Quality Assurance in Malware Attacks - Part Two

0
October 14, 2008
Surprisingly, while opportunistic cybercriminals have long embraced the malware as a service model, and are offering managed lower detection rate services for a customer's malware, or DIY ones where the customer can take advantage of popular tools ported to the Web, others are still trying to innovate at a faddish market niche - multiple offline AV scanners tools aiming to ensure that their malware doesn't end up in the hands of vendors/researchers.

Multiple offline AV scanning tools like this very latest release, naturally using pirated copies of popular antivirus software, are faddish, due to the fact that during the last two years, the underground has been busy working on several paid web based services, that not only make sure vendors and researchers never get the chance to obtain the samples, but also, are already offering scheduled scanning of malware and automatic ICQ/Jabber notifications for QA of the campaign, next to the rest of unique features disintermediating legitimate multiple AV scanning services.

Certain features within such services clearly speak for the intentions of the people behind the service. For instance, among one of these features is the ability to fetch a binary from a set of given dropper URLs like malwaredomain.com/binary.exe, the result of the scan can then alert the malware campaigner about the current state of detection.

What's on these proprietary multiple AV scanning service's to-do list? Let's say anything that a legitimate multiple AV scanning service would never offer, like the following according to one of the services in question :

- DIY heuristic scanning level settings for each of the software in place
- upcoming sets of anti spyware and personal firewalls with detailed statistics of the sandboxing
- behavior-based detection results

The possibilities for integrating such proprietary multi AV scanning services within the QA process of a malware campaign are countless, and both, the customers and the sellers seem to have realized the potential of this ecosystem. Continue reading →

Cybercriminals Abusing Lycos Spain To Serve Malware

0
October 09, 2008
Spanish cybercriminals have recently started taking advantage of the bogus accounts at Lycos Spain, which they seem to be registering on their own, by releasing a do-it-yourself malicious link generator redirecting to fake YouTube and Adobe Flash video pages. Whereas the concept of abusing legitimate web services for infection and propagation isn't new, what's new is the fact that the FTP access is efficiently abused

Here's a description of the link generator :

"Download the program and run it asks for an ID (identifier), then copy it and paste it there, then press' Create Installer 'and the program will create the Installer! (this program to run a simulation that is installing the Adobe Flash and indicates to our page that "has been installed Adobe Flash," in order to show the video when YouVideo refresh the page, this you must file tie it in with your server! and what flames or Installer Setup (simulating being an installer)!  Now you need to upload that file you've joined an FTP, click Next and put the path of that file in the next step!"

Whereas the tool is exclusively relying on Lycos Spain to host the binaries and the campaign itself, the recent blackhat SEO campaign relying on pre-registered Windows Live Spaces and AOL Journals syndicating hot Google Trends keywords, further indicates the malicious attacker's capabilities of efficiently abusing legitimate services. And with the process of bogus accounts registration performed automatically, or outsourced entirely, malicious services aiming to automate the abuse process are only going to get more efficient. Continue reading →

Commoditization of Anti Debugging Features in RATs - Part Two

0
October 09, 2008
Yet another piece of malware promoted as a RAT (remote access tool) includes what's turning into the defacto set of anti-debugging features within RATs.

As the authors point out, the Anti Virtual PC, VMware, Virtualbox, Sandboxie, ThreatExpert, Anubis, CWSandbox, Joebox, Norman Sandbox features inevitably increase the server size. Next to the product, there's always the managed service of ensuring a lower detection rate for binaries submitted to the authors. Continue reading →

A Diverse Portfolio of Fake Security Software - Part Eight

0
October 07, 2008
In the spirit of "taking a bite out of cybercrime", here are the latest fake security software domains, typosquatted and already acquiring traffic through a dozen of malware campaigns redirecting to most of them :



antivirus-scanner-online.com (67.205.75.14)



archivepacker.com (78.157.142.111)

winpacker.com

xh-codec.net




securedownloadcenter.com (89.18.189.44)

winupdates-server.com

browserssecuritypage.com

megatradetds0.com




quickscanpc.com (78.159.118.144)

clickchecker6.com



gensoftdownload.com (91.203.93.25)



online-av-scan2008.com (66.232.105.232)

