trickbot via Fake HMRC “Month End Report Sep 2018.xls ” email
This example is an email containing the subject of “Month End Report Sep 2018.xls ” pretending to come from HMRC but actually coming from “Brenda.Kimbell@hrmc-reports.co.uk” which is a look-a-like, typo-squatted or other domain that can easily be misidentified, mistaken or confused with the genuine site, with a malicious Excel Spreadsheet attachment is today’s latest spoof of a well-known company, bank or public authority delivering Trickbot banking Trojan
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Email Details
From: Brenda Kimbell <Brenda.Kimbell@hrmc-reports.co.uk>
Date: Tue 24/07/2018 13:26
Subject: Month End Report Sep 2018.xls
Attachment: Month End Report Sep 2018.xls
Body content:
Regards,
Brenda Kimbell
Business Analyst
Ofc: +44 0202088480
Cel: 44-07421552141
Email: Brenda.Kimbell@hrmc-reports.co.uk
“NOTICE: This electronic mail transmission is for the use of the named individual or entity to which it is directed and may contain information that is privileged or confidential. It is not to be transmitted or received by anyone other than the named addressee (or a person authorized to deliver it to the named addressee). It is not to be copied or forwarded to any unauthorized persons. If you have received this electronic transmission in error, delete it from your system without copying or forwarding it, and notify the sender of the error by replying via e-mail to the sender so that the address record can be corrected.”
Screenshot:
HMRC has not been hacked or had their email or other servers compromised. They are not sending the emails to you. They are just innocent victims in exactly the same way as every recipient of these emails.
What has happened is that the criminals sending these have registered various domains that look like genuine Company, Bank, Government or message sending services. Normally there is only newly registered domain that imitate Companies House, HMRC, another Government department, a Bank, file hosting service or a message sending service that can easily be confused with the genuine organisation in some way, that are hosted on & sending emails from 4 different servers.. Some days however we do see dozens or even hundreds of fake domains.
Today’s example of the spoofed domain is, as usual, registered via Godaddy as registrar. Because of new GDPR rules we cannot easily find the registrants name or any further details.
- hrmc-reports.co.uk hosted on & sending emails via 185.238.3.92| 92.38.186.40|5.79.67.151| 95.211.170.215|
Malware Details
Month End Report Sep 2018.xls Current Virus total detections | Hybrid Analysis | Anyrun |
This malware doc file downloads from http://weltenet.de/hoch.laden (redirects to https://weltenet.de/hoch.laden) which is a renamed .exe file VirusTotal | Gtag Ser 1010
The alternate Download location is http://quncivillas.com/hoch.laden
The folder for the files & configs is: C:\Users\[User]\AppData\Roaming\AIMY
All modern versions of word and other office programs, that is 2010, 2013, 2016 and 365, should open all Microsoft office documents that is Word docs, Excel spreadsheet files and PowerPoint etc that are downloaded from the web or received in an email automatically in “protected view” that stops any embedded malware, macros and DDE “exploit /Feature” and embedded ole objects from being displayed and running. Make sure protected view is set in all office programs to protect you and your company from these sorts of attacks and do not over ride it to edit the document. If the protected mode bar appears when opening the document DO NOT follow the advice they give to enable macros or enable editing to see the content. The document will have a warning message, but you will be safe.
Be aware that there are a lot of other dodgy word docs spreading that WILL infect you with no action from you, if you are still using an out dated or vulnerable version of word. This is a good reason to update your office programs to a recent version and stop using office 2003 and 2007. Many of us have continued to use older versions of word and other office programs, because they are convenient, have the functions and settings we are used to and have never seen a need to update to the latest super-duper version.
The risks in using older version are now seriously outweighing the convenience, benefits and cost of keeping an old version going.
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. Also please read our post about word macro malware and how to avoid being infected by them
I strongly urge you to update your office software
IOC:
Month End Report Sep 2018.xls
MD5: b6f271c83caaafb5420a145e461e277f
SHA-1: 7e0c28a7664f5af02664e7b815bc48d13222fb3e
Download URLs
http://weltenet.de/hoch.laden redirects to https://weltenet.de/hoch.laden 212.218.193.65
http://quncivillas.com/hoch.laden 45.77.44.159
MD5: 5247dc1d4b7c3f078f7409d0dbea6c4e
SHA1: 3ef8dbdf15fc2b271a772fa1896d900802bb285f
Email from: Brenda.Kimbell@hrmc-reports.co.uk
185.238.3.92
92.38.186.40
5.79.67.151
95.211.170.215
Office 365 has captured this as a virus and automatically replaced the attachment with a txt explaining that the Zero Day infected attachment has been removed.
Windows Defender catches these very well. The updated ATP version on Office 365 is even better at catching this sort of malware. Microsoft Security are getting better every day.
Download at the main site has been stopped by the provider, the virtual hosting has been locked therefore no further downloads can occur from weltenet.de …