25-October-2022
Welcome to the weekly threat detection update report from Stamus Networks. Each week, you will receive this email with a summary of the updates.
Current Stamus Threat Intelligence (STI) release version: 579
This week, in addition to daily ruleset and IOC updates, we provided Stamus Security Platform customers with the following improved defense(s):
Note: a "method" as referenced below, is a discrete detection vector for a given threat.
The following detections were added to your Stamus Security Platform this past week:
Mekotio is a typical Latin American banking trojan that has been active since at least 2015. As such, it attacks by displaying fake pop-up windows to its victims, trying to entice them to divulge sensitive information. These windows are carefully designed to target Latin American banks and other financial institutions. welivesecurity
Mekotio - malpedia | Mekotio - microsoft |
Loaders, for the most part, have one job: grab malicious executables or payloads from an attacker-controlled server. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t more happening under the hood of some, such as a user-friendly UI, self-healing capabilities, or the equivalent of a retail shop where a botmaster can sell his bots to potential clients.
Loaders are essentially basic remote access Trojans that give an attacker the ability to remotely interact with and control a compromised computer, or bot. While traditionally lightweight (smaller than 50 KB in size) in order to bypass detection by antivirus and other security monitoring technology, loaders evolve, and their viability to cybercriminals remains. Flashpoint
RM3Loader - abusech |
2010 Gozi v2.0, Gozi ISFB, ISFB, Pandemyia(*) 2014 Dreambot (Gozi ISFB variant)
In 2014, a variant of Gozi ISFB was developed. Mainly, the dropper performs additional anti-vm checks (vmware, vbox, qemu), while the actual bot-dll remains unchanged in most parts. New functionality, such as TOR support, was added though and often, the Fluxxy fast-flux network is used. Malpedia
Dreambot - microsoft |
Based on the evidence we have presented Symantec attributed the activity involving theDripion malware to the Budminer advanced threat group. While we have not seen newcampaigns using Taidoor malware since 2014, we believe the Budminer group has changedtactics to avoid detection after being outed publicly in security white papers and blogs over thepast few years. Malpedia
The following detections were updated this past week with changes to kill chain phase(s) or MITRE ATT&CK tactic(s)/technique(s):
Malware of this family uses advertising as its main monetization method. The malware uses different methods to display as many ads as possible to the user, including by installing new adware.
These Trojans can get root privileges in order to hide in the system folder, which makes the Trojans very difficult to remove. Kaspersky
The term info stealer is self-explanatory. This type of malware resides in an infected computer and gathers data in order to send it to the attacker. Typical targets are credentials used in online banking services, social media sites, emails, or FTP accounts.
Info stealers may use many methods of data acquisition. The most common are:
hooking browsers (and sometimes other applications) and stealing credentials that are typed by the user using web injection scripts that are adding extra fields to web forms and submitting information from them to a server owned by the attacker form grabbing (finding specific opened windows and stealing their content) keylogging stealing passwords saved in the system and cookies Modern info stealers are usually parts of botnets. Sometimes the target of attack and related events are configured remotely by the command sent from the Command and Control server (C&C). Malwarebytes
The main goal of these malicious apps is to steal users’ funds and until now we have seen this scheme mainly targeting Chinese users. As cryptocurrencies are gaining popularity, we expect these techniques to spread into other markets. This is further supported by the public sharing, in November 2021, of the source code of the front-end and back-end distribution website, including the recompiled APK and IPA files. We found this code on at least five websites, where it was shared for free, and thus expect to see more copycat attackers. From the posts we found, it is difficult to determine whether it was shared intentionally or if it leaked. Welivesecurity
HawkEye is high-risk virus designed to record keystrokes, account credentials, and other similar information. In most cases, HawkEye is distributed using spam email campaigns. Developers send thousands of deceptive emails that encourage users to open attached files, however, opening them results in infiltration of HawkEye. Cyber criminals sometimes infiltrate HawkEye manually, using remote access tools (RATs). Pcrisk
Trojan-Banker programs are designed to steal user account data relating to online banking systems, e-payment systems and plastic card systems. The data is then transmitted to the malicious user controlling the Trojan. Email, FTP, the web (including data in a request), or other methods may be used to transit the stolen data. Kaspersky
Joker is one of the most prominent malware families that continually targets Android devices. Despite awareness of this particular malware, it keeps finding its way into Google’s official application market by employing changes in its code, execution methods, or payload-retrieving techniques. This spyware is designed to steal SMS messages, contact lists, and device information along with silently signing up the victim for premium wireless application protocol (WAP) services. Zscaler
A Trojan horse or Trojan is a type of malware that is often disguised as legitimate software. Trojans can be employed by cyber-thieves and hackers trying to gain access to users' systems. Users are typically tricked by some form of social engineering into loading and executing Trojans on their systems. Once activated, Trojans can enable cyber-criminals to spy on you, steal your sensitive data, and gain backdoor access to your system. Kaspersky
Remote Access Trojans are programs that provide the capability to allow covert surveillance or the ability to gain unauthorized access to a victim PC. Remote Access Trojans often mimic similar behaviors of keylogger applications by allowing the automated collection of keystrokes, usernames, passwords, screenshots, browser history, emails, chat lots, etc. Remote Access Trojans differ from keyloggers in that they provide the capability for an attacker to gain unauthorized remote access to the victim machine via specially configured communication protocols which are set up upon initial infection of the victim computer. This backdoor into the victim machine can allow an attacker unfettered access, including the ability to monitor user behavior, change computer settings, browse and copy files, utilize the bandwidth (Internet connection) for possible criminal activity, access connected systems, and more. Malwarebytes
Remcos is a closed-source tool that is marketed as a remote control and surveillance software by a company called Breaking Security.
