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Following on from these [ FEDEX ] [ USPS ] posts describing the Spoofed FedEx and USPS ( and other delivery services from time to time) I will endeavour to keep up to date with a list of current sites involved in the spreading of this malware. I will also show the command used that day to obtain the malware. I will add each days new sites to the lists, but please remember that old sites are reused daily until taken down by their hosts. All the sites used in this malware spreading campaign are hacked / compromised sites.
The script tries the first in the list & then moves down until it gets a reply from the server. You never see the first downloaded file ( counter.js by searching on your computer, that is run directly from temp internet files ) Counter.js then downloads a different variant of counter.js which in turn downloads 01 first, then 02, then 03 until you get to 05. If any site doesn’t have the file, then it moves to the next site in the list for that particular file. Each site on the list has a full set of the files. but it is rare for the site delivering counter.js to actually download from itself, normally that downloads from a different site on the list. All the files ( apart from the original counter.js) pretend to be png ( image files). They are actually all renamed .exe files or a renamed php script listing the files to be encrypted. Counter.js contains the list of sites to download from, which includes many of the sites listed in the original WSF, JS, VBS or other scripting file and normally one or 2 extra ones. to get the second counter.js you need to change the &r=01 at the end of the url to &m=01 ( or 02-05). This second counter.js contains additional sites to download from which frequently includes sites from the previous days lists that are not already included in the WSF or first counter.js.
I only accidentally found out about the second /3rd /4th /5th counter.js when I made a mistake in manually decoding the original wsf file ( and the original counter.js) and mistyped/ miscopied the &r= and used &m= instead. Obviously it is a belt and braces approach to making sure the actual malware gets downloaded to a victim’s computer when urls or sites are known about and blocked by an antivirus or web filter service.
Security experts at Kaspersky Lab have discovered a modification of the mobile banking Trojan, Faketoken, which can encrypt user data. Kaspersky Lab has detected several thousand Faketoken installation packages capable of encrypting data, the earliest of which dates back to July 2016.
Disguised as various programs and games, including Adobe Flash Player, the modified Trojan can also steal credentials from more than 2000 Android financial applications.
To date, the modified Faketoken has claimed over 16,000 victims in 27 countries, with the most located in Russia, Ukraine, Germany and Thailand.
The newly added data-encryption capability is unusual in that most mobile ransomware focuses on blocking the device rather than the data, which is generally backed-up to the cloud.
In Faketoken’s case, the data – including documents and media files such as pictures and videos – is encrypted using AES symmetric encryption which can, in some cases, be decrypted by the victim without paying a ransom.
During the initial infection process, the Trojan demands administrator rights, permission to overlay other apps or to be a default SMS application – often leaving users with little or no choice but to comply. Among other things, these rights enable Faketoken to steal data: both directly, like contacts and files, and indirectly, through phishing pages.
The Trojan is designed for data theft on an international scale. Once all the necessary rights are in place, it downloads a database from its command and control server containing phrases in 77 languages for different device localisations.
These are used to create phishing messages to seize passwords from users’ Gmail accounts. The Trojan can also overlay the Google Play Store, presenting a phishing page to steal credit card details.
In fact, the Trojan can download a long list of applications for attack and even an HTML template page to generate phishing pages for the relevant apps. Kaspersky Lab researchers uncovered a list of 2249 financial applications.
Intriguingly, the modified Faketoken also tries to replace application shortcuts for social media networks, instant messengers and browsers with its own versions. The reason for this is unclear as the substitute icons lead to the same legitimate applications.
“The latest modification of the Faketoken mobile banking Trojan is interesting in that some of the new features appear to provide limited additional benefit for the attackers. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take them seriously. They may represent the groundwork for future developments, or reveal the ongoing innovation of an ever-evolving and successful malware family. In exposing the threat, we can neutralise it, and help to keep people, their devices and their data safe,” says Roman Unuchek, senior malware analyst at Kaspersky Lab.
Android Trojan Switcher Infects Routers via DNS Hijacking
A new Android Trojan uses a victims’ devices to infect WiFi routers and funnel any users of the network to malicious sites. The malware doesn’t target users directly – instead its goal is to facilitate further attacks by turning victims into accomplices.
Researchers at Kaspersky Lab, who discovered the malware and dubbed it Switcher Trojan, claim they’ve seen two versions of the malware. Attackers have used both iterations to commandeer 1,280 wireless networks, most of them in China, according to Nikita Buchka, a mobile security expert with the firm.
