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A new phishing scam is targeting users of the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System (EFTPS), a free service provided by the U.S. Department of the Treasury since 1996. The recent fraudulent format uses an email message that claims to be a rejected tax payment and directs users to a fake website for additional information. Remember, don’t ever provide any personal or financial information to unsolicited email messages.

Our research found a set of these fraudulent websites created on September 12. All the URLs are associated with the same IP address and in the same country.

The scam message:
Subject:
Your EFTPS Tax Payment ID has been rejected.

Body:
Report ID: ***. Your Federal Tax Payment ID: *** has been rejected. Return Reason Code R## – The identification number used in the Company Identification Field is not valid. Please, check the information and refer to Code R## to get details about your company payment in transaction contacts section: http://www.eftps*******7.com/contacts

If you receive one of these messages claiming to be from the EFTPS or IRS, don’t open it or click any link. It’s safer to manually type the URL (web address) instead of clicking a link. To verify whether a government or financial institution is trying to contact you, call that agency. You’ll find useful tips for avoiding phishing scams in this McAfee publication.
World of Warcraft Spearphishing and Botting

Monday September 13, 2010 at 6:58 am CST
Posted by David Marcus

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Over the weekend I had the chance to put some work into my lowbie dwarf paladin named Boulderbrain. I was at the Stormwind bank minding my own business when I suddenly get this whisper:

Targeted WoW Phishing Attack

Now normally I simply ignore most whispers I get in-game (other times I simply don’t notice them) but this one caught my attention. Zooming in I think you will see why:

WoW Phishing Closeup

This message is telling me that Blizzard suspects my account of using third-party tools to cheat and would I go to their website, login, and check my account settings. In actuality this is an “attacker” pretending to be a Blizzard GameMaster, and the website itself is a phishing site:

Fake WoW Login Page

This particular fake was hosted on an IP address that had a pretty questionable report. (HINT, HINT use our SiteAdvisor browser plug in!) World of Warcraft has millions of users worldwide, making attacks and techniques like this very common. Many players (myself included) have taken the additional step of using two-factor authentication (commonly called 2FA or simply tokens), which can add an additional layer of protection to your logon credentials:

WoW With 2FA

The addition of the 2FA pin makes it extremely difficult to break into or pop the account itself. (It’s like adding a secondary token to your bank logon.) OK, now granted I got the free Core Hound pup with it, but it also has a sweet iPhone app that generates the 2FA code!

Now what were those third-party apps the original phish may have alluded to? Bots most likely. As anyone who follows this blog is aware, bots refer to robots, usually malicious in nature, but they simply automate tasks. Some of the more popular bots for World of Warcraft are farming and leveling bots. They are designed for pretty much what you would guess: They automate the “farming” of a variety of materials (later sold for in-game gold) or even honor (honor points can be used to purchase in-game items). These bots can also automate the process of leveling your character. Some examples:

WoW Honorbot - Used for Honor and PvP Farming

and also:

GatheringBot - Used to Farm Materials Mainly

Should your account be found to be using any of these, it will get banned–as it violates Blizzard’s terms of service. Credential and logon theft is one of the biggest areas of malware we at McAfee Labs deal with on a daily basis. Make sure you stay updated, properly configured and be cautious of in-game messages!

And level-up old school–the account you save may be your own!
SpyPro Fake-Alert Malware Joins ‘Scareware’ Lineup

Sunday September 12, 2010 at 8:29 pm CST
Posted by David Marcus

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Social engineering is probably the most common technique for to enticing unsuspecting victims to reveal information or purchase something of no value. In the anti-virus world we often see malware authors use scare tactics to sell rogue anti-virus or “fake alert” anti-virus software.

Rogue malware authors use various methods to fool victims into purchasing their products. Some of the most common methods:

* Creating links to malicious web pages in which common search terms in search engines bring these pages to the top of the list, a.k.a. search poisoning
* Disguising themselves as legitimate applications, especially under peer-to-peer and IRC networks
* Offering downloads as legitimate software using bit torrent protocol

Over the last couple of days McAfee Labs has seen an increase in submissions from customers with regards to one variant of the fake alert family classified as FakeAlert-SpyPro.gen.ai. We’ll describe the characteristic behavior of this variant in this blog. We also have a comprehensive description of this malware in our Virus Information Library.

Once this malware is run on the local machine, it displays a warning indicating that the computer is infected with various types of malware and that the user needs to click to clean the computer.

