clydeiii/cybersecurity · Datasets at Hugging Face

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Red Sky was purportedly arrested on 10/17/12, was convicted
The attack on Jehad Abdulla is noteworthy, as the ac-
of insulting the King on his Twitter account @RedSky446,
count
s activity aligned with communities typically critical of
and was sentenced to four months prison.5 When released, he
Bahrain
s opposition. However, the account also directly crit-
found that the passwords for his Twitter, Facebook, and e-mail
icized the King on occasion, in one case referring to him as
accounts had been changed, and did not know how to recover

weak
and
stingy.
An account linked to al9mood sent Je-
his accounts.
had Abdulla an IP spy link on 10/2/12 in a public message. On
The message that Red Sky
s account sent to Al Kawarah
10/16/12, Salman Darwish was arrested for insulting the King
News included a link shortened using Google
s goo.gl ser-
using the Jehad Abdulla account. He was sentenced to one
vice. We used the goo.gl API to access analytics for the link,
month in prison, partly on the basis of his confession. Salman
finding that it unshortened to iplogger.org/25SX and was
father claims that police denied Salman food, drink, and medi-
created on 12/8/12. The link had received only one click, which
cal care.
came from Bahrain with the referrer www.facebook.com.
Ali
s case files contained a request from the Public Prose- Another account linked to al9mood targeted @YLUBH, the
cution for information on an IP address that it had linked to Al Twitter account of Yokogawa Union, a trade union at the
Kawarah News about 22 hours after the link was created. Court Bahraini branch of a Japanese company. @YLUBH received at
documents indicate that ISP data linked the IP address to Ali, least three IP spy links in late 2012, sent via public Twitter mes-
and on this basis he was sentenced to one year in prison. sages. Yokogawa fired the leader of the trade union, Sami Ab-
Red Sky also targeted M in Figure 2. M recalled click- dulaziz Hassan, on 3/23/13 [30]. It later emerged that Sami was
ing on a link from Red Sky while using an Internet connec- indeed the operator of the @YLUBH account, and that the police
tion from one of the houses in M
s village. The house was had called him in for questioning in relation to its tweets [31].
raided by police on 3/12/13, who were looking for the sub-
Use of embedded remote images: We identified several
scriber of the house
s internet connection. Police questioning
targets who received spoofed e-mails containing embedded
5 According to information we received from two Twitter users, one remote images. Figure 2 shows two such cases, Maryam
of whom claimed to have met Red Sky in prison; another to be a col- and Sayed Yousif. The attacker sent the e-mails using
league. ReadNotify.com, which records the user
s IP address upon
5
USENIX Association
23rd USENIX Security Symposium
515
their mail client downloading the remote image.6 sophisticated than FinSpy and RCS, they share the same ba-
While ReadNotify.com forbids spoofing in their TOS, sic functionality, including screen capture, keylogging, remote
the service has a vulnerability known to the attackers (and monitoring of webcams and microphones, remote shell, and file
which we confirmed) that allows spoofing the From address exfiltration.
by directly setting the parameters on a submission form on their In the most common attack sequence we observed, illus-
website We have not found evidence suggesting this vulnerabil- trated with three examples in Figure 3, the attacker seeds mal-
ity is publicly known, but it appears clear that the attacker ex- ware via private chat messages, posts in opposition-controlled
ploited it, as the web form adds a X-Mai1er: RNwebmail social media groups, or e-mail. These techniques often limit
header not added when sending through ReadNotify.com
s the world-visibility of malicious files and links, slowing their
other supported methods. The header appeared in each e-mail detection by common AV products. Typically, targets receive
the targets forwarded to us. either (1) a PE in a .zip or .rar, (2) a file download link, or
When spoofing using this method, the original sender ad- (3) a link that will trigger a drive-by download. The messages
dress still appears in X-Sender and other headers. Accord- usually include text, often in Arabic, that attempts to persuade
ing to these, the e-mails received by the targets all came from the target to execute the file or click the link.
[email protected]. A link sent in one of these e- The first attacks in Figure 3 date to 2012, and use bait files
mails was connected to the al9mood bit.ly account. with a DarkComet RAT payload. These attacks share the same
In monitoring accounts connected to al9mood, we counted C&C, 216.6.0.28, a Syrian IP address belonging to the Syr-
more than 200 IP spy links in Twitter messages and public ian Telecommunications Establishment, and publicly reported
Facebook posts. Attackers often used (1) accounts of promi- as a C&C of Syrian malware since February 2012 [45]. The
nent or trusted but jailed individuals like
Red Sky,
(2) fake first bait file presents to the victim as a PDF containing infor-
personas (e.g., attractive women or fake job seekers when tar- mation about a planned uprising in Aleppo. In fact the file is a
geting a labor union), or (3) impersonations of legitimate ac- Windows Screensaver (.scr) that masquerades as a PDF using
counts. In one particularly clever tactic, attackers exploited Unicode RLO, rendering a name such as
.fdp.scr
dis-
Twitter
s default font, for example substituting a lowercase
play to the victim as
.rcs.pdf.
The second bait file is
with an uppercase
or switching vowels (e.g. from
to a dummy program containing DarkComet while masquerading
) to create at-a-glance identical usernames. In addition, as a Skype call encryption program, playing to opposition para-
malicious accounts tended to quickly delete IP spy tweets sent noia about government backdoors in common software. The
via (public) mentions, and frequently change profile names. third attack in Figure 3, observed in October 2013, entices tar-
gets with e-mails purporting to contain or link to videos about
the current conflict, infecting victims with Xtreme RAT, and
4.2 Syria using the C&C tn1.linkpc.net.
The use of RATs against the opposition has been a well- For seeding, the attackers typically use compromised ac-
documented feature of the Syrian Civil War since the first re- counts (including those of arrested individuals) or fake iden-
ports were published in early 2012 [36, 39, 40, 32, 34]. The tities masquerading as pro-opposition. Our illustration shows
phenomenon is widespread, and in our experience, most mem- in abstract terms the use of Victim A

