Researchers Uncover New Infrastructure Tied to FIN7 Cybercrime Group

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered new infrastructure linked to a financially motivated threat actor known as FIN7.

The two clusters of potential FIN7 activity "indicate communications inbound to FIN7 infrastructure from IP addresses assigned to Post Ltd (Russia) and SmartApe (Estonia), respectively," Team Cymru said in a report published this week as part of a joint investigation with Silent Push and Stark Industries Solutions.

The findings build on a recent report from Silent Push, which found several Stark Industries IP addresses that are solely dedicated to hosting FIN7 infrastructure.

The latest analysis indicates that the hosts linked to the e-crime group were likely procured from one of Stark's resellers.

"Reseller programs are common in the hosting industry; many of the largest VPS (virtual private server) providers offer such services," the cybersecurity company said. "Customers procuring infrastructure via resellers generally must follow the terms of service outlined by the 'parent' entity."

What's more, Team Cymru said it was able to identify additional infrastructure linked to FIN7 activity, including four IP addresses assigned to Post Ltd, a broadband provider operating in Southern Russia and three IP addresses assigned to SmartApe, a cloud hosting provider operating from Estonia.

The first cluster has been observed conducting outbound communications with at least 15 Stark-assigned hosts previously discovered by Silent Push (e.g., 86.104.72[.]16) over the past 30 days. Likewise, the second cluster from Estonia has been identified as communicating with no less than 16 Stark-assigned hosts.

"In addition, 12 of the hosts identified in the Post Ltd cluster were also observed in the SmartApe cluster," Team Cymru noted. The services have since been suspended by Stark following responsible disclosure.

"Reviewing metadata for these communications confirmed them to be established connections. This assessment is based on an evaluation of observed TCP flags and sampled data transfer volumes."