When the user clicks the warning, it pops up a window and initiates a fake scan on the computer. It shows a number of detections and warns the user that the system is infected. To “clean” the malware from the computer, users must purchase the software from the website “antiv[removed].com”

If left to run, this software attempts to use Internet Explorer to open websites with pornographic content.

The fake alert software also makes a number of changes to the Windows registry so that it can load itself at startup and disables phishing filters on Internet Explorer.
When users attempt to run a legitimate executable, this malware pops up and informs them that the file is infected and if users want to run the anti-virus software to clean the infection.

Here are a few cleaning and remediation steps you can take to remove or keep this malware at bay:

* Ensure that you have a legitimate copy of anti-virus software installed on the machine
* Ensure that software is updated regularly
* Exercise caution when you click on links. Using software such as SiteAdvisor (www.siteadvisor.com) can help because it distinguishes between safe and risky sites.
* Do not be enticed into downloading legitimate software for free, especially from P2P, IRC, or bit torrent networks
* Exercise caution while clicking links in emails that look suspicious, even If they appear to come from a known contact

Widespread Reporting of “Here you have” Virus (aka W32/VBMania@MM)

Thursday September 9, 2010 at 12:12 pm CST
Posted by Craig Schmugar

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– Latest updates moved to the bottom –
McAfee Labs is currently investigating a new threat commonly referred to as the “Here you have” virus due to the email subject line the worm uses during propagation. It looks like multiple variants may be spreading and may take some time to work through them all to paint a clearer picture. Here’s what we know thus far.

Infectious email messages may have the following properties:
Subject: Here you have or Just For you
Body:

Hello:

This is The Document I told you about,you can find it Here.
http://www.sharedocuments.com/library/PDF_Document21.025542010.pdf

Please check it and reply as soon as possible.

Cheers,

or

Hello:

This is The Free Dowload Sex Movies,you can find it Here.
http://www.sharemovies.com/library/SEX21.025542010.wmv

Enjoy Your Time.

Cheers,
The URL does not actually lead to a PDF document, but rather an executable in disguise, such as PDF_Document21_025542010_pdf.scr served from a different domain, such as members.multimania.co.uk this URL is no longer active and the email propagation vector is believed to be crippled at this time (though already infected hosts may continue to spread email messages).

Here is some additional information on the threat behavior:
Generic.dx!tsp!2BDE56D8FB2D – http://home.mcafee.com/VirusInfo/VirusProfile.aspx?key=275352
W32/VBMania@MM – http://vil.nai.com/vil/content/v_275435.htm

When a user chooses to manually follow the hyperlink, they will be prompted to download or execute the virus. When run, the virus installs itself to the Windows directory as CSRSS.EXE (not to be confused with the valid CSRSS.EXE file within the Windows System directory). Once infected the worm attempts to send the aforementioned message to email address book recipients. It can also spread through accessible remote machines, mapped drives, and removable media via Autorun replication.

Accessible remote machines
The virus may be found at the following locations:

* c:\N73.Image12.03.2009.JPG.scr
* d:\N73.Image12.03.2009.JPG.scr
* E:\N73.Image12.03.2009.JPG.scr
* F:\N73.Image12.03.2009.JPG.scr
* G:\N73.Image12.03.2009.JPG.scr
* H:\N73.Image12.03.2009.JPG.scr
* New Folder\N73.Image12.03.2009.JPG.scr
* music\N73.Image12.03.2009.JPG.scr
* print\N73.Image12.03.2009.JPG.scr

Mapped drives and removable media
Other drives may contain an Autorun.inf file pointing to the created open.exe copy of the worm.

The virus attempts to stop and delete security services

* 0053591272669638mcinstcleanup
* AntiVirFirewallService
* AntiVirMailGuard
* AntiVirSchedulerService
* AntiVirService
* Arrakis3
* aswUpdSv
* Avast! Antivirus
* avast! Mail Scanner
* avast! Web Scanner
* AVG Security Toolbar Service
* avg9wd
* Avgfws9
* AVGIDSAgent
* AVP
* Gwmsrv
* LIVESRV
* Mc0DS
* Mc0obeSv
* McAfee SiteAdvisor Service
* McMPFSvc
* mcmscsvc
* McNASvc
* McProxy
* McShield
* mfefire
* mfevtp
* MSK80Service
* NIS
* Panda Software Controller
* PAVFNSVR
* PavPrSrv
* PAVSRV
* prlo
* PSHost
* PSIMSVC
* PskSvcRetail
* scan
* sdAuxService
* sdCoreService
* SfCtlCom
* TMBMServer
* TmProxy
* TPSrv
* VSSERV

