Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Cyber Jihadists part of the GIMF Busted

In one of those "better late than never" type of situations, last month members of the Global Islamic Media Front were busted in Germany. The group is largely known due to their releases and propaganda of the Technical Mujahid E-zine (Part Two) and the Mujahideen Secrets encryption tool (Second Version). GIMF was distributing its multimedia through popular Web 2.0 video sharing sites, perfectly fitting into the profile of the majority of cyber jihadist groups.

GIMF used to be one of my favorite sources of raw OSINT regarding various cyber jihadist activities due to its centralized nature and lack of any operational security in place, in particular the ways it was unknowingly exposing their social networks online.

Related posts:
GIMF Switching Blogs
GIMF Now Permanently Shut Down
GIMF - "We Will Remain"
Inshallahshaheed - Come Out, Come Out Wherever You Are
A List of Terrorists' Blogs
Cyber Jihadist Blogs Switching Locations Again
Wisdom of the Anti Cyber Jihadist Crowd
Analyses of Cyber Jihadist Forums and Blogs
Terror on the Internet - Conflict of Interest

Monday, December 15, 2008

Skype Phishing Pages Serving Exploits and Malware - Part Two

Dear malware spreader, here we meet again. It's been a while since I last wrote to you, half an year ago to be precise. Since I first met you, keeping (automated) track of your phishing campaigns serving old school VBS scripts has become an inseparable part of my daily routine.

I really enjoyed the fact that since then you've changed your email address from ikbaman@gmail.com to ikbasoft@gmail.com and due to its descriptive nature speaking for a software company set up, I can only envy your profitability. However, due to the tough economic times, your latest round of blended with malware phishing emails has to go down. I'm sure you'd understand, as it only took "5 minutes out of my online experience" to notice you, and so I'm no longer interested in processing the /service-peyment/ that you require on the majority of brandjacked subdomains that you keep creating at the very same ns8-wistee.fr.

secureskype.uuuq .com redirects to monybokers.ns8-wistee .fr/skype/cgi-bin/us/security/update-skype/service-peyment/update/login.aspx/index.htmls where the VBS is pushed, with its detection rate prone to improve.

Localized Social Engineering on Demand


If I were to come across this service last year, I'd be very surprised. But coming across it in 2008 isn't surprising at all, and that's the disturbing part.

Following the ongoing trend of localizing cybercrime (Localizing Cybercrime - Cultural Diversity on Demand; Localizing Cybercrime - Cultural Diversity on Demand Part Two) a new service takes the concept further by introducing a multilingual on demand social engineering service especially targeting scammers and fraudsters that are unable to "properly scam an international financial institution" due to the language limitations. What is the service all about? Currently offering to "talk cybercrime on behalf of you", the service is charging $9 for a call with increased use of it leading to the usual price discounts falling to $6 per call. The languages covered and the male/female voices available are as follows :

- English (3 male voices and 2 female ones)
- German (2 male voices and 1 female one)
- Spanish (1 male voice and 2 female ones)
- Italian (1 male voice and 1 female one)
- French (1 male voice and 1 female one)

If the service was only advertising male or female English voices, I'd suspect it of being run by a single individual using a commercial voice changer application, however, due to the fact that it's currently offering male and female voices in 5 languages, there's a great chance that these are in fact separate people they're working with. The ugly part is that the whole business model is very well thought of in the sense that given that fact that certain banks or online services can automatically freeze the assets to which the cybercriminal has access to, the service, through its multilingual capabilities can indeed convince the institution in the authenticity of the Spanish caller that's indeed Spanish based on the stolen personal information provided by the cybercriminal in the first place.

Where's the trade-off for cybercriminals? They would have to very specific in order for the service to work, meaning, they would have to use it as a intermediary by sharing data regarding compromised banking accounts, expected courier deliveries obtained through fraudulent means (stolen credit card details), and the service reserves the right not to work with them. Consequently, the people working with the service easily act as the weakest link in the process of exposing ongoing cybercrime or real-life crime activities, and compared to plain simple localization in the sense of translation services, the real nature of the type of conversations and impersonation happening through this one should be pretty obvious to the people offering their natural cultural diversity and voices for sale.

Despite that monetizing social engineering is not new, monetizing (accomplice) voices, and running a social engineering ring definitely is.