Remcos has been observed being used in malware campaigns.
It leverages compromised websites and performs some of the most creative fingerprinting checks we’ve seen, before delivering its payload (NetSupport RAT). Malwarebytes
The term info stealer is self-explanatory. This type of malware resides in an infected computer and gathers data in order to send it to the attacker. Typical targets are credentials used in online banking services, social media sites, emails, or FTP accounts.
Info stealers may use many methods of data acquisition. The most common are:
hooking browsers (and sometimes other applications) and stealing credentials that are typed by the user using web injection scripts that are adding extra fields to web forms and submitting information from them to a server owned by the attacker form grabbing (finding specific opened windows and stealing their content) keylogging stealing passwords saved in the system and cookies Modern info stealers are usually parts of botnets. Sometimes the target of attack and related events are configured remotely by the command sent from the Command and Control server (C&C). Malwarebytes
Again, the generic nature of this detection means that the Payloads performed by this group of trojans may be highly variable, and therefore difficult to describe specifically. This group of trojans has been observed to perform any, or all, of the following actions:
redirect Web traffic
- manipulate certain Windows or third-party applications including settings or configurations
- drop or install additional malicious programs
- download and run additional malicious programs
Please note that this list is not exhaustive.
Microsoft
A dropper is a kind of Trojan that has been designed to "install" some sort of malware (virus, backdoor, etc.) to a target system. The malware code can be contained within the dropper (single-stage) in such a way as to avoid detection by virus scanners or the dropper may download the malware to the target machine once activated (two stage). Wikipedia
This type of Trojan modifies data on the victim computer so that the victim can no longer use the data, or it prevents the computer from running correctly. Once the data has been “taken hostage” (blocked or encrypted), the user will receive a ransom demand.
The ransom demand tells the victim to send the malicious user money; on receipt of this, the cyber criminal will send a program to the victim to restore the data or restore the computer’s performance. Kaspersky
Malicious programs of this family secretly send information to the criminal from the user’s infected Android mobile device. Kaspersky
The following threat detection(s) were improved this past week with new or updated threat methods.
| Name of threat | New coverage | Total coverage | Last updated | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New Detection methods | Kill chain phases | Protocols involved | Detection methods | Kill chain phases | Protocols involved | ||
| Android Trojan Agent | 2 | command and control | http | 181 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery | dns, http, tcp | 2022-10-19 |
| Banker Stealer | 1 | command and control | http | 201 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery | dns, http, smtp, tcp, tls | 2022-10-19 |
| Budminer | 224 | command and control | dns | 224 | command and control | dns | 2022-10-19 |
| Dreambot | 19 | command and control, delivery, actions on objectives | tls, http | 21 | command and control, delivery, actions on objectives | tls, http | 2022-10-19 |
| FakeWallet | 1 | command and control | http | 27 | command and control | http, tls | 2022-10-19 |
| HawkEye | 1 | command and control | tcp | 23 | actions on objectives, command and control | http, smtp, tcp | 2022-10-18 |
| Hqwar | 3 | command and control | dns | 48 | actions on objectives, command and control | dns, http, tls | 2022-10-19 |
| Joker | 2 | command and control | dns | 23 | actions on objectives, command and control | dns, ftp, http, tls | 2022-10-19 |
| Mekotio | 7 | command and control, delivery | http, dns, tcp-pkt, tcp | 7 | command and control, delivery | http, dns, tcp-pkt, tcp | 2022-10-19 |
| Piom | 6 | command and control | dns, tls, http | 26 | command and control | dns, http, tls | 2022-10-19 |
| RM3Loader | 2 | command and control | http | 2 | command and control | http | 2022-10-19 |
| Realrat | 1 | command and control | dns | 34 | command and control | dns, tls | 2022-10-19 |
| Remcos | 1 | command and control | tcp | 864 | command and control, delivery | dns, http, tcp, tcp-pkt | 2022-10-19 |
| SocGholish | 8 | command and control | dns, http | 172 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery, exploitation, reconnaissance | dns, http, tcp, tls | 2022-10-21 |
| Stealer and Exfiltration | 4 | actions on objectives, command and control | http, dns | 228 | actions on objectives, command and control, exploitation, installation | dns, ftp, http, smtp, tcp, tcp-pkt, tls | 2022-10-18 |
| Trojan Agent | 2 | command and control | http | 364 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery, installation | dns, http, ip, smtp, tcp, tcp-pkt, tcp-stream, udp | 2022-10-19 |
| Trojan Dropper | 1 | delivery | dns | 279 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery, installation | dns, http, tcp, tls, udp | 2022-10-19 |
| Trojan-Ransom-Android | 4 | command and control | dns, http | 21 | actions on objectives, command and control | dns, http, tcp, tls | 2022-10-19 |
| TrojanSpy-Android | 10 | command and control | tcp, dns, http | 411 | actions on objectives, command and control, delivery | dns, http, tcp, tls | 2022-10-19 |
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Stamus Networks believes in a world where defenders are heroes, and a future where those they protect remain safe. As organizations face threats from well-funded adversaries, we relentlessly pursue solutions that make the defender’s job easier and more impactful. The global leader in Suricata-based network security solutions, Stamus Networks helps enterprise security teams know more, respond sooner and mitigate their risk with insights gathered from cloud and on-premise network activity. Our Stamus Security Platform combines the best of intrusion detection (IDS), network security monitoring (NSM), and network detection and response (NDR) systems into a single solution that exposes serious and imminent threats to critical assets and empowers rapid response.
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