Tag Archives: Canadian Pharmacy

Malicious PHP Scripts on the Rise

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By Andrew Brandt

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Last week, I gave a talk at the RSA Security Conference about malicious PHP scripts. For those who can’t attend the conference, I wanted to give you a glimpse into this world to which, until last year, I hadn’t paid much attention.

My normal week begins with a quick scan of malware lists — URLs that point to new samples — that come from a variety of public sources. I started noticing an increasing number of non-executable PHP and Perl scripts appearing on those lists and decided to dig a little deeper.

In a lot of ways, PHP is an ideal platform for malicious Web pages. For programmers and techies, PHP is easy to learn. Virtually all Web servers run the PHP engine, so there are vast numbers of potential “victims” (though the numbers aren’t anything close to the number of Windows-using potential malware victims). And just like many forms of executable malware that runs on Windows — the type I’m more familiar with — the most successful malicious PHP scripts permit their users (the criminals) to control and manipulate Web servers for their own benefit and, most commonly, profit.

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Subscription Renewal Spam Points to Drive-by

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By Andrew Brandt

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Dear Customers: Please be aware that a crew of Russian malware distributors are circulating a spam message which looks like a subscription renewal confirmation from Best Buy, allegedly for one of our products.

The linked text in the message, however, leads to a Web site which performs a drive-by download. Please don’t click the links in the message; If you have any questions about your subscription, please contact support.

The spammers appear to have done some homework. Some, but not enough. Best Buy currently sells our products through their online software subscription service. Note to spammers: If you’re going to try to hijack our trademark, the least you could do is get the name right. Best Buy doesn’t sell anything called Webroot Spysweeper with Antivirus Product. Nor do we.

The email message claims it is a notice that your subscription has been renewed, and includes a serial number (which doesn’t work) and a transaction date of July 17.

The link in the message leads to the Web site of a small bed and breakfast in New Zealand, which has been compromised. We’ve informed the owners of that Web site of the spam campaign and asked them to take down the page referenced in the spam message.

I guess we struck a nerve, hurt some sensitive malware author’s pwetty widdle feewings, and ended up a target for attack, one that falls down. Too bad, so sad.

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Facebook Spam Leads to Viagra Vendor, Drive-by Download

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By Andrew Brandt

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Annoying as they are, the spam emails circulating that supposedly come from Facebook don’t merely lead the recipient to one of those so-called Canadian Pharmacy pill-vendor websites. They now come with a bonus: An infection, courtesy of a malicious iframe which attempts a series of exploits against the browser, Adobe Reader, and Adobe Flash in an attempt to push a drive-by download down to the victim’s PC.

The messages, which say they come from a service called Facebook Notify (or, sometimes, just Facebook Service) inform the recipient that they’ve received a message. In order to read the message, the recipient is encouraged to click a link in the email that looks like it leads to Facebook.

It’s a sham: The spammers have hotlinked a Facebook URL so it points to another Web site. That Web site redirects the browser to the Canadian Pharmacy page, but that’s not all: In a few cases, while checking out what happens when one visits the page, I found that the test PC was infected afterwards.

As it turns out, a script embedded within the Canadian Pharmacy page loads an iframe that points to yet another site. And that iframe runs through a number of tricks to push down a Trojan installer we classify to Trojan-PWS-Daonol.

Daonol is an obnoxious thief, because in addition to stealing passwords, the Trojan also prevents the browser from loading certain Web sites; redirects the browser to sites other than the one the user clicks in search result pages on Google, Bing, and Yahoo; and prevents Windows from running some applications.

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Massive Spam Campaign Impersonates Social Networks

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By Andrew Brandt

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Spammers are the source of a flood of messages that appear to originate from various social networks, including Facebook and Myspace, as well as popular sites like iTunes.

The spam messages usually just contain a link, and possibly a few words. Their subject matter falls into three general categories common to most contemporary spam: Pill vendors, Russian bride “vendors,” and drive-by download sites hosting Zbot password-stealer installers.

It’s not unusual for spammers to forge the return addresses, but the sheer volume of spam that has been forged so it appears to originate from MySpace, Facebook, or iTunes is notable.

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