Analysts find at least 10 Linux botnets actively exploiting Log4Shell flaw.

The Python code repository was infiltrated by malware bent on data exfiltration from developer apps and more.

The cybersecurity Hiroshima of the year – the Apache Log4j logging library exploit – has spun off 60 bigger mutations in less than a day, researchers said.

NSO Group’s descent into Internet pariah status continues. Its Pegasus spyware was used against nine US State Department employees. We don’t know which NSO Group customer trained the spyware on the US. But the company does:

NSO Group said in a statement on Thursday that it did not have any indication their tools were used but canceled access for the relevant customers and would investigate based on the Reuters inquiry.

“If our investigation shall show these actions indeed happened with NSO’s tools, such customer will be terminated permanently and legal actions will take place,” said an NSO spokesperson, who added that NSO will also “cooperate with any relevant government authority and present the full information we will have.”

Like many consumers around the world, you’re probably scouring the internet to find the perfect gifts for your friends and family in time for the holidays. While buyers prepare for the festivities, cybercriminals look for opportunities to scam shoppers with various tricks. In 2020, the FBI received over 17,000 complaints regarding goods that were never delivered, totaling losses of more than $53 million.1 And this year, it is anticipated that the number could increase due to rumors of merchandise shortages and the ongoing pandemic.  

But no need to get your tinsel in a tangle! At McAfee, we’re empowering consumers to live their digital lives with confidence by providing tips and tools for sidestepping cyber-grinches. Here are the top scams to look out for this holiday season so you can be on your merry way:  

Phishing Emails Boasting Big-ticket Items  

Phishing may be one of the older tricks in the book, but it is still a favorite standby for cybercriminals as phishing tactics become more sophisticated. According to Bleeping Computer, scammers tend to target holiday shoppers with emails advertising big-ticket or hard-to-find items to entice them to click on a malicious link.2 For example, cybercriminals could send a phishing email promising a sweet deal —often referred to as the discount scam — on the latest gaming system. Jumping at the opportunity to score such a great gift for a low price, an unsuspecting holiday shopper might click on the link and swiftly hand over their credit card details. But instead of receiving the gaming system, they receive alerts of suspicious purchases from their bank — purchases that cybercriminals made with their credit card information.  

Fake Websites and Ads 

During the holidays, many brands increase their online advertising to boost sales. However, cyber-grinches will likely take advantage of this trend by creating fake websites and ads impersonating companies that consumers know and love. For example, cybercriminals can create fake websites and ads promoting unrealistic discounts and bargains that look remarkably similar to an online retailer’s site. If a customer clicks on the fake website and makes a “purchase” by inputting their credit card information, the scammers will then be able to use this data to make fraudulent purchases elsewhere.  

Fraudulent Social Media Posts  

Many consumers rely on social media to stay up-to-date on the latest deals, and scammers are eagerly looking for ways to take advantage. To target holiday shoppers via Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, etc., criminals use fake social media posts offering vouchers, gift cards, freebies, and contests in the hopes that the user will click on the post and hand over their personal or financial information. Perhaps a user comes across a fake contest for a $1,000 Amazon gift card on Instagram — all they have to do is enter their login credentials to enter. Little do they know that this contest has been formulated by scammers and submitting their login for entry is just handing over their data for cyber-scrooges to exploit.  

Criminals can also take advantage of shoppable social media posts to target holiday shoppers with advertisements for non-existent or counterfeit items. Today, 130 million Instagram users tap on shoppable posts to learn more about products every month. It’s likely that these users will also rely on shoppable posts to interact with products they’re interested in purchasing for holiday gifts.3 

Cybercriminals can entice these users by creating fraudulent social media ads for products they don’t actually have. If an unsuspecting shopper purchases through the fake ad, their financial information will not only find its way into the hands of the scammer, but they also won’t receive what they initially paid for.  

