IT News

Malwarebytes recently received a report about a fresh spate of Bitcoin sextortion scam campaigns doing the rounds.

Bitcoin sextortion scams tend to email you to say they’ve videoed you on your webcam performing sexual acts in private, and ask you to pay them amount in Bitcoin to keep the video (which doesn’t exist) private. This type of blackmail has become quite popular since the middle of 2018.

Sextortion scammers frequently use spoofed or made up email addresses to contact their targets. Previous campaigns have targeted those with compromised account passwords scraped from third-party breaches, minors, and other vulnerable groups. In this case, our experts believe that these emails have been targeting .org email addresses, and senior leadership almost exclusively.

From: {spoofed sender name}

Subject: I have full control of your device

Message body:

Hi

Did you notice that I sent you an email from your address? Yes, that means I have full control of your device. I am aware you watch adults [sic] content with underage teens frequently. My spyware recorded a video of you masturbating. I also got access to your address book. I am happy to share these interesting videos with your address list and social media contacts. To prevent this from happening, you need to send me 1000 (USD) in bitcoins.

Bitcoin wallet part 1: 1C1FfgyNsJGJZfuR2ePXxTraa

Bitcoin wallet part 2: CqE6WLWSM

Combine part 1 and part 2 with no space between them to get the full bitcoin wallet.

Quick tip! You can procure bitcoins from Paxful. Use Google to find it.Once I receive the compensation (Yes, consider it a compensation), I will immediately delete the videos, and you will never hear from me again. You have three days to send the amount. I will receive a notification once this email is opened, and the countdown will begin.

What we may perceive as a-dime-a-dozen, cookie-cutter blackmail email may be something new to someone, especially those who aren’t aware of such a charade. Make no mistake: Email scams that contain little to no threats towards recipients have worked repeatedly like a charm.

This is why it’s important to keep up with what’s happening in cybersecurity, how online threats affect aspects of our lives, and how we can better protect ourselves, our data, and the people around us from those who scare, threaten, and bluff their way into our wallets. Treat all emails like this with a healthy amount of skepticism and you should be able to really see the email as it truly is: a fake.

Malwarebytes has extensively written about Bitcoin sextortion scams through the years. And what we advised then is still relevant to these new sextortion scams.

Change your passwords—or, better yet, consider using a password manager to help you create and store more complicated passwords for you.

Always use multi-factor authentication (MFA) to add an extra step of security. Most companies with an online presence have this, so make full use of it.

Do not pay the scammer.

If you received a sextortion email at work, let your IT department know. If you’re in the United States, feel free to report this to the FBI’s IC3.

Our Director of Mac and Mobile, Thomas Reed, had drafted a post aimed at Mac users who have received such scammy emails but need guidance on what these are what they need to do.

Stay safe, as always, and remain vigilant.

Bitcoin addresses related to this scam (as of this writing):

• 1Nd3JST1daeyzmPovkRoemjysA6JfXjVRg
• 17qBCU7Y5yrS9eimxvydRYw3XNF9meuSCY
• 1C1FfgyNsJGJZfuR2ePXxTraaCqE6WLWSM

The post “I have full control of your device”: Sextortion scam rears its ugly head in time for 2021 appeared first on Malwarebytes Labs.

This post was authored by Hossein Jazi

On December 7 2020 we identified a malicious document uploaded to Virus Total which was purporting to be a meeting request likely used to target the government of South Korea. The meeting date mentioned in the document was 23 Jan 2020, which aligns with the document compilation time of 27 Jan 2020, indicating that this attack took place almost a year ago.

The file contains an embedded macro that uses a VBA self decoding technique to decode itself within the memory spaces of Microsoft Office without writing to the disk. It then embeds a variant of the RokRat into Notepad.

Based on the injected payload, we believe that this sample is associated with APT37. This North Korean group is also known as ScarCruft, Reaper and Group123 and has been active since at least 2012, primarily targeting victims in South Korea.

In the past, this APT has relied on Hangul Office documents (hwp files) to target victims, as it’s software that’s commonly used in South Korea. However, in this blog we describe an interesting alternative method, delivered via self-decoding VBA Office files. To the best of our knowledge, this is a first for this APT group.

Document analysis

The actor used the VBA self-decoding concept in its macro that was first introduced in 2016. A malicious macro is encoded within another that is then decoded and executed dynamically.

We can consider this technique an unpacker stub, which is executed upon opening the document. This unpacker stub unpacks the malicious macro and writes it into the memory of Microsoft Office without being written to disk. This can easily bypass several security mechanisms.

Figure 3 shows the macro used by this document. This macro starts by calling the “ljojijbjs” function, and based on the results will take different paths for execution.

Microsoft by default disables the dynamic execution of the macro, and if an attacker needs to execute one dynamically—which is the case here—the threat actor needs to bypass the VB object model (VBOM) by modifying its registry value.

To check if it can bypass the VBOM, it looks to see if the VBOM can be accessed or not. The “ljojijbjs” function is used for this purpose and checks read access to the VBProject.VBComponent. If it triggers an exception, it means the VBOM needs to be bypassed (IF clause). If there is no exception, it means the VBOM is already bypassed and VBA can extract its macro dynamically (Else clause).

