Jan 27, 2024NewsroomMalware / Software Update

Mexican financial institutions are under the radar of a new spear-phishing campaign that delivers a modified version of an open-source remote access trojan called AllaKore RAT.

The BlackBerry Research and Intelligence Team attributed the activity to an unknown Latin American-based financially motivated threat actor. The campaign has been active since at least 2021.

“Lures use Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) naming schemas and links to legitimate, benign documents during the installation process,” the Canadian company said in an analysis published earlier this week.

“The AllaKore RAT payload is heavily modified to allow the threat actors to send stolen banking credentials and unique authentication information back to a command-and-control (C2) server for the purposes of financial fraud.”

The attacks appear to be designed to particularly single out large companies with gross revenues over $100 million. Targeted entities span retail, agriculture, public sector, manufacturing, transportation, commercial services, capital goods, and banking sectors.

The infection chain begins with a ZIP file that’s either distributed via phishing or a drive-by compromise, which contains an MSI installer file that drops a .NET downloader responsible for confirming the Mexican geolocation of the victim and retrieving the altered AllaKore RAT, a Delphi-based RAT first observed in 2015.

“AllaKore RAT, although somewhat basic, has the potent capability to keylog, screen capture, upload/download files, and even take remote control of the victim’s machine,” BlackBerry said.

The new functions added to the malware by the threat actor include support for commands related to banking fraud, targeting Mexican banks and crypto trading platforms, launching a reverse shell, extracting clipboard content, and fetching and executing additional payloads.

The threat actor’s links to Latin America come from the use of Mexico Starlink IPs used in the campaign, as well as the addition of Spanish-language instructions to the modified RAT payload. Furthermore, the lures employed only work for companies that are large enough to report directly to the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) department.

“This threat actor has been persistently targeting Mexican entities for the purposes of financial gain,” the company said. “This activity has continued for over two years, and shows no signs of stopping.”

The findings come as IOActive said it identified three vulnerabilities in the Lamassu Douro bitcoin ATMs (CVE-2024-0175, CVE-2024-0176, and CVE-2024-0177) that could allow an attacker with physical access to take full control of the devices and steal user assets.

The attacks are made possible by exploiting the ATM’s software update mechanism and the device’s ability to read QR codes to supply their own malicious file and trigger the execution of arbitrary code. The issues were fixed by the Swiss company in October 2023.

Jan 08, 2024NewsroomFinancial Fraud / Cybercrime

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) said it charged 19 individuals worldwide in connection with the now-defunct xDedic Marketplace, which is estimated to have facilitated more than $68 million in fraud.

In wrapping up its investigation into the dark web portal, the agency said the transnational operation was the result of close cooperation with law enforcement authorities from Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Ukraine, and Europol.

Of the 19 defendants, three have been sentenced to 6.5 years in prison, eight have been awarded jail terms ranging from one year to five years, and one individual has been ordered to serve five years’ probation.

One among them includes Glib Oleksandr Ivanov-Tolpintsev, a Ukrainian national who was sentenced to four years in prison in May 2022 for selling compromised credentials on xDedic and making $82,648 in illegal profits.

Dariy Pankov, described by the DoJ as one of the highest sellers by volume, offered credentials of no less than 35,000 hacked servers located all over the world and obtaining more than $350,000 in illicit proceeds.

The servers were infiltrated using a custom tool named NLBrute that was capable of breaking into protected computers by decrypting login credentials.

Also of note is a Nigerian national named Allen Levinson, who was a “prolific buyer” with a particular interest in purchasing access to U.S.-based Certified Public Accounting firms in order to file bogus tax returns with the U.S. government.

Five others, who have been accused of a conspiracy to commit wire fraud, are pending sentencing.

Alongside these administrators and sellers, two buyers named Olufemi Odedeyi and Oluwaseyi Shodipe have been charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. Shodipe has also been charged with making false claims and theft of government funds.

Both individuals are yet to be extradited from the U.K. If convicted, they each face a maximum penalty of 20 years in federal prison.

The marketplace, until its takedown in January 2019, allowed cybercriminals to buy or sell stolen credentials to more than 700,000 hacked computers and servers across the world and personally identifiable information of U.S. residents, such as dates of birth and Social Security numbers.

Alexandru Habasescu and Pavlo Kharmanskyi functioned as the marketplace’s administrators. Habasescu, from Moldova, was the lead developer, while Kharmanskyi, who lived in Ukraine, managed advertising, payments, and customer support to buyers.

“Once purchased, criminals used these servers to facilitate a wide range of illegal activity that included tax fraud and ransomware attacks,” the DoJ said.

Targets of these attacks comprised government infrastructure, hospitals, 911 and emergency services, call centers, major metropolitan transit authorities, accounting and law firms, pension funds, and universities.