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Nibatad is also a loader that leverages search order hijacking, and downloads an encrypted payload to the infected computer. | ['T1574.001'] |
We mentioned earlier that due to the nature of the IE injection technique used by the HTTP-based backdoors, a number of C2 commands were cached to disk | ['T1071'] |
And, according to the collected config files, the group upgraded their malware communications from plain text http to encrypted https in October 2013 | ['T1071'] |
Figure 1: Configuration file that adds new C2 server and forces the data-stealing backdoor to use it Figure 2: Configuration file that adds TCP tunnels and records desktop video Command and Control CARBANAK communicates to its C2 servers via pseudo-HTTP or a custom binary protocol | ['T1071'] |
The example C2s used by older variants of Comnie demonstrates this: Figure 9 Old Comnie variants collecting C2 information Please refer to the Appendix for a script that may be used to decode C2 information from the older Comnie variants | ['T1071'] |
The URIs used in the HTTP requests are randomly generated | ['T1071'] |
Table 2 Sandbox evasion checks in the C# variant of RogueRobin Like the original version, the C# variant of RogueRobin uses DNS tunneling to communicate with its C2 server using a variety of different DNS query types | ['T1071'] |
Figure 2 Code that issues DNS query to gogle.co if a debugger is detected All DNS requests issued by RogueRobin use the built in nslookup.exe application to communicate to the C2 server and the Trojan will use a variety of regular expressions to extract data from the DNS response | ['T1071'] |
Character Digit h 0 i 1 j 2 k 3 l 4 m 5 n 6 o 7 p 8 q 9 Table 4 Character substitution used in RogueRobin The Trojan will use future DNS requests to retrieve jobs from the C2 server, which the Trojan will handle as commands | ['T1071'] |
The x_mode command is disabled by default, but when enabled via a command received from the DNS tunneling channel, it allows RogueRobin to receive a unique identifier and to get jobs by using Google Drive API requests | ['T1071'] |
Background From October 2012 to May 2014, FireEye observed APT12 utilizing RIPTIDE, a proxy-aware backdoor that communicates via HTTP to a hard-coded command and control (C2) server | ['T1071'] |
Similar to RIPTIDE and HIGHTIDE, the WATERSPOUT backdoor is an HTTP-based backdoor that communicates with its C2 server | ['T1071'] |
11/1/18 sahro.bella7 trala.cosh2 Bishtr.cam47 Lobrek.chizh Cervot.woprov Table 5 Gathered C# Cannon samples As mentioned in our initial blog, the actor controlled email address acting as the C2 was sahro.bella7[at]post.cz, but all previous samples of Cannon used sym777.g[at]post.cz | ['T1071'] |
Even though Delphi Cannon uses POP3S and SMTPS for its C2 communications like Cannon, it is arguably easier to defend against as it uses an actor owned domain that defenders can easily block and not a legitimate email provider such as Seznam | ['T1071'] |
The screenshot in Figure 8 of the inf method within a Cannon sample (SHA256: 4405cfbf28…) shows the information gathered that is exfiltrated to the C2 via email, specifically with RunningPlace and LogicalDrives header strings: Figure 8 inf method used by Cannon When comparing the two Cannon variants, we found a method within a Delphi Cannon sample (SHA256: 5a02d4e5f6…) showing the use of Running place and Logical_Drivers as header strings to the system information it is collecting and sending to the C2 via email | ['T1071'] |
The shellcode retrieves an additional payload by connecting to the following C2 server using DNS: aaa.stage.14919005.www1.proslr3[.]com Once a successful reply is received from the command and control (C2) server, the PowerShell script executes the embedded Cobalt Strike shellcode | ['T1071'] |
Retriever uses .NET web services and the SoapHttpClientProtocol class to communicate with its C2 server, which generates HTTP requests resembling the example request in Figure 4 | ['T1071'] |
The shellcode executed by this command is the same as in the delivery documents as well, specifically taken from Metasploit to obtain additional shellcode to execute using an HTTP request to the following URL: http://www7.chrome-up[.]date/0m5EE We are unsure of the shellcode hosted at this URL, as we were unable to coerce the C2 server to provide a payload | ['T1071'] |