“fngjksnhokdnfd” is called with one parameter to bypass VBOM. This function sets the VBOM registry key to one.

After bypassing VBOM, it calls another function which creates a Mutex in the victims’s machine by calling CreateMutexA API call and names it “mutexname”. This could be used by the actor to make sure it infects its victim only once but in this document we didn’t observe any evidence of checking the mutex.

Finally, in order to perform the self-decoding process, it needs to open itself by creating a new Application object and load the current document in it in invisible mode.

If VBOM is already bypassed, The function Init is called and generates the malicious macro content in obfuscated format.

In the next step, this obfuscated macro is passed to “eviwbejfkaksd” to be de-obfuscated and then executed into memory.

To de-obfuscate the macro, two string arrays have been defined:

• StringOriginal which contains an array of characters before de-obfuscation
• StringEncoded which contains an array of characters after de-obfuscation

A loop has been defined to de-obfuscate the macro. For each iteration it takes a character in the obfuscated macro and looks for its index in StringEncoded. When it finds its index, it looks for its equivalent index in StringOriginal, takes that character from it and adds it to the new macro. As an example “gm* bf” as encoded macro will be decoded to “Option”.

Following this process gives us the final macro that will be executed in the memory space of Microsoft Office. In order to execute this decoded macro, it creates a module and writes into it before calling its main function to execute the macro.

The main function defines a shellcode in hex format, and a target process which is Notepad.exe. Then, based on the OS version, it creates a Notepad.exe process and allocates memory within its address space using VirtualAlloc. It then writes the shellcode into the allocated memory using WriteProcessMemory. At the end it calls CreateRemoteThread to execute the shellcode within the address space of Notepad.exe.

Shellcode analysis (RokRat):

The shellcode injected into Notepad.exe downloads an encrypted payload from http://bit[.]ly/2Np1enh which is redirected to a Google drive link.

Downloaded payload is a variant of a cloud-based RAT known as RokRat which has been used by this group since 2017. This sample compilation date is 29 Oct 2019. This RAT is known to steal data from a victim’s machine and send them to cloud services (Pcloud, Dropbox, Box, Yandex).

Similar to its previous variants, it uses several anti-analysis techniques to make sure it is not running in an analysis environment. Here are some of the checks:

• Checking the DLLs related to iDefense SysAnalyzer, Microsoft Debugging DLL and Sandboxies
• Calling IsDebuggerPresent and GetTickCount to identify a debugger
• Checking VMWare related file

This RAT has the following capabilities:

• Capture ScreenShots

• Gather system info (Username, Computer name, BIOS)

• Data exfiltration to cloud services

• Stealing credentials
• File and directory management

For more detailed analysis of this RAT you can refer to the reports from NCC Group and Cisco Talos.

Conclusion

The primary initial infection vector used by APT37 is spear phishing, in which the actor sends an email to a target that is weaponized with a malicious document. The case we analyzed is one of the few where they did not use Hwp files (Hangul Office) as their phish documents and instead used Microsoft Office documents weaponized with a self decode macro. That technique is a clever choice that can bypass several static detection mechanisms and hide the main intent of a malicious document.

The final payload used by this threat actor is a known custom RAT (RokRat) that the group has used in previous campaigns. In the past, RokRat has been injected into cmd.exe, whereas here they chose Notepad.exe.

Indicators of Compromise

Maldoc:
3c59ad7c4426e8396369f084c35a2bd3f0caa3ba1d1a91794153507210a77c90

RokRat:
676AE680967410E0F245DF0B6163005D8799C84E2F8F87BAD6B5E30295554E08
A42844FC9CB7F80CA49726B3589700FA47BDACF787202D0461C753E7C73CFD2A
2A253C2AA1DB3F809C86F410E4BD21F680B7235D951567F24D614D8E4D041576
C7CCD2AEE0BDDAF0E6C8F68EDBA14064E4A9948981231491A87A277E0047C0CB

The post Retrohunting APT37: North Korean APT used VBA self decode technique to inject RokRat appeared first on Malwarebytes Labs.

“What now? My farm is no longer working. Can you have a look, honey?”

Like millions of other people my wife likes to play online browser games. You know, the ones that don’t require a fast connection because your virtual life is not in constant danger, and an occasional harvest is enough to make progress in the game.

So, when her browser refused to open her virtual farm, and there were many, many other users like her, this caused some turmoil in the community. Especially when some of the developers acted as if it came as a surprise and took their time to decide what to do next.

Facebook and some other social platforms used to host a ton of these games and what most had in common is that they were using Adobe Flash Player for their animations. Flash let web designers and animators deliver animated content that could be downloaded relatively quickly.

But as of last month, the major browsers have stopped supporting Adobe Flash Player after Adobe itself announced to stop support as of the 31^st of December 2020. Specifically, Adobe announced years ago that it will stop updating and distributing Flash Player.

What caused this end of life?

