Research Brief Number 15 March 2013 The Citizen Lab You Only Click Twice: FinFisher s Global Proliferation Morgan Marquis-Boire, Bill Marczak, Claudio Guarnieri, and John Scott-Railton. This post describes the results of a comprehensive global Internet scan for the command and control servers of FinFisher s surveillance software. It also details the discovery of a campaign using FinFisher in Ethiopia used to target individuals linked to an opposition group. Additionally, it provides examination of a FinSpy Mobile sample found in the wild, which appears to have been used in Vietnam. 1. SUMMARY OF KEY FINDINGS We have found command and control servers for FinSpy backdoors, part of Gamma International FinFisher remote monitoring solution, in a total of 25 countries: Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brunei, Canada, Czech Republic, Estonia, Ethiopia, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Latvia, Malaysia, Mexico, Mongolia, Netherlands, Qatar, Serbia, Singapore, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Vietnam. A FinSpy campaign in Ethiopia uses pictures of Ginbot 7, an Ethiopian opposition group, as bait to infect users. This continues the theme of FinSpy deployments with strong indications of politicallymotivated targeting. There is strong evidence of a Vietnamese FinSpy Mobile Campaign. We found an Android FinSpy Mobile sample in the wild with a command & control server in Vietnam that also exfiltrates text messages to a local phone number. These findings call into question claims by Gamma International that previously reported servers were not part of their product line, and that previously discovered copies of their software were either stolen or demo copies. Number 15 March 2013 2. BACKGROUND AND INTRODUCTION FinFisher is a line of remote intrusion and surveillance software developed by Munich-based Gamma International GmbH. FinFisher products are marketed and sold exclusively to law enforcement and intelligence agencies by the UK-based Gamma Group.1 Although touted as a lawful interception suite for monitoring criminals, FinFisher has gained notoriety because it has been used in targeted attacks against human rights campaigners and opposition activists in countries with questionable human rights records.2 In late July 2012, we published the results of an investigation into a suspicious e-mail campaign targeting Bahraini activists.3 We analyzed the attachments and discovered that they contained the FinSpy spyware, FinFisher s remote monitoring product. FinSpy captures information from an infected computer, such as passwords and Skype calls, and sends the information to a FinSpy command & control (C2) server. The attachments we analyzed sent data to a command & control server inside Bahrain. This discovery motivated researchers to search for other command & control servers to understand how widely FinFisher might be used. Claudio Guarnieri at Rapid7 (one of the authors of this report) was the first to search for these servers. He fingerprinted the Bahrain server and looked at historical Internet scanning data to identify other servers around the world that responded to the same fingerprint. Rapid7 published this list of servers, and described their fingerprinting technique. Other groups, including CrowdStrike and SpiderLabs also analyzed and published reports on FinSpy. Immediately after publication, the servers were apparently updated to evade detection by the Rapid7 fingerprint. We devised a different fingerprinting technique and scanned portions of the internet. We confirmed Rapid7 s results, and also found several new servers, including one inside Turkmenistan s Ministry of Communications. We published our list of servers in late August 2012, in addition to an analysis of mobile phone versions of FinSpy. FinSpy servers were apparently updated again in October 2012 to disable this newer fingerprinting technique, although it was never publicly described. Nevertheless, via analysis of existing samples and observation of command & control servers, we managed to enumerate yet more fingerprinting methods and continue our survey of the internet for this surveillance software. We describe the results in this post. Civil society groups have found cause for concern in these findings, as they indicate the use of FinFisher products by countries like Turkmenistan and Bahrain with problematic records on human rights, transparency, and rule of law. In an August 2012 response to a letter from UK-based NGO Privacy