Category Archives: Virus & Malware

Under our observation, Virus & Malware

Hacker target EU supercomputer – 19th May 2020

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Preface: What if your computer is slow? Perhaps it is a sign of malware infection. This scenario also apply to modern supercomputer. Perhaps it is powerful. So no one aware. This is only a assumption. However modern supercomputer will be infected by malware. Why? Because part of the modern supercomputer has deployed a Linux OS system.

Details: It is true. For instance, Cray has Cluster compatibility mode.It is a standard x86/Linux environment. Several affected labs said that only the login portal to the supercomputer were affected, said Swissinfo.ch. Because hacker will be more interested of scientific research result in this period of time. In this case, how the attacker tried to infect the supercomputer. Please refer to the attached drawing. As usual, the attack entry point is the login portal. But the attacker should infect the client workstation on the beginning phase. For example Cryptocurrency mining malware shell script will be saved as /bin/httpdns. A scheduled task is created to run /bin/httpdns every hour. But it need to take the right time to land the script.

Headline News – https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/bloomberg/hackers-target-european-supercomputers-researching-covid-19/45764250

Cyber War, Under our observation, Virus & Malware

Little-Known Linux Exploits is being weaponize – 15th May 2020

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Preface: The following information will continue the theme released yesterday. For review the details by yesterday, please follow this link – www.antihackingonline.com/cyber-war/high-level-state-backed-apt-groups-entrenched-in-plenty-of-servers-for-nearly-a-decade-using-little-known-linux-exploits-14th-may-2020/

About the theme: Sound can tell, according to statistic provided by Microsoft. Cyber security attack is rapidly growth especially in education area within past 30 days. Perhaps Healthcare and pharmaceuticals area cyber attack volume not as high as education area. However the details found by Microsoft has similarity with security expert observe in past. There are more and more attacker focus to Linux environment.

Security focus: Backdoor code in the popular Bootstrap. To launch the action, the backdoor must be embedded in a “bootstrap” application (a dropper) that is written in C and called xxx.c. Once compiled and started, the dropper program must infect the first Linux ELF executable that it finds in the current directory. Then, when this newly infected file is executed, your virus code is supposed to run.

The myth said that Linux will be secure than Windows. It will be not correct anymore.

Cyber War, Public safety, Virus & Malware

For Malicious Cyber Activity, US Homeland Security provides visibility to the world – 13th May 2020

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Preface: It is impossible to rely on small group of expert to track malicious activities on the Internet. In fact, it needs strong financial support. This is reality, maybe this is a long-running game.

Background: US Homeland Security issue an evaluation article on hostile country malware and phishing attacks motion. Perhaps you may ask? Can it be relies on SIEM do this monitoring. My opinion is that we should say thanks to DNS Sinkhole.A website that hosts malware can either attempt to trick users into downloading a malicious program, or execute a drive-by download: a download of a malicious piece of software that is automatically triggered when the webpage loads. But it require DNS lookup service. By using the DNS sinkhole technique it is also possible to deny access to any of malicious C&C websites. Besides, the queries will be written down to DNS Sinkhole record.

Security focus of specifics malware:
COPPERHEDGE, is described as a Remote Access Tool (RAT).
TAINTEDSCRIBE is a trojan that acts as a full-featured beaconing implant with command modules and designed to disguise as Microsoft’s Narrator.
PEBBLEDASH is yet another trojan acting like a full-featured beaconing implant and used by hacking groups “to download, upload, delete, and execute files; enable Windows CLI access; create and terminate processes; and perform target system enumeration.”

For more information about the report, please click this link – https://www.us-cert.gov/northkorea

Public safety, Under our observation, Virus & Malware

A retrospective album of BlackEnergy – Feb 2020

Somewhere in time. This is 2015 – BlackEnergy2 exists in the form of a kernel-mode driver, which makes it harder for network administrators to discover the compromise. Black energy Group will mimics their custom tool(driver) thus made to look like a normal Windows component. They are interested in infecting Windows servers especially OPC server. But Microsoft implemented a driver signing policy in order to avoid loading unsigned driver. This feature is enabled on 64 bits versions of Windows systems.

Synopsis: In normal circumstances, activate the function of the cyber espionage and information destruction attack features needed to be rebooted in order to start the mimics driver. Even though black energy do not have exception.This unplanned reboot of the Windows server could raise suspicion. To solve the reboot issue, the attackers started to use a tool called DSEFix (an open-source tool that exploits CVE-2008-3431, a vulnerability in the legitimate VirtualBox driver), in order to disable the driver signature check. The attackers will made a custom version of DSEFix that also modifies boot configuration data (BCD) in order to enable TESTSIGNING mode.

What is TESTSIGNING mode: By default, Windows does not load test-signed kernel-mode drivers. To change this behavior and enable test-signed drivers to load, use the boot configuration data editor, BCDEdit.exe, to enable or disable TESTSIGNING, a boot configuration option. You must have Administrator rights to enable this option.

Those cyber criminal will focusing the OPC server.Because the OPC client uses the OPC server to get data from or send commands to the hardware.

Will it happen today? The elaborate email subject and content presents challenges for traditional security tools, because it is designed specifically to evade detection.

Public safety, Under our observation, Virus & Malware

Hacker exploit Coronavirus Crisis, send scam email to different industries – 18th Feb 2020

Synopsis:

a. Attackers disguise their scam email as an official (WHO) alert issued by the Centers for Disease Control Health Alert Network. (Targeting individuals from the United States and the United Kingdom)

b. Attackers disguise their scam email as an alert of Coronavirus status, they are target to shipping industry.

