Symantec often utilizes honeypots to acquire new samples and observe attacks in the wild. Many threats encountered on honeypots are related to botnets. However, on a rare occasion a honeypot may encounter a targeted attack. In these cases the attacker is after a specific entity, be it a person, corporation, government, or any other such body. When a computer is compromised by such a threat, the behavior can be similar to a bot, connecting to a command and control (C&C) server and awaiting commands. However, the commands received are usually not generic. They are interactive, with the attacker seeking some specific information in real-time.
We recently encountered one of many such targeted threats on a basic honeypot and logged the activity. The attack was quite straightforward and did not utilize any new techniques. Nonetheless it is a good example of the processes such attackers use. This particular threat was targeting a corporate entity, using a tailored PDF...