We discovered a high-risk Internet Explorer (IE) vulnerability in the wild on July 11, just a day after Microsoft’s July Patch Tuesday. We immediately sent Microsoft the details to help fix this flaw. While this vulnerability, now designated as CVE-2018-8373, affects the VBScript engine in the latest versions of Windows, Internet Explorer 11 is not vulnerable since VBScript in Windows 10 Redstone 3 (RS3) has been effectively disabled by default.
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An exploit kit such as Rig usually starts off with a threat actor compromising a website to inject a malicious script/code that eventually redirects would-be victims to the exploit kit’s landing page. Sometime around February to March last year, however, we saw Rig’s Seamless campaign adding another layer or gate before the actual landing page.
Along with updates in code, we also observed Rig integrating a cryptocurrency-mining malware as its final payload. Based on the latest activities we’ve observed from Rig, they’re now also exploiting CVE-2018-8174, a remote code execution vulnerability patched in May and reported to be actively exploited. The exploit also appears to be from a recently disclosed proof of concept. The security flaw affects systems running Windows 7 and later operating systems, and the exploit works through Internet Explorer (IE) and Microsoft Office documents that use the vulnerable script engine.
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Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday for October fixed another previous zero-day vulnerability in Internet Explorer (IE) via MS16-118 and MS16-126: CVE-2016-3298. Before the lid was put on it, the security flaw was employed alongside CVE-2016-3351 by operators of the AdGholas malvertising campaign, analysis and disclosure of which were made with our collaboration with Proofpoint’s @kafeine last July 2016. The campaign was notable for the economies of scale and scope it achieved in its heyday until its operations were stymied. As shared by @kafeine, it was even integrated in Neutrino exploit kit’s malvertising chain as a malicious JavaScript.
Exploiting CVE-2016-3298 enables attackers to check for specific antivirus (AV) software installed in the system in order to avoid AV detection and threat research/analysis. This sounds innocuous, but determining if the system is unsecure eases—and even automates—the undertaking of sneaking malware into it.
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Microsoft has officially rolled out security updates for this month’s Patch Tuesday, marking the first of its new rollup model aimed at providing a “more consistent and simplified servicing experience.” This means that security and non-security fixes will be deployed in a consolidated pack, while a monthly security update will also be released together with the previous month’s patches. Further, Microsoft will also release a “preview rollup” of upcoming non-security patches on the third Tuesday of every month, a week following Patch Tuesday. This preview of patches allows customers to test applications prior to the actual monthly release of the consolidated bundle of fixes.
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In July 2016, we worked with @kafeine of Proofpoint to help bring down the AdGholas malvertising campaign. This campaign started operating in 2015, which affected a million users per day during its peak before it was shut down earlier this year. It used the Angler and Neutrino exploit kits to attack victims. It also used steganography to hide malicious code within a picture.
In the process of working on this campaign, we found and analyzed an information disclosure vulnerability in both Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge. We worked with Microsoft to address this flaw, named as CVE-2016-3351. Previously considered as a zero-day vulnerability, this issue was fixed in MS16-104 for Internet Explorer and MS16-105 for Edge, which was released though a patch earlier this week.
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