anothersoftportal09.com

bigfreesoftarchive.com

celebs-on-video-08.com

celebs-on-video-2008.com

cleansoftportal2009.com

hot-p0rntube.com

hot-porn-tube-2008.com

hot-porn-tube2008.com

hot-porn-tube2009.com

justdomain08.com

new-porntube-2008.com

online-av-scan2008.com

s0ftvvarep0rtal.com

s0ftvvareportal.com

s0ftvvareportal08.com

s0ftwarep0rtal08.com

softportalforfun.com

softportalforfun08.com

softportalforfun2008.com

softvvareportal.com

softvvareportal08.com

softvvareportal2008.com

trustedsoftportal06.com

trustedsoftportal2008.com




antivirus-online-08.com (89.187.48.155; 218.106.90.227)

anti-virus-xp.com

anti-virus-xp.net

anti-virusxp2008.net

antimalware09.com

antivirxp.net

av-xp08.net

av-xp2008.com

av-xp2008.net

avx08.net

axp2008.com

e-antiviruspro.com

eantivirus-payment.com

ekerberos.com

online-security-systems.com

xpprotector.com

youpornzztube.com




sp-preventer.com (92.241.163.32)

spypreventers.com



u-a-v-2008.com (92.241.163.31)

uav2008.com



power-avcc.com (92.62.101.57)

power-avc.com

pvrantivirus.com




m-s-a-v-c.com (92.62.101.55)

ms-avcc.com

ms-avc.com




wav2008.com (92.241.163.30)

wiav2009.com

win-av.com

windows-av.com

windowsav.com 




You know the drill. 



Related posts:

A Diverse Portfolio of Fake Security Software - Part Seven

A Diverse Portfolio of Fake Security Software - Part Six

A Diverse Portfolio of Fake Security Software - Part Five

A Diverse Portfolio of Fake Security Software - Part Four

A Diverse Portfolio of Fake Security Software - Part Three

A Diverse Portfolio of Fake Security Software - Part Two

Diverse Portfolio of Fake Security Software Continue reading →

Web Based Malware Emphasizes on Anti-Debugging Features

0
October 07, 2008
Following the ongoing development of a particular web based malware, always comes handy in terms of assessing the commoditization of anti-debugging features within modern malware. With plain simple, "managed binary crypting and firewall bypassing verification" on demand in February, to August's overall anti antivirus software mentality as a key differentiation factor of the malware.

So what are they working on? Anti tracing and emulation protection, PeiD and PESniffer protection, as well as anti heuristic scanning with a simple junk data adding feature in order to maintain a smaller binary size.

Here's a translated description :

"- The binary works under admin and under normal user
- The binary is always run as the "current user"
- An unlimited number of bots can be loaded and integrated within the command and control, and with the geolocation feature, filters can be applied for a particular country
-After successful infection, the binary which is tested against popular firewall and proactive protection security ensures that the actions it takes and their order do not trigger protactive protection mechanisms in place
- binary file size is 25k, the size can be reduced once it's crypted


- Doesn't take advantage of BITS protocol
- Doesn't allow an infected host to be infected twice
- Bypassing NAT and supporting "always-on" connections
- A simple, easy to configure web based admin panel"

What if the buyer doesn't care about the quality assurance practices applied? Managed lower AV detection and firewall bypassing service comes into play. Continue reading →

Fake Windows XP Activation Trojan Wants Your CVV2 Code

0
October 06, 2008
In a self-contradicting social engineering attempt, a malware author is offering to sale a (updated version of Kardphisher) DIY fake Windows XP activation builder, which despite the fact that it claims "We will ask for your billing details, but your credit card will NOT be charged", is requesting and remotely uploading all the credit card details required for a successfully credit card theft.

Perhaps among the main reasons why such simplistic social engineering attempts never scaled in a "malicious economies of scale" approach, is because sophisticated crimeware kits capable of obtaining the very same data automatically, started leaking for everyone to start taking advantage of - including yesterday's cybercriminals using such DIY fake message builders.

Moreover, according to recently reseased survey results, end users cannot distinguish between fake popups and real ones, and on their way to continue doing what they were doing, click OK on that pesky warning message telling them that they're about to get infected with malware. Taking into consideration the fact that the popup windows the researchers used look like cheap creative compared to the average fake security software's layout high quality GUIs, it is perhaps worth restating your research questions with something in the lines of - What motivates end users to install an antivirus application going under the name of Super Antivirus 2009 or Mega Virus Cleaner 2008? The fact that the fake status bar is telling them that they're infected with 47 spyware cookies, or the fact that they ended up at the fake site while browsing their trusted web services?

