The experts pointed out that the vulnerabilities affected apps with millions of downloads, the good news is that the flaws have been fixed.
Threat actors could have abused these pre-installed apps to access system configuration and sensitive information.
“As it is with many of pre-installed or default applications that most Android devices come with these days, some of the affected apps cannot be fully uninstalled or disabled without gaining root access to the device. We worked with mce Systems, the developer of the framework, and the affected mobile service providers to solve these issues.” reads the post published by Microsoft.
The bad news is that some of the affected apps cannot be fully uninstalled or disabled without root access to the device.
The experts discovered that the framework had a “BROWSABLE” service activity that can be remotely invoked to exploit several vulnerabilities. Threat actors could exploit these issues to implant a persistent backdoor or take substantial control over the device.
BROWSABLE Activity with the “mcedigital://” scheme (source Microsoft)
The framework was designed to implement self-diagnostic mechanisms, for this reason it runs with permissions to valuable resources. Microsoft experts highlight that affiliated apps also included extensive device privileges that could be exploited via the vulnerable framework.
“Our analysis further found that the apps were embedded in the devices’ system image, suggesting that they were default applications installed by phone providers. All of the apps are available on the Google Play Store where they go through Google Play Protect’s automatic safety checks, but these checks previously did not scan for these types of issues.” continues Microsoft. “As part of our effort to help ensure broad protection against these issues, we shared our research with Google, and Google Play Protect now identifies these types of vulnerabilities.”
mce Systems has fixed the issues and provided framework update to the impacted providers. The good news is that at the time of publication, the researchers are not aware of attacks in the wild exploring these vulnerabilities.
“Several other mobile service providers were found using the vulnerable framework with their respective apps, suggesting that there could be additional providers still undiscovered that may be impacted.” concludes the report.
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Linux Evidence Acquisition Framework (LEAF) acquires artifacts and evidence from Linux EXT4 systems, accepting user input to customize the functionality of the tool for easier scalability. Offering several modules and parameters as input, LEAF is able to use smart analysis to extract Linux artifacts and output to an ISO image file.
Process Ubuntu 20.04/Debian file systems for forensic artifacts, extract important data, and export information to an ISO9660 file. Compatible with EXT4 file system and common locations on Ubuntu 20.04 operating system. See help page for more information. Suggested usage: Do not run from LEAF/ directory
Parameters
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-i INPUT [INPUT ...], --input INPUT [INPUT ...] Additional Input locations. Separate multiple input files with spaces Default: /home/user1/Desktop/LEAF-3/target_locations
Users to include in output, separated by spaces (i.e. -u alice bob root). Users not present in /etc/passwd will be removed Default: All non-service users in /etc/passwd -c CATEGORIES [CATEGORIES ...], --categories CATEGORIES [CATEGORIES ...]< br/> Explicit artifact categories to include during acquisition. Categories must be separated by space, (i.e. -c network users apache). Full List of built-in categories includes: APPLICATIONS, EXECUTIONS, LOGS, MISC, NETWORK, SHELL, STARTUP, SERVICES, SYSTEM, TRASH, USERS Categories are compatible with user-inputted files as long as they follow the notation: # CATEGORY /location1 /location2 .../location[n] # END CATEGORY Default: "all" -v, --verbose Output in verbose mode, (may conflict with progress bar) Default: False -s, --save Save the raw evidence directory Default: False -g [GET_ OWNERSHIP [GET_OWNERSHIP ...]], --get_ownership [GET_OWNERSHIP [GET_OWNERSHIP ...]] Get files and directories owned by included users. Enabling this will increase parsing time. Use -g alone to parse from / root directory. Include paths after -g to specify target locations (i.e. "-g /etc /home/user/Downloads/ Default: Disabled -y [YARA [YARA ...]], --yara [YARA [YARA ...]] Configure Yara IOC scanning. Select -y alone to enable Yara scanning. Specify '-y /path/to/yara/' to specify custom input location. For multiple inputs, use spaces between items, i.e. '-y rulefile1.yar rulefile2.yara rule_dir/' All yara files m ust have ".yar" or ".yara" extension. Default: None -yr [YARA_RECURSIVE [YARA_RECURSIVE ...]], --yara_recursive [YARA_RECURSIVE [YARA_RECURSIVE ...]] Configure Recursive Yara IOC scanning. For multiple inputs, use spaces between items, i.e. '-yr rulefile1.yar rulefile2.yara rule_dir/'. Directories in this list will be scanned recursively. Can be used in conjunction with the normal -y flag, but intersecting directories will take recursive priority. Default: None -yd [YARA_DESTINATIONS [YARA_DESTINATIONS...]], --yara_destinations [YARA_DESTINATIONS [YARA_DESTINATIONS...]] Destination to run yara files against. Separate multiple targets with a space.(i.e. /home/alice/ /bin/star/) Default: All user directories
Example Usages:
To use default arguments [this will use default input file (./target_locations), users (all users), categories (all categories), and output location (./LEAF_output/). Cloned data will not be stored in a local directory, verbose mode is off, and yara scanning is disabled]: LEAF_main.py
All arguments: LEAF_main.py -i /home/alice/Desktop/customfile1.txt -o /home/alice/Desktop/ExampleOutput/ -c logs startup services apache -u alice bob charlie -s -v -y /path/to/yara_rule1.yar -yr /path2/to/yara_rules/ -yd /home/frank -g /etc/
To specify usernames, categories, and yara files: LEAF_main.py -u alice bob charlie -c applications executions users -y /home/alice/Desktop/yara1.yar /home/alice/Desktop/yara2.yar
To include custom input file(s) and categories: LEAF_main.py -i /home/alice/Desktop/customfile1.txt /home/alice/Desktop/customfile2.t xt -c apache xampp
How to Use
Install Python requirements:
Python 3 (preferably 3.8 or higher) (apt install python3)
pip 3 (apt install pip3)
Download required modules
Install modules from requirements.txt (pip3 install -r requirements.txt)
If you get an installation error, try sudo -H pip3 install -r requirements.txt
Run the script
sudo python3 LEAF_master.py with optional arguments
Today, Talos is publishing a glimpse into the most prevalent threats we've observed between May 20 and May 27. As with previous roundups, this post isn't meant to be an in-depth analysis. Instead, this post will summarize the threats we've observed by highlighting key behavioral characteristics,...