International, the UK Government revealed that at some unspecified time in the past, it had examined a version of FinSpy, and communicated to Gamma that a license would be required to export that version outside of the EU. Gamma has repeatedly denied links to spyware and servers uncovered by our research, claiming that the servers detected by our scans are not from the FinFisher product line. 4 Gamma also claims that the spyware sent to activists in Bahrain was an demonstration version of FinSpy, stolen during a product presentation. In February 2013, Privacy International, the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, Bahrain Watch, and Reporters Without Borders filed a complaint with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), requesting that this body investigate whether Gamma violated OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises by exporting FinSpy to Bahrain. Number 15 March 2013 The complaint called previous Gamma statements into question, noting that at least two different versions (4.00 and 4.01) of FinSpy were found in Bahrain, and that Bahrain s server was a FinFisher product and was likely receiving updates from Gamma. This complaint, as laid out by Privacy International states that Gamma: failed to respect the internationally recognised human rights of those affected by [its] activities caused and contributed to adverse human rights impacts in the course of [its] business activities failed to prevent and mitigate adverse human rights impacts linked to [its] activities and products, and failed to address such impacts where they have occurred failed to carry out adequate due diligence (including human rights due diligence); and failed to implement a policy commitment to respect human rights. According to recent reporting, German Federal Police appear to have plans to purchase and use the FinFisher suite of tools domestically within Germany.5 Meanwhile, findings by our group and others continue to illustrate the global proliferation of FinFisher s products. Research continues to uncover troubling cases of FinSpy in countries with dismal human rights track records, and politically repressive regimes. Most recently, work by Bahrain Watch has confirmed the presence of a Bahraini FinFisher campaign, and further contradicted Gamma s public statements. This post adds to the list by providing an updated list of FinSpy Command & Control servers, and describing the FinSpy malware samples in the wild which appear to have been used to target victims in Ethiopia and Vietnam. We present these updated findings in the hopes that we will further encourage civil society groups and competent investigative bodies to continue their scrutiny of Gamma s activities, relevant export control issues, and the issue of the global and unregulated proliferation of surveillance malware. Number 15 March 2013 FINFISHER: UPDATED GLOBAL SCAN Figure 1. Map of global FinFisher proliferation Around October 2012, we observed that the behavior of FinSpy servers began to change. Servers stopped responding to our fingerprint, which had exploited a quirk in the distinctive FinSpy wire protocol. We believe that this indicates that Gamma either independently changed the FinSpy protocol, or was able to determine key elements of our fingerprint, although it has never been publicly revealed. In the wake of this apparent update to FinSpy command & control servers, we devised a new fingerprint and conducted a scan of the internet for FinSpy command & control servers. This scan took roughly two months and involved sending more than 12 billion packets. Our new scan identified a total of 36 FinSpy servers, 30 of which were new and 6 of which we had found during previous scanning. The servers operated in 19 different countries. Among the FinSpy servers we found, 7 were in countries we hadn t seen before. New Countries Canada, Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Serbia, Vietnam Number 15 March 2013 In our most recent scan, 16 servers that we had previously found did not show up. We suspect that after our earlier scans were published the operators moved them. Many of these servers were shut down or relocated after the publication of previous results, but before the apparent October 2012 update. We no longer found FinSpy servers in 4 countries where previous scanning identified them (Brunei, UAE, Latvia, and Mongolia). Taken together, FinSpy servers are currently, or have been present, in 25 countries. Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brunei, Canada, Czech Republic, Estonia, Ethiopia, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Latvia, Malaysia, Mexico, Mongolia, Netherlands, Qatar, Serbia, Singapore, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Vietnam. Importantly, we believe that our list of servers is incomplete due to the large diversity of ports used by FinSpy servers, as well as other efforts at concealment. Moreover, discovery of a FinSpy command and control server in a given country is not a sufficient indicator to conclude the use of FinFisher by that country s law enforcement or intelligence agencies. In some cases, servers were found running on facilities provided by commercial hosting providers that could have been purchased by actors from any country. The table below shows the FinSpy servers detected in our latest scan. We list the full IP address of servers that have been previously publicly revealed. For active servers that have not been publicly revealed, we list the first two octets only. Releasing complete IP addresses in the past has not proved useful, as the servers are quickly shut down and relocated. Operator Routed to Country 117.121.xxx.xxx GPLHost Australia 77.69.181.162 Batelco ADSL Service Bahrain 180.211.xxx.xxx Telegraph & Telephone Board Bangladesh 168.144.xxx.xxx Softcom, Inc. Canada 168.144.xxx.xxx Softcom, Inc. Canada 217.16.xxx.xxx PIPNI VPS Czech Republic 217.146.xxx.xxx Zone Media UVS/Nodes Estonia 213.55.99.74 Ethio Telecom Estonia 80.156.xxx.xxx Gamma International GmbH Germany 37.200.xxx.xxx JiffyBox Servers Germany Number 15 March 2013 178.77.xxx.xxx HostEurope GmbH Germany 119.18.xxx.xxx HostGator India 119.18.xxx.xxx HostGator India 118.97.xxx.xxx PT Telkom Indonesia 118.97.xxx.xxx PT Telkom Indonesia 103.28.xxx.xxx PT Matrixnet Global Indonesia 112.78.143.34 Biznet ISP Indonesia 112.78.143.26 Biznet ISP Indonesia 117.121.xxx.xxx GPLHost Malaysia 187.188.xxx.xxx Iusacell PCS Mexico 201.122.xxx.xxx UniNet Mexico 164.138.xxx.xxx Tilaa Netherlands 164.138.28.2 Tilaa Netherlands 78.100.57.165 Qtel Government Relations Qatar 195.178.xxx.xxx Tri.d.o.o / Telekom Srbija Serbia 117.121.xxx.xxx GPLHost Singapore 217.174.229.82 Ministry of Communications Turkmenistan 72.22.xxx.xxx iPower, Inc. United States 166.143.xxx.xxx Verizon Wireless United States 117.121.xxx.xxx GPLHost United States 117.121.xxx.xxx GPLHost United States 117.121.xxx.xxx GPLHost United States 117.121.xxx.xxx GPLHost United States 183.91.xxx.xxx CMC Telecom Infrastructure Company Vietnam Number 15 March 2013 Several of these findings are especially noteworthy: Eight servers are hosted by provider GPLHost in various countries (Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, US). However, we observed only six of these servers active at any given time, suggesting that some IP addresses may have changed during our scans. A server identified in Germany has the registrant Gamma International GmbH, and the contact person is listed as Martin Muench. There is a FinSpy server in an IP range registered to Verizon Wireless. Verizon Wireless sells ranges of IP addresses to corporate customers, so this is not necessarily an indication that Verizon Wireless itself is operating the server, or that Verizon Wireless customers are being spied on. A server in Qatar that was previously detected by Rapid7 seems to be back online after being unresponsive during the last round of our scanning. The server is located in a range of 16 addresses registered to Qtel Corporate accounts Government Relations. The same block of 16 addresses also contains the website http://qhotels.gov.qa/. 3. ETHIOPIA AND VIETNAM: IN-DEPTH DISCUSSION OF NEW SAMPLES 3.1 FinSpy in Ethiopia We analyzed a recently acquired malware sample and identified it as FinSpy. The malware uses images of members of the Ethiopian opposition group, Ginbot 7, as bait. The malware communicates with a FinSpy Command & Control server in Ethiopia, which was first identified by Rapid7 in August 2012. The server has been detected in every round of scanning, and remains operational at the time of this writing. It can be found in the following address block run by Ethio Telecom, Ethiopia s stateowned telecommunications provider: IP: 213.55.99.74 route: 213.55.99.0/24 descr: Ethio Telecom origin: AS24757 mnt-by: ETC-MNT member-of: rs-ethiotelecom source: RIPE # Filtered Number 15 March 2013 The server appears to be updated in a manner consistent with other servers, including servers in Bahrain and Turkmenistan. 