APT (Targeted attacks)

we can confirm yet another Mac malware in the wild – Backdoor.OSX.SabPub.a being spread through Java exploits.

This new threat is a custom OS X backdoor, which appears to have been designed for use in targeted attacks. After it is activated on an infected system, it connects to a remote website in typical C&C fashion to fetch instructions. The backdoor contains functionality to make screenshots of the user’s current session and execute commands on the infected machine.

At the end of the last year the authors of Duqu and Stuxnet tried to eliminate all traces of their activity. They wiped all servers that they used since 2009 or even earlier. The cleanup happened on October 20.

There were virtually no traces of Duqu since then. But several days ago our colleagues in Symantec announced that they found a new in-the-wild driver that is very similar to known Duqu drivers. Previous modifications of Duqu drivers were compiled on Nov 3 2010 and Oct 17 2011, and the new driver was compiled on Feb 23 2012.
So, the authors of Duqu are back after a 4 month break.

In my previous blogpost about the Duqu Framework, I described one of the biggest remaining mysteries about Duqu – the oddities of the C&C communications module which appears to have been written in a different language than the rest of the Duqu code.

While analyzing the components of Duqu, we discovered an interesting anomaly in the main component that is responsible for its business logics, the Payload DLL. We would like to share our findings and ask for help identifying the code.

The IT security world in 2011 can be summed up in a single word – explosive!

We have been studying the Duqu Trojan for two months now, exploring how it emerged, where it was distributed and how it operates. Despite the large volume of data obtained (most of which has yet to be published), we still lack the answer to the fundamental question – who is behind Duqu?

We have been studying the Duqu Trojan for two months now, exploring how it emerged, where it was distributed and how it operates.

Over the past few weeks, we have been busy researching the Command and Control infrastructure used by Duqu

Once the driver is loaded, it decrypts a small block that contains its registry key and the name of the registry value to be read from that key. It also contains the name of the driver object to create

Comparing the data we uncovered with that obtained by other researchers and antivirus companies, we’ve elicited various common traits that have revealed the approximate timeline and overall methods used by Duqu’s authors.

First things first, I have to point out a mistake in the previous text. When analyzing the fourth incident in Iran, we stated that there were two network attacks on a victim machine from the IP address 63.87.255.149. It could have been an exclusive version of Duqu, but it turned out to be a big mistake.

Our investigation and research of Duqu malware continues.

First of all, we feel it necessary to clarify some of the confusion surrounding the files and their names related to this incident. To get a full understanding of the situation you only need to know that we’re talking about just two malicious programs here (at a minimum) – the main module and a keylogger.

This work-in-progress investigation tracks the Duqu Trojan and offers some answers to commonly asked questions.

While it was noted that AV vendors reliably detect related ShadyRAT downloader components, discussion of other components were absent.