[[ This is only the beginning! Please visit the blog for the complete entry ]]
May 25, 2022, marked four years since the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) went into effect. Although the scope of the law is limited to personal data originating from activities in the European Economic Area, the ensuing requirements have had a global impact. This is evident in similar laws that have been proposed or passed and measures multinational organizations have taken to comply with privacy requirements. In parallel, there has been a convergence of a principles-based approach to cybersecurity in many jurisdictions worldwide.
In light of the trends of the past four years, there are four clear takeaways for organizations seeking to meet their GDPR obligations.
1. GDPR Is not a Static Set of Requirements
During the past four years, organizations around the globe have adapted to comply with GDPR requirements, while those requirements and the threats posed to privacy have been anything but static. The European Data Protection Board (EDPB), the GDPR-era successor to the Article 29 Working Party, has issued updated guidance on a variety of areas. These include privacy-by-design guidelines as well as breach notification examples and response guidelines. Simultaneously, as shown in the CrowdStrike 2022 Global Threat Report, threats to data protection continue to evolve, requiring organizations to assess their GDPR compliance programs in the context of today’s security risks and GDPR requirements, rather than those of 2018.
2. Achieving Security-by-Design and Privacy-by-Design Is Not “Set and Forget”
As a principles-based regulation, GDPR includes obligations to incorporate privacy-by-design and to implement safeguards appropriate to the risk. EDPB guidelines make clear that privacy-by-design is an evolving standard that imposes on organizations a duty “to take account of the current progress in technology that is available in the market.” Furthermore, the EDPB guidance drives home the point that organizations may find themselves in violation of GDPR Arts. 25 and 32, where “a measure that once provided an adequate level of protection no longer does.”
This evolving standard of GDPR is a reflection of why security approaches, such as legacy antivirus, are mismatched for today’s realities. As workloads and data storage increasingly move from traditional endpoints to cloud offerings, cyber threat actors have expanded their targets. In fact, cyber threat actors often do not discriminate between personal or general, on-premise enterprise environments versus cloud environments. They target resources and data wherever they exist, and frequently move between local and cloud environments in an attempt to achieve their objectives.1 This is one reason why accidental data exposures that happen through, for example, misconfigured cloud storage environments are also increasingly a source of potential privacy issues. Moreover, threat actors use cloud hosting to disguise their intrusions as benign network traffic, and a variety of legitimate software and cloud hosting services to access company networks.
3. Mitigating Risk Can Mitigate Breach Obligations
Like many breach notification obligations, GDPR’s language is designed to reduce breach fatigue by creating an impact-driven duty to notify regulators and, in the most severe of instances, individuals. Recent guidance for the EDPB makes clear not all breaches have the same level of severity. For example, an incident where a threat actor sees a list of user names might have a small or negligible impact on affected parties. Whereas, another incident in which a threat actor exfiltrates complete financial or medical records may have a severe impact.
Some personal data may be considered benign enough that it would not even be considered reportable if a breach was to occur. Whereas, other personal data could pose a risk or high risk to the fundamental rights of data subjects. Such guidance is relevant for cross border data flows as well. Put simply, if certain types of personal data in a data breach would not be reportable, it raises the question as to whether there should be any barriers to data flows in a transfer impact assessment.
As a practical matter, the data breach guidance repeatedly endorses the notion of using centralized logs as a critical component in breach prevention and assessment. This is because security teams demand contextual awareness and visibility from across their entire environments, including within cloud and ephemeral environments. Log management is critical to understanding what happened. Going beyond this, extended detection and response (XDR), can be leveraged to apply order to a sometimes chaotic array of security tools by deriving actionable insights wherever they exist within the enterprise, and generate intelligence from what otherwise may be an information overload. Holistic XDR unifies detection and response across the entire security stack.
4. Threats to Data Protection Aren’t Going Away
Legal guidance related to GDPR is not the only thing that has evolved in the past four years. The threats to privacy that GDPR principles require organizations to protect against have evolved as well. As CrowdStrike’s Global Threat Report highlighted, cyber actors pose a significant threat to organizations and, especially, to data protection compliance. In fact, CrowdStrike observed an 82% increase in ransomware data leaks from 2020 to 2021 alone. Moreover, there is the stark reality that 62% of attacks observed by CrowdStrike did not involve malware but instead were conducted via hands-on-keyboard activity. These realities make clear that using legacy antivirus technologies to protect personal data do not meet GDPR’s standards of implementing state-of-the-art security measures appropriate for today’s risks.
The Future of GDPR
Organizations subject to GDPR should evaluate whether measures put in place four years ago are still sufficient today. Both the legal guidance interpreting GDPR as well as the threats to privacy continue to evolve, and compliance is a moving target. Moreover, there have been significant fines under both GDPR and UK GDPR against organizations that do not implement appropriate safeguards to protect personal data. Consequently, as a practical matter, investing in ENISA endorsed security measures such as XDR, zero trust, log management and threat hunting is a fundamental part of compliance today.
