• Home
  • Cyber Crime
  • Cyber warfare
  • APT
  • Data Breach
  • Deep Web
  • Digital ID
  • Hacking
  • Hacktivism
  • Intelligence
  • Internet of Things
  • Laws and regulations
  • Malware
  • Mobile
  • Reports
  • Security
  • Social Networks
  • Terrorism
  • ICS-SCADA
  • POLICIES
  • Contact me
MUST READ

SECURITY AFFAIRS MALWARE NEWSLETTER ROUND 51

 | 

Security Affairs newsletter Round 530 by Pierluigi Paganini – INTERNATIONAL EDITION

 | 

The FBI warns that Scattered Spider is now targeting the airline sector

 | 

LapDogs: China-nexus hackers Hijack 1,000+ SOHO devices for espionage

 | 

Taking over millions of developers exploiting an Open VSX Registry flaw

 | 

OneClik APT campaign targets energy sector with stealthy backdoors

 | 

APT42 impersonates cyber professionals to phish Israeli academics and journalists

 | 

Kai West, aka IntelBroker, indicted for cyberattacks causing $25M in damages

 | 

Cisco fixed critical ISE flaws allowing Root-level remote code execution

 | 

U.S. CISA adds AMI MegaRAC SPx, D-Link DIR-859 routers, and Fortinet FortiOS flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

 | 

CitrixBleed 2: The nightmare that echoes the 'CitrixBleed' flaw in Citrix NetScaler devices

 | 

Hackers deploy fake SonicWall VPN App to steal corporate credentials

 | 

Mainline Health Systems data breach impacted over 100,000 individuals

 | 

Disrupting the operations of cryptocurrency mining botnets

 | 

Prometei botnet activity has surged since March 2025

 | 

The U.S. House banned WhatsApp on government devices due to security concerns

 | 

Russia-linked APT28 use Signal chats to target Ukraine official with malware

 | 

China-linked APT Salt Typhoon targets Canadian Telecom companies

 | 

U.S. warns of incoming cyber threats following Iran airstrikes

 | 

McLaren Health Care data breach impacted over 743,000 people

 | 
  • Home
  • Cyber Crime
  • Cyber warfare
  • APT
  • Data Breach
  • Deep Web
  • Digital ID
  • Hacking
  • Hacktivism
  • Intelligence
  • Internet of Things
  • Laws and regulations
  • Malware
  • Mobile
  • Reports
  • Security
  • Social Networks
  • Terrorism
  • ICS-SCADA
  • POLICIES
  • Contact me
  • Home
  • Breaking News
  • Hacking
  • Malware
  • Malware attacks leverage the Hangul Word Processor and PostScript to spread malware

Malware attacks leverage the Hangul Word Processor and PostScript to spread malware

Pierluigi Paganini September 18, 2017

Experts at Trend Micro reported malware attacks that leveraged the Hangul Word Processor (HWP) word processing application to target users.

It has happened again, attackers leveraged the Hangul Word Processor (HWP) word processing application to target users in South Korea.

The application is very popular in South Korea and was exploited in several hacking campaigns against entities in the country.

In the recent attacks, hackers use the Hangul Word Processor in association with PostScript. The attackers use emails containing malicious attachments to deliver the malware.

“A branch of PostScript called Encapsulated PostScript exists, which adds restrictions to the code that may be run. This is supposed to make opening these documents safer, but unfortunately older HWP versions implement these restrictions improperly. We have started seeing malicious attachments that contain malicious PostScript, which is in turn being used to drop shortcuts (or actual malicious files) onto the affected system.” states the analysis published by Trend Micro.

Although the Encapsulated PostScript adds restrictions to secure the system while opening a document, the older HWP versions implement these restrictions improperly. The attackers have started using attachments containing malicious PostScript to drop shortcuts or malicious files onto the affected system.

Experts noticed that some of the subject lines and document names used by attackers include “Bitcoin” and “Financial Security Standardization”.

Hangul Word Processor

Researchers highlighted that attackers don’t use an actual exploit, but abuse a feature of PostScript to manipulate files.

PostScript doesn’t have the ability to execute shell commands, but attackers obtain a similar behavior by dropping files into various startup folders, then these files are executed when the user reboots the machine.

“Some of the ways we’ve seen this seen of this include:

  1. Drops a shortcut in the startup folder, which executes MSHTA.exe to execute a Javascript file.
  2. Drops a shortcut in startup folder and a DLL file in %Temp% directory. The shortcut calls rundll32.exe to execute the said DLL file.
  3. Drops an executable file in the startup folder.

” reads the analysis.

One of the attacks observed by the researchers at Trend Micro would overwrite the file gswin32c.exe, which is the PostScript interpreter used by the Hangul Word Processor application. The file is replaced with a legitimate version of Calc.exe, in this way the attackers prevent the execution of other embedded PostScript content.

Newer versions of the Hangul Word Processor implement EPS properly, for this reason, users must upgrade the application to stay protected.

“Newer versions of the Hangul Word Processor implement EPS correctly, with the 2014 versions and later not being susceptible to this problem. We suggest upgrading to these newer, safer versions.” Trend Micro says.

[adrotate banner=”9″] [adrotate banner=”12″]

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – Malware, HWP)

[adrotate banner=”5″]

[adrotate banner=”13″]


facebook linkedin twitter

Hacking Hangul PostScript South Korea Word Processor

you might also like

Pierluigi Paganini June 29, 2025
SECURITY AFFAIRS MALWARE NEWSLETTER ROUND 51
Read more
Pierluigi Paganini June 29, 2025
Security Affairs newsletter Round 530 by Pierluigi Paganini – INTERNATIONAL EDITION
Read more

leave a comment

newsletter

Subscribe to my email list and stay
up-to-date!

    recent articles

    SECURITY AFFAIRS MALWARE NEWSLETTER ROUND 51

    Breaking News / June 29, 2025

    Security Affairs newsletter Round 530 by Pierluigi Paganini – INTERNATIONAL EDITION

    Breaking News / June 29, 2025

    The FBI warns that Scattered Spider is now targeting the airline sector

    Cyber Crime / June 28, 2025

    LapDogs: China-nexus hackers Hijack 1,000+ SOHO devices for espionage

    Malware / June 28, 2025

    Taking over millions of developers exploiting an Open VSX Registry flaw

    Hacking / June 27, 2025

    To contact me write an email to:

    Pierluigi Paganini :
    pierluigi.paganini@securityaffairs.co

    LEARN MORE

    QUICK LINKS

    • Home
    • Cyber Crime
    • Cyber warfare
    • APT
    • Data Breach
    • Deep Web
    • Digital ID
    • Hacking
    • Hacktivism
    • Intelligence
    • Internet of Things
    • Laws and regulations
    • Malware
    • Mobile
    • Reports
    • Security
    • Social Networks
    • Terrorism
    • ICS-SCADA
    • POLICIES
    • Contact me

    Copyright@securityaffairs 2024

    We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept All”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent.
    Cookie SettingsAccept All
    Manage consent

    Privacy Overview

    This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities...
    Necessary
    Always Enabled
    Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
    Non-necessary
    Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
    SAVE & ACCEPT