Zbot Desperately Seeking AIM Users

Posted on January 21, 2010 by glhaldeman

By Andrew Brandt

The Zbot keylogger campaign-of-the-month targets users of AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) with a message that claims to be an update notification for users of the instant messaging client application. Users unfortunate enough to click through the link in the email message to download what they think is something called “aimupdate_7.1.6.475.exe” will be in for a rude awakening.

The malicious page delivers its payload whether or not a victim clicks the link to get executable file: It opens an iframe to a site that attempts to use vulnerable versions of Adobe Reader to push the Zbot keylogger down to the victim’s computer, then execute it, within a few moments of the page loading.

The address of the iframed page resides in a particularly sketchy corner of the net. The network the IP address is part of, known as AS50369, goes by the name VISHCLUB-as Kanyovskiy Andriy Yuriyovich. Sure sounds a lot like someone’s name for their phishing gang. The same network has been in use for the past week delivering payloads on well-worn Outlook Web Access and HMRC Zbot download pages.

Seriously, though: Vishclub? Is that the best the Russian hackers can come up with? It sounds like what you’d call a fisherman’s smoking lounge on the Baltic coast, where thick clouds of cheap tobacco is the only thing that can overpower the putrid stench of rotting seafood.

The fake page has the outward appearance of a page hosted by AOL, but it clearly isn’t the real deal. Once you take a closer look, the site and its social engineering tricks begin to smell a bit like day-old fishwrap, as well.

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Facebook Phishing Campaign Wants Your Passwords

Posted on November 2, 2009 by glhaldeman

By Andrew Brandt

Yet another new phishing campaign targeting users of Facebook struck over the Halloween holiday weekend. After scammers began filling inboxes last week with bogus “Facebook update” attachments, this weekend we saw a different group at work. Employing URLs with random domain names registered under the .eu top-level domain, the campaign looks similar to messages distributed in a recent series of phishing campaigns that attempt to convince the user that the mail comes from a legitimate source, such as the FDIC, IRS, HMRC (the UK’s tax authority), your IT department, or any of several well-known banks.

The email messages, which use a forged From: address that makes the message appear to originate from the legitimate facebookmail.com domain, and were timed for just after Facebook’s highly publicized changes to its homepage had just gone live, clearly indicate that the phishers were going for the jugular. When you follow the link, you’re presented with a login dialog identical to that used by Facebook. Once you enter your password into that form, you’re presented with a page titled “Account Update” where you’re prompted to download and execute something called the Facebook Update Tool.

The messages read, in part:

In an effort to make your online experience safer and more enjoyable, Facebook will be implementing a new login system that will affect all Facebook users. These changes will offer new features and increased account security. Before you are able to use the new login system, you will be required to update your account.

…followed by the typical tease to “click here” and a link-that-doesn’t-lead-where-you-think-it-will. The URLs in the message begin with “www.facebook.com” but that’s part of the ruse: The full URL is http://www.facebook.com.(some random letters).eu followed by a query string that includes a long string of numbers and the recipient’s email address (see example).

In the past, links formatted in precisely the same way led directly to pages hosting versions of the Trojan-Backdoor-Progdav (aka Zbot) keylogger. That’s also true in this case. So the bad guys don’t just want your Facebook password. They want all of your passwords.

We’ve seen a lot of this style of phishing campaign just in the past few weeks and if history serves as a guide, the small number of links in the spam messages we received over the weekend will likely be followed by dozens more versions, each with a distinct URL. Facebook users would be well advised to refrain from following the links in the message; If you suspect that you’ve inadvertently fallen victim to this dirty trick, change your Facebook password immediately — from another computer.

Lazy Phishers Just Email the Phishing Web Page to You, Now

Posted on October 26, 2009 by glhaldeman

By Andrew Brandt

It was a particularly busy weekend for spammers, especially the creepy, evil ones who are trying to steal information (as opposed to the merely scungy pill vendors and their ilk). Webroot’s Threat Research team has recently seen a glut of phishing messages which, like most, purport to come from banks and ask you to update your account information. But unlike most phishing messages, which contain a link to a Web site, these phishing messages include an attached HTML file which, in essence, puts the phishing page right on your hard drive.

When launched, the HTML file renders a sparse but effective phishing form in the browser. The pages warn the victim that “This account has been temporarily suspended for security reasons” and ask the victim to “confirm that you are the rightful owner of this account” — by providing the “bank” with a wide range of personally identifiable information they should already have, and never would ask you to provide through a Web-based form in the circumstances described in the message.