Drew Bagley is Vice President and Counsel, Privacy and Cyber Policy at CrowdStrike.
Details have emerged about a recently patched critical remote code execution vulnerability in the V8 JavaScript and WebAssembly engine used in Google Chrome and Chromium-based browsers.
The issue relates to a case of use-after-free in the instruction optimization component, successful exploitation of which could "allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code in the context of the browser."
The
Cloud-based repository hosting service GitHub on Friday shared additional details into the theft of GitHub integration OAuth tokens last month, noting that the attacker was able to access internal NPM data and its customer information.
"Using stolen OAuth user tokens originating from two third-party integrators, Heroku and Travis CI, the attacker was able to escalate access to NPM infrastructure
Security researchers devised a technique, dubbed GhostTouch, to remotely control touchscreens using electromagnetic signals.
A team of researchers from Zhejiang University and Technical University of Darmstadt devised a technique, dubbed GhostTouch, to remotely control capacitive touchscreens using electromagnetic signals.
According to the experts, GhostTouch is the first active contactless attack against capacitive touchscreens.
GhostTouch uses electromagnetic interference (EMI) to remotely inject fake touch points into a capacitive device. The researchers demonstrated how to inject two types of basic touch events, taps and swipes, into targeted locations of the touchscreen. The events allowed the researchers to control the devices (i.e. answering an eavesdropping phone call, pressing the button, swiping up to unlock), the attack technique was successful on nine smartphone models.
“We can inject targeted taps continuously with a standard deviation of as low as 14.6 x 19.2 pixels from the target area, a delay of less than 0.5s and a distance of up to 40mm. We show the real-world impact of the GhostTouch attacks in a few proof-of-concept scenarios, including answering an eavesdropping phone call, pressing the button, swiping up to unlock, and entering a password.” reads the research paper published by the academics. “Finally, we discuss potential hardware and software countermeasures to mitigate the attack.”
The GhostTouch system consists of two components, a touch injector and a phone locator. The touch injector is used to inject touch events into the touchscreen and includes a signal generator, an amplifier, an on/off switch, and a receiving antenna array. The phone locator is used to identify the position of the touchscreen and consists of a sensing antenna array, a data acquisition device, and a location calculator.
The experimental lab setup up by the researchers is composed of an electrostatic gun used to generate a strong pulse signal which is sent to an antenna to transmit an electromagnetic field to the touchscreen.
Below are a couple of video PoCs of attacks devised by the experts that show GhostTouch attack to answer the phone call and connect the malicious Bluetooth.
The experts tested the technique against nine different smartphone models, including Galaxy A10s, Huawei P30 Lite, Honor View 10, Galaxy S20 FE 5G, Nexus 5X, Redmi Note 9S, Nokia 7.2, Redmi 8, and an iPhone SE (2020).
“We demonstrate the feasibility of this attack in the real world.” concludes the paper. “In places like a cafe, library, meeting room, or conference lobbies, people might place their smartphone face-down on the table2. An attacker may embed the attack equipment under the table and launch attacks remotely. For example, an attacker may impersonate the victim to answer a phone call which would eavesdrop the private conversation, or visit a malicious website.”
The researchers provided a series of countermeasures to neutralize the attack, including adding electromagnetic shielding to block EMI, reinforcing the touchscreen, improving the detection algorithm of the touchscreen, and forcing some form of authentication for the execution of high-risk actions.
Security Affairs is one of the finalists for the best European Cybersecurity Blogger Awards 2022 – VOTE FOR YOUR WINNERS. I ask you to vote for me again (even if you have already done it), because this vote is for the final.
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Today's modern companies are built on data, which now resides across countless cloud apps. Therefore preventing data loss is essential to your success. This is especially critical for mitigating against rising ransomware attacks — a threat that 57% of security leaders expect to be compromised by within the next year.
As organizations continue to evolve, in turn so does ransomware. To help you
The FBI warns organizations in the higher education sector of credentials sold on cybercrime forums that can allow threat actors to access their networks.
The FBI issued an alert to inform the higher education sector about the availability of login credentials on dark web forums that can be used by threat actors to launch attacks against individuals and organizations in the industry. The availability of this data is the result of continued attacks conducted by threat actors against US colleges and universities. The alert also includes recommendations and mitigations for these attacks.
“The FBI is informing academic partners of identified US college and university credentials advertised for sale on online criminal marketplaces and publically accessible forums. This exposure of sensitive credential and network access information, especially privileged user accounts, could lead to subsequent cyber attacks against individual users or affiliated organizations.” reads the alert published by the FBI.
Crooks obtain the information by conducting spear-phishing and ransomware attacks, or other means.
In 2017, crooks launched a phishing campaign against universities to compromise .edu accounts. The attackers set up fake university login pages and embedded a credential harvester link in phishing emails.
In late 2020, credentials for US-based universities were found for sale on the dark web. The seller listed approximately 2,000 unique credentials.
In May 2021, cybercriminals offered more than 36,000 login credentials for .edu email accounts and advertised the data on an instant messaging platform.
In May 2021, over 36,000 email and password combinations for .edu email accounts were offered for sale on a publically available instant messaging platform.
Recently, in January 2022, threat actors have been observed offering for sale network and VPN access credentials belonging to US-based universities and colleges on Russian cybercrime forums.