Once these variables are set, the malware uses the SoapHttpClientProtocol class to communicate with its C2 server, which issues an HTTP POST requests that appears as: As you can see from the above request, the SoapHttpClientProtocol class neatly structures data into an HTTP POST request | ['T1071'] |
Table 3: FELIXROOT backdoor parameters Cryptography All data is transferred to C2 servers using AES encryption and the IbindCtx COM interface using HTTP or HTTPS protocol | ['T1071'] |
http://www.cankayasrc[.]com/style/js/main.php http://ektamservis[.]com/includes/main.php http://gtme[.]ae/font-awesome/css/main.php Recommendations for organizations Effective protection from targeted attacks focuses on advanced detective, preventive and investigative capabilities via solutions and training, allowing an organization to control any activities on their network or suspicious files on user systems | ['T1071'] |
This information can then be transmitted to the attacker using protocols such as FTP, HTTP, and SMTP | ['T1071'] |
tfvn[.]com[.]vnshirkeswitch[.]netguideofgeorgia[.]orggulfclouds[.]sitejhssourcingltd[.]comkamagra4uk[.]compioneerfitting[.]compositronicsindia[.]comscseguros[.]ptspldernet[.]comtoshioco[.]comwww[.]happytohelpyou[.]inIP addressesThe following IP addresses have been observed to be associated with malware campaigns.112.213.89[.]4067.23.254[.]6162.212.33[.]98153.92.5[.]124185.117.22[.]19723.94.188[.]24667.23.254[.]17072.52.150[.]218148.66.136[.]62107.180.24[.]253108.179.246[.]13818.221.35[.]21494.46.15[.]20066.23.237[.]18672.52.150[.]218URLs:The following URLs have been observed to be associated with malware campaigns.https[:]//a[.]pomf[.]cat/http[:]//pomf[.]cat/upload[.]php | ['T1071'] |
The initial DNS query sent by the payload to obtain the system specific identifier uses the following structure, which includes the current process identifier (PID) as the subdomain of the C2 domain: <current process id>.<c2 domain> The C2 server will provide the system specific identifier within the answer portion of the DNS response | ['T1071'] |
This command will automatically set the DNS type to use for actual C2 $showconfig Uploads the current configuration of the payload to the C2 slpx:\d+ Sets the sleep interval between outbound DNS requests $fileUpload Downloads contents from the C2 server and writes them to a specified file Table 3 Commands available to payload Campaign Analysis The following domains are configured within the payload to be used as C2s | ['T1071'] |
If that HTTPS request is not successful, the downloader will issue an HTTP request | ['T1071'] |
Lastly, if the HTTP request is not successful, the downloader will fallback to using DNS tunneling to establish communications | ['T1071'] |
The payload will construct a message that has the following structure that it will then send to the C2: bye<char uuid[35]>d The message above is sent via a simple HTTPS/HTTP POST request to the C2 server | ['T1071'] |
As seen in the above request, the Trojan will generate a URL for its beacon with the following structure:http://<c2 domain>/chk?<hex(Environment.UserName/Environment.MachineName)> The Trojan will issue a request to this URL to check (hence the chk string in the URL) to see if the C2 server has a command for the Trojan to run | ['T1071'] |
[1] https://www.clearskysec.com/report-the-copykittens-are-targeting-israelis/ [2] https://www.clearskysec.com/copykitten-jpost/ | ['T1071'] |
After the C2 information has been collected, BADNEWS leverages HTTP for communication with the remote servers | ['T1071'] |
33 Download specified file to %TEMP%\up and execute it in a new process During C2 communications, BADNEWS will communicate to the C2 previously identified via HTTP | ['T1071'] |
Exfiltrate data using HTTP over HTTP over AES over XOR, or any combination of the available transports | ['T1071'] |
Deep Discovery Inspector protects customers from these threats via this DDI Rule: DDI Rule 18 : DNS response of a queried malware Command and Control domain DDI Rule 15 : Many unsuccessful logon attempts (nbt_scan.exe) DDI Rule 38 : Multiple unsuccessful logon attempts (nbt_scan.exe) TippingPoint customers are protected from these threats via these ThreatDV filters: 27218: HTTP: TROJ_RATANKBA_A Checkin 28219: HTTP: TROJ_RATANKBA_A Checkin 02 27220: HTTPS: TROJ_RATANKBA_A Checkin 27221: HTTP: Sundown EK Flash Exploit (SWF_EXPLOYT.YYRQ) A list of related Indicators of Compromise (IoCs) can be found in this appendix | ['T1071'] |
