New Findings Lend Credence to Project Blitzkrieg

December 12, 2012
18 Comments

“Project Blitzkrieg,” a brazen Underweb plan for hiring 100 botmasters to fuel a blaze of ebanking heists against 30 U.S. financial institutions in the Spring of 2013, was met with skepticism from some in the security community after news of the scheme came to light in October. Many assumed it was a law enforcement sting, or merely the ramblings of a wannabe criminal mastermind. But new research suggests the crooks who hatched the plan were serious and have painstakingly built up a formidable crime machine in preparation for the project.

McAfee says it tracked hundreds of infections from Gozi Prinimalka since Project Blitzkrieg was announced in early September.

The miscreant who posted the call-to-arms — a bald, stocky guy using the nickname vorVzakone (literally, “thief in law”) — also posted a number of screen shots that he said were taken from a working control panel for the botnet he was building. Those images contained several Internet addresses of PCs that were allegedly part of his botnet. According to RSA Security, the botnet consisted of systems infected with Gozi Prinimalka, a closely-held, custom version of the powerful password-stealing Gozi banking Trojan.

In an analysis (PDF) to be published Dec. 13, security vendor McAfee said it was able to combine the data in those screen shots with malware detections on its own network to correlate both victim PCs and the location of the control server. It found that the version of the Prinimalka Trojan used in the attack has two unique identifiers (“Campaign ID” and “Bot ID”) that identify what variant is being deployed on infected computers. McAfee said that all of the systems it identified from the screen shots posted by vorVzakone carried the Campaign ID 064004, which was discovered in the wild on April 14, 2012.

Ryan Sherstobitoff, a threat researcher at McAfee, said the company’s analysis indicates that Project Blitzkrieg is a credible threat to the financial industry and appears to be moving forward.

“There is much speculation whether Project Blitzkrieg is real or simply a creation of Russian law enforcement as a sting operation. Our analysis suggests it is authentic, though the timing of the fraudulent activity is unknown,” Sherstobitoff said.. “We do know that the thieves have had an active system since April 2012, with at least 500 victims who can be linked to vorVzakone.”

Continue reading →

Critical Updates for Flash Player, Microsoft Windows

December 11, 2012
26 Comments

Adobe and Microsoft have each released security updates to fix critical security flaws in their software. Microsoft issued seven update bundles to fix at least 10 vulnerabilities in Windows and other software. Separately, Adobe pushed out a fix for its Flash Player and AIR software that address at least three critical vulnerabilities in these programs.

A majority of the bugs quashed in Microsoft’s patch batch are critical security holes, meaning that malware or miscreants could exploit them to seize control over vulnerable systems with little or no help from users. Among the critical patches is an update for Internet Explorer versions 9 and 10 (Redmond says these flaws are not present in earlier versions of IE).

Other critical patches address issues with the Windows kernel, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft Exchange Server. The final critical bug is a file handling vulnerability in Windows XP, Vista and 7 that Microsoft said could allow remote code execution if a user browses to a folder that contains a file or subfolder with a specially crafted name. Yikes. Updates are available through Windows Update or via Automatic Updates.

Continue reading →

Advertisement

A Closer Look at Two Bigtime Botmasters

December 11, 2012
14 Comments

Over the past 18 months, I’ve published a series of posts that provide clues about the possible real-life identities of the men responsible for building some of the largest and most disruptive spam botnets on the planet. I’ve since done a bit more digging into the backgrounds of the individuals thought to be responsible for the Rustock and Waledac spam botnets, which has produced some additional fascinating and corroborating details about these two characters.

In March 2011, KrebsOnSecurity featured never-before-published details about the financial accounts and nicknames used by the Rustock botmaster. That story was based on information leaked from SpamIt, a cybercrime business that paid spammers to promote rogue Internet pharmacies (think Viagra spam). In a follow-up post, I wrote that the Rustock botmaster’s personal email account was tied to a domain name ger-mes.ru, which at one time featured a résumé of a young man named Dmitri A. Sergeev.