“The FBI has observed incidents of stolen higher education credential information posted on publically accessible online forums or listed for sale on criminal marketplaces. The exposure of usernames and passwords can lead to brute force credential stuffing computer network attacks, whereby attackers attempt logins across various internet sites or exploit them for subsequent cyber attacks as criminal actors take advantage of users recycling the same credentials across multiple accounts, internet sites, and services,” concludes the alert. “If attackers are successful in compromising a victim account, they may attempt to drain the account of stored value, leverage or re-sell credit card numbers and other personally identifiable information, submit fraudulent transactions, exploit for other criminal activity against the account holder, or use for subsequent attacks against affiliated organizations.”
Security Affairs is one of the finalists for the best European Cybersecurity Blogger Awards 2022 – VOTE FOR YOUR WINNERS. I ask you to vote for me again (even if you have already done it), because this vote is for the final.
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One day, I was trying to bypass an EDR and I noticed something interesting.
The EDR I was trying to bypass wasn’t hooking the DLL in their code with jmp instruction like other EDRs in user-land.
In this case, it was hooking directly the Import Address Table. This technique makes the usual move like live-patching, or erasing the loaded DLL with one freshly loaded from disk useless.
I had to unhook the Import Address Table of my process.
The goal of this repository is to provide a simple, harmless way to check your AV's protection on ransomware.
This tool simulates typical ransomware behaviour, such as:
Staging from a Word document macro
Deleting Volume Shadow Copies
Encrypting documents (embedded and dropped by the simulator into a new folder)
Dropping a ransomware note to the user's desktop
The ransomware simulator takes no action that actually encrypts pre-existing files on the device, or deletes Volume Shadow Copies. However, any AV products looking for such behaviour should still hopefully trigger.
Each step, as listed above, can also be disabled via a command line flag. This allows you to check responses to later steps as well, even if an AV already detects earlier steps.
Usage
Run command:
Run Ransomware Simulator
Usage: ransomware-simulator run [flags]
Flags: --dir string Directory where files that will be encrypted should be staged (default "./encrypted-files") --disable-file-encryption Don't simulate document encryption --disable-macro-simulation Don't simulate start from a macro by building the following process chain: winword.exe -> cmd.exe -> ransomware-simulator.exe --disable-note-drop Don't drop pseudo ransomware note --disable-shadow-copy-deletion Don't simulate volume shadow copy deletion -h, --help help for run --note-location string Ransomware note location (default "C:\\Users\\neo\\Desktop\\ransomware-simulator-note.txt")
Researchers have demonstrated what they call the "first active contactless attack against capacitive touchscreens."
GhostTouch, as it's called, "uses electromagnetic interference (EMI) to inject fake touch points into a touchscreen without the need to physically touch it," a group of academics from Zhejiang University and Technical University of Darmstadt said in a new research paper.
The core
A new version of the ERMAC Android banking trojan is able to target an increased number of apps.
The ERMAC Android banking trojan version 2.0 can target an increasing number of applications, passing from 378 to 467 target applications to steal account credentials and crypto-wallets.
ERMAC was first spotted by researchers from Threatfabric in July 2021, it is based on the popular banking trojan Cerberus. The source code of Cerberus was released in September 2020 on underground hacking forums after its operators failed an auction.
According to the experts, ERMAC is operated by threat actors behind the BlackRock mobile malware.
ERMAC 2.0 was discovered by ESET researchers after a campaign impersonating Bolt Food targeted Polish users. The malware is available for rent on underground forums for $5000 per month since March 2022.
Researchers from Cyble analyzed the malware after the initial discovery made by ESET
ERMAC first determines what applications are installed on the host device and then sends the information to the C2 server.
Researchers from Cyble published a technical analysis of the malware after the initial discovery made by ESET. The malicious app asks for 43 permissions, of which the TA exploits 12. Below is the list of permission requested to conduct malicious activities and take over the infected device:
Permission
Description
REQUEST_INSTALL_PACKAGES
Allows an application to request installing packages
CALL_PHONE
Allows an application to initiate a phone call without going through the Dialer user interface for the user to confirm the call
RECEIVE_SMS
Allows an application to receive SMS messages
READ_SMS
Allows an application to read SMS messages
SEND_SMS
Allows an application to send SMS messages
READ_CONTACTS
Allows an application to read the user’s contacts data
READ_PHONE_STATE
Allows read access to the device’s phone number
SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW
Allows an app to create windows shown on top of all other apps.
READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE
Allows an application to read from external storage
RECORD_AUDIO
Allows an application to record audio
WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE
Allows an application to write to external storage
while the list of commands supported by ERMAC 2.0 to execute malicious operations is:
Command
Description
downloadingInjections
Sends the application list to download injections
logs
Sends injection logs to the server
checkAP
Check the application status and send it to the server
registration
Sends device data
updateBotParams
Sends the updated bot parameters
downloadInjection
Used to receive the phishing HTML page
“The Threat Actor behind ERMAC used the leaked code from a well-known malware variant named “Cerberus” and modified the code to sell the Android botnets in cybercrime forums. Interestingly, we observed that ERMAC 2.0 is distributed rapidly through various phishing sites, primarily targeting Polish users.” concludes Cyble. “ERMAC 2.0 steals credentials from different crypto wallets and targets multiple banking applications worldwide. We foresee that the TA behind ERMAC 2.0 will continue to develop new versions with more targeted applications, new TTPs, and new delivery methods.”