These pages also pull graphics from the banks’ Web sites–activity that, when it comes from a phishing site hosted on a server not belonging to the targeted bank, typically alerts the banks to phishy behavior. Because the graphics are loaded only once, from the desktop of the targeted victim, the banks can’t put a stop to it before it’s too late.

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Outlook “Patch” Spam Leads to Keyloggers

Posted on October 21, 2009 by glhaldeman

By Andrew Brandt

Hot on the heels of the spam campaigns involving emails which purport to come from the IRS, HMRC, and from your IT department comes another round of fake “notification” spam emails — this time, warning users to download and install a patch for the Outlook and Outlook Express email clients.

Like the previous rounds, the file a victim is prompted to download and (hopefully, won’t) install is the prolific, widely-disseminated keylogger we call Progdav (aka “Zbot”). The faux Web page which hosts the malicious file is dressed up to look like a Microsoft Update page, titled “Update for Microsoft Outlook / Outlook Express (KB910737).” In an attempt to legitimize the payload, the page states “This update is critical and provides you with the latest version of the Microsoft Outlook / Outlook Express and offers the highest levels of stability and security.”

Uh huh. Highest levels like a fox!

The “update” file/Trojan installer is named officexp-KB910737-FullFile-ENU.exe and comes in at just under 100KB, which puts it in the welterweight class of Stupid Malware Trickery. A cursory glance at the Microsoft Knowledge Base Web site reveals the hardly-surprising fact that, no, there is no Knowledge Base article 910737.

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IRS Tax “Warning” Fraud Crosses the Pond, Targets the UK

Posted on October 14, 2009 by glhaldeman

By Andrew Brandt

For several months, we’ve been seeing spam and phishing Web sites which purport to be IRS notifications of delinquent non-payment of income taxes. Who can blame the fraudsters — almost no three letter agency of the US government inspires more dread and fear than good old Internal Revenue.

In the UK, the counterpart to the IRS is called Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (or HMRC), even though it is the British government, and not the Queen’s Coldstream Guards, who dutifully stick a fork in the populace to pay up. The income tax filing deadline in the UK (for people who file using paper returns), October 31, is fast approaching. And a stern warning from the Taxman is no laughing matter, no matter where you live. So it was inevitable that we’d see this successful phishing routine repeated elsewhere (and, probably, again as we get closer to the UK’s electronic tax filing deadline, at the end of January).

The phish attempt begins with an email message warning users that they are about to incur penalties for “Unreported/Underreported Income.” In fact, the wording of both the spam email and the phish page are virtually identical on both the IRS and HMRC versions. The email links to a formal-looking Web page, which contains the officious message “Filing and paying your federal taxes correctly and on time is an important part of living and working in the United Kingdom. Please review (download and execute) your tax statement.“

Of course, the linked file isn’t a tax statement. It’s a malicious executable, just under 90KB in size, named tax-statement.exe. We classify the files as Trojan-Backdoor-Progdav (other vendors call this spy Zbot), a general-purpose smash-and-grab Trojan designed to give the malware’s distributor total control over the infected machine, mainly for the purpose of aiding identity theft.

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“Shipping Confirmation” Malware on the Rise

Posted on September 15, 2009 by glhaldeman

By Andrew Brandt

As autumn approaches, the world typically sees an increase in the number of online shopping trips, as people take advantage of bargains from late-year sales, and prepare for various holidays. And, right on cue, we’re also seeing an increase in the number of Trojans distributed in the guise of “shipping confirmation” email messages. And these Trojans are packing a triple threat of backdoors designed to steal logins and take command of infected PCs.

The Trojan arrives attached to a vaguely-worded email message thanking the recipient for their order of a high-ticket item. Previous versions of this same kind of message were crafted as though the message source was one of the major shippers, such as FedEx, UPS, DHL, or the US Postal Service, and the message (purportedly) contains tracking information.

But these new versions appear to come directly from an online retailer, with attached files in the form of a zip archive containing an executable with an icon that makes it look like an Office document, such as an Excel spreadsheet. These email messages also imply that the document contains tracking information, but they give the user an extra nudge to open the file by telling the user to “print the label to get your package.”

Um, wait, what? Why would I need to print a label to receive a package? That makes no sense whatsoever. Do the malware authors think we’re dumb, or what? No, don’t answer that, because we’re not dumb. They’re using psychology against us.

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