Booby-trapped Office docs build with ThreadKit trigger CVE-2018-4878 flaw

Microsoft Office documents created with the exploit builder kit dubbed ThreadKit now include the code for CVE-2018-4878 flaw exploitation.

At the end of March, security experts at Proofpoint discovered a Microsoft Office document exploit builder kit dubbed ThreadKit that has been used to spread a variety of malware, including banking Trojans and RATs (i.e. Trickbot, Chthonic, FormBook and Loki Bot).

The exploit kit was first discovered in October 2017, but according to the experts, crooks are using it at least since June 2017.

The ThreadKit builder kit shows similarities to Microsoft Word Intruder (MWI), it was initially being advertised in a forum post as a builder for weaponized decoy documents.

Just after its appearance, documents created with the ThreadKit builder kit have been observed in several campaigns.

Now threat actors are using the ThreadKit builder kit to target the recently patched CVE-2018-4878 Flash vulnerability, experts started observing exploit code samples in the wild a few days ago.

Adobe addressed the CVE-2018-4878 in February after North Korea’s APT group was spotted exploiting it in targeted attacks.

The vulnerability could be exploited by an attack by tricking victims into opening a document, web page or email containing a specially crafted Flash file.

According to the researcher Simon Choi the Flash Player flaw has been exploited by North Korea since mid-November 2017. The attackers exploited the zero-day vulnerability in attacks aimed at South Korean individuals involved in research activity on North Korea.

Now the exploit was included in the ThreadKit builder, based on Virus Total hashes posted to Pastebin.

The security expert Claes Splett has published a video that shows how to build a CVE-2018-478 exploit in ThreadKit.

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Proofpoint experts reported that in the last weeks, the exploit kit included new exploits targeting vulnerabilities such as the CVE-2018-4878 Adobe Flash zero-day and several Microsoft office vulnerabilities (i.e. CVE-2018-0802 and CVE-2017-8570).

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Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – CVE-2018-4878, ThreadKit)

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Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security) Threat Landscape Stakeholder Group and Cyber G7 Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at "Cyber Defense Magazine", Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog "Security Affairs" recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the "The Hacker News" team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books "The Deep Dark Web" and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.