Travel phishing and charity scams  

According to the Wall Street Journal, travel and charity scams also tend to spike around the holidays.4 Travel scams could show up in the form of an email stating that a booking has been canceled, sending you to a fake website where you’re asked to enter your credit card number to set up a new reservation. You could also receive an email directing you to a clone site offering deals on a house rental, flight, or hotel room that seems too good to be true — as long as you hold your reservation with a deposit.  

Cybercriminals also know that consumers tend to make charitable donations around the holidays, and many are quick to take advantage. A charity scam might target victims via social media feeds, asking people to donate to a fake organization. Consumers should always do their research on a charity before they donate to prevent money from ending up in a scammer’s pocket.  

Tips to Stay Safe From Online Shopping Scams 

To prevent cyber-grinches from stealing your money, data, and festive spirit, follow these tips so you can continue to make merry during the holiday shopping season: 

1. Be cautious of emails asking you to act. If you receive an email, call, or text advertising a holiday shopping deal that seems too good to be true, it probably is. Don’t click on anything or take any direct action from the message. Instead, go straight to the organization’s website. This will prevent you from downloading malicious content from phishing links or forking over money or your financial details unnecessarily. 
2. Hover over links to see and verify the URL. If someone sends you a message with a link, hover over the link without actually clicking on it. This will allow you to see a link preview. If the URL looks suspicious, don’t interact with it and delete the message. 
3. Go directly to the source. Instead of clicking on a link in an email or text message, it’s always best to check directly with the source to verify a holiday shopping offer or track a package’s shipment.  
4. Watch out for fraudulent websites and ads. Today, anyone can create a website or online ad that looks like it’s from a legitimate retailer. They may tout a special offer or a great deal on a hot holiday item, yet such sites are a popular avenue for cybercriminals to harvest personal and financial information. They are commonly spread by social media, email, and other messaging platforms, so be skeptical of any links you see on these channels.  
5. Check your bank statements. The holidays are often a time of increased spending, so a fraudulent charge on your bank statement could blend in with all the noise. Be vigilant about checking to make sure that there are no suspicious charges when you’re doing your online banking. If you do notice a purchase that you didn’t make, report it to your bank immediately.  
6. Protect your identity. Hackers often use consumers’ personally identifiable information to make fraudulent purchases – a trick that would certainly interrupt a holiday shopping spree. A solution like McAfee Identity Theft Protection takes a proactive approach to help protect identities with personal and financial monitoring and recovery tools to help keep identities personal and secure. 
7. Use a comprehensive security solution. Using a solution like McAfee Total Protection can help your holiday shopping spree go smoothly by providing safe web browsing, virus protection, and more. McAfee WebAdvisor also provides coverage for many of the holiday shopping scams mentioned above with misclick protection, typo protection, and alerts for known threats.  

The post 6 Tips to Protect Yourself From Holiday Shopping Scammers appeared first on McAfee Blogs.

By Sriram P & Lakshya Mathur 

Hancitor, a loader that provides Malware as a Service, has been observed distributing malware such as FickerStealer, Pony, CobaltStrike, Cuba Ransomware, and many more. Recently at McAfee Labs, we observed Hancitor Doc VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) samples dropping the payload using the Windows clipboard through Selection.Copy method. 

This blog focuses on the effectiveness of this newly observed technique and how it adds an extra layer of obfuscation to evade detection. 

Below (Figure 1) is the Geolocation based stats of Hancitor Malicious Doc observed by McAfee since September 2021 

INFECTION CHAIN

1. The victim will receive a Docusign-based phishing email.
2. On clicking on the link (hxxp://mettlybothe.com/8/forum[.]php), a Word Document file is downloaded.
3. On Enabling the macro content in Microsoft Word, the macro drops an embedded OLE, a password-protected macro-infected document file and launches it.
4. This second Document file drops the main Hancitor DLL (Dynamic Link Library) payload.
5. The DLL payload is then executed via rundll32.exe.

