Mailchimp Continues To Be Abused Sending Fake Invoice Malware
An email with the subject of invoice coming from HQ <[email protected]> on behalf of; HQ <[email protected]> with a link in the email body to download a zip attachment which contains a .js file that downloads a .scr file ( screensaver files run as a .exe on windows computers ). I am not certain what malware this actually is.
About 1 month ago we saw a malware campaign using Mailchimp to distribute Gootkit banking trojan. Today’s campaign has changed slightly and although the initial emails are coming via the Mailchimp system, the malware downloader and payloads are coming from other sites which are probably compromised.
They use email addresses and subjects that will entice a user to read the email and open the attachment. A very high proportion are being targeted at small and medium size businesses, with the hope of getting a better response than they do from consumers.
I am not sure if cosmicintelligenceagency.com, which is some sort of astrology site has been compromised in any way or whether the email address is simple being spoofed or imitated by the bad actors who are using Mailchimp network to send these emails. It is of course very possible that cosmicintelligenceagency.com which is using WordPress are using Mailchimp to send newsletters etc and their credentials have been compromised.
The link in the email is to ( which is behind cloudflare )
Invoice for company.zip : Extracts to: Invoice for company.js Current Virus total detections: Hybrid Analysis | Anyrun Beta |
This malware file downloads from VirusTotal | AnyrunBeta |
One of the emails looks like:
From: HQ <[email protected]> on behalf of; HQ <[email protected]>
Date: Thu 22/02/2018 07:47
Subject: invoice
Body content:
Invoice for Company My Online Security Keep yourself safe online
Hello,
Please view/download your invoice copy.
Regards,
Copyright © 2018 Cosmic Intelligence Agency, All rights reserved.
subscribed to the C*I*A
Our mailing address is:
Cosmic Intelligence Agency
370 St Kilda Road, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Melbourne, VIC 3004
Australia
Add us to your address book
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This email was sent to [email protected]
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Cosmic Intelligence Agency · 370 St Kilda Road, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia · Melbourne, VIC 3004 · Australia
Email Headers:
IP | Hostname | City | Region | Country | Organisation |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
148.105.14.33 | mail33.sea61.rsgsv.net | Atlanta | Georgia | US | AS14782 The Rocket Science Group, LLC |
Received: from mail33.sea61.rsgsv.net ([148.105.14.33]:27667)
by knight.knighthosting.co.uk with esmtp (Exim 4.89_1)
(envelope-from <bounce-mc.us5_16690527.1168669-accounts=victimsdomain.com@mail33.sea61.rsgsv.net>)
id 1eolbS-00012Q-FC
for [email protected]; Thu, 22 Feb 2018 07:47:42 +0000
DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; s=k1; d=mail33.sea61.rsgsv.net;
h=Subject:From:Reply-To:To:Date:Message-ID:List-ID:List-Unsubscribe:Sender:
Content-Type:MIME-Version;
[email protected];
bh=rQBIUMDJspjn/ipEJ4pHhjFF6Gbixqzpx9DVlf2wyJE=;
b=yeyVUeDiHD7747kt34PzAeVlc9FN9XDlZemIt+2pf4+9xnrdCfpd3D4VaAssf62hnj/LdFkJDkJD
qIZkFXfu+eGH+56ybx7ZMKR2dtal21i+qVeCRxciI3p0ZotBuQBcUEVypkKnlSwv5tT+nalKzEuh
c5+tZbET5hnm85oQHcw=
Received: from (127.0.0.1) by mail33.sea61.rsgsv.net id hhpqpu2ddl4n for <[email protected]>; Thu, 22 Feb 2018 07:47:28 +0000 (envelope-from <bounce-mc.us5_16690527.1168669-accounts=victimsdomain.com@mail33.sea61.rsgsv.net>)
Subject: =?utf-8?Q?invoice?=
From: =?utf-8?Q?HQ?= <[email protected]>
Reply-To: =?utf-8?Q?HQ?= <[email protected]>
To: =?utf-8?Q?My=20Online=20Security=20Keep=20yourself=20safe=20online?= <[email protected]>
Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2018 07:47:28 +0000
Message-ID: <b231b23ae086d8b4b6437c421.a4e3b5d442.20180222074625.ddd63f9e4f.ed443724@mail33.sea61.rsgsv.net>
X-Mailer: MailChimp Mailer – **CIDddd63f9e4fa4e3b5d442**
X-Campaign: mailchimpb231b23ae086d8b4b6437c421.ddd63f9e4f
X-campaignid: mailchimpb231b23ae086d8b4b6437c421.ddd63f9e4f
X-Report-Abuse: Please report abuse for this campaign here: http://www.mailchimp.com/abuse/abuse.phtml?u=b231b23ae086d8b4b6437c421&id=ddd63f9e4f&e=a4e3b5d442