Red Sky was purportedly arrested on 10/17/12, was convicted

The attack on Jehad Abdulla is noteworthy, as the ac-

of insulting the King on his Twitter account @RedSky446,

count

s activity aligned with communities typically critical of

and was sentenced to four months prison.5 When released, he

Bahrain

s opposition. However, the account also directly crit-

found that the passwords for his Twitter, Facebook, and e-mail

icized the King on occasion, in one case referring to him as

accounts had been changed, and did not know how to recover

weak

and

stingy.

An account linked to al9mood sent Je-

his accounts.

had Abdulla an IP spy link on 10/2/12 in a public message. On

The message that Red Sky

s account sent to Al Kawarah

10/16/12, Salman Darwish was arrested for insulting the King

News included a link shortened using Google

s goo.gl ser-

using the Jehad Abdulla account. He was sentenced to one

vice. We used the goo.gl API to access analytics for the link,

month in prison, partly on the basis of his confession. Salman

finding that it unshortened to iplogger.org/25SX and was

father claims that police denied Salman food, drink, and medi-

created on 12/8/12. The link had received only one click, which

cal care.

came from Bahrain with the referrer www.facebook.com.

Ali

s case files contained a request from the Public Prose- Another account linked to al9mood targeted @YLUBH, the

cution for information on an IP address that it had linked to Al Twitter account of Yokogawa Union, a trade union at the

Kawarah News about 22 hours after the link was created. Court Bahraini branch of a Japanese company. @YLUBH received at

documents indicate that ISP data linked the IP address to Ali, least three IP spy links in late 2012, sent via public Twitter mes-

and on this basis he was sentenced to one year in prison. sages. Yokogawa fired the leader of the trade union, Sami Ab-

Red Sky also targeted M in Figure 2. M recalled click- dulaziz Hassan, on 3/23/13 [30]. It later emerged that Sami was

ing on a link from Red Sky while using an Internet connec- indeed the operator of the @YLUBH account, and that the police

tion from one of the houses in M

s village. The house was had called him in for questioning in relation to its tweets [31].

