In early August we discussed a case where a backdoor (BKDR_ANDROM.ETIN) was being installed filelessly onto a target system using JS_POWMET.DE, a script that abused various legitimate functions. At the time, we did not know how the threat arrived onto the target machine. We speculated that it was either downloaded by users or dropped by other malware.
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The mobile threat landscape isn’t just rife with information stealers and rooting malware. There’s also mobile ransomware. While it seems they’re not as mature as their desktop counterparts, what with the likes of WannaCry and Petya, the increasing usage of mobile devices, particularly by businesses, will naturally draw more cybercriminal attention to this type of threat.
Take for instance mobile ransomware on the Android platform. The variants we detected and analyzed during the fourth quarter of last year were thrice as many compared to the same period in 2015. And indeed, the surge is staggering. We already had over 235,000 detections for Android mobile ransomware in the first half of 2017 alone—that’s 181% of detections for all of 2016.
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Recently, we discussed how cyber criminals are using the popular voice/chat client Discord to steal cookies from the running Roblox process on a Windows PC. Since then, we’ve noticed another attack going after the same information, only this time it is via Chrome extensions (CRX files).
Read More Fileless malware can be a difficult threat analyze and detect. It shouldn’t be a surprise that an increasing number of new malware threats are fileless, as threat actors use this technique to make both detection and forensic investigation more difficult. We recently found a new cryptocurrency miner (which we detect as TROJ64_COINMINER.QO) that uses this particular technique as well.
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The exploit kit landscape has been rocky since 2016, and we’ve observed several of the major players—Angler, Nuclear, Neutrino, Sundown—take a dip in operations or go private. New kits have popped up sporadically since then, sometimes revamped from old sources, but none have really gained traction. Despite that fact, cybercriminals continue to develop more of them.
On August 9, we detected a new exploit kit in the wild, being distributed through a malvertising campaign. With additional analysis of the code and activity, we can confirm that it is the Disdain exploit kit, which started to advertise their services in underground forums starting August 8. We found the “disdain” keyword contained in its JavaScript code.
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