8ae2febe04102450fdbc26a38037c82b SHA-1 1fd0a268086f8d13c6a3262d41cce13470886b09 SHA-256 ff6f0bcdb02a9a1c10da14a0844ed6ec6a68c13c04b4c122afc559d606762fa The sample is similar to a previously analyzed sample of FinSpy malware sent to activists in Bahrain in 2012. Just like Bahraini samples, the malware relocates itself and drops a JPG image with the same filename as the sample when executed by an unsuspecting user. This appears to be an attempt to trick the victim into believing the opened file is not malicious. Here are a few key similarities between the samples: The PE timestamp 2011-07-05 08:25:31 of the packer is exactly the same as the Bahraini sample. The following string (found in a process infected with the malware), self-identifies the malware and is similar to strings found in the Bahraini samples: The samples share the same Bootkit, SHA-256: ba21e452ee5ff3478f21b293a134b30ebf6b7f4ec03f8c8153202a740d7978b2. The samples share the same driverw.sys file, SHA-256: 62bde3bac3782d36f9f2e56db097a4672e70463e11971fad5de060b191efb196. Number 15 March 2013 Figure 2. The image shown to the victim contains pictures of members of the Ginbot 7 Ethiopian opposition group In this case the picture contains photos of members of the Ethiopian opposition group, Ginbot 7. Controversially, Ginbot 7 was designated a terrorist group by the Ethiopian Government in 2011. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and Human Rights Watch have both criticized this action, CPJ has pointed out that it is having a chilling effect on legitimate political reporting about the group and its leadership. The existence of a FinSpy sample that contains Ethiopia-specific imagery, and that communicates with a stillactive command & control server in Ethiopia strongly suggests that the Ethiopian Government is using FinSpy. Number 15 March 2013 3.2 FinSpy Mobile in Vietnam We recently obtained and analyzed a malware sample6 and identified it as FinSpy Mobile for Android. The sample communicates with a command & control server in Vietnam, and exfiltrates text messages to a Vietnamese telephone number. The FinFisher suite includes mobile phone versions of FinSpy for all major platforms including iOS, Android, Windows Mobile, Symbian and Blackberry. Its features are broadly similar to the PC version of FinSpy identified in Bahrain, but it also contains mobile-specific features such as GPS tracking and functionality for silent calls to snoop on conversations near the phone. An in-depth analysis of the FinSpy Mobile suite of backdoors was provided in an earlier blog post: The Smartphone Who Loved Me: FinFisher Goes Mobile? 573ef0b7ff1dab2c3f785ee46c51a54f SHA-1 d58d4f6ad3235610bafba677b762f3872b0f67cb SHA-256 363172a2f2b228c7b00b614178e4ffa00a3a124200ceef4e6d7edb25a4696345 The sample included a configuration file7 that indicates available functionality, and the options that have been enabled by those deploying it: Figure 3. Image of a section of a configuration file for the FinSpy Mobile sample Number 15 March 2013 Interestingly, the configuration file also specifies a Vietnamese phone number used for SMS based command and control: Section Type: TlvTypeConfigSMSPhoneNumber Section Data: +841257725403 The command and control server is in a range provided by the CMC Telecom Infrastructure Company in Hanoi: IP Address: 183.91.2.199 inetnum: 183.91.0.0 183.91.9.255 netname: FTTX-NET country: Vietnam address: CMC Telecom Infrastructure Company address: Tang 3, 16 Lieu Giai str, Ba Dinh, Ha Noi This server was active until very recently and matched our signatures for a FinSpy command and control server. Both the command & control server IP and the phone number used for text-message exfiltration are in Vietnam which indicates a domestic campaign. This apparent FinSpy deployment in Vietnam is troubling in the context of recent threats against online free expression and activism. In 2012, Vietnam introduced new censorship laws amidst an ongoing harassment, intimidation, and detention campaign against of bloggers who spoke out against the regime. This culminated in the trial of 17 bloggers, 14 of whom were recently convicted and sentenced to terms ranging from 3 to 13 years.8 4. BRIEF DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS Companies selling surveillance and intrusion software commonly claim that their tools are only used to track criminals and terrorists. FinFisher, VUPEN and Hacking Team have all used similar language.9 Yet a growing body of evidence suggests that these tools are