APT & Targeted Attacks
Targeted Attack in Mexico: Another Drive-By Pharming
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Two months ago, TrendLabs reported of a massive DNS poisoning attack in Mexico. The said incident is believed to be one of the first (if not the first) "drive-by pharming" attacks seen in the wild. Now, we have received reports of a similar incident -- and by "similar" we mean that quite literally. According to Trend Micro Engineer Juan Pablo Castro, just like the previous attempt, this new attack also takes advantage of a vulnerability in 2wire modems and arrives via spammed email messages. This time, though, the email messages are disguised to trick users into thinking that they have received an electronic postcard from Gusanito.com, a popular eCard Web site. Once a user clicks on the link where the supposed postcard can be viewed, he or she is then directed to a spoofed Gusanito page:
Unbeknowst to the user, the said page loads a couple of .SWF files (or Flash controls), including a malicious one that modifies the 2wire modem localhost table. The said routine effectively redirects users to a fraudulent site whenever they attempt to access pages related to Banamex.com -- the same banking site targeted two months ago. Below is a screenshot of the codes in the fake Gusanito page, calling the malicious Flash controls:
It seems that drive-by pharming has indeed "arrived" in the threat scene. One may wonder now who will be targeted next, given the stealth and sophisitication of this threat. User awareness, product/application updates, and in-the-cloud protection are needed more than ever. For its part, Trend Micro will detect the malicious .SWF file as SWF_ADHIJACK.D. All related malicious URLs have also been blocked by Trend Micro Web Threat Protection.