Adobe Flash Player has seen more than its fair share of exploits and vulnerabilities. Arguably, it’s because the software was so popular that it made for an attractive target, but since it was based on a 1996 release it may have become impossible to keep on patching it. Developers are changing to HTML5, and other options, to produce new content.

Advice for Flash users

Home users should uninstall Adobe Flash Player as it will no longer receive any security updates. The general feeling among security professionals is that it will not take long before unpatched vulnerabilities will be exploited in the wild. In some cases, simply having Adobe Flash Player installed is all it takes to compromise your system. So, if there are no legitimate use-cases left, don’t run the risk of having it installed. Adobe has instructions for removing Flash on Windows and Mac computers on its website.

It could be a different scenario for business users, as some companies may still be using Adobe Flash Player for internal use. As it stands, it will become increasingly difficult to maintain this situation since Adobe will prevent Flash Player from displaying content from 12 January 2021.

If your site is reliant on the plugin for developing or playing content, it’s high time to consider a revamp of your website content. Adobe has some options for its customers who were taken by surprise.

Expected cybercrime abuse

We’ve seen fake Flash Player updates for years, which are in reality bundlers that sometimes include the actual latest version of Flash but might just as easily include older versions or no version of Flash at all. We suspect these will continue to show up. They might even become more popular as people have no way of finding legitimate versions and updates.

You may also see malicious campaigns promoting alternatives for playing Flash content, which could in reality install any kind of malware or potentially unwanted program.

And there may be some exploit kits that will take it upon themselves to incorporate all the latest vulnerabilities in their setup to victimize those that still have Adobe Flash Player installed.

End-of-life

End-of-life (EOL) is an expression commonly used by software vendors to indicate that a product or version of a product has reached the end of usefulness in the eyes of the vendor. Many companies, including Microsoft, announce the EOL dates for their products far in advance. Adobe announced this EOL in 2017, so most developers should have been aware. Many will be sad to see it go and some will be glad to point it to the door. Our advice will be the same as always.

Stay safe, everyone!

The post Adobe Flash Player reaches end-of-life appeared first on Malwarebytes Labs.

I won’t reveal my mom’s exact age, but she’s in her late 60s. Other than her phone, my mom doesn’t own or use a computer—but she knows what Zoom is. Not since “Kleenex” has a brand become so pervasive that people use the brand name as a generic term for the product. For my mom, any kind of video call is now a “Zoom.” A FaceTime call, for example, is Zoom. I’ve stopped trying to correct her.

As the world returns to work and school from the unhappiest holiday season of our lifetimes, the majority of us continue to do so remotely. Whether you’re using Zoom, Google Hangouts, or Microsoft Teams, technologies like these will continue to play a central role in the way we get things done for the foreseeable future. As we spend more and more time online, it stands to reason that we will all be exposed to a greater number of online threats (and we are, by the way).

So, what about VPNs?

Here’s why VPNs matter more than ever. A VPN, shorthand for a virtual private network, is a handy tool that allows users to send and receive data as if they were on the same network, for example, someone working from home or taking classes from home as so many of us are at the moment.

For the latest Malwarebytes Labs reader survey we asked “Do you use a VPN?” 2,330 responded and an impressive 36 percent said they now used a VPN. For perspective, ten years ago, only 1.5 percent of Americans used VPNs.

Of those who do not use a VPN, 58 percent said they at least knew what one was. That’s a long way from being the next Zoom, but VPN awareness is starting to change thanks to COVID.

Google Trends shows that searches for “VPN” and “virtual private networks” hit an all time high in March of 2020, just as stay-at-home orders were issued for the majority of the world.

With interest in VPNs rising, what’s preventing some people from actually using one?

Survey says…

Taking a deeper dive into the survey results, most of the people who said they didn’t use a VPN cited cost as the main reason for not using one:

“Peace of mind is important; but, on a limited income, it is difficult to pay out additional funds—especially during this pandemic.”

Some said they didn’t think they needed a VPN, while others still said they didn’t like how VPNs they had tried in the past slowed down their Internet speeds. This may be a legacy thing, as newer technology—like the WireGuard VPN protocol used by Malwarebytes Privacy—tends to deliver speeds faster than traditional VPNs.

Of those who used a VPN, half said they used it all the time. The top five activities for using a VPN were: making purchases online, online banking, sending email or chatting, protecting personal information from hackers, and stopping businesses or advertisers from tracking online activity.

When asked why they used a VPN, the majority of users liked the additional layer of security:

“I value my security and privacy. Having a VPN is essential for doing anything online.”

One respondent provided a useful analogy, likening VPNs to the fence around your house:

“Good fences make for good neighbors.”

As we head into 2021, will my mom casually drop “VPN” into a sentence before year’s end? That remains to be seen, but the results of our latest Malwarebytes Labs reader survey suggests VPNs might get their moment in the sun very soon.

The post VPN usage is increasing, says December 2020 survey appeared first on Malwarebytes Labs.

First off we would like to wish all our readers a happy and secure 2021!

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs we presented an overview of developments in the SearchDimension hijackers, we looked at the most enticing cyberattacks of 2020, and we also looked back at the strangest cybersecurity events of 2020.

