Posts Tagged: virustotal

A Little Sunshine / Latest Warnings / The Coming Storm — 24 Comments
20
Feb 13

Bit9 Breach Began in July 2012

Malware Found Matches Code Used Vs. Defense Contractors in 2012

Cyber espionage hackers who broke into security firm Bit9 initially breached the company’s defenses in July 2012, according to evidence being gathered by security experts investigating the incident. Bit9 remains reluctant to name customers that were impacted by the intrusion, but the custom-made malicious software used in the attack was deployed last year in highly targeted attacks against U.S. Defense contractors.

bit9Earlier this month, KrebsOnSecurity broke the story of the breach at Waltham, Mass.-based Bit9, which involved the theft of one of the firm’s private digital certificates. That certificate was used to sign malicious software, or “malware” that was then sent to three of the company’s customers. Unlike antivirus software, which tries to identify and block known malicious files, Bit9′s approach helps organizations block files that aren’t already digitally signed by the company’s own certificates.

After publishing a couple of blog posts about the incident, Bit9 shared with several antivirus vendors the “hashes” or unique fingerprints of some 33 files that hackers had signed with the stolen certificate. KrebsOnSecurity obtained a list of these hashes, and was able to locate two malicious files that matched those hashes using Virustotal.com — a searchable service and database that lets users submit suspicious files for simultaneous scanning by dozens of antivirus tools.

The first match turned up a file called “media.exe,” which according to Virustotal was compiled and then signed using Bit9′s certificate on July 13, 2012. The other result was a Microsoft driver file for an SQL database server, which was compiled and signed by Bit9′s cert on July 25, 2012.

Asked about these findings, Bit9 confirmed that the breach appears to have started last summer with the compromise of an Internet-facing Web server, via an SQL injection attack. Such attacks take advantage of weak server configurations to inject malicious code into the database behind the public-facing Web server.

In an exclusive interview with KrebsOnSecurity, Bit9 said it first learned of the breach on Jan. 29, 2013, when it was alerted by a third party which was not a customer of Bit9. The company believes that the trouble began last July, when an employee started up a virtual machine that was equipped with an older Bit9 signing certificate which hadn’t been actively used to sign files since January 2012.

Harry Sverdlove, Bit9′s chief technology officer, said the company plans to share more details about its investigation into the intrusion in a post to be published Thursday on Bit9′s blog. For instance, he said, the control server used to coordinate the activities of the malware sent by the attackers traced back to a server in Taiwan.

Sverdlove said Bit9 will not reveal the identities of the customers that were apparently the true target of the breach; he would only characterize them as “three non-critical infrastructure entities.” Sverdlove said although it is clear now that Bit9 was hacked as a jumping-off point from which to launch more stealthily attacks against a handful of its customers, that reality hardly softens the blow.

“Although it doesn’t make us feel any better, this wasn’t a campaign against us, it was a campaign using us,” Sverdlove said. “We don’t take any solace in this, but the good news is they came after us because they weren’t able to come after our customers directly.”

It’s not clear why the attackers waited so long to use the stolen certs, but in any case Bit9 says the unauthorized virtual machine remained offline from August through December, and was only turned on again in early January 2013.

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Other — 14 Comments
21
May 12

Adware Stages Comeback Via Browser Extensions

The Wikimedia Foundation last week warned that readers who are seeing ads on Wikipedia articles are likely using a Web browser that has been infected with malware. The warning points to an apparent resurgence in adware and spyware that is being delivered via cleverly disguised browser extensions designed to run across multiple Web browsers and operating systems.

An ad served by IWantThis! browser extension. Source: Wikimedia

In a posting on its blog, Wikimedia noted that although the nonprofit organization is funded by more than a million donors and does not run ads, some users were complaining of seeing ads on Wikipedia entries. “If you’re seeing advertisements for a for-profit industry (see screenshot below for an example) or anything but our fundraiser, then your web browser has likely been infected with malware,” reads a blog post co-written by Philippe Beaudette, director of community advocacy at the Wikimedia Foundation.