IcedCoffee is a fairly basic backdoor which uses WMI to collect a variety of system and user information from the system, which is then encoded with base64, encrypted with RC4 and submitted via HTTP POST to the C2 server | ['T1071'] |
It then calls the subfunction with the argument of 2 to get the string that it will use as the HTTP POST request | ['T1071'] |
The resulting HTTP POST request looks like the following: POST http://185.25.50[.]93/syshelp/kd8812u/protocol.php HTTP/1.1 Host: 185.25.50[.]93 Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded Content-Length: 21 porg=44908AE0524f422d We have not seen a C2 server respond to our requests during our analysis, however, we do know how the Trojan will parse the C2’s response for specific data | ['T1071'] |
Victim Registration SpeakUp uses POST and GET requests over HTTP to communicate with its main C&C which is the compromised website of speakupomaha[.]com | ['T1071'] |
It uses the legitimate Naver email platform in order to communicate with the attackers via email | ['T1071'] |
Command & Control The malware communicates with the Naver email platform in order to communicate with the operator | ['T1071'] |
It communicates with ftp.bytehost31[.]org via FTP for command and control (C2) | ['T1071'] |
Domains http://mdzz2019.noip[.]cn:19931 http://mdzz2019.noip[.]cn:3654/ From my analyses, I was able to identify http://mdzz2019.noip[.]cn:19931 as its main C2 url. This is a dynamic DNS, meaning the actual IP changes quite frequently | ['T1071'] |
The Trojan uses HTTP POST requests, as seen in Figure 1 to send data to the C2 server, and GET requests to receive commands from the server, as seen in Figure 2 | ['T1071'] |
Figure 1 XAgent macOS HTTP POST request Figure 2 XAgent mscOS HTTP GET request The C2 URLs generated by XAgentOSX are very similar to those created by its Windows-based counterpart | ['T1071'] |
Figure 3 Hardware ID used by XAgent to uniquely identify compromised hosts When generating the URLs within the HTTP POST and GET requests, XAgent sets one HTTP parameter using a specific data structure that contains this agent_id value | ['T1071'] |
it operates over DNS traffic, but can also switch to encrypted channels such as HTTPS or SSL | ['T1071'] |
HAWKBALL is a backdoor that communicates to a single hard-coded C2 server using HTTP | ['T1071'] |
Persistence is maintained through a Run registry key | ['T1547.001'] |
This marker indicates the presence of an encrypted MZ marker in the .hwp file and is decrypted by the malware and written to the Startup folder for the user: C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\viso.exe This step establishes the persistence of the malware across reboots on the endpoint Once the decrypted MZ marker is written to the Startup folder, the 2.hwp is deleted from the endpoint The malware might perform this activity for a couple of reasons: Establish persistence for itself on the endpoint Establish persistence of another component of the malware on the endpoint Update itself on endpoint after a separate updater component downloads the update from the control server The malware has limited reconnaissance and data-gathering capabilities and is not full-fledged spyware | ['T1547.001'] |
The two variants of MPK share the same registry key that the Trojan uses to automatically run each time the system starts, specifically: [HKLM and HKCU]\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\explorer Both MPK variants include key loggers that are extremely similar in functionality in addition to having the same strings used for headers within the key log file | ['T1547.001'] |
The RunAtLoad key will command launchd to run the daemon when the operating system starts up, while the KeepAlive key will command launchd to let the process run indefinitely | ['T1547.001'] |
Once the user clicks on the fake Adobe Flash Player installer, it will extract/create the following malicious payload into the Startup directory to maintain its persistence: | ['T1547.001'] |
Register the RUN key in the registry below, so that the VBS file is executed every time the machine starts | ['T1547.001'] |
A new registry entry is created at HKEY_CURRENT_USERS\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\Graphics with a value of “C:\ ProgramData \ Initech \Initech.exe” /run. | ['T1547.001'] |