raided by police on 3/12/13, who were looking for the sub-

Use of embedded remote images: We identified several

scriber of the house

s internet connection. Police questioning

targets who received spoofed e-mails containing embedded

5 According to information we received from two Twitter users, one remote images. Figure 2 shows two such cases, Maryam

of whom claimed to have met Red Sky in prison; another to be a col- and Sayed Yousif. The attacker sent the e-mails using

league. ReadNotify.com, which records the user

s IP address upon

5

USENIX Association

23rd USENIX Security Symposium

515

their mail client downloading the remote image.6 sophisticated than FinSpy and RCS, they share the same ba-

While ReadNotify.com forbids spoofing in their TOS, sic functionality, including screen capture, keylogging, remote

the service has a vulnerability known to the attackers (and monitoring of webcams and microphones, remote shell, and file

which we confirmed) that allows spoofing the From address exfiltration.

by directly setting the parameters on a submission form on their In the most common attack sequence we observed, illus-

website We have not found evidence suggesting this vulnerabil- trated with three examples in Figure 3, the attacker seeds mal-

ity is publicly known, but it appears clear that the attacker ex- ware via private chat messages, posts in opposition-controlled

ploited it, as the web form adds a X-Mai1er: RNwebmail social media groups, or e-mail. These techniques often limit

header not added when sending through ReadNotify.com

s the world-visibility of malicious files and links, slowing their

other supported methods. The header appeared in each e-mail detection by common AV products. Typically, targets receive

the targets forwarded to us. either (1) a PE in a .zip or .rar, (2) a file download link, or

When spoofing using this method, the original sender ad- (3) a link that will trigger a drive-by download. The messages

dress still appears in X-Sender and other headers. Accord- usually include text, often in Arabic, that attempts to persuade

ing to these, the e-mails received by the targets all came from the target to execute the file or click the link.

[email protected]. A link sent in one of these e- The first attacks in Figure 3 date to 2012, and use bait files

mails was connected to the al9mood bit.ly account. with a DarkComet RAT payload. These attacks share the same

In monitoring accounts connected to al9mood, we counted C&C, 216.6.0.28, a Syrian IP address belonging to the Syr-

more than 200 IP spy links in Twitter messages and public ian Telecommunications Establishment, and publicly reported

Facebook posts. Attackers often used (1) accounts of promi- as a C&C of Syrian malware since February 2012 [45]. The

nent or trusted but jailed individuals like

Red Sky,

(2) fake first bait file presents to the victim as a PDF containing infor-

personas (e.g., attractive women or fake job seekers when tar- mation about a planned uprising in Aleppo. In fact the file is a

geting a labor union), or (3) impersonations of legitimate ac- Windows Screensaver (.scr) that masquerades as a PDF using

counts. In one particularly clever tactic, attackers exploited Unicode RLO, rendering a name such as

.fdp.scr

dis-

Twitter

s default font, for example substituting a lowercase

play to the victim as

.rcs.pdf.

The second bait file is

with an uppercase

or switching vowels (e.g. from

to a dummy program containing DarkComet while masquerading

) to create at-a-glance identical usernames. In addition, as a Skype call encryption program, playing to opposition para-

malicious accounts tended to quickly delete IP spy tweets sent noia about government backdoors in common software. The

via (public) mentions, and frequently change profile names. third attack in Figure 3, observed in October 2013, entices tar-

gets with e-mails purporting to contain or link to videos about

the current conflict, infecting victims with Xtreme RAT, and

4.2 Syria using the C&C tn1.linkpc.net.

The use of RATs against the opposition has been a well- For seeding, the attackers typically use compromised ac-

documented feature of the Syrian Civil War since the first re- counts (including those of arrested individuals) or fake iden-

ports were published in early 2012 [36, 39, 40, 32, 34]. The tities masquerading as pro-opposition. Our illustration shows

phenomenon is widespread, and in our experience, most mem- in abstract terms the use of Victim A