This special variant further uses another obfuscation technique for cases where it fails to find a live update point. In order to make sure the botnet always ‘calls home’ Zeus 2.1.0.10’s operators programmed a randomized, on-the-fly domain name generator, based on a constant algorithm the Trojan’s configuration dictates. The algorithm creates 1,020 domain names URLs per day. Each new and unique domain name is a string of letters. The suffix “/news” or “/forum” follows the domain name when it is used for the Trojan’s update and drop communications.

via Organized Cybercrime: Nefarious Sophistication Featuring Zeus V2.1.0.10 « Speaking of Security – The RSA Blog and Podcast.

This month, the criminals behind the reincarnation of Zeus, known as SpyEye, found another way to circumvent the security measures introduced by some online banks. Researchers at financial security firm Trusteer documented a variant of SpyEye that has the ability to infect a computer, steal the victim’s logon credentials, and change the phone number that the bank uses to confirm transactions. It’s the latest update to an attack that, among other tactics, infected the mobile phone to which banks would send text messages to confirm transactions.

“This attack is much stronger than what we had seen before,” says Mickey Boodaei, CEO of Trusteer. attack is

via Banking Trojans Adapting To Cheat Out-of-Band Security – Dark Reading.

A new version of the Zeus malware has appeared, and this does not seem to be a minor upgrade, but a major custom version of the Trojan, which now sports a P2P capability that does away with the use of the domain-generation algorithm used in earlier versions and instead uses a hardcoded list of IP addresses to provide infected PCs with new software and config files. This is a throwback to the way the malware used to behave, but it comes with a twist: There no longer is a master URL that infected machines contact to get updates, making it much more difficult to track the Trojan’s activities.

[..]

The version of Zeus discovered recently by the Swiss Abuse.ch group implements this strategy through the inclusion of a built-in list of IP addresses that each newly infected PC should try to contact in order to receive instructions and updated configuration files. The new bot does this by sending out UDP packets on a high-numbered port, looking for like-mided peers. If one responds, the new bot will get a new list of IPs of other infected PCs in the botnet. The version of Zeus also can remotely check which version of the malware is running on remote PCs and download an updated version, if necessary, the researchers said in a blog post analyzing the Zeus update.

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“At first glance these are bad news. But fortunately the new mechanism also has benefits: There is just one ZeuS C&C active at the same time, so every time the domain name gets suspended/terminated, the criminals have to push out a new config file.”

via P2P Version of Zeus Botnet Appears | threatpost.

[..] Dmitry Tarakanov, a researcher at Kaspersky Lab who has studied the two families said that there was a code transfer from Zeus to SpyEye in the immediate aftermath of the source code being transferred to the SpyEye author. For example, the SpyEye author grabbed a Zeus feature that allowed the malware to force Web browsers on infected systems to load malicious HTML served by the botnet, even in cases where the host had a recent version of the page in question (say, an electronic banking site) stored locally in its browser cache. “SpyEye could not intercept the cached html-code,” Tarakanov wrote in an e-mail. “So the author of Spyeye had seen that part of the code where Zeus replaces the cache as well and added that part of code into his own source code of SpyEye. [..] “

via SpyEye and Zeus Malware: Married Or Living Separately? | threatpost.

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This new version, which Trend Micro detects as TSPY_ZBOT.SMQH, spread around late September through spam that claimed to be from the Australian Taxation Office (ATO). The spammed messages contained a malicious link that when clicked directed users to a malicious website that served the BlackHole Exploit Kit. The exploit kit, in turn, downloads a variant of the new ZeuS version.

[..]

As we can see, unlike ZeuS 2.3.2.0, which uses Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), the decryption algorithm did not change much compared with the modified ZeuS 2, which uses RC4.

As I mentioned earlier, like LICAT and ZeuS 2.3.2.0, this new variant also seems to be crafted by a private professional gang, probably the same ones who created LICAT or who may be affiliated with them at the very least. In fact, the configuration file for TSPY_ZBOT.SMQH has the same format as that of the configuration file of LICAT.

via Another Modified ZeuS 2 Variant Seen in the Wild.

On September 7, 2011, Trusteer announced they are investigating new financial malware they called Shylock that “uses unique mechanisms not found in other financial malware toolkits, including: an improved method for injecting code into additional browser processes to take control of the victim’s computer; a better evasion technique to prevent malware scanners from detecting its presence; a sophisticated watchdog service that allows it to resist removal attempts and restore operations”

via contagio: Sept 21 Greedy Shylock – financial malware.

THN : The Hacker News. : A Russian cybergang headed by a mysterious ringleader called ‘Soldier’ were able to steal $3.2 million (£2 million) from US citizens earlier this year using the SpyEye-Zeus data-stealing Trojan, security company Trend Micro has reported and Trusteer reports that an Android variant of Spitmo (SpyEye for mobile) has been discovered. The methodology sounds familiar for those familiar with ZeuS Mitmo and SpyEye Spitmo: infected computers inject a message into targeted netbanks prompting their customers to install software on their phones. Once Spitmo is installed, the SpyEye attacker is able to monitor incoming SMS and to steal MTAN authentication messages.

“His botnet was able to compromise approximately 25,394 systems between April 19, 2011 and June 29, 2011. And while nearly all of the victims were located in the US, there were a handful of victims spread across another 90 countries,” it said in a blog post.

[…]

The first version of ZeuS-in-the-Mobile (ZitMo), malware which targets mTANs, was discovered in the end of September 2010. In that case it was targeting Symbian smartphones. Later on, ZitMo versions for Windows Mobile and Blackberry were found. It comes as no surprise that cybercriminals have created new and sophisticated pieces of mobile malware for Symbian and Windows Mobile; more surprising is that Blackberry devices were also targeted; and even more surprising is that until July 2011 there was no evidence of ZitMo for Android’s existence. And now please ‘welcome’ ZeuS-in-the-Mobile for Android. [..]

[..]  now we have ZitMo targeting 4 platforms: Symbian, Windows Mobile, Blackberry and Android

via ZeuS-in-the-Mobile for Android – Securelist.

These documents were also presented last week during a dedicated workshop hosted in Cologne, where different experts from various sectors has attended the event.

We have found a new type of financial malware with the ability to hijack customers’ online banking sessions in real time using their session ID tokens. OddJob, which is the name we have given this Trojan, keeps sessions open after customers think they have “logged off”’, enabling criminals to extract money and commit fraud unnoticed. This is a completely new piece of malware that pushes the hacking envelope through the evolution of existing attack methodologies. It shows how hacker ingenuity can side-step many commercial IT security applications traditionally used to defend users’ digital – and online monetary – assets. We have been monitoring OddJob for a few months, but have not been able to report on its activities until now due to ongoing investigations by law enforcement agencies. These have just been completed.

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The most interesting aspect of this malware is that it appears to be a work in progress, as we have seen differences in hooked functions in recent days and weeks, as well as the way the Command & Control (C&C) protocols operate. We believe that these functions and protocols will continue to evolve in the near future, and that our analysis of the malware’s functionality may not be 100 per cent complete as the code writers continue to refine it.

[..]

via New Financial Trojan Keeps Online Banking Sessions Open after Users “Logout” | Trusteer.