Several cybercriminal groups based in Vietnam are using fake job postings to trick users into installing malware, according to researchers at WithSecure. The researchers are tracking several related malware campaigns, including “DarkGate” and “Ducktail.”
“Vietnamese cybercrime groups are using multiple different Malware as a Service (MaaS) infostealers and Remote Access Trojans (RATs) to target the digital marketing sector,” the researchers write. “These actors greatly value Facebook business accounts and hijacking these accounts appears to be one of their primary goals. The targeting and methods of these groups heavily overlap to an extent that suggests that they are a closely related cluster of operators/groups. It is possible to identify campaigns carried out by these groups through non-technical indicators, such as their lure topics, lure files, and associated metadata.”
The crooks use LinkedIn messages to distribute links to the malicious documents, which impersonate job descriptions.
“Analysis of browser history on a victim device identified that the initial vector was a LinkedIn message which directed the victim to hxxps://g2[.]by/jd-Corsair, which then redirected the victim to a file hosted on Google Drive,” the researchers write.“The initial infection vector being via a LinkedIn message is a typical method seen by WithSecure Intelligence in DuckTail campaigns, and Ducktail appears to be used by a cluster of different yet related Vietnamese threat actors.”
The criminals are focused on information theft and compromising Facebook Business accounts.
“The Ducktail related DarkGate campaigns have a very similar initial infection route, but the function of the payloads differs greatly,” WithSecure says. “Ducktail is a dedicated infostealer, it is in no way stealthy, and upon execution it will rapidly steal credentials and session cookies from the local device and send them back to the attacker. It has an additional Facebook Business account focused function whereby if it locates a Facebook Business account session cookie it will attempt to add the attacker to the account as an administrator, and even has functionality to automatically create and publish fraudulent ad campaigns sent by the actor to the compromised device. This additional, heavily Facebook focused functionality is still based around Infostealing, though it suggests a very tight focus for the attacker.”
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