Exploiting Google

SEO : Search Engine Optimization.

No, it's not another buzz word. It's a technique used by malware authors to propagate their malware. They use one of the most respected search engines today (Google) to make their way into the user's machine. Piggybacking on a prestigious, and highly trusted search engine is an efficient and effective way to reach out to billions of users worldwide.

Rogue AVs usually use this method. They create fraudulent sites (site A) which redirects to another site (site B) which in turn downloads Rogue AVs into the system. The malware industry makes sure that Site A gets a hit during Google search by targeting search queries that are sensational or new, for example, the Haiti earthquake.

In light of this, users are advised to be vigilant when accessing sites. When even Google is used as a medium by malwares, blind trust on returned links is unacceptable.

Disasterware strikes again, as they call it!

The magnitude 6.4 earthquake does not only rattle Taiwan but even the internet users as well. It is another opportunity for Malware writers to poison returned results from searches about this disaster. It now became a constant attack every time there is major news, earthquake, tsunami or any other event that would call the attention of the people. It seems now it guarantees every news has equivalent virus site. This abused infection vector by fake AVs serve as a warning.

Once unsuspecting users click the malicious site, it will be redirected to fake AV online scan page and shows different annoying pop-ups warning the user that his system is infected and vulnerable to attacks. This might lead the user to download and install the Rogue Antispyware such as Security Antivirus. They have used multiple malicious domain names to prevent them to be easily identified. This infection routine is the same with other reports as you might have read from the previous blogs. But despite of awareness campaign, there are still an increasing number of victims fallen to this scam and worst, lost their money.

I have seen few malicious searched results which start with comma (,) and dash (-) such as above screen shot and from this blog. It is advisable to prevent from visiting these kinds of searched results. Internet users should be very careful in picking which sites to read the latest news. It is much better to read from reputable sources.

Chilling rogues on Chile

Shortly after the Haiti earthquake incident, the world is rocked again with the news of the Chile earthquake. And with the wave of searches on google about the Chile earthquake, malware authors have once again taken this opportunity to proliferate rogue antipsyware.

Searches returned from google are generally not suspect, especially if they bear URLs that seem normal. But one particular site (bostonmassduilawyer.com/ypi.php?...chile-earthquake-videos) when accessed will redirect you to http://188.124.5.159/index.html.



This site will display a fake system scan using an HTML page, and clicking anywhere on the page will prompt the user to download the INST.EXE file (SecurityTool fake AV). It also displays annoying popups that feeds FUD to users (FUD: Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt).






INST.EXE is just another Security Tool installer. Shortly after executing, it will display a fake scan showing some bogus results. Attempting to activate it will lead you to a page where they offer you a 2 year software license of $49.95, and a lifetime software license of $79.95. Looks tempting, but it's just a ploy to part you with your money. In truth, it's one hell of a hefty price to pay for such a useless and annoying scareware.

SEO Poisoning scores a goal at the 2010 Winter Olympics

The Hockey games on the 2010 Winter Olympics are well under way and SEO poisoning attacks abound! Hockey enthusiasts turning to the Internet in search of game schedules are in for quite a surprise as cyber-criminals are quick to ensure that their malicious websites appear in the top Google search results.

Redirection

Unsuspecting users who click on the malicious search results are redirected to a fake My Computer online scan page. Here is where the bad guys attempt to 'scare' their way into the user's computers.

Fake My Computer online Scan

Message displaying false detections on the user's computer

Navigating Away

Users attempting to manoeuvre away from the malicious website are presented with the following message and are left with very little choice:

Countermeasure Against the Good Guys
Malware researchers often share URLs with each other as a way of spreading the news and to warn others and prevent further infection. But the bad guys behind this attack are smart enough to devise a countermeasure. The URLs are no longer enough to replicate the attack. Entering the URL directly on the browser simply redirects the users to the CNN website.

CNN Website

Download

The fake My Computer online scan page ultimately offers a solution to in the form of an installer of the fake antivirus software called Security Antivirus.