TECHNICAL ANALYSIS

Malware authors send the victims a phishing email containing a link as shown in the below screenshot (Figure 3). The usual Docusign theme is used in this recent Hancitor wave. This phishing email contains a link to the original malicious word document. On clicking the link, the Malicious Doc file is downloaded.

Since the macros are disabled by default configuration, malware authors try to lure victims into believing that the file is from legitimate organizations or individuals and will ask victims to enable editing and content to start the execution of macros. The screenshot below (Figure 4) is the lure technique that was observed in this current wave.

As soon as the victim enables editing, malicious macros are executed via the Document_Open function.

There is an OLE object embedded in the Doc file. The screenshot below (Figure 5) highlights the object as an icon.

The loader VBA function, invoked by document_open, calls this random function (Figure 6), which moves the selection cursor to the exact location of the OLE object using the selection methods (.MoveDown, .MoveRight, .MoveTypeBackspace). Using the Selection.Copy method, it will copy the selected OLE object to the clipboard. Once it is copied in the clipboard it will be dropped under %temp% folder.

When an embedded object is being copied to the clipboard, it gets written to the temp directory as a file. This method is used by the malware author to drop a malicious word document instead of explicitly writing the file to disk using macro functions like the classic FileSystemObject.

In this case, the file was saved to the %temp% location with filename name “zoro.kl” as shown in the below screenshot (Fig 8). Fig 7 shows the corresponding procmon log involving the file write event.

Using the CreateObject(“Scripting.FileSystemObject”) method, the malware moves the file to a new location AppdataRoamingMicrosoftTemplates and renames it to “zoro.doc”.

This file is then opened with the built-in document method, Documents.open. This moved file, zoro.doc, is password-protected. In this case, the password used was “doyouknowthatthegodsofdeathonlyeatapples?”. We have also seen the usage of passwords like “donttouchme”, etc.

This newly dropped doc is executed using the Documents.Open function (Figure 11).

Zoro.doc uses the same techniques to copy and drop the next payload as we saw earlier. The only difference is that it has a DLL as the embedded OLE object.

It drops the file in the %temp% folder using clipboard with the name “gelforr.dap”. Again, it moves gelforr.dap DLL file to AppdataRoamingMicrosoftTemplates (Figure 12).

Finally, after moving DLL to the templates folder, it is executed using Rundll32.exe by another VBA call.

MITRE ATT&CK

Technique ID	Tactic	Technique details
T1566.002	Initial Access	Spam mail with links
T1204.001	Execution	User Execution by opening the link.
T1204.002	Execution	Executing downloaded doc
T1218	Defense Evasion	Signed Binary Execution Rundll32
T1071	C&C (Command & Control)	HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) protocol for communication

 

IOC (Indicators Of Compromise)

Type	SHA-256	Scanner	Detection Name
Main Doc	915ea807cdf10ea4a4912377d7c688a527d0e91c7777d811b171d2960b75c65c	WSS	W97M/Dropper.im
Dropped Doc	c1c89e5eef403532b5330710c9fe1348ebd055d0fe4e3ebbe9821555e36d408e	WSS	W97M/Dropper.im
Dropped DLL	d83fbc9534957dd464cbc7cd2797d3041bd0d1a72b213b1ab7bccaec34359dbb	WSS	RDN/Hancitor
URLs (Uniform Resource Locator)	hxxp://mettlybothe.com/8/forum[.]php	WebAdvisor	Blocked

 

The post HANCITOR DOC drops via CLIPBOARD appeared first on McAfee Blogs.

The consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers recently published lessons learned from the disruptive and costly ransomware attack in May 2021 on Ireland’s public health system. The unusually candid post-mortem found that nearly two months elapsed between the initial intrusion and the launching of the ransomware. It also found affected hospitals had tens of thousands of outdated Windows 7 systems, and that the health system’s IT administrators failed to respond to multiple warning signs that a massive attack was imminent.