When each file is encrypted, registry keys are created under HKU\{SID}\Software\Microsoft\ RestartManager \ which are used to track metadata pertaining to the file being encrypted, such as owner, sequence, session and file hash | ['T1547.001'] |
When the .lnk file is initialized, it spawns a CMD process | ['T1547.009'] |
We have covered recent FIN7 activity in previous public blog posts: FIN7 Spear Phishing Campaign Targets Personnel Involved in SEC Filings FIN7 Evolution and the Phishing LNK To SDB, Or Not To SDB: FIN7 Leveraging Shim Databases for Persistence The FireEye iSIGHT Intelligence MySIGHT Portal contains additional information on our investigations and observations into FIN7 activity | ['T1547.009'] |
The .zip archive attached to the email contains a Windows shortcut (.lnk) file with the Microsoft Internet Explorer logo | ['T1547.009'] |
Clicking on the shortcut ultimately leads to Backdoor.Pirpi being downloaded and executed on the affected computer | ['T1547.009'] |
Comnie is able to achieve persistence via a .lnk file that is stored within the victim’s startup path | ['T1547.009'] |
Additionally, in the event Kaspersky is detected, the malware will immediately run the ‘Conime.lnk’ shortcut file in a new process after it is created | ['T1547.009'] |
This round of FIN7 phishing lures implements hidden shortcut files (LNK files) to initiate the infection and VBScript functionality launched by mshta.exe to infect the victim | ['T1547.009'] |
In this ongoing campaign, FIN7 is targeting organizations with spear phishing emails containing either a malicious DOCX or RTF file – two versions of the same LNK file and VBScript technique | ['T1547.009'] |
This spawns the hidden embedded malicious LNK file in the document | ['T1547.009'] |
Figure 3: FIN7 phishing lure persistence mechanisms Examining Attacker Shortcut Files In many cases, attacker-created LNK files can reveal valuable information about the attacker’s development environment | ['T1547.009'] |
These files can be parsed with lnk-parser to extract all contents | ['T1547.009'] |
LNK files have been valuable during Mandiant incident response investigations as they include volume serial number, NetBIOS name, and MAC address | ['T1547.009'] |
The LNK file is finally used to identify a third file: a ZIP file | ['T1547.009'] |
The LNK file is moved to the startup directory | ['T1547.009'] |
This shortcut file points to the path of the previously written ‘Applet.cpl’ file | ['T1547.009'] |
Finally, Reaver.v1 will execute the ‘~WUpdate.lnk’ file in a new process, thus loading the recently dropped malicious CPL file | ['T1547.009'] |
Finally, Reaver.v2 will execute the ‘~Update.lnk’ file in a new process, thus loading the recently dropped malicious CPL file | ['T1547.009'] |
This shortcut file calls the built-in ‘control.exe’ utility to in turn load the previously dropped malicious CPL file of ‘winhelp.cpl’ | ['T1547.009'] |
The lnk files were an especially interesting development because the powershell code they contain for decoding and dropping the payload is nearly identical to that utilized by the Zebrocy threat actor a month earlier | ['T1547.009'] |
Using Windows Shortcut files (.lnk) in the Startup folder that invoke the Windows Scripting Host (wscript.exe) to execute a Jscript backdoor for persistence | ['T1547.009'] |
2 Successful payload download Astaroth’s initial payload is a malicious .lnk file, a common delivery method used by threat actors | ['T1547.009'] |
Malicious .lnk files contain a link to a URL (instead of the expected local URI) to grab the next payload | ['T1547.009'] |
In the case of Astaroth trojan, the .lnk file contains an argument into WMIC.exe to run in non-interactive mode, which forgoes opening a window that the victim could notice, to download the hardcoded url in the .lnk | ['T1547.009'] |
Encoded Payload Decoded Payload MD5 Size Import Hash Exported Function Version aa3f303c3319b14b4829fe2faa5999c1 322164 182ee99b4f0803628c30411b1faa9992 l7MF25T96n45qOGWX 5.3.2 126067d634d94c45084cbe1d9873d895 330804 5f45532f947501cf024d84c36e3a19a1 hJvTJcdAU3mNkuvGGq7L 5.4.1 fce54b4886cac5c61eda1e7605483ca3 345812 c1942a0ca397b627019dace26eca78d8 WcuH 5.4.1 Table 2: Static characteristics of UPPERCUT Another new feature in the latest UPPERCUT sample is that the malware sends an error code in the Cookie header if it fails to receive the HTTP response from the command and control (C2) server | ['T1132'] |