The blog post named one example of a browser extension called “IWantThis!,” which is essentially spyware masquerading as adware. The description at the IWantThis! Web site makes it sound like a harmless plugin that occasionally overlays ads on third-party Web sites and helps users share product or online shopping wish lists with others. As I was researching this extension, I came across this helpful description of it at the DeleteMalware Blog, which points to the broad privacy policy that ships with this extension:

Examples of the information we may collect and analyze when you use our website include the IP address used to connect your computer to the Internet; login; e-mail address; password; computer and connection information such as browser type, version, and time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system, and platform; the full Uniform Resource Locator (URL) clickstream to, through, and from the Site, including date and time; cookie; web pages you viewed or searched for; and the phone number you used to call us. Continue reading →

Latest Warnings / Web Fraud 2.0 — 23 Comments
16
Aug 10

NetworkSolutions Sites Hacked By Wicked Widget

Hundreds of thousands of Web sites parked at NetworkSolutions.com have been serving up malicious software thanks to a tainted widget embedded in their pages, a security company warned Saturday.

Santa Clara, Calif. based Web application security vendor Armorize said it found the mass infection while responding to a complaint by one of its largest customers. Armorize said it traced the problem to the “Small Business Success Index” widget, an application that Network Solutions makes available to site owners through its GrowSmartBusiness.com blog.

Armorize soon discovered that not only was the widget serving up content for those who had downloaded and installed it on their sites, but also it was being served by default on some — if not all — Network Solutions pages that were parked or marked as “under construction.”

Parked domains are registered but contain no owner content. Network Solutions — like many companies that bundle Web site hosting and domain registration services – includes ads and other promotional content on these sites until customers add their own.

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Web Fraud 2.0 — 10 Comments
5
Apr 10

Virus Scanners for Virus Authors, Part II

The very first entry I posted at Krebs on Security, Virus Scanners for Virus Authors, introduced readers to two services that let virus writers upload their creations to see how well they are detected by numerous commercial anti-virus scanners. In this follow-up post, I take you inside of a pair of similar services that allow customers to periodically scan a malware sample and receive alerts via instant message or e-mail when a new anti-virus product begins to detect the submission as malicious.

While there are free services like VirusTotal and Jotti that will let visitors upload a suspicious file and scan it against dozens of commercial anti-virus tools, the reports produced by the scans are shared with all of the participating anti-virus makers so that those vendors can incorporate detection for newly discovered malware into their products. While virus writers probably would love to use such services to fine-tune the stealth of their malware, they may not want their unique malware samples broadly shared among the anti-virus community before the malware has even had a chance to infect PCs.

So it’s not hard to see why some malware authors and purveyors choose to avoid these free services in favor of subscription products that scan submitted files with multiple anti-virus engines, yet prevent those results from being shared with the anti-virus vendors. Such is the business model behind scan4you.net, a service that charges 15 cents for each file checked. Scan4you will scan your malware against 30 anti-virus products, but promises it will bar those products from snarfing up a copy of the malware:

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A Little Sunshine / Web Fraud 2.0 — 10 Comments
24
Mar 10

AVprofit: Rogue AV + Zeus = $

The presence of rogue anti-virus products, also known as scareware, on a Microsoft Windows computer is often just the most visible symptom of a more serious and insidious system-wide infection. To understand why, it helps to take a peek inside some of the more popular rogue anti-virus distribution networks that are paying people to peddle scareware alongside far more invasive threats.

Distributors or “affiliates” who sign up with avprofit.com, for example, are given access to an installer program that downloads not only rogue anti-virus but also ZeuS, a stealthy piece of malware that specializes in mining online banking credentials from infected PCs. ZeuS is the very piece of malware directly responsible for helping thieves steal tens of millions of dollars from small to mid-sized businesses over the past year.

Avprofit says it will pay affiliates roughly $1,000 for every 1,000 times they distribute this installer program, or about $1 per install. Typically, affiliates will embed these installers at porn sites or bundle them with programs seeded on peer-to-peer file-sharing services. The nightmare for the victim starts when he or she responds to the fake anti-virus pop-up warning of supposed threats resident on the victim’s PC, by agreeing to download and run a scanning tool.

What’s remarkable about this entire ecosystem is that in many cases, victims who have this installer run on their systems often end up paying for the rogue anti-virus, in addition to unknowingly giving up their passwords and handing complete control of their computer to the bad guys running this distribution network.

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Security Tools / Web Fraud 2.0 — 36 Comments
22
Feb 10

BLADE: Hacking Away at Drive-By Downloads

The online version of Technology Review today carries a story I wrote about a government funded research group that is preparing to release a new free tool designed to block “drive-by downloads,” attacks in which the mere act of visiting a hacked or malicious Web site results in the installation of an unwanted program, usually without the visitor’s consent or knowledge.

