Arcane Stealer V, a threat for lower-skilled adversaries that scares experts

Experts recently analyzed an information-stealing malware tracked as Arcane Stealer V that is very cheap and easy to buy in the Dark Web.

In July 2019, researchers at Fidelis Threat Research Team (TRT) analyzed a sample of Arcane Stealer V, a .net information-stealing malware that is easy to acquire in the dark web. The author of the malware is selling it on his own website and on the Lolzteam site on the Dark Web, the researchers also found cracked versions on multiple community discussion and file-sharing platforms.

The malware is quite cheap, it goes for just $9 on the Dark Web, and could be also used by lower-skilled adversaries. Due to the low-cost of the malware, experts believe that its popularity could rapidly increase.

“The Arcane Stealer is a .net information stealer. The malware is available as a graphical user interface (GUI) or users can purchase the code, making it easier for actors with novice skills to employ. It sells for 699 Rubles or approximately 9 US dollars.” reads the post published by the researchers. “There is also support available on Telegram along with other “helpful” bots.”

In early August, the researchers were able to track multiple instant messenger and social media accounts associated with a Russian-language actor that might be the author of the malware.

The malware is able to collect various data from victims, including operating system, browser information, cryptocurrency wallets and instant-messaging sessions from Telegram, Discord, and Pidgin, data (i.e. passwords, cookies and forms) from a several of browsers, including Chrome, Opera, Kometa, Orbitum, Comodo, Amigo, Torch and Yandex.

Arcane Stealer V could be used to steal documents, collect Steam gaming community data, logs detected virtual machine IPs, and data from FileZilla servers.

The threat actor behind the Arcane Stealer V also provides dashboards and statistics to show crooks that buy the malware the potential earnings.

When the malware runs, it takes a screenshot and then it creates a text log file of what was collected.

“When ran, the file collects data, takes a screenshot and then it creates a text log file of what was collected. It stores all of the information in a folder in %appdata%/local/{hwid}/.” continues the post. ” It uses the assigned hardware ID that the malware generates as the folder name and zip folder name.”

Then the malware sends the zipped file to the C2 server.

The researchers identified multiple Telegram and Twitter accounts with the handles “@arcanee_bot,” “@es3n1n” and “@SakariHack,” that were used to discuss how to build and distribute the malware. These accounts were all associated with the same Russian-language actor, a 21-year-old man that says to suffer a form of epilepsy.

“The actor associated with the malware appears to be a native Russian speaker, however it is unclear if the actor is currently located in Russia,” continues the analysis. “The actor’s information-stealer does not appear to limit potential targets. Analysts have observed the capability of Russian sites to be targeted in the malware.”

Experts pointed out that the malware unlike other threats doesn’t discriminate geo-location of the victims and could be used against any target.

“Based off current observation and analysis, Arcane Stealer and its developer(s) appear to be low-level threats.” conclude the experts.

“Due to the lack of traversal, propagation, or destructive capabilities at the time of analysis, it is assessed with moderate confidence that this malware may not become popular with high-value and highly capable actors. However, because users can buy the source code, it is possible that we may see other threat actors reusing the malware and creating their own variant of Arcane V, as has been done with other popular malware families, like njRAT.”

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Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – Arcane Stealer V, malware)

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