Pierluigi Paganini
August 11, 2017
Security experts at Trend Micro have spotted a new cyber espionage campaign that has been active for at least two months and that is targeting Russian-speaking enterprises delivering a new Windows-based backdoor, Trend Micro warns.
The hackers leverage on many exploits and Windows components to run malicious scripts to avoid detection. The last sample associated with this attack was uploaded to VirusTotal on June 6, 2017 and experts at Trend Micro observed five spam campaigns running from June 23 to July 27, 2017.
Hackers are targeting financial institutions and mining firms with different spear phishing messages.
The phishing messages are designed to appear as if they were sent from sales and billing departments and contain a weaponized Rich Text Format (RTF) file that exploits the CVE-2017-0199 flaw in Microsoft Office’s Windows Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) interface.
Once the exploit code is executed, it downloads a fake Excel XLS file embedded with malicious JavaScript. When opened, the Excel header is ignored and the file is treated as an HTML Application file by the Windows component mshta.exe.
“The exploit code downloads what is supposedly an XLS file from hxxps://wecloud[.]biz/m11[.]xls. This domain, to which all of the URLs used by this attack point to, is controlled by the attacker and was registered in early July.” states the analysis publiahed by Trend Micro.
“This fake Excel spreadsheet file is embedded with malicious JavaScript. The Excel header will actually be ignored and the file will be treated as an HTML Application file by mshta.exe, the Windows component that handles/opens HTA or HTML files.”
The JavaScript code calls the odbcconf.exe normal executable to run the DLL. Once executed, the DLL drops a SCT file (Windows scriptlet) in the %APPDATA% folder and appends the .TXT extension to it.
The DLL calls is used to power a Squiblydoo attack that leverages the Regsvr32 (Microsoft Register Server) to bypass restrictions on running scripts and evade application whitelisting protections such as AppLocker.
“This particular command uses the Regsvr32 (Microsoft Register Server) command-line utility, which is normally used to register and unregister OLE controls in the Windows registry, including DLL files. This attack method is also known as Squiblydoo—Regsvr32 is abused to bypass restrictions on running scripts.” continues the analysis. “It also means evading application whitelisting protections such as AppLocker. While Squiblydoo is already a known attack vector, this is the first time we’ve seen it combined with odbcconf.exe.”
In May, experts at FireEye spotted a new APT group that was targeting Vietnamese interests around the globe, the hackers leveraged the Squiblydoo technique to enable the download of a backdoor from APT32 infrastructure.
Next, the real backdoor is downloaded and executed, it is an XML file that is downloaded from the domain wecloud[.]biz. Also in this case, it is executed exploiting the same Regsvr32-abusing Squiblydoo attack technique.
“This is another SCT file with obfuscated JavaScript code that contains backdoor commands, which essentially allow attackers to take over an infected system. It attempts to connect to its C&C server at hxxps://wecloud[.]biz/mail/ajax[.]php and retrieve tasks to carry out, some of which are:
” reads the analysis.
Experts noticed that even if the attack chain appears complex, it starts leveraging a Microsoft Office exploit. The best defense still consists in patching and keeping software up-to-date.
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(Security Affairs – backdoor, Squiblydoo)
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