Other cybersecurity news:

• Google patched a bug in its feedback tool that could be exploited by an attacker to potentially steal screenshots of sensitive Google Docs documents. (Source: The Hacker News)
• Section 230: The social media law that is clogging up stimulus talks. (Source: CNet)
• Apple has lost its copyright battle against iOS virtualization startup Corellium. (Source: TechSpot)
• Microsoft confirmed that the suspected Russian hackers behind the SolarWinds security breach also viewed some of the company’s source code. (Source: CNN)
• Over 100,000 Zyxel firewalls, VPN gateways, and access point controllers contain a hardcoded admin-level backdoor account that can grant attackers root access to connected devices. (Source: ZDNet)
• A data breach broker is selling allegedly stolen user records for 26 companies on a hacker forum. (Source: BleepingComputer)
• Hackers have livestreamed police raids on innocent households after hijacking their victims’ smart home devices and making a hoax call to the authorities. (Source: BBC News)
• The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has published a guide to the risks that businesses run if they use tech created in China. (Source: The Register)

Stay safe, everyone!

The post A week in security (December 28 – January 3) appeared first on Malwarebytes Labs.

This year is finally coming to an end, and it only took us about eight consecutive months of March to get here. There is a ton to talk about, and that’s without even discussing the literal global pandemic.

You see, 2020’s news stories were the pressure-cooker product of mania, chaos, and the downright absurd. “Murder hornets” made the journey to the US. Mystery seeds from China arrived in US mailboxes. The Pentagon officially released three videos of “unidentified aerial phenomena”—which many interpreted as three videos of alien spacecraft.

Also, a star vanished. Yes. Brighter than our sun, nestled into the same distant galaxy that cradles the constellation of Aquarius, and glinting a pale, cornflower blue onto its neighbors, the massive star simply disappeared one day. No supernova. No stellar collapse. No black hole.

Honestly? Bravo, star.

So, in a year unbridled in strangeness, it only fits that the cybersecurity events we witnessed produced equally head-scratching responses. The following cybersecurity events of 2020 that we’ve collected for you are not the most destructive or the most shocking, or the most attractive, like we covered earlier this week. They are, instead, the mysteries, the embarrassments, and the face-palms.

They are the events that that made us collectively say: “Wait… seriously?”

A digital vaccine for a physical illness

We hate to start our jovial list with coronavirus news, but this was too incredulous to pass up.

In late March, we found threat actors trying to convince unsuspecting victims to install an alleged digital antivirus tool to protect themselves from the physical coronavirus. In the scheme, scam artists built a malicious website that advertised “Corona Antivirus -World’s best protection.”

The website also claimed:

“Our scientists from Harvard University have been working on a special AI development to combat the virus using a windows app. Your PC actively protects you against the Coronaviruses (Cov) while the app is running.”

Ugh.

What threat actors were hiding behind the website was an attempt to install the BlackNET Remote Access Trojan, which can deploy DDoS attacks, take screenshots, execute scripts, implement a keylogger, and steal Firefox cookies, passwords, and Bitcoin wallets.

TikTok: an on-again, off-again relationship

Back in December of 2019, the US Army banned its members from downloading the massively popular video sharing app TikTok on government-issued devices. At the time, Army spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Robin Ochoa described the app to the outlet Military.com as “a cyberthreat.”

Fast forward several months to the start of summer, when TikTok then received the worst kind of attention that any up-and-coming app can receive: that from a devoted Reddit user. The Reddit user claimed to have “reverse-engineered the app,” and said that TikTok was nothing more than “a data collection service that is thinly-veiled as a social network.” The app allegedly collected tons of data about users’ phones, the other apps they’ve installed, their network, and some GPS info.

The negative attention piled onto TikTok until, in August, President Donald Trump said he would ban the app from the US market.

With deadlines pressing, TikTok entered a flurry of sales talks, meeting with Microsoft, Oracle, and even Wal-Mart. A deal was initially struck with Oracle and Wal-Mart, with sign-off from the President granted partly in September. But the deal at the time still needed approval from a committee here in the US called the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS.

The way TikTok tells the story, that committee ghosted the company for months. As the company told the outlet The Verge:

“In the nearly two months since the President gave his preliminary approval to our proposal to satisfy those concerns, we have offered detailed solutions to finalize that agreement – but have received no substantive feedback on our extensive data privacy and security framework.”

So, did the administration claim a national security threat and then just… forget about it?

Data leakers suffer leaked data

In January, the FBI seized the domain of the website WeLeakData.com, which claimed to have more than 12 billion records that contained personal information that was pilfered from more than 10,000 data breaches. The website offered a “subscription” service, letting users buy access to the database for months at a time.

It was a pretty nefarious service and after the FBI seized the domain, the saga actually continued in May.

You see, an older database of WeLeakData.com itself actually leaked online, including information belonging to countless users who bought WeLeakData’s subscription services. Now, the tables had turned—login names, email addresses, hashed passwords, IP addresses, and even private messages between users were being sold and purchased online.

Shade ransomware operators turn to the light

In April, a group that claimed to have developed the Troldesh ransomware—also known as the Shade ransomware—publicly published all of its remaining decryption keys for anyone still suffering from an earlier attack.