Localized Social Engineering on Demand

If I were to come aross this service last year, I'd be very surprised. But coming across it in 2008 isn't surprising at all, and that's the disturbing part.

Following the ongoing trend of localizing cybercrime (Localizing Cybercrime - Cultural Diversity on Demand; Localizing Cybercrime - Cultural Diversity on Demand Part Two) a new service takes the concept further by introducing a multilingual on demand social engineering service especially targeting scammers and fraudsters that are unable to "properly scam an international financial institution" due to the language limitations. What is the service all about? Currently offering to "talk cybercrime on behalf of you", the service is charging $9 for a call with increased use of it leading to the usual price discounts falling to $6 per call. The languages covered and the male/female voices available are as follows :

- English (3 male voices and 2 female ones)
- German (2 male voices and 1 female one)
- Spanish (1 male voice and 2 female ones)
- Italian (1 male voice and 1 female one)
- French (1 male voice and 1 female one)

If the service was only advertising male or female English voices, I'd suspect it of being run by a single individual using a commercial voice changer application, however, due to the fact that it's currently offering male and female voices in 5 languages, there's a great chance that these are in fact separate people they're working with. The ugly part is that the whole business model is very well thought of in the sense that given that fact that certain banks or online services can automatically freeze the assets to which the cybercriminal has access to, the service, through its multilingual capabilities can indeed convince the institution in the authenticity of the Spanish caller that's indeed Spanish based on the stolen personal information provided by the cybercriminal in the first place.

Where's the trade-off for cybercriminals? They would have to very specific in order for the service to work, meaning, they would have to use it as a intermediary by sharing data regarding compromised banking accounts, expected courier deliveries obtained through fraudulent means (stolen credit card details), and the service reserves the right not to work with them. Consequently, the people working with the service easily act as the weakest link in the process of exposing ongoing cybercrime or real-life crime activities, and compared to plain simple localization in the sense of translation services, the real nature of the type of conversations and impersonation happening through this one should be pretty obvious to the people offering their natural cultural diversity and voices for sale.

Despite that monetizing social engineering is not new, monetizing (accomplice) voices, and running a social engineering ring definitely is.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Summarizing Zero Day's Posts for November

The following is a brief summary of all of my posts at Zero Day for November. You can also go through previous summaries for October, September, August and July, as well as subscribe to my personal RSS feed or Zero Day's main feed. Thanks for being with us.

Some notable articles for November include Black market for zero day vulnerabilities still thriving; Anti fraud site hit by a DDoS attack and Cybercriminals release Christmas themed web malware exploitation kit.

01. Black market for zero day vulnerabilities still thriving
02. Google and T-Mobile push patch for Android security flaw
03. Fake WordPress site distributing backdoored release
04. Koobface Facebook worm still spreading
05. Cyber terrorists to face death penalty in Pakistan
06. AVG and Rising signatures update detects Windows files as malware
07. BBC hit by a DDoS attack
08. Google fixes critical XSS vulnerability
09. $10k hacking contest announced
10. Anti fraud site hit by a DDoS attack
11. Commercial vendor of spyware under legal fire
12. Fake Windows XP activation trojan goes 2.0
13. Cybercriminals release Christmas themed web malware exploitation kit

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

The Koobface Gang Mixing Social Engineering Vectors

It's the Facebook message that came from one of your infected friends pointing you to an on purposely created bogus Bloglines blog serving fake YouTube video window, that I have in mind. The Koobface gang has been mixing social engineering vectors by taking the potential victim on a walk through legitimate services in order to have them infected without using any client-side vulnerabilities.

For instance, this bogus Bloglines account (bloglines .com/blog/Youtubeforbiddenvideo) has attracted over 150 unique visitors already, part of Koobface's Hi5 spreading campaign (catshof .com/go/hi5.php). The domain is parked at the very same IP that the rest of the central redirection ones in all of Koobface's campaigns are - 58.241.255.37.