Ireland’s Health Service Executive (HSE), which operates the country’s public health system, got hit with Conti ransomware on May 14, 2021. A timeline in the report (above) says the initial infection of the “patient zero” workstation happened on Mar. 18, 2021, when an employee on a Windows computer opened a booby-trapped Microsoft Excel document in a phishing email that had been sent two days earlier.

Less than a week later, the attacker had established a reliable backdoor connection to the employee’s infected workstation. After infecting the system, “the attacker continued to operate in the environment over an eight week period until the detonation of the Conti ransomware on May 14, 2021,” the report states.

According to PWC’s report (PDF), there were multiple warning signs about a serious network intrusion, but those red flags were either misidentified or not acted on quickly enough:

• On Mar. 31, 2021, the HSE’s antivirus software detected the execution of two software tools commonly used by ransomware groups — Cobalt Strike and Mimikatz — on the Patient Zero Workstation. But the antivirus software was set to monitor mode, so it did not block the malicious commands.”
• On May 7, the attacker compromised the HSE’s servers for the first time, and over the next five days the intruder would compromise six HSE hospitals. On May 10, one of the hospitals detected malicious activity on its Microsoft Windows Domain Controller, a critical “keys to the kingdom” component of any Windows enterprise network that manages user authentication and network access.
• On 10 May 2021, security auditors first identified evidence of the attacker compromising systems within Hospital C and Hospital L. Hospital C’s antivirus software detected Cobalt Strike on two systems but failed to quarantine the malicious files.
• On May 13, the HSE’s antivirus security provider emailed the HSE’s security operations team, highlighting unhandled threat events dating back to May 7 on at least 16 systems. The HSE Security Operations team requested that the Server team restart servers.

By then it was too late. At just after midnight Ireland time on May 14, the attacker executed the Conti ransomware within the HSE. The attack disrupted services at several Irish hospitals and resulted in the near complete shutdown of the HSE’s national and local networks, forcing the cancellation of many outpatient clinics and healthcare services. The number of appointments in some areas dropped by up to 80 percent.”

Conti initially demanded USD $20 million worth of virtual currency in exchange for a digital key to unlock HSE servers compromised by the group. But perhaps in response to the public outcry over the HSE disruption, Conti reversed course and gave the HSE the decryption keys without requiring payment.

Still, the work to restore infected systems would take months. The HSE ultimately enlisted members of the Irish military to bring in laptops and PCs to help restore computer systems by hand. It wasn’t until September 21, 2021 that the HSE declared 100 percent of its servers were decrypted.

As bad as the HSE ransomware attack was, the PWC report emphasizes that it could have been far worse. For example, it is unclear how much data would have been unrecoverable if a decryption key had not become available as the HSE’s backup infrastructure was only periodically backed up to offline tape.

The attack also could have been worse, the report found:

• if there had been intent by the Attacker to target specific devices within the HSE environment (e.g. medical devices);
• if the ransomware took actions to destroy data at scale;
• if the ransomware had auto-propagation and persistence capabilities, for example by using an exploit to propagate across domains and trust-boundaries to medical devices (e.g. the EternalBlue exploit used by the WannaCry and NotPetya15 attacks);
• if cloud systems had also been encrypted such as the COVID-19 vaccination system

The PWC report contains numerous recommendations, most of which center around hiring new personnel to lead the organization’s redoubled security efforts. But it is clear that the HSE has an enormous amount of work ahead to grow in security maturity. For example, the report notes the HSE’s hospital network had over 30,000 Windows 7 workstations that were deemed end of life by the vendor.

“The HSE assessed its cybersecurity maturity rating as low,” PWC wrote. “For example, they do not have a CISO or a Security Operations Center established.”

PWC also estimates that efforts to build up the HSE’s cybersecurity program to the point where it can rapidly detect and respond to intrusions are likely to cost “a multiple of the HSE’s current capital and operation expenditure in these areas over several years.”

In June 2021, the HSE’s director general said the recovery costs for the May ransomware attack were likely to exceed USD $600 million.