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The authentication bypass depends on the error value getting ignored. It was ignored on line 1121, but it's still stored in the error parameter, so it also needs to be ignored by the caller. The block of code above has a temporary variable named implied_error, which is ignored when implied_result isn't null. That's the crucial step that makes the bypass possible.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!--*-nxml-*-->
<!DOCTYPE policyconfig PUBLIC "-//freedesktop//DTD PolicyKit Policy Configuration 1.0//EN"
"http://www.freedesktop.org/standards/PolicyKit/1/policyconfig.dtd">
<policyconfig>
<vendor>The systemd Project</vendor>
<vendor_url>http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd</vendor_url>
<action id="org.freedesktop.systemd1.manage-unit-files">
<description gettext-domain="systemd">Manage system service or unit files</description>
<message gettext-domain="systemd">Authentication is required to manage system service or unit files.</message>
<defaults>
<allow_any>auth_admin</allow_any>
<allow_inactive>auth_admin</allow_inactive>
<allow_active>auth_admin_keep</allow_active>
</defaults>
<annotate key="org.freedesktop.policykit.imply">org.freedesktop.systemd1.reload-daemon org.freedesktop.systemd1.manage-units</annotate>
</action>
<action id="org.freedesktop.systemd1.reload-daemon">
<description gettext-domain="systemd">Reload the systemd state</description>
<message gettext-domain="systemd">Authentication is required to reload the systemd state.</message>
<defaults>
<allow_any>auth_admin</allow_any>
<allow_inactive>auth_admin</allow_inactive>
<allow_active>auth_admin_keep</allow_active>
</defaults>
</action>
</policyconfig>
** (polkitd:186082): DEBUG: 00:37:29.575: In authentication_agent_response for cookie '3-31e1bb8396c301fad7e3a40706ed6422-1-0a3c2713a55294e172b441c1dfd1577d' and identity unix-user:root
** (polkitd:186082): DEBUG: 00:37:29.576: OUT: Only uid 0 may invoke this method.
** (polkitd:186082): DEBUG: 00:37:29.576: Authentication complete, is_authenticated = 0
** (polkitd:186082): DEBUG: 00:37:29.577: In check_authorization_challenge_cb
subject system-bus-name::1.6846
action_id org.freedesktop.timedate1.set-timezone
was_dismissed 0
authentication_success 0
00:37:29.577: Operator of unix-process:186211:9138723 FAILED to authenticate to gain authorization for action org.freedesktop.timedate1.set-timezone for system-bus-name::1.6846 [python3 agent.py] (owned by unix-user:dev)
可见我们的 Authentication Agent 已经正常工作了，可以接收到 PolicyKit 发送的 BeginAuthentication 方法调用，并且PolicyKit 会提示 Only uid 0 may invoke this method，是因为我们的 AuthenticationAgentResponse 发送用户为 dev 用户而非 root 用户。
** (polkitd:186082): DEBUG: 01:09:17.375: In authentication_agent_response for cookie '51-20cf92ca04f0c6b029d0309dbfe699b5-1-3d3e63e4e98124979952a29a828057c7' and identity unix-user:root
** (polkitd:186082): DEBUG: 01:09:17.377: OUT: RET: 1
** (polkitd:186082): DEBUG: 01:09:17.377: Removing authentication agent for unix-process:189453:9329523 at name :1.6921, object path /org/freedesktop/PolicyKit1/AuthenticationAgent (disconnected from bus)
01:09:17.377: Unregistered Authentication Agent for unix-process:189453:9329523 (system bus name :1.6921, object path /org/freedesktop/PolicyKit1/AuthenticationAgent, locale en_US.UTF-8) (disconnected from bus)
** (polkitd:186082): DEBUG: 01:09:17.377: OUT: error
Error performing authentication: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NoReply: Message recipient disconnected from message bus without replying (g-dbus-error-quark 4)
(polkitd:186082): GLib-WARNING **: 01:09:17.379: GError set over the top of a previous GError or uninitialized memory.
This indicates a bug in someone's code. You must ensure an error is NULL before it's set.
The overwriting error message was: Failed to open file ?/proc/0/cmdline?: No such file or directory
Error opening `/proc/0/cmdline': GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NameHasNoOwner: Could not get UID of name ':1.6921': no such name
** (polkitd:186082): DEBUG: 01:09:17.380: In check_authorization_challenge_cb
subject system-bus-name::1.6921
action_id org.freedesktop.timedate1.set-timezone
was_dismissed 0
authentication_success 0
** (polkitd:192813): DEBUG: 01:42:29.925: In authentication_agent_response for cookie '3-7c19ac0c4623cf4548b91ef08584209f-1-22daebe24c317a3d64d74d2acd307468' and identity unix-user:root
** (polkitd:192813): DEBUG: 01:42:29.928: OUT: RET: 1
** (polkitd:192813): DEBUG: 01:42:29.928: Authentication complete, is_authenticated = 1
(polkitd:192813): GLib-WARNING **: 01:42:29.934: GError set over the top of a previous GError or uninitialized memory.
This indicates a bug in someone's code. You must ensure an error is NULL before it's set.
The overwriting error message was: Failed to open file ?/proc/0/cmdline?: No such file or directory
Error opening `/proc/0/cmdline': GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NameHasNoOwner: Could not get UID of name ':1.7428': no such name
** (polkitd:192813): DEBUG: 01:42:29.934: In check_authorization_challenge_cb
subject system-bus-name::1.7428
action_id org.freedesktop.timedate1.set-timezone
was_dismissed 0
authentication_success 1
同时系统时区也已经成功更改。
0x07. Before The Exploit
相比于漏洞作者给出的 Account Daemon 利用，我选择了使用 org.freedesktop.systemd1。首先我们摆脱了必须使用 org.freedesktop.policykit.imply 修饰过的方法的限制，其次因为这个 D-Bus Service 几乎在每个 Linux 系统都存在，最后是因为这个方法存在一些高风险方法。
$ gdbus introspect --system -d org.freedesktop.systemd1 -o /org/freedesktop/systemd1
...
interface org.freedesktop.systemd1.Manager {
...