Interestingly, since underground multitasking is becoming a rather common practice, the bogus blog has also been advertised within a blackhat SEO farm using the following blogs, currently linking to several hundred bogus Google Groups accounts :

bloglines .com/blog/gillehuxeda
bloglines .com/blog/chaneyok
bloglines .com/blog/ramosimeco
bloglines .com/blog/antwanuvfa
bloglines .com/blog/tamaraaqo
bloglines .com/blog/josephyhti
bloglines .com/blog/whiteqivaju
bloglines .com/blog/hayleyem
bloglines .com/blog/tateigyamor
bloglines .com/blog/burnsseuhaqe
bloglines .com/blog/jennaup


bloglines .com/blog/jermainedus
bloglines .com/blog/floydwopew55
bloglines .com/blog/arielehy
bloglines .com/blog/onealqypsu
bloglines .com/blog/mackirma
bloglines.com/blog/breonnazox
bloglines .com/blog/sabrinaxycit
bloglines .com/blog/gloverqy
bloglines .com/blog/lisaurja
bloglines .com/blog/greenefayg18
bloglines .com/blog/craigxiw36
bloglines .com/blog/parsonsdos
bloglines .com/blog/martinsutuz
bloglines .com/blog/deandreefe
bloglines .com/blog/briannetu
bloglines .com/blog/kierailpe
bloglines .com/blog/fordyfo27
bloglines .com/blog/litzyracnuj
bloglines.com/blog/darwinupi57
bloglines .com/blog/bonillavaok
bloglines .com/blog/jennyuxe85
bloglines .com/blog/wilkersonin
bloglines .com/blog/nicolasqydby
bloglines .com/blog/darbyeve
bloglines .com/blog/izaiahro83
bloglines .com/blog/parsonsdos
bloglines .com/blog/fullerjeb81


Abusing legitimate services may indeed get more attention in the upcoming year, following their interest in the practice from the last quarter.

Monday, December 08, 2008

Dissecting the Koobface Worm's December Campaign

The Koobface Facebook worm -- go through an assessment of a previous campaign -- is once again making its rounds across social networking sites, Facebook in particular. Therefore, shall we spill a big cup of coffee over the malware campaigners efforts for yet another time? But of course.

Only OPSEC-ignorant malware campaigners would leave so much traceable points, in between centralizing the campaign's redirection domains on a single IP. For instance, taking advantage of free web counter whose publicly obtainable statistics -- the account has since been deleted -- allow us to not only measure the clickability of Koobface's campaign, but also, prove that they're actively multitasking by combining blackhat SEO and active spreading across several other social networking sites. Here are some of the key summary points for this campaign :

Key summary points :
- the hosting infrastructure for the bogus YouTube site and the actual binary is provided by several thousand dynamically changing malware infected IPs
- all of the malware infected hosts are serving the bogus YouTube site through port 7777
- the very same bogus domains acting as central redirection points from the November's campaign remain active, however, they've switched hosting locations
- if the visitor isn't coming from where she's supposed to be coming, in this case the predefined list of referrers, a single line of "scan ref" is returned with no malicious content displayed
- the campaign can be easily taken care of at least in the short term, but shutting down the centralized redirection points


What follows are the surprises, namely, despite the fact that Koobface is pitched as a Facebook worm, according to their statistics -- go through a previously misconfigured malware campaign stats -- the majority of unique visitors from the December's campaign appear to have been coming from Friendster. As for the exact number of visitors hitting their web counter, counting as of  7 November 2008, 12:58, with 91,109 unique visitors on on 07 Nov, Fri and another 53,260 on 08 Nov, Sat before the counter was deleted, the cached version of their web counter provides a relatively good sample.

On each of the bogus Geocities redirectors, the very same lostart .info/js/gs.js (58.241.255.37) used in the previous campaign, attempts to redirect to find-allnot .com/go/fb.php (58.241.255.37) or to playtable .info/go/fb.php (58.241.255.37), with fb.php doing the referrer checking and redirecting to the botnet hosts magic. Several other well known malware command and control locations are also parked at 58.241.255.37 :

jobusiness .org
a221008 .com
y171108 .com
searchfindand .com
ofsitesearch .com
fashionlineshow .com
anddance .info
firstdance .biz

prixisa .com
danceanddisc .com
finditand .com
findsamthing .com
freemarksearch .com
find-allnot .com
find-here-and-now .com
findnameby .com
anddance .info