The increase of rogue security software domains is happening due to the high payout affiliation based model, the standardized creative allowing the participants to come up with their own fake names if they want to, and due to the fact that the fake security threats scareware approach seems to be perfectly taking advantage of the overall suspicion on the effectiveness of their legitimate security software. Continue reading →

Inside a Managed Spam Service

0
October 03, 2008
A managed spam vendor always has to raise the stakes during its introduction period on the market. But what happens when a market follower starts using the market leader's proprietary managed spamming system, and is able to provide better spamming rates at a cheaper prices?  Market forces and unethical competition at its best.

So, what is this market challenger using the monopolist's -- in respect to managed spamming services not spam in general -- proprietary system (Spamming vendor launches managed spamming service) up to anyway? Promising and delivering, 1, 400,000 emails daily, 60,000 mails per hour, and 100 emails per minute. What we've got here are the spam metrics out of 5 already finished spam campaigns that has managed to sent out a million spam emails using only 2000 malware infected hosts. Also, CC-ing and BCC-ing made it possible to multiple the effect of the campaign and increase the total number of emails spammed. Talking about benchmarks, 789 emails per minute at a rate of 12/13 emails per second is a pretty good one, considering it's only 2k bots that they were using. What they also promise is automatic rotation of IPs upon automatically checking them against public blacklists, and a mix rotation of IPs from their own netblocks located in Russia and Germany with the fresh IPs coming from the newly infected hosts.

Earlier this month, I discussed the market leader's managed spamming system, access to which they also offer for rent :

"An inside look of the system obtained on 2008-08-12 indicates that they are indeed capable of delivering what they promise - speed, simplicity and 5000 malware infected hosts. Moreover, the attached screenshot demonstrates that 20 different email databases can be simultaneously used resulting in 16,523,247 emails about to get spammed using 52 different macroses. Furthermore, what they refer to as a dynamic set of regional servers aiming to ensure that the central server never gets exposed, is in fact fast-flux which depending on how many bots they are willing to put into “rtsegional server mode” shapes the size of the fast-flux network at a later stage."

With cutting edge managed spam services like the ones currently in circulation, it remains to be seen whether or not spammers would migrate to this outsourcing model, or continue coming up with adaptive ways to send out their scams and malware on their own. Continue reading →

Syndicating Google Trends Keywords for Blackhat SEO

0
October 03, 2008
Several hundred Windows Live Spaces and AOL Journals, are currently syndicating the most popular keywords provided by Google Trends, and are consequently hijacking the top search queries exposing users to Zlob codecs.

Here are some same bogus blogs used in the campaign, naturally pre-registered long before they executed it :

vinniedigg18 .spaces.live.com
journals.aol .com/iolatour16
fredabreak02 .spaces.live.com
thedaalerts01 .spaces.live.com
allisonpolls08 .spaces.live.com
rheabreak18 .spaces.live.com
racquellog17 .spaces.live.com
monikavideo11 .spaces.live.com
journals.aol .com/shelvakill27
tomekadigg26 .spaces.live.com
ivahnet19 .spaces.live.com
journals.aol .com/louisathere13
allisonpolls08 .spaces.live.com
valericatch03 .spaces.live.com
journals.aol .com/iolatour16
hadleycue01 .spaces.live.com
journals.aol .com/staceyliving01
collettebreak17 .spaces.live.com
journals.aol .com/nataliablog16
natalymore26 .spaces.live.com


A comprehensive listing of the blogs involved can be downloaded here.

What do all of these bogus blogs have in common? The fact that they are all being abused by a single malware campaign, and the Keep it Simple Stupid mentality only a lazy malware campaigner can take advantage of. All of the blogs as using a central redirection domain, shutting it down or blocking it renders the number of bogus blogs is circulation irrelevant. In this case, the domain in question is video.xmancer.org (216.195.59.75).

Here are the the rest of the domains participating in the campaign, as well as the parked ones at the corresponding IPs :

video.xmancer .org (216.195.59.75)
buynowbe .com
loveniche .com
antivirus-freecheck .com
jetelephone .cn
reducki .cn
woteenhas .cn
lilaloft .cn


clipztimes .com (78.157.143.235)
imagelized .com
vidzdaily .com


gotmovz .com (78.108.177.91)
dwnld-clips .com

movwmstream .com (77.91.231.183)
newwmpupdate .com
zaeplugin .com
movaccelerator .com
optimwares .com
piterserv .com


moviesportal2008p .com (72.232.183.154)
movieportal2008a .com
funnyportal2008l .com
starsportal2008p .com
softportal2008p .com
movieportal2008q .com


In short, despite that the campaign is poised to attract generic search traffic, it's a self-exposing blackhat SEO campaign since each and every blog participating is also linking to the rest of the ones within the ecosystem.