StartUnit(in s arg_0,
in s arg_1,
out o arg_2);
...
EnableUnitFiles(in as arg_0,
in b arg_1,
in b arg_2,
out b arg_3,
out a(sss) arg_4);
...
}
...
同时，作为一个 Web 漏洞的安全研究员，我自是将所有的东西都类型转换到 Web 层面去看待。D-Bus 和 Web 非常相似，在挖掘提权的过程中并没有受到特别大的阻力，却收获了非常多的成果。希望各位安全从业者通过 D-Bus 来入门二进制，跳出自己的舒适圈，也可以增加自己在漏洞挖掘中的视野（什么，内存破坏洞？想都不要想了，开摆.jpg）。
Zyxel has released patches to address four security flaws affecting its firewall, AP Controller, and AP products to execute arbitrary operating system commands and steal select information.
The list of security vulnerabilities is as follows -
CVE-2022-0734 - A cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in some firewall versions that could be exploited to access information stored in the user's
Security researchers released PoC exploit code for the critical authentication bypass vulnerability CVE-2022-22972 affecting multiple VMware products.
Horizon3 security researchers have released a proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit and technical analysis for the critical authentication bypass vulnerability CVE-2022-22972 affecting multiple VMware products.
The virtualization giant recently warned that a threat actor can exploit the CVE-2022-22972 flaw (CVSSv3 base score of 9.8) to obtain admin privileges and urges customers to install patches immediately.
“This critical vulnerability should be patched or mitigated immediately per the instructions in VMSA-2021-0014. The ramifications of this vulnerability are serious.” states VMware.
The CVE-2022-22972 flaw affects Workspace ONE Access, VMware Identity Manager (vIDM), and vRealize Automation.
“VMware Workspace ONE Access, Identity Manager and vRealize Automation contain an authentication bypass vulnerability affecting local domain users.” reads the advisory published by the company. “A malicious actor with network access to the UI may be able to obtain administrative access without the need to authenticate.”
The company acknowledged Bruno López of Innotec Security for the discovery of the flaw.
VMware addressed the flaw and also provided workarounds for admins who cannot immediately install security patches.
VMware did not provide technical details about the flaw, then Horizon3 researchers performed an analysis of the patch.
“Our POC sends requests starting at the /vcac endpoint the same way a browser would and parses the login page to extract these hidden fields. These hidden fields are then encoded into the body of the final POST with the Host header set to our custom login server. The POC then parses the response to extract the authentication cookies. These cookies can be used to execute actions as the chosen user.” reads the analysis published by the researchers. “This script can be used by bypass authentication on vRealize Automation 7.6 using CVE-2022-22972. Workspace ONE and vIDM have different authentication endpoints, but the crux of the vulnerability remains the same.”
The experts pointed out that the CVE-2022-22972 issue is a relatively simple Host header manipulation vulnerability.
Threat actors could easily exploit this issue. Searching on Shodan.io for the affected VMware applications we can find organizations in the healthcare and education industries, and state government potentially vulnerable.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued the Emergency Directive 22-03 to order federal agencies to fix VMware CVE-2022-22972 and CVE-2022-22973 flaws or to remove the affected products from their networks by May 23, 2022.
DHS also orders federal agencies to report the status of all VMware installs on their networks into Cyberscope by May 24, 2022.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) further highlighted this security flaw’s severity lev
Security Affairs is one of the finalists for the best European Cybersecurity Blogger Awards 2022 – VOTE FOR YOUR WINNERS. I ask you to vote for me again (even if you have already done it), because this vote is for the final.
Please vote for Security Affairs and Pierluigi Paganini in every category that includes them (e.g. sections “The Underdogs – Best Personal (non-commercial) Security Blog” and “The Tech Whizz – Best Technical Blog”)
pocsploit is a lightweight, flexible and novel open source poc verification framework
Pain points of the POC framework in the market
There are too many params, I don't know how to get started, but only some of them are commonly used.
YAML poc framework(like nuclei & xray) is not flexible enough. the conversion cost is very high when writing poc. Sometimes it's hard when encountering non-http protocols. (only hex can be used)
Sometimes POC has false positives, which can be avoided by accurate fingerprint matching.
It is heavily dependent on the framework. Poc in pocsploit can be used in the framework and can also be used alone.
Advantages of pocsploit
Lighter, does not depend on the framework, a single poc can run
Easier to rewrite Poc
More flexible (compared to nuclei, xray, goby, etc.)
Fewer false positives, providing fingerprint prerequisite judgment, you can first judge whether the site has the fingerprint of a certain component, and then perform POC verification, which is more accurate
An investigation of the infamous “Is That You?” video scam has led Cybernews researchers to a cybercriminal stronghold, from which threat actors have been infecting the social media giant with thousands of malicious links every day. At least five suspects, thought to be residing in the Dominican Republic, have been identified.
Facebook has long been a happy hunting ground for online crooks, who take great pleasure in turning unwary members of the internet community into their prey.
It can start with something as seemingly innocuous as a message from a “friend” – in fact a cybercriminal pretending to be such – inviting you to click on a juicy link to the next big share-fest, be it a music clip, funny video, or anything else you might be interested in.