These domains, with several exeptions, are actively participating in the campaign, with the easiest way to differentiate whether it's a Facebook or Bebo redirection, remaining the descriptive filenames. For instance, fb.php corresponds to Facebook redirections and be.php corresponding to Bebo redirections (ofsitesearch .com/go/be.php). However, the meat resides within the statistics from their campaign :

Malware serving URLs part of Koobface worm's December's campaign, based on the identical counter used across all the malicious domains :
youtube-x-files .com
youtube-go .com
youtube-spy.5x .pl
youtube-files.bo .pl
youtube-media.none .pl
youtube-files.xh .pl
youtube-spy.dz .pl
youtube-files.esite .pl
youtube-spy.bo .pl
youtube-spy.nd .pl
youtube-spy.edj .pl
spy-video.oq .pl
shortclips.bubb .pl
youtubego.cacko .pl

asda345.blogspot .com
uholyejedip556.blogspot .com
ufyaegobeni7878.blogspot .com
uiyneteku20176.blogspot .com
ujoiculehe19984.blogspot .com
uinekojapab29989.blogspot .com
uhocuyhipam13345.blogspot .com

Geocities redirectors participating :
geocities .com/madelineeaton10/index.htm
geocities .com/charlievelazquez10/index.htm
geocities .com/raulsheppard18/index.htm

Sample malware infected hosts used by the redirectors :
92.241.134 .41:7777/?ch=&ea=
89.138.171 .49:7777/?ch=&ea=
92.40.34 .217:7777/?ch=&ea=
79.173.242 .224:7777/?ch=&ea=
122.163.103 .91:7777/?ch=&ea=
217.129.155 .36:7777/?ch=&ea=
84.109.169 .124:7777/?ch=&ea=
91.187.67 .216:7777/?ch=&ea=
84.254.51 .227:7777/?ch=&ea=
190.142.5 .32:7777/?ch=&ea=
190.158.102 .246:7777/?ch=&ea=
201.245.95 .86:7777/?ch=&ea=
78.90.85 .7:7777/?ch=&ea=
82.81.25 .144:7777/?ch=&ea=
78.183.143 .188:7777/?ch=&ea=
89.139.86 .88:7777/?ch=&ea=
85.107.190 .105:7777/?ch=&ea=
84.62.84 .132:7777/?ch=&ea=
78.3.42 .99:7777/?ch=&ea=
92.241.137 .158:7777/?ch=&ea=
77.239.21 .34:7777/?ch=&ea=
41.214.183 .130:7777/?ch=&ea=

90.157.250 .133:7777/dt/?ch=&ea=
89.143.27 .39:7777/?ch=&ea=
91.148.112 .179:7777/?ch=&ea=
94.73.0 .211:7777/?ch=&ea=
124.105 .187.176:7777/?ch=&ea=
77.70.108  .163:7777/?ch=&ea=
190.198.162 .240:7777/?ch=&ea=
89.138.23 .121:7777/?ch=&ea=
190.46.50 .103:7777/?ch=&ea=
80.242.120 .135:7777/?ch=&ea=
94.191.140 .143:7777/?ch=&ea=
210.4.126 .100:7777/?ch=&ea=
87.203.145 .61:7777/?ch=&ea=
94.189.204 .22:7777/?ch=&ea=
92.36.242 .47:7777/?ch=&ea=
77.78.197 .176:7777/?ch=&ea=
94.189.149 .231:7777/?ch=&ea=
89.138.102 .243:7777/?ch=&ea=
94.73.0 .211:7777/?ch=&ea=
79.175.101 .28:7777/?ch=&ea=
78.1.251 .26:7777/?ch=&ea=
201.236.228 .38:7777/?ch=&ea=
85.250.190 .55:7777/?ch=&ea=
211.109.46 .32:7777/?ch=&ea=
91.148.159 .174:7777/?ch=&ea=
87.68.71 .34:7777/?ch=&ea=
85.94.106 .240:7777/?ch=&ea=
195.91.82 .18:7777/?ch=&ea=
85.101.167 .197:7777/?ch=&ea=
193.198.167 .249:7777/?ch=&ea=
94.69.130 .191:7777/?ch=&ea=
79.131.26 .192:7777/?ch=&ea=
190.224.189 .24:7777/?ch=&ea=