One version of the malware mimics a mobile client for the Chinese search engine Baidu. Another passes itself off as a version of an app used for locating and sharing WiFi login information. Once a victim has downloaded one of the versions, it gets to work attacking the router.
The malware does so by carrying out a brute-force password guessing attack on the router’s admin web interface. Once in, Switcher swaps out the addresses of the router’s DNS servers for a rogue server controlled by the attackers along with a second DNS, in case the rogue one goes down.
This makes it so queries from devices on the network are re-routed to the servers of the attacker, something that can open victims to redirection, phishing, malware and adware attacks.
“The ability of the Switcher Trojan to hijack [DNS] gives the attackers almost complete control over network activity which uses the name-resolving system, such as internet traffic,” Kaspersky Lab said Wednesday, “The approach works because wireless routers generally reconfigure the DNS settings of all devices on the network to their own – thereby forcing everyone to use the same rogue DNS.”
The creators of the Trojan were a little sloppy when it came to crafting parts of its command and control website however; they left a table complete with internal infection statistics publicly viewable. According to Buchka, who has reviewed the site, the attackers boast to have infiltrated 1,280 WiFi networks over the last several weeks.
In a Securelist post on the malware posted Wednesday Buchka cautioned users to review their routers’ DNS settings for the following rogue servers: 101.200.147.153, 112.33.13.11, and 120.76.249.59. He also took the opportunity to encourage users – although for many it goes without saying – to verify that they’ve changed their routers’ default login and passwords.
Several weeks ago a handful of router users in Germany fell victim when a variant of Mirai, the nasty malware that’s become synonymous with internet of things vulnerabilities, took hold of their devices. While those routers didn’t suffer from a hardcoded username/password vulnerability, they did have port 7547, usually used by internet service providers to remotely manage the device, open.
The behavior of Switcher is somewhat similar to that of DNSChanger, malware that’s been repurposed as an exploit kit as of late. A recent campaign observed by Proofpoint was targeting wireless routers and changing DNS entries in order to steal traffic. In that instance routers made by D-Link, Netgear, Pirelli and Comtrend were vulnerable. According to Buchka, the hardcoded names of input fields and the structures of the HTML documents that the Switcher Trojan tries to access suggests it may work only on web interfaces of TP-LINK Wi-Fi routers.
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As we all know since windows 7 Microsoft has altered its operating system to be more user friendly and at the same time collect more user data on its customers, When windows 8 was launched , there were big changes including location platform and many more but now with the new Windows 10 release there are endless limitations on the collection of data being sent to Microsoft.
Some group has released a piece of software which eliminates all apps, and blocks the data from being sent to Microsoft. I will not comment much on the software but see below what it does block.
Also a new app by the name of DoNotSpy10 has been created by a German developer pXc-coding.
Destroy Windows 10 Spying is an app that can block anonymous data being sent, remove apps that can’t be removed the standard way and more. I liked that it can remove some of the Windows default programs that can’t be removed under Apps & Features, an annoyance I immediately discovered since I prefer to “slim” down windows.
I should note that there are still a few steps to complete, you’ll still need to go online to Microsoft’s site and opt out of the company’s invasive advertising tracking features when using DoNotSpy10 or other piece of software.
It’s your own fault if you don’t know that Windows 10 is spying on you. That’s what people always say when users fail to read through a company’s terms of service document, right?
Well, here is Microsoft’s 12,000-word service agreement. Some of it is probably in English. We’re pretty sure it says you can’t steal Windows or use Windows to send spam, and also that Microsoft retains the right to take possession of your first-born child if it so chooses. And that’s only one of several documents you’ll have to read through.
Finally, we will access, disclose and preserve personal data, including your content (such as the content of your emails, other private communications or files in private folders), when we have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary to: 1.comply with applicable law or respond to valid legal process, including from law enforcement or other government agencies; 2.protect our customers, for example to prevent spam or attempts to defraud users of the services, or to help prevent the loss of life or serious injury of anyone; 3.operate and maintain the security of our services, including to prevent or stop an attack on our computer systems or networks; or 4.protect the rights or property of Microsoft, including enforcing the terms governing the use of the services – however, if we receive information indicating that someone is using our services to traffic in stolen intellectual or physical property of Microsoft, we will not inspect a customer’s private content ourselves, but we may refer the matter to law enforcement.