Related posts:
Blackhat SEO Redirects to Malware and Rogue Software
Blackhat SEO Campaign at The Millennium Challenge Corporation
Massive IFRAME SEO Poisoning Attack Continuing
Massive Blackhat SEO Targeting Blogspot
The Invisible Blackhat SEO Campaign
Attack of the SEO Bots on the .EDU Domain
p0rn.gov - The Ongoing Blackhat SEO Operation
The Continuing .Gov Blackat SEO Campaign
The Continuing .Gov Blackhat SEO Campaign - Part Two
Compromised Sites Serving Malware and Spam Continue reading →

Managed Fast Flux Provider - Part Two

0
October 02, 2008
We're slowly entering into a stage where RBN bullet proof hosting franchises are vertically integrating, and due to the requests from their customers are starting to offer that they refer to as "mirrored hosting" which in practice is plain simple fast flux network consisting of RBN-alike purchased netblocks, and naturally, botnet infected hosts.

Managed fast-fluxing is only starting to go mainstream, for instance, in July I found evidence that money mule recruiters were using ASProx's infected hosts as hosting infrastructure, and in November, 2007, an infamous spamming software vendor was also found to have been offering fast-flux services in the past.

In this most recent fast-flux service, we have a known spammer and botnet master that in between self-serving himself on is way to ensure his portfolio of scammy domains remains online for a "little longer", is commercializing fast-fluxing and is offered a DIY service :

"Finally after hardwork and great appreciation from our normal bullet proof hosting/server clients we are able to launch Mirrored hosting. What is Mirrored hosting ?

================
Mirrored hosting is a powerful mirrored web hosting management, uses multiple Virtual servers to host website with 100% uptime. Mirrored hosting is a combination of two things, which are:

1. Specially Designed Virtual Servers

2. Powerful Automated Control Panel

How does it work ?
=============== 


Mirrored hosting uses specially configured Virtual Servers making them link with the Mirrored hosting Control Panel which is then controlled by our own control panel allowing us to provide smooth streamline hosting with no downtime. No one is able to trace original IP of the server or the place where the files are hosted so the websites/domains hosted have a 100% Uptime. This is achieved by unique customisation of our Virtual Servers.

Actually, it takes ips around the world and our powerful control panel just rotates the ips every 15 minutes. though all these ips you will see will be fake no one can trace the orignal ip where files are hosted. Sometimes the ip is from China, Korea, USA, UK, Japan, Lithuania etc.
"

The concept has always been there for cybercriminals to take advantage of, but once it matures into a managed service it would undoubtedly lower down the entry barriers allowing yesterday's average phishers to take advantage of what only the "pros" were used to.

Related posts:
Storm Worm's Fast Flux Networks
Managed Fast Flux Provider
Fast Flux Spam and Scams Increasing
Fast Fluxing Yet Another Pharmacy Spam
Obfuscating Fast Fluxed SQL Injected Domains
Storm Worm Hosting Pharmaceutical Scams
Fast-Fluxing SQL injection attacks executed from the Asprox botnet Continue reading →

Knock, Knock, Knockin' on Carder's Door

0
October 02, 2008
This video of Cha0's bust earlier this month in Turkey, is a perfect example of what happens when someone starts over-performing in the field of carding.


Try counting the desktops, and notice the "full package" a carder can dream of - the box full of ATM skimmers, the holograms, the plastic cards machine, the suitcase with the POS (point of sale) terminals, the house and swimming pool, and, of course, the hard cash. Continue reading →

Monetizing Infected Hosts by Hijacking Search Results

0
October 02, 2008
When logs with accounting data are no longer of interest due to low liquidity on the underground market, monetization of the infected hosts comes into play.

This web based malware seems like an early BETA aiming to scale, however it's only unique features are its ability to hijack the infected user's searches and server relevant ads courtesy of the affiliate networks the administrator participates in, and also, an integrated DDoS module that the author simply stole from another kit. Strangely, it's 2008 yet the author also included the ability to turn on the telnet service on an infected host.

With the search queries feature easy to duplicate by other kits, this web based malware is a great example of how the time-to-market mentality lacking any kind of personal experience -- the malware cannot intercept SSL sessions compared to the majority of crimeware kits that can -- ends up in a weird hybrid of random features.
 