File Download

The Works

As with other fake security software, Security Antivirus displays a decent graphical user interface to give its victims that warm fuzzy feeling of installing a legitimate software that will protect their computer.

As mentioned in a previous post, Security Antivirus is a clone of Live PC Care, Windows Security Suite, and Windows System Suite.

Installation

Fake Scans

Annoying Pop ups

As unsuspecting users would like to remove all the purported detections found on their machine, Security Antivirus requires activation. And for a lifetime subscription, victims would have to say goodbye to a hefty $89.95 from their hard-earned cash.

Activation

License Selection

Credit Card Payment

Entering credit card details here seals the deal. But there's no stopping the bad guys from abusing the information they have collected.

If you have been a victim of this attack, immediately contact your credit card company to get your money back and to make sure there will be no future unauthorised charges.

Also, when searching for information relating to the Winter Olympics, it always a good idea to turn to reputable sources like news networks and of course the official 2010 Winter Olympics website.

Fake codec used by porn site

Here's another porn site distributing malware under the guise of video codecs:

hxxp://adultsvideo.cn/

Unsuspecting users wanting to view the adult videos are tricked into downloading and installing the fake codec.

The fake codec can be downloaded from this url:

hxxp://freebigutilites.com/ActiveX-Video-Codec.45092.exe

The server spits out files that have different MD5s each time.

ThreatExpert report here

Update:

Here's another site that purports to host "Free Full Lenght Movie" porn clips and uses fake video codecs in order to lure unsuspecting users into downloading and installing their rogue antivirus software:

hxxp://freeanalsextubemovies.com/video1483/porn/

Clicking anywhere on the video screen area gives us the following link to a file named video.exe:

hxxp://homeamateurclips.com/video/video.exe

Which is a fake antivirus software under the Security Tool family of Fake AVs.

Another Shameless SEO based on Atlanta Flooding

Users Googling "Atlanta flood pictures" receive a yet another SEO attack, using a possibly compromised legitimate Australian website hosting restaurants in the famous Bondi area.

Here's a screenshot of a google search result:


A Fiddler capture shows us the redirections:


So we go from
hxxp://idrb.com/pdf_files/atlanta-flood-pictures.html
>hxxp://06d.ru/t.php
>>hxxp://read-cnn2.com/?pid=207&sid=de9f8f
>>>hxxp://winfixscanner7.com/scan1/?pid=207&engine=pHTyzjTyMzEyOS44Mi4xOTAmdGltZT0xMjUuNgAMPAVN

An installer named Soft_207.exe will be presented for download, which is a variant of the Total Security family of Fake AVs.

At the moment, the following domains have been observed to have been involved in this attack:

winfixscanner7(dot)com
15scanner(dot)com

These domains resolve to the following IP addresses:
89.47.237.55
89.248.174.61
213.163.89.60

But knowing the trend in scareware, there could be heaps more domains being created as we speak.

Scareware asking for ransom: System Security

Scareware is BIG business. They use heaps of scare tactics in order to convince unsuspecting users into buying rogue applications. But here's one that does a bit more than just scaring.

System Security terminates almost all running processes. This basically prevents us from using our computers. More importantly, this hinders execution of tools necessary to investigate the infection and aid in removal of this rogue app.

Back in the day, in order to evade detection and removal, malware writers have targeted security-related applications. They have a black list of applications including (but not limited to) the following:

avast.exe
avp.exe
cmd.exe
icesword.exe
kav.exe
regedit.exe
taskmgr.exe

But now they block even the most harmless Windows applications such as calc.exe and notepad.exe. But not all applications should be terminated, because that basically means no Windows. No Windows means no profit so the bad guys need basic Windows functionality. Which tells us that they have probably stopped using blacklisting and shifted to whitelisting instead. They now have a list of applications that they would allow to be executed in the system.