Posting on GitHub, the group said:

“We are the team which created a trojan-encryptor mostly known as Shade, Troldesh or Encoder.858. In fact, we stopped its distribution in the end of 2019. Now we made a decision to put the last point in this story and to publish all the decryption keys we have (over 750 thousands at all). We are also publishing our decryption soft; we also hope that, having the keys, antivirus companies will issue their own more user-friendly decryption tools. All other data related to our activity (including the source codes of the trojan) was irrevocably destroyed. We apologize to all the victims of the trojan and hope that the keys we published will help them to recover their data.”

The decryption keys were real, and were even used by Kaspersky to help develop a decryption tool, which, in time, would be used by the No More Ransom initiative which helps victims of ransomware retrieve encrypted data without having to pay a ransom.

So, what changed these threat actors into threat solvers? A sudden clarity of the conscience? Or was it that Troldesh wasn’t really paying out anymore, so it wasn’t worth the trouble of keeping it running?

We don’t know, but we’re happy either way.

One password to ruin them all

Earlier this month, Florida police raided the home of former government data scientist Rebekah Jones who, after being fired in May, had continued to post statistics about the state’s COVID-19 cases and deaths. The police said they investigated Jones because she had allegedly gained unauthorized access into the state’s emergency-responder system to send a wide alert to government employees.

But, according to Jones, that’s not true. Jones told CNN that she did not access the state’s emergency-responder system, and that she did not author the widely sent message.

When The Tampa Bay Times followed up with the Florida police to ask what measures they had implemented to safeguard the system, the police were tight-lipped.

According to Ars Technica, that stonewalling might be because the actual truth was far too embarrassing: Every single employee who logs into the system uses the same username and password, both of which are available to the public online.

Where’s the face-palm emoji?

Of printers and problems

This Fall, we started getting reports about a new type of malware that we were allegedly not detecting, which was instead being reported by the built-in anti-malware features on macOS.

When we investigated further, though, we found that most of these “malware” reports were related to Hewlett-Packard (HP) printing drivers, and that many of the messages that users received generally popped up whenever those users had tried to print something on their HP printers. Curious, no?

The problem, we found, lied within certificates. What’s that? Allow us to explain.

Certificates help keep the Internet running. They are a way to verify that the server you connect to is really owned and operated by the business you’re trying to communicate with, like, say, your online bank. But for years now, Apple has increasingly pushed software developers into using certificates to cryptographically sign and verify their own software. Without developer signoff, software users will have a ton of trouble using that software on Apple devices.

Back to the HP printer problem. It turns out that an HP certificate that was used to sign HP drivers had been revoked. By who, you ask?

By HP! Seriously. As the company told The Register:

“We unintentionally revoked credentials on some older versions of Mac drivers. This caused a temporary disruption for those customers and we are working with Apple to restore the drivers.”

Unfortunately, we’re still getting reports of these problems today, and threat actors are jumping on the opportunities, setting up malicious websites that promise to fix the problem.

Dead eye

This is more of a digital surveillance story than a straight cybersecurity tale, but it deserved a place on our list as an honorable mention. This year, Motherboard revealed that a secretive company had been selling stealthy surveillance products to cops.

The products? Cameras hidden within vacuum cleaners, baby car seats, and gravestones.

Spooky!

To a new year

We’re almost in 2021, but a new day doesn’t magically bring new, improved cybersecurity across the globe. Instead, read the news, install antivirus, and protect yourself online. It’s the most clear-headed advice out there.

The post The strangest cybersecurity events of 2020: a look back appeared first on Malwarebytes Labs.

In 2020, we experienced a major shift. Much of the world pitched in to limit the spread of the coronavirus, with people changing their daily routines to include a mixture of working from home, standing in socially-distanced lines, and awaiting local rules about what they could and could not do with members of different households.

It was a stressful and confusing time, and during it, cybercriminals adapted—sometimes a little too well.  

Today, we’re going to talk about some of the most nefarious and shameful tricks we saw online in 2020. What we’re sharing is not a list of the most destructive attacks or the most serious—as that list would certainly be topped by the recent SolarWinds attack. Instead, this is a list of the cyberattacks and cyberattack techniques that surprised us, whether because of their near-imperceptibility, or because of their severe harshness.

These are the most enticing—or the most impossible-to-ignore—cyberattack lures and cyberattack capabilities of 2020.

Coronavirus, coronavirus, coronavirus

Beginning in February, Malwarebytes and many other cybersecurity researchers had already recorded a significant uptick in coronavirus lures being used to trick people into opening malicious emails and visiting dangerous websites.

First up, we found cybercriminals who impersonated the World Health Organization to distribute a fake coronavirus e-book. That attack vector must have worked, because in the same month, cybercriminals again impersonated the World Health Organization to spread the invasive keylogger Agent Tesla.

Other, similar efforts included impersonations of the non-descript “Department of Health” with pleas for donations, and reported Pakistani state-sponsored threat actors spreading a Remote Administration Tool through a coronavirus-themed spearphishing campaign. In fact, even the operators for the most-wanted cyberthreats Emotet and TrickBot switched up their lure language to focus on coronavirus.