Then, on Jan. 26. 2012, I ran a story featuring a trail of evidence suggesting a possible identity of “Severa“ (a.k.a. “Peter Severa”), another SpamIt affiliate who is widely considered the author of the Waledac botnet (and likely the Storm Worm). In that story, I included several screen shots of Severa chatting on Spamdot.biz, an extremely secretive Russian forum dedicated to those involved in the spam business. In one of the screen shots, Severa laments the arrest of Alan Ralsky, a convicted American spam kingpin who specialized in stock spam and who — according to the U.S. Justice Department – was partnered with Severa. Anti-spam activists at Spamhaus.org maintain that Peter Severa’s real name is Peter Levashov (although the evidence I gathered also turned up another name, Viktor Sergeevich Ivashov).

It looks now like Spamhaus’s conclusion on Severa was closer to the truth. More on that in a second. I was able to feature the Spamdot discussions because I’d obtained a backup copy of the forum. But somehow in all of my earlier investigations I overlooked a handful of private messages between Severa and the Rustock botmaster, who used the nickname “Tarelka” on Spamdot. Apparently, the two worked together on the same kind of pump-and-dump stock spam schemes, but also knew each other intimately enough to be on a first-name basis.

Spamdot.biz chat between Tarelka and Severa

The following is from a series of private Spamdot message exchanged between Tarelka and Severa on May 25 and May 26, 2010. In it, Severa refers to Tarelka as “Dimas,” a familiar form of “Dmitri.” Likewise, Tarelka addresses Severa as “Petka,” a common Russian diminutive of “Peter.” They discuss a mysterious mutual friend named John, who apparently used the nickname “Apple.”

Continue reading →

Espionage Attacks Against Ruskies?

December 10, 2012
13 Comments

Hardly a week goes by without news of a cyber espionage attack emanating from China that is focused on extracting sensitive data from corporations and research centers in the United States. But analysis of a recent malware campaign suggests that cyberspies in that region may be just as interested in siphoning secrets from Russian targets.

The Cyrillic text used in the decoy document.

Researchers at Milpitas, Calif. based security firm FireEye say they spotted an email attack of apparent Chinese origin that used Russian language lures to steal data from mostly Russian victims. The email malware campaign embedded a Microsoft Word exploit that displayed a decoy document containing news about a meeting of ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

According to FireEye’s Alex Lanstein, this campaign had its control infrastructure in Korea and Japan, but clues point to Chinese design and operation. The malicious Word document sample that kicked this off was authored from a Microsoft Windows system that was set to use the language pack “Windows Simplified Chinese (PRC, Singapore). The researchers also say they were able to gain access to the control server used in the attack, which revealed systems logging in from China to check on new victims.

Update, 1:05 p.m. ET: FireEye just published a blog post about this research, which indicates they now believe the likely source of this attack was Korea, not China. The headline to this story has been modified..

Continue reading →

ATM Thieves Swap Security Camera for Keyboard

December 4, 2012
25 Comments

This blog has featured stories about a vast array of impressive, high-tech devices used to steal money from automated teller machines (ATMs). But every so often thieves think up an innovation that makes all of the current ATM skimmers look like child’s play. Case in point: Authorities in Brazil have arrested a man who allegedly stole more than USD $41,000 from an ATM after swapping its security camera with a portable keyboard that let him hack the cash machine.

Photo: TV Bahia

The story comes from O Estado de S. Paulo (“The State of São Paulo“), a daily newspaper in Brazil’s largest city. According to the paper, late last month a crook approached an ATM at the Bank of Brazil and somehow removed the security camera from the machine. Apparently, the camera was a USB-based device, because the thief then was able to insert his own USB stick into the slot previously occupied by the camera. As you can imagine, a scene straight out of Terminator 2 ensued.

The attacker was then able to connect a folding keyboard to the ATM’s computer and restart the machine. The newspaper story isn’t crystal clear on the role of the USB device — whether it served as a replacement operating system or merely served to connect the keyboard to the machine (it’s not hard to imagine why this would be so easy, since most ATMs run on some version of Microsoft Windows, which automatically installs drivers for most USB-based input devices).