Screenshot of the original Is That You? scam uncovered on Facebook.
The only thing that’s juicy about such bogus links is the bundle of personal details you are giving up by clicking on them, because it won’t be the latest hot clip you’re sharing when you do – just your name, address, and passwords, which are then harvested for profit by the threat actor who has fooled you.
Given its likelihood of being used as a platform for such scams, Facebook has been on the Cybernews radar for some time – in February last year, we exposed the “Is That You?” phishing scam on its Messenger service that had been doing the rounds since at least 2017.
Since then, the research team has remained vigilant, keeping tabs on suspect activities on Facebook. Recently, that vigilance was rewarded when we received a tip-off from fellow cyber investigator Aidan Raney – who first reached out to us after our original findings were published – that malicious links were being distributed to users.
Upon further examination, it turned out that thousands of these phishing links had been distributed, through a devious network sprawling across the back channels of the social media platform.
Left unchecked, this could result in hundreds of thousands of unwary social media users falling foul of the dodgy links – the “Is That You?” scam was thought to have hooked in around half a million victims before we uncovered it.
That campaign was initiated by sending the potential mark a message from one of their Facebook contacts. The message contained what appears to be a video link with a text in German suggesting that they are featured in the clip.
Mind map of a devious cybercriminal enterprise.
The game is afoot!
Hot for the chase, our cyber detectives began their inquiry by scrutinizing a malicious link sent to one victim, to learn how the scam had been put together.
“I figured out what servers did what, where code was hosted, and how I could identify other servers,” said Raney. “I then used this information and urlscan.io [a website that allows one to scan URLs] to look for more phishing links matching the same characteristics as this one.”
A thorough search of servers connected to the phishing links turned up a page that was sending credentials to a site called devsbrp.app. Further scrutiny revealed a banner thought to be attached to a control panel, with the text “panelfps by braunnypr” written on it.
Using these as keywords in a subsequent search led the research team straight to the panel and banner creator, whose email address and password combinations were also discovered – neatly turning the tables on cybercriminals used to stealing credentials of unsuspecting web users.
Inside a criminal stronghold
Using the threat actor’s own details, Cybernews accessed a website that turned out to be the command and control center for most of the phishing attacks linked to the gang, thought to number at least five threat actors but possibly many more. This provided our intrepid investigators with a trove of information on the crooks behind the Facebook phishing scam, including their likely country of residence – the Dominican Republic.
“We were able to export the user list for everybody registered to this panel,” said the Cybernews researcher. “Using the usernames on the list, we started uncovering the identities of as many people on the list as people, but there is still more work to be done.”
One of the suspects that Raney identified is likely the same threat actor that the Cybernews research team was able to name in February 2021. Back then, we sent the relevant information to the Cyber Emergency Response Team (CERT) in the Dominican Republic, as evidence suggested that the campaign was also launched from there.
At the time of writing, all relevant information has been handed over to the authorities pending further investigation.
If you want to know how to protect yourself, give a look at this post:
Security Affairs is one of the finalists for the best European Cybersecurity Blogger Awards 2022 – VOTE FOR YOUR WINNERS. I ask you to vote for me again (even if you have already done it), because this vote is for the final.
Please vote for Security Affairs and Pierluigi Paganini in every category that includes them (e.g. sections “The Underdogs – Best Personal (non-commercial) Security Blog” and “The Tech Whizz – Best Technical Blog”)
An adversary’s ability to live off the land — relying on the operating system’s built-in tooling and user-installed legitimate software rather than tooling that must be brought in — may allow them to navigate through a victim organization’s network relatively undetected. CrowdStrike Falcon OverWatch threat hunters are acutely aware of adversaries’ love of these living off the land binaries (LOLBins) and build their hunts accordingly. In recent months, OverWatch Elite, a part of CrowdStrike’s Falcon OverWatch managed threat hunting service, has seen an increase in the use of JScript in hands-on-keyboard intrusions.
JScript vs JavaScript
JScript is a Microsoft-dialect of standard JavaScript, a scripting language that can be used in a web browser setting to add custom functionality to web pages. JScript, however, is an Active Scripting language, meaning it is more integrated into the operating system. JScript can be executed as a standalone file. It is often used to write files to disk, make registry changes, make network connections, execute commands and more.
While JScript and JavaScript are distinct scripting mechanisms, they both use the same file extension: .js. By default, double-clicking on a .js file in Windows Explorer will cause it to open the file with Windows Script Host executable wscript.exe, which will execute the code. Because wscript.exe is signed by Microsoft and is included in every Windows installation, it is often considered trusted by more traditional security solutions. Although when a .js file is downloaded from the internet an extra warning dialog is displayed prior to execution, our telemetry shows that this does not stop users from proceeding with the execution.
The relative ease with which .js files can be opened provides attackers with an attractive initial access vector, as tricking a user into executing their malicious scripts can be easy. Moreover, the limited logging that is provided by Windows Script Host (WSH) allows adversaries using malicious JScript files to evade some defense mechanisms and go unnoticed for longer.