We see this story during every major crisis: A panicked and confused public look for answers anywhere, including their inboxes. By taking advantage of this fear, threat actors are able to swindle countless victims who only wanted some guidance and clarity in their lives.

Tupperware credit card skimmer just one of many similar attacks

In the earliest days of responding to the coronavirus pandemic, local and state governments across the world began shutting down non-essential storefronts in an effort to limit the spread of COVID-19. While grocery stores and pharmacies remained open, other retail stores were sometimes forced to shift to an entirely online business model, since foot traffic became non-existent. This meant more stores selling more items online, and more people making their purchases on the Internet.

But where online shopping increased, so did attempts to steal online credit card data.

In March, Malwarebytes uncovered an active cyberattack against the food storage product-maker Tupperware. In the attack, threat actors managed to compromise Tupperware’s primary website by inserting a malicious code within an image file that would trigger a fraudulent payment form during the checkout process.

To unsuspecting users, the cyberheist was nearly undetectable. Upon trying to checkout from Tupperware’s online store, victims would first be shown a fraudulent, convincing payment form that asked for their credit card number, expiration date, and three-digit security code.

After victims confirmed their credit card details, they then received a warning notice that the website had timed out, and that they had to enter their credit card details a second time. Though this second payment form was actually legitimate, it was too late—the cyberthieves already had what they wanted.

The Tupperware attack was just one of many similar attacks in 2020. In fact, in March alone, we recorded a 26 percent increase in credit card skimming attacks compared to the month earlier. And February itself wasn’t a quiet month, as we also found threat actors hiding a credit card skimmer within a fake content delivery network.

Emotet blends into the crowd (of email attachments)

In 2020, one of the most devastating cyberthreats seriously improved its camouflage.

For more than two years, a dangerous malware called Emotet has proved to be one of the biggest threats facing businesses across the world. That’s because Emotet, which began as a banking Trojan, has evolved into a sophisticated threat that often serves as a first step into broader and longer-lasting cyber damage.

For most businesses today, an Emotet attack is no longer just an Emotet attack. Instead, a successful Emotet attack can go undetected for days or even weeks. In the meantime, threat actors can use Emotet to download a separate banking Trojan called Trickbot, and yet another ransomware called Ryuk.

Making matters worse is that, over the years, Emotet has become increasingly hard to spot on first read. The banking Trojan is primarily spread through malspam, which are malicious emails that contain dangerous attachments like macro-enabled documents or other dangerous links. While similar malspam efforts are easy to detect, like the one-off billing invoice from a never-seen email address, Emotet is different.

In roughly one year, Emotet found a way to not only insert itself into active email threads, but to also copy and re-send legitimate email attachments so as to hide its own malicious payload amongst a set of documents that an email user may already recognize.

In tandem with implementing these new techniques, Emotet also came roaring back in the summer. Months later, it also received a superficial facelift, lurking within in a fake Microsoft Office update request.

We don’t know when we’ll finally be rid of Emotet, but we know that day can’t come soon enough.

Ransomware grows fond of extortion  

In November of last year, a security staffing firm based in Pennsylvania faced an impossible deadline. They had just been hit with a ransomware attack, and, in one of the first documented cases at the time, they were given an option: pay the ransom, or your confidential files get leaked online for everyone to see.

This was the work of the so-called “Maze Crew,” operators behind the Maze ransomware.

In Pennsylvania, the clock was ticking, and the Maze Crew began to signal that it wasn’t playing around. Using an email address connected to Maze ransomware attacks, someone from the Maze Crew emailed a reporter at Bleeping Computer and basically bragged about their attack. In their email, they wrote:

“I am writing to you because we have breached Allied Universal security firm (aus.com), downloaded data and executed Maze ransomware in their network.

They were asked to pay ransom in order to get decryptor and be safe from data leakage, we have also told them that we would write to you about this situation if they dont pay us, because it is a shame for the security firm to get breached and ransomwared.”

We gave them time to think until this day, but it seems they abandoned payment process.”

The security firm refused to pay Maze Crew’s ransom, and, true to its word, Maze Crew released 700 MB of data and stolen files from the attack.

Interestingly, the operators behind Maze ransomware claimed in November that they were retiring. Whether or not they’re to be believed, the damage they’ve done is everlasting. Following that extortion stint they pulled last year, other threat actors followed suit. In fact, according to one report in August, 30 percent of all ransomware attacks now involves extortion threats. In 22 percent of attacks, threat actors actually take the first step in fulfilling those threats, having exfiltrated data from their targets.

If only threat actors didn’t look to other threat actors for inspiration.

Release the Kraken

In October, our threat intelligence team published its findings on a cyberthreat that is as elusive and as slippery as its name: Kraken.

The attack first came through a malicious document—that was likely spread through spearphishing campaigns—that promised information about obtaining workers’ compensation. Opening the document enabling its content will then allow for a connection to “yourrighttocompensation[.]com” and it will result in a separate, downloaded image. Inside, a malicious macro starts a chain of events that loads and executes a payload from memory.