If that sentence sent shivers down your spine, don’t worry. As invasive as it is, Microsoft does allow Windows 10 users to opt out of all of the features that might be considered invasions of privacy. Some of the domains we know send anonymous information back to Microsoft include:
vortex.data.microsoft.com
vortex-win.data.microsoft.com
telecommand.telemetry.microsoft.com
telecommand.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
oca.telemetry.microsoft.com
oca.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
sqm.telemetry.microsoft.com
sqm.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
watson.telemetry.microsoft.com
watson.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
redir.metaservices.microsoft.com
choice.microsoft.com
choice.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
df.telemetry.microsoft.com
reports.wes.df.telemetry.microsoft.com
wes.df.telemetry.microsoft.com
services.wes.df.telemetry.microsoft.com
sqm.df.telemetry.microsoft.com
telemetry.microsoft.com
watson.ppe.telemetry.microsoft.com
telemetry.appex.bing.net
telemetry.urs.microsoft.com
telemetry.appex.bing.net:443
settings-sandbox.data.microsoft.com
vortex-sandbox.data.microsoft.com
survey.watson.microsoft.com
watson.live.com
watson.microsoft.com
statsfe2.ws.microsoft.com
corpext.msitadfs.glbdns2.microsoft.com
compatexchange.cloudapp.net
cs1.wpc.v0cdn.net
a-0001.a-msedge.net
statsfe2.update.microsoft.com.akadns.net
sls.update.microsoft.com.akadns.net
fe2.update.microsoft.com.akadns.net
diagnostics.support.microsoft.com
corp.sts.microsoft.com
statsfe1.ws.microsoft.com
pre.footprintpredict.com
i1.services.social.microsoft.com
i1.services.social.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
feedback.windows.com
feedback.microsoft-hohm.com
Attackers have been leveraging the FlashPack Exploit Kit to peddle the CryptoWall 2.0 ransomware on unsuspecting visitors to sites such as Yahoo, The Atlantic and AOL. Researchers believe that for about a month the malvertising campaign hit up to 3 million visitors and netted the attackers $25,000 daily.
According to experts at Proofpoint, a firm that primarily specializes in email security, the exploit kit targeted a vulnerability in Adobe Flash via users’ browsers to install the ransomware on users’ machines.
Malvertising is an attack that happens when attackers embed malicious code – in this case code that led to the latest iteration of CryptoWall – into otherwise legitimate ads to spread malware via drive-by downloads. Users can often be infected without even clicking on anything.
CryptoWall, which takes users’ files, encrypts them with rigid RSA-2048 encryption, then asks for a fee to decrypt them, made a killing earlier this summer. In August it was reported that the ransomware made more than $1.1 million for its creators in just six months.
Similar to Critoni/Onion, a ransomware dug up in July, CryptoWall 2.0 downloads a TOR client on the victim’s machine, connects to a command and control server and demands users send Bitcoin – $500 worth – to decrypt their files. Since the campaign lasted about a month, from Sept. 18 to this past Saturday, researchers are estimating that 40 of the campaign’s Bitcoin addresses collected at least 65 BTC each, a number that roughly translates to $25,000 a day.
Proofpoint claims that high ranking sites such as AOL, The Atlantic, Match.com and several Yahoo subdomains such as their Sports, Fantasy Sports and Finance sites, were spotted serving up the tainted ads. Other sites lesser known in the U.S. such as Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, and the Brisbane Times, were reportedly also doling out the ads.
While the campaign started a month ago the firm claims things didn’t start to ramp up until recently.
“After crossing a threshold level, it became possible to associate the disparate instances with a single campaign impacting numerous, high-traffic sites,” Wayne Huang, the company’s VP of Engineering, said of the campaign.
The firm claims it worked quickly to notify those involved in the campaign, including the ad providers, and as of this week, believes the situation has been nullified.
Last month researchers with Barracuda Labs found a CryptoWall variant with certificate signed by Comodo being distributed through ads on a handful of different websites. None of those sites were nearly as trafficked as those spotted by this most recent campaign however. The Alexa rankings for Yahoo (4), AOL (37), Match (203), and The Atlantic (386) place them within the top 500 of the internet’s most popular sites, something that likely upped the campaign’s exposure level.
Google is introducing an improved two-factor authentication system for Gmail and its other services that uses a tiny hardware token that will only work on legitimate Google sites.