The story delves into greater detail about the as yet unreleased software, called “BLADE,” (short for Block All Drive-By Download Exploits). That piece, which explores some of the unique approaches and limitations of this tool, is available at this link here.

As I note in the story, nearly all of the sites that foist these drive-by attacks have been retrofitted with what are known as “exploit packs,” or software kits designed to probe the visitor’s browser for known security vulnerabilities. Last month, I shared with readers a peek inside the Web administration panel for the Eleonore exploit pack — one of the most popular at the moment.

The BLADE research group has been running their virtual test machines through sites infected with Eleonore and a variety of other exploit packs, and their findings reinforce the point I was trying to make with that blog post: That attackers increasingly care less about the browser you’re using; rather, their attacks tend to focus on the outdated plugins you may have installed.

Phil Porras, program director for SRI International — one of the research groups involved in the project –  says that so far none of the exploit sites have been able to get past BLADE, which acts as a kind of sandbox for the browser that prevents bad stuff from being written to the hard drive. Yet, because the tool allows the exploit but blocks the installation of the malicious payload, the group has been able to collect a great deal of interesting stats about the attacks, such as which browsers were most often attacked, which browser plugins were most-targeted, and so on.

The following graphs were taken from the latest version of BLADE’s evaluation lab, which is constantly updated with results from new exploit sites. The charts below show the breakdown from 5,154 drive-by download infections blocked by BLADE.

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Web Fraud 2.0 — 37 Comments
31
Dec 09

Virus Scanners for Virus Authors

I have often recommended file-scanning services like VirusTotal and Jotti, which allow visitors to upload a suspicious file and scan it against dozens of commercial anti-virus tools. If a scan generates any virus alerts or red flags, the report produced by the scan is shared with all of the participating anti-virus makers so that those vendors can incorporate detection for the newly discovered malware into their products.

That pooling of intelligence on new threats also serves to make the free scanning services less attractive to virus authors, who would almost certainly like nothing more than to freely and simultaneously test the stealth of their new creations across a wide range of security software. Still, there is nothing to stop an enterprising hacker from purchasing a license for each of the anti-virus tools on the market and selling access to a separate scanning service that appeals to the virus-writing community.

Enter upstart file-scanning services like av-check.com and virtest.com, which bank on the guarantee that they won’t share your results with the anti-virus community.

For $1 per file scanned (or a $40 monthly membership) av-check.com will see if your file is detected by any of 22 anti-virus products, including AVAST, AVG, Avira, BitDefender, NOD32, F-Secure, Kaspersky, McAfee, Panda, Sophos, Symantec, and Trend Micro. “Each of them is setten [sic] up on max heuristic check level,” av-check promises. “We guarantee that we don’t save your uploaded files and they are deleted immediately after the check. Also , we don’t resend your uploaded files to the 3rd person. Files are being checked only locally (without checking/using on other servers.” In other words: There is no danger that the results of these scans will somehow leak out to the anti-virus vendors.

The service claims that it will soon be rolling out advanced features, such as testing malware against anti-spyware and firewall programs, as well as a test to see whether the malware functions in a virtual machine, such as VMWare or VirtualBox. For safety and efficiency’s sake, security researchers often poke and prod new malware samples in a virtual environment. As a result many new families of malware are designed to shut down or destroy themselves if they detect they are being run inside of a virtual machine.

Virtest checks malware suspicious files against a similar albeit slightly different set of anti-virus programs, also promising not to let submitted files get back to the anti-virus vendors: “Your soft isn’t ever sent anywhere and the files being checked will never appear in the fresh AV signature bases after scanning,” the site pledges. “On purpose in all AV-products are turned off all possible methods and initiatives of exchange of files’ info with the AV-divisions.”

The proprietors of this service don’t even try to hide the fact that they have built it for malware writers. Among the chief distinguishing features of virtest.com is the ability for malware authors to test “exploit packs,” pre-packaged kits that — when stitched into a malicious or hacked Web site — serve the visitor’s browser with a kitchen sink full of code designed to install software via one of several known security holes. Many anti-virus programs now also scan Web pages for malicious content, and this service’s “exploits pack check” will tell malware authors whether their exploit sites are triggering virus alerts across a range of widely-used anti-virus software.

But don’t count on paying for these services via American Express: Both sites only accept payment via virtual currencies such as Webmoney and Fethard, services that appear to be popular with the online shadow economy.