nir Posted October 11, 2018 Share Posted October 11, 2018 In addition to getting a legitimate Flash Player update, victims of a new campaign uncovered by Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42, also got the XMRig cryptocurrency mining software. The scourge that is un-authorized cryptocurrency mining, often referred to as cryptojacking, is a phenomena that has been on the rise in 2018 and it could be getting worse. A new report from Palo Alto Networks' Unit 42 research group published on Oct. 11, details a new effort where attackers are masquerading as legitimate Adobe Flash updaters, in order to install un-authorized cryptocurrency mining software on victim's systems. According to Palo Alto Networks, the fake updaters are more stealthy than what has been seen before. "The fake updaters I tested installed the latest Flash version," Brad Duncan, Threat Intelligence Analyst for Unit 42 at Palo Alto Networks," told eWEEK. What also happens, is that alongside the actual Flash update, the fake updater also install the open-source XMRig mining software. XMRig mines the Monero cryptocurrency, which has been a favorite of cryptojacking campaigns. Many end-user facing cryptojacking campaigns however rely on browser based mining tools, such as Coinhive. Cryptocurrency mining tools consume CPU (and GPU if present) resources on a host system. A browser based tool is somewhat limited in the resources it can pull and is typically only active while the browser is open. In contrast, XMRig is installed as a running service on the host operating system, potentially consuming more resources and operating constantly while a system is turned on. Duncan said that in his research he found 133 different samples of the Fake Flash updater. What he was not certain of was how many victims there may have been to date for the campaign. Back in June the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a warning about the growing trend of cryptojacking and launched a reporting service for consumers. In research released back on June 11 by Palo Alto Networks, the firm estimated that to that point non-browser based cryptojacking attacks had generated at least $143 million in illicit earnings for attackers. The Attack In his report, Duncan noted that across the different fake Flash updaters there were at least 473 different file names and URLs that were observered, from the period of March 25 through Sept. 10. The download included a legitimate Flash update on first run for some of the samples. Duncan said that subsequent malware samples from this campaign just opened the web-browser installer page for Adobe Flash Player after installing the Monero coinminer. "I cannot say if Flash version detection was happening in the background, because I only saw the final result," Duncan said. "However, different families of malware can profile a system to determine what types of software are on the victim's host and consistent URL patterns and file names for these Flash installers indicate they are all the same campaign." Duncan added that other campaigns with a Flash updater theme have deployed cryptocurrency miners, but they have different operating characteristics. Remediation Adobe announced in July 2017 that it would be discontinuing its Flash Player at the end of 2020. Until then, Flash will likely continue to get updates and users might well continue to see fake updaters as well. For Adobe, Duncan isn't sure there is much they can do to stop fake updaters. "Traffic from these fake updaters looks the same as legitimate updaters from the server side, so I'm not sure how Adobe could block this," Duncan said. That said, for end-users and organizations there are several things that can be done to block malware and limit the risk of un-authorized cryptocurrency mining. Duncan said that platforms like those from Palo Alto Networks detect fake updaters and malware fairly easily. Regardless of the endpoint security technology that is in place, he emphasized that user education is important. "Only get Flash updates from Adobe and protect against downloads from unknown/untrusted sites," Duncan said. "One should not install software provided by an unexpected window/web page that appears during routine browsing, no matter how convincing it may seem." Source Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ha91 Posted October 11, 2018 Share Posted October 11, 2018 The big question is where were these downloads obtained from and why? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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