Customerization will inevitably prevail over the product concept mentality.

Continue reading →

Copycat Web Malware Exploitation Kit Comes with Disclaimer

0
October 02, 2008
Such disclaimers make you wonder what's the point of including a notice forwarding the responsibility for the upcoming cybercrime activities to the buyer, when the seller himself is offering daily updates with undetected bots, and is promising to include new exploits within the kit.

For the time being, this recently released copycat web exploitation malware kit, includes two PDF exploits, IE snapshot, and naturally MDAC, with a DIY builder for the binary. Here's the disclaimer, greatly reminding us of Zeus's copyright notice :

"Purchasing this product, you hold the full responsibility for its usage and for consequences which may have been caused by incorrect usage or the usage with some evil intent or violation of the usage rules. The author excludes the placement of the scripts somewhere on the Internet, you can only place them on localhost, virtual machine or on a test botnet (minibotnet). WARNING! The usage of this product with evil intent leads to the criminal responsibility!"

What happens when the buyer tries to resell the kit? - "If you try to resell, decode, remove the boundaries, you will lose all the support, updates and guarantees." which is surreal considering that the kit is open source one, and just like we've seen with a recent modification of Zeus if it were to include unique features -- which it doesn't -- others would build upon its foundations.


Going through the exploitation statistics of a sample campaign, you can clearly see that out of the 859 unique visits 250 got exploited with outdated and already patched vulnerabilities. Therefore, diversifying the exploits set would have increased the number of exploited hosts.

With IE6 visitors exploited at 46% as a whole, it would be hard not to notice that just like Stormy Wormy's historical persistence of using outdated vulnerabilities, a great majority of today's botnets have been aggregated using old exploits.

Trying to enforce the intellectual property of a malware kit means you're claiming ownership, and therefore the disclaimer becomes irrelevant. Continue reading →

Web Based Malware Eradicates Rootkits and Competing Malware

0
October 01, 2008
A tiny 20kb antivirus module within "yet another web based malware in the wild", promises to get rid of all Zeus variants, and also, detect and remove rootkits found on the infected system in order to ensure that it's the only malware the victim remains infected with. What's really special about its command and control interface is that it's AJAX based, with the seller pitching the feature as "you no longer have to hit F5 in order to see how's your malware campaign doing".

Here's a brief (translated) description :

- Simultaneously execute different campaigns, allocate specific bots for specific countries only, set time and data for automatic update with the new binaries
- Firewalls and antivirus bypassing capabilities, Anti-tracing, anti-reverse engineering
- Self defense mechanism for harder removal
- ICQ notifications for finished tasks, newly infected hosts, graphical statistics

Exactly how it removes rootkits remains yet unknown due to its proprietary nature and brief description, but resetting the hosts file and taking advantage of updated BHO list of known malware are among the ways it removes competing malware. Continue reading →

Identifying the Gpcode Ransomware Author

0
September 30, 2008
Interesting article, but it implies that there has been a shortage of quality OSINT regarding the campaigners behind the recent Gpcode targeted cryptoviral extortion attacks :

"The individual is believed to be a Russian national, and has been in contact with at least one anti-malware company, Kaspersky Lab, in an attempt to sell a tool that could be used to decrypt victims' files. Kaspersky Lab set about locating the man by resolving the proxied IP addresses used to communicate with the world to their real addresses. The proxied addresses turned out to be zombie PCs in countries such as the US, which pointed to the fact that GPcode's author had almost certainly used compromised PCs from a single botnet to get Gpcode on to victim's machines."

In reality, there hasn't been a shortage of timely OSINT aiming to to identify the authors - "Who’s behind the GPcode ransomware?" :

"So, the ultimate question - who’s behind the GPcode ransomware? It’s Russian teens with pimples, using E-gold and Liberty Reserve accounts, running three different GPcode campaigns, two of which request either $100 or $200 for the decryptor, and communicating from Chinese IPs. Here are all the details regarding the emails they use, the email responses they sent back, the currency accounts, as well their most recent IPs used in the communication (58.38.8.211; 221.201.2.227) :

Emails used by the GPcode authors where the infected victims are supposed to contact them :
content715@yahoo .com
saveinfo89@yahoo .com
cipher4000@yahoo .com
decrypt482@yahoo .com


Virtual currency accounts used by the malware authors :
Liberty Reserve - account U6890784
E-Gold - account - 5431725
E-Gold - account - 5437838
"