The new Security Key system is meant to help defeat attacks that rely on highly plausible fake sites that are designed to capture users’ credentials. Attackers often go to great lengths to create fake Gmail or Google Accounts sites that look exactly like the real ones. They then try to lure or direct users to those sites through phishing emails or other tactics in order to get them to enter their Google account credentials. The attackers then will take over the accounts.
The hardware Security Key is a small USB token that implements the FIDO Alliance’s Universal 2nd Factor specification. It’s meant for users who require a higher level of security on their accounts and users can buy them from Amazon or other retailers now.
“Security Key is a physical USB second factor that only works after verifying the login site is truly a Google website, not a fake site pretending to be Google. Rather than typing a code, just insert Security Key into your computer’s USB port and tap it when prompted in Chrome. When you sign into your Google Account using Chrome and Security Key, you can be sure that the cryptographic signature cannot be phished,” Nishit Shah, security product manager at Google, said in a blog post.
Google has offered two-step verification for Gmail users for nearly four years now. The basic system relies on a simple process that uses an app on mobile devices to send a short verification code that a user must enter, along with her username and password, when she logs in from a new device. The system is designed to protect users against account takeovers by requiring physical access to the mobile device. But it doesn’t protect against all kinds of attacks, including the use of sophisticated phishing sites to capture credentials.
“With 2-Step Verification, Google requires something you know (your password) and something you have (like your phone) to sign in. Google sends a verification code to your phone when you try to sign in to confirm it’s you. However, sophisticated attackers could set up lookalike sites that ask you to provide your verification codes to them, instead of Google. Security Key offers better protection against this kind of attack, because it uses cryptography instead of verification codes and automatically works only with the website it’s supposed to work with,” Google’s description of the new system says.
The Google Security Key system only works in Chrome right now, but if other browsers and additional sites implement the U2F protocol, the same Security Key will work with them, too.
As part of monthly patch update, Microsoft released eight security bulletins on Tuesday that address dozens of vulnerabilities including a zero-day flaw reportedly being exploited by Russian hackers to target NATO computers and a pair of zero-day Windows vulnerabilities that attackers have been exploiting to penetrate major corporations’ networks.
Just a day before yesterday, our team reported you about a Zero-day vulnerability discovered by the cyber intelligence firm iSight Partners affecting all supported versions of Microsoft Windows and is being exploited in a five-year old cyber-espionage campaign against the Ukrainian government and U.S organisations.
Researchers at FireEye found two zero-day flaws, used in separate, unrelated attacks involving exploitation of Windows kernel, just a day after iSight partners disclosed zero-day in Windows. The pair of zero-day vulnerabilities could allow an attacker to access a victim’s entire system.
According to the researchers at FireEye, the two of three so-called zero-day flaws are being actively exploited in the wild by hackers and are being used as “part of limited, targeted attacks against some major corporations.”
Microsoft updates for the month of October 2014 Patch Tuesday address several vulnerabilities in all currently supported versions of Windows, Internet Explorer, Office, Sharepoint Server and the .Net framework. Three of the bulletins are marked “critical” and rest are “important” in severity. Systems administrators are recommended to apply the patches immediately for the critical updates.
The zero-day flaw (CVE-2014-4114) discovered by iSight partners in all supported versions of Microsoft Windows and Windows Server 2008 and 2012 that is being exploited in the “Sandworm” cyberattack, are patched as part of MS14-060. Microsoft rated Bulletin MS14-060 as important rather than critical because it requires a user to open a Microsoft Office file to initiate the remote code execution.
“The vulnerability [exists in Windows OLE] could allow remote code execution if a user opens a Microsoft Office file that contains a specially crafted OLE object,” Microsoft warned in its bulletin. “An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could run arbitrary code in the context of the current user.” (OLE is Microsoft technology for creating complex documents that contain a combination of text, sound, video and other elements.)
However, the two zero-days discovered by FireEye are patched as part of MS14-058 and are marked critical. They are designated CVE-2014-4148 and CVE-2014-4113.
“We have no evidence of these exploits being used by the same actors. Instead, we have only observed each exploit being used separately, in unrelated attacks,” FireEye explained.
CVE-2014-4148 exploits a vulnerability in TrueType Font (TTF) processing. TTF processing is performed in kernel mode as part of the GDI and has been the source of critical vulnerabilities in the past as well.
