Cofense Email Security

Tales from the Trenches:  Loki Bot Malware

LokiOn March 15, 2017, our Phishing Defense Center observed several emails with the subject line “Request for quotation” pretending to award Shell Oil Company contracts – a very targeted subject tailored to the receiver. As with most phishing emails, there is a compelling call to action for the receiver, in this case a contract award from a well-known organization. And, an added bonus unknown to the receiver, the emails also contained a malicious attachment designed to siphon data from its targets.

Included is an example of one of these emails along with basic Triage header information.

Each email analyzed contained instructions to open an attached .ace archive file that when decompressed revealed a Windows executable containing Loki Bot Malware.

Loki Bot is a commodity malware sold on underground sites which is designed to steal private data from infected machines, and then submit that info to a command and control host via HTTP POST. This private data includes stored passwords, login credential information from Web browsers, and a variety of cryptocurrency wallets.

The following Loki Bot executable was identified during our analysis.

Filename MD5 Size
shellOil.ace 5d70858b154c8b0eb205e84ca7f27a04 118,473
Shell Oil.exe 6a95ae2c90a4a3c5a2c1ce3eaf399966 245,760

Upon infecting a machine, this malware performs a callback to the following command and control host reporting the new infection and submitting any private data stolen during the infection process.

Command and Control URL IP Address Location
hxxp://elmansy.net/pdf/fre.php 118.193.173.208 China

The command and control domain ‘elmansy.net’ was created almost exactly a year ago on 2016-03-18 with the email address [email protected]. The IP address reveals that the domain is being hosted out of Jiangsu, China.

Take Away

As always, PhishMe cautions our customers to be wary of emails requesting information or promising reward.  Specific to this sample, we recommend that customers be observant for emails containing the subject line “Request for quotation” or emails promising business with new or unknown businesses. PhishMe Simulator customers who feel this type of offer might be successful with its employees should consider launching simulations that follow this style of attack to further train their users.

Additionally, incident responders should consider blocking the domain and IP address mentioned above, as well as searching endpoint systems for the MD5’s if internal systems support it.

The Phishing Defense Center is the hub for our remotely managed PhishMe Triage services.  The fully staffed center manages all internal reported emails for a number of organizations.  All information shared has been cleansed of any identifiable data.

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