The bottom line - out of the four unique emails used by the GPcode campaigners, only two were actively corresponding with the victims, each of them requesting a different amount of money, but both, taking advantage of U.S based web services to accomplish their attack. Continue reading →

A Diverse Portfolio of Fake Security Software - Part Seven

0
September 30, 2008
In case you haven't heard - Microsoft and the Washington state are suing a U.S based -- naturally -- "scareware" vendor Branch Software :

"We won't tolerate the use of alarmist warnings or deceptive 'free scans' to trick consumers into buying software to fix a problem that doesn't even exist," Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna said. "We've repeatedly proven that Internet companies that prey on consumers' anxieties are within our reach."

Sadly, Branch Software is the tip of the iceberg on the top of the affiliates participating in different affiliation based programs, which similar to IBSOFTWARE CYPRUS and Interactivebrands, which I've been tracking down for a while, are the aggregators of scareware that popped up on the radars due to their extensive portfolios. These three companies offering software bundles or plain simple fake software, are somewhere in between the food chain of this ecosystem, with the real vendors paying out the commissions on a per installation basis slowly starting to issue invitation codes that they've distributed only across invite-only forums/sections of particular forums.

Behind these brands is everyone that is participating in the franchise and is putting personal efforts into monetizing the high payout rates that the fake security software vendor is paying for successful installation. These high payout rates -- with the financing naturally coming straight from other criminal activities online -- are in fact so high, that I can easily say that the last two quarters we've witnesses the largest increase of such domains ever, and they're only heating up since the typosquatting possibilities are countless and they seem to know that as well.

It's important to point out that their business model of acquiring traffic is outsourced to all the affiliates that do the blackhat SEO, SQL injections, web sessions hijacking of malware infected hosts in order to monetize, so basically, you have an affiliates network whose actions are directly driving the growth into all these areas. Throwing money into the underground marketplace as a "financial injection", is proving itself as a growth factor, and incentive for innovation on behalf of all the participants.

Here are some of the most recent fake security software domains, a "deja vu" moment with a known RBN domain from a "previous life" that is also parked at one of the servers, and evidence that typosquatting for fraudulent purposes is still pretty active with a dozen of Norton Antivirus related domains, some of which have already started issuing "fake security notices" by brandjacking the vendor for traffic acquisition purposes.

Antivirus-Alert .com (203.117.111.47) where pepato .org a domain that was used in the Wired.com and History.com IFRAME injections, which back in March was also hosted at Hostfresh (58.65.238.59).

softload2008name .com (78.157.143.250)
softload2008nm .com
softload2008n .com
softload2008jq .com


microantivir-2009 .com (91.208.0.223)
scanner.microantivir-2009 .com
microantivir2009 .com
microantivirus-2009 .com
microantivirus2009 .com


ms-scan .com (91.208.0.228)
msscanner .com
ms-scanner .com

Personalantispy .com (93.190.139.197)
freepcsecure .com
quickinstallpack .com
quickdownloadpro .com
advancedcleaner .com
performanceoptimizer .com
internetanonymizer .com


ieprogramming .com (92.62.101.83)
uptodatepage .com
fileliveupdate .com
qwertypages .com
sharedupdates .com
ierenewals .com


norton-antivirus-alert .com
norton-anti-virus-2007 .com
norton-antivirus-2007 .com
norton-antivirus2007 .com
nortonantivirus2007 .com
norton-antivirus-2008 .com
nortonantivirus2008 .com
nortonantivirus2008freedownload .com
norton-antivirus-2009 .com
nortonantivirus2009 .com
norton-antivirus-2010 .com
nortonantivirus2010 .com
nortonantivirus360 .com
nortonantivirus8 .com
nortonantivirusa .com
nortonantivirusactivation .com
norton-antivirus-alert .com
nortonantivirusalerts .com
norton--anti-virus .com
norton-anti-virus .com
norton-antivirus .com
nortonanti-virus .com
nortonantivirus.com
nortonantiviruscom .com
nortonantiviruscorporate .com
nortonantiviruscorporateedition .com
nortonantiviruscoupon .com
nortonantivirusdefinition .com
nortonantivirusdefinitions .com
nortonantivirusdirect .com


Fake Antivirus Inc. is not going away as long as the affiliate based model remains active. If the real vendors were greedy enough not to share the revenues with others, they would have been the one popping up on the radar, compared to the situation where it's the affiliate network's participations greed that's increasing their visibility online.