119.234.7 .230:7777/?ch=&ea=
199.203.37 .250:7777/?ch=&ea=
89.142.181 .226:7777/?ch=&ea=
84.110.120 .82:7777/?ch=&ea=
119.234.7 .230:7777/?ch=&ea=
84.110.253 .163:7777/?ch=&ea=
82.81.163 .40:7777/?ch=&ea=
79.179.249 .218:7777/?ch=&ea=
190.224.189 .24:7777/?ch=&ea=
79.179.249 .218:7777/?ch=&ea=
87.239.160 .132:7777/?ch=&ea=
79.113.8 .107:7777/?ch=&ea=
81.18.54 .6:7777/?ch=&ea=
118.169 .173.101:7777/?ch=&ea=
85.216.158 .209:7777/?ch=&ea=
219.92.170 .4:7777/?ch=&ea=
79.130.252 .204:7777/?ch=&ea=
93.136.53 .239:7777/?ch=&ea=
62.0.134 .79:7777/?ch=&ea=
79.138.184 .253:7777/?ch=&ea=
173.16.68 .18:7777/?ch=&ea=
190.155.56 .212:7777/?ch=&ea=
190.20.68 .136:7777/?ch=&ea=
119.235.96 .173:7777/?ch=&ea=
77.127.81 .103:7777/?ch=&ea=
190.132.155 .122:7777/?ch=&ea=
89.138.177 .91:7777/?ch=&ea=

79.178.111 .25:7777/?ch=&ea=
84.109.1 .15:7777/?ch=&ea=
89.0.157. 1:7777/?ch=&ea=
122.53.176 .43:7777/?ch=&ea=
200.77.63 .190:7777/?ch=&ea=
67.225.102 .105:7777/?ch=&ea=
119.94.171 .114:7777/?ch=&ea=
125.212.94 .80:7777/?ch=&ea=

Detection rate for the binary, identical across all infected hosts participating :
flash_update.exe (Win32/Koobface!generic; Win32.Worm.Koobface.W)
Detection rate : 28/38 (73.69%)
File size: 27136 bytes
MD5...: 3071f71fc14ba590ca73801e19e8f66d
SHA1..: 2f80a5b2575c788de1d94ed1e8005003f1ca004d

Koobface's social networks spreading model isn't going away, but it's domains definitely are.

Related posts:
Dissecting the Latest Koobface Facebook Campaign
Fake YouTube Site Serving Flash Exploits
Facebook Malware Campaigns Rotating Tactics
Phishing Campaign Spreading Across Facebook
Large Scale MySpace Phishing Attack
Update on the MySpace Phishing Campaign
MySpace Phishers Now Targeting Facebook
MySpace Hosting MySpace Phishing Profiles

Thursday, December 04, 2008

Zeus Crimeware as a Service Going Mainstream

Since 100% transparency doesn't exist in any given market no matter how networked and open its stakeholders are, Cybecrime-as-a-Service (CaaS) in the underground marketplace went mainstream with the introduction of- the 76service -- now available in Winter and Spring editions -- followed by a flood of copycats monetizing commodity services on the foundations of proprietary underground tools.

Originally launched as an invite only service where only trusted individuals would be able to take advantage of the malicious economies of scale concept, in August, 2008 copycats ruined the proprietary model of the 76service by tweaking the service and converging it with web malware exploitation kits of their choice. The output? Near real-time access to freshly harvested financial data, which when combined with their aggressive price cutting once again lowers down the entry barriers into this underground market segment.

Start from the basics. Intellectual property theft in the underground marketplace has been a fact for over an year now, with proprietary web malware exploitation kits leaking to the average cybercriminals who after a brief process of re-branding and layout changing, include their very own copyright notice. Upon obtaining the kits for which they haven't a cent/eurocent, it would be fairly logical to assume that they can therefore charge as much as they want for offering on demand access to them, thereby undercutting the prices offered by the experienced market participants. IP theft in the underground marketplace equals a volume sales driven cash cow that messes up the basics of demand and supply that the experienced cybercriminals consciously or subconsciously follow.

Not only is IP theft a reality, but also, among the very latest Zeus crimeware for hire services is charging pocket money for extended periods of time :

"[Q] What is
[A] is a mix between the ZeuS Trojan and MalKit, A browser attack toolkit that will steal all information logged on the computer. After being redirected to the browser exploits, the zeus bot will be installed on the victims computer and start logging all outgoing connections.