The virus attempts to download several files, such as:

* ff.iq
* gc.iq
* ie.iq
* im.iq
* m.iq
* op.iq
* pspv.iq
* rd.iq
* w.iq
* SendEmail.iq
* hst.iq
* tryme.iq

These files were not available at the time of this writing, but files with these names include UPX packed password recovery tools (ChromePass, OperaPassview) and a UPX packed Sysinternals tool (PSExec) and a malicious HOSTS file.

Additional information is provided in the VIL: W32/VBMania@MM – http://vil.nai.com/vil/content/v_275435.htm

(coverage information moved to the bullets at the bottom)

McAfee Global Threat Intelligence File Reputation (aka Artemis / Network Security Heuristic) has coverage for at least the main variant at the Very Low sensitivity level or higher.

Emergency McAfee DAT files will be released later today have been released (6101). An Extra.dat file is available for this threat and may be downloaded here: https://www.webimmune.net/extra/getextra.aspx

The McAfee Beta DAT files have been updated: http://vil.nai.com/vil/virus-4d.aspx

The McAfee Stinger stand-alone tool has been released for W32/VBMania@MM to detect and repair this threat: http://vil.nai.com/vil/vbm/stinger.exe

A related Corporate KnowledgeBase article has been written: How to block mass emails containing a link to a virus infected .SCR file

– Updated Sep 15 –
The aforementioned email propagation information was associated with one variant. Many truncated and corrupted instances of the viruses were identified that are associated with the variant. Other variants that did not contain the same email propagation information have been identified. Reports of those variants are considerably less.

McAfee product coverage is as follows:

* DAT FILES Coverage is provided as “W32/VBMania@MM” in the 6101 DATs, released September 9. The McAfee Labs Stinger has also been updated to include coverage for this threat.
* VULNERABILITY MANAGER: The MVM/FSL release of September 9 includes a check to assess if your systems show signs of infection.
* WEB GATEWAY Coverage will be provided in the current Gateway Anti-Malware Database Update.
* REMEDIATION MANAGER Remediation Manager will run the McAfee Labs Stinger tool to scan hosts for possible infections.
* FIREWALL ENTERPRISE McAfee’s Global Threat Intelligence blocks this attack across multiple threat vectors using TrustedSource reputation, including the email message that delivers the link, the URLs associated with the malware, and the reputation of the malware file itself. This coverage extends to McAfee Email Gateway, Email and Web Security appliance, SaaS Email and Web Security Email Protection Service, McAfee Web Gateway, McAfee Firewall Enterprise, and a variety of other TrustedSource-enabled products.
* MCAFEE NETWORK SECURITY PLATFORM Versions with Artemis enabled will detect/block malware file transfers when downloaded over HTTP, without the need of signature updates. The UDS release of September 11 contains the signature “UDS-WORM: W32 VBMania@MM,” which provides additional coverage on the email messages containing malicious links.

Corporate KnowledgeBase
Adobe PDF Zero-Day Exploit Discovered in the Wild

Wednesday September 8, 2010 at 1:55 pm CST
Posted by Xiao Chen

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Just after Adobe released its out-of-band patch for CVE-2010-2862, we discovered a malware exploiting a new zero-day vulnerability in the wild. Similar to the iOS PDF jailbreak vulnerability and CVE-2010-2862, this zero day occurs while Adobe Reader is parsing TrueType Fonts. We’ve analyzed and confirmed that the vulnerability affects the latest Adobe Reader, Version 9.3.4.

This zero-day vulnerability is a typical stack buffer overflow; exploitation of this issue is expected to be relatively easy. Although the latest version of Reader has been compiled with stack protection (/GS), the exploit uses an Return Oriented Exploitation (ROP) technique to bypass /GS protection and data execution prevention (DEP).

We saw a similar technique used to exploit an older Adobe TIFF parsing vulnerability. All this seems to point to the fact that ROP is gaining wider acceptance by malware writers to bypass DEP and existing stack protections.

McAfee Labs is coordinating with Adobe PSIRT, and we’ve provided them with additional details on the bug. The Adobe team is actively working on this issue, although there is no patch available at the time of writing this blog. Adobe Acrobat users are urged to update their security definitions for the various products.