Related posts:
A Diverse Portfolio of Fake Security Software - Part Six
A Diverse Portfolio of Fake Security Software - Part Five
A Diverse Portfolio of Fake Security Software - Part Four
A Diverse Portfolio of Fake Security Software - Part Three
A Diverse Portfolio of Fake Security Software - Part Two
Diverse Portfolio of Fake Security Software
Cybersquatting Symantec's Norton AntiVirus
Cybersquatting Security Vendors for Fraudulent Purposes
Fake Porn Sites Serving Malware - Part Three
Fake Porn Sites Serving Malware - Part Two
Fake Porn Sites Serving Malware
EstDomains and Intercage VS Cybercrime
Fake Security Software Domains Serving Exploits
Localized Fake Security Software
Got Your XPShield Up and Running?
Fake PestPatrol Security Software
RBN's Fake Security Software
Lazy Summer Days at UkrTeleGroup Ltd
Geolocating Malicious ISPs
The Malicious ISPs You Rarely See in Any Report Continue reading →

Modified Zeus Crimeware Kit Comes With Built-in MP3 Player

0
September 29, 2008
Modified versions of popular open source crimeware kits rarely make the headlines due to the fact that anyone can hijack a crimeware kit's brand, build and innovate using its foundations, and claim it's a new version released by the original authors. That's of course in between the tiny time frame until he's exposed as the fake author of Zeus that may have in fact came up with a unique feature that the original authors didn't include.

This modified version of Zeus is yet another example of how cybercriminals are actively modifying crimeware kits, literally making such practices as keeping version numbers irrelevant. While the administrator is managing his botnet, he can load local, or tunein the built-in online radio stations the author of this modification included, next to changing Zeus entire graphical layout.

Let's take into consideration another example, the infamous Pinch DIY malware builder, that's been around for over 4 years. With the populist arrest of its authors in 2007, cybercriminals are still innovating on the foundations offered by Pinch, and thanks to its publicly obtainable source code. It's also worth pointing out that these two Zeus and Pinch modifications are courtesy of a single individual, that in between modifications of popular crimeware kits, seems to be busy porting different modules on different malware kits and web based malware, knowingly or unknowingly contributing to the convergence of spamming, DDoS, web based malware, and botnet management kits.

From a sarcastic perspective - what's next? Perhaps a built-in slideshow of random screenshots taken from malware infected desktops in the botnet, or even a pink layout modification for female botnet masters. Customerization, and customer tailored services can make anything happen, and naturally enjoy the higher profit margins. Continue reading →

The Commercialization of Anti Debugging Tactics in Malware

0
September 29, 2008
Commoditization or commercialization, Themida or Code Virtualizer, individually crypting or outsourcing to an experienced malware crypting service offering discounts on a volume basis next to detection rates of the crypted binary offered by a trusted online scanner that is NOT distributing the samples to the vendors? These are just some of the questions malware authors often ask themselves, while others distribute pirated copies of Code Virtualizer urging everyone to start taking advantage of commercial anti-reverse engineering tools to make their malware harder to analyze. Once again, just like we've seen before, a legitimate commercial application can come handy in the hands of the wrong people :

"Code Virtualizer will convert your original code (Intel x86 instructions) into Virtual Opcodes that will only be understood by an internal Virtual Machine. Those Virtual Opcodes and the Virtual Machine itself are unique for every protected application, avoiding a general attack over Code Virtualizer. Code Virtualizer can protect your sensitive code areas in any x32 and x64 native PE files (like executable files/EXEs, system services, DLLs , OCXs , ActiveX controls, screen savers and device drivers).

Code Virtualizer can generate multiple types of virtual machines with a different instruction set for each one. This means that a specific block of Intel x86 instructions can be converted into different instruction set for each machine, preventing an attacker from recognizing any generated virtual opcode after the transformation from x86 instructions. The following picture represents how a block of Intel x86 instructions is converted into different kinds of virtual opcodes, which could be emulated by different virtual machines.

When an attacker tries to decompile a block of code that was protected by Code Virtualizer, he will not find the original x86 instructions. Instead, he will find a completely new instruction set which is not recognized by him or any other special decompiler. This will force the attacker to go through the extremely hard work of identifying how each opcode is executed and how the specific virtual machine works for each protected application. Code Virtualizer totally obfuscates the execution of the virtual opcodes and the study of each unique virtual machine in order to prevent someone from studying how the virtual opcodes are executed."