Here's part of some disassembly taken from a sample of System Security, showing us evidence of whitelisting:

Rogue app takes a snapshot of all the processes in the system:

.rsrc:140B4B4F push edi
.rsrc:140B4B50 push 2
.rsrc:140B4B52 call CreateToolhelp32Snapshot
.rsrc:140B4B57 mov [ebp+hObject], eax
...
.rsrc:140B4B79 push ecx
.rsrc:140B4B7A push eax
.rsrc:140B4B7B mov [ebp+var_64C], 22Ch
.rsrc:140B4B85 call Process32FirstW
...
.rsrc:140B4BAB push [ebp+dwProcessId] ; dwProcessId
.rsrc:140B4BB1 push 0 ; bInheritHandle
.rsrc:140B4BB3 push 1FFFFFh ; dwDesiredAccess
.rsrc:140B4BB8 call ds:OpenProcess

It then terminates the processes not found in the white list:
.rsrc:140B4C00 push 0FFFFFFFFh ; uExitCode
.rsrc:140B4C02 push edi ; hProcess
.rsrc:140B4C03 call ebx ; TerminateProcess

and displays this message as a notification in the system tray:
.rsrc:14039998 aApplicationCan: ; DATA XREF: sub_140B4ADD+16A
.rsrc:14039998 unicode 0,
.rsrc:14039998 unicode 0,
.rsrc:14039998 dw 0Ah
.rsrc:14039998 unicode 0, ,0
.rsrc:14039A5E align 10h
.rsrc:14039A60 aWarning: ; DATA XREF: .rsrc:140104BF
.rsrc:14039A60 ; sub_140B4ADD+1DB ...
.rsrc:14039A60 unicode 0, ,0
.rsrc:14039A72 align 4



It then resumes processing the snapshot created earlier and the cycle continues:
.rsrc:140B4CDF lea eax, [ebp+var_64C]
.rsrc:140B4CE5 push eax
.rsrc:140B4CE6 push [ebp+hObject]
.rsrc:140B4CEC call Process32NextW

Here's the list of applications that the scareware allows:
.rsrc:14046A48 off_14046A48 dd offset aAlg_exe ; DATA XREF: sub_140B49CF+26
.rsrc:14046A48 ; "alg.exe"
.rsrc:14046A4C dd offset aCsrss_exe ; "csrss.exe"
.rsrc:14046A50 dd offset aCtfmon_exe ; "ctfmon.exe"
.rsrc:14046A54 dd offset aExplorer_exe ; "explorer.exe"
.rsrc:14046A58 dd offset aServices_exe ; "services.exe"
.rsrc:14046A5C dd offset aSlsvc_exe ; "slsvc.exe"
.rsrc:14046A60 dd offset aSmss_exe ; "smss.exe"
.rsrc:14046A64 dd offset aSpoolsv_exe ; "spoolsv.exe"
.rsrc:14046A68 dd offset aSvchost_exe ; "svchost.exe"
.rsrc:14046A6C dd offset aSystem ; "system"
.rsrc:14046A70 dd offset aIexplore_exe ; "iexplore.exe"
.rsrc:14046A74 dd offset aLsass_exe ; "lsass.exe"
.rsrc:14046A78 dd offset aLsm_exe ; "lsm.exe"
.rsrc:14046A7C dd offset aNvsvc_exe ; "nvsvc.exe"
.rsrc:14046A80 dd offset aWininit_exe ; "wininit.exe"
.rsrc:14046A84 dd offset aWinlogon_exe ; "winlogon.exe"
.rsrc:14046A88 dd offset aWscntfy_exe ; "wscntfy.exe"
.rsrc:14046A8C dd offset aWuauclt_exe ; "wuauclt.exe"

As we can see, System Security is more than just scareware. You won't be able to properly use your computer unless you buy the rogue app. Sounds more like ransomeware to me.

But, now that we know that it uses whitelisting, we can do a little work around and bypass this technique. We can rename a copy of the tools that we need to run as one of the whitelisted applications and voila! We've already taken one step into regaining full use of our infected computer.