[Q] How much does it cost?
[A] Hosting for costs $50 for 3 months. This includes the following:

# Fully set up ZeuS Trojan with configured FUD binary.
# Log all information via internet explorer
# Log all FTP connections
# Steal banking data
# Steal credit cards
# Phish US, UK and RU banks
# Host file override
# All other ZeuS Trojan features
# Fully set up MalKit with stats viewer inter graded.
# 10 IE 4/5/6/7 exploits
# 2 Firefox exploits
# 1 Opera exploit"
 

We also host normal ZeuS clients for $10/month.
This includes a fully set up zeus panel/configured binary
"

Think cybercriminals in order to anticipate cybercriminals. Would a potential cybercriminal purchase a crimeware kit for a couple of thousand dollars, when they can either rent a managed crimeware service, or even buy a gigabyte worth of stolen E-banking data for any chosen country, collected during the last 30 days? I doubt so, and factual evidence on the increasing number of such services confirms the trend - in 2009 anything cybercrime will be outsourceable.

Related posts:
Modified Zeus Crimeware Kit Gets a Performance Boost
Modified Zeus Crimeware Kit Comes With Built-in MP3 Player
Zeus Crimeware Kit Gets a Carding Layout
The Zeus Crimeware Kit Vulnerable to Remotely Exploitable Flaw
Crimeware in the Middle - Zeus

Related underground marketplace posts:
Will Code Malware for Financial Incentives
Coding Spyware and Malware for Hire
Malware as a Web Service
The Underground Economy's Supply of Goods and Services
The Dynamics of the Malware Industry - Proprietary Malware Tools
Using Market Forces to Disrupt Botnets
Multiple Firewalls Bypassing Verification on Demand
Managed Spamming Appliances - The Future of Spam
Inside a Managed Spam Service
Dissecting a Managed Spamming Service
Segmenting and Localizing Spam Campaigns
Localizing Cybercrime - Cultural Diversity on Demand 
Localizing Cybercrime - Cultural Diversity on Demand Part Two

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Rock Phish-ing in December

Nothing can warm up the heart of a security researcher better than a batch of currently active Rock Phish domains, fast-fluxing by using U.S based malware  infected hosts as infrastructure provider. What is this assessment of currently active Rock Phish campaign aiming to achieve? In short, prove that the people that were Rock Phish-ing at the beginning of the year, are exactly the same people that continue Rock Phish-ing at the end of the year, thereby pointing out that as long as they're not where they're supposed to be, they are not going to stop innovating and working on a higher average online time for their campaigns.

What's particularly interesting about this campaign, is that compared to previous ones targeting multiple brands, the thousands of malware infected hosts and domains are targeting Alliance & Leicester and Abbey National only.

Active Rock Phish Domains in fast-flux :
stgsfw7sr .com
q06ciwt60 .com
jnlyf96v4 .com
neegzlh35 .com
7azwmrsg5 .com
pn3ekq976 .com
2coxi8sb6 .com
d8ri1iz5d .com
 

ki7wvgauf .com
5nt5r3keh .com
5nt29884j .com
bgoryomek .com
a725jv8ik .com
fke5nnp8m .com
stgsfw7sr .com
10c0ka49t .com
zp304ju3z .com
j0rykafwn .cn
2j1f .net

confirm-updates .com
paypal.confirm-updates .com
user-data-confirmation .com
paypal.user-data-confirmation .com
capitalone.updating-informations .com


Sample sub-domain structure :
mybank.alliance-leicester.co.uk.7azwmrsg5 .com
mybank.alliance-leicester.co.uk.bgoryomek .com
mybank.aliance-leicester.co.uk.stgsfw7sr .com
mybank.alliance-leicester.co.uk.zp304ju3z .com
mybank.alliance-leicester.co.uk.5nt29884j .com
mybank.aliance-leicester.co.uk.bgoryomek .com
mybank.alliance-leicester.co.uk.bgoryomek .com
mybank.aliance-leicester.co.uk.stgsfw7sr .com
mybank.alliance-leicester.co.uk.stgsfw7sr .com
mybank.aliance-leicester.co.uk.zp304ju3z .com
mybank.alliance-leicester.co.uk.zp304ju3z .com
myonlineaccounts2.abbeynational.co.uk.pn3ekq976 .com
myonlineaccounts1.abeynational.com.pn3ekq976 .com