Figure 1: A proof-of-concept JScript execution that upon double clicking spawns calc.exe. (Click to enlarge)
JScript as an Entry Point for Hands-on-Keyboard Activity
Unsurprisingly, OverWatch threat hunters regularly see intrusions that involve, or even start with, malicious JScript executions.In the first quarter of 2022, OverWatch identified several Fake Browser Update (FBU) infections — two of which led to the delivery of Cobalt Strike beacons followed by hands-on-keyboard activity. The actor likely used hijacked WordPress websites to host fake warnings about outdated browsers or plugins, asking the user to click a button to download the latest version. A malicious .js payload was then packed in a .zip archive, which the user was lured into opening by giving it names such as ChromeUpdate.js. This file connected to a command-and-control (C2) channel, executing various reconnaissance commands (e.g., leveraging whoami, net, nltest and cmdkey) before dropping and running a Cobalt Strikebeacon. The actor was then observed using this beacon for hands-on-keyboard activity.
In another instance, OverWatch observed the use of malicious .js files in financial services-themed phishing lures. The victim organization was sent an email with a .zip file containing a file called agreement.js. Upon opening, the JScript file reached out to an attacker-controlled domain, setting up a PowerShell implant that allowed the actor to perform further hands-on-keyboard activity. This activity included creating persistence, running various discovery commands and executing BloodHound. OverWatch quickly alerted the victim organization about the malicious activity, enabling them to contain the affected machines.
Detecting and Preventing Malicious JScript Executions in Your Environment
Because of how JScript works, there is not a straightforward way to detect malicious executions. While JScript is considered a legacy technology, it is still relied upon by a vast array of software and admin automation solutions. This can make distinguishing benign behavior from potentially malicious behavior challenging.
As seen in the examples above, to abuse JScript for initial access means, the attacker need only convince a user to open a malicious .js file, which is often provided to the user in an archive file. One approach for hunting in your environment for this malicious needle in your environment’s haystack is to hunt for JScript executions that originate from a user’s download folder or temporary archive locations (e.g., ZIP, RAR or 7Zip files).
In the CrowdStrike Falcon® platform’s Event Search function, the following query will surface such executions:
event_simpleName=ProcessRollup2 FileName IN ("cscript.exe", "wscript.exe")
| search CommandLine = "*.js*" (CommandLine="*\\downloads\\*" OR (CommandLine="*\\Appdata\\Local\\Temp\\*" AND (CommandLine="*.zip\\*" OR CommandLine="*\\7z*" OR CommandLine="*\\Rar*")))
| rex field=CommandLine "(?i)(?<ArchiveType>\.zip\\\|\\\7z|\\\Rar)"
| eval ArchiveType=case(ArchiveType=".zip\\", "ZIP", ArchiveType="\\7z", "7Z", ArchiveType="\\Rar", "RAR")
| eval isFromArchive=if(ArchiveType!="","Yes", "No")
| eval isInDownloads=if(match(CommandLine, ".*\\\Downloads\\\.*"),"Yes", "No")
| eval ProcExplorer="https://falcon.crowdstrike.com/investigate/process-explorer/" .aid. "/" . TargetProcessId_decimal . "?_cid=" . cid
| convert ctime(_time)
| table _time aid ComputerName UserName isInDownloads isFromArchive ArchiveType FileName CommandLine ParentBaseFileName ProcExplorer
| sort + _time
| rename _time as Time, aid as "Falcon AID", ComputerName as Endpoint, isInDownloads as "In Downloads folder?", isFromArchive as "From Archive?", FileName as ProcessName, CommandLine as ProcessCommandLine, ParentBaseFileName as ParentProcessName, ProcExplorer as "Process Explorer Link"
The output generated by this hunting query may look something like this:
Figure 2: Sample output of the above Event Search query, surfacing suspicious JScript executions. (Click to enlarge)
A next step would be to use the Process Explorer Link to see the process execution and dive deeper into what actions were performed by the JScript file.
Figure 3: Falcon’s Process Explorer reveals the suspiciously-named invoice_2022-03-21.js spawned calc.exe. (Click to enlarge)
The above example shows the execution of calc.exe, which may be considered unusual in a given environment. This would provide for further hunting opportunities, such as analyzing unusual children spawned by wscript.exe.
If the given hunting query produces too many results, it is possible to narrow the search further — for example, by limiting it to wscript.exe executions that involve spawning new processes, writing certain file types to disk, or manipulating sensitive registry locations.
From a prevention perspective, there are a few things that can be done. A key weakness in how JScript is set up in Windows is that double clicking a .js file quickly leads to execution. Removing the file association of .js files with wscript.exe may reduce the chances of success. Without the file association, a user would have to use the command line prompt to execute the file. Thus, an unsuspecting user double clicking a link in a phish would not result in a successful phish. Further,partially disabling JScript could reduce the attack surface. Microsoft also offers an option tocompletely disable Windows Script Host (although in most corporate environments this would not be a feasible option).
The Value of OverWatch Elite
Hunting for malicious .js executions can prove difficult due to high data volumes, legitimate use of JScript files and the variety of ways in which attackers can abuse JScript. To effectively defend against this requires deep knowledge of your environment, insights as to how attackers operate and experience with regards to detecting follow-on behavior. Managing this and other day-to-day responsibilities can easily overwhelm an in-house security team.
OverWatch’s preeminent managed threat hunting service protects customer environments on a 24/7/365 basis. OverWatch’s primary mission is to pinpoint malicious activities at the earliest possible stage, providing customers with timely, high-fidelity and, most importantly, actionable notifications and context that inform a swift and decisive response.
OverWatch Elite builds on the 24/7/365 threat hunting operations provided as a part of OverWatch standard and includes additional services, such as: 60-minute call escalation for critical threats, quarterly threat briefings, tailored threat hunting and more. OverWatch Elite customers are also invited to a private Slack channel where they can reach an OverWatch Elite analyst to respond with speed and confidence.
For more information, please visit the OverWatch Elite page on CrowdStrike’s website.
