As the world remembers former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, cyber attackers are participating too, but in their own tricky ways. Websense® Security Labs™ and the Websense ThreatSeeker® Intelligence Cloud have detected that attackers are sending malicious email spam with a topic referencing the death of Mrs. Thatcher. Actually, it is not new for an attacker to use a hot topic (like the death of Hugo Chavez) to spread malware. In this case, the lure email is very simple, with just a few words related to Mrs. Thatcher, but it pretends to be from your friends by using the "Re:
Fwd:" notation. Internet-savvy customers will know that it looks suspicious and should not be tempted to click the link in the email.
When recipients click the malicious link, they are taken to a redirection page first, and then redirected to a Blackhole Exploit Kit landing page. The landing page detects the browser and plugin information in the client, and then serves the vulnerability file based on the plugin information. The final payload is a Cridex trojan, as seen in our ThreatScope™ report and in the VirusTotal report here. Cridex is known in breaking CAPTCHA codes and you can see this trojan in action on our previous blog here.
Server-side polymorphic technology has been applied to evade traditional AV detection.
It is not the first time we have seen the Blackhole malicious email campaign. It has evolved over time in combination with hot topics like the current crisis in Korea or major companies filing for bankruptcy. Please be careful about any email that contains 1 of the following subjects:
Fwd: Dollar Bank bankruptcy
Re: Shedding light on 'dark matter'
Re: Why Washington is corrupt
Re: Kissinger: Thatcher's strong beliefs
Re: Tax havens busted
Fwd: Re: First Citizens Bank bankruptcy
Fwd: Re: Living large in Don Draper's New York
Fwd: Re: Kissinger: Thatcher's strong beliefs
Re: Fwd: California Bank & Trust bankruptcy
Fwd: Re: Bank of America bankruptcy
Fwd: Allowing knives on planes is 'insane'
Fwd: Re: War with N. Korea
Fwd: Air Canada goes 'Gangnam style'
Fwd: Re: NASA plans to catch an asteroid
Re: Fwd: Dollar Bank bankruptcy
Fwd: Why Washington is corrupt
Fwd: Blast kills 29 on bus in New-York
Fwd: Shedding light on 'dark matter'
Fwd: Re: Marikana massacre aftermath
Re: Fwd: Kissinger: Thatcher's strong beliefs
Fwd: Re: PNC Bank bankruptcy
Re: Fwd: Bank Of The West bankruptcy
Re: Fwd: M&I Bank bankruptcy
Re: Bank Of The West bankruptcy
Fwd: Bank Of The West bankruptcy
Re: Fwd: PNC Bank bankruptcy
Re: Bank of America bankruptcy
Re: Fwd: War with N. Korea
Re: California Bank & Trust bankruptcy
Re: Blast kills 29 on bus in New-York
Re: Fwd: Blast kills 29 on bus in New-York
Re: Sending out SOS for 'America's flagship'
Re: Fwd: Marikana massacre aftermath
Re: Living large in Don Draper's New York
Re: War with N. Korea
Fwd: Re: Death penalty 'harms Bali's reputation'
Re: Fwd: Death penalty 'harms Bali's reputation'
Re: PNC Bank bankruptcy
Re: NASA plans to catch an asteroid
Re: Northern Trust Bank bankruptcy
Fwd: Tax havens busted
Re: Fwd: Why Washington is corrupt
Re: Fwd: Tax havens busted
Fwd: M&I Bank bankruptcy
Re: Fwd: Fashion designer Lilly Pulitzer dies
Re: First Citizens Bank bankruptcy
Re: Fwd: Shedding light on 'dark matter'
Re: Fwd: Living large in Don Draper's New York
Re: Fwd: Northern Trust Bank bankruptcy
Fwd: Re: California Bank & Trust bankruptcy
Re: Air Canada goes 'Gangnam style'
Re: Fashion designer Lilly Pulitzer dies
Re: Dollar Bank bankruptcy
Fwd: Sending out SOS for 'America's flagship'
Websense technologies can protect customers in a multi-stage attack:
- Websense email security blocks the malicious email.
- Our Advanced Classification Engine (ACE™) detects the malicious content both in redirection and in the exploit page with real-time intelligence.
- Vunlerability files and the payload trojan are detected by Websense Gateway products.
- Websense technologies can identify malicious droppers both statically and behaviorally (via Websense ThreatScope).