure being identified in over 50 countries across North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia. The purpose of Snake was to collect sensitive intelligence from high-priority targets such as government networks, research facilities and journalists.

The Cyber Centre is highlighting the advisory, as it provides important prevention, detection and mitigation advice to system owners and operators responsible for defending their systems and networks from cyber threats.

Should activity matching the content of this alert be discovered, recipients are encouraged to report via the My Cyber Portal, or email contact@cyber.gc.ca.