Description: About the attack to shipping industry – Hacker exploit the vulnerability of CVE 2017-11882, perhaps they found that the patch management on the boat not enforce in frequent. And therefore the attack explicitly target shipping industry. About the attack to individuals from the United States and the United Kingdom – WHO urge that if anyone see similar type of scam email. Report to WHO – https://www.who.int/about/report_scam/en/

The slogan – Do not rush to open a URL or open a email. Take care.

Virus & Malware

HKMA alerting public of the hsbc phishing email – 6th Feb 2020

Preface: Not the first time heard that cyber criminals mimics email from bank to hunting the victims.

Historical record: HSBC’s “Payment Notification” malware email was discovered in 2018.
These emails are designed to confuse people’s vigilance and use the HSBC brand name to reduce the defensive awareness of email recipients. An “auto-generated” email suggests that you open an attachment to view the payment proposal document.
If you open the attached Microsoft word file, you will be prompted to enable macros. If you do allow, a malicious macro will run in the background, The macro will download and install malware on your computer. I believed that cyber criminals hunting the mobile phone users this round.

Staying alert: For more details, please refer to official announcement for reference. https://www.about.hsbc.com.hk/-/media/hong-kong/en/news-and-media/200205-website-hsbc-warns-against-phishing-email-eng-20200205.pdf

Virus & Malware

looking back the malware evolutionary at 2019

Preface: Unlike C, C++ is an object-oriented programming language, following a programming model that uses objects that contain data as well as functions to manipulate the data. Word is an object-oriented program.

Security focus: The malware author usually exploit some kind of arbitrary code execution or zero day. And therefore it have chances to evade the anti-defense mechanism detection.
The reason behind is that before reassemble of the modules, it do not take any action. But perhaps you have doubt?
How do they get another module? In modern defense technology, the machanism of the malware detector will be based on blacklist domain for the first piority. If attacker compromise a web site not included in domain blacklist. So, when download other module by http or https traffic might not detected by defense machanism. As a matter of fact, the http get and put action are frequently happens in our internet web browsing. Therefore you will understand that why does cyber criminals target to compromising a boutique shop style web site and social media. It was because the web sites still in white list before compromise.

Should you have interested to know more. F5 Lab has article for your reference. A Reference Guide to the Malware Family Tree – https://www.f5.com/labs/articles/education/banking-trojans-a-reference-guide-to-the-malware-family-tree

Cyber War, Under our observation, Virus & Malware

Analysis Reports by US Homeland Security – Legitimate open source remote administration tool re-engineer by threat actor as APT way of attack – Dec 2018

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Preface: Quasar, a legitimate open-source remote administration tool. It is a fast and light-weight remote administration tool coded in C#.

Background: APT actors have adapted Quasar and created modified minor (1.3.4.0) and major (2.0.0.0 and 2.0.0.1) versions. Since the re-engineering Quasar client will be mimics a Mozilla Firefox 48 browser running on Windows 8.1 or mimics an Apple Safari 7.0.3 browser running on Mac OS X 10.9.3 in order to evade IDS monitoring. However there are way lets security operation center find their fingerprint. The distinctive first 4 bytes of the payload can be used to identify Quasar traffic.

As a result, below analytic way can be enforce the detective control:
Signature 1: TCP Payload Size Tracking

Signature 2: IP Lookup User-Agent String, HyperText Transfer Protocol Header Host, and HyperText Transfer Protocol Header URI

Signature 3: Hidden HTTP Request User-Agent String and Time-to-Live

More details can be found below url: https://unit42.paloaltonetworks.com/unit42-downeks-and-quasar-rat-used-in-recent-targeted-attacks-against-governments/

Public safety, Under our observation, Virus & Malware

Unknown APT reference number ? Suspect that it targeting Advantech WebAccess/SCADA customer

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Advantech, a leader within the IPC global market. Advantech offers a comprehensive IPC product range that delivers reliability and stability for extreme environments, providing its customers with a one-stop shopping experience implementing Industry 4.0 and fulfilling their Industrial IoT needs.

IoT and SCADA are the APT (Advanced Persistent threat) targeting devices so far. Meanwhile this type of manufacturer will be lured attacker interest. Regarding to the technical details, please refer below url for reference.

https://www.eset.com/int/greyenergy-exposed/

So, It is possible to make people predict the attack may targeting Advantech customer.

Factor:
In Advantech WebAccess/SCADA versions prior to V8.2_20170817.
WebAccess/SCADA does not properly sanitize its inputs for SQL commands.

Synopsis:
Chosen with servers that have a high uptime, where reboots and patch management are rare.
In order to mislead people, threat actor will use the vendor official server cert to conducting data exfiltration.
Since malware alive and therefore C&C server is able to conduct hacker job task (exploit the SQL vulnerability).

Should you have interest to know the specifics vulnerabilities. Please refer below hyperlink for reference.

Advantech WebAccess/SCADA – CVE-2018-5443 – CVE-2018-5445

Under our observation, Virus & Malware

Five publicly available tools, which have been used for malicious purposes – Oct 2018

US-Cert urge that there are total five publicly available tools, which have been used for malicious purposes in recent cyber incidents around the world (see below):

Remote Access Trojan: JBiFrost
Webshell: China Chopper
Credential Stealer: Mimikatz
Lateral Movement Framework: PowerShell Empire
C2 Obfuscation and Exfiltration: HUC Packet Transmitter

RSA found a malware in 2017 and explore remote access Trojan (RAT) feature with advanced invisible feature.

In this short discussion, I am going to focus the RAT (JBiFrost). Adzok is famous in dark web.

We seen malware exploits the Java archives.

A JAR (Java archive) is a package file format. It can be used as Java library or as standalone application. He is easy to change the shape to evade the detection.

Adzok proviced free download version. Some antivirus vendor already has defensive to avoid the infiltration.

Friendly reminder that still have some vendor do not have this malware signature.