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Feedback-ID: 16690527:16690527.1168669:us5:mc
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Sender: “HQ” <[email protected]>
x-mcda: FALSE
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary=”_———-=_MCPart_1158269437″
MIME-Version: 1.0
These malicious attachments normally have a password stealing component, with the aim of stealing your bank, PayPal or other financial details along with your email or FTP ( web space) log in credentials. Many of them are also designed to specifically steal your Facebook and other social network log in details. A very high proportion are Ransomware versions that encrypt your files and demand money ( about £350/$400) to recover the files.
All the alleged senders, amounts, reference numbers, Bank codes, companies, names of employees, employee positions, email addresses and phone numbers mentioned in the emails are all random. Some of these companies will exist and some won’t.
Don’t try to respond by phone or email, all you will do is end up with an innocent person or company who have had their details spoofed and picked at random from a long list that the bad guys have previously found. The bad guys choose companies, Government departments and organisations with subjects that are designed to entice you or alarm you into blindly opening the attachment or clicking the link in the email to see what is happening.
Please read our How to protect yourselves page for simple, sensible advice on how to avoid being infected by this sort of socially engineered malware.
This is another one of the files that unless you have “show known file extensions enabled“, can easily be mistaken for a genuine DOC / PDF / JPG or other common file instead of the .EXE / .JS file it really is, so making it much more likely for you to accidentally open it and be infected.
Be very careful with email attachments. All of these emails use Social engineering tricks to persuade you to open the attachments that come with the email. Whether it is a message saying “look at this picture of me I took last night” and it appears to come from a friend or is more targeted at somebody who regularly is likely to receive PDF attachments or Word .doc attachments or any other common file that you use every day.
The basic rule is NEVER open any attachment to an email, unless you are expecting it. Now that is very easy to say but quite hard to put into practice, because we all get emails with files attached to them. Our friends and family love to send us pictures of them doing silly things, or even cute pictures of the children or pets.
Never just blindly click on the file in your email program. Always save the file to your downloads folder, so you can check it first. Many malicious files that are attached to emails will have a faked extension. That is the 3 letters at the end of the file name. Unfortunately windows by default hides the file extensions so you need to Set your folder options to “show known file types.
Then when you unzip the zip file that is supposed to contain the pictures of “Sally’s dog catching a ball” or a report in word document format that work has supposedly sent you to finish working on at the weekend, or an invoice or order confirmation from some company, you can easily see if it is a picture or document & not a malicious program.
If you see JS or .EXE or .COM or .PIF or .SCR or .HTA .vbs, .wsf , .jse .jar at the end of the file name DO NOT click on it or try to open it, it will infect you.
While the malicious program is inside the zip file, it cannot harm you or automatically run. When it is just sitting unzipped in your downloads folder it won’t infect you, provided you don’t click it to run it. Just delete the zip and any extracted file and everything will be OK. You can always run a scan with your antivirus to be sure. There are some zip files that can be configured by the bad guys to automatically run the malware file when you double click the zip to extract the file.
If you right click any suspicious zip file received, and select extract here or extract to folder ( after saving the zip to a folder on the computer) that risk is virtually eliminated. Never attempt to open a zip directly from your email, that is a guaranteed way to get infected. The best way is to just delete the unexpected zip and not risk any infection.