At any rate, after the thief rebooted the ATM’s computer, he was reportedly able to type the value of the currency notes that he intended to withdraw. According to the story, the thief started by removing all of the R $100 bills, and then moved on to the R $50 notes, and so on.

A crude skimming device removed from an Inova Hospital in Fairfax, Va. last month.

A crude skimming device removed from an Inova Hospital in Fairfax, Va. last month.

As clever as this hack was, the crook didn’t get away: The police were alerted by the central bank’s security team, and caught the thief in the process of withdrawing the funds. Brazilian authorities said they believe the man was being coached via phone, but that the guy they apprehended refused to give up the identity of his accomplice. My guess is the one coaching the thief had inside knowledge about how these machines operated, and perhaps even worked at a financial institution at one point.

These kinds of attacks make traditional ATM skimmer scams look positively prehistoric by comparison. But the sad part is that even really crude skimming devices can be very lucrative and go undetected for months. I was reminded of this last week, when, for the third time in as many months, authorities discovered ATM skimmers at hospitals within a few miles of here. Local police believe the same thieves are responsible for planting all of the fraud devices, which are relatively unsophisticated but nonetheless enabled the theft of thousands of dollars over a period of several weeks.

Continue reading →

Vrublevsky Sues Kaspersky

December 3, 2012
34 Comments

The co-founder and owner of ChronoPay, one of Russia’s largest e-payment providers, is suing Russian security firm Kaspersky Lab, alleging that the latter published defamatory blog posts about him in connection with his ongoing cybercrime trial.

ChronoPay founder Pavel Vrublevsky, at his office in Moscow

Pavel O. Vrublevsky, is on trial in Moscow for allegedly hiring the curator of the Festi spam botnet to attack one of ChronoPay’s rival payment processors. He spent six months in prison last year after admitting to his part in the attack on Assist, a company that processed payments for Russian airline Aeroflot.

The events leading up to that crime are the subject of my Pharma Wars series, which documents an expensive and labyrinthine grudge match between Vrublevsky and the other co-founder of ChronoPay: Igor Gusev — the alleged proprietor of GlavMed and SpamIt, sister organizations that until recently were the largest sources of spam touting rogue Internet pharmacies. For his part, Vrublevsky has been identified as the co-owner of a competing rogue pharmacy program, the now-defunct Rx-Promotion. 

Kaspersky blogger Tatyana Nikitina has covered Vrublevsky’s trial, which has been marked by prosecutorial miscues, allegations of official corruption, and the passage of new Russian laws that actually reduce the penalties for some of Vrublevsky’s alleged offenses. In her latest blog post, “The Vrublevsky Case is Ruined,” Nikitina laments yet another regressive milestone in the trial: The dismissal of claims by Aeroflot that it suffered almost $5 million losses as a result of the cyberattack.

Late last month, Vrublevsky’s lawyers fired back, filing a $5 million defamation lawsuit against Kaspersky Lab, charging that its publications contained untrue and defamatory information. In the suit, Vrublevsky argues that Kaspersky is not only trying to discredit him and influence the judicial process, but that Kaspersky is hardly a disinterested party. He noted that Assist was using Kaspersky’s DDoS protection services at the time of the attack, which Assist said took its services offline for a week.

Continue reading →

Online Service Offers Bank Robbers for Hire

November 29, 2012
47 Comments

An online service boldly advertised in the cyber underground lets miscreants hire accomplices in several major U.S. cities to help empty bank accounts, steal tax refunds and intercept fraudulent purchases of high-dollar merchandise.

The service, advertised on exclusive, Russian-language forums that cater to cybercrooks, claims to have willing and ready foot soldiers for hire in California, Florida, Illinois and New York. These associates are not mere “money mules,” unwitting and inexperienced Americans tricked and cajoled into laundering money after being hired for bogus work-at-home jobs. Rather, as the title of the ad for this service makes clear, the “foreign agents” available through this network are aware that they will be assisting in illegal activity (the ad refers to them as неразводные “nerazvodni” or “not deceived”). Put simply: These are mules that can be counted on not to freak out or disappear with the cash.

These complicit “foreign agents” in the U.S. can be hired to launder funds stolen through cyberheists and tax fraud.