DNS servers for the campaigns :
ns1.thecherrydns .com
ns2.thecherrydns .com
ns3.thecherrydns .com
ns4.thecherrydns .com
ns5.thecherrydns .com
ns6.thecherrydns .com

ns10.realgoodnameserver .com
ns1.realgoodnameserver .com
rens2.realgoodnameserver .com
rns3.realgoodnameserver .com
ns4.realgoodnameserver .com
ns8.realgoodnameserver .com

ns6.myboomdns .com
ns4.myboomdns .com


Domains registrant :
Name : Pan Wei wei
Organization : Pan Wei wei
Address : BaoChun Rd. 27, No. 3, 1F, Apt. 1903
City : Bejing
Province/State : Beijing
Country : CN
Postal Code : 100176
Phone Number : 010-010-58022118-58022118
Fax : 86-010-58022118-58022118
Email : 127@126.com

These well known Rock Phish campaigners, have been naturally multitasking on several different underground fronts throughout the year. For instance, their 2j1f .net is known to have been hosting money mule company's site, and also, it was used in a previously analyzed phishing campaign that was spreading across Facebook in June. Need more evidence on the consolidation that's been ongoing for over an year and half now? An infamous money mule recruiting company (Cash-Transfers Inc.) was also taking advantage of the fast-flux network offered by the ASProx botnet masters in July.

As a firm believer in that "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts", the popular "sitting duck" cybercrime infrastructure hosting model will be either replaced by a cybercrime infrastructure relying entirely on legitimate services, or one where the average malware infected Internet user would be temporarily used as a hosting provider.

If millions were made by using the "sitting duck" hosting model, how many would be made using the others, given that they would inevitably increase the average online time for a malicious campaign?

Related Rock Phish research :
209 Host Locked
209.1 Host Locked
66.1 Host Locked
Confirm Your Gullibility
Assessing a Rock Phish Campaign

Related fast-flux research :
Fast-Flux Spam and Scams Increasing
Fast Fluxing Yet Another Pharmacy Scam
Storm Worm's Fast Flux Networks
Managed Fast Flux Provider
Managed Fast Flux Provider - Part Two
Obfuscating Fast Fluxed SQL Injected Domains
Storm Worm Hosting Pharmaceutical Scams
Fast-Fluxing SQL injection attacks executed from the Asprox botnet

Yet Another Web Malware Exploitation Kit in the Wild

With business-minded malicious attackers embracing basic marketing practices like branding, it is becoming increasingly harder, if not pointless to keep track of all XYZ-Packs currently in circulation. How come? Due to their open source nature allowing modifications, claiming copyright over the modified and re-branded kit, the source code of core web malware exploitation kits continue representing the foundation source code for each and every newly released kit.

In fact, the practice is becoming so evident, that anecdotal evidence in the form of monitoring ongoing communications between sellers and buyers reveals actual attempts of intellectual property enforcement in the form of  exchange of flames between an author of a original kit, and a newly born author who seems to have copied over 80% of his source code, changed the layout, re-branded it, added several more exploits and started pitching it as the most exclusive kit there is available in the underground marketplace.

What's new about this particular kit anyway? Changed iframe and js obfuscation techniques, doesn't require MySQL to run, with several modified Adobe Acrobat and Flash exploits - all patched and publicly obtainable. This is precisely where the marketing pitch ends for the majority of malware kits released during the last quarter.

As always, there are noticable exceptions to the common wisdom that time-to-underground market isn't allowing them to innovate, but thankfully, these exceptions aren't yet going mainstream. What is going to change in the upcoming 2009? Web malware exploitation kits are slowly maturing into multi-user cybercrime platforms, where traffic management coming from the SQL injected or malware embedded sites is automatically exploited with access to the infected hosts or to the traffic volume in general offered for sale under a flat rate, or on a volume basis.

Converging traffic management with drive-by exploitation and offering the output for sale, all from a single web interface, is precisely what malicious economies of scale is all about.

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