Another difference in the network traffic generated from the malware is that the encoded proxy information has been added in the URL query values during the C2 communication | ['T1132'] |
The communication and exfiltration of data was detected in a real-world scenario using the Cybereason platform | ['T1132'] |
The optional HTTP data with king.jpg looks like a beacon to inform the control server that the malware is ready to accept new commands: Commands received from the control server are encoded DWORDs After decoding, these DWORDs should be in the range 123459h to 123490h Malware checking to make sure a received command is in the correct range | ['T1132'] |
If the size is 7 bytes or more, the backdoor verifies that the command and control server sent an encoded package | ['T1132'] |
The generated buffer is encoded using the BASE64 alphabet to be sent in the POST request | ['T1132'] |
In response to this request, the C2 server responds with a Base64-encoded RSA public key (seen in Figure 12) | ['T1132'] |
Data that is sent is compressed and then base64-encoded before being included in the requests | ['T1132'] |
The C2 server sends back Base64 encoded response | ['T1132'] |
The script gathers system specific data, such as the domain the system belongs to and the current username, that it constructs in the following format: <domain>\<username>:pass The above string is encoded using a custom base64 encoder to strip out non-alphanumeric characters (=, / and +) from the data and replaces them with domain safe values (01, 02 and 03 respectively) | ['T1132'] |
A notable characteristic of CopyKittens is the use of DNS for command and control communication (C&C) and for data exfiltration | ['T1132'] |
Note: CTU researchers frequently observe threat actors renaming archiving tools and storing data for exfiltration in uncommon directories | ['T1132'] |
Once the host-based enumeration information was obtained, it was base64-encoded and then appended to the URL post request to a C2, whereas in previous versions this information was written to a text file. | ['T1132'] |
The actor has used several notable techniques in these incidents such as sniffing passwords from Wi-Fi traffic, poisoning the NetBIOS Name Service, and spreading laterally via the EternalBlue exploit. APT28 Uses Malicious Document to Target Hospitality Industry FireEye has uncovered a malicious document sent in spear phishing emails to multiple companies in the hospitality industry, including hotels in at least seven European countries and one Middle Eastern country in early July | ['T1598.002'] |
Malware Delivery Method In all emails sent to these government officials, the actor used the same attachment: a malicious Microsoft Word document that exploited the CVE-2012-0158 vulnerability to drop a malicious payload | ['T1598.002'] |
Figure 1: Contents of the Email A review of the email header data from the spear phishing messages showed that the threat actors sent the emails using the same infrastructure they have used in the past | ['T1598.002'] |
In at least some of these recent attacks, Buckeye used spear-phishing emails with a malicious .zip attachment | ['T1598.002'] |
Looking at earlier attacks between 2013 and 2016, we believe Comnie was also used in targeted attacks against the following individuals or organizations: Taiwan government IT service vendor in Asia Journalist of a Tibetan radio station Figure 6 Email sent to Journalist of Tibetan radio station Malicious Macros The malicious macro documents used to deliver Comnie initially hide the content inside and requests that the user enables macros prior to viewing the document | ['T1598.002'] |
APT32 actors continue to deliver the malicious attachments via spear-phishing emails | ['T1598.002'] |
The credential harvesting attacks used spear-phishing emails that contained malicious Microsoft Office documents that leveraged the “attachedTemplate” technique to load a template from a remote server | ['T1598.002'] |
The attack involved a spear-phishing email with a subject of “Project Offer” and a malicious Word document (SHA256: d393349a4ad00902e3d415b622cf27987a0170a786ca3a1f991a521bff645318) as an attachment | ['T1598.002'] |
Phishing emails with political themes were used in the majority of the observed attack emails | ['T1598.002'] |