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Malware Abcbot Related to the Xanthe Cryptomining Bug Developer's

 

Abcbot, the newly discovered botnet has a longer history than what was originally believed. The Xanthe-based cryptojacking campaign found by Cisco's Talos security research team in late 2020 has a clear link, according to the ongoing examination of this malware family. When Talos was notified of an intrusion on one of their Docker honeypots, they discovered malware that looked like a bitcoin mining bot. 

The virus is known as Xanthe, and its main goal is to mine cryptocurrency using the resources of a compromised system. Based on the findings, the same threat actor is behind both Xanthe and Abcbot, and its goal has shifted from mining cryptocurrency on compromised hosts to more classic botnet activity like DDoS attacks.

Abcbot attacks, first reported by Qihoo 360's Netlab security team in November 2021, are triggered by a malicious shell script that targets insecure cloud instances operated by cloud service providers such as Huawei, Tencent, Baidu, and Alibaba Cloud to download malware that co-opts the machine to a botnet but not before terminating processes from competing threat actors and establishing persistence. The shell script in question is an updated version of one found by Trend Micro in October 2021, which targeted Huawei Cloud's vulnerable ECS instances. 

Further investigation of the botnet, which included mapping all known Indicators of Compromise (IoCs) such as IP addresses, URLs, and samples, revealed Abcbot's code and feature-level similarities to that of a cryptocurrency mining operation known as Xanthe, which spread the infection using incorrectly configured Docker implementations. 

The semantic similarities between the two malware families range from the way the source code is formatted to the names given to the routines, with some functions having not only identical names and implementations (e.g., "nameservercheck"), but also have the word "go" appended to the end of the function names (e.g., "filerungo"). According to experts, Abcbot also contains spyware that allows four malicious users to be added to the hacked machine: 
  • Logger 
  • Ssysall 
  • Ssystem 
  • sautoupdater 
Researchers believe that there are substantial links between the Xanthe and Abcbot malware families, implying that the same threat actor is involved. The majority of these would be difficult and inefficient to recreate identically, including string reuse, mentions of shared infrastructure, stylistic choices, and functionality that can be seen in both instances. If the same threat actor is behind both campaigns, it signals a shift away from cryptocurrency mining on compromised devices and toward botnet-related operations like DDoS attacks.

Crackonosh Malware Exploits Windows Safe Mode to Mine Cryptocurrency Secretly

 

Researchers have uncovered a variant of cryptocurrency-mining malware that exploits Windows Safe Mode during attacks. 

Researchers at Avast have termed the malware Crackonosh, and it spreads through pirated and cracked software, which may be found through torrents, forums, and "warez" websites. 

Upon seeing reports on Reddit of Avast antivirus users who were concerned about the sudden disappearance of the antivirus program from their system files, the team investigated the matter and discovered it was the result of a malware infection. 

Since at least June 2018, Crackonosh has been in circulation, and when a victim runs a file that they think is a cracked version of genuine software, the virus gets installed as well. The infection chain starts with the distribution of an installer and a script that changes the Windows registry to allow the main malware executable to run in Safe mode. On the subsequent startup, the infected system is set to launch in Safe Mode. 

The researchers stated, "While the Windows system is in safe mode antivirus software doesn't work. This can enable the malicious Serviceinstaller.exe to easily disable and delete Windows Defender. It also uses WQL to query all antivirus software installed SELECT * FROM AntiVirusProduct." 

Crackonosh scans for antivirus software, such as Avast, Kaspersky, McAfee's scanner, Norton, and Bitdefender, and attempt to disable or destroy them. The log system files are then deleted to erase the evidence. Crackonosh also tries to disable Windows Update and replace Windows Security with a phoney green tick tray icon. 

The deployment of XMRig, a cryptocurrency miner that leverages system power and resources to mine the Monero (XMR) cryptocurrency, is the last step in the journey. 

According to Avast, Crackonosh has generated at least $2 million in Monero for its operators at today's pricing, with over 9000 XMR coins mined. Around 1,000 devices are infected each day and over 222,000 machines affected worldwide. There are 30 different variations of the malware, with the most recent one being released in November 2020. 

Avast stated, "As long as people continue to download cracked software, attacks like these will continue and continue to be profitable for attackers. The key take-away from this is that you really can't get something for nothing and when you try to steal software, odds are someone is trying to steal from you."