McAfee protection to date:

* McAfee Network Security Platform: Coverage provided under the signature 0×40293c00, UDS-HTTP: Adobe Reader Unspecified Buffer Overflow
* DAT files: Coverage for known exploits provided in the 6099 DAT release under the signature Exploit-PDF.ps.gen
* Host IPS: Generic buffer overflow protection provides partial coverage
* Foundstone: The FSL package of September 8 includes a vulnerability check to assess if your systems are at risk

How Much Does My Identity Cost? (the Sequel)

Wednesday September 1, 2010 at 4:48 am CST
Posted by Francois Paget

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Two weeks ago, I posted a blog entry talking about the counterfeiting of legal documents. I have received many comments and requests for further data related to this type of fraud from various Eastern Europe countries, France, and even the United States. Aside from journalists, for whom it is their job, many people have contacted or attempted to contact me. Most of them were curious and friendly, but others flooded my mailbox:

The first request was for the URLs of the websites that provide the services. At McAfee, like at most of our competitors, we almost never disclose dangerous URLs apart from researchers in the business and law enforcement agencies. And in many cases we also employ some internal testing to avoid infection or compromise. When I wrote my blog entry, that URL was safe (no malware, no iframe), but this can change, especially if their owners know it will be visited by many inquisitive people.

The next question was that of the counterfeiters nationalities. No doubt they are Russian speakers.

Another request was related to the abundance of these offers. The site I visited actually contained a competitor blacklist with a dozen or so “disreputable” companies. As they were all restricted to drivers licenses, I carried on further investigations on the passport field. It was not difficult to find other offers with more attractive prices: less than US$1,000 instead of the US$4,000-$5,000 asked by the first one.

In this last offer, I noted the availability of diplomatic passports (price on demand).

If you are not a Google search ninja, you can just check YouTube. There, various well-phrased searches can direct you to the online shop you are looking for:

And regarding the payment methods? It seems they all prefer Western Union, but they are not very talkative on this subject. You have first to contact them via anonymous mailing services. (They specify: “no ICQ, no SMS, no phone call.”) However, I discovered another offer, with details about how to place an order.

At last, some people wished to know if these sites offered other materials or services. Some of them sell carding equipment to read/write magnetic cards, but the prices were exorbitant. They quoted between US$9,000 and $11,000; yet many of these devices can be found on Amazon or eBay for $500! Proving the relevance of our previous advice regarding what you toss into your household trash, one site offers fake French EDF (national electricity company) and British Telecom utility bills for £10. (In Europe, we frequently use these documents to prove our residency or proof of address.)

Even the envelope is supplied! Seemingly unimportant pieces of paper can interest today’s cybercriminals.
Zeus Botnet Attacks via FedEx Scam

Tuesday August 31, 2010 at 5:18 pm CST
Posted by Pedro Bueno and Adam Wosotowsky

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Yesterday we discovered a new Zeus campaign.

Most of the messages associated with the new spam campaign are linked to the Asprox botnet. This time, the focus is on FedEx. Most of the attachments start with either FedExDoc[randomnumbers].exe or FedExInvoice[randomnumbers].exe. Those attachments are recognized as the Bredolab Trojan, which will download the Zeus component.

This Zeus variant has a control host on hxxp://x5vsm5.ru, but also downloads from hxxp://trachsel.biz.

The targets of these samples are a large number of banks outside the United States. We still see common U.S. targets…

* Citibank
* Comerica
* USBank
* WellsFargo

and also some banks from Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and South America…

* Neue Bank (Liechtenstein)
* Arab Bank
* MyBank (Taiwan)
* BHI Bank (United Kingdom)
* NPBS (United Kingdom)
* Banco de Sabadell (Spain)

as well as several other banks.

Watch out for Zeus’ going global.
Labs Releases Whitepaper on Cooperative Anti-Malware on Endpoint and Gateway

Tuesday August 31, 2010 at 9:27 am CST
Posted by David Marcus

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The Anti-Malware engine is a critical and core piece of the McAfee anti-malware solutions. As with any core technology, the engine must be rock-solid stable, fast, and functionally rich.

A new McAfee Labs whitepaper outlines these engine technologies and values, covering both endpoint and gateway uses. Beyond introductions to malware detection methodologies–ranging from exact detection to heuristics, and technologies from exploit detection to cloud-based detection, the new paper especially outlines McAfee’s approach to Cooperative Anti-Malware on Endpoint and Gateway. “Cooperative” in this case refers to the added value of combining anti-malware on the endpoint and on the gateway: a true defense-in-depth strategy in action.