The payload is a .Net DLL that injects an embedded shellcode into the Windows Error Reporting service, WerFault.exe. But before the attack can actually trigger, the DLL performs a few, sly tricks to avoid detection. First, it checks for the presence of a debugger by measuring the time it takes to complete a certain set of instructions. Then, it checks for the presence of VMware or VirtualBox. It then checks for a processor feature, and the shellcode then also checks for a debugger. After one last, final debugging check, it creates its final shellcode in a new thread.

After all that work, the final shellcode in a set of instructions makes an HTTP request to download a malicious payload.

There is a bit of good news here, though. On further investigation, we found that this sneaky threat was not tied to any active APT group, but instead was the work of red team activities testing security.

Phew!

Imposter syndrome

In April, our team discovered that a group of threat actors had built a malicious website meant to serve as a gate to the Fallout exploit kit, which can distribute the Raccoon information stealer.

The method itself is nothing new, and threat actors build malicious websites all the time for just these types of attacks. What did surprise us, though, is the organization that the threat actors tried to impersonate: It was us, Malwarebytes.

The malicious domain, at malwarebytes-free[.]com, presented users with much of the same information on our own homepage, as that information was simply swiped and reposted.

The domain was registered on March 29 via REGISTRAR OF DOMAIN NAMES REG.RU LLC and was, at the time, hosted in Russia at 173.192.139[.]27. When we looked closer, we found a short piece of JavaScript on the copycat site that checked a user’s web browser. If the user was visiting the site on Internet Explorer, they would be led to a malicious URL which belonged to the Fallout exploit kit.

If these cyberthieves were trying to flatter us, it didn’t work.

A very long year

In 2020, not only did the coronavirus prove to be one of the most long-running lures to trick people into having their machines infected, but the capabilities of malware increased dramatically.

It isn’t all doom and gloom this year, though. Malwarebytes has done an enormous amount of work to keep you safe, and we’re constantly tracking what goes bump in the night to make sure you’re safe throughout the day.

Also, we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves and judge all cyberthreats this year by the most alluring ones. In fact, tomorrow, we’re going to take a look at the strangest cyber events of 2020, and, spoiler alert, sometimes threat actors mess up hard.  

The post The most enticing cyberattacks of 2020 appeared first on Malwarebytes Labs.

Background information on SearchDimension

SearchDimension is the name of a family of browser hijackers that makes money from ad clicks and search engine revenues. The family was named after the domain searchdimension.com that popped up in 2017, and they still sometimes use the letter combo SD in the names of their browser extensions.

Recent developments in the SearchDimension family

Over the last year we have seen this family evolve and expand into the world of PUPs and adware. Below are some of the latest additions to their arsenal.

• Web push notifications: together with Adware.Adposhel, SearchDimension was among the first families to make full use of the potential provided by web push notifications for advertising.
• Your browser is managed: the SearchDimension developers created an installer that not only installed their search hijacking extension but also made the “Remove” button disappear on the extension listing, telling frustrated users their browser was not their own to manage
• One of their most recent additions is a Chromium-based browser that replaces your default browser when you install it. This new default browser then behaves the same as a normal Chrome browser with one of the search hijacker extensions installed.
• Another new trick comes with extensions that read your browser history to grab the search term the user looked for. The extension then closes the original search tab and opens a new tab with their own search engine looking for that search term. Basically this comes down to lying about the permissions so users will not notice the extension as a search hijacker.

How can you recognize SearchDimension hijackers?

There are many subfamilies and different versions within those families, but there are some tell-tale signs of the SearchDimension family. First and foremost, they use a few website templates that are very typical. These are the six most common ones.

Depending on the referring websites, you may be asked to accept notifications from the search hijacker’s domain. Every domain I have seen from them recently has this option but the referring URL does not always trigger this behavior. So, anyone directly visiting such a domain will not see the notifications prompt.

Then there is one page that comes up very often after you have installed one of the extensions. It looks like this:

The name of the extension and the “sponsors” will vary but the blue and white fields with the circular logo are very typical for the “Thank you for installing … “ page.

The wording in the entry in the list of installed Chrome extensions also comes from a rather limited set, and will usually have one of these formats:

• Search by {extension name}. The best way to search. This one is by far the most common.
• This extension configures your Default Search in Chrome browser to provide these features. Which features remain unsaid.
• {extension name} is an extension that replaces your default search to Yahoo to provide more features. This one seems very specific for the PUP.Optional.SearchDimension subfamily.

Another weak spot in the development process for new variants seems to be the icon. Although they have come up with a lot of them, there is one that is repeated a lot.

The “A” in a blue field is often used for variants that have a short life span. These variants are often only around for a few days before they get removed from the Webstore.

Some variants, including the WebNavigator browsers, add a table of graphics representing Search Recommendations to the search results. This will look like this:

Different subfamilies of SearchDimension

One could divide this family up into subfamilies, based on their behavior, and at Malwarebytes we detect these subfamilies under different names. Below you will find a short description of the methods these subfamilies use and whether there is a Malwarebytes’ detection name for that subfamily.