regularly obtained by countries where dissenting political activity and speech is criminalized. Our findings highlight the increasing dissonance between Gamma s public claims that FinSpy is used exclusively to track bad guys and the growing body of evidence suggesting that the tool has and continues to be used against opposition groups and human rights activists. While our work highlights the human rights ramifications of the mis-use of this technology, it is clear that there are broader concerns. A global and unregulated market for offensive digital tools potentially presents a Number 15 March 2013 novel risk to both national and corporate cyber-security. On March 12th, US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper stated in his yearly congressional report on security threats: companies develop and sell professional-quality technologies to support cyberoperations often branding these tools as lawful-intercept or defensive security research products. Foreign governments already use some of these tools to target U.S. systems. The unchecked global proliferation of products like FinFisher makes a strong case for policy debate about surveillance software and the commercialization of offensive cyber-capabilities. Our latest findings give an updated look at the global proliferation of FinSpy. We identified 36 active FinSpy command & control servers, including 30 previously-unknown servers. Our list of servers is likely incomplete, as some FinSpy servers employ countermeasures to prevent detection. Including servers discovered last year, we now count FinSpy servers in 25 countries, including countries with troubling human rights records. This is indicative of a global trend towards the acquisition of offensive cyber-capabilities by non-democratic regimes from commercial Western companies. The Vietnamese and Ethiopian FinSpy samples we identified warrant further investigation, especially given the poor human rights records of these countries. The fact that the Ethiopian version of FinSpy uses images of opposition members as bait suggests it may be used for politically influenced surveillance activities, rather than strictly law enforcement purposes. The Ethiopian sample is the second FinSpy sample we have discovered that communicates with a server we identified by scanning as a FinSpy command & control server. This further validates our scanning results, and calls into question Gamma s claim that such servers are not from the FinFisher product line. Similarities between the Ethiopian sample and those used to target Bahraini activists also bring into question Gamma International s earlier claims that the Bahrain samples were stolen demonstration copies. While the sale of such intrusion and surveillance software is largely unregulated, the issue has drawn increased high-level scrutiny. In September of last year, the German foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, called for an EU-wide ban on the export of such surveillance software to totalitarian states.11 In a December 2012 interview, Marietje Schaake (MEP), currently the rapporteur for the first EU strategy on digital freedom in foreign policy, stated that it was quite shocking that Europe companies continue to export repressive technologies to countries where the rule of law is in question.12 We urge civil society groups and journalists to follow up on our findings within affected countries. We also hope that our findings will provide valuable information to the ongoing technology and policy debate about surveillance software and the commercialisation of offensive cyber-capabilities. Number 15 March 2013 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS d like to thank Eva Galperin and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Privacy International, Bahrain Watch, and Drew Hintz. MEDIA COVERAGE Media coverage of the report includes HuffingtonPost Canada, Salon, The Verge, Bloomberg Business Week, TheYoungTurks. __________________________________ FOOTNOTES https://www.gammagroup.com/ Software Meant to Fight Crime Is Used to Spy on Dissidents, http://goo.gl/GDRMe, New York Times, August 31, 2012, Page A1 Print edition. Cyber Attacks on Activists Traced to FinFisher Spyware of Gamma, http://goo.gl/nJH7o, Bloomberg, July 25, 2012 http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/16/company-denies-role-in-recently-uncovered-spyware/ http://www.sueddeutsche.de/digital/finfisher-entwickler-gamma-spam-vom-staat-1.1595253 This sample has also been discussed by