In this defense-in-depth implementation we have engine technologies that are optimized for the endpoint and the gateway, respectively, and both are connected through our Global Threat Intelligence back-end, or “cloud.” This combination allows strict enforcement and the highest proactive catch rates at the network perimeter, keeping the majority of threats outside of your network, and effectively and accurately protecting the desktops in an enterprise as well.

Download and read it now!
iPhone OS – Safe again?

Monday August 30, 2010 at 4:23 am CST
Posted by Mike Price

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Three weeks ago a ‘mysterious’ new jailbreak technique was posted to jailbreakme.com. Research to date indicates that this technique leverages two distinct vulnerabilities to gain access to devices. The first issue exploited is a FreeType CFF font handling issue, exploitable via MobileSafari. The second issue exploited is an IOSurface framework issue that allows for privilege escalation to root, and eventual complete compromise of devices.

Fortunately for many, Apple has released an update that addresses both issues (HT4291, HT4292). This update should prevent both malicious attackers from exploiting these vulnerabilities, as well as prevent the jailbreak technique from continuing to work (for devices with the update installed).

Great news on the vulnerability front, no doubt. But are 25+ million iPhones truly safe again? Maybe.
Newegg Password Reset Scam: a Harbinger of Threats to Come?

Wednesday August 25, 2010 at 4:28 pm CST
Posted by Adam Wosotowsky

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This blog was updated at 1.15 pm Pacific time on Aug. 26.

McAfee Labs has detected a new strain of spam in the wild that is not only a sophisticated forgery of a Newegg purchase receipt, but there is also some indication that the botnet may be attempting to abuse Newegg’s password reset system to further the scam.

password reset

In less than 1 percent of the cases, the spammers appear to be taking advantage of the password reset option on the Newegg website to generate an email to the victim announcing that a password reset is required. This ruse cannot be used to determine if an account exists because the Newegg site returns the same text if you request a password reset on an actual or nonexistent account. So directory harvesting does not appear to be the attackers’ goal. Newegg’s password reset option is not protected by any sort of CAPTCHA authentication unless the account has received multiple requests for a password reset, so this process could be scripted as part of the spam campaign. The password reset request does not actually reset the password unless the recipient clicks on the email that is sent and even then the password reset request does not indicate the account has been compromised. In all likelihood this scam is designed to make the recipient anxious by suggesting an unauthorized individual has attempted to access the account.

forgery

Anxiety and frustration are common emotions exploited by spam and phishing messages to make a victim click on a malware link without thinking. One common trick is to send a purchase confirmation email to a recipient, who is likely to click on the attachment or the link because he or she is afraid or is convinced that someone has already hacked the account. To continue the scam: The victims receive a forged Newegg purchase receipt shortly after seeing the legitimate password reset notice. If recipients are anxious about account tampering, they may be willing to release a quarantined spam message that claims to be a purchase receipt because they feel their accounts may have been compromised.

cutwail

This spam mail appears to be associated with the Cutwail botnet, which is the second-most prolific botnet in detected infections. (Rustock is number one.) Cutwail has the highest number of infections detected in Russia, India, and Brazil. We do not know if every recipient of a Newegg spam has received a password reset notification before the spam mail arrived, but McAfee TrustedSource™ has detected a 233 percent increase over the average mail flow coming from Newegg IP addresses today.

newegg.ts

The spam mail not only mimics the look and feel of a Newegg email, but also forges the RFC 821–received headers to pretend that it originated from Newegg servers. The email contains an HTML attachment that uses obfuscated JavaScript to forward the victim to a domain which attempts to deliver fake anti-virus software or other malware to the recipient.

This is a powerful scam: It combines forgery techniques to fool the victims, techniques to fool the filters, and outright abuse of the Newegg corporate infrastructure to scare the recipients of the malicious emails. Techniques like this are not new, but the combination of three in one package is rare. Administrators should be aware of this campaign and inform their users not to be fooled by the purchase receipt. Users who want to check their Newegg accounts should not use any links in an email but should go straight to newegg.com.

Newegg says it is investigating this issue to determine any customer impact and that it is researching any actions the company may need to take to help its customers avoid phishing scams that take advantage of their brand.