• The web push notifications are a part of all the subfamilies. If the user has accepted web push notifications, Malwarebytes will detect them as PUP.Optional.PushNotifications.Generic.
• The subfamily that only uses the trick to close and open a new search tab will be detected by Malwarebytes as PUP.Optional.SearchEngineHijack.Generic.
• The variants that change the default search engine and the ones that show “Search Recommendations” will be detected by Malwarebytes as Adware.SearchEngineHijack.Generic.
• The subfamily that consists of Chromium-based browsers that replace your default browser is detected by Malwarebytes as PUP.Optional.WebNavigator.

Unfortunately, as some of these subfamilies use more than one method of browser hijacking, it is hard to be consistent. So sometimes detection names do not always completely follow this pattern as it depends on which behavior(s) our engine detects. The big advantage of the generic detections by our engine, however, is that it picks up new variants on their first appearance.

Advice on search hijackers and other adware

Changing your default search provider or installing adware should be done with user consent. Which is something these search hijackers often forget. They try to get installed by making promises they do not intend to keep and “forget to mention” what they actually are up to. We have seen search hijackers promising to be ad blockers, privacy protectors, and even ones that promise to provide antivirus protection. At best, they replaced existing advertisements with their own.

Installing a browser extension just to change your default search provider is something I would advise against. It’s easy enough to change the default search engine in the browser settings, and if the one of your choice is not listed there, I would recommend you only install an extension with a proven track record and one that really adds some value.

It’s an error to think that these search hijackers only bother Windows users. Most of the prevalent search hijackers aim at Chrome/Chromium browsers and sometimes Firefox. As a consequence, most of them can also be installed on macOS systems.

Recommended reading

For those interested in this subject, I have gathered some related links.

Removal methods:

How to remove adware from your PC

Browser push notifications: a feature asking to be abused

Adware the series, part 1

Awareness:

Mac adware is more sophisticated and dangerous than traditional Mac malware

Three million users installed 28 malicious Chrome or Edge extensions

Stay safe, everyone!

The post SearchDimension search hijackers: An overview of developments appeared first on Malwarebytes Labs.

Last week on Malwarebytes Labs we warned our readers about not so festive social media scams, how Emotet returned just in time for Christmas, we tried out some free online games your kids are playing and here’s what happened, and our VideoBytes episode talked about what penetration testing tools malware gangs love to use and why they are better than what you can get on the black market.

Other cybersecurity news:

• Cybercriminals issued a fake mobile version of Cyberpunk 2077 that’s actually ransomware. (Source: TechSpot)
• The Trump administration is pushing to make major adjustments to the Pentagon organizations charged with cybersecurity and intelligence. (Source: CNN)
• An international takedown of a virtual private network (VPN), dubbed Operation Nova ended an organization engaged in bulletproof hosting. (Source: US DoJ)
• Europol and the European Commission are launching a new decryption platform to help law enforcement agencies decrypt data that have been obtained as part of a criminal investigation. (Source: GovInfoSecurity)
• Hacker publishes stolen email and mailing addresses of 270,000 Ledger cryptocurrency wallet users. (Source: Hot for Security)
• The group behind the SolarWinds hack also tried to compromise security firm CrowdStrike. (Source: engadget)
• China used stolen data to track CIA operatives in Africa and Europe since around 2013. (Source: Fox Business)
• Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Mozilla unite to ban Kazakhstan‘s citizen-tracking certificate. (Source: TechSpot)
• A large scale phishing scam is underway that pretends to be a security notice from Chase stating that fraudulent activity has been detected and caused the recipient’s account to be blocked. (Source: BleepingComputer)
• SolarWinds releases known attack timeline, new data suggests hackers may have done a dummy run last year. (Source: The Register)

Stay safe, everyone!

The post A week in security (December 21- December 27) appeared first on Malwarebytes Labs.

Hello Folks!  In this Videobyte, we’re talking about what penetration testing tools malware gangs love to use and why they are better than what you can get on the black market.

This article describes the VirusBulletin talk of a security researcher from Interzer Labs, Paul Litvak, in which he discusses his effort to identify how often offensive security tools (like Mimikatz) are used by criminal threat actors.

His findings showed an alarming trend, and his observations boiled down to a theory that criminals are reducing their overhead by utilizing (sometimes freely available) offensive security tools, meant to identify weaknesses for network penetration testers, to do much of the heavy lifting they need to infiltrate networks.

For example, in many cases tools used for lateral movement, initial infection and remote access were all created by security researchers. At the same time, tools for information gathering, which are much better in black-hat groups than those used by penetration testers, tended to be more customized for the criminal user.

Another interesting observation was that for tools which had a greater amount of technical complexity to use, the tool was used less often by attackers. Meaning that introducing greater complexity into the use of these tools, may act as a deterrent for some criminals.

Alternatively, developers of these tools should also utilize unique identifiers (symbols, characters, data chunks in the code) to make them easier to identify by scanners.

Either way, the discussion between whether Offensive Security Tools help or hurt more will continue, but this study certainly gives one point toward those who would prefer these tools be better protected.

The post VideoBytes: Offensive security tools and the bad guys that use them appeared first on Malwarebytes Labs.