Denis Maslennikov from Kasperksy in his analyses of FinSpy Mobile https://www.securelist.com/en/analysis/204792283/Mobile_Malware_Evolution_Part_6 Configuration parsed with a tool written by Josh Grunzweig of Spider Labs http://blog.spiderlabs.com/2012/09/finspy-mobile-configuration-and-insight.html https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/01/bloggers-trial-vietnam-are-part-ongoing-crackdown-free-expression https://www.securityweek.com/podcast-vupen-ceo-chaouki-bekrar-addresses-zero-day-marketplacecontroversy-cansecwest http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/16/company-denies-role-in-recently-uncovered-spyware/ http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/nov/28/offshore-company-directors-military-intelligence http://www.vieuws.eu/foreign-affairs/digital-freedoms-marietje-schaake-mep-alde/ Research Brief Number 19 June 2013 The Citizen Lab A Call to Harm: New Malware Attacks Target the Syrian Opposition Authors: John Scott-Railton and Morgan Marquis-Boire SUMMARY OF KEY FINDINGS Malware masquerading as the circumvention tool Freegate. A campaign masquerading as a call to arms by a pro-opposition cleric. INTRODUCTION Syria s opposition has faced persistent targeting by Pro-Government Electronic Actors (PGEAs) throughout the Syrian civil war. A pro-government group calling itself the Syrian Electronic Army has gained visibility in recent months with high profile attacks against news organizations. Meanwhile, Syrian activists continue to be targeted with online attacks apparently for the purposes of accessing their private communications and stealing their secrets. Throughout 2012, attacks against the Syrian opposition were documented in an extensive series of blog posts by Morgan Marquis-Boire and Eva Galperin with the help of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.1 Many others have also contributed to research on Syrian malware, from Telecomix to a range of security companies. Meanwhile, the Syrian opposition, and several groups working closely with it, such as Cyber Arabs, have been active in attempting to identify potential threats and warn users. Researchers have identified a common theme among the attacks against the Syrian opposition: sophisticated social engineering that is grounded in an awareness of the needs, interests, and weaknesses of the opposition. Attacks often play on curiosity or ideology to encourage users to enter passwords or click on enticing files, or exploit fears of hacking and surveillance with fake security tools. Attacks are often transmitted to potential victims from the accounts of people with whom they are familiar. Number 18 June 2013 The two attacks that are described in this blogpost follow this theme. One is a malicious installer of the circumvention tool Freegate. The other is an e-mail attachment calling for jihad against Hezbollah and the Assad regime or promising interesting regional news. ATTACK 1: A HELPING OF MALWARE WITH THAT PROXY? In this attack, which we first observed in the second week of June, the potential victim is encouraged to visit a download link containing a malicious installer of Freegate. Freegate is a standalone circumvention-bypassing Virtual Private Network (VPN) client for Windows. Legitimate versions of the Freegate software are available for download on its website. While initially developed for mainland Chinese users, the software is used in a number of other countries. While Freegate was erroneously labelled a Trojan by one anti-virus company nearly a decade ago, in this attack, attackers packaged what appears to be a legitimate version of Freegate with a malicious implant.2 The targeted group were members of the Syrian opposition in a private social media group. http://www.mediafire.com/download/[REDACTED]/VPN-Pro.zip When a potential victim visits the link, they are offered the download of a file which MediaFire lists as uploaded on June 15, 2013. VPN-PRO.zip3 Uploaded: 2013-06-15 16:54:31 The zip file extracts to a MS Windows executable file. VPN-Pro.exe4 Number 18 June 2013 The binary was compiled at 2013-06-15 22:41:31 UTC and has the following properties: LegalCopyright: Copyright 2013 Assembly Version: 1.0.0.0 InternalName: VPN-Pro.exe FileVersion: 1.0.0.0 ProductName: VPN-Pro ProductVersion: 1.0.0.0 FileDescription: VPN-Pro OriginalFilename: VPN-Pro.exe Similar to previously observed malware attacks targeting the Syrian opposition, this was written in .NET and appears to require the .NET 3.5 framework to execute.5 