The rest of the ad reads:

“We provide convenient service to our partners:

  • Unique administrative interface – fast response
  • We will react momentarily to any new task
  • Adapt every action of a money mule to client’s requirements
  • Timely payments via WebMoney/Liberty Reserve/Western Union, cash conversion with WU/MG
  • Cashout of tax return, D + P (dump & PIN, cashout of debit cards stolen via skimming)
  • Receive over mail or expensive merchandise pick up in a store
  • Mules are available for other interesting transactions

We work only by reference.”

The proprietors of this service say it will take 40-45 percent of the value of the theft, depending on the amount stolen. In a follow-up Q&A with potential buyers, the vendors behind this service say it regularly moves $30,000 – $100,000 per day for clients. Specifically, it specializes in cashing out high-dollar bank accounts belonging to hacked businesses, hence the mention high up in the ad of fraudulent wire transfers and automated clearinghouse or ACH payments (ACH is typically how companies execute direct deposit of payroll for their employees).

Continue reading →

All Banks Should Display A Warning Like This

November 27, 2012
24 Comments

One of my Twitter account followers whose tweets I also follow  — @spacerog — shared with me the following image, which he recently snapped with his phone while waiting in line at the Philadelphia Federal Credit Union. It’s an excellent public awareness campaign, and one that I’d like to see replicated at bank branches throughout the country.

An anti-fraud awareness campaign by the PFCU.

Java Zero-Day Exploit on Sale for ‘Five Digits’

November 27, 2012
18 Comments

Miscreants in the cyber underground are selling an exploit for a previously undocumented security hole in Oracle’s Java software that attackers can use to remotely seize control over systems running the program, KrebsOnSecurity has learned.

The flaw, currently being sold by an established member of an invite-only Underweb forum, targets an unpatched vulnerability in Java JRE 7 Update 9, the most recent version of Java (the seller says this flaw does not exist in Java 6 or earlier versions).

According to the vendor, the weakness resides within the Java class “MidiDevice.Info,” a component of Java that handles audio input and output. “Code execution is very reliable, worked on all 7 version I tested with Firefox and MSIE on Windows 7,” the seller explained in a sales thread on his exploit. It is not clear whether Chrome also is affected. “I will only sell this ONE TIME and I leave no guarantee that it will not be patched so use it quickly.”

The seller was not terribly specific on the price he is asking for this exploit, but set the expected offer at “five digits.” The price of any exploit is ultimately whatever the market will bear, but this is roughly in line with the last Java zero-day exploit that was being traded and sold on the underground. In August, I wrote about a newly discovered Java exploit being folded into the BlackHole exploit kit, quoting the author of that crimeware tool as saying that “the price of such an exploit if it were sold privately would be about $100,000.”

Continue reading →

Yahoo Email-Stealing Exploit Fetches $700

November 23, 2012
21 Comments

A zero-day vulnerability in yahoo.com that lets attackers hijack Yahoo! email accounts and redirect users to malicious Web sites offers a fascinating glimpse into the underground market for large-scale exploits.

The exploit, being sold for $700 by an Egyptian hacker on an exclusive cybercrime forum, targets a “cross-site scripting” (XSS) weakness in yahoo.com that lets attackers steal cookies from Yahoo! Webmail users. Such a flaw would let attackers send or read email from the victim’s account. In a typical XSS attack, an attacker sends a malicious link to an unsuspecting user; if the user clicks the link, the script is executed, and can access cookies, session tokens or other sensitive information retained by the browser and used with that site. These scripts can even rewrite the content of the HTML page.

The hacker posted the following video to demonstrate the exploit for potential buyers. I’ve reproduced it and published it to youtube.

“I’m selling Yahoo stored xss that steal Yahoo emails cookies and works on ALL browsers,” wrote the vendor of this exploit, using the hacker handle ‘TheHell.’ “And you don’t need to bypass IE or Chrome xss filter as it do that itself because it’s stored xss. Prices around for such exploit is $1,100 – $1,500, while I offer it here for $700. Will sell only to trusted people cuz I don’t want it to be patched soon!”

Continue reading →