What’s remarkable about this incident is that the HSE is publicly funded by the Irish government, and so in theory it has the money to spend (or raise) to pay for all these ambitious recommendations for increasing their security maturity.

That stands in stark contrast to the healthcare system here in the United States, where the single biggest impediment to doing security well continues to be lack of making it a real budget priority. Also, most healthcare organizations in the United States are private companies that operate on razor-thin profit margins.

I know this because in 2018 I was asked to give the keynote at an annual gathering of the Healthcare Information Sharing and Analysis Group (H-ISAC), an industry group centered on sharing information about cybersecurity threats. I almost didn’t accept the invitation: I’d written very little about healthcare security, which seemed to be dominated by coverage of whether healthcare organizations complied with the letter of the law in the United States. That compliance centered on the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA), which prioritizes protecting the integrity and privacy of patient data.

To get up to speed, I interviewed over a dozen of the healthcare security industry’s best and brightest minds. A common refrain I heard from those interviewed was that if it was security-related but didn’t have to do with compliance, there probably wasn’t much chance it would get any budget.

Those sources unanimously said that however well-intentioned, it’s not clear that the “protect the data” regulatory approach of HIPPA was working from an overall threat perspective. According to HealthcareIT News, more than 40 million patient records have been compromised in incidents reported to the federal government in 2021 so far alone.

During my 2018 talk, I tried to emphasize the primary importance of being able to respond quickly to intrusions. Here’s a snippet of what I told that H-ISAC audience:

“The term ‘Security Maturity’ refers to the street smarts of an individual or organization, and this maturity generally comes from making plenty of mistakes, getting hacked a lot, and hopefully learning from each incident, measuring response times, and improving.

Let me say up front that all organizations get hacked. Even ones that are doing everything right from a security perspective get hacked probably every day if they’re big enough. By hacked I mean someone within the organization falls for a phishing scam, or clicks a malicious link and downloads malware. Because let’s face it, it only takes one screw up for the hackers to get a foothold in the network.

Now this is in itself isn’t bad. Unless you don’t have the capability to detect it and respond quickly. And if you can’t do that, you run the serious risk of having a small incident metastasize into a much larger problem.

Think of it like the medical concept of the ‘Golden Hour:’ That short window of time directly following a traumatic injury like a stroke or heart attack in which life-saving medicine and attention is likely to be most effective. The same concept holds true in cybersecurity, and it’s exactly why so many organizations these days are placing more of their resources into incident response, instead of just prevention.”

The United States’ somewhat decentralized healthcare system means that many ransomware outbreaks tend to be limited to regional or local healthcare facilities. But a well-placed ransomware attack or series of attacks could inflict serious damage on the sector: A December 2020 report from Deloitte says the top 10 health systems now control 24 market share and their revenue grew at twice the rate of the rest of the market.

In October 2020, KrebsOnSecurity broke the story that the FBI and U.S. Department of Homeland Security had obtained chatter from a top ransomware group which warned of an “imminent cybercrime threat to U.S. hospitals and healthcare providers.” Members associated with the Russian-speaking ransomware group known as Ryuk had discussed plans to deploy ransomware at more than 400 healthcare facilities in the United States.

Hours after that piece ran, I head from a respected H-ISAC security professional who questioned whether it was worth getting the public so riled up. The story had been updated multiple times throughout the day, and there were at least five healthcare organizations hit with ransomware within the span of 24 hours.

“I guess it would help if I understood what the baseline is, like how many healthcare organizations get hit with ransomware on average in one week?” I asked the source.

“It’s more like one a day,” the source confided.

In all likelihood, the HSE will get the money it needs to implement the programs recommended by PWC, however long that takes. I wonder how many U.S.-based healthcare organizations could say the same.

Find out how to deal with the Log2Shell vulnerability right across your estate. Yes, you need to patch, but that helps everyone else along with you!

Cyber-attack on Hellmann Worldwide Logistics

HSE Missed Cyber-attack’s Warning Signs