When VPN-Pro.exe is run, the victim is shown the Freegate end-user license agreement (EULA) dialogue box.6 Upon agreeing to the EULA, an operational copy of Freegate proxy is launched, which includes a request to unblock the firewall. The copy of Freegate launched is listed as Freegate 7.35 Professional Edition. The Freegate software begins operating, and quickly prompts the user for an update. Number 18 June 2013 Infection In addition to running a legitimate copy of Freegate 7.35,7 the malware installs an implant. Number 18 June 2013 A fake svchost.exe is installed in the victim s Application Data directory. C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\svchost.exe Dropped files on execution of VPN-Pro.exe: Number 18 June 2013 Examination of the svchost.exe binary shows multiple references to ShadowTech Rat. 0000d5f0 00 53 68 61 64 6f 77 54 65 63 68 20 52 61 74 2e |.ShadowTech Rat.| 0000d600 65 78 65 00 53 68 61 64 6f 77 54 65 63 68 20 52 |exe.ShadowTech R| 0000d610 61 74 00 3c 4d 6f 64 75 6c 65 3e 00 01 00 03 00 |at......| 0000d6d0 04 00 56 61 6c 75 65 54 79 70 65 00 05 00 44 61 |..ValueType...|Da| 0000d6e0 74 61 00 53 68 61 64 6f 77 54 65 63 68 5f 52 61 |ta.ShadowTech_Ra| 0000d6f0 74 00 49 53 65 72 69 61 6c 69 7a 61 62 6c 65 00 |t.ISerializable.| 0000d700 53 79 73 74 65 6d 2e 52 75 6e 74 69 6d 65 2e 53 |System.Runtime.S| 0000d710 65 72 69 61 6c 69 7a 61 74 69 6f 6e 00 4d 79 53 |erialization.MyS| 0000d720 65 74 74 69 6e 67 73 00 53 68 61 64 6f 77 54 65 |ettings.ShadowTe| 0000d730 63 68 5f 52 61 74 2e 4d 79 00 41 70 70 6c 69 63 |ch_Rat.My.Applic| Examination of network traffic also identifies the implant as ShadowTech RAT. Packet capture on port 1321/tcp: 00 01 00 00 00 ff ff ff ff 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0c 02 00 00 00 45 53 68 61 64 6f 77 54 65 63 68 20 52 61 74 2c 20 56 65 72 73 69 6f 6e 3d 31 2e 30 2e 30 2e 30 2c 20 43 75 6c 74 75 72 65 3d 6e 65 75 74 72 61 6c 2c 20 50 75 62 6c 69 63 4b 65 79 54 6f 6b 65 6e 3d 6e 75 6c 6c 05 01 00 00 00 13 53 68 61 64 6f 77 54 65 63 68 5f 52 61 74 2e 44 61 74 61 03 00 00 00 04 64 61 74 61 05 69 6d 61 67 65 05 62 79 74 65 73 01 02 02 02 00 00 00 06 03 00 00 00 64 31 30 32 36 32 32 30 32 31 46 32 30 30 33 32 34 30 33 30 30 33 36 32 44 36 34 33 38 30 42 34 33 35 37 31 30 31 36 33 31 33 44 33 39 30 30 32 45 32 31 30 36 30 38 30 43 30 46 32 35 33 38 30 37 30 38 30 35 37 41 37 35 33 33 30 44 37 37 32 36 33 35 33 31 36 39 33 45 34 34 37 45 31 35 35 38 37 38 35 43 0a 0a 0b ................ ......EShadowTec h Rat, Version=1 .0.0.0, Culture= neutral, PublicK eyToken=null.... ..ShadowTech_Rat .Data.....data.i mage.bytes...... ......d102622021 F2003240300362D6 4380B43571016313 D39002E2106080C0 F25380708057A753 30D77263531693E4 47E1558785C... ShadowTech Rat is a Remote Access Trojan which appears to be widely available for download on both English and Arabic language sites. Videos can be found on YouTube demonstrating its functionality. The tool offers a range of options to the attacker, from keylogging and remote activation of the webcam to file exfiltration. Number 18 June 2013 ShadowTech RAT control console: File Date Countries of Submission svchost.exe 2013-06-15 23:08:19 UTC Saudi Arabia Number 18 June 2013 VPN-Pro.exe 2013-06-15 22:45:33 UTC Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Morocco Both VPN-Pro.exe and svhost.exe have been submitted to VirusTotal: Both have relatively low detection rates by anti-virus software. As of June 20, 2013, svchost.exe was only detected by four out of 47 tested anti-virus programs, while VPN-Pro.exe was only detected by five out of 46. The svchost.exe initiates an outbound connection to a command and control (C2) server hosted at thejoe.publicvm.com. This domain resolves to an address inside Syrian IP space: 31.9.48.119. inetnum: netname: 31.9.0.0 - 31.9.127.255 SY-ISP-TARASSUL Number 18 June 2013 descr: country: Tarassul inetnet Service Provider This is not the first time that malicious installer packages have been created for circumvention tools. In 2012, malicious installers for Green Simurgh a standalone proxy intended for Iranian users but also used by some Syrians were found in circulation. The creators of Green Simurgh responded by posting a prominent warning on their website highlighting the presence of these malicious installers. Last year, malware which purported to be the Tor Browser Bundle was found in the wild. It was found to be backdoored by Gh0st RAT and exfiltrated data to an IP in China. An attack using a malicious