With Cyber-as-a-Service business model becoming increasingly common, the entire quality assurance model in respect to malware is slowly maturing from individual malware crypting propositions, where the seller of the service is basically taking advantage of a diverse set of public/private tools, into DIY web services offering crypting discounts on a volume basis, and perhaps most importantly - improving the customer's experience by letting him take advantage of the inventory of crypting tools and bypassing verification services. Within the tool's inventory are naturally lots of (pirated) commercial anti-reverse engineering tools.

As we've seen before, whenever someone starts commercializing what used to be a self-selving process, others will either follow, or disintermediate their services by persistently releasing crypting tools for free in the wild. At the end of the day, it's all a matter of how serious they're about commercializing this market segment, and taking into consideration that a spamming vendor is offering malware crypting services "in between" the rest of the services in their portfolio, this underground cash cow is yet to prove itself in the long term. Continue reading →

Hijacking a Spam Campaign's Click-through Rate

0
September 26, 2008
This spammer is DomainKeys verified, a natural observation considering that the spam compaign which I discussed last Wednesday is using bogus Yahoo Mail accounts, and is spamming only Yahoo Mail users through a segmented emails database.

Not necessarily what I wanted to achieve, but once posting the spam campaigns SEO URLs, Yahoo's crawler's picked up the post pretty fast, and have ruined the SEO effect, with everyone clicking on the campaign's links reaching the post. Close to 15,000 unique visitors reached the article during the past 7 days since the now hijacked, spammer's link is no longer achieving the effect it used to.

What does this prove? It proves that users tend to trust emails that pass through spam filters so much that they actually click on the links. And whereas it's a spam campaign, and not a malware campaign, the next time they over trust such a email, they'll expose themselves to client-side vulnerabilities courtesy of a copycat web malware exploitation kit.

The latest search query the campaign is using :
- yahoo.com/search/search;_ylt=?p=...........................................stossregularnew............$0.00.........

leads to stossregularnew.com (61.255.135.185).

- yahoo.com/search/search;_ylt=?p=||||||||||||||||clapmoon||||||||||||$229|||||||||||||||| leads to clapmoon.com (122.198.62.4). Continue reading →

250k of Harvested Hotmail Emails Go For?

0
September 25, 2008
$50 in this particular case, however, keeping in mind that the email harvester is anything but ethical, this very same database will be sold and re-sold more times than the original buyer would like to know about. Moreover, what someone is offering for sale, may in fact be already available as a value-added addition to a managed spamming service.

With metrics and quality assurance applied in a growing number of spam and phishing campaigns, filling in the niche of email harvesting by distinguishing between different types of obfuscated emails by releasing an easily embeddable module, was an anticipated move. What's to come? Spam and malware campaigns across social networks "as usual" will propagate faster thanks to the ongoing harvesting of usernames within social networks, that would later on get imported in Web 2.0 "marketing" tools targeting the high-trafficked sites and automatically spamming them.

From a spammer's perspective, geolocating these 250k emails could increase their selling prices since the buyers would be able to launch localized attacks with messages in the native languages of the receipts. Is the demand for quality email databases fueling the developments of this market segment, or are the spammers self-serving themselves and cashing-in by reselling what they've already abused a log time ago? That seems to be the case, since there's no way a buyer could verify the freshness of the harvested emails database and whether or not it has already been abused.

For the time being, we've got several developed and many other developing market segments within spamming and phishing as different markets with different players. On one hand are the legitimately looking spamming providers offering "direct marketing services" working with lone spammers who find a reliable business partner in the face of the spamming vendor whose customers drive both side's business models. On the other hand, you've got the spammers excelling in outsourcing the automatic account registration process, coming up with ways to build a spamming infrastructure -- already available as a module to integrate in managed spamming services -- using legitimate services as a provider of the infrastructure.

Despite that the arms race seems to be going on at several different fronts, spammers VS the industry and spammers VS spammers fighting for market share, the entire underground ecosystem is clearly allocating a lot of resources for research and development in order to ensure that they are always a step ahead of the industry.

Related posts:
Harvesting Youtube Usernames for Spamming 
Thousands of IM Screen Names in the Wild
Automatic Email Harvesting 2.0
Dissecting a Managed Spamming Service
Managed Spamming Appliances - the Future of Spam
Inside an Email Harvester's Configuration File
Segmenting and Localizing Spam Campaigns
Shots from the Malicious Wild West - Sample Four
Continue reading →