Symantec reported on April 21, 2023, that a campaign involving a trojanized Trading Technologies X_TRADER installer affected two unnamed energy-sector critical-infrastructure organizations—one in the United States and one in Europe. The report also identified two organizations involved in financial trading. Separately, Mandiant traced the 3CX compromise to an employee’s installation of X_TRADER on a personal computer. The sources do not identify the energy organizations or establish that they were 3CX customers or suffered operational damage.
What was the X_TRADER supply-chain attack?
Symantec’s Threat Hunter Team described a supply-chain campaign in which a modified X_TRADER installer carried malware. Its April 21, 2023 analysis identified two energy-sector critical-infrastructure organizations among the victims, plus two other organizations involved in financial trading. The organizations were not named. Symantec’s report characterized the campaign as wider than the 3CX incident alone.
CyberScoop reported at the time that six victims had been identified across the reported campaign. That is a contemporaneous count, not a definitive or current total for every affected organization. CyberScoop’s April 21, 2023 report covered Symantec’s findings.
How did X_TRADER lead to the 3CX breach?
The 3CX compromise was a downstream part of the incident chain, not evidence that the two energy organizations were compromised through the 3CX desktop application. In its April 20, 2023 update, 3CX summarized Mandiant’s investigation: an employee had installed X_TRADER on a personal computer in 2022, and the installer contained VEILEDSIGNAL. The software had been downloaded from the Trading Technologies website.
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- Trojanized installer: X_TRADER was installed on the employee’s personal computer, where the installer delivered the backdoor.
- Corporate access: Mandiant said the earliest evidence of compromise in 3CX’s corporate environment appeared through the employee’s corporate VPN credentials two days after the personal computer was compromised.
- Build-environment compromise: The attackers moved into 3CX and ultimately compromised its Windows and macOS build environments.
- Downstream exposure: The compromised 3CX desktop application later affected 3CX customers.
3CX said the X_TRADER installer had reportedly been retired by Trading Technologies in 2020 but remained available from the vendor website in 2022. That contemporaneous account does not explain why it remained available. 3CX’s update summarizing Mandiant’s findings describes the initial intrusion pathway.
What malware did Symantec find in the installer?
Symantec analyzed a file named X_TRADER_r7.17.90p608.exe, digitally signed with a certificate in the name of Trading Technologies International, Inc. In that sample, the installer dropped two malicious DLLs, which the legitimate X_TRADER executable side-loaded:
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winscard.dllacted as a loader.msvcr100.dllcontained an encrypted payload Symantec identified as Veiledsignal, a modular backdoor.
Symantec reported that Veiledsignal included a process-injection module capable of injecting into Chrome, Firefox, or Edge, along with a command-and-control module. Its analysis listed a Trading Technologies order-management URL as the command-and-control address observed in the chain. These are details from the analyzed malware and infrastructure; they do not establish that every victim had identical tools, behavior, or consequences.
Who did investigators assess was behind the activity, and why?
3CX’s update said Mandiant attributed the activity to a cluster it named UNC4736 and assessed with high confidence that the cluster had a North Korean nexus. Symantec described the attackers as North Korean-sponsored. These are research teams’ analytic assessments, not adjudicated findings.
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A free scan shows the junk files, broken settings and background clutter dragging Windows down - then fixes them in one click.Free scan · Windows 10 & 11Symantec assessed that financial motivation appeared likely because Trading Technologies facilitated futures trading, including energy futures. It also cautioned that strategic follow-on exploitation of critical infrastructure could not be ruled out. The available reporting does not establish the operators’ ultimate intent.
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What is known about the energy organizations’ impact?
The cited reporting identifies two unnamed energy-sector critical-infrastructure organizations among the X_TRADER campaign victims, one in the United States and one in Europe. It does not establish their identities, whether their operational systems were affected, or whether they experienced disruption or physical damage. Symantec’s warning was that “the compromise of critical infrastructure targets is a source of concern.” The team also said it believed the attackers had a successful template for software supply-chain attacks and that further similar attacks could not be ruled out.
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