installer of a working and reputable security or proxy tool is especially pernicious as it targets users who likely recognize the importance of privacy and circumvention, and may believe that they have increased their privacy and security by installing the tool. ATTACK 2: A TARGETED CALL TO ARMS In this campaign, contact with targets was initiated through phishing e-mails, chat messages and Facebook posts. Although we became aware of this campaign in early June, we have evidence that it may have started as early as January 2013. We believe that this campaign targeted at least in part high-profile members of the Syrian opposition. Interestingly, the attack included targeting of at least one non-public address associated with internal opposition communications. This indicates some degree of prior penetration of the opposition either through computer network intrusion or other intelligence gathering activities. The potential victim in this attack first receives a message from an unknown source, in this case, a Gmail account with a nondescript name. Example e-mail: Number 18 June 2013 The e-mail contains text, an image (not shown), and an attachment. The text refers to a video of Sheikh Adnan al-Arour a Sunni pro-opposition cleric based in Saudi Arabia, calling for holy war against Assad and Hezbollah. The user is led to believe that opening the zip file, which is descriptively titled as being the Sheikh s opinion, will provide access to the video. While we have identified multiple different attacks with different zip files, the structure of all of these is consistent with the example described here. Example zip files: .zip9 .zip .zip .zip The zip file extracts to a Windows Shortcut file with the same name and a .lnk extension. Example .lnk file Sample A .lnk Number 18 June 2013 Parsing these files reveals a URL embedded in the the file (bolded below). Parsing Sample A source path/filename: 1file modified: 06/16/2013 16:49:04 [UTC] file accessed: 06/19/2013 22:00:22 [UTC] file created: 06/19/2013 22:00:22 [UTC] Target flags: HasLinkTargetIDList, HasLinkInfo, HasRelativePath, Has WorkingDir, HasArguments, HasIconLocation, IsUnicode, DisableLinkPathTracking Target attributes: FILE_ATTRIBUTE_ARCHIVE Target modified: 07/17/2012 22:58:51.981 [UTC] Target accessed: 07/17/2012 22:58:51.981 [UTC] Target created: 07/17/2012 22:58:51.981 [UTC] Target ObjID time: 12/27/2012 10:55:02.540 [UTC] File offset: 0x00000000 [0] Parsed size: 0x000005b2 [1458 bytes] Target file size: 0x00003000 [12288 bytes] Show cmd: [SW_SHOWNORMAL] ID List: {CLSID_MyComputer}\C:\Windows\System32\mshta.exe Volume Type: fixed Volume serial num: 7203-8b23 Volume label: Local base path: C:\Windows\System32\mshta.exe Relative path: ..\..\..\Windows\System32\mshta.exe Working directory: C:\Windows\system32 Cmdline args: http://[REDACTED]?url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDkluDCn7fA Icon filename: %SystemRoot%\system32\SHELL32.dll Special Folder ID: CSIDL_SYSTEM Known Folder ID: 1ac14e77-02e7-4e5d-b744-2eb1ae5198b7 NETBIOS name: xp-pc Volume ID: 32035a92-7032-4de3-846f-ed880ad23fa7 Object ID: dd81bda8-5013-11e2-ab13-c0f8da734a02 MAC address: c0:f8:da:73:4a:02 format ID [value]: {b725f130-47ef-101a-a5f1-02608c9eebac} [mshta.exe\ format ID [value]: {46588ae2-4cbc-4338-bbfc-139326986dce} [S-1-5-21-13484416121947693625-1007466904-1000] format ID [value]: {dabd30ed-0043-4789-a7f8-d013a4736622} [System32 C:\Windows format ID [value]: {28636aa6-953d-11d2-b5d6-00c04fd918d0} [C:\Windows\System32\mshta.exe] When the victim executes the Windows shortcut, they are directed to one of several malicious links depending on the zipfile that they were sent. These are visible in the link parsing. Number 18 June 2013 Links embedded in the Windows shortcut: Link Sample A (active) http://[REDACTED]om/g.php?url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDkluDCn7fA Link Sample B (defunct) http://google-panel.html5.me/g.php?url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uw3Ny2A1WvQ Link Sample C (defunct) http://forgoogle.allalla.com/u.php?url=http://www.alkalimaonline.com/news.php?id=118868 The victim is then shown either a YouTube video featuring Sheikh Adnan al-Arour, or a story on http://www.alkalimaonline.com, a Lebanese news site. Example of YouTube video shown to victim: Number 18 June 2013 The Malware While the victim sees the decoy YouTube video or news website, a php file (g.php) that contains a hexencoded malicious binary is fetched. Excerpt from G.php:10 Please wait ..