We discovered a variant of the Trickbot banking trojan (detected by Trend Micro as TrojanSpy.Win32.TRICKBOT.THDEAI) using a redirection URL in a spam email. The redirection URL is a way to sidestep spam filters that may block Trickbot at the onset.
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In some of the recent Powload-related incidents we saw, we noticed significant changes to some of the attachments in the spam emails: the use of steganography and targeting of specific countries. Figure 2 shows the difference. For example, the samples we analyzed in early 2018 had more straightforward infection chains. These updates added another stage to the execution of malicious routines as a way to evade detection.
The Powload variants that use these techniques drop and execute the Ursnif and Bebloh data stealers. We did not see any notable differences in the payloads’ routines. The distribution tactics also resemble a spam campaign we uncovered last year, which delivered the same information stealers but distributed via the Cutwail botnet.
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Social media influencers build and expand their business or brand through credibility and authenticity to their audience. For hackers, however, they could be seen as trophies. That’s what happened to a photographer with more than 15,000 followers on Instagram, when she had her account stolen.
A closer look into the incident revealed that the hacker got into her account through phishing. While it seemed straightforward enough, we also found that targeting popular Instagram profiles has become a modus for a certain group of Turkish-speaking hackers. And by abusing Instagram’s account recovery process, they were able to keep the stolen account even if the victim squarely followed the process. We’ve seen cases where owners of Instagram profiles with followers between 15,000 and 70,000 were hacked and were never retrieved. The victims ranged from famous actors and singers to owners of startup businesses like photoshoot equipment rentals.
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Trickbot’s authors clearly aren’t done updating it — we recently found a new variant that uses an updated version of the pwgrab module that lets it grab remote application credentials.
Read More Discovered by Trend Micro in 2014, the banking Trojan Emotet has been brought back to life by malware authors last year with its own spamming module that has allowed it to spread, target new industries and regions, and evade sandbox and malware analysis techniques. This year, we examined Emotet’s activities to learn more about how this modular malware wreaks havoc: We did a comprehensive research on Emotet’s artifacts — 8,528 unique URLs, 5,849 document droppers, and 571 executables collected between June 1, 2018 and September 15, 2018 — to discover Emotet’s infrastructure as well as possible attribution information.
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