The vulnerability affects Windows 8.1/Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows 8/Windows Server 2012, Windows 7/Windows Server 2008 R2 (Service Pack 0 and 1) and Windows XP Service Pack 3. It affects both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the Operating System, but the attacks have only been observed against 32-bit systems.
However, CVE-2014-4113 is a local Elevation of Privilege (EoP) vulnerability that affects all versions of Windows including Windows 7, Vista, XP, Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003/R2, Windows Server 2008/R2, Windows 8.x and Windows Server 2012/R2.
Out of remaining bulletins, two are rated critical, both address remote code execution vulnerability in Internet Explorer and Microsoft .NET Framework respectively. Remaining bulletins are rated important in severity, include elevation of privilege bugs, Security Feature Bypass, and a remote code execution flaw.
Internet users have faced a number of major privacy breaches in last two months. Major in the list are The Fappening, The Snappening and now the latest privacy breach in Dropbox security has gained everybody’s attention across the world.
Dropbox, the popular online locker service, appears to have been hacked by an unnamed hacker group. It is still unclear how the account details of so many users were accessed and, indeed, if they are actually legitimate or not. However, the group claims to have accessed details from nearly 7 million individual accounts and are threatening to release users’ photos, videos and other files.
HACKERS CLAIMED TO RELEASE 7 MILLION USERS’ PERSONAL DATA
A thread surfaced on Reddit today that include links to files containing hundreds of usernames and passwords for Dropbox accounts in plain text. Also a series of posts with hundreds of alleged usernames and passwords for Dropbox accounts have been made to Pastebin, an anonymous information-sharing site.
Hackers have already leaked about 400 accounts by posting login credentials, all starting with the letter B, and labelled it as a “first teaser…just to get things going“. The perpetrators are also promising to release more more password details if they’re paid a Bitcoin ransom.
“More Bitcoin = more accounts published on Pastebin. As more BTC is donated, More pastebin pastes will appear.”
The security breach in Dropbox would definitely have bothered its millions of users and since passwords are involved in this incident, so it has more frightening consequences on its users. Reddit users have tested some of the leaked username and password combinations and confirmed that at least some of them work.
DROPBOX DENIED THE HACK – THIRD PARTY IS RESPONSIBLE
However, Dropbox has denied it has been hacked, saying the passwords were stolen apparently from third-party services that users allowed to access their accounts. In a statement to The Next Web, Dropbox said:
“Dropbox has not been hacked. These usernames and passwords were unfortunately stolen from other services and used in attempts to log in to Dropbox accounts. We’d previously detected these attacks and the vast majority of the passwords posted have been expired for some time now. All other remaining passwords have expired as well.”
The incident came just few days after the Snappening incident in which the personal images of as much as 100,000 Snapchat users were leaked online, which was the result of a security breach in the its third-party app.
Snapchat has denied that its service or server was ever compromised, but the servers of a third-party app designed to save Snapchat photos, which became the target for hackers to obtain personal photographs.
DROPBOX – “HOSTILE TO PRIVACY” SAYS SNOWDEN
Dropbox was in the news earlier this week when, in a recent interview with The Guardian, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden called Dropbox a “targeted, wannabe PRISM partner” that is “very hostile to privacy” — referring to its ability to access your data itself, which is yet another security consideration when it comes to web services.Snowden suggested web users to stop using Dropbox and warned them that the cloud storage service does not safeguard users’ privacy because it holds encryption keys and can therefore be forced by governments to hand over the personal data they store on its servers. He suggested people to use an alternative cloud storage provider that do not store any encryption keys, so that the users’ data cannot be read by anyone.
USERS ARE ADVISED TO CHANGE PASSWORDS
Until the full scope of the problem is known, it’s probably worthwhile changing your password. But whether the attack is confirmed or not, it’s a good idea to change your password just to be on a safer side — especially for those users who use same password for multiple services.
Users are also recommended to turn on two-factor authentication, which Dropbox now supports and install a time-based, one-time password app on a mobile device.
Update: Dropbox has issued a statement on its blog further clarifying that the Dropbox passwords were stolen from “unrelated services.”
“The usernames and passwords…were stolen from unrelated services, not Dropbox,” the company said in a blog post. “Attackers then used these stolen credentials to try to log in to sites across the internet, including Dropbox. We have measures in place that detect suspicious login activity and we automatically reset passwords when it happens.”
“Attacks like these are one of the reasons why we strongly encourage users not to reuse passwords across services. For an added layer of security, we always recommend enabling 2 step verification on your account.”
